DagSeoul: Positions, Populations, Punk, Poetics

"The surprise was some of the turnout, some of the turnout especially in urban areas, which gave President Obama the big margin to win this race,” Mr. Ryan said in an interview with WISC-TV back home in Wisconsin on Monday before returning Tuesday to Capitol Hill for the start of the lame-duck session."

This NYTimes article has been addressed in our community, but I finally read it and want to add to the conversation.

What gets me with this “coded racism” is why Ryan didn’t comment about the more remarkable statistic in the election, about how older white men overwhelmingly voted for Romney. Why didn’t he comment about how embarrassing it was to overwhelmingly win in Southern and rural areas and still lose the election. Why didn’t Ryan comment, “The surprise was some of the turnout, not that we lost the election, but that we lost in spite of all our support having turned out to support us as they promised.”

Let’s be clear about Ryan’s point of view. Does anyone believe he thinks his campaign work with Romney was aimed at the urban citizens likely to vote. Clearly, the answer is “No, he does not believe so.” Consequently, commenting on “urban areas” is nothing less than a racist and reactionary response. His comment should have addressed a salient fact of life for reactionary conservatives and their GOP. Capitalists and their careerist political class might no longer be able to valorize catering to racist zealots and their angry white male friends.

In the article, Ryan addresses Honda, the politician who first publicly insisted Ryan’s use of “urban” was racist code. Here’s how The New York Times frames the discussion:

Representative Michael M. Honda, Democrat of California, said that “urban” is “just another code word for people of color.”

“But a lot of people of color live in the countryside, too,” he added. “He is just grabbing at straws to justify his loss.”

In an interview broadcast Tuesday with ABC News, Mr. Ryan said he did not think that the nation’s voters had given Mr. Obama a mandate to raise taxes on the wealthy.

“I don’t think so, because they also re-elected the House Republicans,” Mr. Ryan said. “So whether people intended or not, we’ve got divided government. This is a very close election, and unfortunately divided government didn’t work very well the last two years. We’re going to have to make sure it works in the next two years.”

Ryan purposefully ignores how district geography tends to favor the conservative voter in much of the United States. Apparently half-heartedly, he unskillfully attempts to shift the discussion of his loss to the GOP pseudo-victory (their majority shrank, though persevered) in the House of Representatives. That’s just face-saving politics. More significantly, Ryan evades the question-at-issue. He doesn’t want to address the coded racism we can see in his comments. Instead, he asks us to recognize that we have a “divided government”. He caters to an absent populism. The only people in the US who believe the government division means what Ryan says it means are white men. That’s how I interpret the election. As bad as shit is, American voters—other than the white men—chose to keep problematic Obama over Romney/Ryan.

I don’t know why we let these white men get away with their patronizing discourse about inclusion and division. That’s some regressive racism for you. It’s a degenerate view of US history, too.

She’s truly radical.

paul-ryan-girl:

that conservatives think liberals are wrong. Some are ill-informed and wrong, some are highly informed — but still wrong.

Liberals think that conservatives are either evil, insane, or stupid. Liberals “cannot believe” that we exist. Liberals “honestly cannot comprehend how a woman could vote for Romney/Ryan.”

Let me tell you this. If you honestly cannot comprehend how the other side can believe what we believe, then you are seriously mischaracterizing our position.

Do you really believe that half the people in the country are evil, insane, delusional, and stupid?

To all of you who “cannot believe” there are blogs (many!) supporting/admiring Paul Ryan: wake up. Conservative women love him because he is articulate, intelligent, CONSERVATIVE (unlike what we’ve had to vote for these last few elections), and educated. He has a plan. He is positive. He is running on his ideas, not just against the other guy.

Also, he just happens to be super hot.

That is all.

Radical certainty is a bitch. Psychotics aren’t concerned with what is real; psychotics are concerned with certainty. Lacan wrote in his work on the psychoses that a psychotic doesn’t necessarily believe in the reality of her hallucinations. A psychotic believes she is certain of them.

