Veronica Tash at the North Star:
On October 28, Bill Maher gave a long monologue about “false equivalency” between Trump and Clinton, denigrating the best informed generation of voters this election, millennials, of not being educated on the candidates and falsely equating Trump and Hillary as equally evil:
“I am so tired of hearing: ‘I know Trump’s a creep but Hillary doesn’t seem genuine.’ Grow the fuck up, she is a civil servant, not a craft beer. You know, whenever I’m out with my millennial friends, chasing the Pokéman or getting our nipples pierced, shaving our pubes or raging action figures while sending out dick pics, when the talk turns to election I hear some version of ‘Ugh. They’re both bad’ or ‘Ugh. They deserve each other’ or ‘There’s an election?’
“Republicans have one path to victory in this election and it’s called false equivalency. They can’t deny Trump is horrible – it’s on tape – so they want voters to believe Hillary is just as bad and in pursuit of that goal they have a very powerful ally: lazy people. People who like to say: ‘They’re all bad’ because when you say that you don’t have to do any homework; say ‘They’re all the same’ and then you can sound justifiably jaded by the entire process when really you just don’t know anything.
“You say you’re cynical about politics? Don’t flatter yourself. Cynical comes when you know too much; you, on the other hand, haven’t bothered to learn anything – which Americans, by the way, are capable of.“
Well Bill, it is you flattering yourself – at the expense of others wiser than yourself no less. With all the talk of millennials going around this election I had to do some research on where generational divides actually are, given that I recall as a kid being told I was in Generation Y. Apparently the current subjective breakdown of generations puts Generation X ending in 1984 and Millennials beginning in 1982. So, being born in 1982 I am one of the oldest millennials alive. I’ve also gotten my BA in Political Science from Wayne State University and have been in various leadership positions in the Socialist Party USA for over a decade and that includes 7 years elected onto their National Committee before I resigned from the party to focus on writing. I chaired their 2008 Presidential Campaign. It’s safe to say I know something about politics.
Your monologue reminds me of what Hillary supporters were saying in the primaries: “Do your own research,” ironically parroting Hillary. Bernie supporters had done their own research, extensively, which is how they gravitated to a candidate who was receiving practically no press until he won the Iowa Caucus. So let us do an extensive homework session into why Clinton is not only a bad choice, but the worst mainstream presidential candidate ever – including such horrible candidates as Donald Trump and Andrew “Trail of Tears” Jackson.
‘I didn’t say I was a social studies teacher. I said I was in the education field – and it was during this century.”
How would you know what was going on inside the social studies classroom unless you were instructing the class?
To be honest, I assumed the “continue reading” part just expanded the text. If it’s in part, yes, that is in fair use. My issue isnt’ that I don’t want it out there, but rather my concern is purely causing problems with me being employed. I desperately need to quit my 9-5. But now that you’ve pointed that out, no issue.
Welcome to our site, Veronica! And thanks for helping me spread the word about what a bad human being Hillary is. It’s beyond me that anyone in this country thinks she’ll make an acceptable President.
Just in case you stop back by, I should explain I did not republish your entire article, just an excerpt and a link back to the original. That’s generally considered “fair use” in republishing and if anything, drives traffic to your originals (paid or otherwise) so that people can finish the article as opposed to “stealing it away” (I put that in quotes; ironically, I, as a libertarian, am less of a fan of intellectual “property” than you, a socialist, apparently are…go figure). In other words we don’t have to ask authors and original publishers for permission as long as we give credit, use an excerpt and link back to the rest. If we had to get permission to use excerpts, this would get far too time consuming as it’s not a paid gig here either.
Personally, it eats up my time finding and posting these articles and reading and responding to the responses on here. While people are certainly welcome to go back to the original sources and comment there as well, personally I rarely do. I don’t have an expectation of original authors to participate in the discussion here; some do, but many don’t, and we use a lot of mainstream media sources as well, so it’s just not an expectation we have ever had. Honestly, there are many times when it does happen that I would characterize it as a pleasant surprise.
