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Post by celawson on Jul 18, 2018 22:37:14 GMT -5
Here we go again. I didn't realize I had to fly to New York and study all the neighborhoods myself before I could comment on the fact that she grew up in Yorktown but only mentions the Bronx in her bio. Sorry. I will take note of that forum rule.
So, even if: 1) a yuuuge chunk of congress critters do this (robo) 2) it is "common practice" (Prozyan) 3) "her political resume may be a bit fluffed" and she "tries to present herself as being slightly less privileged than she is (you) ---- it's still not honest. That's all I'm saying. How that can get your ire up, I just don't know. But whatever.
But yeah, I will go further - It irks me when socialists downplay or misrepresent their own benefits from capitalism in order to draw the truly poor or actually working class or disenfranchised into supporting their pie-in-the-sky-pay-for-everything political campaigns. I'm allowed to be irked by this specific sort of "fluffing", aren't I Amadan? But I'm just irked, that's all. I'm not saying she should be disqualified for that.
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Post by Don on Jul 19, 2018 8:11:43 GMT -5
The partisanship, it is strong in this thread.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2018 8:31:18 GMT -5
I need to do some work, so no cites for now, but as a New Yorker I've been following this story in the local news and so can answer Christine's questions.
Yes, she started out life in the Bronx. When she was starting school, with help from relatives, they moved a tiny house in a not-wealthy section of Westchester so that she could attend the much, much better public schools there instead of the pretty freaking terrible ones in the Bronx. Other families, several I know, have done the same thing, sometimes making big lifestyle sacrifices to live in an area with a decent school. Unfortunately, there are simply huge differences in public school quality around the NYC area.
And 500K revenue from a NYC business is definitely tiny potatoes. That's why her mother was cleaning houses and she, when she got old enough, was waiting tables. It's not the same thing as earning $500K in salary. Obviously. By the time he was done paying rent, overhead, materials and salaries, he likely was just getting by okay.
Renovating kitchens (what her dad's business did) is not the same as designing skyscrapers. When he died intestate, they were in difficult circumstances. He didn't leave them a whopping fortune or anything like it.
And, yes, c.e. -- you DO have to take into consideration the areas we're talking about in order to make your point, rather than just accepting random assertions on Fox News, at least if you want us to take you seriously. There's just a huge difference between what things cost (and other factors) in various areas of NYC.
We might also be more inclined to take you seriously if you were equally willing to jump on, say, the Roy Moores and Jim Jordans for their much, much, much more serious issues. But you are not. Ridiculous that you're all over Ocasia for this relative pittance and yet consistently silent on republicans. Not true for Opty, who is happy to slam people on both sides when they have it coming, and in fact makes some good points about the real problems with Ocasia. (I agree with him on those points, too, for the record -- it's just that I am not ready to get hysterical over it yet, as I regard this as an outlier result and not a trend, and as I tend to think she's not actually more ignorant than a ton of other congress critters (alas), and I think her intentions and brain are good enough that all may turn out okay. There is so very much to be concerned about these days in our government that I can't spare more than a head shake for this. at least at this point.)
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Post by robeiae on Jul 19, 2018 8:55:33 GMT -5
Well, insofar as she's spouting nonsense about capitalism and appears to have a limited grasp on economics--despite her degree--I think her intentions are for shit. Hey, maybe she'll evolve, or maybe she's purposefully saying this stuff because it plays good with her base, I don't know. But she's not the Next Great Thing simply because she's a young, anti-Trump Dem. She might very well turn out to be practically useless in Congress.
And re celawson being irked: it's fair, imo. Why wouldn't it be? Amadan's "it obviously came from some talking points you saw circulating" dig is weak sauce. This stuff has been all over the news. In that respect, every tidbit we post comes from some source and anyone might term a given bit a "talking point." Morever, it's certainly valid--imo--to find this kind of resume-padding more bothersome when it's coming from someone with Ocasio-Cortez's platform. YMMV for sure, since mine certainly does.
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Post by Amadan on Jul 19, 2018 9:23:15 GMT -5
Here we go again. I didn't realize I had to fly to New York and study all the neighborhoods myself before I could comment on the fact that she grew up in Yorktown but only mentions the Bronx in her bio. Sorry. I will take note of that forum rule. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that when you present what is obviously a prepackaged set of talking points gleaned from elsewhere, as opposed to your own independently-arrived-at observations and conclusions, it is obvious. Which makes you look like someone parroting someone else's arguments, not someone bringing your own insights to the table. Now tell the truth and shame the devil - you didn't come up with all those criticisms all by your little lonesome, while reading her web page bio, did you?
