onegoodmove

At the end of the Greenwald posting, there is a link to an insightful and well-done analysis by Digby, to wit:

The sainted Tim Russert, the Everyman from Buffalo, owned a seven million dollar vacation home on Nantucket. Chris Matthews makes five million dollars a year. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But they are hardly the voices of average Americans and I fear that an awful lot of powerful Democrats, similarly situated, turn to such "salt of the earth" millionaire celebrities as their touchstones to the "regular" people.

And that raises an important question: if these rich, pampered celebrities are spokesmen for the Everyman, then who are the elites? * Well, they're us, the liberal base of the Democratic party. And that's what this "run to the center" is really all about --- putting as much distance between the politicians and us as they can.* It's not about being "serious" on national security or crime or family values. It's not even about appealing to swing voters. It's about repudiating liberalism. You can have a right wing zealot on the team who is so out to lunch that he writes books recommending you beat your children like he beats his dog. But associations with anything remotely culturally liberal or politically progressive are considered poisonous if you care to be taken seriously by the likes of Target shopper Brian "Everyman"Williams or the policeman's daughter Maureen "Everywoman" Dowd.

Repudiating liberalism is a symbolic gesture required of Democrats by the political establishment to prove that they are not elitists. And it goes beyond mere posturing on gay marriage or abortion. The national security challenge is always not to appear to be "an appeaser." The way you prove that is by refusing to appease the Democratic base. The economic challenge is to walk very carefully on taxes because it "costs jobs" for the hard working man and the struggling businessman alike who are in this thing together against the liberal elites. The cultural challenge is to not appear to be too friendly to blacks or too unfriendly to socially conservative religion in order to prove that that you are not beholden to the "extremists." The entire construct is based upon Democrats distancing themselves from their most ardent supporters (which is quite convenient for Republicans.)

That seems to me to nail it, and illustrates simply another respect in which Democrats, glaringly, have lost the rhetorical terms of the debate--to be told by Republican millionaires, and the corporate media, that they represent the "elite" (and so are 'out of touch').

On a lighter note - re Mad Kane - I have always been fascinated by the development of accents, varied pronunciation and dialects. She uses Tutor to rhyme with 'puter (Computer), so do Americans actually pronounce Computer as COMPOOTER? The distinction is like that of TUNE and TOON where the 'U' is pronounced EWE in most English accents.

Hey Adam - It's funny - I was going to quote from the Digby article Glenn linked to, also --- but with a different focus (I agree the "elite" positioning is ridiculous and needs to be shifted - what I also found interesting there was the quote pulled from Neal Gabler's great op-ed on the media http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-gabler29-2008jun29,0,3903436.story and the quote in there about the Republican repositioning of the Democrats from working class protectors to elitists happened during NIXON'S time.)

From Digby's article, I thought her discussion on Barack's more drastic need to not appear liberal (than someone like Edwards would've had) to also be pretty interesting:

Repudiating liberalism is a symbolic gesture required of Democrats by the political establishment to prove that they are not elitists. And it goes beyond mere posturing on gay marriage or abortion. The national security challenge is always not to appear to be "an appeaser." The way you prove that is by refusing to appease the Democratic base. ... That being the case, I'm not sure it's ever been realistic to expect Barack Obama to be the guy to challenge all this. He carries with him the strongest cultural signifiers a Democrat can carry to make the political establishment freak out: he's young, he's from big city politics, he's elite educated and, of course, he's black. ... I wish that he would use some of his rhetorical gifts to challenge conservative assumptions more and I'm hopeful that he will, as president, work to redefine the conventional wisdom. I'm also hopeful that his approach on the big issues will not be reflexively compromising. But as of right now, there remains a strong belief among all the Democratic players that liberals are losers --- and they want to win. I don't think we're going to change that in the next four months.

By quoting this, I'm not justifying Obama's vote (and, if you know Digby, you know she wouldn't do that either) - I'm just highlighting some interesting political analysis of the situation that seems to fit the facts and the betrayal of the base.

Hi Jill, the Digby article was so rich insight, I'm glad to hear another of its emphases brought to light.

