Candidates: Racism, Sexism, and Economic Inequality

(To be replaced, soon, I hope, by a longer post provisionally titled "Information Class Warfare."

Bernie Sanders comes out for addressing economic inequality. He is attacked as racist and sexist. Elizabeth Warren comes out for addressing economic inequality. She is attacked as racist.

Why, there might just be a pattern here.

Racism, Sexism, and Class Prejudice Make Us Fools

Or, mediocre white men.

The excellent Digby writes about Paul Ryan:

Poor Paul Ryan. The golden boy of the Ayn Rand crowd was once assumed to be a future president, or at least one of the great statesmen of the Republican Party. He was considered a rarity among Republican pols --- a policy wonk with the polish and personality of Ronald Reagan. (I know that sounds crazy, but people really did think that.)

In his years as Presidential hopeful and Speaker of the House he was revealed to be an incompetent fool. The man is not remotely credible, never was. How did he get so far?

Objections on the left to conservative officials often center on their intellectual failings: their literal disbelief in facts and their repetitions of errors. Conservative economics makes no sense, the conservative understanding of science makes no sense. Their foreign policy is brutal and criminal. They fail even at remembering what they said a few days ago, even with technical aids. Liberal blogger and podcaster Driftglass is fond of saying, “Memory is the liberal superpower” and this is true: conservatives do not remember, even from a few days ago, what was said. Rudolf Giuliani, Michael Cohen, Brett Kavanaugh, Republican lawyers all, seem not to know the law, or even how to negotiate. These mediocre white men come apart when stressed. They are incompetent.

Why then are they in charge of anything?

As a society, we have a bias towards mediocre white men. As a society, we make the mistake of raising skin color, sex, and appearance over other characteristics, downgrading intelligence, honesty, and competence. It is not hard to know that Donald Trump is a dangerous fool and a poor executive, or that Giuliani is a poor lawyer, or Cohen was a corrupt lawyer who made his way by making corrupt deals, or that Kavanaugh started cheating in high school and never stopped. These mediocre white men have competence in some areas but, without the bias that supported them in their careers, they would be powerless mean non-entities.

Racism, sexism, and class prejudice make us poor judges of character and vulnerable.

Racism, sexism, and class prejudice make us fools.

What I Want From The New Democratic House Majority

Establish a Democratic policy consensus so that the party can unite to defeat the Republicans. Establish a policy presence in the public mind, and lay the ground for retaking the Senate and the Presidency in 2020. These I think are the most important things.

I think Indivisible, in Indivisible on Offense, offers some of the best ideas on how: messaging bills, must-pass bills, investigations, and defense. Investigations, I think, are the strongest of these, because the House can conduct them without a need for Senate Republicans. Investigate Kavanaugh. Investigate the Trump/Republican Russia connections. Investigate medical price-gouging. The House Democrats cannot unilaterally pass legislation, but they can embarrass the Republicans, and that can be powerful. If we make them look like weak fools, their popular support will shrink.

The House can propose budgets. It could also reinstate the Gephardt rule, saying that when a budget was passed, the debt ceiling would be raised, thereby avoiding debt ceilings.

House Committees can hold hearings and explore ideas. When it again becomes possible for Democratic bills to become law, these could become the outlines of bills. Topics I would like to see explored are:

1.     Climate change!

2.     New economic policies. The economic policies we have been relying on since Reagan have proven to be abysmal failures, leading to a boom and bust economy, poverty for many, and poor employment conditions. We are in dire need of reforms and I would like to see the possibilities explored.

3.     New foreign policy. The US is now supporting Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. The House cannot stop this, but it can at least hold hearings. Beyond that there is an enormous need to deescalate conflicts worldwide and resolve the emerging conflicts that environmental destruction will bring. Even with the full power of the US government this would be difficult but, again, we can at least explore possibilities.

4.     Bankruptcy reform. I would like to see the House explore the possibility of returning to bankruptcy law that allows for dignified fresh starts. The Republican bankruptcy reforms of 2005 made bankruptcy much harder on individuals, and this arrived just in time to make the crash of 2008 even harder. Likewise, dignified bankruptcy ought to be allowed for people who will never be able to pay their student loans. Let’s have Senator Warren testify on this.

5.     New immigration policy. What we have now is cruel and expensive. Let’s explore possible reforms!

6.     New firearms policy. Our far-too-lenient firearms policies are literally terrorizing our children. Let’s discuss changing this.

7.     New domestic terrorism policies. On the one hand, we put our people at risk with useless surveillance. On the other hand, our biggest terror threat – domestic far right terror – is also our least policed threat. Easy access to firearms may also make it easy for foreign terrorists to act on US soil.

