Fear, Cynicism, Nihilism, and Apathy
May 9, 2024 3:26 PM Subscribe
Even in a state where surveillance is almost total, the experience of tyranny and injustice can radicalize people. Anger at arbitrary power will always lead someone to start thinking about another system, a better way to run society. [...] If people are naturally drawn to the image of human rights, to the language of democracy, to the dream of freedom, then those concepts have to be poisoned. [...] Here is a difficult truth: A part of the American political spectrum is not merely a passive recipient of the combined authoritarian narratives that come from Russia, China, and their ilk, but an active participant in creating and spreading them. Like the leaders of those countries, the American MAGA right also wants Americans to believe that their democracy is degenerate, their elections illegitimate, their civilization dying. The MAGA movement’s leaders also have an interest in pumping nihilism and cynicism into the brains of their fellow citizens, and in convincing them that nothing they see is true. Their goals are so similar that it is hard to distinguish between the online American alt-right and its foreign amplifiers, who have multiplied since the days when this was solely a Russian project. Tucker Carlson has even promoted the fear of a color revolution in America, lifting the phrase directly from Russian propaganda.The New Propaganda War: Autocrats in China, Russia, and elsewhere are now making common cause with MAGA Republicans to discredit liberalism and freedom around the world. [SLAtlantic]
now making common cause?
They started this ball rolling ten years ago. After the Occupy encampments were cleared up, a bunch of American billionaires sat down with some Russian and Chinese billionaires and said "we want the control and security that you have", and they replied "we will help you if you take the heat off us and let us expand."
The internet controls that we provide China can and will easily be turned inwards. The chauvinist propaganda techniques that keep Putin in power will keep Trumpism in power.
It's a triad of evil.
posted by CynicalKnight at 3:48 PM on May 9 [13 favorites]
They started this ball rolling ten years ago. After the Occupy encampments were cleared up, a bunch of American billionaires sat down with some Russian and Chinese billionaires and said "we want the control and security that you have", and they replied "we will help you if you take the heat off us and let us expand."
The internet controls that we provide China can and will easily be turned inwards. The chauvinist propaganda techniques that keep Putin in power will keep Trumpism in power.
It's a triad of evil.
posted by CynicalKnight at 3:48 PM on May 9 [13 favorites]
Liberalism is currently spearheading a full throated violent crackdown of peaceful anti genocide protests. Good riddance.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 4:24 PM on May 9 [24 favorites]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 4:24 PM on May 9 [24 favorites]
Liberalism is doing an excellent job of discrediting itself, just now, funding and arming an active genocide while suppressing protests against same and passing laws to make it a hate crime to criticise the state committing the genocide. (Not just in the USA, either; see for instance what's been happening in Germany.)
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 4:37 PM on May 9 [23 favorites]
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 4:37 PM on May 9 [23 favorites]
It’s that weird thing where people slobberingly want what they claim to abhor. What’s the name for that
posted by St. Peepsburg at 4:41 PM on May 9 [1 favorite]
posted by St. Peepsburg at 4:41 PM on May 9 [1 favorite]
So new. So fresh. Totally not 2-3 decades old. Maybe more?!?! And they're winning?!!!
posted by es_de_bah at 4:43 PM on May 9 [1 favorite]
posted by es_de_bah at 4:43 PM on May 9 [1 favorite]
I mean the thing about liberalism is that even when all of the criticisms of it are true---and all the criticisms come down to its failure to live up to its own promise---looking around at the other options, there are still very many things worse to be. If you dislike liberalism you're going to hate its only viable competitors.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 4:46 PM on May 9 [38 favorites]
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 4:46 PM on May 9 [38 favorites]
Eh I’m pretty sure “liberalism is currently responsible for genocide” has no reference to failed promises.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 5:09 PM on May 9 [7 favorites]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 5:09 PM on May 9 [7 favorites]
If you dislike liberalism you're going to hate its only viable competitors.
The problem has always been that you can't eat ideology.
People are getting more and more desperate and scared and the current systems in liberal/"free" countries seem to be collapsing into utter dysfunction. You look at your rent, you look at your grocery bill, you look at what Congress or your state legislature is doing, it's not exactly a ringing endorsement of liberal society. That's not some Chinese or MAGA psy-op, it's the reality anyone who looks around sees.
So maybe those "viable competitors" are worse but when you're struggling to put food on the table or worried if you're going to be on the street next month they might start to look more attractive if you believe you'll get what you need under them.
posted by star gentle uterus at 5:23 PM on May 9 [29 favorites]
The problem has always been that you can't eat ideology.
People are getting more and more desperate and scared and the current systems in liberal/"free" countries seem to be collapsing into utter dysfunction. You look at your rent, you look at your grocery bill, you look at what Congress or your state legislature is doing, it's not exactly a ringing endorsement of liberal society. That's not some Chinese or MAGA psy-op, it's the reality anyone who looks around sees.
So maybe those "viable competitors" are worse but when you're struggling to put food on the table or worried if you're going to be on the street next month they might start to look more attractive if you believe you'll get what you need under them.
posted by star gentle uterus at 5:23 PM on May 9 [29 favorites]
A perpetual problem with the liberalism debate is this: Joe Biden, etc are not liberals in the way that your nice aunt is a liberal, and this muddies the conversation. To some degree, Joe Biden et al subscribe to "liberal" ideas - sorta-free markets (except for their buddies), sorta free borders (as long as you have a good passport), sorta fair trials (if you have money and you're lucky in your judge), sorta fair elections (probably strongest here since the fairer the election the more likely they are to get elected). Mostly what they believe in is something they consider realpolitik and making things easier for the rich.
Your nice aunt, now, truly believes in fair trials and fair elections and Social Security and the medicaid expansion and the free press. Depending on her interest in politics, she may believe that all that's needed on the immigration front is greater access to the "right" way to come to the US, or she may believe that real change is needed. Your nice aunt may not really know about the prison industry, but she wouldn't like it if she did. She may or may not know how skewed the tax system is, but she believes that the rich should pay their share. Your nice aunt does not like Elon, or wouldn't if she knew about him. A world run according to your nice aunt's values would not be perfect by any means, but it would be a damn sight better than anything we are likely to see in our lifetimes.
Your nice aunt calls herself a liberal because that's what she grew up thinking her values were called. If she doesn't really think about politics too much, she probably believes people who say that Democratic politicians are liberals, or the New York Times is a liberal paper, and that gets her misled.
Your nice aunt's liberalism is the liberalism of, "he dished out the dinner with a liberal hand" and "in the liberal atmosphere of the gathering, her anxieties fell away" - liberal as in generous, big-spirited, not the Liberalism of "let's get pernickety about how many sweatshops we can have in the maquiladora zone".
De facto, your nice aunt may really be at least a soft leftist or a socialist, but "liberal" is the language that she's grown up with and that's what she calls herself.
The theoretical problems with liberalism are many, but the actual on the ground problem is that it's like Western civilization, something that might be a good idea.
posted by Frowner at 5:26 PM on May 9 [90 favorites]
Your nice aunt, now, truly believes in fair trials and fair elections and Social Security and the medicaid expansion and the free press. Depending on her interest in politics, she may believe that all that's needed on the immigration front is greater access to the "right" way to come to the US, or she may believe that real change is needed. Your nice aunt may not really know about the prison industry, but she wouldn't like it if she did. She may or may not know how skewed the tax system is, but she believes that the rich should pay their share. Your nice aunt does not like Elon, or wouldn't if she knew about him. A world run according to your nice aunt's values would not be perfect by any means, but it would be a damn sight better than anything we are likely to see in our lifetimes.
Your nice aunt calls herself a liberal because that's what she grew up thinking her values were called. If she doesn't really think about politics too much, she probably believes people who say that Democratic politicians are liberals, or the New York Times is a liberal paper, and that gets her misled.
Your nice aunt's liberalism is the liberalism of, "he dished out the dinner with a liberal hand" and "in the liberal atmosphere of the gathering, her anxieties fell away" - liberal as in generous, big-spirited, not the Liberalism of "let's get pernickety about how many sweatshops we can have in the maquiladora zone".
De facto, your nice aunt may really be at least a soft leftist or a socialist, but "liberal" is the language that she's grown up with and that's what she calls herself.
The theoretical problems with liberalism are many, but the actual on the ground problem is that it's like Western civilization, something that might be a good idea.
posted by Frowner at 5:26 PM on May 9 [90 favorites]
I may be describing my nice aunt here, but there are many others like her.
posted by Frowner at 5:27 PM on May 9 [22 favorites]
posted by Frowner at 5:27 PM on May 9 [22 favorites]
Seems like the right place to drop the recent pull quote from Semafor's interview with NYT's executive editor, Joe Kahn: "To say that the threats of democracy are so great that the media is going to abandon its central role as a source of impartial information to help people vote — that’s essentially saying that the news media should become a propaganda arm for a single candidate, because we prefer that candidate’s agenda. "
And what's the agenda? What "agenda" is that?
posted by SoundInhabitant at 5:29 PM on May 9 [5 favorites]
And what's the agenda? What "agenda" is that?
posted by SoundInhabitant at 5:29 PM on May 9 [5 favorites]
well yeah yeah. look at Niger, report 6 7 days ago about Russian troops in the same base as American troops. I think they're gone now. Benin denies Niger access to ports for Chinese oil export.
elections came through and Chad a few hours ago.
Leo Lithium sells to China’s Ganfeng Seeks Full Control of Lithium Mine in Mali as the EU is not renewing military training.
ideologies are the package you can buy, business is what you can sell by any means necessary.
posted by clavdivs at 5:30 PM on May 9 [5 favorites]
elections came through and Chad a few hours ago.
Leo Lithium sells to China’s Ganfeng Seeks Full Control of Lithium Mine in Mali as the EU is not renewing military training.
ideologies are the package you can buy, business is what you can sell by any means necessary.
posted by clavdivs at 5:30 PM on May 9 [5 favorites]
The New Propaganda War: Autocrats in China, Russia, and elsewhere are now making common cause with MAGA Republicans to discredit liberalism and freedom around the world. [SLAtlantic]
Russia and China have quite ably used the technology we've been so glad to sell them, expertly leveraging Capitalism and the effluent of its 'growth at all costs' foundation in service to the growth of totalitarianism. That the internet, developed to hold America together in a time of war, is now being used by its strongest opponents, is... beyond words. Alanis would call it Ironic.
"The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth." - Gary Kasparov
Speaking of the annihilation of truth, just wait until they have our AI technology in their arsenal. Oh wait, nevermind.
posted by jerome powell buys his sweatbands in bulk only at 6:04 PM on May 9 [7 favorites]
Russia and China have quite ably used the technology we've been so glad to sell them, expertly leveraging Capitalism and the effluent of its 'growth at all costs' foundation in service to the growth of totalitarianism. That the internet, developed to hold America together in a time of war, is now being used by its strongest opponents, is... beyond words. Alanis would call it Ironic.
"The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth." - Gary Kasparov
Speaking of the annihilation of truth, just wait until they have our AI technology in their arsenal. Oh wait, nevermind.
posted by jerome powell buys his sweatbands in bulk only at 6:04 PM on May 9 [7 favorites]
If you dislike liberalism you're going to hate its only viable competitors.
A key part of liberalism's ideological hold is its own supposed inevitability. Everything else is either the boot of brutal totalitarianism or empty ideological promises. That may or may not be so, but it would be part of the propaganda message either way.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 6:07 PM on May 9 [11 favorites]
A key part of liberalism's ideological hold is its own supposed inevitability. Everything else is either the boot of brutal totalitarianism or empty ideological promises. That may or may not be so, but it would be part of the propaganda message either way.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 6:07 PM on May 9 [11 favorites]
Fascism is on the rise! Quick, circle the firing squad!
posted by Reverend John at 6:17 PM on May 9 [29 favorites]
posted by Reverend John at 6:17 PM on May 9 [29 favorites]
Are the Scandinavian socialist countries liberal? Cos I kinda want summa that.
posted by rikschell at 6:31 PM on May 9 [8 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 6:31 PM on May 9 [8 favorites]
they teach people to be cynical and passive, apathetic and afraid
This sounds like a description of the average political discussion on Metafilter. I see an argument in this thread that American life is frightening and chaotic, that Americans are weak and immoral, and that the American government is aggressive and interventionist. There's a constant manipulation of the strong emotions around gay rights and feminism.
People seem to feel that things aren't perfectly concordant with their preferences, it's because the system is broken. “Western constitutional democracy,” “universal human rights,” “media independence,” “judicial independence,” and “civic participation” are things that only exist when people can tolerate other's preferences sometimes winning out over their own.
This feels like a paradox of intolerance kind of thing. I'm glad there's space for many to air their criticisms, but it has become toxic. All these efforts by Russia and China would be worthless if there wasn't such a huge appetite for them. Oops, TFA also says that:
None of these efforts would succeed without local actors who share the autocratic world’s goals. Russia, China, and Venezuela did not invent anti-Americanism
I was listening to Obama the other day talk about how the president's job is incremental improvement. That's what liberalism is, but the voices supporting that are rarely amplified. We're going to have to find a way to want to be pro-American.
posted by betaray at 6:52 PM on May 9 [19 favorites]
This sounds like a description of the average political discussion on Metafilter. I see an argument in this thread that American life is frightening and chaotic, that Americans are weak and immoral, and that the American government is aggressive and interventionist. There's a constant manipulation of the strong emotions around gay rights and feminism.
People seem to feel that things aren't perfectly concordant with their preferences, it's because the system is broken. “Western constitutional democracy,” “universal human rights,” “media independence,” “judicial independence,” and “civic participation” are things that only exist when people can tolerate other's preferences sometimes winning out over their own.
This feels like a paradox of intolerance kind of thing. I'm glad there's space for many to air their criticisms, but it has become toxic. All these efforts by Russia and China would be worthless if there wasn't such a huge appetite for them. Oops, TFA also says that:
None of these efforts would succeed without local actors who share the autocratic world’s goals. Russia, China, and Venezuela did not invent anti-Americanism
I was listening to Obama the other day talk about how the president's job is incremental improvement. That's what liberalism is, but the voices supporting that are rarely amplified. We're going to have to find a way to want to be pro-American.
posted by betaray at 6:52 PM on May 9 [19 favorites]
As an American, i haven't been pro-America since i was about 20 (which was quite a few years ago), and i cannot imagine ever being pro-America again. I find people who are pro-America mostly intolerable, frankly, and i'm not generally even interested in being friends with them.
posted by adrienneleigh at 7:02 PM on May 9 [18 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 7:02 PM on May 9 [18 favorites]
I'm sorry but it feels like saying the president's job is incremental improvement is part of the problem. If your incremental improvement is a tiny fix over your 8 turn in power the opposition caused massive damage, then you're still overseeing a pretty rapid decline. and I can absolutely understand people who are underwhelmed or disappointed, no matter how hard it was to accomplish.
posted by whm at 7:03 PM on May 9 [29 favorites]
posted by whm at 7:03 PM on May 9 [29 favorites]
There's a constant manipulation of the strong emotions around gay rights and feminism.
People seem to feel that things aren't perfectly concordant with their preferences, it's because the system is broken. “Western constitutional democracy,” “universal human rights,” “media independence,” “judicial independence,” and “civic participation” are things that only exist when people can tolerate other's preferences sometimes winning out over their own.
Because when "other people's preferences" are for us to die, it is pretty clear that "universal human rights" always really meant "rights for cis white straight dudes", and “Western constitutional democracy,” “media independence,” “judicial independence,” and “civic participation” either can't secure or actively work against our continued well being under a capitalist, white supremacist, patriarchal state.
We're going to have to find a way to want to be pro-American.
I'm not interested in that notion at all. The US isn't a benevolent hegemon that should be permitted to shape the way the rest of the world works, or continue extracting resources to enrich itself at the expense of the developing world. It shouldn't be allowed to continue to oppress, abuse, and murder the people who live here either. It's a blood stained tyrant we could do much better without. Death to America.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 7:05 PM on May 9 [23 favorites]
People seem to feel that things aren't perfectly concordant with their preferences, it's because the system is broken. “Western constitutional democracy,” “universal human rights,” “media independence,” “judicial independence,” and “civic participation” are things that only exist when people can tolerate other's preferences sometimes winning out over their own.
Because when "other people's preferences" are for us to die, it is pretty clear that "universal human rights" always really meant "rights for cis white straight dudes", and “Western constitutional democracy,” “media independence,” “judicial independence,” and “civic participation” either can't secure or actively work against our continued well being under a capitalist, white supremacist, patriarchal state.
We're going to have to find a way to want to be pro-American.
I'm not interested in that notion at all. The US isn't a benevolent hegemon that should be permitted to shape the way the rest of the world works, or continue extracting resources to enrich itself at the expense of the developing world. It shouldn't be allowed to continue to oppress, abuse, and murder the people who live here either. It's a blood stained tyrant we could do much better without. Death to America.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 7:05 PM on May 9 [23 favorites]
Yeah, personally, I'm not particularly interested in either finding ways to be "pro-American", or in hearing what a guy whose signal accomplishments as president were accelerating climate change by expanding fracking and the extrajudicial execution of US citizens via drone strike has to say about "incremental improvement".
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 7:22 PM on May 9 [11 favorites]
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 7:22 PM on May 9 [11 favorites]
They teach people to be cynical and passive, apathetic and afraid
This sounds like a description of the average political discussion on Metafilter.
Indeed. The apocalypticism and hyperbole so often spiral to absurd levels in these threads.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 7:37 PM on May 9 [20 favorites]
This sounds like a description of the average political discussion on Metafilter.
Indeed. The apocalypticism and hyperbole so often spiral to absurd levels in these threads.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 7:37 PM on May 9 [20 favorites]
Indeed. The apocalypticism and hyperbole so often spiral to absurd levels in these threads.
When a system is actually going to kill you it looks pretty damned apocalyptic. When it is going to take a billion or so folks in the developing world as well, it starts looking absurd to call it anything else.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 7:45 PM on May 9 [10 favorites]
When a system is actually going to kill you it looks pretty damned apocalyptic. When it is going to take a billion or so folks in the developing world as well, it starts looking absurd to call it anything else.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 7:45 PM on May 9 [10 favorites]
When a system is actually going to kill you it looks pretty damned apocalyptic. When it is going to take a billion or so folks in the developing world as well, it starts looking absurd to call it anything else.
Like I said...
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 7:59 PM on May 9 [8 favorites]
Like I said...
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 7:59 PM on May 9 [8 favorites]
Long before LLMs were a thing I was telling people that "America" is an ongoing theft. I wasn't hornswoggled into losing my pro-American attitudes. That loss was the result of paying attention to American news on American media, filtered through my American education. If America wanted me to feel good about America, it had many many opportunities to figure out how to make that happen.
If America is looking to win people back, my advice is the same as it is for cops and spooks: Quit. Your rage for safety and order escalates injury and mayhem. Your efforts are the opposite of productive toward your stated goals. If you are sincere, you must quit what you are doing and find something better. Stop stealing and give back what you took. Stop the rapes and the murders under color of "law" or "security". That sort of thing.
I won't hold my breath. Presumably the cops will do that for me, eventually.
posted by Rev. Irreverent Revenant at 8:00 PM on May 9 [14 favorites]
If America is looking to win people back, my advice is the same as it is for cops and spooks: Quit. Your rage for safety and order escalates injury and mayhem. Your efforts are the opposite of productive toward your stated goals. If you are sincere, you must quit what you are doing and find something better. Stop stealing and give back what you took. Stop the rapes and the murders under color of "law" or "security". That sort of thing.
I won't hold my breath. Presumably the cops will do that for me, eventually.
posted by Rev. Irreverent Revenant at 8:00 PM on May 9 [14 favorites]
Like I said...
Wow, anti-feminism and climate denial in one thread! Whose says liberalism isn't alive and kicking?
posted by The Manwich Horror at 8:01 PM on May 9 [4 favorites]
Wow, anti-feminism and climate denial in one thread! Whose says liberalism isn't alive and kicking?
posted by The Manwich Horror at 8:01 PM on May 9 [4 favorites]
Wow, anti-feminism and climate denial in one thread! Whose says liberalism isn't alive and kicking?
You may be suffering from some kind of pareidolia, because not a trace of either of those were in my comment.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 8:07 PM on May 9 [4 favorites]
You may be suffering from some kind of pareidolia, because not a trace of either of those were in my comment.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 8:07 PM on May 9 [4 favorites]
Joe Biden et al subscribe to "liberal" ideas - sorta-free markets (except for their buddies), sorta free borders (as long as you have a good passport), sorta fair trials (if you have money and you're lucky in your judge), sorta fair elections (probably strongest here since the fairer the election the more likely they are to get elected).
That last bit always fascinated me, because reform on the supply side (reforming how votes are sorted - eg moving away from electoral colleges) is treated as mostly a marginal issue that's only inching to the centre for the same reason much of the political energy has been devoted and maintaining and expanding franchisement - the idea that there is a population-wide convergence of values that would enable the centre to hold, without acknowledging the centre itself as drifted to either pole (in this case, the right), so if votes aren't reflecting the will of the "centre" then it's just a matter of finding the votes and let the system do the work.
When that doesn't work or is seen as uncertain, that's when you see just like elsewhere American state-level politicians of either main party indulge in mechanical adjustments like gerrymandering or putting no pressure in abolishing the electoral college.
In much the same way, the article can't admit that the idea of the 1990s 'end of history' that heralded the end of the Cold War was premised on assuming the increasing franchise leads to a convergence of values - because at the same time the First World themselves have a reality gap between the values they espouse and what they actually practice. So better to blame other ex-imperial countries for not playing along - side note here about propaganda: like most of marketing, at its most effective is when it's reflecting on some values that's already held - brainwashing remains a fantastical idea.
Because even at the height of Japan Inc and the attendant racism in the US, and even now at the height of the chaebols or Sweden's venture capitalism or let's face it, Israel's political lobby - where is the handwringing about their control? There isn't, as it's all "shared values".
posted by cendawanita at 8:08 PM on May 9 [6 favorites]
That last bit always fascinated me, because reform on the supply side (reforming how votes are sorted - eg moving away from electoral colleges) is treated as mostly a marginal issue that's only inching to the centre for the same reason much of the political energy has been devoted and maintaining and expanding franchisement - the idea that there is a population-wide convergence of values that would enable the centre to hold, without acknowledging the centre itself as drifted to either pole (in this case, the right), so if votes aren't reflecting the will of the "centre" then it's just a matter of finding the votes and let the system do the work.
When that doesn't work or is seen as uncertain, that's when you see just like elsewhere American state-level politicians of either main party indulge in mechanical adjustments like gerrymandering or putting no pressure in abolishing the electoral college.
In much the same way, the article can't admit that the idea of the 1990s 'end of history' that heralded the end of the Cold War was premised on assuming the increasing franchise leads to a convergence of values - because at the same time the First World themselves have a reality gap between the values they espouse and what they actually practice. So better to blame other ex-imperial countries for not playing along - side note here about propaganda: like most of marketing, at its most effective is when it's reflecting on some values that's already held - brainwashing remains a fantastical idea.
Because even at the height of Japan Inc and the attendant racism in the US, and even now at the height of the chaebols or Sweden's venture capitalism or let's face it, Israel's political lobby - where is the handwringing about their control? There isn't, as it's all "shared values".
posted by cendawanita at 8:08 PM on May 9 [6 favorites]
TL;DR - democracy isn't losing the propaganda war. It is losing actual institutional support and maintenance. No amount of beautiful tiktoks of urbanscapes from China can be faulted for this.
posted by cendawanita at 8:12 PM on May 9 [17 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 8:12 PM on May 9 [17 favorites]
When a system is actually going to kill you it looks pretty damned apocalyptic.
The main thing to remember is that my ideological purity is more important than your life. As soon as you understand that, the sooner you’ll understand why it is important that I win.
…I don’t necessarily object to your existence, but if it gets in the way of my purity, then, well, unfortunately things just happen I guess!
Oops!
posted by aramaic at 8:13 PM on May 9 [3 favorites]
The main thing to remember is that my ideological purity is more important than your life. As soon as you understand that, the sooner you’ll understand why it is important that I win.
…I don’t necessarily object to your existence, but if it gets in the way of my purity, then, well, unfortunately things just happen I guess!
Oops!
posted by aramaic at 8:13 PM on May 9 [3 favorites]
You may be suffering from some kind of pareidolia, because not a trace of either of those were in my comment.
The anti-feminism was earlier (in the post you approvingly quoted a bit ago, in fact). But dismissing the climate deaths the liberal social order is on track to produce is hard to read otherwise.
Not to mention writing off the people being killed by the capitalist social order right now by commodification of basic healthcare, carcinogenic pollution or unsafe working conditions that exist so corporations can shave a couple cents more profit per item out of their manufacturing costs.
It is absurd and apocalyptic to treat those lives as significant of those of middle class Americans, of course. They're poor, or black, or foreign, or Palestinian. No need to get shrill and uncivil about it.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 8:15 PM on May 9 [5 favorites]
The anti-feminism was earlier (in the post you approvingly quoted a bit ago, in fact). But dismissing the climate deaths the liberal social order is on track to produce is hard to read otherwise.
Not to mention writing off the people being killed by the capitalist social order right now by commodification of basic healthcare, carcinogenic pollution or unsafe working conditions that exist so corporations can shave a couple cents more profit per item out of their manufacturing costs.
It is absurd and apocalyptic to treat those lives as significant of those of middle class Americans, of course. They're poor, or black, or foreign, or Palestinian. No need to get shrill and uncivil about it.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 8:15 PM on May 9 [5 favorites]
And see how quickly we run into assertions of ideological purity. Cards on the table, what are the red lines? But more importantly, what are the red lines for the imperial core?
posted by cendawanita at 8:17 PM on May 9 [5 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 8:17 PM on May 9 [5 favorites]
Frankly, considering what pretty much every serious climate scientist is saying, these threads are rarely if ever apocalyptic enough because most people would rather stick their fingers in their ears and go "la-la, can't hear you!" when such inconvenient facts rear their heads.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 8:18 PM on May 9 [25 favorites]
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 8:18 PM on May 9 [25 favorites]
Indeed. The apocalypticism and hyperbole so often spiral to absurd levels in these threads.
