Nov 8, 2016 - The lesser of two evils?

[Too_Funny]

I thought this article was pretty interesting

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/24/bannon-state-smashing-change-is-real-commentary.html

Thanks for sharing MJ, and indeed very interesting. First correction however. Bannon himself nevet met the claimant who ascribed the leninist tag on him. Daily Beast, a proverbial shmata, has a history of character-assasinations and false accussations. Also from an ideological point of view leninism is diametrically opposed to free market, regulation busting ideology Bannon professes. So one can smell a rat.

What hes speaking against is crony capitalism (where rules are skewed towards a political class) combined with regulatory capture to horde and horde. As one example look up solyndra scandal, and feel depressed you and your children will be paying whie someone takes the money and runs. Regulatory capture is also one reason for big government.. check it out.

One more thing for now: What Bannon speaks of deconstruction is a relatively well know concept of decentralization, which has three sub-components - delegation, deconcentration and devolution, where delegation relinquishes some power while devolution is the strongest measure of getting government closer to people. Centralizing in contrast has the opposite effect ... including skyrocketing costs and that means higher taxes for you.

Gandhi similarly had a vision of "village confederates" as the foremost organizing principle of governance and the centre wouldnt have much except national defense and national public goods under their purview.

Sorry for being theoretical but on social media many people confuse decentralization with annihilating the centre.

 

[bamafan]

I thought this article was pretty interesting

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/24/bannon-state-smashing-change-is-real-commentary.html

Thanks for sharing MJ, and indeed very interesting. First correction however. Bannon himself nevet met the claimant who ascribed the leninist tag on him. Daily Beast, a proverbial shmata, has a history of character-assasinations and false accussations. Also from an ideological point of view leninism is diametrically opposed to free market, regulation busting ideology Bannon professes. So one can smell a rat.

What hes speaking against is crony capitalism (where rules are skewed towards a political class) combined with regulatory capture to horde and horde. As one example look up solyndra scandal, and feel depressed you and your children will be paying whie someone takes the money and runs. Regulatory capture is also one reason for big government.. check it out.

One more thing for now: What Bannon speaks of deconstruction is a relatively well know concept of decentralization, which has three sub-components - delegation, deconcentration and devolution, where delegation relinquishes some power while devolution is the strongest measure of getting government closer to people. Centralizing in contrast has the opposite effect ... including skyrocketing costs and that means higher taxes for you.

Gandhi similarly had a vision of "village confederates" as the foremost organizing principle of governance and the centre wouldnt have much except national defense and national public goods under their purview.

Sorry for being theoretical but on social media many people confuse decentralization with annihilating the centre.

You do know there is a St. John's game going on while you posted in a political thread don't you. At least I waited until half time. Get politics out of sports!

 

[Too_Funny]

Shoot I am currently 10 hours ahead in time zones and got it wrong. sorry on to the game now.

 

[Too_Funny]

Maybe I shouldnt watch if they are winning

 

[Too_Funny]

Just to let you know that in true superstitious sense ... i did not watch from when I found out online they were ahead ... beginning of second half ... so there!

 

[Too_Funny]

It's always possible the the left will fracture under the weight of the discontents of its various aggrieved factions: for example, it will be interesting to see what happens when the first Muslim confectioner refuses to bake a cake for a gay wedding and instead beheads the grooms; or when the [strike]illegal alien[/strike] undocumented slave labor force demands a $15 hour minimum wage equivalent to that received by the unskilled baristas whose organic vegetables they pick.

I wanted to ask about your interesting statement above (which we were discussing in the context of whether there is any hope for the liberal ideology to shift). I wanted to ask it in terms of centralization and globalization where both outcomes according to the liberal belief lead to the bettering of national and global public goods, in that, greater homogeneity of culture and identity leads to improvements through collective, common behaviour. On the flip-side some people argue against globalization because it promotes the "Macdonaldization of the Globe", a catch all term for greater loss of cultural and identity diversity. Nevertheless, you statement implies resistance to homogeneity because why would a Muslim confectioner or a Illegal alien rebel against the rubric of this trend ... Trying to work out whether greater globalization will be either (greater homogeneity) or (further revolt, further diversity) in terms of culture and identity. I currently stand at seeing both realities.

