Etiquette



DP Etiquette

First rule: Don't be a jackass.

Other rules: Do not attack or insult people you disagree with. Engage with facts, logic and beliefs. Out of respect for others, please provide some sources for the facts and truths you rely on if you are asked for that. If emotion is getting out of hand, get it back in hand. To limit dehumanizing people, don't call people or whole groups of people disrespectful names, e.g., stupid, dumb or liar. Insulting people is counterproductive to rational discussion. Insult makes people angry and defensive. All points of view are welcome, right, center, left and elsewhere. Just disagree, but don't be belligerent or reject inconvenient facts, truths or defensible reasoning.

Sunday, October 27, 2024

Thinking about endorsements and breaking norms

SciAm breaks the norm of silence

A spate of controversy about newspapers endorsing or not endorsing Harris or Trump is making the rounds. Corey Doctorow writing for Medium comments:

Scientific American endorses Harris
“Conservatism never fails, it is only failed.”
If Trump’s norm-breaking is a threat to democracy (and it is), what should Democrats do? Will breaking norms to defeat norms only accelerate the collapse of norms, or do we fight fire with fire, breaking norms to resist the slide into tyranny?

Writing for The American Prospect, Rick Perlstein writes how “every time the forces of democracy broke a reactionary deadlock, they did it by breaking some norm that stood in the way.”

The tactic of bringing a norm to a gun-fight has been a disaster for democracy. Trump wasn’t the first norm-shattering Republican — think of GWB and his pals stealing the 2000 election, or Mitch McConnell stealing a Supreme Court seat for Gorsuch — but Trump’s assault on norms is constant, brazen and unapologetic. Progressives need to do more than weep on the sidelines and demand that Republicans play fair.

Luckily, some institutions are getting over their discomfort with norm-breaking and standing up for democracy. Scientific American the 179 year-old bedrock of American scientific publication, has endorsed Harris for President, only the second such endorsement in its long history.

Predictably, this has provoked howls of outrage from Republicans and a debate within the scientific community. Science is supposed to be apolitical, right?

Wrong. The conservative viewpoint, grounded in discomfort with ambiguity (“there are only two genders,” etc.) is antithetical to the scientific viewpoint. Remember the early stages of the covid pandemic, when science’s understanding of the virus changed from moment to moment? Major, urgent recommendations (not masking, disinfecting groceries) were swiftly overturned. This is how science is supposed to work: a hypothesis can only be grounded in the evidence you have in hand, and as new evidence comes in that changes the picture, you should also change your mind.

Conservatives hated this. They claimed that scientists were “flip-flopping” and therefore “didn’t know anything.” Many concluded that the whole covid thing was a stitch-up, a bid to control us by keeping us off-balance with ever-changing advice and therefore afraid and vulnerable.

This intolerance for following the evidence is a fixture in conservative science denialism. How many times have you heard your racist Facebook uncle grouse about how “scientists used to say the world was getting colder, now they say it’s getting hotter, what the hell do they know?” 
Sometimes, science can triumph over conservativism. But it’s far more common for conservativism to trump science. The most common form of this is “eisegesis,” where someone looks at a “pile of data in order to find confirmation in it of what they already ‘know’ to be true.” Think of those anti-mask weirdos who cling to three studies that “prove” masks don’t work. Or the climate deniers who have 350 studies “proving” climate change isn’t real.

Respecting norms is a good rule of thumb, but it’s a lousy rule. The politicization of science starts with the right’s intolerance for ambiguity — not Scientific American’s Harris endorsement. (emphases in original)
Can fighting norm-breaking fire with norm-breaking return fire be done in principled, good faith, pro-democracy ways? I don't see why not. In the midst of America's authoritarian radical right war on democracy and inconvenient facts and truths, sometimes one needs to do what is needed to mount a good defense. Norm breaking is not necessarily law breaking. 

After all, radical right authoritarians are openly attacking science they dislike. Is SciAm supposed to keep quiet in the name of allegedly apolitical science?  

But at this point in the war, what norms other than a few endorsements are left that can be broken to be meaningfully helpful in defending democracy? Is science supposed to be apolitical as the authoritarian radicals hypocritically claim? American's radical right authoritarian wealth and power movement politicized inconvenient science by weaponizing “bad” science, i.e., science contrary to radical authoritarian ideology. 

Saturday, October 26, 2024

Overthinking...

 

What does "overthinking something" mean?  How would you define it?

Webster:

How does overthinking apply to politics?  Can that be done, and if so, how?  Explain it like I’m a 5-year-old.

