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Thread: Julia and Campaign Trolling

  1. #1

    Default Julia and Campaign Trolling

    So, the Obama campaign released this now-controversial campaign site about the "Life of Julia". It's almost a caricature of right-wing criticism of Obama. Basically, it's a cartoon strip in which a girl spends her entire life getting welfare, [apparently] becoming a single mother and starting a business with government money.

    http://www.barackobama.com/life-of-julia

    At first blush, it's embarrassing for Obama. This is basically the nightmare scenario of people outside of the left, and not something that will appeal to independent voters. Right-winters have pretty decently hijacked the media landscape making fun of this, while those on the left remain unexpectedly quiet.

    But I have to wonder if the Obama campaign just trolled a chunk of America. If so, what do they get out of it? Has anyone else (especially abroad) seen a campaign do/say something that seems to confirm the worst nightmares of their opponents?

  2. #2
    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadnaught View Post
    So, the Obama campaign released this now-controversial campaign site about the "Life of Julia". It's almost a caricature of right-wing criticism of Obama. Basically, it's a cartoon strip in which a girl spends her entire life getting welfare,
    I've read maybe the first few panels of this comic, into her early 20's and I'm not sure what the hell you are talking about. It even flat out says she starts a career as a web designer, and later on is a full time web designer for four years (at the time in the panel). If you're not going to even bother posting honestly, or reading what you're going to post a thread about, why post at all?
    . . .

  3. #3
    Let sleeping tigers lie Khendraja'aro's Avatar
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    I didn't even need to read the comic to see that Dread massively misrepresented something.

    Just take the first and the last part of this statement:

    Basically, it's a cartoon strip in which a girl spends her entire life getting welfare [...] starting a business with government money.
    By that "special" logic, tax breaks for mega corporations also qualify as "welfare".
    Last edited by Illusions; 05-06-2012 at 04:22 AM. Reason: Removed color tags to make quote readable in all themes.
    When the stars threw down their spears
    And watered heaven with their tears:
    Did he smile his work to see?
    Did he who made the lamb make thee?

  4. #4
    They do.
    Hope is the denial of reality

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadnaught View Post
    So, the Obama campaign released this now-controversial campaign site about the "Life of Julia". It's almost a caricature of right-wing criticism of Obama. Basically, it's a cartoon strip in which a girl spends her entire life getting welfare, [apparently] becoming a single mother and starting a business with government money.

    At first blush, it's embarrassing for Obama. This is basically the nightmare scenario of people outside of the left, and not something that will appeal to independent voters. Right-winters have pretty decently hijacked the media landscape making fun of this, while those on the left remain unexpectedly quiet.

    But I have to wonder if the Obama campaign just trolled a chunk of America. If so, what do they get out of it? Has anyone else (especially abroad) seen a campaign do/say something that seems to confirm the worst nightmares of their opponents?
    It's obviously an interactive web tool, not a cartoon strip

    I'm not sure where you got the notion that "Julia" spends her entire life getting welfare? That may be how the right-wingers have decided to frame it, and then troll a chunk of America, too.

    There are recent polls and papers showing that a majority of Americans believe they've never been recipients of "government welfare" programs. But when it's broken down into sub-sections like subsidized Child Care, K-12 public education, federal student loans or grants, subsidized health clinics, FHA or HUD home loans, section 8 housing or states with rent control, Amtrak or other publicly-funded transportation, subsidized small business loans, unemployment insurance, Medicaid/S-CHIPs/Medicare/SS/Disability/Veterans benefits....almost everyone has, or likely will in their lifetime. Including those right-wingers who insist they've NEVER used "welfare" and never would. <But hands off their Medicare and SS benefits.>

    It's just one example of propaganda that both parties will utilize. I wonder what Romney's campaign would produce, or how they'd revise Julia's or Johnny's lifetime to express the (R) vision from a positive POV? Either way, it's not a bad thing to get people thinking long term, put policy into context with our own real lives, and how we interact with our government.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    They do.
    While paper cuts and grievous knife wounds both qualify as lacerations.
    . . .

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Illusions View Post
    I've read maybe the first few panels of this comic, into her early 20's and I'm not sure what the hell you are talking about. It even flat out says she starts a career as a web designer, and later on is a full time web designer for four years (at the time in the panel). If you're not going to even bother posting honestly, or reading what you're going to post a thread about, why post at all?
    Man she sure needs a lot of government aide considering she's supposedly gainfully employed!

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by GGT View Post
    It's obviously an interactive web tool, not a cartoon strip

    I'm not sure where you got the notion that "Julia" spends her entire life getting welfare? That may be how the right-wingers have decided to frame it, and then troll a chunk of America, too.