There's always been a "very online" sort of strongly-worded form of expression here with a strong doomerish tendency, but it's hit kind of absurd levels in the last year. It was getting me all worked up for a while ("Someone is wrong on the internet!") but I've mellowed out and it just seems fascinatingly divorced from reality. Interesting to read, but whackadoodle also. (I could do without the occasional repeating of right wing talking points, but that's a very small minority of commenters.)
posted by Dip Flash at 8:22 PM on May 9 [17 favorites]
There's always been a "very online" sort of strongly-worded form of expression here with a strong doomerish tendency, but it's hit kind of absurd levels in the last year. It was getting me all worked up for a while ("Someone is wrong on the internet!") but I've mellowed out and it just seems fascinatingly divorced from reality. Interesting to read, but whackadoodle also. (I could do without the occasional repeating of right wing talking points, but that's a very small minority of commenters.)
posted by Dip Flash at 8:22 PM on May 9 [17 favorites]
The amount of willful self-blindness from MetaFilter's doom-and-gloomers here would be funny if it wasn't entirely to the detriment of the causes they performatively claim to embrace. Here is presented actual evidence that powerful state forces are exerting tremendous effort to bend and twist your perceptions of the present and future, and people who maaaaaybe didn't RTFA are proudly sounding off here "No, I definitely came to all my opinions entirely by myself, I've never been influenced, no sirree, I am opposed to everything I define as 'not progressive enough' to the point that I can't distinguish between that and actual stated enemies of my interest... but I'm certainly free from propaganda!"
Gnothi seauton ain't just words on a door, I'm just saying.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:22 PM on May 9 [20 favorites]
Gnothi seauton ain't just words on a door, I'm just saying.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:22 PM on May 9 [20 favorites]
I think the "doomerism" I have developed has a lot less to do with my online experiences or the perfidious Chinese, and a lot more with being a poor person with poor friends and struggling and watching them struggle with an increasingly impossible to survive economic system. Watching a man wake up at three in the morning to get in line so the charity dentist can pull his rotting teeth because no one will fix them for him. Watching my best friend struggle to get a medication he needs to live because his insurance keeps somehow "losing" the paperwork for it and another medication because it is in short supply because production has been shifted to making Ozempic, which is more profitable, since it can be sold for weight loss to people who don't need it not to die. I'm trying to support several people on about $25,000 a year while slowly losing my ability to work and praying to God that I can actually get a diagnosis for the condition that is disabling me.
Or maybe the Russians got to me, who can say?
posted by The Manwich Horror at 8:28 PM on May 9 [41 favorites]
Or maybe the Russians got to me, who can say?
posted by The Manwich Horror at 8:28 PM on May 9 [41 favorites]
Your nice aunt calls herself a liberal because that's what she grew up thinking her values were called.
No need to be patronizing to this hypothetical aunt. That's what her values were called.
I'm not sure I've seen another word that has suffered a more violent degree of redefinition in my life than "liberal".
I mean, the right has always harbored people who hated liberalism, by which they meant, essentially, the New Deal and the civil rights movement. They were a fringe for a long time, but over the past 40 years or so, those people completely took over the conservative movement and the GOP.
There has also always been a small hard core of leftists who spit the word out like a curse. They have held to a Marxist (and specifically Soviet) line about the decadent, corrupt, hypocritical West with its sham democracy.
But notwithstanding the assaults of Limbaugh et al., "liberal" long held firm as a proud, optimistic term of self-identification of tens of millions of people in this country -- in a nutshell, believers in the importance of social democracy and civil liberties.
I admit did not foresee what has happened in the last decade or so: the old-school leftists' contemptuous definition of "liberal" -- once confined mostly to fringe magazines with tiny circulation numbers -- has gone viral among extremely online people of a progressive-ish bent -- especially, but not exclusively, younger people.
The inevitable oneupmanship of social media has led to people of this sort competing to outdo each other with the most furious hyperbole about "liberals": They're apathetic idiots. No, it's worse: they're proudly ignorant! No, they're knowing collaborators with the right! No, they're full-on FASCISTS!
Putin and Xi couldn't be more delighted, I'm sure. It serves their goals to have the leftmost contingent of Americans nurse a seething hatred for the contingent of their neighbors who are slightly to the right of them, but still left of the center of American politics.
When those two group are in some degree of harmony -- especially when they vote for the same candidates -- the causes of both are served, even if neither gets everything they want. When they are at odds with each other, neither group does well, and the authoritarian right wins.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 8:30 PM on May 9 [42 favorites]
No need to be patronizing to this hypothetical aunt. That's what her values were called.
I'm not sure I've seen another word that has suffered a more violent degree of redefinition in my life than "liberal".
I mean, the right has always harbored people who hated liberalism, by which they meant, essentially, the New Deal and the civil rights movement. They were a fringe for a long time, but over the past 40 years or so, those people completely took over the conservative movement and the GOP.
There has also always been a small hard core of leftists who spit the word out like a curse. They have held to a Marxist (and specifically Soviet) line about the decadent, corrupt, hypocritical West with its sham democracy.
But notwithstanding the assaults of Limbaugh et al., "liberal" long held firm as a proud, optimistic term of self-identification of tens of millions of people in this country -- in a nutshell, believers in the importance of social democracy and civil liberties.
I admit did not foresee what has happened in the last decade or so: the old-school leftists' contemptuous definition of "liberal" -- once confined mostly to fringe magazines with tiny circulation numbers -- has gone viral among extremely online people of a progressive-ish bent -- especially, but not exclusively, younger people.
The inevitable oneupmanship of social media has led to people of this sort competing to outdo each other with the most furious hyperbole about "liberals": They're apathetic idiots. No, it's worse: they're proudly ignorant! No, they're knowing collaborators with the right! No, they're full-on FASCISTS!
Putin and Xi couldn't be more delighted, I'm sure. It serves their goals to have the leftmost contingent of Americans nurse a seething hatred for the contingent of their neighbors who are slightly to the right of them, but still left of the center of American politics.
When those two group are in some degree of harmony -- especially when they vote for the same candidates -- the causes of both are served, even if neither gets everything they want. When they are at odds with each other, neither group does well, and the authoritarian right wins.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 8:30 PM on May 9 [42 favorites]
For me my assertion isn't that I'm free from propaganda - my assertion, based on a lot of evidence in political communications and polisci, is that messaging works best when it reflects inherent values, it's how those values are expressed in policy terms that's the journey that tends to lead people astray.
My perspective comes from the peoples being lectured on by the Americans and the Chinese (mainly). The thing that's really hard to communicate but it's demonstrable by how badly the term "woke" is coopted by the mainstream is this: people on the periphery are more cognizant of the hypocrisy not from some high-mindedness but simply because they live the contradiction. Outside here, no one would say dumb shit like, oh so you're saying you're free from propaganda when our media diet is an array of propagandas. As the world gets more screwy what's apparent to us is the widening gulf between the messaging and the reality. Being aware of the contradiction seems to be a function of those having to live outside the centre. Do you think Hong Kong democracy activists are super starry eyed about the US? do you guys even know the kind of things we talk about when it comes to how wrecked the world is? Ask a Taiwanese for their perspective, caught between a rising power with no real democratic norms and a fumbling power whose democratic norms are being heavily eroded even as they continue to appeal to it, knowing full well it won't be the principles that would sway the State Dept, but strategic value.
posted by cendawanita at 8:32 PM on May 9 [16 favorites]
My perspective comes from the peoples being lectured on by the Americans and the Chinese (mainly). The thing that's really hard to communicate but it's demonstrable by how badly the term "woke" is coopted by the mainstream is this: people on the periphery are more cognizant of the hypocrisy not from some high-mindedness but simply because they live the contradiction. Outside here, no one would say dumb shit like, oh so you're saying you're free from propaganda when our media diet is an array of propagandas. As the world gets more screwy what's apparent to us is the widening gulf between the messaging and the reality. Being aware of the contradiction seems to be a function of those having to live outside the centre. Do you think Hong Kong democracy activists are super starry eyed about the US? do you guys even know the kind of things we talk about when it comes to how wrecked the world is? Ask a Taiwanese for their perspective, caught between a rising power with no real democratic norms and a fumbling power whose democratic norms are being heavily eroded even as they continue to appeal to it, knowing full well it won't be the principles that would sway the State Dept, but strategic value.
posted by cendawanita at 8:32 PM on May 9 [16 favorites]
I'm not sure I've seen another word that has suffered a more violent degree of redefinition in my life than "liberal".
It didn't get redefined. You just started talking to people who weren't from the US, or who knew the basics of economic history.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 8:32 PM on May 9 [17 favorites]
It didn't get redefined. You just started talking to people who weren't from the US, or who knew the basics of economic history.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 8:32 PM on May 9 [17 favorites]
The anti-feminism was earlier (in the post you approvingly quoted a bit ago, in fact). But dismissing the climate deaths the liberal social order is on track to produce is hard to read otherwise.
Not to mention writing off the people being killed by the capitalist social order right now by commodification of basic healthcare, carcinogenic pollution or unsafe working conditions that exist so corporations can shave a couple cents more profit per item out of their manufacturing costs.
It is absurd and apocalyptic to treat those lives as significant of those of middle class Americans, of course. They're poor, or black, or foreign, or Palestinian. No need to get shrill and uncivil about it.
OK, I take back what I said about pareidolia. That's not it.
You're just engaging in serious bad faith -- making up random evil shit I supposedly have somehow hinted at believing or agreeing with. Why? I have no idea.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 8:35 PM on May 9 [5 favorites]
Not to mention writing off the people being killed by the capitalist social order right now by commodification of basic healthcare, carcinogenic pollution or unsafe working conditions that exist so corporations can shave a couple cents more profit per item out of their manufacturing costs.
It is absurd and apocalyptic to treat those lives as significant of those of middle class Americans, of course. They're poor, or black, or foreign, or Palestinian. No need to get shrill and uncivil about it.
OK, I take back what I said about pareidolia. That's not it.
You're just engaging in serious bad faith -- making up random evil shit I supposedly have somehow hinted at believing or agreeing with. Why? I have no idea.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 8:35 PM on May 9 [5 favorites]
I just thought to myself "Haven't we discussed how all this fear posting negatively affects MetaFilter before?" and it turns out we did, not too long ago. So I can just quote stuff I said there:
certain topics (usually political, environmental, social) bring out a sense of fatalism and hopelessness from commenters, and while their feelings may be genuine, the comments begin to accumulate a message of:posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:39 PM on May 9 [32 favorites]
It's hopeless, this country is turning fascist, there's nothing you can do
The temperature will rise 5 degrees, massive environmental catastrophe, there's nothing you can do
U.S. and Russia will start a global war leading to nuclear exchange, there's nothing you can do
and so on
And what I want to tell these people is that EVEN IF YOU ARE BEING HONEST and genuine and not just trolling and EVEN IF YOU ARE CORRECT (for whatever value "correct" has when making armchair prognostications about immensely complex topics), I don't think you understand the effect those comments have on other people. It makes me check out of threads, it makes me hesitant to read other posts because I worry about how that sort of negativity and hopelessness spreads, it makes me engage less with this site. Especially when it becomes a debate battle between people who believe that things can be salvaged and improved vs. people who don't.
[...]
Then the second-order effect is those dozens and dozens of people using further comments as a way to communicate and share their fear/anger. Then the third-order effect is the reaction from anyone who's trying to comment in the thread on analysis, or strategy, or anything that isn't the raw exposure of (completely justified) anxiety. See all the comments above about how different people interact with the news in threads.
And thus we have the problem: Even though none of these people had intended to take over the thread, even though all of them are processing their real emotions in an entirely human way, the thread has become (a) dangerous for people whose anxieties trigger more easily when they read catastrophizing predictions, (b) useless for people who are trying to discuss the topic, rather than their feelings about the topic, and (c) combative between the disparate users of the site as described above.
It didn't get redefined. You just started talking to people who weren't from the US, or who knew the basics of economic history.
I forgot to mention in my earlier comment: One of the signature traits of the new wave of anti-liberal leftists is asserting an absolute prescriptivist authority over the definition of "liberalism".
When you assert that a word only means one thing, and that it has ALWAYS only meant that one thing -- despite the fact that a vastly larger number of people have long used it to mean something else -- well, it doesn't mean you're not allowed to use the word how you want to use it, but it certainly doesn't mean your definition is the only real, true definition.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 8:39 PM on May 9 [21 favorites]
I forgot to mention in my earlier comment: One of the signature traits of the new wave of anti-liberal leftists is asserting an absolute prescriptivist authority over the definition of "liberalism".
When you assert that a word only means one thing, and that it has ALWAYS only meant that one thing -- despite the fact that a vastly larger number of people have long used it to mean something else -- well, it doesn't mean you're not allowed to use the word how you want to use it, but it certainly doesn't mean your definition is the only real, true definition.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 8:39 PM on May 9 [21 favorites]
It didn't get redefined. You just started talking to people who weren't from the US, or who knew the basics of economic history.
I am begging, pleading with online leftists to stop insinuating that they alone understand the conditions and perspectives of people of color/people outside the US.
posted by Method Man at 8:40 PM on May 9 [17 favorites]
I am begging, pleading with online leftists to stop insinuating that they alone understand the conditions and perspectives of people of color/people outside the US.
posted by Method Man at 8:40 PM on May 9 [17 favorites]
God lord what is happening in this thread? Let's all take a breath and maybe go for a walk.
posted by elwoodwiles at 8:41 PM on May 9 [12 favorites]
posted by elwoodwiles at 8:41 PM on May 9 [12 favorites]
Yeah, I'd be fine with just deleting this entire thread. This is not Reddit. We're better than this. Or at least we were.
posted by downtohisturtles at 8:43 PM on May 9 [6 favorites]
posted by downtohisturtles at 8:43 PM on May 9 [6 favorites]
Yep, "liberalism" has always been, at best, a centre-right ideology wedded to free-market economics. The only reason "liberal" became synonymous with "left" in the USA is because the US never had a successful socialist movement (unlike the majority of European countries). Fun fact: a lot of those GOP New Deal haters identify as "classical liberals".
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 8:44 PM on May 9 [11 favorites]
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 8:44 PM on May 9 [11 favorites]
I am begging, pleading with online leftists to stop insinuating that they alone understand the conditions and perspectives of people of color/people outside the US.
There is literally a "liberal party" in Australia that is center right. This isn't speaking for people of color, this is basic knowledge of political terms being used differently in the first world Anglosphere.
I forgot to mention in my earlier comment: One of the signature traits of the new wave of anti-liberal leftists is asserting an absolute prescriptivist authority over the definition of "liberalism".
You literally just posted other people were using the word wrong and had "redefined" it for some nefarious purpose.
And thus we have the problem: Even though none of these people had intended to take over the thread, even though all of them are processing their real emotions in an entirely human way, the thread has become (a) dangerous for people whose anxieties trigger more easily when they read catastrophizing predictions, (b) useless for people who are trying to discuss the topic, rather than their feelings about the topic, and (c) combative between the disparate users of the site as described above.
Some things are genuinely catastrophic, The global economic and political order is killing a lot of people and will keep doing so until it is stopped. I am sorry if that makes people anxious, but that is the reality of the situation.
The topic of the thread is the idea that all criticism of liberalism is a plot by authoritarian states. Essentially the "kids are being radicalized by Tiktok" nonsense with one level of remove from the raw moral panic. Whether that is the case, and whether criticism of the liberal world order is valid is the topic.
As for being argumentative, that is going to happen when you are discussing systems that are literally life and death and accusing people of being dupes for totalitarian propaganda. There is a limit to how polite you can be when you are talking about the validity of someone else's worldview.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 8:48 PM on May 9 [9 favorites]
There is literally a "liberal party" in Australia that is center right. This isn't speaking for people of color, this is basic knowledge of political terms being used differently in the first world Anglosphere.
I forgot to mention in my earlier comment: One of the signature traits of the new wave of anti-liberal leftists is asserting an absolute prescriptivist authority over the definition of "liberalism".
You literally just posted other people were using the word wrong and had "redefined" it for some nefarious purpose.
And thus we have the problem: Even though none of these people had intended to take over the thread, even though all of them are processing their real emotions in an entirely human way, the thread has become (a) dangerous for people whose anxieties trigger more easily when they read catastrophizing predictions, (b) useless for people who are trying to discuss the topic, rather than their feelings about the topic, and (c) combative between the disparate users of the site as described above.
Some things are genuinely catastrophic, The global economic and political order is killing a lot of people and will keep doing so until it is stopped. I am sorry if that makes people anxious, but that is the reality of the situation.
The topic of the thread is the idea that all criticism of liberalism is a plot by authoritarian states. Essentially the "kids are being radicalized by Tiktok" nonsense with one level of remove from the raw moral panic. Whether that is the case, and whether criticism of the liberal world order is valid is the topic.
As for being argumentative, that is going to happen when you are discussing systems that are literally life and death and accusing people of being dupes for totalitarian propaganda. There is a limit to how polite you can be when you are talking about the validity of someone else's worldview.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 8:48 PM on May 9 [9 favorites]
"Like the leaders of those countries, the American MAGA right also wants Americans to believe that their democracy is degenerate, their elections illegitimate, their civilization dying."
While this is certainly true, it's not just MAGA leaders. I regularly hear "the system is broken, it cannot be reformed, only abolished" from all sides, and that's more worrying to me. Nihilistic actions from otherwise well-meaning people
I feel like I'm surrounded with people who can accurately identify injustice and problems, but who neutralize themselves by refusing to engage, saying that the only way forward is through a revolutionary dismantling of current society.
It's like... If you can't figure out how to organize to make improvements through democratic means before any revolution, you're definitely not going to figure out how to organize to make improvements after one.
posted by alexei at 8:59 PM on May 9 [42 favorites]
While this is certainly true, it's not just MAGA leaders. I regularly hear "the system is broken, it cannot be reformed, only abolished" from all sides, and that's more worrying to me. Nihilistic actions from otherwise well-meaning people
I feel like I'm surrounded with people who can accurately identify injustice and problems, but who neutralize themselves by refusing to engage, saying that the only way forward is through a revolutionary dismantling of current society.
It's like... If you can't figure out how to organize to make improvements through democratic means before any revolution, you're definitely not going to figure out how to organize to make improvements after one.
posted by alexei at 8:59 PM on May 9 [42 favorites]
like the Jacobin club circa 1791.
posted by clavdivs at 9:03 PM on May 9 [5 favorites]
posted by clavdivs at 9:03 PM on May 9 [5 favorites]
the thread has become (a) dangerous for people whose anxieties trigger more easily when they read catastrophizing predictions
This is frankly ridiculous absurdity. Reality does not cease to exist because it is ignored. The climate crisis is a reality, the near-term likelihood of catastrophic sea level rise and widespread crop failures is also a reality. The role of economic liberalism and our present system of free-market capitalism in fostering and accelerating both of those things is also a reality. As is, for that matter, the presently occurring and ongoing genocide of Palestinians by Israel, armed, funded, and given political cover by a liberal US administration.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 9:04 PM on May 9 [15 favorites]
This is frankly ridiculous absurdity. Reality does not cease to exist because it is ignored. The climate crisis is a reality, the near-term likelihood of catastrophic sea level rise and widespread crop failures is also a reality. The role of economic liberalism and our present system of free-market capitalism in fostering and accelerating both of those things is also a reality. As is, for that matter, the presently occurring and ongoing genocide of Palestinians by Israel, armed, funded, and given political cover by a liberal US administration.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 9:04 PM on May 9 [15 favorites]
It's like... If you can't figure out how to organize to make improvements through democratic means before any revolution, you're definitely not going to figure out how to organize to make improvements after one.
That is begging the question, I think.
It presumes that change can be produced without changes to the underlying nongovernmental power structures of society. Slavery was intractable politically,. The moral answer was obvious, but it would never happen politically. It required breaking the power structures of the southern aristocracy to create real change, and that involved unilateral expropriation of "property" and mass violence.
The fact those systems were not thoroughly enough broken meant that the old planter class returned to power and de facto slavery persisted or returned. But even that much progress wasn't the result of peaceful democratic processes, or abolitionists and slaves getting out the vote.
Capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy are far more deeply ingrained and politically potent than slave power ever was. I don't think it is unreasonable to believe it is impossible to fix things within the existing system.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 9:07 PM on May 9 [14 favorites]
That is begging the question, I think.
It presumes that change can be produced without changes to the underlying nongovernmental power structures of society. Slavery was intractable politically,. The moral answer was obvious, but it would never happen politically. It required breaking the power structures of the southern aristocracy to create real change, and that involved unilateral expropriation of "property" and mass violence.
The fact those systems were not thoroughly enough broken meant that the old planter class returned to power and de facto slavery persisted or returned. But even that much progress wasn't the result of peaceful democratic processes, or abolitionists and slaves getting out the vote.
Capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy are far more deeply ingrained and politically potent than slave power ever was. I don't think it is unreasonable to believe it is impossible to fix things within the existing system.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 9:07 PM on May 9 [14 favorites]
It presumes that change can be produced without changes to the underlying nongovernmental power structures of society
Cautionary note, from the periphery - if this means a change in values that leads to structural reform, then this can also be induced without (violent) physical revolt, but avoiding the shift is where technocratic solutions go to die and physically wrenching the system out of place becomes inevitable - and what comes after is very much dependent on to what extent the physical change mirrors cultural change. If my point feels opaque, read up on what's happening in post-Arab Spring Tunisia this week.
But it is also tiresome to have to manage feelings of discomfort. Like, I'm sorry the situation is being stated so baldly, but are people really that willing to dismiss it all because it's confronting to their worldview - so you'd rather jump to the part where it's a demand on, "well, what solutions are you proposing??" like the best petty bureaucrats when being confronted by a petitioner and their lunch break is close.
posted by cendawanita at 9:31 PM on May 9 [9 favorites]
Cautionary note, from the periphery - if this means a change in values that leads to structural reform, then this can also be induced without (violent) physical revolt, but avoiding the shift is where technocratic solutions go to die and physically wrenching the system out of place becomes inevitable - and what comes after is very much dependent on to what extent the physical change mirrors cultural change. If my point feels opaque, read up on what's happening in post-Arab Spring Tunisia this week.
But it is also tiresome to have to manage feelings of discomfort. Like, I'm sorry the situation is being stated so baldly, but are people really that willing to dismiss it all because it's confronting to their worldview - so you'd rather jump to the part where it's a demand on, "well, what solutions are you proposing??" like the best petty bureaucrats when being confronted by a petitioner and their lunch break is close.
posted by cendawanita at 9:31 PM on May 9 [9 favorites]
Or maybe the Russians got to me, who can say?
I have no idea what social media accounts you subscribe to, but if they're anything like the dozens of accounts my former friends repost, with ongoing genocide content dialed up to 11 leading to the US is an evil empire leading to NATO and Ukraine and the EU are terrorist entities leading to Putin/Xi are doing nothing wrong, then yes.
posted by CynicalKnight at 9:35 PM on May 9 [6 favorites]
I have no idea what social media accounts you subscribe to, but if they're anything like the dozens of accounts my former friends repost, with ongoing genocide content dialed up to 11 leading to the US is an evil empire leading to NATO and Ukraine and the EU are terrorist entities leading to Putin/Xi are doing nothing wrong, then yes.
posted by CynicalKnight at 9:35 PM on May 9 [6 favorites]
Huffing at the naïveté, because that's just how the world is and what do you expect, but annoyed also because you're not sharing space with other sophisticates who can mutually echo your eyeroll, interrupting your desire to indulge on the nefarious moves of these authoritarian countries and slamming on the backwater hicks in yours who'd be foolish enough to echo their propaganda.
In the meantime, your own economic and civic life is constricted, and it's not like you don't understand being trod on by The Man, but jfc, stop complaining how it sucks, at least you're not behind The Great Firewall.
At least at least at least. Repeat it a 100 times like a dhikr and maybe you'll win the state lottery.
posted by cendawanita at 9:38 PM on May 9 [10 favorites]
In the meantime, your own economic and civic life is constricted, and it's not like you don't understand being trod on by The Man, but jfc, stop complaining how it sucks, at least you're not behind The Great Firewall.
At least at least at least. Repeat it a 100 times like a dhikr and maybe you'll win the state lottery.
posted by cendawanita at 9:38 PM on May 9 [10 favorites]
Cautionary note, from the periphery - if this means a change in values that leads to structural reform, then this can also be induced without (violent) physical revolt, but avoiding the shift is where technocratic solutions go to die and physically wrenching the system out of place becomes inevitable - and what comes after is very much dependent on to what extent the physical change mirrors cultural change.
Yeah, I thought about that after I posted. It really sounds like I am jonesing for another Antietam.
I do not want another civil war. I don't think we could even have that kind of reckoning over the issues involved. And even if we could, I am a pacifist.
I think a fundamental reorganization of our economic system is a necessity for other change, and I don't think that can be accomplished by a series of votes in congress. But I believe and hope it can be accomplished by nonviolent resistance, and the creation of systems that let people live and thrive without attaching themselves to capitalist enterprises.
I worry that those changes will provoke a violent response themselves and we'll get that civil war anyway, but I hold out hope we can have a mostly peaceful transition to a kinder, more sustainable world.
I have no idea what social media accounts you subscribe to, but if they're anything like the dozens of accounts my former friends repost, with ongoing genocide content dialed up to 11 leading to the US is an evil empire leading to NATO and Ukraine and the EU are terrorist entities leading to Putin/Xi are doing nothing wrong, then yes.
My social media is basically limited to a few rpg forums, Metafilter, and a couple of anarchist discords. While I encounter the occasional bit of eye-rolling at claims that China is turning the kids trans with Tiktok or whatever, Xi and Putin are seen as murderous authoritarians.
There is plenty of criticism of Biden, Israel, Trump, and NATO. But none of it is that they aren't nice enough to Putin.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 9:44 PM on May 9 [8 favorites]
Yeah, I thought about that after I posted. It really sounds like I am jonesing for another Antietam.
I do not want another civil war. I don't think we could even have that kind of reckoning over the issues involved. And even if we could, I am a pacifist.
I think a fundamental reorganization of our economic system is a necessity for other change, and I don't think that can be accomplished by a series of votes in congress. But I believe and hope it can be accomplished by nonviolent resistance, and the creation of systems that let people live and thrive without attaching themselves to capitalist enterprises.
I worry that those changes will provoke a violent response themselves and we'll get that civil war anyway, but I hold out hope we can have a mostly peaceful transition to a kinder, more sustainable world.
I have no idea what social media accounts you subscribe to, but if they're anything like the dozens of accounts my former friends repost, with ongoing genocide content dialed up to 11 leading to the US is an evil empire leading to NATO and Ukraine and the EU are terrorist entities leading to Putin/Xi are doing nothing wrong, then yes.
My social media is basically limited to a few rpg forums, Metafilter, and a couple of anarchist discords. While I encounter the occasional bit of eye-rolling at claims that China is turning the kids trans with Tiktok or whatever, Xi and Putin are seen as murderous authoritarians.
There is plenty of criticism of Biden, Israel, Trump, and NATO. But none of it is that they aren't nice enough to Putin.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 9:44 PM on May 9 [8 favorites]
One interesting aspect of the partly-self-generated media spheres we find ourselves in is that bad things like Obama's use of drones rightly receive clamorous condemnation, even worse things like Trump's ramped-up use of drones oddly received very little comment, and Biden's having greatly reduced the use of drones only incrementally more.
