Will Osama Bin Laden be the new Che Guevara? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14796764
This is an oddball prediction that came to me some time after reading this article:

I Can Tolerate Anything Except The Outgroup

If it is true that US people fall into two broad tribes, the reds and blues, and the particular complex of characteristics that mark out one from the other are adopted by individuals primarily to signal their allegience to their respective tribe. So for example blues talk up bicycles because reds talk up muscle cars. Then I expect the red tribes current tendency to signal against Islam and Islamic terrorism to eventually manifest in the blue tribe wearing Osama T-shirts.

One notable characteristic of the Blue tribe is their tendency to signal an interest in communism which iconically manifests as the wearing of che t-shirts particularly when young. To understand the psychology of this you have to compare this to the red tribe who of course signal strongly against communism. One primary drivers of the red tribe is signaling its patriotism for america and its military establishment. During the cold war the US military establishment was overtly engaged in a hostile posture versus a number of rival powers that were at the time wearing communism as the official state ideology, that would be USSR and China chiefly but also Cuba and Vietnam. Consequent to this hostile posture the red tribe, to signal its patriotism, adopts a comparable attitude.

Consequent to the red tribe's signaling against communism the blue tribe is compelled to signal its difference from its nemesis tribe the reds by signaling for communism by way of defence, apology or even by outright advocation. Hence the wearing of Che T-Shirts.

The cold war however is over and has been for some time. Now the US military establishment is most visibly postured against Islamic terrorists. Consequently the Red tribe to signal its patriotism increasingly drops signaling against commies in favour of signalling against the newer trendy enemy the muslim terrorists and even muslims in general. This in turn compels the blue tribe to signal the opposite way to continue to distinguish themselves from the red tribe by signaling in defence of muslims and even their terrorists. It will only be a matter of time before the younger and more daring blue tribers will signal their allegiance to the blue tribe by wearing the portrait of an iconic Islamic terrorist, which could hardly be anyone else but the most famous Islamic terrorist of them all Osama Bin Laden, just as older blue tribers would wear Che.

I also predict that aging blue tribers will come on this thread and say this is nonsense and that they would never wear an Osama Bin Laden t-shirt the way they used to wear Che t-shirts, that it is a completely different thing.

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Last edited by SolarCross on 14 Apr 2017 17:15, edited 1 time in total.
#14796766
I also predict that aging blue tribers will come on this thread and say this is nonsense and that they would never wear an Osama Bin Laden t-shirt the way they used to wear Che t-shirts, that it is a completely different thing

... what if they really wouldn't wear an Osama shirt? Are you assigning motive to other people?

The part you're missing is that Che was a specific ideological status symbol. I don't see a lot of left wing people jumping on board radical Islam. Then again, people are idiots.
#14796768
SolarCross wrote:If it is true that US people fall into two broad tribes, the reds and blues, and the particular complex of characteristics that mark out one from the other are adopted by individuals primarily to signal their allegience to their respective tribe


It's not true. Don't worry.
#14796774
Zagadka wrote:.. what if they really wouldn't wear an Osama shirt? Are you assigning motive to other people?

The part you're missing is that Che was a specific ideological status symbol. I don't see a lot of left wing people jumping on board radical Islam. Then again, people are idiots.


Thank you aging blue triber for making my second prediction come true so promptly. Yes as a cold war baby you are now set in your ways so you would not and could not shift your signaling so dramatically likewise your red tribe corollary is still foaming over commies as if the USSR was still the great enemy. But see the young tribers of both sides are more nimble and fashion conscious. Young red tribers already focus most of their foreign policy signalling against Islam and its terrorism rather than commies. Young blue tribers are already adopting pro-islamic language and defending Islamic terrorism as really being the fault of the US military (ie: the red tribe). It will only be a matter of time before the daring ones take the next logical step and wear an osama t-shirt the way edgy young dudes would wear a che t-shirt decades ago.
Last edited by SolarCross on 15 Apr 2017 00:34, edited 1 time in total.
#14796776
Wow, you totally just made up a statement to apply to whoever automatically, regardless of if they actually have an argument about how you are wrong.

For the record, I would not wear a Che shirt, either. Sorry, some people aren't exactly what you think they are.

You really just posted a thread with the automatic clause that anyone disagreeing with it is inclusively wrong. Nice.
#14796784
This thread is talking about t-shirts? Has fashion week started already? Ohhh noes! :?:

Bin Laden has been dead for years and no one that I am aware of, has compared him to Che Guevara. I do not see any comparison.