    There are recent polls and papers showing that a majority of Americans believe they've never been recipients of "government welfare" programs. But when it's broken down into sub-sections like subsidized Child Care, K-12 public education, federal student loans or grants, subsidized health clinics, FHA or HUD home loans, section 8 housing or states with rent control, Amtrak or other publicly-funded transportation, subsidized small business loans, unemployment insurance, Medicaid/S-CHIPs/Medicare/SS/Disability/Veterans benefits....almost everyone has, or likely will in their lifetime. Including those right-wingers who insist they've NEVER used "welfare" and never would. <But hands off their Medicare and SS benefits.>

    It's just one example of propaganda that both parties will utilize. I wonder what Romney's campaign would produce, or how they'd revise Julia's or Johnny's lifetime to express the (R) vision from a positive POV? Either way, it's not a bad thing to get people thinking long term, put policy into context with our own real lives, and how we interact with our government.
    Just off the top of my head.

    A Republican administration would create better schools by having a voucher program. Allowing poor and middle class kids the same opportunities that the Obama children have when it comes to school choice.

    A Republican administration would make it so she's not DROWNED in government regulations when she does start her small business...

    Let alone the taxes...

    Or the debt that we would NOT have her kids pay due to wasteful spending.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Lewkowski View Post
    Man she sure needs a lot of government aide considering she's supposedly gainfully employed!
    Did you read the comic either? At 23 when she starts her career all it mentions is that "Because of steps like the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, Julia is one of millions of women across the country who knows she'll always be able to stand up for her right to equal pay." This doesn't seem to equate to the government giving her money, as much as ensuring that she isn't discriminated against because of her gender, by broadening the time she would have to file a lawsuit for discrimination. At 25 it mentions that her Federal student loans are capped according to her income, and that she pays off these loans on time. At 27 it mainly states that her Health Insurance is required to cover birth control and preventative care. These side benefits that every citizen gets continue on up until she takes a Small Business Administration loan, I'm assuming by the time she retires at 67 she's paid it off. The comic also never argues that she needs them, just that life is easier with them.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lewkowski View Post
    A Republican administration would create better schools by having a voucher program. Allowing poor and middle class kids the same opportunities that the Obama children have when it comes to school choice.
    This is fallacious as one of the points of these institutions are that they are exclusive, and not everyone (only the best) can go there.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lewkowski View Post
    A Republican administration would make it so she's not DROWNED in government regulations when she does start her small business...
    We can probably get Bitter in here to argue against this if he's willing since he has started a small business.

    Edit: To make the point further, I'm not arguing for Obama's policies, I'm arguing that it would be nice to have a debate or some information from another viewpoint on these topics that isn't loaded with hyperbole, misinformation, delusional bias (it wouldn't be subjective if it didn't have some bias), loaded language, and other crap thrown in.
    . . .

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Illusions View Post
    This is fallacious as one of the points of these institutions are that they are exclusive, and not everyone (only the best) can go there.
    Um, most charter schools serve underprivileged areas; the people who go there tend to be worse than your average student. Vouchers would allow for more charters, and would lead to reduced public funding of those schools. I don't see where you got the idea that these schools are only for smart people.
    Hope is the denial of reality

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Illusions View Post
    This is fallacious as one of the points of these institutions are that they are exclusive, and not everyone (only the best) can go there.
    Skipping the point that most charter schools aren't exclusive (you're probably thinking of magnet schools), what's wrong with serving the needs of the smarter kids? I think one of the problems in our school system is how much effort gets put into catering to the lower end of the spectrum, and forcing everyone to learn at that pace. We should be putting more effort into making sure that those who can achieve more, do.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    Um, most charter schools serve underprivileged areas; the people who go there tend to be worse than your average student. Vouchers would allow for more charters, and would lead to reduced public funding of those schools. I don't see where you got the idea that these schools are only for smart people.
    Quote Originally Posted by Wraith View Post
    Skipping the point that most charter schools aren't exclusive (you're probably thinking of magnet schools), what's wrong with serving the needs of the smarter kids? I think one of the problems in our school system is how much effort gets put into catering to the lower end of the spectrum, and forcing everyone to learn at that pace. We should be putting more effort into making sure that those who can achieve more, do.
    Now I regret not putting my * next to "the best" (since I didn't mean to imply smart by "best" but whatever the school considers "best").

