Yahya Sinwar dead? Israel is checking again on his possible death…
Initial DNA Testing has determined that the Leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar was Eliminated by an Israeli Strike this morning against a Hamas Site near the City of Rafah in Southern Gaza.
Question for all: In discussions with friends, what lines of argument have you found most effective in moving people away from support of the Democrats?
Elizabeth Zaroff, my favorite reactor, just did an analysis of this exact video. Check it out.
Sounds like the Elimination of Yahya Sinwar this morning in Southern Gaza, may have been Accidental; with Israeli Soldiers on Patrol claimed to have observed several Armed-Terrorists hiding inside of a nearby Building, leading to a Tank firing a Shell into the Building. It was only after a Search of the Rubble that the Body of Yahya Sinwar was found by the Soldiers.
At the link 3 photos of the deceased body presumed to be Sinwar. These are gruesome pictures, albeit highly conclusive, so be warned if your constitution is averse to such stuff:
GRAPHIC WARNING
Photos out of Gaza on the interwebs purport to document the corpse of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. Is he really dead? We’ll soon know. For early confirmation, watch for an announcement of an official period of mourning from Harvard, Columbia, and UCLA.
That one photo linked to by sdferr sure looks like Sinwar’s left ear, and front teeth look very close…Bad Karma dude!
Noah Pollack makes a point which is both true and, I think, necessary to amplify:
If you are celebrating the elimination of Sinwar, you should also be celebrating the premiership of Bibi Netanyahu. No other Israeli leader would have stayed in the fight this long and achieved this victory. Since weeks after 10/7, the pressure on Israel from the Democratic Party, Europe, the UN, the media, the western foreign policy and political establishment, etc, to cut a deal, to agree to a “ceasefire,” to surrender, has been unrelenting and enormous. And for a full year, the leader of a tiny and vulnerable country has resisted and outmaneuvered the pressure to stop fighting. It’s a remarkable achievement, and it’s the real reason Sinwar is dead.
sdferr, that’s precisely why Obama campaigned against Netanyahu, and why the leftwing Israeli Supreme Court allowed the lawfare against him to go forward. He’s proven to be a strong leader, and the left can’t advance his agenda against a strong leader. Same reason the left can’t tolerate or allow a return to the Presidency of Trump.
Shirehome: From the perspective of most of us here, we feel Neo must have picked the song as a commentary on Kamala’s performance last night. We found her arrogant, angry, and both unable and unwilling to explain her past record or her future policies. An adenoidal lightweight.
However, I think Harris’ performance is highly instructive for answering David Foster’s question of what are effective ways of moving people away from the Democrats. We have to first of all understand how the other side sees things. And this debate is highly instructive.
We know the Dems are going “She did great!” and if it had been Biden in the chair, we would be correct that they are gaslighting us.
But with Kamala, they really believe it. She entered enemy quarters and showed she was unafraid. Late, so they see how little she thinks of them. She didn’t let a beefy stolid white guy trap her into answering any of their stupid questions, oh no. Of course she was angry, being challenged by the likes of Fox News. How perfect to use the occasion to get her message across to the their deluded audiences that it is Donald Trump who is the source all they don’t like!
Her “word salads” are perfect corporate speak. Many wish they could say so little in so many words, fill out the time with so much slipperiness that “Gotcha!” is impossible (Isn’t the real scandal of the 60 minutes sub that Kamala’s answers are so generic they could be switched out?).
Maybe Kamala turned off some men, but not her core supporters because they weren’t watching Fox anyway (I think that’s true?). But it was red meat to the core constituent, the “educated” woman. Unless we tackle the ubiquitous “You go, girl!” mindset, we hand them a victory like we did last night: “Kamala gave those Fox people what for!”
NancyB, your comment illustrates why I’ve never been just like most of the women I’ve known. I think you are like me in wanting substance rather than pure emotion. The women who are applauding Kamala’s performance last night were already going to vote for her. I doubt that she persuaded fence-sitters in large numbers.
Roque Dalton, the illegitimate son of Winnall Dalton, was a Salvadorean poet and left-wing guerilla who was murdered in 1975 in a power play among the guerrillas. At the time, the claim was that Roque Dalton was a CIA agent, a claim that was later proven to be completely bogus. Guerrillas killed one of their own. (Nor was this a “one-off.” In 1983 guerrilla leaders Ana Melida Montes and Salvador Cayetano Carpio were further victims of the guerilla tradition of leadership selection by elimination. Savagery on both sides in that war.)
The reencounter with his father’s family in Tucson did finally occur, but not until some thirty years after his death, when his son Juan José, a Salvadoran journalist, went to Tucson and was warmly received by Winnall Dalton’s descendants, including Fred Ronstadt’s granddaughter (and Roque Dalton’s first cousin, once removed) the singer Linda Ronstadt, who gave him an old portrait of Winnall Dalton Sr. Although he did not live long enough to learn the real story of his parentage, Roque Dalton was asking the right questions. It fell to later generations to begin to answer them.
Interesting twist of history.
Interesting data point on X: Michelle Tandler (81K followers), a former SF liberal who has been wrestling with her political identity for at least a year, says:
“I now have ten good friends who are voting for Trump. This would have been inconceivable to me a few months ago. None cite taxes as a top 3 reason – it’s more about Israel, immigration, economic plan & tech regulation.”
David Foster, that list may contain an answer to your question of what arguments might reach people.
sdferr, on my first click of your link, I saw what appeared to me to be Sinwar’s head. On subsequent clicks, it appears that the link has been taken down- or maybe you have to log in to see it now.
Re arguments to stimulate change. As said earlier, her supporters are seeing this as her being strong and “standing up” to the right. She did that, but the reason she did is the issue: she had to stand up like that because she is a combination of having no actual plan for achieving any of what she says she will do, and she can’t tell us her thoughts on things because they are different from what she said last week or last month. Anything of substance said yesterday would only damage her.
I think it was in a comment on another thread where it was said (or quoted): “You cannot talk a man out of a position that he hadn’t been talked into.” They didn’t start out thinking she was a loser and get convinced she was not, because then you could push them back to the original with facts. But when they just “had” the belief she was good, then talking and facts will not prevail.
I am not a psychologist, just a somewhat schooled dolt, with about 70 years of OJT sociology training. I could be wrong.
Kate, I agree that Kamala wouldn’t have persuaded fence-sitters. But she didn’t put off anyone who supported her knowing only the unending Joy! and Brat! campaigns of the MSM in the last weeks, but who had never seen her in a challenging interview. “Our side” thinks if people would see Kamala in a confrontational setting, her weaknesses would lose her support. But they underestimate the Woman vs. Old White Guy dynamic. She just showed she was a “strong woman.”
After what we saw on October 7th, what those ghouls recorded themselves, I don’t care what the head ghoul looks like, another illustration of how UNWRA needs to be defunded and demolished, I suspected he would have been farther near the Egyptian crossing checkpoint, he may have been,
those were not remotely answers to question, one would accept at an under
graduate level, much less in graduate school, she was challenged a fraction by baier, but not really on the substance of the matter, is mass immigration, a good thing, how much more,
about the pro crime policies that she pioneered in the bay area, of course the grift full employment act, that preferred so called green energy to real energy
carrying over from the last thread, the notion of energy as a scientific concept
probably originated by the Greeks although I could be persuaded otherwise,
The New York Post is now reporting a positive identification making use of dental records on file.