Part of this is that it only feels necessary to comment on the bad stuff, so if Biden stops using drones so much, what more is there to say? And, assuming that one remembered that drones existed after the end of Obama's presidency, it might feel a little Orange Man Bad to bother remarking on his use of drones (if you did not realize that Trump used drones more than Obama did, it is worth considering why that might be, because a potential epiphany may be close). This is all very much understandable, but it can lead to an inability to compare like with like over time scales other than those that our social and media spheres are sensitive to.
posted by a faded photo of their beloved at 10:09 PM on May 9 [14 favorites]
Part of this is that it only feels necessary to comment on the bad stuff, so if Biden stops using drones so much, what more is there to say? And, assuming that one remembered that drones existed after the end of Obama's presidency, it might feel a little Orange Man Bad to bother remarking on his use of drones (if you did not realize that Trump used drones more than Obama did, it is worth considering why that might be, because a potential epiphany may be close). This is all very much understandable, but it can lead to an inability to compare like with like over time scales other than those that our social and media spheres are sensitive to.
posted by a faded photo of their beloved at 10:09 PM on May 9 [14 favorites]
if you did not realize that Trump used drones more than Obama did
Trump is a fucking monster and no-one here is defending him? The comments re Obama, Biden, et al have been addressed to the failures of liberalism, and Trump is not a liberal, nor does he claim to be. Nice strawman, though.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 10:13 PM on May 9 [6 favorites]
Trump is a fucking monster and no-one here is defending him? The comments re Obama, Biden, et al have been addressed to the failures of liberalism, and Trump is not a liberal, nor does he claim to be. Nice strawman, though.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 10:13 PM on May 9 [6 favorites]
I regret not making this clearer in my comment, but I'm not trying to say something about Trump, Obama, or Biden specifically. I'm talking about what percolates through our media spheres; their relative usages of drones are just one useful example that help us compare what signals are amplified and what signals are attenuated. If you did not realize that Trump used drones more than Obama did, that might say something about your media sphere. I don't need people to walk away from this saying "whoa, Orange Man really is Bad!" (although that would be fine by me) so much as "what explains the relative volume of these news stories?".
posted by a faded photo of their beloved at 10:30 PM on May 9 [8 favorites]
posted by a faded photo of their beloved at 10:30 PM on May 9 [8 favorites]
If you did not realize that Trump used drones more than Obama did
What if I regard that as irrelevant? The fact remains that Obama used drones to kill US citizens. I voted for Obama (twice!) and against Trump; of fucking course I'll view Obama's actions as more of a betrayal.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 10:43 PM on May 9 [7 favorites]
What if I regard that as irrelevant? The fact remains that Obama used drones to kill US citizens. I voted for Obama (twice!) and against Trump; of fucking course I'll view Obama's actions as more of a betrayal.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 10:43 PM on May 9 [7 favorites]
Having failed to communicate twice, I will bow out. What I'm trying to say goes, as far as I can tell, to the heart of the original post; it's about why we hear those specific things we hear. But I don't know how to express it.
posted by a faded photo of their beloved at 11:03 PM on May 9 [7 favorites]
posted by a faded photo of their beloved at 11:03 PM on May 9 [7 favorites]
James Baldwin, in No Name In the Street, wrote: "All the western nations are caught in a lie, the lie of their pretended humanism: this means that their history has no moral justification, and that the West has no moral authority."
In my idle to-do's I have thought about following up on any historical memoirs or academic research of Cold War propaganda with regards to how it affected the struggle for American civil rights.
What's changed isn't just the mechanics of disinfo or misinfo or just plain info. Democracy being eroded for decades at this point and it used to be the work for a non-western propagandists to figure out ways of slipping in, which is where accessing the marginalised is key (the same as it was with Western agencies - dissidents aren't liars, the disaffection is real), but here's the thing isn't it: who counts as the marginalised (both politically and economically) have expanded or become more trenchant (in large part because the institutional responses have failed the people so thoroughly). It's more likely to say that as much as it's an issue of epistemic closure it's also how much messages resonate and why. And some demographics have had to live with the contradiction for a lot longer than others.
The good life has a valuable innoculating effect - people can't just eat on their morals alone. When there's nothing to eat though....
Flipping this around, if you can, or if you have Threads, check out sinophone socmed - people are the same everywhere. Right now China is a bit like 1990s USA, in terms of domestic economy. All that lying flat and let it rot maxims - I bet if you're to do a screening of Office Space it'll go over like gang busters.
posted by cendawanita at 11:17 PM on May 9 [9 favorites]
In my idle to-do's I have thought about following up on any historical memoirs or academic research of Cold War propaganda with regards to how it affected the struggle for American civil rights.
What's changed isn't just the mechanics of disinfo or misinfo or just plain info. Democracy being eroded for decades at this point and it used to be the work for a non-western propagandists to figure out ways of slipping in, which is where accessing the marginalised is key (the same as it was with Western agencies - dissidents aren't liars, the disaffection is real), but here's the thing isn't it: who counts as the marginalised (both politically and economically) have expanded or become more trenchant (in large part because the institutional responses have failed the people so thoroughly). It's more likely to say that as much as it's an issue of epistemic closure it's also how much messages resonate and why. And some demographics have had to live with the contradiction for a lot longer than others.
The good life has a valuable innoculating effect - people can't just eat on their morals alone. When there's nothing to eat though....
Flipping this around, if you can, or if you have Threads, check out sinophone socmed - people are the same everywhere. Right now China is a bit like 1990s USA, in terms of domestic economy. All that lying flat and let it rot maxims - I bet if you're to do a screening of Office Space it'll go over like gang busters.
posted by cendawanita at 11:17 PM on May 9 [9 favorites]
a faded photo of their beloved: "One interesting aspect of the partly-self-generated media spheres we find ourselves in is that bad things like Obama's use of drones rightly receive clamorous condemnation, even worse things like Trump's ramped-up use of drones oddly received very little comment, and Biden's having greatly reduced the use of drones only incrementally more."
That's not even a political thing, necessarily, more of an artifact of how group dynamics on the internet work. Like there's this upbeat, apolitical podcast in my rotation popular enough to have a breakaway community of "ex-listeners" who seem to loathe it but listen to it constantly just to performatively shit on it. There's literally a whole multiplatform "community" of wikis, subs, and Discords organized around recreationally sneering at the hosts, their foibles, their fans, their advertisers, their families, etc. Your basic in-group/out-group stuff, with a dash of gossipy parasocial intimacy.
Needless to say, when the show puts out a clip that's genuinely funny or engaging, it gets studiously ignored, while any stray awkward or problematic stuff (no matter how minor) gets ridden into the ground liked it's history's greatest crime, even when it's small potatoes compared to similar kinds of cringe out there. The criticism isn't even unwarranted a lot of the time, but the sheer level of obsession people have hate-stalking these individual real-life people for weeks, months, years on end instead of just moving on with their lives, and the way the pseudo-community encourages and reinforces the circlejerk of performative hatred, is really bizarre and toxic. I've read about a similar conflict playing out in the "rationalist" space (LessWrong, SlateStarCodex, Yudkowsky, etc.) and the phrase "sneer club" came up as an apt description of the phenomenon. You see something similar in how streaming influencers attract legions of haters who dissect their lives like they're British tabloids, or certain extremely online transphobes who make hating visible trans people their entire identity (heck, it can even be an issue within the trans community). There's probably a solid FPP in here somewhere.
Not saying all criticism of Dems is driven by such base infighting, but the dynamics of social media elevating outrage and downplaying anodyne good news and common ground probably plays a role in magnifying hostility and distorting views of what the biggest threats are. And that's just the natural state, without accounting for platform owners or state actors with an agenda putting their thumbs on the scale. Organic "sneer club" networks aimed at milquetoast center-left politicians and small-d democratic institutions are usually rooted in genuine righteous grievance, but it's also true that forces opposed to equality and justice (both domestic and international) have an interest in promoting and strengthening those patterns in order to consolidate power and eliminate any alternative to authoritarian rule -- and they're pouring a lot of resources into doing so. The answer, imho, is to never let cynicism distract from our power to organize and vote for a better world -- if democracy wasn't effective, its enemies wouldn't be trying so hard to destroy it.
posted by Rhaomi at 12:02 AM on May 10 [18 favorites]
That's not even a political thing, necessarily, more of an artifact of how group dynamics on the internet work. Like there's this upbeat, apolitical podcast in my rotation popular enough to have a breakaway community of "ex-listeners" who seem to loathe it but listen to it constantly just to performatively shit on it. There's literally a whole multiplatform "community" of wikis, subs, and Discords organized around recreationally sneering at the hosts, their foibles, their fans, their advertisers, their families, etc. Your basic in-group/out-group stuff, with a dash of gossipy parasocial intimacy.
Needless to say, when the show puts out a clip that's genuinely funny or engaging, it gets studiously ignored, while any stray awkward or problematic stuff (no matter how minor) gets ridden into the ground liked it's history's greatest crime, even when it's small potatoes compared to similar kinds of cringe out there. The criticism isn't even unwarranted a lot of the time, but the sheer level of obsession people have hate-stalking these individual real-life people for weeks, months, years on end instead of just moving on with their lives, and the way the pseudo-community encourages and reinforces the circlejerk of performative hatred, is really bizarre and toxic. I've read about a similar conflict playing out in the "rationalist" space (LessWrong, SlateStarCodex, Yudkowsky, etc.) and the phrase "sneer club" came up as an apt description of the phenomenon. You see something similar in how streaming influencers attract legions of haters who dissect their lives like they're British tabloids, or certain extremely online transphobes who make hating visible trans people their entire identity (heck, it can even be an issue within the trans community). There's probably a solid FPP in here somewhere.
Not saying all criticism of Dems is driven by such base infighting, but the dynamics of social media elevating outrage and downplaying anodyne good news and common ground probably plays a role in magnifying hostility and distorting views of what the biggest threats are. And that's just the natural state, without accounting for platform owners or state actors with an agenda putting their thumbs on the scale. Organic "sneer club" networks aimed at milquetoast center-left politicians and small-d democratic institutions are usually rooted in genuine righteous grievance, but it's also true that forces opposed to equality and justice (both domestic and international) have an interest in promoting and strengthening those patterns in order to consolidate power and eliminate any alternative to authoritarian rule -- and they're pouring a lot of resources into doing so. The answer, imho, is to never let cynicism distract from our power to organize and vote for a better world -- if democracy wasn't effective, its enemies wouldn't be trying so hard to destroy it.
posted by Rhaomi at 12:02 AM on May 10 [18 favorites]
I. . . . . .uh . . . . . . .I think I might be Frowners nice aunt.
posted by WhenInGnome at 12:52 AM on May 10 [31 favorites]
posted by WhenInGnome at 12:52 AM on May 10 [31 favorites]
Frowner nailed it. The problem with the word "liberal" is that it means many different things. It's like the elephant and the three blind men, all assuming different things. It seems to me that up until the 90s or so, "liberal" meant the same thing as a leftist or progressive. Now it seems to describe the Biden/Clinton/Obama cohort of center-left (but sometimes center-right!) Democrats. Then there's the "classic liberal," a term synonymous with Libertarians, who as everyone knows are simply right-wingers who want to smoke weed.
"Liberal" should be abandoned as a political term; it's too tainted by so many overlapping meanings, depending on who's saying it and who's hearing it, it could imply a complete 180 degree difference from what is inferred. It's the "Who's on First?" of political labels.
posted by zardoz at 1:37 AM on May 10 [6 favorites]
"Liberal" should be abandoned as a political term; it's too tainted by so many overlapping meanings, depending on who's saying it and who's hearing it, it could imply a complete 180 degree difference from what is inferred. It's the "Who's on First?" of political labels.
posted by zardoz at 1:37 AM on May 10 [6 favorites]
The problem with the word "liberal" is that it means many different thingsYes but no, I think. There's a core of liberal thought that's common to all the political traditions you've described, and a few others too (including many strains of socialism, and especially 'democratic' socialism, though they deny their parentage in a 'you're not my real Dad' way). They're to do with an individual's relationship with the State and with who constitutes a society, and basically they all agree that decisions should be shared as widely as possible, though they disagree about what those decisions should be, and of course who constitutes society. The US Declaration of Independence is one of liberalism's great documents, and has a world heritage, not just a national one.
Once again, though, going outside the United States and into the past is a worthwhile thing to do. All of these liberalisms set themselves against what's an ongoing illiberal political tradition, in the 18thC and 19thC the monarchism and absolutism of the former European countries, of Empire in its gross Victorian and Leopoldine trappings, in the 20thC the illiberalism of the Soviet Union, Eastern Bloc and China (though the early, pre-Purge USSR was surprisingly tolerant of kind-of-liberalisms), catastrophically, interwar Fascism, and tediously repeated, the authoritarian rich men's dictatorships of the postwar. What we have today is people like Vladimir Putin telling Westerners about our hypocrisy, and Xi Jinping about the need to accommodate multiple poles, and neither is wrong, but when their talking points are repeated by Western illiberals, they grate.
Despite it all there's a core there that's worth defending, intellectually and socially and politically. Frowner's lovely aunt might not be up with the news, but I want to live in the kind of society that's dominated by people like her. Thinking of the last two decades or so I would back her political judgement every time, she hasn't often been wrong.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 2:21 AM on May 10 [10 favorites]
I bet if you're to do a screening of Office Space it'll go over like gang bustersI think that's absolutely right and revealing about what's going on in China. Office Space was a story about the pointlessness and arbitrary power of a corporation, and the absurdity of rules in a culture where nobody has access to power, and there's no point to any of it. I suspect a Chinese Office Space would go over so well it would be banned.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 2:24 AM on May 10 [5 favorites]
I think criticism of Obama on drones being repeated morr than criticism of Trump has less to do with ingroup fighting than it does with hypocrisy. For one thing, liberals and leftists are only a single 'ingroup" because the US has a two party that reduces politics to "unabashed fascism" and "other".
But also because Obama and Trump have two very different messages. Of course Trump loves murdering people with impunity. Cowardly bullying is exactly his brand. His followers eat it up, and no one who has qualms about the executive murdering people will vote for Trump.
Obama talks about change, justice, human rights, and international law. The fact that he also murders with impunity belies the actual nature of the US state. His supporters are or should be aghast at what he was doing.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 4:09 AM on May 10 [13 favorites]
But also because Obama and Trump have two very different messages. Of course Trump loves murdering people with impunity. Cowardly bullying is exactly his brand. His followers eat it up, and no one who has qualms about the executive murdering people will vote for Trump.
Obama talks about change, justice, human rights, and international law. The fact that he also murders with impunity belies the actual nature of the US state. His supporters are or should be aghast at what he was doing.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 4:09 AM on May 10 [13 favorites]
The topic of the thread is the idea that all criticism of liberalism is a plot by authoritarian states.
It really wasn't and that isn't in fact the assertion of the FPP, that's a total straw man.
"Liberals: The worst or the actual worst" is one of those conversations that has made Metafilter a discursively less interesting place. Howlintothevoidfilter in full swing.
posted by aspersioncast at 4:12 AM on May 10 [5 favorites]
It really wasn't and that isn't in fact the assertion of the FPP, that's a total straw man.
"Liberals: The worst or the actual worst" is one of those conversations that has made Metafilter a discursively less interesting place. Howlintothevoidfilter in full swing.
posted by aspersioncast at 4:12 AM on May 10 [5 favorites]
The idea that criticism of liberalism is despairing or howling into the void is premised on the idea that liberalism is the only possible road forward. In fact the only reason to push back against liberalism is that it stands in the way of a better world. One that many liberals genuinely want.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 4:25 AM on May 10 [4 favorites]
posted by The Manwich Horror at 4:25 AM on May 10 [4 favorites]
The Economist newspaper's cover story this week: The world’s economic order is breaking down
Leader: The liberal international order is slowly coming apart
posted by chavenet at 4:29 AM on May 10 [4 favorites]
Leader: The liberal international order is slowly coming apart
posted by chavenet at 4:29 AM on May 10 [4 favorites]
The answer, imho, is to never let cynicism distract from our power to organize and vote for a better world -- if democracy wasn't effective, its enemies wouldn't be trying so hard to destroy it.
That's nice but I rent, if and when I get property I'll volunteer and all. I've never seen a government that prioritizes my interests (and if I was the elected official I wouldn't prioritize my comparatively poor interests either!)
posted by kingdead at 5:03 AM on May 10 [4 favorites]
That's nice but I rent, if and when I get property I'll volunteer and all. I've never seen a government that prioritizes my interests (and if I was the elected official I wouldn't prioritize my comparatively poor interests either!)
posted by kingdead at 5:03 AM on May 10 [4 favorites]
People are getting more and more desperate and scared and the current systems in liberal/"free" countries seem to be collapsing into utter dysfunction. You look at your rent, you look at your grocery bill, you look at what Congress or your state legislature is doing, it's not exactly a ringing endorsement of liberal society. That's not some Chinese or MAGA psy-op, it's the reality anyone who looks around sees.
So maybe those "viable competitors" are worse but when you're struggling to put food on the table or worried if you're going to be on the street next month they might start to look more attractive if you believe you'll get what you need under them.
I don't think this really explains things. In the US, the drive toward illiberalism has been from the right, and people who by many measures, are best advantaged.
People on the left typically can't be bothered to actually do anything more significant than gripe, which has been the case for a long time, and also the reason the paranoia over the left's influence has been laughable. If anything, inaction is the American leftist's comfort zone.
Yet progress is made when liberal politicians are in power. That liberal politicians are ever elected at all is a minor miracle.
posted by 2N2222 at 5:20 AM on May 10 [10 favorites]
So maybe those "viable competitors" are worse but when you're struggling to put food on the table or worried if you're going to be on the street next month they might start to look more attractive if you believe you'll get what you need under them.
I don't think this really explains things. In the US, the drive toward illiberalism has been from the right, and people who by many measures, are best advantaged.
People on the left typically can't be bothered to actually do anything more significant than gripe, which has been the case for a long time, and also the reason the paranoia over the left's influence has been laughable. If anything, inaction is the American leftist's comfort zone.
Yet progress is made when liberal politicians are in power. That liberal politicians are ever elected at all is a minor miracle.
posted by 2N2222 at 5:20 AM on May 10 [10 favorites]
seems like metafilter is really consolidating around a position of "nobody to the left of joe biden has ever achieved anything", which is interesting, I guess.
posted by sagc at 5:46 AM on May 10 [15 favorites]
posted by sagc at 5:46 AM on May 10 [15 favorites]
If anything, inaction is the American leftist's comfort zone.
I don't know how that squares with leftists getting beaten, shocked, gassed, and murdered standing up to police violence and genocide.
For this of you who are indignant at the idea that directing your fury against liberalism in the face of global fascism is not your own idea, but one planted in your head
If only there were some movement among leftists to oppose fascism. Some kind of anti-fascists. I am sure liberals would be lining up to support them.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 5:48 AM on May 10 [18 favorites]
I don't know how that squares with leftists getting beaten, shocked, gassed, and murdered standing up to police violence and genocide.
For this of you who are indignant at the idea that directing your fury against liberalism in the face of global fascism is not your own idea, but one planted in your head
If only there were some movement among leftists to oppose fascism. Some kind of anti-fascists. I am sure liberals would be lining up to support them.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 5:48 AM on May 10 [18 favorites]
Heather Alberro describes a historical analysis of change where radical, militant action has worked alongside liberal reform (CW - mentions of self-immolation):
Such radical acts of self-sacrifice have often take place where the mobilisation of a social movement is already underway. This dynamic is known as the radical flank effect. When the efforts of the movement are frustrated, radical segments emerge and deploy more disruptive tactics. These serve to render the demands of their mainstream counterparts more palatable in the eyes of governments and the public, effectively advancing the entire movement’s agenda.posted by audi alteram partem at 5:58 AM on May 10 [5 favorites]
Mod note: Hey, a comment and response have been removed. There's already a current thread about the Israel/Palestine conflict, so let's keep comments about that conflict to that or related threads, thanks!
And in general, while this thread is about 'Fear, Cynicism, Nihilism, and Apathy,' please take care of yourselves and your community by avoiding going too far or deep into the idea that all hope is lost and the world is and will remain a terrible place.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:59 AM on May 10 [4 favorites]
And in general, while this thread is about 'Fear, Cynicism, Nihilism, and Apathy,' please take care of yourselves and your community by avoiding going too far or deep into the idea that all hope is lost and the world is and will remain a terrible place.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:59 AM on May 10 [4 favorites]
This is one of the worst threads in a while. I can't flag every comment, so I'll just say: this post is about the very real and documented spread of misinformation *by* authoritarian powers to attempt to disrupt or destroy professed democratic, rights-oriented countries. The flaws of the U.S. and the other targets are not really the point. I think that the U.S. leftists who minimize and talk past the misinformation and propaganda because it supports their world view are just reflexively changing the subject to avoid self-examination.
My "very online" leftist friends, defined jokingly as "people who still fap about on X", are almost scarily overlapped with the sorts of disinformation described in the article, and increasingly with the MAGA crowd, right-wing extremists. There's also an obsession with the past, not as a way to understand mistakes and figure out what to do next, but as a series of talking points to derail any meaningful debate.
I also am angry and worried about the Gaza situation, corporatization of media, income gap, gulf between our professed and acted values, climate change, and all the rest. So are lots of Americans, including those who we're labeling as liberal; that word means and has historically meant something completely different in the US than it does in Australia and elsewhere (we're all working to say "progressive" more and "liberal" less now that we know this, but it takes time). But we need to provide a useful path forward. Hand-waving away the importance of electing politicians who will incrementally move the needle in the right direction, and of preventing the election of those who will turn America into a dictatorship, is a huge mistake.
Also, thanks to Artifice_Eternity and a couple of others for talking some sense.
posted by caviar2d2 at 6:17 AM on May 10 [30 favorites]
My "very online" leftist friends, defined jokingly as "people who still fap about on X", are almost scarily overlapped with the sorts of disinformation described in the article, and increasingly with the MAGA crowd, right-wing extremists. There's also an obsession with the past, not as a way to understand mistakes and figure out what to do next, but as a series of talking points to derail any meaningful debate.
I also am angry and worried about the Gaza situation, corporatization of media, income gap, gulf between our professed and acted values, climate change, and all the rest. So are lots of Americans, including those who we're labeling as liberal; that word means and has historically meant something completely different in the US than it does in Australia and elsewhere (we're all working to say "progressive" more and "liberal" less now that we know this, but it takes time). But we need to provide a useful path forward. Hand-waving away the importance of electing politicians who will incrementally move the needle in the right direction, and of preventing the election of those who will turn America into a dictatorship, is a huge mistake.
Also, thanks to Artifice_Eternity and a couple of others for talking some sense.
posted by caviar2d2 at 6:17 AM on May 10 [30 favorites]
People on the left typically can't be bothered to actually do anything more significant than gripe
Wow. This is gross. What a way to erase the efforts or so many people who are working day in and day out to make this world better, many of whom are women and POC. If you define the left to be “twitter edgelords” this take make sense, but, as they say, touch some grass for once.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 6:20 AM on May 10 [15 favorites]
Wow. This is gross. What a way to erase the efforts or so many people who are working day in and day out to make this world better, many of whom are women and POC. If you define the left to be “twitter edgelords” this take make sense, but, as they say, touch some grass for once.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 6:20 AM on May 10 [15 favorites]
And what I want to tell these people is that EVEN IF YOU ARE BEING HONEST and genuine and not just trolling and EVEN IF YOU ARE CORRECT (for whatever value "correct" has when making armchair prognostications about immensely complex topics), I don't think you understand the effect those comments have on other people. It makes me check out of threads, it makes me hesitant to read other posts because I worry about how that sort of negativity and hopelessness spreads, it makes me engage less with this site. Especially when it becomes a debate battle between people who believe that things can be salvaged and improved vs. people who don't.
I want to echo this. Aside from a couple of short-term clerical/retail jobs in my early twenties, literally every job I've had for my entire career has been working to improve either the human or natural environment, with a lot of that being focused on either creating local environmental resiliency to climate change, or developing projects that are intended to directly address climate change. I could earn a lot more money if I moved over to, say, oil and gas, but I like being able to look at myself in the morning.
I'm saying all of that to get to my actual point, which is that I've learned to skip climate change discussions here because of the relentless doomerism. It's not a problem in that skipping those discussions doesn't do me any harm and it's not like I'm essential for the discussions, either, but it's an example of how that rhetorical form is off-putting . Doomerism as an excuse to not even try is the worst, honestly.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:28 AM on May 10 [12 favorites]
I want to echo this. Aside from a couple of short-term clerical/retail jobs in my early twenties, literally every job I've had for my entire career has been working to improve either the human or natural environment, with a lot of that being focused on either creating local environmental resiliency to climate change, or developing projects that are intended to directly address climate change. I could earn a lot more money if I moved over to, say, oil and gas, but I like being able to look at myself in the morning.
I'm saying all of that to get to my actual point, which is that I've learned to skip climate change discussions here because of the relentless doomerism. It's not a problem in that skipping those discussions doesn't do me any harm and it's not like I'm essential for the discussions, either, but it's an example of how that rhetorical form is off-putting . Doomerism as an excuse to not even try is the worst, honestly.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:28 AM on May 10 [12 favorites]
This is one of the worst threads in a while. I can't flag every comment, so I'll just say: this post is about the very real and documented spread of misinformation *by* authoritarian powers to attempt to disrupt or destroy professed democratic, rights-oriented countries. The flaws of the U.S. and the other targets are not really the point. I think that the U.S. leftists who minimize and talk past the misinformation and propaganda because it supports their world view are just reflexively changing the subject to avoid self-examination.
There are certainly outside propaganda efforts, but the problem is that there are problems here! The U.S. propaganda worked on the Soviets because they really didn't have the consumer goods or freedom that Americans did. The authoritarian propaganda works because many Americans don't see their political system as benefiting them at all, and there's been a homegrown push against government as a concept for generations now. If you've grown up with the narrative that your elected representatives are senile and corrupt at best and rapists and pedophiles at worst and that the best way to participate in shaping society is to use your cash, not your vote, what more does an outsider need to do?
Anyway, these articles just reinforce the perception--"I'm a very rich person with mysterious monied interests that you're never going to share, I don't want to or can't do anything about your complaints, so I'm going to say it's the fault of the Russians and the Chinese that you're upset about groceries or Gaza or whatever." (Not that Applebaum is necessarily very rich, but in comparison to who she's trying to convince, she's elite.)
posted by kingdead at 6:42 AM on May 10 [9 favorites]
There are certainly outside propaganda efforts, but the problem is that there are problems here! The U.S. propaganda worked on the Soviets because they really didn't have the consumer goods or freedom that Americans did. The authoritarian propaganda works because many Americans don't see their political system as benefiting them at all, and there's been a homegrown push against government as a concept for generations now. If you've grown up with the narrative that your elected representatives are senile and corrupt at best and rapists and pedophiles at worst and that the best way to participate in shaping society is to use your cash, not your vote, what more does an outsider need to do?