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Post by Amadan on Jul 19, 2018 9:25:36 GMT -5
The partisanship, it is strong in this thread. Uh, from who? Are you calling me a socialist? Or a hypocrite? 'Cause I've made similar points about Republicans (including Trump) being pecked at for relatively inconsequential things.
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Post by Don on Jul 19, 2018 9:28:10 GMT -5
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Post by Don on Jul 19, 2018 9:30:28 GMT -5
The partisanship, it is strong in this thread. Uh, from who? Are you calling me a socialist? Or a hypocrite? 'Cause I've made similar points about Republicans (including Trump) being pecked at for relatively inconsequential things. If the shoe doesn't fit, quit jamming it on your foot. Personally, I don't think it fits you.
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Post by Amadan on Jul 19, 2018 9:33:59 GMT -5
Uh, from who? Are you calling me a socialist? Or a hypocrite? 'Cause I've made similar points about Republicans (including Trump) being pecked at for relatively inconsequential things. If the shoe doesn't fit, quit wearing it. Personally, I don't think it fits you. Well, the only other people defending Ocasio-Cortez were Cass and Christine, and they made pretty much the same points. No one here seems particularly enamored of her socialism, we're just saying that celaw's "OMG she's implying she's working class when she might actually be middle class, what a lying liar!" is, to use rob's term, "weak sauce."
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2018 9:38:15 GMT -5
I agree she's not "the next great thing just because she's a young, anti-Trump Dem". Actually, I don't think anyone in this thread has said that. I think several of us have said we'd much rather have someone older, better informed, etc. The question is, is she awful.
Her intentions to do good for her constituents =/= her knowledge about capitalism and economics from the undergraduate degree she earned several years ago. I agree with Opty's points in the OP -- her discussion of those topics is often cringe-worthy. But that absolutely does not have a damn thing to do with her (IMO, sincere) desire to do good things for her constituents. What's going to happen, probably, is that she's in for a sharp lesson from her new peers in Congress on what is and isn't possible/a good idea/etc.
What I don't see is any evidence that she's all out for number one and looking to screw her constituents or the country.
I've been following the news on this, too -- probably more closely and from a wider variety of sources than c.e., given that Ocasia-Cortez is is my home turf, and I think it's c.e.'s statements that are weak sauce, and Amadan's characterization of them as coming from talking points not unfair. She doesn't know crap about his area and has made zero effort to put the points she's made into any kind of context -- she's just regurgitating them. I DO know something about the area and context, and those points are weak sauce.
I don't actually think Ocasio-Cortez is exaggerating all that much in what she has claimed for her background -- certainly no more than most other politicians, and I don't see why it's more troublesome given her platform. Certainly her background puts her much closer to the backgrounds of her constituents than the backgrounds of most politicians, no? Certainly much more so than the background of the incumbent? She's a known quantity among those who voted for her -- they know way more about her neighborhood, her father's business, etc. than, say, your average right-wing talking head. They related to her more than they did to the white guy who's been in Congress a billion years, and thought she got their concern. That's why she won.
YMMV on whether they're right that she'll be their best representative. Mine certainly does. But whether she made herself out to be poorer than she was or not, absolutely she does come from the people she's looking to represent -- that's not a fib. And the incumbent does not.
ETA:
I agree, too, that I'd be much more concerned with her lack of knowledge and experience if she were, say, president and not one representative of one district in a state that has a shit-ton of representatives.
Trump's complete lack of knowledge on...well, everything...is a big problem because he's president, made worse by the fact he stubbornly believes he knows everything. Ocasia-Cortez, even if she proves to be as stubborn and ignorant (spoiler--I don't think she'll prove to be either) is only in a position to do so much damage.
Yes, I would expect someone with an undergraduate degree in economics to do better in an off the key discussion of economic issues, but I am not sure she knows less than a buttload of other reps, frankly.
