Twigs and branches

More Brexit nightmares:
Wine importers
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/18/a-multiple-pile-up-in-the-fog-wine-agents-fury-at-brexit-red-tape
Regulations won’t be going away, but the EU will be applying strict scrutiny
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=87856
Horse-racing industry disaster
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=87855
meat and animal exports falling off a cliff
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=87854
Fishing industry collapsing
http://www.eureferendum.com/blogview.aspx?blogno=87851

It’s a small but symbolically significant step that the Keystone pipeline deal will be scuttled on Biden’s first day in office.

Three score hours remain
until the atrocity
becomes history

A holiday in the name of a King
in a nation disdaining his offering.
He tried, though he had no reason to trust us;
The arc of the moral universe bends to: just us.

Kerrie Sinclair @ 1

Apologies if this response will be unhelpful, but I’m not entirely sure I fully understand your question. I think you are essentially asking “here are a lot of opinions on what targets to aim for – is there a ‘best opinion’?” (again, sorry if I have misunderstood).

My short answer would be “the answer depends – emissions targets will depend on temperature targets, which is dependent on what you think is survivable”.

There are a number of good blogs which address the subject in a general sense (e.g. realclimate.org has some good links, ClimateActionTracker.org offers a basic overview of country-by-country targets, etc.) and, if you are interested, I believe Michael E. Mann offers a free online MOOC [1] which you might find quite useful.

However, while you probably know this all already, I will offer a basic response:

I am by no means an expert (my background is materials science specialising in energy storage), but my understanding is that the targets to push for are dependent on a) what goal you wish to target (e.g. “an Earth which is nice to live on” vs “civilisation can continue to exist” vs “humans will probably survive in pockets of habitable areas”) and b) what you think will be feasible (socially, politically, etc.). It is, of course, further complicated by the complexity of the system and having to make projections about at what point the self-reinforcing mechanisms start kicking in. The more cautious you are about at which temperature you think civilisation may be sustainable (depending on what you think is sustainable – e.g. how many wildfires, heatwaves, etc. people, animals, crops, etc. will tolerate), the earlier the emissions reductions need to be made. However, while it is worth bearing in mind that many models are more a guideline to help understand the situation rather than intended to be exact predictions [2], the IPCC report gives a reasonable overview [3].

The Paris accord targets limiting temperature to below 2 degrees – preferably below 1.5 – compared to pre-industrial levels. This isn’t, of course, an “ideal” target, but it is in the ballpark of “many civilisations will probably survive” (depending on where you are, of course – we can still anticipate famine, mass migrations, geopolitical instability, etc.). To meet this target, most scenarios are considering “net zero” by 2045, with reductions in transport and electricity to be made earlier (being the more “low hanging fruit”). This is already a hugely ambitious target, which is probably not going to be sufficient to maintain a reasonable quality of life for many people.

In short – we’re all a bit buggered, but the degree to which we are buggered is something we can still act on. We should push the steepest possible targets at the earliest possible dates to minimise the impact of climate change (although it will still be bad). Unfortunately, given the pushback, “steepest targets” and “earliest possible dates” are still going to lead to a bad situation – but we should just about avoid the destruction of civilisation. Sorry if this is just restating what you already know, but just to give an “in a nutshell”.

[1] “Climate Change: The Science and Global Impact”
https://www.edx.org/course/climate-change-the-science-and-global-impact?fbclid=IwAR2489S3KwivjvIyERj4vjD7UUH_Qh0PqqApKdZsbIu81-r6kG5-uHfKG6Y

[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01125-x

[3] https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/

A controversial take on the events at the Capitol is that the axes of political debate have shifted from left vs right to Enlightenment Rationalism versus the religious, where the religious group is composed not so much of traditional Christianity but has more newer stuff, like QAnon

Kind of like political Islam in the Middle East, only with QAnon instead of Islam.

Kerrie,
I’d settle for getting 80% of the way to neutral by 2030. That seems more doable, but is still a huge stretch. At least recent modeling indicates that the climate will start cooling within not much longer than a decade after a sudden switch to neutrality, which is a lot shorter than previously believed. But, all these pledges to reach neutrality by 2040-2050 are far short of what is needed.

@13
‘’Nancy Pelosi and I agree”:

Impossible! –
as Nancy Pelosi believes that the election wasn’t stolen –
while you -(and me?) know – that Trump won.

Right?

Hidari 01.19.21 at 3:57 pm (13): ‘I hope we are all getting behind this’ etc.

The excitement of Trump dies hard. Besides reinflating Russiagate, I received yesterday a message from a supposedly anti-war group urging me to support the expulsion of a number of Representatives from the House because they voted improperly — in other words, saving democracy by anti-democratically depriving a large number of people of elected representation — and Caitlin Johnstone reports ‘A new viral video calling on liberals to form “an army of citizen detectives” to gather information on Trump supporters and report their activities to the authorities has racked up thousands of shares and millions of views in just a few hours. The hashtag #TrumpsNewArmy is trending on Twitter as of this writing due to the release of a horrifying video with that title from successful author and virulent Russiagater Don Winslow. As of this writing it has some 20 thousand shares and 2.6 million views, and the comments and quote-retweets are predominantly supportive.’

(URL: https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/01/19/viral-trumpsnewarmy-video-is-liberals-at-their-craziest-and-scariest/) [Note– I have not checked anything alleged to have appeared on Twitter because I don’t have a pole long enough.]

I am not sure what to make of the suggested purge. Last gasp or second wind?

Have any of you heard of Daniel Deudney? His stuff on republicanism as a form of international relations is p-i-m-p, but nobody on the critical Left is willing to take a good hard look at it.

I wish we would!

and about the mentioned ”luck”
(from the Intelligencer)

”And yet: For all of the mass death and democratic backsliding we’ve suffered these past four years, America is in far better shape than it might have been. Entrusting an authoritarian con man with the world’s most powerful elective office brought the United States catastrophe, but it has also left us with a historic opportunity for democratic renewal.

We are lucky that Donald Trump started no major wars (thanks, in no small part, to Iranian restraint). We’re lucky that Republicans came a few votes short of throwing millions off of Medicaid. We’re lucky that the GOP’s internal divisions on immigration prevented Trump from inscribing his most xenophobic policies into legislative statute, and, thus, that his nativist legacy is almost entirely revocable by executive fiat. Above all, we are lucky that Trump did not win reelection and that the incoming Democratic government will actually have the power to implement reform.

Trump has issued one less than a gross of pardons, none particularly egregious. I am cautiously hopeful that the last few hours of his presidency will not be catastrophic.

Google searches for information on the August 2020 Reichstag incident turn up some alarming historical parallels (“No, Google, I meant the 2020 incident not the 1933 one”) I can sort of imagine a parallel between Marinus van der Lubbe and the QAnon Shaman guy .. we might be in for endless historical analysis on whether QAnon shaman was set up by more dangerous people

Anarcissie @ 18: (1) keep believing that your avatar Donald didn’t conspire with the Russians. Keep wishing for that. B/c not merely does every relevant report of the government contradict you, but now, now all the shoes will drop — the ones that Li’l Donnie kept secret these past four years.
(2) These senators & congressmen did a monstrous thing: they attempted to overthrow a duly certified election. You obviously don’t actually know your law, but their role was purely ministerial. They had no right to vote against the duly certified electoral votes of the states. And those votes were indeed duly certified, and every court that ruled, agreed with that.

What they were doing, is attempting to gin up that army that tried to take over the Congress. This was sedition. And these people should not merely be drummed out of Congress, but sent to federal prison. They’re traitors and should pay the price.

And why is this? Well, I’ll paraphrase what Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote. He asked: suppose that in fact the electoral votes were fraudulent. Then the army invading the Capitol would have the right of it, wouldn’t they? They would be defending our democracy. So the greater sin does not reside with that invading army, but with the people who ginned up the lie: the people who perpetrated a monstrous lie that the votes were fraudulent, to assemble that army and point them at the Capitol.

These congressmen are traitors.

1974, upon learning of Nixon’s resignation, I locked up the store, and Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley quickly spun up into its familiar party scene.

There were also festivities over the fall of Vietnam and a lunar eclipse. Any excuse for dancing in the streets. Bliss it was in this, that or the other dusk to be alive, but to be young was very heaven.

Which, to a first approximation, is almost trivially true: youth is beauty, and beauty youth.

@31 JD
“Is it a bad thing if people report evidence of the commission of crimes? Is it a bad thing if people seek for evidence of the commission of crimes?”

If you legitimately aren’t sure of the answer to these questions, you should spend more time reading about the Gestapo during pre-war Germany and most all of the “KGB-affiliated” branches of the state police in the Cold War Soviet Block. Specifically informing against those who are not affiliated with the “in” party differs markedly from routine police help lines which most people can readily support.

It is interesting how suddenly “arresting people for specific crimes” (such as, to pick an example purely at random, breaking into a building with the stated goal of murder) who are then prosecuted in a court of law (with a legal defender and the requirement of the prosecution to demonstrate guilt) is now apparently directly analogous to sending people to concentration camps.

It is also fascinating that should one consider the alleged attempts of Barr to charge BLM protestors with sedition to be deeply problematic, apparently one is guilty of hysteria. And of course, should one advocate that people guilty of planning abduction and murder should be prosecuted for planning abduction and murder, that too is hysteria (and, apparantly, equivalent to being a member of the Gestapo).

I find it a little amusing that apparently a video from some overly dramatic, asinine twitteratti is now proof that “liberals are at their craziest and scariest” – which is, of course, a sensible, sober, and deeply thoughtful analysis in no-way prone to any exaggeration.

I’ll admit, I am enjoying seeing how many people are employing inflammatory rhetoric to point out the dangers of inflammatory rhetoric. While we may be facing greatly diminished resources in the near future, clearly we still have vast untapped reserves of irony.

CHETAN R MURTHY 01.21.21 at 6:41 am @ 28, etc. —
In regard to Russiagate, I don’t put it past Tsar Vladimir or the Emperor Xi or indeed a number of other entities, including domestic actors, to attempt to do political manipulation through social media or other Internet features; I just haven’t seen any believable evidence of significant interference given. This was one of my work specialities in recent years, so to some extent I know what I’m talking about.

The utterances of governments or other state institutions like the major media (to which you seem to refer in defense of Russiagate) must be taken with considerable skepticism, because knowledge is power and (political) power is rivalrous; therefore, it is strongly in the interest of those desiring to acquire and keep power to lie, filter, frame, or otherwise obscure the truth from others, lest their power be diminished. I hardly need to give examples from recent public life. As a friend of mine biblically says, ‘Believe nothing until it has been officially denied three times.’ Another imperfect solution is to seek corroboration from independent sources, for which see above.

Expelling duly elected Representatives because they voted legally but improperly (in your opinion) surely deprives their constituents of their Constitutional right to engage in democracy and must be accounted anti-democratic. There is currently no law against bad judgement. In addition, such an act would be a bad example to future Congresses which might be of a considerably different political coloration than the present one. Of course you may find the sort of democracy specified in the Constitution tiresome, but then the question arises of what you’re going to replace it with.

It’s funny how Anarcissie claims to be super skeptical and then quotes Caitlin Johnston‘s website as proof that the liberals are planning a „purge“ of all dissenters., or something. If only he took his friend‘s advice and waited for the official denial before believing any of the batshit fed to him by his trusted propaganda channels.

Expelling duly elected Representatives because they voted legally but improperly (in your opinion) surely deprives their constituents of their Constitutional right to engage in democracy and must be accounted anti-democratic. There is currently no law against bad judgement. In addition, such an act would be a bad example to future Congresses which might be of a considerably different political coloration than the present one. Of course you may find the sort of democracy specified in the Constitution tiresome, but then the question arises of what you’re going to replace it with.

The system specified in your Constitution explicitly incorporates a power of expulsion of members for each house of the Congress; I don’t know whether you find that tiresome.

Any specific decision made by either the House or the Senate to expel a member might be made for bad reasons or for good reasons. However, it’s impossible to evaluate as bad or as good any such specific decision which not only has not been made but has not even been proposed. No member of either house has even tried to introduce a motion to expel any current member. If that actually does happen, you may have a case that the proposal is unjustified, and it’s also possible I will agree with that case; but right now you have no such case. Right now the position you seem to be advancing is that neither house should ever expel a member, and the only justification you seem to have for that is the erroneous one that it would leave constituents without representation (erroneous because any expulsion would be followed by a special election).

As I mentioned in an earlier comment, the House of Representatives should have expelled Preston Brooks; that it failed to do so is not a good thing but a bad thing.

Anarcissie @ 36: “Expelling duly elected Representatives because they voted legally but improperly (in your opinion)”

This isn’t why their peers in the Senate and the House want them expelled: it’s not merely because of a vote. It is because they fomented insurrection, MURDEROUS INSURRECTION. And for you to say otherwise, is GASLIGHTING.

But also: you have neglected that democracies work on NORMS. The NORM is that when the states certify slates of electors, the Congress MUST accept those slates. And there is even a “safe harbor” date, so that states that certify before that date MUST be accepted. There isn’t any question that all the states (except WI) met that deadline.

And let me remind you that Senators take an oath including the words “I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office”. To accept duly certified slates of electors is a DUTY OF THE OFFICE.

So stop gaslighting, Anarcissie.

These are traitors, they sent mobs to murder their colleagues, and they violated their oaths of office.

And you, for defending them, are forever after now, a Trumpist.

And in the context of the national anthem, and in the context of the “stately” occasion, the last note she hit, at the onset of the word “brave”, in the context of that chord, was killer. When done with such care, and sensitivity to its possibilities, it’s quite an interesting song.

Some of those dis-unifying changes Trader Joe is crying about are detailed here:

https://www.balloon-juice.com/2021/01/22/friday-morning-open-thread-celebrate-then-get-back-to-work/

Some would say they actually improve unification, of families and the cast-off.

Trader Joe @ 45: The crowdsourcing people are trying to identify, y’know, TRAITORS in a murderous mob that attacked the Capitol, murdered a cop, put SIXTY cops in the hospital, and came a minute-or-two away from assaulting legislators. And that’s only the part we KNOW.

To pretend that these are mere “Trump supporters” is bullshit, you gaslighter.

Trader Joe is a gaslighter and a Trumpist.

Anarcissie @ 47: So much bullshit in so few words. It’s actually artistic in a sense:

“whether the idea of expelling Representatives because of their vote was to be taken seriously or not.”

When an official violates their oath, they ought to be expelled. But you also inflate things: nobody is talking about expelling the 100+ sedition caucus, but only the ones who were most public and vocal in inciting the crowd. But hey, Anarcissie believes that it’s 100% OK for Senators to call for the murder of their colleagues one day, and be seated next to them with full privileges the next. A-yup.

“Clinton’s call for a revival of Russiagate”

Again: every respected source agrees that the Russians attacked America’s elections, and those of a number of other Western allies; the EVIDENCE (like the Dutch penetrating the SVR (GRU?) facility and getting even camera footage) is overwhelming.

“the video suggesting that we spy on our neighbors and turn them in”

The videos I’ve seen suggest that we help identify COUP PARTICIPANTS who engaged in TERRORISM against our legitimate government. Next you’ll be telling me that we should all ignore FBI “most wanted” posters? And remember that this was at moment when the then-ruling authorities were not trustworthy to actually hunt down and capture these perpetrators, b/c some of them were in league with them.

Again: these are traitors who attacked OUR government with murderous force. They need to be tried, convicted, and imprisoned.

“you mention ‘America’s allies’ as if they were not subject to the same logic”

Wow. Just wow. I hope you don’t live in a Western democracy. Go live in Russia, find out what it’s like to not have the benefit of democracy. As bad as things can get in the West, and yes, they can get pretty damn bad, it’s nothing like Russia. Jesus.

“it seems useless to go on about it.”

Would that it were true. Finally, truth from Anarcissie the Trumpist.

TJ 45: “Perhaps Mr. Biden can restore some sanity – but after lecturing for 30 minutes about unity and then promptly signing 15 executive orders specifically repudiating his predecessor I’m not optimistic (even if I agreed with all of them).”

Why not take this opportunity to list the orders in question that threaten sanity and national unity and cause so much pain and suffering! Here they are, first the orders from inauguration day:

Begin a “100 Days Masking Challenge”
Rejoin the World Health Organization
Restructure Response to COVID-19
Moratoriums on evictions and foreclosures
Continue “pause” on student loan payments until September 30
Rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement
End Keystone XL pipeline and revoke oil and gas development at national wildlife monuments
Racial equality through the federal government
Include undocumented immigrants in U.S. Census
Protect the “Dreamers” program
End the Muslim Ban
Change Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrest priorities
Stop border wall construction and end the national emergency declaration
Keep protections for a group of Liberians in the country
Strengthen workplace discrimination protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity

And here are some of the orders signed January 21 and 22:

Requires mask wearing in airports and on certain modes of transportation
Calls on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to release clear guidance on Covid-19 and directs OSHA to enforce worker health and safety requirements
Directs FEMA to create federally-supported community vaccination centers
Enhances the nation’s collection, production, sharing and analysis of coronavirus data
Calls for assistance to those who are struggling to buy food, missed out on stimulus checks or are unemployed
Restores collective bargaining power and worker protections for federal workers, and lays the foundation for $15 minimum wage

How dare he!

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/22/politics/joe-biden-executive-orders-first-week/index.html
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/

You might consider getting together with J-D to decide whether the idea of expelling Representatives because of their vote was to be taken seriously or not.

There has been no proposal to expel a Representative solely for the way that Representative voted. That is a falsehood, and there is no number of repetitions which will convert a falsehood into truth.

As you seem impervious to my theory that the possession of power leads logically to a predisposition to lie or do other harms to truth …

I’m not sure, but it’s possible that some theory of this kind might be true; but if that is the situation, how do you suggest responding to it? Choosing never to believe any statement by anybody who holds any power would be a foolish overreaction.

CM@50:
Again: every respected source agrees that the Russians attacked America’s elections, and those of a number of other Western allies; the EVIDENCE (like the Dutch penetrating the SVR (GRU?) facility and getting even camera footage) is overwhelming.

So let’s connect the dots between this twigs thread and the last one. It’s unequivocal that election interference happened, and there was evidence that Trump was complicit. Fine. So let’s judge people by their actions, not their intent. Nancy Pelosi, who refused to bring Articles against Trump for these uncontroversial and well-documented charges (but did bring Articles when Biden was attacked)? Trumpist. Most of the Democratic Party? Trumpist. The sensible centrist liberals who supported the sensible centrist leaders who wouldn’t act against Trump? Trumpist. You, if you choose to defend these pols for playing politics instead of trying to reign in Trump? Trumpist.

Or does none of that actually apply, b/c when you say “Trumpist” you actually mean “person I disagree with who I want to tar with a broad brush”, and you don’t disagree with any of the aforementioned enablers? You’re using the term “Trumpist” so sloppily that it’s losing any coherent meaning. Manicheanism in politics is never enlightening about anything except your likes and dislikes.

More evidence of murderous intent (and coordination): https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/conspiracy-oath-keeper-arrest-capitol-riot/2021/01/19/fb84877a-5a4f-11eb-8bcf-3877871c819d_story.html
[this is discussing an Oath Keepers group that stormed the Capitol during the attempted coup]
In charging papers, the FBI said that during the Capitol riot, Caldwell received Facebook messages from unspecified senders updating him of the location of lawmakers. When he posted a one-word message, “Inside,” he received exhortations and directions describing tunnels, doors and hallways, the FBI said.

Some messages, according to the FBI, included,

“Tom all legislators are down in the Tunnels 3floors down,” and “Go through back house chamber doors facing N left down hallway down steps.” Another message read: “All members are in the tunnels under capital seal them in. Turn on gas,” the FBI added.

Continuing the Gaga anthem theme, and in reply to JPL, the part that stuck in my head when I crawled out of bed this morning, was the lift of her hand and the variant monotonic ascent of “and our flag was still there!”

Washington burned, but Baltimore was saved.

Presented without comment – Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has stated she has filed articles of impeachment against President Biden (1 day after he has been President).

I’ll let commenters draw their own conclusions.

OW @ 56″ The sensible centrist liberals who supported the sensible centrist leaders who wouldn’t act against Trump?”

Alright, Einstein, what are these “sensible centrist liberals” supposed to do? What? And how is it supposed to actually stop Trump? Pray tell. Because as it turned out, the only thing that stopped him was the voters. It turned out that if you control 1/3 of the Senate, you can’t be convicted pursuant to impeachment, and [following the GrOPer theory of the unitary executive — that applies to GrOPer Presidents and not Dem Presidents] you cannot be indicted for any actions during your term. So again: tell us all what the Dems didn’t understand, that they could have done?

