The country's insane social-media-driven manias are deepening and spreading
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1proximity1
The country's insane social-media-driven manias are deepening and spreading
("Civilizational self-cancellation" --- Heather MacDonald's phrase)
Hint: it was an "elite" crusade.
The country now is just lurching from one manufactured pseudo-moral psycho-drama to the next. Without them, there'd be time to get on with exposing and prosecuting the still-covered-up conspiracy through which the 2020 presidential election was just a final act designed to keep Donald Trump's election victory from being recognized and ratified.
All those conspirators remain in legal jeopardy as long as their cover-up continues to be at risk of being further exposed and further dismantled in public by a press which still isn't fully under the reliably controlled influence of the conspirators and the agents in government and corporate life whose parallel interests are served by that cover-up. The longer these matters persist, the more the country comes to resemble Putin's Russian kleptocracy.
("Civilizational self-cancellation" --- Heather MacDonald's phrase)
(Commentary)
BLM was a form of mass neurosis
| Heather Mac Donald on how racial hysteria is destroying Western institutions | Spiked |19th April 2023
"The so-called racial reckoning of 2020 has had an extraordinary impact on the US. Barely a single institution was left untouched by the Black Lives Matter juggernaut. We can see this in the meteoric rise of affirmative action. Meritocracy is out and racial preferences are in – everywhere from universities to major corporations. All too often nowadays, people are openly judged on the basis of their race, rather than on their qualities and qualifications.
"For Heather Mac Donald, author of When Race Trumps Merit: How the Pursuit of Equity Sacrifices Excellence, Destroys Beauty and Threatens Lives, this is a deeply troubling development. Not only does it undermine our institutions – it is also anathema to genuine racial equality. Heather joined Brendan O’Neill for the latest episode of his podcast, "The Brendan O’Neill Show". What follows is an edited extract from their conversation. Listen to the full episode here.
"Brendan O’Neill: Black Lives Matter is usually described as a grassroots movement. But is that right? Were the George Floyd protests really about ordinary people rising up against racism? Or was this an elite crusade?"...
H. MacDonald:
..."When college presidents get up and beat their chests and say, 'Oh!, 'Woe is me! Yale is so racist!' ---which is absurd-- it is just absolutely absurd, let's just get this down right now: there is not a single university, whether in the U.K. or the United States, that is discriminating against Blacks; the opposite is the case: if you are a Black student or a Black academic, you have an enormous advantage over your peers. There is not a single faculty-search at a U.K. institution or an American one that is not one long desperate effort to find remotely qualified under-represented minorities or females to hire. But when these presidents get up there and say, 'oh, Yale is racist,' they're basically saying their own faculty is racist. They never name names but that's what they're saying. So it's all a fantasy, it's a fiction, it is a form of mass-neurosis that is extraordinarily consequential because it is taking down every single institution. Any institution today that has racial disparities in its demographics is per se racist--the Left-- that's the only allowable explanation for racial disparities which is discrimination, the Left 'wins'-- it is all coming down. ... I can tell you: as long as racism is the only allowable explanation for the fact that Google is not thirteen percent Black or the physics department at Cambridge University or Harvard University is not thirteen percent Black physicists, it is all coming down."
Hint: it was an "elite" crusade.
The country now is just lurching from one manufactured pseudo-moral psycho-drama to the next. Without them, there'd be time to get on with exposing and prosecuting the still-covered-up conspiracy through which the 2020 presidential election was just a final act designed to keep Donald Trump's election victory from being recognized and ratified.
All those conspirators remain in legal jeopardy as long as their cover-up continues to be at risk of being further exposed and further dismantled in public by a press which still isn't fully under the reliably controlled influence of the conspirators and the agents in government and corporate life whose parallel interests are served by that cover-up. The longer these matters persist, the more the country comes to resemble Putin's Russian kleptocracy.
2John5918
>1 proximity1:
Funnily enough, I agree with you that "social-media-driven manias are deepening and spreading". Where we differ is the examples we would use to justify this statement, and our analysis of it.
