johnfabian
11mo ago
That's very possible. I think if a bystander wasn't killed there would be a decent chance 20ish% of the population would have settled on it being staged.
johnfabian
11mo ago
After reflecting on this for an hour, I have collected my thoughts. Obviously this is bad. I don't think people are going to jump immediately to start making nail bombs, but Trump getting killed or dying under conspiracy-able circumstances were what I always feared as a tipping point to some kind of actual level of civil conflict in the US. The shooter has achieved maybe the second-worst possibility after killing Trump in trying to kill him and failing.
Idle culture war prediction: "stochastic terrorism" is quietly retired as a term. 95% of people who ever used that unironically have spent the last few months saying Trump is a fascist who is going to end democracy and everyone should be doing their best to make sure he doesn't win. I think it's sort of a shame because there clearly is a genuine phenomenon there that it touches on, just the nature of it makes it so prone to abuse I suppose it was inevitably going to become useless.
johnfabian
11mo ago
The story is an hour old, give it some time. Obviously CNN has a bias but they also don't want to fuck this up too bad.
You know they've got $$$ in their eyes knowing they can run on this for the next month.
johnfabian
11mo ago
AP says two dead: the shooter and one attendee.
johnfabian
11mo ago
Not the first time this has happened. People working within these types of political systems are generally better at this kind of coalition-building. This whole left coalition was assembled in two weeks after the election announcement. Meanwhile Americans are fretting about whether or not four months is enough time to switch candidates.
johnfabian
11mo ago
Edit: Another point not about lately is Kamala Harris best shot to be president is just to be elected vice and then wait for him to die in office which is not that implausible. And she gets no negatives if the election is lost and is in a strong position for 2028.
Very much not, I would think. It's looking very much like she will not be elected vice-president again, barring some immense turnaround in the polls. If she goes into a primary in 2028 I would not think she is going to finish among the five top vote-getters. Her unique advantage and only asset is that at this point she is the candidate the Dems can pivot to without risking fragmentation, especially if Biden gives her the Official Blessing.
So her best play to be President at this point is to sit back and let others push Biden out, and then gracefully (if mock-regrettingly!) accept the scepter.
johnfabian
11mo ago
Compare that time Hillary collapsed at an event and got thrown into her limo like a side of beef. Really bad, but immediately her surrogates (essentially the entire establishment media) were out there fighting it hard and within a few days she was doing appearances where she was shaking it off.
If Biden's debate was a Category 5 Hurricane of a PR storm, Hillary fainting was at best a weak tropical storm. Yeah the optics weren't good but an aging politician fainting in hot, humid weather (presumably over-dressed and maybe a decent coating of makeup) isn't some great disaster as long as it's not a sign of some other problem. Much more of an embarrassment to shove under the rug than a critical failing.
johnfabian
11mo ago
I think it depends. The fatal weakness is any mention of "inclusivity" as a core value; once you do that you might as well roll over and present your belly because there is no way to defend yourself against someone with greater oppression points.
johnfabian
11mo ago
Reddit frequently has these kind of issues, especially at high-traffic times. It might not be a coincidence in the sense that a presidential debate could put the servers on the fritz, but I highly doubt it's some kind of nefarious conspiracy.
johnfabian
11mo ago
In the course of a week /r/neoliberal has flipped from smugly poo-pooing anyone questioning the mental fitness of Biden to accepting that he needs to be replaced immediately. Given that the subreddit for better or for worse captures the demographic of who runs the Democratic Party, I think that's a telling sign itself.
There can be few things in life as crushing as getting what you really wanted. Well this was what they wanted.
johnfabian
11mo ago
And you don't know when things are going to rapidly take a turn for the worse.
johnfabian
11mo ago
As with a lot of situations where people talk about "LGBT" these days, I think 99% of this is about the T and maybe 1% about the LGB.
The shift towards acceptance of gay people is very broad across society. It's not just young people, not just progressives, not just the nonreligious, but just about everybody. Yes there are evangelicals and online weirdos who still freak out about gay people but they're the minority. I don't think there is going to be a substantial backlash to gays and lesbians. Maybe with respect to some of the more gauche and outwardly freakish gay men, but that's the 1%.