This thread that just looks like an attempt to bash "blue tribers". Which is silly because there are several other threads already that are bashing liberals, the ones who lost the election. So why are you reds, kicking a side that is down already? That is like the scene in Lawrenceville, GA where one cop kicks the Black man in the head when he is already handcuffed and down on the ground. It is insane!
#14796787
MistyTiger wrote:This thread is talking about t-shirts? Has fashion week started already? Ohhh noes! :?:

Bin Laden has been dead for years and no one that I am aware of, has compared him to Che Guevara. I do not see any comparison.

This thread that just looks like an attempt to bash "blue tribers". Which is silly because there are several other threads already that are bashing liberals, the ones who lost the election. So why are you reds, kicking a side that is down already? That is like the scene in Lawrenceville, GA where one cop kicks the Black man in the head when he is already handcuffed and down on the ground. It is insane!


Oh but Che and Osama indeed have a lot in common. Both are ideological warriors, crusaders of sort, both are the most pop famous of their respective breeds and both were eventually martyred by the US military or its allies, which by association means the red tribe.

I should say I am not a red triber per se, I'm a Brit after all, but I suppose I am tactically aligned with them in that there is a blue tribe corollary in the UK that I dislike so to bash US blues is to indirectly bash the UK equivalent, otherwise I hardly have anything in common with the red tribe in fact I probably have more in common with the US blue tribe by a long way. Other than that I think all this is quite fun.

BTW the best time to bash someone is when they are down. 8)
#14796793
BTW, kicking someone when they are down is playing dirty and it is cowardly. The cop who kicked the Black man in the face was fired from his job. It was lucky that the whole incident was caught on video. Not lucky for the captured man, but at least one of the abusive officers will not be around.
#14796796
"lulz all leftists are teenage kids trying to be edgy and will just wear random clothes because they are outrageous people"

Original thought, right there. Wicked free thinker! But he has blue tribe friends, so it is cool.
#14796801
Zagadka wrote:So in other words, you wanted to make a thread to mock people and don't even attempt to make an actual comment on replies. Apparently, you can be in a group outside red/blue tribes, but no one else can.


I wouldn't overemphasise the mocking and you would do better for not being too quick to take offence. See it probably will happen, the osama thing, and there isn't much someone from your generation can do to stop it, so it will probably be best to just roll with it and play down the significance.

It is almost impossible to be outside of a tribe, basically only a hermit can really get away from it, I am in a tribe myself (even though I tend to be a semi-hermit anyway) but I am not in the US blue/red tribe for the same reason I am not a hutu or a tutsi, they are the tribes of a distant land. If you live in the US you can hardly help but fall in with one tribe or another, to avoid both is to avoid opportunities to mate, prosper, be informed of things and enjoy social support. The price for all the goodies you get as a tribal is that you have to conform to the fashions of the tribe and signal against the tribe's enemies. I don't blame you for one second for falling in with the blue tribe, if you live in a city or went to college then you kind of have to or face ostracism.
#14796804
Having lived in Europe for a very long time, I can say that there is a certain misconception both sides have of the other. For the Americans, chiefly, Europe is an unchanging ship-in-a-bottle. In this sense, Americans are guilty of a kind of Orientalism and will be surprised that Europe has showers, and running water, and people are more or less just like Americans in these senses.

Europeans, on the other hand, tend to not understand how vast the United States is. They may conceptually understand distance is great, but they don't really understand the implications of this. To say that the US has two subcultures is laughably naive. Just as the American who is surprised that Europeans have running water is naive, these kinds of Europeans might be stunned to find that Trump was favored by the richest Americans.

Reconciling this with, then, a perception that "red tribe," is also poor white-trash becomes problematic. The answer to this isn't all that difficult.

In a parliamentary system, one has several parties that come together to create one government.

In a place as vast as the United States this isn't a system that is going to last long, and so what would be these parties representing ideology become are akin to caucuses. Breaking down caucuses in the United States produces maps that look like this:

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These are shifting maps of the Blue Dogs and the Freedom Caucus, the two caucuses I thought of first off the top of my head.

They represent a more specific "tribe" than you're trying to force with this very laboured attempt to become a victim.

The Blue Dogs are moderates to a fault and will tend to oppose any side that goes too far left or too far right.

The Freedom Caucus is the far right, more like what you're imagining, but as we've seen in the Trump administration not loyal to the president or to Ryan in their attempts to change the dynamic of Obamacare.

These caucuses tend to vote as a bloc with or against a particular policy, regardless of who is in office. Much more how a party works in a parliamentary system.

Because the US is huge, they tend to barter for position inside of a broader party that is made up of these caucuses. During an election, you'll usually have these caucuses fight it out to lead a party—Trump/Jeb, or Sanders/Clinton, all of which representing different caucuses (basically) that throw their hats in and try to build a coalition.

Which is why your "red tribe," has both of these people as ardent members:

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They are actually competing caucuses.

