Here’s how we protect Taiwan without going to war with China: open a branch of the @NRA in Taiwan, put an AR-15 in the hands of every family, and train them how to use it. That’ll give Xi Jinping a taste of American exceptionalism. pic.twitter.com/FQn58GrucX
The war on science, fact, education, and reading has driven its adherents around the bend. I do have the feeling that in the last few weeks, there has been a sea change in US public opinion, with a lot of middle of the road folks and independents finally saying “I’m out.” We’ll see. Above, and below, this rising star in the MAGA/Fox world shows additional reasons why that’s happening.
Washington Post: But for all their use of the W-word, these and other GOP politicians cannot claim to have written the book on attacking it: That distinction goes to a little-known Republican presidential candidate — Vivek Ramaswamy — who is campaigning on a plank of ridding corporate boardrooms of social causes, including the battle against climate change. – His views on climate change reflect how he straddles the line between sounding thoughtful and outlandish.
In an interview, Ramaswamy said he’s “not a climate denier,” but sees the world’s warming as “not entirely bad.” He says the goal of limiting carbon emissions is “flawed” and that “people should be proud to live a high-carbon lifestyle.” He said “we have a far better chance” of growing out of the problem “than trying to engineer the climate itself.”
He also sees climate activism as one of three “secular religions” that “has America in a chokehold.” He said “the climate religion has about as much to do with the climate as the Spanish Inquisition had to do with Christ, which is to say nothing at all. It is about power, dominion, control, punishment.”
More than other GOP presidential contenders, Ramaswamy targets his criticism on Wall Street sustainability policies. He’s written letters to corporations such a Chevron, criticizing the company’s support for a carbon tax and its calculation of “Scope 3” emissions — those generated when consumers use a product, such as buying gasoline to drive a car.
—
Below, Ramaswamy suggests disbanding the FBI. (it should start at 13:44, so go there to cut to the chase)
I would caution against making wokism a left vs right issue. There are plenty of classic liberals (I am one of them) who have serious objections to critical race theory and its proponents on the far left.
Not to mention the fact that wokism is going to get plenty of Republicans elected who wouldn’t have had a chance before – thanks, Democrats!
The term “Critical Race Theory” (like feminist, socialist, alarmist, etc.) has been extremely warped and weaponized by the right wing. It was originally a sociopolitical theory that came out of academia.
Summary stolen from Wikipedia: Critical race theory (CRT) is a cross-disciplinary examination – by social and civil-rights scholars and activists – of how laws, social and political movements, and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity. The word critical in the name is an academic reference to critical thinking, critical theory, and scholarly criticism, rather than criticizing or blaming people.
The GOP and the Right Wing noise machine have redefined CRT to mean “give more rights to Black people than to White people, and make little White children feel ashamed of being White.”
And the Left has swallowed it hook, line, and sinker and have weaponized it, and are now successfully shoving it down the throat of society without any dialogue about its intellectual integrity.
It isn’t going to help people of color or women, etc , but what it will do is get more Republicans elected. Which will harm people of color and women, etc.
The GOP makes a lot of noise about “critical race theory” as they define it, as if Dems are pushing this academic theory “down our throats”. They even claim “CRT” is being pushed on schoolchildren!
For the record, do you disagree that “laws, social and political movements, and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity”?
Which of these social conceptions of race and ethnicity are not part of US history:
– a system of slavery based entirely on racial origin
– Jim Crow laws
– sunset laws
– frequent breaking of treaties with indigenous people
– the establishment of the State of Oregon as “whites only”
– disproportionate sentences for nonwhites for the same crime
– Federal laws and policy regarding ineligibility of Black people for federal programs (The Color of Law)
– Bank red-lining based on race
– Targeting of middle-class Black neighborhoods for highways
– Textbooks soft-pedaling slavery and racism
– Textbooks soft-pedaling the nature of Columbus’ actions
– Massacres like Tulsa-Greenwood and Rosewood
– disproportionate prosecution for crimes based on victim’s race or ethnicity
– racial segregation of the military
Which of these should not be discussed in the public square?
How are these being shoved down your throat? Is it the way that mentioning “climate change” on the local news is being “shoved down the throats” of AGW deniers, as we’ve often heard?
I’m not saying the Right is getting this at all correctly. The Right screws up almost everything.
And I am not denying the racist history of the US, or that racism is not found in many places and in many people.
