The intro essay to the 1619 project is an extraordinary tribute to the people who have tried to realize the initially empty promises of American democracy, and I recommend that people actually read it and the other contributions before forming an opinion. https://t.co/YDxUf9PF1K
— Adam Serwer?? (@AdamSerwer) August 16, 2019
An underappreciated virtue of the Times’ 1619 project is its power to reveal who would have defended slavery and Jim Crow in the name of Freedom.
— REIGN OF TERROR is coming (@attackerman) August 18, 2019
I’m nowhere near finished reading the NYTimes‘ whole 1619 Project (wish I’d found a print edition yesterday, frankly), but IMO it will have an impact on The Discourse similar to that of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Atlantic article. And, yes, one sure signifier of its importance is the volume and intensity of the hatred directed against it by the Usual Suspects (few, if any, of whom could’ve read so much as Nikole Hannah-Jones’ introductory essay before taking their grievances public). The pushback was, thankfully, immediate…
A very proud moment. https://t.co/Z0fOXSt0Pj
— Ida Bae Wells (@nhannahjones) August 18, 2019
It’s a, um, bad look for a self-described “libertarian” to dismiss discussion of the actual history of chattel slavery because such discussion might undermine the mythos of a particular nation-state …
— Josh Chafetz (@joshchafetz) August 19, 2019
Newton Leroy Gingrich, 1943-2019. pic.twitter.com/EtzABTIyo0
— Kevin Gannon (@TheTattooedProf) August 18, 2019
The 1619 project appears to be about 50,000 words. Incredibly jealous of the people who read it all in five minutes and have takes.
— Matt Bors (@MattBors) August 18, 2019
The freak-out by white supremacists – including POTUS — over NYT's 1619 Project is something we should have seen coming. Their entire worldview – depending on people not knowing the 400-year legacy of racism and abusive treatment of African-Americans – is finally under attack
— Will Bunch (@Will_Bunch) August 18, 2019
Conservatives: Slavery can't be all that bad, look at the economic prosperity it created in America.
NYT 1619: Slavery created a lot of America's economic prosperity.
Conservatives: 1619 is anti-American and anyone that reads it hates liberty.
— Actual Scientist (@lcdriammdmph) August 18, 2019
Absolutely shameful that the times looked at slavery through a racial lens. Whats next? The history of the KKK through a racial lens? #liberalmediabias https://t.co/ThhJIHy0r9
— Centrism Fan Acct ?? (@Wilson__Valdez) August 19, 2019
ah yes, black americans writing and thinking about their history is inherently divisive. a very serious thought. https://t.co/b2lNeRXnPc
— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) August 18, 2019
ironically if your response to “we believe in this democracy and think we can realize its promise if we confront our history of exploitation and oppression” is “why do you hate america?” then you have a much dimmer view of this country than many of its critics.
— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) August 18, 2019
We should probably write thank-you notes to the folks behind the 1619 Project for revealing who read a history book and who read a fantasy novel. (The Project's really showing us who's a real ally and who isn't. That's its greatest feature, tbh.)
— Allen M. Hopson (@AllenHopson2) August 19, 2019
There was, in fact, a big war about this and some substantial revisions to the constitution. https://t.co/eGYtYp3Sxq
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) August 18, 2019
If the big concern here were really about honoring the sacrifices made by Union soldiers to liberate the slaves, we’d be tearing down every Confederate statue still standing, but instead we’re yelling at black New York Times writers, so. https://t.co/QZUGLLBnWu
— Matt Pearce ?? (@mattdpearce) August 19, 2019
The snowflakes, triggered once again by difficult material, are demanding safe spaces that are antithetical to learning and free speech. Sadly typical. https://t.co/VIpRns1VMd
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) August 18, 2019
This kind of collective narcissism is a piss-poor substitute for meaningful, adult patriotism, and by denying the moral complexity of history, it does way more to degrade than to preserve the best things about America. 2/2
— Christopher Federico (@ChrisPolPsych) August 19, 2019
They’ve picked their defense, and they’re gonna stick with it, pathetic though it may be:
Newt Gingrich melts down on Fox News over NYT's #1619Project about the impact of slavery: "The whole project is a lie" https://t.co/wk53AfCepc pic.twitter.com/HKSvK3JotT
— Media Matters (@mmfa) August 19, 2019
Major Major Major Major
I’m actually taking a break from fantasy to read history for once! Somebody here recommended “Embracing Defeat” a while back, about the American occupation of Japan, and I just got off the wait list. Really interesting stuff.