 

[fun]

I wanted to ask about your interesting statement above (which we were discussing in the context of whether there is any hope for the liberal ideology to shift). I wanted to ask it in terms of centralization and globalization where both outcomes according to the liberal belief lead to the bettering of national and global public goods, in that, greater homogeneity of culture and identity leads to improvements through collective, common behaviour. On the flip-side some people argue against globalization because it promotes the "Macdonaldization of the Globe", a catch all term for greater loss of cultural and identity diversity. Nevertheless, you statement implies resistance to homogeneity because why would a Muslim confectioner or a Illegal alien rebel against the rubric of this trend ... Trying to work out whether greater globalization will be either (greater homogeneity) or (further revolt, further diversity) in terms of culture and identity. I currently stand at seeing both realities.

I'm talking less about outcomes than I am the cognitive dissonance on the left, who are for example vociferous supporters of sexual rights and freedoms up to and including mental illnesses like gender dysphoria and who portray anyone who disagrees with them in the slightest degree as backwater fundamentalist christian bigots while at the same time championing unfettered immigration from countries that punish homosexuality by death, at least some of which immigrants would be happy were the laws under which they live'd previously imported along with them. That seems a lot of baggage to drag around. It seems to me that feminists who demand respect and comity for a religion that promotes genital mutilation and honor killing should be a conflicted lot; instead they quake in the face of benign Protestantism because one time 20 years ago some lunatic christian shot an abortion doctor. If one christian does something once, all christians are guilty of it always and likely to do it again; if a bunch of muslims do the same thing over and over and over, hashtag not all muslims.

Homogeneity and globalization are going to have different outcomes depending where you are when the process started, because in the end it's just a regression toward the mean. Poor people will get richer and rich people will get poorer until everyone has the same amount - except the ruling class obviously, they cannot be expected to rule wisely in the absence of luxury. Recall a couple of election cycles ago when when Obama said (to Joe the Plumber) that "when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." Leave aside that that's simply not true: if you're wealthy enough it's not good for you but you don't notice and if you're on the receiving end it's great but there's a great swath of humanity that's poor enough to notice and rich enough to not receive any benefit other than a patronizing pat on the head for doing what Obama and his ilk deem moral. That statement to me crystallizes Obama's world view. He believes in taxes and big government as a machine to redistribute wealth domestically. He believes in open borders as a means of sharing American prosperity with less prosperous citizens of the world. His foreign policy was aimed at dissipating America's cultural power and influence - not because America's role as protector of the free world imposed a financial and social burden on US citizens, but because fairness comprises accommodating the perspectives of the less fortunate, even of those perspectives are as primitive and repressive as the regimes that spawned them.

That's left finds it unfair that we are each born subject to various cultural economic and genetic boons and detriments and so have set about normalizing the human condition. The problem is their path to true equality requires a slog through the rice paddies and if history is any indication ends in front of a sign reading arbeit macht frei.

 

[Too_Funny]

I'm talking less about outcomes than I am the cognitive dissonance on the left, who are for example vociferous supporters of sexual rights and freedoms up to and including mental illnesses like gender dysphoria and who portray anyone who disagrees with them in the slightest degree as backwater fundamentalist christian bigots while at the same time championing unfettered immigration from countries that punish homosexuality by death, at least some of which immigrants would be happy were the laws under which they live'd previously imported along with them.

Understood and excuse the quote dysfunctionality in me. In the age of doublethink, that is, the unfathomable level of indoctrination like the slow drip drop of Chinese water torture has almost completely discombobulated my own measure of reasoning, and has me thinking that it has to be me who is a lunatic. Because how can you be so willing to accept the exception in Muslims but not even remotely close to allowing any concession in Christians. Today's brief exchange with a liberal white male on FB played out exactly the same way ... with him saying that the profile of real terrorists is White, Racist, Gun-loving Conservative Male and very very few are Muslims. To his consternation, I said "I am a Muslim and you are full of shit. While you allow all sorts passes to Muslims, your egregious definition has transmogrified a massively diverse population of people into a homogeneous whole, and you should be ashamed of yourself."

