"Why can't Trump get his story straight about the nukes?"
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Trump has said he will "bomb them back into the stone age" -- This is the solution they have. Cripple anyone who might become able to defend themselves. Every time I hear the phrase "bomb them back into the stone age" a little bile rises in my throat. I'm an American. How must this seem to the people of Iran. What will they vow to do because of our childish chauvinism?
This view of non-western countries is common. It will be our undoing.
But the other point, (which I got side-tracked from thinking about the phrase "bomb them into the stone age" ... ) is that the cover story I just articulated is too complex for Trump to even attempt to communicate. That is his diabolical populist instinct. He never confuses his base. Never uses big words or ideas.
Never makes them learn anything since for some people the feeling of learning makes them feel ... stupid.
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There is a cover story for why the US attacked Iran. One that is almost believable. The argument goes like this:
Iran was developing a drone and missile program rather like the Iron Dome that would make it "impossible" for the US to bomb them, and that would mean it's impossible to stop them if they wanted to make nuclear weapons. So they had to be stopped from doing this now.
Does Iran have the right to defend itself? It's an ugly argument.
@futurebird "cover story for why the US attacked Iran"?
As the Ukrainian front is a US proxy war against Russia (and as a side bonus, weakening the EU), the Iranian front is a proxy war against China.
cf the infamous ret. General W. Clark "seven nations in five years" 2007 clip and Brian Berletic regular posts on the continuity of the US agenda against a multipolar world.
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But the other point, (which I got side-tracked from thinking about the phrase "bomb them into the stone age" ... ) is that the cover story I just articulated is too complex for Trump to even attempt to communicate. That is his diabolical populist instinct. He never confuses his base. Never uses big words or ideas.
Never makes them learn anything since for some people the feeling of learning makes them feel ... stupid.
And how do you unpack that? How do you deprogram someone from a place where learning things, and realizing how little they know is so horrible?
It's impossible to learn if you cannot admit that you do not already know everything you need to know about the world.
I think people *do* feel bad about what they don't know. Like not being able to find Iran on a map. That can feel embarrassing. But we can look at the maps. Read the history.
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But the US sees Iran as a lesser nation. A region of resource extraction with exotic annoying natives they think we can learn nothing from.
That is the chauvinism that will lead to bloodshed.
@futurebird @hazelnot And has led to such as well.
Also I'm reminded of the sacking of the China Hands at the State dept. A move during the Mcarthy era because the ones who were informed were undersirable and seen as unloyal.
Not what we see here but there are parallels.
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But the other point, (which I got side-tracked from thinking about the phrase "bomb them into the stone age" ... ) is that the cover story I just articulated is too complex for Trump to even attempt to communicate. That is his diabolical populist instinct. He never confuses his base. Never uses big words or ideas.
Never makes them learn anything since for some people the feeling of learning makes them feel ... stupid.
@futurebird That is the chasm that divides me from so many people, I love to learn new thing, I find joy in deepening my understanding of just about anything. I may sometimes be a bit stubborn about things I have opinions on, but if I learn something that invalidates that, I'm happy to change that opinion (but may be a bit embarrassed about it).
But this refusal to let new things into ones brain I.do.not.accept, it is a blight, a plague! -
And how do you unpack that? How do you deprogram someone from a place where learning things, and realizing how little they know is so horrible?
It's impossible to learn if you cannot admit that you do not already know everything you need to know about the world.
I think people *do* feel bad about what they don't know. Like not being able to find Iran on a map. That can feel embarrassing. But we can look at the maps. Read the history.
I think the shame and that can be induced by learning new things is tied to an essentialist and immutable view of what it means to be intelligent and wise.
For them "Intelligence" isn't something that you do, for these people it's something that you *are*
But this is false. To be intelligent you simply need to be open to learning new things every day. Willing to grow. That's it.
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I think the shame and that can be induced by learning new things is tied to an essentialist and immutable view of what it means to be intelligent and wise.
For them "Intelligence" isn't something that you do, for these people it's something that you *are*
But this is false. To be intelligent you simply need to be open to learning new things every day. Willing to grow. That's it.