Supreme Commander MacArthur 2020!
zhena gogolia
Wow, I haven’t started reading it yet, but these tweets make me resolve to read the whole thing. It’s sitting on my bed!
Baud
It has all the right enemies.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
This is why I keep my subscription. The Times is not a monolith.
Villago Delenda Est
Never forget that the National Socialist Review was founded to support segregation.
feathers
In case someone missed the earlier post, here’s a link to the complete pdf, outside the NYT paywall:
1619 Project PDF, Pulitzer Center
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@zhena gogolia: Ditto, except phone, not hard copy, for the next several long, dull bus commutes.
OT? So I’m invited to a meet-and-greet with Amy Klobuchar this weekend. She’s not among my top 5 primary candidates, but still well within “would crawl over broken glass to vote for her in the general” territory. Should I go? If yes, what should I ask/say to her? I’ve paid very little attention to her so far. And I’m aware this type of event is mostly about her asking for money, but I don’t have to play by that rule.
Major Major Major Major
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: go for it! She’s no monster, salad comb notwithstanding.
I’d like to hear all the candidates field questions about housing policy, personally.
rikyrah
The snowflakes are ridiculous ??
How dare folks tell.the truth about American history.??
Major Major Major Major
Have we talked about how Harris is skipping the next debate, citing a scheduling conflict? Must be something pretty important. I have no reason not to believe her, but I just thought it was an odd choice.ETA source https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/08/19/politics/cnn-climate-crisis-town-hall/
ETAA I stand corrected, that’s the climate town hall. Makes more sense!
sigaba
Nota bene, Newt Gingrich has a doctorate in history.
zhena gogolia
@Major Major Major Major:
I hadn’t heard that. that’s bad
Mike in NC
God doesn’t love us enough.
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: It sounds like it’s a town hall on climate change, not the next official Dem debate. The Sunrise Movement is upset she’s skipping it, which kind of makes me like her more.
schrodingers_cat
I have downloaded the pdf. My one exception to the no NYT rule.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
No, but their domestic politics undermines all their good work.
Baud
@Yarrow:
That makes more sense. The dates for the real debate have been set for months.
Spanky
@sigaba: “Belgian Education Policy in the Congo, 1945-1960” was his PhD Thesis from Tulane.
debbie
I thought the GOP had reached the bottom in 2012 with that Michelle Bachman–led study group that issued a proclamation claiming slavery had been better for African Americans than Obama. Thanks, Newt, for plunging to new depths.
Spanky
@Mike in NC: 2019 is not yet done with Newton Leroy.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
Considering its a CNN style townhall, there are many things Harris would have to do that are more important. Like watering her dog or walking her lawn.
Major Major Major Major
@Yarrow: doh, thanks! I was really scratching my head. Corrected above.
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule:
god forbid somebody go on a tv channel you don’t like to talk at length about humanity’s greatest problem, in what is thus far the only opportunity the candidates have to do so
Woodrow/Asim
Leroy’s Fox News bit is exactly why we Americans cannot have nice things.
It’s not just the causal racism. It’s the way race keeps getting bent to make people money on the backs of so goddamn many. So fucking much of conservatism desperately needs race as it’s default go-to well of fuel to “work”. And as we know, it falls back to gender and assholic views on sex/uality (among many other groups) when our morals and ethics finally, desperately get twigged that maybe Slavery/Jim Crow/etc. are, you know, BAD.
That’s the work now, to expose this shit, and keep exposing it when it tries to find another group to exploit.
I’ve got a stack of books I’ve been reading since 2016 on these topics, and I’m so glad to see a major publication, problematic as the FYNYT is, bring these writers and concepts to the fore.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
Will it really be a debate with no one taking the anti-Earth side?
chris
@debbie: Gak! Stephen Miller worked for Bachman, did he write that?
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
Have we learned nothing from how bad CNN is at giving Democrats a chance to present their views to the audience?
Kay
I’m reading the financial section- starts p. 30:
TenguPhule
@Baud:
Chuck Todd would like you to hold his beer.
Baud
@TenguPhule:
He moved to CNN?
Major Major Major Major
@TenguPhule:
very good we’ll just continue not talking about humanity’s greatest challenge until a suitable teevee channel can be found
Sure Lurkalot
I got a hard copy and have gotten through about a third of it. So sad heads are sploding. The essays I’ve read so far are thought provoking and varied in their focus. The introductory essay is really something to read again and again.
TenguPhule
@Baud:
In this timeline, sure why not.
