As e’eryone knows, my favorite genre o’ news article is that genre o’ porn known as self-masturbation. Newspapers writers ( or the editors who force them to write these articles or they won’t get the Twix candy bars they get as their salary ), lacking any semblance o’ self-awareness, wonder all the time why people aren’t taking their “news” seriously while rewarding their loyal readers with faces full o’ cum. Well, ¡get your spoons, folks, ’cause we’re digging right in! This is “We Have Two Medias in This Country, and They’re Going to Elect Donald Trump” from some newspaper called The New Republic. Man, I wish we had a new republic, but I get the feeling that their name is a reference to how the US felt new 2 centuries ago.
It’s often asked in my circles: Why isn’t Joe Biden getting more credit for his accomplishments? As with anything, there’s no single reason.
If this writer were as smart as they think they are, they would follow this inane question not by throwing out a bunch o’ answers that sound like they make sense, strewn o’ any evidence, but with their own questions: ¿“credit by whom” & “credit for what”? Obviously Biden isn’t going to get credit from right-wing media, whose express purpose is to make him look bad. This has always been the case & has ne’er been a full stop to Democrats winning in the past. ¿Does this writer not remember how Obama was blamed for a recession his Republican predecessor had caused? If anything, there are far mo’ Democrats defensive o’ Biden than of Obama — probably due to being mo’ sensitive to the prospect o’ losing to Trump after scoffing @ the idea back in 2016. To put it into perspective, Ralph Nader, who infamously ran as a 3rd-party candidate to deliberately siphon off votes from the Democratic party as a form o’ going on strike, has said he will support Biden ’cause he prefers “autocracy” — which, weirdly, in his mind, don’t suppress votes or suppress freedom o’ speech, which sounds exactly what actual autocracies do — to fascism. ( If Nader had a better grasp o’ words he’d have maybe been able to come closer to a mo’ accurate term to describe mainstream US politics, like “oligarchy”, which is not as authoritarian as autocracy, but not quite democracy ).
Inflation is a factor.
It should be noted that while Biden did help pass bills that ameliorated inflation, he also insisted in following decorum tradition in keeping Trump’s shitty head o’ the Federal Reserve, who has been trying to sabotage the possibility o’ wages keeping up with inflation. Perhaps we could talk ’bout the media’s terrible framing o’ inflation, inflating its own importance when in sexy grand #s, while ignoring the fact that wages have been barely keeping ’bove inflation for decades.
But there is one overwhelming factor in play: the media.
Underpinning this whole article is 1 major fallacy: that “media” — which is so vague it’s practically meaningless, specially as the internet has opened up all avenues as potential forms o’ propaganda, but I’m going to take, given the clues this article offers, as newspapers, or as young people call it, “dying media” or “irrelevant media” — plays a vital role in election’s outcomes. There’s a good reason for this fallacy: it can be nonfalsifiably defended, as one can easily scrounge up a ’scuse, no matter what the papers say, that what the papers said made people think howe’er they think. The fact that the media — which, to its credit, is a’least not gullible ’nough to fall for e’en Trump — has been warning gainst Trump for years, only for him to win in 2016, doesn’t matter, ’cause bad news is good news, & this only made people like him mo’ thru o’erexposure, somehow. Ne’er mind that the vast, vast majority o’ Trump fans don’t read The New York Times. It’s widely acknowledged that Trump’s win in 2016 was mo’ a loss for Clinton: the culprit was a low turnout by Democrats, people who are much mo’ likely to read The New York Times. You’d think all these warnings would’ve induced them to get out & vote if we assumed that e’en the majority o’ Democrats let themselves be inspired by The New York Times. If we reject this assumption, we get a much simpler picture — both to Trump’s victory & to The New York Times’s falling #s.
Or rather, the two medias.
In fact, there are many mo’ medias if one isn’t geriatric & ventures beyond only the few richest o’ newspapers or TV channels.
At the same time, as a culture, it’s consistently obsessed with who “won the day,” while placing far less value on the fact that the civic and democratic health of the country is nurtured through practices such as deliberation, compromise, and sober governance.
This is a remarkable statement in how contradictory it is to the central thesis o’ this article. Later on he will assert that the problem is that “the media” is too obsessed with both-sidesing e’erything — which is essentially refusing to call any side ( well, any o’ the 2 officially-accepted rich, powerful sides ) a winner.
“Deliberation, compromise, and sober governance” are so vague, they’re basically just empty superlatives. Right-wingers are very sober & deliberate when they are exploiting people’s superstitious bigotries to divide & conquer them. As for “compromise” — ¿compromise with whom? As this article will admit many times, the media has done a great job o’ compromising with bigots while speaking on various topics like Israel vs. Palestine or Venezuela’s political issues with the subtlety o’ a Jack Chick comic. ¿Was Thomas Friedman, longtime writer for The New York Times, & thus very much o’ the traditional, not the fringe right-wing, media, evoking “compromise” when he told Muslims to, & I quote, “suck on this” in reference to the US’s illegal war gainst Iraq?
Let me begin by discussing these two medias. The first, of course, is what we call the mainstream media: The New York Times, The Washington Post, the major (non-Fox) news networks, a handful of other newspapers and magazines. This has also been known as the “agenda-setting media,” because historically, that’s what they did: Whatever was the lead story in The New York Times that day filtered down, through the wire services and other delivery systems, to every newspaper and television and radio station in the United States.
My biggest question: if a few small newspapers like The New York Times & The Washington Post held the “historical” role o’ essentially monopolizing the media & “setting agenda” — which is a nice way o’ enforcing beliefs — like communist dictators, — which is this writer’s inane claim, not mine, remember — ¿would that not have been just as “tragic for democracy”, as this writer claimed earlier was an upcoming threat? I don’t know ’bout this writer, but where I come from democracies don’t have their entire agenda decided by a tiny minority o’ large organizations but allow things like free thought. Luckily that’s not the case & this idiotic writer is just spewing right-wing conspiracy theories &, in actual fact, nobody gives a shit what The New York Times says.
Then there’s an avowedly right-wing propaganda network. This got cranked up in the 1970s, when conservatives, irate over what they (not incorrectly) saw as a strong liberal bias in the mainstream media, decided to build their own.
Here’s a golden rule for knowing what one’s political leanings are, regardless o’ what they say in some sad attempt to crank the overton window: if one thinks the media is biased on 1 side, one is biased on the other side. Nobody who is taken serious within the left-wing community considers the media to be left-wing any mo’ than anyone who is taken serious within the right-wing community considers the media to be right-wing ( the fact that this writer probably isn’t taken seriously by either, or by anyone, is a different story… ).
Note, ’course, that nowhere in this article does this writer provide any evidence o’ this “not incorrect” liberal bias, which would get this writer a pretty nasty grade in my high school. I guess my high school just had higher standards than The New Republic.
Rupert Murdoch bought the New York Post. In the 1980s, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon started The Washington Times. In the 1990s, right-wing talk radio exploded (enabled, in part, by a 2–1 decision by a judicial panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals making the Fairness Doctrine discretionary; those judges were Antonin Scalia and Robert Bork). Then the Fox News Channel was launched.
Also, there’s an inherent contradiction to this story: you just claimed that the media was liberal biased, but then say that the Fairness Doctrine, which pressured the media to take a balanced approach to issues ( how well this could be done, given the subjectivity o’ what a “balanced” approach is, — many bizarrely consider being 100% pro-Israel & anti-Palestine or being explicitly pro-capitalist & anti-socialist to be “centrist” views in the US ( & only the US ), for instance — is a different story ), & imply that it was effective. But if ’twere effective, the media would have been balanced, not “liberal biased”.
Back then, even with the launch of Fox, the mainstream media was much larger and more influential than the right-wing media. If the mainstream media was a beachball, the right-wing media was the size of a golf ball.
Today? They’re about the same size. In fact, the right-wing media might finally be bigger.
That’s OK, ’cause both are dwarfed by some high-school dropout “influencer”’s X account.
The success of the right-wing media is by and large due to the way they speak in lockstep, with one voice, and the way they push one very partisan agenda. They promote Republicans and conservatives, and they say nothing good ever about Democrats or liberals (exception: people who go off the reservation and willingly foul the Democratic-liberal nest, like Joe Manchin or some liberal academic or talking head who turns right, like Glenn Greenwald). Their guiding ethos is not journalistic but political: to advance one party and creed and work their readers and viewers into a constant state of agitation about the other party and creed.
Sure, they’re “liberal,” in two senses. First, their editorial pages typically endorse Democrats. And second, they are culturally liberal, because they are mostly based in big cities and their staffs include lots of LGBTQ people, for example, and precious few evangelical Christians.
When The New York Times or CNN or MSNBC gets a scoop about serious corruption in the Biden administration, they pursue the lead and, if verified, report it.
So, to the loud and bumptious anti-Biden chorus that blames him for everything bad, there is no equally loud and bumptious pro-Biden answering chorus speaking as one and giving him credit for everything good.
You’ve clearly ne’er been on /r/politics. ’Gain, there’s no such thing as liberal media — well, ’cept for “mainstream” media, which is liberally-biased ’cause they don’t fire all gay people & only spread bigoted lies ’bout trans people half the time, but treat mediocre Democrat president evenly with insurrectionist Republican presidents. ¿Daily Kos? Ne’er heard o’ ’em. It’s embarrassing that this writer’s revealing their lack o’ knowledge o’ any media beyond the most basic & trying to present it as “wisdom”.
¿Why should it matter that much how well these newspapers treat equally rich & powerful white men like Biden & Trump? ¿How does these various newspapers treat working class people or Palestinian civilians or trans people?
And with respect to economics specifically, the imbalance is made worse by the fact that the mainstream business press, as Tim Noah pointed out not long ago, tends to accentuate the negative and see bad news nearly always coming around the corner.
That & they’re ignorant o’ the complexities o’ economics & will accept whate’er some salesman economist like Paul Krugman says uncritically.
It is blatant to me how much this writer is deliberately ignoring factors. When talking ’bout demographics like “not hating LGBTQ+ people”, urban, & the vague term “culturally liberal”, ¿how do you not list the economic status o’ the people who run these papers when talking ’bout skewed economic perspectives? ¿Is it because that would mean this pretend leftist — or “liberal”: I’m not sure if this writer considers “liberal” to be separate from “leftist”, as some people think; but if they do, that would make the term “liberal-biased” weird, as it would leave a giant question mark where leftists would fall: in such a circumstance “liberal-biased” would seem to be a pejorative for “centrist-biased” — would have to critically analyze the US’s very-much-pro-rich economy using actual left-wing ideas, & not just, “well, inflation’s lower than expected, so there’s no reason the average working class person should complain that they’ll still have to work 40 hours as a menial worker drone till they’re in their 60s while others get rich lying to people”.
Most reporters know that they are personally pretty liberal, so they overcompensate for that.
Sorry, let me fix that: “Most reporters know that they are personally rich, white, & cis, so they’re equally biased in favor o’ their material interests as Republicans”.
Most of them went to elite schools and have maybe never known a Southerner or an evangelical, so they overcompensate for that as well.
¿Do they o’ercompensate for their ignorance & lack o’ class interests with the urban working class or religions that are not the dominant religion in the US, like Muslims, too? ¿Why does this writer think there has ne’er been a rich Southerner or evangelical or that these people have ne’er been to elite schools? Clearly this writer has ne’er gone to an elite school, ’cause they are unbelievably stupid if they expect anyone with a brain to think “Southerns” ( which, when used in this context, only e’er includes white people: e’en tho southern states like Mississippi & Georgia have ’mong the highest ratio o’ black populations, black southerners might as well be imaginary people to these ignorant journalists ) & evangelicals are the most victimized minorities in the US. This person is literally just regurgitating the most inane, obviously false right-wing lies e’er & pretending to be fighting gainst right-wing lies while doing so.
That’s what gave us all those stories of reporters venturing out into the heartland to try to “understand” Trump voters.
Right: stupidity.
Meanwhile, no reporters are sent to pro-Palestinian protests to “understand” them: their newspapers just call them antisemites ( tho, bizarrely, the pro-Israel protests aren’t Islamaphobic or arabphobic, e’en tho, as a “Jewish state”, Israel, inherently, treats anyone outside that religion or race as 2nd-class, just as nobody would seriously think the US could be a “Christian state” or “white state” & not treat non-Christians or non-white as 2nd-class citizens ) & gleefully join their Republican friends in calling for them to be obliterated.
And all those stories about people who refused to wear masks or get their shots.
Yeah, it really shows the lack o’ good taste in these newspapers that they would rather focus on useless morons than people who have actual interesting problems. Good thing I read actually good news so I didn’t have to read this garbage.
How many more of these can we bear to read, I kept wondering at the time.
Yeah, it’s tragic you’re too uneducated to know there are better outlets out there.
And I couldn’t help but notice that there was no mass effort to find and understand Biden voters after he won in 2020.
Maybe ’cause it’s boring to read the obvious.
“¿Why did you vote for Biden?”.
“I’m not a dumbass”.
“Thank you for this interview”.
I sent a journalist, Marion Renault, down to red America (Mobile, Alabama, specifically) to report on the people who were following the rules—who were wearing their masks and getting vaccines in an inhospitable milieu. She produced a beautiful, moving report that I felt certain would land her on TV and get attention. No one cared.
& this is how our young journalists 1st discovers this beautiful economic system known as capitalism.
It didn’t fit the narrative—either right-wing or mainstream. Not enough chaos or conflict to be found in American citizens helping to knit up the civic fabric during a traumatizing pandemic, I guess.
I mean, if you armed the pro-mask people & had them violently fight back gainst the already-violent disease-spreaders, maybe you could have both conflict & be on the right side. Maybe the problem isn’t just that the “liberal” side is too willing to “understand” the other side, but also that they’re not willing to actually fight gainst the other side, but keep insisting that the most important thing is to tell warm fuzzy stories ’bout grandma getting her COVID vaccine rather than preparing oneself for all the right-wingers arming themselves & getting away with terrorist attacks.
So, to show you how idiotic this writer is, they acknowledge that the problem is economic, — that the media has to lie in a way that helps right-wingers to entice the moronic cattle that makes up their audience, any intelligent person having long abandoned these Jerry Springer sideshows long ago in disgust in search o’ actual honest information — but their recommendation is… the mainstream media should just stop doing the bad things they personally don’t like, e’en if it goes gainst their material interests. Just “call a lie a lie”, bro. ¿Why should they do that when, as businesses in a capitalist system where any failure to fully profit hurts your competitive edge, specially in a medium like newspapers that are becoming narrower & narrower monopolies, making money is e’erything? They claim, “Remember that we are not just in the “news” business. We’re in the information business. We’re in the preservation of the civic fabric business. And we’re in the business of people”, but they’re wrong: their business is selling people what they want to hear & what gets them to view your ads.If the country loses democracy, it’s not as if that’s a full impediment to The New York Times; they can still make money selling what King Trump tells them to say. As they themselves say, they’re perfectly comfortable with kowtowing to Republicans.
But there is much better news: people don’t need to read either the mainstream media or the right-wing media, but can read from an infinite variety o’ media — or better, read actual scientific studies, statistics, history books by actual historians or economics books by actual economists & not hack journalists with creative writing degrees. Or they could just read The Onion, since it’s just as informative & much funnier.
But, no, you should totally spend that monthly $10 to save democracy from “dying in darkness” by filling some rich, white, Republican newspaper owner’s large stash o’ Scrooge McDuck cash.
Anyway, now the New York Times won’t be able to keep her around to write such totally-not-lurid tales ’bout beheading 40 child heads, — my favorite Arabian Nights story, right next to the 1 where some guy prays to God for a giant dick — as opposed to the way civilized countries kill children thru blowing them up or shooting them, meant to paint Arabs as stereotypical cartoon villains with wacky pirate sabers who should be treated as — I believe the term Verthaim used that Schwartz liked so much was “human animals”, which is redundant, as all humans are part o’ the kingdom animalia — similar to inventing a story ’bout Jewish people drinking the blood o’ their victims, which I’m sure I’ll see soon in the next Sinfest on the social media formerly known as “Twitter”, which e’en the conservative New York Post called a “conspiracy theory” ( tho perhaps with the interest o’ making Biden His Time look bad — clear proof that they’re making up that he’s making it up, since my senpai president ne’er lies. ¿What’s next, NYP: “Biden actually played as Donkey Kong in Mario Kart”? ).
Also, ¿did NYT really need to write this in such a silly way:
“Those ‘likes’ are unacceptable violations of our company policy. We are currently reviewing the matter.”
“Our establishment does not find this behavior rizzed. We are currently reviewing whether or not we will cease smashing that like button on their work in the future”.
Anyway, I was lucky ’nough to stumble ’pon a much mo’ riveting article from The New York Post: “Joe Rogan and Kid Rock clash over how Israel should win war against Gaza: ‘That’s actually a war crime’”. I don’t know if we should waste these 2 intellectual titans on such a meager topic as this. I do have to say, tho, that “That’s actually a war crime” is my favorite VH1 war reality show in the dystopian world I live in ( real life ).
Having made the mistake o’ actually reading this article, I refuse to believe it isn’t a bit by both o’ these “debaters” talking ’bout war as if it’s an XBox game & the New York Post reporting dryly like the middleaged school teacher still waiting for them to turn in their paper due last week:
Kid Rock disagreed, pointing to Nagasaki and Hiroshima. “Boom. Just wiped out,” he said of the atomic bombings, which maimed hundreds of thousands of people.
I have to admit, I can’t argue with, “Boom. Just wiped out”. Check mate, mate.
But the twist is when the surprise 4th clown enters the article, with the greatest joke o’ all:
“I was on the telephone with the people in the region,” Biden told reporters on the South Lawn Thursday morning, adding: “Probably not by Monday, but I’m hopeful.”
¿What “people in the region”? ¿The government? ¿Hamas? I mean, considering they’re in hiding, I can imagine it isn’t easy to get contact with them. ¿Is he just cold-calling randos in Gaza, saying, “Hey, ¿are you in Hamas? ¿Could you — ¿Hello?”.
The president said earlier this week he hoped a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas could be in place in roughly a week at an ice cream shop in New York as part of an appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers. “We’re close, we’re not done yet,” Biden said.
This will be the ace in the hole: Islamic-fundamentalist militants can’t resist New York ice cream & hearing some really funny monologues by Seth Meyers.
[Note: I only now realized the article meant that Biden said this to Seth Meyers with ice cream, not that he invited Hamas to have ice cream. Very weird how they organized this sentence: ¿why not lead with where Biden said this & end with the actually important part ’bout his goals for a weirdly hyphenated ceasefire? Putting the part ’bout ice cream & Seth Meyers @ the end makes it sound like it’s an important part o’ Biden’s strategy, not just the background to the important part. ]
The U.S. and Israel are still waiting to hear back from Hamas on whether it will agree to a six-week pause in fighting and a new proposal for a prisoners-for-hostages exchange, that person said.
