Let's Help Jimmy Dick Understand

Pat Young asked me, "...could you tell me what "American culture" is, in your view?" Note he asked about MY VIEW.

So Simpson has copy/pasted my comments in reply to Mr. Young on this thread http://mybacksass.blogspot.com/2014/02/how-did-yall-celebrate.html at his flog for the edification of his peanut gallery floggerettes.

~Another look at the flogger mindset~ 

The scorn and derision from the floggerettes gives us a marvelous look into the depths of the flogger mindset. Their almost universal approach is to filter what I said through their perception/beliefs/mindset, put THEIR meaning on MY words (which is pretty much always wrong, as it is not what I meant) -- and then condemn ME for THEIR meanings/interpretation.

It goes one step beyond the straw-man argument. It attributes the straw man argument to the opponent; and attacking the straw man is actually secondary to attacking the opponent -- usually for something he did not say or intend.

You see this over and over on the anti-Confederate flogs and their comment threats, but this one is especially stark, so I thought I'd post about it.

 ~"Hit the high spots" -- Izzat hard to understand? ~ 

But that's not the major point I want to make. The beginning of my reply included this: "One can only hit the high spots of such an undertaking on an internet comment thread."

Hit the high spots... hit the high spots... What does this mean  to you? Does this not adequately convey that this is an encapsulation... that it is truncated ... that it is condensed ... a summary? ... the "short version"? 

Well, Dick goes off on one of his usual tirades about what I left out. (I note he left out a lot, too -- he didn't even mention the kitchen sink...)

So let's help Jimmy Dick understand, "One can only hit the high spots of such an undertaking on an internet comment thread." Let's help him correctly conceptualize summarizing.

Offer your suggestions in the comments.

~ Who are "they"? ~

There is so much wrong or mistaken about his interpretation of my comments, but I will just address one. I posted, "... there was a lot of optimism for the future reflected in everything from popular music to fashion to architecture to decor. That’s why they were called the Fabulous Fifties. ... They were followed by the Sick Sixties. Already, there was a segment, an element — people who hated America for being too white, too successful, too rich, too smug, too optimistic and too happy. And they set out to change that."

Dick replies, "They didn’t set out to change things to destroy them. They set out to participate equally in the good life."

He doesn't understand who I mean by "they." There were people -- still are -- who intend to destroy this country because, to them, it is STILL too white, too successful, too rich, too smug, too optimistic and too happy. Not as much as it was in the Fifties -- their efforts have had an effect, sure enough. But to them, the job isn't finished.

The "they" I'm talking about are the people who instigate socialist revolutions (whether the violent kind or the soft revolutionaries of the USA, the participants of the Gramsian long-march) are almost never the "downtrodden" seeking to participate equally in the good life; they already participate in the good life. Many of them are of the educated middle or upper classes who are apparently riddled with guilt over their advantages, and want to change the culture to "uplift" the downtrodden -- as long as their position in the culture is not changed/harmed. (The sad thing is, they dupe a lot of people into following them.)

The pin-up boy darling of the left, Ernesto "Che" Guevera

Remember, the communist revolutionaries in Russia were not peasants wanting to "participate equally in the good life." Che Guevara was from a middle class Argentinian family; when he murdered thousands of people on behalf of the revolution, it wasn't to uplift peasants to equal participation in the good life. Think of Pol Pot, who killed off the entire upper, middle and educated classes of Cambodia to turn the entire remaining population into agrarian peasantry (this is the good life?).

Again, the "they" I'm talking about are the soft, no-bloodshed revolutionaries of the USA, who are just as dedicated to change and destruction/replacement as these hard revolutionaries. I'm talking about the Gramscians. The Frankfort followers. The Che lites. The cultural Marxists.

It was fascinating for a while to watch these flogger folk create straw men, attribute them to us, and then verbally shoot their own creation -- and us. Then it deflated into merely interesting. Now it's old and tired.

Nevertheless, let's  use some words and phrases Jimmy Dick can understand to convey to him the concept of "summarization," since "hit the high spots" goes over this head.

Thomas Sowell on the Sick Sixties
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/220710/sick-sixties/thomas-sowell

"Don't shoot! I'm Che!"
http://townhall.com/columnists/humbertofontova/2012/10/06/dont_shootim_che_a_glorious_anniversary/page/full

The Cult of Che
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2004/09/the_cult_of_che.html