What I AM saying is that CRT has a lot of unproven assertions, and a fair amount of nonsense in it. And I AM saying that that most DEI initiatives are worthless; and that DEI promulgators are intrusive, nasty as hell, weaponized beyond belief and seriously harming morale in academia and the corporate world. They have become morality police, and their language and tactics are spilling over into character assassination and personal destruction. The evidence for this sort of noxious philosophy and behavior is ubiquitous – literally hundreds if not thousands of examples exist and it is ruining academia and research.
Do you realize that many research personnel applications are now screened for proper DEI documentation as a first qualifying criteria? You can not even be considered as an applicant to get a grant for doing biology, mathematics, chemistry etc in many places, for example, without an approved history of DEI activism. Because it is assumed without any documentation or discussion that chemistry, mathematics, etc, (of all things) are replete with systemic racism and must be reformed.
Competency and objectivism are deemed problems to be overcome according to this “philosophy” (I am serious). Because a growing cadre of DEI administrators demand it. It reeks of Lysenkoism, and it is dangerous as hell. The majority of students and faculty in academia are now afraid to state their honest opinions in public because of this. And it is going to get Republicans elected.
And what I am saying is that there are a lot of people on the left who are alarmed by this, and pushback is beginning. So, it not just a Right vs Left issue. It is an extreme Left vs everybody else issue.
Not at all. You need to familiarize yourself with the actual writings and recommendations of the woke movement.
Competence and objectivity are are considered tools of the white patriarchy by the woke. I’m not kidding, this shit is unbelievable. But I suppose its not surprising when words describing a difference of opinion are considered to be “violence” and “harmful”.
“Objectivity” and “objectivism” are not the same thing. Objectivism is the Ayn Rand* philosophy. Objectivity is a state of impartiality that the human mind finds nigh impossible to achieve.
_____
*An amazing person who not only gave birth to herself, but constructed the building she was born in!
(BTW, I haven’t heard the term “woke” used by anyone outside of the GOP/DeSantis talking points for well over a year, and I’ve never heard a proponent define is as equivalent to CRT. “Woke” in the 1920s described anyone who understood the regular injustices that black people faced.)
After McCurtain County officials dispatched with the agenda and ushered citizens out of a public meeting last month in southeastern Oklahoma, they spoke among themselves without realizing they were being secretly recorded, a local newspaper reported.
Jennings: It’s like somebody wanting this job, they don’t realize, like your job. I heard it the other day, said I heard 2 or 12 people were going for sheriff. I said fuck, lets get 20. They don’t have a goddamn clue what they’re getting into. Not this day and age. I’m gonna tell you something. If it was back in the day, when that when Alan Marshton would take a damn black guy and whoop their ass and throw him in the cell? I’d run for fucking sheriff.
Sheriff: Yeah. Well, It’s not like that no more.
Jennings: I know. Take them down to Mud Creek and hang them up with a damn rope. But you can’t do that anymore. They got more rights than we got.
Get that? "They got more rights than we got." That's GOP's talking points version of CRT.
THIS IS NOT A RARE EXCEPTION. THIS IS HOW MANY AMERICANS THINK.
After McCurtain County officials dispatched with the agenda and ushered citizens out of a public meeting last month in southeastern Oklahoma, they spoke among themselves without realizing they were being secretly recorded, a local newspaper reported.
Jennings: It’s like somebody wanting this job, they don’t realize, like your job. I heard it the other day, said I heard 2 or 12 people were going for sheriff. I said fuck, lets get 20. They don’t have a goddamn clue what they’re getting into. Not this day and age. I’m gonna tell you something. If it was back in the day, when that when Alan Marshton would take a damn black guy and whoop their ass and throw him in the cell? I’d run for fucking sheriff.
Sheriff: Yeah. Well, It’s not like that nomore.
Jennings: I know. Take them down to Mud Creek and hang them up with a damn rope. But you can’t do that anymore. They got more rights than we got.
Get that? "They got more rights than we got." That's GOP's talking points version of CRT.
THIS IS NOT A RARE EXCEPTION. THIS IS HOW MANY AMERICANS THINK.
I detest these “I am not a denier” deniers. Mouthing “Yes the climate is warming” is a not a get-out-of-denial-free card.