I can just imagine Biden constantly calling Hamas HQ & the top leader shakes his head @ the attendant & says, <Don’t answer. It’s fucking Biden ’gain with his dumbass ice cream>.
“Everybody I speak to says how horrible it is,” he said during an event at the border on Thursday. “Nobody [can] explain to me how allowing millions of people from places unknown, from countries unknown, who don’t speak languages — we have languages coming into our country, we have nobody that even speaks those languages. They are truly foreign languages. Nobody speaks them.
Such deep, meaningful words inspired me to compose the following political ( sprite ) comic:
Question: if you’re the president & your goal is to win an election & you have made the tough decision to heavily support Israel in the Israel/Palestinian war — I don’t want to discuss not making this decision, as valid an option as it is, for now, as I want to make a mo’ specific point here — & you are, inevitably & predictably, faced with outrage from Arab Americans with family in Palestinian who died during said war, ¿how would you respond? If you’re halfway socially competent & trying to minimize alienating voters you need to remain president, you would probably spew out some characteristically politician fake expression o’ sympathy — something along the lines o’, “I am deeply sorry for your loss. I understand that war is bad for e’eryone. I am working on ending this war so both Israel & Palestine can prosper in peace”, but preferably better written by someone who has experience in writing this kind o’ fluff. Obviously this would be dishonest, but all politicians talk in lies: telling your potential voters the truth is the best way to get them to not vote for you.
Q The part was: Are you concerned with the Arab American votes voting for you during this election because of Gaza? Many say they will not vote for you.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, look, the President wants to put a — the former President wants to put a ban on Arabs coming into the country. We’ll make sure he — we understand who cares about the Arab population, number one.1
Number two, we got a long way to go in terms of settling the situation in Gaza.
Let’s ignore the hilarious gaff o’ Biden accidentally doing the same thing Republican conspiracists slyly do o’ continuing to call former president Trump the current president ( ¿SEE? ¡E’EN BIDEN KNOWS DEEP DOWN THAT HE IS A FAKE & HE RIGGED THE ELECTION WITH THOSE COMMUNIST USB PORTS! ¡THIS PROVES IT! ). E’en tho, no matter what side you’re on, it’s unquestionable that many Arab Americans like Jewish Americans have faced increased hardship due to this war, either having family members die or experiencing increased hate crimes from bigots, Biden doesn’t e’en offer condolences, e’en tho he’d lose nothing by doing so, other than maybe alienating the vital vicious bigot demographic who get enjoyment from Arab suffering like cartoon villains, but unironically pulls the, “Well, my opponent is worse, so you weak-ass minorities have no choice but to unconditionally support me. ¡So there!”, for which Democrats are widely criticized by their own base. E’en worse, unlike in most scenarios, in this case it’s not e’en necessarily true: ¿why would Arab Americans who are already citizens o’ the US care mo’ ’bout other Arab Americans being able to get in than their own family dying? Biden seems to assume like all too many liberals that people o’ a race love & care ’bout e’eryone else in their race. I’m a perfect example: I don’t give a fuck ’bout my fellow Welshman. ¿What the fuck good has Wales e’er done for the world? If those crackas try to get into the US, I tell ’em, <Take a #>, & they look @ me with bewilderment ’cause that doesn’t actually mean anything.
On Sunday, the Democratic representative from California said she would like the FBI to investigate potential Russian connections and funding behind American calls for an armistice in the Israel-Hamas war.
Responding to a question on CNN’s State of the Union about growing anger among Democrats, particularly young people and Arab Americans, at the Biden administration’s handling of the conflict, Pelosi said: “What we have to do is try to stop the suffering in Gaza … But for them to call for a ceasefire is Mr. Putin’s message.”
Adding to her charges of Russian influence, in a video posted by the anti-war group Code Pink on X on Monday, Pelosi can be seen telling activists outside her home in October to “go back to China where your headquarters is.”
’Gain, I’m not interested in whether or not this McCarthiesque conspiratory claim without evidence is true — I’ve heard plenty o’ very smart liberals™ ( the wacky & very original ™ let’s you know that I don’t actually think they’re smart ) argue that it must be true ’cause she’s on the Intelligence Committee & obviously can’t release evidence, as that’s classified, tho apparently revealing out loud so that Russia can hear that they’re scrutinizing them isn’t, ’cause apparently just putting faith in government officials without any o’ the limitations liberal republics are known for is what “liberals” do. If Pelosi were truly concerned with Russian & Chinese infiltration, the FBI could always investigate in secret & Pelosi could keep her mouth shut ’bout it. Personally, while I could see Russia wanting to troll Democrats & letting in the mo’ sympathetic Trump, I don’t see why China would want Trump to win, given he’s much mo’ hostile toward them than Democrats & is e’en threatening an absurd 10% tariff that would be disastrous for both the US & China’s economies. Then ’gain, they’re scary yellow people, so clearly they must be up to something, no matter how antithetical to their material interests that something is. I wonder if the very moderate & level-headed liberal Pelosi also has any enlightening information on how the Bolshevik Jews are running all o’ US media. It’s a wonder people don’t want to vote when both parties are full o’ people who spew this kind o’ John Birch Society shit. I am also well aware o’ the irony that Pelosi herself is an asset o’ the foreign country known as Israel ( note: pointing out this objective fact is antisemitic, but saying that “those commie Russians & Chinese always be spyin’” isn’t a common racist stereotype gainst Russians & Chinese people, ’cause in the US bigotry is only bad if it’s gainst a race that the US government can pretend to care ’bout to get propaganda points ), as many on the left have already quipped. I think you have to be blissfully ignorant o’ who Pelosi is, or politicians in general, to have any expectations o’ consistency.
No, what I’m interested in is the question, ¿what value does saying this out loud provide to Pelosi & the Democratic party whose interest I assume she holds. ’Gain, I want to emphasize that in politics politicians don’t act like super pooper smart Reddit users & Just Say It Like It Is™2 & tell women that, yes, they’re fat, but, if they’re competent, carefully craft their language to maximize voters. ¿What demographic o’ voter is she hoping to please by saying this?
Obviously not the people who sympathize with these protestors, who, if they have any backbone ( which, to be fair, is not an assumption one should make quickly when it comes to liberals ) would not take kindly to veiled threats o’ being “investigated” ( read: harassed ) by the FBI, the famously corrupt organization infamous for having assassinated civil rights leaders they deemed too radical. As a lifelong anarchist Democrat voter, I myself oft dunk on purity-contest leftists who have way too lofty a view o’ the US’s not-truly-democratic election system & refuse to vote for someone who supported genocide gainst Palestinians ’cause that makes them dirty by association somehow & these people are such rampant narcissists that they hold the delusion that anyone cares ’nough ’bout them to judge them o’ such dirtiness, but will continue to collect blood-money foodstamps or pay taxes to that same government ’cause they “have no choice” ( are too cowardly to form this glorious revolution they insist is the only solution ); but there is a big difference ’tween people so self-centered that they refuse to exploit the meager tool they have to effect political change in the US for petty personal squabbles like being called extreme by some politico & someone unable to stomach voting for someone who lead to them being actively harassed ( or had a family member blown up by said politico ).
¿So is this aimed @ so-called centrists? While so-called centrists ( read: upper-middle-class people who want their taxes lowered but are embarrassed by what ignorant savages Republicans are or hopelessly ignorant people who lazily fall into the golden mean fallacy so they can avoid having to make any critical thinking decisions ) constantly try to guilt Democrats into separating themselves from the fringe left who call for such extremist ideas as black people not being randomly murdered by cops or there being some limits on how much the poor can be whipped ( tho these “centrists” rarely apply this same scrutiny gainst Republicans, who, after all, are completely incapable o’ any sense o’ shame & will, in fact, deliberately shit their pants now that liberals have criticized them for doing so just to show that liberals can’t tell them what to do ), increased authoritarianism is usually not popular ’mong these so-called centrists ( a’least when applied by Democrats ), who, after all, not being full-on Democrats themselves, may find themselves under the same scrutiny.
I guess you could say this outburst o’ Pelosi’s is popular ’mong the most fervent Democrats — those are certainly the people who have gone to lengths to defend this outburst. That is to say that this outburst worked to convince people who are already strongly convinced to vote for Democrats @ the cost o’ e’ery other viable voter. ¡Somebody give these brilliant Democrat planners a raise & maybe write a shitty brown-nosing account ’bout them where you describe them like a love interest in an airport novel!
What we’re seeing is Democrats, both the politicians themselves & the desperate defenses Democrats make for their actions here, making the same mistakes they made in 2016: treating a swing state like Michigan or Wisconsin for granted, attacking significant chunks o’ their target demographic for no reason. Except it makes e’en less sense now, not only due to us having hindsight now, but also due to the mo’ precarious circumstances now: Clinton a’least had a good reason to expect to easily beat Trump when he was widely viewed as a sad clown after Obama’s relatively successful presidency; @ a time when Biden has remarkably low approval rating & polls show literal insurrectionist who claims he’ll be a dictator “for a day” Donald Trump ’bout even or ’bove, for Biden to try so li’l to do the bare minimum not to alienate vital voters he must really not want to be re-elected. & if he were running gainst an early-2000s style Bush Republican who’d only hurt poor minorities, I could understand Biden wanting a retirement 4 years earlier; but given Trump saying he has “no choice” but to lock up Biden if he wins re-election & given the way Republicans have been emboldening people like the guy who violently attacked Pelosi’s husband or threatened e’ery legislator when trying to count electoral votes, it seems weird how unconcerned they are with keeping people who may be a threat to their lives from winning. Clearly the protestors trying to annoy Pelosi into not funding foreign wars are a bigger threat. But we must ne’er underrate Democrats’ valiant determination to lose half their elections, since we don’t want Republicans — e’en those who want us dead — to feel bad if they don’t get their participation trophies. & we can be rest assured that as Biden & Pelosi stand out in the wilderness with a guns aimed @ the back o’ their heads like Francisco Madero, they’ll be thinking, { ¡This is all young people’s fault for not voting harder! ¡They should have #votedbluenomatterwho! }.
Q The March for Life is tomorrow in Washington, D.C. — the March for Life is tomorrow in Washington, D.C.
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I know that.
Q What’s your message to those attending?
THE PRESIDENT: March.
BIDEN BOT RECOMMENDS THAT THE MOST RATIONAL BEHAVIOR IN WHICH TO ENGAGE DURING MARCHES IS TO MARCH.
2 Disclaimer: “Like It Is™” may not be an accurate representation o’ authentic reality, but may in fact be the delusions o’ someone whose interpretation o’ reality comes entirely from what random people say on social media.
The Department of Defense clapped back at Fox News host Jesse Watters on Wednesday after he said Taylor Swift could be a “psyop” for the Pentagon.
“I wonder who got to her from the White House or wherever,” Watters said on his show Tuesday night. “Who makes that initial handshake.”
Waters was referencing a partnership between Swift and Vote.org intended to encourage young people to register to vote.
The remark spawned conspiracy theories suggesting Swift could be a government asset or part of a broader information campaign.
Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh shut down the speculation Wednesday in a statement to Politico.
“As for this conspiracy theory, we are going to shake it off,” she said, a tongue-in-cheek reference to one of the pop star’s hits.
¿What the fuck kind o’ world am I living in?
I’m grateful the hip kids @ The Hill took the time to ’splain to my grandpa living under a rock that the phrase “shake it off” is a “tongue-in-cheek reference to one of the pop star’s hits”.
The fact that neither side is “pumpkin pie”, which is, objectively, the best choice that anyone would e’er make, is proof that Newsweek can’t be taken serious. ¿Fucking stuffing? Stuffing is the very telltale American “let’s just throw a bunch o’ random shit together & pretend it’s food” kind o’ “food”. Stuffing gets a D tier — as do both these articles.
For comparison, nobody e’en blames the Nazis for the Dresden bombing & claims that the Nazis really killed those Germans by being dirty Nazis — & you could make a better case for that, since the Nazis truly did start that war by just invading countries, whereas history clearly shows that both Israel & Palestine started the current conflict 80 years ago by ne’er truly agreeing on borders or e’en whether or not they should be 1 or 2 countries. This kind o’ empty-headed propaganda is the apex o’ cowardice & it’s understandable that any news organization who received it would blacklist the artist due purely to the evidence o’ their hopeless hackery & the inevitability that they will ne’er produce any good art.
The gruesome details and brutal savagery of the October 7 attack launched by Hamas operatives on innocent civilians was shocking to even the most battled-hardened [sic] soldiers and war correspondents.
No it wasn’t. Ramirez couldn’t know this ’cause he isn’t a “battled-hardened” ( which is how an illiterate person says “battle-hardened” ) soldier or war correspondent, but a sheltered, spoiled, upper-middle-class cartoonist. My nerdy ass wasn’t shocked by it — probably ’cause unlike most o’ the people who’ve come out o’ the woodwork to share the “wisdom” they just learned on social media last month, I didn’t just become aware o’ the intermittent violence ’tween Israel & Palestine for the past 80 years or so.
Evidence of beheadings, babies shot in their cribs, parents shot in front of their children, entire families massacred, the torture and execution of the elderly, people burned alive, and hundreds of young people gunned down while attending a musical festival for peace, were widely reported and verified by video, audio, and forensic evidence.
Rational people judge actions not on their ultimate outcomes, but on how gross they look. In the end, Palestinians murdering Israelis in exotic ways is no different than Israelis evaporating Palestinians in an instant with drones: death is death. The #s — & in this scenario, Israel’s death count is much higher than Hamas’s — should matter most. If anything, the real revealing aspect is how much poorer Palestine is that they have to resort to brute force while Israel can just use expensive technology. In essence, Palestine is bad ’cause they’re low class.
Most people would be horrified. Yet in an interview on Lebanese television, Senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad hailed the brutal October 7 attack and pledged to repeat the October 7 attack again and again until Israel is “removed,” claiming Hamas “was the victim,” therefore “everything they do is justified.”
Wow, nobody’s e’er said stuff like that before in war. It’s not like the US is infamous for calling civilian deaths “collateral damage”.
That interview was the inspiration for a recent cartoon I drew for the Washington Post depicting Gazi [sic] Hamad and his human shields.
No, your inspiration for making this comic involving Ghazi strapping Palestinian civilians round him was mirroring Israeli government propaganda, which invented the concept o’ “human shields”, which is, as mentioned earlier, their Orwellian way o’ saying, “It’s the other side’s fault I’m killing civilians”. If anything, one should give credit to Hamas for a’least being honest ’bout the brutality o’ war. If what Ghazi said had inspired a comic from you, it should show Hamas leader killing Israeli civilians & hypocritically criticizing Israel for attacking civilians. That would’ve made mo’ sense & probably would’ve garnered less outrage since it’d actually be true, whereas Ghazi, in fact, ne’er did strap Palestinians round him while they stared @ the camera bug-eyed like wacky cartoon characters ’cause “human shields” is a myth.
Also, kudos to the tag-team incompetence on both Ramirez & the Newsweek editor that nobody noticed this inconsistent spelling o’ Ghazi’s name.
Any decent human being would agree that this war is catastrophic. I mourn the loss of innocent life—on both sides. I am shocked by the destruction that has shattered their lives and grieve for those families. I wish for the safe return of the more than 240 hostages that Hamas has taken. But those are separate issues.
“Look, I know this is a complex issue that only an idiot would try to boil down to a single-panel cartoon; but I’m choosing to completely ignore all that context & just focus on calling 1 guy a poopy face”.
Hamas is a terrorist organization that blames Israel for the attack on civilians, but ignores its own complicity in their suffering. It was Hamas that first launched the attack on Israel, continues to use civilian infrastructure as cover, and restricts the evacuation of Gaza civilians from areas which Israel has given advanced warning of strikes. [ Emphasis mine ]
Ramirez is so dumb or thinks his readers are so dumb that he’s saying the Israeli-Palestinian conflict started this year, that there wasn’t already violence building up to this day. He is literally just as dumb as those TikTokkers who just realized that Osama bin Laden existed.
It’s ironic that those who criticize the cartoon for overgeneralizing and stereotyping cannot seem to distinguish between a known terrorist group and Palestinians.
No, it’s mo’ ironic that Ramirez is too dumb to realize that the “human shields” is a stereotype o’ all Palestinians, not just Hamas. That’s like if someone were to make a comic o’ Netanyahu being a puppet leader o’ the media or being a banker &, after the inevitable criticism o’ antisemitism, being all, “No, you’re the antisemite ’cause you can’t distiguish 1 Jew from ’nother”. This is, in fact, a common rhetorical game that propagandists use to try & justify their sloppy bigoted statements.
And it’s a tragedy that their only way of coping with the truth depicted in my cartoon is to erase it from view.
¿What truth? Show me this video evidence o’ Ghazi tying children round him like body armor. Let’s see it, Ramirez.
In my speeches, I say, “An editorial cartoon is not humorous for the sake of humor. It is not controversial for the sake of controversy. Whether you agree with it philosophically or not, a good editorial cartoon engages the reader in debate. It informs and challenges. It draws the reader into the democratic process.”
This comic does none o’ that. ¿What debate does this comic inspire? ¿Are civilians fair game if they’re tied round a government official @ which you’ve gone to war? Nor does it challenge anyone: it’s straight-up redundant repetition o’ Israeli government propaganda. ¿Why not just read an article from The Times of Israel? It’d certainly be better written.
Liberty, the free exchange of ideas, is the foundation of our democracy. Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “Our Liberty depends on the freedom of press, and that cannot be limited without it being lost.” The reason our Founding Fathers included the right to a free press in our Constitution was because they knew the communication of ideas and information, the right to inform and be informed, the dissemination of ideas and the expression of opinion, are all necessary components in a political system based on self-governance and individual liberty. Limiting the exchange of ideas even in our common culture limits our freedom.
There is nothing mo’ embarrassing that reading e’ery mediocre pundit trying to pretend like the Constitution was made specifically to prevent their terrible work from being put in the slush pile — like that makes them the next Salman Rushdie.
So, ¿how are we serving the freedom o’ the press by forcing the press to serve government propaganda they don’t like? It seems to me that freedom o’ the press means that any press outlet like The Washington Post can choose to publish & not publish any crap they want & if you don’t like it, well, you can always make your own blog, Ramirez — or just get a 3rd-rate newspaper like Newsweek to publish your whines. This is literally this “I am being silenced” cartoon. ¿How are you being “canceled” when Newsweek is publishing your stuff? Shit, Newsweek won’t publish my articles ’bout you being an idiot; I guess that means I’m getting canceled. & yet, somehow I manage to keep living my life.
The purpose of an editorial cartoon, and a good editorial page is to be the catalyst for thought. By promoting the thoughtful exchange of ideas, we forge a consensus through the fiery heat of debate.