MisterForkbeard
@Major Major Major Major: There’s a non-DNC sponsored CNN Town Hall on climate change and she has a longstanding fundraiser planned, basically.
This is another case of “not a big deal but it doesn’t look good superficially.” Its the same sort of shit ad “gave speeches to banks”.
James E Powell
@zhena gogolia:
Are we sure it’s a bad move? These debates are stupid and, in most respects, pointless for gaining ground in Iowa, NH, and other early primary states.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
Silence is still preferable to “Why are Democrats against CO^2, Its what plants crave!” or “History’s Greatest Monster, EPA or DOE?”
zhena gogolia
@James E Powell:
I thought they were talking about one of the DNC debates.
Jay
MisterForkbeard
@Major Major Major Major: This is the major problem I have with it. It doesn’t bug me hugely because Harris IS pretty good on the climate. But she should know better and should skip her fundraiser and apologize to those donors. And then do the town hall.
Baud
@TenguPhule:
It won’t be that. It’ll be about costs and taxes and jobs.
Woodrow/Asim
@sigaba: I have a High School…pal? Who’s got a Masters in History.
He decided to descend into gun nuttiness, which led to the Tea Party, which led to, last I saw him, some passive-aggressive Transphobia that he KNOWS I don’t stand for, and will happily clap back on.
So yeah — I’ll put my hours of study, writing, and $$$$ spent researching Ottoman, South Indian, and American Civil War history (among other points) over his degree, 10 days outta 9.
Assholes like Leroy hide behind degrees they piss on, every time they talk. All they want is to abuse historical facts to hurt people what ain’t like them, and we should all be willing to call that shit out.
Kay
I donated to Warren today to be entered in her sweepstakes to go to a debate in, I think, Houston. I’m completely confident I’ll win. She hasn’t called me so she better come thru on this or she can kiss any future 5 dollar donations goodbye.
Baud
@MisterForkbeard:
Why? If the lack of visibility hurts her it hurts her, but she doesn’t need to be saying “how high” when the media says jump.
Jay
TenguPhule
@Baud:
Its CNN.
Baud
@Kay:
I hope you lose because otherwise you’d have to go to Houston.
debbie
@chris:
I didn’t know that’s where Miller came from and I can’t find anything connecting his name to it, but it sounds right that he might have been in on the writing.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud:
This is fine. Being able to explain why we should make the changes necessary to minimize climate change is a prerequisite for doing anything to minimize climate change.
MisterForkbeard
@Baud: Because she’s getting bad coverage for it, basically. It sucks, but now theres yet another cudgel and it amounts to “Harris says fuck the climate so she can schmooze with rich people.”
I’ve already seen this popping up all over Harris’ feed and more than a few people complaining about it. It’s dishonest and wrong, but that’s how it’ll be described.
Jay
Jay
Baud
@MisterForkbeard:
Then she doesn’t win the primary. I don’t see a reason to fret over every strategic decision a candidate makes.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
We’ll see how it goes. Better to deal with it sooner rather than later.
MisterForkbeard
@Major Major Major Major: It’s an excellent opportunity to talk about the costs of not acting. It’s like replacing a window after it breaks: it costs some money to fix that you could spend somewhere else, but on the other hand you’re keeping you r house from getting wet, moldy, and letting animals in.
A fiery delivery about this (with a better analogy) could get a candidate some real fans.
debbie
@Jay:
You must not be very familiar with Staten Island. //
Ohio Mom
No discussion on the detractors is complete without noting all the geniuses whose response to the essay titled “America wasn’t a democracy…” is, We’re not a democracy, we’re a republic!
That proves the entirety of the 1619 Project is wrong, apparently.
MisterForkbeard
@Baud: Yes. My criticism was that if she wants to win the primary then this was a bad idea. That’s really my entire point. :)
I dont think it will matter much for the overall climate effort. A CNN townhall is not going to generate extensive climate action.
BruceFromOhio
It has been and continues to be a mystery why anyone pays any attention to Newt Gingrich. The fucking lizard needs a good stomp, and that’s about all he’s worth.
Winner, Best of Show
Major Major Major Major
@MisterForkbeard: remember in 2016 when Hillary answered a question about late-term abortion with one of the best defenses of abortion rights I’ve ever heard a person deliver?
Baud
@MisterForkbeard:
Ok. Who knows? I’m sure she took the risks into account.
Baud
@MisterForkbeard:
@Major Major Major Major:
It’ll be a little strange because there will be eight candidates on the stage who basically agree that they believe in science.
