what is racism?

by russell

My wife and I had dinner with a friend recently.  She was talking about the conflicts she feels as a liberal living in the SF bay area.

One thing she discussed was the more or less unconscious bias she often experiences when she interacts with black and brown people.  Especially black and brown people who don't appear to share her socio-economic position.

What is that?, she wondered.  Where does it come from?  She has no animus or malice toward black or brown people, very much the opposite.  But still, the noticing of skin color, and the adjustment of how to interact with them.

I suggest that it is, quite simply, racism.  If you respond to people differently because of their skin color, that is racism.

But I don't like to use that word, she says.  It implies hatred.

And that, says I, is the problem.  If we can't call it racism because that means we're some kind of Nazi or Klansman, then what do we call it?  If we can't give it a proper name, how do we address it?

IMO racism isn't about hating people, although some folks will add that in for good measure.  It's about making assumptions about people, responding to people, interacting with people differently based on the color of their skin.

Does it matter, if there isn't hatred involved.  Yes, I think it does.  Because people perceive how you perceive them.  And being perceived as different in a way that needs special treatment - whether it's animus, or the kind of weird walking-on-eggs deference that Liberals Like Me often adopt, or whatever form it might take - it harmful to people.

Not harmful like the imminent threat of bodily harm kind of harmful.  Harmful like undermining your sense of being a person harmful.

But wait, doesn't this make almost all of us racists at some level?  Yes, I suspect it probably does.  I can't imagine how anyone could grow up in the US and not imbibe at least some of our historical legacy with their own mother's milk.  I don't know how you'd escape it.

So, if everyone or almost everyone is sorta-kinda racist, does it even matter?  Yes, I think it does.

IMO we need to stop thinking about racism as being solely about nazis and Klan rallies.  I.e., solely about hate.  We need to recognize it as our legacy as Americans, and perhaps as humans.  We need to see it in ourselves, when it's there, which it probably is.  And we need to acknowledge it and stop trying to pretend it ain't there.

If we can get that far, maybe we can even get beyond it.  But getting beyond it is not in the cards as long as we can't own it.  And we can't own it if we can't acknowledge and talk about it.

And we won't be able to acknowledge and talk about it if it automatically carries the stigma of hate.

It's not that hate isn't part of it, and it's certainly not that hate doesn't deserve it's own measure of approbrium.  But hate surely is not the whole of it, nor is hate the only source of harm in it.

Comments

[JanieM]

My favorite sushi is "spicy salmon roll." I try it everywhere I go, and surprisingly enough, my favorite is from a Thai place with a sushi bar in central Maine. The main reason I like theirs best is that most of the other places use a flavoring that has an edge of mayo, and that's just yucky. (The other reason is that this place use whole slices of salmon instead of chopped/ground up remnants.) (Disclaimer: I have only rarely, and long ago, been to really a high-end Japanese restaurant, and never to Japan.)

Aioli -- long ago, when I was a more ambitious cook, once or twice I made some from scratch. That was something else again from any purchased mayonnaise-based glop. ;-)

[wj]

GftNC, well I have degree(s) in Anthropology, but I've never been in the business and the education was half a century ago. So discount accordingly.

There are an amazing number of religious food restrictions. We here tend to be most familiar with the kosher (Jewish) restrictions, but they are far from unique. The halal (Islamic) restrictions are quite similar -- likely copied wholesale, in fact. In the vast majority of cases, as far as I can tell, the principal difference is whether a rabbi or an imam certifies that the (same) proper procedures were followed.

In general, those food restrictions tend to hark back to someone discovering that, if you ate (or mixed) particular foods, bad things happened. In the days before refrigeration, not to mention sanitation in food production, there was lots of opportunity for that.

But some restrictions (e.g. meat and milk) seem to stem more from what the rest of us see as an odd sort of empathy -- then wildly generalized. The meat and milk restriction, as actually written, is against cooking a calf in its own mother's milk. Separating all meat and all milk might make a certain kind of sense in a village where all the cattle were likely related. But today, when it is pretty much certain that you milk comes from a thousand miles away from where your meat comes from? Not that mere logic is going to impact established religious practice like this.

[Girl from the North Country]

Mixing milk and meat: this prohibition has been held for a long time to apply to chicken etc, which is pretty funny (fowl not being mammals).

No, I'll look up when I have time, I think it gets a whole lot more complicated than that for the really observant: leaving fields fallow for the 7th year of every cycle, not mixing meat and (otherwise neutral, for purposes of milk inclusion) fish, etc etc.

Liberal Elitism Alert: It all just goes to show, to this atheist, how nutty religious observance is in this day and age, no matter how much sense it seemed to make to elders trying to prevent disease etc in primitive times.

[russell]

I set it on the female French voice. I don't know what it is saying, but I'll follow it off a cliff.

mon sembable, - mon frere!

also, I have no issue with mayo. home-made is best, but hard to find.

and if we're speaking french, aioli is to mayo as isabelle huppert is to hayley mills. just saying.

[Girl from the North Country]

In my opinion, there is nothing which aioli does not improve (with the possible exception of dessert).

What's interesting is people's decreasing tolerance for very strong tastes: in my youth it was accepted from the authorities that aioli should be made exclusively with extra virgin olive oil and a great deal of garlic. Nowadays, you frequently see (even from decent foodie sources) a neutral/mild oil being recommended, for some or all of the oil, and comparatively little garlic. A loss, in my opinion, along with the many Caeser dressings that omit garlic and anchovies (yes, I know anchovies weren't in the original).

[Slartibartfast]

Store-bought mayo is, undoubtedly, made from the cheapest possible ingredients.

Make your own and see if you like it. Our eggs have yolks that are decidedly orange-ish, so our mayonnaise could NOT achieve the nearly snow-white color of store-bought mayo. Custard made with these is sort of a rich golden color. Custard is usually how we use up our extra eggs.

We're not even going to mention Miracle Whip. No.

[Girl from the North Country]

For anybody remotely interested in this kind or arcane information, I've just checked: apparently the Talmud does prohibit the cooking or serving on the same plate of meat and fish together. Also, from what I saw, you can't plant two grains in the same field, or allow hybridisation. The taboo against certain kinds of "mixing" seems strong, at least in that culture.

Slartibartfast: your eggs sound like foodie heaven. You could charge a fortune for them here!

[russell]

We're not even going to mention Miracle Whip.

Wait, I thought we were talking about food...

The taboo against certain kinds of "mixing" seems strong

As it was explained to me, about 40 years ago, in a class on Deuteronomy:

A lot of the law given in Leviticus and Deuteronomy has to do with *not mixing unlike things*. The sense of it is that the Israelites were to be continually reminded to keep themselves separate from the tribes among whom they were making their home.

