I was also very interested to learn that his father was born in Mexico. And yet "nobody ever asked to see [his] birth certificate" don't worry, it's got nothing to do with race!
@DrJ: I fucking love Chomsky and I also fucking love Nader (remember, from back in the day?). But I am not feeling that warm about people voting for a third candidate in this election. It's putting too much faith in other people actually voting Obama in. Like "I am going to vote for my candidate, but I know there's no way they'll be elected and everyone else will vote for the lesser of two evils, so it's ok." A little bit like: "I won't vaccinate my child. She's fine. As long as all the other parents vaccinate their kids."
Again, I can't vote here. I am completely utterly against the two-party system, but I feel that in order to include more candidates in the race there should be more shared mainstream forums for those candidates to express themselves/face their rivals. If the Green Party was part of the upcoming debates it would make sense, but until that happens it seems too experimental to tell people to vote for them if they are not in a swing state.
I guess that's the part I am having a problem with. If you want to vote for your favorite candidate, just do it. Don't do the thing where you rely on other people's votes for the country not to be fucked. Be ready to break the system for real or continue playing the dumb game. Just my two extreme cents.
@Joey Partly, my thing is showing the Dems that they are missing out on votes to the left of their positions. They seem so very concerned about the 2 - 3% "swing voters" to their right, why not the 5 - 10% to their left? Or for that matter, "their" part of the 50% who don't bother to vote.
At the end of the day, I'm not really interested in breaking the system. I think the system is partly OK and actually better than many of the no-system alternatives. I guess it is dumb to talk about this stuff in generalities. I do think nations and global markets as they are currently configured are a big problem and America has a huge role in enforcing the problematic status quo through various kinds of market/violent interventions.
Here's a thing I saw that I posted on my FB the other day. It is a short video of an Iranian-Amercian Peace Activist protesting outside of Ahmadinejad's hotel in NYC when he spoke at the UN. She articulates a position on behalf of the people of Iran who are suffering from the brinksmanship between Obama, Netanyahu, and the clerics that support Amadinejad. It is the contest between these nation-states that are putting the lives of countless civilians at risk. The whole planet is now collateral damage. I would like to see our way toward some kind of civilian global society, a more peer-to-peer world that serves the general longterm public biospheric interest, rather than the short term market games of the ripoff elite.
Chanting slogans turns me off, and the music is weird, but she makes a strong case for the new kind of global society that I think is happening and I feel a part of. Not really breaking the system, though, I don't think, more like a change of venue: a redesign.
@YT Alright I'm going to be kind of prejudiced here and just say that Mormons creep me out. I think it's the way they suppress their emotions. They are always acting really cheerful, kind of giddy thinking about how the apocalypse might be coming at any moment. And they smile thinking about their stockpiles of canned food and how unprepared all the sinners are going to be on judgement day. Creepy cold. (If any of you are LDS reading this, I'm really revealing my own issues here. It's not you. It's me. I respect your personal spiritual and cultural journey and broad generalizations about classes of people are obviously false. Just sayin'. Here is my sickness.)
On the other hand, Baptists live in a constant state of ecstasy, always letting their emotions fly, always sinning and sinning and sinning, always seeking redemption, always cathartic. Human as hell.
Mormon music: The Osmonds, creepy boys' choir. Baptist music: Blues, Rock & Roll, Soul, Gospel.
don't get me wrong. I am generally creeped out by any deep adherence to any religious system and/or dogma, and obviously I find a lot of the Mormon tenets give me the howling fantods if I ponder them in the wee hours.
DrJ, I like your argument, it makes sense. You convinced me.
On Mormons: I often feel like so many of them are straight up happy, sweet and kind. Like they were raised around values and behaviors sturdy and consistent enough to not have that weird longing I often feel. Maybe it's just pretending? I once read a zine by this ex-Mormon woman who was sexually abused as a child and how her parents (not the perpetrators) didn't know how to handle it so they just pretended like nothing happened. So I guess that stuff happens with Mormons, too.
I'm not into the third party argument this year because I think we have a shot at a landslide and a landslide could mean a different kind of narrative that allows for a bolder legislative agenda.
Don't get me wrong. It'd be swell to see the Repubs lose the House. Austerity politics are not popular, so the greener Obama goes the better he and the party should do. I'm just offering encouragement.
In Canada we had a Prime-Minister, Jean Chrétien, whom I never cared for until his last couple years in office when he decided for Canada not to join the U.S. in invading Iraq and even made a couple snarky comments about George W. Bush being a big baby. I think there is a slim chance that Obama will actually care about his legacy, but that's mostly because I have been watching "West Wing" . It gives me more of a skewed sentimental view of how government works.
