2020 Election

Textbooks have been a scam for decades now. For the most part they don't tell any blatant lies, but they do bend around reality when it suits them. I recall one history book referring to slaves as "servants" when there's a canyon of distinction between both terms.

College textbooks are little more than a profit scam for professors and publishers. They make negligible "revisions" and write the course to those changes so that anyone using an old book is fucked. I'm surrounded by people who are convinced a particular book is totally infallible. And yet, it goes into detail about a man surviving being swallowed by a large fish. There's another book written by a 19th century freeloader that is also assumed to be a flawless plan for humanity's success.

The book that got me through 6-Sigma training is called "How to Lie with Statistics".

Keep in mind that this degradation of public political insight has not been sudden. It's been very gradual.

 

LOL, forty years of research have concluded the only reliable measure for anyone's career potential is the amount of working memory they have. You don't really believe for one second that Americans, of all fucking people, took over the world because they are smarter than anyone else? You've been buying the same propaganda you are complaining about. You can teach them all how to be skeptical and teach them critical thinking skills, and it will make no fucking difference. Half of them debate the definition of stupid in the dictionary, because sharing their words and playing nice are not socially acceptable. One in five insists the sun revolves around the earth and, of course, insists they had the finest education.

 

I doubt that even the most dedicated hip forums posters are in the mood to review our past posts, but if they are, they can see for themselves that you've just mischaracterized mine, as is your wont. I think I've been consistent in my position in defending what the courts regard as "protected speech" while attacking non-protected speech that abuses the truth to stir up shit. Specifically, non-protected speech includes obscenity, fighting words, incitement, harassment, sedition, crying fire in crowded theaters, libel, and slander. The press is not free to publish plans for nuclear bomb making, nor threats to other people. Even protected speech may be subject to “regulations of the time, place, and manner of expression which are content-neutral, are narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest, and leave alternative channels of communication open. And, even speech that enjoys the greatest protection may be restricted under “strict scrutiny” , if if the government can show that the restriction serves “ a compelling interest” and is “the least restrictive means to further the articulated interest”. I also recognize the right of private platform owners to police the content of their platforms. Our freedom of speech laws mostly don't apply in the workplace.Your Free Speech Rights (Mostly) Don't Apply At Work We need to hold the line in protecting protected speech, but also the established judicial distinction between protected vs. non-protected speech. In the words of a Supreme Court Justice (I think it was Holmes), "few rights are absolute and free speech is not among them".

A trip through your own posts is like reading a college textbook on logical fallacies. You're never so sincere and passionate as when you're defending the absolute right to mislead people. You missed your calling as a spin doctor for some right wing publication--or are you still trying out?

If the "major arteries of the internet" are in private hands, the recourse is to challenge the decision in court or in the forum of public opinion, as you are doing, or to establish alternative "major arteries of the Internet" of their own. Back in the day, in a saner time, we recognized that the mass broadcasting media posed a special challenge to the public interest, and used the "fairness doctrine" to try to assure fair and balanced coverage. Alas, that's yielded to the relentless pressures of opportunism dressed in libertarian clothing.

Ah, the media again. Your favorite all purpose bugbear. And by that, you seem to mean the media that is not part of the right wing "entertainment" industry, like Fox, Breitbart, InfoWars, etc. The media reported a series of incidents in which white cops or private citizen vigilantes acting like cops, killed African-Americans, beginning with Trevon Martin and with Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo, and continuing post-2016. BLM was founded in Oakland, CA, in 2014 in response to the grand jury decision in the Michael Brown case. Black Lives Matter: birth of a movement | Wesley Lowery I was in Chicago, when cops, after taking aim, gunned down an African-American who was walking away and had his back turned. Seems like the sort of thing responsible news outlets should report. I went out to buy groceries later, and found myself inadvertently in the middle of a Black Lives Demonstration. I cut out when it reached the door of the place where I was staying. Racial tensions ebb and flow. Possibly now the police are finding the scrutiny unwelcome and holding back on provocative incidents, but it sure seemed to me at the time that it was open season on blacks. The testimony and cell phone texts in the recent disciplinary trial of an officer accused of hastening the death of Eric Garner with a chokehold (Garner's last words :"I can't breathe) have sparked new outrage, especially in light of the NYPD's comment "No big deal".

 

Ok, so there is still valid valuable college to be had, just question the answers. I think I got it.

 

This is pretty extreme...I tought college geography for ten years and used the same text for all ten years for both courses. I told my students they could share texts, go to the library etc, that my job was not to make publishers rich. My job was to review literature, including the texts to make sure it was relevant. Every information source needs to be looked at with some degree of intelligence.

 

I've had one class where the book was a free download. I think another one of my classes this fall plus a lab have opted for cost free textbooks. They are phasing them out (costly textbooks) I think. The classes where the text is free are General Human Anatomy & a Chemistry lab.