Anyway, these articles just reinforce the perception--"I'm a very rich person with mysterious monied interests that you're never going to share, I don't want to or can't do anything about your complaints, so I'm going to say it's the fault of the Russians and the Chinese that you're upset about groceries or Gaza or whatever." (Not that Applebaum is necessarily very rich, but in comparison to who she's trying to convince, she's elite.)
posted by kingdead at 6:42 AM on May 10 [9 favorites]
"Fascism is on the rise! Quick, circle the firing squad!"
"There's a constant manipulation of the strong emotions around gay rights and feminism."
"Interesting to read, but whackadoodle also."
"the causes they performatively claim to embrace."
""No, I definitely came to all my opinions entirely by myself, I've never been influenced, no sirree, I am opposed to everything I define as 'not progressive enough' to the point that I can't distinguish between that and actual stated enemies of my interest... but I'm certainly free from propaganda!""
"the old-school leftists' contemptuous definition of "liberal" -- once confined mostly to fringe magazines with tiny circulation numbers -- has gone viral among extremely online people of a progressive-ish bent -- especially, but not exclusively, younger people."
"I regularly hear "the system is broken, it cannot be reformed, only abolished" from all sides, and that's more worrying to me. Nihilistic actions from otherwise well-meaning people"
"I have no idea what social media accounts you subscribe to, but if they're anything like the dozens of accounts my former friends repost, with ongoing genocide content dialed up to 11 leading to the US is an evil empire leading to NATO and Ukraine and the EU are terrorist entities leading to Putin/Xi are doing nothing wrong, then yes."
"People on the left typically can't be bothered to actually do anything more significant than gripe"
"My "very online" leftist friends, defined jokingly as "people who still fap about on X", are almost scarily overlapped with the sorts of disinformation described in the article, and increasingly with the MAGA crowd, right-wing extremists."Strong straw feminists vibes here. Not entirely sure it's the devious leftists who are "taking over" this thread.
posted by sagc at 6:48 AM on May 10 [15 favorites]
to be more concrete about Frowner's hypothetical nice aunt: the National Health Service is, i think, a great example of something widely viewed as a living avatar of Frowner's-nice-aunt politics. even despite ongoing and ferocious attempts to destroy it that make it look very different from the thing i encountered ten years ago when i arrived here, it is a remarkable collection of institutions. i think it is fair to call it an expression of the feelings and principles to which Frowner's nice aunt is committed. there are all kinds of problems with it, as with every institution, but --- and i am curious if non-immigrants to the UK routinely notice this --- it is amazing, in our shabbily transactional world, that one of the world's largest single workforces is mobilised in service of an actual humane principle, that everyone is entitled to healthcare as long as the collective resources exist to supply it. and people actually say that out loud. like, shitty right-wing politicians have to pay some lip service to it, even.
if Frowner's nice aunt lives here, she maybe even works for the NHS. i hope so, because the thing does seem to depend on the dedication and goodwill of the workforce, despite the architects' (who were obviously not idiots) efforts to base it on a more robust foundation than that. Frowner's nice aunt votes for the parties that say they will maybe gut the thing less; Frowner's nice aunt supports --- maybe even in some concrete way --- the RCN and Unison nurses and the BMA when they're on strike to prevent further engineered collapse. Frowner's nice aunt is doing sort of ok financially and frets about whether getting a little private insurance to avoid the geologic waiting lists that have cropped up lately is helping take pressure off a highly strained system, or if it's a vote of no confidence that lets the side down.
this imagining of Frowner's nice aunt is maybe even a bit to the left of the one in Frowner's original comment. and the NHS, and all of the other creaking wreckage of the welfare state, relies on her tireless work and good citizenship. it's hard to lay the blame for the state of the society's institutional systems of mutual aid solely on any individual factor, but quite a lot of it is unambiguously deliberate. calculated wanton vandalism by some of the world's most arrogant, venal, petty, destructive, parasitic, delusional, narcissistic pseudo-people. there are a bunch of flavours of them; on the matter of the NHS, one probably can't even vote for a major party that doesn't intend vandalism of one sort of another. i bet the NHS will always be a nominally public institution for appearance's sake, but it'll be de facto private by some reasonable metric within a few years and it's probably going to happen under wes streeting's dead-eyed psychopathic buttigiegian gaze (someone prove me wrong, please).
now, of course, the NHS was not set up by Frowner's nice aunt.
most importantly, but maybe less relevantly to my exact point, my understanding of how a country ruined by war conducted such an ambitious project is that a lot of the capital was raised by brutally shaking down imperialised people; more generally, like every other modern british institution, it's built with the profits of centuries of horrendous exploitation and murder. obviously. but it also represents some sort of break with that: let's say a world scarred by the existence of the british empire but with the NHS is a slightly better one than a world scarred by the existence of the empire but where, also, the UK working class doesn't have access to healthcare.
i think people like to emphasise liberal/paternalistic gestures in the social-democratic direction that immediately preceded the establishment of the welfare state, but creating those institutions relied on decades of actual class conflict waged by militant-by-modern-standards trade unionists and democratic socialists famously culminating in the 1945 government yadda yadda.
it's partly the achievement of the people orwell (IIRC) wrote about, who fought in WWII thinking they were participating in an opening phase of the revolution; we get fascism out of the way, and then do the real work. and the concessions made by the ruling class in the wealthy capitalist nations between like the great depression and like the 1970s were not even entirely down to those people, who were actually probably what Frowner's nice aunt looks like when the call of history is obvious and loud. (remember, my version of Frowner's nice aunt doesn't just vote labour and recycle, she goes to her union meetings to say smart shit clearly and is probably one of the five or six not-to-be-fucked-with nice aunts standing by city hall protesting genocide as we speak.)
a lot of those concessions came about because the ruling class had this idea that the totalitarian dictatorship or "deformed workers' state" or whatever just to the east offered an attractive alternative for a domestic populace that was probably much more politically clued-up and energised and conscious of their own power, and less confusingly segmented and striated, than we are today. despite how it worked out for people in the ussr and its environs, it's safe to say that people with Frowner's nice aunt's politics got their way for a short and heady while partly because a few decades prior, in a different part of the world, a bunch of people --- whose backgrounds made them way more disciplined and determined and ruthless than Frowner's nice aunt --- actually thought through what it might take for the meek to actually inherit the earth given the aforementioned forces of greed and parasitism and vandalism inevitably arrayed against any effort to make things actually measurably nicer. they (the bolsheviks) failed quite badly, but like literally every other failure on that scale, there were positive effects, some temporary, and one of them is that the socialists and the labour movement in the liberal-capitalist world were able to extract concessions with probably more success (but not that much, in absolute terms) and less violence (but still more than is usually acknowledged) than would have been the case without the ruling class being scared shitless of the potential appeal of communism. i think that's like an accurate-ish take for a quick take.
now, Frowner's nice aunt faces a ruling class way better-equipped and autocratic and confusing than that faced by historical revolutionaries who'd look to rich-nation middle-class eyes like terrifyingly ruthless hardasses. hence a ruling class way, way, way more formidable than postwar western europe or whatever. by this i mean that there's been so much state capture and erosion of democratic institutions, and so much wealth and power concentrated in totally unaccountable private hands, that even if you could, like, reanimate rosa luxemburg and ask her to foment a revolution, anything she came up with would sound quaint. and she's just way, way, more of a perceptive theoretician and serious political actor than Frowner's nice aunt. actual reality in even comparatively privileged conditions is so mind-shatteringly shape-shifting and complex and mediated by layers and layers of bullshit (some, yes, from various state propaganda shops, even more from advertisements and whole cohorts of innocent people who have been trained to think in wishes, lies, impressions, snapshots, and vibes), and democratic institutions so seemingly exhausted and wrong-footed, that Frowner's nice aunt's idea that we're all going to do our bit and the moral arc is going to bend towards vaguely ok seems laughably quaint. like: empirically fucking quaint. one can always identify positive developments and positive progress, but not in all of the required directions or at the required scales. and either you're a callous asshole or you recognise that material reality is grading us pass/fail, here.
something --- the internet? mass media more generally? the fucking rent? the uncritical veneration of the (yes, liberal conception of) individual ego? the related thing where politics is a thing you wear instead of a thing you take part in? the thing where our acquiescence is no longer bought with collective attempts to secure the conditions of decent life for (at least theoretically) everyone (narrowly construed), but instead bought for the cheaper price of piles of consumer shit? declining real wages and free time? the thing where the officially available avenue of political participation offers extremely meaningful and important choices in many matters but gives us essentially no collective leverage in various other vitally important, life-or-death matters where the game theoretically-anointed options are, even if different, both wholly insufficient, with no prospect of this state of affairs changing ever? fucking climate change and genocide and the lack of real moral clarity on either (where moral clarity on the part of governments would probably involve the technically illiberal exercise of actual state power to ameliorate the malign influence of extremely rich people, basically)? --- made it so that Frowner's (extremely excellent, seriously) nice aunt is even less of a factor than she was in setting up the welfare state, and way less of a factor than she should be.
if anyone figures out a realistic way to actually build the power to actually implement Frowner's nice aunt's vision (not merely run for election on that vision while fully intending to flush it down the Starmer), let me know. i'll just be over here deriving my takes frompre-internet print materials and wikipedia Chy-ina.
posted by busted_crayons at 6:51 AM on May 10 [13 favorites]
if Frowner's nice aunt lives here, she maybe even works for the NHS. i hope so, because the thing does seem to depend on the dedication and goodwill of the workforce, despite the architects' (who were obviously not idiots) efforts to base it on a more robust foundation than that. Frowner's nice aunt votes for the parties that say they will maybe gut the thing less; Frowner's nice aunt supports --- maybe even in some concrete way --- the RCN and Unison nurses and the BMA when they're on strike to prevent further engineered collapse. Frowner's nice aunt is doing sort of ok financially and frets about whether getting a little private insurance to avoid the geologic waiting lists that have cropped up lately is helping take pressure off a highly strained system, or if it's a vote of no confidence that lets the side down.
this imagining of Frowner's nice aunt is maybe even a bit to the left of the one in Frowner's original comment. and the NHS, and all of the other creaking wreckage of the welfare state, relies on her tireless work and good citizenship. it's hard to lay the blame for the state of the society's institutional systems of mutual aid solely on any individual factor, but quite a lot of it is unambiguously deliberate. calculated wanton vandalism by some of the world's most arrogant, venal, petty, destructive, parasitic, delusional, narcissistic pseudo-people. there are a bunch of flavours of them; on the matter of the NHS, one probably can't even vote for a major party that doesn't intend vandalism of one sort of another. i bet the NHS will always be a nominally public institution for appearance's sake, but it'll be de facto private by some reasonable metric within a few years and it's probably going to happen under wes streeting's dead-eyed psychopathic buttigiegian gaze (someone prove me wrong, please).
now, of course, the NHS was not set up by Frowner's nice aunt.
most importantly, but maybe less relevantly to my exact point, my understanding of how a country ruined by war conducted such an ambitious project is that a lot of the capital was raised by brutally shaking down imperialised people; more generally, like every other modern british institution, it's built with the profits of centuries of horrendous exploitation and murder. obviously. but it also represents some sort of break with that: let's say a world scarred by the existence of the british empire but with the NHS is a slightly better one than a world scarred by the existence of the empire but where, also, the UK working class doesn't have access to healthcare.
i think people like to emphasise liberal/paternalistic gestures in the social-democratic direction that immediately preceded the establishment of the welfare state, but creating those institutions relied on decades of actual class conflict waged by militant-by-modern-standards trade unionists and democratic socialists famously culminating in the 1945 government yadda yadda.
it's partly the achievement of the people orwell (IIRC) wrote about, who fought in WWII thinking they were participating in an opening phase of the revolution; we get fascism out of the way, and then do the real work. and the concessions made by the ruling class in the wealthy capitalist nations between like the great depression and like the 1970s were not even entirely down to those people, who were actually probably what Frowner's nice aunt looks like when the call of history is obvious and loud. (remember, my version of Frowner's nice aunt doesn't just vote labour and recycle, she goes to her union meetings to say smart shit clearly and is probably one of the five or six not-to-be-fucked-with nice aunts standing by city hall protesting genocide as we speak.)
a lot of those concessions came about because the ruling class had this idea that the totalitarian dictatorship or "deformed workers' state" or whatever just to the east offered an attractive alternative for a domestic populace that was probably much more politically clued-up and energised and conscious of their own power, and less confusingly segmented and striated, than we are today. despite how it worked out for people in the ussr and its environs, it's safe to say that people with Frowner's nice aunt's politics got their way for a short and heady while partly because a few decades prior, in a different part of the world, a bunch of people --- whose backgrounds made them way more disciplined and determined and ruthless than Frowner's nice aunt --- actually thought through what it might take for the meek to actually inherit the earth given the aforementioned forces of greed and parasitism and vandalism inevitably arrayed against any effort to make things actually measurably nicer. they (the bolsheviks) failed quite badly, but like literally every other failure on that scale, there were positive effects, some temporary, and one of them is that the socialists and the labour movement in the liberal-capitalist world were able to extract concessions with probably more success (but not that much, in absolute terms) and less violence (but still more than is usually acknowledged) than would have been the case without the ruling class being scared shitless of the potential appeal of communism. i think that's like an accurate-ish take for a quick take.
now, Frowner's nice aunt faces a ruling class way better-equipped and autocratic and confusing than that faced by historical revolutionaries who'd look to rich-nation middle-class eyes like terrifyingly ruthless hardasses. hence a ruling class way, way, way more formidable than postwar western europe or whatever. by this i mean that there's been so much state capture and erosion of democratic institutions, and so much wealth and power concentrated in totally unaccountable private hands, that even if you could, like, reanimate rosa luxemburg and ask her to foment a revolution, anything she came up with would sound quaint. and she's just way, way, more of a perceptive theoretician and serious political actor than Frowner's nice aunt. actual reality in even comparatively privileged conditions is so mind-shatteringly shape-shifting and complex and mediated by layers and layers of bullshit (some, yes, from various state propaganda shops, even more from advertisements and whole cohorts of innocent people who have been trained to think in wishes, lies, impressions, snapshots, and vibes), and democratic institutions so seemingly exhausted and wrong-footed, that Frowner's nice aunt's idea that we're all going to do our bit and the moral arc is going to bend towards vaguely ok seems laughably quaint. like: empirically fucking quaint. one can always identify positive developments and positive progress, but not in all of the required directions or at the required scales. and either you're a callous asshole or you recognise that material reality is grading us pass/fail, here.
something --- the internet? mass media more generally? the fucking rent? the uncritical veneration of the (yes, liberal conception of) individual ego? the related thing where politics is a thing you wear instead of a thing you take part in? the thing where our acquiescence is no longer bought with collective attempts to secure the conditions of decent life for (at least theoretically) everyone (narrowly construed), but instead bought for the cheaper price of piles of consumer shit? declining real wages and free time? the thing where the officially available avenue of political participation offers extremely meaningful and important choices in many matters but gives us essentially no collective leverage in various other vitally important, life-or-death matters where the game theoretically-anointed options are, even if different, both wholly insufficient, with no prospect of this state of affairs changing ever? fucking climate change and genocide and the lack of real moral clarity on either (where moral clarity on the part of governments would probably involve the technically illiberal exercise of actual state power to ameliorate the malign influence of extremely rich people, basically)? --- made it so that Frowner's (extremely excellent, seriously) nice aunt is even less of a factor than she was in setting up the welfare state, and way less of a factor than she should be.
if anyone figures out a realistic way to actually build the power to actually implement Frowner's nice aunt's vision (not merely run for election on that vision while fully intending to flush it down the Starmer), let me know. i'll just be over here deriving my takes from
posted by busted_crayons at 6:51 AM on May 10 [13 favorites]
Confucius Institutes are probably the best-known elite Chinese influence project...
[T]hey were welcomed by many universities because they provided cheap or even free Chinese-language classes and professors. Over time, the institutes aroused suspicion, policing Chinese students at American universities by restricting open discussions of Tibet and Taiwan, and in some cases altering the teaching of Chinese history and politics to suit Chinese narratives. They have now been mostly disbanded in the United States.
I can verify this. Opposition came from a mix of college faculty and state/national politicians.
posted by doctornemo at 7:17 AM on May 10 [1 favorite]
[T]hey were welcomed by many universities because they provided cheap or even free Chinese-language classes and professors. Over time, the institutes aroused suspicion, policing Chinese students at American universities by restricting open discussions of Tibet and Taiwan, and in some cases altering the teaching of Chinese history and politics to suit Chinese narratives. They have now been mostly disbanded in the United States.
I can verify this. Opposition came from a mix of college faculty and state/national politicians.
posted by doctornemo at 7:17 AM on May 10 [1 favorite]
Thank you for such a well-reasoned and compassionate take, busted_crayons. The doomers and the anti-doomers both have legitimate points but it’s really easy to talk past each other. We all want a better world and it’s hard to see how to get there with the tools we have in hand. It’s sobering to think that Putin et al might be influencing our opinions and strategies for the worse. We saw people chasing Tulsi Gabbard and said “I’d never be that gullible” but we are all vulnerable to bad arguments dressed up the right way. Everyone with power is some kind of enemy, but even anti-monarchists can sometimes side with the fickle and sometimes despotic king against the Dark Lord working to bring about the End of All Things.
We get so caught up in our feelings, some of us wanting to feel less bad about ourselves by putting the best spin possible on the king, others wanting to salvage their dignity by listing in detail every crime of the king. And there’s fear that those folks could be co-opted by the Dark Lord's minions because they make the king seem so bad that there’s not much daylight between him and the Dark Lord, so why bother? But those people are meanwhile suspicious of the former people as non being actual anti-monarchists at all and now that they’ve cozied up to the throne, after the Dark Lord is (hopefully) defeated, they have to be regarded as the next enemy, and actually why wait?
I want to work harder to trust each other and give hugs and cut other people on my side some slack. We’re all under the boot in one way or another and what Putin and Xi want most is our side fighting each other as much as we’re fighting the Dark Lord. There’s room for multiple strategies. There’s room for lots of feelings, as long as we turn those feelings to action and don’t just let them eat us up inside.
posted by rikschell at 7:43 AM on May 10 [3 favorites]
We get so caught up in our feelings, some of us wanting to feel less bad about ourselves by putting the best spin possible on the king, others wanting to salvage their dignity by listing in detail every crime of the king. And there’s fear that those folks could be co-opted by the Dark Lord's minions because they make the king seem so bad that there’s not much daylight between him and the Dark Lord, so why bother? But those people are meanwhile suspicious of the former people as non being actual anti-monarchists at all and now that they’ve cozied up to the throne, after the Dark Lord is (hopefully) defeated, they have to be regarded as the next enemy, and actually why wait?
I want to work harder to trust each other and give hugs and cut other people on my side some slack. We’re all under the boot in one way or another and what Putin and Xi want most is our side fighting each other as much as we’re fighting the Dark Lord. There’s room for multiple strategies. There’s room for lots of feelings, as long as we turn those feelings to action and don’t just let them eat us up inside.
posted by rikschell at 7:43 AM on May 10 [3 favorites]
This deleted comment is reposted after removing a problematic reference
if you did not realize that Trump used drones more than Obama did, it is worth considering why that might be, because a potential epiphany may be close
The Epiphany in question is that leftist discourse is being heavily influenced by neo-fascist troll farms. Why wouldn't they? It's right there for them to mess with, wide open. Trolls already have 25 years of experience under their belt messing with black forums. This is not hyperbole - Look at Unlimited Hangout, the Gray Zone, World Beyond War. Look at Cointel.hoe and AnarchoSpirituality. There are many, many others. Dig deep into past posts, before Oct 7. The patterns are there.
The general public is now so sick of progressive thought, they will not put up much of a fuss when arrests start. This is all by design. The neo-fascists handed leftists a noose, who obligingly put it around their own necks.
For those of you who are indignant at the idea that directing your fury against liberalism in the face of global fascism is not your own idea, but one planted in your head, I need only point to the Legions of Trump fans whose Carlson/Bannon talking points often align with your own as proof that such deception is not only possible, but a strategic certainty. The neo-fascists would have been crazy not to do it.
Please Watch
I am told this PBS documentary is blocked in the US
posted by CynicalKnight at 7:47 AM on May 10 [2 favorites]
if you did not realize that Trump used drones more than Obama did, it is worth considering why that might be, because a potential epiphany may be close
The Epiphany in question is that leftist discourse is being heavily influenced by neo-fascist troll farms. Why wouldn't they? It's right there for them to mess with, wide open. Trolls already have 25 years of experience under their belt messing with black forums. This is not hyperbole - Look at Unlimited Hangout, the Gray Zone, World Beyond War. Look at Cointel.hoe and AnarchoSpirituality. There are many, many others. Dig deep into past posts, before Oct 7. The patterns are there.
The general public is now so sick of progressive thought, they will not put up much of a fuss when arrests start. This is all by design. The neo-fascists handed leftists a noose, who obligingly put it around their own necks.
For those of you who are indignant at the idea that directing your fury against liberalism in the face of global fascism is not your own idea, but one planted in your head, I need only point to the Legions of Trump fans whose Carlson/Bannon talking points often align with your own as proof that such deception is not only possible, but a strategic certainty. The neo-fascists would have been crazy not to do it.
Please Watch
I am told this PBS documentary is blocked in the US
posted by CynicalKnight at 7:47 AM on May 10 [2 favorites]
CynicalKnight, answer me this: when non-Republican mayors and governors consent to the use of violence against peaceful student protesters, who should I direct my "fury" against? Should it be a) the person who gave the order or b) someone else?
Because you seem to be saying the answer is "someone else", and implying that by arriving a different answer, I've had ideas planted in my head. I'd suggest that if you think that's the case, you should own it - tell us what things we should be ignoring, but only when members of the Democratic Party.
posted by sagc at 7:53 AM on May 10 [12 favorites]
Because you seem to be saying the answer is "someone else", and implying that by arriving a different answer, I've had ideas planted in my head. I'd suggest that if you think that's the case, you should own it - tell us what things we should be ignoring, but only when members of the Democratic Party.
posted by sagc at 7:53 AM on May 10 [12 favorites]
The general public is now so sick of progressive thought, they will not put up much of a fuss when arrests start. This is all by design. The neo-fascists handed leftists a noose, who obligingly put it around their own necks.
Given that this is in itself identical to the common right-wing talking point of "You pushed us too far with your gender ideology and {insert rant here}, now the public hates you & we'll get revenge when it's our turn"
Why should we put any credence in what you're saying either?
posted by CrystalDave at 8:01 AM on May 10 [13 favorites]
Given that this is in itself identical to the common right-wing talking point of "You pushed us too far with your gender ideology and {insert rant here}, now the public hates you & we'll get revenge when it's our turn"
Why should we put any credence in what you're saying either?
posted by CrystalDave at 8:01 AM on May 10 [13 favorites]
For those of you who are indignant at the idea that directing your fury against liberalism in the face of global fascism is not your own idea
There’s really no point in conversing with someone who sees genuine disagreement as brain worms from Putin. This is one step above yelling WAKE UP SHEEPLE!!!!!1
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:04 AM on May 10 [9 favorites]
There’s really no point in conversing with someone who sees genuine disagreement as brain worms from Putin. This is one step above yelling WAKE UP SHEEPLE!!!!!1
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:04 AM on May 10 [9 favorites]
to be clear about what my compassionate well-reasoned conciliatory take is: for reasons, i am a registered postal voter in the swing state of michigan. i will not be voting for joe biden or any other presidential candidate unless the next bunch of uniformed local/state/campus fascist pigs to attack university students bravely engaged in legitimate political participation in the hope of stopping a us-backed genocide are met by armed federal troops sent to protect same students from same local/state/campus fascist pigs.
this position was arrived at by listening to my friends in the us talk about themselves or their students getting attacked and/or arrested for exercising the sort of political rights that many self-identified liberals are revealing themselves as having supported rather more hypocritically or conditionally than the word "liberal" would maybe suggest.
this position was arrived at without the help of any russian propaganda unless you think that (1) articles in places like the Guardian are significantly influenced by russian propaganda or (2) my friends were somehow influenced to lie about their personal experiences, which resemble the accounts in the mainstream press.
so i'm laying out what i'm hoping to extract with my miniscule and symbolic leverage as an individual voter: i want the notionally liberal us presidential candidate to use state power to uphold liberal political rights in the face of repression of those exercising those rights by the fascist pigs. do the liberals regard the robust defence of liberal values as too tall an order, or what? if they do, that's on them.
posted by busted_crayons at 8:33 AM on May 10 [10 favorites]
this position was arrived at by listening to my friends in the us talk about themselves or their students getting attacked and/or arrested for exercising the sort of political rights that many self-identified liberals are revealing themselves as having supported rather more hypocritically or conditionally than the word "liberal" would maybe suggest.
this position was arrived at without the help of any russian propaganda unless you think that (1) articles in places like the Guardian are significantly influenced by russian propaganda or (2) my friends were somehow influenced to lie about their personal experiences, which resemble the accounts in the mainstream press.
so i'm laying out what i'm hoping to extract with my miniscule and symbolic leverage as an individual voter: i want the notionally liberal us presidential candidate to use state power to uphold liberal political rights in the face of repression of those exercising those rights by the fascist pigs. do the liberals regard the robust defence of liberal values as too tall an order, or what? if they do, that's on them.
posted by busted_crayons at 8:33 AM on May 10 [10 favorites]
One frustrating thing about the climate doom conversation is being called a "doomer" while actually making concrete suggestions to deal with climate change.
Degrowth and economic realignment away from commodity production are not at all trivial or simple, but they are real attempts at solving the problem.
But any idea other than a specific candidate to vote for is treated as a nonanswer. Not believing in the liberal response isn't despair. Taking more radical solutions off the table seems a lot more doomery than believing we can make genuine changing to stop damage and keep people alive and safe through the climate damage that is already unavoidable.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 8:34 AM on May 10 [13 favorites]
Degrowth and economic realignment away from commodity production are not at all trivial or simple, but they are real attempts at solving the problem.
But any idea other than a specific candidate to vote for is treated as a nonanswer. Not believing in the liberal response isn't despair. Taking more radical solutions off the table seems a lot more doomery than believing we can make genuine changing to stop damage and keep people alive and safe through the climate damage that is already unavoidable.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 8:34 AM on May 10 [13 favorites]
The only thing that matters is stopping the genocide. Thats it, not defending liberals. But a healthy majority of regular people in the Democratic Party think this is a genocide. Its the the leadership writ large - from the Administration (god they suck and/or are evil) down to vile columnists, and down to pathetic college administrators - that are the cause of, or at least facilitating this genocide. Yes, they sort of claim to be liberals, but they really are cowards and/or reactionary fellow travelers who are pimping for the IDF. Most regular people who'd call themselves liberal thing this is a genocide needs to stop - most.
posted by WatTylerJr at 8:36 AM on May 10 [9 favorites]
posted by WatTylerJr at 8:36 AM on May 10 [9 favorites]
One frustrating thing about the climate doom conversation is being called a "doomer" while actually making concrete suggestions to deal with climate change.
