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comrade-meow · 3 years

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Spell-caster's notebook, 2nd half of the 19th century - 1st quarter of the 20th century, Haute-Saône. Photo credit: Musées départementaux de la Haute-Saône

“When total war is being waged with words, one must make up one’s mind to engage in another kind of ethnography.”

—Jeanne Favret-Saada, Deadly Words: Witchcraft in the Bocage (1977)

One of the best studies of the power of language and its relationship to violence is Jeanne Favret-Saada’s Deadly Words: Witchcraft in the Bocage (1977). In this groundbreaking ethnography, Favret-Saada discusses how witchcraft employs language to gain power and catch the subject within a web of words. For Favret-Saada, the ethnographer is the unwitcher who lets herself become entangled within a network of power in which words create spells. She calls this being “caught.” For “those who haven't been caught” spells simply “don’t exist” (15).

Similar to Favret-Saada’s work on witchcraft in France, today’s cultural-political economy is immersed in another politicisation of language. This time the catching of subjects, government and institutions is happening in the public sphere under the guise of linguistically codifying identity. All this necessarily relies upon a previous “bewitching” of subjects who are willing to recycle the language of the magical spells despite the absence of evidence.

In witchcraft, language becomes the contested space that Favret-Saada rightfully notes as having taken hostage the very premise of communication, writing, “[I]t is no longer truth or error that is in question, but the possibility of communicating.” Addressing those who have been caught within the spell of language—the bewitched and the suffering—Favret-Saada asks:

In what way are the bewitched right when they say they are suffering? And the unwitchers, when they say they “take it all” on themselves? (And what of the alleged witches, who remain obstinately silent, or claim they do not believe in spells?) What, then, is at stake when such a discourse is being used? These questions led to other, more fundamental ones, about the effect of spoken words and the very rationale of this discourse: why is talking in this way so like the most effective kind of act? How do words kill as surely as a bullet? Why do people talk rather than fight or die, why do they use precisely these terms? And why this kind of language rather than another? If one talks in terms of witchcraft, it must be that the same things cannot be said any other way. (13)

Although Favret-Saada asks these questions about rural Normandy of the 1970s and the role of the ethnographer in studying her own culture, we can easily expand upon Favret-Saada’s premise here. For as she posits in the Bocage that one need not believe in sorcery, there is an accounting that takes place by virtue of the group’s symbolic code where “you have to be caught to believe” and where those who haven’t been “caught” have no place speaking about spells. Favret-Saada poses this question to herself: “What ultimate authority could I invoke, in talking about spells to a bewitched person or an unwitcher?” Does being an insider lend to the currency of language and belief such that any interaction with an outsider necessarily invokes a turf war over space, bodies and language?

For Favret-Saada, words do not merely represent or communicate beliefs—they have noticeable effects on the vitality and well-being of both the bewitched and the dewitcher. Where her work examines how words “kill” and “heal,” today we are in the throes of a culture war where the claim—contrary to fact—of words causing death, of words being “literal violence” are now thrust to the fore. Indeed, words are laden with such potential for “violence” today that many think twice before speaking or writing. The mere accusation of violence has become the negative reinforcement of a movement that has been allowed to make up facts, statistics and now even the very non-reality of violence.

If we are to move forward through the current debates over gender, race, and various other orbiting identities whose moral framework rests almost uniquely upon claims of victimhood, often in direct opposition to material fact, we must return to some of the primal tenets of reason posed during the Enlightenment. We are in the throes of a society caught within a hall of mirrors—many of which are firmly and uniquely fixed within the virtual world of social media—where the narcissistic output is unparalleled even by a three-year-old having a strop on the playground. Where words are “violence” and opinions akin to “murder,” we are witnessing the conflicts created when a direct antagonism between perceived identity and material reality is met on the social stage.

In order to understand what is driving this culture of identifying with oppression—often feigning oppression—our task must be to address those who claim to be suffering. While the subjects caught in the spell of words have been at the centre of media and political attention in recent years, these communities rely upon the language “witchcraft” to divorce themselves even further from ontological and empirical reality while surrendering themselves to a language that holds no resemblance to the material world. There is something to be said for the punishing efforts of these lobbies which seek to project phobias and other -isms into any thoughtful debate or prose on issues of “race” and gender.

Favret-Saada noted that those who resist the language of sorcery will be made to suffer. Today, we must ask ourselves if those fighting for the recognition of their identities even if the older remedies of psychiatry or religion have failed:

The priest and the doctor have faded out long ago when the unwitcher is called. The unwitcher’s task is first to authenticate his patient’s sufferings and his feeling of being threatened in the flesh; second, it is to locate, by close examination, the patient’s vulnerable spots. It is as if his own body and those of his family, his land and all his possessions make up a single surface full of holes, through which the witch’s violence might break in at any moment. (8)

This study considers how the aporia left by the fading grip of religion and medicine has been filled by outside forces coming to confirm the subject: the suffering subject. Having worked with those who were caught up in a spell, the dewitchers and the wives and families affected by witchcraft, Favret-Saada notes how suffering forms the core of how witchcraft is exercised in this community and she explores the reasons for this suffering.

Today, suffering is undergoing a cultural redefinition in the west through the recycling of historical tropes of violence and oppression injected throughout identity politics. Unlike the distant witchcraft of Favret-Saada's fieldwork, historical atrocities cannot simply be cut and paste into a present-day reality in order to rejuvenate a fresh violent act of suffering through which the subject identifies. Where Favret-Saada shows how working with the bewitched and their unwitchers implicates the constant manoeuvring of “good and evil," she claims that all unwitching "is impossible to cure without switching to a position of indirect violence.” Violence is a discursive marker for Favret-Saada where "he who does not attack automatically becomes the victim."

To understand the political forces that revive discourses of racism and sexism today by those claiming victimhood, we must ask those suffering why they suffer. Then, we must also ask why the spell involves converting others to their ideology so that the subject might suffer less. The symptom of suffering that we see by those claiming to have a gender identity, for instance, is inextricably linked to their need for others to mirror their self-image through language. This is similar to what Favret-Saada claims about dewitching, “a technique that neutralizes and exteriorizes venomous self-doubt." There are clear ideological manoeuvres meant to inscribe healing through fiat.

We need to understand how people weaponise emotionally-laden discourse today. The public shaming of those who do not confirm the suffering or pronouns of another seems to be part of a larger network of “sorcery” where the current structural functioning of our society rewards those individuals who engage in the aforementioned language games while punishing those who refuse.

Favret-Saada’s identification of power as the primary element in the effectiveness of ritual forms is a crucial contribution to our understanding of such rituals. Still, we can see the pitfalls of reducing the language of witchcraft to a tidy binary of the subject who suffers and the dewitcher who does violence. Where “the sufferer can choose to interpret his ills in the language of witchcraft,” it is also the case that those who do not claim to suffer are deemed de facto oppressors.

Where oppression is a historical and current-day fact, the truly oppressed subject is mostly not heard. What time has the underpaid or economically destitute worker to chime in on Twitter or to write her local politician? We are captured within a political field where segments of the population use words like “literal violence” to refer to another group whose push back on their notion of oppression. Those who use the stage of oppression in order to be heard are as numerous as is their narcissism expansive. When the media prints that something is “oppression” or “murder” today, we can pretty much bet that what is being communicated is invariably the opposite. In a world where narratives of oppression have taken hold of democratic processes with fury and where the mere claim to victimhood is tantamount to fact, we must concede that we are living in a post-truth era.

Emotions are given enormous weight over facts in media today and all it takes for one to be considered oppressed is to use the “magical spell” of language. The only way out of this chasm between truth and narcissism is to revert to the institutions of science, philosophy, journalism and law. Let us not forget that long before smartphones it was possible—even pleasant—to have heated discussions over a meal with friends and strangers, everyone chiming in with their thoughts and disagreement.

We must reject illogical, illiberal hokum being fed us as the "new progressive" language of the day and instead we should return to the table of dinnertime debate where facts outweigh feelings and where individuals are held accountable for good-faith debate. I have often wondered if the current popular authoritarianism would have ever taken hold without the cloaked anonymity that social media affords. Still, I am quite certain that the current stifling of free speech, academic debate and the media's drive of anti-science narratives are all directly linked to the fact that politicians are not held to account for their performances that have zero political vaue. From AOC's sporting her "tax the rich" dress at the Met Gala for which attendees paid £25789 to attend to David Lammy who claims that males have cervixes, the left is in dire straits with a political class of professional liars who use words to bewitch us all.

I suspect that were the online debate moved to the salon or dining room, we would all be able to see the ruffian sulking silently in the corner, angrily seething because his arguments were unconvincing. His fist banging on the table evidence his every iteration as less rational and credible than the one before. As he struggles to bully all those in disagreement around him, his turbulent behaviour reveals him to be fundamentally an irritable prig who harbours deep-seated misogyny and homophobia.

Real-life interactions are part of the remedy to the addiction-addled cycles of social media use. We cannot replace the vacuum left by religion's demise with political or ideological orthodoxy any more than we can unwitch the possessed who identify with their fictional oppressions.

One of the options we have at our disposal is to unplug and go outside. I’m heading there now. Come join me.

#Anglo.txt

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never-sated · 4 years

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She died at the Jewish New Year, and my family is not religious. But I had been so happy, in this time of being far from our loved ones, to be eating a Friday-night dinner next to my father, until the news came and the food that had been delicious suddenly tasted like ashes. As we quietly finished the meal, our phones buzzing with grief and shock, my father showed me the messages he was already receiving from fellow liberals and leftists, describing in vivid terms how angry they were at her.

As many mourn, others are already raging. Their fury will be loud and resonant in these next few days and weeks, a mad howling as the nation absorbs what’s to come now. Ire at this 87-year-old woman, a Supreme Court justice who had repeatedly survived cancer but did not this time, will carry many Americans through their periods of shock and despair. Scared and livid, many will rail at her: for not retiring years ago, during the administration of a president they imagine (had he not been blocked by a racist and obstructionist Senate) would have replaced her with someone qualified and just, someone who would not be eager to slam the final nail in the coffin of civil liberties, reproductive health care, LGBTQ rights, labor, voting, the climate … all of it. They will blame her, and they will blame those who created a cult of admiration around this remarkable, imperfect woman, because they will want to have people to shake their fist at, because the world is shattered and chilling and is about to get even more difficult than it already is.

This rage toward a beloved, history-making woman who just died will feel — and will be — profane and grotesque. It will be more than a little sexist, because blaming every bad outcome on an old woman you deem selfish in her professional self-determination, and on the Resistance Moms who “Yas Queen” her, is an endlessly gratifying strain of liberal misogyny.

It will also, to some degree, be fair.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg made a choice that turned out wrong. She wanted to keep doing the work she loved and was good at and that mattered; she didn’t want to stop before she was ready. Like so many others, she believed Hillary Clinton would likely win in 2016. And like so many others, she was wrong about that. Now there is a good chance that her replacement will be chosen by Donald Trump, a president who came to power on malignant racism and sexism and who will gain, in her death, the ability to offer America’s right wing what they have worked toward for 60 years: nearly full power to roll back, via the court, the disruptive gains made by the social movements of the 20th century on behalf of marginalized people.

So I understand why people will be furious at Ruth Bader Ginsburg and why they will say so loudly, in raised tones that convey their own assurance that they would have made the right choice, had they been her. Though those who are mad will not want to hear it, their reaction is made of precisely the same stuff that led people to lionize her as an outsize savior: because in the absence of structural security it is far easier to home in on individuals — as both our heroes and our villains — than it is to reckon with the enormity of what’s wrong and what needs to be righted.

These past months could not have made this dynamic any clearer: the reflexive turn to blame individuals for how they choose to behave when left adrift in the sucking, soulless chasm created by large-scale institutional infirmity.

Among the grim ironies of Ginsburg’s death is that, as Irin Carmon wrote in her beautiful obituary, Ginsburg’s obsessions with process and order stemmed from “a general belief, shared by the postwar liberalism that shaped her, that functioning institutions could provide a neutral bulwark to the excesses of the past.”

But one of the reasons her death will be as explosive and consequential as it is sure to be is that so many of our institutions are failing us, and have been purposefully perverted or used to serve regressive purpose: a Senate that broke the nation’s rules by refusing to confirm the Supreme Court pick of a sitting Democratic president; an Electoral College that served its original purpose of overturning the will of an American majority to deliver the White House to a leader committed to white supremacy; a political system that doesn’t inspire its populace to vote in critical midterm elections; a Republican Party willing to spend decades doing whatever it took to reverse legal and legislative victories that redistributed a little bit of power out of the hands of white patriarchal capitalist-fueled corporations; and a Democratic Party that did not have the will or foresight to fight as fiercely or as cannily on behalf of rights, protections, and dignity as their obstructionist opposition fought against.

Where it landed us was with a nation looking to one octogenarian to make the exact right set of decisions to make everything turn out okay. You can feel the anguished search to fill the void created by structural collapse in the words of a lawyer who told the Washington Post on Friday night, as she paid tribute to Ginsburg by coming to the Supreme Court’s plaza, “The question that keeps popping up in my head is, ‘Who is going to take care of us?’”

It was an elocution that betrayed the hunger for protections we have not been getting from our government, but Ginsburg herself was never actually in a position to take care of us. After all, she came to be widely adulated only in the period in which she was in the Court’s minority; she was issuing dissents — brilliantly lacerating, yes, but still dissents — from decisions that imperiled and weakened us.

The Voting Rights Act has already been disemboweled, reproductive health care already made inaccessible to millions, all while Ruth Bader Ginsburg sat on the Court. This does not mean that those battles are lost — they cannot be; they will not be — but it was never going to be this one woman who won them for us.The notion that our survival depended on her survival was always flawed, and betrayed how ravenous many were for any thread of hope for quiet and functional institutional correction, rather than for the mass uprising and furious battle this moment calls for. Part of the fantasy was that if she could hang on we could get back to “normal,” but normal is long past broken.

