I keep hoping this is Russian government propaganda news with some motive I haven't been able to discern and it's not actually happening, but as far as I know Novaya Gazeta is reliable and independent.
I couldn't imagine it being Russian government propaganda when it's been clear for some time that the Russian government would probably do the same if it could.
The irony is pretty intense: all these years of hearing from the US far right about how Europe is being taken over by Muslims, but you know which country really does have a fundamentalist statelet running part of its territory (with central government acquiescence) that has imposed no-go zones? Their favourite, Russia.
3 is an excellent observation.
This, sadly, reminds me of my early days on the internets where an evergreen topic on the gay political forums where I hung out was whether the advances in social acceptance and civil rights for gay people would strengthen over time and become baked into the (American) culture, or if the potential for large-scale resurgence of anti-gay oppression would always be lurking. Although I could always understand why the "take yes for an answer" side felt tired of the constant invocation of old injustices that didn't seem to match current experience (at least for white people living in 1st world cities), I was always on team pessimist. Scapegoating minority outgroups and policing sexual behaviour will always be irresistibly tempting levers for increasing or defending social standing.
And I have to admit, while I know it's not at all fair -- commenting activity is proportional to conversational potential, not moral gravity -- it's kind of harshing my chill that the outrages-of-air-travel thread is on fire and the faggits-in-concentration-camps thread has 4 (now 5) comments.
(to be clear, I get it, I'm not morally indicting anyone, I'm just moaning about my feels.)
And they're completely reasonable feels. This is one of those stories where I am horrified enough that I have nothing to say, but of course speechlessness looks exactly like indifference.
I have an ongoing dilemma along these lines with respect to OPs: silly arguments get comments revved up. It's a sweet spot where people get to scrimmage in the world of arguing. The intense horrors of the world aren't as easy to verbally toy with, but it feels wrong not to acknowledge them.
I have an ongoing dilemma along these lines with respect to OPs: silly arguments get comments revved up. It's a sweet spot where people get to scrimmage in the world of arguing. The intense horrors of the world aren't as easy to verbally toy with, but it feels wrong not to acknowledge them.
Although 4 raises an interestingly discussible issue. Within the US, could the gay-rights progress of the last quarter century or so get rolled back, or is that solid now? My instinct is that it's solid (here, as opposed to overseas), but I'm certainly not confident enough of that to tell anyone else not to worry.
...one of those stories where I am horrified enough that I have nothing to say...
The intense horrors of the world aren't as easy to verbally toy with...
Yep, all true. When I said "I get it," this is what I get.
but it feels wrong not to acknowledge them.
and I'm happy to see them acknowledged, even if it doesn't get a snappy thread going.
(5 was me btw)
10: I don't think it could happen nationwide (even Posner is on board now), but I can think of a few places willing to be Chechnya.
Within the US, could the gay-rights progress of the last quarter century or so get rolled back, or is that solid now?
For the next four to eight years judges will be nominated by Trump and confirmed in a simple majority in the Senate. RBG is about a billion years old, and the rest of the left flank of the court are also old. It's not inconceivable that a supreme court packed with 'originalists' rolls back all federal level marriage equality precedent.
10: I share your instinct, but at the same time, the base behavioural forces that drive anti-gay animus seem so fundamental to me that they can only be held in check by the best of circumstances, which we don't always have handy.
Whenever I feel gloomy about this kind of thing, I try to think about my 20-sthing nieces, to whom anti-gay rhetoric seems absolutely bizarre and outrageous. it's encouraging until I remember that *they* have a (known) gay uncle, which not everyone does.
Then again, surely we all have a gay uncle, if not literally then figuratively.
I think 15 is right, or at least that's what I'm basing my hopefulness on -- that now that it's mostly safe to be out, gay people are totally integrated throughout America. A couple of decades of the boringly married social studies teacher, or your uncle or aunt, and so on being completely engaged in thick social bonds most places in the US seems as if it'd be really hard to reverse. Racism, people can always revert to thinking of members of other groups as aliens, but gay people show up in your family.
16: I dunno, there are still queer kids offing themselves every day because of the bullying and indifference to it that they experience.