Degrowth and economic realignment away from commodity production are not at all trivial or simple, but they are real attempts at solving the problem.
But any idea other than a specific candidate to vote for is treated as a nonanswer. Not believing in the liberal response isn't despair. Taking more radical solutions off the table seems a lot more doomery than believing we can make genuine changing to stop damage and keep people alive and safe through the climate damage that is already unavoidable.
Speaking only for myself, none of what you describe sound doomerish to me. Doomerism is the people who say "we are all gonna die" and "it's too late to do anything" and so on. There's a lot of it, and it's what keeps me out of those discussions.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:49 AM on May 10 [5 favorites]
Degrowth and economic realignment away from commodity production are not at all trivial or simple, but they are real attempts at solving the problem.
But any idea other than a specific candidate to vote for is treated as a nonanswer. Not believing in the liberal response isn't despair. Taking more radical solutions off the table seems a lot more doomery than believing we can make genuine changing to stop damage and keep people alive and safe through the climate damage that is already unavoidable.
Speaking only for myself, none of what you describe sound doomerish to me. Doomerism is the people who say "we are all gonna die" and "it's too late to do anything" and so on. There's a lot of it, and it's what keeps me out of those discussions.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:49 AM on May 10 [5 favorites]
The only thing that matters is stopping the genocide.
Except that's not the only thing that matters. Climate change matters. Healthcare matters. Other genocides happening around the world matter. Wars happening around the world matter. Other genocides and wars that are more likely or even certain to happen depending on the outcome of this election matter.
I don't want to keep getting into the everlasting debate on MetaFilter of "is it justifiable to vote for Joe Biden?" and its various permutations. So far it's proven completely unproductive and caused nothing but ill will and insults. But man, I could really do without the habit of some folks of insisting that all they care about is the genocide in Gaza to the exclusion of everything else, all I should care about is the genocide in Gaza to the exclusion of everything else, and if I do care about anything else or let anything else inform my vote, including the possibility of a war or genocide against my own community, then I'm part of the problem (to put it much more nicely than it's usually put in these threads).
posted by Method Man at 8:52 AM on May 10 [20 favorites]
Except that's not the only thing that matters. Climate change matters. Healthcare matters. Other genocides happening around the world matter. Wars happening around the world matter. Other genocides and wars that are more likely or even certain to happen depending on the outcome of this election matter.
I don't want to keep getting into the everlasting debate on MetaFilter of "is it justifiable to vote for Joe Biden?" and its various permutations. So far it's proven completely unproductive and caused nothing but ill will and insults. But man, I could really do without the habit of some folks of insisting that all they care about is the genocide in Gaza to the exclusion of everything else, all I should care about is the genocide in Gaza to the exclusion of everything else, and if I do care about anything else or let anything else inform my vote, including the possibility of a war or genocide against my own community, then I'm part of the problem (to put it much more nicely than it's usually put in these threads).
posted by Method Man at 8:52 AM on May 10 [20 favorites]
Sorry Method man, you're of course very right - I meant in context of the Gaza nightmare, not the general shitstorm of life. I should've read the comments before posting. But maybe not. This thread, wow. I really did favorite a lot of comments on both sides of the 'leftist think this', 'liberals think that' continuum (excluding the painful personal attacks on folks who are commenting in good faith). I slide between left positions and liberal positions. But I'm not poor, ill, or a member of the many persecuted classes in this country, so that's pretty easy for me. This thread though, might actually break me from the constant doom scrolling I'm doing (which is absolutely not the same as going to bury my head in the sand) cause it's fucking me up!
Best wishes to you all.
posted by WatTylerJr at 9:01 AM on May 10 [10 favorites]
Best wishes to you all.
posted by WatTylerJr at 9:01 AM on May 10 [10 favorites]
That’s okay— I apologize if I misunderstood you and had a knee jerk reaction.
posted by Method Man at 9:14 AM on May 10 [2 favorites]
posted by Method Man at 9:14 AM on May 10 [2 favorites]
People are getting more and more desperate and scared and the current systems in liberal/"free" countries seem to be collapsing into utter dysfunction. You look at your rent, you look at your grocery bill, you look at what Congress or your state legislature is doing, it's not exactly a ringing endorsement of liberal society. That's not some Chinese or MAGA psy-op, it's the reality anyone who looks around sees.
From my perspective here in Canada (applicable only to the provinces I've resided in, Ontario and Quebec), I am definitely seeing people who would consider themselves Liberal voterss starting to absorb this mentality. I mean, the folks with the Fuck Trudeau stickers on their oversized unnecesary trucks were already there, but it's wild watching how people who often supported human rights/multi-culturalism/refugees and immigrants are now using, "But I can't afford housing! Gas costs too much! Food costs too much! Our healthcare system is broken!" They aren't going full right wing but they are definitely starting to blur the lines.
Folks are getting scared. I hate that they are getting scared enough that they will modify their values or beliefs.
posted by Kitteh at 9:18 AM on May 10 [9 favorites]
From my perspective here in Canada (applicable only to the provinces I've resided in, Ontario and Quebec), I am definitely seeing people who would consider themselves Liberal voterss starting to absorb this mentality. I mean, the folks with the Fuck Trudeau stickers on their oversized unnecesary trucks were already there, but it's wild watching how people who often supported human rights/multi-culturalism/refugees and immigrants are now using, "But I can't afford housing! Gas costs too much! Food costs too much! Our healthcare system is broken!" They aren't going full right wing but they are definitely starting to blur the lines.
Folks are getting scared. I hate that they are getting scared enough that they will modify their values or beliefs.
posted by Kitteh at 9:18 AM on May 10 [9 favorites]
leftist discourse is being heavily influenced by neo-fascist troll farms
This is seriously a Clown World take. Leftist discourse, insofar as I have observed it, is heavily influenced by the present liberal adminstration's gaslighting ("best economy ever" when the cost of basic necessities like food has increased on average 25-50% since 2020 and wages haven't kept pace; a significant percentage of people are struggling to survive, and among the LGBTQ/trans/disabled people I follow on social media I would estimate that somewhere around half have had need of some form of mutual aid/crowdsourced funding to be able to afford rent/food/medical expenses), and the present liberal administration backing a genocidal ethnostate to the hilt while gutting the First Amendment in order to crack down on peaceful protests. You have to be delusional or living in a bubble to think that this has anything at all to do with "neo-fascist troll farms".
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 9:24 AM on May 10 [9 favorites]
This is seriously a Clown World take. Leftist discourse, insofar as I have observed it, is heavily influenced by the present liberal adminstration's gaslighting ("best economy ever" when the cost of basic necessities like food has increased on average 25-50% since 2020 and wages haven't kept pace; a significant percentage of people are struggling to survive, and among the LGBTQ/trans/disabled people I follow on social media I would estimate that somewhere around half have had need of some form of mutual aid/crowdsourced funding to be able to afford rent/food/medical expenses), and the present liberal administration backing a genocidal ethnostate to the hilt while gutting the First Amendment in order to crack down on peaceful protests. You have to be delusional or living in a bubble to think that this has anything at all to do with "neo-fascist troll farms".
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 9:24 AM on May 10 [9 favorites]
The only thing that matters is stopping the genocide
False. That feeling is the result of emotion cranked to 11 by social media feeds designed deliberately to do so, as is the topic of this FPP.
What's happening to both Ukraine and Palestine are monumental war crimes. The perpetrators belong in the Hague; one is already charged by the ICC (for all the good it does), and the other is on the verge of the same.
But, both of those conflicts are insignificant next to the threat of a Trumpian presidency. That change will be permanent, and will ensure complete obliteration of Ukraine and Palestine just for starters. Then, the newly BRICS-allied US war machine will abandon Frequently Corrupt World Cop for Imperial Conquistador and redirect it's bloodlust at Mexico, and possibly Canada if we have not yet elected our own BRICS quisling.
posted by CynicalKnight at 9:24 AM on May 10 [1 favorite]
False. That feeling is the result of emotion cranked to 11 by social media feeds designed deliberately to do so, as is the topic of this FPP.
What's happening to both Ukraine and Palestine are monumental war crimes. The perpetrators belong in the Hague; one is already charged by the ICC (for all the good it does), and the other is on the verge of the same.
But, both of those conflicts are insignificant next to the threat of a Trumpian presidency. That change will be permanent, and will ensure complete obliteration of Ukraine and Palestine just for starters. Then, the newly BRICS-allied US war machine will abandon Frequently Corrupt World Cop for Imperial Conquistador and redirect it's bloodlust at Mexico, and possibly Canada if we have not yet elected our own BRICS quisling.
posted by CynicalKnight at 9:24 AM on May 10 [1 favorite]
The perpetrators belong in the Hague
The perpetrators include Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, and every member of Congress who voted to send Israel billions of dollars in military equipment.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 9:27 AM on May 10 [8 favorites]
The perpetrators include Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, and every member of Congress who voted to send Israel billions of dollars in military equipment.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 9:27 AM on May 10 [8 favorites]
What's happening in Palestine is permanent, too. It isn't an issue. It is a nation where tens of thousands are dead and many more are at risk of death. Where countless people have lost homes, lost the ability to work, have lost their chance at an education. None of that is going to be reversed by the outcome of the 2024 election.
These are lives and families as real and precious as ours. We can't stand by and do nothing while they are destroyed.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 9:32 AM on May 10 [9 favorites]
These are lives and families as real and precious as ours. We can't stand by and do nothing while they are destroyed.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 9:32 AM on May 10 [9 favorites]
That feeling is the result of emotion cranked to 11 by social media feeds designed deliberately to do so, as is the topic of this FPP.
Can you stop this shit? Poor emotional brown people being worried that their cooethnics and very often family members are being bombed and starved to death with the backing of the biggest polity in the world. tens of thousands of children have been murdered and you’re lecturing people about being too emotional?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:37 AM on May 10 [11 favorites]
Can you stop this shit? Poor emotional brown people being worried that their cooethnics and very often family members are being bombed and starved to death with the backing of the biggest polity in the world. tens of thousands of children have been murdered and you’re lecturing people about being too emotional?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:37 AM on May 10 [11 favorites]
Don't you get it? Leftists simply care too much about the wrong people, unlike steely-eyed liberals who know the worth of every life and are weighing them correctly
posted by sagc at 9:42 AM on May 10 [11 favorites]
posted by sagc at 9:42 AM on May 10 [11 favorites]
Part of the disconnect for me is that the USA has never once in it's history been fully committed to liberalism-as-prosperous-peaceful-leftist/progressive-ideology. That's not Russian/Chinese propaganda, that's just going through US history with clear eyes. Even grading on a curve for the nature of the times at each point in history, it's been a pretty robust failure of values as implemented. It is, however, a great money making machine that can wear the trappings of liberalism like Vincent D'Onofrio as the alien wearing a skin suit in Men In Black.
People in leftist spaces get really incredibly mad when they're told that the skin suit is the best we can do at the moment and that any attempt to pursue more than the skin suit too quickly will result in Trumpian Apocalypse. The skin suit isn't good enough and making some minor changes to the stitching isn't sufficient to live the values this country crows about endlessly.
Even keeping the skin suit seems questionable when every 20-30 years the skin suit invades some random country, murders a million people, destroys their country, and derails their futures. And this isn't even going into random foreign electoral manipulations that could be used as Really Bad Prime Directive Failure Case Studies.
posted by Slackermagee at 9:42 AM on May 10 [9 favorites]
People in leftist spaces get really incredibly mad when they're told that the skin suit is the best we can do at the moment and that any attempt to pursue more than the skin suit too quickly will result in Trumpian Apocalypse. The skin suit isn't good enough and making some minor changes to the stitching isn't sufficient to live the values this country crows about endlessly.
Even keeping the skin suit seems questionable when every 20-30 years the skin suit invades some random country, murders a million people, destroys their country, and derails their futures. And this isn't even going into random foreign electoral manipulations that could be used as Really Bad Prime Directive Failure Case Studies.
posted by Slackermagee at 9:42 AM on May 10 [9 favorites]
The perpetrators include Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, and every member of Congress who voted to send Israel billions of dollars in military equipment.
The people who wish to replace them will send many times that, if they can.
We can't stand by and do nothing while they are destroyed.
I agree; that's why I love the scale of the protest encampments. The "Abolish Israel" sentiments repeated by a few, but not the majority, however, originate from the very poison well that is the topic of this FPP.
you’re lecturing people about being too emotional?
Yes. Emotion has taken my former friends into the same extreme ideological place as Trump supporters. By design.
posted by CynicalKnight at 9:44 AM on May 10 [1 favorite]
The people who wish to replace them will send many times that, if they can.
We can't stand by and do nothing while they are destroyed.
I agree; that's why I love the scale of the protest encampments. The "Abolish Israel" sentiments repeated by a few, but not the majority, however, originate from the very poison well that is the topic of this FPP.
you’re lecturing people about being too emotional?
Yes. Emotion has taken my former friends into the same extreme ideological place as Trump supporters. By design.
posted by CynicalKnight at 9:44 AM on May 10 [1 favorite]
The U.S. propaganda worked on the Soviets because they really didn't have the consumer goods or freedom that Americans did.
A perspective from the post-Soviet sphere of influence:
Outside of Russia pretty much nobody wanted communist party rule. The Soviet system collapsed not because American propaganda worked — it collapsed because we didn't want it in the first place, especially those occupied and colonized by Russia.
In other words, if the US didn't exist or didn't care about Central/Eastern Europe, the Soviet system would have collapsed anyway.
Those of us in the periphery of the Soviet Union had a historical context of being outside of that sphere; most of us, our parents or grandparents didn't need America to know what we had was junk.
Part of the reason Russian propaganda is effective today is that (many) people don't know how miserable and shitty life in a dictatorship is, so they somehow believe a flawed US/EU democracy is in any way comparable to Putin's Russia because [insert bag of reasons here].
posted by UN at 9:44 AM on May 10 [2 favorites]
A perspective from the post-Soviet sphere of influence:
Outside of Russia pretty much nobody wanted communist party rule. The Soviet system collapsed not because American propaganda worked — it collapsed because we didn't want it in the first place, especially those occupied and colonized by Russia.
In other words, if the US didn't exist or didn't care about Central/Eastern Europe, the Soviet system would have collapsed anyway.
Those of us in the periphery of the Soviet Union had a historical context of being outside of that sphere; most of us, our parents or grandparents didn't need America to know what we had was junk.
Part of the reason Russian propaganda is effective today is that (many) people don't know how miserable and shitty life in a dictatorship is, so they somehow believe a flawed US/EU democracy is in any way comparable to Putin's Russia because [insert bag of reasons here].
posted by UN at 9:44 AM on May 10 [2 favorites]
I just got to the point in Klein’s _Doppelganger_ where she (listening to far more Steve Bannon than is healthy) describes how much of the force of MAGA rhetoric is in directly talking about justified fears almost everyone has and our existing order is trying to sweep under the rug.
Anyway, it’s a good book so far.
posted by clew at 9:48 AM on May 10 [4 favorites]
Anyway, it’s a good book so far.
posted by clew at 9:48 AM on May 10 [4 favorites]
Pseudonymous Cognomen: "This is seriously a Clown World take. [...] You have to be delusional or living in a bubble to think that this has anything at all to do with "neo-fascist troll farms"."
The provenance of the meme in your first sentence kind of undercuts the argument of your last one there.
The online discourse is marinating in engineered memetic warfare more than most realize.
posted by Rhaomi at 9:50 AM on May 10 [6 favorites]
The provenance of the meme in your first sentence kind of undercuts the argument of your last one there.
The online discourse is marinating in engineered memetic warfare more than most realize.
posted by Rhaomi at 9:50 AM on May 10 [6 favorites]
Even keeping the skin suit seems questionable when every 20-30 years the skin suit invades some random country, murders a million people
The US is Jekyll and Hyde. While many Democrats often side with the hawks, there is no unjust war Republicans won't get behind when there is treasure involved. It's not a skin suit; it's the evil twin and the opportunistic twin. You can only bargain with the opportunistic twin and push change slowly, the evil twin cannot be reasoned with.
Attacking the admittedly repugnant opportunistic twin in the current state of affairs only benefits the evil one.
posted by CynicalKnight at 9:51 AM on May 10
The US is Jekyll and Hyde. While many Democrats often side with the hawks, there is no unjust war Republicans won't get behind when there is treasure involved. It's not a skin suit; it's the evil twin and the opportunistic twin. You can only bargain with the opportunistic twin and push change slowly, the evil twin cannot be reasoned with.
Attacking the admittedly repugnant opportunistic twin in the current state of affairs only benefits the evil one.
posted by CynicalKnight at 9:51 AM on May 10
Part of this is that it only feels necessary to comment on the bad stuff, so if Biden stops using drones so much, what more is there to say? And, assuming that one remembered that drones existed after the end of Obama's presidency, it might feel a little Orange Man Bad to bother remarking on his use of drones (if you did not realize that Trump used drones more than Obama did, it is worth considering why that might be, because a potential epiphany may be close).
The forgetfulness about the fact that Trump used drones more than Obama is relevant because it shows how a lot of the Donald the Dove, Hillary the Hawk analysis in the 2016 campaign proved to be very flimsy analysis in retrospect. But at the time, that didn't stop some people from voting Trump because they viewed him as the less hawkish candidate over Hillary Clinton.
During antiwar activism campaigns, there's always a danger of a red-brown alliance forming where the anti-imperialist left ends up allying with the paleoconservative isolationist Right. (I'll put my #notallantiimperialists hashtag here so that people realize that I'm talking about a general political phenomena and not trying to subtweet anybody.) An example of this is right-wing anti-Semitic accounts on X rebranding themselves as pro-Palestinian content. However, I would argue that these accounts have way more than enough material from home-grown American crazies to assume that this requires a disinformation supply from China and Russia (although that too very much exists).
So, I'm gonna say that it is important to remember that Trump did launch more drones than Obama because there are some very good faith people on left side of the political spectrum who got played for chumps about that.
posted by jonp72 at 9:53 AM on May 10 [3 favorites]
The forgetfulness about the fact that Trump used drones more than Obama is relevant because it shows how a lot of the Donald the Dove, Hillary the Hawk analysis in the 2016 campaign proved to be very flimsy analysis in retrospect. But at the time, that didn't stop some people from voting Trump because they viewed him as the less hawkish candidate over Hillary Clinton.
During antiwar activism campaigns, there's always a danger of a red-brown alliance forming where the anti-imperialist left ends up allying with the paleoconservative isolationist Right. (I'll put my #notallantiimperialists hashtag here so that people realize that I'm talking about a general political phenomena and not trying to subtweet anybody.) An example of this is right-wing anti-Semitic accounts on X rebranding themselves as pro-Palestinian content. However, I would argue that these accounts have way more than enough material from home-grown American crazies to assume that this requires a disinformation supply from China and Russia (although that too very much exists).
So, I'm gonna say that it is important to remember that Trump did launch more drones than Obama because there are some very good faith people on left side of the political spectrum who got played for chumps about that.
posted by jonp72 at 9:53 AM on May 10 [3 favorites]
The US is Jekyll and Hyde. While many Democrats often side with the hawks, there is no unjust war Republicans won't get behind when there is treasure involved. It's not a skin suit; it's the evil twin and the opportunistic twin. You can only bargain with the opportunistic twin and push change slowly, the evil twin cannot be reasoned with.
The continued existence of the twins is not written into the fundament nor are they required for the world to continue to tick along
posted by Slackermagee at 9:56 AM on May 10 [4 favorites]
The continued existence of the twins is not written into the fundament nor are they required for the world to continue to tick along
posted by Slackermagee at 9:56 AM on May 10 [4 favorites]
That feeling is the result of emotion cranked to 11 by social media feeds designed deliberately to do so, as is the topic of this FPP.
Can you stop this shit? Poor emotional brown people being worried that their cooethnics and very often family members are being bombed and starved to death with the backing of the biggest polity in the world. tens of thousands of children have been murdered and you’re lecturing people about being too emotional?
That is a completely bad faith respoinse. The original poster referred to what is happening in Palestine as a monumental war crime, but you're accusing them of racism because their emotional response is incorrect?
posted by jonp72 at 9:57 AM on May 10 [2 favorites]
Can you stop this shit? Poor emotional brown people being worried that their cooethnics and very often family members are being bombed and starved to death with the backing of the biggest polity in the world. tens of thousands of children have been murdered and you’re lecturing people about being too emotional?
That is a completely bad faith respoinse. The original poster referred to what is happening in Palestine as a monumental war crime, but you're accusing them of racism because their emotional response is incorrect?
posted by jonp72 at 9:57 AM on May 10 [2 favorites]
he "Abolish Israel" sentiments repeated by a few, but not the majority, however, originate from the very poison well that is the topic of this FPP.
No they don't? Pretty much anyone on the left who has a serious awareness of the history involved views Israel as a fundamentally illegitimate ethnofascist apartheid state whose existence is built on ethnic cleansing. (My own opinions on the matter were first formed way back in the 1990s by reading those noted Russian propagandists Edward Said and Christopher Hitchens.)
The provenance of the meme in your first sentence kind of undercuts the argument of your last one there.
I've never been exposed to that meme and was not referencing it. (The phrase "clown world" predates that significantly; see here from 2000, for instance.)
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 9:58 AM on May 10 [6 favorites]
No they don't? Pretty much anyone on the left who has a serious awareness of the history involved views Israel as a fundamentally illegitimate ethnofascist apartheid state whose existence is built on ethnic cleansing. (My own opinions on the matter were first formed way back in the 1990s by reading those noted Russian propagandists Edward Said and Christopher Hitchens.)
The provenance of the meme in your first sentence kind of undercuts the argument of your last one there.
I've never been exposed to that meme and was not referencing it. (The phrase "clown world" predates that significantly; see here from 2000, for instance.)
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 9:58 AM on May 10 [6 favorites]
I agree; that's why I love the scale of the protest encampments. The "Abolish Israel" sentiments, however, originate from the very poison well that is the topic of this FPP.
Or possibly they originate from disgust at the long term support the US has given for a brutal apartheid state.
I feel like there is a recurrent idea that anyone who disagrees with any point of the current Democratic party consensus can't possibly have come to that position without having been tricked by some enemy. No one can just genuinely have different values or have a different perspective, or have had different experiences.
It's both obviously wrong, and also ignores that the US produces and consumes a ton of its own propaganda. Not only does this infantilize everyone who disagrees with you, it turns propaganda into something that happens to other people, rather than an ongoing threat to be aware of.
You can only bargain with the opportunistic twin and push change slowly, the evil twin cannot be reasoned with.
Or we can destroy the whole apparatus and stop letting them use our sweat and blood to enrich themselves at the cost of the rest of the world.
The provenance of the meme in your first sentence kind of undercuts the argument of your last one there.
I don't think it does undercut it, though. Terms can have whatever origin, that doesn't magically charge them with some power. The use here clearly has nothing to do with neo-fascist ideology. If the goal is to perpetuate "fascist memes", it has pretty clearly failed. Memetics is nonsense pseudoscience anyway.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 9:59 AM on May 10 [7 favorites]
Or possibly they originate from disgust at the long term support the US has given for a brutal apartheid state.
I feel like there is a recurrent idea that anyone who disagrees with any point of the current Democratic party consensus can't possibly have come to that position without having been tricked by some enemy. No one can just genuinely have different values or have a different perspective, or have had different experiences.
It's both obviously wrong, and also ignores that the US produces and consumes a ton of its own propaganda. Not only does this infantilize everyone who disagrees with you, it turns propaganda into something that happens to other people, rather than an ongoing threat to be aware of.
You can only bargain with the opportunistic twin and push change slowly, the evil twin cannot be reasoned with.
Or we can destroy the whole apparatus and stop letting them use our sweat and blood to enrich themselves at the cost of the rest of the world.
The provenance of the meme in your first sentence kind of undercuts the argument of your last one there.
I don't think it does undercut it, though. Terms can have whatever origin, that doesn't magically charge them with some power. The use here clearly has nothing to do with neo-fascist ideology. If the goal is to perpetuate "fascist memes", it has pretty clearly failed. Memetics is nonsense pseudoscience anyway.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 9:59 AM on May 10 [7 favorites]
Pseudonymous Cognomen: "I've never been exposed to that meme and was not referencing it. (The phrase "clown world" predates that significantly; see here from 2000, for instance.)"
Not saying you were consciously using it in the alt-right sense, just that spending time in spaces where it's common could be inviting other bad influences as well. (And it may have been said as a one-off phrase in the past but the capitalized version of it in political-cultural discussion is definitely A Thing).
posted by Rhaomi at 10:10 AM on May 10 [2 favorites]
Not saying you were consciously using it in the alt-right sense, just that spending time in spaces where it's common could be inviting other bad influences as well. (And it may have been said as a one-off phrase in the past but the capitalized version of it in political-cultural discussion is definitely A Thing).
posted by Rhaomi at 10:10 AM on May 10 [2 favorites]
anyone on the left who has a serious awareness of the history involved views Israel as a fundamentally illegitimate ethnofascist apartheid state
Even the Hamas position advocates for a return to the 1967 borders. But, this FPP is not about that conflict, specifically.
we can destroy the whole apparatus
And who is going to help you? Not the liberals, after being told they are as good as fascists. Not the centrists, and certainly not the New Centrists. Not the social democrats either, since they are Two State Solution and pro-democracy.
The answer is no one. You have isolated yourselves, by intent from afar. Much of the content that did this has identifiable foreign origin.
Is the message of "First they came for the ..." lost on you?
posted by CynicalKnight at 10:12 AM on May 10 [2 favorites]
Even the Hamas position advocates for a return to the 1967 borders. But, this FPP is not about that conflict, specifically.
we can destroy the whole apparatus
And who is going to help you? Not the liberals, after being told they are as good as fascists. Not the centrists, and certainly not the New Centrists. Not the social democrats either, since they are Two State Solution and pro-democracy.
The answer is no one. You have isolated yourselves, by intent from afar. Much of the content that did this has identifiable foreign origin.
Is the message of "First they came for the ..." lost on you?
posted by CynicalKnight at 10:12 AM on May 10 [2 favorites]
Not saying you were consciously using it in the alt-right sense, just that spending time in spaces where it's common could be inviting other bad influences as well.