Paul-Ryan-Girl believes Ryan is courageous because he’s so full of shit, because he’s boldly not concerned with real conditions of existence, because he’s dedicated to a narrative about his bullshit, because he’s certain that his representation of reality is there and should be addressed: I am certain of this, regardless of what you think about it, and I’m going to work to do something about that.

Paul Ryan and Ron Paul share this radical certainty and their sycophants afford it to them. Shit, I’m likely going to have to endure some Ron Paul fan insisting that he’d end all war any second now if he were only in charge. As if being POTUS permits an individual and his certainty free reign to do what he wants.

We get it, you’d vote against your best interests to spite yourself and others because you’re certain of something you can’t articulate and other people don’t see but makes you feel so strongly about supporting a guy and his bunk notions about economic policy. You must be proud of yourself.

CONVICTION! WOOHOO! 

TAXES HURT JOB CREATION!!!

(via followformoresp00kygulag-deacti)

Incredibly misogynist shit-heels. Not once have Republican men crafted legislation that imposes further bondage for male bodies and their internal organs, legislation that limits their movement in the market or proscribes their speech. Moreover, it’s clear we can observe a direct proportion between the legislative activity to lower taxes for the capitalist class(es) and end regulation of business activity to the vociferous, often stridently so, calls to legislate the activity of female bodies and their movement in private and public spaces. Consequently, male consciousness is treated as the primary motivation for legislative activity while female consciousness is that thing male consciousness must regulate. As the legislative activity of the former increases so does the activity of the latter increase.

In fact, these men tirelessly work to free body, mind, and money for Judeao-Christian White Men. This isn’t a GOP thing. Libertarians are also all about bondage for women, immigrants, and people of color, while super-focused on ridding the market of coercive forces effecting a white and male-dominated capitalist class. Ron Paul is actually not a libertarian. ***We shouldn’t forget intersectionality here. This legislative activity is always both racist and sexist.***

And don’t get me started on liberals. Not one social justice cause that liberals won’t champion with half-assed gestures and counter-revolutionary and boring propaganda. Liberals are great at snitching and advertising and not much else. What have liberal politicians in either traditional party done to counter the misogyny in everyday legislative activity? NOTHING. Look to history. Liberals only act when they are forced to protect their political careers.

All you need to know about the Ryan “shared-costs” plan

Well … and that Ryan is a liar who apparently lies all the time about things he claims to know and understand. Folks, austerity measures do not work.

(Source: Peter Orszag, Bloomberg News)

There are a few facts about progressive politics right now that I don’t like. I’m talking progressive conservative and liberal political action, like Paul Ryan’s budget proposal and even the Democrats’ Health Care Reform. One of the most significant dislikes for me is that American progressives seem to think we all have to give up something to get what we want.

We have a government capable of determining what social goods are and how they are different from economic goods. We can regulate social goods and provide protection for them; we can cultivate our social goods without giving up something. We need to determine how to accomplish this outside of the free market. I think such a determination begins with a simple recognition that our social contract is the thing without which personal responsibility, liberty, freedom, pretty much all action would not be possible.

Our social contract is not a religious or anti-religious, capitalist or anti-capitalist, Republican or Democratic agreement. It’s a human concept and it’s universal and a priori. We should treat it as such.

Ryan’s Path to Prosperity: Making Catfood look good.

Don’t be misled. The Paul Ryan Presents Ayn Rand’s Path to Prosperity is what we might call an ideal benchmark for the corporatist conservatives in the GOP. It’s meant to fuse the wishlists of idiot Tea Party members with asshole Libertarians. As bad as it is, it will be used to make the poorly received Deficit Commission proposal look moderate—sane, even.

That’s what’s up.  How do you make the changes the Deficit Commission suggested look good so soon after the Commission’s report was so poorly received? Paul Ryan’s plan makes it look good.

The entire discourse gets to shift right. Obama has a strong base of Democrats that support everything he does. He has a habit of ignoring his progressive supporters. When was the last time you heard anything about our Progressive Caucus?  And you’re not likely to hear from them either.  The media won’t cover it. The President won’t address it.

