This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The State Department released a report on the ties between radical leftism and Cuba
It seems to consist of already public information, well documented in books like Days of Rage by Bryan Burrough. An excellent and humorous review can be found here.
Cuba doesn't seem to be such a big deal nowadays. Most of the documented influence ops are from decades ago, where they assisted semi serious militant groups like the Black Panthers and Weatherman. They do cooperate with aforementioned leftist front orgs like the Natoinal Lawyers Guild, but it's not exactly a secret, they aren't even trying to hide it. And there isn't evidence that these groups would wither and die without Havana's support. It seems surprisingly easy to convince young Americans that their country needs to be burned to the roots.
Anyways, Cuba is definitely getting invaded within the next year or so.
Also relevant to this: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio: The greatest terror threat facing the world now comes from the far left (July 16).
Very, very abridged:
Yawn.
So the Sunni Jihadists had to do 9/11 to claim their title of top terrorist threat. If I were OBL watching from hell, I would be very upset. After all, he killed thousands to earn his spot, and now Antifa is getting the focus after shooting a few Feds and (very allegedly) sabotaging the Reflecting Pool?
"Left wing terrorism" is roughly like "right-wing hate groups". To the degree that they are widespread (e.g. celebrating the death of Kirk, or perhaps Floyd), they are covered by 1A. To the degree that they go beyond what is protected by 1A, they are not actually widespread.
Translation:
(1) You should not be able to raise money for causes we do not like. More debanking.
(2) You should not have access to untapped communications.
(3) You should not be able to go to other countries to meet with people for a political cause we do not like.
Sounds like a pile of horseshit to me.
Left-wing terrorism in the United States killed about two dozen Americans and dealt over two billion dollars in property damage in 2020.
I will grant you that the Floyd riots were left-wing, and that about that many people died as a result. (Though my impression was that most were people murdering each other for the usual reasons in areas which had been "liberated" from the police.)
I do not think that most of deaths qualify as terrorist-related. By contrast, Bin Laden et al were plotting to kill as many Americans as possible to accomplish some (vague) political goal.
All of the pipeline which Rubio talks about also did not play a role in the Floyd protests. There was no large donation drive, training and recruitment effort, especially not on an international level.
There are things which contain politically motivated violence (e.g. the Floyd protests, J6, the US independence war, the Confederacy), which can be quite bad (as some of these are) but that does not make them a central example of terrorism.
American politicians literally offered to pay bail for those rioting and looting. All the usual pipelines were out in force to provide a smokescreen of justification and cover, and the Black Bloc protestors are using organisational training from Marxist far-left groups.
Name me one, please. Literally a single example.
And to save us both time: a politician tweeting a link to a 501(c)(3) non-profit so the public can donate is not 'literally offering to pay bail,' nor are personal donations made by campaign staffers.
This whole talking point is also kind of moot? The vast majority of people arrested in the 2020 protests weren't even held on bail at all. And whatever money that did get donated, according to MFF's financial disclosures, didn't even get used for 2020 protest cases, but for later, unrelated cases. They took in $40 million in the weeks following Floyd's murder, and ultimately spent only $200,000 of that on protest-related bail.
No, it's not and I retract the statement, but it's the next building down and in some ways it's worse. If you have politicians tweeting, in the middle of massive riots and arson, that these people are heroes and you need to support X fund to bail them out when they get arrested, does it matter whether the politician personally put in their own cash? Kamala Harris, who became the second most high-ranking politician in the whole country, helped them raise forty million dollars to bail out rioters.
The fact that the BLM rioters had enough institutional support that, despite all the stuff burning and the murders and smashing and the looting, despite the fact that you weren't supposed to be going out because there was an infectious pandemic, despite all that hardly any were arrested and the ones who were arrested were almost always let go without bail, is not the defence you think it is. As always, see the contrast of the Canadian truckers who had the jackboot come down on their necks.
The fact that this fund spend two hundred thousand dollars bailing out rioters, looters and arsonists is, again, the problem. And they didn't limit themselves to that because they were careful about who they bailed; according to your cited article "The MFF later addressed critics in follow-up tweets, saying all protest-related bail sent their way had been paid." and "“Without jeopardizing the safety of the folks we bailed out we paid well over $200k in the weeks since the uprising alone. We are working on doing more,”" and "critics questioned why more hadn’t been spent and suggested some of the funds could be redirected to other causes or small businesses in the community. Others defended the organization for trying to establish the infrastructure to deploy the millions of dollars". This isn't restraint, it's either embezzling or pipeline difficulties.
And note the use of the word "uprising". This is left-wing illegal violence dressed up as liberation.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link