    The main reason Lewk wants vouchers isn't to help poor and middle class kids be able to afford the same school choices as the Obama children, but for more parents to be able to afford to either home school their children, or send them to schools that are exclusive to a particular religion, or that teach classes related to a particular religion at all (since public schools aren't allowed to). I'm fairly certain he'd drop support for a voucher system in a heartbeat if it meant that schools or parents wishing to be a part of the voucher program had to meet strict Federal guidelines disallowing the teaching of religion.

    I'm also uncertain of how money would still not play a factor in certain students being able to attend certain schools. It seems to me that an institution that made itself exclusive based on cost to attend will remain that way as they will just take vouchers into account when setting their costs.

    Quote Originally Posted by Wraith View Post
    what's wrong with serving the needs of the smarter kids? I think one of the problems in our school system is how much effort gets put into catering to the lower end of the spectrum, and forcing everyone to learn at that pace. We should be putting more effort into making sure that those who can achieve more, do.
    Going back to address this as it might have been something I had taken for granted as normal in my NY based education, but doesn't every school in the United States, from 7th grade onward, separate the student body into three categories of classes, one for below average learners, one for average learners, and one for above average learners? Or is this not that common outside of NY?
    Last edited by Illusions; 05-06-2012 at 07:05 AM.
    . . .

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Illusions View Post
    Going back to address this as it might have been something I had taken for granted as normal in my NY based education, but doesn't every school in the United States, from 7th grade onward, separate the student body into three categories of classes, one for below average learners, one for average learners, and one for above average learners? Or is this not that common outside of NY?
    A lot of places have something, but they don't really make a big difference. IMO, they really don't do enough since their categories are still too broad, and a lot of places make the mistake of expecting someone who's very good at one subject to be equally good at all the others. Proper solutions would be complicated, and there a number of difficulties in implementation, so it's probably better not to completely derail this thread by going into it.

  14. #14
    We just put Brent into a STEM program at a public school. It focuses on engineering with an emphasis on aeronotics, but from what we've seen its broad enough that we'll be able to tell if he picks up on something that he is better at or more interested in. Classes are seperate from the rest of the school population aside from the elective he rolls with. They stick with the same classmates and teachers for all of middle school and then get dumped into an Ivy program in highschool that runs about the same way.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lewkowski View Post
    A Republican administration would create better schools by having a voucher program. Allowing poor and middle class kids the same opportunities that the Obama children have when it comes to school choice.
    This line falls somewhere in between delusional and straight up lying.
    "In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."

  15. #15
    Let sleeping tigers lie Khendraja'aro's Avatar
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    Well, that's one thing I've come to recognize: Anybody who thinks that one single factor needs to be changed or improved in order to "create better schools" doesn't know what he's taking about - at all.

    That's true in particular when it comes to types of schools - charter schools? Public schools? Doesn't really matter.
    When the stars threw down their spears
    And watered heaven with their tears:
    Did he smile his work to see?
    Did he who made the lamb make thee?

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Illusions View Post
    The main reason Lewk wants vouchers isn't to help poor and middle class kids be able to afford the same school choices as the Obama children, but for more parents to be able to afford to either home school their children, or send them to schools that are exclusive to a particular religion, or that teach classes related to a particular religion at all (since public schools aren't allowed to). I'm fairly certain he'd drop support for a voucher system in a heartbeat if it meant that schools or parents wishing to be a part of the voucher program had to meet strict Federal guidelines disallowing the teaching of religion.
    That's a strawman. The main reason people support vouchers is to give parents, especially of poor children, more choices. They hope that having more choices will lead to students being sent to schools of a higher caliber, therefore forcing all schools to do a better job (i.e. improvement through competition). There are those who want vouchers for religious schooling, but this reason is usually in the background even for those who hold it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Khendraja'aro View Post
    Well, that's one thing I've come to recognize: Anybody who thinks that one single factor needs to be changed or improved in order to "create better schools" doesn't know what he's taking about - at all.

    That's true in particular when it comes to types of schools - charter schools? Public schools? Doesn't really matter.
    Anyone who thinks the current public school model in the US is working needs to lay off the weed.
    Hope is the denial of reality

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Wraith View Post
    A lot of places have something, but they don't really make a big difference. IMO, they really don't do enough since their categories are still too broad, and a lot of places make the mistake of expecting someone who's very good at one subject to be equally good at all the others. Proper solutions would be complicated, and there a number of difficulties in implementation, so it's probably better not to completely derail this thread by going into it.
    Well then I guess I really have taken for granted NY's public education system, or at least the one in place here on Long Island. I'm just going to make a statement about it so as to not derail the thread, but outline how they seem to have tackled the issues you've highlighted. Starting before 7th Grade, a student's teachers make individual recommendations as to which level they should be placed into on a per subject basis. This is also evaluated based on the grades a student received in a particular subject. So a kid who is great at Math but not History may be put into an accelerated Math course, but a regents History course. Parents and the Student themselves also get a say (unless they start failing at a particular level, then they have to take lower level courses). Students are also assigned a guidance counselor. At the end of each year or half-year (for half-year classes) the student meets with their guidance counselor to determine what classes they will take, and at what level, with input from their teachers from that year. This is so that a student who is for instance getting 70's in a particular class is afforded the option to drop down a level, or a student who is in a lower level class that is receiving 90's the option to move up a level. Beyond that NY State also offers BOECES classes for a different learning experience.

