matt

Doug, have you considered reaching out to Sam and Emma with this criticism and see how they respond to it? They may very well agree with you.

jesse

I highly doubt it. Im sorry, i adored Michael Brooks, but both Emma and especially Sam are some of the most arrogant and petty people in the "online left". Even when i agree with Sam his smarmy condescending tone has always turned me off, but then to watch how arrogantly ignorant he was over the "forcethevote" row a little bit ago, and how he demonstrated in that debate/discussing he had with Bri Joy Gray over why he opposed it and it came down largely to the fact he A. has a petty ass beef with Jimmy and reflexively came out forcefully against it after  initially supporting the premise, (only after AOC was owned by Justin Jackson on twitter regarding why she wouldn't do it), but most importantly, B. he didn't even do the research to discover the primary talking point he and so many other supposed leftists were using to attack those actually calling for the supposed "progressive" members of congress to do exactly what the effin promised to back when they were trying to get elected, he didn't know that if the squad were to withhold their vote for Pelosi, that in no way would it be possible for a Republican to win. It's not a matter of who has the most votes, they HAVE to get a certain amount, in other words the squad would have had to vote for McCarthey in order to give him enough votes to become speaker. But if they simply withheld their vote, the vote would have come up with no winning and it would have gone to a second vote, and then a third, and so on. 

The fear mongering over that, which was Sam's, Emma's, Vaush's, Ana Kasparian's, Dixon's, and many others go-to talking point in discrediting the tactic, was used as such because for many or even most of them, they reflexively opposed forcethevote largely if not entirely because of their hatred of Dore. They hate that he is so over the top in his criticisms of Dem politicians, and they allowed that to cloud their judgement i think. They either were so automatically anti-Jimmy that they didn't do any research to know whether what they were saying was true or not, or they did know better but simply lied anyways. I say this because there were actually leftists who did have legit well-thought-out criticisms about the tactic, like Burgis' for example. Now, personally i think he was completely wrong, but it didn't revolve around this pathetic fear mongering and constant personal attacks of Dore rather than addressing the tactic independently from Dore. I think it was pretty obvious that for Sam, he simply was being arrogantly ignorant and wasn't lying, but either way is pretty bad. The thing is, Jimmy is an unhinged comedian for fuck's sake, but you don't need to like him or agree with all the things he says/does to admit when he has a good/great idea, and Sam initially even admitted as such - which is further proof that Seder's opposition was entirely personal. It was only when Dore and a number of other leftists started going after the beloved AOC - that's when Seder did his about face. Oh, and don't me started on Seder's laughable conspiracy theory-laden Russiagate coverage. Sorry for the rant, but for someone who incessantly bitches about Dore being cancerous for the left, i can't think of a single supposed lefty media personality who is as destructive for the the left and our agenda than he.

sam

LMAO takes a special set of ears to come away from that debate thinking that Seder is more smarmy and condescending than Brie Joy Gray. He explain several times that he believed that FTV was started by Dore as a way of smearing elected progressives, driving a wedge between progressives and the Democratic party and promoting his new third party which would take power away from the only progressives in this country with any real political sway.  

People like you that ignore that point and continue to pretend that it's just because Seder wants to "get one over" on Jimmy do so because you don't know how to engage with his actual critique.

deathtokoalas

i would consider sam seder to be a moderate conservative, but that's probably why he's relatively careful in his statements. for that reason, it's hard to believe he took greenwald out of context by accident. that video of his is just ad generating click bait, and you're blind if you don't see that.

sam

You really brought out the full playbook for that response lol. When someone offers a valid critique of a person you like, you can avoid engaging with that critique by:

1) falsely branding that person as a sell-out, only interested in making money.

2) falsely branding that person as a conservative as a way of ignoring the valid substance in what they're saying.

3) falsely claiming that they took your favorite person out of context and refuse to explain how the dumb statement is any less dumb when placed in context.

Well done, 3 for 3!

 

deathtokoalas

well, i think my statements are entirely accurate, actually. in most english-speaking countries, seder would be what you call a red tory and all you need to do is listen to him speak to demonstrate the point. on economics, on health care, etc he consistently proves himself as soft-right, much like his buddy cenk uygur. that whole network of people is on the red tory to centrist conservative spectrum, you just don't realize it because you're an american. you could also scroll up a few posts and read me criticize glenn greenwald pretty viciously, but that would be far too ironic to actually happen.

sam

Ohh I'd loooove to hear the similarities between Tory policies and the policies Seder supports. I'm sure you'll have very concrete examples for me on that one.