So then it’s a good thing The Washington Post removed your idiotic comic from the editorial page, as ’twas impeding thought & the exchange o’ ideas by making readers dumber. Also, debate ne’er “forge[s] a consensus”, a consensus is — you know what, I don’t need to do that lecture ’gain.
Today, political correctness and the woke —
Good news: since this paragraph uses the word “woke” unironically, we can skip it, since nothing that involves that can e’er be intelligent or useful. You can already guess what it says: people complaining to The Washington Post that they don’t want to pay money for garbage is the exact same as putting Ramirez in the gulag. Left-wing people are the only people to e’er remove content that doesn’t agree with their opinions from their media; this is why Fox News regularly has socialists on their program & those LGBTQ+ book bans ( by government officials, not private organizations, mind you, ’cause conservatives provide the only major forces in support for government censorship in the US ) are not a thing.
Critics of my cartoon are using an accusation of racism as a device to “cancel” the truth—the overwhelming empirical evidence that Hamas uses civilians, both Palestinians and Israelis, as human shields.
You can’t fucking put scare quotes round a word that you are using unironically. ¿What, are you making fun o’ your own inane whining?
Yes, ¡look @ all that empirical evidence that Ghazi tied people to him with rope! ¡It’s right there! ¡Just look!
I do not mind being attacked for my cartoons. People should be emotionally invested in their politics. While the First Amendment guarantees the freedom of speech, it does not insulate you from the consequences of your speech. I accept that. It is part of the job.
Those consequences being the ability to make e’en mo’ money whining ’bout this “punishment” on a different newspaper.
Tier:E
All right, that was intolerable. It would be e’en mo’ intolerable if I found ’nother article ’bout a rich white man whining ’bout being “canceled” while their opinions are clearly still being —
This is “The University of Michigan Failed to Protect My Right To Free Speech” by Josh Hammer. You may recognize him from my previous Newsweek article as the only person to land on the coveted 🤪-tier, given to him ’cause he sounded like a fascist nut, using Nazi phrases like “fifth column”, which is used to depict all members o’ certain races, like Jews, as conspiring with enemies, both real & imaginary; repeatedly using the far-right conspiratory term “liberal imperium”; & writing ’bout modern “decadence” — which as I said, is an idea only entertained by certain reactionary Marxists & fascists, & Hammer certainly is no Marxist. You’ll notice that his photo looks a lot less drunk & disheveled here, tho he does seem to be doing the good ol’ “Dreamworks Smirk”. Good for him. ¿But has he cleaned up his fringe fascist rhetoric?
The talk’s blunt title, selected by the local Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) chapter, reflected my own unambiguous approach to the conflict: “Israel’s Righteous Fight Against Jihadism.”
Nope. Remember, in the previous article he described Israelis who were too sympathetic to filthy Arabs & Muslims as “fifth column”, so we were already familiar with this man’s ardent support for Israeli Islamophobia.
Within minutes of starting my speech, 20 to 25 protestors stood up in unison. They held their arms high in the air to expose their shirts, which featured photos of Palestinian-Arabs who have died in Gaza since the war started. (The students are unaware of, or simply disinterested in, the fact that every one of those deaths is legally attributable to Hamas under international law.) Undeterred, I continued. A few minutes later, the students began obnoxiously coughing in unison each time I opened my mouth, in a clear attempt to drown me out. I reminded them of the university’s code of conduct, which prohibits shouting down speakers, but that only made them cough louder.
Shortly thereafter, the mass coughing turned into shouting, coordinated by a visible ringleader toward the front of the pack. The chants would be familiar to those who have paid attention to the explosion of on-campus antisemitism since the Hamas Holocaust of Oct. 7: “Remember their names!,” “Free Palestine!,” “Stop the genocide!,” and so forth. At one point, a protestor started to walk briskly toward the stage, prompting my body man to leap out of his front-row seat to protect me. Finally, a tepid university administrator replaced me at the podium, seemingly to once again remind the students that their conduct violated university policy. He too was drowned out; his exhortations were largely inaudible.
Eventually, the protestors escorted themselves out of the back of the room. They never ceased chanting, and proceeded to physically bang on the walls of the lecture hall exterior once they exited—leaving red handprints all over the wall behind them, since they had painted their hands blood-red. The whole disruption lasted probably 30 to 35 minutes, after which I finished my remarks for those who had the patience to remain in their seats. After student Q&A and photos, a campus police officer escorted me to my friend’s car.
Even more important, the university failed to secure the other half of the right to free speech: the right to freely listen, especially for those who drove hours to Ann Arbor just to hear my talk.
This is not a thing.
University administrators and campus police officers acted shamefully in failing to suppress the pro-Hamas students’ heckler’s veto—a disreputable act that here, there, and everywhere falls outside the scope of First Amendment-protected activity under well-established case law, and which may even be prosecutable depending on the jurisdiction.
This is, in fact, utter hogwash, & it’s notable that he ne’er provides a single citation. All cases I could find related to the Heckler’s vote, like Feiner v. New York, are defenses o’ police arrests o’ people when they believe those people are in danger o’ starting a riot ( how this is proven or judges is, ’course, vague so as to give the government flexibility to suppress anyone they wish ); it has ne’er involved charging an institution for neglecting to suppress hecklers, nor have I seen any case where people are charged for heckling when they could have started a riot, but didn’t. The fact that a riot didn’t happen here makes this whole idea moot & idiotic. Like all fascists, he makes up whate’er law he wants that serves his interest — for that is the purpose o’ law for fascists: to serve the chosen people & work gainst the hated people.
Most o’ the rest o’ this article is boring, pathetic lusting for punishment gainst the people who don’t obey him & lame, uncreative slanderous attacks gainst people he doesn’t agree with ( anyone who doesn’t support Israeli theocracy is an antisemite, just as how anyone who opposes school prayer wants all Christians to be fed to lions, etc. ). There is something to be said ’bout cooling the bloodthirsty rhetoric o’ protestors; then ’gain, there’s also something to be said ’bout not giving racist, empty-headed propagandists like this writer a special spot to spew hateful propaganda. I ask ’gain, ¿why do colleges, which charge mo’ than $10,000, & oft up to $100,000 & o’er, waste their students time & insult their intelligence by inviting these mediocre partisan hacks speedrunning logical fallacies & not actual scientists? @ that point students may as well just be watching Stephen Crowder on YouTube & save the $100,000. ¿What message are they teaching their students by encouraging them to treat uncredentialed influencers as experts to be listened to & not questioned? ¿That they should be just as shallow as the average person on social media? ’Gain, ¿can’t you get these kind o’ rock-bottom standards for free? ¿Why pay so much money to colleges so ready to throw ’way their credibility?
But I do want to end with 1 ironic part @ the end:
In April 2019, I was personally present at my alma mater, the University of Chicago Law School, to see fellow alumnus and legal scholar Eugene Kontorovich speak about the First Amendment and state-level anti-BDS (“Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions”) legislation.
’Gain, it could not be clearer that this writer thinks the 1st amendment just protects whate’er he likes. In fact, Kontorovich’s anti-BDS laws are real violations o’ freedom o’ speech by governments, which, in some cases, have been struck down.
Color me with the brightest o’ surprises that someone as inarticulate & primitive-minded wilts like grass the second he encounters anyone with a different opinion & runs & hides ’hind authoritarian institutes rather than trying to argue back with them.
Tier: E
Ugh. Tired o’ all this government propaganda for Israel. Well…
This is “Hamas Can Never Again Decide Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die”. It reminds me o’ that inane article from our last trawl thru Newsweek in which a retired lieutenant insisted that Putin, the world’s only war criminal, must be tried for war crimes, e’en tho that was ne’er going to happen — & still hasn’t happened. Similarly, this writer makes the empty moral case that Hamas cannot be allowed to decide who lives & dies ( only Israel can, since, as the Torah says, they are God’s chosen people ). What this article doesn’t do is specify how Israel bombing the hell out o’ random civilians — like I said, Israeli government choosing who can live & die — stops Hamas, many o’ whose members very well may not e’en be in Palestine anymo’, since bombing people & fleeing to unexpected areas is a common tactic o’ terrorists, from deciding who will live & die. If we agree with the “human shields” theory, then Israel killing Palestinian civilians is what Hamas wants & so by doing so they are, in fact, helping Hamas choose who lives & dies. Which means those protestors are, if anything, idiots for protesting: Israel & Hamas are getting ’long fine, both killing each other’s civilians. It’s not like Hamas or the Israeli government are the ones bearing the brunt o’ it.
I won’t quote much o’ this article ’cause it’s boring & makes e’en less attempts @ arguments than the previous 2 articles. This article can be summed up as: the Holocaust existed, the Hamas attack on Israel was kinda like the Holocaust if you squint @ it & multiply its casualties by 5,000, therefore Hamas is like Hitler 2.0.
For all the post-Holocaust promises of “never again,” international support for Israel eroded rapidly once Israel went on the offensive and launched a ground invasion into Gaza.
Yeah, it’s shocking that people who don’t like genocide don’t like invasions, either. I’m not sure why this writer assumes that “no Holocaust e’er ’gain” means “we unconditionally support anything Israel does” or why this idea that genocide is bad should only apply to Hamas threatening to destroy Israel & not Israel’s threat gainst Palestine’s existence or the very nature o’ a Jewish state making any non-Jewish person a 2nd-class citizen. The mo’ shocking thing is that a people who witnessed the horrible outcome o’ a people setting up a state to serve only them, while all others are treated as lesser people, would turn round & try the same thing, but with them as the chosen people now. You’d think they would support secularism & not giving any priority to any religion or race, but nope. It’s mo’ shocking how many people who probably think o’ themselves as “liberal” simping for either Israel or Palestine, when neither are compatible with the principles o’ secularism — & in fact, due to Israel’s insistence on keeping Israel a Jewish state, are also not compatible with democracy, as Israel disallows Palestinians in occupied territory the right to vote for the very reason that they consider so many non-Jewish voters a threat.
After 75 years believing Israel would protect Jews from being lined up and singled out for life or death, Oct. 7 awakened a sobering realization that even the Jewish state’s military, economic, and technological strength offer no guarantees.
¿Who believed this? ¿Dumbasses who had no idea what was going on politically in that region for the past 80 years? I mean, yeah, when you have an unresolved land dispute ’caused by the goal o’ creating a Jewish state in land with both Jews & Muslims, that’s inevitable. Maybe 2 groups trying to set up theocracies that upholds 1 people as better than all others in such a culturally-diverse place ’cause some ancient fairy tales said ’twas super important to an invisible man in the sky was the dumbest idea in the world.
Today, the voices calling for a ceasefire are far louder than those affirming Israel’s right to defend itself.
¿Really? ’Cause I’ve been getting 3/0 on “Israel Rules, Palestine Drools” from Newsweek. ¿Where’s the Newsweek article titled “IDF Can Never Again Decide Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die”?
The goal of peace-loving people should not just be an end to this current war; it should be to end all wars between Israel and Hamas. And the goal of Israel must be to ensure that no enemy will ever again decide who among the Jewish people shall live and who shall die.
Yes, eliminating Hamas will totally eliminate racist hatred gainst Jews that existed for many decades before Hamas existed. This will totally happen & we won’t see several mo’ decades o’ continuous murder & destruction by both sides. This writer is super wise & has demonstrated great awareness o’ the development o’ realpolitik ’tween Israel & Palestine & isn’t just spewing empty hallmarkcard pleasantries while intentionally heeing & hawing o’er the unsavory aspects & was totally worth wasting an article on. ¿Did she pay Newsweek for the privilege o’ writing her blog post for them? That’s the only reason I could think o’ for why they would accept this middle-school drivel. I certainly can’t imagine anyone dumb ’nough to consider it worth monetary compensation.
But I think my favorite is “I’m an Israeli Arab. I’m Embarrassed—and Hamas Is to Blame”, the obligatory apologia by the racist’s Arab best friend defending their racist friend as totally not racist. In actual fact, Hamas is only responsible for what they do, not what they inspire your fellow Israeli to do. If your Israeli respond to actions by Hamas by blaming all Arabs, then that is on them.
Against this backdrop, the paranoia, tension and fear that Jews feel when they encounter Arabs is understandable.
That’s right: Newsweek wants you to think that feeling paranoia round any Arabs, including those who have been citizens o’ Israel for their whole lives, is “understandable”, just like how you can’t blame white people in the US if they feel uncomfortable round black people. I mean, it’s the fault o’ the black people who commit crimes, not racists. If black people ne’er committed crimes, then racists would stop being racist gainst them, totally. Newsweek are literally KKK-level bigots — & cowardly & pathetic ones, too, since they bribed an Arab to give a fake N-word-privileges to the hate they spew.
The other question I’m frequently asked is, “Do you condemn Hamas?” Asking Israeli Arabs this question misses a fundamental aspect of just how much we’re intertwined with Israeli life. Does it make sense to ask an Israeli Jew if they condemn Hamas? Of course not.
This is why the world needs to understand that Israeli Arabs reject Hamas and its ideology just as much as Jews do.
The fact that this writer feels the need to say this is damning: if the average Israeli Jew weren’t racist, they wouldn’t need to be told this; & since they are, they ne’er will understand this. I don’t hear ’bout many American Jews going round questioning random Arabs if they support Hamas, ’cause if they did they would be associated with far-right racists like Glenn Beck.
Showing empathy for one side in a conflict does not negate the capacity to have empathy for the other. Rather, it shows that you’re human. Arabs do not need to choose a side in this conflict.
“Arabs don’t need to choose a side, but if they don’t choose the Israeli government o’er Hamas, they’re evil”.
For the sake of humanity, I implore the Arab community to move forward and to cleverly and responsibly understand the Jewish narrative, as we have been asking them to understand ours for 75 years. For the first time, as an Arab minority we are requested to stand with empathy and understand the majority’s narrative.
1st, ¿how do you “cleverly understand” something? Cleverness is inventiveness that comes from oneself, understanding is getting information externally. When you think ’bout it, they’re contradictory. That doesn’t mean one should always be clever & ne’er stop to understand others; but doing both @ the same time is… I dunno. I’ve ne’er heard anyone use the phrase “cleverly understand” ’cause it means nothing — it sounds like gibberish poorly translated from a different language. If this writer wrote this in a different language, then they should fire the translator.
2nd, this writer is morally demanding that all Arabs just bow down & throw ’way their own beliefs & feelings & just let the “Jewish narrative” ( right-wing racist doctrine ) dictate them, ’cause they are the “majority” ( that’s debatable, considering the amount o’ Arab-majority Palestinian territory Israel controls ). As an American who doesn’t think black people or Native Americans should just accept the “majority” white narrative, I find this peculiar — ¡but this American-oriented article certainly inspires this idea ’mong Newsweek’s majority-white audience! This brings up questions that don’t get answered: ¿why do Jews & Arabs have different understanding in the 1st place? ¿Why is there no call for compromise on this understanding? ¿Is it perhaps ’cause Israel power finds the idea o’ seeing eye-to-eye, to treating Arabs as equally, distasteful? Or maybe it’s that Newsweek finds this distasteful, since, despite what your local Nazi says, I don’t think Israel can force them to publish anything they don’t want. Also, I love how she says that Arabs have been asking Jews to understand their perspective, but doesn’t say how most Jews have responded. If Jews are indifferent to Arabs’ perspective, ¿why should anyone expect Arabs to be open to theirs? Also, I’m very doubtful that this is the 1st time Arabs have been asked to have empathy with Jews & “understand the majority’s narrative” ( just unconditionally accept what the dominant ideology tells them, as in an authoritarian regime ). Undoubtedly, there are many Arabs who don’t have empathy for Jews & ne’er had, entertaining such lovely topics as Holocaust-denial, but despite what Israeli propaganda cries into their pillows, the world has been pretty disgusted by these things, just not ’nough to think they merit decimating any Arab one can find — after all, if Holocaust denial deserves death, then Israel’s own prime minister deserves it.
At University of Haifa, we’re preparing to do just that. While the beginning of the school year has been delayed due to the war, the University’s administration is brainstorming ways to turn down the temperature on campus so that our students are reintegrated into a peaceful environment.
By violently suppressing any protests — just as Newsweek hopes the US starts doing gainst ideas they don’t like.
In the city of Haifa, there are mixed neighborhoods and mixed apartment buildings. At the University, Jews and Arabs learn and grow together. This is the paradigm that Israel must replicate in order to move on from the tragedy of Oct. 7.
I’m not upset when I see the posters in Hebrew around campus stating, “Together We Will Win,” because I know that Arabs are included in that fight.
“A’least I will be, ’cause I’m 1 o’ the good 1s”.
Together we can use our voice to speak against rising levels of discrimination we’re seeing.
You were just saying you weren’t being discriminated gainst. ¿What happened to the idyllic mixed apartments you were raving ’bout just earlier?
I was also asked recently if I ever see myself leaving Israel to a place with a much larger Arab population, like France. My answer is clear: I’m not going anywhere. Israel is my home.
The sad thing is that she treats this racist sentiment as normal. Like, if somebody asked me if I’d be happier being somewhere surrounded by people o’ my own race, I wouldn’t answer them calmly; I’d tell that Nazi to fuck off.
For Jews and Arabs alike, this country is special. When each of us sees an olive tree, we’re in awe of this majestic force, of nature’s ability to grow out of the arid desert soil.
“I see that all the races are equal in their superstitious stupidity & mystification in the face o’ basic biology”.
If Jews and Arabs are adamant about not going anywhere, it’s up to both communities to determine what’s next in a healthy and productive way.
They are not doing that.
On Oct. 7, Hamas did far more than kill 1,400 people. It also set back any hope we had for peace, gearing us all up for another generation of nothing but violence.
But for every tragedy, there is a silver lining. A recent survey by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) indicated that 70 percent of Arabs in Israel identify with the State of Israel. IDI reports the highest percentage of respondents who feel part of the state since they began asking this question in 2003. This demonstrates that the Arab community in Israel aspires to further integrate into society and distance itself from bad faith actors like Hamas.
That’s pretty sad when you have to celebrate a whopping 70% o’ your country’s minority citizens not preferring another country, specially since it’s not as if the people who answered couldn’t lie & wouldn’t have a good reason not to loudly announce, “Nope, I’m an enemy o’ this state”. If you have any attachment to Israel’s far-right government, I guess this is heartening. Personally, I don’t like governments that engage in antisemetic conspiracies round George Soros, so I don’t give any greater fuck than if American Arabs identify with the US. The real issue is how we can get both Jews & Arabs to accept the supremacy o’ Englesist Magical Socialism o’er their silly superstitions, which don’t involve cool things like sticking dicks in each others’ bums, but, in fact, are very anti-dicks-in-bums.
Israeli Arabs and Jews are like salt and pepper: They both belong on the table, and once they’re sprinkled into a dish, it’s almost impossible to distinguish between them.