    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    That's a strawman. The main reason people support vouchers is to give parents, especially of poor children, more choices. They hope that having more choices will lead to students being sent to schools of a higher caliber, therefore forcing all schools to do a better job (i.e. improvement through competition). There are those who want vouchers for religious schooling, but this reason is usually in the background even for those who hold it.
    How is that a strawman? I'm attacking Lewk's version of the voucher system, not the voucher system. Other than that I have previously outlined my problems with the voucher system, in that it would work the same way as the colleges we have here in the US. They compete with each other to get the best students and the most money, yet there are still amazing colleges, and terrible colleges. Competition hasn't eliminated terrible colleges, so why would introducing competition to other areas of our education system have a different outcome?
    . . .

  18. #18
    Since you're basing your opinion on NY's education system, surely you realize that a vast majority of NY charter schools are in black and Hispanic areas and are trying to move kids away from their terrible public schools in those areas, right?
    Hope is the denial of reality

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Khendraja'aro View Post
    charter schools? Public schools? Doesn't really matter.
    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    Anyone who thinks the current public school model in the US is working needs to lay off the weed.
    whoosh

    Now, before you return with some weak single line insult. You need to actually think about how this system works. The public system has issues, but they pale in comparison to the troubles that students suffer through and bring to school. Their environment, parents who don't care, lack of time, etc. The big point here is the parental involvement. A parent who takes the time to apply, recieve, and use a voucher isn't the type of transfer that needs the most help. It is in fact going to give false results back of the voucher system working (if those results ever do get produced), because the voucher system is essentially cherry picking its subjects by leaving the students who most need the help in what you consider a failing school. You need to step back and look at the larger problem, but that would point to results that aren't going to make the religion voucher supporters and the double billing bitchers happy.

    The same is true for the whole charter idea that keeps getting used as an "example."
    "In a field where an overlooked bug could cost millions, you want people who will speak their minds, even if they’re sometimes obnoxious about it."

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Lewkowski View Post
    Just off the top of my head.

    A Republican administration would create better schools by having a voucher program. Allowing poor and middle class kids the same opportunities that the Obama children have when it comes to school choice.

    A Republican administration would make it so she's not DROWNED in government regulations when she does start her small business...

    Let alone the taxes...

    Or the debt that we would NOT have her kids pay due to wasteful spending.
    *But vouchers don't "create better schools", and school choice doesn't translate into making the worst schools better. There are waiting lists and lotteries for the better schools, and they'll always have a maximum of enrollment. Wouldn't a Republican administration likely try to dismantle the Dept. of Education, slash federal spending on public education and send it to the states....making poor and middle class kids "opportunities" dependent on their state policy/budgets? How's that going to work in the long-run?

    <When it comes to higher education opportunities, including Community College and Vocational/Technical Schools....I'm under the impression that a Republican administration would reduce number and size of federal loans and grants, raise the interest rates to 6%, and shuttle more loans to private banks and lenders with even higher rates and fees. With one solution that students can borrow money from their parents. >

    *Small business isn't drowning in federal regulations. Private sector job creation has grown for over two consecutive years, and has seen something like 17 tax cuts or rebates under Obama's administration. Most picayune regulations are at state and local levels, with zoning/code ordinances and municipal rules.

    *Our federal taxes are at historical lows. We've had a revenue problem, as well as a spending problem, that's been growing since 2001 (unfunded wars and Bush tax cuts). Most people see higher tax rates at state level, especially where stimulus spending has run out, but police/fire/teacher and infrastructure spending is still needed.

  21. #21
    There are waiting lines for the better schools because there are so few of them. Having vouchers would allow far more such schools to exist.
    Hope is the denial of reality

  22. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by Illusions View Post
    I've read maybe the first few panels of this comic, into her early 20's and I'm not sure what the hell you are talking about. It even flat out says she starts a career as a web designer, and later on is a full time web designer for four years (at the time in the panel). If you're not going to even bother posting honestly, or reading what you're going to post a thread about, why post at all?
    Quote Originally Posted by Khendraja'aro View Post
    I didn't even need to read the comic to see that Dread massively misrepresented something.