It should never have come down to her, even in our collective imagination, and whether you are absolutely sure that that’s right it shouldn’t; she was selfish and stupid for not having retired or that that’s right it shouldn’t; she was a brilliant justice who had every right to keep her job and the pushback she received for it was terribly unfair … they actually come down to the same thing: The fate of American democracy and the planet should never have rested on this one woman’s small, old shoulders.

This is what happens when the government fails, when the safety nets that have been slashed for years are gone, when there is no oversight, no one in power with the drive or backbone to fight back or organize effectively or exert authority or offer real structural support or direction. In an absence of leadership, of functional guidance, we’re all left to imagine that the decisions of other individuals are what is going to save or damn us.

This has also been the story of these last six months, as local and state and federal leadership has offered weak to nonexistent economic and medical support or assurance. A nation of unmoored people has been left to run our own risk analyses — about masks, surfaces, schools; about personal and familial safety, civic responsibility, and economic security — all based on incomplete or often purposely misleading information. The choices we individuals have made have carried their own costs and benefits, have had their own surprising and sometimes lethal consequences, and in the vacuum created by the absence of structures that were supposed to protect and support us, we have turned on each other, becoming angry at those who chose differently, poorly, who made bad bets, rather than directing our outrage at the institutions that abandoned us.

This is what I will think of when I hear the coming fury toward Ginsburg. Because the fault here was not one person. More importantly: The fix here is not one person, and it never has been. It’s not one justice, though one justice — in concert with the other two Trump has appointed, with the hundreds of federal judges a McConnell-led Senate has confirmed to lifetime appointments — will matter. It’s not even one president, though that president — in concert with the Senate and the House and the state legislatures — will matter.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg matters, now as much as she ever has, but her survival alone couldn’t have saved us, any more than getting rid of Donald Trump will save us. We are facing something far larger: a desperate, life-or-death fight to rebuild, reimagine, reform (and in some cases raze) enormous apparatuses, including our criminal justice, electoral, health-care, and education systems, labor and capitalism, education, housing, the courts themselves, and, most urgently, the health of our planet. It will call on us to fight as fiercely and with as much determination as Ginsburg herself fought, through her life and career.

That’s daunting and hard. And for some, in the face of all this, it will undoubtedly feel good and perhaps even righteous to voice frustration at the decisions made by one woman — extraordinary, ordinary, important, and now sadly gone. But that’s not the work, and it’s not going to work to get us anywhere in the perilous days to come. Instead, we have to address what is really broken, which is not just our hearts and our spirits: It’s the frail systems in which Ruth Bader Ginsburg wanted so badly to believe. She’s gone and it is up to us to undertake the demanding revolutionary work of remaking them, this time stronger and more just.

#I kept trying to pull quotes #but the whole piece is so damn good

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multipleservicelisting · 3 years

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Capitol Rioters Walked Away. Climate Protesters Saw a Double Standard.

The relatively small number of arrests after a mob stormed the Capitol left many environmental activists shaken on Thursday — and wanting answers. Why did so many people who brought destruction into the home of American democracy simply walk away after doing so much damage, not just to a building but to the nation’s sense of itself?

The Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., a minister and community activist who heads the Hip Hop Caucus, a civil and human rights group, called the sight of the rioters being led out of the Capitol seemingly without repercussions “heartbreaking.” Mr. Yearwood has a long history of protest on a range of issues and has been arrested, and even beaten, as a result.

“We know we’re going to go through that punishment” as part of fighting for cleaner energy, for environmental justice, for a better world, he said. “Up until yesterday, I thought, ‘This is how it’s done. You stop business, you’re going to be arrested, you’re going to be treated this way,” he said.

“Yesterday changed all that,” he said. Some rioters carried weapons, injured police and committed acts of vandalism, and “certain police allowed them to walk away.”

“There’s two worlds,” he said. “And we’ve got to fix that.”

Jacquelyn Gill, a scientist at the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute, said on Twitter that “More people were arrested in the nonviolent 2018 climate change protests at the Capitol than were arrested in the violent insurrection at the Capitol in 2021.”

Washington protests have long been a part of climate change activism and other movements, and so have arrests.

In the fall of 2019 and into January 2020, the actress Jane Fonda attended weekly protests known as Fire Drill Fridays to bring attention to climate change. Ms. Fonda was arrested five times, as were other celebrities including Sam Waterston and Martin Sheen. In all, more than 600 arrests occurred over the course of those protests alone, from 16 at the first demonstration to more than 300 at the final demonstration on Jan. 11, 2020.

Those numbers pale in comparison to the more than 10,000 arrests last year related to protests over racism and police brutality around the country, as counted by The Associated Press, many on minor charges such as failure to disperse or curfew violations.

Bill McKibben, a writer and activist who said he has been arrested four times in Washington alone, and a half-dozen times at other protests, called nonviolent civil disobedience based on the examples of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi and the suffragists “one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century.”

“At its best, it catches people’s hearts,” he said.

And central to the idea of peaceful civil disobedience is the willingness to accept a penalty, including arrest.

By comparison, he said, the storming of the Capitol on Wednesday involved violence and vandalism, and some members of the mob carried weapons and zip-tie handcuffs. “These guys were intent on inflicting suffering and punishment on other people — it’s the opposite of civil disobedience,” Mr. McKibben said. “And oddly, it was met with the opposite reaction.”

Of course, confronting a violent, potentially armed mob is not the same as dealing with orderly protesters who may intend to get arrested, and the police might well be reluctant to escalate confrontations that could easily lead to bloodshed and loss of life.

“It is incumbent upon all of us,” she said, to compare the images from the Capitol riot with the images of the treatment of past protesters “and ask probing questions about the difference.”

Many states, she added, are trying to stiffen charges for protests involving infrastructure, “all aimed at deterring people expressing messages that those in power do not like.”

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. made a similar observation on Thursday. “No one can tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday, they wouldn’t have been treated very, very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol,” he said. “We all know that’s true, and it is unacceptable. Totally unacceptable.”

Mr. Yearwood was arrested last year in Washington along with Mr. McKibben for a sit-down protest in a Chase Bank; they were trying to draw attention to the financial pipeline between major financial institutions and the fossil fuel industry. Always, he said, the goal is “being nonviolent, being as peaceful as possible,” and working with the police, “recognizing the job they have to do” in restoring order.

The comparatively lenient response to the overwhelmingly white protesters on Wednesday, he said, “was the epitome of white supremacy,” and a dangerous precedent for the future of protest in the United States. He said he feared that in the future, young activists would tell him when he advised a nonviolent path that “all the peace stuff you talk about, Rev and Bill, that doesn’t work.”

“And that leads to destruction,” he said.

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pierrehardy · 4 years

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Police in America

In recent weeks, the death of one man in America sparked a protest all over the country and the whole world. You know it’s bad when people are forced to protest despite a pandemic. So it’s worth taking a closer look at what happened and studying ways to move forward strategically.

This write up will cover what happened and how we can move forward for the better. I will highlight three questions: how to protest smart, how Trump can exploit this for the upcoming elections, and how to fix America’s police. For most, we use history as our guide.

TL;DR

Honestly, if you’re not too into reading, watching John Oliver’s previous episode covers the essentials.

youtube

So we have a pandemic going on, as well as an upcoming election. We also sent astronauts to space, but that feat of engineering was overshadowed by racially motivated mass protests and riots. Eerily, I’m describing 1968 (flu pandemic, Nixon vs. Johnson election, Apollo 8, and MLK’s assassination) but also 2020 (COVID-19, Trump vs. Biden, SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, George Floyd’s murder). Why does this keep happening over and over?

This is a lot to unpack, and I can’t cover it all in this blog. But know that things have barely changed in the United States: black Americans are still overrepresented in jail and they still live in districts with the worst healthcare, jobs, and schools. Racism in the US is deep and systemic and discouraging in scale, but this is no time to wallow in that. Let’s see what America can do and what same advice can be applied to our own countries.

How to protest

One thing is sure: rioting is not the way. I understand rioting; it is the natural result of refusing to hear an angry voice that deserves to be heard. But any argument that rioting is necessary is just a fancy academic exercise that justifies unlawful stealing. A bit of rioting can be effective to be heard, sure, but it should never be excessive. Rioting can hurt businesses that are especially fragile due to the pandemic and harm the livelihoods of many people. There are three main reasons against rioting.

The first and most compelling argument against looting and rioting is history: the rioting after the assassination of MLK made predominantly black districts suffer (Figure 1). The establishments that burned down never came back. Those who can leave (which are the relatively wealthy and usually more educated), left. Shops didn’t reopen, meaning jobs also left. The home values also went down.

Figure 1 [1]

Such declines in a district will lead to more poverty, then to more violent crimes that will eventually lead to more violent policing. Excessive rioting hurts the very people the movement is trying to fight for and would put everything back to square one.

Second, any movement relies on the majority of the public opinion being in favor of the cause. If you set a city on fire, people will be too busy putting out the flames to care about what you were fighting for in the first place. Chaos also sells better in the news, so its focus will be overblown. Therefore you must protest peacefully, document it, and blast that everywhere. If the police escalate, don’t bite but keep documenting. Due to documenting, people were able to see the brutality of the police and how they are prone to escalate otherwise peaceful situations. This adds fuel and legitimacy to the protests.

Third, excessive violence from rioting can cause a sense of fear and anarchy to the people. When people are afraid, idealism is thrown away, and restoring order will be prioritized over change. This will be an opportunity for Trump to take notes from 1968 and copy Nixon’s law-and-order platform. That leads us to the next question.

Can Trump copy Nixon?

In the 1960s, America was in the middle of the unpopular and hopeless Vietnam War, wherein Lyndon Johnson succeeded JFK after being assassinated. The protests over the Vietnam War and MLK’s assassination led to chaos that Nixon used as an opportunity to campaign that he can restore order, which worked. Today in 2020, the script is set too perfectly for Trump.

It is also worth noting that due to gerrymandering, Republicans have an advantage in the electoral college, meaning that Trump needs only a bit less than the majority vote to win. [2] This is especially concerning when you consider that Trump’s approval rating is also just slightly less than 50%. [3]

However, this is not a guarantee for Trump’s reelection. If we go back to Nixon’s victory, it was a Republican nominee defeating a Democrat president whose riots were sparked under his leadership. This time, the protests started during Trump. People are not that stupid, and they will recognize when the president is the cause of the trouble. Add the fact that people disapproved of his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. [4] There is still a chance to avoid another Trump term, if only Biden can muster up enough charisma.

Policing in America today

Before delving into what can be done to ameliorate policing in America, let’s establish the current landscape.

One reason why managing the police departments in America is difficult is because, unlike in other wealthy countries, they’re not unified. In America, there’s the federal police, state police, county police, municipal, Puerto Rico, and others. In total, there are 18,000 separate departments, each with their own rules. [5]

That being said, not all police departments are corrupted. There’s one particular department that is doing the right thing (well, okay, not perfect, but better than most) and can be used as an example or model on how to reform America’s police. This is the Camden county police department in New Jersey. I’ll dedicate a whole section on this later.

The lack of gun control in America is well known. Figure 2 shows that America is the most heavily armed rich country in the world. An armed population is an unsafe population that’s more difficult to police. This contributes to the justification that “warrior” style training is necessary for police officers.

Figure 2

The police are doing too much to the extent that people have forgotten what the police are for. People call 911 for things that cops are not equipped to handle but can’t refuse. Here are some examples.

Police are assigned to patrol schools. [6] This should not be the job of the police but of a security agency instead.

Police are dispatched when people call in a person acting erratically due to mental illness. [7] The police are simply not trained to deal with this. This is the job of medical professionals.

Police are dispatched when people call in matters involving drug overdoses. [8] Like the last point, this is a job for the paramedics, not the police.

The key is to remember that the police’s function is (supposedly) to serve and protect civilians using force while respecting their rights. In short, summoning the police anywhere should be the last resort. America seems to be trigger happy with the dispatch button. Clearly, the system is broken: the police are too deadly and has almost no accountability (Figure 3)

Figure 3 (Visualized using R; Pierre Hardy)

Ways to fix America’s police

From my research, I found nine promising solutions to fix and improve America’s police. Let’s start with the most popular one.

Defund the police. As I mentioned, the police are doing too much. However, police unions are biting down and refusing to let go of the budget and responsibility that is too large for them to chew. Defunding is about reallocating the resources to other institutions so that they can take some work away from the police. For example, reallocate some of the funding to dedicated drug or mental illness responders, or to community initiatives.

Bolster police accountability. Prosecutors are supposed to keep the police accountable. However, since prosecutors need convictions to climb the ladder, and the fact that police departments can hinder an investigation, the incentive to uphold justice is low. Read figure 4 for more information.

Figure 4 [11]

Limit union power. Typically, unions are underpowered these days, to the demise of laborers. It’s the opposite for police unions. They’ve been too powerful, too stubborn and too protective of their workers, making police departments more like university fraternities than agencies to serve the people. They defy politicians’ directives to fire violent officers and stop hostile “warrior” style training. They prevent the reform the police need.

Demilitarize the police. The Pentagon has been giving the police some surplus military equipment since the ’40s. [9] This is counter-productive as it fails to reduce crime and only worsens police reputation (Figure 5). The military is meant to win wars by killing their enemies. The police shouldn’t have the same tools used for that objective.

Figure 5 [10]

Fix “Qualified Immunity” loopholes. Qualified Immunity is a law that protects officers from liability for actions they did during their official capacity unless they break a “clearly established” federal law. [12] The “clearly established” loophole has been abused, like a case where cops who stole $225,000 during a search warrant had legal immunity. [13] Read the full story for more details.

Legislate. In this case for politicians, they need to have an honest willingness to do good, since the incentive to legislate about this is tilted. So far, the main antagonists to progress are police unions and prosecutors. Meanwhile, the main benefactors would be the low-income group, which is usually politically disconnected and doesn’t vote. This is where the protests contribute the most: by pushing politicians to act. But how can the government govern a police system as disconnected as America’s? Refer to Obama’s efforts from 2014. [14]

Issue recommendations to police departments on how to modernize their police forces.