“Yes I take a drink sometimes. But studies show that some wine is good for you, and I’m in control, and it lubricates my social life, and yada yada.” People can easily see that “I take a drink sometimes but …” is still in denial about the drinking problem.
“I agree the climate is warming but warming is good for us and a few centimeters of sea level makes no difference and more people die from cold than heat and fossil fuels are a net benefit for the economy and quality of life and yada yada” is flat out in-denial about the global warming problem.
Mouthing “I agree the climate is warming” doesn’t change that. But a lot of people seem to be bamboozled.
It’s why I’ve been calling it “climate-denying delayalism” for years. Yes, there’s always some aspect & degree of denial of climate science & reality, whether it’s publicly (or even privately & consciously) expressed or not, but the ultimate purpose is to delay the implementation of solutions. The ultimate causes are narcissism, psychosis, psychopathy, (ie, Wetiko disease) & addiction to domination & sadism, and the rage and hatred that lead to nihilism, the desire to destroy everything.
Last time I looked China’s standing army is ten, maybe twelve times that of
Taiwan. So, unless you’re going to put ten or twelve ARs in their hands and the Chinese are polite enough to give them time to reload, that’s a pretty stupid argument.
I’d like to give Ramaswamy an AR and pit him against a Chinese tank, missile, Z-10 attack helicopter, etc., so he can show the Taiwanese how it’s done.
What’s the difference between paranoia & projected rage & hatred?
The far right’s conviction that the left is out to get them isn’t paranoia, it’s their own desire for violence projected onto others. George (Don’t Think of an Elephant) Lakoff talks about the constellation of traits conservatives have that seem a strange combination at first. [But they make sense when a person’s childhood is understood.] Belief in competition and hierarchies, authoritarianism, confused tendrils of deservedness and resentment for what life brings, a feeling of aloneness in a harsh universe… It all has to do with their lack of empathy, which makes all life seem opaque & incomprehensible—a black box, an object that, without empathy, can’t be understood. So it’s hated, feared, and projected onto.
Racism, misogyny, class and religious hatred, ecological destruction, belief in overpopulation as a cause of our problems…when all our problems are caused by conservatives’ devastated empathy.
Climate Denial Crock of the Week 
April 18, 2023 at 9:15 am
Ramaswamy sounds like a first-class ***hole.
I would caution against making wokism a left vs right issue. There are plenty of classic liberals (I am one of them) who have serious objections to critical race theory and its proponents on the far left.
Not to mention the fact that wokism is going to get plenty of Republicans elected who wouldn’t have had a chance before – thanks, Democrats!
April 18, 2023 at 2:41 pm
The term “Critical Race Theory” (like feminist, socialist, alarmist, etc.) has been extremely warped and weaponized by the right wing. It was originally a sociopolitical theory that came out of academia.
Summary stolen from Wikipedia:
Critical race theory (CRT) is a cross-disciplinary examination – by social and civil-rights scholars and activists – of how laws, social and political movements, and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity. The word critical in the name is an academic reference to critical thinking, critical theory, and scholarly criticism, rather than criticizing or blaming people.
The GOP and the Right Wing noise machine have redefined CRT to mean “give more rights to Black people than to White people, and make little White children feel ashamed of being White.”
April 18, 2023 at 2:58 pm
And the Left has swallowed it hook, line, and sinker and have weaponized it, and are now successfully shoving it down the throat of society without any dialogue about its intellectual integrity.
It isn’t going to help people of color or women, etc , but what it will do is get more Republicans elected. Which will harm people of color and women, etc.
April 18, 2023 at 3:43 pm
The GOP makes a lot of noise about “critical race theory” as they define it, as if Dems are pushing this academic theory “down our throats”. They even claim “CRT” is being pushed on schoolchildren!
For the record, do you disagree that “laws, social and political movements, and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity”?
Which of these social conceptions of race and ethnicity are not part of US history:
– a system of slavery based entirely on racial origin
– Jim Crow laws
– sunset laws
– frequent breaking of treaties with indigenous people
– the establishment of the State of Oregon as “whites only”
– disproportionate sentences for nonwhites for the same crime
– Federal laws and policy regarding ineligibility of Black people for federal programs (The Color of Law)
– Bank red-lining based on race
– Targeting of middle-class Black neighborhoods for highways
– Textbooks soft-pedaling slavery and racism
– Textbooks soft-pedaling the nature of Columbus’ actions
– Massacres like Tulsa-Greenwood and Rosewood
– disproportionate prosecution for crimes based on victim’s race or ethnicity
– racial segregation of the military
Which of these should not be discussed in the public square?
