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Post by Optimus on Jul 19, 2018 12:22:38 GMT -5
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.) I agree and I didn't mean to sound as if I were the one getting hysterical. It was more a push back against the way she's being treated by some in the media as the new face of the party or at least a harbinger of a shifting of the tides in the direction of the party. I don't think that she represents any of that because I view her win as more of a fluke than a sign o' the times. And, given that several of her views are not favored by the majority of the public, I think it's silly to think that her political views are going to be very influential. But, she seems to be getting hailed as some sort of vanguard of the far left. So, my original post was more of a response to the media fawning she's been getting lately and to put her win and her campaign into a bit more of a realistic perspective.
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Post by celawson on Jul 19, 2018 12:29:59 GMT -5
First off, some of you seem to be taking my comments on Ocasio-Cortez as a damning indictment of everything about her. Maybe you're all wound up because that's what you've been doing to Trump et al so it's a habit? But I really just asked a question. Is she honest? Since Cass declared her honesty was one of her selling points, I brought up a simple question. I didn't categorically damn her. You'd think so, by looking at this thread, though. Me despising Roy Moore or not despising Roy Moore or despising Roy Moore but not posting about it (which is the truth but frankly so many people were damnimg him at the time that I had better use of my time than posting on it here) has zero relevance to any other thread I might participate in that's not about Roy Moore. I tend to post here when I can bring up a counterpoint that is not getting much representation. It's not because I don't ever disagree with or criticize any Repubs. It's that I don't do it HERE.
Secondly, Amadan I have respectfully requested you cut the bullshit with regards to your continued accusations that I cut and paste. I have never cut and pasted anything here that's not something I'm quoting and linking to. Believe it or not, sometimes I can read the news and come up with similar thoughts as a pundit who shares my political perspective. Get over it. Or find a more sophisticated way of arguing. Or don't. I don't care anymore. But if the forum rules are don't make personal attacks, you're breaking the rules.
With regards to my initial criticism of her bio, I had seen the issue regarding Yorktown, so yeah that's been in the news quite a bit and caused a kerfuffle. I got the info about her father's firm from an Inquisitr article (which apparently is a center left publication). The MSM was fawning quite a bit over this young, female, socialist, of color candidate so it's hard to actually find much critical of her until she whiffed it on the news interviews recently. The rest of the points I did, in fact, make all by my little lonesome while looking critically at her most recent bio. It's not that difficult.
Look, both my parents grew up in working class families of immigrants. My dad's father was a butcher, my mom grew up in East Los Angeles, her first language was Spanish. MY first language was Spanish. Until my dad asked my mom to stop speaking to us in Spanish because he couldn't talk to us (me and my twin sister) when he came home from work. My mom's dad worked for the railroad and used to be a coalminer in Italy, her mom was a seamstress from Guadalajara ( East LA is the barrio, Amadan since you won't fly out to L.A. to personlly study each of the neighborhoods like you expect me to do for New York). I spent a LOT of my time in the barrio of Los Angeles with my mom's family, and including growing up to the age of 11 in a nearby working class neighborhood (though not quite like my mom's childhood home). We were not wealthy. We had two bedrooms and 1 bathroom for 5 people until I was 11. BUT my dad was an elementary school princkipal. (Again, in East Los Angeles barrio). So I would not call my upbringing working class. My mom never went to college, and took menial jobs to have some extra money. But we were not working class because my dad was an educated man with a profession of teacher then school principal. Just like OCasio-Cortez is not working class because her dad was an educated architect who owned his own business. That's not working class.
Chriustine - Her father died Sept 8 of her sophomore year in college. Doing the math with her birthdate which is October 13, she was 19 years and 11 months old when he died. Again, I'm not taking away her pain and I'm very sorry for her, but yes it is not the same as if he died when she was 16. If you don't think so, ask yourself if you'd rather die when your child is 16 or one month from 20 years old. At almost 20, she was on a good path in college and had moved out of her parents' home. Yet her bio says her dad died when she was a teenager. And we know why it says that.
Her family had the means to buy a home in a much better area with better schools. That's a privelege she was given because of capitalism and her dad's business. It seems most of the financial struggles occurred after her father died without a will. That's tragic but it's not the picture she is trying to portray in her bio.
BUT...I'm still not saying she's a horrible person or shouldn't be running. I never said that. I simply asked, "Is she honest?"
