How to Use Twitter Correctly, Groundhog Day Edition

Posted on February 2, 2013    Posted by      46 Comments

It goes a little something like this.

Thank you, we’ll be here all week.

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46 Comments on “How to Use Twitter Correctly, Groundhog Day Edition”

  8. Thank you. We had to take our kitty to the vet one last time this morning,and I needed something to smile at.

  14. Surveyors the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains! (obscure, but true!)

  15. Ha, you think it’s funny turning rebellion into Punxsutawney.

    Or do I have the direction wrong there?

  20. Oh my god. My two favorite authors tweeting each other, joshing about my favorite ideology. It’s like staring into the center of a glorious sun made of ice cream and joy! O_O

  21. Can we assume that the Rodentist Worker’s Party is opposed to the growing influence and skullduggery of the Philadelphia Meowist Section?

  23. Apparently this morning Punxatauney Phil emerged from his burrow, saw the lumpenproletariat, and called for six weeks of revolution.

    He’s just Stalin for time.

    @ Carter

    Can we assume that the Rodentist Worker’s Party is opposed to the growing influence and skullduggery of the Philadelphia Meowist Section?

    We can never accept Punxism with Feline characteristics!

  24. “The workers control the means of prediction!”

    We are not worthy…. top comment achievement unlocked.

  25. As a dedicated Meowist, I urge Phil and all bourgeois Rodentists to Serve The People — or more importantly, to Serve me teh Gushifuds. From each according to his ability to meet an adequate feeding schedule, to me according to my adorablenesses.

    Signed,
    Chairfeline Meow

  26. Yeah, yeah, yeah, jokes about communism are funny until a 100 million innocent people are killed.

    *Hint to the dense: that means they aren’t funny*

  28. About destroying communism. And his were from a right-wing/libertarian perspective.

    AND his were funny.

  30. Sorry for my multi-posting, john.

    My point is better explained thusly: just as racist shouldn’t make jokes about Naziism since they’re tainted by that evil Lefties shouldn’t make jokes about Communism since they’re tainted by that evil.

  31. Scorpius:

    Not everyone who is on the left subscribes to Communism, particularly the unfortunate Leninist flavor. However, you should probably know that Mr. Brust is a Trotskyite Trotskyist of old and is certainly entitled to make as many Communism jokes as he wants, whether you approve or not.

  32. You mean “the unfortunate Stalinist flavor” don’t you? Trotsky was a Marxist-Leninist who disagreed with Stalin on what are truly trivial matters (International socialism vs. national socialism). But he still was an advocate of Totalitarianism, just the “dictatorship of the workers” kind. But still, totalitarianism is an absolute evil.

    And yes, I know that not all lefties subscribe to Communism. Just as I know that not all racists subscribe to Naziism (Just look at Black Racists like Al Sharpton). But both groups overlap in the evil thinking of their near group (black racists overlap in many of the assumptions that Nazis make and lefties overlap in many of the assumptions Commies make).

  33. Scorpius:

    “You mean ‘the unfortunate Stalinist flavor’ don’t you?”

    No, I meant the Leninist iteration (to be clear, the Stalinist version sucks too). Lenin’s version of Communism was a disaster at several fundamental steps, and Stalin’s version, which metastatized off of that, was even worse. There’s a long discussion to be had about it, but not in this thread, as we’re already well off topic.

    The point is: I feel fine making jokes about Communism, and you should probably just resign yourself to that.

  34. I’m ignoring all the important stuff (Leninism vs Stalinism, the nature and causes of “totalitarianism,” how important the differences between Trotskyism and Stalinism are) and just give you an FYI on what really is a trivial matter: To a Trotskyist, the term “Trotskyite” is a slur, and so ought not to be used by accident.

  37. Not to belabor it, or get all philosophizy or anythin’, y’know, but I personally feel that laughing at evil — and/or satirizing it — is a fine strategy for minimizing and perhaps defeating it. (Not that I think Communism is evil, mind you. I draw a distinction between a theory and the poor practice of that theory.)

    Anything I can’t find a way to laugh at, somehow, sometime, has far too strong a grip on me. “I want to be with you always, so you can make me laugh myself well.” ~ L.M. Bujold

  38. @ Scorpius

    Yeah, yeah, yeah, jokes about communism are funny until a 100 million innocent people are killed.

    Marxism has never killed anyone because no State has ever implemented it or ever will, it being a half-backed crock of shit (apologies for bluntness to Steven Burst, who I rather like) that absolutely deserves to be ridiculed with jokes about small furry critters.

    Stalin was an opportunist, like Castro. Trotsky was a “true believer”, like Che Guevara. His disagreement with Stalin wasn’t over trivial policy distinctions; it was over Stalin being a fraud. Lenin was an idealist who didn’t want to face the reality that his great experiment was running off the rails, and believed the means that he convinced himself and others would get it back on track, beginning with the Red Terror and escalating throughout his “wartime communism” policies, were justified by that end.

    Shorter version:

    Trotsky ↣ Dictatorship of the Masses
    Lenin ↣ Dictatorship of the Party
    Stalin ↣ Dictatorship of Stalin

    and lefties overlap in many of the assumptions Commies make

    You seem to be conflating socialism with communism. A common error as the latter is a subset of the former, not vice versa.

    And his were from a right-wing/libertarian perspective.

    Regan, a libertarian? o_0

    @ Steven Burst

    To a Trotskyist, the term “Trotskyite” is a slur, and so ought not to be used by accident.

    I’ll try to remember that. My contempt is for the philosophy, not the philosophers. Nor do I blame ideas for the tyrants that abuse them. Now syndicalism and libertarian-socialism, those I have some esteem for even though, like all political ideologies, the best they can achieve is a rough approximation of a partial reality.

  39. One does rather wonder at how Scorpius feels about Orwell’s use of humor and satire in one of the most effective works of literature/propaganda/public education ever deployed against the crimes of Leninist/Stalinist totalitarianism. Surely Mr. Blair could have found a more somber tone, appropriate to Scorpius’s sensitivities?

  41. My point is better explained thusly: just as racist shouldn’t make jokes about Naziism since they’re tainted by that evil Lefties shouldn’t make jokes about Communism since they’re tainted by that evil.

    Good to know that in your world, “Lefties” are the functional equivalent of “racists.” God, I’m glad the 2012 election went the way it did.

  43. Marx, Engels and Lenin are in a bar, discussing whether it’s better to have a wife or a mistress.

    Marx immediately says he would prefer a wife, while Engels says a mistress is far superior. Lenin laughs at both of them and says he wants both. “How will you have time for anything else?” asks Marx.

    “Simple,” says Lenin, “I will tell my wife I’m going to my mistress, I’ll tell my mistress I’m going to my wife, and I’ll hide in my study and learn, learn, learn!”

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