Leaves Leafs!
Green energy, eh wot!?
Sinwar discovered to be on Austin Bay’s “The Wrong Side of Brightness.”
He is mostly mist now?
The Fox interview was classic Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown. Brett was surprised at how contentious Harris was and how much she filibustered the ‘interview’. Brett was working on the naive assumption that he would ask questions for which Harris would have no answer. She had no intention of answering any of his questions and in a sense was deviously brilliant how she worked “it’s all Trump’s fault” into every ‘answer’.
It certainly caught me by surprise that such a strategy could be as successful as it was.
Does any American know any more about how a Harris administration would govern? She said she would follow the law when asked about her previous positions on transgender surgery and other controversial positions, but Brett didn’t press her on whether she would work as President to change those laws. Had he pressed her, she wouldn’t have answered, but there is no reason to think she won’t work tirelessly to advance the leftist agenda she ran on in the 2020 Democrat primary.
After all, she has said her values hadn’t changed from what they were back then, in a previous interview.
What do we know? She and the Democrats have tied their success in running against Donald Trump– not the policies that Trump has proposed, but on the idea that Donald Trump is evil. That’s it. And abortion, of course.
Unlike policy, Brett couldn’t ‘fact check’ Harris about the proposition that Trump is evil.
My initial reaction was Brett was too nice, and a tougher questioner would have fared better, but I don’t think it would have made any difference. The ‘interview’ does answer the question whether Harris is smart or not. She was cunning and effective to her base. If there are any undecided voters that care about answers to real problems the country faces, she certainly did nothing to convince them that a Harris administration has any answers.
Perhaps now there will be a release of the hostages along with a release of Hamas prisoners in Israeli jails. Given Sinwar’s history–he was a prisoner in Israeli jails for 2 decades, then released in the lopsided exchange for Shalit, I doubt that Israel will agree to such a lopsided deal. I wouldn’t.
Eventually, 1,027 prisoners were released in a 2011 exchange for Shalit, with Mr. Sinwar returning to Gaza amid a hero’s welcome. He vowed to release those who had been left behind.
In addition, I doubt that Israeli troops will leave the Egypt-Gaza border. Given the utter failure of UN resolution 1701 in demilitarizing southern Lebanon, Israel will have little to no confidence in some “international task force” on the Gaza-Egypt border.
When the pager or bunker buster doesn’t get you – the GRUNT will…
Sinwar was killed by an infantry soldier only 9 months into his service. Wasn’t even in uniform on 7.10. — Israel’s Channel 11
Not special forces, not the Air Force.
A grunt.
sdferr, there is still one photo of the late, lamented, charismatic, austere religious scholar on X. It isn’t as much of a closeup as the lost photo, but both show the gaping hole in the forehead.
@miguel:the notion of energy as a scientific concept
probably originated by the Greeks although I could be persuaded otherwise
It was unquestionably their word, but they would have found the scientific concept it represents to be alien. As would be true of most of the scientific vocabulary derived from them: I’m not sure what Aristotle would have made of adiabatic; he’d have known the literal meaning but been puzzled by the application. Likewise, electron is their word, but it meant “amber”.
There’s an essay, “Uncleftish Beholding” by Poul Anderson, which describes atomic physics using only Anglo-Saxon-derived terms, and besides being entertaining in itself it gives a clearer sense of how scientific words had to be adapted metaphorically from common words. So many of the scientific words are Latin or Greek and since few of use those languages everyday, it’s harder to see. But the essay gives you an idea of how an ancient Greek might react to seeing how his vocabulary has been strained.
It is the bernstonebits that link, and so their tale fastsets how a firststuff behaves and what kinds of bulkbits it can help make. The worldken of this behaving, in all its manifold ways, is called minglingken. Minglingers have found that as the uncleftish tale of the firststuffs (that is, the tale of firststuffs in their kernels) waxes, after a while they begin to show ownships not unlike those of others that went before them. So, for a showdeal, stonestuff (3), glasswortstuff (11), potashstuff (19), redstuff (37), and bluegraystuff (55) can each link with only one uncleft of waterstuff, while coalstuff (6), flintstuff (14), germanstuff (22), tin (50), and lead (82) can each link with four. This is readily seen when all are set forth in what is called the roundaround board of the firststuffs.
When an uncleft or a bulkbit wins one or more bernstonebits above its own, it takes on a backward lading. When it loses one or more, it takes on a forward lading. Such a mote is called a farer, for that the drag between unlike ladings flits it. When bernstonebits flit by themselves, it may be as a bolt of lightning, a spark off some faststanding chunk, or the everyday flow of bernstoneness through wires.
Karmi has said he won’t vote for President Trump because of his position on ending the Russia-Ukraine war. Well that war is likely to end itself, as the attitudes inside Ukraine to accepting a negotiated settlement are changing quickly. The issue is around mobilization of 18-25 year olds.
Sometimes we have to accept that in politics we almost never get all of what we want. In this case, Karmi, you might consider voting for Trump because he is in favor of “taking it to Iran”.
Question for all: In discussions with friends, what lines of argument have you found most effective in moving people away from support of the Democrats?
David+Foster:
I lost 70-80% of my family and friends after I shifted from left to right. I now avoid political discussions with Democrats.
I keep conversation outside of politics. I endeavor to show that, although conservative, I’m not rabidly so, I have other interests, and I am still a decent, loyal fellow.
I wouldn’t say it necessarily works to persuade my Democrat folks away from current Democrat policies. But it doesn’t push them to be more fanatical. The times are fanatical enough for my taste.
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Preach the Gospel at all times; use words if necessary.
–attributed to St. Francis of Assisi
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Maybe it’s a rationalization. I’m trying to play a longer game.
Brian E – wondered where you were. There is more than one reason (Ukraine) why I won’t vote for Trump again…’Terrible‘ Leadership Ability was probably tied with Ukraine. The others I won’t get into now.
Trump says Israel should take out Iran’s nuclear facilities: ‘That’s the thing you wanna hit’
Hold on…that’s another reason I won’t vote for weak leader Trump. He had *FOUR* years to take out Iran’s “nuclear facilities” – using the most powerful military in the world.
What did this weak leader Trump do? He placed sissy sanctions on Iran, and killed one of their Generals.
Now, this same weak leader Trump says small “Israel should hit Iran’s nuclear facilities”…how pathetic, but typical, of this blowhard used car salesman to say!!!
@huxley: There is a great deal to be said for being a good example. Possibly it is the best thing one can do.
But I see a time coming soon when trying to stay out of politics will be treason. You won’t get to sit in the back with your arms crossed during the Two Minutes’ Hate. The first one to stop clapping goes to gulag, how do those fare who don’t clap at all?
