site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32925 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023

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.

10
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The 'National Day of Hate' - Anatomy of a Propaganda Hoax

The Dissident-Right Telegramsphere was bemused last month to hear alarmed media reports of a "National Day of Hate" allegedly planned for February 25th. Despite the fact that nobody had heard anything from anyone about such a plan, the story seemed to grow and grow. The episode is recounted in this article, 'National Day of Hate' was ADL hoax. Within the DR sphere it was of course immediately recognized as such. It seems the ADL was the first to spread the claim, and at least one research group also pointed the finger at the ADL. On February 9th:

ADL has been monitoring plans for a day of antisemitic action set to take place nationwide on 2/25. This day may include antisemitic and white supremacist propaganda distributions and banner drops. At this time, ADL has not tracked any direct or specific threats of violence.

The ADL continued to push the story, with Greenblatt tweeting on Feb. 23:

@ADL is closely monitoring the nationwide extremist "Day of Hate" campaign planned for this Saturday. The Jewish community may be the target of vile antisemitic hate, but we shall not be intimidated. Instead, let's celebrate #SabbatOfPeaceNotHate

And with this, the ADL was able to mobilize law enforcement and national security action across the country.

We have been notified that this coming Shabbat, Saturday February 25th, a group of violent extremists are planning to come out and protest against Jewish communities across the country. NYPD Counter-terrorism Bureau has released a statement notifying the Jewish community in NYC of this group's plans. Shmira has been in direct contact with the NYPD 112th and 107th precincts and were reassured that there will be an increased police presence at Synagogues this week. The precincts will be utilizing all necessary means of man power such as, House of Worship auto, counter-terrorism units, precinct sector cars, and auxiliary units who will all be rotating posts at different key locations throughout our neighborhoods.

The allegation trended on Twitter and within the Jewish community. The Israeli ambassador to the US made a tweet that went viral:

How can it be that less than a century after the Holocaust, a Neo-Nazi group in the U.S. calls for a National Day of Hate against the Jews - and there’s no uproar? Have we learned nothing? Have we forgotten that words lead to actions? I pray for a peaceful Shabbat for everyone.

The story made the rounds among various blue checkmarks:

There’s a day of hate planned against Jews this coming Shabbat. So being an American Jew in 2023 is choosing between 1) taking my kids to pray, anxiously looking at the exits worried about their safety or 2) staying home and letting the anti-Semites define my Jewishness.

And an interesting reply from another blue checkmark to that tweet provides an interesting tidbit of information:

We are locked and loaded in my shul. There is training available specifically for shuls. There are also homeland security grants for guards.

Related to my bolded emphasis above, on February 23rd the ADL tweeted:

When neo-Nazis threaten the Jewish community with a National “Day of Hate,” we respond with resolve & solidarity. Celebrate a #ShabbatOfPeaceNotHate this weekend & let everyone know we won't be intimidated. Retweet this & sign our ADL call for action now

The call for action:

Earlier this week, the Jewish community learned of an attempt by white supremacist groups to organize coordinated antisemitic activity as a National Day of Hate this coming weekend. While ADL is not aware of any specific threats, we know that these groups are hoping for increased antisemitic flier distributions, small protests and graffiti. We know this is frightening; it is completely unacceptable that any faith should be targeted in this way.

We all deserve to feel safe in our communities. To protect the safety of our synagogues, mosques, churches, temples, and other houses of worship or religious gathering places, nonprofits are forced to spend their limited funds on security measures. A federal grant program already exists and is being utilized by nonprofit institutions across the country but Congress must increase funding to meet the rising threats of hate and extremism.

Please join ADL in urging your members of Congress to fully fund the Nonprofit Security Grant Program at $360 million

Following the money, the Nonprofit Security Grant Program appeared to begin in 2016 with a total funding of $20 million. This allocation has grown enormously year over year to a 2023 allocation of $305 million.

Last year I took note of the Biden administration promising Jewish groups more federal funding for security at the White House Menorah lighting. On February 17th, about a week before the 'National Day of Hate', the Biden Administration declared it had followed through on that promise:

In fiscal year 2022, implemented a nearly 40% increase in funding – from $180 million to $250 million – in the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP), which provides support for increasing the physical security of nonprofit organizations, including houses of worship and other religious affiliated entities. In his fiscal year 2023 budget proposal, President Biden called for $360 million for this key program. The omnibus spending package for fiscal year 2023 funded this program at $304 million.

In its call to action, the ADL is lobbying for the "fully funded" $360 million proposed by the Biden administration. A quick search through Google News of the "Nonprofit Security Grant Program" shows that this lobbying effort extends to over a hundred Jewish organizations:

More than 120 Jewish Federations urged House and Senate Appropriations committees to increase funding for security of faith-based communities...

“As you look to the next fiscal year, we write on behalf of the Jewish community, represented by the Jewish Federations of North America, to urge you to prioritize spending programs to secure faith and other vulnerable communities, fight antisemitism and hate crimes, care for Holocaust survivors and other vulnerable populations, and promote peace and security in the Middle East,” the Jewish leaders wrote in their letter on Thursday.

