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

[hyped78]

The problem is that “race” discussed is the ever-amorphous, dangerous idea of a “white” race.

*Actual* cultural legacies get ignored by people who consider themselves “white” beyond the recognition of that as a default privileged status… and yeah, it needs to be acknowledged that when people talk about the history of civilization, that default privileged status of “white” should be viewed as only that, rather than something that must be “defended” or whatever.

I’m an American Midwesterner culturally, descended from Germans, the Irish, and the Welsh - but I don’t speak German, Irish, or Welsh, and my particular religious bent is evangelical American Protestant (though with major divergence on political and even orthodoxy believes now.)

The part that makes me “white” is really only that everyone forgot about anti-German, anti-Irish, and (maybe?) anti-Welsh sentiment and affords me privileges based off me not having immediately identifiable traits they can be prejudiced against - because “white” shifted some number of decades ago to accommodate by cultural history (German heritage), or because my family eventually forgot their specific cultural legacy in unconscious exchange for privilege (Irish.)

And that privilege of being “white” was mostly just the darker, negative stuff.

You want to talk about positive cultural legacies, than we’re going to need to be specific and make notes of where that actually arrives from - and the baggage that comes with it.

“Race” is a bit of an invention. Some people have darker skin, some people have lighter skin because of many years of adapting to life in the south/north. In the end, culture and society is (or should be) the common denominator between people, not how their skin looks like.

You should have more in common with an American from the Midwest - whatever their skin color is - than with a German.

[hyped78]

Florida Atlantic University GOP Florida Primary poll: Trump 50%, DeSantis 30%

https://www.fau.edu/artsandletters/f...-july-2023.pdf

It’s time for DeSantis to call it a day

[CaptainEurope]

Apparently, Erdogan gave up his resistance to Sweden joining NATO. Wondering what he got.

[The Cool Thatguy]

Yeah, definitely true. Antisemitism always has a special place in the hearts of white supremacists.

Good ol' Replacement Theory...

"Having kids is too expensive (because of rich Elites). The solution? Blame minorities!"

[worstblogever]

Oh WBE-eeeee...

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2023...al-harassment/

[Ragged Maw]

Those countries have far-right parties either in the current government or with high voting %s. Not sure if they can still be viewed in the same light as they were some years ago.

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/europe/art...00299_143.html
https://euobserver.com/green-economy/157104
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65926194
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...on-finns-party

Even the left wing nordic parties have veered markedly more to the right:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/03/13/...-forced-return
https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows...on-immigration

Good ol' Replacement Theory...

"Having kids is too expensive (because of rich Elites). The solution? Blame minorities!"

Having kids feels nowadays more and more like a hustle by these shitty corporate employers and the congressmen they're in bed with to lock you in to working your ass off in a thankless position for these same employers without complaint, because "you don't want to see your family starve, do you?".

[Jack Dracula]

I think there was a law, but DeSantis pushed through an amendment or a new bill that exempted him from it.

Yes, I knew that. I was trying to be funny.

[Mister Mets]

I’ll point to the recent ruling in favor of the graphic designer who made a federal case out of her hypothetical wish to refuse service to lgbtq+ couples despite the fact she’d never been asked to do such a thing and had never actually been in that business to begin with.

I think the conversation about that decision was quite flawed.
There are methods of having lawsuits against the government without anyone who is already directly harmed by a policy. Otherwise, it would allow for abuses by the government, if they can figure out a way to implement policies that are clearly unconstitutional, but are able to hide behind questions of standing.

This legal strategy has been used against conservatives. For example, it’s been used to get the courts to consider Tennessee’s bans on drag performers. The federal court was able to rule against Tennessee without having to wait for a drag performer to get prosecuted or fined.

https://www.npr.org/2023/06/03/11799...how-law-ruling

The courts had also temporarily blocked the law before it went into effect.

https://apnews.com/article/lgbtq-dra...424409e63f94c9

In 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, the basic explanation is that once Colorado stipulated that they would try to fine her if her website expands to wedding announcements and she refuses to make websites for gay couples getting married, she's able to file a writ of certiorari.

[Catlady in training]

Apparently, Erdogan gave up his resistance to Sweden joining NATO. Wondering what he got.

I'm wondering too. Just today, I've read that he wanted to link Sweden joining NATO with Turkeye joining EU, which sounds really crazy.
Gonna be interesting how Orban will try to keep face now, when he probably has to quickly approve it too.

[Mister Mets]

Just a reminder: Nearly half of Republicans as of 2022 believed in the nazi great replacement theory and roughly one fourth of Americans have been found to be 'right wing authoritarians'.

So at the very least nearly half of the membership of surveyed members of the GOP hold some white nationalist beliefs.

Hope that helps!

This is a bit like saying that any Democrat who supports progressive taxation supports some Marxist policies, since that's part of Marx and Engel's ten interim measures on the way to communism.

https://www.econlib.org/how-many-of-...-accomplished/

[Catlady in training]

Musk is more then happy to let misinfromation spread. And the sad thing is a lot of people will believe the lies because it comes from a verified account.

Yeah, that is the real problem with those paid for verification marks.
Who could have foreseen this, right?

[Malvolio]

Florida Atlantic University GOP Florida Primary poll: Trump 50%, DeSantis 30%

https://www.fau.edu/artsandletters/f...-july-2023.pdf

It’s time for DeSantis to call it a day

I don't know. Wasn't Desantis at 20% a month ago? Seems like he's gaining.

[Vakanai]

I don't know. Wasn't Desantis at 20% a month ago? Seems like he's gaining.

Think that was national polls, this is Florida specifically/only, the one state he should do best in. To only get 30% in the state you run is pretty bleak.

[Kirby101]

This is a bit like saying that any Democrat who supports progressive taxation supports some Marxist policies, since that's part of Marx and Engel's ten interim measures on the way to communism.

https://www.econlib.org/how-many-of-...-accomplished/

No, because replacement theory IS white nationalism. Not some general political policy that Marxists also agree with. Any Republican who believes in replacement theory is a white nationalist. period. end of sentence. Progressive taxation is the basis of our tax system since we started collecting income tax. Before Reagan and his fraudulent trickle down economics, Republicans believed in it too.

[Tami]

‘A taste of victory’: galvanized by US supreme court, far right turns to ‘legal vigilantism’

After the supreme court’s recent rulings against affirmative action and anti-discrimination precedent, researchers who track the far-right movement are flagging a new model of conservative activism: legal vigilantism, an aggressive, lawsuit-threatening tactic used to intimidate universities and private institutions to comply with the new rulings.

Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism, said far-right groups see the supreme court’s affirmative action decision as the first step in ending discrimination against whites. He called it a gateway for “all kinds of vile and racially bigoted statements” with engagement that crosses over to the mainstream. He compared the exchange of far-right extremist ideologies and mainstream conservatism to the wax mixtures whirling together in a lava lamp. For example, the “alt-right”, anti-immigration website VDARE published an Ann Coulter column about legacy admissions and university donor preferences being less impactful than race quotas.

“Now you have unbroken lines from extremist groups promoting Ann Coulter to extremist groups promoting more vile material. They can jump from one lily pond of hate to another toxic and more nauseating one,” Levin said. Extremist and fringe groups view Black people as biologically and culturally inferior whereas mainstream conservative groups are opposed to affirmative action due to a narrow reading of the constitution. Despite these differences, “even strands of violent extremism will find their way into civic discourse,” he said.

Levin said the end of affirmative action is just part of how anti-Black bigotry is getting promoted. Far-right groups are not looking at the finer points of constitutional law expressed in supreme court decisions, he contended. Extremist thinking is in binary terms. This supreme court decision, he predicted, will be used to further anchor and galvanize racial discrimination against Black people while serving as an affirmation for white nationalists that white people have been cheated – part of their narrative of white supremacy.