#us election played a part even as a non-american

[tyrannuspitch]

as someone who has never been in the spn fandom and wasn't even really aware that the fandom was still active in 2020, canon destiel day absolutely WAS about spn. like for spn fans it was about spn for obvious reasons. but as an outsider who'd been on tumblr since i was 13 but hadn't experienced the queerbait firsthand, it was 100% still about destiel and i was completely reeling because it was the last thing i would EVER have expected to happen. and in fucking 2020 of all years

[lilhawkeye3]

A Crash Course to Kendrick's Super Bowl Performance, from a Black Woman

Note: this does NOT go in depth into all of the song's lyrics. I don't have time to recount two decades of his discography. This is just a summary of the performance itself.

Let's start with the first visual we get:

UNCLE SAM - most notably recognized from WWII American wartime propaganda, Uncle Sam is the personification of American patriotism and freedom. The term "uncle" is also evocative of Uncle Tom from Uncle Tom's Cabin, an abolitionist book that aided in inciting the Civil War. Uncle is also a very common term (both endearment and derogatory) towards Black men (eg. "unc"). Samuel L Jackson was fantastic. (Edit: and please look up his history of civil rights activism, he was on the FBI watchlist and even a pallbearer at MLKJr’s funeral.)

Uncle Sam also resembles a circus ringleader, notable for my next point:

THE GREAT AMERICAN GAME - no, not Super Bowl. The GAG is us the people being pitted against each other: through late-stage capitalism, through the culture war, through class warfare, through being built of the backs of slaves. We are all players in the GAG because none of us on this site were the oligarchs seated at the inauguration.

This is also seen as Kendrick's stage was a Play Station controller. Not only did it remind of circus rings visually, but it was a game battle stage. The Great American Game is a battle royale of the commoners for the amusement of the rich whites.

Remember the foods / Them color was tin and brown / But now they 100 and blue - For this I'll just say, look what the last election said about lowering the price of eggs... and look at the prices now.

The revolution about to be televised / You picked the right time / But the wrong guy - Election 2024 once more. *Edit to add, the first part of this lyric is in reference to the Black Liberation Song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" by Gil Scott-Heron. Thanks to everyone who mentioned that.

THE FLAG DANCERS - yes, the dancers formed the US flag... off of the backs of Black people. Not a single white person in sight, and that's true of the cotton pickers in the fields. Plantations are part of how the US came to economic prominence after being a "backwater" colony. Remember tobacco? Cotton? Our bloodlines do. *Edit to add: they also all piled out of a clown car. The US flag in a clown car? Brilliant.

The red and blue dancers are also notable for representing the Crips and Bloods, two infamous street gangs. The dance in Not Like Us is the Crip Walk. I recommend researching more on your own time about them, but just know they are a large part of the stereotype of Black people being "ghetto."

TOO LOUD, TOO RECKLESS, TOO GHETTO. Do you really know how to play the game? - This is exactly what Black people, especially Black men, get told all the time. It's why we change our names on resumes if they sound "too Black." It's why we codeswitch in non-Black company. This is especially rich considering how non-Black people love our culture and love to make money off of us, as the latter part of the quote points to. And it's even more profound during the Super Bowl-- the NFL is majority Black players.

STREET LIGHT A CAPELLA -- "thug" stereotype dancers to counteract the a capella connotations, with Uncle Sam then saying that Kendrick figured out "bringing other street guys around being a culture cheat code." Yes, this is a direct hit at Drake (listen to "Not Like Us") but also politically. Look up "model minority". Notably I would point to Candace Owens, or the Miami Venezuelan political group that's been in the news recently, especially as this directly led to Kendrick being surrounded by...

DANCERS IN WHITE -- it's white America. That's... that's the allegory.

NOT LIKE US TEASER -- Kendrick says "Not Like Us" is "their favorite song." -> he means white people specifically here. It comes after he's surrounded by all white dancers, the women around him who are his call and response are also in white (my opinion, they represent the industry). He's saying "Not Like Us" is the favorite of yts because it is about BLACK MEN FIGHTING. This again is reflected in the video game stage and ringleader Uncle Sam.

SZA -- instead of giving what they want, we see SZA. She's one of Drake's exes and Kendrick has always supported her.

ALL THE STARS -- This was in the first Black Panther movie, which I recommend you watch. Rest in Power Chadwick. Notably, this movie was incredibly mainstream as a major Marvel movie, and then we have Uncle Sam say...

"THAT'S WHAT AMERICA WANTS: NICE AND CALM. DON'T MESS THIS UP" -- translation: Marvel (the industry, America, etc.) wanted a safe, semi-pop song because white American likes safe pop songs, not Kendrick's usual heavy rap style about his life as a Black man! Don't mess up what you've got going mainstream for having this "Black rap feud" with Drake, who is an R&B model minority to white people because he's safe.

So what does Kendrick say?

IT'S A CULTURAL DIVIDE / IMMA GET IT ON THE FLOOR -- He was warned not to be political or apologetically Black for this Super Bowl performance, but he is using this big stage opportunity to speak out.

40 ACRES AND A MULE / THIS IS BIGGER THAN THE MUSIC -- 40 acres and a mule are what the freed slaves were promised. Instead, this land went to white sharecroppers. Research Jim Crow laws.

THEY TRIED TO RIG THE GAME / BUT YOU CAN'T FAKE INFLUENCE -- rig the election, rig the industry like with model minority Drake, rig the Great American Game with culture war to distract from active class warfare.

NOT LIKE US -- the only thing I'll mention because it made me holler is Serena Williams crip walking on Drake's metaphorical grave. She's another one of his exes (read: Drake harassed the hell out of her). *Edit: she was also fined at the 2012 Olympics for crip walking in celebration at Wimbledon.

TURN THE TV OFF -- exactly like he said! The TV is a distraction, the Super Bowl is a distraction, the mainstream news is often a distraction. Turn it off and get with your people!

GAME OVER — could not see this on my stream but at the end of the performance, the lights in the stadium spelled this out. The world is watching, America…

In conclusion, Kendrick Lamar is a visionary and thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

[tanadrin]

The recent talk about what would the democrats need to do the next election cycle to undo whatever damage done by Trump is possible to undo, and the observation that the US political system does already have to tools to do it on paper got me thinking, specifically about why this is happening much more than how

The present situation in the US, in a lot of ways, reads like a crisis of political will more than anything to me. But what I can't for the life of me come up with is, why is this will so lacking?

Even right now, a lot of Trump's actions could be halted if the political will existed to do so - not just among the politicians, but the average American person. Fed workers physically blocking DOGE employees, or just all the IT personnel forgetting all the server passwords and having a convenient server outage, hell just actually heated protests instead of some peaceful marches could make a dent. And politicians could of course also do more, all sorts of high ranking figures from illegally fired officials to House and Senate members could for example respond to the "move fast and break things" approach by, themselves defying dubious-but-technically-maybe-legal exercises of executive authority first and waiting for a lawsuit second, instead of the other way around. But that too, of course, needs to rest on an energised base that would appreciate this sort of thing to make the very real personal risk worth it

All of which sort of comes back around to political will - there exist solutions, but there seems to be an utter absence of actual electoral enthusiasm amongst the average American about actually using them - about asserting that this is a big deal and having a fight about it. Enthusiasm from the centre and left of it, anyways - the US right has sort of manifested that exact energy, and is using it exactly to do what they're doing right now

So like, what happened/is happening there with it? Why is the average American that actually participates in political life so apathetic to all if it, even the ridiculous bullshit they express a dislike for every time a poll or vote actually gets them to express an opinion on?

I am hardly an expert on this, but I think a big part of it is 1) the rot in the Republican Party specifically, and 2) the collapse of leadership in Congress generally, and I think these two things are related.

Movement conservatism has been hollowing out the Republican party as a "normal" political force for decades, and it really ramped up during the Bush years, when conservative political leaders and legal figures had to make increasingly contorted arguments for blatantly unconstitutional actions whose real justification was something like might makes right. The victory of Obama in 2008 accelerated the collapse because a certain kind of white American saw a black man get elected president and just kind of went crazy; they had to construct a post-hoc justification that wasn't "I still actually believe in the Jim Crow era racial hierarchy," and they couldn't really.

Movement conservatism also drove polarization in Congress starting in the 90s under Newt Gingrich, and Congress becoming a place for scoring political points rather than enacting policy, plus increasing deadlock (which again, accelerated under Obama, when figures like McConnell decided the play was to be as obstructionist as possible) de facto devolved a lot more responsibility on the executive and judicial branches. But you also saw, for instance, complete dereliction of duty to control and oversee warmaking and surveillance power under Bush--because, you see, that might open you up to some kind of political attack! Congress now is simply terminally afraid of taking a stand on anything, since to do so might endanger individual members' chances of re-election. And now that the Republican party is a Trump personality cult, there's no non-Trump wing of the party to appeal to against Trump's worst excesses; and feckless Democrats, who do not know how to actually demonstrate political leadership anymore, think the only solution to declining popularity is to try to chase the things that Trump does that seem to not be completely unpopular. Of course much of the electorate is zoned out--everything that comes out of any politician's mouths these days (save Trump and AOC and a couple of others) is a stock phrase that's been through a dozen focus-groups. The signal-to-noise ratio is abysmal, most political media does this simpering both-sides thing where they have to somehow act like the dull centrists and the rabid fascists both have valid points, and cynicism/doomerism/conspiracism runs wild on the social media that most people get their political coverage from anyway.

(And it doesn't help that the way American political parties are organized is stupid, and leaves them without any kind of central apparatus that can shape and direct political strategy when they're out of power)

obviously i am flattening out a lot of nuance and detail here for the sake of fitting it all in two paragraphs, but in the most general terms that's what i feel like is going on

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

RACIAL GASLIGHTING

"I don't see color"

"Are you sure that's what really happened?"

"It was just a joke."

"It's not always about race"

“Not all cops are bad or racist."

"Not all black people face racism"

"I'm not racist my friend is black."

"Black people should just comply and they won't get killed."

"People might listen if they protested peacefully."

"Just to play the devil's advocate here..."

"This country isn't racist, we had a black president."

"If you're not doing anything illegal you won't have to worry about the police."

"They weren't being racist, maybe you took it the wrong way."

"Martin Luther King Jr was peaceful, why can't you be?"

