JHan

JHan's Journal

March 31, 2017

Dave Chapelle didn't change with the times, and that's the problem..

by Damon Young: http://www.gq.com/story/dave-chappelle-netflix-standup

Perhaps my expectations were too high. I hoped that Chappelle, now entering his mid-40s, would have used his signature slyness and world-weary insights to tackle subjects more daunting than the low-hanging and dated comedic fruit of trans people, rape, and famous black men (O.J. Simpson and Bill Cosby) accused of horrific crimes against (mostly) white women. Especially after taking a full decade away from the public microscope. And especially during a time when there seems to be so fucking much—politically, culturally, and racially—for a black comedian as sharp and shrewd as Chappelle to dive into. His focus on the horror of political correctness, instead, felt like something you’d expect to come from a megarich 43-year-old man from the outskirts of Ohio. Who, instead of evolving with the world, has remained stagnant and believes the world has gone mad while pining for time when things were simpler. Which is who he is.

I recognize the presumption and perhaps even self-indulgence of suggesting that I know what Chappelle should have been talking about better than he does. There are no emails and comments I hate worse than “Why did you write about this thing instead of this other thing I wanted you to write about?” and I’m doing this now. I do not wish to be that guy, especially when discussing Chappelle, a man whose break from the public came as a result of corporate forces trying to tell him what he could and couldn’t—and should and shouldn’t—talk about. He is a public figure whom we (black people) have collectively and justifiably circled the wagons for; sensitive to his wish for peace of mind, and his attempt to possess it; ultimately aiming to protect one of our icons from the scourge of capital letter Whiteness attempting to transmute him.

I just... I don’t know, I just would like for him to join us in 2017. There’s so much he can do here.

March 22, 2017

President Obama on Citizens United..

I think the campaign finance case he was asked about at the start of the video is FEC vs McCutcheon

This is from 2013.

If Hillary were elected, she would have appointed a justice to counter the conservatives on the bench in matters where "corporate personhood" and big money in politics are concerned. Yes, she is also against Citizen's United and note Obama's explanation of the predicament that ruling put all politicians in around 1:00 mark. (edit: my bad)

March 21, 2017

Get Out Perfectly Explains Racism Concepts to People Who Dont Get It

"Particularly in the first half, Jordan Peele’s directorial debut draws slow-burn terror from casual belittlement, disregard for autonomy, and constant reminders of outsider status. As each new indignity is inflicted, the victim is forced to choose, for politeness sake, to ignore it and move on even as they stack up and become overwhelming. And even then, he’s faced with being treated like he’s being unreasonable or unhinged, simply for reacting normally."

http://www.thewrap.com/get-out-explaining-racism/

March 17, 2017

there were a couple posts a while back admonishing us for using the word "Deplorable"...

still. That we should be careful the words we use or something or other.

And since then what?

Trump crazies continue to attack folks going about their damn business living life. In one case, an Indian man was murdered.

They continue to cheer Trump's bullshit at his post victory "rallies", they love the fact people are being detained and want him to go through with his real goal of a muslim ban - they were doing this shit as recently as this week when Trump was in Michigan.

Am I still supposed to not call these people deplorable ?

You know, the hypocrisy stinks.

Again, I want people to remember that Obama had to end a friendship with Jeremiah Wright because of some crazy shit Wright SAID, apologize a zillion times, meanwhile Trump is all up in our faces, cosplaying Mussolini, while being advised by a man whose intellectual heroes were anti-semites and whose wet dream is global authoritarianism.

"Deplorable" was one of the truest statements in politics, best way to fight it is to call it exactly what it is.

March 17, 2017

A Major New Study Shows That Political Polarization Is Mainly A Right-Wing Phenomenon

A major new study of social-media sharing patterns shows that political polarization is more common among conservatives than liberals — and that the exaggerations and falsehoods emanating from right-wing media outlets such as Breitbart News have infected mainstream discourse.

Though the report, published by the Columbia Journalism Review, does an excellent job of laying out the challenge posed by Breitbart and its ilk, it is less than clear on how to counter it. Successfully standing up for truthful reporting in this environment “could usher in a new golden age for the Fourth Estate,” the authors write. But members of the public who care about such journalism are already flocking to news organizations like The New York Times, The Washington Post, and, locally, The Boston Globe, all of which have experienced a surge in paid subscriptions since the election of President Trump. That’s heartening, but there are no signs that it’s had any effect on the popularity or influence of the right-wing partisan media.

*snip*

The CJR study, by scholars at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, at Harvard Law School, and the MIT Center for Civic Media, examined more than 1.25 million articles between April 1, 2015, and Election Day. What they found was that Hillary Clinton supporters shared stories from across a relatively broad political spectrum, including center-right sources such as The Wall Street Journal, mainstream news organizations like the Times and the Post, and partisan liberal sites like The Huffington Post and The Daily Beast.