I get a kick of riding the bus or getting a burrito and seeing the groups of queer kids (and their friends between revolutions) from my old high school having fun and being themselves, but I bet every one of them could identify with this song, which is a quarter-century old this year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWRcKXmp7eU
I am more pessimistic about gay rights because it ...I don't know, it arises organically in middle schools and how can you trust that laboratory to preserve good outcomes?
That's not a fully formed thought, but it's the best I got. I'm on my phone as we go on Hour Five of no power following some dramatic storms and flooding. (We did not flood.)
I was more optimistic that gay people being human was a done deal before we had a resurgence in open antisemitism.
I think 15 is right, or at least that's what I'm basing my hopefulness on -- that now that it's mostly safe to be out, gay people are totally integrated throughout America.
Right, just like how since abortion was made legal nationwide in 1973 and nearly 1 in 3 women will have an abortion (everyone knows someone, multiples someones, whether they're aware of it or not), it's become widely accepted and so it's now very difficult to imagine any rolling back of abortion rights.
But women who've had abortions aren't out the same way. It really doesn't come up in conversation. My kids know, and the Internet knows, but, e.g., my neighbors don't know that the nice lady on the top floor had an abortion in 1995. Everyone knows who in the building is gay, at least the ones who are in couples.
Although 21 and 23 make a valid, albeit horrifying, point.
Is the nice lady a close friend of yours that you know about her abortion?
I am blithely assuming my neighbors think I'm nice. Did you show up after my abortion post? It was certainly ages and ages ago.
24 was perfectly clear, of course. As is the custom of my people, I deliberately misread it to make a joke.
At all periods of human history, everyone has had women in their family, but attitudes toward women have varied wildly.
But see, that's exactly my point about being out about things. I'm not a sympathetic example of someone who's had an abortion unless I put a lot of effort into telling everyone about it. Gay people, being out isn't effortless, certainly, but it's easier to weave organically into your daily routine.
"I had an abortion and all I got was this stupid t-shirt. And an advanced degree."
If 32 is to 30, I'm not sure how much my search for straight lines correlates with overall socio-political trends.
32: but this is why I said "whether they're aware of it or not". I agree people are generally much less likely to know which particular women in their life have had abortions (compared to which acquaintances are gay), but they mostly know the statistics and so are aware that they must know plenty of women who've had abortions. And yet they hasn't stopped the very organized and determined religiously-motivated backlash (from exactly the same people that are now equally anxious for some religiously-motivated backlash against homosexuals).
I mean, maybe I'm just being pessimistic. But it seems early to be optimistic. Get back to me when legislatures all across the country aren't actively legislating against LGBTQ individuals out of pure spite, and maybe I'll feel better about things.
I really think that the lack of particularity makes enough of a psychological difference to make the two situations incomparable. Knowing that a third of women have had abortions doesn't imply that any particular you're fond of has.
Ok. I'll grant they are different. See 36.2.
5 is one of the reasons I commented, albeit without adding much, or even anything, on this post after watching it go without a comment almost all day yesterday.
And 3 points at the only thing I could think of that could be motivation for Russian propaganda: if you were planning an invasion and wanted to generate some sympathy for your plan from an audience of relatively tolerant liberal nations, you might point to something horrific like this as one of the reasons. But this is post-invasion, Russian-backed Chechnya, so the real situation is the opposite.
39: plus don't forget that, as I have noted before, one of the major ideological planks of Putin's government is The Gays. Russian propaganda about the EU emphasises how the EU is a gay conspiracy coming to turn your children gay. They've had this message going for more than a decade now and it's working. If Putin's very own Ramsay Bolton, Ramzan Kadyrov, is actually running camps like this (which seems entirely plausible), the average Russian is going to think "what a good idea".
How did we even do politics before GoT?
I mean, we were warned about the danger of a megalomaniac with a really odd hairstyle allying himself with the Shadows to take power on a promise of Making Centauri Great Again but apparently no one took it seriously.
At least Londo was a likeable and somewhat sympathetic character.
So Pence will blow up Air Force One. You read it here first.
In this analogy, Germans metamorphose in chrysalises.
And then rigged the electoral college.
But first she rigged the primaries, G'kar would have won!
This will get super confusing when Mattis appoints a Russian deputy.