Not that other religions aren’t similarly guilty. But it blows my mind that until 1978! black people were banned from the Mormon church. And that they never apologized after they deemed it okay, they were just like new shit has come to light.
Young deemed black-white intermarriage so sinful that he suggested that a man could atone for it only by having “his head cut off” and spilling “his blood upon the ground.”
Not only was Mitt's dad LDS, but the Romney family lineage goes all the way back to Romneys who were actually living in the town in Illinois that was run by the actual Joseph Smith. After he was martyred, they left on the dreadful forced exodus. Romenys go deep with Mormonism. One of the oldest, most elite Mormon families on earth.
Mitt's dad also ran for president and lost...uh oh DADDY ISSUES AGAIN, we know how this goes
The fact that the Mormon church held to such a stance until 1978 should only make us all more cautious about looking at ourselves in the present... discrimination now goes on covertly, and while we move forward in words we often move backwards in action, so instead of critisizing this organization it just makes me feel very humble.
My comment above was worded in a weird way that the part about the Mormons I have met being genuinely sweet doesn't shine through. And then I meant to say they are not that different from other Jesus people. I am not creeped out by Mormonism. I could have been, but somehow a religion that focuses hard on family and being straight edge is comforting to me. Also, I find Utah to be a weird magical place.
And then all religion is creepy to me. I am not spiritual at all. The yoga teacher telling me "namaste" makes me shudder.
yeah I wrote and then deleted a huge long thing about how all the Abrahamic religions are fucking creepy as hell, and we only think of Mormonism as weird because it's so new, comparatively. But they're all cults based on utter bullshit, and they all have their grim skeletons they try to cover up. Like, it's crazy to me that people are weirded about by Romney's magic underwear, but then GWB saying literally insane things about EVIL and EVILDOERS and GOD'S WILL was just like, "well those are his beliefs." Wtf!
I also really don't like your statement about Baptists being more human, Dr. J.! Why is shattering bipolar disorder more human than practicality and calm? I don't experience life the way Baptists do but I think of myself as human. I think what you said is a bullshit revenant of the Romantic Era and I don't accept it! SO THERE
I also think "being disturbed by his mormonism" is a really gnarly way we get off the topic of what is ACTUALLY disturbing about him, what would ACTUALLY affect our lives were he elected, which is his worship of transaction economies and capitalist principles
also, the American government still made black people sit in the backs of buses and prohibited them from using water fountains until the 1960s but we aren't like "Democracy is bullshit and creepy" because of it. Maybe we should be!
don't get me wrong, I think it's stupid and gross to ascribe to any religious dogma. I just don't find the Mormons any creepier than any other fervent christian type. And, furthermore, their lack of HELL makes them much more well-adjusted and able to tolerate Difference than your average Baptist or Evangelical, and for that I say kudos
NOT IF. Just show up. It's a fun spectator event. This is like a sporting event for people who care more about the future of the country than they do about balls and scores.
I read an article in some conservative Calgary paper about how Rona Ambrose (the Minister in question) really stands out as a feminist because she is showing us that being a feminist doesn't necessarily mean you have to agree with all the other feminists, you are entitled to your own opinion, which I found to be a totally bogus argument in this context. It is one thing to not believe in getting an abortion, it is another to make it illegal, or to even work your way towards limiting other women's access to it. This is not feminism in any shape or form.
I am so sick of the "Pro-Life" debate. Guess what? I am fucking PRO-LIFE. I don't want to kill babies either! My friends, sisters, or me getting an abortion is SAD. It's not a thing people plan on. It's not fun. The fear of knowing you are pregnant when you are in High School, the cramps you'll have after your abortion, the bleeding that goes on for weeks, are punishment enough. It makes people think about it long and hard. But in many cases it is also a relief, not only for the mother, but also for the baby who could have been born to a family that didn't want it in the first place. I am PRO-PEOPLE'S LIFE BEING GOOD, PRO-FAMILY AS WHOLESOME AS IT CAN BE. And also I am pro-choice.
I really hope that the idea of population control stops being a dirty word...... was glad to read recently that births are down in the US overall. The hypocrisy of anti pro choice people is astounding. They really could not give a f*** about anyone who has already been born.
Those are good points, especially the excommunication part. I forgot about it. As for the Prop 8 thing, I remember Mormons from outside California being especially active on the matter, but were there no other religious groups donating big money as well? And then, even with excommunication, I don't know how intense it is. I mean, my evangelical family incessantly trying to cure me of my homosexuality sounds worse than excommunication.