It seems to me that it is the extreme right wing which is behind much of the social-media-driven mania, spreading conspiracy theories, fake news, propaganda and downright lies. These include "deep state" and anti-vaccination conspiracies, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, neo-Nazism, "incels", undermining democracy (and particularly spreading the lie that Trump won the last election), gun culture, a culture of fear and paranoia, obsessing about people's sexual identity and activity, misogyny, so-called "wokism" and " cancel culture", anti-intellectualism, anti-science, etc, etc, promoting a culture war in general, "just lurching from one manufactured {right wing} pseudo-moral psycho-drama to the next".
Funnily enough, I agree with you that "social-media-driven manias are deepening and spreading". Where we differ is the examples we would use to justify this statement, and our analysis of it.
It seems to me that it is the extreme right wing which is behind much of the social-media-driven mania, spreading conspiracy theories, fake news, propaganda and downright lies. These include "deep state" and anti-vaccination conspiracies, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, neo-Nazism, "incels", undermining democracy (and particularly spreading the lie that Trump won the last election), gun culture, a culture of fear and paranoia, obsessing about people's sexual identity and activity, misogyny, so-called "wokism" and " cancel culture", anti-intellectualism, anti-science, etc, etc, promoting a culture war in general, "just lurching from one manufactured {right wing} pseudo-moral psycho-drama to the next".
3jjwilson61
Imagine, black people don't like being targeted and killed by police and actually complain about it. The nerve!
4prosfilaes
>1 proximity1: "The so-called racial reckoning of 2020 has had an extraordinary impact on the US. Barely a single institution was left untouched by the Black Lives Matter juggernaut. We can see this in the meteoric rise of affirmative action. Meritocracy is out and racial preferences are in – everywhere from universities to major corporations. All too often nowadays, people are openly judged on the basis of their race, rather than on their qualities and qualifications.
I always start to roll my eyes at this shit. You can be a scholar, and look at the history of affirmative action, you can be a journalist and summarize the scholar's research, or you can be a pundit and toss around "meteoric rise" and claim that "meritocracy is out", as if meritocracy has ever been in. The fact that black kids get a boost in Harvard is worth noting, but the fact that the children of anyone who was in Harvard have a boost, giving a boost to a lot of rich white kids, is rarely commented on by conservatives.
they're basically saying their own faculty is racist.
It's like they're not listening. You can say "structural racism" over and over, but they don't want to hear it.
The system sets Black people up to fail, and then blames them for their failure. Black people were actively discriminated against, which means they were paid less than White people and were redlined out of buying property. Which means their children grew up in areas with lousy schools and libraries, which means they didn't get the education or the money, and the effects continue. When I hear about lead issues, or parasite issues, in the US, it's not in White areas. You think everyone going "why are there so few black people at Google? Can't be racism, so..." helps level the field?
And, oh, "Two decades ago, a landmark study showed job applicants with “Black-sounding” names were less likely to hear back from employers. In 18 years, despite a boom in unconscious bias training and diversity initiatives, that largely hasn’t changed.
Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Chicago sent 83,000 fictitious applications for entry-level job postings to 108 Fortune 500 employers, using randomly assigned and racially distinctive names. They found that distinctively Black names on applications with reduced the likelihood of hearing back from an employer by 2.1 percentage points relative to distinctively White names." (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-29/job-applicants-with-black-names-still-less-likely-to-get-the-interview paywalled)
Racism exists. It's funny that people beating on meritocracy aren't the same people pushing for universal healthcare or leveling the schools, or anything that would reduce the structural issues that prevent Black people and the poor from reaching the levels White people have. "Bill Gates deserves everything because he's so smart" came up on LT earlier, ignoring that the only people his age who could have programmed the first Basic interpreter for the first home computer were ones who went to rich schools or had even richer parents, who could buy them time on a computer. Even someone like me, who got a Commodore 64 as a kid, had an advantage over poor Americans; that was the equivalent of giving a kid a Playstation 5 price-wise, not a trivial thing for many families.
I always start to roll my eyes at this shit. You can be a scholar, and look at the history of affirmative action, you can be a journalist and summarize the scholar's research, or you can be a pundit and toss around "meteoric rise" and claim that "meritocracy is out", as if meritocracy has ever been in. The fact that black kids get a boost in Harvard is worth noting, but the fact that the children of anyone who was in Harvard have a boost, giving a boost to a lot of rich white kids, is rarely commented on by conservatives.
they're basically saying their own faculty is racist.