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Post by Amadan on Jul 19, 2018 12:44:55 GMT -5
BUT...I'm still not saying she's a horrible person or shouldn't be running. I never said that. I simply asked, "Is she honest?" My serious answer is yes. Or at least, I've seen no evidence that she isn't. Have you ever listed a skill or knowledge on your resume that technically you studied, but maybe just for a class you took fifteen years ago? That's the level of "dishonesty" you're talking about here. She is casting herself in the most favorable light for her audience, and thus selectively emphasizing certain parts of her background, but I've literally seen no statement of hers that is factually incorrect*. Hence my irritation that you're going on and on about her honesty when we've been around the bush regarding Trump so many times. And by the way, I grew up in California, so yes, I'm familiar with East LA. (By which I mean, I know about the neighborhood, not that I lived there. But I've got family who still live in Compton.) * Referring to her background, here. I don't mean the nonsense about unemployment rates.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2018 13:02:30 GMT -5
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.) I agree and I didn't mean to sound as if I were the one getting hysterical. It was more a push back against the way she's being treated by some in the media as the new face of the party or at least a harbinger of a shifting of the tides in the direction of the party. I don't think that she represents any of that because I view her win as more of a fluke than a sign o' the times. And, given that several of her views are not favored by the majority of the public, I think it's silly to think that her political views are going to be very influential. But, she seems to be getting hailed as some sort of vanguard of the far left. So, my original post was more of a response to the media fawning she's been getting lately and to put her win and her campaign into a bit more of a realistic perspective. To note, I also roll my eyes a bit at the fawning coverage she's getting, so I'll definitely join you there. It's not that I dislike her, it's just that she's young and new with a shitload to learn, not the second coming of Christ. And I also don't think she's a sign 'o the times. I think she reflects what's happening in her district, period. I think we need only turn to Conor Lamb to see that other things are happening in other districts. I do think we're going to see a wave of Democrats come in -- but they're not going to all look like Ocasio-Cortez. Nor should they, and nor, should I add, do I want them to.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2018 13:14:04 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. And argue her points is exactly what I did. Her points, and her conclusions from them, are inaccurate because they are cherry-picked and taken completely out of context. I am familiar with the context because I live here. But indeed, I think one need not live here to realize, once one stops to think, that a business in a city like NYC that brings in only 500K is by definition a little business and not a swank Trumpian enterprise. There, I believe I'm pointing out what should be obvious, though it might be that much more obvious to me since I live and work here, have represented business of various sizes, have friends who own businesses, etc. ETA: Similarly, if someone were to say "OMG, Ocasio-Cruz's childhood home just sold for $300,000, so clearly she was well off!" I'd be compelled to point out that while $300,000 in many areas of the country might get you a nice upper middle class home, in NYC $300,000 won't even get you a sad one-room hovel in Manhattan or Brooklyn, and won't get you all that far in the boroughs or burbs. My local knowledge is perfectly relevant. It's way too easy to cherrypick the costs of things or the names of things -- especially in NYC -- and distort the hell out of something to someone who doesn't know better. "Pfft, she lives in Westchester or Manhattan she's rich!" "He lives in the Bronx so he's poor" Well, actually, there are nice areas in the Bronx, believe it or not, and shitty areas in Manhattan, and not all of Westchester is adorned with mansions. So to me, and to locals, the stuff c.e. was citing (which yes, I also saw in various news outlets), and the way it was framed, was actually far more misleading about Ms. Ocasio-Cortez's background than the way Ms. Ocasio-Cortez framed it herself. It was geared to make someone elsewhere in the country who wouldn't bother with that silly context thing go "oh, wow! $500K! architect! Westchester, where some rich people live!" and swallow whole the idea that Ocasio-Cortez came from a privileged background. ETA: Possibly this especially irks me because All. The. Fucking. Time. I have people make assumptions about me because of some cherry-picked piece of information from my background. E.g., "Oh, you went to Yale, you grew up rich." No, thank you, I didn't. Actually, mom and dad didn't pay a dime of my education -- I got scholarships and took out loans. I worked throughout the school year during undergrad, and had two to three jobs at a time waitressing during the summers -- it was typical for me to just switch uniforms and go to the next job, and to work 70-80 hour weeks. (During law school, things were better because the summer jobs available to elite law students are much better.) My mom grew up on public assistance, and spent some time in a foster home. All of my grandparents were immigrants who came here to work menial jobs -- a coal miner, a fruit seller, a maid. Dad put himself through college and grad school after he was married, as I was growing up, and my mom after that. Eventually dad became a teacher, but we were broke most of my childhood; eventually, we got to middle class. My family had the crappiest car in the neighborhood when I was a kid, and I wore second-hand clothes. My first crib was literally a dresser drawer on the floor of a tiny apartment. All true. Eventually, when I turned fourteen, we moved to a nicer neighborhood so my brother and I could go to -- you guessed it! -- a better high school. I've had a job since I was sixteen, and I started babysitting at 12, at which point I started buying my own clothes. But I can just fucking imagine if I ran for office and mentioned my waitressing jobs, second hand clothes, etc. can't you? I can totes see the pictures of Yale, and the picture of the better house we moved to when I was fourteen, and "pfft, her dad was a teacher, and look at her house -- it's totes middle class!" So yes, this kind of factors into the way I look at the Ocasio-Cortez critique on this front.