@futurebird It is at this point I think it's important to point out that right wing American culture actively celebrates stupidity. They actively eschew education, because every time they send their kids off to get educated, they come back atheists with liberal values. They celebrate repetetive task work "like daddy used to do" and "figure it out for themselves."
Which is why they can get so far down a wrong path. No course correction.
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@futurebird It is at this point I think it's important to point out that right wing American culture actively celebrates stupidity. They actively eschew education, because every time they send their kids off to get educated, they come back atheists with liberal values. They celebrate repetetive task work "like daddy used to do" and "figure it out for themselves."
Which is why they can get so far down a wrong path. No course correction.
This is true.
I wish we could blame it all on the contempt and elitism of people of "educated classes" -- I think about my grandmother often she would say things like that. She had a 6th grade education. All her kids went to college because she made them, and then grand kids too.
But she also thought we were full of ourselves and pretentious. And she knew things, understood things I never will.
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And how do you unpack that? How do you deprogram someone from a place where learning things, and realizing how little they know is so horrible?
It's impossible to learn if you cannot admit that you do not already know everything you need to know about the world.
I think people *do* feel bad about what they don't know. Like not being able to find Iran on a map. That can feel embarrassing. But we can look at the maps. Read the history.
@futurebird I don't know. I think one of the fundamental choices people make while growing up is how to react to discovering you didn't know something, or were wrong.
You either accept it without taking it as a personal affront, or you take it as a personal attack.
I don't know how we determine our choice; mine certainly wasn't conscious. But as far as I can tell, my entire peer group had chosen by the end of high school. -
This is true.
I wish we could blame it all on the contempt and elitism of people of "educated classes" -- I think about my grandmother often she would say things like that. She had a 6th grade education. All her kids went to college because she made them, and then grand kids too.
But she also thought we were full of ourselves and pretentious. And she knew things, understood things I never will.
@futurebird TO me, this is fundamentil (like reading!) I grew up in a family that absorbed the Jewish tradition of education. I was going to college, like it or not, because that's what we do in our family. And I was married to an educator, helped her develop programs to support and encourage girls into STEM, while at the same time nervously watching the right-wing attack on public schools. As soon as they said "vouchers" I knew we were in trouble
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I think the shame and that can be induced by learning new things is tied to an essentialist and immutable view of what it means to be intelligent and wise.
For them "Intelligence" isn't something that you do, for these people it's something that you *are*
But this is false. To be intelligent you simply need to be open to learning new things every day. Willing to grow. That's it.
Exactly that.
Intelligence is not smartness¹.
Being smart is a quality that comes from your upbringing or natural factors.
Intelligence is the political choice to be intellectually humble. That is open to everyone.¹in French "l'intelligence n'est pas la rapidité d'esprit", not sure whether smartness entirely works as a translation but I don't have a better one
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@MarcAbrahams @Theriac I do not agree that he is a efficient con man, I think a lot of the blame should be on those politicians that have created such a caste of mindless thralls in US, easily manipulated by the Epstein class.
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@futurebird TO me, this is fundamentil (like reading!) I grew up in a family that absorbed the Jewish tradition of education. I was going to college, like it or not, because that's what we do in our family. And I was married to an educator, helped her develop programs to support and encourage girls into STEM, while at the same time nervously watching the right-wing attack on public schools. As soon as they said "vouchers" I knew we were in trouble
@futurebird the right has systematically attacked not just higher education, but public education and the very IDEA that there is a standard curriculum that all students must be exposed to. THat undermining, vouchering, equalizing religious education with secular, all of that has a direct line attaching it to the administrations attacks on Harvard and NYU.
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"Why can't Trump get his story straight about the nukes?"
No one on the CNN panel will *really* answer this question: Trump just ... says stuff.
Creates a kind of halting problem:
“We obliterated the regime’s nuclear program”
(but then there is no reason for war so he says)
"They are close to nuclear"
(but that sounds like we messed up so he says)
“We obliterated the nuclear program”
(but then there is no reason for war so he says)
♾️etc.