CM 64: Murc’s Law is getting tiresome isn’t it. Why didn’t centrist liberals use their magic powers against Trump? Why? Because they didn’t want to, that’s why! And that proves that everything Trump did is really the fault of centrist liberals. No excuses, everything is their fault, and therefore we are right to vote against the Dems next election time, and then when Republicans are back in power, it will be the fault of the Democrats because they are always running lousy candidates… and on and on.

In the meantime, that old neoliberal Biden has with a few strokes of a pen dismantled dozens of attacks on workers, consumers, and the environment, reversed dozens of policies aimed at making the rich richer and freeing corporations of government regulation, policies waged by Trump the greatest anti-neoliberal of all time!

And more is to come! How dare President Biden, how dare he!

CHETAN R MURTHY 01.23.21 at 1:43 am @ 57 — I haven’t defended any traitors, actually. Mostly, I leave the business of bourgeois institutions to those who belong to them. However, since approximately 2016 or so I have been disturbed by the McCarthyism and Manichaeanism* of centrist (i.e. conservative) Democrats, which, once begun against their usual opponents, could easily be extended to people of very different political and cultural colorations, like me. After all, their animus toward leftists of every description is of long standing and has sometimes been exercised in material ways. I hope to impede this tendency by noting its contradiction with supposed liberal principles; perhaps some liberals will repent.

A metaphor; no offense intended to actual Manichaeans (followers of the prophet Mani).

J-D 01.23.21 at 12:14 am @ 34 —
The movement to expel Representatives was presented to me precisely as a response to and punishment of their vote not to accept the results of the election, and nothing else. I can’t read everything, but that’s what I got, and people who supported it (again, in my non-infinite reading) seemed aligned with that notion.

The problem of the conflict between power and truth is of such difficulty and long standing as to have produced many proverbs and clichés. Pretending it doesn’t exist, as by blindly trusting governments, leaders, corporate managers, and so on, doesn’t solve it. You see, in the paragraph immediately above, how even a skeptic like myself was misled by a mere correpondent.

However, since approximately 2016 or so I have been disturbed by the McCarthyism and Manichaeanism* of centrist (i.e. conservative) Democrats, which, once begun against their usual opponents, could easily be extended to people of very different political and cultural colorations, like me. After all, their animus toward leftists of every description is of long standing and has sometimes been exercised in material ways. I hope to impede this tendency by noting its contradiction with supposed liberal principles; perhaps some liberals will repent.

If there is a principle, liberal or otherwise, which says ‘Never take action adverse to anybody’, then it is a foolish principle. That you should not wish adverse action to be taken against yourself, or against people like you, is natural; but it’s an inadequate justification for a negative evaluation of adverse actions in all cases.

If there is some more specific principle you’re defending, or some more specific negative evaluation you’re making, it isn’t clear.

The movement to expel Representatives was presented to me precisely as a response to and punishment of their vote not to accept the results of the election, and nothing else. I can’t read everything, but that’s what I got, and people who supported it (again, in my non-infinite reading) seemed aligned with that notion.

This has little or no value as a contribution to the discussion without some detail of who it was that presented the movement to you in that way and why you believed them.

The problem of the conflict between power and truth is of such difficulty and long standing as to have produced many proverbs and clichés. Pretending it doesn’t exist, as by blindly trusting governments, leaders, corporate managers, and so on, doesn’t solve it. You see, in the paragraph immediately above, how even a skeptic like myself was misled by a mere correpondent.

It is folly to believe everything you’re told and equally folly to disbelieve everything you’re told. Each decison about how much confidence to place in something you’re told needs to be evaluated individually, just like each decision about how much confidence to place in any conclusion drawn from any evidence. Power relations are among the relevant circumstances but the issue exists independently of them, as your example shows (‘mere correspondent’ is not a position of power). Your remarks appear to hint at the possibility that people like me have been duped into supposing that whatever people in power tell us is true, but it is not the case that I believe that whatever people in power tell me is true.

@
”Finally, truth from Anarcissie the Trumpist”.

which always reminds me on the many disputes I -(WE) had with ”Right-Wingers” – or ”Trumpers” as they often have no idea – that they are ”Right-Wingers” or ”Trumpers”

Like… –
just last week – we had this conversation with somebody who quoted Glenn Greenwald –
by insisting that ”the insurrection” was just a ”farce” and NOT a ”insurrection” –
and after we told him -(or her) – that such a statement qualifies for ”Right-Wing Nonsense” –
AND –
”a positive 73 percent Identification as a Trumper” by our Plagiarism Software –
the ”Trumper” was really surprised –
telling US – that –
but?
but??
but??? –
he always thought to be an… ”Anarchist”.