    Just take the first and the last part of this statement:



    By that "special" logic, tax breaks for mega corporations also qualify as "welfare".
    Quote Originally Posted by GGT View Post
    It's obviously an interactive web tool, not a cartoon strip

    I'm not sure where you got the notion that "Julia" spends her entire life getting welfare? That may be how the right-wingers have decided to frame it, and then troll a chunk of America, too.

    There are recent polls and papers showing that a majority of Americans believe they've never been recipients of "government welfare" programs. But when it's broken down into sub-sections like subsidized Child Care, K-12 public education, federal student loans or grants, subsidized health clinics, FHA or HUD home loans, section 8 housing or states with rent control, Amtrak or other publicly-funded transportation, subsidized small business loans, unemployment insurance, Medicaid/S-CHIPs/Medicare/SS/Disability/Veterans benefits....almost everyone has, or likely will in their lifetime. Including those right-wingers who insist they've NEVER used "welfare" and never would. <But hands off their Medicare and SS benefits.>

    It's just one example of propaganda that both parties will utilize. I wonder what Romney's campaign would produce, or how they'd revise Julia's or Johnny's lifetime to express the (R) vision from a positive POV? Either way, it's not a bad thing to get people thinking long term, put policy into context with our own real lives, and how we interact with our government.
    Interesting, you are the first people I've seen apparently deny that the comic strip represents a distinctly statist view. Some people talking about it last night seemed to say it was just summarizing her life, IE they focused how this was communicated instead of the message itself. Which struck me as a bit of a dodge, but also something to be said by people who haven't spent much time thinking about the impact of the state on society.

    Whether you want to call it welfare or not, as many others have pointed out, this comic upsets people because it clarifies Julia's central relationship as one with the state. The major junctures in her life are defined by the state —*from getting an unscrupulous loan for her education; to her sexual health; to starting a business that needed government money to launch; to her retirement into a bankrupt pension system. She hasn't needed to interact with a family, a romantic partner or the real world of economics. The state takes care of that.

    But someone in the pundit class at the NYTimes actually said it well:

    At the same time, the slide show’s vision of the individual’s relationship to the state seems designed to vindicate every conservative critique of the Obama-era Democratic Party. The liberalism of “the Life of Julia” doesn’t envision government spending the way an older liberalism did — as a backstop for otherwise self-sufficient working families, providing insurance against job loss, decrepitude and catastrophic illness. It offers a more sweeping vision of government’s place in society, in which the individual depends on the state at every stage of life, and no decision — personal, educational, entrepreneurial, sexual — can be contemplated without the promise that it will be somehow subsidized by Washington.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/op...-of-julia.html

    May 5, 2012
    The Party of Julia
    By ROSS DOUTHAT

    A WEEK ago the Obama re-election campaign unveiled a slogan for the fall campaign — its answer to Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America,” Bill Clinton’s “bridge to the 21st century,” and other successful re-election pitches. There were reports that the slogan-writing process had been a struggle for the White House, and the final product bore those rumors out. “Forward,” the Obama campaign will be declaiming to Americans, which feels like a none-too-subtle admission that a look backward at the Obama economic record might be bad news for the president’s re-election prospects.

    But maybe the White House doesn’t need a slogan. After all, it has a person instead: a composite character who’s been the talk of Washington these last few days, and whose imaginary life story casts the stakes in this presidential campaign into unusually sharp relief.

    Her name is Julia, and she has the lead role in an Obama 2012 slide show that follows what’s supposed to be an American everywoman from childhood into retirement, tracking everything the Obama White House’s policies would do for her and everything the “Romney/Ryan” Republicans would not. The list of Obama-bestowed benefits includes Head Start when Julia’s a tyke, tax credits and Pell grants to carry her through college and low-interest loan repayment afterward, guaranteed birth control when she’s a 20-something and government-sponsored loans when she wants to start a business, all of it culminating in a stress-free retirement underwritten by Medicare and Social Security.

    All propaganda invites snark and parody, and the story of Julia is ripe for it. She’s an everywoman only by the standards of the liberal upper middle class: She works as a Web designer, has her first child in her early 30s (the average first-time American mother is in her mid-20s), and spends her golden years as a “volunteer at a community garden.” (It will not surprise you to learn that the cartoon Julia looks Caucasian.)