(by PrimalSoup)

WaPo columnists respond to Bezos' tacit endorsement of Trump

Tens of thousands of people are angry at Jeff Bezos' decision to not endorse Harris. A group of 17 WaPo columnists published their response:
The Washington Post’s decision not to make an endorsement in the presidential campaign is a terrible mistake. It represents an abandonment of the fundamental editorial convictions of the newspaper that we love. This is a moment for the institution to be making clear its commitment to democratic values, the rule of law and international alliances, and the threat that Donald Trump poses to them — the precise points The Post made in endorsing Trump’s opponents in 2016 and 2020. There is no contradiction between The Post’s important role as an independent newspaper and its practice of making political endorsements, both as a matter of guidance to readers and as a statement of core beliefs. That has never been more true than in the current campaign. An independent newspaper might someday choose to back away from making presidential endorsements. But this isn’t the right moment, when one candidate is advocating positions that directly threaten freedom of the press and the values of the Constitution.
That is the entire response. Some comments that readers are making to the non-endorsement decision:

There is a larger picture here. American democracy is in serious, serious jeopardy. This isn't a slow-running coup any longer and it isn't just for Trump's benefit either. The world's oligarchs are all in now on this fascist takeover now. If America falls to these people, the rest of the world will soon follow. Our defense begins with defeating Trump and all Republicans soundly. But, this is a world-wide movement by the very, very rich. Removing Trump is just a start. Buckle up.

I just canceled my subscription. I never thought I would see the day when WaPo would be intimidated by the far right and not have the guts to endorse the candidate they know is best. I'm done. I will never read this paper again.

Don't care how you try to justify it. During a 'normal' election, the stakes wouldn't be so high, the danger to our country so plain to see. How there can be any question of neutrality when one of the candidates is so patently unfit? You coward, Bezos! Subscription already canceled.

I live in Los Angeles where we were stunned and angered by the decision of the LA Times not to endorse in this critical election and I come here as a longtime reader and subscriber of WaPo similarly stunned and angered by this paper's decision to do the same. Returning to your "origins"? How stupid do you think we are? As a wise friend of mine said when she heard about this, that's exactly how fascism works. ....

If you can't make a considered and thoughtful decision between these two candidates and then tell us your answer, why would we listen to anything else you have to say? Goodbye WaPo

I have been reading the Washington Post for over 60 years, even after moving to Canada over two decades ago. No more. The Bezos-imposed decision to not endorse a candidate in this consequential presidential election is a total abdication of journalistic and editorial responsibility in a democracy. I have canceled my subscription, effective immediately. Dr. Tommie Sue Montgomery, Oshawa, Ontario, Canada
 
There are tens of thousands of comments like that. People are really angry.

The 2024 election: A true rock and hard place for some voters

Some voters are really unhappy. The New Republic reports:

“Extreme Danger”: Harris Earns a Stunning Endorsement Over Trump
More than 100 Arizona Palestinian, Arab, Muslim, and progressive Democrats and community leaders have signed a letter making the case for those reluctant to support Kamala Harris against Donald Trump.

“We know that many in our communities are resistant to vote for Kamala Harris because of the Biden administration’s complicity in the genocide,” the letter, published Thursday night, reads.

“Some of us have lost many family members in Gaza and Lebanon. We respect those who feel they simply can’t vote for a member of the administration that sent the bombs that may have killed their loved ones,” the letter continued. “As we consider the full situation carefully, however, we conclude that voting for Kamala Harris is the best option for the Palestinian cause and all of our communities.”

The letter describes an “awful situation where only flawed choices are available.”

“In our view, it is crystal clear that allowing the fascist Donald Trump to become President again would be the worst possible outcome for the Palestinian people. A Trump win would be an extreme danger to Muslims in our country, all immigrants, and the American pro-Palestine movement,” the letter states.
As if it was teed up and on-cue, various sources report this kind of context for the unhappiness:

Trump signals support in call with Netanyahu: ‘Do what you have to do’
Trump told Benjamin Netanyahu in one call this month, “Do what you have to do,” according to six people familiar with the conversation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive and confidential information. Trump has said publicly that the two have spoken at least twice in October, with one call as recently as Oct. 19.

“He didn’t tell him what to do militarily, but he expressed that he was impressed by the pagers,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), who was on a call this month with Trump and Netanyahu, referring to the Israeli operation that killed Hezbollah leaders with explosive batteries inside pagers. “He expressed his awe for their military operations and what they have done.”
Well, we all know that "do you have to do" means slaughtering Palestinians with even less restraint than before, which wasn't much. That is what scares the Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims in Arizona into endorsing Harris, much as they hate the US role in what they see as an ongoing genocide.


Q1: Are the ongoing wars/military conflicts in the Middle East going to blow up into WW3 or military conflict somewhat close to it?

Q2: How much blame does Harris get of the current bloody, tragic state of affairs in the Middle East, none, low, moderate, most, nearly all, or all? Same question for the immigration mess at the US border, which could be (probably will be) a necessary factor for DJT to win the election?