 

I hope you will not let this sort of thing affect your vote (how others perceive a candidate) and will vote for the candidate whose policies you like the best

 

You speak of Jim Crow laws as though they were a phenomenon of the 1860s. Slavery was admittedly before my time, but my parents and neighbors experienced Jim Crow well into the 1960s. We has institutionalized segregation in Oklahoma back then, and my next door neighbor tells me of his experience being reprimanded as a kid for drinking the "colored water".(He thought colored water sounded cool and wanted to see what it was like). We not only had colored water, but also colored rest rooms, hospitals, diners, motels, etc. But not always. If a black family was traveling long distance and a colored restroom, motel or restaurant were not available, they'd just have to hold out until they came to a place that had them. It took passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and subsequent test cases to end racial discrimination in public accommodations. One of the cases involved the colorful Ollie McClung, who became a "libertarian" hero by refusing to allow blacks to use his restaurant after passage of the Act, and even passed out axe handles to his customers as souvenirs of his weapon of choice in keeping the blacks out. He lost, because of the Big Bad Federal Govenment, and "libetarian" assholes like Ron Paul still question the power of the federal government to pass such laws. When Oklahoma State University was forced admit G.W. McLauren, a black student, in 1950 because there were no "separate but equal" facilities for the coloreds, they made sure he was completely separated (i. e., isolated) in the classrooms, library, and cafeteria. That was challenged and overturned in court. Likewise when Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher won admission to OU Law School in 1949 through a court battle, she had to sit in a chair marked "colored", roped off from the rest of the class, and dine in a separate chained-off area of the law school cafeteria patrolled by a guard! Getting rid of this was the work of courageous people who refused to stand for it and took personal risks to challenge this nonsense by sit ins, protest marches, and boycotts, as well as lawsuits. The media helped by printing front page pictures of them being clubbed and attacked by police dogs. Yes indeed, minorities have made "significant strides since those days", but the backlash is still much in evidence. As Santayana said, those who can't learn from the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it. (And those who can are doomed to stand helplessly by while others repeat it; he didn't say that last part!)

As previously mentioned, "cultural Marxism" is a myth originating in Nazi propaganda about Kulturbolschewismus ("Cultural Bolshevism") and refined by right wing think tanks as a snarl word to use against the left.'Cultural Marxism': a uniting theory for rightwingers who love to play the victim | Jason Wilson

 

^My mom was in school when schools were desegregated in this state. I went to elementary school in a historically black neighborhood in a school that once was a school for black students during segregation, with students who had parents or grandparents who had attended the same school when it was segregated

But yeah, Jim Crow laws happened sooo long ago, why cant we just forget about it

 

I get it, but I kind of like Biden. That bit about him being for segregation in schools dated back to 1975 I think. I doubt it reflects who he is, but I wonder about his past.

 

You have to have questions about the judgment of any guy who was ever pro-segregation. His positions may have changed with the trends in the Democratic party, but what of issues that don't have popular support yet, but which should be obvious? He voted for the war in Iraq, for instance. He just doesn't seem to have good judgment when it's needed.

 

I see that.

But I have done stupid things before with regard to the very same topic, though I'm ashamed to admit it. But I've changed. I think he has too. I have to say that today it's a little embarrassing to recall how vehemently I would declare this or that about a marginalized group. It was influence from a group that I had hung out with that was really at work in my case. I've put it behind me and today I don't have problems with class or ethnicity like I used to. I believe firmly in treating people equally, and that all people are deserving. But I realize that these are questions in my mind now about Joe Biden. It's not really in the front of my mind if you will. It's more of a factoid in the recesses of grey matter. I don't think it will materialize into action on the part of someone with what you must admit is a pretty decent record. Hair sniffing aside.

 

His record is terrible. Anti-abortion, pro-segregation, cutting social security and medicare, pro-Iraq, authoring the crime bill...he just blows.

 

that's not very good, admittedly. I hope that isn't his present position. the Iraq thing I think I can understand. It would be very hard for me to know when to deploy or not deploy honestly. the crime bill isn't hard to understand, but of course easy to critique.

I think you just have to give him a real chance. He might show us that he's open to newer ideas and policies. I'm hoping he doesn't show us only that he knows he's going to win.

I'd like to see something like the education stuff sanders talks about now. A Thurgood Marshall Plan for Public Education

And free tuition wouldn't hurt...

 

Early in my life I rejected my families overt racism, but have also had to grow beyond other prejudices, for example LGBT issues, as times evolved. I too thought the issue of racism was long ago addressed and things were better...better than they actually were as it turns out. Can anyone living in the age of the Trumpites really believe that racism has been addressed? The reality is America has a very long ways to go.

 

My only question is is it true, or is this another Pizzagate moment? I'm sure the truth will out during the debates. But anybody favoring segregation in 1975--11 years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964--would be really "out there"and would have drawn extensive critical attention. Not even Tricky Dick went that far. Biden was subsequently re-elected senator six times in a blue state, ran for President in 1987 and served two terms as vice president under Obama. I think it would be incredible that such a bombshell has only now surfaced. Hmmmmmmmmmm.

 

I would tend to agree. He seems fully legit in all respects, but anyway... here is the article I was talking about. I was trying to see where he stands on education with respect to Sanders' Thurgood Marshall thing... Study: Black voters abandon Biden when told he opposed school integration

 

I gather the story was "uncovered" by the diligent sleuthing of Brigette Gabriel for the Washington Examiner. Ms Gabriel, an anti-Muslim activist closely tied to the Tea Party and the religious right. The Washington Examiner is a conservative, staunchly pro-Trump newspaper. The story is allegedly based on an interview Biden gave to NPR, in which he opposed aspects of the then controversial busing policy to achieve integration, and argued that shipping African-American kids to predominantly white schools to achieve racial balance could be counterproductive and undermine "black pride". The nerve! Biden has long been a supporter of voting rights for African-Americans and for affirmative action.

 

Thanks. That clarification is useful. I'm sure even @neonspectraltoast can see my mistake. how cool that he wouldn't want to undermine black pride! I think there is hope yet for this candidacy!

 

To put things in further perspective, a week or so ago, a story broke that Rudy Giuliani , Trump's consiglieri, was about to depart for Ukraine to get the help of the Ukrainian government to dig up dirt on Biden's son, who held an executive position in a Ukrainian gas company.The trip was called off after adverse reaction to seeking foreign help in our elections. In other words, opposition research is in play, Biden is regarded as the leading Democrat contender, and the Washington Examiner story can be considered more of the same.