RationalWiki:What is going on in the blogosphere?/December 2022

December 2022
Abu Zubayda, the Palestinian "militant" the US has held without charge since shortly after 9/11, finally received his PRB in 2016. What the US government failed to note is the torture they put Zubayda through, to the point that some observers were brought to tears after observing documentation of it. Some of the tortures he received included, as noted by the US Senate report on CIA torture: "forced nudity, sleep deprivation, 47 straight days in isolation, walling, attention grasps, slapping, facial holds, stress positions, and cramped confinement. He spent 266 hours in a coffin-sized box." For some reason, we here at RationalWiki doubt that Zubayda received due process. The released a video on Zubayda in February 2022 detailing the injustices Zubayda has been forced to suffer through. The Wagner Group: Putin's not-so-secret army in Ukraine. "We are living in the Golden Age of Getting Rich and Wielding Influence By Pretending Your Voice Has Been Silenced -- which brings us to the Twitter Files, & the people to whom they were handed by the wealthiest man in the world." The great internet grievance war the Right has wanted is here. What an age we live in. Seems, being held accountable for one's words and actions equates to being 'silenced'. And the rest of the world thought Americans had no real grasp of irony. How Democracy Nearly Died in Wisconsin – and what that means for the rest of the country Does the FTX collapse discredit effective altruism? "If there’s a lesson we can take from Sam Bankman-Fried’s downfall, it’s that we should be intensely skeptical of people who claim their goal is to get rich so they can save the world." The Predictable Resurgence of Fascism and Nazism On Both Sides of the North Atlantic and Its Consequences The real lesson to learn from Herschel Walker and the midterms: Republicans have acclimated the American public to truly vile elected officials and candidates, and this will result in lasting damage to the US political system no matter what happens in future elections. The Cuban embargo's history of failure and why the US still maintains it despite serious strategic drawbacks. How Teddy Roosevelt's controversial run for a third presidential term in 1912 offers an ‘ominous’ lesson for Trump and the GOP in 2024 Perhaps playtime should be playtime? The pushback against educational aids masquerading as 'toys'. Why the West must ignore Putin's siren song regarding a ceasefire in the interests of lasting, genuine peace for Ukraine.