    What’s more, she seems to have no meaningful relationships apart from her bond with the Obama White House: no friends or siblings or extended family, no husband (“Julia decides to have a child,” is all the slide show says), a son who disappears once school starts and parents who only matter because Obamacare grants her the privilege of staying on their health care plan until she’s 26. This lends the whole production a curiously patriarchal quality, with Obama as a beneficent Daddy Warbucks and Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan co-starring as the wicked uncles threatening to steal Julia’s inheritance.

    But if the slide show is easy to mock (and conservatives quickly obliged, tweeting Julia jokes across the Internet), there’s also a fascinating ideological purity to its attitudes and arguments. Indeed, both in its policy vision and its philosophical premises, the slide show represents a monument to certain trends in contemporary liberalism.

    On the one hand, its public policy agenda is essentially a defense of existing arrangements no matter their effectiveness or sustainability, apparently premised on the assumption that American women can’t make cost-benefit calculations or indeed do basic math. In addition to ignoring the taxes that will be required of its businesswoman heroine across her working life, “The Life of Julia” hails a program (Head Start) that may not work at all, touts education spending that hasn’t done much for high school test scores or cut college costs, and never mentions that on the Obama administration’s own budget trajectory, neither Medicare nor Social Security will be able to make good on its promises once today’s 20-something Julias retire.

    At the same time, the slide show’s vision of the individual’s relationship to the state seems designed to vindicate every conservative critique of the Obama-era Democratic Party. The liberalism of “the Life of Julia” doesn’t envision government spending the way an older liberalism did — as a backstop for otherwise self-sufficient working families, providing insurance against job loss, decrepitude and catastrophic illness. It offers a more sweeping vision of government’s place in society, in which the individual depends on the state at every stage of life, and no decision — personal, educational, entrepreneurial, sexual — can be contemplated without the promise that it will be somehow subsidized by Washington.

    The condescension inherent in this vision is apparent in every step of Julia’s pilgrimage toward a community-gardening retirement. But in an increasingly atomized society, where communities and families are weaker than ever before, such a vision may have more appeal — to both genders — than many of the conservatives mocking the slide show might like to believe.

    Apparently someone in the White House thinks so, which makes the life of Julia the most interesting general-election foray by either campaign to date. Interesting, and clarifying: in a race that’s likely to be dominated by purely negative campaigning on both sides, her story is the clearest statement we’re likely to get of what Obama-era liberalism would take us “forward” toward.

  23. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadnaught View Post
    Whether you want to call it welfare or not, as many others have pointed out, this comic upsets people because it clarifies Julia's central relationship as one with the state. The major junctures in her life are defined by the state —*from getting an unscrupulous loan for her education; to her sexual health; to starting a business that needed government money to launch; to her retirement into a bankrupt pension system. She hasn't needed to interact with a family, a romantic partner or the real world of economics. The state takes care of that.
    I'll get back to this later since I'm going out, but if I were designing an ad campaign to sell the functions of the Federal Government it would focus on what the Federal Government can do for people. The non-inclusion of family members, romantic partners, etc. would not be the message or part of the message, but a side effect of focusing exclusively on what Government can, or is trying to sell that it can, do.

    To continue with a prior point, your wording gives away your bias. An unscrupulous college loan, and "starting a business that needed government money to launch". Really? I'd assume that she could have also qualified for a small business loan from a bank, however the ad is showing the perks that the Government provides, and that it can make life easier, not that you'd fail without it, or how you'd succeed using other competing services. Treat it like any other ad. An ad for a Dyson Vacuum isn't stating that you can't vacuum without a Dyson, just that your life would be easier/better if you used one, because of XYZ benefits that Dyson Vacuums provide. A Dyson vacuum ad is also not going to mention the benefits or perks of using a Hoover. It would be nice and interesting for someone with an expertise in marketing to do a breakdown of this comic instead of someone in politics.
    . . .

  24. #24
    The condescension inherent in this vision is apparent in every step of Julia’s pilgrimage toward a community-gardening retirement. But in an increasingly atomized society, where communities and families are weaker than ever before, such a vision may have more appeal — to both genders — than many of the conservatives mocking the slide show might like to believe.
    Dread, it seems to me you haven't admitted your own relationship with "the state", or how it's constantly impacted your life....mostly for the better, in ways you take for granted. For all the criticisms made, the fact is all those people have used public services their whole life, beginning with their parents and grandparents whose lives were improved by: federal/state highways and bridges, subways or trains, airports, sewage and water treatment, subsidized energy and communication grids, public vaccination programs, public education--that produced their teachers/ doctors /lawyers, the GI bill they used to get a college degree, FHA loans that helped them own a first home. In their dotage they use Veterans benefits, SS and Medicare, all sorts of subsidies or credits for seniors, including Medicaid to pay for nursing home care.