At the conclusion of the conference, a tribute to Comrade Stalin was called for. Of course, everyone stood up (just as everyone had leaped to his feet during the conference at every mention of his name). The small hall echoed with “stormy applause, rising to an ovation.” For three minutes, four minutes, five minutes, the “stormy applause, rising to an ovation,” continued. But palms were getting sore and raised arms were already aching. And the older people were panting from exhaustion. It was becoming insufferably silly even to those who really adored Stalin. However, who would dare be the first to stop? The secretary of the District Party Committee could have done it. He was standing on the platform, and it was he who had just called for the ovation. But he was a newcomer. He had taken the place of a man who’d been arrested. He was afraid! After all, NKVD men were standing in the hall applauding and watching to see who quit first! And in that obscure, small hall, unknown to the Leader, the applause went on – six, seven, eight minutes! They were done for! Their goose was cooked! They couldn’t stop now till they collapsed with heart attacks! At the rear of the hall, which was crowded, they could of course cheat a bit, clap less frequently, less vigorously, not so eagerly — but up there with the presidium where everyone could see them? The director of the local paper factory, an independent and strong-minded man, stood with the presidium. Aware of all the falsity and all the impossibility of the situation, he still kept on applauding! Nine minutes! Ten! In anguish he watched the secretary of the District Party Committee, but the latter dared not stop. Insanity! To the last man! With make-believe enthusiasm on their faces, looking at each other with faint hope, the district leaders were just going to go on and on applauding till they fell where they stood, till they were carried out of the hall on stretchers! And even then those who were left would not falter…Then after eleven minutes, the director of the paper factory assumed a businesslike expression and sat down in his seat. And, oh, a miracle took place! Where had the universal, uninhibited, indescribable enthusiasm gone? To a man, everyone else stopped dead and sat down. They had been saved! The squirrel had been smart enough to jump off his revolving wheel.
That, however, was how they discovered who the independent people were. And that was how they went about eliminating them. That same night the factory director was arrested. They easily pasted ten years on him on the pretext of something quite different. But after he had signed Form 206, the final document of his interrogation, his interrogator reminded him:
“Don’t ever be the first to stop applauding!”
sdferr on October 17, 2024 at 11:44 am. Your quote about Netanyahu is an interesting contrast to the leadership of the democracies in Europe during the rise of Hitler. I’ve been re-reading “The Nightmare Years, 1930 – 1940” by William L. Shirer. He was an American foreign correspondent for CBS in Europe who met and knew many of the players, both members of the Third Reich and of England, France and other of the European countries. The willful ignorance and blindness of the democracies’ foreign offices toward Hitler was astounding. It is mirrored today by the governments today that are pressuring Israel to make some sort of ceasefire and ultimately treaty with Hamas, Hezbolah, and likely Iran soon.
Niketas Choniates:
You’re lecturing an ex-leftist about leftism as though I am unaware. Also I dislike being addressed with “You” statements.
I heard the whole “.. a time coming soon when trying to stay out of politics will be treason” repeatedly when I was on the left. In fact Harris did her version of that last night.
It doesn’t scare me much anymore. I could be wrong, but that’s not how I see America working even today. The emergence of the Trump counter-revolution is an example of what I’m talking about.
Furthermore, as I have often said, I think the Great Conservative Quest for the Perfect Argument against Democrats is a fool’s errand.
This is the Planet of the Apes. That’s not how humans work.
@huxley:You’re lecturing an ex-leftist about leftism
I was praising you, and expressing concern for you, not lecturing you, but without the cues of verbal communication it’s easy to misinterpret.
I think the Great Conservative Quest for the Perfect Argument against Democrats is a fool’s errand.
I don’t disagree.
Also I dislike being addressed with “You” statements.
Not being British, the use of “one” as pronoun in this situation doesn’t come naturally to me. I’ll make note of your preference and try to respect it for the future.
NancyB:
I have never seen a single person on “our side” indicate that “if people would see Kamala in a confrontational setting, her weaknesses would lose her support.” In fact, au contraire. I have never seen anyone indicate that anything could cause Kamala’s supporters to desert her.
It is the undecideds who are the point.
Well we look on the behavior of the Western Powers in the pre war with perfect hindsight, as they will look on us a 100 years hence, if we survive that long,
the grinding slaughterhouse of a whole generation even among the victor powers, was caution enough, bookended with the Depression, of that dozen years, the Naval Treaty the quixotic Kellogg Briand arrangement made them look away, the Communists who had empowered the Nazis in their ‘worse the better’ were really not for rearmament, they were aiming for revolution, well so the ruling classes thought,
So many years ago that Teddy Kennedy was considered a viable POTUS possibility, I read a book by a liberal journalist and his wife whose names I cannot recall.
They mostly seemed to think liberalism hadn’t been advertised enough. At least, that was what I got out of the book.
There was, however, a paragraph which might indicate they had a clue. Goes sort of like;
For the night shift nurse raped in the parking lot by a convicted rapist let out of prison; for the early shift workers threatened by the deinsitutionalized demented [Aubrey’s words] on the subway, for the white police officer passed over for promotion by a black officer with lower scores, for the single mother whose children are bused to distant and unfamiliar neighborhoods…the promise of liberalism is not obvious.
Which brings me to an observation I read someplace about the “white college graduate” voting so largely for Biden and similar sources of weird governance. The white college graduate is mostly immune to the results of Biden-Harris-Obama–list of liberal governors. The white college graduate is not described in the preceding graf.
To that graf we could add all the problems with mass, uncontrolled immigration and the creeping costs of Green. Not bothering the white college graduate.
Who thus pay no cost for indulging their ostentatiously superior social standards and imposing the costs on the lower orders who probably deserve it anyway.
Kamala isn’t Trump and that’s all that’s needed.
To the extent that the women among the white college graduates are insulated even more than the men, then even more so.
”But it was red meat to the core constituent, the ‘educated’ woman. Unless we tackle the ubiquitous ‘You go, girl!’ mindset, we hand them a victory like we did last night: ‘Kamala gave those Fox people what for!’”
If this attitude is prevalent then civilization will not survive.
This might be the best argument for Donald Trump– the alliance he has formed with former Democrats who can make a contribution to the problems facing the country.
This is from the transcript from the recent conversation with RFK Jr, Tulsi Gabbard, Jordan Peterson and Russell Brand.
I think this highlights how President Trump wants to solve problems facing the country.
Jordan Peterson:
Trump’s character which has its rough edges some of which are quite helpful perhaps let’s say on the international front but to know that he’s surrounded by people who are very strong in their own character and their own opinions that are there to back him up and and also to counsel him wisely in a in a truly diverse range of directions; that’s a wonderful thing.
Practically it’s also an example of free speech and the free exchange of opinions in action because every single person that I’ve named has their own opinion– they don’t all agree, they put them forward very forcefully and the indications that we have from the Trump campaign that that’s welcome should go an awful long way to what would you say, to satisfying the critics of trump who are afraid that his more autocratic Tendencies um might might get the upper hand.
