These uncharming, self-selected "lead voices" really are a burden to Liberalism and Progressivism

[gulliver]

Just saying. Pseudo-saintery displaces the real thing. We need a lot less posing and preening on these "fringest of the fringe" issues. We need climate action, free school lunches, voting rights, reproductive freedom, health care, etc. Other things that "seem nice" need to be considered for the possibility that they actually aren't, that they're actually lazy, self-indulgent, and self-regarding at worst, peripheral and distractions at best.

If someone tells you who they are, don't believe them. If someone tells you someone else "told us who they are," don't believe either of them.

[brush]

1. What are the peripheral issues you're talking about?

[gulliver]

2. It's clearer just to list the ones that are important.

I started a good list. I guess I would add free education through college, green jobs, reduction of international tensions. Those I don't list are the ones I would start to say are "peripheral or distractions." Not that they should be ignored, whether intellectually or ethically in the right or wrong. But that they should be given lower levels of attention and action based on overall human benefit as the guiding principle.

[brush]

3. I'm with you on all the things you listed. Excellent. Just curious about...

what you thing are peripheral, distracting issues?

[Walleye]

4. We'll never know how many votes the phrase "defund the police" cost us. And it was meaningless

[enid602]

6. Right

I think that was more an issue on the right. Also, anything that has to do with Antifa.

[Walleye]

7. Yes I know we give them a match to strike, and they provide gasoline

[Igel]

10. Dig deep, and it makes sense.

The "police" are bourgeoisie enforcers of their system and ideology, intrinsically oppressive. If you're a "trained Marxist," then the police are evil. They are inherently oppressors of the proletariat.

That's modified in Marxian descendants of the ur-ideology in all sorts of ways.

The USSR didn't have police. They had a people's "militia"--it was worse than the police in bourgeoisie country, but since framing outranks reality, anything that was "people's" was superior to anything bourgeoisie.

Gotta go. Ehnes. Ysaye. Sonata #1, "fugato". It's come up on my play list. Time to sonically luxuriate.

[TwilightZone]

5. Everyone has their own priorities.

Rarely do they all align with those of everyone else.

That being said, we focus on some pretty pointless things, like obsessing over whether Trump stinks or not. I can think of few things that are less important.

[Walleye]

8. Yes, it is distasteful, and offensive, but I was just thinking. It proves he's not a king

I would think that hundreds of thousands of people would not would not be comfortable saying “the King stinks”, or “our Leader stinks”, in an autocracy. The emperor has no clothes, kind of thing

[TwilightZone]

9. I guarantee that his supporters couldn't care less.

They're fine with all of the abhorrent things he does, and you think their line in the sand is body odor? lol, no.

As for swing voters, whether he stinks or not is about 2,000th on their list of priorities.

It's a distraction, one of the most pointless in memory. We want it to be an issue, but it's just silly and sophomoric. It also undersells and overshadows how abhorrent he is otherwise.