Friday, January 31, 2020
Thursday, January 30, 2020
Tuesday, January 28, 2020
Monday, January 27, 2020
Friday, January 24, 2020
Debunking The Viral Right Wing "AOC and The Blind Entitled Generation" Trope - Jeff Wiersma
Like most viral right wing memes, this trope is long on misplaced indignation and shallow ideals as well as short on factual backing and nuanced understanding.
An unfortunately popular right wing trope making the rounds on social media - which claims that AOC and young people are blind to prosperity - is rife with upper middle class privilege.
It's hamstrung by a very short-term/limited concept of what should lead to enjoyment and fulfillment in today's world; namely disposable consumer items whose exploitative costs, in both human suffering and ecological degradation, are kept out of sight and mind by corporations who privatize the profits and socialize the costs to the public.
Perhaps we can forgive the author’s naïveté, as her rhetoric and talking points are indicative of someone whose views of the world at large are the result of the misinformation and propaganda that is right wing media. I can empathize with that state of misunderstanding, because that was me at one point in my life too. But that's only a reason, not an excuse, for ignorance.
Like most viral right wing memes, it's long on misplaced indignation and shallow ideals as well as short on factual basis and nuanced understanding.
Anyways ...
(1) The statistical data on the cost of living vs wages for those not in the top 1% verify that AOC is right about an entire generation being left behind. I desperately wish that wasn’t the case, since I am a part of that cohort!
(2) Further, her fear-mongering about capitalism ”being destroyed” is weak tea. She doesn’t see the distinction between aristocratic democratic capitalism and social democratic capitalism. She’d be well served to take a course in Comparative European Politics.
(3) She’s dismissive of an entire generation, as though they aren’t still bleeding out from the Great Recession, as though haven’t watched their parents’ generation sell out the earth’s climate for consumerism and fossil fuels, and as though their government’s budget hasn’t been pillaged for $6 trillion dollars worth of endless wars that are unwinnable and won’t defeat terrorism.
The screed can be viewed here
Genocide Expert: In U.S., Precursor Events Are In Motion - Brynn Tannehill
I study genocide. It's been a theme in my academic endeavours for nearly 30 years. More accurately, I study the conditions in the lead up to genocide.
Whether it's acts of military aggression, bellicose leaders, assassinating journalists, putting foreign nationals in filthy over crowded camps that are black holes; the country on the verge of genocide is looking to see if they can provoke a reaction. It almost never comes.
At some point, the government determines or realizes that no one will intervene, and that there's no additional consequences to moving to the next steps: where they move to planning on how to get rid of the targeted population.
Are you worried about the United States yet? You probably should be.
Because I am very, very worried. I am not saying it will definitely happen, but the necessary conditions are there, and many of the precursor events are in motion.
The full article is available here
Thursday, January 23, 2020
Several Right Wing Media Outlets Distort Facts on Australian Wild Fires - FactCheck.org
Those claims distort the facts.
The full article is available here
Monday, January 20, 2020
The 2nd Amendment Doesn’t Give You The Right To Own A Gun - Brett Arends
In Federalist No. 29 of the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton explained at great length precisely what a “well-regulated militia” was, why the Founding Fathers thought we needed one, and why they wanted to protect it from being disarmed by the federal government.
It should be a properly constituted, ordered and drilled (“well-regulated”) military force, organized state by state, explained Hamilton. Each state militia should be a “select corps,” “well-trained” and able to perform all the “operations of an army.”
The militia needed “uniformity in … organization and discipline,” wrote Hamilton, so that it could operate like a proper army “in camp and field,” and so that it could gain the “essential … degree of proficiency in military functions.”
And although it was organized state by state, it needed to be under the explicit control of the national government. The “well-regulated militia” was under the command of the president. It was “the military arm” of the government.
The one big difference between this militia and a professional army? It shouldn’t be made up of full-time professional soldiers, said the Founding Fathers. Such soldiers could be used against the people as King George had used his mercenary Redcoats. Instead, the American republic should make up its military force from part-time volunteers drawn from regular citizens. Such men would be less likely to turn on the population.
And the creation of this “well-regulated militia,” aka the National Guard, would help safeguard the freedom of the new republic because it would make the creation of a professional, mercenary army “unnecessary,” wrote Hamilton. “This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it,” he wrote.
That was the point. And that was why they wanted to make sure it couldn’t be disarmed by the federal government: So a future “tyrant” couldn’t disarm the National Guard, and then use a mercenary army to impose martial law.
The full article is available here
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