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 -
Did anyone see the SF DA's press release about the Golden gate blocking arrests? The perps were booked on a felony conspiracy charge, and it concludes
(Edit: to clarify, this statement was addressed to anyone who the protesters blocked from crossing the bridge, declaring them victims who can seek restitution from the protesters! TTBOMK I'm not aware of a statement like this being issued after a left wing protest/riot before.)
They're not throwing the book at them, but does this seem like a setup to finally go after the leftist orgs funding these protests and inflicting financial harm on them?
It's strange for an SF official to be pursuing a strategy from Rufo's Twitter feed! "False imprisonment by rioters" has been a talking point on the right for years now, but it took urban liberal Jewish/* lawyers to deploy it in practice?
/* Don't @me, you know it's a safe assumption on this issue!
After reading this a couple times last night, sleeping, and then reading it again today, I finally realized what the quotation means and why people are reacting the way they are: the message is addressed to people who were trying to use the bridge and were impeded by the protesters, not the protesters themselves.
I thought the message was addressed to the protesters, who the DA was claiming were falsely imprisoned by the police. There are probably lots of reasons for my misinterpretation -- "imprisonment" being more closely connected to jail (and booking) than to being impeded by a protest, "detained" being a word associated with the police, and of course my schema of the world in which San Francisco prosecutors are more concerned about police misconduct than public disorder. I am fascinated by my misinterpretation.
For what it's worth, I had exactly the same misinterpretation and for a moment assumed it was a quoting a civil rights plaintiff attorney
More options
Context Copy link
You know I worried about that before posting, and should have contextualized the quote more.
The office tweeted a statement with identical wording too. The phasing of "general description (specific tort you should sue for hint hint)" feels like a very deliberate attempt to open source Consequences for the protesters.
https://twitter.com/SFDAOffice/status/1780378750934507566
More options
Context Copy link
I had the exact same (mis)interpretation.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Apparently the people in the San Francisco subreddit were generally supportive of this.
I couldn't find any references to them doing this. Sounds like it would just be the specific protestors hit with prosecutions.
IANAL, but the combination of conspiracy charge and restitution looked to me like a tactic to expose the funding organizations to lawsuits (ActBlue, Community Justice Exchange, the whole leftblob of billionaire money laundering)
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I'm confused because the answer to your question seems to be no, it did not take urban liberal Jewish lawyers to deploy it, because the lawyer in question seems to be a Catholic black latina? Whom you quoted. You don't need to make an assumption at all!
I mean, this being a pro-Palestine protest, Jews being one of the factions behind the decision to throw the book at them is as an assumption at least reasonable, even if the current progressive fad is to have a black woman be the one actually signing her name to the decision.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
I think urban liberal would have stood stronger on its own.
No, funnily enough the same thing happened at my college, where I have sources on who the factions were.
The PLO occupied the admin building, and the black woman college president announced they're being suspended. But behind the scenes it's a fight between the remaining Jewish senior admins and the new wave of third-worldist profs and deans, who are each doing their best to manipulate procedural outcomes and whip up a mob, respectively.
The schism between senior old-lib Jews and new-left juniors keeps repeating in colleges, newsrooms, and government. I can only imagine the same thing just played out in the Google arrests+firing, but don't have insider information there any more.
Watching people wave Hamas flags and chanting "Al-Qassam you make us proud!" has shaken them out of a trance.
Reminds me of this great Etgar Keret essay:
https://etgarkeret.substack.com/p/boohoo-to-you-too
(Israeli short story author, one of his stories was adapted into an indie movie called Wristcutters: A Love Story which you may or may not have heard of)
More options
Context Copy link
The admin building wouldnt be the same as your username, would it?
That would be a crazy coincidence, but it was the other college where this happened last week. Wish I'd gone to Vanderbilt, but couldn't pass up a no-loan full ride.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
These sorts of actions only happen in left-wing places, so it pretty much requires urban, liberal lawyers to deploy it. The "protesters" wouldn't really get anything out of blocking a road in rural Kentucky and the extent to which it would go poorly for them would be fairly immediate, hence no red-tribe prosecutors needing to deal with them.
There have been blocking protests sort of like this with regards to oil pipelines. But yeah its not like they can block a significant amount of traffic.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link