Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats

I assume this picture means that, even with her recent injury, she decided to get back up and get to work and do what needs doing.

--Patrick
 

GasBandit

Staff member
I assume this picture means that, even with her recent injury, she decided to get back up and get to work and do what needs doing.

--Patrick
Only thing I could find is she went into surgery today to have two malignant nodules removed from her lungs, and is OK.
 
The sanity of your country's higher court is reliant on an octogenarian living longer and continuing to work.

That's healthy.
 
Something coming up Jan 1 that people like @GasBandit and @Krisken may want to peruse:
CMS’s proposed policy changes include:
  • Requiring hospitals to post their standard list of prices on the Internet and in a machine-readable format, rather than just being required to make them available in some form
  • Focusing the Electronic Health Record Incentive Program on promoting interoperability, to allow patients to control their records and access them in a usable format
  • Eliminating duplicative. overly burdensome, or out-of-date quality measures through the “Meaningful Measures” initiative
CMS also issued a Request for Information soliciting comment on new ways to:
  • Stop “surprise billing” by providers
  • Provide patients better information up front about the out-of-pocket costs they will face
  • Encourage further transparency from providers, including providing tools for comparing prices and making public which institutions are out of compliance with transparency measures
  • Push providers reimbursed by Medicare to take more steps in making their electronic health records interoperable
—Patrick
 
Until those "encourages" become "force", in regards to providers, this is still pretty toothless.
The link leads to the original proposal, which is from April of 2018.
The final rule was done in August, but I could not find anything with an easy-to-understand breakdown of the proposal as it was adopted (mainly because I’m still at work and can’t be galavanting around the Internet at the moment). I hope someone else can find something more explanatory.

—Patrick
 
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This Jill Stein stuff is unsettling. It's one thing to point out that the Green Party can never win and just siphons votes from the Democrat Party; it's another for that to have been the point of running.
 
I saw an article (sorry, lost the link) where the author, a devout Bernie Sanders supporter, talked about why the far left hates Beto O’Rourke. Essentially it boiled down to “he’s really likeable and might win - but he’s not going to bring socialism to the US, and we’d rather have Trump win than a centrist Democrat.”

It’s mind-boggling.
 
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I saw an article (sorry, lost the link) where the author, a devout Bernie Sanders supporter, talked about why the far left hates Beto O’Rourke. Essentially it boiled down to “he’s really likeable and might win - but he’s not going to bring socialism to the US, and we’d rather have Trump win than a centrist Democrat.”

It’s mind-boggling.
Bernie bros are/were cultivated by the Russians and are trash.
 
I saw an article (sorry, lost the link) where the author, a devout Bernie Sanders supporter, talked about why the far left hates Beto O’Rourke. Essentially it boiled down to “he’s really likeable and might win - but he’s not going to bring socialism to the US, and we’d rather have Trump win than a centrist Democrat.”

It’s mind-boggling.
It's the same reason why a lot of animal rights activists despise animal welfarism--small improvements to a shitty situation make people less likely to want a complete overhaul at once. "Anti-incrementalism" of sorts, since you can't have a $pet-theory uprising unless enough people get angry/affected enough. Hell, same reason some of my libertarian acquaintances cheer for the U.S. electing whichever politician seems more despotic, since the more ridiculously evil the government gets, the better chance that a critical mass of people will pursue an alternative.
 
It's the same reason why a lot of animal rights activists despise animal welfarism--small improvements to a shitty situation make people less likely to want a complete overhaul at once. "Anti-incrementalism" of sorts, since you can't have a $pet-theory uprising unless enough people get angry/affected enough. Hell, same reason some of my libertarian acquaintances cheer for the U.S. electing whichever politician seems more despotic, since the more ridiculously evil the government gets, the better chance that a critical mass of people will pursue an alternative.
Which is why some on the left are arguing against impeachment. The further down cheeto drags the GOP, the more seats they lose in 2020.
 
It's the same reason why a lot of animal rights activists despise animal welfarism--small improvements to a shitty situation make people less likely to want a complete overhaul at once. "Anti-incrementalism" of sorts, since you can't have a $pet-theory uprising unless enough people get angry/affected enough. Hell, same reason some of my libertarian acquaintances cheer for the U.S. electing whichever politician seems more despotic, since the more ridiculously evil the government gets, the better chance that a critical mass of people will pursue an alternative.
Which is a direct result of the fetishization of the American Revolution.

In actuality, most revolutions fail, and most despots manage to hold on to power for a long long time.

See: Syria, Iran, NK or Russia, Venezuela, etc.
 
Which is a direct result of the fetishization of the American Revolution.

In actuality, most revolutions fail, and most despots manage to hold on to power for a long long time.