So, religious, ritual, and ceremonial law as an aide-memoir or object lesson.

[Slartibartfast]

I could charge a fortune for them here, were I motivated to package and deliver them. Our free-range chickens actually ARE free-range, in the sense that they're not confined to a little bitty patch of earth that was picked bare long ago. They go where they want to go. Some of them roost in the trees at night.

We just now got some Leghorns to work the garden, so we'll also have white eggs. They all pretty much taste the same, though.

We're also raising ducks, which is new. We'll see how that goes. And free-range turkeys. All of this is purely for our own enjoyment; if we made it into a business it'd probably go all no-fun in short order.

Bunny-raising is pretty simple, but I've made some mistakes in separating out the boys from the girls, and we've had a couple of tragic, unexpected deliveries of brother-on-sister litters, all of which died because we weren't expecting them.

So. We're going to go to a two-person team for sexing them, because it's REALLY hard to get a look at tiny rabbit genitals when they're struggling like that.

These are big rabbits, but you do the separating when small.

[wj]

Our free-range chickens actually ARE free-range, in the sense that they're not confined to a little bitty patch of earth that was picked bare long ago. They go where they want to go. Some of them roost in the trees at night.

Alas, we couldn't go quite that free range around here. In a word: coyotes. Those who do free range chickens typically have multiple fenced (including roofs!) areas, and rotate the chickens among them. Thus giving the vegetation time to recover.

[Slartibartfast]

Any coyote problem around here is negated by my guard dog, and my dad's.

We have a 90 lb Great Pyrenees who is absolutely diligent at keeping most living creatures (except for the ones we're raising, here) off the property. As in: well away from the edges. Dad's dog is even better: 95 lb Maremma. Together, they prowl the night.

Dad's got two more Maremmas in training, so coyotes are not going to be a problem.

We did have an issue with foxes, but that cleared up shortly after Kina decided that it was her life's work to rid the world of predators. I don't think she can catch the foxes, but they have decided that elsewhere is the place to be.

Raccoons are less timid, and she's had to kill a couple of those. Skunks she has had a few run-ins with, but I think ran them off before they could do any damage.

Owls and hawks are a threat, too, but Kina and Jackie (Dad's oldest and best-trained Maremma) both instinctively look to the skies. Jackie almost caught a vulture that decided a low glide path over Dad's pasture would be cool for checking out possible meal items. Missed it by inches.

I think we only spent about $400 for Kina, without any idea of how good of a guard dog she is. We lucked out bigtime. I think Jackie taught her some things. So when Kina gets a few years older, we're going to buy another GP and get her training it as Jackie is training her younger counterparts now.

We didn't have much to do with it. It's very difficult to train these kinds of behaviors into a dog. They either have those instinctively, or they don't.

[CharlesWT]

We're also raising ducks, which is new.

If you have tendencies toward cruelty, set duck eggs under a hen.

[Girl from the North Country]

if we made it into a business it'd probably go all no-fun in short order.

I'm sure this is right.

Duck eggs: yum. Nice and rich. And if you allow them to be fertilised, ducklings are certainly very adorable, if you're into that kind of thing. Once you've roasted a few ducks, you'll have enough duck fat to make the future ducks into confit, which will last you ages and be fab. You're living the (foodie) dream, Slartibartfast.

I believe those orange yolks (which are so prized) are to do with what the chickens eat, irrespective of the colour of the shells. Some cynical, commercial types feed them special dark stuff to get it, but free-range chickens like yours probably get quite a bit of the necessary from worms etc as they scratch around.

Also, big rabbits marinated in good oil, garlic and herbs then charcoal grilled, are supposed to be wonderful to eat.

Honestly, your livestock would enable you to live the perfect, French, foodie lifestyle, if you were that way inclined.

[wj]

I believe those orange yolks (which are so prized) are to do with what the chickens eat, irrespective of the colour of the shells.

Yup, as an old farm boy, I can tell you that shell color is utterly irrelevant. (Racists take note!) As for yolk color, the paler the yolks, the less healthy the chickens are. A healthy chicken will produce yolks with a nice rich yellow hue.

[russell]

Great Pyrs are more or less a perfect dog for what you're doing.

Family of ours have 80 acres near Eugene OR. They lost most of their goat herd to a cougar. I'm not sure a dog would help that, but I could be wrong. Dogs are remarkable animals, we were lucky to befriend them.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Gabrielle Hamilton (Owner/Chef Prune in NYC; I will eat there in June) roasts rabbits on skewers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqh2LhmpvQY

not complete

[Girl from the North Country]

I'm sure you've read her book, Blood Bones and Butter, Count, but if not it's terrific. I bet your meal at Prune will be great!

[Slartibartfast]

Cougars are kind of shy, so the presence of a large dog nearby MAY be a deterrent.

Then again, maybe not.

Duck confit is the desired end product, to be sure. But it may take a while before our ducks reproduce enough that we can afford to harvest some.

I haven't tried grilling rabbit. So far, my favorite recipes have been, more or less, stews. Hassenpfeffer is really, really good. And I have a hankering to use one and make Lapins au Vin.

I'm a fair cook. Not great, but I can follow directions.

[Countme-a-Demon]

hello

[Marty]

Is it me you're looking for

[Countme-a-Demon]

posting is fraught.

[Marty]

Required determination is

[Girl from the North Country]

Slartibartfast:

I've never had hassenpfeffer, but it looks interesting. My favourite rabbit dish (and it does work for chicken pieces too), which is extremely delicious, is a rather simple french one with a dijon mustard, wine, stock and cream sauce. I looked online so I could link the recipe for you, but none of the ones I found was exactly right (I don't tend to cook from recipes myself, just from sort of half-remembered experiences). Whatever recipe you use, if you try it, the vital thing is to add the dijon mustard (smooth, not grainy) very near the end of the cooking, with the cream, because if you cook mustard for any length of time it loses most of its savour (this is where most of the online recipes I found fell down).

[wj]

Not only is posting fraught (the hosting company says that it is having server problems), but sometimes it says something is posted when it is not. Sigh.

[cleek]

is this sexism

[Countme-a-Demon]

gftnc:

Yes, I sure did. Maybe the best memoir by a chef ever. She's one of a kind. What a life! Almost Rousseauean.

I purchased her cookbook too a few months ago, called simply "Prune".

You'll be in the middle of a dish, alone in your kitchen and she'll interject in the recipe that she doesn't want to have to fire you because you haven't prepped properly.

Well then, I'll scabbard my knives and get out if that's how it is, and then you remember that the recipes and the added notes were written for HER kitchen staff and you are basically looking over their shoulders, and hers.