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Post by celawson on Jul 19, 2018 13:52:51 GMT -5
Cassandra, I appreciate your arguments about the 500k business in New York (which with inflation would be around 620k today if that number was from around 2004). The business apparently had 5 employees, and yes overhead, so I definitely accept that they were not wealthy. Thanks for your perspective on that.
Amadan, I accept the level of dishonesty is fairly low. And yes, most of what I mentioned is petty. But, IMO, she has a good enough story of her own based entirely in blunt facts, that she didn't need to embellish or fluff or strategically word anything. She does say this in her bio: Now maybe that's factually correct as well, if her father was not yet an architect at that time. But it's still got a whiff of untruthfulness. And if he WAS an architect at the time she was born, then it's clearly not truthful.
Just like saying her mother "scrubbed toilets", which Christine took issue with. (Note, she wrote that on Twitter, not in her bio.) I have a housecleaner who comes every 2 weeks or so when I'm working more hours. I pay her $22 an hour. Plus plenty of gifts of stuff I get from Costco, nice clothes my girls grew out of, generous cash gifts on her birthday and Christmas. That's what she gets "cleaning houses". I do think "cleaning houses" varies a lot from not so bad at all, to maybe pretty bad. Whereas if her mother really simply "scrubbed toilets", then I imagine it's like those people at sports stadiums or hospitals who actually really do scrub toilets as the biggest part of their job, and probably for minimum wage. So again, it seems disingenous to me. But yes, I admit I'm being picky.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2018 14:44:39 GMT -5
By the way, the area of the Bronx where Ocasio Cortez was born and lived the first five years of her life, and where she moved back after college, is a community called Parkchester. The population is about 40% African American and 38% Latino -- it's only .2% non-hispanic white. The world being as it is, this is probably sufficient to alert you to the fact that this is not a bastion of privilege. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkchester,_Bronx. It's actually an interesting community today, largely due to its ethnic mix, and certainly one of the more affordable areas to live in NYC. But yeah, it's poor and there's crime, and as noted in the article below, it was much worse when Ms. Ocasio Cortez was a little girl (she was born in October, 1989, and moved when she was five): cooperator.com/article/a-successful-experiment-in-living/full#cutSo, yeah, the fact that her family was living in Parkchester in the early 1990s speaks to her coming for a background that is very far from privilege. Here's the palatial two-bedroom house they moved to in Yorktown heights when she was five, so that she could go to a better school. They could only afford it with her mom supplementing her Dad's income by working driving a bus and being a housecleaner (I posted the picture tweeted by a right wing dude along with his accompanying misleading commentary -- the area is perfectly fine, and is indeed not far from some very nice areas, but she was not in a rich section, as I think is obvious looking at the house ) : Here is our privileged young lady tending bar a year before the election: So, uh, yeah. Not wealthy. Not even close. Middle class, maybe, as she grew up -- though that said, after her father died, they were fighting foreclosure on that wee little house, which they'd had for fourteen years and still had a mortgage on, so how well off could they be, really? And then the overhead on the business that employed five people -- rent (in NYC!), five salaries plus him, federal, state and local taxes, costs of doing business...yeah, he won't be taking home all that much, especially given the cost of living in NYC. It's actually not surprising at all mom was driving a bus and having to clean toilets for them to afford a two-bedroom house in a neighborhood with decent schools. I think "architect" is like "lawyer" or "doctor". People immediately think of some Madison Avenue slickster designing skyscrapers and making big bucks, just as they think of the Wall Street lawyer in the movies in the fancy suit, or the surgeon bringing home a huge salary. They don't think of the legal aid lawyer or small practitioner struggling to make ends meet, or the family doctor who still has student loans in her 40s and 50s, and they don't think of the little guy in the Bronx remodeling kitchens.