I don’t see that happening, certainly don’t see I don’t see any evidence for that given what’s happened around him in the last couple of weeks. It’s something remarkable. I don’t think the political discourse is adjusted to the new reality of the Trump team even within the team itself. Russell Brand:
That’s a a really brilliant point I think actually Jordan because it’s only that there’s such an extraordinary asphixiation in Legacy Media spaces that we’re not seeing this new alliance celebrated more prominently, but your point that even the Trump campaign hasn’t further embraced Tulsi Gabbard and Bobby Kennedy like of course there’s been the appearance at various rallies but you’re right it brings Clarity to True diversity rather than the kind of superficial diversity that masks homogenity at the heart of the Democratic Party Movement…
Tulsi, if I might ask have you experienced in your interactions with Donald Trump a genuine Spirit of collaboration and, you know, to Bobby’s earlier point that you will be significantly engaged when it comes to the appointment of government officials….? Tulsi Gabbard:
I have and and it was actually the very first time that I met president Trump that I experienced this firsthand. He had just been elected in 2016. It was about 2 weeks after the election just before Thanksgiving and some people in his inner circle were very concerned about the neocons swooping in and implanting themselves in his team and so they asked if I would literally, I forget what day of the week it was— I had just gotten home for Thanksgiving from Congress, and they said would you get on a plane and come to meet president Trump at Trump Tower tomorrow to speak to him about foreign policy.
Of course I said yes let me get on a plane tonight I’ll be there tomorrow. (I) went and had a about an hourlong conversation with then president-elect Trump about foreign policy. It was he and I a one-on-one conversation in his office at Trump Tower that was very substantive. I’d never met him before– I didn’t know what to expect; all I had seen was what the people in the TV say about him and I was very pleasantly surprised at how focused he was on the issues and he asked me very good questions. He listened intently when I answered. He had follow-up questions and it was it was a very fruitful conversation that gave me some hope.
I walked out of Trump Tower they had the media pool down there in the lobby and within five minutes my cell phone started blowing up with messages and tweets and everything else with criticisms. Of course the media put out tulsi gabberd just walked out of Trump Tower and met Donald Trump. Criticisms from my former party that how dare I meet with President Trump first of all, and criticizing me for humanizing him just by meeting him and that said everything that I needed to know about their priorities, that they would put their own ego and their own political or partisan or power interests over taking the advantage to meet with any President elect to share your insights. For me as a veteran, as a soldier, deployed multiple times to war zones of course I would. I would be a complete failure if I didn’t take the opportunity to meet with the president-elect to share My Views and how we solve these problems and how we bring about peace.
Fast forward to these last several weeks where I’ve had the opportunity to spend quite a bit of time with President Trump and his team and what I found was again very encouraging.
I found someone who contrary to what the media has us believe is not a sycophant who only surrounds himself with yes people… Of course Bobby and I continue to be attacked and those who’ve endorsed Trump including Elon Musk and others continue to be attacked by the propaganda media and I would just say for me, and I won’t speak for Bobby or anyone else, but for me this is nothing new….I embrace this opportunity. I embrace this opportunity because this isn’t about me or Donald Trump or Bobby Kennedy or anyone of us as individuals. This is a historic opportunity that I’ve never seen in my life in American politics where we have a president who has shown he will not bend the knee to the permanent Washington establishment.
They’re terrified of him because he’s a direct threat to the establishment itself….
I mentioned that quote from John KY at the World Economic Forum. The thing that he said about first amendment being the biggest obstacle to them governing. He ended it by saying that is what’s on the line in this election and we have to win and win big so that we can actually start to govern once again…. He was specifically talking about the dangers of social media and the dangers of free speech….
I think I just persuaded my neighbor to vote. She doesn’t like Harris, but isn’t crazy about Trump personally either. “How’s your grocery bill?” I asked. She has three teenagers. She said she’ll vote.
Kate:
Very cool!
My Dem friends hate Trump far too much to pay attention to their grocery bills.
Niketas, that Anderson selection was great! I’ve hunted up the text. “Chokestuff” for nitrogen is right on target (Stickstoff).
@Philip Sells: Soothly we live in mighty years.
Re huxley and David Foster, etc.
I listened to a recent podcast on finance and investing among a trio of men. One gave this possibly instructive, simple, “change” story:
One recent visit with his parents, he discovered that they were full-on MSNBC watching drones.
All he did was set them both up with links to follow this channel personalities on X.
Two years later, they sheepishly agreed with him that they’d been lied to.
SO SIMPLE.
@ Kate > “I think you are like me in wanting substance rather than pure emotion.”
That makes at least 3 of us, and I think we can add Neo to the club.
Not that there is anything wrong with emotions — but they aren’t the best guide to picking presidents.
@ om > “The Wrong Side of Brightness.”
I haven’t read Austin Bay’s book, but I do take a look at his blog from time to time, and always find it informative.
In the interest of lending anecdotal heft to the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” game*: I went to college with Austin, he married one of my other friends, and his aunt was one of my mother’s buddies, so I would sometimes see him “at home” as well as at school.
Small world.
* “The game’s name is a reference to “six degrees of separation”, a concept that posits that any two people on Earth are six or fewer acquaintance links apart.” Wikipedia
@ Niketas > “There’s an essay, “Uncleftish Beholding” by Poul Anderson, which describes atomic physics using only Anglo-Saxon-derived terms”
Thanks for the excerpt, I hadn’t seen the essay for a long time. It’s always a fun read, if a bit challenging to “translate” back into our actual scientific jargon.
One can get the same effect as Anderson by addressing people by the actual meaning of their names when those are derived from a non-English source, or are obsolete forms of English words.
For instance, your friend Kenadie might slap you if you greeted her with “Hello, Ugly Head!”
Would my favorite musical duo, “GodHasHeard” and “PreciousStone,” been as popular if we had known them by those names? 😉
And then there is this famous observation that Churchill’s “We shall fight on the beaches” speech mainly used words from Old English, even though much of our English vocabulary is drawn from outside the Anglo-Saxon core.
“She’s not as strong as me,” said Biden, 81, according the translation, which was produced by analyzing the on-video lip movements during the discussion.
“I know … that’s true,” the popular former president agreed, adding, “We have time.”
“Yeah, we’ll get it in time,” said Biden, who was forced by fellow Democrats to relinquish the party’s nomination in favor of Harris on July 21 in a mutiny that Obama was believed to support.
Moments earlier, Obama said, “it’s important that we have some time together” in a possible reference to campaigning alongside Harris.
…
he dialogue between Obama and Biden came from Jeremy Freeman, a London-based forensic lip reader who was born deaf and has spent 16 years as a certified expert witness for University College London, assisting litigants, police, and journalists.
Sometime last week, the media noted that the anti-Hamas protests on the anniversary of 10/7 were very muted and rare, and I speculated that the rent-a-mob managers decided that it would be better to keep a low profile because of other events at that time.
Turns out, the top supplier is deliberately avoiding the Hamas-Israel market for paid protestors.
The founder and CEO of Crowds on Demand, Adam Swart, doesn’t hide what he does. I got a press release from his PR folks a few months, back and Matt talked with him for a PJ Media story about the threat of violent mobs outside the Chicago Democrat convention in July.
…
Swart’s company does a bit of everything.
Crowds on Demand promises crowds “to move forward a healthcare, financial, energy, or other social initiative, we can organize rallies and get media attention for your causes and candidates.”
“If you need to hire protesters, we can get a crowd on the street, sometimes within 24 hours time,” the company’s website promises.
They can “staff” city council meetings: “If you need speakers to present at a council meeting, we can provide talented and well-spoken individuals to advocate for the cause.”