From this point of view, the homogeneity (overall liberal) project nears completion, and reminds me of Arndt's book Eichmann in Jerusalem (I know it is controversial). In the book, Arndt likened Eichmann's behaviour to a "joiner" who needed to belong and with full conviction bought into the Nazi ideology in that it gave him the conviction needed to carry out the most heinous of crimes but he justified them as the ends justified the means - meaning it is not that he couldnt tell the diffrence between right and wrong anymore but his conviction ruled supreme. This is precisely to me is what a Jihadi mentality is, and the bulk of the left now. This to me is the essence of cognitive dissonance or doublethink.

Homogeneity and globalization are going to have different outcomes depending where you are when the process started, because in the end it's just a regression toward the mean. Poor people will get richer and rich people will get poorer until everyone has the same amount - except the ruling class obviously, they cannot be expected to rule wisely in the absence of luxury.

I agree with this, and just to add that there is an average among the economic, social and cultural managers class, and average of the people who actually work class. On my visits to the developing world you can see the reach of the media outlets in forming people opinions, their tastes in food, clothing, housing and so on, and its power is unbelievable at the global scale.

Where I find incongruence is the rise of sub-national identities, witness the Bosnian war, Rwandan Genocide, and especially here - the white male or white female tea party members, and the rest of the identities. Is it because the liberal project needs these straw(wo)man enemies as a way to cohere the rest of us into submission?

arbeit macht frei.

And according to Chairman Mao "What is work? Work is struggle.

 

[mjmaherjr]

I'm talking less about outcomes than I am the cognitive dissonance on the left, who are for example vociferous supporters of sexual rights and freedoms up to and including mental illnesses like gender dysphoria and who portray anyone who disagrees with them in the slightest degree as backwater fundamentalist christian bigots while at the same time championing unfettered immigration from countries that punish homosexuality by death, at least some of which immigrants would be happy were the laws under which they live'd previously imported along with them.

Understood and excuse the quote dysfunctionality in me. In the age of doublethink, that is, the unfathomable level of indoctrination like the slow drip drop of Chinese water torture has almost completely discombobulated my own measure of reasoning, and has me thinking that it has to be me who is a lunatic. Because how can you be so willing to accept the exception in Muslims but not even remotely close to allowing any concession in Christians. Today's brief exchange with a liberal white male on FB played out exactly the same way ... with him saying that the profile of real terrorists is White, Racist, Gun-loving Conservative Male and very very few are Muslims. To his consternation, I said "I am a Muslim and you are full of shit. While you allow all sorts passes to Muslims, your egregious definition has transmogrified a massively diverse population of people into a homogeneous whole, and you should be ashamed of yourself."

From this point of view, the homogeneity (overall liberal) project nears completion, and reminds me of Arndt's book Eichmann in Jerusalem (I know it is controversial). In the book, Arndt likened Eichmann's behaviour to a "joiner" who needed to belong and with full conviction bought into the Nazi ideology in that it gave him the conviction needed to carry out the most heinous of crimes but he justified them as the ends justified the means - meaning it is not that he couldnt tell the diffrence between right and wrong anymore but his conviction ruled supreme. This is precisely to me is what a Jihadi mentality is, and the bulk of the left now. This to me is the essence of cognitive dissonance or doublethink.

Homogeneity and globalization are going to have different outcomes depending where you are when the process started, because in the end it's just a regression toward the mean. Poor people will get richer and rich people will get poorer until everyone has the same amount - except the ruling class obviously, they cannot be expected to rule wisely in the absence of luxury.

I agree with this, and just to add that there is an average among the economic, social and cultural managers class, and average of the people who actually work class. On my visits to the developing world you can see the reach of the media outlets in forming people opinions, their tastes in food, clothing, housing and so on, and its power is unbelievable at the global scale.