See: Syria, Iran, NK or Russia, Venezuela, etc.
A better example would be something like the June Rebellion (as made infamous by Les Miserables): You've got a few hundred insurrectionists trying to topple a government they view as weak now that their only voice in parliament is dead, but never bothered to secure the means to make it possible.
 
A better example would be something like the June Rebellion (as made infamous by Les Miserables): You've got a few hundred insurrectionists trying to topple a government they view as weak now that their only voice in parliament is dead, but never bothered to secure the means to make it possible.
Yeah, i was actually referring to how dangerous accelerationism is when it involves letting protections in the system degenerate, while providing no guarantees that it will hasten changes for the better, based on overall trends instead of just 1 example for either case (success or failure of 1 revolution).
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Sometimes a few of my more liberal friends ask why I don’t register as a Democrat or consider myself on the left when many of my social views are progressive. I’m going to use this as a good example of why the left pisses me off enough that I’m happy staying in the independent center.
Well, what did you want them to do, things that will ensure next time more minorities show up? Don't be silly.

....

Also, that's still a stupid reason to consider yourself a centrist when your views aren't centrist.

That just contributes to the idiotic "my team" shit that caused the current situation.
 
One of the legit criticisms of feminism as it's practiced in the United States is that it's mostly focused on getting gains for white women and not fighting for those same gains for women of color. For example, there are few women on the boards of major companies but the vast majority of the women who ARE on boards are white. That's why 4th Wave feminism became a thing in the early 2010's; increased intersectionality of gains across women of all colors (and finally including transwomen in the fight) was a necessary goal for true equality, though the main fight these days seems to be mostly on domestic violence and healthcare access.

In THAT light, canceling the march makes sense: if your goal is to show a united front with women of all kinds, you kind of need to have women of all kinds. But women of color in some parts of the country still remember being used as poster children in the 90's/00's and not getting a lot out of it. They've been reticent to show up unless it's for events they run. A common issue is white liberals bringing minority friends to liberal meetings, there being no other minorities there, and their friends just not coming back. It's hard to build that kind of community in your organization unless you already have it or have someone willing to fight for it.

It doesn't help that Women's March did stuff like this (also mentioned in the article).

The cancellation also arrived amid the Chicago branch of the Women’s March criticizing the national initiative’s relationship with Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, considered an anti-Semitic hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
While I agree with the SPLC on this one, doing this isn't helping their goal; it's just pissing off black communities, some of which still see the NoI as a framework for black empowerment. It's an old fight on the liberal side: white folks and minority folks being at odds on the means to produce meaningful gains for everyone involved. You used to see this same fight repeated a lot, especially in regards to charter schooling (though that fight's basically done at this point... now that charter schools have almost universally been exposed as a for-profit scam).

Yeah, i was actually referring to how dangerous accelerationism is when it involves letting protections in the system degenerate, while providing no guarantees that it will hasten changes for the better, based on overall trends instead of just 1 example for either case (success or failure of 1 revolution).
Ah okay. I think I misunderstood you originally then.
 
....

Also, that's still a stupid reason to consider yourself a centrist when your views aren't centrist.

That just contributes to the idiotic "my team" shit that caused the current situation.
You know, I was going to write a detailed response to this. Then I realized who I was talking to and what a colossal waste of time that would be.
 
White Feminism isn't new, either. The Suffragette Movement actively refused the participation of African-Americans who had the same goal as they did. Hell, Elizabeth Cady Stanton said "White women will be degraded if the Negro is allowed to vote before they are." She referred to African-American men as "Sambos" and often characterized them as subhuman rapists. After the passage of the 15th Amendment, black suffragette movements in the Jim Crow South were denied affiliation with White suffragette groups, because the white women didn't want to "invoke the anger of white southern men". So, you know, there's some history there.

The headline is intentionally written to provoke a reaction - it seems ridiculous on the surface, and could be construed as the left eating its own, or if you're an idiot, it'll seem to be proof of 'reverse racism', which doesn't exist. But as Ashburner says, if you're trying to represent all women, and the march is like 95% white women, you're failing at your goal and canceling the march doesn't seem so ridiculous in that light.
 
I suppose if you want to gather to send a message, but you’re worried the group that actually showed up sends a different message, then yes, you might cancel the event.

—Patrick
 
You know, I was going to write a detailed response to this. Then I realized who I was talking to and what a colossal waste of time that would be.
Yes, expressing your opinions in a way that shows you've thought them over and are still questioning them all the time is pointless because you don't think they'll change my mind about whatever you thought i was telling you...
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Ah okay. I think I misunderstood you originally then.
That's what i assumed...
 
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