http://www.gocomics.com/pricklycity/2008/08/23/?campid=0&ssns=9&
As a Dem, should I take this as gentle teasing, or should I be mad as
hell?
. . . jim strain in san diego.
I would say it depends on who is doing the naration. Is it a level-headed
chracter, or a buffoonish character?
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..
> I would say it depends on who is doing the naration. Is it a level-headed
> chracter, or a buffoonish character?
Except for the pilot's announcement in panel 3 it appears to be in the
voice of an omniscient narrator, that is to say the cartoonist himself -
who's usually been A, but appears to have adopted B for the day.
--
Mark Jackson - http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~mjackson
I love to draw. I loved to draw a lot more
before I became a cartoonist. - Aaron McGruder
Well, going back a few strips, it appears to be a yellow dog-ish character
called "Winslow" speaking.
Ted
> Well, going back a few strips, it appears to be a yellow dog-ish character
> called "Winslow" speaking.
I don't think so. When a character speaks there's a line indicating
where the speech comes from. Compare the strip of the day before:
http://www.gocomics.com/pricklycity/2008/08/22/
and, for that matter, panel 3 of the strip in question with panels 1, 2,
and 4.
Besides, there's no motivation for either of the characters other than
Carmen known to be on the plane (Vaughn and Winslow) to be recapping the
action like this.
--
Mark Jackson - http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~mjackson
IMO, the only reason to be mad is if it hits just a little too close to
home WRT the makeup of the Democratic Party.
--
Regards,
Dann
blogging at http://web.newsguy.com/dainbramage/blog.htm
Freedom works; each and every time it is tried.
I don't think it's speech; I believe it's Winslow thinking.
You mean if we're *not* raving commies it shouldn't bother us if
someone says we are? When someone from the left drags out the F word
(as in fascist), people on the right tend to take offense. Does that
mean it's a bit close to home WRT *their* mindset? Nah, I think we're
just in an era where many of us are reflexively rude as hell and think
disrespecting, even slandering our opponents is simply SOP.
Have you gotten even stupider, or am I just reading more of your
posts?
(and of course, you have no reason to take offense at the above unless you
really are stupid, right?)
--
When I log into my Xenix system with my 110 baud teletype, both vi
*and* Emacs are just too damn slow. They print useless messages like,
'C-h for help' and '"foo" File is read only'. So I use the editor
that doesn't waste my VALUABLE time. -Patrick J. LoPresti
OK, one final attempt at evidence-based discussion: see panel 2 of
http://www.gocomics.com/pricklycity/2008/08/09/
for the most recent example of how Stantis actually depicts thoughts (as
opposed to narration).
> On Aug 24, 8:50 pm, Dann <detox...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> On 24 Aug 2008, Jim Strain said the following in
>> news:0518a0e3-c9dc-4187-
>> b8ad-af4d449f1...@i24g2000prf.googlegroups.com.
>>
>> > I know the strip has a rightist point of view, but unlike the Duck,
>> > PC usually seems to come from a basically good-humored place. Then
>> > he comes up with something like this:
>>
>> >http://www.gocomics.com/pricklycity/2008/08/23/?campid=0&ssns=9&
>>
>> > As a Dem, should I take this as gentle teasing, or should I be mad
>> > as hell?
>>
>> IMO, the only reason to be mad is if it hits just a little too close
>> to home WRT the makeup of the Democratic Party.
>
> You mean if we're *not* raving commies it shouldn't bother us if
> someone says we are? When someone from the left drags out the F word
> (as in fascist), people on the right tend to take offense. Does that
> mean it's a bit close to home WRT *their* mindset? Nah, I think we're
> just in an era where many of us are reflexively rude as hell and think
> disrespecting, even slandering our opponents is simply SOP.
Hey...I tried to give you a reason to blow it off. <grin>
Obviously you should be mad as hell....assuming you are a Democrat....at
the small but vocal group of communists that have co-opted your once
great party.
Is that any better?? <wink>
> IMO, the only reason to be mad is if it hits just a little too close to
> home WRT the makeup of the Democratic Party.
So I could freely call you a child molesting drug addict, and
you wouldn't get mad so long as I wasn't true? You folks from
the Publican Party are much more tolerant than I thought.
I do agree that getting mad about a comic strip is probably
a waste of good hormones. The artist does seem to be sucking
his "gags" deeper out of the Rush Bucket lately, though.