Where I find incongruence is the rise of sub-national identities, witness the Bosnian war, Rwandan Genocide, and especially here - the white male or white female tea party members, and the rest of the identities. Is it because the liberal project needs these straw(wo)man enemies as a way to cohere the rest of us into submission?

arbeit macht frei.

And according to Chairman Mao "What is work? Work is struggle.

Curious what your perspective of the current state of affairs in the battle for Mosul and what the endgame might be once finished. For some reason this one really interests me. I pretty much read whatever I can find on it each day for the last few months and it seems like the really big fighting will be starting again in the next week

 

[fuchsia]

Ez-uzi and Fun, We have not yet seen what happens when thuggery and the world of # of likes on facebook confront one another. In the Weimar era of Hitler's rise there was not only economic hardship but loss of social status as long held roles were now not viable to provide for a family. Voters in this circumstance may have been a key ingredient in President Trump's election. If there is now a big segment of the populace that gets its belief reinforcement from social media (from either side of the ism divide) will it sustain?

MJM, Mosul raises the issue of what will happen to those who collaborated with ISIS, their civilian victims, and the few ISIS fighters that survive.

 

[Too_Funny]

I'm talking less about outcomes than I am the cognitive dissonance on the left, who are for example vociferous supporters of sexual rights and freedoms up to and including mental illnesses like gender dysphoria and who portray anyone who disagrees with them in the slightest degree as backwater fundamentalist christian bigots while at the same time championing unfettered immigration from countries that punish homosexuality by death, at least some of which immigrants would be happy were the laws under which they live'd previously imported along with them.

Understood and excuse the quote dysfunctionality in me. In the age of doublethink, that is, the unfathomable level of indoctrination like the slow drip drop of Chinese water torture has almost completely discombobulated my own measure of reasoning, and has me thinking that it has to be me who is a lunatic. Because how can you be so willing to accept the exception in Muslims but not even remotely close to allowing any concession in Christians. Today's brief exchange with a liberal white male on FB played out exactly the same way ... with him saying that the profile of real terrorists is White, Racist, Gun-loving Conservative Male and very very few are Muslims. To his consternation, I said "I am a Muslim and you are full of shit. While you allow all sorts passes to Muslims, your egregious definition has transmogrified a massively diverse population of people into a homogeneous whole, and you should be ashamed of yourself."

From this point of view, the homogeneity (overall liberal) project nears completion, and reminds me of Arndt's book Eichmann in Jerusalem (I know it is controversial). In the book, Arndt likened Eichmann's behaviour to a "joiner" who needed to belong and with full conviction bought into the Nazi ideology in that it gave him the conviction needed to carry out the most heinous of crimes but he justified them as the ends justified the means - meaning it is not that he couldnt tell the diffrence between right and wrong anymore but his conviction ruled supreme. This is precisely to me is what a Jihadi mentality is, and the bulk of the left now. This to me is the essence of cognitive dissonance or doublethink.

Homogeneity and globalization are going to have different outcomes depending where you are when the process started, because in the end it's just a regression toward the mean. Poor people will get richer and rich people will get poorer until everyone has the same amount - except the ruling class obviously, they cannot be expected to rule wisely in the absence of luxury.

I agree with this, and just to add that there is an average among the economic, social and cultural managers class, and average of the people who actually work class. On my visits to the developing world you can see the reach of the media outlets in forming people opinions, their tastes in food, clothing, housing and so on, and its power is unbelievable at the global scale.

Where I find incongruence is the rise of sub-national identities, witness the Bosnian war, Rwandan Genocide, and especially here - the white male or white female tea party members, and the rest of the identities. Is it because the liberal project needs these straw(wo)man enemies as a way to cohere the rest of us into submission?

arbeit macht frei.

And according to Chairman Mao "What is work? Work is struggle.

