WWTBAM Bored

Spock wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 04, 2024 11:07 pm

SSS-seriously, in a discussion of Kulaks and communist slaughters and such where did Bolsonaro come from? I mean WTF?

I get you hitting me with the "Putin" slur-because that is just what you do, it is simply muscle memory for you at this point-but Bolsonaro?

silverscreenselect wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 04, 2024 11:13 pm

Spock wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 04, 2024 11:07 pm

SSS-seriously, in a discussion of Kulaks and communist slaughters and such where did Bolsonaro come from? I mean WTF?

I get you hitting me with the "Putin" slur-because that is just what you do, it is simply muscle memory for you at this point-but Bolsonaro?

I was referring to both you and Flock here. My line was " including Flock and Spock's heroes, Bolsonaro from Brazil and Vladimir Putin." My Bolsonaro reference was intended for Flock, and my Putin reference for you.

Spock wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 04, 2024 11:23 pm

silverscreenselect wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 04, 2024 11:13 pm

Spock wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 04, 2024 11:07 pm

SSS-seriously, in a discussion of Kulaks and communist slaughters and such where did Bolsonaro come from? I mean WTF?

I get you hitting me with the "Putin" slur-because that is just what you do, it is simply muscle memory for you at this point-but Bolsonaro?

I was referring to both you and Flock here. My line was " including Flock and Spock's heroes, Bolsonaro from Brazil and Vladimir Putin." My Bolsonaro reference was intended for Flock, and my Putin reference for you.

I have always been completely at a loss as to why you I(and Weyoun) list Putin as my Hero. A way to call me a name, I guess, as that is your main level of argument. In one ear and out the other.

flockofseagulls104 wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 05, 2024 10:21 am

Spock wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 04, 2024 11:23 pm

silverscreenselect wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 04, 2024 11:13 pm

I was referring to both you and Flock here. My line was " including Flock and Spock's heroes, Bolsonaro from Brazil and Vladimir Putin." My Bolsonaro reference was intended for Flock, and my Putin reference for you.

I have always been completely at a loss as to why you I(and Weyoun) list Putin as my Hero. A way to call me a name, I guess, as that is your main level of argument. In one ear and out the other.

It is because they are driven by their warped ideology. They don't care what you say, they identify you as a caricature they have in their heads, and nothing you say or do matters and will not change that. That's how they deal with the incredible hypocrisy of their views. Ignore the real world and stick with their stereotypes. You have a question about Ukraine, you are a Putin supporter. End of story.

Weyoun wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 05, 2024 1:20 pm

Your theory would not explain why recruitment also dropped off during the Trump era.

It could be that rural whites are a dying people, addicted to handouts and drugs, like other peoples they make fun of.

silverscreenselect wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 04, 2024 10:34 pm

flockofseagulls104 wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 04, 2024 9:05 pm

WTF are you talking about? The American Communist Party? What does that have to do with anything? That 'party' is as relevant as David Duke. Really, do you think we're that stupid?
The communists are in the democrat party, dufus, and they have pretty much taken it over.

Flock, you have no idea what communism is. For you, it's just a bad word you can use to describe those with whom you disagree with politically when it suits your purposes. You're just Joe McCarthy without his list of names.

flockofseagulls104 wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 05, 2024 4:19 pm

I am no trollboy, booby or doc. Can't outhink them. No how, no way.

Spock wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 05, 2024 2:35 pm

Weyoun wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 05, 2024 1:20 pm

Your theory would not explain why recruitment also dropped off during the Trump era.

It could be that rural whites are a dying people, addicted to handouts and drugs, like other peoples they make fun of.

Keep on with the contempt. I am sure that "White Rural Rage" will never turn to Justifiable Anger.

You know, for a "dying people" I see a lot of young, rural white families with 3 or 4 kids and the funny part is most of those young parents seemed to have come from families with 2 kids.

I know, you will attack me for "Anecdotal Evidence" but whatever.

I still can't figure out why you think SSS is such a rhetorical giant when all he does is call people names, make personal attacks and "Naz, Nazi, Nazi."

And I am still totally at a loss as to why you consider me a "Putin-Lover."

Spock wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 05, 2024 10:35 pm

Spock wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 05, 2024 2:35 pm

Weyoun wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 05, 2024 1:20 pm

Your theory would not explain why recruitment also dropped off during the Trump era.

It could be that rural whites are a dying people, addicted to handouts and drugs, like other peoples they make fun of.

Keep on with the contempt. I am sure that "White Rural Rage" will never turn to Justifiable Anger.

You know, for a "dying people" I see a lot of young, rural white families with 3 or 4 kids and the funny part is most of those young parents seemed to have come from families with 2 kids.