It's like they're not listening. You can say "structural racism" over and over, but they don't want to hear it.
The system sets Black people up to fail, and then blames them for their failure. Black people were actively discriminated against, which means they were paid less than White people and were redlined out of buying property. Which means their children grew up in areas with lousy schools and libraries, which means they didn't get the education or the money, and the effects continue. When I hear about lead issues, or parasite issues, in the US, it's not in White areas. You think everyone going "why are there so few black people at Google? Can't be racism, so..." helps level the field?
And, oh, "Two decades ago, a landmark study showed job applicants with “Black-sounding” names were less likely to hear back from employers. In 18 years, despite a boom in unconscious bias training and diversity initiatives, that largely hasn’t changed.
Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Chicago sent 83,000 fictitious applications for entry-level job postings to 108 Fortune 500 employers, using randomly assigned and racially distinctive names. They found that distinctively Black names on applications with reduced the likelihood of hearing back from an employer by 2.1 percentage points relative to distinctively White names." (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-29/job-applicants-with-black-names-still-less-likely-to-get-the-interview paywalled)
Racism exists. It's funny that people beating on meritocracy aren't the same people pushing for universal healthcare or leveling the schools, or anything that would reduce the structural issues that prevent Black people and the poor from reaching the levels White people have. "Bill Gates deserves everything because he's so smart" came up on LT earlier, ignoring that the only people his age who could have programmed the first Basic interpreter for the first home computer were ones who went to rich schools or had even richer parents, who could buy them time on a computer. Even someone like me, who got a Commodore 64 as a kid, had an advantage over poor Americans; that was the equivalent of giving a kid a Playstation 5 price-wise, not a trivial thing for many families.
5proximity1
>3 jjwilson61:
"Apples" ((exceedingly rare) wrongful killing (murder-in- some (1st, 2nd, 3rd)-degree) at the hands of police) vs. (enforced "race-or-sex-based" preferences in admission & promotion) "oranges".
"Apples" ((exceedingly rare) wrongful killing (murder-in- some (1st, 2nd, 3rd)-degree) at the hands of police) vs. (enforced "race-or-sex-based" preferences in admission & promotion) "oranges".
6prosfilaes
>5 proximity1: Black Lives Matter. The only person throwing oranges here is you.
7proximity1
... "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!"
Once a genuine prospect and then, for a time, a genuine reality --for the grand-parents of today's spoiled Black-Lives-Matter-chanting kids-- Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s vision is once again just a dream.
The "B-L-M" crowd has shit upon the Rev. M.L.K.'s vision-- and the mainscream-media have made a "profit-center" out of that manic nonsense.
(from yesterday's! program hosted by Bill Maher)
...
"Most of the shootings (in Chicago) are young black men killing other young black men. Is that not correct?" Maher asked.
"Yeah that's correct," guest Glenn Loury responded.
"Okay, much more than what the cops do. Why doesn't anybody talk about that? Why aren't there a hundred giant black celebrities who would have the respect of those people saying what are you doing to yourselves? Why are you killing each other?" Maher asked.
"It dishonors our community. Come on, we're better than this," Loury said.
...
Loury, of course, in this instance, is flat out wrong-- "we" (young American Blacks today)--and their stupid White ditto-heads) aren't "better than this."
8prosfilaes
>7 proximity1: In 2016, the FBI records 3499 killings of White people in the US, with 2854 of them by White people. Maher, why are you killing each other? Why don't you talk about this?
Even more notably, in the gender column, out of 4751 male deaths, 4260 (90%) are by male offenders, and out of 1913 female deaths, 1735 (91%) are also by male offenders. Again, Maher says nothing.
(Numbers from https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/tables/expanded... )
People do talk about Black on Black crime but it's Black people talking to Black people. And when they try to pass laws against guns, White America jumps in to stop them. When they try and support the Black family or the local schools, White America shouts about welfare queens and socialism. But it's easier for Maher and Fox to go off on Black people than White males.
Even more notably, in the gender column, out of 4751 male deaths, 4260 (90%) are by male offenders, and out of 1913 female deaths, 1735 (91%) are also by male offenders. Again, Maher says nothing.