Increase funding to Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS). They help shift police tactics away from the “predator-prey” point-of-view of warrior-style training into a more community-oriented one.

Be more active in launching federal investigations on police misconduct. These investigations usually lead to consent decrees between the police departments and the DOJ that’s useful in making departments actually improve their policing.

Implicit bias training. The trouble with an institution that’s so deeply and systematically racist is that cops usually do not regard themselves as racists. They genuinely do not believe that they are. So any effort at pointing out their implicit biases is taken with resistance because they think it’s a reflection of their character. Nonetheless, these kinds of training should be required more and should need re-training.

Data? Being educated in business intelligence, there’s always this faux-truism that data can enhance literally anything. Can it also be in this case? Maybe. There are two main problems on why data is not sure to be effective in this case.

Data gathering through CompStat (the data software that the police use) is unreliable and unequal across different departments. [15]

The main difficulty is that in this particular case, establishing causality is important and difficult. There are correlations everywhere, but we can’t pin the right reasons. Like, if arrests are higher than usual in a particular neighborhood, is the problem that there are too many cops in a certain neighborhood, or is crime naturally higher there? Are minorities arrested more because they do more crimes (which tends to happen if they live in a discriminative society), or it’s because the officers are racist? Or if you go deeper, is it the officers that are biased, or is it the 911 callers that are racists? [16][17]

Camden County Police Department

Camden is widely regarded as the role model for police reform. Frankly, they’re not a flawless department, and copying them entirely doesn’t guarantee the police reforms America needs. But it’s worth noting some of the policies they do that undeniably turned the department around. First, a bit of history. [18][19][20] (The whole section weaves between the 3 sources)

2012. Camden (the city) was a dangerous place, placing 5th high in the country’s murder rate.

2013. The Camden City Police was disbanded and turned into a county police department that rehired most of the laid-off officers due to corruption. Though this time, pay and benefits were lower.

2014. It started on a rough start. During this time, 65 excessive force complaints were filed, and crime rates were still up.

Today. During 2019, the number of excessive force complaints went down to 3, and the murder rate was reduced by two thirds.

With calls to disband the Minneapolis police department growing louder and Camden showing improvement, it’s worth learning from their experience. Here are some changes they did that stood out for me.

Use-of-force policy. Every Camden cop wears a body camera, and each time they use force, the footage is reviewed by four people. Every footage is seen by the watch commander and internal affairs officer, including the policeman who owned the footage and his senior officer. Sitting down and watching events unfold again helps cops change their perspectives and receive feedback from their seniors on how they could’ve handled the situation better.

“Warrior” to “guardian.” When Camden was rebuilt, they shifted their focus to a more community-oriented policing. This shifts how the police see themselves against the citizens. They are not warriors at war with the people they serve, but rather they are the keepers of peace and protector or citizens and their rights. Their job is to build a community that’s safe, not eliminate the rot.

Training. Camden officers are trained and re-trained again every year, in matters of de-escalation and implicit bias training.

I believe these policy changes have profoundly contributed to the turning of Camden’s police force and are worth taking notes from to improve the way you are policed wherever you live.

George Floyd’s life

Before I finish my blog, I wanted to share what I learned about the life of George Floyd. A little obituary, in a way. I wanted to know the man’s life too, and not just his death.

Mr. Floyd was not a perfect man, but he was not a bad man that deserved the disgrace of having his life choked out of him, face on the asphalt with a knee to his neck. Mr. Floyd grew up in Houston, in a less than ideal neighborhood. With his height reaching until six-feet-six, it was natural that he was in the Yates football team (Figure 6) and then the South Florida State’s basketball team (Figure 7). He was also into the music scene, known as Big Floyd (check out his discography at [24]), which backed DJ Screw (Figure 8).

Figure 6 (Second one from the left, upper most)

Figure 7 (leftmost)

Figure 8

As lively as his life was, he wasn’t able to escape his circumstances being on the bad side of town. During his 20s, Mr. Floyd has been arrested multiple times with armed theft and cocaine possession. It wasn’t done out of desire but of need. Struggling for a job and with a menacing figure, he was too easily drawn to it, as in 2007, when he was arrested for breaking and entering a house.

After spending five years in prison, he aimed to be better, and he did. He devoted himself to being a better father, being more active in church, and moved to Minneapolis. Using his height and muscular figure, he worked as a bouncer in a club popular among the Latinos. His reputation as a gentle giant shone here as he was good at de-escalating trouble and greeting regulars with a hug.

The same cannot be said regarding the previous bouncer of the club. He was a white man with jittery eyes and was an off-duty police officer that was quite trigger happy with the pepper spray while on bouncer duty.

Unfortunately, Mr. Floyd was not spared by the COVID-19 and lost his job as a bouncer. On May 25th, he went to a store to buy cigarettes and was told that the $20 bill he used to pay for it was counterfeit. Mr. Floyd refused to return the cigarettes, and the clerk called 911 on him. What happens next is all too known, as videos circulating around of the white man with jittery eyes kneeling on the neck of a man crying for his mama as he was being suffocated. The police officer that worked in the same club as Mr. Floyd was the same man kneeling on his neck while staring directly at the video recording him, without fear in his eyes that he was going to get in trouble for what he was doing.

[21][22][23] (The whole section weaves between the 3 sources)

References

[1] Collins, W. J., & Margo, R. A. (2004). The labor market effects of the 1960s riots (No. w10243). National Bureau of Economic Research.

[2]https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/9/17/20868790/republicans-lose-popular-vote-win-electoral-college

[3]https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trumps-approval-rating-has-dropped-how-much-does-that-matter/

[4]https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/06/09/presidential-job-approval-trumps-re-election-prospects-look-bleak/

[5]https://www.chathamhouse.org/publications/twt/race-problem-black-and-white

[6]https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/06/12/schools-police-george-floyd-protests/

[7]https://www.governing.com/topics/public-justice-safety/gov-mental-health-crisis-training-police.html

[8]https://eu.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2016/05/01/lawmakers-say-some-police-ill-equipped-overdoses/83789462/

[9]https://www.autoblog.com/2020/06/08/surplus-military-vehicles-weapons-police-departments/?guccounter=1

[10] Mummolo, J. (2018). Militarization fails to enhance police safety or reduce crime but may harm police reputation. Proceedings of the national academy of sciences, 115(37), 9181-9186.

[11] Trivedi, S., & Gonzalez Van Cleve, N. (2020). To Serve and Protect Each Other: How Police-Prosecutor Codependence Enables Police Misconduct.

[12]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualified_immunity

[13]https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicksibilla/2019/09/17/federal-court-cops-accused-of-stealing-over-225000-have-legal-immunity/

[14]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President%27s_Task_Force_on_21st_Century_Policing

[15]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CompStat#Critique

[16] Goff, P. A., & Kahn, K. B. (2012). Racial bias in policing: Why we know less than we should. Social Issues and Policy Review, 6, 177–210.

[17]https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-06-03/svitlana-flom-amy-cooper-george-floyd-police-racism

[18]https://www.economist.com/united-states/2020/06/04/how-to-fix-american-policing

[19]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camden_County_Police_Department

[20]https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/09/us/disband-police-camden-new-jersey-trnd/index.html

[21]https://www.economist.com/obituary/2020/06/04/george-floyd-was-killed-on-may-25th

[22]https://www.kwtx.com/content/news/George-Floyds-former-teammate-wants-him-remembered-as-more-than-a-news-story-570889511.html

[23]https://theundefeated.com/features/george-floyd-lasting-impact-as-a-two-sport-athlete-in-houston/

[24]https://www.discogs.com/artist/2002742-Big-Floyd

#America #Police #Current Affairs #current events #blacklivesmatter

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fatphobiabusters · 7 years

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I've seen a few terms on this site (ableist, terf, and swerf) almost everywhere, and I was hoping if you could explain what it means. Thanks!

Hi anon! I’m technically taking a break from this blog, but I actually really wanted to answer this question in particular because it’s really important. I hope you don’t mind!

Content note: violence, transphobia, whorephobia, sex shaming, use of slurs, rape mention, death mention, murder mention, genitalia mention, pedophilia mention

1. Ableist

Ableism is hate, oppression, harassment, disdain, disrespect, erasure, etc related to disabled people. It can go from openly hating and mocking disabled people, to normalized ableism in the language (the use of ableist slurs like “dm*b”, “l*me”, “st*pid”, etc). It can also be not taking disabled people into account when stating things (for example “just go and walk every day to be healthier!” when a lot of people CAN’T walk).

To quote Urban Dictionary:

Ableism is the discrimination or prejudice against people who have disabilities. Ableism can take the form of ideas and assumptions, stereotypes, attitudes and practices, physical barriers in the environment, or larger scale oppression. It is oftentimes unintentional and most people are completely unaware of the impact of their words or actions.

The thought that people with disabilities are dependent and require the care and support of someone else is an example of ableism. Sometimes this comes out in the form of people helping people with disabilities without asking them if they need assistance (and of course waiting the affirmative response).Another example would be in designing spaces, places, events, information, communication, and technology without considering the variety of needs of people with disabilities. For example, a building that is built to code can still be technically inaccessible if the ramp is around the back of the building or if there is no automatic door opener installed.

Another quote from Urban Dictionary explains it this way:

Ableism is a form of discrimination toward people with disabilities either physical or mental. Generally, ableism prevents disabled persons from having the same access to rights and services that average people have no problems obtaining.

Wikipedia explains it this way:

In ableist societies, able-bodiedness is viewed as the norm; people with disabilities are understood as those that deviate from that norm. Disability is seen as something to overcome or to fix, for example, through medical intervention. The ableist worldview holds that disability is an error or a failing rather than a consequence of human diversity, akin to race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender. One common type of ableist behavior denies others’ autonomy by speaking for or about them rather than allowing them to speak for themselves. An example of this behavior occurs when a waiter speaks to an aid or a companion instead of directly to the person with a disability.

Other definitions of ableism include those of Chouinard, who defines it as “ideas, practices, institutions, and social relations that presume able-bodiedness, and by so doing, construct persons with disabilities as marginalized […] and largely invisible ‘others,’” and of Amundson and Taira, who define ableism as “a doctrine that falsely treats impairments as inherently and naturally horrible and blames the impairments themselves for the problems experienced by the people who have them.”

Ableism is also related to mental disabilities and mental illnesses as well. Discrimination against someone for things like having a low IQ, being “cr*zy,” not processing information or emotions in a way deemed “normal,” and other similar acts are all ableism. Other words for this specific form of ableism include “mentalism” and “sanism,” although I personally dislike those terms.

Wikipedia explains:

Mentalism or sanism is a form of discrimination and oppression because of a mental trait or condition a person has, or is judged to have. This may or may not be described in terms of mental disorder or disability. The discrimination is based on numerous factors such as: stereotypes about neurodivergence (e.g. autism, ADHD, bipolar, schizophrenia, personality disorder diagnoses), specific behavioral phenomena (e.g. stuttering, tics), or supposed intelligence.

Like other “isms” such as sexism and racism, mentalism involves multiple intersecting oppressions and complex social inequalities and imbalances of power. It can result in covert discrimination by multiple, small insults and indignities. It is characterized by judgments of another person’s perceived mental health status. These judgments are followed by actions such as blatant, overt discrimination (refusal of service, denying of human rights). Mentalism impacts how individuals are treated by the general public, by mental health professionals, and by institutions, including the legal system. The negative attitudes may also be internalized.

The terms mentalism (from mental) and sanism (from sane) have some widespread use, though concepts such as social stigma, and in some cases ableism, may be used in similar but not identical ways.

While mentalism and sanism are used interchangeably, sanism is becoming predominant in certain circles, such as academics, those who identify as mad and mad advocates and in a socio-political context where sanism is gaining ground as a movement. The movement of sanism is an act of resistance among those who identify as mad, consumer survivors, and mental health advocates. In academia evidence of this movement can be found in the number of recent publications about sanism and social work practice.

When someone says something is “ableist,” they are saying it contributes to ableism (or mentalism/sanism, if you choose to use such terms). In other words, they are saying it is discriminatory to people with mental illness, mental disability, or physical disability.

2. TERF or TWERF

I’m sure you already know to some extent what feminism is, but just in case, let me share with you a quote:

Feminism comprises a number of egalitarian social, cultural and political movements, theories and moral philosophies concerned with gender inequalities and equal rights for women. It is the doctrine advocating social, political and all other rights for women which are equal to those of men.

Feminist political activists have been concerned with issues such as a woman’s right of contract and property; a woman’s right to bodily integrity and autonomy (e.g. on matters such as reproductive rights, abortion rights, access to contraception and quality prenatal care); women’s rights to protection from domestic violence, sexual harassment and rape; women’s workplace rights (e.g. maternity leave, equal pay, glass ceiling practices, etc); and opposition to all other forms of discrimination.

Feminist Theory is an extension of Feminism into theoretical or philosophical fields, such as anthropology, sociology, economics, women’s studies, literary criticism, art history, psychoanalysis and philosophy. It aims to understand gender inequality and focuses on gender politics, power relations and sexuality, as well as the promotion of women’s rights and interests.

Wikipedia explains feminism this way:

Feminism is a range of political movements, ideologies, and social movements that share a common goal: to define, establish, and achieve political, economic, personal, and social rights for women. This includes seeking to establish equal opportunities for women in education and employment.

Feminist movements have campaigned and continue to campaign for women’s rights, including the right to vote, to hold public office, to work, to earn fair wages or equal pay, to own property, to receive education, to enter contracts, to have equal rights within marriage, and to have maternity leave. Feminists have also worked to promote bodily autonomy and integrity, and to protect women and girls from rape, sexual harassment, and domestic violence.

Feminist campaigns are generally considered to be a main force behind major historical societal changes for women’s rights, particularly in the West, where they are near-universally credited with achieving women’s suffrage, gender neutrality in English, reproductive rights for women (including access to contraceptives and abortion), and the right to enter into contracts and own property. Although feminist advocacy is, and has been, mainly focused on women’s rights, some feminists, including bell hooks, argue for the inclusion of men’s liberation within its aims because men are also harmed by traditional gender roles. Feminist theory, which emerged from feminist movements, aims to understand the nature of gender inequality by examining women’s social roles and lived experience; it has developed theories in a variety of disciplines in order to respond to issues concerning gender.

