yes. it’s pretty good. i’ve also read the shelby foote and bruce catton trilogies. despite his attempt to be an iconoclastic southerner foote still manages to romanticize the southerners, imo.
edited for clarity.
Amazing message, really is.
I never want to hear someone complain about political commercial microphones again.
So much this, but the conspiracy that exists to stop the shoulds is the conspiracy of tight-fisted corporate ideas imported into the … whatever the fuck the military is now and always has been. Every era sees systemic idiocies like this. Body counts, fully fueled and armed strategic bombers idling away for days on the ramp, we look back and say “what did they think was going to happen?”
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Hmmm… seems to me the rise of a post-modernism as a reaction to materialist view of history which was a reaction to the whiggish view of history has a dark side. While Foucault and the post-Braudel French historians were busy deconstructing modernity and Marx’s stages of history, some people took those decconstructions in a very different direction. Let’s not forget that Spencer has a degree in history (though I think he’s still ABD - probably because he knew whatever his BS argument was would be rejected by his profs). It wasn’t just progressives or left wing radicals that embraced a more critical view of the enlightenment.
But yeah, Whig historiography was political. All academic fields had that bent, as it was in part the west justifying itself and classifying itself as the primary historical force in world events. They divided the world into those with a history, and those whose history never was or that was never past.
On the whole, I find most historians (as individuals) to be progressive or liberal in orientation. It really isn’t a hotbed of marxist radicals around these parts I’m afraid. But the pendulum as swung pretty far to the right in recent years and some historians have become more politically active as a result, which is great. We need people with long memories and views to help inform us of what the possibilities are on the horizon and what the risks are of not doing anything.
I hope you’re right.
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Fortunately, both Bernie and those left of him have figured out that, in political messaging, “positive” does not have to mean “weak”.
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Yup.
That is why I made this thread:
I’m not as good at it as I wish I were, but I’ve been trying to provide some antifa vaccination to the Boingers for a while now. I did see all this shit coming.
I could use some help, BTW. Half a dozen posts from half a dozen different people are a lot more convincing than a posting swarm from a single source.
The Boingers are mostly good people, but the Libertarian edge of the board is at risk of going to the dark side, and the Liberals are in danger of sitting and watching it happen.
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Worried; there’s buzz about something big to drop on Russia and impeachment, but the source of this supposed scoop is Haberman. There may be a massive misinformation drop about to happen, or there may be a trigger for action about to be declared.
Or I may be massively mistaken, and Haberman was an undercover anti fascist all this time. But I doubt that very much.
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You have more contact with the kids than I do; I’m mostly just obsessing over radical Twitter and podcasts.
What’s the vibe on campus?
Why the entire fleet? Why not just that one DD squadron?
There has been some low-credibility buzz about Russian hacking of USN GPS, but I didn’t take it seriously.
BTW: I’m aware that I’m a bit more blatantly paranoid than usual at the moment.
In part, this is just because I’m crazy and stressed.
But I’m also letting it show a bit as an act of deliberate performative paranoia.
If this all goes to shit and the left loses, you need to be this crazy if you want to survive.
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It’s FUD; a story about Trump/Russia that doesn’t actually add anything new of significance but is enough to keep Liberal hopes alive and buy cred for Maggie.
The stories about Mattis:
…are overly optimistic. Read with a cynical eye, Mattis’ statement was not inconsistent with that of a committed fascist looking to quell unrest within the army. He doesn’t say anything about Trump; he’s telling the military not to take action, not to think about domestic politics, and emphasises their power if he should order them to act.
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I’ll certainly try to do my part. Preparing for the semester (and now in the thick of it) has been a little overwhelming lately (just spent an hour and half dealing with getting an office key AND IT’S STILL NOT RIGHT). And sometimes, even having a phd in the subject doesn’t make one immune to libertarian mansplaining.
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Well, GSU rarely has outright fascists or white supremacists on campus, since it’s such a diverse place in the middle of a diverse city. The few posters that have gone up come down within the day. When ever we see outright right wing activism on campus, the student body lets people know it’s not acceptable. I don’t get many people complaining when I talk about marxism either, so that’s something. Whenever I’ve assigned Zinn as the text, most people like it and don’t think it’s too left-wing.
But I’ve also noticed over the years a general lack of political activism among many undergraduates. Most of them are working class kids, looking to get through school and start a career, ya know. It tends to be more elite institutions where there are more activists, because the kids there tend to have more free time (they aren’t working their way through school, like many of our students are). But I think that kids generally feel safe here and in the city in general from white supremacy, in part because in the past, so many people who came to ATL were here because they were fleeing such things (or they were gay, etc).
And the flagship school (University of GA) and the other big school in ATL, GA Tech tends to be whiter and more politically conservative.
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Some antipodean craziness as a palate cleanser:
https://twitter.com/lanadelraytheon/status/902710417625038848
https://twitter.com/jamie_maz/status/902711227398455296
Thankfully, the Democrats are now an ex-party. They just don’t know it yet.
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Haberman dropping back to a slightly less obvious bias suggests that they’re not planning on too dramatic a move right now. They’re regrouping.
So, maybe back to this: