U.S. Politics- This Is Us, Basically Fascists

[Serious Callers Only]

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/8/3/mexican_journalist_emilio_gutierrez_soto_freed

Quote

Mexican journalist Emilio Gutiérrez Soto and his son Oscar have been released from ICE detention after being jailed for seven months. Gutiérrez first sought asylum in the United States in 2008 after receiving death threats for reporting on alleged corruption in the Mexican military. He was detained in December, only weeks after he criticized U.S. asylum policy during a speech at the National Press Club. A federal judge has questioned whether the Trump administration’s detention of Emilio Gutiérrez Soto and his son Oscar violated his First Amendment rights. We speak with Emilio Gutiérrez Soto in El Paso, Texas, shortly after his release.

 

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AMY GOODMAN: Emilio, can you talk about why you were jailed in December? You had just been honored in Washington, D.C. In fact, I want to turn to your speech in October at the National Press Club as you accepted the National Press Club’s John Aubuchon Press Freedom Award on behalf of Mexico’s journalists. This is what you said then.

 

EMILIO GUTIÉRREZ SOTO: [translated] [The murder cases, the disappearances] and the exiles is a constant suffering and source of pain for our families. Lady Impunity has not let go of our hand, while Lady Justice prostitutes herself in the company of the government to again kill the freedom of expression. Those who seek political asylum in countries like this, like the United States, we encounter the decisions of immigration authorities that barter away the international laws.

 

AMY GOODMAN: So, Emilio, that is you, Emilio Gutiérrez Soto, receiving an honor from the National Press Club in October. You were then detained in December. Do you believe there was a connection between the two events?

EMILIO GUTIÉRREZ SOTO: [translated] I think so. It’s been quite clear that after receiving a recognition of that nature and of that importance, we had a visit, a contact, supervisory contact visit from ICE, and immediately they put the handcuffs on us, took our photographs and practically took us a few meters from the international border, the argument being that we were being deported, when there was already a motion before the court of appeals in order to stop such a deportation and so that we could continue our proceeding in liberty. What was attempted on that occasion was, once again, to cut short or to cut off my freedom of expression, a freedom which I have continued to exercise in Mexico and in the United States.

 

 

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We were about to be deported. And with that, it’s practically turning us over to those who were looking for me to kill me, which is the Mexican Army. The Mexican Consulate in El Paso is an agency that is totally at the service of ICE. It does not protect the interests of Mexicans at all. The consul takes great pleasure in being friends with William Joyce, who’s the field director of ICE. We Mexicans continue being aliens for those who are in charge of the consulate. And the consulate obviously works with the immigration services of Mexico and the customs services of Mexico, which are mostly in the hands of military officers. We were about to be put in the hands of our executioners, with the nod of the consulate. This is something which caused me, personally, great fear, because I was practically—the life of my son was practically being put in the hands of the Mexican Army, a life which has nothing to do with the work that I have done over many years in Mexico in my work as a journalist.

 

 

Kafkanian. There is more too:

https://freedom.press/news/manuel-duran-could-be-deported-doing-journalism/

[Martell Spy]

Make-Believe Mutiny
The real reason Ivanka and Melania publicly contradict Donald Trump.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/08/melanias-support-for-lebron-james-as-empty-as-ivankas-sadness-about-child-separation.html

Quote

The strategy of dispatching a female family member to stage a public disagreement has historically been popular with Republican politicians. Gerald Ford, who supported a Constitutional amendment invalidating Roe v. Wade, joked that Betty Ford cost him 20 million votes when she went on 60 Minutes in 1975 to praise the Supreme Court ruling as a “great, great decision.” And before Laura, Barbara Bush criticized the GOP during George H.W. Bush’s second presidential campaign for enshrining a “fundamental individual right to life” for “the unborn child” in its party platform. The strategy neatly aligns with the right-wing model of a heterosexual partnership: The big tough man makes big tough decisions from a place of rational judgment and patriarchal authority, while the woman respectfully registers a slightly different opinion, borne of feminine emotion. He is free to take or leave her suggestion, which carries no meaningful weight or influence. If he does modify his stance to lean towards hers, he can claim that his hypermasculine immunity to empathy—a quality Republicans fetishize in their leaders—blinded him to the nuances of an issue that needed a female touch.

 

[Suttree]

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

You allude to this as people not caring about the facts, but this is imprecise: it's not that people don't care about facts, it's that they no longer agree what the facts are.

That's the tricky thing about facts, they don't care whether anyone "agrees" or not. No matter how much Trump would like us to live in a post truth world, that place simply doesn't exist.

Now more than ever I keep being reminded of a quote from the late, great Harlan Ellison:

Quote

“You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.”

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

Third, there seem to be a lot more people than before who feel that they're being screwed by society 

Ahhh...the old Nationalists delusion.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

I'm fairly confident that the Democrats will decisively win the 2018 midterms and it's quite likely that they'll do well in 2020 too. The opposition party winning the midterms is one of the most reliable trends of US politics and, as you said, there's a pendulum effect which is also pretty well established. That said, there are three things that give me pause.

First, there are street battles between the far left and the far right which, for obvious reasons, is not in general a feature of healthy societies. This is more a symptom than anything else, but it's an unpleasant one.

Second, a large (and possibly growing) fraction of the population has lost trust in many social institutions. You allude to this as people not caring about the facts, but this is imprecise: it's not that people don't care about facts, it's that they no longer agree what the facts are. Individual human beings are not great at determining what the facts are -- we can get at some via our senses (though even these are not infallible and can be tricked) and some more via instruments, but for the most part, we have to rely on networks of other human beings which we've codified into institutions. If people think that the mainstream media is fake news, academia is a biased collection of parasites and the government is riddled with agents of the deep state sabotaging our democracy, they're not going to accept the output of any of these institutions as facts. Worse, once the trust has been lost, it's not obvious how to get it back. It's not like we can personally audit these institutions; there's an element of faith to every society.

Third, there seem to be a lot more people than before who feel that they're being screwed by society and who feel so rather intensely. There are always people with such feelings -- sometimes almost certainly justified, sometimes almost certainly frivolous -- but there usually aren't this many of them. In a nutshell, if people don't think that their children will be better off than they were, they're more likely to rock the boat.

I think the key here is that it doesn't seem like there has ever been as many white people among them. And since white people still make up an absolute majority of the US population, having an increasing number of them starting to listen to and believe the white genocide nonsense means major social and political problems for the country. 

 

[The Anti-Targ]

12 minutes ago, Suttree said:

That's the tricky thing about facts, they don't care whether anyone "agrees" or not. No matter how much Trump would like us to live in a post truth world, that place simply doesn't exist.

 

The thing is, people have to collectively agree on certain things as facts in order for facts to have a meaningful effect on the world. Evolution being a fact is irrelevant if most people agree that the universe is 10,000 years old and all education and public policy is based around young earth creationism. Agreeing on facts is essential for a society to remain functional.

[Bonnot OG]

 

[Altherion]

7 minutes ago, Suttree said:

That's the tricky thing about facts...they don't care whether you "agree" or not.

That is actually really, really hard to prove. There are valid philosophical positions (e.g. solipsism) where it is actually not the case. However, even if we stick to the more common materialist worldview, it still doesn't help our institutions. That is, suppose that there really are facts out there which are well and truly true and independent of what you think of them. In this case, how do you know what they are? You can get at a bunch which are close to you using your senses and instruments and use a simple version of the scientific method to convince yourself that, for example, it takes an average of roughly 15 minutes to walk from your house to your favorite store, but the extent of facts which can be learned this way is quite limited and, in any case, this kind of facts are not worthy of institutional attention.

