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What's a progressive in the big city to do?
By adamg on Thu, 05/16/2013 - 8:50am
WBUR reports on progressives fretting about the City Council winding up next year just as white and XYish as "old Boston." Or as 'BUR calls these folks, "self-styled progressives," because God forbid people be allowed to identify their political leanings without a reporter casting some doubt on what they really are by adding some empty phrase like "self-styled." But I guess we could expect no less from self-professed reporter David Scharfenberg.
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Comments
“It’s a very progressive
When progressives start complaining about how the progressives at Boston's public radio stations label them as self-labeled progressives, it's time to take a dramamine.
When you spend all your time telling people how very progressive you are, and how important diversity is, I think it's fair to use 'self styled' in passing. It's not exactly hate speech.
Touche
But I wasn't accusing WBUR of hating progressives or anything like that, just getting cranky about a common journalistic tic that doesn't add anything to the story whatsoever (how is a "self-styled progressive" different from a "progressive," exactly?).
What Story
Bro!
Annoying way to word it, but...
Aren't they just attributing their sources? Saying that the person identifies as progressive, not that they identify the person as such or that it's a hard fact that the person is progressive?
Code
Seems Jurno-code for that dirty attack word "lubril".
It's good to fight back though. Who ever thought liberal would become a slur? But it tends to happen when you let people define you and the terms of a debte as the liberals did in the 80's and 90's.
Potential Candidates for the Preliminary Municipal Election
The final list of Potential Candidates for the September Preliminary Municipal Election
http://anopenbostoncitycouncil.blogspot.com/
Priority
If someone is a progressive, I think there are more pressing issues to focus on than the largely irrelevant City Council. Demographics are less important than effectiveness- a hack like Jeff Sanchez is a Latino, but that doesn't mean he's somehow any more useful than Rob Consalvo to his constituents. Getting an effective group of legislators in a position of power within the State House and/or getting a more progressive mayor would do so much more for the progressive agenda.
This all assumes there's such a thing as a consistent progressive position though and I think there isn't.
Are you insinuating
that Progressives = People who were diagnosed with the "White Guilt".
Pretty much. Ironically,
Pretty much. Ironically, progs are essentially killing the population they're trying so hard to save. Welfare state takes away any incentive for education and gainful employment and makes the recipient completely useless and unmarketable in the real world, and light on crime thug-coddling policies ensure minority neighborhoods will always be crime-infested shit holes with no businesses other than check cashers, liquor stores and an occasional Kennedy fried chicken with obligatory bulletproof glass. What are unemployable welfare masses going to do when the system finally runs out of money? It's fun to have "I'm more progressive than you" pissing contests, but does anyone ever think of the consequences?
Alright, put down Ayn
Alright, put down Ayn Rand...
1) Social welfare programs do nothing to the incentive to work less, and actually, tying welfare programs to job training makes the most sense. I'm sure you would see the flip side of that coin if you were receiving welfare checks that amounted to little more than grocery/transportation money. This whole image and idea of a welfare queen propagated by Reagan is a misnomer, and is harmful to actual welfare/unemployment/Medicare allocation and funding.
2) I'm not sure how many low income children you have actually held a conversation with, but none I have ever met (and I worked at a non-profit children's sailing program for underprivileged youth)say they want to grow up to be a welfare recipient. Your empty statements are degrading to the actual population that suffers from poverty and under-education.
3) Your remarks about the quality of neighborhoods that welfare recipients live in is a sign that you actually know nothing, do not know the actual situation of people on government assistance, and think it's OK to sit behind your computer with an anonymous username bashing someone for their economic situation. More people than you think receive or need the government to help them out due to the failings of unfettered markets and outsourcing due to profit mongers. When you speak like you do in your post, you show your lack of education on the topic, and actually do little to further the point you are trying to make.
In summation, you are basically acting like pond scum.
I agree completely with
I agree completely with everything you have said, but would like to point out you've got a better chance at winning the Powerball than you do of changing the mind of a guy posting under the handle "TypicalHeraldReader."
Oh, absolutely know that one.
Oh, absolutely know that one. One look at the Herald comment section would make anyone with a working brain cringe. Facts don't matter to people armed with faux stereotypes, empty talking points, and conservative talk radio (which is a combination of those first two things I mentioned).
I was talking to my buddy last night and we came to the conclusion that polarization in politics today makes it impossible to even have an intelligent discourse about policy when one person thinks 1 + 1 = 2 and the other thinks it equals 3.
Right
All that bashing and stereotypes because of a screen name (and the fact someone doesn't agree with you,) why am I not surprised? Bigot? Check! Racist? Check! Never been outside of Boston? Check! Uneducated/ Check! Hates the poor? Check! Greedy profit monger? Check! Biblethumper? Haven't heard that one but i'm sure it's coming. How are you lads better than the herald forum crowd you love to hate?
PS: I assume you're always the one who thinks 1 + 1 is 2, and the opposing party is the one trying to prove it's 3, right?
Love how you just raise a
Love how you just raise a straw man argument to get out of actually responding to what I had to say. Never once did I call you any of those things, I just used your own words to show how you are uninformed and spouting lies. Dude, just go somewhere else. You are absolutely entitled to your opinion, but it isn't working around this site (or for the state for that matter). You know what you should do instead of sitting behind your computer raising straw man arguments? You should go and and change things. Run for office. Start a non-profit organization. Volunteer.
But all of that must seem like too much work, right? I know, it's much easier to just rehash stale talking points from Dennis and Callahan and Howie Carr. They make it too easy when they couch right wing ideas in the "them against us" argument. How about this: how about we all help EACH OTHER out and not feel content letting the most vulnerable in our society fall through the cracks. Guess that makes me a dirty stinky liberal, huh?
