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Urban v's the Commentariat

andysays said:
Depections of octopuses representing bankers, financiers etc are often seen as anti-semitic.

I suspect MC drew the picture with that subconciously in mind (or maybe the image had been suggested by some of her Occupy chums...), then realised what she'd done and wrote squid instead because she couldn't be bothered to re-draw with a proper squid (and TBF, it is a jolly good pic of an octopus, especially the way it's raising its eyebrows in a threatening manner).
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Vampire Squid was (I think) Goldman Sachs's nickname.
 
Nigel Irritable said:
[side issue: the class politics of Gilmore Girls are interesting and unusually well developed, but they centrally deal with the interaction between the petit bourgeoisie and the haute bourgeoisie. The working class is not central at all]
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Luke was working class. I think part of the problems he and Lorelai had was because of their different classes - she may have started as a chambermaid but she wasn't working class.
 
equationgirl said:
she may have started as a chambermaid but she wasn't working class.
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@mx_600
 
equationgirl said:
Luke was working class. I think part of the problems he and Lorelai had was because of their different classes - she may have started as a chambermaid but she wasn't working class.
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Luke was a small business owner and the son of a small business owner! His actual class position is broadly comparable to Loralai's when we meet them - she is the manager of a hotel and is aspiring to open her own smaller hotel.

I agree about the interpersonal problems though. The difference between them is that Loralai is still voluntarily slumming it, just as she was as a chambermaid - she's a scion of the haut bourgeoisie. She was raised with the expectations of that class and all it ever takes for her to carpet bomb her problems with money is to swallow her scruples and ring her parents. And indeed the first story arc of the show is about her doing that so that her daughter can have the class based advantages she herself rejected.

There are very few workers who are prominent as characters. Sookie the chef is a skilled worker, but she is on her way into business with Lorelai. She also marries a small business owner. Jess is technically, if I remember correctly, from a family with a small business, but he is consistently treated as being from the wrong side of the tracks and is himself en route to becoming a construction worker, so he may be the closest thing to a working class character of some significance. Even Michel the concierge is a son of privilege. The town is largely stocked with (almost all warm, good hearted) small business owners, while Lorelai's parents world consists of (cold, uptight, damaged, maid-abusing) ruling class types.
 
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Nigel Irritable said:
Luke was a small business owner and the son of a small business owner! His actual class position is broadly comparable to Loralai's when we meet them - she is the manager of a hotel and is aspiring to open her own smaller hotel.

I agree about the interpersonal problems though. The difference between them is that Loralai is still voluntarily slumming it, just as she was as a chambermaid - she's a scion of the haut bourgeoisie. She was raised with the expectations of that class and all it ever takes for her to carpet bomb her problems with money is to swallow her scruples and ring her parents. And indeed the first story arc of the show is about her doing that so that her daughter can have the class based advantages she herself rejected.

There are very few workers who are prominent as characters. Sookie the chef is a skilled worker, but she is on her way into business with Lorelai. She also marries a small business owner. Jess is technically, if I remember correctly, from a family with a small business, but he is consistently treated as being from the wrong side of the tracks and is himself en route to becoming a construction worker, so he may be the closest thing to a working class character of some significance. Even Michel the concierge is a son of privilege. The town is largely stocked with (almost all warm, good hearted) small business owners, while Lorelai's parents world consists of (cold, uptight, damaged, maid-abusing) ruling class types.
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Jackson is a produce supplier - small business owner.
Mrs Kim owns an antique store - small business owner
Miss Patty and her dance studio - small business owner
Taylor - many small businesses!

Dean leaves school after graduating and goes into carpentry - his relationship with Rory is probably even more class-based than Luke and Lorelai's! As is hers with Logan, him being from a super-privileged family.
 
equationgirl said:
Jackson is a produce supplier - small business owner.
Mrs Kim owns an antique store - small business owner
Miss Patty and her dance studio - small business owner
Taylor - many small businesses!

Dean leaves school after graduating and goes into carpentry - his relationship with Rory is probably even more class-based than Luke and Lorelai's! As is hers with Logan, him being from a super-privileged family.
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Yep, it's a town of upstanding small property owners. Thats the central way in which class is treated. It's not about the exploitation of workers but about clashes between (bad) bourgeois social mores and (good) petit bourgeois ones,

And I got Dean and Jess mixed up above! It was Dean - a mother's dream for a first boyfriend, but not necessarily a daughter's - I was talking about. Actually both of them may qualify as working class. They were certainly both presented as being from "rougher" backgrounds - so Rory's sporadic taste for a bit of rough may be the main way in which the viewer encounters non-business owners.
 
Nigel Irritable said:
Yep, it's a town of upstanding small property owners. Thats the central way in which class is treated. It's not about the exploitation of workers but about clashes between (bad) bourgeois social mores and (good) petit bourgeois ones,

And I got Dean and Jess mixed up above! It was Dean - a mother's dream for a first boyfriend, but not necessarily a daughter's - I was talking about. Actually both of them may qualify as working class. They were certainly both presented as being from "rougher" backgrounds - so Rory's sporadic taste for a bit of rough may be the main way in which the viewer encounters non-business owners.
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Jess ended up being in some kind of writers' collective/independent publisher, I think? On a par with small business owner.
 
Taibbi must have known full well the heritage of the imagery he was using - whenever I see tentacles appearing in political discourse, I can't help but think the words 'Bolshevik-Plutocratic plot' can't be too far behind.

Isn't it enough to excoriate Goldman Sachs? Without giving the reader this little frisson of antisemitic imagery?
 
Essentially, this wave of intersectionality has created a wealth of ego-driven cliques that mirror the racism, colonialism and Orientalism they claim to hate by bifurcating groups along skin colour - they treat white people as a homogenised block without realising the irony of mirroring the oppression they oppose.

Park, like Crabapple take radical positions but use it as a platform for personal brand-building online. However, Park's rhetoric is more likely to alienate people in the real world, especially those who might pay money to listen to some naive 23-year-old who probably read one book on critical race theory.

Yes, racism exists across the fabric of our society, but the idea that Colbert was promoted to spite Park is utterly hilarious. In their narrow view of oppression there are other factors as to why he got the job.

Meaningful activism exists outside of social media, yes, there are obvious benefits for those who are disabled or lack the finances to attend regular meetings or protests. I view it more of a jumping off point. Often, in these sorts of imagined Twitter events of oppression, the usual voices gang up and play purity points with 'being a good ally.'

A load of self-important online bollocks. Despite the rhetoric, those who speak so loudly of oppression are those who will always speak from a position of wealth. Why do they never speak of class? Because many reaped the benefits of a private education and the wealth of lassez-faire capitalism.

Their oppression is only convenient to a point.
 
'Slacktivism' being used to describe things like avaaz petitions is 'ablist' apparently .. According to some blog posted by somebody :facepalm:
 
frogwoman said:
'Slacktivism' being used to describe things like avaaz petitions is 'ablist' apparently .. According to some blog posted by somebody :facepalm:
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On the NCAFC facebook group I've seen a number of people arguing that encouraging people to come to a protest is ableist because it highlights the exclusion of people who are unable to come.

The same people also argued that talking about zombies was ableist.

I don't understand how they are able to survive on a day to day basis.
 
How is talking about zombies ableist? And disabled people do come to protests, and there are any number of reasons why someone might not be able to which are nothing to do with disability.
 
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