The facts which we're mainly discussing here are much greater in scope and no individual can possibly grasp them this way. For example, consider the question "How many people in the US are unemployed?" There is undoubtedly an answer to this and other answers if you place restrictions (e.g. people aged 16 to 64), but how can you be sure that you know these facts? You can't personally go check on over 300 million people. Part of our tax money goes towards determining this kind of information, but how do you know that they get it right? Again, you can't personally repeat their study to make sure that they didn't screw anything up. There's an element of faith in the institutions responsible for obtaining the society-wide facts positing that these institutions are both honest and competent and this faith has been considerably diminished (at least in the US).

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

5 hours ago, Serious Callers Only said:

I think that while it's likely that U.S.A. 'leftism' (lol) will prevent a full blown dictatorship at this time, it's also 'likely' that in the next 40-80 years as the global warming  (+4 ºC) chicken comes to roost a impossible wave of immigrants will make this unmanageable and fascism and total war against these victims will become the greatest genocide yet, Indian subcontinent is screwed by both the loss of crops and space, Brasil and Mexico will probably get insane temperatures that quite likely will turn the Amazon into a nice desert. USA and Canada will probably lose both Florida and a great deal of the area around the great lakes. I'll probably get some waterfront or underwater property if i'm alive and not eaten by roving gangs or a heatstroke.

Canada is screwed too (especially if they don't get nukes for themselves). The reason is both Russia, Alaska, the Northern US and Canada will become breadbaskets. A fascist revanchist USA will definitely invade Canada, if Russia doesn't. China will invade Mongolia (if Russia doesn't go first). Expecting Britain to help, is, uh, optimistic.

It's going to be a fun century! Also Nukes are a security imperative.

 

Maybe some of the (insane and expensive) forced reduction of temperature mega engineering projects will work (like dumping sulfuric acid in atmosphere, or a solar shade both for albedo reduction). But probably not and will make things worse when it's done without coordination or care for side effects.

Worst case scenario: Sea level rise and desertification causes the largest migration in human history at the same time the global food (and possibly water) supply is being squeezed.  Fun century indeed.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

Lots of talk about peoples relatinship to facts.  Lotta buzz. Here's the news:

Some people don't give a fuck about facts

There are people who will hold to a particular truth claim so passionately, that when they are presented with evidence and argument that refutes it, their reaction is to dig in.  

When trump lied about the crime rate during the campaign, His crowds cheered. People objected. They didn't care.

During a debate, when Trump was asked about a tweet where he implied a former beauty pageant contestant had a sex tape, his response, "Didn't happen." Literally the day after it happened.  Half the crowd in that auditorium cheered him.  Because they cared more about the boldness of the lie than the facts.

There are people today who will still claim Hillary had 5 million illegal votes and that Trump actually won the popular vote, despite the fact that it was obviously a self serving lie with no evidence to back it up.

Remember the Larry Craig Scandal?  He's tapping on the foot of an undercover cop on the throne next to him in the Minneapolis airport, apparently a way of propositioning strange men in public bathrooms for sex.  His claim: "wide stance".  A particular individual I worked with, who was so incredibly partisan I honestly thought I was being punked, defended him, long after it happened, saying the liberal media was so unfair for beating up on this good Republican for his "wide stance".

Fellas, the next time you're on the toilet with your pants around your ankles, try it.  Just try splaying your legs out so far that your toes reach into the adjacent stalls.  I'll spoil it for you: unless you're naked from the waist down, you can't do it.  My waist is certainly bigger than I'd like and I wear pretty loose, boot cut jeans and I can't even come close to doing it.

Oh, and Solpsists can fuck right off. Go ahead and be a brain in a vat somewhere if you want.  If that's your view of the world, fine.  The rest of us (if I can speak for the group) live in the real world. 

[DMC]

2 hours ago, Serious Callers Only said:

Kafkanian. There is more too:

I believe the term you're looking for is Kafkaesque.  Totally Kafkaesque:

 

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

You can get at a bunch which are close to you using your senses and instruments and use a simple version of the scientific method to convince yourself that, for example, it takes an average of roughly 15 minutes to walk from your house to your favorite store, but the extent of facts which can be learned this way is quite limited and, in any case, this kind of facts are not worthy of institutional attention.