“Racism doesn't exist anymore."

"Slavery was so long ago.”

You're adorable but congrats on making a strawman. Because even if you're claiming I've said all this is all wildly out of context.

"if you're not doing anything illegal you won't have to worry about the police"

This is true sometimes. But no one in their right mind actually believes this, even if they say it. Because while yes SOMETIMES depending on where you live, this can tend to be true, it's not always.

"I don't see color"

Most people were raised to not in my generation. Rather than treating someone "like a minority" we treated them like a person. It's not that people are literally blind to color. They were just trained to not care about it. Which is honestly where we should be. Not afraid of using speech around people because of their ethnic background.

"This country isn't racist we had a black president"

This country as a whole isn't racist. Some of the people that live here are, but a "racist country" doesn't elect a person to the highest seat is power if they are mostly racist. Get over yourself.

"Black people should just comply maybe they won't get killed"

Statically this is true. So be as much of a shit as you want about it. There are over 3 million interactions with cops yearly a large number of which are black Americans. And MOST all of them end peacefully or with no excessive use of force. Because guess what? Non compliance in the proximity of a cop more than willing to use excessive force? They won't much care what color you are. Reason behind is that it's more about power for them than it is anything else. And yes, that even includes race.

"Are you sure that's what really happened"

How is this fucking gaslighting? This is called reasonable questioning and skepticism because here's the deal. Memory for most people isn't perfect. Not even remotely. And what you perceive to have happened isn't always what actually happened.

Example: I'm with someone who I know has a severe allergy to a certain bug. That bug manages to get in them. My brain thinks, be which and kill it so they are safe. They see me approach them trained in a part of their body. They panic thinking I'm going to hurt them and run off. What I was doing was trying to protect them from something that could kill them. What they saw is a person trying to potentially hurt them.

Most of what's here isn't gaslighting. It's nuanced statement you want to be racist. Or you personally believe such.

Also lastly:

"People might listen if they peacefully protest"

Uh yeah. Actually. BLM lost 90% of it's support less than 2 months after the violence started. Then significantly more after people concerned by the violence started looking into the organization vs the protests. Then the medias shit coverage of all of it. Now support of BLM is mostly ONLY moron activists types that are only good at being told what to think, and often can't think for themselves.

This list is actually stupid. So I'm throwing this to someone for his view on this. @siryouarebeingmocked

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Steven Beschloss at America, America:

Those of us committed to saving our democracy share the same task: To expand the awareness of people we know and meet about the dangers in our midst. For all of us who’ve been paying attention to the dismantling of our democracy and the cruel, arrogant and reckless way this has been happening, it seems almost ridiculous that we need to explain this. But we’re in this fateful moment because far too many Americans failed to grasp what could happen and what was at stake. And, sadly, it seems far too many still fail to recognize that there is a five-alarm fire that could soon burn out of control, making dousing it and repairing the destruction an increasingly tall order.

Why are we facing this dilemma? Part of the reason stems from normalcy bias which, as summarized by The Decision Lab, “describes our tendency to underestimate the possibility of disaster and believe that life will continue as normal, even in the face of significant threats or crises.” Think how often you hear about people who lost their lives because they refused to leave before a major hurricane or other natural disaster wreaked havoc; they may have falsely assumed they were safer staying in their home or ignored warnings that they believed were overstated. In 2016, people said Donald Trump wouldn’t get the Republican nomination. Then they said he wouldn’t beat Hillary Clinton. When he won, many doubted he would be that bad, despite everything he said and promised to do.

That same tendency—to underestimate the potential for disaster—facilitated his reelection in 2024; it made it easier for many voters to ignore the warnings of his dictatorial ambitions or minimize his hateful threats of retribution, mass deportation and terminating the Constitution. It’s also true, of course, that many voters—enough to elect Trump—were cut off from such warnings or persuaded to disbelieve them by Fox News, Newsmax, Elon Musk’s X and a host of hateful propagandists like Tucker Carlson. You may recall a survey soon after the election which found that voters who paid a great deal of attention to political news were eight percent more likely to vote for Kamala Harris than those who paid no attention who were 15 percent more likely to vote for Trump. Democrats failed to adequately penetrate both the right-wing information ecosystem and other key non-political spaces.

But put aside the 77 million-plus who voted for Trump. We would be facing an utterly different reality if even a small slice of the 89 million Americans who were eligible to vote—yet didn’t—had been sufficiently motivated to do their part and help ward off disaster. And it’s not like the warnings were insufficiently pointed. Recall Vice President Kamala Harris’ rally in Washington, D.C. on October 30 that drew a crowd estimated at 75,000 people. “We know who Donald Trump is,” Harris said as the election neared. “This is someone who is unstable, obsessed with revenge, consumed with grievance and out for unchecked power.”

To assess the part I played in this, I returned to the first essay I wrote that raised the specter of fascist rule if Trump were to retake the levers of power and the role that Project 2025 was playing in creating the conditions for it. That was on July 23, 2023, in an essay titled “Aiming for Dictatorship.” The subtitle read: “While Trump hungers for retribution and extremist Republicans mock successes of modern liberal government, a network of right-wing groups plot a fascist takeover with an all-powerful U.S. president.” It was a reminder of how knowable the stakes already were. Drawing on strong reporting from The New York Times, I summarized what a potential second Trump term portended: “This plot is committed to concentrating power in the hands of the president by ending liberal government and the independence of the Department of Justice, the civil service and other federal agencies that have been largely protected (by law or tradition) from presidential political interference.”

I noted that many people were struggling to understand why Trump continued to get support not only from a cultist base, but also from Republican leadership and their policy professionals. That’s why the threat of Project 2025 and their desire to dismantle liberal government needed to be taken with utmost seriousness. 

Steven Beschloss wrote an excellent piece earlier this week about Americans should heed the warning signs of the USA’s fascist turn.

[naivety]

my sense of urgency for this election was all used up watching a genocide play out live on instagram while my mom continued to talk about which politician might make the housing market better and i tried not to genuinely lose my mind over the dissonance. in all honesty short of bombs dropping on americans' houses my adrenal glands are beyond checked out. i'll show up to the polls and do my part and try to plug into the bare bones direct action i can find in the middle of nowhere deep red county state but god. there are so many posts circulating trying to fear monger me into voting for one genocidal president of this genocidal nation over another and i may as well live on a different planet. i can fathom the urgency but i could not make myself feel it short of being held at gunpoint. which may even be on the ballot but that's how americans have been voting for decades now and each of them regardless of party has worried about the idea of being held at gunpoint while a right of theirs is taken away while there are people who are already being held at gunpoint and their rights have already been taken away by the very people being beamed into my eyeballs as the escape from this hypothetical violence that's already non-hypothetically happened to millions who aren't US liberals because of the america they're trying to save from trump the same america regardless of democrats or republicans or whigs or federalists and does anyone else feel like they're going crazy

[newstfionline]

Sunday, June 2, 2024

UN refugee chief says 114 million have fled homes because nations fail to tackle causes of conflict (AP) The number of people fleeing their homes because of war, violence and persecution has reached 114 million and is climbing because nations have failed to tackle the causes and combatants are refusing to comply with international law, the U.N. refugee chief said Thursday. In a hard-hitting speech, Filippo Grandi criticized the U.N. Security Council, which is charged with maintaining international peace and security, for failing to use its voice to try to resolve conflicts from Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan to Congo, Myanmar and many other places. He also accused unnamed countries of making “short-sighted foreign policy decisions, often founded on double standards, with lip service paid to compliance with the law, but little muscle flexed from the council to actually uphold it and—with it—peace and security.” Grandi said non-compliance with international humanitarian law means that “parties to conflicts—increasingly everywhere, almost all of them—have stopped respecting the laws of war,” though some pretend to do so.

After Trump’s Conviction, a Wary World Waits for the Fallout (NYT) The world does not vote in American presidential elections. Nor do its jurors play a part in the American judicial system. Nevertheless, the conviction of Donald J. Trump on all 34 felony counts in a hush-money trial in a New York court on Thursday has again made clear how consequential what happens in the United States is for the rest of the planet. Many America-watchers are grappling with the same questions posed by people in the United States: Can Mr. Trump still run for president? (Yes.) And if so, will the guilty verdicts cut into the support from his political base? (Unclear.) Foreign observers also began wondering if Mr. Trump, already a volatile force, would become even less likely to stay within the guardrails of normal politics and diplomacy if he won the presidency again in November.

Mexican candidate assassinations hit grim record ahead of Sunday’s election (Reuters) Mexico’s election is now the bloodiest in its modern history after a candidate running for local office in central Puebla state was murdered on Friday at a political rally, taking the number of assassinated candidates to 37 ahead of Sunday’s vote. Jorge Huerta Cabrera, a candidate who was running for a council seat in the town of Izucar de Matamoros, was gunned down in the attack, according to the state prosecutor’s office. The killing takes the number of assassinated candidates in the 2024 election season to 37, one more than during the 2021 midterm election.

Panama prepares to evacuate first island in face of rising sea levels (AP) On a tiny island off Panama’s Caribbean coast, about 300 families are packing their belongings in preparation for a dramatic change. Generations of Gunas who have grown up on Gardi Sugdub in a life dedicated to the sea and tourism will trade that next week for the mainland’s solid ground. The Gunas of Gardi Sugdub are the first of 63 communities along Panama’s Caribbean and Pacific coasts that government officials and scientists expect to be forced to relocate by rising sea levels in the coming decades. Gardi Sugdub is only about 400 yards (366 meters) long and 150 yards (137 meters) wide. Every year, especially when the strong winds whip up the sea in November and December, water fills the streets and enters the homes. The Gunas have tried to reinforce the island’s edge with rocks, pilings and coral, but seawater keeps coming. Residents will move to the new site on the mainland that the government developed at a cost of $12 million. The concrete houses sit on a grid of paved streets carved out of the lush tropical jungle just over a mile from the port, where an eight-minute boat ride carries them to Gardi Sugdub.