Numerous feminist movements and ideologies have developed over the years and represent different viewpoints and aims. Some forms of feminism have been criticized for taking into account only white, middle class, and educated perspectives. This criticism led to the creation of ethnically specific or multicultural forms of feminism, including black feminism and intersectional feminism.

When you see someone being called a TERF, it is a warning to others that this is a feminist who is dangerous, bigoted, and hateful towards transgender individuals. Calling someone a TERF means you are calling them a feminist who is transphobic and promoting hateful, antitrans ideologies.

To quote Geek Feminism:

TERF is an acronym for Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist. Sometimes, “exclusionary” is expanded as “eliminationist” or “exterminationist” instead to more accurately convey the degree to which TERFs advocate for harm towards trans people, specifically trans people who were coercively assigned male at birth.

Some TERFs call themselves “gender-critical feminists”, a term which is synonymous with “TERF”.

Their position (which is not shared by this wiki) denies that trans people’s self-affirmed genders and sexes are equally valid as cis people’s self-affirmed genders and sexes. It has a decades-long history of allying with anti-feminist causes in denying trans people access to health care, and other human rights.

Unsurprisingly, many TERFs complain that “TERF” should be regarded as a slur.

According to Tracey at The TERFs (an anti-TERF site) and Cristan Williams at The Transadvocate, the term TERF was first used in writing by Viv Smythe/tigtog of Hoyden About Town in August 2008. tigtog said in the interview with Cristan Williams that she believes that she and Lauredhel coined it some time prior as a chat shorthand.

In some contexts, you might also hear “TWERF” used instead to convey that the person isn’t against all trans people, but rather just transgender women (women who were assigned male at birth).

In case you didn’t know what radical feminism is, this is how Wikipedia explains it:

Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a radical reordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts.

Radical feminists seek to abolish patriarchy by challenging existing social norms and institutions, rather than through a purely political process. This includes challenging the notion of traditional gender roles, opposing the sexual objectification of women, and raising public awareness about such issues as rape and violence against women.

Early radical feminism, arising within second-wave feminism in the 1960s, typically viewed patriarchy as a “transhistorical phenomenon" prior to or deeper than other sources of oppression, “not only the oldest and most universal form of domination but the primary form" and the model for all others. Later politics derived from radical feminism ranged from cultural feminism to more syncretic politics that placed issues of class, economics, etc. on a par with patriarchy as sources of oppression.

Radical feminists locate the root cause of women’s oppression in patriarchal gender relations, as opposed to legal systems (as in liberal feminism) or class conflict (as in anarchist feminism, socialist feminism, and Marxist feminism).

In other words, radical feminism doesn’t relate to being “extremist,” as the word radical implies, but rather to eliminating the root of misogyny and the oppression of women.

Many radical feminists are TERFS, but not all are. I was always told that radical feminists coined the word TERF to separate them from the movement, because transgender exclusion was, in their minds, not part of their movement. I can’t verify this for sure.

Many people do not seem to know this, but there are many branches of feminism. Radical feminism is one of hundreds of schools of thought within feminism.

Philosophy Basics explains:

Radical Feminism considers the capitalist hierarchy of society, which it describes as sexist and male-based, as the defining feature of women’s oppression. Most Radical Feminists see no alternatives other than the total uprooting and reconstruction of society in order to overthrow patriarchy and achieve their goals.

Separatist Feminism is a form of Radical Feminism, which argues that the sexual disparities between men and women are unresolvable, that men cannot make positive contributions to the feminist movement, and that even well-intentioned men replicate patriarchal dynamics.

Sex-Positive Feminism is a response to anti-pornography feminists who argue that heterosexual pornography is a central cause of women’s oppression, and that sexual freedom (which may or may not involve a woman’s ight to participate in heterosexual pornography) is an essential component of women’s freedom.

Anarcha-Feminism (or Anarchist Feminism) is another offshoot of Radical Feminism and combines Feminist and Anarchist beliefs in which patriarchy is viewed as a manifestation of hierarchy so that the fight against patriarchy is an essential part of the class struggle and the Anarchist struggle against the state.

Black Feminism (or Womanism) argues that sexism, class oppression and racism are inextricably bound together. Alice Walker and other Womanists claim that black women experience a different and more intense kind of oppression from that of white women.

Socialist Feminism (or Marxist Feminism) connects the oppression of women to Marxist ideas about exploitation, oppression and labour. Socialist Feminists see the need to work alongside men and all other groups, and to focus their energies on broad change that affects society as a whole, and not just on an individual basis.

Liberal Feminism (or Individualist Feminism) seeks the equality of men and women through political and legal reform. Liberal Feminists see the personal individual interactions between men and women as the place from which to transform society and argue that no major change to the structure of society is needed.

French Feminism (or Post-Structural Feminism) tends to be more philosophical and more literary, than the more pragmatic Anglophone Feminism. It is less concerned with immediate political doctrine and generally focuses on theories of “the body”. The 1949 treatise “The Second Sex” by the French author and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir (1908 - 1986) is a foundational tract of contemporary Feminism, in which she sets out a feminist Existentialism which prescribes a moral revolution and focuses on the concept of Woman as the quintessential Other, which de Beauvoir identifies as fundamental to women’s oppression.

Eco-Feminism links Feminism with ecology, arguing that the domination of women stems from the same patriarchal ideologies that bring about the domination and destruction of the environment.

Christian Feminism is a branch of feminist theology which seeks to interpret and understand Christianity in light of the equality of women and men, which has been largely ignored historically.

Pro-Feminism refers to support of Feminism without implying that the supporter is a member of the feminist movement. It is usually used in reference to men who are actively supportive of Feminism and of efforts to bring about gender equality.

And this is not, by any means, a complete list. There are many other branches of feminist theory and feminist thought, and many different ways that people can engage in feminist activism.

But TERFS often only acknowledge radical feminism (which they consider the only real feminism) and liberal feminism.

Transgender Advocate explains the warning signs that you as an individual might be a TERF:

I’ve noticed that there seems to be some confusion about what a TERF* is so, here’s a quick guide to help you figure out if you’re a TERF. Chances are that you’re a TERF if you believe that you’re a feminist when you…

1.) Claim that trans women are cis men, that trans men are cis women and purposefully misgender trans people.

2.) Out trans people to employers.

3.) Tell trans women their surgery is about supporting rape culture.

4.) Assert that lesbian-identified trans women can’t be lesbian.

5.) Claim that a world without trans people is preferable.

6.) Find that your anti-trans arguments and the anti-trans arguments of far right-wing groups match.

7.) Assert cis privilege isn’t real; that non-trans people aren’t privileged in a society that’s hostile to trans people.

8.) Claim that gender isn’t real, but the MAAB/FAAB binary is.

9.) Claim that trans surgeries were pioneered by men in service of the patriarchy.

10.) Lie about rape and death threats you’ve received from trans people.

11.) Fearmonger about the rape/violence threat trans women pose to cis women in the women’s restroom.

12.) Assert that trans people transition to satisfy their sexual urges.

13.) Degrade and dehumanize the genitals of trans people.

14.) Work to overturn trans equality protections.

15.) Work to halt access to trans medical care.

16.) Appeal to the Klan Fallacy.

17.) Compare transition to a disgusting Frankenstein-like process.

18.) Claim that trans people transition due to political or social pressures.

19.) Claim that when you work to halt the propagation of anti-feminist stereotypes it’s empowerment, but when trans people work to halt the propagation of anti-trans stereotypes it’s censorship .

20.) Assert that trans women transition because they’re actually gay men and that trans men transition because they’re lesbians wanting to escape the patriarchy.

21.) Threaten actual radical feminist organizations with killing its trans members, and then show up at the radfem event armed with guns.

22.) Beat actual radical feminists for protecting trans women from a TERF bashing.

23.) Mob Lesbian Avengers who have a trans kid with them and then threaten the kid with a knife.

24.) Menace a butch Lesbian radical feminist so much that the radfem decides to start their own inclusive Women’s Music Festival.

25.) Threaten a group of trans women with bodily violence so that they have to start something called Camp Trans in protest.

26.) Promote so-called “bathroom bills” because you think it’s “pro-Lesbian.”

27.) Find that Tea Party Republicans start promoting your TERF rhetoric.

28.) Promote right-wing propaganda mill nonsense to substantiate your hate because they’re the only ones who, in your estimation, are your ideological allies.

29.) Find that right-wing pundits and even hate groups like the Westboro Baptist Church defend TERF hate.

30.) Appeal to vaginal odors as being a sexed essence which demarcates an authentic sexed status, so that trans women aren’t actual women because the vaginas of trans women are so smelly that it causes “serious smell issues” while, simultaneously being so non-smelly that a trans woman can never know (as actual women apparently do) what it’s like to have a “big, hairy, smelly vagina.”

Bonus: Pretend that the term “TERF” –popularized, in 2008 by a radical feminist-inclusive feminist community as a way of distinguishing between radical feminists from anti-trans bigots who label themselves “radical feminists”– was actually created by the trans community in order to slur feminism.

I highly recommend these sources if you would like to know more:

Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism: What Exactly Is It, And Why Does It Hurt?

The Terfs

Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism on Rational Wiki

Of these sources, The Terfs will be the most helpful, but it contains a lot of violence and disturbing language. Please stay safe!

3. SWERF

SWERFS are another subgroup of radical feminists, very similar to TERFS. Often, someone who is a TERF will also be a SWERF, but this is not always the case.

Urban Dictionary defines SWERF this way:

Acronym for "Sex Worker Exclusionary Radical Feminist”. A person who espouses to be a feminist but who does not believe that women engaged in ANY form of voluntary sex work should be included in the fight for equality, especially in employment or salary parity. This rabid exclusion of an entire class of women is usually a belief based on misplaced uptight morality.

Rational Wiki explains further:

Sex worker exclusionary radical feminism (also known as SWERF) is yet another offshoot of feminism, one that opposes women’s participation in pornography and prostitution. The term was coined to match that of TERF, as their memberships overlap. Their ideology also overlaps as both subgroups follow a prescriptive, normative approach to feminism; i.e., telling women what to do — TERFs with their gender, and SWERFs with their sexuality.

SWERFs criticize the objectification and exploitation of women within pornography and the sex industry, as well as the violence and abuse that sex workers frequently suffer.

SWERFs typically go completely overboard and dump on sex-workers who chose their profession freely, even in places where it is completely legal and safe, claiming that the sex workers are nothing more than deluded victims (and co-perpetrators) of human trafficking. Much like white supremacists might insist that adoption agencies helping children from the third world find parents in the west are nothing more than deluded extinctionists. This dogmatic hostility to voluntary sex work is known as whorephobia.

Many SWERFS argue that they do not like when men control women’s sexuality. But these same people do exactly the same thing. They attack women for being involved in sex work and/or BDSM/kink, or liking porn. Sometimes they will also police women for what they wear or for having makeup, and will also criticize people for playing dressup with their daughters because the believe this is “sexualizing children” and contributing to “pedophilia culture.”

SJW Wiki uses this quote from Tumblr to explain:

“The mere fact that SWERFs are not actively antagonizing workers in the garment industry, or the domestic labor industry, or the farming and food production industry, or even going after MALE sex workers to the degree that they speak over and attack female sex workers shows that their their actions aren’t about ending incidents of abuse, discrimination and sexual misconduct in the workforce, but about controlling women’s bodies, specifically women’s sexual agency .”

—Musings of a Naked Lady, on Tumblr

Interestingly, when I Google “TERF,” many articles about how awful and hateful TERFS are show up. But when I Google “SWERF,” most of the articles that appear are defending TERFS and SWERFS and arguing that these terms are an attack on women and radical feminism.

I think the moral of the story there is that more people are uncomfortable with transphobia than they are whorephobia, which is sad because many many people see nothing wrong with transphobia.

I hope you found this helpful, anon! Let us know if you have more questions!

💖 Mod Bella 💖

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kristablogs · 4 years

Text

Anti-Black bias affects just about everyone. What’s the best way to deal with implicit racism?

Anti-Black bias can even shared by Black people. (Clay Banks via Unsplash/)

In a world where many people actively work to fight against systemic racism and even more claim to be “woke,” the science of implicit bias reveals why most of us still have work to do. Implicit biases are like puppeteers lurking inside our heads, coloring our every action with unconscious stereotyping and prejudice.

Humans begin forming simple mental links in infancy: We learn to associate highchairs with mealtime, parents with comfort, and cribs with naps. Data streams at us from all directions—news reports, television shows, family chats, friendly gossip—and we absorb it all. But this unconscious practice of grouping different words and objects gets more complex as we grow up, and it gives rise to insidious racial biases. Because many of the world’s sources of stimuli, especially television news reports, present Black people as criminals or threatening characters, our brains naturally begin to make an all-too-common connection—Black people and danger go together.

These biases quietly and unconsciously influence our actions throughout our lives, even as some of us actively protest against racism and discrimination. Implicit biases can be just as dangerous as consciously, actively demonstrated acts of racism, such as using slurs or attacking Black people, and they’re much more insidious. In a chilling 2002 study, randomly selected participants played a video game that featured photographs of white and Black individuals holding either a gun or another object (a wallet, soda can, or cell phone). Subjects were told to decide, as quickly as possible, whether or not to shoot the character. Consistent with earlier studies, nearly everyone made the “correct” decision to shoot at an armed Black individual more often than a white individual.

Various studies, including one conducted in 2018, confirm that Black people carry the same bias. Subjects identified dangerous objects, such as guns, much faster after viewing a Black face compared to a face with both Black and white features. These snappy, adrenaline-driven responses arise from reflexive, unconscious thought processes rather than deliberate, careful reflections.

Implicit biases can weigh BIPOC down every day—and destroy their lives in an instant. Researchers are working to understand how these insidious stereotypes drive our behavior, and how we might learn to shake them off.