Also, no index, which I like, because cookbook really makes you hunt and rea

[Countme-a-Demon]

(d)

[JanieM]

is this sexism

Cue McKinney dropping in to ask us why we're obsessed with people's genitals.........

[Girl from the North Country]

Only, he (rather euphemistically and prudishly) calls it people's "plumbing"...

[cleek]

is this sexism

what that article doesn't mention from the poll is quest #47C

Do you agree or disagree with the following statements? : Racial Resentment - It’s really a matter of some people not trying hard enough; if Blacks would only try harder they could be just as well off as Whites.

59% of Republicans somewhat agree (27%) or strongly agree (32%).

and, of course the classic at #69:

Do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as President?

GOP : strongly approve (52%) or somewhat approve (28%).

conservative: strongly approve (46%), somewhat approve (27%)

it's Trump's party. don't let anyone tell you any different.

[russell]

It’s really a matter of some people not trying hard enough

this is my take on white privilege:

i spent most of my young adulthood farting around from one thing to the next. i'm not genius smart, but sort-of smart, so I didn't have to work particularly hard, or more to the point in a particularly focused way, to sort of get by.

in mid-20's I thought I'd look into software, because musicians were supposed to be good at it and I had no idea how else to make a living. was accepted into computer science grad school on the strength of my GRE's, because if there;s one thing I can do it's take a standardized test. blew that off, because why not, later on after working a warehouse gig and as a janitor took a six-month trade school thing that was advertised on the subway. and got a job.

actually quit that because i thought i'd rather work in building trades. discovered i had absolutely zero head for heights, plus to be honest i had no idea what i was doing, so that was that. went back to the 9 to 5. had a couple of strokes of luck and ended up making a career of it.

that, plus i met my wife, and i've had and have a life i barely deserve.

american white male from a bog-standard suburban background, reasonable intelligence, no significant physical impediments. all i had to do was get out of my own way and not f*** up too badly or too often.

I don't think it's like that for everyone.

[Tony P.]

This thread having ranged from racism to homophobia to animal husbandry to recipes for carnivores, I feel emboldened to observe:

All humans do things on a daily basis which are fairly gross if you focus on the acts themselves in any clinical detail.

I'm not a vegetarian by any means, but I confess I feel "squicked out" (if that's the new term) when I eat a ham sandwich. Especially since I'm sure I'd barf if I had to kill the pig myself. And the less said about the normal consequences of eating ham sandwiches or hassenpfeffer or anything else, the better.

--TP

[dr ngo]

About twenty hours ago I tried (at least four times) to post the comment below and failed. Here we go again. Fortunately, my words are timeless:

I feel I should say something since I'm now the chef-in-chief of our 2-person household (my wife is poorly), but I'm clearly well behind the curve both in cuisine and in comments. Nevertheless:

- Have any of you tried "Kewpie" [sic] Mayonnaise? Japanese, comes in a squeeze bottle (annoying, since you can never get the last bit out), recommended in some online recipes. We got some and it's interesting, nice on tomato sandwiches, what I tend to think of as a kind of Japanese version of aioli, but I'd like comments from anyone (anyone? Buhler?) whose palate is more subtle than mine.

- WRT catsup (from the Malay kejap, originally from Cantonese, I believe): I am striving to be an equal opportunity-offender with a fairly tasty and simple Chesapeake [sic] fish stew of which the primary ingredients, other than the fish itself, are catsup and bacon, thus striking at the fish and flesh dichotomy as well as many others. On tap for tomorrow night (actually tonight, as I write) unless someone fervently convinces me of the error of my ways.

And just a note to say that I'm still lurking, usually with interest, though more than a little weary of interminable political threads in which Marty and McManus pop up to say, from opposite (?) ends of the spectrum, that there's really no difference between Hillary and Trump.

Sheesh.

dr ngo

[wj]

interminable political threads in which Marty and McManus pop up to say, from opposite (?) ends of the spectrum, that there's really no difference between Hillary and Trump.

Viewed from gamma ray wavelengths, or from radio wavelengths, there's no difference between red and blue. And those of us who think we see one are obviously delusional.

[sapient]

I don't think it's like that for everyone.

But it should be.

I'd like comments from anyone (anyone? Buhler?) whose palate is more subtle than mine.

My palate isn't subtle, but Kewpie is obviously delicious, partly because it's a quality mayonnaisse, but also because it has MSG, which is a wonderful food additive that people in the US faddishly became afraid of. I've recently discovered how good it makes steamed vegetables. Yum.

Speaking of food and racism, this Yellow Fever article is timely. I am impatient when I hear complaints like this, which seem to me to be frivolous. Perhaps I need to self-examine.

[russell]

But it should be.

yes, I agree.

I'm not really that interested in getting into pissing matches - not with you, but potentially with others - about whether some folks occupy a position of privilege or not, and who they are or aren't.

I recognize that I occupy a position of privilege. I was able to spend my early and maybe not-so-early adulthood basically being a semi-f***up, and end up in what I can only describe as pretty good shape.

And while I work fairly hard, it behooves me to say that all of that is in no small part down to my being native born American, white, male, with a pretty good public education, and acculturated from birth into bog-standard suburban normalcy.

I'm not even getting into all of the free passes I got for really stupid juvenile knucklehead BS.

I got a lot for free, because of where and when I was born and who my parents were. A lot. You can call it a lot of things - luck, for example - but one perfectly reasonable name for it is privilege.

Folks might think they have it, other folks might think they don't. I know I do, and my take-away from that is to be grateful, try to pay some of it forward, and never assume what was given to me by great good fortune is anything I earned or am entitled to.

[Countme-a-Demon]

I found the social media kvetching over Yellow Fever silly, too.

I was more squicked out by a dining establishment of any kind naming itself after a contagious disease.

The jokes by the city health inspectors must be hilarious.

Restaurant reviewers must have a field day: "I knew we were in for a dining treat when the chef visited our table and cast a jaundiced eye over the proceedings."

Why not A Little Taste of Botulism, or The Trichinosis Table, The Mad Cow Feedbag?

It reminded me of an old Woody Allen joke, however:

"I heard Dissent and Commentary merged and formed Dysentery."

Welcome to the Bacteria Cafeteria! Our reputation is spreading like the plague, we are not afraid to boast. My name is Typhoid Mary and I will be your server today. Our special this evening is the Country Road-foraged Armadillo Croquettes napped in a delicate Funk and Wagnell's mayonnaise cured under the hot sun for a fortnight and the What's Yer Poison pot au eww served in a bucket.