Cuba laments collapse of iconic sugar industry (BBC) Cutting cane is all Miguel Guzmán has ever known. He comes from a family of farm hands and started the tough, thankless work as a teenager. For hundreds of years, sugar was the mainstay of the Cuban economy. It was not just the island’s main export but also the cornerstone of another national industry, rum. Older Cubans remember when the island was essentially built on the backs of families like Mr Guzmán’s. Today, though, he readily admits he has never seen the sugar industry as broken and depressed as it is now—not even when the Soviet Union’s lucrative sugar quotas dried up after the Cold War. Spiralling inflation, shortages of basic goods and the decades-long US economic embargo have made for a dire economic outlook across the board in Cuba. But things are particularly bleak in the sugar trade. Last season, Cuba’s production fell to just 350,000 tonnes of raw sugar, an all-time low for the country, and well below the 1.3 million tonnes recorded in 2019. “It’s a disaster. Today the sugar industry in Cuba almost doesn’t exist,” says Juan Triana of the Centre for Studies of the Cuban Economy in Havana. “We’re producing the same quantity of sugar Cuba produced in the middle of the 19th Century.”

NATO ministers meet in Prague as allies ease restrictions on Ukraine’s use of their weapons (AP) NATO foreign ministers were meeting in the Czech capital Friday to prepare for this summer’s leaders’ summit as the alliance boosts support for Ukraine and countries one-by-one remove restrictions on how Kyiv can use western-supplied weaponry to combat Russia’s invasion. A day after U.S. President Joe Biden gave Ukraine the go-ahead to use American munitions to strike inside Russia for the limited purpose of defending Kharkiv, numerous ministers, including those from the Netherlands, Finland, Poland and Germany, expressed approval of the decision, saying that Ukraine has the absolute right to defend itself from attacks originating on Russian soil.

The Kremlin is all-in on war in Ukraine (CSM) Amid its grinding war of attrition and economic mobilization against Ukraine, Russia is changing fast. As the Defense Ministry spends ever-increasing amounts of money to procure the equipment it needs and to recruit more soldiers, the country’s business environment and economic geography are being reshaped. And the military-industrial complex, which was vastly downsized in post-Soviet years, is reviving quickly. Confounding observers in many ways, Russia’s war economy, despite Western sanctions, is now back at a level that outproduces the entire West in some key military goods. And the Kremlin appears to be committed to a war economy approach for the long haul, as suggested by the recent reshuffling of Defense Ministry leadership. Whether such an economic policy is viable is in debate. Optimists say the rapid economic development is economically positive on balance, or at least that Russia can sustain high levels of military spending for the foreseeable future. Pessimists argue that the Kremlin is building a permanent war economy, much like the one that strangled the Soviet Union, and that hopes of building a prosperous consumer economy are fast vanishing. But for the moment, Russian President Vladimir Putin appears all in.

Voting begins in the last round of India’s election (AP) A six-week-long national election in India that is a referendum on Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decade in power neared its end Saturday as the last phase of voting began. The election is considered one of the most consequential in India’s history. If Modi wins, he’ll be only the second Indian leader to retain power for a third term after Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first prime minister. The seventh round of polls covers 57 constituencies across seven states and one union territory. It will complete a national election to fill all 543 seats in the powerful lower house of parliament. Nearly 970 million voters—more than 10% of the world’s population—were eligible to elect a new parliament for five years. More than 8,300 candidates ran for the office. Most polls show Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party leading over the broad opposition alliance that’s challenging them, led by the Congress party. The votes will be counted Tuesday, with results expected by the end of the day.

Israeli views of the Israel-Hamas war (Pew Research Center) Some 39% of Israelis say Israel’s military response against Hamas in Gaza has been about right, while 34% say it has not gone far enough and 19% think it has gone too far, according to a survey conducted March 3-April 4. But Israelis see the war in vastly different ways depending on their political ideology, religion and other factors, including stark divides between Jews and Arabs. According to the survey, conducted in March and early April, roughly two-thirds of Israelis are also confident that Israel will either probably (27%) or definitely (40%) achieve its goals in the war against Hamas.

Israel confirms its forces are in central Rafah in expanding offensive in the southern Gaza city (AP) The Israeli military confirmed Friday that its forces are operating in central parts of Rafah in its expanding offensive in the southern Gaza city. Israel launched its ground assault into the city on May 6, triggering an exodus of around 1 million Palestinians out of the city and throwing U.N. humanitarian operations based in the area into turmoil. Still, it has yet to amount to a “major operation” in the eyes of U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration, according to the State Department. Up to around 300,000 people are believed to remain in the Rafah area, with an unknown number still in the city itself. Most have flocked to rural areas on the Mediterranean coastline west of the city, said Shaina Low, a spokesperson for the Norwegian Refugee Council, a humanitarian group that operates in the area. That area has seen deadly Israeli strikes the past week. Palestinians who fled the city have scattered around southern and central Gaza, most of them living in squalid tent camps.

Israel maintains a shadowy hospital in the desert for Gaza detainees. Critics allege mistreatment (AP) Patients lying shackled and blindfolded on more than a dozen beds inside a white tent in the desert. Surgeries performed without adequate painkillers. Doctors who remain anonymous. These are some of the conditions at Israel’s only hospital dedicated to treating Palestinians detained by the military in the Gaza Strip, three people who have worked there told The Associated Press, confirming similar accounts from human rights groups. While Israel says it detains only suspected militants, many patients have turned out to be non-combatants taken during raids, held without trial and eventually returned to war-torn Gaza. Eight months into the Israel-Hamas war, accusations of inhumane treatment at the Sde Teiman military field hospital are on the rise, and the Israeli government is under growing pressure to shut it down. Rights groups and other critics say what began as a temporary place to hold and treat militants after Oct. 7 has morphed into a harsh detention center with too little accountability.

Google scales back AI search answers after it told users to eat glue (Washington Post) Google said it was scaling down the use of AI-generated answers in some search results, after the tech made high-profile errors including telling users to put glue on their pizza and saying Barack Obama was Muslim. The change is the latest example of Google launching an AI product with fanfare and then rolling it back after it goes awry. The tech industry is in the throes of an AI revolution, with start-ups and Big Tech giants alike trying to find new ways to put the tech into their products and make money from it. Many of the tools have been launched before they’re ready for prime time, as companies jostle to be the first to market their products and cast themselves as cutting-edge. One answer, which Google has since fixed, told people to drink plenty of urine to help pass a kidney stone. Another said John F. Kennedy graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in six different years, three of which were after his death.

[theswordwizard]

i cannot believe i keep seeing posts congratulating biden for a four day "ceasefire" (where the IDF CONTINUED to shoot people) over BLACK FRIDAY WEEKEND and saying "ohhhhh he's trying so hard guys we need to clap for him and the DNC, aren't we so glad we have a democrat in office right now" after they gave over 14 BILLION dollars to the israeli military? they scheduled a halftime break in the bombing and you act like they accomplished something real?

i'm also not that surprised, but definitely disappointed, at the amount of posts i've seen blaming "russian bots" for anti-biden posts. its over a year until the next election, and joe biden is CURRENTLY, RIGHT NOW, perpetuating zionist lies about Palestine and actively funding their genocide to the media! you realize that if a YEAR in advance of an election, if people are saying "hey this is fucked up, i'm not voting for someone who does this," the DNC doesn't actually have to run joe biden for the democratic nominee? biden said barely a year ago that he didn't intend to run again!

if every election "season" (that seems to get longer every year, proper campaigning for PARTY nominees have barely started, my god) every liberal blasts the messaging "Vote Blue No Matter Who," that the message you are sending to the DNC is that you will vote for whoever they pick out for you, regardless of whether it's in the people's best interests? if YOU TELL THEM that the only messaging they have to have is how the republicans are worse, then that will be their strategy! and we already saw how that played out with hillary!

hillary did not lose because you didn't yell at enough people online, hillary lost because the DNC played poker and INTENTIONALLY propped up and gave additional airtime to trump because they thought that even a generally disliked democratic nominee could win against him! and they were wrong! you CANNOT win an election on "that other guy sucks," because the average american is not reading your callout posts. the average, non-party aligned american, is gonna watch the debate and go "wow I don't really like either of them, I can't afford to not get paid for the hours it would take to vote," because the average american is not a hard leftist or a chronically online liberal.

joe biden won because he campaigned on the promise of student debt relief and fixing covid, and he did neither! sure, he made some small, unflashy, means-tested improvements, but no one even got the 10k reduction that he kept dangling. we can blame the republican party all we want, but what people remember is that joe biden did not do what he promised people. prices are still getting higher and people are still struggling more and more. it's not convincing, and he's not likeable.

if you want to yell at people for not toeing the party line or whatever, a better use of your time would be calling your representatives and getting more involved in local elections. school boards, city councils, state and district representatives, those will immediately effect people's lives in your area!

as more and more information comes out about what is happening in Palestine and the US's part in it, the more unappealing joe biden is as a candidate. if anything, you should call your senator and tell them YOU and anyone you know won't be voting for him, if you really want a chance for a democrat to win the next election.

[gascon-en-exil]

I am almost never inclined to be political, but as yesterday was Québec Fête Nationale I've been having some more thoughts in their direction.

I have had friends in Montréal for around a decade now; I met two of them in the usual way when they came to visit New Orleans, and I've been a small part of their circle ever since. The more I've learned about Québ��cois politics from them, the more I've realized that, despite the differences in circumstances, they share many underlying similarities with Louisiana politics, and the political affiliations of the Louisianais in particular, i.e. as opposed to the non-French population of Louisiana, who consider themselves Americans and are politically dominated by the Bible Belt Anglos that control the north of the state. When Louisiana votes red or however you say it in US elections, those are the people to blame.

From what I've seen, Québécois politics are just as dramatic, and their interests defy neat categorization into conservative and liberal causes as defined by Canadian/US politics. A few months ago one of my friends and I discussed this similarity, and how it leads to Canadian/US conservatives calling us liberals and their liberals calling us conservatives - which inspired (in least for me) a moment of solidarity in feeling that no one will ever be on our side. Obviously the motivation behind this differs somewhat; the cause of Québec separatism has had real political weight and supporters and detractors from all across the spectrum, whereas New Orleans entices and reviles all because we are a city committed to the indulgence of every imaginable vice and to the fatalistic, apolitical allure of death. (Also there are the Cajuns, who trust no one outside their own communities and trust the US government even less.) Humorously this has even cropped up in my online life, as I've had trolls on Tumblr, YouTube, and a certain Discord calling me variously a hardline religious conservative or a delusional SJW liberal, according to whichever affiliation they hate.