(Numbers from https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/tables/expanded... )
People do talk about Black on Black crime but it's Black people talking to Black people. And when they try to pass laws against guns, White America jumps in to stop them. When they try and support the Black family or the local schools, White America shouts about welfare queens and socialism. But it's easier for Maher and Fox to go off on Black people than White males.
9aspirit
Social media is used to spread racism.
I'm guessing that most people reading this would agree. The examples are numerous, and one of the easiest places to look for them is the current Twitter.
Social media is also used to coordinate anti-racism efforts, especially when news media tires of showing march after march after march and other protest events. These events are full of factual information, people cautiously impassioned for civil rights, and artistic displays that are typically only experienced by attendees and people in their online social networks.
So I suspect entertainment and news distribution companies such as Fox and Sinclair deserve most of the blame for intensifying hate for addicting their audiences and spreading lies that continue to deepen social divisions.
As for the slow but persisting Black Lives Matter movement...
Monica Chon for Oprah Daily gave space to the daughters of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X to "reflect on America in the wake of George Floyd's Murder" in 2020.
https://www.oprahdaily.com/entertainment/a32758186/martin-luther-king-jr-malcolm...
Ilyasah Shabazz:
Bernice King:
edited to force the second touchstone to connect
I'm guessing that most people reading this would agree. The examples are numerous, and one of the easiest places to look for them is the current Twitter.
Social media is also used to coordinate anti-racism efforts, especially when news media tires of showing march after march after march and other protest events. These events are full of factual information, people cautiously impassioned for civil rights, and artistic displays that are typically only experienced by attendees and people in their online social networks.
So I suspect entertainment and news distribution companies such as Fox and Sinclair deserve most of the blame for intensifying hate for addicting their audiences and spreading lies that continue to deepen social divisions.
As for the slow but persisting Black Lives Matter movement...
Monica Chon for Oprah Daily gave space to the daughters of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X to "reflect on America in the wake of George Floyd's Murder" in 2020.
https://www.oprahdaily.com/entertainment/a32758186/martin-luther-king-jr-malcolm...
Ilyasah Shabazz:
Before, saying "Black lives matter" seemed to rub a lot of people the wrong way: "What do you mean, Black lives matter? All lives matter!" Well, now we understand what Malcolm was fighting for, and we understand what Dr. King was doing.
Bernice King:
I probably could use every word that fits the emotional continuum of anger and frustration. No more, no more. No more can my white brothers and sisters ignore what is going on in Black America.
People of all backgrounds have been a part of the social justice movement for a long time, going back to my father's day. But I'm speaking about the people of influence and power who have refused to listen to the cries and the protests coming from our beautiful Black millennial and younger generations over the past eight years. Still, even in the midst of all of that, I am overly encouraged.
edited to force the second touchstone to connect
10aspirit
Also, as a comedic entertainer with a vary shaky reputation was referenced on this topic, consider checking how well your favorite search engine is working by entering "Bill Maher, racism".
11proximity1
>8 prosfilaes:
LOL!!! So you grant Maher's essential point, then. That's a "start"--more than I get here.
Think about it. The answer might come to you.
..."In 2016, the FBI records 3499 killings of White people in the US, with 2854 of them by White people. Maher, why are you killing each other? Why don't you talk about this?"
LOL!!! So you grant Maher's essential point, then. That's a "start"--more than I get here.
Think about it. The answer might come to you.
12proximity1
>10 aspirit:
LOL!!!
Sure. Of course, Maher can't help being racist. He's "White", right? Doesn't "racist" go without saying, then? That's what I've heard from all the supposedly non-racists who call Maher a racist.
LOL!!!
Sure. Of course, Maher can't help being racist. He's "White", right? Doesn't "racist" go without saying, then? That's what I've heard from all the supposedly non-racists who call Maher a racist.
13aspirit
>12 proximity1: so you don't know what racist means. Interesting. That explains some previous posts.
There are books in a variety of formats and genres to help with learning about racism. LibraryThing even can make recommendations.
There are books in a variety of formats and genres to help with learning about racism. LibraryThing even can make recommendations.