Our soup du jour is the cream of fire hydrant bisque. Should you have the itch for greens, we have a selection of micro climbing ivies for your dining delectation.

The Maitre D will have the emergency personnel on speed dial.

John Lennon was fond of calling the band "Booker T and the MGs" Bookyertable and the Maitre D's.

[Countme-a-Demon]

However privileged Russell has been, you ain't seen nothing until you've looked back at my white male life.*

I never had to step to fetch it.

School came to ME downhill ... both ways.

A little work never hoit no one and I'm living proof of the adage. Not a mark on me.

My grandparents and parents worked hard for everything I have.

Life was handed to me on a plastic tray, which became a collectible and didn't have to be polished like the silver variety.

Nothing ventured and everything gained.

I am affirmative inaction personified.

I cut in line at birth and stayed there.

I could have gone far but where I am is good enough.

I coulda been a contenda but contending seemed like too much effort.

Why shoot for the Moon when you can lay back in the grass and admire it.

I'm on the inside looking out.

I was born at the front of the bus and got there first. When I rode at the back of the bus, it turned out it had steering wheels at both ends and someone drove it backwards and I ended up .... at the same destination.

Sideways mobility is good enough for me.

I'll take luck over talent any day, because it lets me keep my talent in pristine reserve, like a fire ax behind glass, just in case.

My teeth shed their skin and quickly grow a new one while I'm holding on.

My relatives and friends say I'm oblivious. But I watch out now, take care, and am aware of falling swingers.

How do you know if you don't try? I just know.

My headstone will read: "See, that wasn't so hard, was it?

*all representations here to persons living and dead are coincidental at best and certainly unintended, and when intended, also exaggerated. The point being that I've had it easy and I'm not afraid to say 95% of it is due to birthright and luck.

[Countme-a-Demon]

When I come to a fork in the trail, I split the difference and bushwhack.

Unless it's raining. Then I head back to the house.

[Nigel]

Not unconnected to the topic...
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/how-american-racism-influenced-hitler

[wj]

Speaking of food and racism, this Yellow Fever article is timely. I am impatient when I hear complaints like this, which seem to me to be frivolous.

Not only frivolous. It both distracts from real problems and debases the term "racism" from instances where it is real.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Nigel's New Yorker review link is, if nothing else, a great primer bibliography on The Hitler literature.

[Girl from the North Country]

Haaven't read the New Yorker piece yet, but just wanted to say that the Count's piece at 09.45 is worthy of Ferlinghetti (who may have been riffing off Whitman at the time, but if so I woud have been too ignorant to have spotted it).

[CharlesWT]

Nigel's New Yorker review link is, if nothing else, a great primer bibliography on The Hitler literature.

And all those Amazon.com links are tagged so that, when someone uses one of the links to buy a book, the The New Yorker gets a cut. :)

[JanieM]

Interesting flashback in terms of some of where this thread has gone. From G. B. Shaw's letters, a short one dated Dec. 20, 1909, to one Louis Wilkinson. The first bit is from editor Dan H. Laurence's headnote to the letter:

[Louis Wilkinson...had circulated a manifesto among distinguished writers, artists, and scientists, for their signature, condemning the laws which made homosexuality a crime. "E.C." was Edward Carpenter.]

No movement could survive association with such a propaganda. I can sympathize with E.C's efforts to make people understand that the curious reversal in question is a natural accident, and that it is absurd to persecute it or connect any general moral deficiency with it. But to attempt to induce it in normal people as a social safety valve would be ruinous, and could seem feasible only to abnormal people who are unable to conceive how frightfully disagreeable--how abominable, in fact--it is to the normal, even to the normal who are abnormally susceptible to natural impulses.

Shaw did take a public stand (more than once IIRC) against persecution of gay people, or "inverts." He wasn't in tune with the prejudices of his time and had close friends who were gay. (I know......)

But oh, the weightedness of the vocabulary ... I was once asked, by a neighbor who wanted to drop something off at my house relating to a kids' sports league, "Do you get up at normal hours?"

I wanted to say FU but I was too polite. ;=)

I do hate that word, "normal."

[JanieM]

Just for entertainment, the next letter in the volume, again starting with the headnote.

[Shaw was in Wales, electioneering for Keir Hardie. Elizabeth Dutcher, a representative of the Women's Trade Union League in New York, had cabled him: MAGISTRATE TELLS SHIRTWAIST MAKER HERE HE IS ON STRIKE AGAINST GOD, WHOSE PRIME LAW IS MAN SHOULD EARN BREAD IN SWEAT OF BROW. PLEASE CHARACTERIZE. REPLY, CHARGES PAID.]

DELIGHTFUL, MEDIAEVAL AMERICA--ALWAYS IN THE INTIMATE PERSONAL CONFIDENCE OF THE ALMIGHTY.]
[SHAW]

Some things never change.

[JanieM]

Sorry, extra right bracket after "almighty."

[wj]

I do hate that word, "normal."

I don't think a question about "normal hours" is necessarily intended offensively. It's a question that might reasonably be asked of anyone who does not go in to work at an office.

Personally, left to myself I wouldn't keep "normal hours." I'd stay up reading until 2-3 AM, and then sleep until 10. But of course, I wasn't "left to myself" from the time I got morning (rather than afternoon) kindergarten until I hit my late 60s. Including in college, where engineering and science classes had an irritating tendency to be scheduled at 8 AM!

[Girl from the North Country]

I'm like wj in this, if not more extreme: my hours have never been considered normal, whenever I have been at liberty to keep them.

[JanieM]

I don't think a question about "normal hours" is necessarily intended offensively.

I didn't say it was.

Still, used consciously or otherwise, the word is widely employed to prop up the idea that some people are "normal" and others are not, in relation to a wide range of abilities, behaviors, appearances, preferences, etc.

That's indirectly a part of what this essay is about, prompted by the Toronto murders committed by an aggrieved "incel" (heaven help us).

[wj]

Apologies for misunderstanding you

[Countme-a-Demon]

I have normal minutes.

Sometimes they string themselves together for minutes on end.

Then I come to.

[Countme-a-Demon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CurONBAJnk

[Slartibartfast]

Re: Hitler being inspired by American racism:

IMO the crazy was already there, and was gathering whatever supplements that it could find.

Not that we have a glorious history of racial equity. Far from it.

Maybe we should be grateful that we didn't have our own Hitler, even if we [Maxwell Smart]missed it by that much[/Maxwell Smart].