If I were politically inclined and had the resources to do so, I could see myself moving to Montréal and helping the Québécois cause in what way I could, with an added eye for outreach toward Louisiana and connection with the organizations here dedicated to preserving the French languages and cultures of the state. It's just about the only cause* that I've ever really felt passionate about. Unfortunately I don't think that's ever going to be a feasible goal for me, for financial reasons if nothing else - but every once in a while I can dream of something beyond hedonistic cynicism.

*One might question why I don't feel the same passion about being queer, but as it happens being a gay French New Orleanian has always felt rather effortless - even expected in a way. Anglos, after all, think of French people as kinky pansexuals out to seduce their significant others with our irresistible Latin charm, and New Orleans has for centuries played host to crossdressing Carnival masquerades and drag performances in reputable establishments, to the point that the Pride initiated by New York City almost feels like a footnote here with the wild abandon of Mardi Gras on the one side and dark, raunchy Decadence on the other. It's taken considerably more active effort on my part to affirm myself as a Frenchman here: interested in the broader Francophonie, and invested in the fate - however grim and inevitable - of the Louisianais.

[kaapstadmk]

Not gonna lie, I'm a little in the doom and gloom camp, having watched populist leaders and dictators make power plays on a regular basis.

I saw Zuma kneecap Mbeki and a host of other populist hopefuls trying to ride his coattails and milk the system. Thankfully, he was finally deposed, but only after 9 years of undoing strategic international marketing and business agreements.

I watched Mugabe keep a death grip on power

I watched nepotism and cabinet incompetence

I remember watching the ANC creep closer and closer to a 2/3 parliamentary majority and all the constitutional fear-mongering that went along with it

I remember watching Gaddafi endlessly try to prop himself up as leader of the AU.

I remember seeing refugees from the DRC and Rwanda, members of my church, and hearing their stories of why they left, their journeys, and their worries over family left behind

I hope you understand that, for some of us, this feels all too familiar, and not in a good way. To add to that, some of us are, or have family members who are racial, sexual, or gender minorities. You can't tell us not to be worried about the well-being of our families

I understand many Americans are still hopeful things will turn around, and I genuinely hope their hope and optimism isn't misplaced. Just, please, don't write off all us skeptics as gloomy naysayers and contrarians. Many of us have seen some shit; for some, it may have even been traumatic. Regardless, our experiences have left us very sensitive to the degree of potential badness that may arise, and, while taking individual, local action can be satisfying, it doesn't calm the national fear roiling underneath the surface.

So, yes, by all means, push for local change and take an active part in local non-profits and midterm elections, but also don't look down on those who may be going through a fear response while you're at it.

Kthxbai

Hey

Hey Americans.

The federal government is about to get useless for at least a bit. This is a GREAT time to get involved in state level environmental orgs. That's where you're gonna be able to do the most for the next few years. Even a bit of casual volunteering can make a big difference.

I've done this off and on for years and when we go local we WIN. And friends winning feels good. This is how a lot of progressive agendas have won in this country. The whole US isn't out of this. People ARE still fighting climate change all around you.

You could be one of those people, in community with other people who are doing something.

doom and gloom "oooh everything is pointless oooh I'm so deep and edgy because I love trying to be the death of hope" people will just get blocked. I'm not talking to your crab-bucket ass.

[sioniestyn]

Why Teach the Jewish Naturalisation Act?

In 1753, the Jewish Naturalisation Act, a.k.a. the Jew Bill, was passed with virtually no opposition (Katznelson, 2021). It was only after the Act passed that the public began to take notice, leading to one of the, in the words of Cranfield, ‘most extraordinary propaganda campaigns in English history’. The campaign ranged from letters being sent into the London Evening Post, to fake advertisements, pamphlets, poems, and speculative fiction on the future of Britain if the Jew Bill remained law. This propaganda campaign plays off almost every antisemitic trope, wider conversations about what it means to be British, and, if you can believe it, the Tories centring the issue of immigration to win an election. It is important for British schools to teach about this as studying this campaign can teach critical thinking about political rhetoric, bigotry, and the ways the same political arguments are repeatedly made. Throughout this essay I will use the Yiddish terms goy, goyim, and goyish to describe non-Jews.

Antisemitism has to be talked about in the classroom. Currently, the majority of British students learn only about the Holocaust, and even then, they are not taught it well enough. In fact, according to Hofkins (2018), 24% of students ‘erroneously’ believe that Britain did not know about the Holocaust until after the war. In actuality, a memo was circulated in 1940 dismissing the treatment of Jewish people in Nazi territory, as they weren’t believed to be innocent as they were Jewish (Baddiel, 2021). Britain also turned away Jewish refugees, restricted immigration, and “created” the state of Israel, in part, to encourage Jewish Holocaust survivors who had recently moved to the U.K. to leave (Antisemitism: An Analysis | Philosophy Tube, 2020; The Wierner Holocaust Library, n.d.). Largely, the same antisemitic tropes that were used to justify the Holocaust were used to justify the repealing of the Jew Bill. Jews being money hungry, blood libel, accusations of wanting to circumcise goyish men and drink the blood of Christian children (Cranfield, 1965; “Old England”, 1753; Polhill, 1753). These tropes are still very much in use. Almost one in five Americans believe in some form of the blood libel myth (Horenstein, 2021). Understanding the origins of these beliefs, and the various ways they have been used could be helpful in preventing them from spreading. The examples of “Little” Hugh of Lincoln and William of Norwich, two children that died under unknown circumstances but whose deaths led to blood libel accusations, are mentioned in the London Evening Post. Oddly, they are brought up to advertise a book detailing the supposed horrors Jewish people have committed in recent history. These two deaths are the most well-known examples of blood libel. Both of these blood libels were either debunked, or never prosecuted at the time (Langham, 2013; Coakley and Pailin, 1993). When looked at critically, all blood libel accusations very quickly stop making sense. Given the fact that there are still those who believe in blood libel, as detailed in a 2021 report by HOPE not Hate, it is important that it is instilled in young people that blood libel, no matter what form it takes, is ludicrous and dangerous. Jews, like myself, are terrified. 42% of Jews have considered leaving the U.K. in the past two years due to antisemitism (Campaign Against Antisemitism, 2021). It is clear that teaching people that Jews are not inherently evil, child-eating monsters is depressingly necessary, and the earlier it is done, the better.

As previously mentioned, the campaign to repeal the Jew Bill largely took place in the London Evening Post. Letters were sent in, poems were written, false advertisements were taken out, and a piece of speculative fiction was written. This piece speculative fiction takes place a century in the future, after the Jew Bill passed. It imagines a Britain that has been “taken over” by Jewish people, where public circumcisions happen, and where The Merchant of Venice has been banned (Cranfield, 1965). This is reminiscent of a more recent piece of speculative fiction that was published in The Daily Mail. Ironically, given his history with antisemitism, the piece was written about Jeremy Corbyn (Thomas, 2015). Both of these pieces use humour, which continues to be common in far-right circles, but also fear in order to manipulate their audience (Scott, 2021). The public circumcisions in the Post, and the mention that One Direction have left Britain never to return in The Daily Mail both show the comedic slant of these pieces. However, they both utilise pathos by stoking fear in the reader. There were, and still are, people who genuinely believe that Jews are working to take over “White” culture, and enact a white genocide (ADL, 2021). Instead of Jewish people being the only ones destroying goyish Britain, today all non-white people, especially Muslims, are working in conjunction with Jewish people to do so. Fear mongering over whether Britain is a Christian country, Christianity being a fundamental part of the far-right’s definition of whiteness, was used both in the Post and continues to be now (Hill Fletcher, 2017). The same arguments are reused time, and time again. It is worth questioning how, if Britain is always seconds away from eradication, it has continued to exist for thousands of years. Furthermore, it is also an example of how relatively uncontroversial topics become “hot-button issues” by being tied to ideas and concepts people care about, like nationality and belonging. Ex-Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, as a correspondent for The Daily Telegraph writing on the EU, sensationalised stories, and tied them to issues the general population took note of (Cockerell, 2019). In Johnson’s own words, he played off the notion that Britain ‘stood alone’ against the EU, he also, both as a journalist, Mayor, MP and PM, created and spread falsehoods to do with immigration, and a “Britain under attack” (Oliver, 2019). These notions are used in the anti-Jew Bill propaganda campaign in the London Evening Post, and are obviously still used today. Being aware of political rhetoric which is specifically designed to scare people into action is increasingly important. Many far-right ideas work on the basis that the “other”, whether it be Jews, People of Colour, or even a different type of English person, is inherently a threat to the functioning of society, and that this threat must be eradicated. Fear is often used to spread misinformation online (Borah et al, 2022). With the increasing use of social media as a source of news and education, it is imperative that we teach everyone to think critically about the media they interact with. This will only become more important with the ease of creating and sharing deep-fake videos and audio. At a time where anxiety, especially amongst young people, is increasing, and world leaders can live completely detached from reality, it is so important to not let fear be the primary driver in people’s ideology (YoungMinds, n.d.; Gordon, 2018; Rayno, 2022). When fear has been the driver behind politics, it has led to the Iraq war, genocides, and, more recently, the deportation of refugees.

The repealing of the Jew Bill was obviously antisemitic. But, because of the ways antisemitism is used in society, it wasn’t just about attacking Jewish people, though that obviously was a big part of it. The Tory party were not in power at the time the Jew Bill was passed, in fact, they had not been in power for some time. Therefore, with it being an election year, the Tory party used the Jew Bill as a way to attack and undermine the Whigs (Shapiro, 2016). The Tory party, ignoring the safety and security of the Jewish community, used antisemitism in order to get elected. They played off of concepts of nationhood, protecting women and children, and gross-out horror, as circumcision oddly seemed to be a major point of goyish concern. The utilisation of Jews in politics is one that still carries on today, and has expanded to include other marginalised communities. This can be done positively, or negatively. Almost every workplace has anti-discrimination and anti-bullying policies, however very few actually enforce these policies, thinking the document saying they’re an equal-opportunity employer is enough (Ahmed, 2011). De Montfort University has both of these policies, yet 14.3% of surveyed lecturers report being ‘always’ or ‘often’ bullied (UCU, 2015). Teaching the ways in which seemingly supportive policies can be used to neglect, or actively harm marginalised communities is important, as the majority of students in British schools will enter into the workplace. It’s also important to teach this as rhetoric around how, for example, certain political parties have now ‘closed the door’ on antisemitism can actually cause complaints about antisemitism to be dismissed, as the ‘door’ has been ‘closed’ on it (Wheeler and Buchan, 2021). It allows the goyim to ask why Jews are so obsessed with “opening the door” and being oppressed. It also allows other political parties to exploit Jewish fear to get votes, whilst still being antisemitic themselves (Lerman, 2019). It is, essentially, forcing someone to choose whether they want to be shot, or hanged. The end result is the exact same. This isn’t unique to Jews. Transphobia has a shocking overlap with antisemitism, both in the way it is used politically, and the modernised blood-libel accusations (Lorber and Greene Smith, 2021).  Teaching the architypes of oppression, and the political exploitation of marginalised communities will help young people engage with politics more critically, but also with advertisements, workplace policies, and other institutions of power.