Need to make astroturfed phone calls to Congress? “We also have a dedicated team of phone-banking staff who can call Congressional Offices and convince government officials to support your cause and help you overcome opposition.”
Are you trying to remove a popular TV host or need some other letter-writing campaign? “[W]e have a network of tens of thousands of individuals across the country who can send well-written constituent letters to their representatives.”
And finally, “We are the ultimate guerilla lobbying and government relations firm.”
Swart says they send only people who are passionate about the issue being protested.
Some events attract grassroots activists, but many, like a Joe Biden speech, need help. Motivated activists might drop everything to go to a protest, but protesting doesn’t pay the bills— or does it? I’m told that protesters can make a couple hundred to a few hundred dollars per day depending on the job.
This kind of business model — which Swart didn’t create but simply copied and perfected — should make you question everything.
…
Swart says he’s keeping his people out of the Israel-Gaza protests because he doesn’t want “to be part of the noise.”
Everything else you see may include his people, usually parading on the Left side.
Like the trope says: conservatives already have day jobs.
There was an interesting discussion in the comments of the RS rent-a-mob post.
C. S. P. Schofield
While I’m sure this rent-a-mob business exists, there’s another factor; the Hobby Protest subculture. While I don’t have sociological details, I can see some of the outlines. When the bottom dropped out of the Anti-War movement (because the war was over) a lot of people who enjoyed that kind of event cast about for a new Cause, and became (it seems to me) the nucleus of the Environmental’ movement. Ford had no traction dealing with that kind of thing, and Carter was an ineffectual President at best. By the time Reagan came to office there was an established pattern of protest events, nominally for environmental issues and other Causes, but to a large degree simply to have an event.
It developed rather like Science Fiction Fandom; people might have jobs or sponge off their parents, but they LIVED for the next event, as hard core SF fans live for the next Convention. This is the pool from which rent-a-mob operations draw.
It exists because, up to now, consequences for riotous protests – at least on Progressive approved issues – have been few and light. Change that, and the attraction goes away. You will still have a smaller number of hard-core idiots to deal with, though.
Hallen C. S. P. Schofield
Your last paragraph is spot on.
Because the FBI and local justice systems go light on these people, they see no risk in what they do.
If police came down hard on them and if anybody committing violence or property damage, or is caught intimidating others, spend lots of time in jail and get heavy fines, then these people who take the faux-testor jobs would stop taking them.
anon-onh5
This is at the rumor level but apparently someone did a 2000 mules type cellphone data analysis and found that the Kamala “supporters” are traveling from rally to rally across the US. You don’t do that for free.
anon-zikn
There are paid Kamala (I call her Commiela) people that come to the corner in our small town on Saturdays. They show up in a mob at 7:15 am and leave promptly at 9. Never seen them in cars. The Trump crowd shows up at random times in their own cars and leaves when they need to. Different huh?
Victoria Taft
Trump supporters pay for their own time, their own gas to get there, their own lunches, their own signs, their own EVERYthing.
Rogue Rose
I unknowingly ended up at a Soros funded “lobbying at the capitol event”. The bus ride there and back, the live music, the lunch, tons of paid staff wearing yellow vests and carrying clipboards, matching t-shirts for all, everything was free. I became curious afterwards where the funding came from and discovered it was Soros $$$.
Yay for Israel, and kudos for Bibi, too.
If he wins against Hamas, he stays in power.
@ David > “what lines of argument have you found most effective in moving people away from support of the Democrats?”
Possibly one could borrow this great comment from an old Piers Morgan post about the Golf Course Assassination Incident. I can’t link it directly, but it was the 4th “best” comment when I read it tonight.
Someone recently asked me why I like Trump. My answer was that I don’t really like a lot of things about Trump. But this election is not about choosing the most likeable person.
We are voting between two vastly different ideologies. We are voting for the country we want to leave our children and grandchildren.
Trump represents that future and has proven that he can deliver. He is a patriot to the core and even served his country for 4 years without pay.
That moment when someone says,
“I can’t believe you’re voting for Trump”. I simply reply, “I’m NOT voting for Trump.”
I’m voting for the First Amendment and freedom of speech.
I’m voting for the right to speak my opinion and not be censored.
I’m voting for secure borders and LEGAL immigration.
I am voting for election integrity to include mandatory voter ID. (Why would anyone vote against this?)
I’m voting for the Second Amendment and my right to defend my life and my family.
I’m voting for the police to be respected once again.
I am voting for law & order and an end to allowing protesters to trespass and burn our cities, destroying innocent small business. (Tim Walz)
I am voting for personal responsibility and the end of the revolving door where criminals are being put back on the street. (Kamala Harris)
I’m voting for the next Supreme Court Justice(s) to protect the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
I’m voting for a return of our troops from foreign countries and the end to America’s involvement in foreign conflicts.
I’m voting for the Electoral College and for the Republic in which we live.
I’m voting for the continued appointment of Federal Judges who respect the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
I’m voting for keeping our jobs to remain in America and not be outsourced all over the world – to China, Mexico and other foreign countries.
I am voting for doing away with all of the freebies given to all of the illegals and not looking after the needs of the American citizens and homeless veterans.
I’m voting for the military & the veterans who fought for this country.
I’m voting to keep men out of women’s sports.
I’m voting for peace progress in the Middle East.
I’m voting to fight against human/child trafficking.
I’m voting for Freedom of Religion.
I am voting for the return of teaching math, history, and science instead of the indoctrination of our children.
I’m not just voting for one person.
I’m voting for the future of my Country.
I’m voting for my children and my grandchildren to ensure their freedoms.
America is the greatest country in the world, hence why everyone wants to immigrate here. So why do you want to change it?
Why do politicians want to enact policies that have failed in other countries throughout history?
NancyB wrote:
‘But they underestimate the Woman vs. Old White Guy dynamic. She just showed she was a “strong woman.” ‘
… Oh Nancy, I agree. I so wish Martha MacCallum had been the interviewer!
She’s host of Fox News afternoon news show “The Story”.
Martha is sharp & fair, but female!
(She’s white, but at least Not an “evil white man”.)
SMH. What craziness!
If that’s what Obama and Biden were saying, it’s clear that they haven’t been in constant communication as a few people say — certainly not since Biden dropped out, but likely even before that. I wonder if AI will be better at lip reading than we mere mortals, but AI would probably be the judge of that, so we’d just be taking the machine’s word for it.
I don’t think die-hard Democrat voters will be convinced by anything any of us says to them, but there are people angry or upset or troubled by prices or crime or illegal immigration or the wars who might be swayed, if you can do it carefully, cautiously, and attentively.
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Yahya Sinwar dead? Israel is checking again on his possible death…
https://x.com/sentdefender/status/1846909440286486629
Confidence grows by increments.
Question for all: In discussions with friends, what lines of argument have you found most effective in moving people away from support of the Democrats?
Elizabeth Zaroff, my favorite reactor, just did an analysis of this exact video. Check it out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT5U1EvPY3c
https://x.com/sentdefender/status/1846915013174300710
Some accidents turn out to be happy after all!