[Hartmut]

Given some stuff circulated in late 19th century Germany Hitler was quite moderate. He always remained a petit bourgeois at heart. Himmler got much closer but even he does not mark the fringe (e.g. he wanted a breeding program just for the SS, some German 'thinkers' wanted the government to treat the whole population like breeding livestock as in industrial cattle breeding with mate selection, birthing quotas and all of that in state supervised facilities that would have looked like KZ with better hygiene).
Idea-wise the late 19th century seems to be (at least to me) the most poisonous era in human history (although certain times in late antiquity and during the Renaissance give it a run for its money; there is really sick stuff out there).

[JanieM]

Idea-wise the late 19th century seems to be (at least to me) the most poisonous era in human history (although certain times in late antiquity and during the Renaissance give it a run for its money; there is really sick stuff out there)

Since this is just a blog and proof is not required, would you care to speculate as to why that might be? The disruption wrought by the industrial revolution unleashed....stuff? I'd postulate that the decline of the Catholic Church as an almost absolute dominant power had something to do with it too, but then IMO the Catholic Church was at times part of some "really sick stuff" in its own right, so I'm not sure that makes any sense.

[liberal japonicus]

I'm not Hartmut, so my speculation is even more unmoored, but my guess is that both periods had an idea that things were getting better and with just a little more effort and application, they were going to reach a perfect world. If you think you are close, breaking a few eggs to make that utopian omelette is not much of a stretch.

[wj]

I'd say that lj's got half the answer. The other half being that science and technology, having enabled so much progress, got people trying to apply them anywhere and everywhere. Even to problems where they are irrelevant.

It didn't end in the late 19th century, unfortunately. I can remember reading the initial articles (in the late 1950s IIRC) which became the basis of Scientology. Talk about toxic!

Of course, deciding to turn one's back on all of science and technology, not to mention objective reality, seems to be our current overreaction. I really hope we eventually manage to achieve a happy medium....

[bobbyp]

Obviously, the Enlightenment was a big mistake.

[Countme-a-Demon]

Has ... had .... we don't talk too good. Maybe we should switch to Spanish, like decent Americans.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/white-house-says-claim-that-iran-has-a-robust-nuclear-weapons-program-resulted-from-clerical-error-2018-05-01?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6T2uBeiNXAo

At least Michelle Wolf got her tenses right when she said we HAVE pigfucking murderous lying subhuman, anti-American republican filth in the White House and leading the Congress.

[CharlesWT]

The other half being that science and technology, having enabled so much progress, got people trying to apply them anywhere and everywhere.

Including scientific racism.

[bobbyp]

Apropos an earlier back and forth somewhere, don't you think these "never Trumpers" should at least be asked to take a quiz.

It's the least we can ask.

[wj]

Bobby, you might need to tweak that quiz a bit. For example, some Never Trmpers might have been preteens when SwiftBoating was going on. So demanding that they talk about how they denounced it is a bit ridiculous. Ditto (even more so) for some of the follies of Reagan.

Not to say that it's unreasonable to ask for some examples of how they behaved as adults when Republican administrations misbehaved. But let's not just assume that all Never Trump folks are 40 or 50 or older.

[bobbyp]

Thanks, wj. I'll pass that on to Charlie Pierce!

[bobbyp]

With the exception of Wallace, most of those folks listed by Pierce were around as adults back in at least the 90's if not before, and they all have the Reagan hagiography down pat. So please do return to the actual wording of the actual questions posed. The earliest "what did you do back then" question relates to the year 2000. Thanks.

[wj]

I read "these Never Trumpers" in your post in the sense of "those (unspecified) guys who are Never Trumpers" rather than a specific list.

[bobbyp]

LOL....ok.

The thought of thinking of William Kristol and his ilk as some kind of "allies" makes my sphincter seize up.

[wj]

"Politics makes strange bedfellows."

Now you know what he meant.

[Tony P.]

Strange bedfellows? Who's on top here?

--TP

[russell]

If (R)'s want to get behind clean energy, whether because it's the newest shiny toy in the economic development basket, or just to line their pockets or their campaign coffers, I say fine.

If money speaks a language they will listen to, let the money flow.

[wj]

Whoever it is, it ain't the Midwestern farmers. The EPA's actions are hurting ethanol demand, which has them in an uproar. Gee, maybe they will figure out that Democrats are their friends.

[CharlesWT]

Nuclear is the only energy source that has any chance of replacing fossil fuels. Better to spend money on that.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

I, for one, look forward to my Nuclear Roadster.

The rednecks who "roll coal" can eat my fallout.

[Girl from the North Country]

C4 News reporting right now that Cambridge Analytica is closing down! Apparently, they've been bleeding clients....

However, they did start a new firm (the name of which I forget), so we'll have to watch this space.

[Girl from the North Country]

C4 News reporting right now that Cambridge Analytica is closing down! Apparently, they've been bleeding clients....

However, they did start a new firm (the name of which I forget), so we'll have to watch this space.

[Hartmut]

I think great shifts bring out the worst in humanity. The threatened old order tries to keep control by newly available means and the new forces radicalize. Both sides escalate in the this until all bets are off. Plus rascals get into positions of power on both sides.
Even if there is no immediate large-scale bloodshed, the ideas that get produced and disseminated may germinate at a later date with catastrophic consequences.
In the case of Germany Bismarck managed to temporarily stabilize the system but was unable (and in part unwilling) to get rid of the underlying tensions. When the safety valves he installed/opened got blocked in later years, the accumulated madness got its chance to go to work. The 2nd Reich had strong 'modern' antisemitic undercurrents as a result of Jewish emancipation but the state did not allow its violent expression (no Dreyfus Affair in Germany) but underground the movement grew and made its first attempts at action in WW1 (which failed for the most part), was not punished and waited for the second chance (results well-known).
Sorry, this is of course extremly oversimplified.
Another thing is the toxic fusion of Malthusianism with social Darwinism (imo neither Malthus nor Darwin are at fault there).

[cleek]

Cambridge Analytica is closing down!

everything Trump touches falls apart.

[wj]

You could equally say that every thing that touches Trump (i.e. it's their choice to do so) falls apart. In those cases, they deserve it.

[Girl from the North Country]

Whichever of those two ways you look at it, let's hope that more and more people realise that if you're going to dine with Trump, the spoon can't possibly be long enough. Of course, as I reported some weeks ago the Mercer daughters had already joined the board of a (similar?) company with several other CA execs, and no doubt the skulduggery will continue. But still, hopefully it's a blow against the empire.