On the evolution and laughter article, it's hard to assess without looking at the actual peer-reviewed article, but let me remark at the outset that one can be strongly convinced of evolution as theory about the development of biological traits, while rejecting the specific manner of its application to highly complex human behaviors, where there is a temptation to create Just-So stories. Now like linguistic ability, laughter is, apparently, a universally shared human capacity, although what elicits it and under what circumstances seems to vary widely from culture to culture. (See here for instance). In this sense, it would be deeply surprising if it were not, at some level, biological wired in us. Nonetheless:

"The theory is an evolutionary and cognitive explanation of how and why any individual finds anything funny. Effectively it explains that humour occurs when the brain recognizes a pattern that surprises it, and that recognition of this sort is rewarded with the experience of the humorous response, an element of which is broadcast as laughter.

This seems to me to be vacuous. Although I can see why the emphasis on form rather than content helps, given the level of cultural and individual variation in what people find funny, laughter does not seems to be the only response to something surprising--fear, for instance, can be elicited by the recognition of a pattern that surprises one. The 'reward' in that case would be potentially surviving the danger that your surprised fear alerts you too.

Clarke's new theory of humour could also provide the basis for an increased understanding of human cognitive functions: "The development of pattern recognition as displayed in humour could also form the basis of humankind's instinctive linguistic ability. Syntax and grammar function in fundamental patterns for which a child has an innate facility. All that differs from one individual to the next is the content of those patterns in terms of vocabulary."

The part about vocabulary being the only difference between languages is, to say the least, controversial: 'surface' grammatical categories, at the very least, can vary widely and in deeply counter-intuitive ways from language to language. The part about pattern recognition is a little broad: it could mean that pattern recognition generally, paradigmatically that characteristic of linguistic ability, emerged from the kind enabled by laughter, which would be, on this view, the basis of pattern recognition more generally. That strikes me as wildly implausible, since many non-human species can apparently recognize patterns of behavior (Chimps, for instance, are quite good at spotting behavioral regularities in physical objects). As for forms of pattern recognition that are at least plausibly distinctively human, it would seem that facial recognition and interpretation--which, say, chimps appear to be notoriously bad at--would surely be of more direct evolutionary relevance for human cognitive development in pattern recognition than laughter.

The whole of contemporary computational cognitive psychology depends upon the view of cognitive capacities as being distinguished by their distinctive sensitivity to specific kinds of content and regularities, and the kinds of inferences these enable. I don't see what is distinctive of laughter as a form pattern recognition, if it is a form of pattern recognition, that would justify making it the basis either of language learning or pattern recognition more generally.

jill quoting digby:

I'm hopeful that he (obama) will, as president, work to redefine the conventional wisdom.

no, sorry, for that you need to be a MAVERICK (tm). :)

say, i thought you folks didn't believe in unicorns or imaginary friends. ?

just kidding folks. mostly.

pedantsareus,

i find accents interesting myself. as an american, i say computer like kum-pyoo-tr, and not like kum-poo-tr. i've never heard anyone pronounce it that way. there is no distinction between the pronunciations of tune and toon for us though.

Jonathan,

Unicorns? Shit, I just hope that someone who believes in democracy more than he/she belives in war becomes our president.

jonathan -

say, i thought you folks didn't believe in unicorns or imaginary friends. ?

I think what Digby expressed ("work to redefine") is just enough of a low level hope to have possibilities....I don't think we are entering unicorn territory unless you actually say "will redefine." :)

More than 5,000 Obama supporters have joined a "protest group" on his website in hopes of urging him to stand strong on FISA.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/SenatorObama-PleaseVoteAgainstFISA/members

If you have a moment, please join this group. I will remind you that Sen. Feingold has bought us some time- we must take full advantage of it.

http://www.theseminal.com/2008/06/28/barack-obama-fisa-and-social-networks/

For my fellow geeks, some stats re: the Obama/FISA protest-

http://get-fisa-right.wetpaint.com/page/Statistics

This is why I love the Internet.

More than 5,000 Obama supporters have joined a "protest group" on his website in hopes of urging him to stand strong on FISA.

Yet another reason why I have so much repect for the younger generation.

Thank you.

This IS a good thing. The tone of the group's message is right - positive, but firm. Current group count: 5481. At its current rate of growth, it could easily become the largest group on Obama's site.

While I don't see that culture is particularly relevant I do agree that there are surprising patterns that evoke reactions other than laughter. I do wonder how he would explain why we laugh at the same joke more than once, followed by statements such as, that always makes me laugh. I also agree that theories such as this are too often supported by just so stories.

JoAnn:

Don't thank me, join me.

[cue Hank Hill voice]

For America...

I don't think we are entering unicorn territory...

oh, obama's no unicorn, jill. unicorns can be tamed. lets see what effect those 5000 members of the "younger generation" have. i'm betting- zilch.

