Who do they poll for these things?

I know that, he was selected due to a coup within the democratic party i was just making fun of dem thinking

Lots of jobs in politics.

What's the deal with inflation?

And I hear cloth masks don't help again. And covid death counts are changing?

Who is going to gain control of the senate and house and then do nothing?

“There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river.

We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”

― Desmond Tutu

i was at dinner the other night with some normies, and they were talking about the musical hamilton. i didn't say anything. and thinking about after, i really don't know anything about the musical, or much about the man alexander hamilton.

if i had spoken up, i would have said something like "i haven't seen the show, but i assume it glamorizes the founding fathers, or at least some of them, and/or the founding of the usa... but the founding fathers were pieces of ****, and founded a disgusting, racist country. so i don't think i'd like hamilton"

would this be a fair comment on the show?

do any of you know any criticisms of the actual show?

i heard something about a rap battle where thomas jefferson said slavery was digusting or something like that. but then did the show address how jefferson was raping his teen slaves?

i'd also guess the show just ignores the whole genocide of the indigenous population, cuz that one is hard to spin and write an inspiring rap about

we killed them all
cuz they had the gall
to be born in the place
we want to steal
and we're the master race

It skips out on a lot, it's already nearly three hours.

I agree, but I'm not going to stop pulling them out while I hike upstream.

What's the deal with deaths above expected?

I think the point of the quote is saying that pulling people out of the stream is keeping you busy. Too busy to ever make it up stream.

Yes that would be a fair criticism. It was a transparent attempt to rehabilitate the founding fathers. They picked Hamilton because, at the time, he was one of the very few founding fathers that didn't own slaves, so he could be treated like a hero (setting aside he was part of the founding of a country that was built on the slave trade, codified it into the constitution, and as you mentioned, was responsible for the genocide of Native Americans). It came out a few years after the show came out that Hamilton likely did own slaves. But no one really talks about it.

Regardless, the idea of having black people dress up as the founding fathers and sing songs about how good they were is beyond disgusting and completely pathetically transparent. Imagining a musical written in Germany where they hire a bunch of Jewish people, direct descendants of Holocaust survivors even, to play Nazis is a play about Nazis and how the Nazis were good, actually.

It's actually quite unbelievable there is anyone who thought that musical was ok or likes it.

Like imo you don't actually "agree" with the quote if you follow it by saying this.

To take the starfish example, while you are sitting there throwing starfish back into the ocean one by one, patting yourself on the back for making a difference in the life of that one starfish, a man comes along and tells you "yo there is a factory up there that is pulling 1000 starfish out of the ocean each second, we need to go destroy the factory" and you are saying "yeah I will get there eventually but I'm going to keep throwing starfish back into the ocean one by one on my way until I eventually get there" and he is saying "either you will never get there at that rate"

Of course fundamentally this doesn't even get at the idea that liberal reforms are designed, in fact, you keep the starfish-factory going. Liberal reforms are attempts at softening or addressing the contradictions in the capitalist system that would otherwise cause the system to collapse. "Throwing the starfish back into the ocean" is actually keeping the factory in business. That is what liberal reforms do.

lol!! yes! this is exactly what i was looking for

thanks!

This is just true because you say it? False dichotomy.

See also the Root Cause Fallacy

There's also the notion, on the other hand, that getting the starfish back into the ocean is exactly how to stop the factory from displacing them.

Notionally, starving people may sooner fight each other for the open scraps than their common enemy for the hoarded goods, whereas provided the means to subsist, they become empowered to resist oppression.

As Orwell recognized, the middle classes generally lead the revolutions.

really solid take.


consider how well it would be received to produce a period piece in which Black landowners owned & abused white slaves

It seemed pretty obvious hamilton was just some musical about a lesser known immigrant founding father with an emphasis on multiracial casting. No absolute reason anyone descended from slaves or not should be more offended by slavery, other than current situation.

Interesting I was thinking of animal farm and how it sorta fits/critiques the push for diverse ceos etc if you wanted to think about it from a leftist view.

Feel like there is a third sorta "fallacy" where we start to view things as complex when the answers may be simple. Or just bad actors claiming things are complex when they may not be.

Parmenidean simplicity, perhaps...

depends on whether it is portrayed as a means or an end imo

I don’t agree with this. I would say Hamilton isn’t lesser known. He is pretty well known. He’s probably one of the better known founding fathers? It seems pretty obvious to me he was picked specifically because at the time he didn’t have the problematic issue of people thinking he was a slave owner (it only came out afterwards that he did).

Also you miss the point if you think I am saying this is about who should be offended about slavery or something. I am saying choosing to have non-white people play the basically the all white, almost all-slave-owning people the musical is about is a transparent attempt to deflect from the clear racism embodied by every person the musical is about.

Also weird take about it being a diversity thing? Doesn’t seem even close to the mark