1. I've seen more luxury cars
1. I've seen more luxury cars in the projects than in many middle class neighborhoods, did they magically appear out of thin air? Also, you gave a pretty accurate description of a typical working Bostonian - spending a large chunk of their salary on rent, with barely enough money left over for groceries and transportation. Why work when you get it all for free?
2. I met plenty. Some want to be doctors. Some want to be the next drug kingpin. Unfortunately, the latter group is preventing the former from achieving their dreams, and nothing is done about it. Ridiculous amounts of money and resources are wasted on "problem" students while "normal" students are largely ignored, apparently real progressives aren't familiar with the concept if diminishing returns. Education is the only way to get people out of poverty, but progressives take the feel good approach and throw all resources and those who are already too far gone to be saved. Spend a million on an average student and he will be the next bill gates, spend a million on trying to rehabilitate a young drug dealing thug who's determined to be a thug and you'll still end up with a thug.
3. Would you open a business in a neighborhood where it's likely to be robbed, and your employees hurt in the process? I'm sure you would, despite astronomical insurance costs (on paper and uhub, of course,) but I don't recall seeing that many progs putting their money where their mouth is and opening an organic food shop on blue hill ave or calling their mayor and demanding a housing project next to their house so the underpriviledged can enjoy everything their rich lily-white suburb has to offer.
In summation, you're just like most other armchair progressive intellectuals, nothing but a white guilt-ridden windbag.
Whether this is Bingo or a Drinking Game
I've got a blackout.
You basically just did what I
You basically just did what I just said discredited your argument. The mess of talking points and derogatory stereotypes is mind-boggling at worst. I'm not sure that you really have any experience with the real world. The Herald comment section is calling your name, they really miss the in-depth analysis of fear and hatred that you are propagating.
The fact that you said children are "too far gone to be saved" shows that you have no idea what you are even talking about. Shameful.
So, it makes sense to have a
So, it makes sense to have a very expensive dedicated team of social workers and psychologists assigned to every violent thug who makes learning impossible for everyone around him and takes 18 years to get through school, assuming he doesn't get shot somewhere along the way, instead of spending that money on those who actually do want to learn? your compassion might be infinite but federal and state money certainly isn't. Huge support network costing countless millions for the few bad apples who refuse to change, and crappiest schools in the state for everyone else, hooray for efficient resource allocation. It must feel soooo goood to "save" a thug or two, to hell with all the other kids who might have gone to college if just a little more attention was given to them...
Good question: What's the progressive position on trash pickup?
Or probably more important - school choice and charter schools?
Don't discount the value of the council as a bully pulpit, though - you can tell they don't want to be there sometimes, but city administrators do show up at council hearings.
Like you said, don't discount somebody just because of demographics. Steve Murphy looks and sounds like "old Boston," but he's long pushed CORI reform, which is not something you'd think he'd do (also not something he can do much about, since he's a councilor and not a state rep, but that's another matter).
schools
I think school choice and charter schools aren't represented by a cohesive opinion. Every 'progressive' probably agrees changes are needed, but I suspect the people who think more charter schools are needed have an equal number of counterparts.
Adam, good points about
Adam, good points about demographics, and the difficulty with identifying a single, unified progressive position on every issue. I understand what the author of this article was getting it, but at various points I got the sense that he, intentionally or not, was discounting an entire swath of the population solely based on demographics, which is both too simplistic (and therefore inaccurate) and fairly non-progressive, to the extent one believes that progressive people are generally not supposed to be dismissive of other groups simply based upon their demographics. I'm "old Boston" based upon demographics, but I'm all for getting a diverse slate of candidates - but this author's attempt at distilling an interesting issue was sub-par, IMHO.
'Progressives'
eat their own.
And how can we put that ridiculously cliched and totally untrue statement often repeated even today about Boston and Massachusetts not being diverse. It's usually of course 'progressives' who make these statements, and they usually mean we don't have enough black [not minority, but black] people. I guess what they mean is there's still too many white people here. Why don't they just say that in plain English? Never mind the fact Boston is 50/50 white and 'minority', or that the state is in fact very 'diverse'. Boston proportionately has roughly the same percentage of black people as NYC, Houston, Dallas, roughly 25% and has a higher percentage of black people than MANY U.S. cities, especially those located in the west. L.A., S.F., Seattle, Denver, San Diego, etc. I get sick and tired of hearing this shit. You dislike Boston and MA that much, MOVE.
We will be diverse enough
when there are no white people but them left. And then, when they realize that when ANY ethnic group gets and consolidates power, it ALWAYS treats the minorities badly. But in progressive world, only white people are racist. They'll learn eventually, and probably the hard way.
Morlocks
As long as we're drawing up policy to deal with problems that are just waiting to happen, I'd like to talk for a minute about the greatest looming threat to our white hegemony: Morlocks. Motherfuckers are just down there, biding their time, slowly building up a majority by leeching off our hard-earned tax dollars. You just wait. Boston progressives are ignoring perhaps the greatest threat humanity has ever (will ever?) seen, and we're over here wasting our time arguing about how badly Hispanics are going to treat white people when they inevitably take over.
How cute
Aw, two opposites on the spectrum having a straw man building contest, how cute. Here's a purely theoretical question though - as we all know, wages have been stagnant over the past few decades. The middle class is struggling, most working families aren't having more than one kid because they simply can't afford more. In other words, the "giver" population is shrinking. The taker population, on the other hand, is not burdened by those pesky things called bills and can have as many kids as they want, and they certainly do just that. What's going to happen when the population of givers can no longer support the takers? I know progs love to think all welfare kids end up going to Harvard and joining the productive society, but history and statistics beg to differ.