You got me in favor o’ Arabs & Jews getting together & putting their dicks in each others’ bums till you brought up this metaphor. I disagree: salt does not belong on the table — salt is in too much stuff already & gives you hypertension — & I can very much tell the difference ’tween spicy pepper & too-sharp salt. For me, ¡it’s all pepper, from the river to the sea!
This was the most reprehensible article I have e’er read — e’en compared to the COVID-denial 1 — & Newsweek are detestable for publishing it.
Tier: F
For a palate cleanser, let’s look @ a familiar topic: simping for school privatization schemes, ’cause nothing’s better for the US’s low education problem than doing the opposite o’ what better-educated schools do & dig our heels into the US’s uniquely fanatical obsession with privatizing e’erything & fighting gainst woke schools who teach things like that gay people exist & that dinosaurs didn’t chill with people 6,000 ago when both were invented by that same wacky sky god we can thank for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
We came so close. Texas was on the brink of passing a significant school choice bill (HB1) that would finally achieve the impossible: break the public school monopoly and empower parents with a choice of where they send their children to be educated.
This kind o’ propaganda is perplexing: ¿who likes parents? Parents are dumb karens, & taking ’way their choices only makes the world a better place. After all, they were dumb ’nough to think having kids was a good idea. Plus, parents already have influence o’er their children by being able to teach them whate’er fringe ideas they want for the whole time they have them outside o’ school & have the advantage o’ children hating school ’cause it’s boring & parents’ emotional connection with children ( ’less they’re abusive, which is the only case where schools would probably be liked better by children ). ¿How ’bout we worry ’bout parents monopolizing childrens’ learning so they can’t just indoctrinate them in whate’er cult ideas they have & polluting the voting population so their bad parenting hurts the rest o’ us? Since it’s unquestionabe that how children are raised affects the whole community, including those who don’t have children, it in fact makes sense that the whole community should have a choice in whether or not children are raised into abortion-clinic bombers, not just totalitarian parents. This is the central fallacy o’ this “choice” idea: the Orwellian “freedom” for parents to control their children like dictators. ’Course, dictatorships being freer than democracy is a common philosophy ’mong the right, including laissy libertarians, so this is nothing new.
Now, instead of a law that could help fix our broken public education system, Texan legislators will vote on yet another bill that throws money at the problem. As a public school teacher myself, I wouldn’t mind the extra cash, but I know only a tiny sliver would end up in my paycheck, and today’s systemic problems would continue to fester.
Maybe instead o’ trying to throw money @ random rich organizations with li’l o’ersight, you should try electing government officials that aren’t incompetent, corrupt loons — like, maybe not the kind o’ government officials who take so much cream off the top. I love laissy libertarians who emphasize how corrupt & evil their governments are, but have no concern with keeping them in power, as if that corruption won’t manifest as a problem in other ways. This is probably ’cause the corrupt governments who support them love having their corruption normalized & accepted & can exploit privatization schemes to employ mo’ corruption. In short, when you start with the refrain, “our government is corrupt”, then you already found the root o’ the problem that must be solved before you start discussing issues like education. The idea that a privatization scheme could be properly employed by a corrupt government doesn’t e’en make sense: if your government can so easily embezzle money out o’ funds, ¿what checks & balances exist to keep them from just giving money to their friends during privatization, which is a mo’ subtle form harder to detect?
The original bill would have “establish[ed] an education savings account initiative that would set aside $10,500 every year per student for private school expenses” and “include[d] a bump in per-student spending by the state, from $6,160 to $6,700.”
This is contradictory: ¿does each student get $10,500 or $6,700?
It also would have increased teacher pay.
This is a virtual word-for-word quote o’ the article they cited, but without quotation marks, which is plagiarism.
Neither article provides evidence for this claim, but what data I could find from a decade ago shows the opposite: that private schools tend to pay less than public school.
No longer would poorer students be forced to attend failing public schools in their area. They could use their voucher to attend an alternative.
As one might guess, the success of a bill like HB1 comes down to funding and accountability. It’s not enough to simply hand families a check and expect them to reward good schools with their business. First, there must be viable alternatives to the underperforming public school (whether private or charter) that offer families a real choice. Moreover, those alternatives must be amply funded and properly accredited to successfully compete with the public school.
¿Why are funding & accountability not ’nough for improving public schools? This writer just recently complained ’bout a bill that “throws money at the problem”, but now is doing so, so long as its for their rich friends’ organizations.
The closest thing this article does to back up the vague idea o’ “viable” & “real” choices, as opposed to imaginary choices, is proper accredation, which I assume means regional accredation, but is vague ’nough that it could include any loose restrictions. ¿& if we’re forcing these schools to be accredited, are they truly “alternatives”, since they’re just following government rules? This is the problem: choice & standards are inherently contradictory: in order to have high standards, you must have strict rules; in order to have choice, you must give people terrible choices. & as this article outright admits, parents are too ignorant to know what is & is not a good school, anyway.
As it stands, most charter and private schools have much smaller budgets than their public school counterparts.
That link, which is a pro-school-choice organization quoting a pro-school-choice, conservative newspaper, quoting a study by a pro-school-choice organization, CREDO, is interesting, as a different study by Sanford says the opposite.
This funding gap limits the former’s appeal and makes neighborhood public schools the default option for most families. After all, who wants to send their kids to a school that rents out space from an ugly building and is staffed with untrained adults?
¿What evidence is there that giving mo’ money to charter schools will lead to better training for adults when apparently giving mo’ money to public schools doesn’t lead to better teachers? ’Cause there aren’t tons o’ businesses that make loads o’ money & still barely pay their workers. That’s why expensive iMacs aren’t made by lowly-paid workers in 3rd-world countries.
School choice legislation that significantly boosts funding to public and charter schools can foster meaningful competition between campuses. Schools would be incentivized to increase academic rigor, offer interesting course options, hire the best teachers, and create safe, aesthetically pleasing environments.
¿By what basis? ’Gain, we’re assuming the economic fallacy o’ perfect information: that parents will choose the optimal choices, despite knowing nothing ’bout academics. Based on that logic, video games have mo’ academic rigor than books, ’cause people choose to spend mo’ money on video games than books. ¿& how do we define “best teachers”? ¿The teachers mo’ liable to kowtow to karen parents who demand they give their special child A’s & let them act like li’l shits? ’Cause that’s the kind o’ criteria we’re feeding by giving parents mo’ power.
¿How would creating mo’ school choices — mo’ schools — lead to less inefficiency? In actuality, monopolies can lead to greater efficiencies due to needing fewer redundant resources ( since competing schools, by the nature o’ competition, are working separately, & thus cannot share resources ). As for “expensive technology boondoggles”, that points to ’nother advantage monopolies can have: greater independence from consumers gives mo’ discretion for innovation & research beyond what consumers could e’en conceptualize before it already exists, — ’gain, imperfect information — while competition will just lead to schools climbing o’er each other to fit consumers’ desires, while schools that take the risk on innovation probably won’t last long ’nough to see their innovation to fruition. Meanwhile, the downsides to monopoly are offset by these public schools being democratically run. It’s harder for schools to gouge people when citizens can vote out the government officials gouging them. The fact that this writer doesn’t realize these issues shows how fake is their knowledge o’ economics: rather than truly understanding the complexities o’ competition, they just fall into the lazy “competition is good” fallacy.
I should add that this whole concept assumes that monopolies are only created by the government, which only the most religious o’ market thumpers who have ne’er heard o’ such obscure mom-&-pop stores as Google or Microsoft believe. ¿What happens if 1 private school drives out all other competition? ¿What’s to stop the propagation o’ the Wal-Mart o’ schools, spread out all ’cross the state, but all controlled by the same business? Then you get both the downsides o’ public monopoly & private lack o’ democratic o’ersight.
Ideally, they would have the opportunity to attend schools with advanced coursework, vocational training, and exceptional programs in fine arts and athletics.
Yes, & ideally I’ll win the lottery I ne’er enter & win a million $. Unfortunately, neither will happen.
For once, this wouldn’t only be a possibility for richer parents who can afford to send their child to such schools, but for all students who desire it.
I’m pretty sure there are rich parents who pay mo’ than the $10,000 max than the Texas state is offering students, so this is straight-up false. ¿Does this bill include regulations forcing private schools to accept poor students who cannot pay their full fees? I saw no mention o’ such.
If this same bill is proposed again and actually passes, it could be massive shot in the arm and offer a whole new model for American public education.
Considering this boondoggle goes back to a’least the 90s, there is nothing new ’bout this model.
If the dollar amount of the vouchers is too low, then the only beneficiaries will be private schools and the students already enrolled in them. Private schools will simply raise their tuition, and the parents who already have their kids at those schools would apply for a voucher and enjoy a small subsidy—while those who do not will still be priced out.
This makes absolutely no sense: they claim that paying a li’l to vouchers will cause private schools to raise their tuition; ¿but someone paying a lot won’t? ¿What’s to stop private schools, specially those who don’t want dirty poors in their halls, to just add the voucher amount to their tuition, so that rich people pay the same & poor people are still priced out? “It just subsidizes the rich while still pricing poor people out” sounds like the strongest case one could make gainst voucher systems, & it’s made in this article trying to promote them. Amazing.
If states increase per-student enrollment funding only marginally, or even reduce it, charter and public schools will have to cut back on what they offer. Thus, instead of schools trying to deliver the best product, they will be competing on who can provide the cheapest product and coax the best students. This is the current complaint of a lot of public school educators—they claim charter schools essentially steal away the most motivated students from public schools, which are then left with the most high-need, at-risk students. When vouchers are thrown into the mix, both public and charter schools may be left unequipped to handle their respective student populations. This in turn forces state and local governments to drop standards for teachers and cut back on various school programs, something that is now happening in Arizona.
’Gain: we have a fundamental problem with voucher systems, evidence o’ it happening in real-life examples o’ voucher systems, but then this article claims that magically mo’ money will ’scape these problems, e’en tho they provide no evidence, they just make sloppy claims.
’Gain, the cited evidence is gainst, not for. Moreo’er, the whole point o’ putting schools on the market is to exploit the s’posed regulatory role o’ the market: you were just talking ’bout how market competition would lead to efficiency. If we’re spending government resources on accountability measures to o’erride the market’s failure to lead to efficiency, ¿why have the market @ all, since the proliferation o’ scammers proves that the market utterly fails to do its job? & if a government who’s directly running the schools can’t ensure standards, ¿how would they better ensure standards when they’re indirectly o’erseeing private schools? ’Gain, none o’ this deals with the true root o’ the problem, which is Texas’s corrupt & incompetent government who can’t provide any form o’ good schooling, whether private or public. This is what laissy libertarians fail to realize: the market is ultimately run by the government, so a corrupt & incompetent government will bungle a market just as badly as socialist economics.
That being said, this article is still better written than the last charter-school article I wrote, as it a’least attempts to counter criticisms rather than pretend they don’t exist.
Thanksgiving is the best holiday on the American calendar. It applies to everyone, there are no presents involved, and even if Black Friday is coming, it hasn’t arrived just yet.
Um, no, Halloween is. Halloween also applies to e’eryone ( & Thanksgiving doesn’t e’en apply to e’eryone — ¡it only applies to Americans! Newsweek can’t stop revealing their bigotry by literally being oblivious that there exist countries outside the US ) &, unlike Thanksgiving, does have presents in the form o’ candy.
It brings us together as does no other day[…]
Yeah, it brings us together to fight o’er the dinner table ’cause Uncle Bob couldn’t stop enlightening us on the intriguing news he heard on YouTube ’bout Biden’s globalist, Marxist plot to… ¿be woke? I don’t think e’en conservatives can think o’ anything nefarious for that president to do.
[…]and can be celebrated whether you were born in this country or arrived last Tuesday.
Well, ’less you’re celebrating Thanksgiving inside those cages they put caught illegals in.
Sure, the tradition—at least in the movies—is for families to gather and hate each other, but not only is that an overplayed trope, it doesn’t consider just how sleepy everyone is from the tryptophane and alcohol that are part and parcel of the celebratory meal.
Yeah, pessimists: it’s your fault for not plastering Uncle Bob with so much booze he can’t e’en speak beyond mumbles.
And this year, there are many things to be grateful for. I know it doesn’t look like it at first glance. There are wars being fought and fears they may grow. There are global rivalries, that are, if not hot, scary and point to a dangerous future.
¡Nothing’s scarier than global rivalries that aren’t e’en hot!
Anyway, let’s see what Newsweek thinks should make us thankful weeks after Thanksgiving:
Will Israel and Hamas fight until the last baby is slaughtered?
Interesting choice. I mean, on the upside, it would end the conflict once & for all — you can’t have a war if neither side exists anymo’. You clowns ne’er considered that solution, ¿did you?
We must face the truth that while the war looks lopsided now […]
This is the 1st time Newsweek seems to give some credit to Palestine, that they are the much weaker —
[…] offer Hamas the chance and more Israeli children will die.
Ne’er mind. This article is literally Newsweek being the drunk uncle. Dude, I’m trying to be thankful, ¿& you can’t go a single article without opening your trap with your lazy, uneducated takes on an 80-year war that long predates Hamas? Yeah, & I’m sure given the chance — which Israel has, since they are the mo’ powerful side — Israel would accept & raise in comfort & health all Palestinian children as their own & totally aren’t shoving them out as filthy otherbloods whose cursed blood will make them grow up to be terrorists, regardless o’ who’s raising them.
Will the United States need to face off directly with the cult of death that runs Iran?
No, ’cause Iran isn’t being run by a “cult of death”, but cynical Islamic fundamentalists who pretend to care ’bout religion to keep their uneducated populace obedient, just as how the US is run by the “death cult” Christianity — a religion that looks forward to Jesus coming back & destroying the world in a glorious apocalypse — as a way to get its uneducated populace obedient. Funny how this writer says this, when it’s well known that many US supporters for Israel do so ’cause they view it as playing a part in the Christian apocalypse, as stated in that great religious work, the airport novel Left Behind. It amazes me that a newspaper I assumed was as prestigious as Newsweek would let someone as uneducated as a Jack Chick hero write for them.
And if the Middle East doesn’t get us, perhaps China will.
Ah, yeah, ¡bringing back the classics with that sweet yellow peril! Hey, ¿why stop there? ¿Why not warn us ’bout those sneaky Bolshevik Jews undermining the Aryan race while you’re @ it?
¡That’s the heinous thing China did that you’re complaining ’bout? ¿Having too many nukes they will ne’er, e’er use! ¡Not their treatment o’ Uyghurs? ( ’Course not — they’re dirty Muslim terrorists ). ¡Not their increasing hostility toward Taiwan? ¡Fucking nukes?
A bigger deterrent, as if their hundreds of nukes aren’t scary in themselves. How many bombs does it take to be scary? One is enough. One bomb will do the trick.
¡Then why the fuck are you complaining ’bout China having too many, you fucking moron?
This idiot writes with the elementary-school-level eloquence o’ Donald Trump & it infuriates me mo’ than anything else in these articles. “Let me restate the point that contradicts my earlier point ’cause I assume Newsweek readers are all illiterate imbeciles who just blackhole entire sentences, distracted by their efforts to keep themselves from drowning in their own saliva”.
Thousands more merely ensure the radioactive grease spot that was humanity will be… well, a radioactive grease spot.
We know this thanks to the effects o’ the only e’er use o’ nukes gainst people done by… ( checks notes ) the US. Tell me, ¿how many nukes does the US currently have? ¿Does that not give you concern? ¿Or is it just when dirty foreign hands touch them that they’re dangerous?
And Russia, of course, is fighting a war against Ukraine—a war for which the United States and European Union are paying half. A war for democracy where very little democracy may actually be involved.
O, ¿Newsweek is gainst the war in Ukraine? They just straight up are 100% Republican now, aren’t they.
At home, people are scared to death about their way of life, which is being attacked from so many angles that it’s hard to keep track.
¿What way o’ life & how are they being attacked? Please give me these details, person who has established himself so far as very reasonable & not unhinged @ all.
For decades, people have felt worse off than their parents. And in some ways they are, despite enjoying luxuries and technologies the Greatest Generation could only dream about. There is the feeling of being left behind as the top of the pyramid reaches into the clouds while the people inhabiting it no longer have any idea what lies below them. Those better off have always been with us, but rarely have they been so far from the muck of everyday life. Flying in economy to and from your family this Thanksgiving gives you a sense, certainly, of the divide between that haves and have nots.
Stability at work is virtually unheard of. Keeping a job from one year to the next is the stuff of legends for many. And the flip side of that is that customer service—such a staple of the service economy that we long ago became—has gone to hell. Nobody wants to work crappy service jobs and that makes the service ever more crappy.
It’s pretty funny that the closest to a liberal sentiment Newsweek has had in all these articles has been a Marxist sentiment. That’s OK, ’cause they’re advocating for national socialism, not the filthy Bolshevik kind.
(But by no means consider allowing in immigrants who will do these jobs for the price of air. Keep them out at all costs!)
This writer a’least found 1 thing to like ’bout foreigners: making them their wage slaves.
We’ve reached that point in the column where you’re probably expecting sarcasm and an admonition to enjoy your holiday—if you dare!
I mean, that’s what you’ve been doing for this whole article. It says something that a curmudgeonly asshole like me who constantly complains ’bout “hallmark card” shit is now wishing you’d done that ’stead o’ whate’er this is.
Former President Donald Trump and the end of democracy loom on the horizon (He’s saying it himself, folks, believe it!), but there’s still plenty of time to act and room for hope. People may yet see that when someone tells you Freedom Is Slavery, you might want to look for another option at the ballot box. We must vote it to make it so, and 2024 hasn’t even arrived, yet. President Biden may triumph—or not be on the ticket, allowing someone not older than my grandfather when he died to serve in the highest office in the land.
¿Did this article jumble together the various sloppy hot takes o’ fascists, socialists, & milquetoast liberals or is this writer schizophrenic? My bet: he’s just very ignorant & has no idea how these ideas connect or contradict each other.
And, as much as we all fear economic uncertainty, it’s hard to beat an unemployment rate that stands below 4 percent and has for quite a while.
That’s actually pretty shitty, considering we were @ full employment not that long ago. O, wait, I forgot, low employment is good, ’cause it keeps those dirty poors from getting too much money & keeping it where it belongs, in rich people’s stock market.
It’s encouraging to see that at least some of the country’s infrastructure issues are being addressed, that we’re making some small efforts to fight climate change, to make medicines somewhat more affordable, to stand up to our enemies around the globe.
You mean your enemies; Palestinians & Chinese have done nothing to me & Israelis have done nothing for me.
Sure, the forces of medieval darkness—left and right—are trying to draw us away from the light with book bans, the resurgence of antisemitism, and an ignorance of history that is simply astounding.
¿Where are the left-wing examples? I’ve only seen right-wing examples so far…
Jason Fields is a deputy opinion editor at Newsweek and the author of the murder mystery Death in Twilight.
