General politics thread (was: General U.S. politics thread)

fourteenwings

but what I find interesting is how American-brand craziness was imported to flavor the Germany's own brand of craziness

Yeah that's what I got from it too.

fourteenwings

Yesterday, Al Jazeera reported that Iran was executing several protesters and I was wondering how we'd gone from the Iranian regime being on the backfoot straight back to them insane and murderous again but! actually what happened is that the "protesters" being executed include a man who murdered two police officers.

So it was actually just Al Jazeera "flubbing" the Iranian protests for political reasons.

glennmagusharvey

Honestly I don't see it being anywhere near implausible to have a regime being seen as on the defensive socially and also being insane and murderous. Would actually make a lot of sense if a regime wanted to try to go back to exhibiting a harder stance.

Also, I haven't read up on the details, but being a protester isn't mutually exclusive with being someone who murdered two police officers, either.

lrdgck

There's also the matter of what does "murdered", "two", and "police officers" mean in the context. Can be anything from "randomly went out to murder some hapless traffic cop" to "is scapegoated for the mob killing regime thugs who opened fire at a protest" if I may be so smart-ass on the internet. Also, what does "protesters" mean if the guy in question is specifically but one of the whole set.

Stormtroper

https://twitter.com/lavern_spicer/status/1603422953483292672

I had to double check to see if It was a prank.

fourteenwings

There's also the matter of what does "murdered", "two", and "police officers"

Ah well I guess I should have specified; it was a random knife attack during a quiet lull. He just happened to see the two people in police-gear. Basically he might not even be a "protester" at all.

Would actually make a lot of sense if a regime wanted to try to go back to exhibiting a harder stance.

Well, yeah, but I think that any political decisions should be made in at a slower pace than this sort of thing, especially since they literally disbanded the religious police, which is a very major decision.

I had to double check to see if It was a prank.

If that's the promo then the rest of the collection must be really bad.

Truth Social is amazing but not in the right way at all.

fourteenwings

Maybe I should start a "Kari Lake Adventures" thread.

You trying to be a sane pro-life type of guy.

Tweeters;

fourteenwings

When I first heard about this;



This was the first thing that came to mind;



Today I found out there was like a controversy over this somehow and it wasn't about Macron's apparent love for young Carribean men.

Also between this and Naked Tate I feel I may be crossing some invisible "well it's not actual adult content!" line.

glennmagusharvey

it's shitposting all the way down

fourteenwings

This really surprised me considering modern narratives.

I should probably look into the numbers in Hungary too sometime.

Also since I guess I'm doing this anyways, never forget;

glennmagusharvey

lmao wut

lrdgck

This really surprised me considering modern narratives.

It shouldn't, those who do not drink katechon kool-aid knew it for a good while. Unless you specifically mean "at least somewhat religious" - but that ain't surprising either, it's the attendance that dies first, not vague personal belief.

fourteenwings

Yup Ted Cruz is still on about this.

An Unlocked Back Door!!

(One door that goes in and out of the school is such an amazingly bad idea).

Meanwhile in LakeLaLaLand;

glennmagusharvey

on a more serious note

https://www.codastory.com/rewriting-history/war-on-librarians-united-states/

TL;DR librarians are being targeted as part of the recent movement to ban various books, a part of the larger "culture war" movement

the article talks about both the book-banning movement and the experience and role of librarians in it

fourteenwings

librarians are being targeted as part of the recent movement to ban various books

Yeah uh I mean it's obvious why? It's weird to pretend that librarians aren't super cool with certain books that parents don't want their kids reading. If I was a progressive, I'd be championing those books too, and they don't even pretend they aren't doing it, they just don't like that others don't want this stuff in kid's libraries.

“No one on the right side of history has ever been on the side of censorship and hiding books,” she told the board. “Once you start relocating and banning one topic, it becomes a slippery slope.”

[url="http:/https://ncac.org/news/amazon-book-removal/"]When Harry Became Sally[/url].