I think what it boils down to, and similar to what you're getting at, is people just don't like freaks. They don't care much about labels; they don't understand them anyways. But freaks make them uncomfortable. They don't want to be around freaks. They don't want their kids seeing freaks. They don't want to turn on the television and watch freaks. And the freaks are overwhelmingly concentrated in the T part of LGBT.
johnfabian
11mo ago
I'm reading China Miéville's Iron Council. He's a very descriptive author and I'm curious that more people haven't tried to copy this shtick of Industrial Revolution-set high fantasy. I feel this book is a bit more on-the-nose with respect to hitting the viewer on the head with Miéville's (anarchist) politics which is a bit unfortunate because in the other works I've read from him it's not bothered me.
johnfabian
11mo ago
and I'm curious how everyone else pictures Jack.
I've always pictured Jack as "beefy" in his frequent weight gains. Like imagine a boxer who has been retired for a year. Muscular and capable of immense violence but also a good 20-30 kg above normal weight.
When the hobbits raise the alarm in Buckland, the Nazgul scamper, clearly a bunch of farmers showing up with torches and pitchforks would have been bad for them in some way. Were they secretly kinda cotton candy under the cloaks?
I think according to Tolkien they just weren't very strong far away from Mordor, as none of them had their rings. Aragorn makes the point that they're physically not very capable and that fear and what they might inspire other ne'er-do-wells to do are their biggest concerns (while in Bree).
It's the show most similar to the original British The Office (much moreso than its American direct adaptation), if that entices you. But its sort of sarcastic humanism doesn't really translate to snappy trailers. Watch the second or fourth episode and see if you like it
johnfabian
1yr ago
Well, if you believe that all German war crimes on the Eastern Front were actually malicious lies made up by Jews and it was really all sunshine and roses, that contradiction resolves itself quite easily.
johnfabian
1yr ago
Party Down is an all-time great comedy show that very few people have seen. Strongly strongly encourage everyone to give it a shot
johnfabian
1yr ago
A politician who I think is quite similar to a Tammany Hall-type is Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario. He doesn't have a "machine" perhaps in the same way, as it is not built around a singular place or institution, but rather his close family members: Rob Ford was mayor of Toronto before him, and various other members of his family are following behind him into politics. In Toronto and Ontario they speak of "Ford Nation": a coalition of hangers-on, staffers, relations, magnates, and supporters, and I think it resembles a machine if you squint somewhat.
Ford is not an ideological man, and while he skews toward what you might call typical small-c conservatism that doesn't really encapsulate him. With him as Premier Ontario is embarking on massive expansions of public transit (roughly equivalent to the American federal government's expenditures in this regard) and nuclear power. He's also pushed through new highways through prime agricultural land. He has obvious populist tendencies: availability and price of beer has been a constant messaging point for him, even if it costs the government a billion dollars. He is extremely popular among immigrant groups and has been one of the biggest promoters of the rather absurd state of the international student program. His government is also very scrutinizing and responsive to public opinion: his rule through COVID was essentially through the whim of public opinion polls, seesawing rapidly from no restrictions to incredibly harsh and unconstitutional ones with great abandon. He has also presumably walked back proposed changes that he had promised key donors if they were publicly unpopular, like the Greenbelt land swaps.
It's also very good to be his friend. I don't know if there is necessarily good evidence that he is himself benefitting to any large degree from the state of things, but plenty of people who attend his daughter's wedding for no apparent reason profit. The members of his Cabinet get extra-juicy salaries and pensions, and he has both expanded the number of cabinet positions and adopted a policy of rotating his MPPs through those so that most have gotten a turn on the merry-go-round. This kind of personal largesse is also helped by the Canadian media's silent handshake deal to not report on personal matters: hypothetically if one were to perhaps be Ford's mistress, maybe you'd get a key spot in Cabinet, like, say, Infrastructure Minister or something. Just spitballing.
All this is to say is that it's basically a patronage system. We still have a civil service obviously, but elected jobs and public contracts are increasingly used as treats to be dangled for loyal supporters and donors. And the results aren't all that terrible, really. Yes it's wasteful and corrupt and inefficient and the fiscal burden of this is going to have to be reckoned with somewhere down the line. But Ford markets himself as The Guy Who Gets Things Done, and there's no doubt he gets things done. There's new regional rail and new subway lines and new nuc plants and new public buildings all coming online. This is causing a problem for the Ontario Liberals because they're getting their lunch eaten by him; all they have to offer as an alternative at the moment is that under Liberal rule politicians might be more polite and somewhat less corrupt but also nothing will change.
johnfabian
1yr ago
The Women's March on Versailles is pretty much the only coherent place to start a history of feminism. There's really no other incident before that in recorded history where women are so obviously working within the concept of being a distinct (and powerful) political group.
johnfabian
1yr ago
This telling seems to assume that absent the settlements, the Palestinians' intergenerational rage would subside and they'd embrace peaceful coexistence with Israel. Do you genuinely believe that to be the case?
