On my first day at Michigan State University in 1992, a fellow student called me a \"liberal\" and I was shocked: as a Canadian who was often to the left of the social-democratic New Democratic Party, I identified \"liberal\" with the Liberal Party, a centre-right political party that had once imposed martial law in Canada. <\/p>\n
As I lived in the USA off and on in the ensuing decades, I grew increasingly frustrated with the truncated US political spectrum, whose mainstream ran from far-right to center-right, with \"liberal\" being as far left as anyone dared to go. It's this bizarre situation that created an equivalence between Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn, though Corbyn is far, far to the left of Sanders. <\/p>\n
Writing in the New York Times Magazine, Nikil Saval describes a gradual shift in American politics, driven by a resurgent, insurgent, anti-establishment Democratic base who are demanding party leaders who stop kowtowing to big pharma, the finance industry, racist \"war on poverty\" types, surveillance agencies, and prison labor. <\/p>\n
These left-wing activists reject and deplore the term \"liberal,\" seeing it as \"weak-minded, market-friendly centrist, wonky and technocratic and condescending to the working class.\" <\/p>\n
Over the last few years, though and especially 2016 there has been a surge of the opposite phenomenon: Now the political left is expressing its hatred of liberals, too. For the committed leftist, the liberal is a weak-minded, market-friendly centrist, wonky and technocratic and condescending to the working class. The liberal is pious about diversity but ready to abandon any belief at the slightest drop in poll numbers a person who is, as the folk singer Phil Ochs once said, 10 degrees to the left of center in good times, 10 degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally. The anonymous Twitter account liberalism.txt is a relentless stream of images and retweets that supposedly illustrate this liberal vacuousness: say, the chief executive of Patagonias being hailed as a leader of corporate resistance to Trump, or Chelsea Clintons accusing Steve Bannon of fat shaming Sean Spicer. <\/p>\n
This shift in terminology can be confusing, both politically and generationally as when baby boomers describe fervent supporters of Bernie Sanders as very liberal, unaware that young Sandersistas might find this vomit-inducing. It can also create common ground. Last year, the young (and left-leaning) writer Emmett Rensin published a widely read piece on Vox deriding liberals for their smug style; soon enough, one longtime adept of the right, National Reviews Ramesh Ponnuru, was expressing his partial approval, writing in Bloomberg View that what contemporary liberalism lacked most was humility. Here was a perspective common to both sides of the old spectrum: that liberals suffered from a serene, self-ratifying belief in their own reasonableness, and that it would spell their inevitable defeat. <\/p>\n
Hated by the Right. Mocked by the Left. Who Wants to Be Liberal Anymore? [Nikil Saval\/New York Times] <\/p>\n
(Image: Photo illustration by Derek Brahney) <\/p>\n
(via Naked Capitalism) <\/p>\n
(Image: Big Wow Badges) <\/p>\n
Trump is an infamously domineering handshaker, who uses the gesture to impose and humiliate. Sometimes, a wily Trudeau or muscular Macron will get the better of him, but theyre still playing his game. Agata Kornhauser-Duda isnt, drifting right past his outstretched lil smokies to greet Melania Trump instead, only turning to the orange morgellons monster [] <\/p>\n
In the wake of CNN threatening to out a critic if he does not limit his speech in the future, former federal prosecutor and First Amendment champion Ken White has published an eminently sensible post about the incoherence of the present moments views on free speech, and on the way that partisanship causes us to [] <\/p>\n
Louisiana Republican congressman Clay Higgins shot video of himself talking about the need for invincible U.S. powerwhile wandering the gas chamber at Auschwitz. In his five-minute ramble, Higgins explains the horrors that took place at the camp, where some 1.1m people, mostly Jews, where murdered by the Nazis during World War II. And that this [] <\/p>\n
Excel, Microsofts venerable spreadsheet program has some seriously powerful capabilities. But unless you know where to look in the maze of menus and toolbars, you probably leave the pivot tables and conditional formatting to your offices Excel guru. If you want to level up your skills and steal the title from the resident guru, take [] <\/p>\n
Entertaining bold changes in your career can feel like an abandonment of what youve worked for thus far, but this fallacious mindset can cost you a lot more in the long run than the time spent at your current gig. Change is constant, and building new skills outside of your typical wheelhouse will do much [] <\/p>\n
Immersive 3D sound is usually only possible with an array of surround-sound speakers, or by using headphones with Binaural audio content. And since most readily-available media is mastered for generic stereo, your Dolby 5.1 setup wont automagically add an extra dimension to your listening experience. But you can still simulate a rich audio environment with [] <\/p>\n
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America is starting to realize that "liberal\/conservative" labels exclude the left - Boing Boing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On my first day at Michigan State University in 1992, a fellow student called me a \"liberal\" and I was shocked: as a Canadian who was often to the left of the social-democratic New Democratic Party, I identified \"liberal\" with the Liberal Party, a centre-right political party that had once imposed martial law in Canada. As I lived in the USA off and on in the ensuing decades, I grew increasingly frustrated with the truncated US political spectrum, whose mainstream ran from far-right to center-right, with \"liberal\" being as far left as anyone dared to go Continue reading