The origins of implicit bias

We can trace the origins of implicit bias—or at least our cultural awareness of it—back to a thick manila envelope sitting in a P.O. Box in New Haven in 1990. Mahzarin Banaji, then a graduate student in psychology at Yale University, had always been fascinated by the idea of implicit memory—past experiences that we’re not consciously aware of, but that still manage to control our actions. When Banaji came across famous cognitive psychologist Larry Jacoby’s study on the subject, she decided to replicate the experiments for herself.

The simple and elegant study, “Becoming Famous Overnight,” was published in 1989. First, the subject reads through a list of names pulled from a phone book, such as Sebastian Weisdorf—these names are designated as “old not-famous.” The next day, the subject goes through a new list with three types of names: the old not-famous names, new not-famous names (like Andrew Ringren), and famous names (like Wayne Gretzky, a then-well-known hockey player from Canada). The subject then sorts the names into two piles—famous and not-famous. Sorting errors arose almost exclusively from old not-famous names, which subjects mistakenly sorted into the famous pile, thus confirming Jacoby’s hypothesis of implicit memory. Memories have a texture to them, and the inexplicable familiarity of the name Sebastian Weisdorf caused confusion, guiding subjects to mark them as belonging to celebrities.

A year after the study’s publication, Banaji wrote a postcard to Jacoby asking for the data, and soon enough, a manila envelope appeared in her mailbox. When she rifled through the pages, she found something puzzling—all the names were male. Banaji repeated the experiment using a mix of names and discovered that non-famous females didn’t tend to follow Jacoby’s hypothesis: Sally Weisdorf didn’t become famous overnight like Sebastian Weisdorf did.

Banaji began chatting with subjects after the tests were finished, asking them if they considered gender while sorting. Had they been making the conscious decision that vaguely familiar men were more likely to be celebrities than vaguely familiar women were? Each insisted that sexism had nothing to do with their selection process. “There was a complete lack of awareness that they were relying on gender,” Banaji says. “That was the moment for me when the light bulb went off.”

Perhaps, she thought, this unconscious reaction could help us understand the nuances of how the human mind categorizes the world.

In the next few years, Banaji and two other researchers at Yale, Tony Greenwald and Brian Nosek, banded together to develop a series of tests to measure what they began to call implicit social cognition, something that deeply impacts our social attitudes, behavior, and perceptions. The Implicit Attitude Tests, or IATs, were first published on Yale’s website in September 1988, and measure the strength of associations between different concepts (black faces, white faces) and evaluations (good, bad) by asking the user to categorize certain words and images, and measuring the response time for users to group certain stimuli together. The test went viral, especially after it was featured on Oprah. The researchers ended the month with 45,000 results to parse through.

Over time, Banaji and her team created variations of the original IAT, including tests that measure bias against disabilities, sexuality, certain ethnicities, weight, gender, skin tone, and much more. The true value of the test, however, lies in the two-decade aggregation of implicit bias data, which has proven to be a goldmine for psychologists studying this phenomenon. By tracing the arc of these scores over time, especially during the Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ+ movements, scientists are attempting to crack open the phenomenon—and find out how to fix it.

Seeing and participating in rallies can help shift implicit bias. (Unsplash/)

Mass movements can shift biases—slowly

In a 2018 study, Jeremy Sawyer, a professor of behavioral science at Kingsborough Community College, looked at implicit bias data collected from 2009 to 2016. He wanted to see how results had changed during Barack Obama’s presidency, and the rise of Black Lives Matter after the killing of Trayvon Martin in 2012.

Many had hoped that anti-Black racism would decrease with Obama’s inauguration. Previous studies had indicated that bias decreases momentarily after subjects are shown images of highly respected Black figures such as Obama, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King Jr. But Sawyer found that at a society-wide level, the exact opposite occurred: From 2009 to 2013, anti-Black bias slightly increased among white and Black populations.

The trend only started to reverse when the Black Lives Matter movement arose in 2013, following the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the murder of Trayvon Martin. Sawyer and his co-authors took this as a sign that mass movements can shift deeply ingrained prejudice.

He took a closer look by pinpointing six pivotal moments in the movement: uprisings following the killings of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Freddie Gray, the shooting at a Black church in Charleston, the Democratic National Convention’s resolution on Black Lives Matter in 2015, and the shooting of anti-police-brutality protesters in 2015. After each of these events, the IAT data set showed, racial bias against the Black community decreased across all political lines—including conservatives.

“There’s hope in social movements like Black Lives Matter,” says Sawyer. “A mass social movement involves many people across the country and chips away at structural racism.”

While racial and sexual bias has seen a slight downtrend over the last decade, other biases have not followed suit. Anti-age and disability have stayed relatively stable, while anti-body weight bias has steadily gotten worse since 2008 (see the graph below). “The biases where we’ve seen mass movements, around BLM and LGBTQ marriage equality—those have gotten better,” says Sawyer. “We haven’t seen recent movements around disability rights or anti-ageism or body size related movements. We should be trying to build those and support those as a society.”

Implicit Attitude Test results over time. (Mahzarin Banaji/)

When asked about movements causing political backlash, especially when protests sometimes lead to violence and unrest, Sawyer says, “Despite certain political forces branding movements as violent or changing the narrative to be all about looting and so forth, massive rebellions and uprising seem to work. Not only do they decrease people’s biases, but they often win political results.” For example, the Civil Rights and Black Power movements absorbed harsh criticism from the opposing side, but pulled out victories in law-enforced school desegregation and the legal dismantling of Jim Crow laws in the South (although some of these institutions still exist in different forms today). “Movements do really change biases,” says Sawyer.

How to face down your own implicit bias

In The New Jim Crow, author Michelle Alexander emphasizes that this type of discrimination “reflect[s] automatic, unconscious thought processes, not careful deliberations.”

To successfully manage your own implicit bias, says Jennifer Eberhardt, a professor of psychology at Stanford University, you must slow down and think carefully. “There are certain conditions under which we become more vulnerable to it: when we’re thinking fast and moving fast,” Eberhardt told Time in 2019. “We can slow down and make a shift so we’re less likely to act on bias.”

Nextdoor.com, a virtual neighborhood hub that contains community posts on everything from babysitter requests to warnings about suspicious activity, has tried to implement this strategy to minimize prejudicial posts. In 2015, Nextdoor.com decided to work with Eberhardt and various other nonprofits to fight against the influx of racially influenced comments. When a user writes a review, perhaps describing a Black man as “suspicious,” they must answer a series of questions, such as “ask yourself—is what I saw actually suspicious, especially if I take race or ethnicity out of the equation?” before posting the review. When a user references a contractors’ race in a review, further questions dig for more distinctive characteristics instead. Nextdoor.com staff also incorporated a racial profiling flag beside each review. These initiatives caused a 75 percent reduction in racially influenced comments and reviews over the 110,000 local networks hosted by Nextdoor.com, according to founder Nirav Tolia.

The practice of slowing down and practicing deliberate thought processes may sound more like a suppression of your implicit bias than a way to make it go away, but ensuring that you’re not letting prejudice rule your actions is the first—and most effective—step.

There’s no instant, foolproof way to make implicit bias go away completely, but self awareness and education are key to making that mental shift happen. Research shows that implicit biases arise from the daily barrage of information that crowds our eyes and ears—so by harnessing control over this data flood, you can slowly but surely alter your mindset. Consistently surrounding yourself with diverse perspectives by reading the writings of Black people and watching movies starring non-white protagonists, as well as staying aware of how news media may enforce certain biases, can help you neutralize your subconscious racism.

Banaji’s next project involves a self-education series in the form of study modules, articles, podcasts, and graphics posted on a website called Outsmarting Human Minds. She hopes to transform this website into a full-fledged course for use at schools and companies.

Reflecting on unconscious bias is inherently difficult and disturbing for people who don’t consider themselves to be racist. But our subconscious minds won’t change without some very conscious effort. You can actively work to help others overcome their implicit bias, too: Sawyer’s research on the impact of the Black Lives Matter movement shows just how much progress can be made in amplifying Black voices and causes.

“These experiences will change people,” says Banaji. “A white kid who marches in protest and watches the power structure unfold in real time will not be the same.”

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scootoaster · 4 years

Text

Anti-Black bias affects just about everyone. What’s the best way to deal with implicit racism?

Anti-Black bias can even shared by Black people. (Clay Banks via Unsplash/)

The origins of implicit bias

Perhaps, she thought, this unconscious reaction could help us understand the nuances of how the human mind categorizes the world.

Seeing and participating in rallies can help shift implicit bias. (Unsplash/)

Mass movements can shift biases—slowly

“There’s hope in social movements like Black Lives Matter,” says Sawyer. “A mass social movement involves many people across the country and chips away at structural racism.”

Implicit Attitude Test results over time. (Mahzarin Banaji/)

How to face down your own implicit bias

In The New Jim Crow, author Michelle Alexander emphasizes that this type of discrimination “reflect[s] automatic, unconscious thought processes, not careful deliberations.”

“These experiences will change people,” says Banaji. “A white kid who marches in protest and watches the power structure unfold in real time will not be the same.”

0 notes

itsfinancethings · 4 years

Link

The world found out about Rutger Bregman in 2019 when, on a panel organized by TIME at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the Dutch historian lambasted businesspeople in the audience for trying to fix the world economy without talking about taxation. “It feels like I’m at a firefighters’ conference and no one is allowed to speak about water,” he said.

Now, he has a new book out, titled Humankind, in which the unconventional historian tries to unravel even more of the conventional wisdom that, he says, actually stands on empirically shaky ground. Bregman spoke to TIME in March, while the coronavirus pandemic was spreading rapidly around the world.

In your new book, Humankind, you make the argument that, humans are not as intrinsically selfish as much literature would have us believe. Since you wrote it, the coronavirus pandemic has changed everything. Do you stand by your argument?

Obviously I think I’m right! The old fashioned “realist” position has been to assume that civilization is only a thin veneer, and that the moment there’s a crisis we reveal our true selves, and it turns out that we’re all selfish animals. What I’m trying to do in this book is to turn this narrative around, to show that actually, over thousands of years, people have actually evolved to be friendly.

There’s always selfish behavior. There are lots of examples of people hoarding. But we’ve seen in this pandemic that the vast majority of behavior from normal citizens is actually pro-social in nature. People are willing to help their neighbors. That is the bigger picture that we’re seeing right now.

Is this moment a fertile time for that idea?

I hope that the message of my book is extra relevant right now. Because it’s not only the virus that is contagious, but our behavior as well. If we assume that most people are fundamentally selfish, and if we design our response to this virus with that view of human nature, then then we’re going to bring that out in people. Whereas, if we assume that most people are cooperative and want to help, then we can actually inspire other people. This may sound a bit cheesy, but there’s actually a lot of psychological research that shows that acts of kindness are really contagious. They really spread throughout a social network, even influencing people who you don’t know, who you haven’t seen.

The other thing this crisis shows very clearly is how dependent we are on certain professions. Around the globe, there are governments coming up with lists of so-called vital professions. If you look at those lists, you won’t find the hedge fund managers or the marketeers or whatever. But you’ll find the garbage collectors and the teachers and the nurses, people who we often don’t pay very well, but turn out to be people we can’t live without. So just imagine what the influence of that could be for the longer term. Because there’s now a whole generation growing up that will be impacted by this pandemic. We’ll all remember 2020 as an historic year. And for decades, people will be able to say, remember 2020. Remember when things were really tough. Who did we rely on? I think that could impact a whole generation.

Why do our assumptions about human nature matter? What’s at stake in the debate?

I think everything starts with your view of human nature, because what you assume about other people is often what you get out of them. So if we assume that most people deep down are selfish and cannot be trusted, then you’ll start designing your institutions around that idea. And you’ll create exactly the kind of people that your view of human nature presupposes.

People who think other people tend to be selfish have come to be called realists, whereas people who are more trusting are sometimes called idealists. Do you think those labels are fair?

I’m trying to redefine what the realist position is. I go over all this empirical evidence in my book, and I show that actually, what you see most in times of crisis is an explosion of altruism. We’ve got more than 500 case studies of natural disasters from around the globe. And every single time sociologists and anthropologists find that it’s almost as if you push a reset button in people’s heads and they go back to their better selves. They will start helping each other. And this is the opposite of what we’ve been told for decades, for centuries even in Western culture, and what the news tells us every day.

Connected to the idea that humans are intrinsically selfish is the idea that the free market is the most efficient way to run an economy. Do you think the two ideas are connected?

Yes, but I’m not part of the generation of the Cold War when the debate was all about capitalism versus communism or market versus state, right? I don’t live in that binary world. Sometimes markets work best, sometimes the state has the best solution. During the Enlightenment, there were brilliant thinkers who realized that, if you assume most people are naturally selfish and you construct the market around that, sometimes it can actually work for the common good. I just think that in many cases, it went too far. What many economists forget is that this view of humanity, the so-called “homo economicus,” can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

What kind of world do you hope to see if people change their minds, maybe from reading your book? What kind of world could be possible?

You could do pretty much everything in a different way. In maybe one of the most radical examples in my book, I look at how the prison system works in Norway. They basically give prisoners the freedom to do whatever they want, right? Often, they even have the key to their own cells. And you’ve got prisons there with cinemas and libraries where they can just relax around on a friendly basis with the guards. Now, if you look at that, from an American perspective, you’re like, these people are totally crazy. But then if you look at it from a scientific perspective, you look at the recidivism rate, right? The odds that someone who has committed a crime commits another one once he gets out of prison. Well, the recidivism rate is very high in the U.S. – it’s one of the highest rates in the world. But it’s the lowest in Norway. So actually the “realist” prison here is the Norwegian prison, where inmates are treated like humans and as adults, whereas many American prisons where inmates are often treated as animals, as beasts. At the moment those are taxpayer funded institutions to educate people for more criminal behavior. That’s basically what they are.

