Posts by Lucy Stewart
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
As Simon’s link pointed out political violence in the US isn’t at all new. It’s possible that teabagger talking points and advertising influenced that. It’s possible some sort of mental illness did. It’s possible umpteen other, unrelated factors did. Historically it’s often been the case that the reasons for the assassination weren’t the obvious political ones.
The sort of rhetoric thrown around by the Tea Party is unacceptable not just because it's in bad taste, but especially because there is a history of political assassination in the US. Whether or not their talking points influenced him - and mental illness playing a part wouldn't rule that out, though it would make it more tragic - they're playing up to some very ugly parts of history and trying to pretend it's a normal part of political discourse.
Even if this shooting isn't related to that, the chances that someone else will be driven to violence because they hear repeatedly that it's acceptable and even commendable to deal with your differences by shooting people are too high to risk. When you've got a country of gun-owners and a history of politics being affected by assassination, using language that encourages violence and frames politics as war is neither safe nor sane, and it's pretty sad that it's taken murder to make that clear.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Neil Morrison,
Appearently the most bitter dispute between the left and right in Arizona was illegal immigration and Loughner made no mention of that in his rantings.
If we're gonna play it that way; he does apear to have mentioned other major Tea Party/Glenn Beck talking points, like bringing back gold and silver as legal tender and/or backing for the dollar.
I really don't think it's necessary for him to have specifically listed the top five wingnut talking points to say that the far right in America have supported a tone of political discourse where it is not just acceptable but encouraged to fantasise about killing their opponents. And that if three hundred million people are repeatedly exposed to that idea, it's not awfully surprising that one of them might decide to put it into action.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Boehner: Brian, when you come to the Congress of the United States, there are 435 of us. We're nothing more than a slice of America. People come, regardless of party labels, they come with all kinds of beliefs and ideas. Uh it's, it's the melting pot of America. It's not up to me to tell them what to think. [Emphasis added]
So he'd be totally cool and just as hands-off if members of Congress espoused, ooooh, neo-Nazi views, right? Because that's just another kind of "belief and idea"?
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to giovanni tiso,
I'm shocked by the disbelief expressed in official reactions in the States. Surely this was the very definition of the phrase "only a matter of time". Which doesn't make it any less horrifying, but.
Quite. But a great many people have a stake in pretending something like this wasn't inevitable, because it says things about the toxicity of political discourse that no-one wants to deal with.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 1: Beach…, in reply to Kumara Republic,
Then why do today’s women wear G-strings?
Barely concealed masochism?
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Lilith __,
So, probably not the apocalypse this time, then. But keep a look out for any seas turning to blood.
Relax, Kirk Cameron says it's definitely not the apocalypse.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Matthew Poole,
It’s awesome if you don’t trade with any other countries, I guess, but unless you produce lots of gold yourself your economy is fucked.
The Spanish Empire tells us that even if you produce lots of gold (and/or silver) yourself (for a variation of "produce" meaning "steal and enslave people to dig up for you"), your economy is still fucked. Although, to be fair, that could also have been the massive inbreeding among the leadership.
Apparently silly …. is that the N word is ‘more’ offensive today than it was over a hundred years ago and thus one of the most challenged books of the last century in the US will be censored in the next reprint
I'm pretty sure it's definitely more offensive than it was over a century ago. That's rather the point of the new edition. And, no, reclamation/ironic usage by black Americans doesn't count in this context. Which said, the getting rid of it is still of dubious use - you lose half of what the book can teach you - but it's not censorship, either; it's a stupid editing decision. Censorship implies a governmental/official action which isn't present here. It's one edition. There'll be plenty of unchanged ones available.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to recordari,
Ask them to pay you in gold.
The new head of the House Subcommittee on domestic monetary affairs would be thrilled with that. (No, really. Thrilled.)
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Matthew Poole,
So what does the US do? Their economy is the basis of all the IMF and World Bank recommendations, right down to the effectively-unregulated financial sector, weak employment protections, heavily-privatised provision of essential services, limp environmental protections, etc.
As far as I can tell from the news, this has lost priority to some idiotic video the captain of the Enterprise made and got fired for, and the exciting revelation that this year, people will have a whole three extra days to file their taxes.
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Hard News: Media 2011, in reply to Craig Young,
Dutton could be infuriating, and I’m not convinced by his scholarship in Phil of Art. But the skeptics society got a lot from him, and that’s another grand legacy.
It's really quite interesting hearing about everyone's impressions of Dutton - I only knew of him as a lecturer, and the impression I got from friends who took his courses was, er, significantly less positive than the obituaries.