I thought this type of excommunication was only an FLDS thing.
Sorry, I have deleted my comment, because what we are talking about is whether or not the Mormon church should creep us out. I embarked on a long journey debating wheter excommunication was worse or better that being gay and having your family try to cure you. That's not the point.
Religions creep some people out, I am one of them.
Also, the robot thing @Zuck mentioned is also what I don't like. I once spent a yoga class raging at people ringing a gong as they were entering/exiting the room. "Why are you doing this? Do you even KNOW? Do you even think for yourself?".
I think Romney practicing his zingers is a great example of somebody acting like a dumb robot.
I think this video has finally snapped me out of the internet addiction I have been suffering from these past couple weeks. I need to wash my eyes and ears and soul with soap. I feel so dirty inside.
Whoa! @YT I appreciate your attention. And I concede that it was a clumsy colloquial deployment of the word human. Clumsy because I didn't mean to imply that anybody was less than human and I see how that implication could be drawn from my words. Then you got me with one of the lowest slurs I know, Romantic, like with the -ism. I'm thinking since Freud, discourse around the primary place of emotion, affect, what have you, can be engaged without getting all Blood and Soil (right?). Research in the current century suggests that pre-verbal emotion/affect is inextricably linked to the cognitive process. It's part of the coding that the brain does to lived experience in order to make it retrievable as a memory.
My point, and I'm going to stand on it for a minute, is that the Mormon ideology is founded on a clear line between righteousness and sin. My impression (from my limited, but not non-existent, experience with active LDSers and lapsed) is that they frown on "repeat offenders". Their way is not so much about redemption, they are more about protecting the righteous from sin, staying on the path, tithing, keeping up appearances. This practice causes one to try to banish and suppress "evil thoughts", ascribing such interior experiences to possession by external demons, etc.
Now, I go with whatever schools of philosophy (including James T Kirk's) that ascribe fallibility and unconscious, primal motivations to human life and experience. I think this is part of the hand we are dealt by being human within this particular kind of late-ape body. Certain traditions have come along and populated the literature with various labels for this fallibility, the label-tradition I'm thinking of now is the one that identifies it as something called sin.
Some traditions are basically like, "You're human, you're always going to be fucking up. Fortunately we got these magic words that'll take care of that shit. You're cool."
Others are like, "O shit! You are fucking up! Quick! Keep it together before God and the pastor find out!"
The latter is the feeling I get around LDSers. The former is how Baptists have explained their shit to me.
Y'all how about this girl andy knows who was a Mormon and was marrying a guy who converted for her, but his WHOLE FAMILY (+friends) was not allowed to attend the wedding??
I say fuck their stupid religion. I'm opposed to any institution that could lead to that situation.
Anne Romney's family was not allowed to attend her wedding. They had a fake wedding for her family and then a real one in Salt Lake that Anne's crew were not allowed into. Because she converted for him, from Episcopalian or something else that seems way too mellow to be converted into mormonism, but I guess the heart-vagina wants what the heart-vagina wants (shudder)
I just think it is tasteless to slag these people. Pick a policy to disagree with, but it doesn't do anyone any good to go on the record calling people inhuman.
Except for Mittens.......... but he do have a lot of power, after all. Good to slag the truly powerful. So I admit LDS has increasing economic power and they have absolute power over their people. But we got to work together. Understanding LDS as a culture of American pioneers is part of it....... they see themselves as outsiders and as keepers of the flame. I believe LDS will only become stronger and more inclusive in the future. It is a culture of contradictions but who isn't. Also, I think it's important for us "liberals" to practice what we preach. So respect what is different from you, but address things objectively. If you think Mormons are creeps because they take millions of dollars of church money that hard working families put in and then use it to punish and dehumanize gay people and control the government, that is addressing the truth. But to say a whole culture is wrong, just isn't objective.
Wait. Did anybody say inhuman? I'm basically saying 'repressed' and 'uptight' and I'm sincere about my caveats. Stereotypes are myths and I hope I don't use them in my dealings with indidviduals.
Buddhism doesn't seem very harmful to me. Is it? I believe in the message of love that underlies most religions, but they always seem to devolve into focusing on ways to identify an "other" and deny love to that other.
all religions have cool stuff in them all religions eventually ignore that cool stuff in some way or like, maybe there is a cool episcopalian sect that is awesome and progressive but for every cool sect there is a dreadful sect this is why I say "all religion is harmful" cultivating an individual moral code and worldview by trying to fit yourself around an established ancient mystical dogma just seems 80% of the time doomed to become really twisted and fucked up just look at the supreme court
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And yet "nobody ever asked to see [his] birth certificate"
don't worry, it's got nothing to do with race!