Jay
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: I am looking forward to hearing about their different ways of thinking about humanity’s greatest challenge and their different ways of approaching solutions to massive structural problems. Believing in climate change is not the minimum required to be effective at dealing with it, not by a long shot.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
I hope it’s that substantive.
different-church-lady
So wait, did Erickson just admit that Trump fans racial tension?
Steve in the ATL
@Major Major Major Major:
The mainstreaming of flip-flops? I don’t think of myself as an onion-on-the-belt curmudgeon, but I just can’t accept wearing flip-flops in public.
Major Major Major Major
@Steve in the ATL: I take it you haven’t seen the neon plastic Birkenstocks yet.
TenguPhule
@Baud:
CNN will make it about “job killing changes” and “too much government regulation”.
Conflict is their bread and butter.
Adam L Silverman
@sigaba: Which he got from Tulane during the late 60s/early 70s for writing a polemical apologia of the Belgian colonization and occupation of the Congo.
namekarB
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
Ask her what the she thinks is the World’s greatest threat and what she is going to do about it. If she doesn’t say Climate Change or just offers platitudes about solutions, then feel free to get up and leave.
Baud
@TenguPhule:
Well, that’s my fear. But maybe it’ll be positive.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat:
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/masonry/000/025/130/I_RTFM_ED.jpg
BruceFromOhio
@feathers:
This as far as I have read, and already anxious to read this. Thank you for sharing it with everyone.
Jay
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: It won’t be. The Sunrise movement is inhabited by clowns. I can’t take them seriously. There seems to be a lot of overlap with the Justice Dem clown brigade which believes in hounding Ds for R sins.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Will they be asking questions? I assumed it would be CNN people.
Zinsky
The rapist-in-chief hasn’t read anything with 50,000 words in his wretched life. He may read the boxes on his library of VHS porn tapes but little else. Sick, degenerate pervert. Gingrich too.
danielx
@Kay:
These days, they’d call that “leverage”. As I understand it, it’s one of Trump’s favorite business concepts, to the extent he can follow a concept.
Also too – for a good conservative who doesn’t/shouldn’t give a flying fuck about what the NYT prints, Newton Leroy certainly does seem upset.
Major Major Major Major
@schrodingers_cat: they don’t have anything to do with the people who will be asking and answering the questions, though.
ETA “The audience will be drawn from Democratic voters interested in the issue.”
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: There will be a lot of stupid gotcha questions and traps.
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: I can’t see the book in the guy’s hand. I didn’t get the joke. It looks like a Soviet era poster.
Ken
@Spanky:
“Shoot them until they learn to follow orders” is kind of an education policy…
Kay
@danielx:
I’m sick of them designating themselves as The Official Americans, against which all others are measured. No. It’s nonsense. I refuse.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
Oh, I missed that it was a town hall. Those have a different dynamic. Not necessarily better or worse, just different.
Steve in the ATL
@debbie: ha ha yes Staten Island is the South with horrible, horrible accents!
MisterForkbeard
@Baud: I will note and agree that she has a huge staff and advisors to figure this stuff out. Hopefully she games it out.
Ed
How white women’s “investment” in slavery has shaped America today
Stephanie Jones-Rogers: They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South
Steve in the ATL
@schrodingers_cat:
QFT! Best description I’ve seen of these clowns.
(Should I have posted a trigger warning for Omnes before mentioning clowns?)
MisterForkbeard
@Major Major Major Major: TBH, I’d totally forgotten about that. :)
Adam L Silverman
@Spanky: First High Lord Admiral of Space and Inaugural Fleet Commander of The Space Force!
Kay
Jay
Adam L Silverman
@TenguPhule: Time! Next commenter please.
Duane
@Major Major Major Major: I’d very much like to see housing addressed in a big way. Seems perfect for democrats. Health insurance, food security and public housing. Basic needs that everyone can understand. Conservatives got nothing but tax cuts to offer.
I haven’t seen new public housing built here in decades. What happened?
Steve in the ATL
@Adam L Silverman: seriously—has anyone done more harm to the continent of Africa than King Leopold II?
@Ken: how about offer them the choice of “short sleeves or long sleeves” or “short pants or long pants”?
(Don’t google that if you wish to retain your humanity)
Baud
@Kay:
When did the Onion start doing straight news.
danielx
And, I’m sure he would add, you hate America too.
There is no reasoning with people like this.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: It’s a modified DPRK poster. I’ll email it to you in a second.
zhena gogolia
@danielx:
I actually would like to apologize for existing.