Curious what your perspective of the current state of affairs in the battle for Mosul and what the endgame might be once finished. For some reason this one really interests me. I pretty much read whatever I can find on it each day for the last few months and it seems like the really big fighting will be starting again in the next week

Would like to hear what your thoughts on endgame are too. To me, ill say this about Trump's endgame. It is to end the endless war on terror and try to have Russia play the main fighting role by ravaging the area, but US and other allies foot the bill. The strategy needs to ashamedly allow Saudi wishes of some control in whos in charge when the dust settles in order to end supply of arms to ISIS. itll have to be clever in undoing the collaborations and policies that created the mess thats there to begin with.

 

[mjmaherjr]

MJM, Mosul raises the issue of what will happen to those who collaborated with ISIS, their civilian victims, and the few ISIS fighters that survive.

Agree and I'm not sure where I stand on that to be honest with you. I've read about abuses in eastern Mosul. I kind of expected it I guess. And if it was me with family subjected to their atrocities I cant honestly say that I would be taking the high road with some of them either.

Not that any of us should like the guy but I found Al Sadr's proposal for a post liberated Mosul kind of interesting with some of his points the other day

 

[mjmaherjr]

I'm talking less about outcomes than I am the cognitive dissonance on the left, who are for example vociferous supporters of sexual rights and freedoms up to and including mental illnesses like gender dysphoria and who portray anyone who disagrees with them in the slightest degree as backwater fundamentalist christian bigots while at the same time championing unfettered immigration from countries that punish homosexuality by death, at least some of which immigrants would be happy were the laws under which they live'd previously imported along with them.

Understood and excuse the quote dysfunctionality in me. In the age of doublethink, that is, the unfathomable level of indoctrination like the slow drip drop of Chinese water torture has almost completely discombobulated my own measure of reasoning, and has me thinking that it has to be me who is a lunatic. Because how can you be so willing to accept the exception in Muslims but not even remotely close to allowing any concession in Christians. Today's brief exchange with a liberal white male on FB played out exactly the same way ... with him saying that the profile of real terrorists is White, Racist, Gun-loving Conservative Male and very very few are Muslims. To his consternation, I said "I am a Muslim and you are full of shit. While you allow all sorts passes to Muslims, your egregious definition has transmogrified a massively diverse population of people into a homogeneous whole, and you should be ashamed of yourself."

From this point of view, the homogeneity (overall liberal) project nears completion, and reminds me of Arndt's book Eichmann in Jerusalem (I know it is controversial). In the book, Arndt likened Eichmann's behaviour to a "joiner" who needed to belong and with full conviction bought into the Nazi ideology in that it gave him the conviction needed to carry out the most heinous of crimes but he justified them as the ends justified the means - meaning it is not that he couldnt tell the diffrence between right and wrong anymore but his conviction ruled supreme. This is precisely to me is what a Jihadi mentality is, and the bulk of the left now. This to me is the essence of cognitive dissonance or doublethink.

Homogeneity and globalization are going to have different outcomes depending where you are when the process started, because in the end it's just a regression toward the mean. Poor people will get richer and rich people will get poorer until everyone has the same amount - except the ruling class obviously, they cannot be expected to rule wisely in the absence of luxury.

I agree with this, and just to add that there is an average among the economic, social and cultural managers class, and average of the people who actually work class. On my visits to the developing world you can see the reach of the media outlets in forming people opinions, their tastes in food, clothing, housing and so on, and its power is unbelievable at the global scale.

Where I find incongruence is the rise of sub-national identities, witness the Bosnian war, Rwandan Genocide, and especially here - the white male or white female tea party members, and the rest of the identities. Is it because the liberal project needs these straw(wo)man enemies as a way to cohere the rest of us into submission?

arbeit macht frei.

And according to Chairman Mao "What is work? Work is struggle.

