This right here is what I’m currently thinking about. Having spent years here and elsewhere calling out MAGATS and various right wingers as morons, it’s become less satisfying and more frustrating at its lack of success in changing minds. Add to that my disillusionment with some of the recent progressive messaging which makes me all, “WTF guys?”
Mostly it’s my dread of a 2022 “shellacking” (Thanks, Obama!), that has me wondering how liberals can do better at getting through to conservatives that can be reached.
I think this is more of a factor than you do. Kind of like the discussion about academia earlier. My dislike of sections of academia aside, I think in the last decade there has been a growing trend of a term originating as jargon for an academic discussion escaping to the wild and being misused. There’s nothing wrong with jargon, all disciplines do it, and it simplifies the conversation for all who understand and agree on what that jargon means. What happens is that the jargon gets picked up out of academia, transmitted on social media, and we go from a concept such as “privilege” as a reasonable way to look at various groups (even if it can be difficult to apply to an individual without getting pushback) to practically meaningless conversation stoppers like “check your privilege”.
Is some out of context? Sure. But for a group of people who are big on not disregarding someone’s “lived experience”, there seems to be a real willingness to do so if the person who is trying to relate their experience isn’t a politically “acceptable” identity.
We are in an environment that is artificial and won’t lead anywhere. If Bannon is on tv bragging about his role and skating on sedition then how can any take on that situation be anything other than absurd?
The way to go forward is to challenge all lies in public, subpeona all witnesses in impeachments and committees, and use contempt charges in all cases.
You need to shame and reputationally damage fascists. The voters are following them without much analysis or thought. But why would these voters deserve more consideration and understanding than other americans?
My point is fascism comes from non fascists doing things for their own individual selfish reasons.
The people you are talking about changing are all part of the problem. Fascism at this point in our history is turnp, mcconnel, (no matter how much he hates turnp), all the judges placed by mcconell, grassley, Rubio on and on in congress, Kurtsey Enema, Jan 6 rioters, and everyone who has been radicalized on facebook. Many of them are non fascists but they are bringing the same end.
They can fight among themselves as non fascists but the end point is fascism for regular americans.
The ones who you think can be persuaded are not persuadable any more than their leaders. They take the cues without any persuading involved. The only way to influence such a system is to shame and prosecute the leaders.
Prosecute?- Maybe.
Shame?- What is shame? Does shame take money out of their wallet? Does shame put them in prison? Shame is the same as hypocrisy at this point. You might as well accuse them of wearing a light blue shirt for all the effect it will have.
What I mean by Shame is a work in progress now because we are trained to lie down and take all this stuff for over 5 years now. My feeling is that we are in a bubble where we have forgotten how to attach righties to their own policies and comrades and what it meant to do that.
I am talking about a long term project of truth to attach right wing fascist moves of the right to the pols on the right.
When Mcconnell or grassley shows up in public they nee3d to be questioned on who is president and how and not allowed to skate on even one question. If Bolton shows up on CNN he should not be allowed to promote his project while avoiding hard questions. This is what I mean by shame.
If you notice turnp was avoiding shame on a lot of things, as do all fascists. They try to lay it on you and avoid it for themselves. It is the lingua franca of authoritarians. It’s the only thing that matters to the base. The Republicans need to be “attached” to the antidemocracy project even if they say they hate trump or whatever. That
is no enough anymore.
Look after 1/6 and 5 years of this, Youngkin won, and turnp is tied with Biden in polls for 24. Something is just not working in our civics. The communication project around this I call “shaming.”
In fact, BLM is now writing curricula for every grade K-12 and getting it accepted into public schools. Of course it casts BLM in the most positive light possible. For example it appears that one of their big principles is the development of ‘loving neighborhoods’. The lesson plans do not include perspectives from any opponents or even any material at all that calls any of their assertions into question. Shades of the kind of state propaganda kids had to learn in Soviet and Chinese schools.
My favorite part is where they get grade 2 children to make ‘pledge cards’ about taking action for social justice, and then reciting their pledges to the other kids. Framing, priming, then reinforcing. Classic indoctrination techniques. It strikes me as more religion than anything else. We used to have to do this kind of crap in Sunday School, except with Jesus taking the place of ‘social justice’.
None of this belongs anywhere near a grade 2 class. Especially in schools that aren’t graduating literate adults.
Buffalo is also teaching the ‘1619 project’ as fact, despite numerous objections from historians and the National Association of Scholars.
I had to notice that this is a language assignment, not taught as history.
BTW, I have seen many lessons like that in a charter school I worked with, as language assignments also that added religious lessons. While I could complain about it, I would not lose sleep about it, because religious themes were not added to the science or history lessons.
Also, while looking at the current curriculum for the buffalo district, if I’m looking at the right one, I can’t see any mention of BLM.
Oh my god. Sam, when I said “Don’t be stupid,” did you think I wasn’t talking about you?
That’s not a lesson about whiteness. That’s a lesson about standing up for what you believe in, in keeping with a bog-standard state-mandated second-grade learning objective, “Citizens contribute to a community’s government through leadership and service.”
Holy fuck. Remember that “don’t be stupid” bit? Motherfucker, in my state, schools are required to lead students in the Pledge of Allegiance every morning. And what gets your boxers twisted is that students are asked to determine for themselves “a cause that they would stand up for”? The only requirement is that they say something that’s important and that they’ll stand up for? Christ, that’s not indoctrination anywhere near the level of saying the Pledge. If you’re genuinely concerned about state indoctrination, maybe shut the fuck up about BLM until you’ve gotten every state to drop the Pledge of Allegiance school mandate, and then we’ll talk.
Which assertions in that lesson should be called into question? Please be specific and cite textual evidence.
Oh, is that all they are teaching? Just ‘Black Lives Matter’, huh? Can we please be serious and stop responding with stupid little ‘gotcha’ posts like this?
Do YOU think children in grade 2 should be propagandized like this? Making up pledge cards with their pledge to fight for a political cause, then affirming it in front of the other kids? In grade 2?
Sam let me be real clear: The only reason I can see for Canadian to even think about commenting on the origins of another country’s history, in a manner which is consistently detrimental to that country’s historically-persecuted minority citizens, is deep-rooted racism.