[Countme-a-Demon]

You know, if only the decent world had very thick coated bonded paper for their anti-Fascism protest signs back when Fascists had some sense of shame and weren't afraid to butcher the Other in public when the latter giggled over the former's antics, we could have avoided slitting Mussolini's belly open and letting him bleed out in the public square, because he would have been a tender conservative snowflake too and taken the sign home and shot at it in private, like our little example here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI4kJf-BGbI

So, speaking of bleeding out, what about this conservative principle spreading throughout government like a conservative gummint-sanctioned hemorrhage throughout a Margaret Atwood novel:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/charter-school-bathroom-policy-periods_us_5ae7a19be4b04aa23f26463c

But, let me add to the monthly irritability, not for the innocent girls, but for conservative ass wipes among us, nationally:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0_pm8Sl0rQ

Before last week, I didn't know Michelle Wolfe from Robert Conrad and I'm not too hot on her schtick, but I did some hunting around and she's growing on me. When Dean Martin rises from the dead, may she be invited to his roasts to tell Rickles exactly where to put his tongue in Sinatra's taint.

Here's a white male republican conservative c*nt, above a certain age, approximately three years old: "Well, you know it makes poifect business sense, from a bottom-line point of view, what have you, to charge more for the Other of the contradictory gender for their irregular ladies' problems and maybe even designate 'does problems oveh haeh, as a watchamacallit, a preexisting and very, very profitable condition, so that ipso fatso, our political donors and their shareholders will be in the money, in the money, lend it spend it buy a boat and let them die broke, cause it's the American way."

Why, Ayn Rand, herself, sent $500 each and a soiled bedsheet to John Galt, Donald mp's father, and the John Birch Society to prove that Dagney Taggart was a girl who could put her lips together and blow with the prevailing winds.

Now, inevitably, this brings me to the Second Amendment.

Look here, at this republican snowflake who suddenly realized the possible and potential discourteousness of an armed society governed by a*shole, jagoff clowns:

https://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/mo-brooks-says-republicans-are-resigning-because-of-assassination-fears

What, I ask you, did they think was going to happen after the past 40 years of republican vermin at every level of gummint encouraging every trigger-happy galoot and underaged backstage blowjob rock and roll aggrandizer, I'm talking to you Nugent and your fat f*ck bass player Huckabee and and loverboy Greitans, to govern us with their low-taxed d*cks?

So mea culpa, I have been wrong about the Second Amendment all these years.

It works, to dis-encourage, in a therapeutic way, as is my wont, a*shole republicans from governing me.

The beauty of it is, the supreme excellence of the Founders' completely unexamined, unintentional bullshit, despite their coagulated phrasing with the seven commas in the text of the Second Amendment, conservatives own weaponry, much of it of military grade, and liberals, by and large, don't.

And yet, conservative politicians are asceared of being shot in the head.

What gives? Hanh??

Are they asceared of being shot in the head by their fellow republican vermin they have armed to the teeth, or by pansy, unarmed liberals?

Apparently, I belong to a militia, a fearsome one, and one that didn't even require that I buy a weapon and and a clip and ammo so conservative a*sholes stay the f*ck away from the institutions that govern me.

But regarding the charter school and the intimacy of their intrusion of their female students.

Say, my daughter is a student at that "school".

She comes home, her clothes soiled.

Say, I own an AR-15.

What do you think is going to happen?

At the very least, I'm not going through the PTA on this.

Now, some will say, well, Rahm Emanual is a faggot Democrat and so .. stop right there.

Democrats who adopt conservative principles are merely the first casualties.

[Countme-a-Demon]

This is how business is done by bucket shops and crime families:

https://www.balloon-juice.com/2018/05/02/breaking-literally-cambridge-analytica-skitters-away/

And this:

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ryan-warns-of-subpoenas-if-democrats-take-back-control-of-the-house

No, Paulie, after the subpeonas and the dotting of the legal i's and the crossing of the rule of law t's, there will be firing squads.

Months and months of them.

We know that you used Russian sezinformatsiya in your stolen re-election campaign, Paulie TwoFaces.

[Countme-a-Demon]

The republican vermin candidates for the firing squads shouldn't voluntarily stand in perfect formation and ask for a last cigarette, like maybe they are going to enjoy their executions:

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/05/mulvaney-mulls-option-of-moving-cfpb-into-basement-or-dallas/

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/05/how-many-civilians-did-trump-kill-in-drone-strikes-last-year/

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/05/ukraine-and-trump-a-match-made-in-heaven/

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/05/quote-of-the-day-health-insurance-is-cratering-thanks-to-donald-trump/

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a20123769/scott-pruitt-staff-quit/

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-management-administration/cnn-mike-pence-s-physician-informed-white-house-of-dr-ronny-jackson-s-behavior-last-fall.html

By the way, Jackson was chosen by mp especially so that he could intimidate, harass and threaten the good people at the VA, because republicans believe government employees are just a bunch of niggers.

Tell you what, I'm a sporting man. We'll skip the formalities, count to ten and republicans can run for their lives.

We'll hunt you down.

[sapient]

Thanks for this, Count. I realize that outrage may not get us anywhere, but it belongs here nevertheless.

[russell]

i've been in the habit of calling for reasonable conservatives to fix the (R) party.

actually, i think it's too late.

[bobbyp]

What is stupidity?

Go long popcorn futures.

[wj]

Bobby, O M G!

Just when you think they can't find another foot to shoot themselves in, they show you how utterly lacking your imagination is.

[Girl from the North Country]

I recommend that anyone particularly interested in the Cambridge Analytica story follow Carole Cadwalladr of the Guardian/Observer on twitter. She is the journalist who painstakingly worked on this for over a year, and who "owns" this story according to the other news organisations.

The news that Cambridge Analytica is shutting down is not some great triumph. It’s a billionaire using Britain’s insolvency laws to try & evade scrutiny - at the cost of his employees. We need a criminal investigation. And we need evidence secured. The question is how???

Carole Cadwalladr
Verified account

@carolecadwalla
Cambridge Analytica folds...why now?? Today @vickerysec revealed two crucial ‘indisputable’ facts. It’s absolutely linked to AIQ & Brexit. And Trump campaign had access to psych profiles derived from Facebook data... https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/991683231228530688 …

Carole Cadwalladr‏
Verified account

@carolecadwalla
11h11 hours ago
More
Oh, adding in my MP here. Yes, you, @jeremycorbyn. You've not said a word about Cambridge Analytica, AIQ & the Facebook scandal...evidence of criminal offences needs a criminal investigation. @ElectoralCommUK not up to this. Parliament has seen evidence. It must act.

Carole Cadwalladr‏
Verified account

@carolecadwalla
11h11 hours ago
More
Strong words from Mike Baukes, CEO of @upguard who discovered the data breach. Vital politicians act. Winding up companies is "equivalent of burning books in front of us". Any ideas @CommonsCMS? @Damiancollins @Keir_Starmer @tom_watson @YvetteCooperMP @shamichakrabar1

[bob mcmanus]

HIllary Clinton's Trickle Down America

Pretty much explains how I feel about a lot of stuff: urbanization, suburbs. energy policy. What cities are about.