But he didn’t call himself
”Anarcissie”?

Open threads was a great idea, very entertaining. I should read it more often, first thing in the morning. A charge of good mood for the whole day.

race not class has inexplicably failed but somehow gotten worse so that there is no real improvement since slavery days (!) is simply ignored.

I’ve read some stupid crap in CT comments but this one surely takes the cake.

It’s a good example of why most people here don’t read your comments or engage with you.

You write like you know everything important there is to know and no-one else knows jack-s**t about anything.

Good luck with building that revolution!

J-D quoted I think this “the genre of fiction where it is imagined how history might have turned out differently in which the writer asserted that in English-language fiction of the same kind it is most commonly imagined how history might have turned out worse (for example: the Axis wins the Second World War; the Confederacy wins the Second World War) whereas in French-language fiction of the same kind it is more commonly imagined how history might have turned out better (for example: a Napoleonic triumph): the commentator suggested that Anglophone writers might imagine that we live in an ideal world (so alternatives would be worse) while French writers know that we don’t (because English and not French is the globally dominant language).”.
https://crookedtimber.org/2021/01/23/branching-points/#comment-808226

Wow. Any french fiction to suggested J-D / others?

Fun article doing the rounds on social media.

‘Traditional newspapers never sold news; they sold an audience to advertisers. To a considerable degree, this commercial imperative determined the journalistic style, with its impersonal voice and pretense of objectivity. The aim was to herd the audience into a passive consumerist mass. Opinion, which divided readers, was treated like a volatile substance and fenced off from “factual” reporting.

The digital age exploded this business model. Advertisers fled to online platforms, never to return. For most newspapers, no alternative sources of revenue existed: as circulation plummets to the lowest numbers on record, more than 2,000 dailies have gone silent since the turn of the century. The survival of the rest remains an open question.

Led by the New York Times, a few prominent brand names moved to a model that sought to squeeze revenue from digital subscribers lured behind a paywall. This approach carried its own risks. The amount of information in the world was, for practical purposes, infinite. As supply vastly outstripped demand, the news now chased the reader, rather than the other way around. Today, nobody under 85 would look for news in a newspaper. Under such circumstances, what commodity could be offered for sale?

During the 2016 presidential campaign, the Times stumbled onto a possible answer. It entailed a wrenching pivot from a journalism of fact to a “post-journalism” of opinion’.

Discuss.

https://www.city-journal.org/journalism-advocacy-over-reporting

While in a corner of CT fantasy world “liberals at their craziest and scariest” are engaged in the Great Purge, in the real world liberal journalists are hounded by right wing online mobs – sometimes with success.

https://www.vox.com/2021/1/24/22247390/lauren-wolfe-new-york-times-tweet-chills
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/01/the-warriors-of-bad-faith-claim-another-victim

@Chetan Murthy: You’re both right and wrong.

I carefully re-read stj’s comment from the beginning and, yes, I did misapprehend his meaning somewhat (his style of writing is so convoluted it is easy to lose track of what he is saying; which is likely why JD, myself, and probably some others, tend to skip over his comments). As it turns out, I mostly agree with the basic thrust; but, I also agree with that Austrian fellow when he said: “what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.”

So (very qualified) appy-polly-logies to stj!

Your own comment, however, is problematic.

You say that I commented in “bad faith”. Notwithstanding that I am more likely to agree with your comments in these threads than I am to agree with the comments of many others, I have noticed before that you tend to be rather casual with that imputation. You should at least try to be sure that it makes sense in the context.

You say I read as literal what stj meant as sarcasm. If I did that in good faith (as why would I not?) then I simply misapprehended what he was trying to express (I am used to stj saying some wild s**t so wasn’t really surprised, but it did make me a little angry in the moment. I got over it.).

Making an honest mistake is not “bad faith”.

I do stand by the underlying point of my post, suggested by this paragraph (if I may quote myself):

You write like you know everything important there is to know and no-one else knows jack-s**t about anything.

That is still true and, while admittedly somewhat vituperative (no negative judgment intended, but you’re certainly familiar with that mode of discourse yourself!) was certainly not written in “bad faith”!

@Hidari
“During the 2016 presidential campaign, the Times stumbled onto a possible answer. It entailed a wrenching pivot from a journalism of fact to a “post-journalism” of opinion’.”

It’s definitely not any ““post-journalism” of opinion”, imo.

It’s indoctrination. From experience, quite similar to the Soviet mass-media of the 1970s and early 80s. The current Western kind feels cruder and more nauseating to me, but that’s probably the fog of nostalgia.

…first I wanted to talk about their ‘narratives’ (as many do), but then I realized that there is no ‘narratives’: it’s on a much more rudimentary level. Creating and strengthening (by repetition) a matrix of simple mental associations.

@
”I am also a vegetarian and a bicycle rider, so I’m easy to hate”.

Good Lord?

Are you… ME?

“According to some of the articles I read about the events at the Capitol on January 6th, the coup/insurrection/riot/farce was very differently perceived by different participants.”

It’s interesting how these discussions are all about the bad people who dared to storm the congress.

Recalling some recent incidents of citizens storming parliaments (Ukraine 2014, Georgia 2003, etc.), the prevailing Western attitude there was like ‘something is rotten in the state of Denmark’. Here, it’s more like: ‘dissolve the people and elect another’. Of course it’s perfectly consistent with their reaction to the result of the 2016 election.

@
”It’s hilarious how DNC-associated types (and their friends in the media) try and pretend that they are greatly concerned with the 5 deaths (all of the dead were Trump supporters, incidentally, and 3 died of natural causes) when in reality so many of them are clearly far more horrified by the idea of the Wonderful and Great (and Wealthy) Men and Women of Honour of the Congress, who selflessly struggle to enrich themselves serve their Glorious Nation, being forced to vacate the Hallowed Premises and having shirtless oiks (one of whom was, pass the smelling salts, unemployed) replace them, albeit briefly”.

”DNC-associated types”

”their friends in the media”

”pretend that they are greatly concerned with the 5 deaths”

”(all of the dead were Trump supporters, incidentally, and 3 died of natural causes)”

”when in reality so many of them are clearly far more horrified by the idea of the Wonderful and Great (and Wealthy) Men and Women of Honour of the Congress, who selflessly struggle to enrich themselves serve their Glorious Nation”

”being forced to vacate the Hallowed Premises and having shirtless oiks (one of whom was, pass the smelling salts, unemployed) replace them, albeit briefly”.

Can we ”steal” all of this for a script – or is it copyrighted?

and about ”the National Guard” –
there is this GREAT quote from a Disney Film called ”Fantasia” where Mickey says

”Herr, die Not ist groß! Die ich rief, die Geister, werd’ ich nun nicht los”!

and ever since I saw this film I was waiting for the perfect Illustration for this quote and now ”trump” did it.

‘Riiiight, the big problem is the presence of the National Guard in DC’.

Yes, that is precisely the problem, speaking as of now. I don’t see any rioters or ‘insurrectionists’ or ‘fascists’ on the streets of any American cities today, but I do see what amounts to the Army putting the capital city of a ‘democracy’ under what amounts to de facto military occupation. I also notice that the Government has been tremendously vague about when this occupation will end.

But the phrase ‘American military’ is literally synonymous with liberty, peace, democracy, justice and human rights, just ask the Afghans or Iraqis, so I’m sure everything will be fine.

‘a fucking coup came minutes away from slaughtering our national legislature’.

It’s very important to note that this literally and objectively did not happen, nor did it at any point look like happening, that this is an objective fact about the nature of reality and that people who claim otherwise are not entitled to ‘alternative facts’. They are just wrong.

“DNC-associated types (and their friends in the media)”

Is this the worst insult the faux leftist Trumpists can think of?

@
”Yes, that is precisely the problem, speaking as of now. I don’t see any rioters or ‘insurrectionists’ or ‘fascists’ on the streets of any American cities today”

How could you –
after ”trump” called the Army?

And thinking about it?
This could be really an important ”Branching point”?

As –
”Thinking back over the past two decades, which of the following events that took place since the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989) are the important moments when something different could have been done that might have saved us from being in the situation we are in? How might history have unfolded differently? Are there key events to notice in Asia, Africa and Latin American that ought to be on the list? What is cause and what is merely symptom? Please suggest additional key moments in comments”.