This is farcical.  Yes, there are empirical facts that are objective and measurable.  Just as the 15 minutes to walk to work is an empirical fact, so too is, say, the empirical fact that both Sekulow and Trump himself have admitted that the administration has made numerous (I've lost count) false statements on the June 2016 Russia meeting.  The problem isn't that that there aren't any independent and verifiable empirical facts, it's that an ever-increasing number of people are willing to believe - whether it be through selective exposure or good ol' cognitive dissonance - that 2 + 2 = 5.  

And of course, the increasing lack of trust in institutions is at the heart of this problem.  That's not anything new.

1 hour ago, Altherion said:

There is undoubtedly an answer to this and other answers if you place restrictions (e.g. people aged 16 to 64), but how can you be sure that you know these facts? You can't personally go check on over 300 million people. Part of our tax money goes towards determining this kind of information, but how do you know that they get it right?

Well, first of all, they obviously don't get it exactly right.  That's why monthly numbers are double and triple checked (and revised accordingly) the subsequent two months.  But the BLS is as transparent as possible about their methodology.  If you have a substantive criticism of that I'm all ears, but you don't, and It's quite apparent neither do the vast majority of individuals that dogmatically don't trust government and institutions.

Anyway, epistemologically I'd generously describe your position less as solipsism and closer to a Kuhnian response to Popper's falsifiability.  But either way, that's a pretty egghead academic - and dirty hippy - frame of argument you're taking.

[Serious Callers Only]

https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2012/10/01/a-history-of-dishonest-fox-charts/190225

 

A simple history from 2012 of why Fox News needs to be destroyed or democracy will die again

2+2=5 indeed.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

21 minutes ago, Serious Callers Only said:

https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2012/10/01/a-history-of-dishonest-fox-charts/190225

 

A simple history from 2012 of why Fox News needs to be destroyed or democracy will die again

2+2=5 indeed.

The one on comparing a 35% tax rate to a 39% tax rate is especially good.

I'll see your charts and raise you total made-up bullshit.

[Bonnot OG]

Video showing when the Portland Police unloaded munitions, unprovoked, into the crowd of anti-fascists.

[felice]

8 hours ago, Altherion said:

First, there are street battles between the far left and the far right which, for obvious reasons, is not in general a feature of healthy societies.

You mean confrontations between nazis and people who object to nazis openly parading in the streets? Objecting to nazis is about as mainstream as it's possible to get; are you seriously trying to call that "far left"?

[DMC]

Portland Police responds to allegations of injuries by officers at Aug. 4 protests

Quote

The Portland Police Bureau (PPB) is responding to allegations of injuries that resulted from officers' actions at chaotic protests in downtown Portland Saturday, August 4.

"This morning I learned of allegations of injury as a result of law enforcement action," said PPB Chief Danielle Outlaw in a written statement Sunday. "I take all force applications by members seriously and I have directed the Professional Standards Division to being the intake process regarding these allegations to determine if force was used and if so, was within our policy and training guidelines."

I like how their police chief is named Outlaw.

[butterbumps!]

7 hours ago, Altherion said:

That is actually really, really hard to prove. There are valid philosophical positions (e.g. solipsism) where it is actually not the case. However, even if we stick to the more common materialist worldview, it still doesn't help our institutions. That is, suppose that there really are facts out there which are well and truly true and independent of what you think of them. In this case, how do you know what they are? You can get at a bunch which are close to you using your senses and instruments and use a simple version of the scientific method to convince yourself that, for example, it takes an average of roughly 15 minutes to walk from your house to your favorite store, but the extent of facts which can be learned this way is quite limited and, in any case, this kind of facts are not worthy of institutional attention.

The facts which we're mainly discussing here are much greater in scope and no individual can possibly grasp them this way. For example, consider the question "How many people in the US are unemployed?" There is undoubtedly an answer to this and other answers if you place restrictions (e.g. people aged 16 to 64), but how can you be sure that you know these facts? You can't personally go check on over 300 million people. Part of our tax money goes towards determining this kind of information, but how do you know that they get it right? Again, you can't personally repeat their study to make sure that they didn't screw anything up. There's an element of faith in the institutions responsible for obtaining the society-wide facts positing that these institutions are both honest and competent and this faith has been considerably diminished (at least in the US).