Curious what your perspective of the current state of affairs in the battle for Mosul and what the endgame might be once finished. For some reason this one really interests me. I pretty much read whatever I can find on it each day for the last few months and it seems like the really big fighting will be starting again in the next week

Would like to hear what your thoughts on endgame are too. To me, ill say this about Trump's endgame. It is to end the endless war on terror and try to have Russia play the main fighting role by ravaging the area, but US and other allies foot the bill. The strategy needs to ashamedly allow Saudi wishes of some control in whos in charge when the dust settles in order to end supply of arms to ISIS. itll have to be clever in undoing the collaborations and policies that created the mess thats there to begin with.

I hate to say it but I found parts of Al Sadr's post Mosul plan interesting.

I'm probably the wrong person to ask because I was dead set against going into Iraq to begin with. All I know is for the most part the post war govt rule in Iraq has been ridiculous. I also think we let Saudi Arabia get away with way too much which is why I was curious what you thought of Saudi Arabia.

But I dont really have a good feel for the middle east. The only places we have visited there are Israel,the west bank,Jordan and Turkey ( whether you want to say they are European or Middle East either way it's close enough )

 

[Too_Funny]

Ez-uzi and Fun, We have not yet seen what happens when thuggery and the world of # of likes on facebook confront one another.

True but its increasingly beginning to feel like the white male christian conservative is the "new jew" of this "new fascism" - and i dont throw words like fascism around like its out of style, and im not even a white christain and its beginning to feel spooky in the hate (not likes) against this group.

 

[Too_Funny]

I'm talking less about outcomes than I am the cognitive dissonance on the left, who are for example vociferous supporters of sexual rights and freedoms up to and including mental illnesses like gender dysphoria and who portray anyone who disagrees with them in the slightest degree as backwater fundamentalist christian bigots while at the same time championing unfettered immigration from countries that punish homosexuality by death, at least some of which immigrants would be happy were the laws under which they live'd previously imported along with them.

Understood and excuse the quote dysfunctionality in me. In the age of doublethink, that is, the unfathomable level of indoctrination like the slow drip drop of Chinese water torture has almost completely discombobulated my own measure of reasoning, and has me thinking that it has to be me who is a lunatic. Because how can you be so willing to accept the exception in Muslims but not even remotely close to allowing any concession in Christians. Today's brief exchange with a liberal white male on FB played out exactly the same way ... with him saying that the profile of real terrorists is White, Racist, Gun-loving Conservative Male and very very few are Muslims. To his consternation, I said "I am a Muslim and you are full of shit. While you allow all sorts passes to Muslims, your egregious definition has transmogrified a massively diverse population of people into a homogeneous whole, and you should be ashamed of yourself."

From this point of view, the homogeneity (overall liberal) project nears completion, and reminds me of Arndt's book Eichmann in Jerusalem (I know it is controversial). In the book, Arndt likened Eichmann's behaviour to a "joiner" who needed to belong and with full conviction bought into the Nazi ideology in that it gave him the conviction needed to carry out the most heinous of crimes but he justified them as the ends justified the means - meaning it is not that he couldnt tell the diffrence between right and wrong anymore but his conviction ruled supreme. This is precisely to me is what a Jihadi mentality is, and the bulk of the left now. This to me is the essence of cognitive dissonance or doublethink.

Homogeneity and globalization are going to have different outcomes depending where you are when the process started, because in the end it's just a regression toward the mean. Poor people will get richer and rich people will get poorer until everyone has the same amount - except the ruling class obviously, they cannot be expected to rule wisely in the absence of luxury.

I agree with this, and just to add that there is an average among the economic, social and cultural managers class, and average of the people who actually work class. On my visits to the developing world you can see the reach of the media outlets in forming people opinions, their tastes in food, clothing, housing and so on, and its power is unbelievable at the global scale.

Where I find incongruence is the rise of sub-national identities, witness the Bosnian war, Rwandan Genocide, and especially here - the white male or white female tea party members, and the rest of the identities. Is it because the liberal project needs these straw(wo)man enemies as a way to cohere the rest of us into submission?

arbeit macht frei.

And according to Chairman Mao "What is work? Work is struggle.