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Post by robeiae on Jul 19, 2018 15:19:56 GMT -5
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. And argue her points is exactly what I did. Yes, I know that's exactly what YOU did. Slow down and read. I specifically described YOUR rebuttal as AN ACTUAL COUNTER. Claiming that someone is just reposting talking points, however, is not. Especially without any evidence that they are. It's just an ad hominem attack. On this: I disagree somewhat, because--for instance--an architect is not a "working class" job. If that is what her father was, then he had to have the schooling and accreditation to be such, especially at a firm in NYC. You're skipping past that and viewing other bits in a more favorable--for Ocasio-Cortez--way. Still, none of this means that she came from a wealthy family, to be sure, and--again--this kind of narrative building is so common among politicians as to be largely inconsequential, in my view.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2018 15:30:17 GMT -5
I provided some context in my post just above yours, as to exactly how and where her family was living when she was born and grew up.
The architecture firm in NYC was just a little kitchen remodeling business in the Bronx, employing five people. I did a comparison above to lawyers and doctors -- not all are rich and fancy by any means, and it looks like the same is true of architects. But yes, he must have obtained some education (a bachelors of architecture is required, per the interweb), so while they may have had a low income (indeed, it seems they did), but not technically be "working class". I am guessing her mom did not have a college education, since she was driving a bus and cleaning toilets!
(I wonder, by the way, when he obtained his education -- could he have been like my dad and be going to school after he was married and starting a family? I don't know, so cannot speculate.)
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Post by Christine on Jul 19, 2018 16:00:02 GMT -5
I have a housecleaner who comes every 2 weeks or so when I'm working more hours. In light of this, your recent claim of scrubbing toilets comes across as less than honest.
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Post by Christine on Jul 19, 2018 16:15:08 GMT -5
Chriustine - Her father died Sept 8 of her sophomore year in college. Doing the math with her birthdate which is October 13, she was 19 years and 11 months old when he died. Again, I'm not taking away her pain and I'm very sorry for her, but yes it is not the same as if he died when she was 16. If you don't think so, ask yourself if you'd rather die when your child is 16 or one month from 20 years old. At almost 20, she was on a good path in college and had moved out of her parents' home. Yet her bio says her dad died when she was a teenager. And we know why it says that. It is bizarre to me that you apparently infer some sort of manipulative or otherwise nefarious intent from her calling herself a teenager. She. Was. Still. A. Teenager. What would you have preferred? "I was 19"? Or would that not have been good enough either, since she was about to turn twenty? Honestly I wouldn't haven't expected this sort of criticism from anyone here. Also bizarre is you asking me at which age of my kid would I prefer to die. The answer is neither age would be preferable. Either age would be horrible for him, while, either way, he would be okay, because we have family. Here's an exercise for you: Go stand in front of mirror and say, "Oh my god, she referred to herself as a teenager and she's ALMOST TWENTY!!!!1111!!" And ask yourself if you'd prefer to look like that or not.
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Post by Optimus on Jul 19, 2018 16:19:55 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2018 16:24:26 GMT -5
Just to note that my dear dad died three years ago today. I'm all grown-up, and it's still painful as hell. And handling all of the mess when he was ill and he died -- since I'm a lawyer and "the responsible one", I ended up doing all the stuff relating to insurance, etc. etc. -- was a nightmare that had me hyperventilating in my stress. I don't think I've been thoroughly cheerful since. Seriously.
Can't imagine going through it at nineteen. Just old enough to have to deal with some responsibility (he died intestate and his affairs were a mess--the bank was trying to foreclose, he'd had a long illness so medical bills), and yet so young.
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Post by Christine on Jul 19, 2018 16:25:52 GMT -5
Right, my second post in this thread, in response to someone addressing me specifically, is beating a dead horse. You and your horse can fuck right off.
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Post by celawson on Jul 19, 2018 17:41:27 GMT -5
At the risk of beating a dead horse (heh), my claim to scrub toilets is entirely honest because I do, in fact, scrub toilets. Regularly. Twice a week and we have 3. That’s more often than my housekeeper does in my house, actually. I don’t wait for weeks for her to do it. I like a clean house.
Also, I have two daughters. One is currently 20, the other is 16. The twenty year old finished her sophomore year of college out of state (like Ocasio-Cortez), is looking forward to living in her own apartment next term, has a steady boyfriend, a car, a well-paying job as ambassador at her university, a spectacular GPA,and some great career and life goals. I have no doubt which of my girls is better equipped both maturity-wise and life goal-wise to continue on without one parent. I’m confident my 16 year old will be in a similar place when she’s 20, but right now she needs me more than the older one. Maybe it’s because I deal with death regularly as part of my work, but it doesn’t seem weird to me to think about or discuss that sort of thing. And I have thought about, not infrequently, what kind of mother I am being in terms of how my daughters would be if something happened to me. I can look at myself in the mirror and do what you asked and I’d be fine because this is just a discussion board.
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