This sounds really bad.

[_iwanttotalk]

"And as I’ve mentioned, we’ve all been quite content to demean government, drop civics and in general conspire to produce an unaware and compliant citizenry. The unawareness remains strong but compliance is obviously fading rapidly.” - John Podesta

Whom are the brainwashed idiots? And why did they need to make the masses ignorant in order to accomplish what was right? Why in the “land of the free” does he make it sound like a fait accompli?

[_MissTish]

SSmokey- why not show the entire email?

And at least get the author correct. This was sent to Podesta, not written by Podesta.

Are you an inveterate liar, or just a plain old moron?

From:bi@globalculturalstrategies.com
To: john.podesta@gmail.com
Date: 2016-03-13 17:06
Subject: From Bill Ivey

Dear John:

Well, we all thought the big problem for our US democracy was Citizens United/Koch Brothers big money in politics. Silly us; turns out that money isn't all that important if you can conflate entertainment with the electoral process. Trump masters TV, TV so-called news picks up and repeats and repeats to death this opinionated blowhard and his hairbrained ideas, free-floating discontent attaches to a seeming strongman and we're off and running. JFK, Jr would be delighted by all this as his "George" magazine saw celebrity politics coming. The magazine struggled as it was ahead of its time but now looks prescient. George, of course, played the development pretty lightly, basically for charm and gossip, like People, but what we are dealing with now is dead serious. How does this get handled in the general? Secretary Clinton is not an entertainer, and not a celebrity in the Trump, Kardashian mold; what can she do to offset this? I'm certain the poll-directed insiders are sure things will default to policy as soon as the conventions are over, but I think not. And as I've mentioned, we've all been quite content to demean government, drop civics and in general conspire to produce an unaware and compliant citizenry. The unawareness remains strong but compliance is obviously fading rapidly. This problem demands some serious, serious thinking - and not just poll driven, demographically-inspired messaging.

Rubio's press conference yesterday AM was good and should be repeated in its entirety, not just in nibbles. I will attend the Clinton fundraiser here next week but as I can only afford the low level of participation may just get to wave without a "hello."

I fear we are all now trying to navigate a set of forces that cannot be simply explained or fully understood, so it is and will reamin interesting!

Sent with a handshake,

Bill

[Guest]

"And as I’ve mentioned, we’ve all been quite content to demean government, drop civics and in general conspire to produce an unaware and compliant citizenry. The unawareness remains strong but compliance is obviously fading rapidly.” - John Podesta

Whom Who are the brainwashed idiots? And why did they need to make the masses ignorant in order to accomplish what was right? Why in the “land of the free” does he make it sound like a fait accompli?

FIFY. "Who" is the proper subjective case and "whom" is the objective case to be used only as the object of verbs and prepositions. Why do so many otherwise seemingly educated and literate people forget grammar rules they should have learned thoroughly by second or third grade? In modern colloquial usage it seems to be becoming more and more acceptable to drop using "whom" entirely and use "who" for both the subjective and objective cases, but, as I understand it, it is still never correct to use "whom" in the subjective case.

[_Some Schmo]

FIFY. "Who" is the proper subjective case and "whom" is the objective case to be used only as the object of verbs and prepositions.

My guess is that starting a sentence with whom is as objective as he gets.

[_Gunnar]

My guess is that starting a sentence with whom is as objective as he gets.

Clever! I never thought of that.

I suspect, though, that he will continue to misuse both "who" and "whom", just like some people persist in confusing "then" with "than" and "who's" with "whose" and confusing "their", "there" and "they're" with each other, no matter how often anyone tries to correct them. Apparently, for some people, improper grammar usage, once it gets started, becomes a deeply ingrained habit that is hard for them to break (or brake). I also suspect that tendency is stronger with the types who cling to hard core, irrational beliefs, despite any amount of contrary evidence. They can be as resistant to correction of their faulty grammar usage as they are to correction of their cherished delusions.