Neo, did you pick the video for Kamala, after the “interview”
US B-2 stealth bombers pound Houthi weapon bases in Yemen
Quit playing tiddlywinks with the ‘mobsters’ and go after the ‘Mob Boss’…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGJvckcwlmw&t=64s
At the link 3 photos of the deceased body presumed to be Sinwar. These are gruesome pictures, albeit highly conclusive, so be warned if your constitution is averse to such stuff:
https://x.com/Doranimated/status/1846895121121288397
That one photo linked to by sdferr sure looks like Sinwar’s left ear, and front teeth look very close…Bad Karma dude!
Noah Pollack makes a point which is both true and, I think, necessary to amplify:
https://x.com/NoahPollak/status/1846933048019001395
sdferr, that’s precisely why Obama campaigned against Netanyahu, and why the leftwing Israeli Supreme Court allowed the lawfare against him to go forward. He’s proven to be a strong leader, and the left can’t advance his agenda against a strong leader. Same reason the left can’t tolerate or allow a return to the Presidency of Trump.
Shirehome: From the perspective of most of us here, we feel Neo must have picked the song as a commentary on Kamala’s performance last night. We found her arrogant, angry, and both unable and unwilling to explain her past record or her future policies. An adenoidal lightweight.
However, I think Harris’ performance is highly instructive for answering David Foster’s question of what are effective ways of moving people away from the Democrats. We have to first of all understand how the other side sees things. And this debate is highly instructive.
We know the Dems are going “She did great!” and if it had been Biden in the chair, we would be correct that they are gaslighting us.
But with Kamala, they really believe it. She entered enemy quarters and showed she was unafraid. Late, so they see how little she thinks of them. She didn’t let a beefy stolid white guy trap her into answering any of their stupid questions, oh no. Of course she was angry, being challenged by the likes of Fox News. How perfect to use the occasion to get her message across to the their deluded audiences that it is Donald Trump who is the source all they don’t like!
Her “word salads” are perfect corporate speak. Many wish they could say so little in so many words, fill out the time with so much slipperiness that “Gotcha!” is impossible (Isn’t the real scandal of the 60 minutes sub that Kamala’s answers are so generic they could be switched out?).
Maybe Kamala turned off some men, but not her core supporters because they weren’t watching Fox anyway (I think that’s true?). But it was red meat to the core constituent, the “educated” woman. Unless we tackle the ubiquitous “You go, girl!” mindset, we hand them a victory like we did last night: “Kamala gave those Fox people what for!”
NancyB, your comment illustrates why I’ve never been just like most of the women I’ve known. I think you are like me in wanting substance rather than pure emotion. The women who are applauding Kamala’s performance last night were already going to vote for her. I doubt that she persuaded fence-sitters in large numbers.
Linda Ronstadt’s hometown is Tuscon, Arizona. In honor of her Mexican background, she released a CD/album of Mexican songs. My favorite: Linda Ronstadt – Rogaciano El Huapanguero (Rogiciano) (Official Lyric Video). Coincidentally, the song is about the death of a beloved singer.
Roque Dalton, the illegitimate son of Winnall Dalton, was a Salvadorean poet and left-wing guerilla who was murdered in 1975 in a power play among the guerrillas. At the time, the claim was that Roque Dalton was a CIA agent, a claim that was later proven to be completely bogus. Guerrillas killed one of their own. (Nor was this a “one-off.” In 1983 guerrilla leaders Ana Melida Montes and Salvador Cayetano Carpio were further victims of the guerilla tradition of leadership selection by elimination. Savagery on both sides in that war.)
It turns out that Roque Dalton was a first cousin first removed of Linda Ronstadt. GRINGO IRACUNDO: Roque Dalton and His Father.
Interesting twist of history.
Interesting data point on X: Michelle Tandler (81K followers), a former SF liberal who has been wrestling with her political identity for at least a year, says:
“I now have ten good friends who are voting for Trump. This would have been inconceivable to me a few months ago. None cite taxes as a top 3 reason – it’s more about Israel, immigration, economic plan & tech regulation.”
(She later corrected it to ’16 good friends’)
As for herself, she’s considering not voting.
https://x.com/michelletandler/status/1846601801031995748
David Foster, that list may contain an answer to your question of what arguments might reach people.
sdferr, on my first click of your link, I saw what appeared to me to be Sinwar’s head. On subsequent clicks, it appears that the link has been taken down- or maybe you have to log in to see it now.
https://x.com/Doranimated/status/1846895121121288397
Re arguments to stimulate change. As said earlier, her supporters are seeing this as her being strong and “standing up” to the right. She did that, but the reason she did is the issue: she had to stand up like that because she is a combination of having no actual plan for achieving any of what she says she will do, and she can’t tell us her thoughts on things because they are different from what she said last week or last month. Anything of substance said yesterday would only damage her.
I think it was in a comment on another thread where it was said (or quoted): “You cannot talk a man out of a position that he hadn’t been talked into.” They didn’t start out thinking she was a loser and get convinced she was not, because then you could push them back to the original with facts. But when they just “had” the belief she was good, then talking and facts will not prevail.
I am not a psychologist, just a somewhat schooled dolt, with about 70 years of OJT sociology training. I could be wrong.
Gringo, we can substitute this facsimile photo, much less distasteful, if needs be:
https://x.com/TheMossadIL/status/1846905287526994183
Kate, I agree that Kamala wouldn’t have persuaded fence-sitters. But she didn’t put off anyone who supported her knowing only the unending Joy! and Brat! campaigns of the MSM in the last weeks, but who had never seen her in a challenging interview. “Our side” thinks if people would see Kamala in a confrontational setting, her weaknesses would lose her support. But they underestimate the Woman vs. Old White Guy dynamic. She just showed she was a “strong woman.”
After what we saw on October 7th, what those ghouls recorded themselves, I don’t care what the head ghoul looks like, another illustration of how UNWRA needs to be defunded and demolished, I suspected he would have been farther near the Egyptian crossing checkpoint, he may have been,
those were not remotely answers to question, one would accept at an under
graduate level, much less in graduate school, she was challenged a fraction by baier, but not really on the substance of the matter, is mass immigration, a good thing, how much more,
about the pro crime policies that she pioneered in the bay area, of course the grift full employment act, that preferred so called green energy to real energy
carrying over from the last thread, the notion of energy as a scientific concept
probably originated by the Greeks although I could be persuaded otherwise,
The New York Post is now reporting a positive identification making use of dental records on file.
LeavesLeafs!Green energy, eh wot!?
Sinwar discovered to be on Austin Bay’s “The Wrong Side of Brightness.”
He is mostly mist now?
The Fox interview was classic Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown. Brett was surprised at how contentious Harris was and how much she filibustered the ‘interview’. Brett was working on the naive assumption that he would ask questions for which Harris would have no answer. She had no intention of answering any of his questions and in a sense was deviously brilliant how she worked “it’s all Trump’s fault” into every ‘answer’.
It certainly caught me by surprise that such a strategy could be as successful as it was.
Does any American know any more about how a Harris administration would govern? She said she would follow the law when asked about her previous positions on transgender surgery and other controversial positions, but Brett didn’t press her on whether she would work as President to change those laws. Had he pressed her, she wouldn’t have answered, but there is no reason to think she won’t work tirelessly to advance the leftist agenda she ran on in the 2020 Democrat primary.