Regardless, that's one way that your understanding of the United States as "two tribes," is flawed. That's not even getting into geography, which should speak for itself.

In short, your "tribes" is akin to saying that the European continent (including Russia) has only two cultures that exist in it, both of which are competing for t-shirt sales.

I realize that you're probably leaning on this narrative as it helps you feel like a victim, but it's embarrassingly ignorant.
#14796805
Osama Bin Laden should be remembered as a moderniser. He made a huge contribution to breaking down the taboo on idolatry that had lasted for over thirteen and a half centuries amongst Conservative Muslims. Mullah Omah banned photography and television in Taliban controlled Afghanistan, while Osama was an avid follower of American News Channels and made no secret of this to visiting journalists.
#14796811
Rich wrote:Osama Bin Laden should be remembered as a moderniser. He made a huge contribution to breaking down the taboo on idolatry that had lasted for over thirteen and a half centuries amongst Conservative Muslims. Mullah Omah banned photography and television in Taliban controlled Afghanistan, while Osama was an avid follower of American News Channels and made no secret of this to visiting journalists.


He also made a huge contribution to breaking down the romantic myth the British and American Arabistis created around the desert Arab.
#14796818
TIG, I must strongly encourage you not to spread disinformation about Europe. I wash up every morning at a well outside my hut, as do we all here in the Wild East Across The Waters. Now excuse me, I have to milk the goat.
#14796830
The Immortal Goon wrote:Europeans, on the other hand, tend to not understand how vast the United States is. They may conceptually understand distance is great, but they don't really understand the implications of this. To say that the US has two subcultures is laughably naive. Just as the American who is surprised that Europeans have running water is naive, these kinds of Europeans might be stunned to find that Trump was favored by the richest Americans.

Reconciling this with, then, a perception that "red tribe," is also poor white-trash becomes problematic. The answer to this isn't all that difficult.

From the European perspective we don't see America differentiated even into two big tribes, to us you all look alike. To us you are all one big tribe which is notable for being grossly overweight, driving a huge SUV with gun rack, not knowing anything about history and saying yeehaw a lot, that is even though, as a Brit, I am exposed to a lot of US cultural products. I got this two tribe thing from an american (hint the link is in the OP), it is interesting to me because it is a more detailed breakdown than I would come up with on my own as a foreigner. Of course the two big tribes will have their sub types, the author of the article mentions a newish Grey tribe to which he identifies which is a splinter of the Blue tribe. The US is vast yes but it is also extremely well interconnected so a blue triber from New York has some of the same tribal media as a blue triber from LA: in the form of CNN etc. Likewise for a Alaskan Red Triber and a Texan Red Triber they both have Fox News.

I don't know where you get the poor white trash idea about the Red Tribe, just like the Blue Tribe they vary as to their personal wealth, some are rich some are poor. A rich Blue Tribe member would be someone like George Soros, a rich Red Tribe member would be someone like that Bundy person. A rich blue triber will live in a penthouse appartment of a city high rise. A rich Red Triber will live on a vast ranch. Both tribes have their poor as well. See it is not really about a class divide of money at all, which I guess as marxist is just how you need to view everything, a closer division is rural vs city but even that is not quite where the fault line is. It is mostly cultural.
Last edited by SolarCross on 14 Apr 2017 21:30, edited 2 times in total.
#14796857
SolarCross wrote:To us you are all one big tribe, that is notable for being grossly overweight, driving a huge SUV with gun rack, not know anything about history and says yeehaw a lot, that is even though as Brit I am exposed to a great deal of US cultural products.


And here, you're probably imagining a white Southerner from a non-coastal state. Which is hardly the same, "tribe," as a Wall Street asshole just because they vote Republican.

Your tactic, essentially, is the same as an American saying that all Europeans are whatever the most obnoxious Italian stereotype he imagines is, and then generously saying that he is willing to include latently gay Nazis as another category that Europeans are allowed to be.

It in no way validates your ignorance. But, as mentioned, this is really a more or less elaborate way for you to keep feeling like a victim. And since we're dealing with your snowflake feelings and the mental gymnastics you need to make to rationalize them, there is no expectations that your flimsy argument will make any sense.
#14796865
Wow, it really does never end. The blue church red church thing is just the same liberal/conservative BS with the pieces rearranged. You can see just how pathetic and useless it is by how quickly Trump tossed his red church followers under the bus. He is now busy backing the bus up over them.

And you're smoking the really good stuff if you believe cultural affinities will save either the red or blues (yclept liberal and conservative). There's only two tribes in this country. Those who rule and those who are ruled. And those who rule are just delighted for those they rule to fight it out over the color of their churches. They will be laughing and picking up the pieces.
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