I love how all the other articles are written by people who are part o’ organizations that a’least seem respectable ( e’en if in reality they are hack partisan think tanks ), but this writer is just a hack airport novel writer — an airport novel that cynically exploits that most cliché & common repository for cheap, easy catharsis, the Holocaust, like a Swiss bank taking in Nazi gold.
Unfortunately, this article came out too early to be thankful for the biggest thing we should be thankful for this year: ¡Henry Kissinger is finally dead!
O’ all the brain-damaging stupidity I’ve read in this article, this is the worst o’ them. Like I said, this writer literally just filled this article with empty Uncle Bob rants @ Thanksgiving. Well, I’m thankful I didn’t have to spend Thanksgiving with this writer, as he sounds insufferable.
We’re not going to read it, — well, you fuckers don’t have to read any o’ it; I still had to — ’cause it’s all empty drivel ’bout how we need to be mo’ civil & dicksuck George Washington some mo’ in a way that’s virtually identical to what pundits were doing in the 90s. The 1 thing I will note is this:
Hans Zeiger is president of the Jack Miller Center, a nationwide, nonpartisan civic venture to build talent networks of educators who share a commitment to the stories, documents and values we hold in common as Americans.
This writer is hypocritically criticizing a lack o’ thinking on the part o’ citizenry ’cause they can’t pass some empty multiple-choice questions that in no way challenge critical thinking skills, but this writer is “nonpartisan”, e’en tho the kind o’ person who can’t tell the moral or qualitative difference ’tween the 2 parties, — like that only 1 o’ them e’en supports democracy anymo’ — must be extremely uninformed. It takes literally no thinking to just say “both sides” for all issues, regardless o’ the actual issues. It’s also ironic, given how 1-sided most o’ the articles in this paper have been — which also doesn’t take much thought if one fails to e’en try arguing their case beyond appealing to mystical phenomena like “the collective Jewish soul”, as all these writers have. Also, if this writer knew so much, he’d know the US was ne’er founded as a democracy, but as a deliberately vague “republic” as a compromise ’tween populists & aristocrats, & that many o’ the founding fathers hated democracy, but this basic fact easily obtained simply by reading their own writing in works like The FederalistPapers, as I had to do in high school, is embarrassingly elusive ’mong “intellectuals” who write for these papers. Complaining ’bout how kids these days don’t know nothing ’cause they don’t know what year the constitution was ratified while being blissfully ignorant o’ the actual philosophical underpinning o’ said constitution is the kind o’ classic boomer energy I expect from dinosaurs like Newsweek.
Tier: F
We’ve finally come to e’eryone’s favorite part: the final tier list.
As you can see, compared to the last Newsweek article, this is a particularly terrible showing. It says something when the articles praising stuffing & cranberry sauce are ’mong the least idiotic.
So, o’ the 14 articles I read in this newspaper that AllSides calls “centrist”, 2 o’ them aren’t right-wing ( the 1st 2 ’bout best Thanksgiving food ) & 1 was a schizophrenic mix o’ e’ery political belief, so long as it’s stupid; & o’ those 11 right-wing articles, only 1 o’ which wasn’t racist & far-right, the milquetoast laissy-libertarian 1 ’bout school choice. 2 articles were unfiltered propaganda straight from far-right governments themselves. Note, I’m not e’en including the op-ed they let Texas Senator, Trump footrest, & pretend human Ted Cruz write for them the riveting & enlightening, “Marxists Have Always Aimed To Infiltrate Education” ( ¿who doesn’t want to infiltrate education? I don’t see Christian fascists going all, “Nah, we’re good”, but Cruz is as absent on that subject as during a Texan winter storm ), ’cause I’m not reading that shit. ¿So I guess Newsweek is just a far-right periodical now? The Southern Poverty Law Center seems to think so, going into detail ’bout our friend Josh Hammer’s lovely connections with white supremacists & fascists & his own use o’ violent civil-war-type rhetoric.
While we’re talking ’bout AllSides, I should note that, despite bragging ’bout how transparent they are ’bout their owners, shocking o’ shocks, their own biases are sus. They were founded by a right-wingers & a “centrist”, while adding on a token leftist. Their definitions o’ right-wing & left-wing are dumb: they list “freedom of speech” & “decreasing taxes” as right-wing principles, despite the right-wing’s notorious history o’ censorship, up to their LGBTQ+ book bans today ( in contrast, most examples o’ left-wing “cancel culture” doesn’t involve government @ all & are just individuals engaging in their right to not consume bigoted garbage ) & right-wingers only support lower taxes for rich people.
In fact, it’s clear that they base these just on the reputation o’ the papers rather than the actual contents o’ the article. Take the article, “House Intel panel chair Mike Turner says Biden ‘absolutely’ deserves credit for Hamas hostage deal”. Now, it’s debatable whether or not this is right-wing or left-wing depending on whether or not you consider the US getting involved & pressuring Hamas to do what Israel wants them to do to be right-wing or whether its praise o’ Biden @ all makes it left-wing. This is why these kind o’ 1-dimensional “maps” are so inane. I would argue that anything that doesn’t call for Israel & Palestine to become secular, racially-equal, democratic socialist societies with no mention o’ Judaism or Islam in the constitution or any government apparatus to be the left-wing side, while both the Israeli government & Hamas are far-right theocracies. Like much US media, the actual left side doesn’t exist, but is shoved to the fringes. But considering regurgitating Israeli propaganda is “centrist”, we’d expect praise for Biden to be considered “left-wing” — we’d assume they define “left-wing” as “pro Democratic Party”, keeping in mind that the Democratic Party is also mostly pro-Israel, with only a few stragglers. But no: they list this article as right-wing. ¿Why? Presumably ’cause it’s The Washington Times, which is popularly considered a right-wing paper. Meanwhile, Vox calmly explaining the recent Israel-Hamas hostage deal is considered far-left. ¿Why? Presumably ’cause Vox wrote it, & people consider Vox super left-wing — & by “people”, I mean ol’ boomers who think anything left o’ calling black people the N word is Marxism.
So if you want a website that will tell you e’erything from Fox News is right wing, e’erything from CNN is left-wing, & e’erything from Newsweek is centrist, then here you go. If you want actually useful information, I would recommend you look somewhere that isn’t run by absolute morons.
#NAFO has its critics, even among opponents of Russia’s war against Ukraine, who accuse the fellas of sometimes going too far in trolling Russia, pointing to recent posts mocking a young Russian tourist who was killed by a shark in Egypt.
But #NAFO has no editors or censors. It’s young and brash, self-aware, and epitomizes the way young people communicate today. The Russian government and its propagandists often have a tin ear when it comes to humor, which the “NAFOFellas” are only too happy to exploit.
While I can appreciate the value in crowding out inane imperialist propaganda with similar inanity, — tho e’en if it arguably contributes to further deterioration o’ good-faith argument, I’m too realistic to believe that good-faith argument is possible in the zoos o’ social media — these 2 paragraphs stood out to me. This article admits that NAFO is engaging in racist attacks gainst an innocent civilian, then just immediately wipes that concern ’way with a, “But that’s just the hip young people not giving into your censorship, bro. Only propagandists have a problem with racist hatred”, ironically feeding into 4chan sentiment that racism is rebellious. I wonder if CNN would take this sentiment when commenting on young people posting memes ’bout Israel. ¿Is it only the Israeli government who has a “tin ear” when it comes to certain kinds o” “humor” that certain propaganda groups are happy to exploit”? That’s the danger o’ borrowing tactics from the far-right: while it can in many ways be mo’ effective than what the left is doing, in some ways it’s intrinsically tied to right-wing ideas like racism.
@ the very least, perhaps a stuffy, pseudointellectual institution most definitely not aimed @ young people like CNN shouldn’t be praising this kind o’ irrationality, specially when bugging me to sign up for a subscription. A’least the college dropouts @ NAFO aren’t pretending their memes are worth money ( well, maybe ).
But, then ’gain, I can’t pretend to be surprised that an institution as mentally mediocre as CNN would trade these long-term issues o’ feeding racism & global division ( which, now that I think ’bout it, CNN probably likes the global division part ) for the quick hit o’ getting their readers on the right side o’ things. Lord knows, it’s hard to get the kind o’ people who still read newspapers to not support Russia — & it’s totally a reasonable goal to obsessively try to get e’ery single person on the planet to agree with your sentiment when there are people who still insist that the world is flat, climate change is fake, & the world was created 6,000 years ago by sky god who is his own son — so it’s important that we encourage young people to be 4channers so we can get that extra 1% o’ people putting Ukraine flags on their social media & doing shit-all-else. The good news is, since no young people read CNN, CNN won’t have any real effect: CNN’s mummified readers will snort ’bout those wacky young people & their beepboops & forget all ’bout.
I also love how so many psuedointellectuals are trying to pump up this random group o’ people screwing round with poorly-paid Russians who probably couldn’t give a rats ass what inane drivel their bosses force them to spew out — if it’s not AI — as if it’s some deep sociological phenomenon.
NAFO was described as a “Western civil society response to Russian campaigns” by Tobias Fella, a political scientist training Bundeswehr soldiers in dealing with social media. It is part of a larger “battle for sovereignty of interpretation” on shared online spaces. According to Politico, “To delve into NAFO is to get a crash course in how online communities from the Islamic State to the far-right boogaloo movement to this rag-tag band of online warriors have weaponized internet culture.”
American media studies professor Jaime Cohen argues that the NAFO movement “is an actual tactical event against a nation state”. British-Lebanese journalist Oz Katerji asserts that NAFO “has hampered Russia’s propagandists and made them look absurd and ridiculous in the process”. Ukraine’s Ambassador to Australia and New Zealand Vasyl Myroshnychenko noted that the grassroots, decentralized nature of NAFO is an important part of its strength.
According to one analysis, “The largely English-language memes have kept Western attention on Ukraine’s war—attention that is vital given the importance of Western arms to Ukrainian forces.” American Lt. Col. Steve Speece of the Modern War Institute at West Point argues “Meme content shared in NAFO channels … is almost exclusively English language and presumably not intended for Russian audiences … These fora exist to generate content for the entertainment and status of their own members. Yet even Western national security policy is sometimes explicitly driven by the emotions—like outrage—cultivated in online communities.” Speece argues that online agitators like NAFO take the role of bad cop in a good cop/bad cop dynamic with policy makers.
According to the Berliner Kurier, “Like real NATO, NAFO has an Article 5 duty of assistance. This means that each fella can call on the others for help if they are under attack or encounter serious disinformation. For this, the NAFO members use the hashtag #NAFOarticle5 and then receive support from other fellas.” An analyst at the German Council on Foreign Relations assessed it as being “very effective”.
Yes, I’m sure a bunch o’ randos shitposting to Russian bots is what will save Ukraine, not the fact that Russia’s faltering economy & tin-can military. That’s the dream for pseudointellectuals who pretend that e’ery time they like something on Twitter X they’re fighting the system. I think my own blog is already proof that this tactic doesn’t work: if it did, all my shitposting ’bout capitalism & its cousin wearing a moustache named dapitalism & Zombie Marx from the past decade would’ve brought us sexy communism already, & I sure as shit don’t see any sexy communism in my midst. Nope, it’s all ugly-ass brutalist architecture on 1 side o’ the curtain & pretend copyrights for ugly monkey pictures on the other. O yeah, & CNN.
Normally I don’t like to dive deep into the ugliness o’ politics during the best month o’ the year, October, a time best spent on autumn weather & horror, but recently there’s been an interesting development in arguably 1 o’ the most spine-tingling o’ topics — the current state o’ the economy. ( ¡Boo! ¡Whack Family-Circus-ass joke! ).
CNN, desperate to get their 15 seconds o’ fame for clicks & hits in the same way Jessica Simpson did decades ago or the modern celebrity moron, the average Republican, does today — saying something incredibly stupid & getting e’eryone to make fun o’ them — cooked up something fun for us tonight:
“You” is the word that deserves scrutiny. A common misconception that economists & people who pretend to know anything ’bout the economy ( ¡like me! ) imply is that there is some magical economy that gives e’eryone what they want. For instance, I would question the idea that someone who would otherwise be unemployed not being unemployed endured any cost by having the means to keep themselves from starvation. But people who have plenty o’ money in the stock market are costing a lot by having that stock ticker be orange.
An eternally accurate commentary on US economic philosophy.
Here’s why: Inflation is still biting. Prices continue to rise faster than anyone would like. Although annual price increases aren’t in wild-runaway mode like they were when inflation was above 9% last year, inflation is still above 3%, which is unhealthy for the economy, according to the Federal Reserve and a number of economists. (The Fed believes 2% inflation is ideal over the long haul.)
What I want to emphasize most with this paragraph is that it feels like ’twas written by an elementary school student, with its short, choppy sentences that assert simplistic claims that don’t fit the true complexity o’ modern economics. Saying that “prices continue to rise faster than anyone would like” is as meaningful as saying “there are mo’ deaths in the world than anyone would like”: any inflation greater than 0 is going to rise faster than anyone would like — that doesn’t mean it warrants comment.
The funny thing is that e’en someone who knows nothing but economics but takes CNN @ their word, but can compare #s, can see the mismatch o’ CNN’s tone & what the #s tell: inflation went from a whopping 9% down to “above 3%” ( I had to go to a better news source, NBC News, to find the actual # 3.7% ), which is the best way to try to imply a # >= to 4% without outright lying, which is a whopping 1.7% greater than what the Federal Reserve — here called by their rap name, “The Fed”, ’cause CNN is too down with the sickness to use their stuffy full name that might go o’er the heads o’ the teenagers they’re desperately trying & failing to get to read them — considers “ideal”. I don’t know ’bout you, but inflation going down from such a historical high — 7% greater than “ideal” — to just ’bout a % point or 2 ’bove the “ideal” without hurting the high employment level or rising wages sounds miraculous to me. In fact, it sounds better than the usual pattern since the 70s — coincidentally, when we started taking the monetarist witchcraft “the Fed” tries & laughably fails with time & ’gain — o’ stagnating wages that can’t keep up with e’en the small “ideal” inflation.
Economists had expected the data to show a 3.6% overall increase in inflation compared to a year ago. Annual inflation has now ticked up two months in a row after 12 consecutive months of decline.
These 2 data points — 1 o’ which is just empty tarot-card reading from economists, who tend to acknowledge that economic science is not developed ’nough ( & probably ne’er will be due to the unpredictability o’ humanity & the “observer effect” o’ economists’ predictions being loudly announced to e’eryone thru the media tampering with results ) — don’t connect, since they use completely different time units, the latter o’ which is vague. ¿Who cares if annual inflation has “ticked up” some vague amount 2 times in a row? ¿Is the amount “ticked up” a lot or a li’l? ¿& how would it be better if ’twere 2 months broken off by other months. Anyone who understands basic math knows that consecutive months vs. split-off months wouldn’t affect the sum — which is what the former data point references. ¿Does the 2nd data point add up to the expected o’erall 3.6% increase? We don’t know, ’cause CNN for some reason is trying to give us a fun Halloween mystery by not giving us specific #s. Luckily, as mentioned earlier, a better news source was less interested in Encyclopedia Brown puzzles & just said 3.7%, which, to be fair to economists, is remarkably close to expectations. We should give them all that stuffed carnival panda as a sweet reward.
When you see gas prices at $3.75 on average (and above $4 in plenty of places across the country)…
Hold on — gas prices are that low. $5 gas prices were normal a decade ago. I’ve ne’er in my life seen gas lower than $3.75, certainly not any time in the 21st century. I would expect it to be $8 a gallon by this point — specially since what with gas production literally destroying the planet, I would expect there to be, you know, tax penalties to keep people from buying this shit & helping to destroy the planet.
…and a restart to student loan payments for millions of Americans, that’s why a majority of Americans say President Joe Biden’s policies have made economic conditions worse.
Ah, yes, Joe Biden’s policy o’ forcing students to repay their loans, I remember that. I also remember just 2 days ago CNN themselves mentioning, let’s see, “Biden cancels another $9 billion in student loan debt days after payments restart”. Clearly that’s just a devious plot by Dark Brando the Grando Wizando to lure students into a false sense o’ security before he strikes with surprise loans later. This is what the test broadcast last Wednesday was — those o’ us who believe we had our student loans paid off have now been infected with “swine student loans”, which will be sucked out o’ us thru microchips soldered by Bill Gates himself & into Biden’s secret Marxist pedophile fund for erecting statues o’ Karlos Marukasu e’erywhere — for e’eryone knows that Marx is so sexy that any child who sees a statue o’ him will themselves become erect — ¡e’en those without penises, that red devil is so magical!
That’s CNN’s opinion: very sloppily argued by throwing out a bunch o’ data that doesn’t actually serve their intended conclusion, & some o’ it just straight lies, & saying “that’s why” — the best way to make an argument, I always learned in the ol’ debate class. My opinion, which I would say is backed by centuries o’ gleaned wisdom from experts, is that the reason the average American thinks these things is that they’re uninformed, uneducated morons who jump to “bad economy president’s fault” ’cause that’s the kind o’ best guess you can make when you’re utterly bereft o’ any mental tools for economic analysis. Certainly the legislature ( “¿the ‘ley-jeez-what’?” ) & their barely managing to agree to hold off yet ’nother hilarious government shutdown in the richest country in the world for ’bout a month or so as the final magnum opus o’ politician nobody likes Kevin McCarthy just before he got his face eaten by his fellow leopards & shitposting Democrats had nothing to do with the US’s economy… somehow not being in as bad shape as Europe ( the US is a perfect specimen o’ “failing upward” ). Nonetheless, Americans, ne’er ones to settle for less, have higher expectations & are still debating ’mongst themselves whether or not they might give ’nother chance to the candidate who attempted a dictatorial insurrection, has plans for his next term including indictments gainst all his political enemies & setting up a “gulag” for legal immigrants, & who, those with memory ( not Americans ) remember was the one who exacerbated this whole inflation problem in the 1st place by delaying COVID treatment o’ the nation with his hilarious shitposting on Twitter X.
As prices continue to grow, paychecks are barely keeping pace. They grew 4.2% over the past year, the slowest pace of growth since the early days of the pandemic in 2020.
Also, I can’t imagine “the Fed” are too disappointed by these #s, as the Federal Reserve’s policy for trying to bring down inflation was trying to bring down wages by, get this, inducing unemployment. ( The fact that e’ery “workable” form o’ capitalism that has e’er existed in the real world involves the government using their vast controls o’ the economy to induce or reduce unemployment is why anyone with e’en the most basic understanding o’ economics finds the ol’ “pull yourself by your bootstraps” idea o’ capitalism to be a laughable fairy tale on the same level as “pray to Jesus for economic success” ).
So a robust job market won’t make most people feel like the economy is strong.