How do you explain the power of nationalism as an ideology? The process of building an idea of a nation requires excluding out-groups. And by extension, denying them certain benefits. Often violence is involved in this as well. How does that fit with the idea of human nature as inherently decent?

Well, this is the big question hanging over my whole book. We do terrible things that are not done by any animal in the animal kingdom. There’s never been a penguin that says, let’s lock up a group of other penguins and exterminate them. These are singularly human crimes. We can get the beginning of an answer if we look at this theory from biology that people have evolved to be friendly, what they call the self-domestication theory. And the idea here from some biologists is that there’s a dark side to that as well. Because, friendliness, wanting to fit into a group can sometimes stand in the way of justice and truth. We find it very hard not to be included in our own social groups, to go against the grain. You even find it with babies, studies show as young as three to six months old that they already seem to know the difference between good and evil, and they prefer the good — but they also have xenophobic tendencies. Babies do not like unfamiliar sounds, unfamiliar faces. So this is a tribal button that can be pushed in our brain.

But if you watch a lot of Hollywood and Netflix series, you might get the impression that people find it really easy to commit violence against each other. Well, we actually know from psychological studies and from the history of warfare, that people find it really, really hard. For example, during the Second World War, it’s estimated that only around 15 to 20% of soldiers actually managed to fire their gun. When they had to look the enemy in the eye and pull the trigger, most of them couldn’t do it, but that doesn’t doesn’t mean that you can’t condition people to do it, you can’t make them push a button of an artillery device or something so that they can kill people from the distance. So there are all kinds of technological and psychological means to get people to commit violence, but it is not deep in our nature. For most people, it’s actually really hard to do.

The other fascinating thing unique to humans is that we blush. How could this ever have been an evolutionary advantage that we involuntarily give away our deepest feelings? This shows that we evolved to cooperate. The thing is, this works really well on a small scale. Now, when we settled down, 10,000 years ago, and we first started living in villages and cities and doing agriculture, we also lost sight of each other, literally. And some of the things that we evolved for didn’t work anymore. And I think it’s no coincidence that this is also the time in world history where you see the first wars breaking out. The reason is that the distance between people has increased.

And so obviously the simple solution that you come to if you want to do something against racism or prejudice or all these tribal instincts in our nature, the ultimate solution is obviously contact. People gotta meet each other.

I suppose, to use a British example, the constituencies that voted most heavily for Brexit (and by extension against immigration) were generally the ones with the lowest immigration rates.

Yeah, that’s obviously the classic example. And in very diverse neighborhoods, most people wanted to stay within the E.U. And the same is actually the case during the Trump election in 2016. Neighborhoods with very little diversity voted for Trump. It is something that you should always keep in mind when you design your institutions, like schools. It matters so much that from a very early age we encounter different kinds of different people, because that’s what real life should be about as well.

You were on a panel organized by TIME at Davos last year when you called on billionaires to stop talking about philanthropy and pay their taxes. The video went viral. It’s a bit more than a year on, now. Have you noticed any improvement on that?

I’m optimistic actually. I think to be honest, that we’re living through extraordinary times. The Zeitgeist is really shifting before our eyes. You have to remember that even Joe Biden’s climate plan is more ambitious than Bernie Sanders’ climate plan was in 2016. Even Biden wants to have higher taxes on the rich. This has become the new normal right now. So I really think that, what they call the Overton window, you see it moving. And you really see it with taxes as well. So the worst period was 10 to 15 years ago, when we weren’t even talking about it.

Now of course, the coronavirus is changing everything. Maybe this can become a bigger movement that you could call some sort of a “neo-realistic” movement, right, with a new updated view of human nature. Maybe this will be the end of neoliberalism, the incredibly powerful idea that basically conquered the West since the 1970s. The ideology was that most people are selfish. Now, maybe we can move into a different era, because this whole idea that most people are selfish is simply unworkable during a pandemic. I’m not predicting this will happen. It’s just a hopeful scenario, that may be accelerated by this pandemic.

Hanging over the pandemic is another threat to humanity: climate change. One thing that we keep hearing is that in order to avert the crisis, even with systemic change, we are going to need to make severe behavioral changes, we’re going to need to give up our luxuries for the good of the human race. And yet, that kind humanity-wide decency, if we’re putting it in those terms, is very hard to achieve. How do you square that with your argument that humans are inherently good?

Well, actually, my book is all about the power of human beings collectively, right? So individually, we can’t achieve much. We’re not very smart and we’re not very strong. The strength of human beings only really comes out on a big scale. So the same is true for climate change. We’re never gonna solve anything about climate change if we keep making it into this individualistic discussion. I’m not saying that doesn’t have a role. I mean, the personal is political. But I think the message of scientists right now is that as a society, we need to go through this huge transformation. And we need to do something that’s never been done before in peacetime. Move to half emissions in 2030 and zero emissions in 2050. That means that radical is the new reality. Greta Thunberg is totally right about this. We’re now going to a world that will be three degrees warmer. And that’s the average prediction. It could be worse. Now, I’m living in the Netherlands, where big parts of the country are meters below sea level. So I’ve been interviewing experts who say, it’s not certain that our grandchildren can still live here in the 22nd century. It’s not certain that we can save this country. And so the stakes are incredibly high. But then again, it’s technically feasible. And we’ve done similar things in the past. So it’s not impossible. But this shift in the Zeitgeist needs to speed up quite a bit more.

#IFTTT #Blogger

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whittlebaggett8 · 5 years

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Bernie Sanders hits the 2020 campaign trail with rockstar status, a far cry from the start of the 2016 campaign, Defence Online

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A rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders in Des Moines, Iowa, on March 9, 2019.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont just made a three-day visit to Iowa as his 2020 campaign for the presidency picks up steam.

Sanders’ held rallies across the state, the site of the first big presidential primary contest in the nation – the Iowa caucuses.

When the senator campaigned in Iowa as part of his 2016 campaign roughly four years ago, he was an obscure figure. Fast-forward to 2019, and he’s among the top candidates for the Democratic nomination for president.

DES MOINES, IA – Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont is back on the campaign trail as he makes yet another run for the presidency, but there’s something different about him this time around – he’s considered a top candidate and is already drawing in big crowds.

“When I first came here to campaign in 2015 not a whole lot of people knew who I was, nobody took our campaign seriously, and we were at 3 percent in the polls,” Sanders said during a rally in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

To Sanders’ point, a Quinnipiac University poll in late February 2015 showed Sanders with just 5% support in Iowa and 56% of voters in the state said they didn’t know enough about the Vermont senator at the time.

Sanders made three campaign stops in Iowa this past weekend, hitting multiple parts of the Midwestern state. Iowa is the site of the first major presidential primary contest.

The Vermont senator visited Council Bluffs, Iowa City, and Des Moines.

INSIDER was on the ground for each rally as Sanders spoke with voters in a state he referred to as the place where “the political revolution began” in 2016.

Here’s how Sanders first visit to Iowa along the 2020 campaign trail unfolded.

Read more: Bernie Sanders’ 2020 campaign slogan is a direct rebuke of Trump’s 2016 message of ‘I alone can fix’ America

Read more: First-time voters for Bernie Sanders don’t care about his age, say he speaks to what matters to them and would’ve voted for him in 2016

Read more: Bernie Sanders’ 2020 campaign slogan is a direct rebuke of Trump’s 2016 message of ‘I alone can fix’ America

Sanders’ first rally in Iowa on Thursday was in Council Bluffs, not far from the Nebraska border.

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Sen. Bernie Sanders at a rally in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on March 7, 2019.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

As attendees waited for the senator to take the stage, a band kept them entertained.

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A musical act performs at a rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

People of all ages attended the rally — college students, senior citizens, and families with children.

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A young girl holds up a Bernie Sanders sign at a rally for the presidential hopeful in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on March 7, 2019.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

Dan Griffith, 36, a volunteer at the rally from Prairie Home, Nebraska, was particularly excited to be there. Griffith told INSIDER he supports Sanders because he’s been “saying the same thing for the past 30 years and he’s right” on issues like climate change and raising the minimum wage. He also said President Donald Trump’s policies are “total bullsh–t, we’re better than this.”

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Dan Griffith, 36, at Sen. Bernie Sanders rally in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on March 7, 2019.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

The room was fairly sleepy until Sanders took the stage, and then the crowd exploded as he asked, “Are you ready for a political revolution?”

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Sen. Bernie Sanders takes the stage at a rally in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on March 7, 2019.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

Sanders began by referring to Trump as “the most dangerous president in modern American history.”

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Sen. Bernie Sanders at a rally in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on March 7, 2019.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

“Donald Trump wants to divide us up by the color of our skin, our country of origin, our gender, our religion and our sexual orientation,” Sanders said. “We are going to do exactly the opposite.”

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Sen. Bernie Sanders at a rally in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on March 7, 2019.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

When the crowd chanted his name, Sanders interrupted and shouted, “Not me, you!” This is linked to his 2020 campaign slogan: “Not me. Us.”

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Sen. Bernie Sanders at a rally for his 2020 campaign in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on March 7, 2019.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

At one point in the rally, Sanders was interrupted by a man in the crowd as he began to say, “Tonight, we say to Donald Trump and the fossil fuel industry…” The man shouted, “F–k you!” This prompted laughter. Sanders paused and said, “Well, that is one way of phrasing it. I, myself, was gonna say it a little differently. I am a senator.”

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Sen. Bernie Sanders at a 2020 campaign rally in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on March 7, 2019.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

The man who yelled, Terry Anderson, 53, of Omaha, Nebraska, told INSIDER his outburst was inspired by his belief that Trump is a “black stain on the face of the American society.” Anderson, who also identified himself as “Tie-dye Terry,” said he’s a big Sanders supporter but is also a fan of other 2020 Democratic candidates like Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

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Terry Anderson, 53, of Omaha, Nebraska, at a rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on March 7, 2019.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

Sanders told the crowd that when he began his 2016 campaign, he was not well-known and his ideas were dismissed as “too radical.” Just a few years later, Sanders claimed a majority of Americans now embrace his views and “shock of all shocks, those very same ideas are now supported not only by Democratic candidates for president but by Democratic candidates all across the board.”

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Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks at a rally for his 2020 campaign in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on March 7, 2019.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

Sanders’ speech in Council Bluffs, which was similar to the subject addresses he delivered in other parts of Iowa, focused heavily on issues he spoke a great deal about in 2016: climate change, health care, and wealth inequality. But he also focused a lot on topics he was criticized for not addressing enough last time around: racism and racial justice.

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Sen. Bernie Sanders at a rally for his 2020 campaign in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on March 7, 2019.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

“We are also going to address the racial disparities that exist. It is not right that white families have 10 times more wealth than black families … We are going to end institutional racism wherever it exists,” Sanders said to a mostly white crowd (in a predominantly white state). He got big cheers for this line.

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A campaign rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders on March 7, 2019, in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

Sanders ended his first Iowa rally with a message of unity: “If we stand together, this country has an extraordinary future. Let’s make it happen.”

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Sen. Bernie Sanders at a rally in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on March 7, 2019.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

Sanders’ second rally in Iowa was at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. Most of the attendees were college students who made their anti-Trump sentiments abundantly clear.

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Attendees of a Bernie Sanders rally in Iowa City, Iowa, on March 8, 2019.

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John Haltiwanger

Freya Buhr, 19, of Clermont, Iowa, is such a big fan of Sanders she attended his rally on her birthday. Buhr told INSIDER she supports Sanders because he’s “always been on the right side of history” and is a “feminist.” She also thinks Sanders is a “strong leader” and “the kind of person we need with the current political discourse in America.”

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Freya Buhr, 19, at a rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders in Iowa City, Iowa.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

Sam Johnston, 18, of Forsyth, Illinois, told INSIDER he supports Sanders because he’s “fair,” “reliable,” and he trusts the senator to “follow through” on his campaign promises. When asked if he’s at all concerned by the fact Sanders is 77 and would be the oldest president in US history if elected, Johnston said “age range doesn’t matter” because he “just knows our values and shares them.”

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Sam Johnston, 18, and Anthony Schulte, 19, at a rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders in Iowa City on March 8, 2019.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

Anthony Schulte, 19, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, told INSIDER he supports Sanders because “nothing is more important to me than climate change.” Schulte, who came to the rally with Johnston, added that it matters to him Sanders is “not in bed” with Wall Street and big corporations.

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Sen. Bernie Sanders at a campaign rally in Iowa City, Iowa, on March 8, 2019.

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Aluna Olaniyi, 18, of Fairfield, Iowa, told INSIDER she supports Sanders because “the ideals he believes in I also believe in. She added, “[Sanders] has held the same values for a long time, so he’s obviously not wishy-washy.”

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Aluna Olaniyi, 18, at a rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders in Iowa City on March 8, 2019.

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When Sanders took the stage and announced he’s running the campaign that will “defeat Donald Trump,” the crowd went wild.

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Sen. Bernie Sanders at a 2020 campaign rally in Iowa City, Iowa, on March 8, 2019.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

Sanders went on to say that Trump “embarrasses” the US every day. The youthful crowd booed at the mention of Trump’s name.

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A rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders in Iowa City, Iowa, on March 8, 2019.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

Sanders went after Trump hard in his speech, stating Trump doesn’t really stand with “working people.” He referred to the president as a “pathological liar” who “rejects science.” Meanwhile, people wearing hats in support of Trump could be spotted in the crowd.

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Two attendees of a rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders in Iowa City, Iowa, on March 8, 2019, wear hats showing support for President Donald Trump.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

“I say to Donald Trump and the fossil fuel industry: climate change is not a hoax, but is an existential threat to our country and the planet,” Sanders added. The crowd exploded.

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A rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders in Iowa City, Iowa, on March 8, 2019.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

Climate change was apparently such a big issue for Iowans that some attendees of Sanders’ rallies wore shirts expressing their concern about it.

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A man wearing a climate change-themed t-shirt at a rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders in Iowa City, Iowa, on March 8, 2019.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

After Sanders wrapped up his speech in Iowa City, he walked off the stage and took selfies with attendees. Meanwhile, people in the crowd shouted,”We love you, Bernie.”