Teaching school children about the propaganda campaign against the Jew Bill is not just teaching them about Britain’s deeply antisemitic past, but also its antisemitic present. Because antisemitism is one of the oldest bigotries, it is often reused, and adapted to various contemporary issues and communities. It also teaches about political rhetoric, the use of humour in political and bigoted discourse, and national identity. All of these topics remain shockingly relevant. The same nationalist, anti-immigration, “Great Replacement” rhetoric continues to be used (Brown, 2022). Humour and memes are being weaponised by the alt-right in conjunction with social media algorithms to radicalise (Scott, 2021). Concepts of nationhood, and who is and isn’t “British” are constantly being discussed, especially under the, at time of writing, current Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, who is seen as British enough to be Prime Minister. This may be due to his vile anti-immigration and anti-refugee rhetoric (Taylor, 2022). Being bigoted can let minorities, like queer white men, white Irish-Americans, and white American-Jews, occupy space on the fringes of the majority (Puar, 2007; Kennedy, 2022; Grad, 2016). It may also be because of the links between the Conservative Party, and Hindu-Indians particularly, and the neo-liberal, patriarchal impact of Hindu-nationalism on British Indian-Hindus (Martin, 2019; Chacko, 2020). This level of critical thinking on British nationality should be standard, in order to prevent nationalism rising, like it is currently doing (Sabbagh, 2020). The ideas shared during the Post’s propaganda campaign are dangerous, but so is the way they are shared. If identifying these trends is not made a priority, then Britain will always fall back into far-right ideas, and I’m getting pretty tired of my family being genocided.

References

ADL (2021) “The Great Replacement:” An Explainer | ADL. Available from : https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/great-replacement-explainer [Accessed 03/01/23].

Ahmed, S. (2011) ‘“You End up Doing the Document Rather than Doing the Doing”: Diversity. Race Equality and the Politics of Documentation’. In: Prior, L. (ed.) SAGE Publications Ltd; Four-Volume Set edition.

Antisemitism: An Analysis | Philosophy Tube. (2020) Directed by Antisemitism: An Analysis | Philosophy Tube.

Baddiel, D. (2021) Jews don’t count: how identity politics failed one particular identity. London: TLS Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

Borah, P., Kim, S. and Hsu, Y.-C. (Louise) (2022) “Masks do not work”: COVID-19 misperceptions and theory-driven corrective strategies on Facebook. Online Information Review, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), [Online] Available from: doi.org/10.1108/OIR-11-2021-0600 [Accessed 03/01/2023].

Boris Johnson: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO). (2019) Directed by Boris Johnson: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO).

Boris Johnson: ‘The boy who wanted to be world king’ – BBC News. (2019) Directed by Boris Johnson: ‘The boy who wanted to be world king’ – BBC News.

Brown, G. (2022) Nationalism is the ideology of our age. No wonder the world is in crisis. The Guardian, 15 Nov.

Campaign Against Antisemitism (2021) Antisemitism Barometer. [Online] Campaign Against Antisemitism. Available from : https://antisemitism.org/barometer/ [Accessed 30/12/22].

Chacko, P. (2020) Gender and authoritarian populism: empowerment, protection, and the politics of resentful aspiration in India. Critical Asian Studies, 52(2), pp. 204–225.

Coakley, S. and Pailin, D.A. (1993) The Making and Remaking of Christian Doctrine: Essays in Honour of Maurice Wiles. Clarendon Press.

Cranfield, G.A. (1965) II. The ‘London Evening-Post’ and the Jew Bill of 1753. The Historical Journal, 8(1), pp. 16–30.

Gordon, M. (2018) Lying in Politics: Fake News, Alternative Facts, and the Challenges for Deliberative Civics Education. Educational Theory, 68(1), pp. 49–64.

Grad, S.C. for J. (2016) Do American Jews Have White Privilege?. [Online] UW Stroum Center for Jewish Studies. Available from : https://jewishstudies.washington.edu/jewish-history-and-thought/american-jews-and-privilege/ [Accessed 03/01/23].

Greenesmith, B.L., Heron (2021) Antisemitism Meets Transphobia. [Online] Progressive.org. Available from : https://progressive.org/api/content/db4aec86-a82b-11eb-a9f4-1244d5f7c7c6/ [Accessed 03/01/23].

Hill Fletcher, J. (2017) The sin of white supremacy: Christianity, racism, and religious diversity in America. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books.

HOPE not Hate (2021) Antisemitism in the Digital Age: Online Antisemitic Hate, Holocaust Denial, Conspiracy Ideologies and Terrorism in Europe. [Online] HOPE not hate. Available from : https://hopenothate.org.uk/2021/10/13/antisemitism-in-the-digital-age-online-antisemitic-hate-holocaust-denial-conspiracy-ideologies-and-terrorism-in-europe/ [Accessed 30/12/22].

Horenstein, R. (2021) Endangered democracy. The Jerusalem Report, 13 Dec., p. 35.

Katznelson, I. (2021) Measuring Liberalism, Confronting Evil: A Retrospective. Annual Review of Political Science, 24(1), pp. 1–19.

Kennedy, L. (2022) How White Americans Became Irish: Race, Ethnicity and the Politics of Whiteness. Journal of American Studies, 56(3), pp. 424–446.

Langham, R. (2013) William of Norwich / by Raphael Langham | The Jewish Historical Society of England. Available from : https://web.archive.org/web/20131224113930/http://www.jhse.org/node/44?page=0,0#footnoteref1_oohpuo5 [Accessed 30/12/22].

Lerman, A. (2019) The Tories are exploiting Jewish fears over antisemitism. [Online] openDemocracy. Available from : https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/can-europe-make-it/tories-exploiting-jewish-fears-antisemitism/ [Accessed 03/01/23].

Martin, N.S. (2019) Ethnic minority voters in the UK 2015 general election: A breakthrough for the Conservative party? Electoral Studies, 57, pp. 174–185.

‘Old England’ (1753) LONDON EVENING POST, May 24. – ProQuest. Available from : https://www-proquest-com.proxy.library.dmu.ac.uk/docview/6211444?pq-origsite=summon&imgSeq=1 [Accessed 14/12/22].

Polhill, E. (1753) LONDON EVENING POST, Aug. 9. The Scots magazine, 1739-1803, 15, pp. 406–407.

Puar, J.K. (2007) Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times.

Rayno, G. (2022) Lying continues to distort today’s politics. New Hampshire Business Review, 44(21), p. 25.

Sabbagh, D. (2020) Number of far-right terrorist prisoners in Britain hits record high. The Guardian, 17 Jun.

Scott, K. (2021) Ha Ha Only Serious: Irony in Information Warfare and the Comedy-Cloaked Extremism. [Online] Available from: https://dora.dmu.ac.uk/handle/2086/20417 [Accessed 27/12/2022].

Shapiro, J. (2016) Shakespeare and the Jews. New York, UNITED STATES: Columbia University Press.

Taylor, W. (2022) Sunak: My family were immigrants but they were allowed here so I back Rwanda plan. [Online] LBC. Available from : https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/sunak-backs-rwanda-plan-despite-family-immigration/ [Accessed 03/01/23].

The Wierner Holocaust Library British response – The Holocaust Explained: Designed for schools. Available from : https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/resistance-responses-collaboration/responses/british-response/ [Accessed 29/12/22].

Thomas, D. (2015) Prime Minister Corbyn… and the 1,000 days that destroyed Britain. [Online] Mail Online. Available from : https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3207363/Prime-Minister-Corbyn-1-000-days-destroyed-Britain-brilliant-imagining-Corbyn-premiership-reveals-Tories-gloat-Labour-s-woe-careful-wish-for.html [Accessed 01/01/23].

UCL (2018) What do students know and understand about the Holocaust? Evidence from English Secondary Schools. [Online] IOE – Faculty of Education and Society. Available from : https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/research-projects/2022/jan/what-do-students-know-and-understand-about-holocaust-evidence-english-secondary-schools [Accessed 29/12/22].

UCU (2015) UCU names universities with biggest bullying problems. Available from : https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/3595/UCU-names-universities-with-biggest-bullying-problems [Accessed 03/01/23].

Wheeler, R. and Buchan, L. (2021) Starmer says Labour has shut door on anti-Semitism and it’ll ‘never be reopened’. [Online] mirror. Available from : https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/keir-starmer-says-labour-closed-25078734 [Accessed 03/01/23].

YoungMinds Mental Health Statistics UK | Young People. [Online] YoungMinds. Available from : https://www.youngminds.org.uk/about-us/media-centre/mental-health-statistics/ [Accessed 03/01/23].

[dasboligrafo]

Short-ish Takes

Dark Noon (sometime in summer 2024?) at St. Ann's Warehouse -- ughhhh...the play that finally, definitively dispensed with my tolerance for S.A.W.? Has St Anns ever staged anything not apparently calculated to earn my loathing? A play celebrated for its "South African" take on American racism and violence (lol like seriously? what a glass house to aim a stone from), and sure the actors were all black South Africans, but the playwright is...Danish. Not surprisingly the play exploited them. Unpleasant, at times grotesque, entirely devoid of even a moment of original aesthetic beauty, the only tolerable parts being samples of (American) music. I even hated the sets, which I guess were supposed to look like South African shanty towns (way to subversively showcase the beauty of South Africa I guess). Incoherent underdeveloped message about the exportation of violent culture via American popular media, a clear example of "when a good idea lands in the hands of someone too literal, simple and self-satisfied to develop it."