Well, yeah: ¿who wants to go back to work after year long forced vacations due to COVID? I wanna stay home & play Animal Crossing all day.
The Fed is working to slow the economy by hiking interest rates — the only tool it has to fight inflation.
Ah, so you are aware o’ this fact, & thus the previous complaint ’bout wages not being high ’nough completely contradicts this point.
It’s too bad there are no other parts o’ the government, like the legislature, who could pass, like, fiscal policy to help lower-class Americans make up for the greater burden o’ high inflation while waiting for inflation to keep decreasing as manufacturing continues to spin back to life. Nah, they would rather focus their efforts on conspiracy theories ’bout the son o’ the president & his possessed laptop o’ the occult, like any serious government should.
A still-robust job market — see the 336,000 jobs added last month — means the central bank could continue to increase rates without fear of sending the economy into a recession.
“The economy is roaring with the demand for workers literally through the roof,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at FwdBonds, in a note to clients on Friday. “Interest rates are likely to remain higher for longer to ensure the inflation fire is out.”
Educate me, ’gain, on what the “cost” is o’ the Federal Reserve having mo’ room to fight inflation without the fear o’ inducing a recession. I guess if you want recession or are ’fraid o’ inflation going too far down that’s a problem. Or maybe not having a ’scuse for keeping unemployment up is the real problem.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon repeated in recent weeks his fear that rates could go to 7%. Government bond yields are rising to multi-year highs in expectation of rates going up — and loans pinned to those yields, including mortgages and credit card rates — are set to go up, too.
Ah, average American, CEO o’ giant-ass monopolistic bank, will educate me. It sounds to me like this is a big ol’ problem for creditors, — also known as parasitical leeches — not for people who actually work for their money. I guess when CNN said it’ll cost “me”, they meant it’ll cost my bank CEO.
Credit card rates are well north of 20% on average, a two-decade high. People who carry a balance month to month are paying a hefty premium in interest, which means it will take even longer to pay off what they owe.
O, ne’er mind: e’en the leeches are still doing fine. The only people who seem to be doing worse are people who have debts, — people who have been being screwed for eternity, already — & not e’en by all that much, since according to Nerd Wallet, the average rate was 16.44% in 2021. ’Course, CNN doesn’t offer this # as a comparison themselves, since actually informing people is much less valuable than throwing round #s bereft o’ context & using super scary language is much better for rage clicks.
Meanwhile, US mortgage rates climbed to 7.49% this week, up from 6.66% a year ago and the highest level in more than two decades. That has kept the housing market in neutral [ emphasis mine ], keeping the key to middle-class wealth growth out of reach for so many would-be homebuyers.
Man, you’re really convincing me of our dire situation with this neutral housing market. ¿When will someone finally impeach Biden already?
We should never cheer a bad job market. But a job market that has remained this healthy for this long really isn’t excellent news for average Americans struggling to pay their bills. Meanwhile, we remain in a “good news is bad news” conundrum that makes most people feel like the US economy is in a bad spot.
The best part o’ this self-contradicting incoherent jumble o’ a paragraph trying pathetically to work as propaganda is how self-inflicting it is: @ a time when young people are becoming mo’ & mo’ jaded with capitalism & mo’ supportive toward socialism, I can’t imagine that telling people “an economy good for working class people is actually bad” & calling for mo’ unemployment after Millennials withstood a whole decade o’ being shamed for their high unemployment works as a good advertisement for capitalism, nor can I imagine the average worker having a positive opinion o’ self-proclaimed economic experts whose only solution is to throw 2% o’ potential employees into destitution. & people wonder why homelessness is such a problem when it is considered good economic policy to try & force people to be jobless. Bums who beg for money on the streets told to “get a job” should quip back, “¡but then I’d be causing you inflation & costing you e’en mo’!”.After all, it’ll be much harder for you to buy food if you keep having that job that allows you to have money to buy food @ all. It’s almost as if capitalism is an unreasonable “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” economic system where people who aren’t politically powerful have no chance to succeed no matter what they do & offers absolutely no solution to homelessness or poverty & finding some alternative to capitalism is the only solution. That’s the message CNN delivers, anyway. I doubt they intended to — but then, given how incoherent & inane this article was, I don’t think anyone @ CNN are smart ’nough to understand what they’re trying to say.
As a fun bonus, the New York Times tried the same thing, titling 1 o’ their articles “U.S. Job Growth Surges Past Expectations in Troubling News for the Fed”, which sounds like the title o’ a Superman comic. Like what happens a lot in the modern world o’ social media where ol’, out-o’-touch, moderate conservative New York Times editors have their anti-lower-class biases pointed out & ridiculed by the vicious liberal masses, — who nonetheless, are their target audience, & must be fed accordingly, as papa market demands o’ them — they changed the title like Stalin erased Trotsky out o’ those photos. This is the real liberal fascism that, um… that 1 generic conservative whose name I don’t want to look up wrote ’bout.
Anyway, you came here for the bitch fit, so here it is:
Their protest letter included direct attacks on several of our colleagues, singling them out by name.
This “attacking” — as hypocrites who try to weaponize the empty meme o’ “cancel culture” as a sad, impotent Orwellian political tool to silence dissent call “criticism” — was aimed @ articles whose authors were “outed” by The New York Times themselves on the articles themselves, so it’s The New York Times who were the real doxxers here.
This attempt to twist this letter, which barely focuses on the writers beyond a couple name drops as details & focuses entirely on the scummy machinery that is truly responsible for these articles’ existence, is such a pathetic & transparent digression.
That policy prohibits our journalists from aligning themselves with advocacy groups and joining protest actions on matters of public policy.
You have to admit, executive editor Joe Kahn — ¿am I doxxing him in my hurting his fragile feelings attacking homicidal manslaughter gainst him by revealing his well-known name — has the balls o’ a Fox News anchor to lie in such a transparent way. ¿Who is he trying to fool that no other New York Times contributor has had ties to advocacy groups or involved themselves in politics? For fuck’s sake, the open letter itself pointed out that many o’ the op-eds were by people who were part o’ antitrans advocacy groups — tho unlike these people, who proudly announce their ties to LGBT, ’cause it’s something a civilized person would do, these cowards hide their ties ’cause they know they’re terrible people for it. So what Joe Kahn means is that journalists can’t align themselves with pro-LGBT advocacy groups, but they can align themselves with hate groups. This fits perfectly with The New York Times’s “ethics policy” o’ supporting bigotry. Being gainst bigotry obviously violates that policy.
We also have a clear policy prohibiting Times journalists from attacking one another’s journalism publicly or signaling their support for such attacks.
¿Does Kahn have so li’l respect for his own paper that e’en he doesn’t think it deserves to be italicized, or did the typewriter he wrote this on not have a way to italicize text?
The New York Times, by its very nature, must attack others sometimes, so this “ethics policy” is just “don’t bite the hand that feeds”, which is laughable as an “ethics policy”, but arguably just as laughable as a threat, since that shriveled hand is barely feeding shit with what a slum newspapers are now.
Our coverage of transgender issues, including the specific pieces singled out for attack, is important, deeply reported, and sensitively written.
This is so hilariously sad. It amazes me that people try to portray these papers as serious or intelligent with shit like this. Yes, keep telling yourself in the mirror you’re important, New York Times: a’least there’s 1 person who believes it. What’s e’en better is the middle-school level diction here. ¿“Deeply reported”? ¿What does that e’en mean? That’s what a teenager says when they want to seem like they’re saying something important, but have nothing to say.
The journalists who produced those stories nonetheless have endured months of attacks, harassment and threats.
Which, if this did happen, — Kahn doesn’t provide any evidence, which is par for the course for The New York Times —would’ve happened regardless o’ the letter, since your paper was what revealed their names. It’s cute that Kahn thinks that these contributors imagined up this idea that these stories were transphobic, when many other news outlets were already shitting on you.
Like all “cancel culture” hypocrites, it’s 100% “rules for thee, not for me”: I can shit talk anyone else I want, but anyone who criticizes me e’en the slightest is a vicious villain. Like they say: can’t take the heat, get the fuck out o’ the kitchen. The fucking nerve o’ this spineless worm to peddle hateful propaganda & then act indignant when it’s thrown back @ him in the most polite, tepid way possible. What a coddled, spoiled brat. But it’s no surprise: this is the attitude one gets when one is spoiled rich, ne’er having to actually deal with real world problems, living in a coddled bubble o’ yes-men.
The letter also ignores The Times’ strong commitment to covering all aspects of transgender issues, including the life experience of transgender people and the prejudice and violence against them in our society.
Which is, ne’ertheless, not worth as urgent a memo or any leash-pulling on the disobedient worker slaves as polite talkback gainst The New York Times — ¡the real victimized minority!
A full list of our coverage can be viewed here, and any review shows that the allegations this group is making are demonstrably false.
There is no list here, so that is accurate, as The New York Times’s sloppy agitprop doesn’t deserve to be called “coverage”. Considering all the other newspapers — who are in no interest to support the proles, lest their own drones revolt — are pointing & laughing @ your transparent transphobia & you’re the only 1 so fervently defending your own paper, no, I don’t think any review backs you up, bud.
We have welcomed and will continue to invite discussion, criticism and robust debate about our coverage.
’Cept this criticism, ’course.
Even when we don’t agree, constructive criticism from colleagues who care, delivered respectfully and through the right channels, strengthens our report.
“Your criticism is only valid if done privately, so I can squash it & punish you ’way from public view”.
We do not welcome, and will not tolerate, participation by Times journalists in protests organized by advocacy groups or attacks on colleagues on social media and other public forums.
Well, then you’d better go rush in some barely-educated college students, ’cause 180 o’ your employees just fucking did.
We live in an era when journalists regularly come under fire for doing solid and essential work.
“Like these journalists daring to take us to task, & being threatened for not obediently following our corporate line”.
We are committed to protecting and supporting them.
Small print: so long as they only say what The New York Times tells them to say.
Their work distinguishes this institution, and makes us proud.
Yes, it distinguishes you as a bigoted, draconian institute proud o’ your own farts.
What a cesspool o’ a company. In an online era where anyone can bullshit up their own “paper” online or on social media & probably get mo’ views, — certainly anyone who has the clout to work with an o’errated paper like The New York Times — ¿why would anyone subject themselves to being slave drones for these pigs? I hope most o’ these contributors start their own papers & tell The New York Times to stuff it up their ass.
The article starts with a bunch o’ vague platitudes ’bout trans deserving safety, too, which seems nice, ’less you have mo’ braincells than The New York Times’s editors & follow the links to find the extra caveats @ the end that say, “but trans people still get an L”. This op-ed claims that these carefully cultivated quote mines they made up just now are ignored by “a noisy fringe of the internet and a number of powerful transgender rights activists and L.G.B.T.Q. lobbying groups” — truly the spookiest spectres haunting the globe — who actually read the original full quotes & had the audacity to call Rowling a, ¡gasp!, “transphobe”. That’s obviously hate speech & these people should be cast from polite company for their insidious attempts to cancel famous children’s book writer. Hilariously, in the very next paragraph, the writer acknowledges that this “noisy fringe” includes The Leaky Cauldron, “one of the biggest ‘Harry Potter’ fan sites”. That’s an awfully popular “fringe”.
The next paragraph has the predictable topics o’ “cancel culture”, harassment & doxxing, the latter 2 o’ which are, indeed, terrible when they happen to anyone. This article doesn’t have any complaints ’bout it happening to anyone else, tho, — including those “powerful” transgender rights activists & LGBTQ “lobbying groups” ( the 1 type o’ lobbying group The New York Times doesn’t jerk off to ), as well as average trans people who just exist, most o’ whom have far less money to protect themselves than Rowling, nor do they have the arbitrary loyalty that so many o’ these arrested-developed journos still obsessed with children’s books have for this rando celebrity to spew all this propaganda on the public. Moreo’er, it has no relevance to the topic o’ transphobia: if a white supremacist gets harassed, — & some almost certainly have been — ¿does that validate white supremacy? ¿Could Rowling not scrounge together a mo’ educated brown-noser that a’least knows what “ad hominem” attack logical fallacy is & do The New York Times lack the basic high-school education to realize how infantile this article is? ( The answer to the latter is definitely “yes” ). If The New York Times wanted to write an article on the problem o’ harassment & doxxing in general & how it corrodes public debate, that would be good ’nough; but melding it directly into the issue o’ trans issues is peak intellectual dishonesty.
But after that we get the real meat o’ this article: grifting this guest writer’s podcast series, “The Witch Trials of J. K. Rowling”, which is just Rowling whining ’bout how she’s the only person who’s been threatened in the universe. Yes, it’s a refreshing take to look @ the bigot’s perspective on things & completely ignore the most threatened minorities — that’s what we call looking @ both sides, ’cept we only look @ 1 side, since trans people aren’t famous & rich ’nough. Sorry, ¿did I say this was refreshing? I meant refreshing like water that’s been left in the sun all summer long. It would actually be refreshing if The New York Times let the dirty underclasses get a single word in edgewise.
This op-ed writer goes to the deranged comparison o’ Rowling to Salman Rushdie, who was stabbed by an Islamic zealot after an Iranian head o’ state declared a fatwa on Rushdie decades ago. Last time I checked, no trans head o’ state e’er declared an official fatwa on Rowling — in fact, last time I checked, there have ne’er been trans heads o’ state @ all, that’s how big & powerful they are. Still, this is “a forceful reminder of what can happen when writers” are “demonized” — that is, ’gain, criticized. The conclusion is obvious: no one is allowed to criticize writers e’er. If you e’er criticize a writer for their opinion, you’re basically leading them to be stabbed to death. Meanwhile, this op-ed writer, who is clearly demonizing LGBT activists by depicting them as violent maniacs, isn’t endangering them. See, it’s only dangerous when the uppity lowerclasses open their mouths gainst their celebrity royalty; when these cissies slander vulnerable groups in the most cowardly & idiotic ways possible, that’s just “having an opinion”. Only famous celebrities have the right to have opinions; average social-media users should keep their mouths shut & be “civil” ( read: obedient to the upperclass ).
And in Rowling’s case, the characterization of her as a transphobe doesn’t square with her actual views.
If we translate “her actual views” as “my whitewashed version o’ her views manipulated to make her look better than she is”. I find it funny that this op-ed complains o’ censorship when she herself censored Rowling’s real words to cut out the inconvenient stuff, like “[H]uge numbers of women are justifiably terrified by the trans activists” & describes caring ’bout trans rights as “scoop up the woke cookies and bask in a virtue-signalling afterglow” — literally parroting the same rhetoric rightwingers use gainst all women’s rights issues. Granted, it’s easy to see how someone as dense as the average New York Times writer could fail to comprehend the passive-aggression ’hind Rowling’s empty, vague platitudes & skewed perspective, deliberately downplaying the threats toward trans people & deliberately exaggerating the threats toward the most important class, her.
So why would anyone accuse her of transphobia?
Clearly it’s ’cause those people read her full words on trans people & not your carefully-crafted quote mines.
The answer is straightforward: Because she has asserted the right to spaces for biological women only, such as domestic abuse shelters and sex-segregated prisons. Because she has insisted that when it comes to determining a person’s legal gender status, self-declared gender identity is insufficient. Because she has expressed skepticism about phrases like “people who menstruate” in reference to biological women. Because she has defended herself and, far more important, supported others, including detransitioners and feminist scholars, who have come under attack from trans activists. And because she followed on Twitter and praised some of the work of Magdalen Berns, a lesbian feminist who had made incendiary comments about transgender people.
This paragraph is fascinating, since, unlike the rest o’ the article, which has tried to clean up Rowling’s transphobia, here it’s just laid right out — ’long with just plain ol’ sexism. She unironically says Rowling supports “sex-segregated prisons”, like an edgelord on Reddit bragging ’bout how they thought Jim Crow was actually a good thing, O, here comes all the controversy, I’m such an individual. I hope these prisons are “separate, but equal”, since anyone familiar with history knows how well that works. We could just keep e’ery individual isolated & keep down violence for e’eryone, but that would waste too much tax $ on the shameful enterprise o’ treating humans humanely, so let’s just indulge in superstitious traditions & assume that gay people don’t exist & ne’er commit sexual assault — prison rape certainly isn’t a common trope, since separating people by arbitrary chromosome layout genitals I don’t know any coherent way to define genders has done such a great job.
What a “biological woman” is is vague, anyway. ¿Are physically transitioned trans people included? ¿How is this measured? — with the utmost science, I’m sure, as well as genital-groping, ¿since how else would anyone know, &, mo’ importantly, how is it anyone else’s fucking business? This is why society rightfully considers people who obsess o’er “biological” gender fucking gross: it’s literally defining people by body parts that nobody else should be caring ’bout ’less we’re actually having sex. If anything, trans people seem to be mo’ enlightened, since they seem to think beyond just tits & cocks.
& then we have the sudden swerve into an imaginary strawman in the middle with the whole “‘people who menstruate’ in reference to biological women”, which contradicts the immediately preceding statement ’bout trans people being all ’bout “self-declared gender identity”, without any biological element @ all. It’s almost as if Rowling’s being deliberately strict & deliberately gatekeeping people based on criteria that’s simultaneously narrow & vague. Shocking that people might think such a person is an asshole, specially when that criteria isn’t based on any scientific knowledge, — Rowling being a writer o’ children’s fantasy, not a scientist ( & while I don’t have the time to do a thorough investigation myself, most o’ the scientists I’ve seen talk ’bout this issue have a much less hamfisted approach, shockingly ’nough ) — but on this rando’s kneejerk feelings. If The New York Times had any intellectual integrity they would spend mo’ time talking ’bout scientists’ opinions on trans issues, not yet ’nother blowhard celebrity, but we already established that they have no credibility, so here we are.
Then we have “incendiary comments about transgender people”, which doesn’t sound transphobic.
You might disagree — perhaps strongly — with Rowling’s views and actions here. You may believe that the prevalence of violence against transgender people means that airing any views contrary to those of vocal trans activists will aggravate animus toward a vulnerable population.
But nothing Rowling has said qualifies as transphobic.
These statements are contradictory & show that the writer is either so stupid that she doesn’t know what transphobia e’en is or hopes that her readers don’t. This is like people who say, “I’m not racist, but…”. You can assert till your face is blue that you’re not a transphobe, but people are still going to call you a transphobe, ’cause people decide for themselves whether or not you’re a bigot, you don’t get to decide for them. Not only does constantly saying, “I’m not a transphobe” not dispel people o’ that view, it makes the mo’ likely to believe it, since actual “not transphobes” don’t need to constantly declare that they’re not transphobes: they show, don’t tell. In fact, we don’t call people “not transphobes”: we call those people trans supporters, in the same way we use the word “feminist” ’stead o’ “not sexist”. ¿Would Rowling declare herself a trans supporter? Well, that answers the question, doesn’t it.