He's not quite mentally ill with an IQ below 80... He's probably somewhere below the avg though.
But he is a complete sociopath, a narcissist who lacks all empathy and has no ability to comprehend and understand things. Everything is about him, if you don;t worship the ground he walks on, you're the enemy.
He also blindly believes what he's told... or at least what he was told by the last person he spoke too.
So he spouts whatever yes man bullshit he's given in the briefing before he speaks to the media... and will embellish it with his self aggrandising flavour of bullshit because he thinks he's the centre of the universe.. and is incapable of understanding that the majority of the world sees through his bullshit and sees him for the ignorant, pathetic, pedo that he is.
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But the US sees Iran as a lesser nation. A region of resource extraction with exotic annoying natives they think we can learn nothing from.
That is the chauvinism that will lead to bloodshed.
@futurebird @InkySchwartz @hazelnot Though to be fair the USA sees *every* other nation as a lesser nation.
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@futurebird That is the chasm that divides me from so many people, I love to learn new thing, I find joy in deepening my understanding of just about anything. I may sometimes be a bit stubborn about things I have opinions on, but if I learn something that invalidates that, I'm happy to change that opinion (but may be a bit embarrassed about it).
But this refusal to let new things into ones brain I.do.not.accept, it is a blight, a plague!I like to think that I'm in the same place but in growing up I had to get over a bit of self-consciousness and imposter syndrome driven anxieties. When encountering new people I wanted to bury them with expertise because I was scared someone would ask me to leave or decide I didn't belong. So I didn't like to admit when I didn't understand something. I'd try to play along then go home and study in secret.
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I like to think that I'm in the same place but in growing up I had to get over a bit of self-consciousness and imposter syndrome driven anxieties. When encountering new people I wanted to bury them with expertise because I was scared someone would ask me to leave or decide I didn't belong. So I didn't like to admit when I didn't understand something. I'd try to play along then go home and study in secret.
Now, I just say "I don't understand" as soon as I'm at all confused and I can learn things much faster. The kind of people I want to be respected by aren't phased by this, and the kind of people I used to worry about impressing were never going to be impressed by me no matter what I did. So it's much faster if I just ask questions when I have them and admit what I don't know.
Saves time.
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Now, I just say "I don't understand" as soon as I'm at all confused and I can learn things much faster. The kind of people I want to be respected by aren't phased by this, and the kind of people I used to worry about impressing were never going to be impressed by me no matter what I did. So it's much faster if I just ask questions when I have them and admit what I don't know.
Saves time.
"You don't even know how -- works."
"That's right, I *don't* know how -- works. Will you explain it to me?"When I discovered that this kind of person who I was so scared of finding out what I didn't know so often could NOT explain the topic themselves. Oooh. All of those worries vanished.
And if they can explain it? Well, now I know too. I win... or I win.
Wish I could have learned this at a younger age.
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And how do you unpack that? How do you deprogram someone from a place where learning things, and realizing how little they know is so horrible?
It's impossible to learn if you cannot admit that you do not already know everything you need to know about the world.
I think people *do* feel bad about what they don't know. Like not being able to find Iran on a map. That can feel embarrassing. But we can look at the maps. Read the history.
@futurebird This is something I don’t think I’ll ever really understand. I’m happy that I don’t know everything, won’t and can’t ever know everything, because it means there’ll always be something new out there for me. A world where I knew everything already would be a very boring one.
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@futurebird I don't know. I think one of the fundamental choices people make while growing up is how to react to discovering you didn't know something, or were wrong.
You either accept it without taking it as a personal affront, or you take it as a personal attack.
I don't know how we determine our choice; mine certainly wasn't conscious. But as far as I can tell, my entire peer group had chosen by the end of high school.Part of the problem is a culture of people who know things and use their greater knowledge to humiliate those who know less. I encounter this in job interviews all the time.
I *never* do this to other people, it's evil. But when you are being attacked, the instinct is to hate the people who know more.