Or than, say, Gary Johnson, candidate for president in 2012 and 2016. I actually liked Johnson in a lot of ways. He sure as hell would have been better than Trump. But I had the opportunity to ask him questions about his policies back in 2012, specifically his tax policies, and he didn't do very well at all -- he stumbled over my questions bigly. I'm pretty confident he would have ended up backing off from his tax platform as he faced up to the issues with it. But then again, I think he's smart and I think his record shows that he learns from mistakes, takes advice from experts, and isn't afraid to reverse course if he learns his course isn't a good one and another one is better. And that, to me, is the most important thing. (I didn't end up voting for him because I found Trump terrifying and Hillary was the only one with a chance of beating him, and I wanted to give her every possible vote. But had the GOP candidate been someone who terrified me less, I might have gone Johnson/Weld, for the record.)
Anyway -- I cut Ocasia-Cortez the same sort of slack I cut Johnson in this regard -- yeah, she's got a lot to learn, but unlike Trump, I think she's a decent human who is capable of learning and evolving, so it's not a disaster, plus, as a junior congress critter, she won't have all that much power to muck things up.
ETA:
Oh, and with regard to whether my partisanship is "strong in this thread", pfft. I think my record of bipartisan criticism and praise is pretty strong. I still like and respect a pile of conservatives. Not Trump and his crowd -- but then, a fair pile of conservatives are with me on that one. I spent a portion of my morning defending and praising Jeff Flake elsewhere. So, yeah, pfft, if that shoe was intended for me. But I'm gonna assume it wasn't.
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Post by robeiae on Jul 19, 2018 11:22:23 GMT -5
I agree she's not "the next great thing just because she's a young, anti-Trump Dem". Actually, I don't think anyone in this thread has said that. I think several of us have said we'd much rather have someone older, better informed, etc. The question is, is she awful. Her intentions to do good for her constituents =/= her knowledge about capitalism and economics from the undergraduate degree she earned several years ago. It seems to me that you're looking to minimize her lack of knowledge here and what that could mean going forward. If one doesn't understand the unemployment rate, how can one "do good" for constituents? Economic illiteracy is how we get awful and damaging policies, even when the intentions behind those policies might be noble. Disagree, as I just explained. Neither do I. So what? Was that what the guy she beat was about? I don't think so. You DISAGREE with ce's position. Fair enough, so do I re the resume padding. But claiming what she is saying is just "regurgitating" talking points--sans any evidence--is what is weak, imo, not your on-point rebuttals. Because one could criticize your response in the same way, that the what you said in rebuttal were just talking points that you regurgitated. And that would be weak. Clear? As I said, I don't think it's a big deal, either. But again, I can understand the point of view of someone who doesn't like, especially given her platform. It's not wholly unlike being more peeved with the family values politician who gets caught with his pants down, as opposed to a politician who didn't run on a family values platform getting caught in the same way. See? Talking points... I'd expect someone with any degree to do better than she did, with the unemployment rate. That's high school economics, frankly.
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Post by Amadan on Jul 19, 2018 11:46:15 GMT -5
Well, since it's Pedantic Rebuttal Day: You DISAGREE with ce's position. Fair enough, so do I re the resume padding. But claiming what she is saying is just "regurgitating" talking points--sans any evidence--is what is weak, imo, not your on-point rebuttals. Because one could criticize your response in the same way, that the what you said in rebuttal were just talking points that you regurgitated. And that would be weak. Clear? No, the two claims would not be equivalent. First, celaw has a history of copypasting talking points in lieu of an argument, whereas Cass does not. Second, Cass is actually speaking credibly about an area she actually lives in and an issue she has actually been following, when there is no reason to believe celaw had any familiarity with a candidate in a Democratic congressional primary in Brooklyn, other than the fact that Fox News is losing their shit over the socialist who beat a white dude. I think there is a big difference between a politician caught doing something diametrically opposed to his stated principles, and a politician who downplays her socioeconomic background without actually saying anything untruthful. if Ocasio-Cortez claimed she grew up in a ghetto, or that her family struggled to survive, you'd be approaching (but still not reaching) equivalence. But this isn't even close.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2018 11:47:38 GMT -5
My "regurgitated talking points" are based not only on the news (of which, being local, I'm pretty sure I'm seeing more coverage on -- this isn't just some race a thousand miles away -- it's in my backyard, and even my little neighborhood rag is covering it, I saw about a zillion interviews with her constituents), but on my actual knowledge of the areas in question, which allow me to do things like take the 500K figure c.e. cites, the neighborhood Ocasio-Cortez lived in, the district that she ran in, the demographics, etc., and put them into perspective. Clear?