This seems dangerously close to turning fascism into a kind of spiritual taint rather than a set of dehumanizing beliefs. I have read a lot of far right propaganda and philosophy. I have spent time arguing with actual Nazis. None of it made me think they were less idiotic.
And who is going to help you? Not the liberals, after being told they are as good as fascists.
I know some people are very thin skinned, and treat any claim that they are not pure vanguards of human rights and good governance as abject condemnation. But if someone is so immature that they are going to back inhumane and horrific policy to soothe their hurt feelings, they were on their way to the right anyway.
Is the message of "First they came for the ..." lost on you?
I think it is lost on you. Read the first line.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 10:20 AM on May 10 [7 favorites]
This seems dangerously close to turning fascism into a kind of spiritual taint rather than a set of dehumanizing beliefs. I have read a lot of far right propaganda and philosophy. I have spent time arguing with actual Nazis. None of it made me think they were less idiotic.
And who is going to help you? Not the liberals, after being told they are as good as fascists.
I know some people are very thin skinned, and treat any claim that they are not pure vanguards of human rights and good governance as abject condemnation. But if someone is so immature that they are going to back inhumane and horrific policy to soothe their hurt feelings, they were on their way to the right anyway.
Is the message of "First they came for the ..." lost on you?
I think it is lost on you. Read the first line.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 10:20 AM on May 10 [7 favorites]
First they came for the student Gaza protestors/BLM marchers/Iraq war protestors/WTO and outsourcing protestors/Vietnam protestors/anti-nuke protestors and basically everyone chided them for not protesting right. Then they continued to kill minorities at weirdly high rates at home and abroad, and basically everyone chided them for not being productive and for not already being hooked into the multi-billion dollar election industry.
Was that how it went? I've forgotten.
posted by Slackermagee at 10:20 AM on May 10 [13 favorites]
Was that how it went? I've forgotten.
posted by Slackermagee at 10:20 AM on May 10 [13 favorites]
spending time in spaces where it's common could be inviting other bad influences as well
Since you immediately assumed I was referencing a meme I've never seen before (I am too old for 4chan, and have ignored/blocked anyone using frog nazi imagery since around 2015 when those idiots started becoming noticeable in social media spaces), I'd guess you've spent more time in those spaces than I have?
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 10:25 AM on May 10 [5 favorites]
Since you immediately assumed I was referencing a meme I've never seen before (I am too old for 4chan, and have ignored/blocked anyone using frog nazi imagery since around 2015 when those idiots started becoming noticeable in social media spaces), I'd guess you've spent more time in those spaces than I have?
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 10:25 AM on May 10 [5 favorites]
No, but I've read about the strategies they use. And it's not (just) about spreading fascism explicitly, but also non-fascist attitudes that happen to serve fascist aims, including the kind of fatalistic cynicism that makes people give up on reform.
posted by Rhaomi at 10:33 AM on May 10
posted by Rhaomi at 10:33 AM on May 10
Was that how it went? I've forgotten.
Actually it was "first they came for the queers, but I'm not going to talk about them because I think they got what they deserved". (That elision is why I dislike that particular quotation and part of why I think Niemoller was a piece of shit.)
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 10:35 AM on May 10 [7 favorites]
Actually it was "first they came for the queers, but I'm not going to talk about them because I think they got what they deserved". (That elision is why I dislike that particular quotation and part of why I think Niemoller was a piece of shit.)
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 10:35 AM on May 10 [7 favorites]
No, but I've read about the strategies they use. And it's not (just) about spreading fascism explicitly, but also non-fascist attitudes that happen to serve fascist aims, including the kind of fatalistic cynicism that makes people give up on reform.
It seems weird to frame "giving up on reform" as the goal of far right trolls. I could see numb cynicism possibly serving their interests, though I doubt they have the sophistication to have very much effect on that front. But Nazis definitely prefer reformism to left wing radicalism.
I feel like you are just sort of conflating all positions that contrast with your own. Far right fascism, genuinely apathetic despair, and passionate far left activism aren't any sort of natural spectrum or alliance. They are literally just the kinds of people who aren't liberals.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 10:40 AM on May 10 [5 favorites]
It seems weird to frame "giving up on reform" as the goal of far right trolls. I could see numb cynicism possibly serving their interests, though I doubt they have the sophistication to have very much effect on that front. But Nazis definitely prefer reformism to left wing radicalism.
I feel like you are just sort of conflating all positions that contrast with your own. Far right fascism, genuinely apathetic despair, and passionate far left activism aren't any sort of natural spectrum or alliance. They are literally just the kinds of people who aren't liberals.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 10:40 AM on May 10 [5 favorites]
I'd always read 'first they came for' it as being about not taking action when things happen to others, and eventually the same fate befalling you. I'd certainly never considered taking it as a 'you're first up against the wall, you dirty commie' threat. But I suppose that's certainly a reading of it.
posted by whm at 10:41 AM on May 10 [3 favorites]
posted by whm at 10:41 AM on May 10 [3 favorites]
Two users have posted a quarter of the comments in this thread. I come to MetaFilter to hear a range of voices, not the same point pushed over and over.
posted by Klipspringer at 11:08 AM on May 10 [23 favorites]
posted by Klipspringer at 11:08 AM on May 10 [23 favorites]
the more conservative the democratic party gets the more insistent the claims that they are liberal
and i can't help but notice that many polities in this country are hiring fascists and sympathizers to be their police
what was that saying? if you have a nazi at a dinner party for 10, you have 10 nazis?
what happens when you hire the nazi to keep the dinner party under control?
don't listen to what people say, watch what they DO
posted by pyramid termite at 11:27 AM on May 10 [5 favorites]
and i can't help but notice that many polities in this country are hiring fascists and sympathizers to be their police
what was that saying? if you have a nazi at a dinner party for 10, you have 10 nazis?
what happens when you hire the nazi to keep the dinner party under control?
don't listen to what people say, watch what they DO
posted by pyramid termite at 11:27 AM on May 10 [5 favorites]
the more conservative the democratic party gets the more insistent the claims that they are liberal
..and yet they have a long history of pushing for progressive change on a multitude of fronts as well as following that change further to the left - just not as fast as many would want. Part of being brainwashed is not acknowledging that because the doublespeak says "hate them".
posted by CynicalKnight at 1:06 PM on May 10 [1 favorite]
..and yet they have a long history of pushing for progressive change on a multitude of fronts as well as following that change further to the left - just not as fast as many would want. Part of being brainwashed is not acknowledging that because the doublespeak says "hate them".
posted by CynicalKnight at 1:06 PM on May 10 [1 favorite]
Mod note: Folks, two comments have been removed. There's already a current thread about the Israel/Palestine conflict, so let's keep comments about that conflict to that or related threads, thanks!
I understand this is a thread about tough things. I need people to be mindful of their fellow site members as they compose their comments. It's difficult, I know, but please try.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 1:13 PM on May 10 [5 favorites]
I understand this is a thread about tough things. I need people to be mindful of their fellow site members as they compose their comments. It's difficult, I know, but please try.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 1:13 PM on May 10 [5 favorites]
Please stop calling people you disagree with “brainwashed”. What’s the point of even having a discussion then.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 1:14 PM on May 10 [11 favorites]
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 1:14 PM on May 10 [11 favorites]
Part of being brainwashed is (....)
it's the chemtrails, i tell you - i haven't been right since they deposited them over my apartment
posted by pyramid termite at 1:34 PM on May 10 [4 favorites]
it's the chemtrails, i tell you - i haven't been right since they deposited them over my apartment
posted by pyramid termite at 1:34 PM on May 10 [4 favorites]
one thing I've always observed about moderate, liberalish folks in the time that I've spent organizing around anti-racism, civic engagement, etc is that they have infinite patience for conservative, right-leaning folks and very little patience for progressives/leftists who are critical of their darlings. the number of articles about the ideological redemption of literal white supremacists/neo-nazis in the wake of the Trump election, the sort of easy grace provided for the Never Trumpers who were largely war-hawk conservatives angry at Trumps pulling back of funding for embassies and the American empire, and more. voting, behaviors, and power exerted in ways that are literally harming others are provided grace because 'how else will we realistically move the conversation forward', some weird ahistorical mantra uttered in spite of ample evidence of non-violent and sometimes violent civil disobedience resulting in ample change (do we remember the role of the Black Panthers in the Civil Rights Movement? of the damage to property committed by the Plowshares Movement?)
meanwhile, conversations against leftists tend to resort to a default template of 'you are not being polite enough.' there's an anti-intellectual quality about it, a weird reliance on some kind of Protestant ethos of genial conversation about things that are deeply emotional and personal. this need to avoid emotional valence at all cost, to have on some kind of performative, neutral mask. there's something extra frustrating when zero grace is given for people to just... feel and be a little ugly and rude and behave in a way that allows them to have an emotional stake in anything
this article itself is kind of evidence to that fact that liberalish moderates will save space more for their white, middle-class brethern more than the BIPOC leftist - it's not that people raised in a white supremacist society want to hold onto power due to their own selfishness, intolerance, and regular exercise of privilege in abusive ways - it's Foreign Powers! I mean, nevermind that the article doesn't really provide much in the way of evidence of this, merely pointing to some kind-of memorable moments where Russia was invoked, of the Confucius Institutes that the article itself notes as 'having mostly closed down in the US' after, well, basically failing to move the needle on anything, and apparently Xinhua news which... well, apparently is big in Nairobi but again, not the USA at all
like, someone mentioned above about leftists just swarming spaces and shutting down convos after not RTFAing but I did RTFA and it, like most Atlantic pieces, fucking sucks in actually providing evidence for its thesis, providing no numbers about the actual engagement metrics for any of the multiple apparently nefarious sites that it cites as having a huge influence on the right wing. apparently these people create a lot of websites and tweets and other hand wavey vague notions of 'influence' but an echo chamber of bot interactions does not an insipid propaganda arm make
but here we are, 50+ comments and feuds later, and we're right back at the start of where we've always been - liberalish types, comfortable in privilege, telling leftists they are just too rude to accomplish anything, believing in the largely ahistorical and discredited notion that the arc of history bends towards justice somehow even as Roe is overturned and anti-trans bills are passed, even as we, once again, assist in the carrying out of repeated war crimes, and voter suppression and gerrymandering is worse than its ever been but actually if you want to change anything you should be super duper nice to someone who thinks you, your friends, your family, et al deserve less human rights
posted by paimapi at 1:45 PM on May 10 [19 favorites]
meanwhile, conversations against leftists tend to resort to a default template of 'you are not being polite enough.' there's an anti-intellectual quality about it, a weird reliance on some kind of Protestant ethos of genial conversation about things that are deeply emotional and personal. this need to avoid emotional valence at all cost, to have on some kind of performative, neutral mask. there's something extra frustrating when zero grace is given for people to just... feel and be a little ugly and rude and behave in a way that allows them to have an emotional stake in anything
this article itself is kind of evidence to that fact that liberalish moderates will save space more for their white, middle-class brethern more than the BIPOC leftist - it's not that people raised in a white supremacist society want to hold onto power due to their own selfishness, intolerance, and regular exercise of privilege in abusive ways - it's Foreign Powers! I mean, nevermind that the article doesn't really provide much in the way of evidence of this, merely pointing to some kind-of memorable moments where Russia was invoked, of the Confucius Institutes that the article itself notes as 'having mostly closed down in the US' after, well, basically failing to move the needle on anything, and apparently Xinhua news which... well, apparently is big in Nairobi but again, not the USA at all
like, someone mentioned above about leftists just swarming spaces and shutting down convos after not RTFAing but I did RTFA and it, like most Atlantic pieces, fucking sucks in actually providing evidence for its thesis, providing no numbers about the actual engagement metrics for any of the multiple apparently nefarious sites that it cites as having a huge influence on the right wing. apparently these people create a lot of websites and tweets and other hand wavey vague notions of 'influence' but an echo chamber of bot interactions does not an insipid propaganda arm make
but here we are, 50+ comments and feuds later, and we're right back at the start of where we've always been - liberalish types, comfortable in privilege, telling leftists they are just too rude to accomplish anything, believing in the largely ahistorical and discredited notion that the arc of history bends towards justice somehow even as Roe is overturned and anti-trans bills are passed, even as we, once again, assist in the carrying out of repeated war crimes, and voter suppression and gerrymandering is worse than its ever been but actually if you want to change anything you should be super duper nice to someone who thinks you, your friends, your family, et al deserve less human rights
posted by paimapi at 1:45 PM on May 10 [19 favorites]
Well, I don't know about doomerism but I'm certainly more depressed now. The reason, though, isn't because people are trying to point out the illiberal history of liberalism, or the casual damage implicit in its economic assumptions, the growing problems across the West, or the stuff that happens sort of unintentionally over there that's someone else's consequence, and not our fault.
No, it's the incredible illiberalism that rises up whenever anyone tries to say, hey, maybe there's issues here. Propaganda doesn't land in a place without vulnerabilities, but hey, this is the propaganda's fault, right? The generations after me aren't worse off than their parents because lefties are saying bad words, ffs. Maybe a liberal system failing more people than ever might benefit from liberals looking in a mirror and not seeing bogeymen and ghosts. Like, I let off my Your Ideological Purity Klaxon in minutes. Like always, I reflected on how that generally means "this person seems to believe in things. An extremist! The horror! And my ideology is like normal and not an ideology at all, oh no!" Sigh.
Liberalism's unwillingness or inability to see itself as it is seen from those who aren't so enamoured or enriched by it is exactly why it is progressively more detached from the reality of the growing volume of people who it doesn't adequately serve. It's truly the ideology that most suits privilege - "I don't know what all those other funny people are moaning about, they should just shut up about the sexuality/get on their bike and find a job/take it as a complement on their femininity, etc. How dare they come over here and criticise the way things are? They must be blind to how good people like me - which is everyone, right - have got it!" The fact that liberalism has always been the enabling life partner of capitalism without (any meaningful) limitation (on how it uses others) is not a coincidence.
Yes, it could be worse, and maybe the liberals admit this (although grudgingly, in a way that always makes me think of Kissinger scowling) but it should be better because it's not good enough. Its defenders do everyone a disservice by treating criticism as heresy, and in their delight in calling everyone else hysterical, much like a certain kind of older male who thinks other people's arguments are too emotional while their own emotions are merely a sensible, rational response.
It is not far-fetched to point at inequality, poverty, conflict, ecological disaster and plenty more and say, hey, maybe this isn't working, and it's probably not going to be cured by a medicine made of more slow poison.
I think the biggest doomerism here is the idea that the middle ground enabler of so much harm for so long is as good as we can get, that every symptom of its diminishing returns should be ignored or minimised or strawmanned away because there have been worse diseases elsewhere. It's giving up on politics as a force for progress - a dog in a house on fire who thinks pragmatism makes everything fine. How many people need to stick their fingers in the holes in the dam before we question what the fuck we're doing with the fucking river? And this ship isn't one I think we should all go down on just because those with the nicest cabins think everyone else is complaining wrong.
posted by onebuttonmonkey at 2:57 PM on May 10 [11 favorites]
No, it's the incredible illiberalism that rises up whenever anyone tries to say, hey, maybe there's issues here. Propaganda doesn't land in a place without vulnerabilities, but hey, this is the propaganda's fault, right? The generations after me aren't worse off than their parents because lefties are saying bad words, ffs. Maybe a liberal system failing more people than ever might benefit from liberals looking in a mirror and not seeing bogeymen and ghosts. Like, I let off my Your Ideological Purity Klaxon in minutes. Like always, I reflected on how that generally means "this person seems to believe in things. An extremist! The horror! And my ideology is like normal and not an ideology at all, oh no!" Sigh.
Liberalism's unwillingness or inability to see itself as it is seen from those who aren't so enamoured or enriched by it is exactly why it is progressively more detached from the reality of the growing volume of people who it doesn't adequately serve. It's truly the ideology that most suits privilege - "I don't know what all those other funny people are moaning about, they should just shut up about the sexuality/get on their bike and find a job/take it as a complement on their femininity, etc. How dare they come over here and criticise the way things are? They must be blind to how good people like me - which is everyone, right - have got it!" The fact that liberalism has always been the enabling life partner of capitalism without (any meaningful) limitation (on how it uses others) is not a coincidence.
Yes, it could be worse, and maybe the liberals admit this (although grudgingly, in a way that always makes me think of Kissinger scowling) but it should be better because it's not good enough. Its defenders do everyone a disservice by treating criticism as heresy, and in their delight in calling everyone else hysterical, much like a certain kind of older male who thinks other people's arguments are too emotional while their own emotions are merely a sensible, rational response.
It is not far-fetched to point at inequality, poverty, conflict, ecological disaster and plenty more and say, hey, maybe this isn't working, and it's probably not going to be cured by a medicine made of more slow poison.
I think the biggest doomerism here is the idea that the middle ground enabler of so much harm for so long is as good as we can get, that every symptom of its diminishing returns should be ignored or minimised or strawmanned away because there have been worse diseases elsewhere. It's giving up on politics as a force for progress - a dog in a house on fire who thinks pragmatism makes everything fine. How many people need to stick their fingers in the holes in the dam before we question what the fuck we're doing with the fucking river? And this ship isn't one I think we should all go down on just because those with the nicest cabins think everyone else is complaining wrong.
posted by onebuttonmonkey at 2:57 PM on May 10 [11 favorites]
Pseudonymous Cognomen: (That elision is why I dislike that particular quotation and part of why I think Niemoller was a piece of shit.)
No disagreement, but you gotta admit that it's pretty fucking hilarious that a centrist liberal is deploying it against one of MeFi's handful of actual leftists. "First they came for the communists", indeed!
posted by adrienneleigh at 3:09 PM on May 10 [4 favorites]
No disagreement, but you gotta admit that it's pretty fucking hilarious that a centrist liberal is deploying it against one of MeFi's handful of actual leftists. "First they came for the communists", indeed!
posted by adrienneleigh at 3:09 PM on May 10 [4 favorites]
Oh, and liberals in the UK love the NHS. But they didn't fucking found it, did they, and never would. Socialists did. Unions? Socialists. So sick pay, and maternity leave and all that? Socialists.
Pretty much every concession and right that was fought for to try and take the edge off capitalism was fought *against* liberals, who have a wonderful habit of siding with the right and then kind of retroactively assimilating the left's struggles as Nice Liberal Aunt stuff they did.
And guess what? While paying lip service to those things, it's liberals who have spent the last thirty and more years either doing nothing while those freedoms and rights were being dismantled by the right or actively dismantling them themselves while blaming everyone but themselves. So the sanctimony of liberalism about its great record and lack of alternatives can, frankly, get in the fucking sea. They probably privatised the lifeboats while they were at it
posted by onebuttonmonkey at 3:16 PM on May 10 [12 favorites]
Pretty much every concession and right that was fought for to try and take the edge off capitalism was fought *against* liberals, who have a wonderful habit of siding with the right and then kind of retroactively assimilating the left's struggles as Nice Liberal Aunt stuff they did.
And guess what? While paying lip service to those things, it's liberals who have spent the last thirty and more years either doing nothing while those freedoms and rights were being dismantled by the right or actively dismantling them themselves while blaming everyone but themselves. So the sanctimony of liberalism about its great record and lack of alternatives can, frankly, get in the fucking sea. They probably privatised the lifeboats while they were at it
posted by onebuttonmonkey at 3:16 PM on May 10 [12 favorites]
Leftists did not "redefine" liberalism, but recognize that J. S. Mill writing in 1860 had a different definition of it than does Frowner's "nice aunt".
Like "socialism", liberalism is an old and popular brand which has been appropriated for all sorts of shenanigans unintended by the "original" coiners of the terms, whomever they might be. It happens. Leftists know what they mean when they talk shit about liberals; they tend to read the same authors and have shared, or at least overlapping, political vocabulary. We don't care particularly if non-leftists know what we're talking about or like it, we're complaining about how you egg on the cops to murder us.
posted by Rev. Irreverent Revenant at 3:20 PM on May 10 [7 favorites]
Like "socialism", liberalism is an old and popular brand which has been appropriated for all sorts of shenanigans unintended by the "original" coiners of the terms, whomever they might be. It happens. Leftists know what they mean when they talk shit about liberals; they tend to read the same authors and have shared, or at least overlapping, political vocabulary. We don't care particularly if non-leftists know what we're talking about or like it, we're complaining about how you egg on the cops to murder us.
posted by Rev. Irreverent Revenant at 3:20 PM on May 10 [7 favorites]
Pretty much every concession and right that was fought for to try and take the edge off capitalism was fought *against* liberals, who have a wonderful habit of siding with the right and then kind of retroactively assimilating the left's struggles as Nice Liberal Aunt stuff they did.
this is entirely correct, and since it's possibly in response to my comment, i should clarify that my version of Frowner's nice aunt is, like the one in Frowner's original comment, actually some sort of socialist who, after decades of red-baiting and exactly the revisionist history you're describing, lacks the vocabulary to characterise her politics accurately. in the US, she'd say "liberal"; in the UK, she might even say "socialist", or maybe just "left", but whatever she means, and she actually does mean well (unlike many self-described liberals, especially in the non-US usage of the word), it's certainly not quite the same as what was meant by the people who founded the NHS. this i completely agree on.
posted by busted_crayons at 3:39 PM on May 10 [10 favorites]
this is entirely correct, and since it's possibly in response to my comment, i should clarify that my version of Frowner's nice aunt is, like the one in Frowner's original comment, actually some sort of socialist who, after decades of red-baiting and exactly the revisionist history you're describing, lacks the vocabulary to characterise her politics accurately. in the US, she'd say "liberal"; in the UK, she might even say "socialist", or maybe just "left", but whatever she means, and she actually does mean well (unlike many self-described liberals, especially in the non-US usage of the word), it's certainly not quite the same as what was meant by the people who founded the NHS. this i completely agree on.
posted by busted_crayons at 3:39 PM on May 10 [10 favorites]
Do leftists want a complete upheaval of the established social/economic order, or do they want western european-style socialism?
posted by Selena777 at 5:11 PM on May 10 [1 favorite]
posted by Selena777 at 5:11 PM on May 10 [1 favorite]
western european-style socialism?
I cited the NHS as a sort of exceptional example; I am not sure what "western European style socialism" means. Like I live in western Europe in a piece of private property and work for a boss, so. socialists have had some influence in western europe, as they have in the states, but there aren't any "socialist countries" in the sense most socialists would recognise. There is a certain amount of state capitalism and there used to be more, but capitalism is alive and well in Europe, rest assured.
posted by busted_crayons at 5:21 PM on May 10 [4 favorites]
I cited the NHS as a sort of exceptional example; I am not sure what "western European style socialism" means. Like I live in western Europe in a piece of private property and work for a boss, so. socialists have had some influence in western europe, as they have in the states, but there aren't any "socialist countries" in the sense most socialists would recognise. There is a certain amount of state capitalism and there used to be more, but capitalism is alive and well in Europe, rest assured.
posted by busted_crayons at 5:21 PM on May 10 [4 favorites]
a complete upheaval of the established social/economic order, or ...western european-style socialism
In the USian context those two things are synonymous? But, speaking for myself: billionaires shouldn't exist, companies like Google and Meta that constitute effective monopolies should be broken up, healthcare should be a human right, lifetime judicial appointments and the Electoral College should be abolished (and so should the Senate; failing that, it should be rendered ineffective like the House of Lords. Land doesn't vote). At this point I'd pretty much settle for curtailing the worst excesses of US-style capitalism and fixing the obviously broken parts of the US Constitution.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 5:29 PM on May 10 [9 favorites]
In the USian context those two things are synonymous? But, speaking for myself: billionaires shouldn't exist, companies like Google and Meta that constitute effective monopolies should be broken up, healthcare should be a human right, lifetime judicial appointments and the Electoral College should be abolished (and so should the Senate; failing that, it should be rendered ineffective like the House of Lords. Land doesn't vote). At this point I'd pretty much settle for curtailing the worst excesses of US-style capitalism and fixing the obviously broken parts of the US Constitution.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 5:29 PM on May 10 [9 favorites]
As for what we want: billionaires in cafes (autocorrected from "cages" but I'm going with it, let's see if Zuckerberg can do a flat white), the gender field on your passport will involve probability distributions, and we're gonna collectivise your sock drawer.
posted by busted_crayons at 5:30 PM on May 10 [3 favorites]
posted by busted_crayons at 5:30 PM on May 10 [3 favorites]
Coming back to TFA, and some antecedents to it:
It's kind of tragic that the vitriol in this thread pretty much echoes one specific strand of Russian strategy which the Internet Research Agency was documented to have used in both 2016 and 2020: that is, to exploit divisions which already exist within the American left.
You remember that, right? Obviously they had their fake MAGA account network, but they had another wing of accounts pretending to be DSA groups and Sanders supporters; they had accounts posing as Black Americans and Black social justice groups; they had accounts pushing Jill Stein and other third-party candidates who could spoil close state-level elections; they had accounts pretending to be Clinton (later Biden) supporters to bully the others and say unforgivable things so they could be quote-tweeted. Because in the end, it doesn't matter to Russia who wins the moral argument; what matters is that their guy's in the White House.
We got lucky in 2020: the post-2016 protections were still largely in place; troll-farm accounts, botnets and disinfo were present but there were structures in place dedicated to recognising them and deleting them, and they largely worked.
Now, however, many of those structures have been dismantled [WaPo gift link]. People researching the mechanics of mis- and disinformation are being doxxed and harassed; their work is being decried as "censorship" by the MAGA contingent [gift link]. (The above articles were both published before the FPP link, but I think they're both good in-depth reporting).
AND we've now got enhanced AI pumping out a firehose of disinformation too fast for fact-checkers to counter, aimed squarely at the less-nice equivalent of Frowner's nice aunt.
Russia's capture of MAGA is not news, but they are also very much still targeting the American left, and they have very much jumped on the "genocide Joe" train (so that they can get Trump into office to enable even more genocide). So, if you're in online left-leaning spaces, it's worth keeping an eye out: checking the origins of memes, quotes, videos and news items before you re-share; looking into Facebook groups to see who runs them; making sure social media accounts you follow are legit.
I don't doubt for a moment that people's anger and disappointment with Biden are genuine. It's also worth thinking about who wants Trump in office (Netanyahu, among others, very much wants that). Speaking only for myself, I couldn't live with the moral choice of having failed to oppose him.
posted by Pallas Athena at 5:48 PM on May 10 [13 favorites]
It's kind of tragic that the vitriol in this thread pretty much echoes one specific strand of Russian strategy which the Internet Research Agency was documented to have used in both 2016 and 2020: that is, to exploit divisions which already exist within the American left.
You remember that, right? Obviously they had their fake MAGA account network, but they had another wing of accounts pretending to be DSA groups and Sanders supporters; they had accounts posing as Black Americans and Black social justice groups; they had accounts pushing Jill Stein and other third-party candidates who could spoil close state-level elections; they had accounts pretending to be Clinton (later Biden) supporters to bully the others and say unforgivable things so they could be quote-tweeted. Because in the end, it doesn't matter to Russia who wins the moral argument; what matters is that their guy's in the White House.