Jay
chris
@debbie: Double gak! I’d forgotten all about that episode. But who can forget Ol’ Crazy Eyes and her batshit antics? The shitgibbon seems almost sane compared to Bachman.
Miller moved on, or slimed up, in 2009. More gak.
danielx
@Steve in the ATL:
I’ve got the same issue with (some) people wearing yoga pants. Some sights, unfortunately, simply cannot be erased from memory.
Adam L Silverman
@Ed: Please give me a few minutes to fish stuff out of moderation. I do, occasionally, have other things to do than liberate people’s comments. I know that’s crazy talk, but it’s true!
danielx
@zhena gogolia:
Well, if you must…..
MisterForkbeard
@danielx: The fact that we think the skies are blue with white clouds is obvious we just want the sky to apologize for being white”
ETA: Wait, I got a much better one: I would certainly like to apologize for SOME white’s existing.”
japa21
@MisterForkbeard: There was an old commercial which was, IIRC for an oil filter. The gist was, yes it costs money to change your filter, but it costs a lot more down the road if you don’t. The punch line was a mechanic saying, “You can pay me now or pay me later” with the understanding that the later payment would be far, far more than the now payment.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: @MisterForkbeard: MSNBC is also doing a two day one in a few weeks that is being moderated/hosted by Ali Velshi host of MSNBC Live with Velshi & Ruhle, MSNBC Live with Ali Velshi, Ali in with Chris Hayes, and The Last Word with Lawrence O’Velshi.
Kay
On a Monday night.
Major Major Major Major
@Duane:
I don’t know where ‘here’ is, but a lot of places don’t do it any more. Section 8 is sort of a rental credit (with strings attached), and can theoretically be used for renting anything.
This system is frequently gamed into funneling low-income people into ghettos of low-quality housing. That should give us pause before we think that a true rental credit is a good idea, and not just a landlord subsidy. (Harris’s and Booker’s plans contain such a mechanism)
Geoboy
@sigaba: Yes, Gingrich has a doctorate in history, and the title of his PhD dissertation is “Belgian Education Policy in the Congo 1945–1960.” Enchante!
Adam L Silverman
@Baud: I understand that Heidi Cruz rents out Ted’s room like a Bed and Breakfast sort of thing while he’s in DC. So she can stay there. I’m sure it’ll be fine.//
James E Powell
@Major Major Major Major:
To be honest I don’t remember that. Did it have any affect on any outcomes? I don’t say this to be a dick, but these debates are not debates and they are trash. It pains me to watch our candidates have to demean themselves to a holes like Chuck Todd and the rest of the Village Idiots. I’m increasingly convinced that these things do nothing good for Democrats and, to the contrary, seem to be most useful to Republicans who usually find things they can use against the Democratic nominee in the general election.
You remember Clinton’s answer to an abortion question, the rest of the country heard Goldman Sachs speeches and Corporate Corrupt Hillary. Our candidates could have a great discussion of climate change and their respective policy proposals to address. The great mass of Americans is going to hear “They’re coming for our pickup trucks!”
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: He was her press aide. That was his first job in DC and how he was able to crack into politics.
Adam L Silverman
@Ohio Mom: These are the same people that freak out if you simply state that a republic is a specific type of democracy. Apparently their feelings are easily offended by your facts.
Adam L Silverman
@different-church-lady: I had a far busier and longer day than I expected, but I had planned to deal with Erickson’s idiocy about the Confederacy not winning the peace. The Confederacy absolutely won the peace.
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: I have sent you the image. You’re welcome!
Major Major Major Major
@James E Powell:
Conventional data-pundit wisdom is that general election debates don’t matter because they aren’t close enough to the election (i.e. the bounces fade).
Primary debates, on the other hand, are thought to be very important to primary outcomes. For recent examples, see 2008 and 2016.
As for Hillary’s abortion answer, it was one of the Trump debates, but I remember being gobsmacked because I’d never heard somebody speak so effectively about not just the “right to choose”, but the right to abort. Truly not something I’ll soon forget.
Adam L Silverman
@Steve in the ATL: Bono.
hueyplong
I have always been confused as to why being glad the United States prevailed in an 1860s war is un-American.
If there’s one thing worse than seeing Newt angry on TV, it’s seeing him happy on TV. So we have that.
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: I’m deleting your double tap on this. The second one is stuck in moderation, just like this one I fished out a few minutes ago.