After all, she has said her values hadn’t changed from what they were back then, in a previous interview.
What do we know? She and the Democrats have tied their success in running against Donald Trump– not the policies that Trump has proposed, but on the idea that Donald Trump is evil. That’s it. And abortion, of course.
Unlike policy, Brett couldn’t ‘fact check’ Harris about the proposition that Trump is evil.
My initial reaction was Brett was too nice, and a tougher questioner would have fared better, but I don’t think it would have made any difference. The ‘interview’ does answer the question whether Harris is smart or not. She was cunning and effective to her base. If there are any undecided voters that care about answers to real problems the country faces, she certainly did nothing to convince them that a Harris administration has any answers.
Bret Baier: Kamala Harris wanted a ‘viral moment’ and she got it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPO9Ua1ZPFU
Since the WaPo says Sinwar is dead, he must be dead. 🙂
Yahya Sinwar, architect of Hamas massacre in Israel, is killed.
Perhaps now there will be a release of the hostages along with a release of Hamas prisoners in Israeli jails. Given Sinwar’s history–he was a prisoner in Israeli jails for 2 decades, then released in the lopsided exchange for Shalit, I doubt that Israel will agree to such a lopsided deal. I wouldn’t.
In addition, I doubt that Israeli troops will leave the Egypt-Gaza border. Given the utter failure of UN resolution 1701 in demilitarizing southern Lebanon, Israel will have little to no confidence in some “international task force” on the Gaza-Egypt border.
Lipreading the News, Obama talks with Joe edition:
https://x.com/PapiTrumpo/status/1846684133298159702
Fun for shits and giggles only.
When the pager or bunker buster doesn’t get you – the GRUNT will…
sdferr, there is still one photo of the late, lamented, charismatic, austere religious scholar on X. It isn’t as much of a closeup as the lost photo, but both show the gaping hole in the forehead.
https://x.com/EYakoby/status/1846920950362603799
@miguel:the notion of energy as a scientific concept
probably originated by the Greeks although I could be persuaded otherwise
It was unquestionably their word, but they would have found the scientific concept it represents to be alien. As would be true of most of the scientific vocabulary derived from them: I’m not sure what Aristotle would have made of adiabatic; he’d have known the literal meaning but been puzzled by the application. Likewise, electron is their word, but it meant “amber”.
There’s an essay, “Uncleftish Beholding” by Poul Anderson, which describes atomic physics using only Anglo-Saxon-derived terms, and besides being entertaining in itself it gives a clearer sense of how scientific words had to be adapted metaphorically from common words. So many of the scientific words are Latin or Greek and since few of use those languages everyday, it’s harder to see. But the essay gives you an idea of how an ancient Greek might react to seeing how his vocabulary has been strained.
Karmi has said he won’t vote for President Trump because of his position on ending the Russia-Ukraine war. Well that war is likely to end itself, as the attitudes inside Ukraine to accepting a negotiated settlement are changing quickly. The issue is around mobilization of 18-25 year olds.
Sometimes we have to accept that in politics we almost never get all of what we want. In this case, Karmi, you might consider voting for Trump because he is in favor of “taking it to Iran”.
Trump says Israel should take out Iran’s nuclear facilities: ‘That’s the thing you wanna hit’
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-says-israel-should-hit-irans-nuclear-facilities-slamming-bidens-response
Question for all: In discussions with friends, what lines of argument have you found most effective in moving people away from support of the Democrats?
David+Foster:
I lost 70-80% of my family and friends after I shifted from left to right. I now avoid political discussions with Democrats.
I keep conversation outside of politics. I endeavor to show that, although conservative, I’m not rabidly so, I have other interests, and I am still a decent, loyal fellow.
I wouldn’t say it necessarily works to persuade my Democrat folks away from current Democrat policies. But it doesn’t push them to be more fanatical. The times are fanatical enough for my taste.
____________________________________________
Preach the Gospel at all times; use words if necessary.
–attributed to St. Francis of Assisi
____________________________________________
Maybe it’s a rationalization. I’m trying to play a longer game.
Brian E – wondered where you were. There is more than one reason (Ukraine) why I won’t vote for Trump again…’Terrible‘ Leadership Ability was probably tied with Ukraine. The others I won’t get into now.
Hold on…that’s another reason I won’t vote for weak leader Trump. He had *FOUR* years to take out Iran’s “nuclear facilities” – using the most powerful military in the world.
What did this weak leader Trump do? He placed sissy sanctions on Iran, and killed one of their Generals.
Now, this same weak leader Trump says small “Israel should hit Iran’s nuclear facilities”…how pathetic, but typical, of this blowhard used car salesman to say!!!
@huxley: There is a great deal to be said for being a good example. Possibly it is the best thing one can do.
But I see a time coming soon when trying to stay out of politics will be treason. You won’t get to sit in the back with your arms crossed during the Two Minutes’ Hate. The first one to stop clapping goes to gulag, how do those fare who don’t clap at all?
sdferr on October 17, 2024 at 11:44 am. Your quote about Netanyahu is an interesting contrast to the leadership of the democracies in Europe during the rise of Hitler. I’ve been re-reading “The Nightmare Years, 1930 – 1940” by William L. Shirer. He was an American foreign correspondent for CBS in Europe who met and knew many of the players, both members of the Third Reich and of England, France and other of the European countries. The willful ignorance and blindness of the democracies’ foreign offices toward Hitler was astounding. It is mirrored today by the governments today that are pressuring Israel to make some sort of ceasefire and ultimately treaty with Hamas, Hezbolah, and likely Iran soon.
Niketas Choniates:
You’re lecturing an ex-leftist about leftism as though I am unaware. Also I dislike being addressed with “You” statements.
I heard the whole “.. a time coming soon when trying to stay out of politics will be treason” repeatedly when I was on the left. In fact Harris did her version of that last night.
It doesn’t scare me much anymore. I could be wrong, but that’s not how I see America working even today. The emergence of the Trump counter-revolution is an example of what I’m talking about.
Furthermore, as I have often said, I think the Great Conservative Quest for the Perfect Argument against Democrats is a fool’s errand.
This is the Planet of the Apes. That’s not how humans work.
@huxley:You’re lecturing an ex-leftist about leftism
I was praising you, and expressing concern for you, not lecturing you, but without the cues of verbal communication it’s easy to misinterpret.
I think the Great Conservative Quest for the Perfect Argument against Democrats is a fool’s errand.
I don’t disagree.
Also I dislike being addressed with “You” statements.
Not being British, the use of “one” as pronoun in this situation doesn’t come naturally to me. I’ll make note of your preference and try to respect it for the future.
NancyB:
I have never seen a single person on “our side” indicate that “if people would see Kamala in a confrontational setting, her weaknesses would lose her support.” In fact, au contraire. I have never seen anyone indicate that anything could cause Kamala’s supporters to desert her.
It is the undecideds who are the point.