The “vocal trans activists” part is specially rich. These morons have been filling social media with their mental diarrhea for years, but have the audacity to call other people loudmouths. You wrote a multithousand epic ’bout 1 fucking person, ¿& you’re not 1 o’ those vulgar “vocal activists”?
She is not disputing the existence of gender dysphoria. She is not denying transgender people equal pay or housing.
But she does explicitly support “sex-segregated prisons”, which doesn’t include transgenders — ¡so I guess that means Rowling’s so progressive, she doesn’t believe trans people should e’er go to jail! ¿What bathrooms does she believe trans people should use? If the answer isn’t, “public bathrooms should be broken up into individual stalls for e’eryone ’cause sex-segregated bathrooms is a superstitious barbarism”, then there’s no answer that won’t be transphobic — or sexist, for that matter.
Take it from one of her former critics. E.J. Rosetta, a journalist who once denounced Rowling for her supposed transphobia, was commissioned last year to write an article called “20 Transphobic J.K. Rowling Quotes We’re Done With.” After 12 weeks of reporting and reading, Rosetta wrote, “I’ve not found a single truly transphobic message.” On Twitter she declared, “You’re burning the wrong witch.”
How ’bout I not take pampered randos who have no stake or credentials & ’stead ask actual scientists or trans people. While I’m @ it, ¿why don’t I ask a bunch o’ white male journalists whether or not antiaboriton laws are sexist & read the article, “20 Sexist Donald Trump Quotes We’re Done With”. After all, he tells e’eryone he’s not sexist & believes some women have troubles in their lives ( for instance, he agrees with Rowling on the dangers o’ trans people ), so he can’t be sexist, ¿right? I love the Twitter user who quipped “Serious question: do you think that there are *right* witches that should be burned?”. I should note that having done the most basic research I could bother to do, I found that this rando ran something called “TERF Anonymous”, so clearly they’re an expert on what is & isn’t transphobic, just like I always make sure to ask what the leader o’ the Klan thinks when I think something I say might be insensitive to black people. If this article has informed me o’ anything it’s that all these people being literally murdered for s’posedly being transphobes when they’ve done mo’ for trans people than anyone are laughably terrible liars.
For the record, I, too, read all of Rowling’s books, including the crime novels written under the pen name Robert Galbraith, and came up empty-handed.
Yes, that’s the quality o’ Rowling’s writing for you. I don’t know why you’d subject yourself to such torture.
Those who have parsed her work for transgressions have objected to the fact that in one of her Galbraith novels, she included a transgender character and that in another of these novels, a killer occasionally disguises himself by dressing as a woman. Needless to say, it takes a certain kind of person to see this as evidence of bigotry.
Yes, that certain kind o’ person is “not a fucking idiot”, which is a class that, unfortunately, doesn’t include this op-ed writer. ¿What does this transgender character do, by the way? Surely if ’twas a positive representation, you’d be itching to go into details. I’m guessing the fact that you don’t is an indication that you’re hiding very gross transphobic depiction & are once ’gain, what we in the business call, “lying your ass off”.
This isn’t the first time Rowling and her work have been condemned by ideologues. For years, books in the “Harry Potter” series were among the most banned in America. Many Christians denounced the books’ positive depiction of witchcraft and magic; some called Rowling a heretic. Megan Phelps-Roper, a former member of the Westboro Baptist Church and the author of “Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving Extremism,” says that she appreciated the novels as a child but, raised in a family notorious for its extremism and bigotry, she was taught to believe Rowling was going to hell over her support for gay rights.
Hey, look, ’nother irrelevant comparison. ¿& did you know that Kanye was criticized for saying Bush didn’t care ’bout black people? That means people who criticize his flagrant antisemitism are also wrong. Duh, I understand how logic works.
Phelps-Roper has taken the time to rethink her biases.
Yes, now that Rowling’s a bigot, too, she can finally enjoy Harry Potter. ¡Whew! ¡What a relief!
¿What are these “biases”? ¿Being a “Rowlingphobe”? Yes, ¡somebody please think o’ the Rowlings!
She is now the host of “The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling.” The podcast, based on nine hours of her interviews with Rowling —
Jesus fucking Christ, that sounds exhausting to listen to. ¿What obsessed neurotic wants to spend 9 whole hours interviewing some rando children’s fantasy writer? She’s not e’en a great fantasy writer. If ’twere LeGuin, maybe — she wasn’t a bigot, for 1.
— the first time Rowling has spoken at length about her advocacy —
What a load o’ horse shit. Rowling has babbled on & on her spicy hot takes on transgenderism for years.
— explores why Rowling has been subjected to such wide-ranging vitriol despite a body of work that embraces the virtues of being an outsider, the power of empathy toward one’s enemies and the primacy of loyalty toward one’s friends.
Harry Potter embraced species-based slavery as “what’s natural for them” & made fun o’ the 1 person who revolted gainst it, had essentialist morality where someone born in a “corrupt” way is naturally evil & people are sorted into the evil camp & born as a bootleg white supremacist ’cause they have an ugly name like “Draco Malfoy”, & has a chosen-1-by-birth protagonist. Harry’s an “outsider” only till his birth superpowers makes him save the day & then e’eryone loves him. Harry Potter is only progressive to the most regressive morons — which is to say, Americans & Britons.
All o’ this is to say, Rowling isn’t a liberal, she’s a reactionary, primitivist, superstitious ( for example, she’s Christian, which is not only superstitious, but inherently patriarchal ). This ’splains her weird “separate but equal” view on gender & her discomfort with “unnatural” genders. Much as she’s uncomfortable with the idea o’ a hero who doesn’t have certain blood make them the chosen 1 or their name indicate how bad they are, she’s uncomfortable with humans taking control o’er their own gender. Furthermo’, her weird obsession with segregating traditional women — a better term than “biological” women, since there’s no science ’hind her conception o’ “real” women, only ol’ superstitions largely inspired by The Bible — & men: unlike materialist leftists, who rightfully view male supremacy as not being inherent to men’s physical gross penises but to the artificial nature o’ their superior political & economic power, which is in no way integral to their biology, & believe that the solution is to eliminate political & economic equality ’mong genders so that men don’t have power o’er women, Rowling believes there are integral differences ’mong genders that makes true intermixing ’mong them impossible. ( This has the added benefit o’ this neoliberal continuing to support the political-economic system that reinforces this inequality o’ power ).
This is ultimately why I find the idea that trans women are men trying to cynically game the system ridiculous if you have an actual left-wing perspective: men have nothing to gain by becoming women. The idea that trans women want to sneak into women’s bathrooms to creep on women is ridiculous when you realize men have mo’ power to do this than trans women: society has already poisoned the well on trans women ’nough that e’en going near a “biological” women or a women’s bathroom is deserving a lynching; men already have plenty o’ scuses for going into women’s bathroom, including just barging in & not caring ’bout the consequences. The idea that trans women are trying to sneak ’way women’s “benefits” is based on the rightwing delusion that minorities get special benefits; if anything, it should be trans men who are seen as trying to game the system ( tho a liberal should praise this, as men don’t deserve their advantages, anyway ); but this is ne’er the case, for the obvious reason that despite Rowling & other transphobes’ rants ’bout society s’posedly catering to trans people & “erasing” women, the vast majority o’ e’en trans supporters, much less transphobes, still view trans women as separate from traditional women & trans men as separate from traditional men & it’s obvious that trans men will ne’er get the political-economic advantages that traditional men get, & trans women will ne’er get the political-economic advantages that rightwingers claim women have. The unquestionable fact, given all the statistics on how much mo’ likely trans people are to be violently attacked or sexually assaulted, is that trans people are a lowerclass, have-nots, not some privileged class that transphobe liars claim in the same way sexist “men’s rights activists” claim women have imaginary privileges o’er men or white supremacists claim black people have imaginary privileges o’er white people.
If anything, it seems less like Rowling is interested in gender equality, viewing it as futile, as a gender essentialist, & is ’stead jealous o’ the supremacy men have o’er women & want to create a class lower than women to abuse in the same way men abuse women. It’s no different from the bitter poor whites who cling to capitalist economics: they give up on class equality, but since nobody wants to be the lowest class, they sooth themselves by keeping black people lower than them, & thus are horrified by the idea o’ racial equality, leaving poor whites in the lowest class. Trans women being kept separate from traditional women is the only way to keep traditional women from being the lowest class for those too cynical to believe in true equality.
1 o’ the best ways I can frame this is to ask 1 simple question: ¿which side are trans people on? ¿The left or right? ¿Which side is almost entirely gainst trans people? There’s no coincidence: bigots gainst 1 class o’ have-nots tend to hate all have-nots. Rowling only finds the appearance o’ feminism cool ’cause it benefits her; e’eryone else can get fucked. She’s not a leftist, but that all-too-common artificial form, political narcissism; & we’ll not be surprised when later she’s revealed to be hanging out with rightwingers, as political narcissists tend toward the rightwing.
This is far from the only time Rowling has been ’fraid o’ genuine rebellion gainst authoritarianism: ¿remember her hatred o’ actually pro-labor Corbyn ( ’cause he would raise her taxes, unlike nice neoliberal war criminal Tony Blair )? ¿Remember her tepid withering before Israel boycott with weak ( & hypocritical, since I doubt she’d say the same ’bout South Africa under Apartheid ) platitudes?
I should add that “empathy toward one’s enemies” is self-defeating slave-morality tripe typical o’ “turn the other cheek” Christianity that mo’ oft than not enables authoritarians by dampening fighting back — as Jesus did when he tried to distract Jews from genuine revolt gainst their Roman imperialists in favor o’ fake spirituality bullshit & as “centrist” saboteurs do when they continually attempt to needle the left or moderate liberals ( ne’er the right ) into “compromise” or decorum with political opponents interested in neither — tho, also typical o’ Christianity, it’s fake & hypocritical, given Rowling’s deliberate downplaying o’ trans problems for the sake o’ feeding her own pity — & “the primacy of loyalty toward one’s friends” is literally valorizing favoritism, which is contradictory to an equal, just democratic society, which should put the primacy o’ justice o’er giving advantages to one’s buddies. Only backward savages hold these as great philosophical ideals.
The podcast, which also includes interviews with critics of Rowling, delves into why Rowling has used her platform to challenge certain claims of so-called gender ideology
Nobody but transphobes call treating trans people humanely as “gender ideology”. By definition, anyone who has an opinion on gender has some “gender ideology”. As John Maynard Keynes would have said, those who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any gender ideology are usually the slaves o’ some defunct superstitions. So it’s rich — & narcissistic — o’ Rowling to claim that her ideas aren’t “ideology” — they’re just the truth — completely unproven “truths” by a mediocre fantasy writer, not an actual scientist.
— such as the idea that transgender women should be treated as indistinguishable from biological women in virtually every legal and social context.
Rowling doesn’t believe trans people should be treated equally in law, e’en tho equal treatment under law for e’ery human being, no matter who they are, is a fundamental principle o’ liberal democracy, putting her in the similar camp as those principled people who don’t believe women should be treated as “indistinguishable from men in virtually every legal and social context” or that blacks should be treated as “indistinguishable from whites in virtually every legal and social context”, also known as “fascists”. It’s shocking that so many people with firm beliefs in liberal equality & democracy might be disgusted by someone whose political beliefs regarding trans people are fundamentally incompatible with basic liberalism.
Why, both her fans and her fiercest critics have asked, would she bother to take such a stand, knowing that attacks would ensue?
’Cause she’s a grifter who makes money off outrage clicks.
“The pushback is often, ‘You are wealthy. You can afford security. You haven’t been silenced.’ All true. But I think that misses the point. The attempt to intimidate and silence me is meant to serve as a warning to other women” with similar views who may also wish to speak out, Rowling says in the podcast.
None o’ which is helped by Rowling’s attention party, since they’re not the ones who get the 9 hour podcast, she does, & those who do get to be a part o’ Rowling’s boom box are carefully curated to be sure they’re sufficiently in agreement with Rowling on trans issues. If Rowling actually respected other women’s opinions, she would include a variety o’ opinions, including the many women who are trans supporters ( in fact, most polls show that women support trans rights mo’ than men ), not just those “with similar views”; the fact that she only shares her platform with women “with similar views” spotlights that these other women are only valuable insofar as they glorify Rowling’s views. After all, this podcast isn’t titled, “The Witch Trials of Women”, it’s “The Witch Trials of J. K. Rowling”. The s’posed harm to other women is only a problem in how it harms Rowling.
Also, you have literally been saying that Rowling was being silenced, but now admitting that she isn’t being silenced — ’nother transparent lie.
All right, I’m sorry, but I can’t read any more o’ this article. It just goes on & on & on, & it’s nothing but pitying & valorizing & Jesus fucking Christ, Rowling could be Mother Theresa & she wouldn’t deserve so much fucking ego stroking. I don’t give a fuck ’bout what some celebrity actor that you yourself admit is biased ’cause, by your own words, their “careers Rowling’s work helped advance”; I don’t care what some other journos in your circlejerk say. Nobody likes journos or care ’bout their uneducated opinions. Nowhere in this entire article does this braindead op-ed writer quote a single scientist or cite any actual biological science, despite their gross obsession with strangers’ biology, nor actual trans people. ¿They couldn’t find a single trans person who was, like, “O, Rowling’s not transphobic”? Look @ all the black people or women Fox News can bribe into pretending Republicans aren’t Nazis. Rowling has to be the biggest transphobe in the world if this op-ed writer writing, like, a whole novel as big as Order of the Phoenix trying her best to make this random idiot sound like the world’s savior can’t find 1 trans person to vouch for Rowling.
For someone who talks up what a feminist she is, there is barely any talk o’ anyone other than Rowling & how mean ol’ critics are saying mean things. There are maybe a few carefully curated examples o’ privileged journos — the only class that matters, apparently — having to write for different papers, but that’s ’bout it. As bad as it is for anyone to get death threats from obsessed weirdos, — which Rowling was probably already getting several years earlier after she killed Dumbledore — it seems like skewed priorities to treat it as the biggest issue facing feminism, specially when it’s matched by downplaying & delegitimizing trans-supporting women getting death threats. I guess “feminism” is now “only some women matter”. Women get harassed & threatened for any opinion under the sun, but The New York Times apparently felt like “not treating a vulnerable minority group like trash” was the only 1 worth defending. Plenty o’ women get death threats & gross comments ’bout being prostitutes for talking ’bout birth control health insurance policy; it seems less like Big Trans is the problem & mo’ that there’s a lot o’ gross sexists out there & trans people have fuck all to do with it. ¿But why should The New York Times criticize sexism & possibly offend the many sexists who read ( or write ) their articles when they can attack a much mo’ politically weak demographic ’stead?
Actually, there’s 1 paragraph I want to point out:
Despite media coverage that can be embarrassingly credulous when it comes to the charges against Rowling, a small number of influential journalists have also begun speaking out in her defense. Here in America, Caitlin Flanagan of The Atlantic tweeted last year, “Eventually, she will be proven right, and the high cost she’s paid for sticking to her beliefs will be seen as the choice of a principled person.”
1st, I love the hypocrisy o’ trying to use rando journos’ knee-jerk opinions as shallow as book review blurbs as “evidence”, but rejects far mo’ detailed, wellspoken opinions by other journos as “embarrassingly credulous”. So, the evidence that this opinion is right is limited by the litmus that the people providing the evidence believe this opinion is right. That’s known as “circular logic”, ’nother logical fallacy this uneducated writer & The New York Times don’t comprehend.
¿What beliefs will be “proven right”? This article has been vague & been throwing round words to get round the obvious contradiction ’tween “I’ve not found a single truly transphobic message” & “[H]uge numbers of women are justifiably terrified by the trans activists”. Those beliefs definitely aren’t “trans people are people, too, & deserve to be treated equally under the law”, nor are they beliefs unrelated to trans people, so they’re almost certainly transphobic, & I’m going to bet that they’re not going to be “proven” right in the end, since it’s mostly ol’ boomers like Rowling & this writer who believe it, while millennials & zoomers o’erwhelmingly support trans rights — to the point that despite many o’ them growing up with Harry Potter & worshipping this o’errated series, many have now become jaded o’ Rowling ( for good reason ). Sounds to me like it’s a losing side supported primarily by dinosaurs who will be dead in a couple decades.
Sorry, there’s 1 mo’ paragraph I want to point out:
In Britain the liberal columnist Hadley Freeman left The Guardian after, she said, the publication refused to allow her to interview Rowling. She has since joined The Sunday Times, where her first column commended Rowling for her feminist positions. Another liberal columnist for The Guardian left for similar reasons; after decamping to The Telegraph, she defended Rowling, despite earlier threats of rape against her and her children for her work.
Note to Americans: The Guardian is, as much as revile them, generally considered liberal ( liberal ’nough that, howe’er stupid they may be, aren’t baseless ’nough to cater to transphobes… well, ’cept for that concern troll letter they posted, giving voice to a totally-not-transphobe & not to a trans person @ all, since The Guardian can’t e’en not be terrible in this case); The Telegraph & The Sunday Times are conservative. Shocking that conservatives are mo’ accepting o’ bigots than liberals. You’d think hard-core feminist J. K. Rowling would be loath to work with such sexists who support abortion limits, but apparently tolerating sexists is better than tolerating trans people. I’m sure this is ’cause leftists are so darn intolerant o’ bigots, unlike rightwingers, who are tolerant o’ e’eryone ( who shares their bigotry ). This isn’t surprising, since, as stated, Rowling’s feminism is thin as thread, & despite the thin facade o’ liberalism Rowling wears to attempt to be hip with the millennials, — which has stupendously failed with e’en their masses o’ raving Harry Potter fans feeling alienated from her transphobia — her integral philosophy is inherently conservative in its reduction o’ humans to biological forms & reduction o’ morality into simplistic biblical ideals with no basis in complex concrete reality.
So we have 2 articles that are full o’ lies so transparent, they must be made o’ glass. This is no surprise from such flagrant liars as The New York Times, a newspaper only for the most gullible o’ pseudointellectuals.
I still fret that I didn’t make optimal use o’ my most recent Halloween Break, including wasting a day working on that weird Voter’s Pamphlet post that wasn’t that clever; but I can a’least feel better that I didn’t waste the most important day, Halloween itself, publishing the most revolting form o’ COVID-denial apologetics from 1 o’ the most deranged economists — & we’re talking ’bout economists, the realm that gave us such serious ideas as that forcing woman to let incels rape them ( or giving incels sexbots ) is the same as income redistribution — in the world.
That article is “Let’s Declare a Pandemic Amnesty”, written by some economist named Emily Oster, who I will ’ventually show you has o’erthrown Noah Smith as emperor o’ troll economists.
In April 2020, with nothing else to do, my family took an enormous number of hikes.
I want to remind you that this is s’posedly an “economist”. I spent COVIDtime reading books, which you can do very easily inside, ’cause that’s how you learn ’bout things, something this “economist” should have tried.
