RationalWiki:What is going on in the blogosphere?/December 2016

December 2016
Let's pop the bad news bubble: 99 Reasons Why 2016 Has Been a Great Year For Humanity Leonid Bershidsky: Why I still don't buy the Russian hacking story. Matt Taibbi: Something about this Russia story stinks. 2016 has given us a preview of the future of global warming; it isn't a good one. Massachusetts's new law legalizing marijuana is just a Kafkaesque bureaucracy. When SWAT raids become routine. Islamophobia and the Security State after Trump. There are no workplace accidents: Lessons from Deepwater Horizon. Just as the catastrophic Anglo-American invasion of Iraq brought an end to epic Western military adventures in the Middle East, so the tragedy of Syria ensures that there will be no more Arab revolutions. [https://news.vice.com/story/school-choice-detroit-betsy-devos School choice gutted Detroit’s public schools. The rest of the US is next.] Auschwitz Memorial twitter account rebukes conservative pundit, Kurt Schlicter, for comparing Jewish supporters of Obama's abstention vis-a-vis UNSC resolution 2334 to 'helpers' at Auschwitz during the Holocaust Why weren't the Trump/The Apprentice tapes leaked? The answer involves trade unions... [http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/12/donald_trump_is_unpopular_and_so_is_the_gop_agenda.html An historically unpopular President Elect. An unpopular Republican agenda. Democrats can take advantage of both.] But they probably won't. Alt-right's Richard Spencer: a product of Dallas racist elites. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources memory-holed "climate change" on their website. Ready for some good news out of this hell year? White supremacist intellectuals are already predicting the movement's backslide into petty squabbling and political irrelevance. Why dropping small luxuries is massively over-rated financial advice. [http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Why-do-migrants-hate-their-new-host-countries-Look-to-anarchist-Emma-Goldman-476507 Why do some migrants hate their new host countries? Look to anarchist Emma Goldman.] On the parallels between today's transnational jihadi terrorists and the anarchists of the late 19th/early 20th centuries. George Will invokes Orwell in a good way to highlight the troubles of civil forfeiture and to criticize Jeff Sessions' support of it. David Futrelle announces an ongoing series of posts about the little things that you, as an ordinary citizen, can do to resist Trump. The first thing you can do? Email the Madison Square Garden Company to express solidarity with the Rockettes who don't want to be forced to perform at Trump's inauguration. North Carolina no longer qualifies as a democracy Conservatives on religious freedom: for cake bakers who don't bake for gays? Yeah, of course! For nuns who don't like birth control? Sure! For Muslims whose mosque has been stalled by local government (it's so bad the Federal DoJ is now in on the case)? ... [https://newrepublic.com/article/139385/happens-media-matters-post-hillary-world? What happens to Media Matters in a post-Hillary World?] The long and brutal history of fake news. Democrats shouldn’t assume their “Trump loves Putin” argument is a political winner. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/12/17/how-hannah-arendts-classic-work/? How Hannah Arendt’s classic work on totalitarianism illuminates today’s America] The contradictions of liberal Zionism in the age of Trump. [https://theintercept.com/2016/12/18/how-many-children-were-shot-dead-today-an-interview-with-gary-younge/ How many children were shot dead in the US today? An interview with Gary Younge.] U.S. crops are just as vulnerable to a another Dust Bowl tragedy as they are in the 1930s. The long time, historical origins of Pizzagate in the American psyche, courtesy of Reason. "The Best Time I Pretended I Hadn’t Heard of Slavoj Žižek: One weird trick to frustrate the hell out of a Marxist bro." The Rise of the Alt-Center: "What the Russian obsession represents is a massive ethical failure on the part of American liberals. (...) They're far too busy weaving themselves into intricate geopolitical power plays that don't really exist, searching for a narrative that exonerates them from having let this happen, to do anything like real political work." After Milo Yiannopolous harassed her during an on-campus speaking invitation, a (now former) University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee student wrote a lengthy open letter to the Chancellor in which she let him have it. Despite an increase in prescriptions for Mental Health related drugs, US Mental Health declines by some measures Inspired by Standing Rock, West Texans take action to fight Trans-Pecos Pipeline. The evolution of how suicide bombings incorrectly became synonymous with Islam. New HBomberGuy video: The Golden One: A Measured Response There's more propaganda than news coming out of Aleppo this week. (Autoplay video) So keep in mind, there is more than one truth to tell in the terrible story of Aleppo. (Autoplay video) It was bizarre to watch Samantha Power at the UN conveniently forget to mention all the massacres done in America's name. (Autoplay video) Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surgical