Well we look on the behavior of the Western Powers in the pre war with perfect hindsight, as they will look on us a 100 years hence, if we survive that long,
the grinding slaughterhouse of a whole generation even among the victor powers, was caution enough, bookended with the Depression, of that dozen years, the Naval Treaty the quixotic Kellogg Briand arrangement made them look away, the Communists who had empowered the Nazis in their ‘worse the better’ were really not for rearmament, they were aiming for revolution, well so the ruling classes thought,
Collectivism Of The Boogie Man
https://thesovereignmom.substack.com/p/collectivism-of-the-boogie-man?r=berfq&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true
So many years ago that Teddy Kennedy was considered a viable POTUS possibility, I read a book by a liberal journalist and his wife whose names I cannot recall.
They mostly seemed to think liberalism hadn’t been advertised enough. At least, that was what I got out of the book.
There was, however, a paragraph which might indicate they had a clue. Goes sort of like;
For the night shift nurse raped in the parking lot by a convicted rapist let out of prison; for the early shift workers threatened by the deinsitutionalized demented [Aubrey’s words] on the subway, for the white police officer passed over for promotion by a black officer with lower scores, for the single mother whose children are bused to distant and unfamiliar neighborhoods…the promise of liberalism is not obvious.
Which brings me to an observation I read someplace about the “white college graduate” voting so largely for Biden and similar sources of weird governance. The white college graduate is mostly immune to the results of Biden-Harris-Obama–list of liberal governors. The white college graduate is not described in the preceding graf.
To that graf we could add all the problems with mass, uncontrolled immigration and the creeping costs of Green. Not bothering the white college graduate.
Who thus pay no cost for indulging their ostentatiously superior social standards and imposing the costs on the lower orders who probably deserve it anyway.
Kamala isn’t Trump and that’s all that’s needed.
To the extent that the women among the white college graduates are insulated even more than the men, then even more so.
”But it was red meat to the core constituent, the ‘educated’ woman. Unless we tackle the ubiquitous ‘You go, girl!’ mindset, we hand them a victory like we did last night: ‘Kamala gave those Fox people what for!’”
If this attitude is prevalent then civilization will not survive.
This might be the best argument for Donald Trump– the alliance he has formed with former Democrats who can make a contribution to the problems facing the country.
This is from the transcript from the recent conversation with RFK Jr, Tulsi Gabbard, Jordan Peterson and Russell Brand.
I think this highlights how President Trump wants to solve problems facing the country.
The Alliance Of Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr, And Donald Trump
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn0b0JEN-s0
I think I just persuaded my neighbor to vote. She doesn’t like Harris, but isn’t crazy about Trump personally either. “How’s your grocery bill?” I asked. She has three teenagers. She said she’ll vote.
Kate:
Very cool!
My Dem friends hate Trump far too much to pay attention to their grocery bills.
Niketas, that Anderson selection was great! I’ve hunted up the text. “Chokestuff” for nitrogen is right on target (Stickstoff).
@Philip Sells: Soothly we live in mighty years.
Re huxley and David Foster, etc.
I listened to a recent podcast on finance and investing among a trio of men. One gave this possibly instructive, simple, “change” story:
One recent visit with his parents, he discovered that they were full-on MSNBC watching drones.
All he did was set them both up with links to follow this channel personalities on X.
Two years later, they sheepishly agreed with him that they’d been lied to.
SO SIMPLE.
@ Kate > “I think you are like me in wanting substance rather than pure emotion.”
That makes at least 3 of us, and I think we can add Neo to the club.
Not that there is anything wrong with emotions — but they aren’t the best guide to picking presidents.
@ om > “The Wrong Side of Brightness.”
I haven’t read Austin Bay’s book, but I do take a look at his blog from time to time, and always find it informative.
In the interest of lending anecdotal heft to the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” game*: I went to college with Austin, he married one of my other friends, and his aunt was one of my mother’s buddies, so I would sometimes see him “at home” as well as at school.
Small world.
* “The game’s name is a reference to “six degrees of separation”, a concept that posits that any two people on Earth are six or fewer acquaintance links apart.” Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation
@ Niketas > “There’s an essay, “Uncleftish Beholding” by Poul Anderson, which describes atomic physics using only Anglo-Saxon-derived terms”
Thanks for the excerpt, I hadn’t seen the essay for a long time. It’s always a fun read, if a bit challenging to “translate” back into our actual scientific jargon.
One can get the same effect as Anderson by addressing people by the actual meaning of their names when those are derived from a non-English source, or are obsolete forms of English words.
For instance, your friend Kenadie might slap you if you greeted her with “Hello, Ugly Head!”
Would my favorite musical duo, “GodHasHeard” and “PreciousStone,” been as popular if we had known them by those names? 😉
https://babynames.com/names/search-by-meaning.php
And then there is this famous observation that Churchill’s “We shall fight on the beaches” speech mainly used words from Old English, even though much of our English vocabulary is drawn from outside the Anglo-Saxon core.
https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/97665/did-the-we-shall-fight-on-the-beaches-speech-mainly-use-words-from-old-english
Just a little digression for the day!
Somebody recently mentioned the video of Obama and Biden at Ethel Kennedy’s memorial, thinking they were on the outs, but apparently not.
https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2024/10/17/now-we-know-what-biden-and-obama-spoke-about-at-ethel-kennedys-funeral-n4933426
Sometime last week, the media noted that the anti-Hamas protests on the anniversary of 10/7 were very muted and rare, and I speculated that the rent-a-mob managers decided that it would be better to keep a low profile because of other events at that time.
Turns out, the top supplier is deliberately avoiding the Hamas-Israel market for paid protestors.
https://pjmedia.com/victoria-taft/2024/10/17/where-do-these-people-come-from-we-have-an-answer-n4933423
Everything else you see may include his people, usually parading on the Left side.
Like the trope says: conservatives already have day jobs.
There was an interesting discussion in the comments of the RS rent-a-mob post.
Yay for Israel, and kudos for Bibi, too.
If he wins against Hamas, he stays in power.
@ David > “what lines of argument have you found most effective in moving people away from support of the Democrats?”
Possibly one could borrow this great comment from an old Piers Morgan post about the Golf Course Assassination Incident. I can’t link it directly, but it was the 4th “best” comment when I read it tonight.
https://nypost.com/2024/09/16/opinion/the-latest-secret-service-fiasco-has-given-trump-an-election-lifeline/
Another possible answer to David’s question:
https://twitchy.com/samj/2024/10/15/guy-who-doesnt-like-trump-explains-why-hes-voting-for-him-n2402194
NancyB wrote:
‘But they underestimate the Woman vs. Old White Guy dynamic. She just showed she was a “strong woman.” ‘
… Oh Nancy, I agree. I so wish Martha MacCallum had been the interviewer!
She’s host of Fox News afternoon news show “The Story”.
Martha is sharp & fair, but female!
(She’s white, but at least Not an “evil white man”.)
SMH. What craziness!
If that’s what Obama and Biden were saying, it’s clear that they haven’t been in constant communication as a few people say — certainly not since Biden dropped out, but likely even before that. I wonder if AI will be better at lip reading than we mere mortals, but AI would probably be the judge of that, so we’d just be taking the machine’s word for it.
I don’t think die-hard Democrat voters will be convinced by anything any of us says to them, but there are people angry or upset or troubled by prices or crime or illegal immigration or the wars who might be swayed, if you can do it carefully, cautiously, and attentively.