We got lucky in 2020: the post-2016 protections were still largely in place; troll-farm accounts, botnets and disinfo were present but there were structures in place dedicated to recognising them and deleting them, and they largely worked.
Now, however, many of those structures have been dismantled [WaPo gift link]. People researching the mechanics of mis- and disinformation are being doxxed and harassed; their work is being decried as "censorship" by the MAGA contingent [gift link]. (The above articles were both published before the FPP link, but I think they're both good in-depth reporting).
AND we've now got enhanced AI pumping out a firehose of disinformation too fast for fact-checkers to counter, aimed squarely at the less-nice equivalent of Frowner's nice aunt.
Russia's capture of MAGA is not news, but they are also very much still targeting the American left, and they have very much jumped on the "genocide Joe" train (so that they can get Trump into office to enable even more genocide). So, if you're in online left-leaning spaces, it's worth keeping an eye out: checking the origins of memes, quotes, videos and news items before you re-share; looking into Facebook groups to see who runs them; making sure social media accounts you follow are legit.
I don't doubt for a moment that people's anger and disappointment with Biden are genuine. It's also worth thinking about who wants Trump in office (Netanyahu, among others, very much wants that). Speaking only for myself, I couldn't live with the moral choice of having failed to oppose him.
posted by Pallas Athena at 5:48 PM on May 10 [13 favorites]
I think the biggest doomerism here is the idea that the middle ground enabler of so much harm for so long is as good as we can get, that every symptom of its diminishing returns should be ignored or minimised or strawmanned away because there have been worse diseases elsewhere. It's giving up on politics as a force for progress - a dog in a house on fire who thinks pragmatism makes everything fine. How many people need to stick their fingers in the holes in the dam before we question what the fuck we're doing with the fucking river? And this ship isn't one I think we should all go down on just because those with the nicest cabins think everyone else is complaining wrong.
This and a number of other comments are basically recapitulating, in simplistic rhetoric, the splintering of the SDS and the takeover by the RYM. The main outcome of which was, of course, the dissolving of the SDS as a functioning entity and shortly after, the formation of the Weathermen ("bring the war home"). Fun as revolutionary violence is from a distance, in hindsight this isn't particularly regarded as the zenith of the New Left's influence or a path towards effective change. (Unlike the Black and Puerto Rican revolutionaries of the same period, the Weathermen by and large got away with minimal consequences; white privilege carries a lot of weight.)
The point being, the left has cycled through these debates multiple times before, and the splintering/segmentation is never in the long-term interests of the actual left. It' certainly serves the needs of capital and the right, though.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:04 PM on May 10 [5 favorites]
This and a number of other comments are basically recapitulating, in simplistic rhetoric, the splintering of the SDS and the takeover by the RYM. The main outcome of which was, of course, the dissolving of the SDS as a functioning entity and shortly after, the formation of the Weathermen ("bring the war home"). Fun as revolutionary violence is from a distance, in hindsight this isn't particularly regarded as the zenith of the New Left's influence or a path towards effective change. (Unlike the Black and Puerto Rican revolutionaries of the same period, the Weathermen by and large got away with minimal consequences; white privilege carries a lot of weight.)
The point being, the left has cycled through these debates multiple times before, and the splintering/segmentation is never in the long-term interests of the actual left. It' certainly serves the needs of capital and the right, though.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:04 PM on May 10 [5 favorites]
in spite of ample evidence of non-violent and sometimes violent civil disobedience resulting in ample change (do we remember the role of the Black Panthers in the Civil Rights Movement? of the damage to property committed by the Plowshares Movement?)
I really admire the commitment of the Plowshares people; I've met several of them and someone I'm close to is really close to several of them. A number have gone to federal prison for it, which takes real courage. But to claim that their actions have led to change is just not true. I really, really wish it was, but it's not.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:12 PM on May 10
I really admire the commitment of the Plowshares people; I've met several of them and someone I'm close to is really close to several of them. A number have gone to federal prison for it, which takes real courage. But to claim that their actions have led to change is just not true. I really, really wish it was, but it's not.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:12 PM on May 10
Here I go, wading into the sewers of this thread:
Active genocides in the world, 2024 (7 major):
Israeli Genocide of Palestinians
Ethopian/Tigrayan Conflict
Burmese Junta persecution of Karen/Shan/Rohinga
Chinese genocide of Uighur peoples
Russian genocide of Ukrainian people
Darfur/ South Sudanese Conflict (Arabs against Dinka)
Yemen Conflict (Sunni persecuting Shia Arabs)
Adjacent to Genocide (Pending or Nigh Genocides with a high probability- 5)
Congo conflict
Azeri-Armenian Conflict
Indian genocide of Indian Muslims
American 'MAGA' genocide of Mexicans/ democide of LGBT
Perennial Concerns- 3
Turkish/Iraqi treatment of Kurds
Indian treatment of Sikhs
Brazilian persecution of Tupi/indigene peoples
That's the current (shitty state of the world)
Now next, I'm trying to gauge whether a Biden administration would worsen or lessen each of these crises:
Israeli Genocide of Palestinians: WORSEN
Ethiopian Conflict: No probable effect
Burmese genocides: No probable effect
Chinese genocide of Uighurs: NO EFFECT
Russian Genocide of Ukraine: LESSEN
Sudanese Conflict: NO EFFECT
Yemen: NO EFFECT
Congo Conflict: NO EFFECT
Armenia-Azerbaijan: LESSEN
Indian BJP persecution of Muslims: NO EFFECT
American persecution of Latinos: LESSEN
American persecution of LGBT: LESSEN
Plight of the Kurdish people: LESSEN
Persecution of Sikhs: NO EFFECT
Brazilian persecution of Tupi: LESSEN
So overall, my assessment (with my JD in international law, Master's in History, BA in Political Science, and one thesis on international law): Biden is a wash on current genocides (score of 0), and a win on averting some significant near genocides that we are close to (+3).
No, here's my informed assessment of a 2nd Trump administration:
Israeli Genocide of Palestinians: WORSEN
Ethiopian/Tigrayan Conflict: NO EFFECT
Burmese persecution of Karen/Rohinga: NO EFFECT
Chinese genocide of UIGHUR: WORSEN
Russian genocide of Ukraine: WORSEN
Darfur/ South Sudan: WORSEN
Yemen Conflict: WORSEN
Congo Conflict: NO EFFECT
Azerbaijan-Armenia: WORSEN
Indian genocide of Muslims: WORSEN
American persecution of Latins: WORSEN
American persecution of LGBT: WORSEN
Turk/Kurds: WORSEN
Indian treatment of Sikhs: WORSEN
Brazilian persecution of Tupi/indigenes: NO EFFECT
So on the active genocides, Trump is at (-3), on nigh genocides (-4), and perennials (-2).
I revile Biden. I think he deserves condemnation in the manner of Clinton or Lyndon Johnson.
But in the hope of easing the suffering of the Ukrainian people, and averting further genocides/democides of the Latino peoples and North American LGBT, and also the Kurds, I'm voting and organizing strategically for Biden.
There are far too many of you who are willing to allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good. I'm acting on my best calculus that I can manage to minimize the maximum evils of our world.
None of this is to detract from the very real and very immediate genocide of the Palestinian people. But I'm trying to build as many lifeboats as I can manage from the shipwreck that is our species.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 6:40 PM on May 10 [21 favorites]
Active genocides in the world, 2024 (7 major):
Israeli Genocide of Palestinians
Ethopian/Tigrayan Conflict
Burmese Junta persecution of Karen/Shan/Rohinga
Chinese genocide of Uighur peoples
Russian genocide of Ukrainian people
Darfur/ South Sudanese Conflict (Arabs against Dinka)
Yemen Conflict (Sunni persecuting Shia Arabs)
Adjacent to Genocide (Pending or Nigh Genocides with a high probability- 5)
Congo conflict
Azeri-Armenian Conflict
Indian genocide of Indian Muslims
American 'MAGA' genocide of Mexicans/ democide of LGBT
Perennial Concerns- 3
Turkish/Iraqi treatment of Kurds
Indian treatment of Sikhs
Brazilian persecution of Tupi/indigene peoples
That's the current (shitty state of the world)
Now next, I'm trying to gauge whether a Biden administration would worsen or lessen each of these crises:
Israeli Genocide of Palestinians: WORSEN
Ethiopian Conflict: No probable effect
Burmese genocides: No probable effect
Chinese genocide of Uighurs: NO EFFECT
Russian Genocide of Ukraine: LESSEN
Sudanese Conflict: NO EFFECT
Yemen: NO EFFECT
Congo Conflict: NO EFFECT
Armenia-Azerbaijan: LESSEN
Indian BJP persecution of Muslims: NO EFFECT
American persecution of Latinos: LESSEN
American persecution of LGBT: LESSEN
Plight of the Kurdish people: LESSEN
Persecution of Sikhs: NO EFFECT
Brazilian persecution of Tupi: LESSEN
So overall, my assessment (with my JD in international law, Master's in History, BA in Political Science, and one thesis on international law): Biden is a wash on current genocides (score of 0), and a win on averting some significant near genocides that we are close to (+3).
No, here's my informed assessment of a 2nd Trump administration:
Israeli Genocide of Palestinians: WORSEN
Ethiopian/Tigrayan Conflict: NO EFFECT
Burmese persecution of Karen/Rohinga: NO EFFECT
Chinese genocide of UIGHUR: WORSEN
Russian genocide of Ukraine: WORSEN
Darfur/ South Sudan: WORSEN
Yemen Conflict: WORSEN
Congo Conflict: NO EFFECT
Azerbaijan-Armenia: WORSEN
Indian genocide of Muslims: WORSEN
American persecution of Latins: WORSEN
American persecution of LGBT: WORSEN
Turk/Kurds: WORSEN
Indian treatment of Sikhs: WORSEN
Brazilian persecution of Tupi/indigenes: NO EFFECT
So on the active genocides, Trump is at (-3), on nigh genocides (-4), and perennials (-2).
I revile Biden. I think he deserves condemnation in the manner of Clinton or Lyndon Johnson.
But in the hope of easing the suffering of the Ukrainian people, and averting further genocides/democides of the Latino peoples and North American LGBT, and also the Kurds, I'm voting and organizing strategically for Biden.
There are far too many of you who are willing to allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good. I'm acting on my best calculus that I can manage to minimize the maximum evils of our world.
None of this is to detract from the very real and very immediate genocide of the Palestinian people. But I'm trying to build as many lifeboats as I can manage from the shipwreck that is our species.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 6:40 PM on May 10 [21 favorites]
Hi!
Just on a couple of these:
Israeli Genocide of Palestinians: WORSEN
Ethiopian Conflict: No probable effect
Burmese genocides: No probable effect
Chinese genocide of Uighurs: NO EFFECT
Russian Genocide of Ukraine: LESSEN
Sudanese Conflict: NO EFFECT
Yemen: NO EFFECT
Congo Conflict: NO EFFECT
Armenia-Azerbaijan: LESSEN
Indian BJP persecution of Muslims: NO EFFECT
American persecution of Latinos: LESSEN
American persecution of LGBT: LESSEN
Plight of the Kurdish people: LESSEN
Persecution of Sikhs: NO EFFECT
Brazilian persecution of Tupi: LESSEN
So, my takes:
Israeli Genocide of Palestinians: WORSEN - undeniably
Ethiopian Conflict: No probable effect - taking a rain check on this
Burmese genocides: No probable effect - somewhat positive when it comes to sanctions and supporting international law tools with some refugee assistance; contentiously due to South Asia policies we're at containment which was where the middle east was heading so that's up to you where that's heading. Currently the rebels seem to be making a lot of headway and major powers are taking a hands off approach.
Chinese genocide of Uighurs: NO EFFECT - somewhat positive in that it's an improvement over trump by dint of state dept ppl can do their jobs
Russian Genocide of Ukraine: LESSEN - take a rain check on this with regards to military aid due to the fact that Israel is wiping out everyone's stocks now
Sudanese Conflict: NO EFFECT - extreme rain check on this, cf. South Sudan formation as well as UAE involvement
Yemen: NO EFFECT - continuing the decade-long sanctions with famine on the ground to no real change because Yemen's fighting the Emirates and the Saudis would not leave me to conclude there's no effect.
Congo Conflict: NO EFFECT - well, depends on how you feel about 21st century mercantilism as a colonizing force
Armenia-Azerbaijan: LESSEN - status quo actually worsened in part because Azerbaijan is under Russian patronage and so its loss of Nagorno-Karabakh is considered an acceptable gain (as it showed Putin's weakening) and so the ethnic cleansing is tolerated and at the same time western appetite for refugee intake has been practically decimated, so....
Indian BJP persecution of Muslims: NO EFFECT - ARE YOU KIDDING ME. They've been in their Likud era and with Modi's reelection there's been a ramping up. Have you noted any statements from any govt bodies?
American persecution of Latinos: LESSEN - depends on country
American persecution of LGBT: LESSEN - squints
Plight of the Kurdish people: LESSEN - ctrl-f what I said about India but only slightly less bad in terms of rhetoric
Persecution of Sikhs: NO EFFECT - uncertain
Brazilian persecution of Tupi: LESSEN - thank god for Lula
Ok, bye!
posted by cendawanita at 8:14 PM on May 10 [6 favorites]
Just on a couple of these:
Israeli Genocide of Palestinians: WORSEN
Ethiopian Conflict: No probable effect
Burmese genocides: No probable effect
Chinese genocide of Uighurs: NO EFFECT
Russian Genocide of Ukraine: LESSEN
Sudanese Conflict: NO EFFECT
Yemen: NO EFFECT
Congo Conflict: NO EFFECT
Armenia-Azerbaijan: LESSEN
Indian BJP persecution of Muslims: NO EFFECT
American persecution of Latinos: LESSEN
American persecution of LGBT: LESSEN
Plight of the Kurdish people: LESSEN
Persecution of Sikhs: NO EFFECT
Brazilian persecution of Tupi: LESSEN
So, my takes:
Israeli Genocide of Palestinians: WORSEN - undeniably
Ethiopian Conflict: No probable effect - taking a rain check on this
Burmese genocides: No probable effect - somewhat positive when it comes to sanctions and supporting international law tools with some refugee assistance; contentiously due to South Asia policies we're at containment which was where the middle east was heading so that's up to you where that's heading. Currently the rebels seem to be making a lot of headway and major powers are taking a hands off approach.
Chinese genocide of Uighurs: NO EFFECT - somewhat positive in that it's an improvement over trump by dint of state dept ppl can do their jobs
Russian Genocide of Ukraine: LESSEN - take a rain check on this with regards to military aid due to the fact that Israel is wiping out everyone's stocks now
Sudanese Conflict: NO EFFECT - extreme rain check on this, cf. South Sudan formation as well as UAE involvement
Yemen: NO EFFECT - continuing the decade-long sanctions with famine on the ground to no real change because Yemen's fighting the Emirates and the Saudis would not leave me to conclude there's no effect.
Congo Conflict: NO EFFECT - well, depends on how you feel about 21st century mercantilism as a colonizing force
Armenia-Azerbaijan: LESSEN - status quo actually worsened in part because Azerbaijan is under Russian patronage and so its loss of Nagorno-Karabakh is considered an acceptable gain (as it showed Putin's weakening) and so the ethnic cleansing is tolerated and at the same time western appetite for refugee intake has been practically decimated, so....
Indian BJP persecution of Muslims: NO EFFECT - ARE YOU KIDDING ME. They've been in their Likud era and with Modi's reelection there's been a ramping up. Have you noted any statements from any govt bodies?
American persecution of Latinos: LESSEN - depends on country
American persecution of LGBT: LESSEN - squints
Plight of the Kurdish people: LESSEN - ctrl-f what I said about India but only slightly less bad in terms of rhetoric
Persecution of Sikhs: NO EFFECT - uncertain
Brazilian persecution of Tupi: LESSEN - thank god for Lula
Ok, bye!
posted by cendawanita at 8:14 PM on May 10 [6 favorites]
This thread is starting to convince me that we deserve the brain worm candidate
posted by rikschell at 8:24 PM on May 10 [1 favorite]
posted by rikschell at 8:24 PM on May 10 [1 favorite]
NGL, I've long hypothesized that we're living a variant of the Screwfly Solution. It's a brainworm's world, we're just the monkey flesh-mechs who have mistaken our vehicles for our selves.
Vote for the brainworm you think you deserve, I suppose.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 8:27 PM on May 10 [1 favorite]
Vote for the brainworm you think you deserve, I suppose.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 8:27 PM on May 10 [1 favorite]
I wonder just where the hell someone gets the idea that The Pluto Gangsta "supports ethnic nationalism [...] and ethnic cleansing"? That's the kind of accusation you should only make if you have crystal-clear grounds for it, which I don't think you do.
posted by Pallas Athena at 8:31 PM on May 10 [1 favorite]
posted by Pallas Athena at 8:31 PM on May 10 [1 favorite]
well yeah, it's like Roosevelt running against Huey Long in a worldwide dust bowl.
posted by clavdivs at 8:38 PM on May 10 [1 favorite]
posted by clavdivs at 8:38 PM on May 10 [1 favorite]
Armenia-Azerbaijan: LESSEN - status quo actually worsened in part because Azerbaijan is under Russian patronage and so its loss of Nagorno-Karabakh is considered an acceptable gain (as it showed Putin's weakening) and so the ethnic cleansing is tolerated and at the same time western appetite for refugee intake has been practically decimated, so....
There have been a number of reports to the effect that Azerbaijan is waiting to see the outcome of the 2024 election and that if Trump wins Aliyev will feel more secure launching a fullscale invasion of Armenia itself. Considering Azerbaijan just committed what has been credibly called a potential genocide against the Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh-- and considering, after depopulating the region, it promptly renamed the main street of Nagorno Karabakh's capital after the chief architect of the 1915 genocide-- I think many Armenians can be forgiven for suspecting if Azerbaijan does invade, it'll attempt to launch a second Armenian genocide. Which is why...
Biden is actively abetting one of those, right now. I don't really care very much whether a hypothetical Trump administration would make others worse, because Biden is President right now and has blood on his hands. This sort of moral equivocation when we are talking about genocide is frankly grotesque.
This crap pisses me off, frankly. If you don't feel you can support Joe Biden, okay, that's your right. I can agree or disagree, but that's your right. But I defy you to look an Armenian or a Ukrainian or anybody from the communities LaRoienJaune mentioned in the eye and tell them they're 'grotesque' for literally just asking American voters to remember that they exist and will be subject to war, or ethnic cleansing, or genocide if Trump wins. That's all LaRoienJaune's post was saying: that there are other wars and genocides happening and in many cases Trump winning will make them worse. Don't you dare call anybody 'grotesque' for pointing that out.
posted by Method Man at 8:41 PM on May 10 [13 favorites]
There have been a number of reports to the effect that Azerbaijan is waiting to see the outcome of the 2024 election and that if Trump wins Aliyev will feel more secure launching a fullscale invasion of Armenia itself. Considering Azerbaijan just committed what has been credibly called a potential genocide against the Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh-- and considering, after depopulating the region, it promptly renamed the main street of Nagorno Karabakh's capital after the chief architect of the 1915 genocide-- I think many Armenians can be forgiven for suspecting if Azerbaijan does invade, it'll attempt to launch a second Armenian genocide. Which is why...
Biden is actively abetting one of those, right now. I don't really care very much whether a hypothetical Trump administration would make others worse, because Biden is President right now and has blood on his hands. This sort of moral equivocation when we are talking about genocide is frankly grotesque.
This crap pisses me off, frankly. If you don't feel you can support Joe Biden, okay, that's your right. I can agree or disagree, but that's your right. But I defy you to look an Armenian or a Ukrainian or anybody from the communities LaRoienJaune mentioned in the eye and tell them they're 'grotesque' for literally just asking American voters to remember that they exist and will be subject to war, or ethnic cleansing, or genocide if Trump wins. That's all LaRoienJaune's post was saying: that there are other wars and genocides happening and in many cases Trump winning will make them worse. Don't you dare call anybody 'grotesque' for pointing that out.
posted by Method Man at 8:41 PM on May 10 [13 favorites]
Armenia-Azerbaijan: LESSEN - status quo actually worsened in part because Azerbaijan is under Russian patronage and so its loss of Nagorno-Karabakh is considered an acceptable gain (as it showed Putin's weakening) and so the ethnic cleansing is tolerated and at the same time western appetite for refugee intake has been practically decimated, so....
Also, I should add-- I don't think very many people are attributing, or should attribute, the fall of Nagorno Karabakh to a decline in Russian power. Russia let NK fall because Armenia was increasingly copping to the fact that Russia was playing both sides, that it never had Armenia's interests at heart, and that it needed to seek allies elsewhere. Given the circumstances, I think Putin would have let Azerbaijan do what it did to Nagorno Karabakh irrespective of his clout, because it was clear at that point that Russia no longer viewed Armenia as the client state it had been for so long (and more importantly, Armenia no longer viewed itself that way, either).
posted by Method Man at 8:49 PM on May 10 [1 favorite]
Also, I should add-- I don't think very many people are attributing, or should attribute, the fall of Nagorno Karabakh to a decline in Russian power. Russia let NK fall because Armenia was increasingly copping to the fact that Russia was playing both sides, that it never had Armenia's interests at heart, and that it needed to seek allies elsewhere. Given the circumstances, I think Putin would have let Azerbaijan do what it did to Nagorno Karabakh irrespective of his clout, because it was clear at that point that Russia no longer viewed Armenia as the client state it had been for so long (and more importantly, Armenia no longer viewed itself that way, either).
posted by Method Man at 8:49 PM on May 10 [1 favorite]
I don't think very many people are attributing, or should attribute, the fall of Nagorno Karabakh to a decline in Russian power.
Without assigning any truth value to the following, I'm noting this isn't what the circle Anne Applebaum is in would be saying. And considering the proximity of that circle with who has Biden's ear, it would place your analysis as being those she's typing as being influenced by Russia's take. FWIW.
posted by cendawanita at 10:02 PM on May 10 [3 favorites]
Without assigning any truth value to the following, I'm noting this isn't what the circle Anne Applebaum is in would be saying. And considering the proximity of that circle with who has Biden's ear, it would place your analysis as being those she's typing as being influenced by Russia's take. FWIW.
posted by cendawanita at 10:02 PM on May 10 [3 favorites]
In any case, propagandists gets to feast when American reps have to do things like say UN Security Council resolutions are non-binding or describe overwhelming General Assembly votes for Palestinian statehood as acting unilaterally. Or say nothing when Modi says Nazi shit against Muslims etc. You give them good material, and in the meantime immediate material life at the personal level feels good outside of the West - read any interview by the author of the Three Body Problem where his conclusions are (currently) the pain of the cultural revolution is necessary to get to where they are. From my non-US non-China view, it sounds just as retroactively justifying as my leaders in talking about "Asian values" (cf Lee Kuan Yew, Mahathir) being superior over Western development.
posted by cendawanita at 10:14 PM on May 10 [7 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 10:14 PM on May 10 [7 favorites]
TL;DR - hire some of the program officers over at the democracy promotion track in the state dept and second them to some domestic ministry equivalent of the US. They're pretty good at some real technocratic solutions like maybe a community theatre project. 👍
posted by cendawanita at 10:16 PM on May 10 [4 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 10:16 PM on May 10 [4 favorites]
Went to bed, came back and amazingly the problems with western liberal capitalism still seems to attributable to the fact that the left are doing opposition wrong. Or we're too divisive and that serves our opponents. The left ruined the SDS! Well, if liberalism was so great, why did we need an SDS to point out to so many white people that the southern states were still operating apartheid and that wasn't ok?
The left has many, many problems in its histories and how it has tried to operate (often exacerbated it might be said by government agents actively and illegally hijacking it, thanks liberals!). But, oddly, lefties own and understand this in a way liberals might be better from learning from rather than confusing pointing at with a full stop in their thought process.
Why were the active divisions that foreign agents exploit there? Is it China's fault people on the left who were attempting change were executed by the state? Did Putin decide to criminalise protests against lethal policing and genocide? How exactly is bad faith overseas intervention responsible for financial inequality that makes the middle ages look like a happy land of joyness and fairness? Isn't it worse faith to never frame the left without these blinkers?
We get it. We're complaining wrong. Because they're not real problems to you. But you don't get to be nice, reasonable guys who are keeping everything great if you won't acknowledge the reality of capitalism's almighty systemic failure. And that failure isn't the left's fault because there's literally no way you'll accept any left-wing critique. It's not the left's fault you're opposed to all of our diverse premises. So please own your shit and take your own medicine
posted by onebuttonmonkey at 11:00 PM on May 10 [9 favorites]
The left has many, many problems in its histories and how it has tried to operate (often exacerbated it might be said by government agents actively and illegally hijacking it, thanks liberals!). But, oddly, lefties own and understand this in a way liberals might be better from learning from rather than confusing pointing at with a full stop in their thought process.
Why were the active divisions that foreign agents exploit there? Is it China's fault people on the left who were attempting change were executed by the state? Did Putin decide to criminalise protests against lethal policing and genocide? How exactly is bad faith overseas intervention responsible for financial inequality that makes the middle ages look like a happy land of joyness and fairness? Isn't it worse faith to never frame the left without these blinkers?
We get it. We're complaining wrong. Because they're not real problems to you. But you don't get to be nice, reasonable guys who are keeping everything great if you won't acknowledge the reality of capitalism's almighty systemic failure. And that failure isn't the left's fault because there's literally no way you'll accept any left-wing critique. It's not the left's fault you're opposed to all of our diverse premises. So please own your shit and take your own medicine
posted by onebuttonmonkey at 11:00 PM on May 10 [9 favorites]
Oh, which one of these two candidates - who are both monstrous in their own wonderful ways - would make the current conflicts that were created and fuelled by liberal capitalism better or worse isn't a great argument for liberalism, or for the way that elections currently operate. If both candidates are genocidal, then the less genocidal one isn't a better choice in any meaningful way. "This murderer will kill a million people! That murderer thinks it's ok that two million people die! So this murderer is a moral choice!"