Curious what your perspective of the current state of affairs in the battle for Mosul and what the endgame might be once finished. For some reason this one really interests me. I pretty much read whatever I can find on it each day for the last few months and it seems like the really big fighting will be starting again in the next week

Would like to hear what your thoughts on endgame are too. To me, ill say this about Trump's endgame. It is to end the endless war on terror and try to have Russia play the main fighting role by ravaging the area, but US and other allies foot the bill. The strategy needs to ashamedly allow Saudi wishes of some control in whos in charge when the dust settles in order to end supply of arms to ISIS. itll have to be clever in undoing the collaborations and policies that created the mess thats there to begin with.

I hate to say it but I found parts of Al Sadr's post Mosul plan interesting.

I'm probably the wrong person to ask because I was dead set against going into Iraq to begin with. All I know is for the most part the post war govt rule in Iraq has been ridiculous. I also think we let Saudi Arabia get away with way too much which is why I was curious what you thought of Saudi Arabia.

But I dont really have a good feel for the middle east. The only places we have visited there are Israel,the west bank,Jordan and Turkey ( whether you want to say they are European or Middle East either way it's close enough )

This history has a pattern. Remember the Mujahideen in Afghanistan who decimated the Soviet army through long term support by Reagan and Pakistam, and then turned violently against US when Clinton turned USs back on both them and Pakistan? This pattern repeats because govt change and policy objectives change. Trump has to clean up so much so ... perhaps this is why bannon's on permanently on NSC ... for continuity?

 

[Red.Fans]

Hey I've actually learned some stuff in this thread despite my disdain for politics and my commitment to not getting involved in this thread (which is sort of like my commitment to drinking less beer).

In any event, I recently did business with a gentleman whose first name was Jihad. My initial reaction was what you might expect so I looked it up to see if this was a common name and found some articles about it including some opinions that it was a beautiful name and that the media was to blame for making it something evil. The conversation here reminded me of this since it is now another word that I have to be careful in using. Even the Hitler/Nazi stuff reminded me of this since Hitler's manifesto was about his "Struggle" and Jihad also refers to struggle. Even a similarity here with Jews being a scapegoat of these struggles...

But thank you to all for keeping it civil for weeks now in our otherwise insane political environment.

Now: Clintons in bed with Saudis Trump in bed with Russians. Seems to me another battle for oil dominance.

 

[Too_Funny]

Hey I've actually learned some stuff in this thread despite my disdain for politics and my commitment to not getting involved in this thread (which is sort of like my commitment to drinking less beer).

In any event, I recently did business with a gentleman whose first name was Jihad. My initial reaction was what you might expect so I looked it up to see if this was a common name and found some articles about it including some opinions that it was a beautiful name and that the media was to blame for making it something evil. The conversation here reminded me of this since it is now another word that I have to be careful in using. Even the Hitler/Nazi stuff reminded me of this since Hitler's manifesto was about his "Struggle" and Jihad also refers to struggle. Even a similarity here with Jews being a scapegoat of these struggles...

But thank you to all for keeping it civil for weeks now in our otherwise insane political environment.

Now: Clintons in bed with Saudis Trump in bed with Russians. Seems to me another battle for oil dominance.

Jihad means an internal struggle to strive towards god, and i believe the best analogy for you maybe the internal struggle that Christ goes through ... The current words most distorted are however white christian conservative male ... as Jihad will ease out of the lexicon.

 

[Too_Funny]

Further Jihad has been highjacked because of its 5th and least advised option after jihad of the heart, word, pen, hand comes sword... and only two conditions are legal for this option to be exercised: For self-defence. When someone attacks you or when your nation has been attacked; and, Fighting against evil and unjust.

The reason the two are permissable is that t is a sin if a Muslim sees unjust been done, capable of stopping it, yet not doing anything about it. And second because the religion abhors suicide such as not defending yourself.

But this part completely wrongly is what extremists draw from.

In current discussion above a white gun lover is a Jihadi... ironic no?

