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Post by millring on Feb 12, 2020 11:53:29 GMT -5
As to the article I'm always fascinated by the "Europe Is Better" thing. Just to clarify: The point of the article is not "Europe is better" but "Bernie's no Commie," as the word and the political-economic theory are understood everywhere else in the world--including Europe, where the ideas were invented and varied and tried out. This is not news. I have friends and acquaintances considerably to my left (some actual Marxists who have actually read Marx) who insist that Bernie and other American "democratic socialists" would be seen as barely left-of-center in Europe. The "Commie" label is, of course, a leftover from the Cold War, when it was used just as sloppily. That's your read. Perhaps the subtext that Steve reads comes from being outside your carefully cultivated perspective.
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Post by aquaduct on Feb 12, 2020 11:55:54 GMT -5
Just to clarify: The point of the article is not "Europe is better" but "Bernie's no Commie," as the word and the political-economic theory are understood everywhere else in the world--including Europe, where the ideas were invented and varied and tried out. This is not news. I have friends and acquaintances considerably to my left (some actual Marxists who have actually read Marx) who insist that Bernie and other American "democratic socialists" would be seen as barely left-of-center in Europe. The "Commie" label is, of course, a leftover from the Cold War, when it was used just as sloppily. That's your read. Perhaps the subtext that Steve reads comes from being outside your carefully cultivated perspective. Hey! That opinion and a couple of quarters should be able to get him a cup of coffee. Who can't be topical!?!?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2020 12:31:45 GMT -5
What characteristics would qualify as "radical?"
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Post by james on Feb 12, 2020 12:33:08 GMT -5
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Post by epaul on Feb 12, 2020 12:45:43 GMT -5
Everything Russell said about Bernie and (Western) Europe) is true and it is silly sophistry to argue it otherwise. In Western Europe, Bernie would just be a run-of-the-mill liberal... and all here know it.
What is equally silly is to argue why we should care what Bernie would be called in Western Europe. Who gives a shit. We don't live in Western Europe. Their norms (and politics) aren't ours. What would Bernie be in Bangladesh or Borneo? Who gives a shit? We don't live there either. Politics is local.
But it is true, to whatever purpose it serves, that Bernie and his policies would be no big whoop in Western Europe. How he would be categorized in Bangledish or Borneo is another matter. (the phrase "Europe and the rest of the world has little useful meaning in a political context)
As for calling Bernie a Commie or whatever in this country, that term is just a convenient political insult. Terms and their definitions serve purpose in politics, not Webster. You can argue they shouldn't. You can also argue for an extra moon and a purple sun.
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Post by millring on Feb 12, 2020 13:00:23 GMT -5
I never called Bernie a whatever. I want to be perfectly clear about that.
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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 12, 2020 13:22:27 GMT -5
My students used to complain, "That's just your opinion." To which I could answer, "Yes, and it's based on textual evidence and a sound understanding of the rhetorical and semantic environment it comes from."
My "carefully cultivated perspective" is in fact a species of expertise. You know, the kind of combination of skills and knowledge and experience that separates a high-end potter from a hobbyist.
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Post by brucemacneill on Feb 12, 2020 13:29:47 GMT -5
My students used to complain, "That's just your opinion." To which I could answer, "Yes, and it's based on textual evidence and a sound understanding of the rhetorical and semantic environment it comes from." My "carefully cultivated perspective" is in fact a species of expertise. You know, the kind of combination of skills and knowledge and experience that separates a high-end potter from a hobbyist. ...or at least that's your opinion.
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Post by millring on Feb 12, 2020 13:50:56 GMT -5
My "carefully cultivated perspective" is in fact a species of expertise. You know, the kind of combination of skills and knowledge and experience that separates a high-end potter from a hobbyist. ...unless it is unwittingly the hubris that allows the skills and knowledge of the high-end potter to suppose that because he knows how to make a teapot, he therefore knows how to use a teapot better than the tea enthusiast. It might be that academics and intellectuals are using their language skills and knowledge as simple apologetics to cloister themselves from a reality they've used language to convince themselves isn't real (or is the baby in the bathwater that they discarded when they insisted that nothing is real). Maybe the categories are being confused.
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Post by brucemacneill on Feb 12, 2020 14:04:15 GMT -5
I thought Russell's post was a straight line.
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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 12, 2020 14:44:39 GMT -5
Bruce: I have a decade of grad school, two of teaching writing and literature and semantics, and fifty-plus years of professional word-wrangling. I used to read a couple of dead languages.
What you got?
John: I just read the fucking article. It's not that complicated. Nowhere does Strine say anything like "Europe is better." Instead, he points out that characterizing Bernie (or his policy proposals) as Communist shows an ignorance of what that descriptor means outside of the overheated rhetorical environment of American politics. He does clearly think that Bernie's notions are close to those of the New Deal and that that's probably a good thing.
The rest of your post about academics and intellectuals and babies and bathwater and cloistering and apologetics is cartoonish and unbecoming and creeping up on insulting.
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Post by brucemacneill on Feb 12, 2020 14:49:43 GMT -5
""Bruce: I have a decade of grad school, two of teaching writing and literature and semantics, and fifty-plus years of professional word-wrangling. I used to read a couple of dead languages.
What you got?"
Less ego.
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Post by epaul on Feb 12, 2020 14:59:04 GMT -5
and less hair. Don't forget the hair.
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Post by millring on Feb 12, 2020 15:10:22 GMT -5
The rest of your post about academics and intellectuals and babies and bathwater and cloistering and apologetics is cartoonish and unbecoming and creeping up on insulting. Perhaps you could read it that way. Or you could notice that when you explain to me why my reasoning is deficient, that too borders on exactly the same edge of insult. Or we could just be disagreeing and this is how we do it.
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Post by brucemacneill on Feb 12, 2020 15:24:54 GMT -5
and less hair. Don't forget the hair. You mean his avatar is a real photo of him?
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Post by millring on Feb 12, 2020 15:32:06 GMT -5
Steve and I also read the f***ing article and we are entirely capable of understanding that it was not published in a vacuum -- rather -- it is a lame attempt to help Sanders erase an openly Communist background in the midst of a presidential race where such an association just might still hurt him with older voters who still remember when Democrats were actually anti-Communist. Sure, they are mostly in their 80s now, but they vote. When they can be driven to the polls.
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Post by majorminor on Feb 12, 2020 15:52:46 GMT -5
Steve and I also read the f***ing article and we are entirely capable of understanding that it was not published in a vacuum -- rather -- it is a lame attempt to help Sanders erase an openly Communist background in the midst of a presidential race where such an association just might still hurt him with older voters who still remember when Democrats were actually anti-Communist. Sure, they are mostly in their 80s now, but they vote. When they can be driven to the polls. I'd back you up bro but Russell scares me. He has lots of cats.
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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 12, 2020 16:08:10 GMT -5
This is getting unpleasant, and I'm not going to write a full reply until I can do so without losing my temper. Besides, the laundry isn't going to do itself.
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Post by jdd2 on Feb 12, 2020 16:15:42 GMT -5
If sanders is the nominee, then I guess this time russia will have to reconsider to support...
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Post by brucemacneill on Feb 12, 2020 16:23:05 GMT -5
If sanders is the nominee, then I guess this time russia will have to reconsider to support... I think they're still supporting Hillary.
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