I know, you will attack me for "Anecdotal Evidence" but whatever.

I still can't figure out why you think SSS is such a rhetorical giant when all he does is call people names, make personal attacks and "Naz, Nazi, Nazi."

And I am still totally at a loss as to why you consider me a "Putin-Lover."

You know, I wonder if the people who are really "dying out" might be urban and suburban white liberals-who have piss poor family formation rates, abort their kids through the best child bearing years and who might have one designer baby at age 42.

Spock wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 05, 2024 8:43 pm

I might get jumped for this one-but sort of fits with the thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QicPM_2atqE

Blackwater's Erik Prince on what Civil War looks like in 2024.

The gist is a quick listen from 3:30 to 5:00.

He says any potential split is Rural VS Urban and that you would not want to be in the big blue cities because they lack food and water.

Weyoun wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 06, 2024 6:49 am

Spock wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 05, 2024 8:43 pm

I might get jumped for this one-but sort of fits with the thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QicPM_2atqE

Blackwater's Erik Prince on what Civil War looks like in 2024.

The gist is a quick listen from 3:30 to 5:00.

He says any potential split is Rural VS Urban and that you would not want to be in the big blue cities because they lack food and water.

Spock: “I think about all the time destroying the most successful country in history, so some white suburban liberals get shot. But no, I’m not a fascist at all.”

Jonathan Zimmerman wrote:I recently read Gender Queer, Maia Kobabe’s best-selling memoir about coming of age as a nonbinary person. It’s an honest and forthright portrayal of the challenges facing sexual minorities in our society. I’m outraged that so many schools and libraries have banned or restricted it.

But I’m also outraged that some libraries and bookstores have banned Abigail Shrier’s book, Irreversible Damage, which attributes the rise of gender surgeries among young women to “social contagion” — that is, to the messages these women are receiving — rather than to their inherent identities.

That’s how I differ from some of my fellow liberals, who scream bloody murder about restrictions on books they love but seem perfectly happy to remove ones that they loathe. I understand — and, in many ways, share — their distaste for Irreversible Damage. But you can’t fight censorship with one hand if you’re furthering it with the other.

Consider the kerfuffle earlier this year in Blue Hill, Maine, an affluent, left-leaning community with a well-endowed public library. When the library accepted a donation of Irreversible Damage and placed it on display, residents posted angry messages on Facebook and accosted the library’s staff at the local post office and grocery store.

“They would say, ‘I can’t believe the library is allowing this,’” the library board president recounted. “My feeling was, ‘I can’t believe the library would not allow it, based on its position on free access to information.’”

I can’t believe it, either, but it’s happening. When it comes to free expression, even liberals have become illiberal.

That includes the American Booksellers Association, which proudly touts its anti-censorship bona fides. A sponsor of Banned Books Week, an annual event that proclaims “the value of free and open access to information,” the association issued an abject apology after it sent Irreversible Damage to 750 bookstores in 2021.

“An anti-trans book was included in our July mailing to members,” the American Booksellers Association declared, noting the “pain” and “harm” it had caused to the trans community. “This is a serious, violent incident that goes against ABA’s policies, values, and everything we believe and support. It is inexcusable.”

Here’s what’s inexcusable: An organization ostensibly devoted to the “freedom to read” closed the book on it. According to illiberal liberals, you should be free to read what they like. Everything else is off the table.

So in the wake of the George Floyd police murder in 2020, the resolutely leftist school district in Burbank, Calif., barred teachers from assigning To Kill a Mockingbird and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, on the grounds that these books (which both use the N-word) cause “harm and trauma” to Black students.

Never mind that many leading Black authors — from Langston Hughes to Toni Morrison — have praised Huck Finn, which indicted American slavery and racism. These books threaten young readers, the argument goes. We can’t allow that.

And never mind that conservatives have invoked the same argument to ban Gender Queer and other LGBTQ-themed books. In Cumberland, Maine — just a few hours down the coast from Blue Hill — a parent read several passages from Gender Queer to his school board and demanded that it be removed from the school library. “That’s what our kids are seeing, and you’re OK with that?” he asked, calling the passages “pornographic.”

Thankfully, the Cumberland school board retained Gender Queer for its high school library. And I’m also grateful to report that the town library in Blue Hill stuck to its guns and held on to Irreversible Damage.

But it got no help from the American Library Association, another sponsor of Banned Books Week. When the library’s director reached out to the ALA for a letter of support, he said, it “ghosted” him.

To her credit, the director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom privately apologized to him. She also told reporters that she opposed using “the tools of the censors” against Irreversible Damage. But there would be no official statement of support from the ALA, where the book had sparked considerable “internal debate.”

