Friday links! Dudes who say “cheers” for Bernie Sanders edition

Now one screenshot ahead of "Bernie bro"

Now one screenshot ahead of “Bernie bro”

Did you study abroad in London or Australia? Are you active in the theater? Do you follow Major League Soccer? You could be part of a growing political revolution—a movement to wrest power away from moneyed interests and wrest it back toward the people. If you wear scarves in the summertime, want to make a difference, and know any Democrats over 45, join Dudes Who Say “Cheers” for Bernie Sanders today, meaning Friday. Today is Friday, and the world is full of brand new recognizable types. Won’t you wearily categorize fresh experience with me?

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Could this woman say something sexist?

Feminist icon and Bill Maher-tolerator Gloria Steinem

Feminist icon and Bill Maher-tolerator Gloria Steinem

On Friday night, Gloria Steinem criticized young women who support Bernie Sanders in, uh, problematic terms. “When you’re young, you’re thinking, ‘where are the boys?'” she told Bill Maher. “The boys are with Bernie.” That’s a bad argument, mostly because it implies that young women care less about politics than catching a man, but also because there’s a much more satisfying generalization right next door. When you’re young, you’re thinking, “where are the young people?” Eighty-five percent of voters under age 30 broke for Sanders in the Iowa caucuses, and he led Hillary by 21 points among voters 30-44. There may be some force at work here other than the overwhelming desire for boys. But if Steinem is a feminist, how can she say something sexist?

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How against Bernie Sanders is this anti-Sanders attack ad?

Scare tactics

Scare tactics

The New York Times reports that the ESA Fund, a super PAC founded by Joe Ricketts of TD Ameritrade, has spent $600,000 to run this ad on television before the Iowa caucus. It characterizes Bernie Sanders as “too liberal for Iowa,” but is it really meant to hurt his chances? Perhaps I am too liberal for Iowa, too, but this spot makes Sanders sound pretty good. He also sounds good in this ostensibly damning quote from the president of the ESA Fund, Brian Baker:

When it comes to federal spending and piling on our massive debt, Secretary Clinton is a five-car pile-up, but Senator Sanders is a train wreck. Given that Senator Sanders is the leading candidate in Iowa and New Hampshire and way ahead in the general election polls, ESA Fund will work hard to inform voters about his record and future plans.

Oh please, Democrats—please don’t make us run against Bernie Sanders in the general. We simply could not survive that briar patch. These final remarks from Baker were not transcribed, as he hurried away from the microphone to award his own party’s nomination to a crypto-fascist whom 70% of the country loathes. Video after the jump.

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Friday links! Conspiracy theories edition

Free

Between global warming and Fetty Wap, it sure seems like we have a lot of problems lately. But what if our problems were conspiracies? Wouldn’t it be easier to address things like income inequality or adult-sized Batman t-shirts if they were not, in fact, problematic consequences of flawed systems, but rather stuff people were secretly doing to us? Or stuff lizards were secretly doing to us? We can’t know until we pit MacGyver against Nancy Drew, but I’m pretty sure it’s easier to stop a conspiracy than to solve a problem. Today is Friday, and I’d rather be up against the Rothschilds than structural conflicts of liberal democracy. Won’t you theorize with me?

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Friday links! Landscape of contemporary discourse edition

Contemporary discourse (artist's rendering)

Contemporary discourse (artist’s rendering)

I will never get tired of using Heironymus Bosch images in posts, which is good because A) there are a lot of them, and B) they are the art our time demands. That’s totally what communication on the internet looks like: wounded ears with knives between them, arrows shot through the dead, people living inside a smug burgher’s butt. It’s awesome that we’ve invented the largest, fastest, more democratic communications medium in the history of humankind, and people spend hours a day looking at it, usually on their phones, often during brunch. If only it were just as fast but a little more considered, or just as democratic but a little less vulgar. Today is Friday, and popular discourse is good, but there is no good popular discourse. Won’t you look out over the plebes with me?

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