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A rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders in Iowa City, Iowa, on March 8, 2019.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

Sanders’ final Iowa rally was in Des Moines, the state capital. It was a rainy day but that didn’t stop people from coming out. A Sanders campaign aide told INSIDER roughly 1,400 were in attendance.

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A rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders in Des Moines, Iowa, on March 9, 2019.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

Like Sanders’ other rallies, the day started off with some live music as the crowd waited for the man of the hour to take the stage.

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A rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders in Des Moines, Iowa, on March 9, 2019.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

One of the first speakers at Sanders’ third Iowa rally was Abshir Omar, a Somali Muslim refugee. Omar told the harrowing story of his mother’s flight from conflict in his native country when he was a child. “Bernie Sanders makes me believe in the promise of America,” Omar went on to say. “The same promise that got my mother to America.”

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Abshir Omar speaks at a rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders in Des Moines, Iowa, on March 9, 2019.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

Sanders took the stage after another speaker. Early on his speech, he addressed a concern linked to his 2016 campaign: “If we do not win, I will strongly support the Democratic nominee and hope and believe that other people feel the same way. Donald Trump must be defeated!”

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Sen. Bernie Sanders at a campaign rally in Des Moines, Iowa, on March 9, 2019.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

In his Des Moines speech, Sanders continued to touch on similar themes, and took a direct jab at Trump: “I don’t come from a billionaire family. My parents didn’t give me a $200,00 allowance when I was 3-years-old. My family knew what it was like to live paycheck to paycheck. I know where I come from, and I will never forget that!” Sanders had employed the same rhetoric at his 2020 kick off rally in Brooklyn, New York, a week earlier.

Sanders avoided getting personal in 2016, but he’s started to touch more on his working class, Brooklyn roots in the early days of his 2020 campaign.

Sanders’ speeches in Iowa were filled with the same firebrand, progressive rhetoric that typified his 2016 campaign, but with sharp criticism of Trump sprinkled in. At the Vermont senator’s Des Moines rally, at least one or two of the president’s red ‘Make American Great Again’ hats could be seen in the crowd.

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A rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders in Des Moines, Iowa, on March 9, 2019.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

As Sanders spoke in Des Moines, a dedicated crew of sign-wavers made their affinity for the senator quite clear.

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A rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders in Des Moines, Iowa, on March 9, 2019.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

Other attendees carried signs expressing their concern about climate change.

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An attendee of a rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders holds up a sign on climate change in Des Moines, Iowa, on March 9, 2019.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

Sanders’ Des Moines speech focused on issues impacting rural communities, including suicide rates and declining life expectancy. “If I’m elected president, we’re going to start paying attention to rural America,” Sanders said.

Speaking on wealth inequality, the crowd in Des Moines went wild when Sanders said, “We have the people…They might have money and power, but there are a hell of a lot more of us than them.”

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A rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders in Des Moines, Iowa, on March 9, 2019.

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John Haltiwanger/INSIDER

After Sanders finished his speech, he went down to greet and speak with people in the crowd. The senator took selfies with and hugged some of the attendees.

Sanders three-day visit to Iowa showed that he is a top contender among the large field of candidates for the 2020 Democratic nomination. In roughly four years, the senator has gone from a relatively obscure member of Congress to one of the most influential political figures in the country.

The post Bernie Sanders hits the 2020 campaign trail with rockstar status, a far cry from the start of the 2016 campaign, Defence Online appeared first on Defence Online.

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#2020 election #Bernie Sanders #Features #Iowa #Iowa Caucuses #News #Politics Slideshow #Vermont

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newstfionline · 6 years

Text

Disrupter in chief: How Donald Trump is changing the presidency

Linda Feldmann, CS Monitor, January 4, 2018

WASHINGTON--It was President Trump’s first real national security scare.

North Korea had just tested a ballistic missile, and Mr. Trump was dining outside at his Florida resort with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan. Aides hovered around them; one shined the light of his cellphone on documents the two leaders were reviewing. A Mar-a-Lago Club member sitting nearby snapped pictures and posted them on Facebook.

“Wow.....,” Richard DeAgazio wrote, “the center of the action!!!”

The Mar-a-Lago terrace had, in effect, become an open-air White House Situation Room, but without the high-level security of the West Wing basement room where the president and top aides usually meet to address world crises. At that moment, just 24 days into Trump’s presidency, some Americans’ fears of having a novice to government serving in the top job crystallized.

Would Trump accidentally reveal classified information in public? Would he respond prudently to North Korea’s provocation? Was he really ready to do the job he had won, defying expectations, just a few months earlier?

A year into Trump’s presidency, North Korea remains a top security threat--and Trump’s freewheeling, norm-busting approach to the presidency is the new normal. The dizzying turnover of top staff and breathless media reports of palace intrigue--as evidenced by the recent brouhaha over the new tell-all book on Trump’s first year, “Fire and Fury”--have only enhanced the sense of reality-TV-style drama. So has the investigation into possible Russian collaboration with Trump associates in the 2016 campaign. Ditto the women accusing Trump of past sexual misdeeds.

The explosions around “Fire and Fury” are only the latest disruptions--from former top Trump aide Steve Bannon’s reported assertion of “treasonous” behavior by Trump family members, to Trump’s break with Mr. Bannon and threats of legal action against him.

In countless other ways, from his provocative use of Twitter to his aggressive use of executive power to his attacks on the news media, Trump has disrupted American life, the American presidency, American politics, and America’s place in the world.

“As Winston Churchill once said of an American cabinet member, ‘He’s a bull who carries his own china shop with him,’” says Barbara Perry, director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.

To Trump supporters, that’s exactly the point: They voted for someone who would “fight back” and shake up a Washington power structure--”the swamp”--that they believe stopped serving the people a long time ago. And they say he is delivering. Trump’s war on government regulation has rolled back scores of policies on the environment, education, law enforcement, energy, and the internet.

To critics, Trump represents the sum of all fears: a populist demagogue who preys on voter anger, stokes racism, enacts self-enriching policies, and fans the flames of class division and partisan polarization that have been growing for decades. Some House Democrats are already pushing for impeachment, and held a symbolic vote in December, despite opposition from Democratic leaders.

In truth, the Trump disruption so far hasn’t proved to be as, well, disruptive as it could have been. Trump is not a dictator--far from it. Respect for the Constitution remains deeply embedded in the American psyche. The two-party system remains vibrant, as seen last month in Doug Jones’s stunning upset in the Alabama special Senate election--a rare Democratic victory in a deeply Republican state.

“It looks so far like our system is more resilient than a lot of people thought it was,” says Gene Healy, vice president of the libertarian Cato Institute and author of the book “The Cult of the Presidency: America’s Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power.” “The courts and to some extent Congress have pushed back.”

In July 2016, Trump presented himself at the Republican National Convention as a savior who could solve the nation’s ills all on his own, from poverty and violence at home to war and destruction abroad.

“I alone can fix it,” he boomed.

Trump’s grand rhetoric brought convention-goers to their feet, and on the political left, sowed fears of an authoritarian-in-the-making. One year into his tenure, experts on presidential power see a man who has, in some ways, pulled the levers of power with singular abandon--both formally and informally--even as he discovers the limits of that authority.

“It’s a fascinating case study,” says Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University in Washington. “As controversial as many of the statements and actions of President Trump are, he has not pushed the envelope of executive privilege as much as President Obama did during his presidency.”

Indeed, Trump’s use of executive power so far has centered on undoing Barack Obama’s legacy, many elements of which Obama had bypassed Congress to carry out. Trump pulled the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and the Paris climate accord, decertified the Iran nuclear pact, and in perhaps his most explosive decision, announced the end of DACA--Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which protects some 800,000 young unauthorized immigrants from deportation.

Obama himself foresaw the risk of relying on executive authority--and even warned President-elect Trump to be careful about going down that path.

It wasn’t until the third year of Obama’s presidency, after the Democrats had lost control of the House, that he began to rely on executive power to enact major policy shifts. So comparing one year of Trump with eight years of Obama isn’t quite fair.

Trump, like Obama, began his presidency with both houses of Congress under his party’s control, and so going the legislative route to enact major policy change made sense. Besides, matters involving the federal budget and taxation must go through Congress. Initially, Trump struggled to learn the art of the legislative deal--failing to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare,” before passing tax reform. It was the only major piece of legislation he got through Congress in his first year.

The true test of Trump’s approach to executive power may come a year from now--after the November 2018 midterm elections--if the Republicans lose control of one or both houses of Congress.

“If one of the houses does flip, there will be a lot of pressure on Trump to act as Obama did in the face of legislative opposition,” says Mr. Turley.

And if Trump does move toward more aggressive use of executive authority, he will be following a certain tradition. Obama was dubbed an “imperial president,” just as he had accused his predecessor, George W. Bush, of being. Presidents Richard Nixon, Harry Truman, and Franklin Roosevelt were all parties to landmark Supreme Court cases challenging their aggressive uses of executive power.

A larger question may be whether Congress can find its way back to its rightful place as a vehicle for bipartisanship and compromise. Scholars on the left and right speak of how polarization and other factors have made the legislative branch increasingly dysfunctional.

“I think the greatest challenge facing the Trump administration--or actually, any administration--these days is that Congress is broken,” says Daniel Bonevac, a philosophy professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He blames budgeting procedures put in place after Watergate that had the unintentional effect of making compromise more difficult.

“I don’t think President Trump is responsible, in short, for the change in norms,” says Mr. Bonevac. “I think he’s a response to the change in norms.”

In his inaugural address, on Jan. 20, 2017, Trump painted a bleak picture of “forgotten men and women” and “American carnage.”

“Now arrives the hour of action,” the new president pledged.

A week later, Trump announced a “travel ban,” temporarily barring entry into the US by nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries. It was Trump’s first major executive order, and it suggested that the billionaire businessman used to issuing commands and seeing them carried out would try the same approach from the Oval Office.

The checks and balances limiting the power of American presidents, as enshrined in the Constitution, were in for a test.

The answer came quickly. Within days, amid protests at American airports, a federal judge blocked the measure nationwide. Legal experts slammed the order as sloppily drafted. Trump responded with decidedly unpresidential rhetoric, lashing out on Twitter at “this so-called judge”--an echo of his 2015 slur against the Mexican-American judge handling the lawsuit against Trump University.

But the government agencies implementing the ban backed down, following the judge’s order. A revised travel ban was also blocked, and in December, the Supreme Court allowed a third version to proceed in full while lower courts review the merits.

That decision suggests the Supreme Court could uphold the ban, in keeping with the principle that presidents have broad authority to control who may enter the country. And so, in the end, Trump may well prove victorious on this issue. But the path to fulfillment has been bumpy.

Despite Trump’s desire to present himself as the biggest and the best, his use of executive orders has not been unusual. Obama issued an average of 35 per year, President Ronald Reagan 47, and President Jimmy Carter 80. Trump is on track to issue 59 in his first year (he had signed 55 through the end of 2017). But it’s not about numbers; it’s about what the orders do.

Most journalists covering the White House have the same routine: Wake up, grab phone, check @realDonaldTrump to see what’s on POTUS’s mind.

Trump’s early-morning tweets can set the day’s agenda. At times, they merely let people know what he was watching that morning--often Fox News. They can be witty or pungent, controversial or straightforward. Some contain falsehoods.

Sometimes Trump’s tweets push the bounds of good taste, as when he called North Korean President Kim Jong-un “short and fat.” But over the course of a day, Trump’s Twitter feed is rarely dull. And it is arguably the most revolutionary aspect of his presidency. With this simple tool, Trump has changed the tone of an office that is usually dignified, often a force for national unity, and turned it on its head. Internationally, Trump tweets have stoked diplomatic riffs. In the US, political polarization has deepened.

But Twitter is Trump’s way of communicating directly with his base, and his supporters appreciate that.

“I follow him because I want to see what he’s saying myself and not have someone interpret it for me,” says Annie Anthony, a 50-something Trump voter who runs a volunteer center in Wilmington, N.C.

But she calls Trump’s language “unprofessional”--a common complaint, even among Trump supporters. “He uses words like ‘sad’ and ‘bad.’ That’s first-grade language,” says Ms. Anthony, speaking at a recent focus group organized by pollster Peter Hart. “We’re an intelligent population who elected you. Represent us!”

Trump’s Twitter feed, in fact, isn’t just about the president and his phone. It’s an entire enterprise, with input from social media director Dan Scavino and other advisers.

A Trump White House insider identifies three types of Trump tweets. “There’s one kind where he’s sitting there at 5 in the morning in his pajamas, tweeting,” he says. “These are the kinds of things that make his staff scream into pillows.”

The next kind of tweet involves Trump saying, “Hey, Dan, get in here,” referring to Mr. Scavino. Trump says what he wants tweeted, then Scavino composes the words and puts it out. “I’ve been in the Oval Office and seen this,” says the source.

Then there’s the third kind of tweet that never crosses Trump’s desk. Most are anodyne, and come from senior aides.

Presidential historians are struck, perhaps above all else, by how Trump’s use of Twitter has shaped his presidency. “Imagine if Franklin Roosevelt or John F. Kennedy had had a hot mic in the Oval Office, and that every time they had a thought, it would go out over the airwaves,” says Ms. Perry of the University of Virginia.

She notes that Roosevelt did just 30 radio “fireside chats” over 12 years, and President Kennedy held an average of two TV news conferences a month.

“They had a sense that they didn’t want to be overexposed,” says Perry. “Now, it’s fascinating there’s someone in the Oval who doesn’t worry about overexposure.”

Presidential scholar Matthew Dickinson says that beneath all the “surface churning,” it’s too soon to say if the Trump presidency has brought more fundamental shifts in the relative power of the president vis-à-vis Congress and the courts.

“But I do see a president who has transformed our expectations on a daily basis about what a president can do in social media, in public relations,” says Mr. Dickinson, a political science professor at Middlebury College in Vermont.