I really don't think books like Gender Queer (which is basically just a creepy nonce doujin dressed up with fancy words), This Book is Gay, Lawn Boy, and anything that includes graphic depictions and/or descriptions of sex (or any sex, really) should be accessible from the YA section of a publically-funded library.

I mean;

Burkman’s three-minute speech recounted passages that describe a sexual encounter between two 10-year-old boys.
...
He was surprised when the American Library Association gave “Lawn Boy” an award in 2019 for its appeal to teens.

Literally from WaPo.

“I lay in bed for two solid days and cried so much my eyes swelled shut.”

>when you're not psychologically prepared to be a librarian

lrdgck

Lawn Boy

You got me curious what's so gay about a lawn.

Also, I have this odd feeling of unease, like I'm expected to see a librarian a creepy spinster with a tight bun whose SHHHH!s can slice your soul to pieces, yet all I've actually met were, like, kind ladies who handed me books I asked for.

glennmagusharvey

fourteenwings wrote: »

librarians are being targeted as part of the recent movement to ban various books

Yeah uh I mean it's obvious why? It's weird to pretend that librarians aren't super cool with certain books that parents don't want their kids reading.

Then the parents should be making the case to their children why those books are wrong, rather than attempting to deny the materials to others, including those (including other parents) that do feel that those books are appropriate.

fourteenwings wrote: »

I mean;

Burkman’s three-minute speech recounted passages that describe a sexual encounter between two 10-year-old boys.
...
He was surprised when the American Library Association gave “Lawn Boy” an award in 2019 for its appeal to teens.

Literally from WaPo.

Read more carefully and you might notice how there's a lot more to this story. First, it was the American Library Association that goofed in putting the book on their list -- which, as you noted, the author himself (who isn't Burkman, for the record and for reference of those reading this) noted was an inappropriate recommendation. And second, people railed against it as "pedophilia" when it was actually as described in your excerpt (and incidentally, as a recollection in-universe).

Meanwhile, this "pedophilia" theme, and related accusations (e.g. "groomer"), have been used to paint basically anything even remotely related. And this is in both the use of this as a social bludgeoning tool -- note the highly uncivil tone and content of various communications directed at whoever (e.g. librarians) that's being targeted by this political movement, and also how such accusations are thrown around like candy -- as well as the scope of policies being proposed and passed, e.g. prohibiting "having or promoting books that address the study of sex, sexual preferences, sexual activity, sexual perversion, sex-based classifications, sexual identity or gender identity." (And that's just one example I ran across; I could just as easily simply point to Florida's relevant recently-passed law.)

What's happening is not some sort of careful consideration to exclude sexually explicit content. Rather, it's using sexually explicit content as at best a convenient excuse.

And not only is it not just sexually explicit content nor even just gender and sexuality more generally: There's a bunch of flaming directed at "critical race theory" and other topics, which I recall you yourself made hay of previously as well.

And speaking of earlier commentary, what about the argument of consistency, which you brought up in the other thread? It was just last year that conservatives were up in arms about merely the cessation of further printings of handful of Dr. Seuss books -- moves they decried as evidence of "cancel culture", yet now where's their impassioned defense of objectionable material?

In the meantime, the book-banning calls have caused a chilling effect on the availability of information and literature that doesn't fit certain traditionalist/conservative worldviews, and not just at lower grade levels either. And then there's the vitriol that well-meaning public servants get. I mean...

fourteenwings wrote: »

“I lay in bed for two solid days and cried so much my eyes swelled shut.”

>when you're not psychologically prepared to be a librarian

...holy shit, are you seriously implying that librarians, or anyone, should have to suffer the kinds of shit they're getting?

glennmagusharvey

sidenote: paywalls are getting smarter; F5+Esc isn't working anymore and i'm having to copypaste articles into notepad to read them

fourteenwings

rather than attempting to deny the materials to others

a sexual encounter between two 10-year-old boys.

Like, man. I don't know. If this isn't bad enough for you then I don't think anything could be. This is the type of stuff that should be hidden away on the backpages of WPATH (which, at one point, it was), not in a public library for anybody to read.

people railed against it as "pedophilia"

An adult man wrote the book.

Here's the paragraph that was misquoted;

But there’s one thing I’d never tell Nick in a million years, not that it really matters: in fourth grade, at a church youth-group meeting, out in the bushes behind the parsonage, I touched Doug Goble’s [****], and he touched mine. In fact, there were even some mouths involved. It’s not something I’d even think about all these years later, except that Goble is the hottest real-estate agent in Kitsap County. His face is all over town — signs, billboards, Christ, even on shopping carts. Do you know what I think three times a day when I see his picture? I wonder, all these years later, why he just kicked our friendship to the curb like that. Was it shame?

Later on in the book;

All I could think about while he was chatting me up over the rim of his cappuccino was his little salamander between my fourth-grade fingers, rapidly engorging with blood.

Presumably the confusion in the first part was due to the character reminiscing and then immediately skipping to the present.

I would post images from Gender Queer but it is, like I said, basically an adult graphic novel except with the adults replaced with 13-15 year olds.

prohibiting "having or promoting books that address the study of sex, sexual preferences, sexual activity, sexual perversion, sex-based classifications, sexual identity or gender identity."

oh no
what will the kids do
if they can't learn about sexual preferences
in school
surely
they will never learn such things elsewhere

Actually though the part about "sex-based classifications" is weird because I'm pretty sure conservatives (myself included) would like those to be a thing again.

Rather, it's using sexually explicit content as at best a convenient excuse.

Do you admit the sexually explicit content is a problem?

In the meantime, the book-banning calls have caused a chilling effect on the availability of information and literature that doesn't fit certain traditionalist/conservative worldviews

GMH have you even read a teen book lately? 50% of YA is yaoi (or yuri) now. Nobody had a problem with Rainbow Road, but stuff's gone off the deep end man, and it needs to be fixed. Even Love, Simon has an odd bit at the end where the 16 year old protagonist and his new boyfriend go a bit far for a teen book.

yet now where's their impassioned defense of objectionable material?

You think blackface and an adult man writing creepy things about 10 year olds are on the same level, morally?

well-meaning public servants

I don't care how good their intentions are at exposing tweens to this nonsense.

Also I guess since we're talking about this, I'm pretty sure reading Angie Thomas makes your grammar and vocabulary worse.

Also the study cited to improve literacy via representation studied 17 children total.

...holy shit, are you seriously implying that librarians, or anyone, should have to suffer the kinds of shit they're getting?

Well, I was mostly being facetious, but the truth is that in the internet age eventually somebody's going to try and get your goat if you're a semi-public figure, and the best way to deal with it is not to turn inward and cry, especially when you then try to use crybully tactics to get your way being portrayed sympathetically in a newspiece.

Anyways, I had more stuff to say about the article.

Many experts I talked to are dubious that the legislators and groups driving these efforts are animated by a genuine concern about the material in the challenged books. Rather, they believe many of the organizers of these campaigns are motivated by political opportunism, recognizing a red meat issue for a base group of supporters that can be milked repeatedly to turn a profit and increase turnout for elections. 

Progressives have this immense problem of being unable to believe that people could believe something that they don't.

take two pages out of context

Okay, never mind. Here's Gender Queer.

Seriously.

Dude, if you give this to a tween girl who has body image issues, and she internalizes this, a lot of bad things could happen.

There's more of that too.

This book is a disgusting mess that also just kind of sucks as a graphic novel. The prose is at a 5 year old level, which is a road I don't want to go down.

Anyways, if you need more evidence, Google "Gender Queer Page 168". There's also a page where the protagonist lifting up her skirt as a four year old. Even if this did happen in real life, if I wrote this book, I'd definitely not write or draw this part.

Frankly, I think we all need less sexual stuff in our lives, and inserting it into YA and children's literature is merely making everything worse.

glennmagusharvey

not in a public library for anybody to read.

You might have had more of a case if you just stuck with keeping the book out of school libraries, but here you are arguing for its removal from public libraries too.

No, simply being disturbing content doesn't warrant this. Not for various other books that have been banned before, nor here.

Also:

Here's the paragraph that was misquoted;

Ironically, the excerpt you posted makes it less damning than your summary description did. Cause if that's all there is...is it still weird and wrong, yes, sure, and if you're turned on by it I can see how you might mistake this for being pornographic, but it ain't the "OMG PEDOPHILIA LET'S GET OUR PITCHFORKS AND TORCHES AND KILL THE BEAST" madness.

And let's not forget that this recent madness isn't even focused on this book. Nor is it even restricted to teen/YA fiction. There's also entirely nonfiction teaching tools that are also being considered oh-so-offensive. And heck, even this book about seahorses!

You think blackface and an adult man writing creepy things about 10 year olds are on the same level, morally?

The irony of this is that you're trying to say the latter is worse, but I'll tell you that when I was a kid I would not even understand whatever sexual content was presented to me, while the idea of being weirded out by people who look funny is something that's picked up way earlier and thus far more influential on a child. Heck, it's the opposite that has to be learned -- learning to be accepting of others who look weird rather than stereotyping them away.

I don't care how good their intentions are at exposing tweens to this nonsense.

And that justifies (at best very misguided) name-calling and harassment and death threats?

also
oh yay
the kids will be protected from "this nonsense"
surely
they will never run into sketchy content elsewhere

Also I guess since we're talking about this, I'm pretty sure reading Angie Thomas makes your grammar and vocabulary worse.

And ironically, depending on how one goes about it, arguing on the internet makes your grammar and vocabulary better.

especially when you then try to use crybully tactics to get your way being portrayed sympathetically in a newspiece.

"omg the librarians who are getting very disingenuously accused of being pedophiles and being subjected to harassment and death threats are looking sympathetic in the press! this is wrong; they should not be allowed to look sympathetic, because libraries have BAD BOOKS!!!"

Progressives have this immense problem of being unable to believe that people could believe something that they don't.

Yet here are conservatives declaring that teaching kids about things not fitting their worldview constitute indoctrination: https://www.noleftturn.us/mission-goals-objectives/

And yet here I am speaking in defense even of books with disturbing content that I would not enjoy reading and would not ever recommend.

Frankly, I think we all need less sexual stuff in our lives

yeah go tell that to Andrew Tate and his ilk lol

, and inserting it into YA and children's literature is merely making everything worse.

aren't you're supposedly well-versed in YA lit? go yell at someplace like fanfiction.net (among others) and all the horny teen postings there. Rather than using this to try to justify making librarians' lives hell.

lrdgck

blackface

There's a story I wanted to tell one day, might as well be now. Back when I was a kid, there was an ad for a magazine in the Donald Duck comic I've been reading those days. Now, the magazine. How to describe it.

(There was a longish digression here which didn't really add anything, so I snipped it.)

Anyway, the magazine had a recurring set of child characters, who I guess were meant to be the stand-ins with whom the kids reading it could identify with. One of these fellas was black. Had that happy broad-lipped blackface look and all, wore a striped top hat. His name was Blacky. (Or Blackie; I don't remember every detail but as much as I can recall the first option is correct.)

Back in the simpler era ca. 2000, as a kid with a reputation for intellectual precociousness, I saw that as well-intentioned desire to show the kids that some folks around the world are of a different color and there's nothing odd with it.

glennmagusharvey

To be fair, blackface is arguably one of the less-relevant sources of "problematic" content, because it's not practiced in real life today (at least not that I've heard of), and cartoonish portrayals using it generally involve some context pretty far divorced from blackface. Like, if you just showed a kid the old Jynx sprite from first-gen Pokémon, and they didn't know about blackface, chances seem low that the kid would think of it as representing black people. Changing Jynx's skin color to purple also helps with this de-association, and I'd surmise that if you showed a kid both first-gen Pokémon and later-gen Pokémon, the kid would instead more likely come up with the notion that Jynx's lack of purple skin was due to graphical limitations.

On the other hand, squinty eyes is still in use as a stereotype, and not even just as a caricature. FWIW I looked up all six of the Seuss books pulled from publication and both of the elements I've mentioned so far have been in one or more of them.

For reference and the convenience of anyone reading this, the books are:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_to_Think_That_I_Saw_It_on_Mulberry_Street
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_I_Ran_the_Zoo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McElligot's_Pool
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Beyond_Zebra!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrambled_Eggs_Super!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cat's_Quizzer

For the record, I'm not currently debating the merits of removing each of them from publication. Also, I should stress again that they're no longer being published, but that doesn't necessarily equate to being pulled from library shelves. I did a quick search and found the following on the first page of Ecosia search results:
* Denver Public Library: will not remove
* New York Public Library: will not remove; will allow the books to continue to serve their useful life (which basically means the same thing as "will not remove", as no library would be able to purchase new copies anyway)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dr-seuss-books-public-libraries-removal/ (mentions both Denver and New York)
* Wood County District Public Library (Bowling Green, Ohio): will not remove
* Welles-Turner Memorial Library (Glastonbury, Connecticut): will not remove
* Hartford Public Library (Hartford, Connecticut): "opened its own inquiry" but I haven't been able to find what eventually happened
https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-news-dr-seuss-connecticut-libraries-20210304-ym6rek5vpndwbeqxmkvzzfzo6u-story.html (source for above two things)
* Chicago Public Library: will still honor holds (i.e. people who've requested to borrow the books while they're already checked out) but after that will be temporarily removing the books from shelves, for further evaluation
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-dr-seuss-chicago-public-library-20210308-gibelvfs7fhrbpwlbitxdyalbm-story.html
(according to a later(?) story, they removed them from circulation after honoring holds, see below; dunno if they're still available otherwise though)

Bonus finds from me trying to look up what happened in Chicago:
https://nypost.com/2021/03/09/chicago-public-library-to-yank-six-dr-seuss-books-from-shelves/
* Brooklyn Public Library: will not remove
* Queens Public Library: considering moving them to the reference section (which would be basically "will not remove" unless you specifically want them in circulation)

So yeah, most (if not all) of these are a decision to not remove the books. (N.B. these are public libraries and I didn't look up school libraries, which are somewhat different.)

My personal opinions on this are roughly echoed in the following excerpts from some of the articles I just linked:

Many major public libraries follow the American Library Association's (ALA) Freedom to Read principles. The association's guidance is that libraries should provide a wide range of views, including expressions that are "unorthodox, unpopular, or considered dangerous by the majority."

In a statement to CBS News, a spokesperson for the Denver Public Library (DPL) said it follows the ALA Freedom to Read principles, including that "it is contrary to the public interest for publishers or librarians to bar access to writings on the basis of the personal history or political affiliations of the author."

Other principles followed by DPL include: "publishers, librarians, and booksellers do not need to endorse every idea or presentation they make available," and that it is the responsibility of librarians and publishers "to give full meaning to the freedom to read by providing books that enrich the quality and diversity of thought and expression."

(from the CBS article)

At least one parent that WTOL 11 spoke with, who did not want to be identified said while she understands the concerns and the message that the publisher is trying to send, she thinks they should have instead added context notes to the controversial pages, so as to make this a teachable moment for both parents and their children.

“Before I became a librarian, I was a history major,” said Penrod. “So I think it's very important to have that value to go back to and go ‘this is what was happening before and we've learned from it’ so we don't go back and make those mistakes.”

Penrod says he looks forward to the chance to teach his own son what is right, and to quote Dr. Seuss, the more that you read, the more things you will know.

(from the WLTX article)

I'd add that I'd stress the need to keep the content available. I don't think there's currently any danger of this not happening, to be honest; there are multiple editions currently available on archive.org, and ironically I think the stoppage on further publication contributed to a "Streisand effect" that ended up giving the books more attention (which I don't mind either).

fourteenwings

I'm honestly not interested in arguing the minutiae of sexual content in books for minors. I want these books banned from schools, and certainly from the children's sections of public libraries.

I wouldn't mind if they were banned from public libraries overall, because they all tend to lack literary and cultural merit. All they really do is lean on the identity politics in order to short-circuit progressive content board member's brains.

People will continue to be harassed on the internet about whatever, especially semi-public figures. They can't use that as an excuse to get their way.

And yet here I am speaking in defense even of books with disturbing content that I would not enjoy reading and would not ever recommend.

Yeah it turns out that's not a good stance to take in terms of building a good and moral society.

yeah go tell that to Andrew Tate and his ilk lol

Where did you get this idea that I'm a fan of Andrew Tate? I've been making fun of him for weeks before this Greta thing even happened.

go yell at someplace like fanfiction.net (among others) and all the teen postings there. Rather than using this to try to justify making librarians' lives hell.

Disgusting things written online and disgusting things made available on the tax-payer's buck in an environment that is supposed to build culture/literacy are seriously not the same thing.

glennmagusharvey

People will continue to be harassed on the internet about whatever, especially semi-public figures. They can't use that as an excuse to get their way.

"Their way" is an orderly and thoughtful process of considering whether a given library should carry a given book. Not wild pedophilia allegations, not internet harassment, not death threats. None of that crap.

And yet here I am speaking in defense even of books with disturbing content that I would not enjoy reading and would not ever recommend.

Yeah it turns out that's not a good stance to take in terms of building a good and moral society.

Well, if you're going to take the position of wanting some morality police to ban and censor things, then so be it, but I'm not going to join you.

Like I said, I don't like it, and I find it very off-putting, but I'm not going to argue for stopping others from accessing it.

Also, you're forgetting that this goes far beyond sketchy YA fiction, as I already mentioned above.

Also, in most of these oh-so-nasty things aren't even required as part of a teaching syllabus. One article I ran across (I forgot which, sorry) points out something that's rung true in my life as well -- if it ain't required reading, few people will even bother with it. (Heck, it's more likely that you'd get the parents encouraging their children to read, and at that point the parents are involved anyway.)

Where did you get this idea that I'm a fan of Andrew Tate?

I wasn't sure whether you were, but you certainly have been arguing that progressives are hypocritical for appreciating the schadenfreude arising from an insufficiently moral insult applied to him, a person whom even you describe as pretty much devoid of reasonable moral standards.

Disgusting things written online and disgusting things made available on the tax-payer's buck in an environment that is supposed to build culture/literacy are seriously not the same thing.

And a proper consideration for what books a library should carry and a harassment campaign are seriously not the same thing either.

glennmagusharvey

https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1619766198769442817

Bed Bath & Beyond says it will shutter an additional 87 stores and its entire Harmon chain of drugstores.

Private equity owners took control of BB&B in 2019, paid themselves $71 million and spent $1B on stock buybacks. They're now laying off thousands and bankruptcy is imminent.

Today at 1:35 PM

Today at 2:00 PM

glennmagusharvey

Vultures are good. Vulture capitalists are evil.

glennmagusharvey

@lrdgck someone shared this
https://eastsplaining.substack.com/p/why-no-slavic-country-support-russia

How accurate would you say this is, and how widely applicable is it beyond just Poland (which is this writer's perspective)?

lrdgck

Heh, I've just read through it. I expected I'd do some sort of point-by-point analysis and I might still do that if you ask me. So far, I'd basically agree. I'd say many nuances are skimmed over for a clear line of argumentation, but not ones which would be largely incorrect. It's a decent summary of Polish view. As for other Slavic nations, now, here's the trick. Serbia is mentioned as pro-Russian, but with no explanation for how and why. It's one of these nuances.

Gotta go now, more if you have questions.

glennmagusharvey

so if i ask you questions you gotta go more?

So what's the nuance with regards to Serbia? Or any other nuances you think are worth mentioning?

Stormtroper

Your great king Tomislav would certainly appreciate you enlightening us.