By contrast, Donald Trump supporters clustered around Breitbart — headed until recently by Stephen Bannon, the hard-right nationalist now ensconced in the White House — and a few like-minded websites such as The Daily Caller, Alex Jones' Infowars, and The Gateway Pundit. Even Fox News was dropped from the favored circle back when it was attacking Trump during the primaries, and only re-entered the fold once it had made its peace with the future president.

http://news.wgbh.org/2017/03/15/politics-government/major-new-study-shows-political-polarization-mainly-right-wing

A LOT of food for thought.

EDIT:

What this suggests is that whichever party is more unified wins the prize.. seems simple enough right? Yes, democrats have to create better memes to challenge the conservative spin machine, but this problem goes beyond the presence of a sound dem strategy ( or not).

We've got a serious fact problem in America where people don't expend the time or effort to ascertain if something is factual or not. The information age has made it easy to retreat to sources that feed our biases and prejudices, where folks live in a perpetual bubble of ignorance.

Facts are now construed as "matters of opinion" - Facts like : Global warming is real, racism and sexism continue to harm social progress, vaccines ARE effective,trickle down economics is BS, etc. RWingers are especially guilty of repudiating FACTS because they despise all the great things about modern living: cosmopolitanism, social liberalization, gender equality, fighting racial injustice, renewable energy, diversity etc.

March 16, 2017

the conservative wet dream

Charles Pierce wrote a great piece connecting Reaganomics to Trumpism "This Is the Ending Conservatives Always Wanted ": http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028801542
Nothing has changed for Conservatives.

And this is why support for Trump is still high among republicans.

I'll confess that I went through a libertarian phase I'm glad I escaped, and I won't miss the libertarian dudebros, but dipping my feet a little in conservatism allowed me to see how terrible yet intoxicating it was because everything was prefaced with words like "liberty" and "freedom".

- why should my tax payer dollars pay for services controlled by "inept" government bureaucrats who "bungle" everything
- why should government interfere in "my business"
- why should government dictate anything to me.

The influence of the Birchers and the Heritage Foundation are all over Mulvaney's budget. But we've heard this all before. By the time I was born, the impact of the Reagan years were still keenly felt and from what I know of history, the same issues Democrats were fighting then, are the same issues we're fighting today. Trumpism is the pinnacle of conservatism where environmental protections are repealed, military spending is increased, taxes on the wealthy are slashed, renewable energy technologies get the shaft favoring extractive industries so here we are in 2017 debating already settled questions about Climate Change, supporting the arts, wages, expanding the social safety net/ expanding healthcare coverage, and protecting the environment the best way we can, even the right to clean air and clean water.

Liberty for republicans is the freedom to be selfish, damn the outcomes.

March 16, 2017

Unspeakable Realities Block Universal Health Coverage In The US

by Chris Ladd, "Recovering Republican" former GOP Precinct Committeeman, author of The Politics of Crazy and creator of PoliticalOrphans.com

We cannot begin to understand Election 2016 until we acknowledge the power and reach of socialism for white people.Americans with good jobs live in a socialist welfare state more generous, cushioned and expensive to the public than any in Europe. Like a European system, we pool our resources to share the burden of catastrophic expenses, but unlike European models, our approach doesn’t cover everyone.

..........

White socialism played a vital political role, as blue collar factory workers and executives all pooled their resources for mutual support and protection, binding them together culturally and politically. Higher income workers certainly benefited more, but almost all the benefits of this system from health care to pensions originally accrued to white families through their male breadwinners. Blue collar or white collar, their fates were largely united by their racial identity and employment status.

..........

White socialism has had a stark impact on the rest of the social safety net, creating a two-tiered system. Visit a county hospital to witness an example. American socialism for “everyone else” is marked by crowded conditions, neglected facilities, professionalism compromised by political patronage, and long waits for care. Fall outside the comfortable bubble of white socialism, and one faces a world of frightening indifference.

............

When Democrats respond to job losses with an offer to expand the public safety net, blue collar voters cringe and rebel. They are not remotely interested in sharing the public social safety net experienced by minority groups and the poorest white families. Meanwhile well-employed and affluent voters, ensconced in their system of white socialism, leverage all the power at their disposal to block any dilution of their expensive public welfare benefits. Something has to break.We may one day recognize that we are all “in it together” and find ways to build a more stable, sensible welfare system. That will not happen unless we acknowledge the painful and sometimes embarrassing legacy that brought us to this place.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisladd/2017/03/13/unspeakable-realities-block-universal-health-coverage-in-the-us/#1ad12be4186a

March 15, 2017

The new Kellyanne Conway Selfie Stick

https://www.instagram.com/p/BRll7-6htQk/

Seriously tho, KellyAnne's stunt was a textbook example of agnotology. She played a huge jedi mind trick on Trump voters by changing the conversation from what is actually verifiable to what is unverifiable. The point isn't the ridiculousness of KellyAnne's claim that Microwaves can spy on you, but the idea that since unknown methods of surveillance exists, anything is possible, including Obama spying on Trump.