On the regulatory front, Trump’s first year has been momentous--and highly controversial. In January, one of his first executive orders required that two regulations be eliminated for every new one. By December, Trump claimed a ratio of 22 to 1, including two eliminated through congressional action that reportedly saved the government more than $480 million.

The Treasury Department has targeted some 90 banking and financial regulations. The Department of Education has rescinded Obama-era rules on sexual assault on campus and regulations on for-profit colleges. “Net neutrality”--the principle of equal access to internet content--is gone.

“Like it or not, [deregulation] seems to be one area where he’s doing what he said he would do,” says Susan Dudley, director of the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center.

Many business leaders believe Trump’s deregulation effort has fueled the booming stock market. True or not, it has at least forced a rebalancing of power in Washington. “The bureaucracy, scarcely mentioned in the Constitution, is a huge branch of government now,” says Dickinson. “It’s not the sexiest topic, but increasingly it’s where the action is. It’s where all these competing powers are vying for influence.”

Trump’s attention to the “administrative state” is a welcome development, at least from a constitutional standpoint, says Turley. “I don’t happen to agree with his priorities,” says Turley. “But there was a need to rebalance power, particularly between Congress and the agencies. We’re seeing a real effort now in Congress to find ways of reinforcing congressional oversight.”

Soon after taking office, top aides to Trump and the congressional leadership met to deploy a little-used law called the Congressional Review Act to eliminate Obama’s final regulatory actions. In all, 14 regulations were overturned in short order.

It was a quiet but significant effort--and a reminder that Congress, as a co-equal branch of government, has more power than it often chooses to use. And it enabled Trump to add to his tally of promises kept.

Prototypes for Trump’s promised wall on the US-Mexican border went up in October. His “travel ban” is in effect. He recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, bucking decades of US policy and sparking an uproar. He took action against “sanctuary cities,” though a federal judge blocked the order. He passed the first major tax reform in 30 years.

Though Trump failed to repeal Obamacare, he used tax reform to kill off a key component--the individual mandate to buy health insurance. A record number of appeals court judges were confirmed in Trump’s first year, as was conservative Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch.

“Probably more than any president in my lifetime, he’s kept his promises,” says Turley.

This, despite the dark shadow hanging over the Trump presidency from the start--the Russia investigation, led by special counsel Robert Mueller since May. Inside the White House, there’s no doubt the probe has been a distraction, especially after the indictments and plea deals of former Trump advisers. But checking off agenda items has been a salve.

Through it all, Trump has held onto his core supporters--albeit with historically low job approval for a first-year president, at 39 percent on average through the end of 2017, according to Gallup.

“On the homefront, there’s been a lot of bluster, though I think he’s learning that the government domestically doesn’t run like a reality show or a business,” says Mr. Healy of the Cato Institute. But overseas, he adds, “the executive branch seems as unrestrained as ever.”

Trump’s ability to act unilaterally abroad has sparked particular concern over nuclear-armed North Korea. In November, fears over whether Trump can be trusted with US nuclear weapons--whose use he can authorize on his own--spurred the first hearings in Congress in 41 years to examine who should control the arsenal.

No further action has been taken, though on another matter--Trump’s ability to remove economic sanctions against Russia--Congress did vote to constrain the president. The larger questions over how Trump handles the powers of the presidency, both formal and informal, hang in the balance. The Trump Show, Year 2, has just begun.

#Donald Trump #Trump presidency #Trump administration

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itsfinancethings · 5 years

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October 24, 2019 at 07:00AM

Miriam Callahan remembers the patient who clarified her decision to become a political activist. He was homeless, suffered from severe arthritis in his hip and was self-medicating with fistfuls of Advil. That gave him a bleeding gastric ulcer that landed him in the emergency room at a public hospital. Callahan, who is a medical student at Columbia University, and her colleagues patched him up and sent him back to the shelter, where he began self–medicating once again. He was stuck in a horrific cycle. Arthritis isn’t a disease that should kill people, Callahan says, but in this case, it was becoming a real possibility. “It’s immoral,” she says, “the way that we treat people in this country.”

In the months since seeing that patient, Callahan has channeled her frustration into political organizing—and she’s hardly alone among her fellow medical professionals. With roughly 27.5 million Americans uninsured and nearly 80 million struggling with medical bills, doctors, nurses, medical students and other patient-facing professionals are finding themselves on the front lines of a broken system. Like Callahan, many are looking for ways to fix it. The result is that the medical field, which was once one of the most conservative professions, is becoming an unlikely hotbed of progressive political activity. One of these advocates’ top goals? Single-payer health care, now known most often by its politically charged nickname: Medicare for All.

“I don’t think I can just be a patient advocate at the bedside,” says Deb Quinto, a 38-year-old nurse in California who has canvassed in support of Medicare for All. “It’s our job to protect our community and to protect any threat to their health.”

Single-payer health care was once considered a fringe idea in the U.S. But so were the ideas that led to Medicare and Medicaid, through which the government pays for qualifying citizens’ medically necessary services. And over the course of the past few years, proposals for a universal single-payer plan have entered the mainstream political lexicon, at least that of one major party. Large majorities of Democratic voters now say they support some version of Medicare for All, and Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, two of the three top-polling Democratic presidential candidates, have made the policy central to their campaigns. There are two Medicare for All bills currently pending before Congress. Medical professionals are central to this growth in popularity. From 2008 to 2017, the share of physicians who favor single-payer health care increased from 42% to 56%, according to Merritt-Hawkins, a physician-recruitment firm.

While Medicare for All remains deeply controversial among many Americans—and a nonstarter among most Republicans—physician-activists insist the tide is beginning to turn. “There’s been a sea change in the way we talk about health care reform,” says Dr. Adam Gaffney, an instructor at Harvard Medical School and president of Physicians for a National Health Program, which supports single-payer health care. He notes that as a growing number of doctors advocate for Medicare for All, the policy stands a better chance than it has in a generation. “Whatever reform we achieve,” he says, “we need them—us—to be a part of it and make it work.”

For most of the 20th century, physicians were a staunchly Republican group. Overwhelmingly white and male well into the 1990s, many ran their own practices and operated as small-business owners. Their leading trade group, the American Medical Association, reflected their members’ politics: it helped sink attempts by Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman to pass universal health care, hiring a public relations firm and employing doctors themselves to warn patients against national insurance. As Medicare gained steam in the 1960s, the group produced a record featuring Ronald Reagan, then an actor, to raise the specter of creeping socialism as part of its pitched, if losing, battle against the safety net for older Americans.

But in the past generation, both health care and the job of being a doctor have fundamentally changed. As the insurance industry expanded, physicians have moved from running their own private practices to being employees of hospitals and health systems. Instead of building their own patient bases, doctors nowadays often receive fixed salaries. “What that allowed physicians to do is basically look at the system in a more altruistic way,” says Travis Singleton, executive vice president of Merritt-Hawkins. “It doesn’t mean the independent physician 15 years ago didn’t care about every patient who walked in the door. They simply knew that if they didn’t control their payer mix, then they couldn’t keep the doors open.”

Meanwhile, other macroeconomic shifts have affected where doctors live, how they work and who chooses to join the profession in the first place. Beginning in earnest in the 1990s, hospitals and medical groups began consolidating, pushing once rural and suburban doctors into big cities. And as medical schools became more expensive, aspiring doctors began taking on ever larger debt loads. In 2018, medical-school graduates carried a median $200,000 in student debt, a burden heavy enough to reshape expectations. “If you want to make a lot of money, maybe go into finance or business consulting,” says Courtney Harris, a Chicago medical student, who will have $300,000 in student loans when she graduates.

As the economics of medicine have shifted, so have the underlying demographics of the profession. In the past two decades, more women and people of color have entered the profession. Medical schools, meanwhile, have expanded their curricula to include information about gun violence, climate change and how social determinants, like class and race, affect people’s health. “These are not just our patients, but our parents, our cousins, our uncles, our grandparents,” says Yoseph Aldras, a medical student whose parents are Honduran and Palestinian.

Medical schools have embraced these ideas so thoroughly that when a former associate dean at University of Pennsylvania’s medical school complained about politicized medical education in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, he was met with swift backlash from the school’s faculty, students and more than 150 alumni. Other schools have gone further, such as at Oregon Health and Science University, where students themselves now teach a required course on structural factors in health like institutional racism or immigration.

Singleton, whose firm conducts a biennial survey of doctors’ opinions, says that while there are myriad reasons for an uptick in political involvement, one of the most compelling is simple: doctors see the dysfunction of the health care system on a daily basis. As health care costs ballooned and the private insurance industry expanded, the job of being a doctor changed. Instead of just treating patients, doctors today must battle with insurance requirements, manage arcane reimbursement systems and juggle enormous administrative costs, Singleton’s firm found. Much of this is a direct consequence of physicians’ early opposition to health care reform, explains Beatrix Hoffman, a history professor at Northern Illinois University. By pushing back against government involvement, she says physicians created the system that is now dominated by private insurance. “We’ve heard so many horror stories from doctors who have come before us about spending hours on the phone negotiating with insurance companies,” says Scott Swartz, a 28-year-old medical student in San Francisco. “That’s not how we want to spend our time.”

All of these factors have combined to shift doctors’ politics to the left. In 1994, 67% of political campaign contributions by doctors went to Republicans, according to research by Adam Bonica, Howard Rosenthal and David Rothman. By 2004, donations to Republicans dropped below 50%. And by 2018, the ratio had more than flipped: Democrats captured more than 80% of physician donations last year. “There is an absolutely notable shift over 25 years away from Republicans,” says Rothman, a professor of social medicine at Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. “And it’s persisting.”

A decade ago, many physicians’ groups supported the Obama Administration’s effort to pass the Affordable Care Act, which aimed to extend access to health insurance to nearly all Americans. While the law failed to keep insurance costs low for many Americans, Republicans also failed to present a workable alternative to American voters. Though Republican lawmakers maintained control of the House and Senate in 2017, their attempts to repeal or replace the flawed Obamacare failed, leaving millions of Americans to continue to struggle with sky-high health care costs. This fruitless political maneuvering galvanized many in the physician-activist community. It was clear that Obamacare, which was designed to safeguard access to quality insurance, wasn’t doing enough, they argued. Why not push for a system that skips insurance entirely and instead offers access directly to quality care? “There’s a growing recognition among physicians that the current system, even with the ACA, costs too much, leaves too many people behind,” says Bob Doherty, senior vice president of governmental affairs and public policy at the American College of Physicians (ACP).

Enter: renewed interest in single-payer plans. In 2016, the American Academy of Family Physicians, which has supported the idea of “health care for all” since 1989, launched a study of various payment models, hoping to inform discussions of how to reform the health care system. The American College of Physicians, which supports a government-funded option for health insurance, is developing its own recommendations too.

The AMA, which has maintained its opposition to Medicare for All, began softening its rhetoric. “The AMA has and always will welcome debate at our House of Delegates on moving forward on health care reform,” says AMA president Dr. Patrice Harris. This attitude reflects a broader cultural consensus, according to Hoffman, the NIU historian. “It’s become more unacceptable than in the past to so blatantly oppose the expansion of health coverage,” she says. Bonica, who led the research on physician partisanship, says that incremental shift makes a difference. “There’s potential for physicians to organize among themselves,” he says. “Conditions are very ripe for that.”

At the AMA’s annual meeting in June, members voted on a proposal to remove the organization’s opposition to single-payer health care. It lost, but narrowly—just 47% to 53%. Outside the meeting, a group including doctors, nurses and medical students held a rally and shared stories about why they wanted to fight for universal health care. Two months later, advocates for a government-backed health care option scored another victory when the AMA pulled out of Partnership for America’s Health Care Future, the industry coalition aimed at stopping single-payer and public-option plans.

Meanwhile, more doctors are joining activist organizations. Physicians for a National Health Program, an advocacy group of doctors that has been pushing for single-payer since the 1980s, now has 23,000 members across the country and has added 14 new chapters since 2017. PNHP’s student arm, Students for a National Health Program (SNaHP), has grown rapidly as well, says Dr. Richard Bruno, who helped found SNaHP in 2011. It has nearly doubled its membership in the past three years and now has 85 chapters at campuses across the country. Peter Lorenz, a second-year student at Rosalind Franklin University’s Chicago Medical School who helped start a SNaHP chapter this fall, says the base is energized. The old guard “know things are changing,” he says. He’s now working with his school’s student chapter of the AMA, which wants to get Illinois’s state physician group to drop its opposition to single-payer health care.

It’s not just aspiring physicians joining the fight. At Columbia, the SNaHP chapter includes students studying dentistry, physical therapy and nursing. Nurses are also out in force, says Bonnie Castillo, the executive director of National Nurses United, whose members have long advocated for single-payer health care. Beginning in February, NNU knocked on 20,000 doors and held nearly 2,000 events talking to voters about Medicare for All. During the congressional recess in August, 1,200 activists organized in 49 House districts. “We’re thrilled that we have this surge of youth and of activism,” she says.

But the path forward is uphill. Part of the struggle, PNHP’s Gaffney says, is educating people about what health care reform actually means. Aside from repealing the ACA, Republicans have not offered a coherent plan for the future of health care, but most of the Democratic presidential candidates are vague on details of how their health care proposals would work too. Whether the public supports Medicare for All depends on how pollsters describe the policy. Some universal health care proposals would eliminate all private insurance while others would offer voters the option of choosing to access government health care. In the meantime, medical students, doctors and nurses are still debating what exactly the nuts and bolts of an ideal policy would be.

Callahan, the medical student at Columbia, sees education as central to the fight. This semester, she is creating a workshop to help her fellow medical students translate their frustrations into political action. To her, advocating for Medicare for All is, at its heart, a moral fight. Doctors and nurses are consistently ranked among the most trusted professions in the U.S.—and that, she says, comes with an obligation to reform a system that too often leaves families in bankruptcy or forces patients to forgo care that they need but can’t afford. “The idea that things have to be done a certain way because that’s the way they’ve always been done—in the Trump era, that doesn’t hold a lot of water,” says Callahan. “If we gain enough power we can actually make that change and bring about the world we want.”

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