We Are Your Robots (Theatre for a New Audience 11/12/2024) -- also underdeveloped (arguably), but this was merely mediocre and corny, maybe a little disappointing because it's an interesting and timely idea: a musical about robots gaining sentience. The music was...clever, I guess, but only ever that. This is the kind of content that tickles your whimsy until you feel dead inside. There was a woman/twee monster next to me (on a date?) who (literally) snorted with laughter, so loudly and frequently, that she may have shaded my interpretation of this performance. A true artifact of painfully white culture (there were other non-white people in the audience though, something I genuinely love about TFANA).

Gatz -- by Elevator Repair Service (Nov 3, 2024 at the Public Theatre.) This is the play where they read The Great Gatsby, in its entirety, on stage. This was very good, though my impression is surely shaded by admiration for the feat that is this work: an EIGHT hour long play (there are intermissions, including a dinner break) that actually works as a play. Gatsby is legitimately great, a rightfully hallowed American literary classic, a book that yields new meanings every time I pick it up, decades apart, a book about the promise and impossibility of the American dream (specifically for Black people, queer people, women and those who don't inherit wealth. Not to sound woo, but I knew Tr*** would win after I saw it, mere days before the election.) Can you feel us dancing at the edge of the roaring 20s, car driving up the darkened driveway because nobody told us [the free media is dead]/only finding out when we get to the darkened mansion, that the party is over, and we are being borne back ceaselessly against the past etc. So like maybe this play would be more impressive with a book that wasn't this great and timely, though faulting it for picking a great source material feels miserly.

[frankbelloriley]

I'm voting for Kamala Harris. I had to go through some hoops in order to vote in Texas, and I didn't do all that to either do nothing or vote for a rapist (and I sure as shit know that motherfucker doesn't need my vote in Texas). I'm saying that right out of the jump, so the following words do not get twisted.

Vote scolding doesn't work. Read those four words again, internalize them, then stop fucking doing it. I have neither the privilege nor the snobbery nor the lack of self-awareness to tell those directly affected by this administration's policy and are begging the Harris campaign for a reason to vote for her over the other guy and still being met with silence at best and outright hostility at worst to vote for her. "Oh, but he will be so much worse." Absolutely. And the lesser of two evils is really fucking evil right now, literally "allowing hospitals to be bombed" evil. And then there's the Harris campaign message of complete throwing of immigrants under the bus and catering to xenophobia. I'm old enough to remember the campaign of 2020 when Democrats were like, "Trump's border wall is bad," and now the message is, "Trump's wall sucks because he couldn't get it done"? What the absolute fuck. What the fuck are you talking about? Literally only bad things happen to political parties that decide immigrants can be used as scapegoats. "Slippery slopes" are a logistical fallacy, but that is a big red flag of where the party believes they should head next. That should be enough to lose my vote and sit out the election, and it would be if, well, the other guy wasn't on the other side.

Since I've already shown to be capable of compromising my ideals to push the can further down the road, let's get so cynical right now. The Harris campaign has demonstrated through actions that they care more about Republican moderates votes than leftists votes. They know catering to one will dispel the other, and they believe there are more of the former than the latter. That is their calculation and their risk. Let them fucking take it. If the Harris campaign loses (which I don't think they will, even though their campaign fucking baffles me, because I believe everyone underestimates just how boring Trump is by now to his non-stans and how hated all of his flunkies are. Dude got shot at and got absolutely no sympathy polling bump), it will be because of that assessment. If the leftist voting bloc was so strong in this country that it could affect state elections, then the Harris campaign should have made some minor concessions like, idk, letting a Palestinian-American Democrat from Georgia, now a swing state, speak at the DNC over a Republican because I don't recall a time where any Democrats spoke at the Republican National Convention. And if they're not, as the Harris campaign seemingly believes, then leftists sitting out on the vote does not matter. To say this again for clarity: I am not saying that your vote doesn't matter if you lean left, but I am saying the Harris campaign is sure acting like it. Let them find out.

And all of you vote scolds are vote scolding because you've seen this play out before in 2016, and I ask you this: why the fuck are you fine with the Harris campaign doing 2016 Part 2 of "what are you gonna do, not vote for me?" and why are you doing free fixer PR for dummy consultants getting paid 500 grand?

[andrewuttaro]

Warning from Trieste - Decision 2024

Is the free world in crisis? In many countries with at least some tradition of democracy, there has been a surge of hard right-wing candidates who seemed disinterested in such institutions, many of which won power: Vicktor Orban in Hungary, Andrzej Duda in Poland, Ferdinand Marcos Jr in the Philippines, Yoon Suk Yeol in South Korea, Narendra Modi in India, Javier Milei in Argentina, Nayib Bukele in El Salvador, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, and of course Donald Trump in the United States of America.

Within 10-15 years of a financial crisis there always seems to be a political crisis bound up in populist ideas of national identity and the injustice done to the national spirit by a threatening outsider group. Political scientists will tell you when there is profound insecurity in people’s livelihoods, particularly in basic necessities like food and housing prices, cost of living matters if you will, revolution and chaos are not too far behind.

That might all seem like old news for those of us in the U.S. We endured the COVID19 pandemic with one of the aforementioned leaders contradicting public health directives almost non-stop. But if you ask me something has changed more recently here in American politics. Yes, the right-wing trendline is the same here as it is worldwide but distrust in the institutions of democracy has grown more widespread across the spectrum of political opinion.

What was once just an eye-catching survey result years ago, widespread distrust in institutions including the government, has morphed into doubt about the very project of democratic governance, to the point that it is seemingly baked into American political culture at this point. Do we believe that our government system works anymore?

Since the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s the Catholic Church has formally endorsed representative democracy, or at least governance that empowers peoples to have control of their own destiny. In the shadow of the madness of the Second World War the thousands of Bishops gathered at that Council felt some sense of moral responsibility. They had failed to prevent the totalitarianism that authored genocide and the deadliest conflict in human history.

Declarations that would have been thought unnecessary a century earlier, against antisemitism and totalitarianism, were more uniformly accepted than the theological documents about the stuff you think about when you call the Catholic Church to mind. In retrospect it’s quaint and charming imagining that many people agreeing on anything, particularly with the added layer of religious discourse.  

On politics and peace, what emerged from the Council was clear. Whether it was Pope John XXIII writing against nuclear war in 1963 or his successor Pope Paul VI actively pushing for treaties on trips abroad, the peacemaking tune out of the highest levels of the Catholic Church has been unmistakable since Vatican II. More than that, in recent decades the criticisms of war and autocracy has gotten so acute that it may seem impossible for the world’s political leaders to obey if they wanted to.

Just-War theory has been so narrowed by recent Popes that you might wonder if any war is justified. The Death Penalty has been explicitly condemned by the Vatican. Neat idea, eh?  Pope Francis goes even further to decry predatory housing practices, denial of healthcare, and ignorance of the elderly as gravely sinful behaviors on a societal level. That last one played no small part in my own decision to do my current work in the regulation of Nursing homes and other facilities designed for older adults which often become warehouses.  

For the current Pope politics is not off limits but it’s  also never partisan. It should come as no surprise then that Pope Francis struck a chord that will ring loudly in the ears of Americans on a trip earlier this summer in the northern Italian city of Trieste. In an election year such as ours I felt too moved to not write about it.

Pope Francis in Trieste

Pope Francis is not the miserly, scolding grandpa his critics would have you believe. He is generally attuned to the needs of a time and place before the people affected know what to ask of him. Within the first year of his papacy he said something that sticks with me to this day and cuts across all facets of the human experience: “If nobody is to blame, everyone is to blame.” Sit with that for a moment and get back to me.

That quote was part of a speech on the Italian island of Lampedusa where migrant boats and the bodies of those who didn’t survive the journey wash ashore regularly. For however bad you think the migrant crisis is here in North America its far more gruesome in Europe where a stormy sea is the main obstacle. Francis knows how to moralize without proselytizing, a rare balance from any minister, never mind the Pope.

On July 7th in Trieste, the Pope was speaking to Catholic Social Week, an annual gathering of civic minded activists discussing the state of Italy and the world since 1907. He delivered another classic speech that feels to me like a clear warning for every person blessed with the vote and political agency in their civic context. I encourage you to read the text of the brief speech with the link here below because he covers a lot with not many words.

Early on Pope Francis acknowledges that world democracy today is not in good health. This is couched in the Italian context but extended out to the whole free world. Specifically he says this after quoting the founder of the social week he was speaking at, Blessed Guiseppe Toniolo, who said democracy is “…that civil order in which all social, legal and economic forces, in the fullness of their hierarchical development, cooperate proportionally to the common good, flowing in the last result to the prevailing advantage of the lower classes.”

You can already tell Pope Francis has a higher standard for democracy than even great patriots here in America. Democracy is not just government by the people oriented toward freedom and liberty, for Francis, democracy is a governing system aimed at the common good and helping the less advantaged. You can see how this would clarify one’s perspective on socio-economic disparities, healthcare, the environment, and many other issues that unnecessarily create suffering for those living under democracy.

Personally I think it goes a long way to clarifying some erroneous practices we take for granted here in the US that ultimately make us less free, perhaps leading us toward a more dictatorial system, but I am saving my editorializing for later.

Where the Pope’s speech goes next is very touching: he uses this image of a wounded heart as a metaphor for what he calls a crisis of democracy today. Marginalization of various people groups hurts the whole social body and makes the whole system less effective and more self-referential. This is like any number of ailments that make the literal human heart work harder and eventually lead to heart failure.

That term, self-referential, is a term Francis uses often. In religious contexts he uses it to refer to all manners of religious people who think so highly of themselves and the religious identity they inhabit that they turn inwards in corrosive selfishness. One example is clergy and laypeople obsessed with the latin mass and fighting him to the detriment of Church unity. Their vanity then has a certain parallel in the secular world when we become so absorbed in our chosen socio-political identities that we become worse for them.

If you consider yourself an avid follower of news and politics then I imagine you know what we’re talking about here. In particularly difficult electoral cycles I have seen friends and politicos I follow spiral into mental health crises over a political agenda. This is not to diminish important political priorities, only to point out how they might be costing us too much of ourselves.

