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Open thread April 15, 2016

Dan Crawford | April 15, 2016 9:21 am

Tags: open thread Comments (8) | Digg Facebook Twitter |
8 Comments
  • EMichael says:
    April 15, 2016 at 10:02 am

    Best article on the Dem Primary I have read so far.

    “And all this for what? A protracted contest is good, yes, but this circling of an ugly drain is not. This level of acrimony will not change anyone’s mind at this point. If you thought yesterday that Hillary Clinton’s Iraq vote and big money speeches to Wall Street and incremental approach to progress render her fight for the presidency a cynical exercise in corporatist identitarian politics, you think the same thing today, except probably more so. If you find Bernie primly hypocritical, his compromises on gun legislation disqualifying, and think it implausible that he’d have the wherewithal to implement a single piece of promised legislation, much less lead a revolution, you are likely even more irritated by him this morning than you were last weekend.

    But the chances are, you don’t even fall into either of those camps. Chances are you are badly torn, maybe lukewarm on both, or perhaps have a slight gut preference for one, but will mostly just be happy to vote for either against whichever Republican toad finds his way to the ballot against them in November.

    Between now and then of course, we have to select one. And since there’s no reason for either to drop out, I guess we’ll just keep wading through this foul swamp. But I wish it didn’t have to be so unpleasant; I wish we could all do better. Let’s make the American Democratic primary great again.”

    http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/04/democratic-contest-is-getting-nasty.html

  • Denis Drew says:
    April 15, 2016 at 10:08 am

    Today’s eighth-grade math ideas:

    You know how here in Chicago they used to pay people to go to the polls to vote $10-20 or whatever amount. I was thinking that suppose every last one in the African American community here (neighborhoods tend to be, I wouldn’t say racially segregated, but let’s say racial — sort of like Harlem in NYC used to be), every last one voted — how many thousands of dollars they all would be better off every year by influencing politicians. Idea being to explain that to everyone — get everyone organized around the idea that one hour of voting every two years could pay off thousands of dollars for that hour.

    What magic if it worked. Organize the same idea around different ethnic groups or any classification that can work together. Point out to African Americans that they already got Hillary nominated over Bernie (not a good idea to my mind) as evidence of their voting power. But, the idea of thousands of dollars for that hour — tell your neighbors we want their hour too so our hour pays off — that could really do it.
    * * * * * * * * * *
    Vaccines cause autism (shame Robert). People tend to visualized autism as some exotic happening which some people imagine science could be missing something about. But stress that it happens to something like one in 50 boys and that something so pervasive could not be hiding anything from huge medicine. Just a sales thought.

  • Arne says:
    April 15, 2016 at 1:38 pm

    Social Security is popular because (IMNSMO) it is seen as something everyone participates in and everyone benefits from. Welfare is not popular because it is seen as something that we have to provide to people who could not provide for themselves. I am a SS supporter, and can be swayed by word choice, so I prefer to call it a safety net, but I am aware that the progressive benefit structure of SS does provide an element of welfare.

    The Canadian safety net is two part with one an obvious welfare portion. It has an advantage over the US system of reaching people who are not able to participate in the work force.

    Is OAS, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Age_Security , unpopular? Is it always on conservative lists for potential program cuts the way welfare is in the US?

  • Arne says:
    April 15, 2016 at 1:39 pm

    oops, I guess I have a not so mumble opinion

  • Warren says:
    April 15, 2016 at 10:37 pm

    Denis, are you recommending the Democrats engage in illegal activity to get out the vote?

  • ilsm says:
    April 16, 2016 at 10:14 am

    Emichael,

    “And all this for what? A protracted contest is good, yes, but this circling of an ugly drain is not.”……

    The circle the dirty drain analogy works with my image of Clinton ruining the US.

    The analogy of her “sending out the “flying monkeys ” fits too.

    Arne,

    Your description of how Murkans view SS and welfare implies a rather hateful, tribal view.

    How come EUers are better people than Murkans?

  • ilsm says:
    April 16, 2016 at 10:15 am

    Warren, How much would Jeb! have gotten out at $100 per in NH?

    He still would have had yuuuge TV ad money!

  • Arne says:
    April 17, 2016 at 3:37 pm

    “implies a rather hateful, tribal view”
    Perhaps not hateful so much as uncaring.

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