Beyond what others already responded to, I think you're misidentifying the driving force behind why people adopt fake facts.  You seem to be arguing that people care about facts, but that objective facts (if they exist at all) cannot be determined by many because there is so little trust in institutions/ elites' knowledge.   I know the idea of popular distrust of and disgust with elites/ institutions is a big thing for you, but I don't think that's the crux of the issue.   

I think @Deadlines? What Deadlines? was closer to it above, but I think it's beyond being "passionate about claims."  Simply put, I think all these people- specifically white people- are super passionate about not feeling racial discomfort, and Trump makes them feel special.  I think it's really easy to underestimate just how virulent the white resentment and fragility are amongst these fake facts adopters.   But it seems to me more a case of emotion influencing which facts to seek out and adopt than distrust in epistemology and institutions or whatever have you.

The "facts" they spew to justify their continued support are more like fig leaves as I see it.  They don't truly believe these audacious things, at least initially (though maybe they start to believe the lies in some cases), but it affords them cover.  They can't just come out and say "I support this guy because I'm racist, and that's more important than anything else to me" quite yet (and in some cases, can't or won't understand that they're racist af to begin with, but know evil libruls and elites will make them feel uncomfortable for articulating anything non- PC).

Anyway, I really don't think this is about some reasonably-derived distrust in institutions and shared facts as you seem to posit.  I sincerely doubt they would re-evaluate even if they were confronted with incontrovertible fact that better aligned with reality, because it's not about facts as such for them-- the facts serve their feelings, so fighting facts solves nothing.   I think one needs to address the underlying motivation for why they seek and cling to these facts in the first place, and in the case of Trumpkins, it's mainly quelling racial discomfort.

[Jace, Extat]

8 minutes ago, butterbumps! said:

Beyond what others already responded to, I think you're misidentifying the driving force behind why people adopt fake facts.  You seem to be arguing that people care about facts, but that objective facts (if they exist at all) cannot be determined by many because there is so little trust in institutions/ elites' knowledge.   I know the idea of popular distrust of and disgust with elites/ institutions is a big thing for you, but I don't think that's the crux of the issue.   

I think @Deadlines? What Deadlines? was closer to it above, but I think it's beyond being "passionate about claims."  Simply put, I think all these people- specifically white people- are super passionate about not feeling racial discomfort, and Trump makes them feel special.  I think it's really easy to underestimate just how virulent the white resentment and fragility are amongst these fake facts adopters.   But it seems to me more a case of emotion influencing which facts to seek out and adopt than distrust in epistemology and institutions or whatever have you.

The "facts" they spew to justify their continued support are more like fig leaves as I see it.  They don't truly believe these audacious things, at least initially (though maybe they start to believe the lies in some cases), but it affords them cover.  They can't just come out and say "I support this guy because I'm racist, and that's more important than anything else to me" quite yet (and in some cases, can't or won't understand that they're racist af to begin with, but know evil libruls and elites will make them feel uncomfortable for articulating anything non- PC).

Anyway, I really don't think this is about some reasonably-derived distrust in institutions and shared facts as you seem to posit.  I sincerely doubt they would re-evaluate even if they were confronted with incontrovertible fact that better aligned with reality, because it's not about facts as such for them-- the facts serve their feelings, so fighting facts solves nothing.   I think one needs to address the underlying motivation for why they seek and cling to these facts in the first place, and in the case of Trumpkins, it's mainly quelling racial discomfort.

Don't write 'I think' so often. It makes you seem unconvinced of your own argument.

[Morpheus]

Instead, try something like, “everybody knows”.

[Jace, Extat]

2 minutes ago, Morpheus said:

Instead, try something like, “everybody knows”.

"That's what I hear"

[LongRider]

"people are saying"