How are these being shoved down your throat? Is it the way that mentioning “climate change” on the local news is being “shoved down the throats” of AGW deniers, as we’ve often heard?
April 18, 2023 at 4:18 pm
I’m not saying the Right is getting this at all correctly. The Right screws up almost everything.
And I am not denying the racist history of the US, or that racism is not found in many places and in many people.
What I AM saying is that CRT has a lot of unproven assertions, and a fair amount of nonsense in it. And I AM saying that that most DEI initiatives are worthless; and that DEI promulgators are intrusive, nasty as hell, weaponized beyond belief and seriously harming morale in academia and the corporate world. They have become morality police, and their language and tactics are spilling over into character assassination and personal destruction. The evidence for this sort of noxious philosophy and behavior is ubiquitous – literally hundreds if not thousands of examples exist and it is ruining academia and research.
Do you realize that many research personnel applications are now screened for proper DEI documentation as a first qualifying criteria? You can not even be considered as an applicant to get a grant for doing biology, mathematics, chemistry etc in many places, for example, without an approved history of DEI activism. Because it is assumed without any documentation or discussion that chemistry, mathematics, etc, (of all things) are replete with systemic racism and must be reformed.
Competency and objectivism are deemed problems to be overcome according to this “philosophy” (I am serious). Because a growing cadre of DEI administrators demand it. It reeks of Lysenkoism, and it is dangerous as hell. The majority of students and faculty in academia are now afraid to state their honest opinions in public because of this. And it is going to get Republicans elected.
And what I am saying is that there are a lot of people on the left who are alarmed by this, and pushback is beginning. So, it not just a Right vs Left issue. It is an extreme Left vs everybody else issue.
April 19, 2023 at 2:36 am
Huh?
Are you a Libertarian?
April 19, 2023 at 9:36 am
Not at all. You need to familiarize yourself with the actual writings and recommendations of the woke movement.
Competence and objectivity are are considered tools of the white patriarchy by the woke. I’m not kidding, this shit is unbelievable. But I suppose its not surprising when words describing a difference of opinion are considered to be “violence” and “harmful”.
April 19, 2023 at 9:33 pm
“Objectivity” and “objectivism” are not the same thing. Objectivism is the Ayn Rand* philosophy. Objectivity is a state of impartiality that the human mind finds nigh impossible to achieve.
_____
*An amazing person who not only gave birth to herself, but constructed the building she was born in!
April 19, 2023 at 9:38 pm
Got a link or links for me?
(BTW, I haven’t heard the term “woke” used by anyone outside of the GOP/DeSantis talking points for well over a year, and I’ve never heard a proponent define is as equivalent to CRT. “Woke” in the 1920s described anyone who understood the regular injustices that black people faced.)
April 18, 2023 at 2:56 pm
Racism (and White Supremacy) is still a major problem in the US:
From https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/04/18/mccurtain-county-sheriff-recording/
After McCurtain County officials dispatched with the agenda and ushered citizens out of a public meeting last month in southeastern Oklahoma, they spoke among themselves without realizing they were being secretly recorded, a local newspaper reported.
Jennings: It’s like somebody wanting this job, they don’t realize, like your job. I heard it the other day, said I heard 2 or 12 people were going for sheriff. I said fuck, lets get 20. They don’t have a goddamn clue what they’re getting into. Not this day and age. I’m gonna tell you something. If it was back in the day, when that when Alan Marshton would take a damn black guy and whoop their ass and throw him in the cell? I’d run for fucking sheriff.Sheriff: Yeah. Well, It’s not like that no more.
Jennings: I know. Take them down to Mud Creek and hang them up with a damn rope. But you can’t do that anymore. They got more rights than we got.
Get that? "They got more rights than we got." That's GOP's talking points version of CRT.
THIS IS NOT A RARE EXCEPTION. THIS IS HOW MANY AMERICANS THINK.
This is how the GOP encourages them to think.
April 18, 2023 at 2:57 pm
Racism (and White Supremacy) is still a major problem in the US:
From https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/04/18/mccurtain-county-sheriff-recording/
After McCurtain County officials dispatched with the agenda and ushered citizens out of a public meeting last month in southeastern Oklahoma, they spoke among themselves without realizing they were being secretly recorded, a local newspaper reported.