The future can come only through pain.
an evergreen topic on the gay political forums where I hung out was whether the advances in social acceptance and civil rights for gay people would strengthen over time and become baked into the (American) culture, or if the potential for large-scale resurgence of anti-gay oppression would always be lurking.
Jumping back a bit, I think the answer to this is "both". I am trying to think of a good example of a bigotry that used to be widespread but has now been eliminated to the point that we can be sure it won't come back. Maybe anti-Catholicism in the US? Even the discovery that the Catholic church was essentially operating as a very large and well funded full-service child abuse network didn't lead to a revulsion of feeling against Catholics, as opposed to against the church hierarchy, and all the latter took to end it was a new pope.
I wouldn't bet the farm on anti-Catholicism not making a comeback, at least among some of the Trumperati. Any minority can fill the bill at need, any time.
Minorities that are also, depending on how you count, pluralities, don't make very good targets.
I think anti-Mormonism might be a better example of a bigotry that has been eliminated. It is now more or less accepted (as long as they don't knock on the door too early on a Saturday) despite being a very small minority.
Huh. 6.5m Mormons in America. I'd thought there were more.
Not every young man in a white dress shirt is Mormon. Some are Jewish and some are probably the next wave of hipsters.
The lesson being obviously that the Zionists should have settled Nevada.
Or the Palestinians should be allowed to move there. Teach the controversy, I say.
I'm not sure that would count as white flight.
36
[people generally] mostly know the statistics and so are aware that they must know plenty of women who've had abortion
HAHAHAHA. Sorry, but seriously, I find this hard to believe.
65 is true. I don't even know the statistics myself.
What are you laughing at? People know about those statistics just like they know that 50% of the federal budget goes to foreign aid, and most of the rest goes toward giving black people cell phones with unlimited data plans.
It seems like in school we should maybe teach how the government works, and what the budget looks like.
re: 68
I think these people are basically beyond facts.
Although, if we got them early enough, it might be possible to partially inoculate them against the giant right-wing misinformation machine.
It's not just beyond facts. It's that affective judgements will t(T)rump facts.
"Less than 2% of the budget goes to foreign aid" is an effective argument against the idea that 50% of the federal budget goes to foreign aid. However, it is less of an argument against "foreign people are shit."
re:71
But I don't think it is an effective argument if the people involved have been told repeatedly that 'intellectuals' and elites lie to them.
69 last: I don't think that's sufficient. I think disinformation has to be actively suppressed. I'm starting to think that maintaining consensus reality is as vital to a state as maintaining the monopoly on violence.
72: Exactly, lending weight to 73.
Elites lie lots. But my point is that if someone doesn't like black people, there is literally no factual argument that will convince them their prejudices aren't backed up by factual evidence. At least none in the aggregate. Obviously people become not racist for various reasons.
I'm not arguing that disinformation hasn't happened. But there's a reason the disinformation that was put out there is being used. To a certain extent it is shaping opinions but it is also telling people what they want to hear.
73: I'm not quite at that point, but there's a possibility you are right.
72: Some people are beyond facts, but a lot of people are just completely misinformed. People thought a gigantic percentage of the budget went to foreign aid 20 years ago too.
77.2: That's what so impressive. I regularly see articles about people having this false belief and explaining the truth, but it doesn't matter -- every time they do a survey, people still think that a huge percentage of the budget goes to foreign aid. Why is the lie so much more convincing than the truth?
Because everybody likes to blame their problems on other people, particularly people they don't like.
78: I feel like the fact that the lie took hold and the fact that it continues requires two different explanations. How it became common, I don't know, but now everyone believes it because everyone else tells them it. I'm sure somewhere out there there is an earnest liberal high school student explaining why spending 50% of the budget on foreign aid is a good idea.
As Depeche Mode put it. "People are people so why should it be, the government spends money on people who aren't me?"
I think 'teh racism' is a bit too glib as an explanation.
It's clearly an element, and the 'it feels nice to blame your problems on other people' factor, too.
But it doesn't explain why "maintaining consensus reality" has broken down to such a striking degree, compared to, say, 40 or 50 years ago. When it's not as if the twin powers of 'racism' and 'blame others' were less powerful emotionally than they are now.
82: We need to bring back the evening news. No one knew that Walter Cronkite was liberal.