Adam L Silverman
@hueyplong: As I’ve written here several times before, and I’m sure I’ll do so again, the Union won the war on the battlefield, but lost the post war peace to the Confederacy.
Ruckus
@Steve in the ATL:
What?
You are dead to me now. No flip flops? How can a person live without flip flops?
Adam L Silverman
She’s back!!!!
Major Major Major Major
@Adam L Silverman: I accidentally tapped moderate (who decided to put it right above edit and have no confirmation dialogue?), and then I told it to delete the moderated one; I guess the deletion didn’t take.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Trying to remember where Charlie Pierce found this self-description by Newton Leroy, something about some notes he had left out on his desk during an interview, or a draft of a memo that leaked somehow?
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: Sure, sure.
cliosfanboy
@sigaba: from a small program with a dissertation that would not pass muster at most schools.
Mary G
FFS:
If Twitler manages to get reelected, they’ll be dunking us in ponds to see if we’re witches by 2021.
hueyplong
@Adam L Silverman: I more than agree about the South winning the peace.
But that’s not enough for them. They’re bent if you note the USA won the battlefield part. Gotta let me have my small victories.
Gin & Tonic
I’m going to use the open thread to whine about what Bruce Schneier calls “security theater.” My wife flew off to Europe and forgot to notify the bank (actually a smallish credit union) where we have our debit cards that she’d be traveling. From bitter prior experience, they are quick to deny transactions they don’t like. So she dropped me a note to call them. I did. After a lot of back-and-forth with some centralized “cardmember services” and then shunting back to actual local staff, we kept getting stuck on the fact that they would not enter the travel authorization for the countries she’d be visiting based on my say-so. This is a joint checking account; in addition, we each have full power of attorney for the other, on paper, notarized. They will only allow this if *she* calls them. I said she’s not in a position to do so, They said sorry, that’s policy. I said, so she’s in Europe with no access to cash for three weeks. They said sorry, that’s policy. I asked why, they said it’s to prevent fraud. I inquired as to exactly how this would prevent fraud, since I could have my girlfriend take the phone, or I could speak in falsetto and say I’m her – they have no way of verifying that the voice on the phone is actually hers. They were confused, and said sorry, that’s policy, and suggested that my wife try using the card, and when the transaction was denied, they’d send a text message to her cell, which she could respond to. I explained that her overseas cell number is not her US cell number that they have on file, and that she is often out of cell range anyway, so this wasn’t a solution.
So I asked to speak with the last person’s manager, saying I wanted to carefully explain to him/her why, after 20 years of doing a lot of business with that credit union, I’d be removing all my accounts and never doing any business with them again. I was placed “on a brief hold,” and soon the same rep came back and said he’d spoken with his manager, and they would be making a “one-time exception” to their policy and allowing the use of the card in the countries in question. Funny how flexible their nonsensical policy can be.
This “we will only take verbal instructions over the phone from a person who can plausibly pretend to be the actual cardholder, which we have no means of actually verifying” is among the stupider security policies I’ve come across.
End whine. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.
Adam L Silverman
@cliosfanboy: And in a history program at a university that was fully captured at the time by the Dunning School of History.
Adam L Silverman
@hueyplong: I was not trying to deny you a victory.
You are definitely a winner. Please add sprinkles to your ice cream because sprinkles are for winners!
cliosfanboy
@Adam L Silverman: I forget it was Tulane, I was thinking of the small Georgia school where he taught. But damn, it’s a weak dissertation. Mine was no award winner but it was good enough to turn into a book with a decent academic press. Newts is just sad.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman:
Sonny?
danielx
@Adam L Silverman:
I used to kind of believe the hipster douchebag line “judge the art, not the artist”. Then I used it when talking with a female friend who responded “I got two words for you: Roman Polanski.” Well….yeah.
Don’t like Sarandon no more.
Duane
@zhena gogolia: There are people who wish I’d apologize for my existence, but that still might not be enough.
Adam L Silverman
@cliosfanboy: Kennesaw State. They denied him tenure because his publications were all polemics, not scholarship. That’s how bad a historian Gingrich is, he got denied tenure at what was, at the time in the mid to late 1970s, a glorified community college.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
arouser
Gin & Tonic
@danielx: Nevertheless, Chinatown is a good movie.
