[Severian]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

i'm saying learn to sell



getting people to switch from coke to pepsi is all horseshit-- it's a game of persuasion.

if you wanna write a dissertation with your arguments for switching, fine, but nobody is going to read it.

give the customer what they want sell it to them-- that's what winning elections boils down to.

"compassionate conservatism"

"terrist nucular nucular terrist"

"hope" "change"

"the 47% moocher class" (last year's despicables) - oooops

"#maga"

what do you have to sell and why is it good for me? can you tell me in an 8th-grade language?

At this moment, no. But I'll work on just that. Seriously, not being sarcastic. If that's what you think will work, I will give it a try.

But Jesus, intentionally dumbing myself down is not something I've ever considered practicing. Bit heartbreaking, really. But I'm willing to think big picture and try anything at this point.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Severian

At this moment, no. But I'll work on just that. Seriously, not being sarcastic. If that's what you think will work, I will give it a try.

But Jesus, intentionally dumbing myself down is not something I've ever considered practicing. Bit heartbreaking, really. But I'm willing to think big picture and try anything at this point.

i wasn't talking about you personally but the party as a whole. it needs a product and it needs to sell it right. most recently it failed at both.

but it wouldn't be a bad thing for you personally to learn to sell. it takes smart people to sell. it takes good listeners to sell.

sales people, actually, are the ones who make the most money in any business organization-- everybody else works on salary. someone who works on commission and sells a fleet of 777 airplanes or a supertanker or some real estate in dubai is going to get a fuuuuuuuuuuuckload of money.

what you call "dumbing down" is the ability to empathize with regular people and customize your message to your audience. any stupid person can tell you what they think they want, but it takes intelligence to listen and understand what someone else needs. it takes intelligence to simplify complex ideas and make them clear and memorable. it takes intelligence to persuade people and win them over to your side.

read this and have fun:

http://www.inc.com/steve-tobak/how-t...o-anybody.html

[!@#$%!]

@ r. schunk - yes, but the new left had to develop because it could no longer win with the old formulas. reaganism/thatcherism were their death knell and the old-left institutions were picked apart and left to die.

part of it was dirty tricks, sure, but this was achievable because the public was fed up with labor unions that had gone too far and laissez-faire economics had the ideological upper hand. maybe things will swing back left again after this historical cycle burns out, but it's not done yet.

personally though i don't think we can bring socialism back and i wouldn't want to-- i lived for almost a year in an israeli kibbutz and have seen how things work there. also grew up under various socialistic regimes. maybe that can work with some people but i can't stand the reduction in individual freedom in exchange for safety. under capitalism you can at least choose how you die-- under collectivism you just die of boredom.

under socialism there is no equality either. since everything depends on the government, your degree of "equality" (in the orwellian, ironic, animal-farm sense) depends on your proximity to power. in other words-- those with connections get the juicy meat and those without them get stale bread. it's all about connections. humans are hierarchical animals and those behaviors can't be socially-engineered away. best we can do is use our intrinsic inequality for optimal ends.

plus, because the central planning is murder on the economy, there is always less juicy meat to go around--the elites get fat and the workers fight over scraps.

just look at what chavismo has done to venezuela. every day there is just more poverty to distribute. meanwhile, the chinese commies saw the light and now instead of famines they are fighting obesity.

i'm not a right winger, and yes a new left was needed to take over the old dead one, but overreliance on identity politics and the lack of a proper ideological update have made the new left a failure. clinton had 2 years of congress obama had 2 years of congress they had a knife at the throat for another 6. clinton undone by gingrich, and obama by the baggers.

weak.

but this country is a center-right country in spite of what me or you or someone else might individually believe. this isn't 1929 when socialism had a chance.

eta: then again, the millenials are so swamped in debt... the laissez-faire cycle might conceivably close once boomers start to fade

[tesla69]

Originally Posted by Robert Schunk

Make no mistake: America is currently in a revolutionary period, and, despite the election results, the matter remains highly fluid.

