All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[PwrdOn]

Wasn't the reason for this because they were warring with the Soviets?

The Winter War had already been over for a year by the time the Germans invaded the USSR. Finland wasn't really under any particular threat but they jumped onto the Nazi bandwagon in order to retrieve some of their lost territories. Now of course the official history is that the Finns just wanted to preserve their independence and sided with the Nazis out of expediency, but I can't imagine that decision would have been made without there being at least a pretty sizable groundswell of Nazi support among the public.

[PaulBullion]

Well you know they did side with the Nazis during the war, I'm sure they had good reasons for doing that though.

The equivalent reply of: "Look! There! A puppy!!"

[Tendrin]

The Winter War had already been over for a year by the time the Germans invaded the USSR. Finland wasn't really under any particular threat but they jumped onto the Nazi bandwagon in order to retrieve some of their lost territories. Now of course the official history is that the Finns just wanted to preserve their independence and sided with the Nazis out of expediency, but I can't imagine that decision would have been made without there being at least a pretty sizable groundswell of Nazi support among the public.

Or maybe they just felt less threatened by Nazi Germany than the country that literally tried to conquer them a year ago. It was a bad move, regardless, and shameful, but I don't think one has to paint themjust as being sympathetic to Nazi ideology, if that's what you meant, to see the what motivated their involvement. I don't think Finland had a strong national socialist party of any stripe at the time, but I may be wrong.

[Jack Dracula]

Yea I doubt many people will agree with you that China and Vietnam are successful commie nations. Yes the elite rule and thrive in capitalist counties. They also rule and thrive in communist countries. The only difference is that the elites in capitalist countries throw more crumbs at the serfs than the communist elites do.

Your post sort of touches on the fact that most everyone here seems to be ignoring.
All forms of government will be inherently corrupt to some extent no matter what higher ideals they espouse. Human nature will always foul the works.

[PwrdOn]

Your post sort of touches on the fact that most everyone here seems to be ignoring.
All forms of government will be inherently corrupt to some extent no matter what higher ideals they espouse. Human nature will always foul the works.

It's not really about ideals though, the point I was making was that the argument that capitalism is better than communism because living standards in capitalist countries are better is invalid, because all of the freedom and prosperity enjoyed by those countries comes largely from exploiting the rest of the world. If this were not the case, then we would see at least a few non-Western countries successfully adopt and apply the development model based on free markets and liberal democracy, but there is scant evidence of that. Indeed most of the countries that America has "spread democracy" to are now much WORSE off than they ever were under their prior autocratic regimes.

[PaulBullion]

It's not really about ideals though, the point I was making was that the argument that capitalism is better than communism because living standards in capitalist countries are better is invalid, because all of the freedom and prosperity enjoyed by those countries comes largely from exploiting the rest of the world. If this were not the case, then we would see at least a few non-Western countries successfully adopt and apply the development model based on free markets and liberal democracy, but there is scant evidence of that. Indeed most of the countries that America has "spread democracy" to are now much WORSE off than they ever were under their prior autocratic regimes.

Yes, but what about Finland?

[Mister Mets]

Well you know they did side with the Nazis during the war, I'm sure they had good reasons for doing that though.

Perhaps you are unfamiliar with why a smaller country would be concerned about Stalin's Soviet Union as a neighbor.

https://history.howstuffworks.com/hi...eph-stalin.htm

[PwrdOn]

Yes, but what about Finland?

What about them? Their country doesn't exist in a vacuum, they developed within a global system that saw a massive influx of wealth to Europe from the colonies, which benefited the entire continent. A German or Russian businessman looking to invest would be much more likely to view the Finns as equal partners rather than subhumans fit only to be worked to death in the mines.

[PaulBullion]

What about them? Their country doesn't exist in a vacuum, they developed within a global system that saw a massive influx of wealth to Europe from the colonies, which benefited the entire continent. A German or Russian businessman looking to invest would be much more likely to view the Finns as equal partners rather than subhumans fit only to be worked to death in the mines.

Or they could have treated them like a colony, like Ireland was.

[PaulBullion]

What about them? Their country doesn't exist in a vacuum, they developed within a global system that saw a massive influx of wealth to Europe from the colonies, which benefited the entire continent. A German or Russian businessman looking to invest would be much more likely to view the Finns as equal partners rather than subhumans fit only to be worked to death in the mines.

But I have to give you props: As an answer, it works much better than your previous choice of: Look! Nazis!

[Tami]

If the President Tests Positive for the Virus, What Happens? - May 13th

The news last week that President Trump’s valet and Vice President Pence’s press secretary had both contracted the coronavirus sent a scare through the White House. While officials said both leaders subsequently tested negative, the episode raised a worrisome possibility: What happens if Trump or Pence is stricken—or, worse, if both became ill at the same time?

The result could be anything from a temporary disruption to a full-blown constitutional crisis with competing claims on the presidency. What’s critical, experts say, is that the identity of the commander-in-chief be clear in any situation. At least one scenario could arise where it wouldn’t be.

Check out the related Twitter responses.

[Mister Mets]

Yascha Mounk of the Atlantic has a piece on people fired wrongly during the reck.

He wrote about it on twitter.

I’ve been digging into some of the stories of people getting fired for supposed racism.

What I found was companies cravenly sacrificing employees—some of them working-class people of color—who did nothing wrong.

One of the most shocking stories is that of Emmanuel Cafferty, a Latino electrical worker who loved his job @SDGE.

“For the first time in my life,” he told me, “I wasn’t living check to check.”

A few weeks ago, a white activist thought he saw Cafferty doing a “white power symbol” - basically, the OK-symbol which trolls on 4-chan appropriated for giggles - and shared a picture of it on Twitter.

Within two hours, Cafferty was suspended. Within a week, he was fired.

Cafferty has no interest in politics.

He is no white supremacist.

The man who took his photo admitted he likely misinterpreted the interaction.

Most Americans don’t even know the “new meaning” of the OK-symbol.

There's not a shred of evidence Cafferty did anything wrong.

“I got so desperate,” Cafferty told me, “I was showing them the color of my skin. I was saying: ‘Look at me. Look at the color of my skin.’”

But to prove their anti-racism, the all-white team of investigators @SDGE was apparently willing to shatter the life of a brown man.

(In a statement, SPD&E claimed that “multiple factors led to the decision to terminate.”

They refused to answer any of my specific questions about the evidence they brought to bear on this decision or the process of terminating Cafferty.)

I also have new and damning details on the firing of David Shor.

(Shor is the progressive data analyst who tweeted the main findings of a paper by Omar Wasow in the American Political Science Review, and was then fired from his job at @CivisAnalytics.)

In an on-the-record statement, @CivisAnalytics claimed: “We have not, nor would we ever, terminate employees for tweeting academic papers.”

But... how do I put this politely... the evidence for that assertion is... difficult to come by.

Shor had worked at Civis Analytics since its founding, for seven years.

Some activists explicitly asked Civis to fire Shor for his tweets.

And the company’s CEO, @danrwagner, explicitly told his employees he fired Shor over the Tweets. (Oops.)

There is also some interesting context here:

When I asked Civis’ Head of Communications for a list of its leadership team, she gave me an all-white, all-male list.

In the past months, there has been a lot of internal discontent about this lack of diversity.

I'm gonna through a crazy thought out here:

Is it conceivable that Civis might be more interested in a superficial show of anti-racism than in addressing its own lack of diversity?

The coup de grace: When I pressed Civis for any kind of evidence that Shor was fired for reasons unrelated to his tweets, the response was pretty revealing. Civis asked to withdraw its original, on-the-record statement claiming that Shor was not fired over his tweet.

Let me be clear: The racial reckoning of the past month can, and hopefully will, be very positive.

There is still a lot of racism in America. We must not tolerate it.

But that makes it all the more important not to punish people who, you know, did nothing wrong.

There are three reasons why even—or rather: especially—those who primarily care about social justice should not dismiss the fate of people like Shor and Cafferty as a minor detail or a necessary price for progress.

1)These incidents damage the lives of innocent people without achieving any noble purpose.

2)These injustices are liable to provoke a political backlash.

If a lot of Americans come to feel that those who supposedly oppose racism are willing to punish the innocent to look good in the public’s eyes, they could well grow cynical about the enterprise as a whole.

3)Those of us who want to build a better society should defend the innocent because movements willing to sacrifice justice in the pursuit of noble goals have, again and again, built societies characterized by pervasive injustice.

A core tenet of liberal democracy is that people should not be punished for reasonable actions or unsubstantiated allegations.

No matter how worthy the cause they invoke, you should not trust anyone who seeks to abandon these fundamental principles.

Please help redress these injustices!

All Cafferty wants is his job back. You can sign this petition to put pressure on @SDGE to right an egregious wrong.

As for Civis, its CEO claimed, in part, that he was responding to pressure by his firm’s clients.

If any leaders of organizations that work with Civis read this thread, you might want to consider how you feel about innocent people being fired in your name...

He articulated some useful principles earlier.

One of the core tenets of liberal democracy is that people should not be punished for things that a) are not substantiated, b) were done by their relatives, or c) are not actually objectionable.

Don't trust the people who want to abandon this principle in the name of progress.

I'm curious if there's anything he said that anyone here disagrees with.

[PaulBullion]

Yascha Mounk of the Atlantic has a piece on people fired wrongly during the reck.

He wrote about it on twitter.



He articulated some useful principles earlier.



I'm curious if there's anything he said that anyone here disagrees with.

Is there anything he said you don't agree with?

[PwrdOn]

But I have to give you props: As an answer, it works much better than your previous choice of: Look! Nazis!

So you accept then that communism is a much better economic system for developing under adverse conditions?

[Mister Mets]

Is there anything he said you don't agree with?

Not really.

There's a potential misunderstanding about punishing someone for the actions of a relative. If a publisher refuses to work with Donald Trump Jr, it wouldn't necessarily be retaliation against President Trump, but as pushback to the specific things he has said when supporting his father.

So it would not fall in the category of punishing someone for something relatives did.

I could appreciate the argument that someone can be penalized for what their children did, as they did raise them. But this is probably not going to be helpful, failing to consider their autonomy, and the science that people are affected by more than just their parents.

I realize that, the article wrote that some Democrats feared a rerun of Nixon's 1968, which is why they were not siding the cohort in social media. I agree with this position, Biden just needs to run the gauntlet down the middle. Taking a position too far to the left in this situation would only help enable the Trump narrative.

Got it. I'm now realizing we're in violent agreement on this question.