We’ve been sought out by at least one other author at North Star for republication, and I think we’ve used some of their other stuff with no complaints, but I’ll try to keep your personal preference in mind for the future (although I must admit my memory is far from perfect). And again, no expectation that you’ll stop back by here, but in case you do, if you use the same name and email combination your comments should post without delay from now on. They get held up the first time around as a security measure against spam. Another one we have is number of links per comment – I think the current setting is 5. Aside from that, the automated filter makes mistakes sometimes, for reasons that are not obvious to me, but most of the time it should post your reply right away.
DL: I didn’t say I was a social studies teacher. I said I was in the education field – and it was during this century.
Langa, I almost made the same mistake. . . I had to read carefully to see “centralist” rather than “centrist.”
Andy . . . whining as usual.
Paulie: Ignore Andy. I appreciate your posts and articles.
Hi, author here. A google search showed me that this was republished (had no knowledge) and apparently The North Star didn’t either. It’s not an issue in this case because they are a nonpaying publisher, and this message does need to get out there, but please make sure that once I get paying gigs that you don’t republish blindly.
But if you’re looking for responses, please ask the questions there. I’m not going to see the questions here.
By the way, Paulie, it’s good to see you back at IPR.
Ah, I see. I thought she was saying they were similar to centrist democrats (e.g. John Edwards). But now that I read a little closer, I see that she said “centralist” rather than “centrist” and the “democrat” wasn’t capitalized.
That’s because you may not be familiar with Marxist jargon.
dem·o·crat·ic cen·tral·ism
noun
the Leninist organizational system in which policy is decided centrally and is binding on all members.
Man, that was a long article. In her defense, the author made some good points, and certainly established herself as better informed than Bill Maher (not a very high bar to clear). However, she also caused me to come very close to spitting Mountain Dew all over my keyboard, when she casually referred to Gloria La Riva and Monica Moorehead as “centrist” candidates!
And I’m getting really tired of this. I have been doing this for over 8 years and have posted over 5,000 articles here personally. I know what meets our guidelines and what doesn’t. Instead of asking questions that answer themselves, how about contributing some articles? We need a lot more of them, and my motivation for posting them myself is pretty hard to maintain, especially when I get repeated and unwarranted nitpicking about the ones I do post.
http://www.mintpressnews.com/222061-2/222061/
I’d rather spend my time finding new articles to post than answering questions that can easily be answered by reading the article. It’s stated in the article, explicitly.
Read it and see if you can spot it. Not very hard to find.
What is the minor party or independent candidate tie in for this article?
This is a good article. I can’t believe how she has built an image that’s so unlike her real self. I’m glad to see other people realizing that, and writing about it.
“I had to stop reading this one pretty quickly. Once she said that millennials are the “best informed generation of voters this election,” I almost lost my lunch.
Having been in the education field for a bit a while back, I find her statement dubious, especially considering the almost completely dearth of civics in today’s social studies classes.
P.S. Bill Maher is right”
That millennials statement may or may not be true, but it is a red herring to the meat of the article. The author establishes HER credentials vis a vis political science before laying complete waste to Maher’s silly argument. Tony’s appeal to his own experience as a social studies instructor back in the day is an anecdotal fallacy refutation of his own red herring fallacy. it does not address the author’s argument.
Btw, Maher’s Real Time show is something I used to watch until it became clear that had transitioned from comedian to Democratic Party court jester( a transition that has paid him very, very,very well). These days his cerebrum appears neurologically CC’d to DNC talking points(to the point I’m surprised “Bill Maher’s Brain” did not show up in the Podesta emails). At 100% CPU utilization, he is spitting out Wikileaks along w/ Russia is engineering a right wing coup of the US Govt. During intermittent CPU down cycles, he is takes time to rehabilitate David Frum and Geore W. Bush as “responsible” opposition.
George Carlin this guy ain’t…
Veronica Tash has many comments underneath her own article (on North Star) and she says that drinking alcohol increase during prohibition. But the evidence says the opposite. Prohibition of alcohol was bad policy, but it did cut consumption of alcohol to about 50% of what it had been before prohibition began.
I had to stop reading this one pretty quickly. Once she said that millennials are the “best informed generation of voters this election,” I almost lost my lunch.
Having been in the education field for a bit a while back, I find her statement dubious, especially considering the almost completely dearth of civics in today’s social studies classes.
P.S. Bill Maher is right