That speaks volumes, in its own right. What’s to debate, really? Either you believe in intellectual freedom, or you don’t. If you do, you’ll defend books you find harmful or offensive. And if you don’t, you’ll try to eliminate them.

Next Monday is Right to Read Day, when the ALA asks citizens to “stand up to censorship” from “organized pressure groups” that want to ban books. And let’s be clear: The vast majority of the attacks on books have come from the political right, not from the left.

But if my fellow liberals don’t stand up for freedom — for everyone — we won’t have a leg to stand on as conservatives try to tear it down. When we adopt the tools of the censor, everybody loses.

jarnon wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 02, 2024 12:31 pm

Jonathan Zimmerman wrote:I recently read Gender Queer, Maia Kobabe’s best-selling memoir about coming of age as a nonbinary person. It’s an honest and forthright portrayal of the challenges facing sexual minorities in our society. I’m outraged that so many schools and libraries have banned or restricted it.

But I’m also outraged that some libraries and bookstores have banned Abigail Shrier’s book, Irreversible Damage, which attributes the rise of gender surgeries among young women to “social contagion” — that is, to the messages these women are receiving — rather than to their inherent identities.

That’s how I differ from some of my fellow liberals, who scream bloody murder about restrictions on books they love but seem perfectly happy to remove ones that they loathe. I understand — and, in many ways, share — their distaste for Irreversible Damage. But you can’t fight censorship with one hand if you’re furthering it with the other.

Consider the kerfuffle earlier this year in Blue Hill, Maine, an affluent, left-leaning community with a well-endowed public library. When the library accepted a donation of Irreversible Damage and placed it on display, residents posted angry messages on Facebook and accosted the library’s staff at the local post office and grocery store.

“They would say, ‘I can’t believe the library is allowing this,’” the library board president recounted. “My feeling was, ‘I can’t believe the library would not allow it, based on its position on free access to information.’”

I can’t believe it, either, but it’s happening. When it comes to free expression, even liberals have become illiberal.

That includes the American Booksellers Association, which proudly touts its anti-censorship bona fides. A sponsor of Banned Books Week, an annual event that proclaims “the value of free and open access to information,” the association issued an abject apology after it sent Irreversible Damage to 750 bookstores in 2021.

“An anti-trans book was included in our July mailing to members,” the American Booksellers Association declared, noting the “pain” and “harm” it had caused to the trans community. “This is a serious, violent incident that goes against ABA’s policies, values, and everything we believe and support. It is inexcusable.”

Here’s what’s inexcusable: An organization ostensibly devoted to the “freedom to read” closed the book on it. According to illiberal liberals, you should be free to read what they like. Everything else is off the table.

So in the wake of the George Floyd police murder in 2020, the resolutely leftist school district in Burbank, Calif., barred teachers from assigning To Kill a Mockingbird and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, on the grounds that these books (which both use the N-word) cause “harm and trauma” to Black students.

Never mind that many leading Black authors — from Langston Hughes to Toni Morrison — have praised Huck Finn, which indicted American slavery and racism. These books threaten young readers, the argument goes. We can’t allow that.

And never mind that conservatives have invoked the same argument to ban Gender Queer and other LGBTQ-themed books. In Cumberland, Maine — just a few hours down the coast from Blue Hill — a parent read several passages from Gender Queer to his school board and demanded that it be removed from the school library. “That’s what our kids are seeing, and you’re OK with that?” he asked, calling the passages “pornographic.”

Thankfully, the Cumberland school board retained Gender Queer for its high school library. And I’m also grateful to report that the town library in Blue Hill stuck to its guns and held on to Irreversible Damage.

But it got no help from the American Library Association, another sponsor of Banned Books Week. When the library’s director reached out to the ALA for a letter of support, he said, it “ghosted” him.

To her credit, the director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom privately apologized to him. She also told reporters that she opposed using “the tools of the censors” against Irreversible Damage. But there would be no official statement of support from the ALA, where the book had sparked considerable “internal debate.”

That speaks volumes, in its own right. What’s to debate, really? Either you believe in intellectual freedom, or you don’t. If you do, you’ll defend books you find harmful or offensive. And if you don’t, you’ll try to eliminate them.

Next Monday is Right to Read Day, when the ALA asks citizens to “stand up to censorship” from “organized pressure groups” that want to ban books. And let’s be clear: The vast majority of the attacks on books have come from the political right, not from the left.

But if my fellow liberals don’t stand up for freedom — for everyone — we won’t have a leg to stand on as conservatives try to tear it down. When we adopt the tools of the censor, everybody loses.

Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Zimmerman and Spock don’t agree on much. In fact, Spock may label him a communist. Hopefully we can all agree that banning books for ideological reasons is antithetical to democracy.