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Commenter’s choice.
cmorenc
Said Erik son of Erik:
So, Erik, in the interest of fairness and balance, were the authors supposed to express more empathy for southerners who lost their capital investment in owning human slaves, and their business model of saving overall costs by using forced slave labor in lieu of hired employees, along with de jure and de facto legal support to harshly, physically punish and brutalize any slaves who seemed lazy, disobedient, or who tried to escape? Somehow, I very much you were referring there to the cost and sacrifice by the Union and its soldiers needed to defeat the south and free the slaves.
Adam L Silverman
@danielx: She’s an asshat.
Jay
NotMax
@Jay
Another example of why the military needs to have each person spend an equal number of weeks as in boot camp in an “unboot camp” before mustering out. Sort of like a halfway house before returning to civilian life.
MisterForkbeard
@danielx: Same basic reason I wont read any sci-fi or fantasy author who was part of the Sad/Angry Puppies movement.
Most of those guys were fairly obviously crypto-Christian fascists anyway, but after the tried to blow up fandom I was just entirely done with them.
mrmoshpotato
@Steve in the ATL:
Avoid Aussie YouTube. And they call them ‘thongs’. :)
SiubhanDuinne
@Adam L Silverman:
Not Kennesaw State. West Georgia.
(ETA: FYAC)
hells littlest angel
Gingrich: “Several hundred thousand white Americans died in the Civil War in order to free the slaves.”
Yeah, they died because they were killed by hundreds of thousands of other white Americans who were fighting to keep people enslaved.
Mary G
@Jay: @Adam L Silverman: Dosen’t al-Qaeda also translate to the base?
NotMax
@Steve in the ATL
You would be disgruntled when in Hawaii, then.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@feathers: thank you! Just downloaded it
Steve in the ATL
@SiubhanDuinne: even worse!
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: I’m guessing that may be a problem.
Amir Khalid
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I have a feeling Adam means the guy from U2.
Adam L Silverman
@SiubhanDuinne: I sit corrected.
SiubhanDuinne
@Steve in the ATL:
The Board of Regents barred him from teaching his AmCiv course at Kennesaw (this was 1995, long after he had abandoned academia for the heady halls of Congress). His “teaching” career was at WG. I know a number of faculty emeriti there, and they all regret very much having his name associated with their institution, even from 40-odd years ago.
Jeffro
@cmorenc: The authors were supposed to only focus on white folks’ sacrifices (of some kind, or any kind), not black folks’ actual enslaved labor, abuse, torture, family separations, and death…oh and another couple hundred years of discrimination, terror, abuse, torture, and death…DUH.
Erickson and people like him are, I think, possibly worse than the out-and-out racists. It’s like you have to spend extra time with them listening to their stupid shit, then trying to understand how they could possibly think that stupid shit, and then maybe even trying to reason them out of their stupid shit, and then they STILL DON’T GET IT.
NotMax
The General on TCM at the moment. Probably my favorite silent film, even taking into account the hero is a Confederate.
Jeffro
@hells littlest angel:
Someone please ask Newt: “Wait…I thought several hundred thousand whites died trying to squash states’ rights? Or was it to protect states’ rights? And NOW you’re saying the Civil War was about SLAVERY? Newt…”
Brachiator
Stepped away to run some errands. Almost missed this thread. Looking forward to browsing the comments.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Count Orlok would like a word. Is it dark in Hawaii yet?
mrmoshpotato
@hells littlest angel: You peasant! This Newtington Leroyish Gingrichitude III you’re talking about!
Oh wait. Fuck him.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Am generally more of a Yesferatu king of guy.
:)
Mike E
@cmorenc: I’m sure Erik wants people to realize that the vagrancy “papers please” laws used to re-enslave freed blacks was for their own good…at least that’s how I read that shithead, anyway
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: It does indeed.
Ruckus
@Jeffro:
They aren’t listening to believe you, they are listening to see what/how they can use your words against you. Their minds are closed, locked covered in cement and dumped in the ocean. You’d have to dive to the bottom, break open the cement, pick the lock and smash open their brains to get even one word to sink in.
They are a totally lost cause, the only way is to hope they die sooner than later so that their diseased mind doesn’t infect anyone else.
Also, Eric is a racist. He’s a dumb man who thinks he’s smart. He’s still a fucking racist.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: That’s Yessferatu, dammit! Can’t even get the name of Murnau’s lost, unknown, unproduced classic right! Argh!
And ‘king’? Pfft!
Yarrow
@Gin & Tonic: That’s really frustrating. Glad it got sorted in the end. Did you check to see if you can put some sort of travel alert on the account via the website? Might be easier than trying to talk to someone if it happens again.