I'm so glad to hear you're willing to criticize Glenn. In that case I'll revise my earlier comment to refer to strategies that you can employ to avoid acknowledging a valid critique issued by someone who you are only interested in discounting and smearing

deathtokoalas

ok, how about this then - you're an idiot.

i made my point very clearly, and i'm not interested in the endless, pointless psychobabble.

seder repeatedly sounds very similar to a red tory when he talks about universal health care, as one example, but i already told you that.

jay

conservatives don't advocate nationalizing large sectors of the economy, as Sam has, but you do you.

deathtokoalas

in fact, toryism is a derivative of monarchism and does believe in monopolizing large sectors of the economy, in opposition to liberalism, which believes in market liberalization. socialists are more like conservatives in this sense than they are like liberals. but, you americans don't understand what these words mean -  you think conservatives support free markets and oppose "big government", and don't realize that these ideas, when put together, are a contradiction in terms. but, yes - the kind of toryism i'm invoking believes in nationalizing all kinds of things, albeit for the benefit of the aristocracy, rather than as an implementation of common ownership. and, i think that if you listen to seder carefully, what comes out is generally something more tory than socialist.

sam

 oy vey. there's the brilliant concrete example I was looking for. 

"The way he talks about universal health care." 

Brilliant. Impenetrable argument.

deathtokoalas

well, are you familiar with his statements on the topic, samuel? it doesn't sound like it.

either that, or you don't know what a tory is.

some statements are worth delving deeply into, and others are so obvious as to be nearly tautological in character.

sam

for fuck's sake jessica. When I've heard him talk about medical care, it's always in support of universal health care. He talks about practical ways to have it work here and political strategies to get it passed. 

Generally, the person making a claim also is tasked with providing evidence to support that claim. You seem to have no intention to do so and I cannot take you seriously until you make even the feeblest of attempts. You have every method at your disposal of providing quotes, video clips, etc. as evidence. So, do it or accept that your feelings are driving your opinion and not any empirical analysis

 

deathtokoalas

seems like you need to do a little more research, samuel - you seem pretty ignorant.

i didn't come here to write an essay about sam seder, and i don't intend to, unless he pays me for it. by the word. i made a flippant comment that is self-apparent in it's truth, and i'll stand by it as such. but, you can prove or disprove it if you'd like - i don't really care.

sam

lol the burden of proof is not on me. You made a ridiculous claim about a popular left show host actually being a conservative and you refuse to offer any evidence in support of it. I never asked for an essay. I even suggested you find a video clip. Anyways we're done here. This was the most dysfunctional conversation I've had in a while. At least conservatives try to misinterpret statistics and offer up weak evidence in support of their claims lol

deathtokoalas

you can continue to live in ignorance if you insist, but i neither feel any inclination, nor any obligation, to support the statement i made, whatsoever, at all - nor do i care if you agree with me or not.

sam

okie dokie! just know that you seem more than a little stupid and ridiculous when you make a wild claim and refuse to support it!

=======

dave

This is odd. The people here are doing to sam what sam and others did to glen - I don’t agree with him on x, therefore he is a right winger. Can we get past this? Glen is wrong on some things, sam is wrong on some things (including his critique of glen in this video)

deathtokoalas

no. sam's positions are consistently ideologically capitalist, and you've just set the bar so far right that that doesn't bother you in defining whether he's a leftist or not. he's socially liberal, but broadly fiscally conservative, which is why i keep calling him a red tory. it's not this or that specific thing, it's a broad thing that informs his general worldview. and, i don't even think sam would disagree in any meaningful way - he'd call himself a progressive, and in the process imply he's center-right, rather than embrace being a full-on socialist. yes - the contemporary left needs to engage in tent-building with tories and progressives to get anything done, so it's more useful to have sam on our side than to get into a fight with him over trivialities, but that's not the same thing as getting confused about where he actually stands on the spectrum, and what you can rely on his support for and what you can expect him to oppose.