Both the Biden administration and ADL talk about places of worship and religion in a general sense as being the recipients of these funds, but I would like to see exactly how these funds are allocated. This is an enormous growth in funding- with one observer calling "nonprofits" the "big winners" of FY2023 Homeland Security Grants.

Looking at the FEMA datasets, they only record bulk allocations to state institutions who then allocate the funds to grantees. I would like to do more digging to see if I can find data on one or more states to analyze which nonprofits are receiving these grants. If anyone has experience data sleuthing grant allocations and can point me in the right direction that would be helpful.

While digging through the Google News surrounding the Nonprofit Security Grant Program when writing this post, I came across this article published yesterday in Jewish Currents, which to its credit, independently reaches the same conclusions I have here.

Ben Lorber writes a somewhat odd and revealing subtitle to his article:

In the lead-up to the recent Day of Hate, national Jewish defense organizations—along with media and law enforcement—played right into white supremacists’ strategy.

Lorber tries to say that this hoax somehow works to the benefit of "white supremacists", but how? Lorber writes that it "plays into white supremacists' strategy", but this entire affair has been the strategy of the Jewish lobby, which worked to spectacular effect. The ADL isn't playing into their strategy, it's playing its own strategy and in doing so showing that the 'white supremacists' are right, which are not the same thing.

But that's only something that actually matters if non-Jews are willing to criticize this behavior. As long as this public criticism is restricted by right to "in-house" criticism in Jewish publications, there's no check to this sort of behavior.

If I'm able to find a dataset on which non-profits are receiving these grants, I'll follow-up with additional analysis on the NSGP.

I haven't read your links yet; this is some complex stuff with lots of plausible deniability. One of the reasons I'm grateful for my Russian background is precisely that everything is so much cruder than in the West, even though directionally similar, with comparable demographics, history and memes. Contrasting those two worlds, I think, lets one learn more about both.

In this case, I've been looking into «PMC Ryodan», an utterly bizarre… thing that has just happened. You can read the story on Bellingcat (actually a decent source) and whatever this outlet cited by Yahoo news is. Since the motto of the day is «believe women Ukraine», the story of security-minded Ukraininan boomers is cited without comment:

Tymoshko believes the youngsters were gathered in the city by Russian security services through “manipulation and deception, and they should have started a fight so the Russian TV could use it.”

Besides the violence, PMC Ryodan is also notorious for its intolerance of migrants and the Muslim population living in Russia’s Caucasus region.

PMC Ryodan, the acronym short for “Private Military Company,” reportedly took its name from a group of ruthless bandits in the popular anime and manga series “Hunter x Hunter,” created by Yoshihiro Togashi

As one could expect, Russian boomers accuse Ryodan of being a Ukrainian psyop, and zoomers on both sides are having the time of their lives (except those who have to fight the actual war).

But this isn't the point. The point is: it isn't really something that is happening for real. There is no PMC Ryodan, outside of the Hunter X Hunter universe at least – or rather, there wasn't. Just some weeb teens who bought HxH merch, and a couple online groups that used the PMC meme, and kids who were assaulted by gopniks in a food court. Everything else was spun out of this seed – including, unfortunately, the minor campaign by actual thugs to hunt weebs, in a mockery of a turf war.

…Actually, this isn't the point either, as you may expect. While checking out the Ryodan stuff on the Russian Reddit analog (Pikabu), I've seen this story as a comment (abridged):

I have wanted to tell this story for a long time, for it is damning and instructive in terms of the perception of information, the value of eyewitness accounts, the spread of rumours and the ability to find the essence based on media coverage. I just wanted at least 200-500 people to read it, and not the way I usually have 20-50 (apparently my rating is not enough), and then I might lose interest… or get sclerosis… or Pikabu may get canceled…

So... it was the distant year 2000, I was a young detective in one of the city's district offices, it was a warm September day, I'm busy with detection and prevention and stuff... and a message by pager: «Go to the District Police Department XXX, there's an attack, pogrom and a generally crazy mess, you will assist local operatives».

So here's the deal:

There's a school in their neighborhood, and not just any school, but a Jewish one. That day it got attacked by extremists/Nazis/Fascists and such. They broke down the doors, threw desks and chairs, beat everyone with sticks and chains, drew a Star of David on the forehead of an elderly teacher with a marker, and then spat on it. Children and Jews are terrified, demanding security, defense and retribution. And because the governor, the police chief and the prosecutor are on the chase, and soon the UN will fly in, Interpol will be involved… and if these scum aren't caught and punished, it will be an international scandal and the whole police department will get circumcised.

Of course I asked them if I could go with the riot police to the safe houses and places where the rabble gathers, so to speak... and procure the enemies of the Jewish people there?