14prosfilaes
>11 proximity1: How does pointing out that Maher doesn't spend time doing what he directs other to do granting Maher's essential point? How does pointing out that male Maher matches the gender of 90% of murderers, and yet he doesn't call on men to stop killing, grant his point?
Diverting from the central complaint of BLM is pretty standard, but it's unreasonable. Black people shouldn't be more afraid that cops are going to just outright kill them than White people are. That has nothing to do with Black on Black crime.
Diverting from the central complaint of BLM is pretty standard, but it's unreasonable. Black people shouldn't be more afraid that cops are going to just outright kill them than White people are. That has nothing to do with Black on Black crime.
15proximity1
>14 prosfilaes:
The phrasing here is so telling, so indicative of the idiocy of the view presented:
..."Black people shouldn't be more afraid that cops are going to just outright kill them than White people are."
I suppose you intended to write "Black people shouldn't be more afraid that there's a statistically greater likelihood that cops are going to just outright kill them than is the case where White people are are involved as suspects."
That, by the way, is factually false--there is no such greater statistical likelihood of Blacks' being wrongfully killed in the course of arrest than there is for Whites. But, as the the matter of whether or not and how much Black people live in fear of such a fantasy-- White people can't do much of anything about that. Irrational fears are rife in human life and that is one of them.
The phrasing here is so telling, so indicative of the idiocy of the view presented:
..."Black people shouldn't be more afraid that cops are going to just outright kill them than White people are."
I suppose you intended to write "Black people shouldn't be more afraid that there's a statistically greater likelihood that cops are going to just outright kill them than is the case where White people are are involved as suspects."
That, by the way, is factually false--there is no such greater statistical likelihood of Blacks' being wrongfully killed in the course of arrest than there is for Whites. But, as the the matter of whether or not and how much Black people live in fear of such a fantasy-- White people can't do much of anything about that. Irrational fears are rife in human life and that is one of them.
16aspirit
>15 proximity1: "Everyone who is murdered by police officers deserves it" is an abhorrent take.
Even in the USA—where systematic racism is at the core of street law enforcement and regular "peace" officers are armed as if they're soldiers at war—cops shouldn't be killing people. Each incidence breaks a social contract with the general populace.
And what we're seeing aren't rare cases of police officers defending themselves in extreme situations they didn't cause. New officers are quickly indoctrinated into a culture of extreme violence with the police escalating threats every day. They delight in fear (which is why so many people are angry instead). They're killing innocent people after breaking into their homes or getting bored at work. More than a few are targeting people to kill the way war criminals, breaking international humanitarian laws, do.
Acknowledging the reality is not crazy. Refusing to do anything about it is the unhealthy response. That would essentially be letting cancer grow on a body.
Even in the USA—where systematic racism is at the core of street law enforcement and regular "peace" officers are armed as if they're soldiers at war—cops shouldn't be killing people. Each incidence breaks a social contract with the general populace.
And what we're seeing aren't rare cases of police officers defending themselves in extreme situations they didn't cause. New officers are quickly indoctrinated into a culture of extreme violence with the police escalating threats every day. They delight in fear (which is why so many people are angry instead). They're killing innocent people after breaking into their homes or getting bored at work. More than a few are targeting people to kill the way war criminals, breaking international humanitarian laws, do.
Acknowledging the reality is not crazy. Refusing to do anything about it is the unhealthy response. That would essentially be letting cancer grow on a body.
17proximity1
>16 aspirit:
Bullshit.
This is the bullshit-level of the argumentation I meet with at this shitty site. Imputing to me the view that murder, when committed by police, is something the victim of course deserves.
Bullshit.
This is the bullshit-level of the argumentation I meet with at this shitty site. Imputing to me the view that murder, when committed by police, is something the victim of course deserves.
>15 proximity1: proximity1: "Everyone who is murdered by police officers deserves it" is an abhorrent take.
No, that crap has nothing to do with my claims or views. Murder, by definition, is wrongful death, no matter who commits it. But I needn't have insisted on this--it's my already well-understood position here, restated so many times that, for "aspirit" to ascribe it to me is a wanton disregard of what he damn well knows.
Now, watch, as his ideological allies here write not a word of objection to his foul and deliberate claim.