I fucking love Chomsky and I also fucking love Nader (remember, from back in the day?).
But I am not feeling that warm about people voting for a third candidate in this election. It's putting too much faith in other people actually voting Obama in. Like "I am going to vote for my candidate, but I know there's no way they'll be elected and everyone else will vote for the lesser of two evils, so it's ok."
A little bit like:
"I won't vaccinate my child. She's fine. As long as all the other parents vaccinate their kids."
Again, I can't vote here. I am completely utterly against the two-party system, but I feel that in order to include more candidates in the race there should be more shared mainstream forums for those candidates to express themselves/face their rivals. If the Green Party was part of the upcoming debates it would make sense, but until that happens it seems too experimental to tell people to vote for them if they are not in a swing state.
I guess that's the part I am having a problem with. If you want to vote for your favorite candidate, just do it. Don't do the thing where you rely on other people's votes for the country not to be fucked. Be ready to break the system for real or continue playing the dumb game. Just my two extreme cents.
At the end of the day, I'm not really interested in breaking the system. I think the system is partly OK and actually better than many of the no-system alternatives. I guess it is dumb to talk about this stuff in generalities. I do think nations and global markets as they are currently configured are a big problem and America has a huge role in enforcing the problematic status quo through various kinds of market/violent interventions.
Here's a thing I saw that I posted on my FB the other day. It is a short video of an Iranian-Amercian Peace Activist protesting outside of Ahmadinejad's hotel in NYC when he spoke at the UN. She articulates a position on behalf of the people of Iran who are suffering from the brinksmanship between Obama, Netanyahu, and the clerics that support Amadinejad. It is the contest between these nation-states that are putting the lives of countless civilians at risk. The whole planet is now collateral damage. I would like to see our way toward some kind of civilian global society, a more peer-to-peer world that serves the general longterm public biospheric interest, rather than the short term market games of the ripoff elite.
Chanting slogans turns me off, and the music is weird, but she makes a strong case for the new kind of global society that I think is happening and I feel a part of. Not really breaking the system, though, I don't think, more like a change of venue: a redesign.
@YT Alright I'm going to be kind of prejudiced here and just say that Mormons creep me out. I think it's the way they suppress their emotions. They are always acting really cheerful, kind of giddy thinking about how the apocalypse might be coming at any moment. And they smile thinking about their stockpiles of canned food and how unprepared all the sinners are going to be on judgement day. Creepy cold. (If any of you are LDS reading this, I'm really revealing my own issues here. It's not you. It's me. I respect your personal spiritual and cultural journey and broad generalizations about classes of people are obviously false. Just sayin'. Here is my sickness.)
On the other hand, Baptists live in a constant state of ecstasy, always letting their emotions fly, always sinning and sinning and sinning, always seeking redemption, always cathartic. Human as hell.
Mormon music: The Osmonds, creepy boys' choir. Baptist music: Blues, Rock & Roll, Soul, Gospel.
Take me to the river!
I'm just saying, the Biz stuff is worse.
On Mormons:
I often feel like so many of them are straight up happy, sweet and kind. Like they were raised around values and behaviors sturdy and consistent enough to not have that weird longing I often feel. Maybe it's just pretending?
I once read a zine by this ex-Mormon woman who was sexually abused as a child and how her parents (not the perpetrators) didn't know how to handle it so they just pretended like nothing happened. So I guess that stuff happens with Mormons, too.
I think there is a slim chance that Obama will actually care about his legacy, but that's mostly because I have been watching "West Wing" . It gives me more of a skewed sentimental view of how government works.
Dems did pick up 21 seats in the House though, holding a 257 to 178 majority.
Mitt's dad also ran for president and lost...uh oh DADDY ISSUES AGAIN, we know how this goes
And then I meant to say they are not that different from other Jesus people.
I am not creeped out by Mormonism. I could have been, but somehow a religion that focuses hard on family and being straight edge is comforting to me. Also, I find Utah to be a weird magical place.
And then all religion is creepy to me. I am not spiritual at all. The yoga teacher telling me "namaste" makes me shudder.
I also really don't like your statement about Baptists being more human, Dr. J.! Why is shattering bipolar disorder more human than practicality and calm? I don't experience life the way Baptists do but I think of myself as human. I think what you said is a bullshit revenant of the Romantic Era and I don't accept it! SO THERE
don't get me wrong, I think it's stupid and gross to ascribe to any religious dogma. I just don't find the Mormons any creepier than any other fervent christian type. And, furthermore, their lack of HELL makes them much more well-adjusted and able to tolerate Difference than your average Baptist or Evangelical, and for that I say kudos
I was also "that kid" who would never say the Pledge of Allegiance in the classroom. (I bet a few others here were too.)