Jeffro
@Ruckus: That’s a good metaphor for it…”concrete-encased-head-under-the-sea-syndrome”.
I tend to score high on ‘openness to new info/being wrong’. Erickson must be not only in the triple-digit negatives, but clearly has built up his defenses against ever having to face that fact of life. Ah well.
Jay
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
So he’s who made her into the nutjob she is!
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
“So, F. W., what’s the production schedule look like?”
“Murnau, less later.”
mrmoshpotato
@Jay: Selfish Indianians(?), not sharing their cyanide-laced water with us.
Jay
@NotMax:
Given that it has been known for well over a decade that the Nazis have entered the military to have access to weapons, explosives and training, and have entered the LEO community to “shift relations”,
both the Military and LEO groups need to actually look for and remove these guys from the ranks, and not just leave it up to anti-facist activists to find and expose these dirtbags.
The last time the Canadian Armed Forces ignored this issue, it had metatized so badly that an entire Airborne Regiment was disbanded and hundreds were kicked out of the Service.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Hehehehehe well done.
Ruckus
@Jeffro:
Erickson and his ilk are fully, 1000% convinced that the only reason they are on this earth is to lord their shit over others. They were born at a time when lots of humans are convinced that none of the religious writings they supposedly believe in – really mean what the writings say, that they are the ideal humans and any difference from them whatsoever is beneath them. They believe in pecking order. They do not believe in equality in any way, shape or form. They are fucking racists and very likely misogynists.
Adam L Silverman
@SiubhanDuinne: My mistake. I remember the Kennesaw State affiliation and figured that was where he was denied tenure, then was able to worm his way back in once in Congress.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: Nope, she was already a whackaloon. Just a meeting of the so called minds.
Tehanu
@Jay:
As somebody pointed out on another thread (either here or LGM, not sure which), we’re the only country where white people fought a bloody civil war against each other* to abolish slavery. Other countries, including Brazil which also had a slave economy, just passed a law and that was it.
* Haiti, well, that was bloody, but it was slaves against owners — not abolitionists against owners.
JAFD
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Good morning, Comrade !
If I had the chance to talk to Sen Klobuchar, _I’d_ tell her this:
(I’ve commented on this before, apologies if you’ve heard it…)
First, that I think every Democratic candidate should have someone on their staff who has experience being _poor_, who’s needed food stamps to survive; and I can tell that you don’t, because:
Second, you can’t use food stamps in a fast food ‘restaurant’, but can go to grocery and get a roll and an eighth-pound of baloney, or a container of potato salad, or …, and fight off hunger pangs.
Third, therefore, people who’ve had experience being poor always have some plastic eating utensils in their briefcase or purse.
Fourth, if you had someone with ‘personal experience of poverty’ on your staff, you wouldn’t have had to eat with a comb.
(It’s morning here in New Jersey, where it’s been so bleeping hot and humid that some of us just got home and took a nap, and now’ve had dinner….)
Jiminy's Cricket
@Jay: Say what you want about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least they have an ethos…
JGabriel
@Baud:
I’m sure CNN’s ‘moderators’ will enthusiastically fill that role without any additional help from Democratics.
JGabriel
@Sure Lurkalot:
Which explains why conservatives are going nuts. Provoking though enrages them.
J R in WV
@Adam L Silverman:
So weren’t those the African slaves who weren’t removed from Africa, but were still essentially owned and operated by the King of Belgium? Leaving the Congo is such a mess that now it is eaten up with Ebola and the worst economy in the world? Constant war conducted by warlords in the jungle? Enslaved like the native American peoples of the Spanish colonizers of South America?
That European colony? The Belgian Congo?
J R in WV
@Mary G:
I just… splutter, fizz, gasp. Speechless!!! “What a bunch of marroons.”
Who can say something like out loud without realizing what they’re saying!??
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@JAFD:
OK, super late back to this party. Agree wholeheartedly about the food stamps bullshit, and the necessity of having someone on staff with direct personal experience of the indignities and uncertainties of poverty. HOWEVER. I have personal experience of poverty, and yet I have more than once found myself without plastic implements in my purse (although I always have them in my car). I have never eaten anything with a comb, but I have eaten:
– yogurt with a lollipop still in its plastic wrapper.
– soup with a plastic straw with the end slit open to form a sort of scoop for the chunky bits
– Chinese food from the box with actual sticks collected from a shrub
– salad with a pair of plastic serving tongs. Honestly, I wish I’d thought of the comb – would have been more efficient and less messy.
Do I win a prize, or am I a monster?