We had a family hand signal, which the person in the front would use if someone was approaching on the trail and we needed to put on our masks.
¿So this person’s family are such idiot-savants when it comes to visual abilities that they can see a tiny hand signal before them, but not full-sized humans approaching them?
¿What relevance does this ridiculously contrived fable have to do with anything?
Once, when another child got too close to my then-4-year-old son on a bridge, he yelled at her “SOCIAL DISTANCING!”
Check off on the bingo card, “Makes up bullshit exaggerated story wherein the protagonist runs into Jack-Chick-worthy strawmen who want to disembowel anyone who doesn’t obey the tribal ways o’ The Mask”. I live round Seattle, 1 o’ the most leftwing places in the US, & people didn’t say shit if they encountered someone without a mask — probably ’cause they presumed they were right-wing extremists & didn’t want to hear them start ranting ’bout the Illuminati. E’en if most people round you do think you’re assholes for not wearing masks, they were probably smart ’nough to realize that yelling @ you wasn’t going to magically make you not assholes anymo’, but would probably make you dig your heels in further — as the existence o’ this article proves.
These precautions were totally misguided. In April 2020, no one got the coronavirus from passing someone else hiking.
I’m going to need a big, fat, fucking citation needed for that. ( Fun fact: if you compare newspapers like The Atlantic to my stoner blog you will find to your shock & horror that I oft cite sources mo’ than they do, ’cause newspapers oft like to just coast on their pretend authority than follow basic academic standards ).
Our cloth masks made out of old bandanas wouldn’t have done anything, anyway.
Yes, that’s ’cause you weren’t wearing real masks, you fuckface.
But the thing is: We didn’t know.
“¡It’s Fauci’s fault my family were all hopeless dumbasses!”.
I have been reflecting on this lack of knowledge thanks to a class I’m co-teaching at Brown University on COVID.
If she had any self-awareness, such reflection would have been, “Wow, it sure is impressive that they hired me to teach a class on a subject I know absolutely nothing about. The US sure is a meritocracy”.
We’ve spent several lectures reliving the first year of the pandemic, discussing the many important choices we had to make under conditions of tremendous uncertainty.
Read: “I wasted my class’s time & money talking ’bout shit that has nothing to do with science”.
To take an example close to my own work, there is an emerging (if not universal) consensus that schools in the U.S. were closed for too long: The health risks of in-school spread were relatively low, whereas the costs to students’ well-being and educational progress were high.
This writer shows herself to be just as ignorant o’ linguistics as biology: a consensus is universal — it’s an inherent part o’ its definition. If it’s not universal, it’s mere majority, not consensus.
2nd, e’en a fervent supporter o’ democracy like me has the awareness to realize the unfortunate truth that objective, materialist science isn’t based on fucking elections. The fact that the average slackjawed moron, fed junkfood misinformation like The Atlantic, thinks children have magic COVID immunity doesn’t make it true, anymo’ than the fact that 81% o’ Americans believe there’s an invisible man in the sky who runs e’erything makes it true. Americans are dumb: their opinion is worth less than a coin flip.
Nowhere does this “economist” e’en try to look into alternatives that could serve both problems, which would’ve been real compromise, ’cause that would require some semblance o’ curiosity & independent thought, which almost all economists lack. People ( read: right-wing hacks ) assume that falling education came from children not being physically next to each other, & not the lack o’ preparedness or lack o’ resources from skinflint governments drugged up on the religion o’ “Fuck the Poor” capitalism. Hell, the psychological trauma o’ COVID could’ve by itself caused the decline; there’s no proof that the decline wouldn’t have happened if schools didn’t close, or that it wouldn’t have been worsened by children’s fears — whether based on realistic facts or exaggerated — o’ getting COVID themselves. Indeed, the fact that schools that stayed closed longer didn’t have worse effects than those that didn’t & the Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics’s own conclusion on the data imply this. This is specially since the worst effect was on math, which is the subject that should need physical presence the least & can most easily be handled with computers. Also, Americans have always been hopeless @ math — which is amazing when you consider what a STEMlord country it is & that Americans are e’en worse @ liberal arts like sociology, philosophy ( I can’t name a single good American philosopher ), &, as seen here, economists ( also no good American economists — all the English greats, like Adam Smith, Keynes, & Joan Robinson, are from the UK, while we’re stuck with Paul Samuelson, Milton Fucking Friedman, & Paul Krugman, which is like comparing bands like Nirvana & Alice in Chains to Nickelback & Creed ).
But, yeah, it would have made mo’ sense to cost mo’ lives so Americans can become slightly less terrible @ math.
Another example: When the vaccines came out, we lacked definitive data on the relative efficacies of the Johnson & Johnson shot versus the mRNA options from Pfizer and Moderna. The mRNA vaccines have won out. But at the time, many people in public health were either neutral or expressed a J&J preference. This misstep wasn’t nefarious. It was the result of uncertainty.
This is the lamest o’ Appeal to Perfection fallacies e’er. Either way people were @ risk, so this was a case o’ the “least bad scenario”. The FDA themselves continued recommending the J&J vaccine as better than nothing. Only a mental child would think that during a deadly pandemic nobody should e’er have risks or make mistakes when rushing e’er.
Misinformation was, and remains, a huge problem. But most errors were made by people who were working in earnest for the good of society.
Also an unproven claim & irrelevant: people who are “working in earnest” but know they know nothing o’ biology are still dangerously irresponsible. If I hijacked a a tank “for the good o’ society”, nobody’s going to give a shit how earnest I am, other than whether or not to have me sent to an asylum.
Given the amount of uncertainty, almost every position was taken on every topic. And on every topic, someone was eventually proved right, and someone else was proved wrong. In some instances, the right people were right for the wrong reasons. In other instances, they had a prescient understanding of the available information.
The people who got it right, for whatever reason, may want to gloat.
I can’t fucking believe this tremendous misunderstanding o’ how both objective reality & humans work. That’s right, all ideas are a guessing game: people who used their knowledge o’ biology, which is based on peer-reviewed studies & centuries o’ information, just “guessed right”. When I make a website @ work, it’s not ’cause I studied programming for years & know how the web works; I just happened to be lucky that day & can maybe feel the reason to gloat for my good gut instinct. This is the kind o’ idea only someone with no knowledge or skill in anything could think — pathetic & spiteful. The idea that this smug asshole trying to manufacture a “truce” when her side is clearly the wrong side o’ history is accusing people who were trying to prevent deaths o’ just wanting to gloat is colossal projection.
Those who got it wrong, for whatever reason, may feel defensive and retrench into a position that doesn’t accord with the facts.
“Me, for instance”.
All of this gloating and defensiveness continues to gobble up a lot of social energy and to drive the culture wars, especially on the internet.
Yes, policies that are life & death for millions is just culture war bullshit, but empty civility & decorum are vital.
& you yourself are writing on the internet. But sure, it’s e’eryone else who’s a crybaby.
These discussions are heated, unpleasant and, ultimately, unproductive.
You’re right, but you decided to write this article &, e’en mo’ perplexing, The Atlantic decided to publish it, so here we are.
And, similarly, getting something wrong wasn’t a moral failing.
No, but it is a mental failing, &, mo’ importantly, insisting you’re right with whate’er disarray o’ propaganda articles you wrote or whate’er inklings you made up in your head when you know you have less knowledge than experts who spent decades studying this subject is a moral failing, as you’re putting your pride as a “free thinker” ’bove actually helping society.
Treating pandemic choices as a scorecard on which some people racked up more points than others is preventing us from moving forward.
This is completely contradictory: by this writer’s own perspective, all decisions are based on luck, there is no free will, & therefore whether or not we move forward is out of our control, just as whether or not taking a vaccine was apparently a coin flip. In these times o’ uncertainty, whether or not “treating pandemic choices as a scorecard on which some people racked up more points than others” prevents us from moving forward could be right or could be wrong, & those o’ us who think that insulting idiots like this writer will help us “move forward” could be right, & if we’re not, well, we’re not to blame, ¿’cause how could we know? ¡There’s too much uncertainty! I love this implication that complex sociopolitical philosophical issues are far simpler than hard, materialist sciences like biology. Yes, this idiot’s simplistic, trite moralizing is rock solid, but how viruses & vaccines work is pure witchcraft.
We have to put these fights aside and declare a pandemic amnesty.
¿Why not? ¿Is officially pardoning an insentient disease any worse than Roger Stone? No, ’course not — they’re the same thing.
We can leave out the willful purveyors of actual misinformation [—]
As we will see, this writer is 1 o’ them.
[—] while forgiving the hard calls that people had no choice but to make with imperfect knowledge.
Nope, ’cause they had a very easy choice: listen to the people who did have knowledge. Their preference for listening to charlatans o’er actual scientists is a social failing, & the kind o’ person who makes this mistake is going to make the same mistake ’gain & ’gain & will continue to be a burden on society, evident by the fact that this idiot, having not been content to cause harm in the world by their idiocy, is still writing articles.
Los Angeles County closed its beaches in summer 2020. Ex post facto, this makes no more sense than my family’s masked hiking trips.
¿What? That’s a very hard accomplishment, since your family’s hiking tricks made no sense other than that you were bored & couldn’t be bothered to read real science.
But we need to learn from our mistakes and then let them go.
Keep in mind, e’en if we accept the assertion that the spread o’ COVID outside is mitigated by wind ( which is not the same as impossible ), we’re comparing the mistake o’ killing people to the mistake o’ not letting people enjoy the beach. The latter is sad, but hardly criminal. The fact that this writer thinks people who might have cost people time in the rays might have just as much to apologize for as people who helped people die is deranged & I’m amazed that this writer can have such lack o’ sense o’ shame that she can show her face in public, much less write for a newspaper, without having to wear a paper bag o’er her face. ( ¿But are paper bags truly effective @ protecting disgraceful people from their deep shame? There’s a lot o’ uncertainty ).
Because I thought schools should reopen and argued that kids as a group were not at high risk, I was called a “teacher killer” and a “génocidaire.”
Note that she only argued that kids were not @ high risk, so she made this recommendation with the full consciousness that she was putting teachers, specially ol’ teachers, @ risk o’ dying, & therefore, it is, in fact, accurate to call her a “teacher killer”, since she admits right here to knowingly recommending a scenario that would lead to mo’ deaths o’ teachers. But, ’gain, since COVID-deniers have no free will due to all that magical postmodern uncertainty, she can’t be a teacher killer, or anything, truly, since e’erything is in our minds.
It wasn’t pleasant, but feelings were high.
It is much mo’ important that we pay our respects to the dead feelings o’ this rich, spoiled fauxeconomist who has no place writing ’bout biology @ all than the people who died, declares virulent narcissist.
And I certainly don’t need to dissect and rehash that time for the rest of my days.
Then maybe you shouldn’t have written this article.
Student test scores have shown historic declines, more so in math than in reading, and more so for students who were disadvantaged at the start. We need to collect data, experiment, and invest. Is high-dosage tutoring more or less cost-effective than extended school years? Why have some states recovered faster than others? We should focus on questions like these, because answering them is how we will help our children recover.
“Anyway, fuck the millions who died & the millions mo’ with lifelong health problems. Let’s focus on my personal bugbear”. I specially love how irrelevant high-dosage tutoring vs. extended school years is & how it’s focused on “cost-effectiveness”, rather than efficacy. Any halfway knowledgeable economist should know that the US wastes their money on the stupidest shit right & left & that any talk o’ “cost-effectiveness” is futile.
Notably, routine vaccination rates for children (for measles, pertussis, etc.) are way down. Rather than debating the role that messaging about COVID vaccines had in this decline, we need to put all our energy into bringing these rates back up.
Yes, let’s try to solve a problem by deliberately refusing to examine the roots o’ said problem. To be fair, that is how economists typically try to solve economic problems, which is why they suck @ that, too.
Pediatricians and public-health officials will need to work together on community outreach[.]
They can start by recommending all their patients to stay ’way from The Atlantic & only read actually informative news sources.
The standard saying is that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. But dwelling on the mistakes of history can lead to a repetitive doom loop as well.
There’s a reason this 2nd sentence isn’t a standard saying: it’s complete nonsense. It’s only doom for the jackasses who made these “mistakes”. After all, ostracizing these people & news sources will create disincentives from fostering misinformation in the future, thereby making it less likely to happen in the future. You’d think an economist would know that, but as we’ve discussed many times, economists only understand personal responsibility when it comes to lowerclass people. Normal people should, ’course, be fired for bad results, but when an economist makes “mistakes”, we shouldn’t fire that economist from e’er writing for our paper, but continue giving them opportunities ( & thereby taking that opportunity from others ), despite doing nothing to merit it. This is the kind o’ meritocratic capitalist system that economists like this, who benefit quite well from it, strangely support a lot.
But despite its prominence, Oster’s work on COVID in schools has attracted little scrutiny—even though it has been funded since last summer by organizations that, without exception, have explicit commitments to opposing teacher’s unions, supporting charter schools, and expanding corporate freedom. In addition to grants from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Walton Family Foundation, and Arnold Ventures, Oster has received funding from far-right billionaire Peter Thiel. The Thiel grant awarded to Oster was administered by the Mercatus Center, the think tank founded and financed by the Koch family.
¡Le shock! ¡An economist accepting bribes awards for their studied work from rich, “libertarian” organizations — which, in their hate for government involvement, obsessively spend their money on influencing government; “laissez-faire” isn’t French for “rich people control people like dictators” for no reason — to give false authority to pseudoscience that benefits them! ¡But Volcker told me that the only asset economists had was their credibility! Well, Oster sold hers for a quick quid.
Note that liberal fascist The Atlantic ’gain gives a voice to someone under the patronage o’ the far-right — “liberal” media @ its finest.
Still, that’s hardly the worst thing one could —
But the headline statement in the new AAP report is the oft-repeated mantra that “no amount of alcohol should be considered safe in pregnancy.” Media reports have seized on this statement to renew a debate about the dangers of light drinking during pregnancy. Rather than acknowledging the obvious dangers of heavier drinking and working to address the circumstances that lead to it, we are back to discussing whether pregnant women should be shamed for having a half a glass of wine on their anniversary—or any old night.
To me, this highlights the very real downside of recommendations like this one, which do not involve any nuance. The bottom line is that while there is clear evidence of the dangers of heavy drinking—especially binge drinking—in pregnancy, the same cannot be said for low levels of alcohol consumption. As even the AAP report acknowledges, there is consensus on this issue. A large share of OBs in the U.S. report telling their pregnant patients that some alcohol is fine.
OK, that was a weird opinion to die on her sword for, but —
Emily Oster re-examines the stats on AIDS in Africa from an economic perspective and reaches a stunning conclusion: Everything we know about the spread of HIV on the continent is wrong.
O… O, dear god, no…
[T]to understand this you need to think about health the way than an economist does — as an investment. So if you’re a software engineer and you’re trying to think about whether to add some new functionality to your program, it’s important to think about how much it costs. It’s also important to think about what the benefit is. And one part of that benefit is how much longer you think this program is going to be active. If version 10 is coming out next week, there’s no point in adding more functionality into version nine.
I want to note that she isn’t e’en right ’bout software versioning here: for most software, version 9 would continue to receive updates, mainly security updates, for plenty o’ time after version 10 comes out, ’cause people don’t all update to the next version right ’way. Some can’t ’cause new versions usually introduce incompatibilities with other software. Considering the newsworthy controversies o’er decades-ol’ Windows operating systems finally having their support ended e’ery time it happens, I’m surprised she didn’t know this.
But your health decisions are the same. Every time you have a carrot instead of a cookie, every time you go to the gym instead of going to the movies, that’s a costly investment in your health.
I wish I were surprised, but, yes, this truly is how many economists think. This is what happens when economists think economics is nothing but math & whate’er gut instincts they come up with, ignoring all other sciences. Yes, eating a cookie ’stead o’ a carrot is just like having sex with someone who might have AIDS, ’cept all the many biological ways it’s completely different.
Actually, despite what many online have been gossiping ’bout, this talk isn’t ’bout how spending money on AIDS treatment is a waste o’ money, but spending money on AIDS education is a waste o’ money compared to… decreasing trade — which is, admittedly, a shocking admission from a mainstream economist, who usually consider trade to be the best thing e’er fore’er. There seems to be no talk o’ decreasing spending on the general problem o’ AIDS in Africa. TED Talks probably demand far higher taste than vulgar The Atlantic & Time, so she couldn’t go full mask-off ( pun not intended ).
That said, the talk does end rather tastelessly:
But more than anything, you know, I’m an academic. And when I leave here, I’m going to go back and sit in my tiny office, and my computer, and my data. And the thing that’s most exciting about that is every time I think about research, there are more questions. There are more things that I think that I want to do. And what’s really, really great about being here is I’m sure that the questions that you guys have are very, very different than the questions that I think up myself. And I can’t wait to hear about what they are. So thank you very much.
I have ne’er seen someone so excited & eager ’bout people dying o’ AIDS.
Anyway, her arguments are debatable, considering the simplistic assumptions in this admittedly short talk —
This shift in focus raises the question: Is treatment the right solution? In my work I have assumed that our goal in the face of the epidemic is to maximize life. In other words, to save the most years of life with the funding available. Once I decided this, the cost-benefit calculations that economists are so familiar with told me how.
As cold and callous as this may sound, after comparing the number of years saved by antiretrovirals with years saved by other interventions like education, I found that treatment is not an effective way to combat the epidemic. It may be that my conclusions are best laid aside in the name of morality and compassion. But in making the tough decisions about how to spend limited resources, we should understand the economic consequences of our choices.
Ah, here we go. Now, Forbes, they allow you to go full sociopath. There can be no nobler death than to sacrifice yourself to capitalist efficiency, specially if you’re poor.
That’s obviously a wrenching question. But if we choose treatment, we must know what we are giving up. The tradeoffs are there whether we want to face them or not. What economics can do is tell us–in numbers, in black and white–what we give up and what we gain.
We recently developed a simple, easy solution: give up dumbass loser Elon Musk throwing his money down the drain on Twitter so he can shitpost Bill Gates pregnant memes, pour Twitter down the drain like rancid milk, & give that $44 billion to AIDS treatment. I love how economists try to contrive these imaginary tough decisions as if the world doesn’t waste 99% o’ its resources on the dumbest shit. Economists would make their jobs a lot easier if they just recommended giving up shit like Elon Musk — hell, that’s a win-win.
Anyway, I’m intrigued by this new development o’ 4chan Science, clearly meant purely to troll & bolster itself on its clickbaiting audacity rather than any serious thought ’hind them. I thought the era o’ edgelordism might’ve been o’er, but I was wrong. ¡There was just too much uncertainty! Hopefully we can agree to an amnesty toward those who mistakenly believed that the era o’ edgelordism was o’er & that ’twas safe for us to leave our homes without being subjected to cringe.