strike on black money through demonetisation tears asunder the lives of vast sections of the poor, promoting a gigantic transfer of income and wealth from the poor to the rich on a scale unprecedented since Independence. Obama failed to mitigate America's foreclosure crisis Fake news, traitors, and treason: How liberals and the media are galvanizing the alt-right. What gave us Donald Trump is what gave us Dylann Roof. Meet the children of the US’s opioid crisis. (Paywall) Huffington Post wanted to find troubled jails in the US, so they counted the bodies. The deadliest killer in Colorado's prisons is a curable virus. On Gab, the new social media service for far-right, Trump-worshipping nutjobs, the mood is unsurprisingly euphoric. How can you stop Holocaust denial sites like Stormfront topping Google search results about whether the Holocaust happened? Only by paying Google to advertise in these searches. On failed Weimar-Trump analogies and deeply problematic "militant democracy" ideologies. On the whole "Russians with the help of WikiLeaks won Trump the election" conspiracy theory, especially its shady origins. (P.S.: Democrats are now the McCarthyists, it seems.) [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/12/theres-a-new-bitter-battle-over-whether-slave-torture-was-the-foundation-of-the-american-economy/ Historians and economists debate the cause of rising cotton production in the South in the antebellum decades. Was it increased whippings or better seeds?] America's hacking panic. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2016/12/09/resurrecting-the-alliance-of-black-revolutionaries-and-southern-whites-decades-after-a-government-crackdown/? Resurrecting the alliance of black revolutionaries and Southern whites, decades after a government crackdown.] Welcome to Stewart Detention Center in Georgia, the Black Hole of America's immigration system. Stress may explain why lifespans have been lengthening for high-income Americans but have remained the same or even shortened for low-income and middle-income people. Everybody wants to stop fake news, but no one seems to know what it is. Donald Trump's real threat to the press isn't opening up libel laws, it's using the Espionage Act. Aleppo’s horrors suggest the west is now impotent in upholding humanitarian values Memes didn't affect the US election. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/12/08/she-became-the-nations-first-somali-american-lawmaker-a-month-later-she-was-harassed-in-a-d-c-cab-for-being-muslim/? She became the nation’s first Somali-American lawmaker. A month later, she was harassed in a D.C. cab for being Muslim.] Anonymous leaks to the Washington Post about the CIA’s beliefs about Russia are no substitute for evidence. [https://theintercept.com/2016/12/09/a-clinton-fan-manufactured-fake-news-that-msnbc-personalities-spread-to-discredit-wikileaks-docs/? A Clinton fan manufactured fake news that MSNBC personalities spread to discredit the WikiLeaks docs.] The anonymous blacklist promoted by the Washington Post has apparent ties to Ukrainian fascism and CIA spying. The modern history of an unstoppable bad idea, global counterinsurgency. James Mattis is a war criminal. Trump is inheriting the power to assassinate anyone, including US citizens, with no oversight. Trump makes America Goldman’s again! What happens to a town when Amazon moves in? The smear campaign against Keith Ellison is repugnant but reveals much about Washington. The traditional political spectrum of left and right is no longer valid; the fundamental principle of political difference today should be how to handle globalization. [https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/12/05/identity-liberalism-widespread-college-campuses-blame-donald-trumps-rise Is “identity liberalism,” widespread on college campuses, to blame for Donald Trump’s rise? Scholars are divided.] Academics aren't lobbyists – so our research changes nothing [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/07/liberalism-austria-clinton-us-populist Just look at Austria, and at Clinton’s success in the popular vote. Politicians of the centre and left must change the narrative to sell their progressive values] [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/05/soviet-union-collapsed-overnight-western-democracy-liberal-order-ussr-russia The Soviet Union collapsed overnight. Don’t assume western democracy will last forever.] Carrier just showed corporations how to beat Donald Trump. Why we need to talk more openly about pregnancy loss in academe. Al Giordano’s enemies list. Liberland: The libertarian utopia that’s just a bunch of White guys on a tiny island. What #Gamergate should have taught us about the 'alt-right' Germany’s burqa ban has a problem: Where are the burqas? The Right Way to Resist Trump When will Trump voters realize they’ve been had? Obama's inaction on the Dakota Access pipeline shows that Native Americans are still a second-class. Signs of a creepy government conspiracy at Standing Rock. The New Red Scare: Reviving the art of threat inflation. Ferrell Scott got life without parole for pot. And he was just denied clemency by Barack Obama. The US Senate responds to Trump-inspired anti-Semitism by targeting students who criticize Israel.