Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Comments

  1. I think hypocrite is the #1 characterization of Brown on this site, so I assume once they (the Warren team) are locked and loaded that will be one of the bullets in their chamber.

    Also it’s not like anyone’s going to say “oh Krugman’s an objective source, I’ll change my mind (or establish a view)based on his opinion.”

    • not supplying information. His objectivity is not an issue.

      Neither is calling your opponent a hypocrite. It’s a staple of politics: pointing out the discrepancy between what your opponent thinks and does. Krugman isn’t criticizing hypocrisy or claiming anyone is holier than thou. He’s pointing out an illogical argument where the discrepancy is only in the mind of the particular conservatives that make them.

      You see, Ms. Warren has been crusading to help the endangered middle class—but she herself is a well-paid Harvard professor, who would end up paying higher taxes as a result of the policies she advocates. See the hypocrisy?

      Neither do I.

      I’ve written about this before; somehow the notion has entered our politics that supporting a cause that isn’t in your personal financial interest makes you a hypocrite.

      It’s really bizarre.

      As I suggested, think of what this says about George Washington. The fact is that he personally was doing very well under British rule — he was a big landowner, a man of stature in the colonies.

      His life was just fine; yet he took huge personal risks to lead a rebellion for the cause of liberty.

      He was a hypocrite!

  3. …is a very unprofessionally written blog, with an obvious partisan agenda, while insisting on painting Krugman, a Nobel Economist, with a guilt by association brush to a company that criminally (and not on Krugman’s advice) cooked its books?

    My understanding is that Prof. Warren helped structure a settlement that at least DID get the victims some compensation they otherwise might not have.

  4. You wouldn’t, of course, be referring to BMG. 🙂 A little advice to you: start reading other sources besides Huffpo; it doesn’t hurt to see what the WallStreetJournal is saying once in a while. Otherwise you will be blindsided (again) by the results of the Brown-Warren matchup in the fall. I don’t know what your formal education is, but I was surprised that you didn’t know about the American fellow-travellers who supported the Soviet Union for most of the 20th century. Some of these characters populate this blog.

    • to get angry or just feel sorry for you. If your comments weren’t so obnoxious, they’d arouse pity for their stupidity. It’s nice that you now provide links; your next step would be to provide sources with a modicum of credibility.

      You can’t win an argument here, so you’re stuck predicting Elizabeth Warren will lose. You’re like Snoopy saying, “I’ll get you next time Red Baron!”

      Since you are old enough to be Christopher’s grandfather, you shouldn’t be surprised that he’d know very little about fellow-travelers. I’m a generation older and closer to that time, and I’m still learning about that stuff. Aside from HUAC, the Hollywood Blacklists, and Alger Hiss, they don’t teach this stuff in high school or college. By the time most of us on here were born, the Communist Party was a joke. But nice attempt at condescension.

    • Please name a “fellow traveller” that supported the Soviet Union for most of the 20th century and is populating this blog. Since you claim there are multiple individuals (“some of these characters”) fiting this description, it should be easy.

      Otherwise, that’s a completely asinine statement- and to use such an assertion to impune somebody else’s education is terribly ironic.

    • Have you no shame? Better dead than Red?

      Jeesh, I haven’t heard garbage like this since the McCarthy era. Edgar, even the term “fellow traveler” hasn’t been used in decades. The cold war is OVER. There are probably fewer than six people here who even know the phrase. The Soviet Union fell apart before many of the people here were born. I’m an old-fart of 59, and you’re sounding like MY grandfather.

      When your comments deteriorate into this kind of nonsense, I think the best and most courteous thing for all concerned is to simply ignore them.

      Can we please move on?

  5. …and a much better source than you linked to. I don’t read HuffPo for what it’s worth. I have college-level formal education in both politics and history, but I’m not sure how support for the Soviet Union is relevant here. For the record, some people really supported the Soviet Union and others were witch hunted. However, it is possible to hold certain views and still be loyal, contrary to what you appear to be suggesting. I also assume you got the memo stating that the Soviet Union no longer exists:) Oh, and current polls have Warren in the lead, just so you know.

    • relevant only in that Edgar knows more about it than you do–though you have to wonder how accurate his knowledge is.

      He can’t marshal a real argument, so he’s going to try to figure out how to pull rank on you. Referring to things he thinks he expert on, bringing in more expert name-callers when he runs out of ammunition, and predicting a future win for every argument he loses in the present.

  6. Krugman, for all his olympian intellect and extensive experience with Republican perfidy, still does not get it: this is not an attempt to define Elizabeth Warren but a cover story for wavering Republicans… a ‘hook’, if you will, that will help them covertly express deep misogynistic tendencies that, outside this construct, would be unacceptable. This is less about Elizabeth Warren and more about those confused Republicans who would not, otherwise, be able to cling to Republican candidates; electoral velcro, if you will, in which the manipulators attempt to strongly bind ‘their’ voters by making the opposition unacceptable, even if they have to lie about it; they are trying plausibly mask, yet still make use of, underlying forces like misogyny and racism.

    Now, to be certain, merrimackguy and edgarthearmenian, et al, will be quick with the charge the Democrats are of no difference whatsoever in this respect: But consider; I, and other Democrats, don’t need an excuse to vote against a women; I don’t need a subcultural goose to vote in the ‘right’ direction; and the Democrats have shown a historical dedication to to letting people vote, or not vote, as their individual consciences dictate; not so with Republicans as they need all hands on deck in all elections. Consider that the margins have so long been so slim that the Republicans fear low voter turnout much much more than the Democrats do and need to make every excuse to give every voter every reason, even if ‘nonsensical’ on its face, to pull that lever for the ‘right’ candidate. When Democrats point out hypocrisy it’s much more likely to be actual and true hypocrisy. Somebody has to point out bad behaviour. When Republicans ‘point out’ hypocrisy it’s much more likely to be a minimally plausible accusation that relies on gestural memes, inchoate half-thruths and subcutaneous bigotry as a neams to cut-off defection or apathy.

    What is certain is that, in the arsenal of Democrat operatives, no accusation approaches the sheer nonsensical notion that because Elizabeth Warren makes more money than I do while simultaneously fighting to see that I can retain more of the money I do make, I should hate her with incandescence and perhaps even stroke out at the thought of insuficient purity in her motivations. There simply is no record of any Democrat going that far, on such weak legs.

    meta-meta

    The parallel construct that “Democrats do it also…’, in and of itself, is yet another cover story that allows people like merrimack and edgar, to indulge in behavior that, in the absence of the construct (that is to say the cover story) would not otherwise be allowed on this blog; behavior, for example, like repeatedly hijacking threads about Republican and turning them into accusation of Democrat perfidy.

    Don’t get me wrong, Democrats aren’t perfect…. for example, far too often, we allow people like merrimackguy and edgarthearmenian to engage in their little games while all the while pretending to the notion that they are being straightforward…. preferring, instead, to tell ourselves cover stories of our own ‘fariness’ and probity, rather than telling them, straight up, that they’re being jackasses.

  8. is more important than truth.
    And to Tom: you are correct that “fellow-traveller” is out of date. I believe the better term is “useful idiot.”

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