"The relative powerlessness of Trickle-Down America’s foreign-born workers* is a big part of what’s made its cosmopolitan cities so attractive to high-skill professionals. Because low-skill immigrant workers are willing to work for such low wages, they lower the cost to skilled professionals of outsourcing various household tasks, and so they make it easier for these skilled professionals to work longer hours."

"For now, though, Trickle-Down America’s affluent professionals find themselves in a sweet spot, which surely accounts for some of Clinton’s triumphalism. The food is better. Beautiful old houses are being renovated everywhere you turn. An abundance of low-wage immigrant labor adds diversity and dynamism to cosmopolitan cities, yet the noncitizen working class isn’t in a position to press for a more egalitarian social order—one that could prove discomfiting for local elites. Best of all, opposition to Trump is helping to obscure simmering discontent over Trickle-Down America’s business model."

*concentrated in cities and Democratic areas

Basically, the Democratic party is the (wage) slavery party, flattering themselves with the diversity of the women with whips like Clinton.

[cleek]

stop me at the point you think the GOP would have closed the government, burned DC to the ground, and stormed the White House to remove Obama.

The President had an extra-marital affair.

With a porn star.

In the weeks after his third wife, ...

... an illegal immigrant, ...

... gave birth.

Thugs were sent to threaten her and her child.

He then conspired with his mobbed-up lawyer.

To pay the porn star $130,000.

On the eve of the election.

To keep quiet about the affair.

He used a pseudonym on the contract.

As he often did in his dealings.

This wasn't the first mistress he bought the silence of.

He denied having anything to do with the contract or with this porn star.

The payment is either a campaign finance violation.

Or money laundering.

Or didn't happen.

Depending on which story you believe.

[russell]

you know how demonizing the hard-working, church-going, weekend-hunting yeomen and -women of middle America has created disaffection and resentment and given us Donald J Trump?

bitching about those hypocritical liberal coastal elites isn't gonna get you anywhere, either.

if you don't like cities, don't live in one. it's a big country, there are plenty of other options.

enough of this shit, please.

[bob mcmanus]

No, Russell, you are not going to get me to stop criticizing corporate urban Democrats in the middle of party infighting and fucking primary season, though I can tell you're working up to getting me banned, and experience tells me that if an incident can't be found, one will get manufactured.

Ghost of New Democrats Are Still Haunting

"Consider, for instance, a long-standing New Democrat named Elaine Kamarck. She’s one of only a few people (all of them Clinton 2016 primary supporters) on both the DNC’s Unity Reform Commission and its powerful Rules and Bylaws Committee—which will meet in Washington next week to vote on such matters as superdelegates to the 2020 Democratic National Convention."

That makes sense, when you consider that Kamarck is working to lower corporate taxes. She’s co-chair of the big business organization RATE (Reforming America’s Taxes Equitably) Coalition, which has the explicit mission of “reducing the corporate income tax rate.”

[hairshirthedonist]

bitching about those hypocritical liberal coastal elites isn't gonna get you anywhere, either.

So who is that analog to Trump for liberal coastal elites with hurt feelings? Would this person have to be a scrupulously ethical and moral, devoutly monogamous college professor who eschews any false pretense of religiosity and believes strongly in economic and political globalism? A humble and even-tempered person with simple but impeccable taste and a large vocabulary? Should this person have a naturally thick and lustrous head of hair, or should this person embrace baldness without a hint of vanity?

[russell]

I can tell you're working up to getting me banned

?!?

Nope.

Carry on as you wish. I'm not a fan of "New Democrats" either, and I don't care all that much if you hate on Hilary. Live it up.

I think the whole "coastal elite vs worthy heartlander" thing is stupid and non-productive. Most of us "coastal elites" get our asses out of bed and go to work every day, like everyone else. We have Wall St, middle America has agriculture and consumer retail and oil and gas and a pretty big slice of manufacturing. We have Hollywood, middle America has Nashville and Sinclair and ClearChannel.

I call it even. If you don't like arugula, don't eat it. If you don't want a meat and three, don't order one. If you want a gun, I don't really care, just learn how to use it safely and don't wave it around like an asshole.

A chacun son gout.

If we can keep the conversation on substance, and not so much on culture, I'll appreciate it.

[liberal japonicus]

"Because low-skill immigrant workers are willing to work for such low wages, they lower the cost to skilled professionals of outsourcing various household tasks, and so they make it easier for these skilled professionals to work longer hours."

I might be someone who would be classified as one of those 'skilled professionals' and my background means that I know others who I think would be classified in that group. Yet I and the people I know don't have an army of nannies, yardboys, pool cleaners etc waiting on us hand and foot. I'm sure there are skilled professionals who have household help that then allows them to work longer hours. But I don't think that they make up enough of a statistically significant portion of the phenomenon to bear the weight that the writer and you are ascribing to it, making it more like ressentiment than an actual analysis of the situation.

My take is that when you make life shitty in other countries, as US foreign policy is wont to do, you create this situation. Someone once said 'one thing you have to remember, an immigrant's shittiest day in the US is better than their best day back in their home country' Certainly, the current admin is doing their best to make that shittiest day here worse than the best day at home (I do think setting it up so migrants die in the desert of thirst is one way to do that), but as long as there is a gap between the haves and the have nots, this is going to be a problem. But making the 'skilled professionals' out to be haves and you out to be a have not doesn't really provide anything in the way of explanatory power.

[wj]

I might be someone who would be classified as one of those 'skilled professionals' and my background means that I know others who I think would be classified in that group. Yet I and the people I know don't have an army of nannies, yardboys, pool cleaners etc waiting on us hand and foot.

Ditto. I get about as far as folks went when I was growing up and had a neighborhood kid (i.e. someone way cheaper to hire than an adult) mow the lawn every week.

[russell]

I am apparently exactly the kind of person mcmanus' article is talking about.

I work with software. I make pretty good money. Not tech-start-up equity payday money, just pretty good money. A salary.

My wife and I hire someone who cleans our house every other week. We hire a lawn service to do spring cleanup.

We pay the cleaning woman $100. It takes her about 3 hours, so she is grossing $30+/hour. She and her husband had a pretty good business of some kind back in Brazil, now she cleans house, which lets her work her own hours and get paid in cash, and her husband has a small construction business. I think they do OK.

I don't know what we pay the lawn guy. His crew are a combination of people who look like Aztecs, and white guys who seem like they need to learn some basic life skills. The Aztecs kick ass, the white guys not so much. I imagine they make $15-$30 an hour. My wife used to do the clean-ups herself, but she's in her late 60's and it kicks the crap out of her, so we pay some guys.