JoAnn- just for fun: democracy is to war as unicorns are to...

virgins?

P.S. Today is my 28th b-day. Am I still part of the younger generation? Am I still cool?

Trick question: I was never cool. :p

jonathan becker:

That's the spirit! We can't possibly change things, and its a waste of time to try.

A winning attitude that has served America well these past 28 years.

[being cynical is easy. trying to change the world is not.]

zaphod- happy birthday!

yes i'm aware that changing the world is not easy. "trying" to change the world, however, by "voting" is. and the actual change effected by doing so is directly proportional to the effort required.

just an old cynic. and i don't mean to pee on your parade, i'm only joking around. i vote with my feet.

More than 5,000 Obama supporters have joined a "protest group" on his website in hopes of urging him to stand strong on FISA.

Thank you for the link! And happy birthday, you big libertarian nerd.

Am I still part of the younger generation?

I sure hope so. Because if you're not, I'm probably not!

Current group count: 5481.

Now at 6009

I think what Digby expressed ("work to redefine") is just enough of a low level hope to have possibilities....I don't think we are entering unicorn territory

I agree. She offered evidence for that hope--that Obama has rejected so-called conventional wisdom on foreign policy and national security in the past. That is at least prima facie grounds, it seems to me, for cautiously hoping, without denying his recent manifest failure, that this is not indicative of a broader tendency toward misguided opportunism. We like to think that either someone's a pol or their not, and that there is no degrees in between. The reality, of course, is much more complicated, both with the alleged 'Maverick' and Mr. Change-We-Don't-Quite-Still-Believe -In-But-It's-Better-Than-A-Loony-Republican.

. We like to think that either someone's a pol or their not,

'They're not.' But that too is a grammatical error: he or she is not. Dammit!

Today is my 28th b-day. Am I still part of the younger generation? Am I still cool?

You are young enough to be my second child, but not cool enough.

heh...heh

Happy Birthday, Zaphod!!!
I think jonathan is right in that it won't change his vote but I think Zaphod is right that it will have an effect! And I always think the fight is worth it - that's why I don't quite get what JoAnn's up to - especially since this has been going on since 2000 (no surprises here) and it HAS been sllllloooowly getting better - 2006 definitely had some changes and it looks like we have a chance this year even though, both potential nominees weren't the usual white males (with Norm, I really wanted John Edwards who is a white male but I think it's a pretty beautiful thing that a woman and an African American both looked like good possibilities - that's amazing ---- even though it shouldn't be).

[cue Beatles]

You've got to admit it's getting better. A little better all the time.

As it happens, I am surrounded by old farts around here. Interesting how the web bridges all the gaps, even generation gaps.

As it happens, I am surrounded by old farts around here.

Hey! Who you calling an old fart, wee whipper snapper?

well, that does it. out come the big guns.

ahem. the official maximum age limit for consideration as a member of the younger generation is 27.

and a half.

pull up a lounger next to the shuffleboard courts and have a seat, zaphod. we have a lot to talk about. i have lots and lots of stories about the "old days". why, when i was a younger man...oh, wait. i'll be right back, i'm going to get my teeth.

:)

Creation Museum stuff and Nonsense. Easter Idol Land. Stone democrats in name only Hinge.

"I just hope that someone who believes in democracy more than he/she believes in war becomes our president."

"We can't possibly change things, and its a waste of time to try."

Heard of Writer's Block? what we, as a "Civilization" have, is... Leader's Block. By the age of 28, One should have it all figured out, if it takes you 'til say, 44, and 4 months (44.4), you're retarded (Take it, cumgrano salis buryplain, from a certified Geronimontologist.)

May be it really is time to circle the wagons and grow up. Escape Fromm Freedom?

E, F, F?

Ever Fascism Fascinates. With world wide webs, kontrolnaya robota,...

EFF you.

Danke Schoen, aber, no thanks,

C, G, C', E' Eb'...

Some Where, over the slopehead, way up high... in the midst of the encircling megaliths, a Rhinoceros is having his way with a Virgin (transcend the Info Age, now circulates Qualia from Talia from Qualia from Talia from... no plato/no-plato dichotomy, no Rite of Spring polytones , just, Paganism/Saganism. Sagan for (Nader's) vice-pres): :)

Hitch your wagon to a Rhino? Or do you still fall for it, a DINO?

I mean, if Yeltsin can stand on top of a tank after a coup, why don't we have anyone drunk enough to do it?