While one might argue we are in a counterrevolutionary period, what is the solution from the elites when the masses begin to get organized and struggle for power: WAR! WW!, for instance, when an international workers movement was well underway, WW! was used to force the working clases to fight against each other and literally DIE. And whart news story did I miss recently:
“LATE IN THE DAY, ON NOV. 15, ONE WEEK AFTER THE U.S. ELECTIONS, THE LAME-DUCK CONGRESS CONVENED IN SPECIAL SESSION WITH NORMAL RULES SUSPENDED SO THE HOUSE COULD PASS HOUSE RESOLUTION 5732, THE “CAESAR SYRIA CIVILIAN PROTECTION ACT” CALLING FOR INTENSIFYING THE ALREADY HARSH SANCTIONS ON SYRIA, ASSESSING THE IMPOSITION OF A “NO FLY ZONE” INSIDE SYRIA (TO PREVENT THE SYRIAN GOVERNMENT FROM FLYING) AND ESCALATING EFFORTS TO PRESS CRIMINAL CHARGES AGAINST SYRIAN OFFICIALS…
MOST STRIKINGLY, THE RESOLUTION CALLS FOR EVALUATING AND DEVELOPING PLANS FOR THE UNITED STATES TO IMPOSE A “NO FLY ZONE” INSIDE SYRIA, A SOVEREIGN NATION, AN ACT OF WAR THAT ALSO WOULD VIOLATE INTERNATIONAL LAW AS AN ACT OF AGGRESSION. IT ALSO COULD PUT THE U.S. MILITARY IN THE POSITION OF SHOOTING DOWN RUSSIAN AIRCRAFT.”

They are trying to leave Trump with a huge steaming pile of shit.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

i wasn't talking about you personally but the party as a whole. it needs a product and it needs to sell it right. most recently it failed at both.

but it wouldn't be a bad thing for you personally to learn to sell. it takes smart people to sell. it takes good listeners to sell.

sales people, actually, are the ones who make the most money in any business organization-- everybody else works on salary. someone who works on commission and sells a fleet of 777 airplanes or a supertanker or some real estate in dubai is going to get a fuuuuuuuuuuuckload of money.

what you call "dumbing down" is the ability to empathize with regular people and customize your message to your audience. any stupid person can tell you what they think they want, but it takes intelligence to listen and understand what someone else needs. it takes intelligence to simplify complex ideas and make them clear and memorable. it takes intelligence to persuade people and win them over to your side.

read this and have fun:

http://www.inc.com/steve-tobak/how-t...o-anybody.html

Ok, well, I didn't mean to come at you with a challenging tone, and I apologize if I did, or if I've sounded argumentative at all.

You're basically talking about campaigning though, aren't you? I mean, when all is said and done, campaigning is selling. And you're right, the party needs to get better at this. Or restore a fire they previously had for this kind of '"market manipulation."

As for ME... what I can do in conversation with people who have already made up their mind that the country "needed" Trump... it's not an immediate plan of action. What we need *right now* is for our senators (most of them being Republican at this point) to do the unthinkable -- strike down Trump's magnificently dangerous cabinet proposals, and make an enemy of their own party's man.

I don't know what things are like day to day for you guys, but for me, I'm just surrounded by people who think this is all the best thing to happen to the U.S. in decades... since Bush ended the "moral bankruptcy" or the Clinton administration. I don't think it's possible for me to sell an idea to these old ass White folks and single issue voters. Am I being a doomist? Maybe. And maybe that's impairing my ability to think straight.

Anyway, I'm not trying to argue with people like Symbols with whom I agree almost almost all things social and political. But I seem to be coming across as stubborn and bull-headed, so maybe I need to reevaluate the way I'm talking to my *friends* here, as well as the folks who are functional enemies at this point.

[ilduclo]

ya know, it's taken so long for "identity politics" to actually have some legs, that I'd like to see how it can run before sending it to the glue factory. My party is doing a hell of a job including people who've been marginalized for so long that I think it's great. And, anyone who longs for the moral certitude of the Shrub administration, which was more concerned with bare tits on the statues of justice than they were with the use of torture in Guantanamo, well, just fuck them, I'll never find common ground with that shit


http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...olitics.h tml

[ilduclo]

oh, and don't forget, identity politics actually won the popular vote, and by a SUBSTANTIAL margin.

[The Soup Nazi]

Originally Posted by pepper_green

Bill Maher sucks cock. fuck that asshole. another ugly brainwashed white man just like you. what's the name of his show? he spits at his guest. a rude white man that needs to be hung.

I thought for sure he'd die like David Carradine. he always has that redneck asshat going blha burr durp durp durp redneck drump go hunting goddammit mugfucker fuck mi sister.

Originally Posted by pepper_green

not aiming at you PLips ...

...but, Hilliary was a asshole bitch that can go fuck herself.

all the reforms you can think of are already set. established in the 60's and before. don't blame nobody. blame no one but yrself you dumbass. work for yr shit and stop asking for handouts you lazy fucking fuck. there's no race problem or sex problem. it's America!!!

now get the fuck out my face. jackass!!!

 

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by ilduclo

ya know, it's taken so long for "identity politics" to actually have some legs, that I'd like to see how it can run before sending it to the glue factory. My party is doing a hell of a job including people who've been marginalized for so long that I think it's great. And, anyone who longs for the moral certitude of the Shrub administration, which was more concerned with bare tits on the statues of justice than they were with the use of torture in Guantanamo, well, just fuck them, I'll never find common ground with that shit


http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...olitics.h tml

i haven't read that article yet, and i second you on your repudiation of good-vs-evil president gog-&-magog, which is part and parcel of neocon ideology-- not necessarily republican, as there are also neocon democrats (e.g. lizard person ex-vp candidate joe lieberman and many others who left the democrats in the 60s)

but about identity politics, let me say--

i'm a "hispanic" mongrel married to a "full-blooded"(whatever that means) "native american" (aka an injun). while the race politics stuff is all around us and about us, we don't see the great benefits of this racialization scheme except that we get to mark a lot of checkboxes in government forms and get typecast into some sort of racist caricatures, apparently for our own good.

i also notice that socially more and more ethnicity is *everywhere*. everywhere i go i'm interrogated about my origins and "nationality"-- don't know if this is a friendly gesture or a fucking gestapo interrogation. feels like gestapo to me and i'm sick of it.

nobody is american anymore. you're "french-irish-german" or "afroitalian" or "mexi-caribbean choctaw" or "polish greek" or something else, but any sense of national unity and common cause and greater community is lost. so everyone fucking bickers about their little ghetto of genetic material. it's a loser's game and there is no benefit to it.

so yeah, i'm sick and tired of identity politics which is bullshit pandering to a hollow cause. i'm all for diversity, yes, but as long as it's diversity within an all-encompassing american (and ultimately human) identity, not as some little pocket of alienation and auto-marginalization.

sure the american idea needs to be broader than the fucking pilgrims and the slave-owning founding fathers, and it needs to include people like muslims who are today's no-irish-need-apply, but it needs to coalesce about something big like, i don't know--the constitution, for fuck's sakes.

me, i see me having more in common with the redneck neighbor who sells me farm supplies than with some megamillionaire "hispanic" cuban from miami; but racial politics tells me that no, the hispanic is "my people" and the rural white is some sort of racial enemy and i must be wary of him. bullshit! bullshit! bullshit!

[Severian]

Joe Lieberman is AWFUL.

[ilduclo]

well, I agree about old Joe....about the parties progress though, I still think it's headed in the right direction. Here in Oregon, we elected a bisexual woman governor and 9 new State Representatives for the Dems, not one of which is a white male. Our new Rep from our area is just as sharp and committed to good things as you could ever hope for. So, again, I like the direction that we're headed, multi-cultural, working class, LGBT friendly, a lot of female participation, etc.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Severian

Joe Lieberman is AWFUL.

of course, but he exemplifies the existance of a neocon faction among democrats. hillary btw has been accused of being one throughout the campaign-- maybe this didn't register with us who supported her, but that sure resonated with many of her critics (berniebros included of course)

Originally Posted by ilduclo

well, I agree about old Joe....about the parties progress though, I still think it's headed in the right direction. Here in Oregon, we elected a bisexual woman governor and 9 new State Representatives for the Dems, not one of which is a white male. Our new Rep from our area is just as sharp and committed to good things as you could ever hope for. So, again, I like the direction that we're headed, multi-cultural, working class, LGBT friendly, a lot of female participation, etc.

i think that's really great, but unless they enact policies that speak to a broad base rather than their atomized particular constituencies they'll get dumped next time around. then again, you're in portlandia, which is in another dimension.

when you secede please let me in.

[!@#$%!]

oh i almost forgot

Originally Posted by Severian

Ok, well, I didn't mean to come at you with a challenging tone, and I apologize if I did, or if I've sounded argumentative at all.

uh??

dude, i like arguing. that's why i'm here.

i mean arguing as a way of searching for some sort of truth, not as a stupid ego contest.

i see arguing as a form of collaboration-- as long as there's no punching in the huevos

tldr i have no problem whatsoever with what you said above

and my suggestion to learn about sales and persuasion is an earnest one.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by ilduclo

well, I agree about old Joe....about the parties progress though, I still think it's headed in the right direction. Here in Oregon, we elected a bisexual woman governor and 9 new State Representatives for the Dems, not one of which is a white male. Our new Rep from our area is just as sharp and committed to good things as you could ever hope for. So, again, I like the direction that we're headed, multi-cultural, working class, LGBT friendly, a lot of female participation, etc.

Yes, I'm very proud of my neighbor home-state OR, as well as my actual home state of WA.

I mean, really, the American west and Pacific Northwest are pretty much golden. The entirety of the coast is a beautiful dark blue, and always has been. (And before you bring up Eastern Washington, it may as well not exist from a statistical standpoint. Some of those counties are blood red, and as scary as the Idaho panhandle in their old-boy beliefs, but they simply can't compete with King and Whatcom counties, where I was raised and where I'm proud to call my home.