Mike Beede
>>> IMO, the only reason to be mad is if it hits just a little too close
>>> to home WRT the makeup of the Democratic Party.
OK, try this one:
Panel 1: Winslow has been brainwashed by the neo-Nazis
Panel 2: Now he is a raving Hitlerite fascist
Panel 3: We are beginning our descent into Denver, host of the Marine
Corp Veterans convention
Panel 4: He'll fit right in
Do you find that amusing or an insulting (and unfunny) ad hominem attack
by someone on the political "other side"?
OK, you read the strip; I don't.
But it seems I've helped you arrive at your answer..
Be fair, now, the message has been updated a bit: now religon *and
guns* are the opiate of the masses.
--
_+_ From the catapult of |If anyone disagrees with any statement I make, I
_|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\ / bal...@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it. -T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Now see, if Stantis would've winked....
>
>In the previous article, Dann <deto...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> > As a Dem, should I take this as gentle teasing, or should I be mad
>> > as hell?
>>
>> IMO, the only reason to be mad is if it hits just a little too close
>> to home WRT the makeup of the Democratic Party.
>
>Be fair, now, the message has been updated a bit: now religon *and
>guns* are the opiate of the masses.
This is the part where you *stop* digging if you know better . . .
> This is the part where you *stop* digging if you know better . . .
Because if you dare to continue to question The Messiah, you
*will* be struck down.
--
Rich Carreiro rlc-...@rlcarr.com
As "clear" as it can be from the fringes . . .
>Antonio E. Gonzalez <AntE...@aol.com> writes:
>
>> This is the part where you *stop* digging if you know better . . .
>
>Because if you dare to continue to question The Messiah, you
>*will* be struck down.
Different hole, but still digging . . .
> Dann wrote:
>
>>>> IMO, the only reason to be mad is if it hits just a little too
>>>> close to home WRT the makeup of the Democratic Party.
>
<snip bad analogy>
The Corps is apolitical. Even John Murtha would get an invite to the
Marine Corps League's shindig.
> Do you find that amusing or an insulting (and unfunny) ad hominem
> attack by someone on the political "other side"?
Clearly you haven't been paying attention. Ad hominem is the primary mode
of operation for the "other side" when it comes to those of us that prefer
lower taxes and smaller government.
And of course there is the example of eight years worth of 'Bushitler'
nonsense to contend with.
<snip long and OT rant>
See!! I'm learning!!
Well, I was being hyperbolic (as I assume was Stantis). However, while
you may be able to argue that the Corps is officially apolitical, you
can't really say that about the members. The current military is
heavily Republican and Evangelical, especially at the officer level, and
I don't know of any reason to believe that the Marines in particular are
otherwise. Note that I say current - this apparently is a trend that
started post Vietnam. For documentation, see:
http://stinet.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA449308&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf
and
http://www.allacademic.com//meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/0/8/5/3/1/pages85315/p85315-1.php
(both papers coming from military sources, Army War College and West
Point, respectively). Both papers indicate that these strong leanings
are affecting decision making...)
>> Do you find that amusing or an insulting (and unfunny) ad hominem
>> attack by someone on the political "other side"?
>
> Clearly you haven't been paying attention. Ad hominem is the primary mode
> of operation for the "other side" when it comes to those of us that prefer
> lower taxes and smaller government.
Are you arguing that Stantis' strip wasn't ad hominem or that Stantis is
a Democrat/liberal?
> And of course there is the example of eight years worth of 'Bushitler'
> nonsense to contend with.
This sort of thing has taken place on both sides. On the right, members
of the administration (perhaps not including Bush, but certainly
including Chaney) calling those that didn't agree with launching a war
against Iraq unpatriotic, if not traitors, was taken a little too
seriously to tag it as nonsense...
>
> <snip long and OT rant>
>
> See!! I'm learning!!
One day I will...
ted
> I know the strip has a rightist point of view, but unlike the Duck, PC
> usually seems to come from a basically good-humored place. Then he
> comes up with something like this:
>
> http://www.gocomics.com/pricklycity/2008/08/23/?campid=0&ssns=9&
>
> As a Dem, should I take this as gentle teasing, or should I be mad as
> hell?
> . . . jim strain in san diego.
Don't see much point in getting mad about it -- if Stantis honestly
thinks the Dems are similar to the Communist Chinese, he's more an
object of pity than anything else. (OTOH, I might watch the Democratic
National Convention if it featured anything as elaborately berserk as
the Olympic closing ceremonies.)