I don’t know what we can call Democrats liberal. Yeah, in the sense that liberal means being willing to work within the traditional social and governmental framework to achieve change and transformation, I guess liberal applies. On the other hand, we might consider referring to Democrats as members of America’s liberal conservative party. I like how it sounds contradictory. Suits them.

"What [Brooks] doesn’t mention is that Ryan’s proposal also includes dropping the top tax rate for rich people from 35 percent to 25 percent. All by itself, that one change means that the government would be collecting over $4 trillion less over the next ten years. Since Brooks himself is talking about Ryan’s plan cutting $4 trillion over the next ten years (some say that number is higher), what we’re really talking about here is an ambitious program to cut taxes for people like… well, people like me and David Brooks, and paying for it by “consolidating job-training programs” and forcing old people to accept reduced Medicare benefits."

Tax Cuts for the Rich on the Backs of the Middle Class; or, Paul Ryan Has Balls | Rolling Stone Politics | Taibblog | Matt Taibbi on Politics and the Economy (via robot-heart-politics)

YES YES YES.

(via robot-heart-politics)

daglists: What am I reading today?

Same as He Ever Was. Paul Krugman, New York Times.

Folks, he’s always been like this. The image of Ryan as a thoughtful, serious conservative never had any basis in reality. The original “roadmap” was just as nonsensical as the new proposal; the Ryan-led attack on health reform was crude nonsense.

Student dons KKK Hood at School Assembly. Joanna @ The Intersection of Madness & Reality.

Recently, a high school student in Utah was accused of racism after wearing a pillowcase over his head during a spirit assembly at Alta High School. The pillowcase looked similar to KKK hood, and when student Larz Cosby (who is described as “multi-ethnic”) demanded that it be removed, the hooded teen taunted the concerned Cosby and yelled “white power.” Cosby then removed the boys hood and threw it to the ground. He later blogged about the incident, and reported it to authorities at the school.

Alta High administrators placed on paid leave during investigation. Amanda Verzello, KSL.com.

The principal and vice principal of Alta High School have been placed on paid leave during the investigation of multiple “serious incidents” uncovered by a district investigation, according to a school employee.

Prompted by a March 18 incident where a student wore a white pointed hood to a school spirit bowl that some felt resembled the infamous Ku Klux Klan symbol, the Canyons School District has uncovered evidence of other “serious incidents” that have occurred at the school over the past year, according to district spokeswoman Jennifer Toomer-Cook.

Dissents of the Day. Andrew Sullivan, The Dish @ The Daily Beast.

The in-tray is still bulging with fury over Paul Ryan. I find the arguments bracing - and in themselves evidence that Ryan’s proposal has already helped move the debate to more earnest grounds.

Cathie Black and the Privatisation of Education. Daniel Denvir, The Guardian.

Cathleen Black, the multimillionaire publishing executive with absolutely no background in education, has resigned as New York City schools chancellor. Her departure is a rare setback for a corporate-funded education reform movement that lauds standardised tests, non-union teachers and private management as the solution to the problems of public education.

On Paul Ryan’s House Republican Budget Proposal: Or, Ryan’s Fantastically Positive Argument For the Way it Could Be If You Only did Things Our Way with Some Numbers We Made Up to Prove It!

“But fundamentally worthy policies shouldn’t need to promise laughably overoptimistic outcomes to win support.” —Ryan Avent, The Economist.

From Paul Krugman, New York Times.

Paul Ryan’s Funny Numbers, Ezra Klein, Washington Post.

But are Paul Ryan’s Numbers Real? Jonathan Bernstein, on The Plum Line blog, Washington Post.

GOP Budget Ignores CBO to Claim Healthcare Repeal will Reduce the Budget. TPM.

Paul Ryan’s budget.

Hope you like rhetoric more than data.  This isn’t a budget, it’s an argument. It’s called THE PATH TO PROSPERITY. No. Really.  It’s like the House Republicans are running a late-night infomercial. They’re promising us everything.  It’s clear they are lying.

Down With Tyranny’s posts on Rep Paul Ryan are essential reading.  Get there now.  Read. Share. (My link is to the latest.  Be sure to take a look at the other, earlier posts.)