You see, the answer was, in fact, that there was no need to look for anybody, because that's not exactly how it happened. Two local kids looked into the class where that Most Victimized Teacher was giving a lesson, and asked out Izya... let it be Сockpoonberg... to go have a beer around the corner together, or for a loan, it's not clear any more. The teacher, of course, was against such a breakdown of discipline (or the issuance of loans without guarantors) and kicked them out... They said «ew, Jewish snoot», spat (but it's not exactly clear where) and some shit happened while pulling the door at each other, resulting in the glass breaking (but it's also unclear, maybe it was slammed, maybe even kicked). So they ran away at once.
 The teacher could not tolerate the humiliation and immediately told the school principal, who called in all his connections, and then, as Harrison said: «…a bird dropping, falling on a snowy mountainside, rolls down, accretes snow...» And so now we have a high-profile case that will never be solved, despite the demands of all the controllers to solve it as soon as possible.
 Why? Well, how do we solve it now? Either everybody has to admit that they blatantly inflated the event and gave false evidence, or make terrorists out of those guys and put them in jail for 10 years (remember, that was 2000, now I think option B would be picked in a heartbeat).
 That's why we are sitting there writing/searching.

Then the highway patrolmen bring in a guy, early 20s, who got busted a couple of years ago in some shady companies for either fighting or petty hooliganism. Obviously no one was going to tie him to this case, but he could provide the most valuable information on what kind of Nazis our city has come to harbor and where to find them. After a long "tell me something about the wonderful world of extremism" conversation, the guy told me the following:

Back then he fell in with some skinheads… or Punks, among whom there were two-three really colourful characters, some «Awl, Bullet and Loaf», but that's not certain: one even had white laces on his combat boots [in 90s-00s Russia it used to be popular with Neo-Nazis/WNs, theoretically only allowed after you've killed a non-White or distinguished yourself in a fight; really there was no enforcement], the second had leather trousers, and the third had a skull earring (possibly even human-skull-shaped!!!). He hung out with them once after a concert, got wasted and started quarrelling with someone, after which they got nicked. Since then he''s no longer friends with any skulls and white shoelaces, doesn't go to concerts and only ever drinks kefir.

That's it, think how much paperwork you can put into it! All-points bulletins went around the region, such and such – Awl, Bullet and Loaf wanted for implication in an assault, all wearing white laces, leather trousers and skulls on all sides, identify, apprehend, orient… I spent like a whole another month on these orientations, wrote all kinds of papers about trying my best to find these scoundrels, and even one of the detainees told me that he saw a man wearing white shoes with black laces, but can't recall where, because was freaking out from withdrawal. What am I saying… all the police, Minors Affairs and district officers were writing volumes of reports, and the police department was supervising them… cases were not going to blow themselves up. 
 I honestly don't know how it ended, but judging by the fact that I don't know, it ended with nothing, as was the plan. The Jewish community (its individual representatives) waited in vain for their retribution; the high-profile case became lowercase, the journos guzzled away their fees, and now somewhere in the depths of the Department of Internal Affairs there rests a massive case about a terrible pogrom in a school.

But now, when I am told, «We have studied the declassified archives and, in fact, the truth is this, 100%» – I smile condescendingly.

Yes, that's where they usually ask for proofs... well, enjoy:

https://www.ng.ru/events/2000-10-07/1_pogrom.html

https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/17743

https://lenta.ru/news/2000/09/25/pogrom/

From the above:

…Pupils hid under their desks and ran to their teachers, who tried to talk sense into the young Nazis: «Guys, please go away, there are children here». One of the female teachers said:

– I lost my bearings. The scumbags should have been kicked out, but I was afraid that if I raised my voice at them or said something rude, they would disfigure the children.

The pogrom lasted about five minutes. Then the command sounded: «Stand up!» The rioters lined up, raised their hands in the Nazi salute and shouted, «Sieg Heil!», and then leisurely walked out of the destroyed school. One of them turned around and shouted: «We'll be back!»

– By happy coincidence, no one got physically hurt, but the psychological shock was very strong, – says Leonid Reznikov, head of the Jewish community. – Now parents are afraid to send their children to Sunday school, fearing for their lives. The way the rioters acted showed that they had been preparing for this operation beforehand. There are several distinctly anti-Semitic organizations in Ryazan. But the local authorities are inactive. Next time a pogrom could end in blood» […]

Investigator Irina Novikova refused to talk to Kommersant about anything to do with the pogrom at the Jewish Sunday school in the Soviet district of Ryazan.

The day after the pogrom, a leaflet appeared on the wall of the school with a swastika and the text: «Death to the Jews! We will be back».

One is free to choose what to believe.

This should've been a toplevel post tbh, imo more interesting than most of week's toplevels but it didn't get much visibility due to being a late reply. Honestly not a fan of the 'timely topic' focus of most toplevel posts vs the rarer 'non-timely interesting topic' ones

If you mean the Ryodan thing, it's developing rapidly, so maybe some other time. I'll plug this post for the second part.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats