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

[Adam Allen]

Mets hasn't said much about social contagion.

If you guys ever want to double-check what I've said about social contagion, or grooming, or whatever term, you could use the search function here.

https://community.cbr.com/search.php?searchid=13253204

I think I used it three times, describing someone else's argument including when they were pushing against the social contagion hypothesis. Otherwise the results are when I'm responding to a post that uses the phrase.

I would love to be mistaken. So you're not of the opinion that "social contagion" explains the increase in LGBTQ+ identified folks, from our elder generations to the kids?

[Tami]

How Chick-fil-A became a target for going ‘woke’

New York CNN —

Chick-fil-A has become a surprise target of right-wing ire following the discovery that the company has an executive overseeing its diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

It joins a growing list of companies that right-wing media and conservatives on social platforms have chastised for so-called “woke” marketing. But Chick-fil-A is an unusual target for the right wing because of the company’s conservative bona fides.

What’s really going on?

The target of their ire was Erick McReynolds, Chick-fil-A’s vice president of DEI, who’s held the position for about three years. Chick-fil-A says it is “committed to being better at together.”

“Our founder, Truett Cathy, believed that ‘a great company is a caring company,’” Chick-fil-A notes on its DEI web page. “At Chick-fil-A, Inc., our commitment is to approach this work with intention and humility, always believing the best in one another and striving for common ground.”

It’s unclear why McReynolds is getting attention from some conservatives now. The restaurant chain declined to comment about the so-called controversy and would not make McReynolds available for an interview.

[Jack Dracula]

To me that makes it just as bad as the hate, if not more so but on a whole other disturbing level. Going after a group and making the subject of personal attacks and hate not out of hate but just for votes.

Yes, it’s still absolutely despicable. No question. The GOP has no real policies so they have to resort to these awful tactics.

[CaptainEurope]

Could Vivek Ramaswamy have a shot at the GOP nomination, even though he is not white?

His strategy seems to be pure super villainy on a global destruction scale. It cold appeal to the members of the Republican base who consider Trump too woke for being pro-vaccine.

[CaptainEurope]

Jesus, that train crash in India is horrific. Around 300 people dead.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

How Chick-fil-A became a target for going ‘woke’

That's a real head scratcher. For years, Chick-fil-A had been notorious as a monetary supporter of anti-LGTBQ causes. Sounds like right wingers got their panties in a bunch over the company suddenly having started using dirty words like "diversity", "equity" and "inclusion".

Yes, it’s still absolutely despicable. No question. The GOP has no real policies so they have to resort to these awful tactics.

All the GQP has these days are their ridiculous culture wars since they have no real policies to help the American people (outside of millionaires and billionaires) and zero interest in developing any.

[Lieutenant]

Happy birthday, Dr. Jill Tracy Jacobs Biden.

She just turned 72 today

[Dalak]

I believe it’s about playing into the toxic masculinity of the regular GOP male base while also providing a wedge issue to peel off some liberal evangelical, Hispanic Catholic, and Black Southern Baptists. There may be some hate in there but I think it’s mostly strategy.

To me that makes it just as bad as the hate, if not more so but on a whole other disturbing level. Going after a group and making the subject of personal attacks and hate not out of hate but just for votes.

Yes, it’s still absolutely despicable. No question. The GOP has no real policies so they have to resort to these awful tactics.

That's the other half of the GoP's issue with hate: All the rest who don't care about the hate as long as the Dems don't get elected. Ex: DeSantis vs Typical Dem Biden

We've seen that Democrats and Republicans can work together. Question is, how do each base feel about it? The News Media and even the politicians keep vilifying the other side, then suddenily they are working together as if they were all mature adults.

I can see it, and I can approve it, but I wonder if this is a positive sign or if it is just the Calm before the Storm. How long will it last?

It won't last long, the GoP base detests bipartisanship unless the Dems are doing 90% or more of the compromising.

I would love to be mistaken. So you're not of the opinion that "social contagion" explains the increase in LGBTQ+ identified folks, from our elder generations to the kids?

Can't quote posts from a dead thread, but I can link to em:

"It could be a flawed study, or a flawed sample set, though it raises some interesting questions, which may not be mutually exclusive. If the study is accurate, is there a large group of trans people who are in the closet, and the reason the number is so high is that a new generation is the first one comfortable being open about it? Or is American society and the educational system somehow socializing kids to be trans, or to identify in that way? Since transgender surgery is expensive and has some permanent side effects, these are things that have to be figured out. "

How Chick-fil-A became a target for going ‘woke’

That's a real head scratcher. For years, Chick-fil-A had been notorious as a monetary supporter of anti-LGTBQ causes. Sounds like right wingers got their panties in a bunch over the company suddenly having started using dirty words like "diversity", "equity" and "inclusion".



All the GQP has these days are their ridiculous culture wars since they have no real policies to help the American people (outside of millionaires and billionaires) and zero interest in developing any.

I hope that Chick-fil-A gets everything they deserve from the hateful hordes they tried to attract with their own bigotry.

Jesus, that train crash in India is horrific. Around 300 people dead.

Holy **** . . .

[Adam Allen]

Yeah, "transgender or gender nonconforming." Lemme guess, these little ladies need to be wearing dresses and pumping out babies, not specifying pronouns, right?

It's not "social contagion", that's just bigotry that ignores science. For individuals, just a phase, for the population, a fad. (So goes the apparent anti-reasoning?)

I mean, you're free to cling to these prejudices if you want, but that's all they are. And while trans folk alone may be a demographic tiny enough to pick on, when that aim is widened to the entire queer community in the US -- as seems the inevitable plan -- nah, I really don't see back in the closet as an option.

[Vakanai]

So I had a sickening experience. In another forum I frequent (I will not be saying where) I dipped into a thread about pride month. And while I will not quote what was said, the majority of the posts were to my horror anti-lgbt in general, mostly in the vein that now lgbt people are a "privileged" group who are lazy at work and can't get fired because if you complain against them for anything they will play the victim card claim it's an act of homophobia against them and get away with it (just, just ****), but in particular far and above and away was full of anti-trans sentiment. The general feeling of trans people seemed to be thus:

- puberty blockers for trans youth is wrong and is really a part of trans indoctrination - the unsaid part being the idea that there's not really trans youth but kids suckered into thinking they're trans
- that another part of trans indoctrination is teaching kids to hate their bodies - as opposed to some kids hating their bodies because they just happen to be trans all on their own
- that really the lgbtq movement would be taken more seriously and be better off if they kicked trans people out and just became the lgb movement

Suffice it to say I used that thread as a very useful tool to discover who on that site I should add to my ignore list.

[Tendrin]

Yeah, the 'LGB Without the T" folks are the worst. A bunch of it is abject rat-$@@Kery, though.

[Mister Mets]

I would love to be mistaken. So you're not of the opinion that "social contagion" explains the increase in LGBTQ+ identified folks, from our elder generations to the kids?

I don't think it does. It doesn't seem to be equivalent of a weird trend where teen girls started imitating the habits of a British tiktoker with Tourettes.

https://www.indy100.com/news/doctors...-tics-b1941305

It doesn't seem to be an example of emotional contagion, behavioral contagion or memetics.

[JT221]

My goodness. What a sad story: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-N...1281685797535/

[Tami]

Amazon and Google fund anti-abortion lawmakers through complex shell game

s North Carolina’s 12-week abortion ban is due to come into effect on 1 July, an analysis from the non-profit Center for Political Accountability (CPA) shows several major corporations donated large sums to a Republican political organization which in turn funded groups working to elect anti-abortion state legislators.

The Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) received donations of tens of thousands of dollars each from corporations including Comcast, Intuit, Wells Fargo, Amazon, Bank of America and Google last year, the CPA’s analysis of IRS filings shows. The contributions were made in the months after Politico published a leaked supreme court decision indicating that the court would end the right to nationwide abortion access.

Google contributed $45,000 to the RSLC after the leak of the draft decision, according to the CPA’s review of the tax filings. Others contributed even more in the months after the leak, including Amazon ($50,000), Intuit ($100,000) and Comcast ($147,000).

Google, Amazon, Comcast, Wells Fargo and Bank of America did not respond to requests for comment. An Intuit spokesperson pointed out that the company also donates to Democratic political organizations, and that “our financial support does not indicate a full endorsement of every position taken by an individual policymaker or organization.

“Intuit is non-partisan and works with policymakers and leaders from both sides of the aisle to advocate for our customers,” an Intuit spokesperson said in a statement. “We believe engagement with policymakers is essential to a robust democracy and political giving is just one of the many ways Intuit engages on behalf of its customers, employees, and the communities it serves.”

A Bank of America spokesperson pointed to the company’s policy that donations to so-called 527 organizations such as the RSLC come with the caveat that they only be used for operational and administrative purposes, not to support any candidates or ballot initiatives. The CPA, meanwhile, argues that since the RSLC’s operations are explicitly designed to support candidates and ballot initiatives, such a policy is a distinction without a difference.

Although these companies did not directly give these vast sums to North Carolina’s anti-abortion lawmakers, the CPA’s analysis is a case study in how corporate contributions to organizations such as the RSLC can end up being funneled into anti-abortion causes. When Republican state legislators successfully overturned a veto from the Democratic governor last month to pass the upcoming abortion ban, nine of lawmakers voting to overturn the veto had received campaign contributions from a group with links to the RSLC.

The RSLC, which works to elect Republican lawmakers and promote rightwing policies at the state level, is at the top of a chain of spending and donations which eventually connected to rightwing candidates in North Carolina. This type of spending, which relies on channeling money through various third-party groups from larger organizations, is a common part of modern political campaign financing.

[Ragged Maw]

Yeah, the 'LGB Without the T" folks are the worst. A bunch of it is abject rat-$@@Kery, though.

Weirdly enough, I hear some want the "B" gone.