I don't think it's so easy to say. But the settlements are very obviously a sore spot for Palestinians, and more to the point seem to indicate that making deals with Israel is a fruitless gesture - any diplomatic agreement is not worth the paper they are written on if Israel will just move in settlers at gunpoint. And it isn't just Palestinians that Israel is double-crossing with respect to the settlements, they make these deals with their allies to limit them and go do them anyways. From the perspective of a secular Palestinian, why on earth would you trust a foe who willingly violates the trust of their friends, let alone their enemies?
johnfabian
1yr ago
There is that element of it, but I suspect that both Hamas and the Israeli right are a little more deliberate about it than parasites. I think they to a certain extent deliberately prop up each other, and seek to antagonize them.
johnfabian
1yr ago
Something I find myself idly wondering these days is whether my moral calculus is changing as I believe the range of possible options is narrowing.
I think there was actually a decent chance of something approaching a viable peace circa the Oslo Accords; maybe if Arafat takes one for the team and risks the fate of Sadat or Rabin, maybe if the Israelis are a little more flexible, maybe a million other possibilities... but whatever the case that is gone. And so is I think my hope that anything can be achieved through diplomatic negotiation. You know back in the '90s there was the fantastic optimism that we could actually settle all these big world problems without it coming to the truck bomb and the bayonet, and for the most part things did OK: the Troubles got resolved, most of the potential genocides in the Balkans averted, the Soviet Union came apart mostly peacefully (which was something of a quasi-miracle I don't think we fully appreciate), a myriad of lesser conflicts were solved or at the very least muted. Maybe, just maybe, we could learn to the bury the hatchet, and I think there was very real and tangible progress toward that end in the Middle East.
Of course that's impossible now, or at least for a generation you'd think. Obviously there's lots of blame on both sides regardless on which frame of analysis you choose, but more to the point is that the respective parties in charge (Hamas and the pro-settlement Israeli hardliners) are both locked in a sort of hostile symbiotic relationship where their actions keep entrenching their ostensible opponent, who in turn further cement the other's legitimacy. I don't see any way to break out of that in the short term, which means no peace by means anywhere within this framework of international law and cooperation.
Which means that you kind of have to pick which side would you prefer to annihilate the other. Because that is the only possible resolution to this in the near-future. Grudgingly I suppose I would pick Israel. But really I'd rather not pick. I don't want any of my government's money or time or attention to go to this. Let them fight or let them make peace but it's got nothing to do with me.
johnfabian
1yr ago
I think there's a simpler option here. If you get popped with an illegal weapon on you (and you haven't somehow victimized a Canadian in the process), just instant deportation. Why put them in prison? Just kick them out of the country, done.
johnfabian
1yr ago
The beats of these two stories are basically structured like bad late-night TV jokes. Like you can imagine Jay Leno saying "Hey folks, you heard this story about the Indian getaway driver?"
Depends on the period, roughly speaking. During WWII Germany was of course villainized in propaganda and amongst western Allied soldiers; massacres of surrendering German soldiers were not regular but also not uncommon. SS troops were frequently shot out of hand due to several high-profile incidents. In the mass surrenders at the end of the war surrendering Germans were not classified as POWs but rather as "disarmed enemy soldiers" who were not entitled to the levels of treatment outlined by the Geneva Conventions. The claims surrounding the "Rhine death camps" are overblown but there was genuine systemic mistreatment of surrendering Wehrmacht personnel during and immediately after the war.
The dive in relations with the Soviet Union led to the quick realization that Europe and the United States might need to fight the Reds and there were a bunch of people with lots of experience killing Russkies. This is what initiated the rehabilitation of ex-Wehrmacht senior officers and the start of the "clean Wehrmacht" myth in the west. I'm short on time but I might come back to this later because there are some interesting dynamics at play here.
After the end of the Cold War the changing political realities and the opening of Soviet archives doomed the reputation of the Wehrmacht. There was no way to deny their involvement in horrendous war crimes or the depth of their entwinement with Nazi rule.
A simple way to look at the arc of it all is to look at how officers convicted of war crimes to Allied forces were treated. Take Kurt Meyer for example: sentenced to death, reduced to life in prison, transferred to Germany, released permanently all within ten years.
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