The fact that I didn't find this result at all astonishing is a direct reflection of all of the above -- the pundits were pretty much all floored. Me, being local, tapped into liberal circles, and paying close attention, I kept wondering why everyone thought the incumbent was such a shoe-in. She had a shit-ton of fervent grass-roots support. It was obvious if you were here and paying attention. (Interestingly, the NY Times was not particularly paying attention--they practically ignored her campaign. I thought it was bizarre.)
And as I've said eleventy million times, I agree her lack of economic knowledge is not a good thing, that she's not an ideal candidate, that I would have voted for the incumbent, and that we'll have to see what happens. But that said, do you disagree that we have some even MORE ignorant people (on any number of subjects) currently in Congress?
She can't decide policy single-handedly. She can't pass executive orders making things happen. She needs to work with her colleagues in congress to get things done.
If she ends up stubbornly holding out against all of her colleagues for some impossible pie-in-the sky economic policy that will never work, and thus prevents a good policy from working, I'll be a lot more worried. Or if Democrats in every primary start choosing candidates like her instead of like Conor Lamb in purple districts, yes, then I'll be worried. I will join Opty in thinking it's a yuuuuuge disaster.
But I tend to think (and here, yes, I'm spitballing on this point, but then so are you and so are we all) that being young and new, she's likely to calm down a bit, learn the ropes on policy, and not do that. (Will she be a conservative? Well, of course not. But will she get some concept that maybe not all her ideas are gonna fly? I think there's a pretty good shot.) So meanwhile, as we await the general election and her actual performance in office, I'm just shaking my head and saying "yeah, I get why these people voted for her, but they may not have made the best choice for themselves." And then I'm shrugging, saying "we'll have to wait and see", and spending my energy worrying about, oh, the fact that we have a Russian puppet in the White House, a congressman accused of ignoring sexual assaults at Ohio State, the fact that we STILL have thousands of migrant children who don't know where their parents are and may never see them again, etc., etc., etc.,
There's a ton of stuff for me to get passionately upset about right now. Indeed, I'm deeply worried and concerned about a ton of things in a way that several of you have commented you've never seen before (which is because in my adult lifetime, I've never been close to this worried about our country). I'm finding it difficult to focus on things in my personal life because I'm so worried about the current political scene -- I am right now looking for work that might enable me to do something more about it. So, right now, for me, this Ocasio-Cortez thing is so very, very minor in comparison that I really can't summon more than a head shake and a shrug, at least until I have more reason.
If you can't take my head shake as sufficient, I can't help. That's all I've got.
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Post by robeiae on Jul 19, 2018 11:58:26 GMT -5
My "regurgitated talking points" are based not only on the news (of which, being local, I'm pretty sure I'm seeing more coverage on -- this isn't just some race a thousand miles away -- it's in my backyard, and even my little neighborhood rag is covering it, I saw about a zillion interviews with her constituents), but on my actual knowledge of the areas in question, which allow me to do things like take the 500K figure c.e. cites, the neighborhood Ocasio-Cortez lived in, the district that she ran in, the demographics, etc., and put them into perspective. Clear? Yes, it is clear. But obviously what I said is not clear to you or Amadan. ARGUE THE POINTS, NOT THE POSTER. So what if what ce said came from some "talking points" (niether your nor Amadan has any evidence of such)? Doesn't invalidate any of it, does it? In contrast, your reasoned rebuttal--based not only on news but also first-hand knowledge--is an actual counter, as opposed to "you're spewing talking points," which is just a fallacious retort.
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Post by robeiae on Jul 19, 2018 12:07:39 GMT -5
On this: But that said, do you disagree that we have some even MORE ignorant people (on any number of subjects) currently in Congress? She can't decide policy single-handedly. She can't pass executive orders making things happen. She needs to work with her colleagues in congress to get things done. Absolutely, we have people in Congress who seem more ignorant than her. For instance, there's Hank Johnson, who was reelected even after expressing concerns--in a House committee meeting on camera-- that Guam might tip over if we stationed any more troops there. So, supposing that she actually is this stupid (again, I don't know; it's possible she just got flustered and said something without thinking, and it's possible that she knew she was saying nonsense, but did it to play to her base), putting yet another moron in Congress can't be a good thing, right? Because if she's working with a bunch of other stupid people, then...
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