It's not as if you couldn't murder somebody for registering black people to vote and have a state refuse to prosecute you. In some ways there really is a consensus that has broken down. In other ways, there are people who are no longer kept quiet.
84.1 should probably have "50 years ago" in it somewhere.
Why is the lie so much more convincing than the truth?
Because people answer questions based on their emotions, not based on memory retrieval. So their general impression is that pointy-headed wonks jabber on excessively about starving kids in Elsewherezistan and neglect the problem that feels most salient to them. The "50%" number should be interpreted as the emotional weight that they assign to their anger. It's total nonsense, but that's what it means.
Huh. 6.5m Mormons in America. I'd thought there were more.
The name's misleading. They should be Fewmons.
82.3 is the question. Some of that is news-as-entertainment shit, it bleeds it leads. But AFAICT the main answer is people systematically lying, and not just lying but lying about who and what is trustworthy. I'd love to know just how much of that can be tracked back to nothing but Rupert Murdoch.
I do put it mostly on Murdoch and Fox News, yes. I think that was categorically new and destructive in a tipping point way. I'm not sure what intervention should have occurred, but there was a window of opportunity and it was missed.
How big was the effect of Reagan's elimination of the fairness doctrine in 1987? The timescale seems to match pretty well.
92: I know nothing about that, but going from wiki requiring "that contrasting viewpoints be presented" isn't enough, because not all viewpoints are created equal. On the face of it the Fairness doctrine wouldn't have required anyone to point out that Trump lies constantly. Those are his views, which the doctrine would require them in fact to present.
Bill O'Reilly is "taking a vacation." I don't know if that will help or not.
Further:
It established two forms of regulation on broadcasters: to provide adequate coverage of public issues, and to ensure that coverage fairly represented opposing views."Adequate" and "fair" have to do huge amounts of work there. Like, I'd say "adequate" coverage of American healthcare would have to cover US vs European outcomes, extensively and persistently, because that is information without which US citizens cannot make good decisions; and "fair" coverage of anti-vaxxers would have to state, unambiguously, that there is no evidence for their beliefs and ample evidence they are harming themselves and others.
what intervention should have occurred
IMO, robust intervention from Republican elites, who knew the new narrative was false. But it was contrary to their interests, which is how you end up with Gingrich replacing Michel.
Anyway, I don't think there is less consensus in the U.S. now than in the recent past. I think the issue is that the issues dividing people are now correlating much more strongly. For example, in the past you'd have greatly racist officials supporting very liberal foreign policies or economic redistribution. That's almost gone now.
97:
1) What do you mean by "recent"?
2) To what extent is that true? The primary season demonstrated that Republicans have nothing in common except loyalty to Republicans, and to some extent racism. This is almost cliche, right. Republicans include gun nuts, religious nuts, and business interests, and they don't much care about one anothers' shibboleths.
But that's all new, in terms of my life span. When I was growing up, huge swaths of the worst Republican were Democrats.* This is beside the point when used in defense of Republican racism (which they do all the fucking time), but it did mean that there were more overlapping cleavages instead of one, central split.
* And many northeastern Republicans switched the other way.
There seems to be a massive change in the degree to which people in political office or running for political office lie, and the degree to which major media organisations do so too.
I think it's really important not to skate over that fact.
The view that nothing has really changed, and they all always lied, and they are always as bad as each other, seems like cynical posturing* (not accusing anyone here of that) that doesn't reflect reality.
* like the opposite of virtue signalling. "Look how streetwise and skeptical I am. Admire my misanthropic view on human nature."
I'm not suggesting the Democrats should go back to courting racists. I'm just pointing out my theory as to why the level of conflict feels higher than in the past.
100: How does the Anglosphere compare with the Continent on this? That should offer some control for the Murdoch factor at least.
The other thing I see is that the Republicans have moved enough in the direction of party unity (toward the type you would see it in a parliamentary system) that the game has changed. This is going to be a huge fucking mess unless the Republican party blows itself apart soon* because the United States doesn't have the sorts of political institutions and traditions that could accommodate that kind of system.
* Which I think is likely, but far from certain.
Turns out, neither does Britain.
Britain can manage with rigid party discipline. In fact it relies on it. The reason we are in the shit now is that the Tories didn't have it.
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