But speaking as someone who's gone from the Pacific Northwest to (first) major cities in the Midwest and eventually to a rural town in the same area, I can tell you things don't look anywhere near as sunny, knowing that there are bizarro versions of Santa Cruz, Olympia and Portland all over this country, and having to live in one. This is probably a major source of my frustration. I went from one extreme to the other, and I can see the flaws in the thinking and delivery of the über-left social warriors I grew up with, and how the people in the rust belt respond to that kind of attitude and behavior.

God bless Seattle, but a lot of those hardcore liberals who have a voice come from Bellevue and Ravenna and Redmond and Mercer Island, and they're outright RICH to the common everyday working class American. Most of the "career" activists I know who always have time for rallies and community projects also have never spent a single second worrying about how they might take care of their parents in their old age. This is because they're median income was about $300,000 a year (per parent!) growing up, and they find themselves in very secure little lives where they can afford to do a lot of what they want. Ditto for California, and even Portland.

I've lost the thread of where I was going with this, but basically, Trump voters HATE these people, and would hate them even more if they knew them like I did. Of course, they kinda voted for one of these people, but that's beyond them.

Symbols has a good point about the Dems lack of mass appeal. Even true blue Dems here in the Midwest (the few I know) feel that the Dems no longer represent the working class, labor, the ubderdogs, or peaceful international conflict negotiation.

I still support Hillary fully, but the problem is bigger than her. The solution is ...fucked if I know. How to move forward and regain ground without going decidedly backward on multiple fronts -- it's beyond me.

[!@#$%!]

super-tired at this early hour but quickly to say the clinton democrats almost had it right

the "new left" closer to the center did some things right. it was when they tried to move things too far left (e.g. health care reform in 1993 led by hillary) that the right came back with a vengeance and tormented the clintons for the next 6 years.

had they played it cautiously, and had calculated natfa to play out better (more worker protections, more money for retraining), they might have kept running the country for a long time.

dubya won... why the fuck did he win? mainly because al gore was a boring-ass candidate nobody wanted to have a beer with. whereas dubya, gosh darn, he's just like a regular guy with his texas drawl, not some yankee aristocracy from connecticut (lol). SALES. SALES. SALES. fucking SALES.

same thing with john fucking kerry. boring-ass and swiftboated. sooooooo fucking incompetent at SALES.

if it wasn't for obama's magic, mccain would have been president 8 years, even in spite of dubya's maaaaaaaaassive fuckups which lost him the house in 2006.

but then 2 years later, again, blam. no congress

why hasn't anyone figured out these cycles yet? repukes get 6 years of congress democrats get 4 but only 2 with their own president. repeatedly.

gotta work on those ratios. which suck.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

super-tired at this early hour but quickly to say the clinton democrats almost had it right

the "new left" closer to the center did some things right. it was when they tried to move things too far left (e.g. health care reform in 1993 led by hillary) that the right came back with a vengeance and tormented the clintons for the next 6 years.

had they played it cautiously, and had calculated natfa to play out better (more worker protections, more money for retraining), they might have kept running the country for a long time.

dubya won... why the fuck did he win? mainly because al gore was a boring-ass candidate nobody wanted to have a beer with. whereas dubya, gosh darn, he's just like a regular guy with his texas drawl, not some yankee aristocracy from connecticut (lol). SALES. SALES. SALES. fucking SALES.

same thing with john fucking kerry. boring-ass and swiftboated. sooooooo fucking incompetent at SALES.

if it wasn't for obama's magic, mccain would have been president 8 years, even in spite of dubya's maaaaaaaaassive fuckups which lost him the house in 2006.

but then 2 years later, again, blam. no congress

why hasn't anyone figured out these cycles yet? repukes get 6 years of congress democrats get 4 but only 2 with their own president. repeatedly.

gotta work on those ratios. which suck.

It is very important to go into each election cycle knowing your odds, and the Dems have always had the odds against them in many ways. We pay far too much attention — as a culture — to the presidential stats and we fail to acknowledge the equally important battle in the legislative branch. Time to pay more attention to the odds in these cases, and to start early with prepping '18 candidates for what they will be up against and to strategize about how to beat the Republicans.

[demonrail666]

Descartes is on a plane.
Midway through the flight an air hostess asks him if he'd like a coffee.
"I think not," he says, and disappears.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

Descartes is on a plane.
Midway through the flight an air hostess asks him if he'd like a coffee.
"I think not," he says, and disappears.

haaa haaaa haaaa haaaa

[!@#$%!]

very long day getting back to work just wanted to stop & share this really good read on the democratic party and rural voters, featuring secreatary of agriculture and former governor of iowa tom vilsack. a+++++++ will buy again.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...d25_story.html

[!@#$%!]

looks like the non-sacred chao will be the next secretary of transportation

maybe she'll rip out the amtrak rails and outsource the FAA