8.     Policing reform. Our police forces are shot through with racism. Let’s discuss what to do about this.

9.     And on, and on.

Finally, I have a personal hobby-horse: I would like to see the House unilaterally reestablish the Office of Technology Assessment, destroyed by Newt Gingrich and the Republicans in 1995.

During its 23-year history, OTA provided Congressional members and committees with objective and authoritative analysis of the complex scientific and technical issues of the late 20th century. It was a leader in practicing and encouraging delivery of public services in innovative and inexpensive ways, including distribution of government documents through electronic publishing.

Right now, I would like to see the OTA look into the genetic engineering of children, the impact of social media, and, yes, climate change. I’m sure there are many more topics that would bear investigation.

Even if the House doesn’t take these up immediately, we can push them to do so.

So let’s get started!

On George H W Bush and the Patriarchy

Singer-songwriter Tom Smith, writing on Facebook, links The Rude Pundit on G H W Bush.

Oh, yeah. He was a really awful President, though he did a few good things. Possibly the worst two things he did was covering for the treason of Iran-Contra and paving the way for, first his son to go to war for no good reason, destabilizing western Asia, and then for the election of Donald Trump.

But, hey, say the pundits, he was a a vaguely paternalistic white guy and we should respect him for that. They are so easy to con, these white men and women. Show them someone they think might be their grandfather or their father, who was nice to their family, and they must be an OK President. That's why Trump is unpopular. It's not that he's destroying so much of what the USA has worked so hard to build. It's that he's vulgar. He's like the creepy uncle that everyone loves to hate. But a well-mannered grandfather who hates women and gays, that's OK.

Tweetidy-tweetidy-tweet

"Doesn't this reflect a swing between competing factions? The Republican minority wins control, then the Democratic majority responds. But with each swing, the country tips further to the right. Has it fallen over?" – link

"But [Comey's] emails." – link

"I think most of the authoritarianism we are now experiencing can be summarized as 'same s*** different century.' It's not new, it's not brilliant, it's not anything except brutal and terrifying." – link

A Unit of Climate Impact Measurement

"We have ice shelves breaking off of Antarctica that are the size of Rhode Island. We have wildfires in California the size of Rhode Island. Maybe we should start measure climate change impacts in units of #RhodeIslands" – Climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann on Twitter, link.

Putting the Socialism Back into Social Media

A few days ago, I saw this on Twitter:

Today I am thinking about how grateful I am for Twitter. I know lots will think it’s silly, but you see, I started tweeting regularly after the breakup of all breakups, when I was so heartbroken that I was desperate for anything to keep my mind occupied. I started interacting with more & more people, feeling free to share my thoughts on things happening around us, and connecting with a lot of folks in academia I might not have been able to otherwise. I’ve learned so much from so many on here, I’ve been directed to resources that have made me both a better teacher & a better person, & I’ve been exposed to perspectives that have blown me away & rethink some of my most enduring perceptions of the world.

Some tweeps & I now communicate regularly outside of Twitter, people I would have never had the opportunity to meet, but now we share our thoughts & experiences & pics of our families. So while Twitter has some issues, for me it’s made this big big world a little smaller, and for that, I am grateful. Thank you to everyone I’ve interacted with on here, I think you’re all damn cool.  Except all you Nazis. You suck. – @DrPsyBuffy on Twitter

Reading it took me back to my early days on Usenet, one of the earliest social media platforms. This kind of story goes back to the very beginnings of social media. Real old-timers remember the Bandykin mailing list, created in the early 1980s when Bandy (Andrew Scott Beals) lost his girlfriend.

So what happened? How did we end up in trollworld? Why are the Nazis taking over?

The early net was not heaven. There was plenty of conflict. Oversharing and trolling emerged early. Then, as now, people argued that one must allow abuse as free speech. But there were no huge incentives for abuse, either; one didn’t make money from being a troll. Nowadays, all the owners of the big social media sites want, first and foremost, to get and keep user attention and to keep people on the site as much as possible and the most effective way of doing this is through sophisticated trolling. Beyond that, the big social media sites also want to sell information about their users and advertising. When you joined a mailing list or a Usenet group, what you found there was what you joined for. On Facebook, the system is constantly trying to distract you, as well as filling your screen or window with advertising. Looking at the Facebook screen, literally ½ of it is filled with content not relevant to your online social activity. If there is an ad shown in the timeline, the area shrinks to ¼ .

Positive social activity does not generate as much traffic – people will want to go offline and do other things and don’t respond as compulsively to joy as they do with fear and anger. So, the current economic model of the advertising-supported web is slanted heavily to the negative. It is like a rough saloon, where the music is loud so that people will drink more (this has been measured) and the fights are good for business.

I have arrived at the view that the old socialist economic model of the internet, supported by government subsidies and donated time and service was healthier. So let’s put socialism back into social media!