In general, I just don't like feeling like a weird robot who repeats things on command.
you're all individuals!
YES. WE ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS.
you're all different!
YES. WE ARE ALL DIFFERENT.
I'm not.
SSHHH!!!
what would that involve?
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/status-of-women-minister-criticized-after-voting-for-woodworth-motion/article4571637/
I read an article in some conservative Calgary paper about how Rona Ambrose (the Minister in question) really stands out as a feminist because she is showing us that being a feminist doesn't necessarily mean you have to agree with all the other feminists, you are entitled to your own opinion, which I found to be a totally bogus argument in this context. It is one thing to not believe in getting an abortion, it is another to make it illegal, or to even work your way towards limiting other women's access to it. This is not feminism in any shape or form.
I am so sick of the "Pro-Life" debate. Guess what? I am fucking PRO-LIFE. I don't want to kill babies either! My friends, sisters, or me getting an abortion is SAD. It's not a thing people plan on. It's not fun. The fear of knowing you are pregnant when you are in High School, the cramps you'll have after your abortion, the bleeding that goes on for weeks, are punishment enough. It makes people think about it long and hard. But in many cases it is also a relief, not only for the mother, but also for the baby who could have been born to a family that didn't want it in the first place. I am PRO-PEOPLE'S LIFE BEING GOOD, PRO-FAMILY AS WHOLESOME AS IT CAN BE. And also I am pro-choice.
1) Massive organized political donations against Prop 8.
2) Intolerance of internal dissent through excommunication.
Healthy religious communities don't do that stuff!
Those are good points, especially the excommunication part. I forgot about it.
As for the Prop 8 thing, I remember Mormons from outside California being especially active on the matter, but were there no other religious groups donating big money as well?
And then, even with excommunication, I don't know how intense it is. I mean, my evangelical family incessantly trying to cure me of my homosexuality sounds worse than excommunication.
Sorry, I have deleted my comment, because what we are talking about is whether or not the Mormon church should creep us out. I embarked on a long journey debating wheter excommunication was worse or better that being gay and having your family try to cure you. That's not the point.
Religions creep some people out, I am one of them.
I think Romney practicing his zingers is a great example of somebody acting like a dumb robot.
Yes, that's the lady from Northern Exposure.
I think this video has finally snapped me out of the internet addiction I have been suffering from these past couple weeks.
I need to wash my eyes and ears and soul with soap.
I feel so dirty inside.
My point, and I'm going to stand on it for a minute, is that the Mormon ideology is founded on a clear line between righteousness and sin. My impression (from my limited, but not non-existent, experience with active LDSers and lapsed) is that they frown on "repeat offenders". Their way is not so much about redemption, they are more about protecting the righteous from sin, staying on the path, tithing, keeping up appearances. This practice causes one to try to banish and suppress "evil thoughts", ascribing such interior experiences to possession by external demons, etc.
Now, I go with whatever schools of philosophy (including James T Kirk's) that ascribe fallibility and unconscious, primal motivations to human life and experience. I think this is part of the hand we are dealt by being human within this particular kind of late-ape body. Certain traditions have come along and populated the literature with various labels for this fallibility, the label-tradition I'm thinking of now is the one that identifies it as something called sin.
Some traditions are basically like, "You're human, you're always going to be fucking up. Fortunately we got these magic words that'll take care of that shit. You're cool."
Others are like, "O shit! You are fucking up! Quick! Keep it together before God and the pastor find out!"
The latter is the feeling I get around LDSers. The former is how Baptists have explained their shit to me.
That's what I meant. Also, the music.
I say fuck their stupid religion. I'm opposed to any institution that could lead to that situation.
They had a fake wedding for her family and then a real one in Salt Lake that Anne's crew were not allowed into. Because she converted for him, from Episcopalian or something else that seems way too mellow to be converted into mormonism, but I guess the heart-vagina wants what the heart-vagina wants (shudder)
Dr. J I agree with you now! What a good arguer
can't wait to hear more of your thoughts.
all religions eventually ignore that cool stuff in some way
or like, maybe there is a cool episcopalian sect that is awesome and progressive
but for every cool sect there is a dreadful sect
this is why I say "all religion is harmful"
cultivating an individual moral code and worldview by trying to fit yourself around an established ancient mystical dogma just seems 80% of the time doomed to become really twisted and fucked up
just look at the supreme court