The most interesting thing to me about this story line is what Carmen's
instant conversion to Communism says about the nature of her principles.
To quote from the Wikipedia article about brainwashing: "Moreover, the
few [Korean War] prisoners influenced by Communist indoctrination
apparently succumbed as a result of the confluence of the coercive
persuasion, and of the motives and personality characteristics of the
prisoners that already existed before imprisonment. In particular,
individuals with very rigid systems of belief tended to snap and
realign, whereas individuals with more flexible systems of belief tended
to bend under pressure and then restore themselves after the removal of
external pressures." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainwashing) Guess
Carmen's political beliefs were just too dang rigid!
--
Mark Steese
=======================
The disturbed eyes rise,
furtive, foiled, dissatisfied
from meditation on the true
and insignificant.
> Dann wrote:
>> On 25 Aug 2008, Ted Goldblatt said the following in
>> news:6hft2kF...@mid.individual.net.
>>
>>> Dann wrote:
>>>
>>>>>> IMO, the only reason to be mad is if it hits just a little too
>>>>>> close to home WRT the makeup of the Democratic Party.
>>
>> <snip bad analogy>
>>
>> The Corps is apolitical. Even John Murtha would get an invite to the
>> Marine Corps League's shindig.
>
> Well, I was being hyperbolic (as I assume was Stantis).
Hyperbolic? I think you're just trying to throw me a curve ball.
>>> Do you find that amusing or an insulting (and unfunny) ad hominem
>>> attack by someone on the political "other side"?
>>
>> Clearly you haven't been paying attention. Ad hominem is the primary
>> mode of operation for the "other side" when it comes to those of us
>> that prefer lower taxes and smaller government.
>
> Are you arguing that Stantis' strip wasn't ad hominem or that Stantis
> is a Democrat/liberal?
Is it possible to use hyperbole without crossing over into ad hominem?
>>
>> <snip long and OT rant>
>>
>> See!! I'm learning!!
>
> One day I will...
Sadly, I never will.
My first impression of the strip in question was that it was just a tad
bit over the top. Great fun for those that think there are fundamental
problems within the Democratic party, but obviously no one on the inside
is going to listen. A kind of pointless poking at sore points that tends
to get ignored.
My second impression is that like any good bit of editorial cartooning,
it had more than a modest kernal of truth to it. The Democratic party is
currently being very responsive to sub-sections of people that are
communist poseurs*. People that believe in a style of government that
isn't as destructive as a real communist system, but is destructive
nonetheless.
The sort of people that would attempt to pass a ballot proposal that
selectively removes only elected Republican judges and attempts to re-
gerrymander an entire state in their favor. We got lucky and dodged that
bullet in Michigan.
I think Mr. Stantis had a point and made it in the very worst way
possible.
*poseurs as they think they are oppressed but have no concept of what
real oppression looks like. They mouth the words of communism, but have
no idea of the consequences when fully implemented.
>
> My first impression of the strip in question was that it was just a tad
> bit over the top. Great fun for those that think there are fundamental
> problems within the Democratic party, but obviously no one on the inside
> is going to listen. A kind of pointless poking at sore points that tends
> to get ignored.
>
> My second impression is that like any good bit of editorial cartooning,
> it had more than a modest kernal of truth to it. The Democratic party is
> currently being very responsive to sub-sections of people that are
> communist poseurs*. People that believe in a style of government that
> isn't as destructive as a real communist system, but is destructive
> nonetheless.
>
Well actually, considering a large portion of the Democratic
leadership is closely tied to labor unions, "Workers of the world,
unite!" would not seem out of place at the convention.
Well, except that US workers want to screw over the other workers of
the world so the jobs stay here :)
--
Chris Mack *quote under construction*
'Invid Fan'
As a fellow Dem, I'm not sure. But as someone who appreciates comic
strips, I'm starting to take it as a badly overplayed joke. I mean,
this is how many strips in a row with essentially the same punchline?
--
Ernest
I took it as satire, and I admit I chuckled over it the first day. it's a
bit drawn out by this point, though, to be hitting the same note over and
over.
