Since today seems to be my day for winter Olympics-related posts, I thought I’d link to The Daily Show’s Jason Jones who has been in Russia during the games and discovers that the country that US conservatives used to hate for being the main component of the ‘evil empire’ now seems to have adopted all the attributes that US conservatives want to see in the US. They would feel right at home there.
The Daily Show
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(This clip aired on February 19, 2014. To get suggestions on how to view clips of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report outside the US, please see this earlier post. If the videos autoplay, please see here for a diagnosis and possible solutions.)
Of course, the criticism of Russia from the left tends to get muted because the left’s here, Snowden, has found refuge there.
I have seen no evidence that Snowden being in Russia has “muted” criticism of Russia from the left. Russia remains an authoritarian country and becomes more so daily; although I know a lot of people were glad that Russia gave him a (temporary) place to be, I’ve seen lots of leftist commentary to the effect of “Snowden is fortunate that Czar Putin likes to thumb his nose at the U.S.” and absolutely no commentary to the effect of “Gee, maybe Russia isn’t as bad as we thought! They let Snowden stay!”
To be fair, the pre-fall Soviet totalitarian regime was always a model for the conservatives who wanted to establish the national security state here in the US. Their main gripe was always that they couldn’t make tons of money in the Soviet economy or in their client states.
It’s cute, but lets not forget
Here in the US, our liberal President Obama seems to be doing everything he can to recreate the Soviet Union policies of the 60s.
Papers please to travel?
Domestic spying?
Rendition?
Drone strikes and assassinations?
Yeah, not as much progressive push back on that as I would like, or as many other civil libertarian professors like Professor Turley would like.
Also guns? Maybe you should read TalkLeft every now and then.
Immigration? Catch up on Paul Krugman’s views of safety nets versus open borders.
Feminism? Read the SlymePit to find many liberal and educated people with intelligent arguments about feminist excesses. From the SlymePit you’ll find many atheists and scientists on twitter, on the net, in conferences all able to educate you about feminist excess.
But yeah, cute video.
Other than requiring passports to drive to Canada, etc., a requirement that was in preparation before Obama took office, to which “travel papers” are you referring?
The progressives of my acquaintance are very angry about all of those things.
Oh, so you’re a Slymepit defender? I guess I haven’t been paying close enough attention. Now I feel honored to be the object of your scorn.
Do you go there for medical advice too? Look, if I want to be “educated” about anything, the last place I’m going is the Slymepit. I’m also not going to Stormfront to learn about the “excesses” of Israel, or to Fox News to get “educated” about the socialist “excesses” of Obama. Or to the Russian Information Ministry (yes, I just made that up) about the excesses of gay propagandists.
If that is your standard for “educational” resources, I almost feel sad for you. I wouldn’t even go there to get advice on how to recover from an embarrassing Twitter meltdown, despite the fact that I suspect some of the regulars there are quite well-versed in the subject.
Paul Krugman’s view on immigration and the welfare state? What about it? The fact that he focuses almost entirely on the economics of it, because he’s an economist?
http://www.progressivesforimmigrationreform.org/paul-krugman-on-immigration/
@Friendly
“Papers please to travel?”
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2014/01/16/aclu-arizona-border-patrol-checkpoints-routinely-violate-rights-us-citizens/
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2011/09/papers-please.html
(obfuscated to annoy spam bot)
reason dot com/blog/2009/08/15/something-is-happening-here-bu
youtube dot com /watch?v=YUzd7G875Hc (interesting guy, read his blog, see his vids, I haven’t heard what happened to him since about 2011 or what happened in court.)
US nationals ‘under siege’; citizen dies at Border Patrol checkpoint
america dot aljazeera dot com/articles/2013/12/29/us-nationals-undersiegeamidsuspiciousborderpatrolcheckpointdeath.html
google for video of citizens being detained and threatened at border patrol checkpoints over 100 miles from a border
google tsa vipr
google talkleft subway stops
You’ll find bloggers, lawyers, law profs, on the left and on the right discussing the new papers please mentality.
I think it goes even further in that my children have been brought up to find all of this normal as opposed to us old farts who think it’s the stuff we grew up being told differentiated us from the Russkis.
@leni, I am not sure how to respond, but yeah, SlymePit, I would claim, is mostly liberal and liberal leaning voices, and a huge percentage of ph.ds, academics, and at least one MD.
It’s a great place to ask questions of experts in medicine, biology, and tech and most of them have for at least some significant chunk of time considered themselves feminists or even still do.
You should drop on by, you too Professor Singham.
(fwiw, you don’t need to visit StormFront to learn about the excesses of Israel, you can get a fine discussion of that right here.)
@doublereed That’s a wonderful link (from 2006). I wish you had quoted more of it. Here is an updated version of it from 2010 http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/the-curious-politics-of-immigration/
Krugman is one of my personal heroes (Franken another), but the above quote shows how out of touch he “is” with most progressive thinking on borders.
However, to be honest, in reviewing Comedy Central’s video, I have no idea what point I thought I had when I made the comment originally.
@Friendly,
A tweet from Ana Kasparian moments ago
“I never go jogging with my ID. Does that make me a criminal now?”
links to
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/02/21/austin-police-drag-jogger-to-car-screaming-after-jaywalking-without-id/
Austin police drag jogger to car screaming after jaywalking without ID
By John Byrne
Friday, February 21, 2014 9:34 EST
A Texas woman was dragged screaming to a police car in Austin, Texas after being arrested for failing to provide ID while jaywalking.
The woman, pulled to a police car in gym clothes, was captured on video shouting, “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
A University of Texas Student filmed the police capturing the jogger and placing her in an officer’s car.
“I was sitting at the Starbucks at 24th and San Antonio,” the student, Chris Quintero, told the Daily Texan, the student newspaper for the University of Texas-Austin. “Then I hear a cop shout at an innocent girl jogging through West Campus with her headphones on.”
Police told the woman to provide identification, Quintero remarked. When she wouldn’t, the officer grabbed her arm and placed her in handcuffs.
“She repeatedly pleaded with them, saying that she was just exercising and to let her go,” Quintero said. Quintero is heard in the video saying, “I saw you,” after the woman calls across the street, saying, “I was doing nothing wrong. I was crossing the street.”
Police then apparently called for backup. Two additional officers on bicycles arrived as the arresting officers were putting the jogger in the car.
An update on the story in 11 makes that example very tenuous. The woman in question was stopped for jaywalking, then refused to id herself, then made a total ass of herself.
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/news/2014/02/20/woman-arrested-on-24th-street-after-crossing-intersection
I’m sure there are some excellent gardeners there too. Still, guess where I’m not going for gardening advice? (Though I could see how mold enthusiasts unfamiliar with the site might make a mistake and up there.)
I have and I didn’t stick around for a reason. If I returned, it would be for entertainment, not education
For what it’s worth, I don’t need to visit the Slymepit to be “educated” about the “excesses of feminism”, either. I see plenty of it here. And everywhere. Pretty much every god damned day. Maybe it is new for you, but to me it’s like reading creationists complaining about eugenics. It ceased being educational or entertaining a long time ago.
So no thanks, I’ll take my gardening tips and medical advice without the inane and endless axe-grinding about the “excesses of feminism”.
Produce the evidence for your claim.
Then clearly, you wouldn’t know “liberal” if it bit you in the arse. No-one willing to frequent a misogynist hate site such as the Slymepit on a regular basis can possibly be liberal.