I mow my own lawn. I used to hire the kid down the street - $10, it took him half an hour, good money for an 11 year old kid. He grew out of it, his kid brother took over, but kid brother didn't really do a good job. So, I do it myself now.

I used to shovel my own snow, but when I turned 60 I figured I'd hire a guy. We use a guy named Garcia, who lives in Lynn. I forget what we pay him, but it's probably $50, double that if the storm is more than 8" of snow. We don't have a long driveway. He took over from a guy in Salem - a white guy, Salem townie, has a construction business - who did a better job, frankly, for less $$$. For Salem guy it was a way to make extra $$$ on days when he wasn't going to be on the job site anyway. Salem guy decided to take his snow days off, so now it's Garcia.

It's true, hiring these people means my wife and I can do other stuff. For me, it means I can work 55-65 hours a week, which I do, all the time. Been doing it for about 35 years, I'll keep doing it until I hit full retirement. For my wife it mostly means time to run the house and do volunteer stuff, which she does a lot of .

For my 55-65 hour weeks, I live in an 1800 sf ranch with no garage, on a 1/8 acre lot. Zillow tells me my house is worth a little over half a million bucks, which IMO is freaking insane, but it is what it is. It's a nice house, we like it, but it's nothing special. I drive a Mazda 5. My wife drives a Honda Insight, because she's a wicked tree-hugger. Every couple of years we take a two-week vacation and go somewhere nice. We're on track to have the house paid off by the time I retire.

So hell yeah, I'm a pretty well paid urban coastal elite white guy with a tech job living in the burbs, and my wife and I employ some folks to do some stuff for us. Some of those folks are brown, some are immigrants. They actually don't seem to mind having the work.

If anyone from the heartland wants to come work 60+ hours a week to pay half a million bucks for a medium sized ranch on a postage stamp of land, I'm sure they could do it. Oh yeah, I have a short commute now, but for most of my career I spent about 2 hours a day in my car, going to and from work. Just part of the gig.

Many of the folks my wife and I hire weren't born here. They have funny names, speak some other language, have darker skin than we do. Oddly enough, more than half the folks I work with at my fabulous tech gig were born somewhere else, have funny names, speak some other language, and have darker skin than I do. Funny, that. Personally, I enjoy it. I don't want to live where everyone is just like me. To each his or her own.

Here are some things I don't do.

I don't fish. I don't hunt. I don't play golf. Other than playing music, I have no hobbies. I don't have a boat, I don't go camping. I don't go to big concerts, I don't go to professional sports events. If I'm not working, I'm probably reading about something work-related.

If I had the time, and I wasn't working or reading something work-related, I'd be practicing vibraphone and studying be-bop. What can I say, I like a challenge.

mcmanus' article was actually kind of right on in many ways. Population density creates problems. Wealth inequality creates problems. Let's solve those problems.

Just leave the culture war crap out of it. It serves no purpose other than to make people pissed off at each other.

Most folks who "live in the heartland" don't want to do what I do, for the length of time I do it, for what I get out of it. If they wanted to, they could. They probably don't. They don't want the long hours, the deadlines, the constant pressure to keep ahead of a changing industry. They don't want the crowds, the traffic, the annoying regulatory BS of living in a densely populated area. They don't want the hassle. That's great. If it ain't your thing, do something else.

I don't mind it. So, this is what I do.

To each his or her own.

[russell]

also, not for nothing, but the author of the article might want to check the native language and skin color of the people who are picking lettuce and packing meat out their in the worthy heartland.

and the author might want to check out whose pockets the value created by those folks' labor lands in .

[hairshirthedonist]

Just leave the culture war crap out of it.

I didn't really see much culture-warring in that article. It was mostly about Clinton's and other Democratic leaders' positions and the economics of it. Same with mcmanus' comment. I didn't see much in the way of blame being laid upon the people on the high-income side of the urban economic divide, just a matter-of-fact presentation of how they benefit from it. It was focused on "the system" AFAICT.

[russell]

I didn't really see much culture-warring in that article.

ok, really?

Trickle-Down America’s affluent professionals find themselves in a sweet spot, which surely accounts for some of Clinton’s triumphalism. The food is better. Beautiful old houses are being renovated everywhere you turn. An abundance of low-wage immigrant labor adds diversity and dynamism to cosmopolitan cities, yet the noncitizen working class isn’t in a position to press for a more egalitarian social order—one that could prove discomfiting for local elites.

"The food is better"?
"Beautiful houses are being renovated?"

It's like everyplace is freaking Park Slope.

Who are these elites?
How do they benefit from the "urban economic divide"?
There aren't any wealthy people outside of the cities?
What proportion of people outside the cities are wealthy, compared to the proportion who are not?

From the US Census : Quintiles of GINI index in the US by county. Blue indicates a high degree of inequality.

Proximity to oceans has bugger-all to do with it. Proximity to cities, for that matter, has bugger-all to do with it.

The whole piece is about contrasting "Trickle-Down America", which is to say politically liberal urban America, with "Stagnant America", which is to say politically conservative rural America.

Relatively urban areas tend to be politically liberal because liberal politics in the US is associated with more activist government. Relatively rural areas, the opposite. In high population density areas, it makes more sense to do things through public effort, because the critical mass is there to make it relatively more efficient to do them that way.

If there's more to say about than that, I'm not aware of it.

To my eye, the article is claptrap, and is harmful on top of it, because it furthers the agenda of dividing the nation on an urban/rural basis.

Which, in turn, is the primary engine of the freaking culture war in this country.

[russell]

shorter me:

I'm tired of arguing about the cartoon version. Can we please talk about the realities.

People who have a lot of money, relative to whatever it costs to live wherever they happen to live, have it pretty good. Quite often they like it that way, and want to keep it that way.

People who don't have a lot of money, relative to whatever it costs to live where they live, don't always have it so good. Quite often they aren't that happy about it, and would like things to change if they can.

The distribution of wealth and income in this country are highly unequal, such that a fairly small number of people have a whole lot of money - really, truly, a lot, more than they will ever be able to make use of in any way that will make a meaningful difference in their own lives. And, probably 10 to 20 percent of the population is going pretty good, by which I mean they are basically financially secure. And everyone else is somewhere between just about keeping up and not really keeping up at all.

How do we change that, so that the wealth that is created in this country gets spread around more evenly.

Let's talk about that.

Not about city vs rural, or red vs blue, or whether you like NASCAR or opera.

Let's talk about that spreading the money around thing.

Thanks