--
Rob Wynne / The Autographed Cat / d...@america.net
http://www.autographedcat.com/ / http://autographedcat.livejournal.com/
Gafilk 2009: Jan 9-11, 2009 - Atlanta, GA - http://www.gafilk.org/
Aphelion - Original SF&F since 1997 - http://www.aphelion-webzine.com/
It gets better: in practice, actual communist nations weren't the
best of friends to labor, ourtight oppressing unions! (e.g. Solidarity
in Poland) So, considering Republicans are constatly fighting Unions,
while Democrats have been close to organized labor from the very
beginning, it's safe to say which party is exhibiting more "communist
behavior"!
As an aside, I still plan to become a teacher, and when I do I'll
proudly be a member of the CTA! (California Teacher's Association;
the biggest, and arguably most powerful union in California)
--
- ReFlex 76
- "Let's beat the terrorists with our most powerful weapon . . . hot
girl-on-girl action!"
- "The difference between young and old is the difference between
looking forward to your next birthday, and dreading it!"
- Jesus Christ - The original hippie!
<http://reflex76.blogspot.com/>
<http://www.blogger.com/profile/07245047157197572936>
Katana > Chain Saw > Baseball Bat > Hammer
>I know the strip has a rightist point of view, but unlike the Duck, PC
>usually seems to come from a basically good-humored place. Then he
>comes up with something like this:
>
>http://www.gocomics.com/pricklycity/2008/08/23/?campid=0&ssns=9&
>
>As a Dem, should I take this as gentle teasing, or should I be mad as
>hell?
>
The root of this problem goes back to Carmen's "re-education":
China hasn't really been a communist nation since at least the early
1980s; their model of privatization/corporatization with a strong
central government is more like a fascist state. She'd be spouting
nationalistic slogans, never mind the old-school "Mao" outfit . . .
Instead of your fake analogy, let me give you a real one. For many
years...perhaps not so much lately, but certainly in the 80's and 90's,
there was a significant problem of servicemen on Okinawa raping Japanese
women. And in too many cases, the women were really girls. And in far
too many cases, the servicemen in question were Marines.
A lot of pretty nasty stuff got said about the Corps even though 99.999%
of the Corps is solidly on the anti-raping-young-women/girls side of the
fence. Yes, it hurt.
But the problem wasn't with the people criticizing the Corps. It was
with the Corps being unable/unwilling/overlooking the need to make sure
that every Marine understood that raping anyone, anytime, anywhere was
unacceptable conduct.
The problem isn't Mr. Stantis' fists o' ham approach to non-constructive
criticism.
The problem with this analogy is that the Marine Corps
has vastly more power to "make sure" that its members
understand and comply with something. It's, y'know,
the military, where they can actually give you orders and
make you do stuff.
Anybody can freely affiliate with Humongous Party A or
Humongous Party B. A smaller group that's off-center on
the extremist spectrum will often try to affiliate with the
Humongous Party that it thinks will get it more of its wishlist,
but that doesn't mean it takes *over* the party...
Oh. Wait. Sorry. Well, when the GOP repudiates the
religious right, *do* let me know!
--
pax,
ruth
Save trees AND money! Buy used books!
http://stores.ebay.com/Noir-and-More-Books-and-Trains
I would quibble with the word "heavily," but the military did seem to
me to be heavily Republican up to my departure in the 1990s, and I
have kept close enough contacts that I feel confident in saying things
haven't changed much since then. However, the Navy seemed to me to be
more liberal than the Army (not really sure about the USAF) and the
Navy officer corps was definitely more liberal-leaning than the
enlisted ranks. The Marines being a naval service, one might expect a
similar result, but I'm not sure I ever met a Marine, officer or
enlisted, who would fit comfortably into the modern Democratic Party.
As for the "Evangelical" thing, well, yeah, there's a sizable Xian
contingent, maybe more in the officer ranks, but in 16+ years, I -- an
avowed athetist who wasn't exactly shy about my pure rationalism --
never even once encountered the slightest bit of trouble from said
contingent, nor even any real prosyletizing. In fact, I'd say it's
just that experience that taught me the liberal stereotype of
evangelical Xians is more of a fevered dream than anything taken from
reality.
Your sources, BTW, are two student papers that appear to me to be "C"
work at best, and mainly have in common that they raise more questions
than they answer. It might be interesting to see this question studied
seriously and carefully, but those papers don't qualify.
True. The Chinese do seem to concede *some* benefits of free markets,
after all.
> (OTOH, I might watch the Democratic National Convention if it
> featured anything as elaborately berserk as the Olympic closing
> ceremonies.)