After this metaphor, the pontiff goes onto quote a former Italian prime minister, Aldo Moro, emphasizing, in essence, that democracy is not democracy unless it is at the service of our humanity: that is, human dignity, freedom, and autonomy. Moreover, even if one has the right to vote, are the conditions being created in their body politic to vote knowledgably and wisely, allowing evermore people to vote?

That message hits pretty hard on its own but then Pope Francis speaks of “…freeing ourselves from the waste of ideology…” He is criticizing the lionization of ideologies themselves in political thought. He means that familiar drive to align yourself with a certain, longstanding party or political philosophy to the automatic forsaking of countervailing viewpoints. In short, he is saying that sticking to these too closely will affect us negatively on a human level. Beyond politics you will find the pontiff criticizing ideological rigidity but when he turns it on politics it feels very relevant here in such a starkly divided America.

Circling back to the Aldo Moro bit for a moment, we might ask ourselves how our political viewpoints impact human dignity. If we believe some people shouldn’t vote, what does that say about how we view their humanity? Even further, if we believe others would vote like we do if they were simply smart enough to understand our viewpoint, are we not subtly telling ourselves we are better than?

It only gets sharper when the Holy Father says: “Ideologies are seductive... but they lead you to drown yourself.” Remind yourself these are the words of one of the most well-regarded religious figures in the world today. This warning highlights the earlier quotation pushing the idea that democracy needs to serve our humanity. If we participants in democracy degenerate our humanity through excessive participation in ideology, do we not then degenerate the democracy we live under?

Entering the back half of the speech, his holiness goes onto remind listeners of solidarity and subsidiarity. These are the two bedrock principles of Catholic Social teaching. In this context they refer to the importance of people acting with regard for each other’s plight (solidarity) and the maintenance of political systems that allow everyone to have a say in the policymaking closest and most relevant to their time and place in life (subsidiarity). A disappearing generation of hippie Catholics here stateside could rattle these off for you like second nature.

These principles are invoked to remind us that valuing every person is critical for democracy to persist. Healthy democracy, moreover, requires a practiced ability to transition “…from cheering to dialogue” as the Holy Father puts it. This is to say democracy falls apart when campaigning is eternal, and governing is the afterthought. One specific former American President comes to my mind at that, but I am trying to hold off my analysis at this point in the article. It is tough.

We are roused by campaigning, excited by the thrill of feeling seen and represented, but we are challenged by the task of governing. We are being called to allow ourselves to be challenged instead of fixating on the thrill of increasingly tribal political connections. Good governance is almost always a balancing of different views and possibilities for the maximum possible benefit of constituents.

You don’t have to read too deeply between the lines here to see how Pope Francis is saying that a exceptional love for ideologies in democracies leads to erosion of democracy and the undermining of the dignity of individuals and our humanity as a whole.

Something in that transcends politics into a cultural moment we Americans are in that feels quite sick. Too many of us are so culturally fortified that we begin to see democracy itself as a mere threat to our echo-chambers. Some of us view democracy itself as undermining the common good. This is a fringe trend that has seen some mainstream adoption in the last 8-9 years here in the US. Perhaps it subsides with this election cycle? Let’s get back to the Pope’s warning from Trieste.

The dialogue Pope Francis is advocating for here is in service of inclusion. Once again, democracy is healthy in so far that it is in the service of as many of its constituent people as possible. Those who feel left out are liable to be taken by hopelessness which feeds so many of the flaws that can arise in democracies like militarism, welfarism, hypocrisy, and indeed the tribalism that seems to have generated the crisis of democracy we’re talking about here.

This is where the connection to that 2013 speech in Lampedusa returns to my mind: “If nobody is to blame, everyone is to blame.” In that same speech, the newly elected Pope also spoke about the “globalization of indifference”. We can think of this as his way of talking about the current phase of the information age when we have so much news, facts, and opinion at our fingertips and yet seem more disconnected from each other than ever before. Mind you, he was saying that in 2013.

How have we become so disconnected? How do our disconnections, even within our own political contexts, within our own communities, affect our culture of democracy?

Who is being left out of democracy? Everyone registered above the age of 18 can vote, yes, but who is being left out of the fruits of our system? Those who we leave out intentionally are signs of a deep political illness within us. Those who we leave out unintentionally are the next frontier of inclusion and representation. This is, in some way, a good checkup we can always do on the health of our democracy.

The home stretch of Pope Francis’ Trieste speech turns the wounded heart into the healed heart. He gives hopeful examples of creative efforts to set aside indifference and include as many people as possible in the project of democracy. Examples he uses include recent Italian legislation giving those with disabilities more access to financial services as well as technological innovations designed to assist the protection of the natural environment.

The Holy Father says bluntly at this point: “The heart of politics is participation.” This fraternity requires courage to think of ourselves beyond ever narrower “clan groups” and as broader, more diverse and inclusive people groups. How he is using that word, people, is somewhat lost in translation. A people group is not the sum of individuals but the collective sharing in a dream, a vision for a distinct time and place and those who inhabit it. That is to say, the political entity of a nation-state may or may not be representing all the peoples within it or forging peace within and outside their borders.

The pontiff contrasts this against populism, the political calling card of this crisis of democracy we have found ourselves in. That populism, and the many darker things it can bring (as Europeans are better at calling to mind for obvious historical reasons) prefers easy solutions that ultimately work against ever greater inclusion in favor of increasingly self-referential policy goals: the slow, formal erosion of democracy. Moreover, populism requires an ever-narrower definition of the people group resulting in more exclusion. Us versus them thinking, the bane of existence for diverse democracies, is essential in how populism works in most places.

Underrated point within these closing sentences for me is when the Pope says “Democracy is not an empty box…” He says to speak up with a faith that is not private but is also not interested in defending privileges. The primarily Catholic audience for this speech understood the Pope was taking a swipe at Italian populism specifically here. Populism pits the majority group of a place in defense of perceived lost privileges. In Italy the majority is Catholic. The message is global though: we religious people must not be private about our faith while also being humble enough to not participate in the political process exclusively for the gain of our own distinct in-group.

Moreover, Francis states political love requires us to address causes more than effects, choosing responsibilities over polarizations. We are to make value judgments on responsibilities, not the party line decided by our chosen political tribe. When you’re politically active in defense of a set of societal privileges you like then you are liable to often find yourself on the wrong side of history in a diverse democracy.

A closing word on politicians themselves sneaks up on you at this point. Good politicians have civil passion according to Pope Francis, leading from among the people, perhaps back with the stragglers, to use a shepherding metaphor.

Lastly, the Holy Father speaks to efforts to “organize hope” as the basic command of Catholics, and really all people, who believe in democracy. In a comparable sentiment to the Martin Luther King Jr wisdom we are familiar with here in the US, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”, Francis says time is superior to space. That is to say that the raw pursuit of positions of power can miss the crucial, more powerful work of doing what it takes over time to do what is right in the end.

Hope, we find at the end of the Pope’s speech in Trieste, is required to build the future. Without hope we are mere administrators of the present, disconnected from building any kind of worthy future for democracy or the dignity, freedom, and autonomy that a more perfect fraternity forms in healthy democracies. All of these high ideals for democracy are just more preaching from the Pope unless we possess the boldness to hope for them and then organize that hope into a movement.

The United States in peril – the World in peril

There is so much here to note and take to heart. I really don’t know where to start. Just contemplating when this speech was given will make your head spin. July 7th was the Sunday after transformative elections in Britian which ended fourteen years of the rule of the right-wing party there. That same day the second round of French parliamentary elections saw a stunning reversal of fortunes against the far-right National Rally party which gave birth to a hung parliament that will force French MPs to work together or face another election in the very near future.

For us in the context of the United States of America, July was a decade unto itself in our politics. Recounting it now feels like the first draft of a history lesson.

After President Joe Biden struggled through a debate with former President Donald Trump in June, there was a relative panic attack among the Democratic Party, horrified the aged Biden could not beat the insurrectionist returned to finish the job. The calls to step aside eventually dislodged the presumptive nominee for his younger Vice President. To inhabit that moment you have to contemplate the stakes involved.

The fear about how best to defeat the creeping authoritarian who is now advocating for concentration camps for migrants and pardons for insurrectionists was palpable throughout the month. Yes, this is where I begin editorializing. The upshot on the November Presidential election was not good before President Biden dropped out; at least for those of us who see some existential risk in re-electing a former President who felt the institution of democracy itself was an obstacle to him at least on one January day in 2021.

On July 9th one Volodimir Zelensky, President of embattled Ukraine, spoke at a summit of the leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). He said what everyone understands bluntly: the world’s eyes look to November. If my perspective about what a second Trump term in the White House would do to America seems verbose then consider the message when it comes out of the mouth of President Zelensky.

Donald Trump has stated he will not defend NATO from Russia if reelected. Where does that leave Ukraine actively trying to fight off Russian invasion? President Zelensky has signaled he would go down with his country if it came to it. With U.S. aid being the logistical make or break for his nation’s war effort Zelensky really is saying that our election will decide whether he lives or dies. Something about solidarity from the Pope’s speech in Trieste might be coming to mind again for you here.

On July 13th, a mere six days after Pope Francis’ speech in Trieste, a gunman with no apparent motive as of the writing of this blog, tried to assassinate former President Donald Trump outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Political violence undermines democracy in few acts more vivid than a political assassination. We may never know the shooter’s motive, he was killed at the scene, but he was only 20 years old and suffice to say he grew up in this current national climate of political hatred. What impact had this period had on him? I know we will never know but as someone who also grew up in it I struggle to think there was no impact.

We were centimeters away from entering what would have definitively been the darkest timeline. But our politics here in America are so sick now, no matter who you blame it on, that what would have otherwise been the central topic of American political life for months if not a year plus, an assassination attempt on a former President and current presidential candidate, was set aside within weeks. Call that the election year news cycle or, as I prefer, think of it as a deep illness of American political life.

Before the month was out the new presumptive Democratic Party nominee solidified intra-party support and began a more rigorous campaign schedule than her President. That presumptive nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, will be accepting her party nomination formally in Chicago later this month. With that, the final form of the 2024 Presidential election will take shape. With Pope Francis’ warning from Trieste in mind I wonder if we should ask ourselves some tough questions.

A warning for America?