ETA: It is also possible that he thought that "whom" is the plural form of "who", and didn't realize or forgot that "who" and "whom" can both be either singular or plural.

[_Gunnar]

SSmokey- why not show the entire email?

And at least get the author correct. This was sent to Podesta, not written by Podesta.

Are you an inveterate liar, or just a plain old moron?

My guess is that he started reading it with a predisposition to see it in the worst possible light, and was so resistant to letting go of that predisposition that the he failed to notice it was not what he thought or wanted to think it was.

[_EAllusion]

SSmokey- why not show the entire email?

And at least get the author correct. This was sent to Podesta, not written by Podesta.

Are you an inveterate liar, or just a plain old moron?

From:bi@globalculturalstrategies.com
To: john.podesta@gmail.com
Date: 2016-03-13 17:06
Subject: From Bill Ivey

Dear John:

Well, we all thought the big problem for our US democracy was Citizens United/Koch Brothers big money in politics. Silly us; turns out that money isn't all that important if you can conflate entertainment with the electoral process. Trump masters TV, TV so-called news picks up and repeats and repeats to death this opinionated blowhard and his hairbrained ideas, free-floating discontent attaches to a seeming strongman and we're off and running. JFK, Jr would be delighted by all this as his "George" magazine saw celebrity politics coming. The magazine struggled as it was ahead of its time but now looks prescient. George, of course, played the development pretty lightly, basically for charm and gossip, like People, but what we are dealing with now is dead serious. How does this get handled in the general? Secretary Clinton is not an entertainer, and not a celebrity in the Trump, Kardashian mold; what can she do to offset this? I'm certain the poll-directed insiders are sure things will default to policy as soon as the conventions are over, but I think not. And as I've mentioned, we've all been quite content to demean government, drop civics and in general conspire to produce an unaware and compliant citizenry. The unawareness remains strong but compliance is obviously fading rapidly. This problem demands some serious, serious thinking - and not just poll driven, demographically-inspired messaging.

Rubio's press conference yesterday AM was good and should be repeated in its entirety, not just in nibbles. I will attend the Clinton fundraiser here next week but as I can only afford the low level of participation may just get to wave without a "hello."

I fear we are all now trying to navigate a set of forces that cannot be simply explained or fully understood, so it is and will reamin interesting!

Sent with a handshake,

Bill

That email gets a lot right before it became conventional wisdom to note Trump's ability to exploit his entertainment value for gobs of press coverage that functions as free advertising.

In context, the quote Smokey isolated means approximately the opposite of the meaning he imputed to it. I'm not sure if he expected his lying to be exposed immediately, but there you have it.

[_EAllusion]

I'm not sure if the decline in civics classes can explain the explosion of infotainment journalism and its corrosive effect on American politics. After all, the principle consumers of cable news are old people who had those civics classes before they went away. It's not young people who are the problem here.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I'm not sure if the decline in civics classes can explain the explosion of infotainment journalism and its corrosive effect on American politics. After all, the principle consumers of cable news are old people who had those civics classes before they went away. It's not young people who are the problem here.

I really, really, really wish civics would be taught starting in grade school all the way through a 4-year degree. I recently made post about it, and then I realized I never pinged our board of education and elected reps so I sent off emails. I know it's futile, but I didn't feel right kvetching here without at least sending a note to the people who can actually do something about it.

- Doc

[_EAllusion]

I'm not sure if the decline in civics classes can explain the explosion of infotainment journalism and its corrosive effect on American politics. After all, the principle consumers of cable news are old people who had those civics classes before they went away. It's not young people who are the problem here.

I really, really, really wish civics would be taught starting in grade school all the way through a 4-year degree. I recently made post about it, and then I realized I never pinged our board of education and elected reps so I sent off emails. I know it's futile, but I didn't feel right kvetching here without at least sending a note to the people who can actually do something about it.

- Doc

I'd like to have more civics requirements in public education as well. I'm just skeptical that the more recent move away from civics can explain celebrity politics on cable news. The people who are most into that are the generation who was in school before the decline in civics requirements happened.