Can you literally not see the problem here is that a system that depends on murder, produces murderers and that makes people believe the critical ethical win available to them is supporting the least obviously murderous candidate needs to change? It's not like this is a freak election in principle, it's just that both murderers are more obviously ugly than usual. The fact that bad faith actors overseas want to exploit the divisions that result from this doesn't mean the divisions themselves are bad faith or can be ignored - in fact ignoring and belittling the left is the second biggest fuel for division after all those things both candidates stand for.
posted by onebuttonmonkey at 11:27 PM on May 10 [9 favorites]
Can you literally not see the problem here is that a system that depends on murder, produces murderers and that makes people believe the critical ethical win available to them is supporting the least obviously murderous candidate needs to change? It's not like this is a freak election in principle, it's just that both murderers are more obviously ugly than usual. The fact that bad faith actors overseas want to exploit the divisions that result from this doesn't mean the divisions themselves are bad faith or can be ignored - in fact ignoring and belittling the left is the second biggest fuel for division after all those things both candidates stand for.
posted by onebuttonmonkey at 11:27 PM on May 10 [9 favorites]
starting to look like the real op here was the OP.
posted by busted_crayons at 1:24 AM on May 11 [7 favorites]
posted by busted_crayons at 1:24 AM on May 11 [7 favorites]
also:
That's the kind of accusation you should only make if you have crystal-clear grounds for it, which I don't think you do.
it's ok and healthy that you missed some stuff in the Palestine threads.
posted by busted_crayons at 1:30 AM on May 11 [6 favorites]
That's the kind of accusation you should only make if you have crystal-clear grounds for it, which I don't think you do.
it's ok and healthy that you missed some stuff in the Palestine threads.
posted by busted_crayons at 1:30 AM on May 11 [6 favorites]
In the early 2010's, in the wake of the Egyptian "Twitter protests" which inspired the EU's No Disconnect strategy, me and some friends got involved in EU and US State Department funded projects aimed at protecting political expression in the digital space, which brought together activists, hackers, and policy makers from all over the world, in a traveling circus of conferences, workshops, and generous expense accounts.
Every conference featured at least one talk or proposal on how to evade or disrupt China's internet monitoring and filtering technology (the "Great Firewall"). There was also a great proliferation of mapping tools centering China, or Iran, or Russia. Nobody told anyone to monitor (target) these countries specifically. It just happened more or less organically, based on media coverage, the availability of funding, and the availability of data. Before long, we found ourselves instructing Turkish anarchists on how to elude surveillance by law enforcement, and how to employ plausible deniability as cover for (formally illegal) activities. We were goading smart and motivated people into doing very dangerous things that could have very serious repercussions for them and their family, while we would never suffer consequences, indeed we got paid handsomely.
Anne Applebaum is right to warn of Chinese and Russian propaganda, and the Atlantic piece is informative on Sino-Russian influence operations in Africa. But her perspective blinds the reader to the fact US (and to a much lesser extent, the EU) propaganda machine is like a billion times bigger and more sophisticated than the efforts of the Chinese or the Russians. Some NGOs are almost entirely co-opted by it (if they're not outright fronts), while it deeply influences the outlook of media outlets, reporters, and pundits (such as the Atlantic and Applebaum).
The point isn't that "we do bad things too", although that's trivially true. The point is that every action provokes an equal and opposite reaction. If you spend millions of dollars and thousands of person-years painting targets on other countries, while goading the propagation of anti-establishment sentiments as "freedom of expression", then obviously that's going to provoke a response, which is exactly what we're seeing (and have seen).
But the other point is that whatever fear, cynicism, and nihilism I may have — but like Sisyphus I try to keep cool — didn't come from being exposed to authoritarian propaganda, but from seeing how the system (my system!) operates up close. Truly they make a desert and call it peace. Have the courage to own it, please.
posted by dmh at 6:35 AM on May 11 [12 favorites]
Every conference featured at least one talk or proposal on how to evade or disrupt China's internet monitoring and filtering technology (the "Great Firewall"). There was also a great proliferation of mapping tools centering China, or Iran, or Russia. Nobody told anyone to monitor (target) these countries specifically. It just happened more or less organically, based on media coverage, the availability of funding, and the availability of data. Before long, we found ourselves instructing Turkish anarchists on how to elude surveillance by law enforcement, and how to employ plausible deniability as cover for (formally illegal) activities. We were goading smart and motivated people into doing very dangerous things that could have very serious repercussions for them and their family, while we would never suffer consequences, indeed we got paid handsomely.
Anne Applebaum is right to warn of Chinese and Russian propaganda, and the Atlantic piece is informative on Sino-Russian influence operations in Africa. But her perspective blinds the reader to the fact US (and to a much lesser extent, the EU) propaganda machine is like a billion times bigger and more sophisticated than the efforts of the Chinese or the Russians. Some NGOs are almost entirely co-opted by it (if they're not outright fronts), while it deeply influences the outlook of media outlets, reporters, and pundits (such as the Atlantic and Applebaum).
The point isn't that "we do bad things too", although that's trivially true. The point is that every action provokes an equal and opposite reaction. If you spend millions of dollars and thousands of person-years painting targets on other countries, while goading the propagation of anti-establishment sentiments as "freedom of expression", then obviously that's going to provoke a response, which is exactly what we're seeing (and have seen).
But the other point is that whatever fear, cynicism, and nihilism I may have — but like Sisyphus I try to keep cool — didn't come from being exposed to authoritarian propaganda, but from seeing how the system (my system!) operates up close. Truly they make a desert and call it peace. Have the courage to own it, please.
posted by dmh at 6:35 AM on May 11 [12 favorites]
Mod note: Several comments and responses removed. Sharing your views and takes is totally fine, but please avoid denigrating others and their views while doing so, as it winds up with people trading insults back and forth.
This thread is about a heated subject, yes, but that's no reason to abuse each other. If that behavior continues the mods will start asking individuals to refrain from further contributions to the thread and/or removing them from the thread.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:53 AM on May 11 [3 favorites]
This thread is about a heated subject, yes, but that's no reason to abuse each other. If that behavior continues the mods will start asking individuals to refrain from further contributions to the thread and/or removing them from the thread.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:53 AM on May 11 [3 favorites]
So overall, my assessment (with my JD in international law, Master's in History, BA in Political Science, and one thesis on international law)
this comment is literally just an argument from authority with like 30 separate unjustified, citation-free claims which makes it actually worse than any Atlantic piece that I've read lol
posted by paimapi at 8:07 AM on May 11 [5 favorites]
this comment is literally just an argument from authority with like 30 separate unjustified, citation-free claims which makes it actually worse than any Atlantic piece that I've read lol
posted by paimapi at 8:07 AM on May 11 [5 favorites]
this comment is literally just an argument from authority with like 30 separate unjustified, citation-free claims which makes it actually worse than any Atlantic piece that I've read lol
I don't think it makes sense to demand citations or formal logic here. The poster gave their opinion based on their experience. Making an argument to support each opinion is a lot of work to demand of someone making a comment on Metafilter. I don't think we ought to demand the rigor or quality that a published article demands. (Or if we do I owe everyone in this thread a whole lot of apologies.)
Also, the conclusion seems pretty hard to refute. Biden is a war criminal. Trump is worse. I think that is definitely true.
That doesn't mean we need to pledge our votes to Biden. Electoral pressure is one of the strongest tools we have to change his behavior. But no one things Trump is an improvement. And being better than Trump isn't high praise.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 8:46 AM on May 11 [11 favorites]
I don't think it makes sense to demand citations or formal logic here. The poster gave their opinion based on their experience. Making an argument to support each opinion is a lot of work to demand of someone making a comment on Metafilter. I don't think we ought to demand the rigor or quality that a published article demands. (Or if we do I owe everyone in this thread a whole lot of apologies.)
Also, the conclusion seems pretty hard to refute. Biden is a war criminal. Trump is worse. I think that is definitely true.
That doesn't mean we need to pledge our votes to Biden. Electoral pressure is one of the strongest tools we have to change his behavior. But no one things Trump is an improvement. And being better than Trump isn't high praise.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 8:46 AM on May 11 [11 favorites]
You know, i had somehow completely glossed over the fact that this article is by Anne Appelbaum, that longtime mendacious propagandist for empire who famously thinks it's fine and good to slaughter Palestinian journalists wholesale.
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:46 PM on May 11 [10 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:46 PM on May 11 [10 favorites]
Anne Appelbaum, that longtime mendacious propagandist for empire who famously thinks it's fine and good to slaughter Palestinian journalists wholesale.
Dang, she actually signed her name to that. What a legacy.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:10 PM on May 11 [3 favorites]
Dang, she actually signed her name to that. What a legacy.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:10 PM on May 11 [3 favorites]
In the early 2010's, in the wake of the Egyptian "Twitter protests" which inspired the EU's No Disconnect strategy, me and some friends got involved in EU and US State Department funded projects aimed at protecting political expression in the digital space, which brought together activists, hackers, and policy makers from all over the world, in a traveling circus of conferences, workshops, and generous expense accounts.I remember this, social media at the time was hailed as some great liberating force that would unleash democracy by allowing people to express themselves. Fascinating to see how it's swung in the opposite direction so quickly. I've seen a lot of bellyaching about China's suggestion that COVID was a US plot out of Fort Detrick but almost zero acknowledgement that it was Tom Cotton, a sitting senator, who first suggested it was a Chinese bioweapon.
I am going to use the term "liberal" loosely in the classic sense, not American left-of-center. My hot take is "liberal" norms evolved in a very different milieu, namely between tightly networked landed nobles and other elites. It was a way to mediate disagreements and form consensus without sometimes literally going to war. Speech was taken seriously; it had to be, these people wielded power & influence. Free speech was established as a fair way to allow everybody to be heard and people were constrained in what they said by reputations they had to uphold.
Those constraints don't really exist anymore. With mass politics, the previous assumptions are weakened, and when social media is introduced, it goes out the window entirely. Political actors don't say things they personally believe in, they speak to signal to others and manipulate the discursive landscape - ask yourself how many times you've seen a politician say something they know isn't true. Social media influencers are working under the same incentives. You can't continue a model of politics built on assumptions that no longer exist. The whole free speech discourse would be more tolerable if everybody stopped appealing to some abstract high minded ideal when it suits them and then going silent when it doesn't. Nobody thinks yelling "fire" in a crowded theater is acceptable, we'd all be better off if we just admitted the disagreement is on where the boundaries should be set.
Liberalism is a nice framework/ground rules that lets various groups work together and be included in the political process, but that's all it is. You still need to fill it up with actual policies. Since Reagan, both parties have embraced the neoliberal mindset of "Let the market decide", which is an abdication of politics. Politics should be about what people want, not what your system of accounting says is profitable. When your system fails to do this, is it really a surprise people start becoming disillusioned with it? It must also be pointed out American democracy has been on a downward slope since Newt Gingrich; the prime mover is the GOP and it far predates the "authoritarian narrative".
A lot of "liberal" voices have a nostalgia for the Cold War, when the newspapers and evening news broadcasts delivered the same basic understanding of what the facts were to every household. This is not the historical norm. Hell, the Pulitzer Prize, which is supposed to be given out for quality journalism, is named after a newspaper publisher who more than stretched the truth and played a part in starting the Spanish-American War. The past people like Applebaum are pining for was the result of an implicit agreement among American elites who saw the need for national unity against the USSR. It was also competition from Communism that led to many of the concessions to labor and disenfranchised groups that "liberals" opposed then but are happy to claim as accomplishments now. And ever since that ideological competition disappeared, they have been clawing those concessions back. It's with this backdrop that arguments of "Russian/Chinese disinformation" should be appreciated - they hope that an external threat will force a divided body politic to come together, because, truthfully, they have no idea how to mend it.
posted by ndr at 11:59 PM on May 11 [14 favorites]
What a legacy
And the crime? Being anti-american. Oh no god forbid. This is the higher standard upon which the failure is a deserved airstrike?
Still it's interesting in TFA the phrasing has landed away from left-punching even if the framing is such the comments in the thread still landed on blaming the left. To wit, far deeper in the Atlantic one: These stories are symptomatic of a larger problem: Because the American extreme right and (more rarely) the extreme left benefit from the spread of antidemocratic narratives, they have an interest in silencing or hobbling any group that wants to stop, or even identify, foreign campaigns.
And in this thread, those with explicitly left positions have been, to accusations of naïveté, trying to point out the various elements why and how autocratic propaganda is finding traction. You want to only look at tankies only tho? Fine - in the meantime in my timeline active left people spend just as much time calling out Xi and Putin apologists, while I'm observing in structural regulatory levers who're doing the pushing "in service" of autocracy are rarely left. Current Applebaum in The Atlantic feels like they're finally willing to face this truth even if her article is an unhappy marriage of trying to persist with the worldview she's always raised, where the substance of her political communications thesis needed the anti-American being synonymous of being wrong. (Because as per the Slate conclusion, back when it was "a given" Israel is more correct: "One could also argue that the anti-Americanism and advocacy of terror are a lot lighter in the Palestinian media than they are in other parts of the Arab press. But that’s Palestine’s fate: Because it is next to Israel, it will always be held to higher standards; it will always be watched by nosier watchdogs, just as Israel is more carefully watched than, say, Jordan or Syria. Establishing a credible media will be, for the Palestinians, part of what it takes to establish a credible state. Until then, the Voice of Palestine will remain what it has become: a combatant—and therefore a legitimate target—in a painful, never-ending, low-intensity war.")
For a separate conversation this In These Times piece points out more succinctly:
Many of those who have challenged the idea that a serious threat of fascism exists in America argue that focus on this potential both distracts from home-grown anti-democratic tendencies and serves a Democratic Party narrative in which the choice is either Joe Biden or Trumpian dictatorship. But the skeptics’ arguments rarely consider that any full discussion of the fascism question requires reflection on the link between political violence abroad and at home. And as today’s anti-war student movement is met with intense repression — part of a broader attack on collective dissent — it forces us to think about our increasingly authoritarian present beyond the national electoral cycle. (...) It is also a reminder that intensely repressive variants of “authoritarian liberalism” have been the precursors and incubators of openly anti-democratic regimes in the past.
Back to that ITT article: "Especially when it comes to the United States, the words of the great Marxist theorist of fascism, Nicos Poulantzas, still ring true: “He who does not wish to discuss imperialism … should stay silent on the subject of fascism.” Historical fascist movements and states arose as late-imperial powers, with aspirations to revive settler-colonialism in the age of mass industry and mass politics. After the downfall of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, critics of U.S. empire abroad and racism at home repeatedly invoked the specter of fascism. In his 1952 piece “Fascism in America,” economist Paul Baran (notably writing under a pseudonym to shield himself from McCarthyism), explained how a U.S. corporate-military coalition could carry out all the tasks of a fascist regime: securing through state power a mass basis for capitalist domination, while undermining any challenges from below, and only adopting fascism’s “classic forms” abroad. "
Applebaum's main beat these days tho, is advocating for continued US support for Ukraine (well less for Ukraine than against Russia), and for her circle, the chickens of the shock doctrine is coming home to roost, it feels like. The problem isn't just as per her article, America's long neglect of the Global South, my contention is, now that I'm bringing in shock doctrine and the way American capitalism-as-it-served-American-strategic-interests has ruined countries everywhere (before that it was the banana republic concept), it's also ruined America itself.
Back to that ITT article:
"Many of those who have challenged the idea that a serious threat of fascism exists in America argue that focus on this potential both distracts from home-grown anti-democratic tendencies and serves a Democratic Party narrative in which the choice is either Joe Biden or Trumpian dictatorship. But the skeptics’ arguments rarely consider that any full discussion of the fascism question requires reflection on the link between political violence abroad and at home. And as today’s anti-war student movement is met with intense repression — part of a broader attack on collective dissent — it forces us to think about our increasingly authoritarian present beyond the national electoral cycle. (...) It is also a reminder that intensely repressive variants of “authoritarian liberalism” have been the precursors and incubators of openly anti-democratic regimes in the past.
"Especially when it comes to the United States, the words of the great Marxist theorist of fascism, Nicos Poulantzas, still ring true: “He who does not wish to discuss imperialism … should stay silent on the subject of fascism.” Historical fascist movements and states arose as late-imperial powers, with aspirations to revive settler-colonialism in the age of mass industry and mass politics. After the downfall of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, critics of U.S. empire abroad and racism at home repeatedly invoked the specter of fascism. In his 1952 piece “Fascism in America,” economist Paul Baran (notably writing under a pseudonym to shield himself from McCarthyism), explained how a U.S. corporate-military coalition could carry out all the tasks of a fascist regime: securing through state power a mass basis for capitalist domination, while undermining any challenges from below, and only adopting fascism’s “classic forms” abroad.
"As yet they need no storm troopers in the United States, slaughtering the wives and children of revolutionary workers and farmers,” Baran explained. “But they employ them where they are needed: in the towns and villages of Korea.”
"A quarter of a century later, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky would detail the way the “Washington Consensus” reproduced itself by supporting “third world fascism” abroad, from Indonesia to El Salvador. Postwar Black radical thinkers sharpened these insights, by connecting the role of U.S. political violence overseas in maintaining American hegemony to the function of racial terror at home in quelling movements for Black and Brown liberation.
"When it comes to today’s fascism debate, we must look beyond U.S. borders. Or at least look at them, recognizing that violence against migrants is a key manifestation of contemporary authoritarianism. As the current moment exemplifies, the scale at which our language works is related to the scope of our moral and political imagination. If we believe that fascism is something that takes place only at the level of the nation-state, we might be persuaded that resisting fascism at home necessitates ignoring complicity with genocide abroad."
The focal point in establishment American discourse right now is Palestine but look, African countries didn't have Palestine necessarily at the back of their minds, neither do Asian or South American countries, when they encounter imperial propagandas from multiple actors. Applebaum wants to bring up her anonymous African anecdote as the opener without reminding her readers it was Kenya at the UN who made an immediate and impactful position of why supporting Ukraine is in line with our global south principles of being against colonialism. She wants to leave the readers assuming the same of every African country is pro-China when at the govt level anyway, I can tell you Uganda and Eswatini is visibly isn't (the last one being one of the few places you can find explicit Taiwanese govt presence).
posted by cendawanita at 12:03 AM on May 12 [11 favorites]
And the crime? Being anti-american. Oh no god forbid. This is the higher standard upon which the failure is a deserved airstrike?
Still it's interesting in TFA the phrasing has landed away from left-punching even if the framing is such the comments in the thread still landed on blaming the left. To wit, far deeper in the Atlantic one: These stories are symptomatic of a larger problem: Because the American extreme right and (more rarely) the extreme left benefit from the spread of antidemocratic narratives, they have an interest in silencing or hobbling any group that wants to stop, or even identify, foreign campaigns.
And in this thread, those with explicitly left positions have been, to accusations of naïveté, trying to point out the various elements why and how autocratic propaganda is finding traction. You want to only look at tankies only tho? Fine - in the meantime in my timeline active left people spend just as much time calling out Xi and Putin apologists, while I'm observing in structural regulatory levers who're doing the pushing "in service" of autocracy are rarely left. Current Applebaum in The Atlantic feels like they're finally willing to face this truth even if her article is an unhappy marriage of trying to persist with the worldview she's always raised, where the substance of her political communications thesis needed the anti-American being synonymous of being wrong. (Because as per the Slate conclusion, back when it was "a given" Israel is more correct: "One could also argue that the anti-Americanism and advocacy of terror are a lot lighter in the Palestinian media than they are in other parts of the Arab press. But that’s Palestine’s fate: Because it is next to Israel, it will always be held to higher standards; it will always be watched by nosier watchdogs, just as Israel is more carefully watched than, say, Jordan or Syria. Establishing a credible media will be, for the Palestinians, part of what it takes to establish a credible state. Until then, the Voice of Palestine will remain what it has become: a combatant—and therefore a legitimate target—in a painful, never-ending, low-intensity war.")
For a separate conversation this In These Times piece points out more succinctly:
Many of those who have challenged the idea that a serious threat of fascism exists in America argue that focus on this potential both distracts from home-grown anti-democratic tendencies and serves a Democratic Party narrative in which the choice is either Joe Biden or Trumpian dictatorship. But the skeptics’ arguments rarely consider that any full discussion of the fascism question requires reflection on the link between political violence abroad and at home. And as today’s anti-war student movement is met with intense repression — part of a broader attack on collective dissent — it forces us to think about our increasingly authoritarian present beyond the national electoral cycle. (...) It is also a reminder that intensely repressive variants of “authoritarian liberalism” have been the precursors and incubators of openly anti-democratic regimes in the past.
Back to that ITT article: "Especially when it comes to the United States, the words of the great Marxist theorist of fascism, Nicos Poulantzas, still ring true: “He who does not wish to discuss imperialism … should stay silent on the subject of fascism.” Historical fascist movements and states arose as late-imperial powers, with aspirations to revive settler-colonialism in the age of mass industry and mass politics. After the downfall of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, critics of U.S. empire abroad and racism at home repeatedly invoked the specter of fascism. In his 1952 piece “Fascism in America,” economist Paul Baran (notably writing under a pseudonym to shield himself from McCarthyism), explained how a U.S. corporate-military coalition could carry out all the tasks of a fascist regime: securing through state power a mass basis for capitalist domination, while undermining any challenges from below, and only adopting fascism’s “classic forms” abroad. "
Applebaum's main beat these days tho, is advocating for continued US support for Ukraine (well less for Ukraine than against Russia), and for her circle, the chickens of the shock doctrine is coming home to roost, it feels like. The problem isn't just as per her article, America's long neglect of the Global South, my contention is, now that I'm bringing in shock doctrine and the way American capitalism-as-it-served-American-strategic-interests has ruined countries everywhere (before that it was the banana republic concept), it's also ruined America itself.
Back to that ITT article:
"Many of those who have challenged the idea that a serious threat of fascism exists in America argue that focus on this potential both distracts from home-grown anti-democratic tendencies and serves a Democratic Party narrative in which the choice is either Joe Biden or Trumpian dictatorship. But the skeptics’ arguments rarely consider that any full discussion of the fascism question requires reflection on the link between political violence abroad and at home. And as today’s anti-war student movement is met with intense repression — part of a broader attack on collective dissent — it forces us to think about our increasingly authoritarian present beyond the national electoral cycle. (...) It is also a reminder that intensely repressive variants of “authoritarian liberalism” have been the precursors and incubators of openly anti-democratic regimes in the past.
"Especially when it comes to the United States, the words of the great Marxist theorist of fascism, Nicos Poulantzas, still ring true: “He who does not wish to discuss imperialism … should stay silent on the subject of fascism.” Historical fascist movements and states arose as late-imperial powers, with aspirations to revive settler-colonialism in the age of mass industry and mass politics. After the downfall of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, critics of U.S. empire abroad and racism at home repeatedly invoked the specter of fascism. In his 1952 piece “Fascism in America,” economist Paul Baran (notably writing under a pseudonym to shield himself from McCarthyism), explained how a U.S. corporate-military coalition could carry out all the tasks of a fascist regime: securing through state power a mass basis for capitalist domination, while undermining any challenges from below, and only adopting fascism’s “classic forms” abroad.
"As yet they need no storm troopers in the United States, slaughtering the wives and children of revolutionary workers and farmers,” Baran explained. “But they employ them where they are needed: in the towns and villages of Korea.”
"A quarter of a century later, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky would detail the way the “Washington Consensus” reproduced itself by supporting “third world fascism” abroad, from Indonesia to El Salvador. Postwar Black radical thinkers sharpened these insights, by connecting the role of U.S. political violence overseas in maintaining American hegemony to the function of racial terror at home in quelling movements for Black and Brown liberation.
"When it comes to today’s fascism debate, we must look beyond U.S. borders. Or at least look at them, recognizing that violence against migrants is a key manifestation of contemporary authoritarianism. As the current moment exemplifies, the scale at which our language works is related to the scope of our moral and political imagination. If we believe that fascism is something that takes place only at the level of the nation-state, we might be persuaded that resisting fascism at home necessitates ignoring complicity with genocide abroad."
The focal point in establishment American discourse right now is Palestine but look, African countries didn't have Palestine necessarily at the back of their minds, neither do Asian or South American countries, when they encounter imperial propagandas from multiple actors. Applebaum wants to bring up her anonymous African anecdote as the opener without reminding her readers it was Kenya at the UN who made an immediate and impactful position of why supporting Ukraine is in line with our global south principles of being against colonialism. She wants to leave the readers assuming the same of every African country is pro-China when at the govt level anyway, I can tell you Uganda and Eswatini is visibly isn't (the last one being one of the few places you can find explicit Taiwanese govt presence).
posted by cendawanita at 12:03 AM on May 12 [11 favorites]
this is a great comment; flagged as fantastic.
also this comment, which would seem to reinforce my earlier suspicion about this FPP being of a piece with what it claims to warn us about. pretty egregious legwork fuckup from the OP, it would seem.
posted by busted_crayons at 3:50 AM on May 12 [4 favorites]
also this comment, which would seem to reinforce my earlier suspicion about this FPP being of a piece with what it claims to warn us about. pretty egregious legwork fuckup from the OP, it would seem.
posted by busted_crayons at 3:50 AM on May 12 [4 favorites]
(yes, if one's bad take is "journalists are legitimate military targets", packaged in prose dripping with racist contempt, then it is immaterial if that take is 20+ years old, and even more immaterial if one's bad take has just manifested itself in reality in the form of systematic and unprecedentedly deadly military targeting of journalists. there is no coming back from such a transparently shitty take. and maybe we should have some more robust standards for due diligence for FPPs on serious topics, that should maybe involve giving some side-eye to the fucking atlantic, given its track record.)
posted by busted_crayons at 3:59 AM on May 12 [8 favorites]
posted by busted_crayons at 3:59 AM on May 12 [8 favorites]
I am going to use the term "liberal" loosely in the classic sense, not American left-of-center. My hot take is "liberal" norms evolved in a very different milieu, namely between tightly networked landed nobles and other elitesWell taken historically, 'liberalism' was formed almost exactly in opposition to these people, and posited nations composed of peoples, with universal rights, and laws, and certain freedoms like speech and religious worship, so the landed nobles and really privileged classes almost everywhere (in Europe, in South America and the North where they were present) tended towards reaction. European elites tended to look at early liberals, especially when they came from the same classes and schools and educated backgrounds, as dangerous idiots out to wreck things for everyone, and they were right.
All in all this thread is just an illustration of just how pervasive the language and political territory of liberalism is, because even as we're critical of it for failing to endorse equality, for its lack of 'policies' (proposed by who?) for its failure to provide genuine rights, even for the concepts themselves of 'war crimes' 'laws of war' and 'genocide' each which have a specific history created by liberal courts and international bodies, and are real only because free societies choose to abhor them, we're still travelling in liberalism's shadow, all of us.
Illiberals, and there are plenty, and their propaganda is powerful, simply do not believe any these things are real. If it's Western propaganda to believe that they are in fact real, and important, then I choose Western propaganda, even when the West itself fails.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 1:19 AM on May 13 [6 favorites]
There is a lot of political space outside of liberalism and "illiberalism". Leftist critiques of liberalism address the economic and political structures of liberal societies that create inhumane and authoritarian systems. The idea that the only options are liberalism and fascism is liberal dogma.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 6:10 AM on May 13 [8 favorites]
posted by The Manwich Horror at 6:10 AM on May 13 [8 favorites]
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