I used to watch political conventions, State of the Union addresses,
stuff like that religiously. Somewhere along the way, it turned into
"I'll say something banal over the course of thirty seconds, pause,
and you all will applaud for fifteen; then we'll repeat the cycle
fifty or sixty times." I can't abide it. I wonder whether these
events changed, or I did.
> The most interesting thing to me about this story line is what
> Carmen's instant conversion to Communism says about the nature of
> her principles. To quote from the Wikipedia article about
> brainwashing: "Moreover, the few [Korean War] prisoners influenced
> by Communist indoctrination apparently succumbed as a result of the
> confluence of the coercive persuasion, and of the motives and
> personality characteristics of the prisoners that already existed
> before imprisonment. In particular, individuals with very rigid
> systems of belief tended to snap and realign, whereas individuals
> with more flexible systems of belief tended to bend under pressure
> and then restore themselves after the removal of external
> pressures." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainwashing) Guess
> Carmen's political beliefs were just too dang rigid!
Somewhere around here I have a paper I got from Doug Hegedahl (you can
Google him) on personality disorders and successful resistance as a
POW in Korea -- as in *which* personality disorders were actually
beneficial to prisoners who "suffered" from them.
Also, James Stockdale (whom I hope you don't have to Google) spoke and
wrote extensively about the "rigid beliefs" thing, and came to a
different conclusion. (Hegedahl, BTW, agrees with him 100% on this
point.) He said that the under- or un-educated individual, presented
with Communist (or whatever) propaganda, just said "Ahh, bullshit!"
and shrugged it off. He (Stockdale) had studied Marxism and its
history extensively, and could engage his interrogators on their own
terms, including pointing out their own heresies. (Usually, he said,
this earned him a trip right back to his cell, which was what he was
going for.)
It was Stockdale's observation in Vietnam that the "little learning"
people who had *some* education, along with training whose focus was
to "keep an open mind" were most at risk to succumbing to the
indoctrination efforts.
> Dann wrote:
>>
>> But the problem wasn't with the people criticizing the Corps. It was
>> with the Corps being unable/unwilling/overlooking the need to make
>> sure that every Marine understood that raping anyone, anytime,
>> anywhere was unacceptable conduct.
>>
>> The problem isn't Mr. Stantis' fists o' ham approach to
>> non-constructive criticism.
> Anybody can freely affiliate with Humongous Party A or
> Humongous Party B. A smaller group that's off-center on
> the extremist spectrum will often try to affiliate with the
> Humongous Party that it thinks will get it more of its wishlist,
> but that doesn't mean it takes *over* the party...
> Oh. Wait. Sorry. Well, when the GOP repudiates the
> religious right, *do* let me know!
There's more of a difference between the two than one group that prays
for rain on Thursday to put a damper [pun intended] on Mr. Obama's
celebration and other group attempts to use teleknesis to levitate a
federal mint because that don't think there should be any money.
There are shades of grey to nutballery. Nuance and all that.
And the Dems seem to be kowtowing to some of the blacker* nutballs in
their corner of the pool.
*That's a scale reference, not a racial reference.
>
>In the previous article, Mark Steese <mark_...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Don't see much point in getting mad about it -- if Stantis honestly
>> thinks the Dems are similar to the Communist Chinese, he's more an
>> object of pity than anything else.
>
>True. The Chinese do seem to concede *some* benefits of free markets,
>after all.
>
Wow, that's one deep hole, yet I still hear digging . . .
There are those of us who still remember 1992 well, including that
gaffe-tastic debate . . .
spoke and
>wrote extensively about the "rigid beliefs" thing, and came to a
>different conclusion. (Hegedahl, BTW, agrees with him 100% on this
>point.) He said that the under- or un-educated individual, presented
>with Communist (or whatever) propaganda, just said "Ahh, bullshit!"
>and shrugged it off.
Of course, this "skepticism" is also what causes these blissfully
ignorant masses to deny evolution and climate change, among others . .
.
He (Stockdale) had studied Marxism and its
>history extensively, and could engage his interrogators on their own
>terms, including pointing out their own heresies. (Usually, he said,
>this earned him a trip right back to his cell, which was what he was
>going for.)
>
>It was Stockdale's observation in Vietnam that the "little learning"
>people who had *some* education, along with training whose focus was
>to "keep an open mind" were most at risk to succumbing to the
>indoctrination efforts.
Sounds like an argument to get as much education as possible . . .