Jennings: It’s like somebody wanting this job, they don’t realize, like your job. I heard it the other day, said I heard 2 or 12 people were going for sheriff. I said fuck, lets get 20. They don’t have a goddamn clue what they’re getting into. Not this day and age. I’m gonna tell you something. If it was back in the day, when that when Alan Marshton would take a damn black guy and whoop their ass and throw him in the cell? I’d run for fucking sheriff.Sheriff: Yeah. Well, It’s not like that nomore.
Jennings: I know. Take them down to Mud Creek and hang them up with a damn rope. But you can’t do that anymore. They got more rights than we got.
Get that? "They got more rights than we got." That's GOP's talking points version of CRT.
THIS IS NOT A RARE EXCEPTION. THIS IS HOW MANY AMERICANS THINK.
April 18, 2023 at 9:54 am
I detest these “I am not a denier” deniers. Mouthing “Yes the climate is warming” is a not a get-out-of-denial-free card.
“Yes I take a drink sometimes. But studies show that some wine is good for you, and I’m in control, and it lubricates my social life, and yada yada.” People can easily see that “I take a drink sometimes but …” is still in denial about the drinking problem.
“I agree the climate is warming but warming is good for us and a few centimeters of sea level makes no difference and more people die from cold than heat and fossil fuels are a net benefit for the economy and quality of life and yada yada” is flat out in-denial about the global warming problem.
Mouthing “I agree the climate is warming” doesn’t change that. But a lot of people seem to be bamboozled.
April 19, 2023 at 9:23 am
It’s why I’ve been calling it “climate-denying delayalism” for years. Yes, there’s always some aspect & degree of denial of climate science & reality, whether it’s publicly (or even privately & consciously) expressed or not, but the ultimate purpose is to delay the implementation of solutions. The ultimate causes are narcissism, psychosis, psychopathy, (ie, Wetiko disease) & addiction to domination & sadism, and the rage and hatred that lead to nihilism, the desire to destroy everything.
“Seeing Wetiko: on Capitalism, Mind Viruses, and Antidotes for a World in Transition” Alnoor Ladha and Martin Kirk, films for action
https://www.kosmosjournal.org/article/seeing-wetiko-on-capitalism-mind-viruses-and-antidotes-for-a-world-in-transition/
The Bonds of Love: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and the Problem of Domination, Jessica Benjamin
Love at Goon Park: Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection, Deborah Blum,
“The Science of Affection: How a Rebel Researcher Pioneered the Study of Love in the 1950s and Illuminated How Parents Shape Children’s Emotional Patterns”
Maria Popova
https://www.themarginalian.org/2016/07/07/love-at-goon-park-harry-harlow-deborah-blum/
For Your Own Good: hidden cruelty in child-rearing and the roots of violence, Alice Miller, German Psychologist
by Wilhelm Reich:
The Function of the Orgasm: Sex-Economic Problems of Biological Energy,
The Mass Psychology of Fascism
April 18, 2023 at 12:26 pm
Last time I looked China’s standing army is ten, maybe twelve times that of
Taiwan. So, unless you’re going to put ten or twelve ARs in their hands and the Chinese are polite enough to give them time to reload, that’s a pretty stupid argument.
April 18, 2023 at 3:04 pm
I’d like to give Ramaswamy an AR and pit him against a Chinese tank, missile, Z-10 attack helicopter, etc., so he can show the Taiwanese how it’s done.
April 19, 2023 at 3:26 pm
What’s the difference between paranoia & projected rage & hatred?
The far right’s conviction that the left is out to get them isn’t paranoia, it’s their own desire for violence projected onto others. George (Don’t Think of an Elephant) Lakoff talks about the constellation of traits conservatives have that seem a strange combination at first. [But they make sense when a person’s childhood is understood.] Belief in competition and hierarchies, authoritarianism, confused tendrils of deservedness and resentment for what life brings, a feeling of aloneness in a harsh universe… It all has to do with their lack of empathy, which makes all life seem opaque & incomprehensible—a black box, an object that, without empathy, can’t be understood. So it’s hated, feared, and projected onto.
Racism, misogyny, class and religious hatred, ecological destruction, belief in overpopulation as a cause of our problems…when all our problems are caused by conservatives’ devastated empathy.