    All those things helped to expand the middle classes, improve national literacy and health, reduce infant mortality, improve our labor force and economic growth, and extend our longevity. It's too late in the game to deny these facts. Right-wing conservatives have a hard time admitting they're the downstream beneficiaries of public-state investments made generations ago, and that their own family members contributed to our national progress by paying taxes. Who're they trying to kid?

  25. #25
    From the centrist/right-wing perspective, the problem is the idea that the government is providing so much in the first place. It's the difference between a government support network and socialism.

    But to get into the details of the education and loan thing, the idea is that government is supposed to be a funder of last resort in many areas. Educational loans and business loans shouldn't be handed out willy-nilly to anyone who wants a degree or thinks they can start a company. These are not lending areas that the government should be dominating, lest those lending decisions become politicized. We're already seeing that in the education market, and it doesn't help for the Obama campaign to basically be celebrating it in their drive to expand the entitlement state.

  26. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by Illusions View Post
    I'll get back to this later since I'm going out, but if I were designing an ad campaign to sell the functions of the Federal Government it would focus on what the Federal Government can do for people. The non-inclusion of family members, romantic partners, etc. would not be the message or part of the message, but a side effect of focusing exclusively on what Government can, or is trying to sell that it can, do.

    To continue with a prior point, your wording gives away your bias. An unscrupulous college loan, and "starting a business that needed government money to launch". Really? I'd assume that she could have also qualified for a small business loan from a bank, however the ad is showing the perks that the Government provides, and that it can make life easier, not that you'd fail without it, or how you'd succeed using other competing services. Treat it like any other ad. An ad for a Dyson Vacuum isn't stating that you can't vacuum without a Dyson, just that your life would be easier/better if you used one, because of XYZ benefits that Dyson Vacuums provide. A Dyson vacuum ad is also not going to mention the benefits or perks of using a Hoover. It would be nice and interesting for someone with an expertise in marketing to do a breakdown of this comic instead of someone in politics.
    From the centrist/right-wing perspective, the problem is the idea that the government is providing so much in the first place. It's the difference between a government support network and socialism.

    But to get into the details of the education and loan thing, the idea is that government is supposed to be a funder of last resort in many areas. Educational loans and business loans shouldn't be handed out willy-nilly to anyone who wants a degree or thinks they can start a company. These are not lending areas that the government should be dominating, lest those lending decisions become politicized. We're already seeing that in the education market, and it doesn't help for the Obama campaign to basically be celebrating it in their drive to expand the entitlement state.

    Quote Originally Posted by GGT View Post
    Dread, it seems to me you haven't admitted your own relationship with "the state", or how it's constantly impacted your life....mostly for the better, in ways you take for granted. For all the criticisms made, the fact is all those people have used public services their whole life, beginning with their parents and grandparents whose lives were improved by: federal/state highways and bridges, subways or trains, airports, sewage and water treatment, subsidized energy and communication grids, public vaccination programs, public education--that produced their teachers/ doctors /lawyers, the GI bill they used to get a college degree, FHA loans that helped them own a first home. In their dotage they use Veterans benefits, SS and Medicare, all sorts of subsidies or credits for seniors, including Medicaid to pay for nursing home care.

    All those things helped to expand the middle classes, improve national literacy and health, reduce infant mortality, improve our labor force and economic growth, and extend our longevity. It's too late in the game to deny these facts. Right-wing conservatives have a hard time admitting they're the downstream beneficiaries of public-state investments made generations ago, and that their own family members contributed to our national progress by paying taxes. Who're they trying to kid?
    If the government stuck to building bridges and trains, this wouldn't be as controversial. Of course I have a relationship with the state. Everyone does, I'm not a libertarian. But I do wish my relationship with the state could be reformed.
    Last edited by Dreadnaught; 05-06-2012 at 10:47 PM.

  27. #27
    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadnaught View Post
    Interesting, you are the first people I've seen apparently deny that the comic strip represents a distinctly statist view. Some people talking about it last night seemed to say it was just summarizing her life, IE they focused how this was communicated instead of the message itself. Which struck me as a bit of a dodge, but also something to be said by people who haven't spent much time thinking about the impact of the state on society.
    *cough* Did you walk public streets that night, lit by public streetlamps, patrolled by public police? Maybe you used the subway instead. Was there garbage or raw sewage in the gutter or on the sidewalks? If you were at a pub or restaurant, did you worry about the safety of the food/water/ice? Were chickens or stray dogs wandering around the place, were your servers barefoot, did the cook have dirty hands? If someone ordered chicken, did you wonder if it was really guinea pig? Was there a restroom that had a flush toilet with clean running water?