Institutional distrust, that is distrust in the very organization of American democracy, is at such an apocalyptic fever pitch with even your average American that it threatens the project of this country itself. Authentic hope is out of the picture. Self-giving love is practically gone from the world of American politics.

That seems trivial unfortunately for we political junkies embroiled in this stuff on a daily basis, but draw your mind back to human dignity as Pope Francis did in Trieste: What does our terminal institutional distrust do to the system’s ability to do good for people, their dignity, autonomy and the common good?

In President Biden’s speech exiting the race for re-election he posited the idea that character in public life should still matter. That is to say: America must still pick her leaders based on an appreciation for their objective goodness and humanity. What a hopeful idea. We all seem to have the sins of our leaders on our fingertips as if a dagger ready to defend ourselves from their supporters. That isn’t organizing hope, is it? Quite the opposite I would say.

Are we too cynical as a people to define our politics by hope and character? If healthy democracy is to serve our common humanity then it would require great character and at least a general rejection of cynicism, no? Maybe I’m naïve. The alternative these days seems to be deciding that human frailty makes no person truly moral so nobody can be trusted with power. I know I am speaking in sweeping moral generalizations here but look at where we are as a country politically. Measured rhetoric doesn’t seem to catch on these days.

The initial reactions I saw to Biden highlighting character in public life was scoffing and patronizing doubt. To be clear, those were reactions I saw from people who generally supported the now lame duck President and his party. That was disheartening. In the same speech abdicating the 2024 campaign Biden reached to the epicenter of so much of contemporary American political cynicism...

“America is an idea – an idea is stronger than any army, bigger than any ocean, more powerful than any dictator… We’ve never fully lived up to this sacred idea [of the USA], but we’ve never walked away from it either. And I do not believe the American people will walk away from it now.”

Forgive me for being proud of one of my co-religionists, but President Biden ending his political career this way sings more eloquently to the Catholic political experience in America than anything I have ever seen or learned about previously. I wrote another article entitled JD Vance Catholicism on this same blog site and you should read if you want a synopsis of that history. In the meantime, consider Biden’s biography as he says this.

A man who fueled himself with the doubt of his detractors all the way to the White House, stepped aside when he realized it was necessary. A man who attends Mass more regularly than most everyday Catholics I know, chose humility in the face of what he and his political allies say is a moment of existential political danger for the country. I know in my heart that man prayed about this. He has suffered a great deal in his own life and was not about to allow more suffering fall upon his countrymen just because of the pride one feels possessing the most powerful job on earth.

President Biden knows the Holy Father’s warning from Trieste even if he did not hear it before his dropout speech. If our democracy is sick, we need to heal it now before the ailment gets worse. You can tell that even Biden knows there is a sickness to be healed in his speech, even speaking of dictatorship like it’s a possibility here in the USA.

There is also hope in Biden’s farewell; hope we as a people can sustain a healthy democracy that centers and elevates the best of our humanity, not the worst of it. I certainly don’t agree with everything Biden believes politically but the hope he speaks to in this moment is nothing short of essential. We need to be a nation of solidarity for all this country’s peoples and create policy with humanity in mind more than any individual or group of people’s privileges. Humanity comes before anyone’s privileges.

Now Biden’s Vice President Kamala Harris, whom he endorsed to take up this mantle of American democracy, is campaigning against an opposition candidate who has already shown his willingness to subvert the basics of that democracy to try to remain in power. Please, recall January 6th seriously for a moment, and contemplate what that view of America in a President would mean in the context of the Pope’s warning from Trieste.

Go vote on Tuesday, November 5th if you are registered and so able. Vote absentee or however best works for you. But take it seriously, not just because your political tribe has put absurdly high stakes on the outcome. Take it seriously because in the free world we are given this incredible civic sacrament to participate in making the world a better place.

Hold out hope that such a better world is possible. Fortify yourself in hope, not ideology. Democracy is healed when we “organize hope” in the words of Pope Francis; when we choose to work on causes more than effects, choose responsibilities over polarizations, and solidarity over ideology. Those are choices we must make long after election day no matter what the result is.

We are too big and diverse a country to give up on democracy. We are too big and diverse a country to treat hope like a fanciful ideal. Cynicism doesn’t save you. That’s what hope does. What I see in the Pope’s warning in Trieste is a blueprint to not just save democracy but heal it of the illness of cynicism which got us here in the first place. That is a warning to both sides of the aisle, and every free person preparing to vote. Heed the warning from Trieste.

[umichenginabroad]

Week 4: Part One

Hello everyone, this is going to be a bit of a shorter blog, but there is a reason for it. So basically, my friends and I have planned out this massive trip this upcoming weekend, I won’t say where, and I’ve decided the entirety of my next blog post just for that trip. It may be the biggest blog post that I will be writing, so get excited for that! I am planning on releasing that Monday evening.

So far this week, I have made a lot of progress in my robotics programming lab. At this point, we have built up the foundation as for how the robot will work and how it will autonomously balance itself. The last step right now that I am working on is to actually implement it into code and test it. While it has been difficult at times, especially since I am still somewhat inexperienced when it comes to robotics and linear algebra, I have learned a lot. For example, I just created my own Kalman Filter, which is a technique used in robotics that basically predicts what the robot will do in the future, given its current status. I have learned so much and can’t wait to show off the final result!

Outside of class, my friends and I have continued to explore Berlin more. On Monday, we paid a visit to the Bundestag Reichstag Building. This government building houses the Federal Convention, similar to the USA’s election, as well as lots of government offices and conference rooms. During my tour, I was able to walk through the iconic glass dome on the top and learned a lot about what made up the Berlin skyline as well as some history as for how the buildings became what they are today. It was a great time and offered some great views of downtown Berlin.

From the Reichstag Building, we could also see Teufelsberg (The Devil’s Mountain), which is where we went next. Teufelsberg, which was an old American listening station during the Berlin Wall era, has now been renovated by some of the most talented Graffiti artists in Germany into a graffiti art exhibit. At the top, stood the eye-catching white domes, which were very echoey and very cool to visit. That same day, we hit up Drachensberg, not without some sightseeing along the way, to view the sunset.  Drachensbery was this massive grass mesa which was so unique that my friends and I couldn’t help but go check it out. Today was a nature-filled fun exploration day to offer a different perspective of the hustle and bustle of downtown Berlin. Did I mention that today offered some of the best views of the city? Take a look for yourself.

Even with all of these excursions happening, we always found time for a pickup game of soccer. Due to the fact that it was raining and having to play on a grass field where the footing was virtually non-existent, you can imagine that it brought on a ton of slips, falls, eating a face full of dirt, but most importantly, a whole lot of fun. We completely lost track of time and before we knew it, we had been playing for around 2 hours! Even though everyone was drenched and tired, everyone left in a great mood as it was some of the most fun we had had hanging out as a group. 

This week has been so much fun already and I can’t wait for the weekend to roll by. With that being said, I hope everyone who’s reading this is having a wonderful day and I’ll see you all on Monday. Auf Wiedersehen!

Dervin Tian

Data Science

IPE: Engineering Laboratory Experience at TUB in Berlin

[mightyflamethrower]

Bill Maher Obliterated the Media Last Night. Here's Why That Was Ironic.

Bill Maher took some potshots last night, but it was at the media this time. And I felt I was being critiqued as well. He used the ongoing pro-Hamas demonstrations sweeping college campuses nationwide, where police arrested 2,300. That’s a lot of people, but the HBO host’s point was that it’s the vocal minority. There are over 15 million college students in our universities, not all of them are pro-terrorist morons. He even cited a Harvard poll that placed Palestine near the bottom of issues that 18-29-year-old Americans care about. 

He then listed his rules about media coverage in today’s hyperbolic atmosphere and had some pointed at everyone, including Townhall, for using inflammatory language in headlines. The irony here is that the headline for this New Rules clip on the show’s YouTube page was “Bill Maher DESTROYS the Media.” 

The others you already know, like never trusting the initial reports, but the portion about blaming presidents was both right and wrong. Yes, I did find it agreeable when he said that Trump didn’t cause the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, or that Haitians run amok, lighting tires on fire because Biden is a weak president. 

That very well could be the case, and it probably is. Still, the media, most of whom align with Mr. Maher on political issues, will blame Republicans and past Republican presidents for domestic and foreign policy woes. That’s not media malpractice; that’s how you win elections.

I can’t speak for everyone here, but I know I’m slanted and biased—proud of it. You know what you’re getting from me—I don’t hide it. Where criticism and media analysis is warranted relates to publications like The Washington Post and The New York Times, which maintain this veneer of professionalism and impartiality when we all know it’s non-existent. Even liberals know the media tilts in their favor. If these publications admitted tomorrow that they’re biased, left-wing, and will run interference for Democrats, the media bias wars would reduce in intensity considerably. It’s also something they’ll never do. 

The Guardian is left-wing, but they admit it. The late Breitbart editor Mike Flynn once said he read the publication partially for that reason, along with the paper covering issues that aren’t reported here. He knew what he was getting; there was nothing wrong with that.

The overall point of Maher’s segment was that everyone needed to dial it back. He can’t stand Trump, but he added that he didn’t start World War III last time, so until Election Day, he’s not going to panic. The comedian also isn’t going to wade into a perpetual cycle of hating half the country based on political differences. Is the sky falling? Maybe, but it could also be a piece of a Boeing plane, quipped the HBO host. 

Yet, what Maher left out is the legacy media’s failure to hold itself accountable when they lied about the Russian collusion hoax, Trump overfeeding koi fish in Japan, denigrating World War II soldiers who died at Normandy, and a host of other fake news narratives that had political goals. 

Inflation was transitory, and now it’s not. Illegal aliens weren’t carriers of disease, but they are. And Biden presides over the most significant economic recovery ever, even though MSNBC host Katy Tur noted that most jobs are those returning to their previous post-pandemic employment. That’s not job creation. 

Maher’s rant has some good points, though they’re aspects of the business that won’t change. The other part is the failure to admit that there is a liberal bias, though he mentioned it in passing. Democrats did blame Trump for the Ohio train crash over loosening regulations. The Left has played this game for decades, long before the Right had their outlets. In the 1980s, radio and letters to the editor were the top methods of pushing back against liberal bias. That’s no longer the case. 

There are two types of media factions, and we’re at war. Is that a bad thing or a natural occurrence when Americans have differing political views?