[lbo-talk] Thoughts on the Tea Party

Alan Rudy alan.rudy at gmail.com
Wed Apr 21 20:59:13 PDT 2010


She's asking these patronizing questions because it seems less important to her - and a number of the rest of us - to spend hour upon hour correcting universally-understood-to-be intentionally tossed-off dismissive quips about TPers (folks who're never going to be our allies, who recapitulate a type of politics completely in line with well analyzed developments of the past) than it does to you.

And its crap like this that pisses people off and leads them to ask patronizing questions: "I know others think it is better to make a political statement than actually be correct on things but I don't." Who are these ignorant, incorrect, just-say-anything statement makers, how the hell do you know and.... surely you get the point.

As I said once before, there's a lot of one-off, snide, foolin' around on this list that folks engage in because its safe and we're among friends and we're lonely otherwise... if you don't want to play that way, don't, but don't be surprised if regularly correcting people for being incorrect or speaking just to hear ourselves speak leads people to write things to you that you don't appreciate all that much as a result. You want to make friends, be friendly, its up to you. There are a number of people here who model the making of friendly disagreements, even strong disagreements, pretty well (even if I'm nowhere near as good at it as I'd like to be).

And, I note, you still haven't answered Shag's question. Independent of whether others here are correct, why does it matter so much to you to get THIS correct? And do you really believe that the kinds of survey's y'all are dissecting are really well enough constructed and designed and repsondents likely to accurately report their knowledge, activities and opinions to be able to discern the truth from them? If I've learned anything after almost a decade as a sociology grad student and goin' on two decades as a professional, most surveys - executed by the media or done by certified sociological professionals - suck.

On Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 11:02 PM, brad <babscritique at gmail.com> wrote:


> shag wrote:
> >nice try.
> why do you care if he turns out to be accurate in his analysis? so what if
> these people turn out to be more educated than average, older than average,
> whiter than average(!), and better off than average.
> oh noes! the people who get off their asses and *do* things are, rut ro,
> members of the 'bad' identity categories. oh noes!
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> If you don't think it matters than why are you asking these patronizing
> questions? I think you are holding a grudge and need to grow up.
>
> It matters because people have been presenting their analysis of the TP as
> fact, and I think the left (give me hell carrol) should be correct on our
> analysis. I know others think it is better to make a political statement
> than actually be correct on things but I don't. Like I said I am perfectly
> open to being proven wrong about this. However you would have to prove it,
> not just engage in some school yard type personal attacks.
>
> Brad
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> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>

-- ********************************************************* Alan P. Rudy Dept. Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work Central Michigan University 124 Anspach Hall Mt Pleasant, MI 48858 517-881-6319



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