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The Fruits of Sloppiness

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Clarissa

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Calling political opponents Communists is as dumb as calling them Nazis.

Talking endlessly about Kamala’s cackle is as tedious as talking about Trump’s hair.

Saying “color revolutions” is as obnoxious as saying “white woman tears”.

“The Deep State” is as non-existent as an epidemic of lynching.

Worrying about WWIII is as neurotic as worrying about a climate apocalypse.

Expecting either Trump or Kamala to destroy democracy is silly.

Seeing people battle imaginary Communists and Nazis is embarrassing.

We get exactly the politics we deserve because we are sloppy and let ourselves be swayed by meaningless slogans.

18 responses to “The Fruits of Sloppiness”

  1. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Hear, hear!

    Muh Centrism now! Muh Centrism forever! The surest path to truth is the middle because both extremes are dumb and shallow!

    But seriously if your natural inclination is moderation or centrism, the last couple of decades of American politics have become increasingly uncomfortable. And dumb. And shallow.

    And people get the politics they deserve. But unfortunately because we live in a society, you also get the politics they deserve good and hard!

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. Avatar
      Anonymous
      1. Godwins’ Law exists for Communism? I thought we collectively killed it altogether.
      2. “Bitch eating crackers” speech gets boring quickly.
      3. No idea what the first one is, white woman tears is endlessly fungible.
      4. I believe both exist. I also want to believe in aliens.*points to a murder board as jaw unhinged with a filibuster of lore* sorry facts*
      5. My neuroticism can’t take worrying without figuring out what are we going to do about it. My adrenals gave up that fight. It’s gotten me into trouble more than once.
      6. The destruction of democracy takes more than one election. Confusing proximate events with causes is common. But also frog in boiling water.
      7. WWII was the last glorious war which is why everyone wants to fight it.

      Liked by 1 person

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      1. Clarissa Avatar
        Clarissa

        Had to Google Godwin’s Law and, yes, we definitely need to bring it back.

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    2. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Totally. Any extremism is unproductive. And everything else you said. We end up with screwy politics because we don’t want to keep our emotions in check and think about what words actually mean.

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  2. methylethyl Avatar
    methylethyl

    Possibly OT, but it made me laugh:

    https://x.com/NicoleShanahan/status/1829291690277966165

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  3. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Bothsiderism at its best. The New York Times can’t do better!

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  4. Stringer Bell Avatar
    Stringer Bell

    There’s some truth to these terms so I wouldn’t like to completely disregard them.

    For example, the deep state is not some shady cabal inside smoke-filled rooms. It’s just the vast, unelected, and unchecked government bureaucracy that actually executes government policies. This is how Obama could simply write a “Dear Colleague” letter (not even law yet) and it led them to implement all the worst features of Title IX at breakneck speed, because the bureaucracy was ideologically aligned with the policy. And Trump’s military generals literally lied to his face about syria troop withdrawal (claiming they left when they didn’t) because they were ideologically opposed to this decision. The deep state is the bureaucracy that cannot be fired.

    Same way, color revolution is also a useful term. For example, the US Embassy in India directly sponsors people like this lefty moron, supports every anti-government protest no matter how ridiculous their demands are, promotes sub-nationalism within India (ambassador have only recently started to call people Tamil or Telugu or whatever state they’re from instead of just Indian). They’re very happy to exploit any existing fault lines in India, be it regional or ethnic. So it is hard to imagine they’d be doing this in other countries too. What do you think foreign NGOs in a country do if not shit like this?

    Liked by 1 person

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    1. Stringer Bell Avatar
      Stringer Bell

      “…so it isn’t hard to imagine…”

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    2. Avatar
      Anonymous

      Color revolutions is a term used for the mostly non-violent revolutions that happened in states that at some point were Soviet republics. Are you implying that you think they were fueled by NGOs? Inauthentic?

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      1. Stringer Bell Avatar
        Stringer Bell

        Obviously not. I think the term has expanded to include all non-violent revolutions, not just in ex-soviet states. I could be wrong but that’s my impression.

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        1. Avatar
          Anonymous

          You spoke specifically of the US Embassy in India supporting “every anti-government protest no matter how ridiculous their demands are” and promoting “promotes “sub-nationalism within India”. There hasn’t been a revolution in India recently.

          So what does what you talk of have to do with the term “color revolution”? US influence seems to be your main complaint. Foreign influence is a conspiracy theory used to discredit color revolutions.

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          1. Stringer Bell Avatar
            Stringer Bell

            Wait, you’re right! I misunderstood the term, sorry.

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      2. cliff arroyo Avatar
        cliff arroyo

        “Color revolutions is a term used for the mostly non-violent…”

        Usage evolves and while the original was descriptive, at present the term is used mostly (almost exclusively) by those who want to imply that people never rise up against a dictator unless the CIA is manipulating them (used a lot by defenders of lukashenka in 2020).

        One of the more depressing features of modern political life is how many simps for dictators there are in the west, putain, lukashenka, xi, maduro are all beloved by west-hating westerners…. they haven’t worked themselves up to drooling over Korean dumpling boy Kim, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.

        Liked by 2 people

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  5. Stringer Bell Avatar
    Stringer Bell

    https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/11/outgoing-syria-envoy-admits-hiding-us-troop-numbers-praises-trumps-mideast-record/170012/

    Four years after signing the now-infamous “Never Trump” letter condemning then-presidential candidate Donald Trump as a danger to America, retiring diplomat Jim Jeffrey is recommending that the incoming Biden administration stick with Trump’s foreign policy in the Middle East.

    But even as he praises the president’s support of what he describes as a successful “realpolitik” approach to the region, he acknowledges that his team routinely misled senior leaders about troop levels in Syria. 

    “We were always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there,” Jeffrey said in an interview. The actual number of troops in northeast Syria is “a lot more than” the roughly two hundred troops Trump initially agreed to leave there in 2019. 

    The deep state. In a just world this person would be in jail for treason.

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    1. Avatar
      Anonymous

      What would you be saying if agreeing to follow Trump’s plan resulted in something similar to the Afghanistan withdrawal – say a terrorist attack and deaths of US troops? We can’t know, right?

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      1. Stringer Bell Avatar
        Stringer Bell

        It does not matter. The military cannot be allowed to have a mind of their own in a democracy. Whatever happened would’ve been and should’ve been Trump’s responsibility.

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      2. Clarissa Avatar
        Clarissa

        There is no “would have” in history. We can only look at what actually happened.

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        1. Avatar
          Anonymous

          Ironically, the Afghanistan withdrawal comes closest to us knowing what would have happened. Since Biden followed Trump’s plan, it is very likely that it would have happened the same way under Trump.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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