    Yeah, don't spend too much time thinking about the impact of the state on society.

  28. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadnaught View Post
    Interesting, you are the first people I've seen apparently deny that the comic strip represents a distinctly statist view. Some people talking about it last night seemed to say it was just summarizing her life, IE they focused how this was communicated instead of the message itself. Which struck me as a bit of a dodge, but also something to be said by people who haven't spent much time thinking about the impact of the state on society.

    Whether you want to call it welfare or not, as many others have pointed out, this comic upsets people because it clarifies Julia's central relationship as one with the state. The major junctures in her life are defined by the state —*from getting an unscrupulous loan for her education; to her sexual health; to starting a business that needed government money to launch; to her retirement into a bankrupt pension system. She hasn't needed to interact with a family, a romantic partner or the real world of economics. The state takes care of that.

    But someone in the pundit class at the NYTimes actually said it well:
    Er... my problem with the Life of Julia thing wasn't that it was pushing a statist perspective. It was that by and large the Obama administration was claiming credit for programs that already existed before him and are unlikely to be changed too much by a future administration. Oh, sure, he can tweak some bits and expand coverage a bit for various programs, but nearly everything mentioned - from Head Start to the SBA to student loans to Medicare - are decades old and part of the American consensus. Policy details may shift from administration to administration, but the basic structure is pretty entrenched.

    You can talk about broader questions implicit in this ad campaign - but fundamentally from a policy perspective it's not very radical at all. It's not really a particularly compelling message, but not because it's portraying some socialist hellhole.

    edit: There are a few initiatives that are largely Obama programs in the campaign. Race to the Top, for example, is one of them, but I don't find it any more objectionable than other federal attempts to fix education (e.g. NCLB), and it actually has had some good effects (e.g. increasing the number of charter schools). Some of the healthcare provisions mentioned are new to Obama, but most of them are likely to be struck down next month anyways so it's a moot point (and they weren't particularly important bits of the legislation either). The Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was a minor bit of law which changed the statute of limitations on a 45 year old piece of landmark legislation - hardly some amazingly new socialist initiative. Everything else is just tweaks on existing programs.

  29. #29
    Quote Originally Posted by Dreadnaught View Post
    From the centrist/right-wing perspective, the problem is the idea that the government is providing so much in the first place. It's the difference between a government support network and socialism.
    Seriously? SSSocialism? That's ideological/political "propaganda", as far as I'm concerned. That's the kind of tactic used to rile up people who are already predisposed to FEAR. ie, re-electing Obama will turn the US into France, or Greece, or some other European SSSSocialist state. Because, y'know, he's a secret Muslim Marxist Anti-American Freedom Hating Totalitarian who wants to destroy the heterosexual family, ban Christmas, and turn us into a sectarian daddy/nanny state. Oh yeah, and he's gonna take away our guns!

    If the government stuck to building bridges and trains, this wouldn't be as controversial. Of course I have a relationship with the state. Everyone does, I'm not a libertarian. But I do with my relationship with the state could be reduced.
    That's because you've already reaped the "rewards" of past statist interventions, and policies that were in place during your parents/grandparents/ancestors lifetimes. It's an amazing phenomenon, when people deny the compounding effects of a civilized society. Those very things helped make their own lives better, and contributed to building the nation we have today. Hate to break the news to ya, but we've had components of "SSSocialism" for a long time now.

  30. #30
    Let sleeping tigers lie Khendraja'aro's Avatar
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    Wait, the problem is that the "government is providing so much"?

    Great. Now, pray tell, in the instances covered in this comic, what would have been your alternatives?

    Surely you don't count "going bankrupt due to surgery" as a viable alternative, for example? Please provide actual, working, definitive alternatives and not just some "well, they've got to fend for themselves somehow" talking point.

    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    Anyone who thinks the current public school model in the US is working needs to lay off the weed.
    And where did I say that now? Maybe you should reread what I wrote since your argument hasn't got anything to do with mine.
    Quote Originally Posted by Loki View Post
    There are waiting lines for the better schools because there are so few of them. Having vouchers would allow far more such schools to exist.
    Fascinating. So we simply need to introduce vouchers and magically, like mushrooms over night, better schools sprout from the ground.

    I think I already stated something to that effect. Had something to do with the fallacy of assuming singular causal relations.
    When the stars threw down their spears
    And watered heaven with their tears:
    Did he smile his work to see?
    Did he who made the lamb make thee?

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