The Denialism Vortex

 

Just to refrain from linking to any of the stupid Twitter comments that got me to thinking about the denialism problem, I'm just going to link to Josh Marshall on the latest dumb thing the MAGA folks are doing: denying that the Ukraine war...is real.  Like somehow, Ukraine has snowed us all into thinking there's a war, and Russia is even playing along with this, and all of Europe and the US, etc. are somehow just pretending there's a war?

As if Wag the Dog were a documentary? It just doesn't seem plausible to me that this is being posited by anyone in good faith, but I don't think denialism is about that--although some people will buy it. It's about the debate. Exhausting, proof-pulling, stupid debate.

Think about how from stupid little acorns of bad faith, mighty conspiracist oaks grow--like with Andrew Wakefield's bad science that grew into the anti-vaxx movement that has since spawned actual terrorism threats.  Or people who can't accept any demonstration that the voter fraud that has them so furious never existed. Or think about climate science denialism and how people want to believe it's all a hoax started by people who want you to sit in a freezing room and eat bugs. (No, that's Brexit, dear....) And this "fake Ukraine War" canard seems like an outcropping of Russiagate--the denialism that Putin is a really bad guy who fucks with elections and has imperialist aims.

No Holiday in Cambodia

"Ocasio-Cortez already receives a high number of death threats; by allowing this PAC to air an ad that links her to genocidal violence in Cambodia, ABC grants undeserved legitimacy to ideas that make her a target."https://t.co/fUWquQjDKc

— Democratic Coalition (@TheDemCoalition) September 13, 2019

This is probably deeply ill-advised of me to notice, but I'm a Gen-X blogger who realized a long time ago that I'm not really presidential material (even if the fitness of the current resident makes even me and my tattoos feel a little like, what the hell? Y not?) so let me just say--wow, but by the visibly melting frame of the yet-living Hank Kissinger, are we really going to go through whether the left-liberalism calling itself democratic socialism is kinda Khmer Rougey and not take notice of the entire right-wing foreign policy failure at influencing positive change with respects to....

Why, no. No we are not doing that. Or at least, you go ahead and do that history dissertation if you've a mind, but:  This is actually just my usual warning that conservative rhetoric is inflammatory and that inflammatory rhetoric is really the thing we should worry about regarding genocide, not mere issues of domestic economy. Because conservatives have been doing this thing with inflammatory and violent rhetoric. And sometimes it results in bad things.

In the Bubble with Fox and Some Friends

Just to resurrect the Fox Mushroom Farm notion for a bit, a recent survey suggests that the garbage news that the Fox Channel provides skews it's viewers more to the right, against climate change science, and pro-Trump. 

Not a shocker, there. Fox News has been in display as particularly problematic lately, regarding popular host Tucker Carlson, for instance, who is a real big hit with white supremacists for some reason, and Jeanine Pirro, who has been suspended from tv for another Saturday night after some extremely anti-Islamic comments. Also Laura "Sieg Heillo Kitty" Ingraham has been deeply suspect with regards to promoting the kind of replacement theory chanted at Charlottesville and which allegedly motivated the Christchurch shooter.  Fox also filters conspiracy theories from the fever swamps upwards to the mainstream, like promoting a Tweet from Qanon. 

Social media is often noted as a vector for radicalization, and this is both part of the strategies of such groups trucking in violence and disinfo, and part of the algorithms that control what people see online. Fox has actually been boycotting Twitter for some reason--and I have not missed them. 

I think people can be extremely online without becoming extremists. But I don't think they can be extremely fond of propagandists and do so. And it has never been more clear how much Fox is actually propaganda. 

This Middle East News is Concerning

I'm not a really big foreign policy swot, but this news could be pretty concerning, right?

The United Arab Emirates and Egypt have cut diplomatic ties to Qatar.

The two countries have joined Saudi Arabia and Bahrain in cutting ties to Qatar amid a growing Arab diplomatic dispute with the small, gas-rich nation.
Both the UAE and Egypt made the announcement on their state-run news agencies within minutes of each other.

Qatari officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The dispute between Qatar and the Gulf's Arab countries started over a purported hack of Qatar's state-run news agency. It has spiraled since.

It's worrisome because this feels like the US should have more of a State Department for times just like this. I just don't know whether this was something on the US radar, what the national security implications are, or how this impacts US involvement in the area, which is entirely normal, because I'm just a civilian with a blog. It's just that I don't know the extent to which my government is prepared to deal with a major foreign policy shakeup.

It worries me.

UPDATE: Just for added context--

QATAR

- Hosts US Central Command base
- Strategic relations with Turkey
- Only land border is with Saudi
- World's 3rd largest gas reserves pic.twitter.com/te50SY9w3v

— The Spectator Index (@spectatorindex) June 5, 2017

Also--what does this have to do with Yemen and the Houthis? Also--is invasion the next step, since everything is obviously progressing quite quickly?

State Tyranny Over Marriage Equality Is Ended in US

In just the way that all people are created equal, same sex marriages will have equality under the law. The states will not have the ability to pick and choose among human adults which shall be valid to do so on the strength of gender alone. And this is a damn good day for the Constitution and for what this country was founded on, because individual states should not have the ability to invalidate the rights of individuals to do what is largely viewed as acceptable if not salutary.

The argument against marriage equality is, basically, this is a civil good when straight folks do it, but somehow it transforms into a morally abhorrent thing when gay folks do it. But the moral difference between gay and straight is nowhere established because where is the difference between male and female? Between races?  All citizens of legal age need to be treated equally under the law.

So two consenting men or two consenting women can enter the bonds of marriage because two people--those gender things being equal--will do. It doesn't invalidate laws regarding bigamy, and it doesn't suddenly sanction incest. All it does is say that there are no "gay marriage states" vs "no gay marriage states", and that there is no longer a separate but equal snobbery where  gay people can enjoy  some, but not all privileges of marriage.

I'm Not An Expert in Terrorism, But...

Weighing a handful of opinions altogether regarding "what ISIS really wants", as is the title of Graeme Woods' piece for The Atlantic, I'm afraid I want to back up from part of the main premise--that they are apocalyptic.

I'm not just looking at what Nihad Awad has to say about it, although his point about these being desperate people with no belief in worldly justice strikes me as exactly accurate. But leaving aside whether ISIS is drawing directly from Islam (and sure, maybe, enough of it is "really Islamic" but I'm not qualified to speak to that religion--I think it's more in the way Aum Shinriko is Buddhist, or the Rajneeshis are Hindu) if one were just looking at who is recruited and what they are doing, I think one would get a far better picture of what they are about than from taking their religious-flavored propaganda at face value.