 

[fun]

Understood and excuse the quote dysfunctionality in me. In the age of doublethink, that is, the unfathomable level of indoctrination like the slow drip drop of Chinese water torture has almost completely discombobulated my own measure of reasoning, and has me thinking that it has to be me who is a lunatic.

Because how can you be so willing to accept the exception in Muslims but not even remotely close to allowing any concession in Christians. Today's brief exchange with a liberal white male on FB played out exactly the same way ... with him saying that the profile of real terrorists is White, Racist, Gun-loving Conservative Male and very very few are Muslims. To his consternation, I said "I am a Muslim and you are full of shit. While you allow all sorts passes to Muslims, your egregious definition has transmogrified a massively diverse population of people into a homogeneous whole, and you should be ashamed of yourself."

To the left their politics is a secular religion and like theists they reason from the proposition that their belief system is singularly moral and absolute. To the extent that they notice their own hypocrisy that they are right just and moral excuses them from it. To a medieval christian thou shalt not kill didn't mean that Crusaders should not slaughter Malalukes and in fact the opposite: faith in the god of the commandments provided justification for the murder of His enemies. Today leftists who decry "racism" routinely vilify old white men on the basis of their race; who warn of Islamaphobia routinely vilify Christians based on their religion; who preach tolerance of every personal peccadillo vilify those who believe in traditional sexual and gender roles - and they do it without their heads exploding because of their immutable faith in their own rectitude.

From this point of view, the homogeneity (overall liberal) project nears completion, and reminds me of Arndt's book Eichmann in Jerusalem (I know it is controversial). In the book, Arndt likened Eichmann's behaviour to a "joiner" who needed to belong and with full conviction bought into the Nazi ideology in that it gave him the conviction needed to carry out the most heinous of crimes but he justified them as the ends justified the means - meaning it is not that he couldnt tell the diffrence between right and wrong anymore but his conviction ruled supreme. This is precisely to me is what a Jihadi mentality is, and the bulk of the left now. This to me is the essence of cognitive dissonance or doublethink.

[...]

I agree with this, and just to add that there is an average among the economic, social and cultural managers class, and average of the people who actually work class. On my visits to the developing world you can see the reach of the media outlets in forming people opinions, their tastes in food, clothing, housing and so on, and its power is unbelievable at the global scale.

Where I find incongruence is the rise of sub-national identities, witness the Bosnian war, Rwandan Genocide, and especially here - the white male or white female tea party members, and the rest of the identities. Is it because the liberal project needs these straw(wo)man enemies as a way to cohere the rest of us into submission?

I think you're on one level conflating here - the tea party was a relatively innocuous political movement that sought democratic redress to fiscal policies with which they disagreed. Whereas Hutus hacking millions of Tutsi to death with machetes was the most heinous expression of political violence since the Cambodian killing fields and was based on what? Political opportunism and public hysteria in the wake of tyranny and repression as vestiges of colonial mismanagement? Or whatver, because I don't know that atrocities on that scale can even be quantified rationally - you can't explain explain the Holocaust without descending into the madness that fomented it: if you don't work the word "evil" in there somewhere you're doing a disservice to the victims and if you do you've entered the world of spirits.

But yes, "identity" does come into it. For a certain type of believer it's as important to be a part of a group as it is to be able to stigmatize those who are outside the group: Jew versus Aryan; Muslim versus infidel; progressive versus troglodyte. I know I'm repeating myself but: if the group you belong to is good then those outside the group are bad and you can't burn the witch until you know who she is. That's not a left right issue: John Birch was as wrong and repulsive as Code Pink is in that regard. What's telling or remarkable or whatever pick your own adjective is that the culture and the dialogue is now so controlled by the left that one group is anethema and the other is mainstream. That is where the left has succeeded: in stigmatizing those who disagree with their agenda as enemies of cultural and intellectual progress. Hashtag Je suis Emmanuel Goldstein

 

[JohnnyFan]

This is a fascinating article. While it's premise is another attempt at describing Steve Bannon's philosophy, it is more theory than politics. Both sides could enjoy reading this.

Link: =.38ed3724af78