Since anything is possible, and the claim being made is that we have no real way of knowing for sure, Facts and Reason count for nothing. investigations are also pointless. The side helping she's offering your average Trump voter is the demonization of Obama - of course..

March 10, 2017

The Pathetic Lives of Putin's American Dupes.

By Jonathan Chait

A tragically large number of left-wing Westerners in the 20th century deluded themselves about the horrors of Soviet communism. As awful and unforgivable as it was, the process by which they made themselves into dupes was at least explicable: They loved socialism, and one country in the world was implementing socialism, so they persuaded themselves, and for a while, it was working.

Today’s Russia dupes are a smaller, more pathetic lot. Above all they are just plain weirder, because they lack a clear ideological motive for their stoogery. Soviet Russia not only commanded a vast propaganda network, but embodied a doctrine with international appeal (and which had originated outside of Russia). Vladimir Putin’s Russia follows no model except Russian nationalism. To the extent it employs a non-nationalist philosophy, its main idea is that gays have weakened Europe. And yet the dupes still come.

The most prominent intellectual apologist for Putin is Stephen F. Cohen, Princeton professor, Russologist for the left-wing Nation. Cohen is a septuagenarian, old-school leftist who has carried on the mental habits of decades of anti-anti-communism seamlessly into a new career of anti-anti-Putinism. The Cohen method is to pick away at every indictment of the Russian regime without directly associating himself with its various atrocities. Is Putin persecuting gays? Well, Cohen wants us to know that various Ukrainians nationalists dislike gays, too. And also Barack Obama’s claim to snub Sochi because of gay rights is probably not on the level. Is Putin bullying and killing journalists? Eh, says Cohen, “Every time a journalist breaks a leg, they say the Kremlin did it.” Accidents happen.

The primary hub of Russian propaganda in the West is Russia Today, an English-language Kremlin-funded propaganda outlet. Joe Pompeo reported last fall how RT has actually acquired a devoted following in the West, in part through relentless viral YouTube sharing of its reports. Cohen, of course, appears regularly on RT. (Is RT biased? Well, he says, so is CNN: “I’m highly suspicious about the narrative I’m getting on CNN. It seems to be the flip side of RT.”)

*SNIP*

The demise of communism has left a void in the place where socialist fervor once animated the Soviet dupes. In the absence of any positive motivating force, Putin’s Russia, which has positioned itself as America’s main rival, has sponged up whatever motley collection of outsiders it can find. Russia is not the vessel for their ideological fantasies, but merely a placeholder for their accumulated discontent.

Article from 2014 that's still relevant since Cohen is still at it...

March 10, 2017

The truth about the wikileaks CIA cache..

by Zeynep Tufekci

Yet on closer inspection, this turned out to be misleading. Neither Signal nor WhatsApp, for example, appears by name in any of the alleged C.I.A. files in the cache. (Using automated tools to search the whole database, as security researchers subsequently did, turned up no hits.) More important, the hacking methods described in the documents do not, in fact, include the ability to bypass such encrypted apps — at least not in the sense of “bypass” that had seemed so alarming. Indeed, if anything, the C.I.A. documents in the cache confirm the strength of encryption technologies.

What had gone wrong? There were two culprits: an honest (if careless) misunderstanding about technology on the part of the press; and yet another shrewd misinformation campaign orchestrated by WikiLeaks.

Security experts I spoke with, however, stressed that these techniques appear to be mostly known methods — some of them learned from academic and other open conferences — and that there were no big surprises or unexpected wizardry.In other words, the cache reminds us that if your phone is hacked, the Signal or WhatsApp messages on it are not secure. This should not come as a surprise. If an intelligence agency, or a nosy sibling, can get you to install, say, a “key logger” on your phone, either one can bypass the encrypted communication app.

Which brings us to WikiLeaks’ misinformation campaign. An accurate tweet accompanying the cache would have said something like, “If the C.I.A. goes after your specific phone and hacks it, the agency can look at its content.” But that, of course, wouldn’t have caused alarm and defeatism about the prospects of secure conversations.

We’ve seen WikiLeaks do this before. Last July, right after the attempted coup in Turkey, WikiLeaks promised, with much fanfare, to release emails belonging to Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party. What WikiLeaks ultimately released, however, was nothing but mundane mailing lists of tens of thousands of ordinary people who discussed politics online. Back then, too, the ruse worked: Many Western journalists had hyped these non-leaks.

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Gender: Female
Member since: Sun Sep 11, 2016, 01:18 AM
Number of posts: 10,173

About JHan

Be true, be brave, stand. All the rest is darkness.

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