Vocabulary Fail

This is probably the best thing I’ve seen on Twitter in weeks:

Isn’t it absolutely precious? The guy passionately denies that there’s Marxism in schools and then… offers the most primitive Marxist explanation in existence. And there’s no pause between the two statements.

This is what happens when you use words without trying to find out their meaning.

26 thoughts on “Vocabulary Fail

  1. That is a really weird statement, Marxists want people to be brainless sheep. That must have been a typo, Amazon wants its employees to be sheep.

    This week in my adventures as a substitute teacher in New Jersey, I subbed in a kindergarten class and everything seemed fine until music class. Since there were a lot of kids and no aide, I decided to stay with the class and help the music teacher.

    Thursday was the start of Black History Month so she played a video of Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing, which is considered the Black National Anthem. The video had Alicia Keys who is biracial and footage of BLM marches and African American athletes kneeling during the anthem and police brutality. Next she played the official video for Man in the Mirror by Michael Jackson which has scenes of starving African children, footage of civil rights protesters, the KKK, Nazi Germany and footage of various wars 😖😑

    I was speechless and thought to keep my mouth shut since I was a substitute for one day, but it was highly inappropriate for kindergartners since they can’t understand what they were seeing. Surely the teacher could have shown an animated video or something age appropriate, neither video is for little kids. Most of the children in class were African American and so was the teacher, as non-black person I’m outnumbered. It was a shame because they were sweet children and the school is actually very nice, but those videos are inappropriate for a kindergarten class

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    1. This is terrible but unrelated to Marxism.

      Marxism sees the economic motive as the most important one in every interaction at every level. Just like the author of the tweet.

      Everything else – no matter how unpleasant or disturbing – is not Marxism.

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      1. Marxists also seem to be stuck in a 19th century model of the economy.

        Amazon makes most of its profits from its tech division. If schools were really training workers for Amazon, they would be teaching them to code.

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          1. Amazon Web Services competes with Microsoft and Google. They could close down their retail division entirely and still make huge profits.

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      2. But do you think an average American is using the same definition of “Marxism” as you do?

        I tend to feel that for the majority “Marxism” has become one of those meaningless swearwords, which just mean “very bad”… The right is using it the same way the left is using “fascists”…

        V07

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        1. I know but it’s the same thing as with the definition of a man or a woman. There’s either objective truth and words reflect it, or everything is meaningless and reality is whatever we say it is. The same people who use “Marxism” or “socialism” to mean “things I dislike” are upset when a bearded dude says he’s a teenage girl.

          But what’s the difference? Both instances involve emptying words of meaning to advance a lie. The principle at work is the same.

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          1. ” objective truth and words reflect it”

            My position is that words have meanings tied to the real world and those meanings can change over time…. but many modern midwits think that they can change meaning by fiat and then reality will change to fit their new prescribed meaning.

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            1. Of course, meaning can change and evolve. “Phone” evoked different images in our heads in the 1980s than today. And that’s fine. But now we are told that, for instance, stupidity is a special kind of smartness.

              “Have you considered that it isn’t that your student writes poorly but you are not reading him correctly?”

              No, I haven’t. “In there room” is simply bad grammar, not some special insight into language.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. I still correct my children when they misuse to/two/too. “I like airplanes to.” It’s because I want my kids to be part of the patriarchy, not part of the peonry. Doesn’t every parent?

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          2. I agree with you in general, but what the cited post actually means depends on how the author of that post understands ”marxism”…

            V07

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            1. But that’s the whole point. The post is funny because the author tries to make a pronouncement on Marxism without having the slightest idea what Marxism is. It’s like Moliere’s character Monsieur Jourdain who didn’t know that he spoke in prose.

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      3. actually I think it is related because one of the things marxists wants is to destabilize the personalities of children and also they want to destroy childhood innocence. Showing those videos works nicely for both. They are training them to be victims already and confusing them.

        Amanda

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        1. As our resident Marxist, I don’t remember Marx writing anything about destabilizing personalities of children. Once they start talking about workers’ conscience, that will be Marxism. But that’s not very likely.

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  2. I’m just acting out some trauma here, my family are Cuban immigrants to the right of Genghis Khan who think Democrats are demon spawn 😑

    But the economic motive makes sense, around here Amazon warehouses are always hiring and have ads on local radio touting hiring bonuses. It seems as though Amazon is the biggest private sector company hiring around here, plus almost everyone uses it so they have a perpetual need of workers. Plus one doesn’t need a college degree to drive a delivery van or handle packages, so training kids to work for Amazon makes a twisted sort of sense

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      1. I’ve heard through the grapevine that the hiring bonuses are supposed to kick in after a while on the job, but Amazon terminates employees before they have to pay up. Plus the jobs in the warehouse and driving the truck sound monotonous, especially the latter. I’ve also heard that Amazon employees are micromanaged to the point where they can barely take breaks or use the bathroom, most people don’t want to put up with that

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          1. That’s why I’m leery of anyone working at Amazon, it sounds too good to be true. My younger brother has autism and he would be great at sorting packages at an Amazon warehouse, but he would lose it if he got fired before the bonus kicked in. Amazon just wants slave labor, cheating people out of bonuses is unethical

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            1. We had people die at our local Amazon warehouse because the company didn’t follow safety rules during a tornado. It was a terrible tragedy.

              Nobody else died. Only the Amazon workers because everybody else had a chance to seek shelter.

              Liked by 2 people

        1. I have heard that micromanaging, expecting people work at a pace that is unsustainable for most, and being quick to fire for small mistakes are the reason the go through so many workers.

          I also read somewhere that Amazon is having problems in some regions because they have churned through so much of the local labor force that they no longer get many applications. Almost everyone who would consider a warehouse/driver job has already done a stint at Amazon or has been warned to stay away by someone who has.

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          1. This is true. When the Amazon warehouse was first built next to my university, many students applied because the benefit package was great and it was a cool new opportunity. But several years in, and nobody wants to apply because they know what it’s really like.

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            1. “several years in, and nobody wants to apply “

              Amazon warehouse is simply not an employer for people with options and standards.

              One reason the government is keen to get a bunch of people without rights or options into the country….

              Liked by 1 person

            2. Amazon warehouses aren’t that profitable. Most of the profits are from the data centers (AWS).

              Probably, Amazon should be split in two, which would force the warehouses to justify themselves without the inflated numbers from AWS.

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  3. The first thing Evil – in this gentleman’s case the neo-liberal totalitarian oligarchies – comes for is one’s words. That’s a book-length treatise. However for now it is enough to write that they know, as surely as you or I or anyone here knows the distinction between discrete and discreet, what these words mean.

    It is not a discrete error in their thinking.

    You have talent for succinct explanations. I hope you will consider addressing this one. Inigo Montoya memes do not do the job.

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  4. How utterly droll!

    No, it’s not a problem with psychopathic Marxist collectivist enablers … perish the thought!

    It’s a problem with neoliberal collectivist corporate insurgent enablers hiding behind a B-movie grade wannabe evil villain for which you have no defences … moowahahaha!

    He’s altered the deal, pray he doesn’t alter it any further!

    Yes, yessss … so utterly droll. :-)

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