As individuals, pretty much the only arrow in the quiver is social sanction on your friends/family that have dove into the fever swamp. I know it's a hard lift for many, but when your parents are no longer allowed to visit their grandchildren, they may start questioning the impact of their crazy-ass beliefs. Maybe not, but what other option exists?
I try to use the word "insurrectionist" where I can, but it seems inadequate here now that I read it. Maybe I just have to get over my distaste for "fascist".
That is, for using the word "fascist". Just so Moby doesn't get ideas.
The quotes in the original made it clear.
Fascist is more to the point, but it's also one of those words (like communist or patriot) that has been stretched to near meaninglessness now, so [shrug].
The petty lords want their serfs cut off though. Social circle is about the only way to get real information into their disinfo bubble. As unpleasant as it is, moving them step by step toward reality is the only way to deprogram, and your racist uncle doesn't have a lot of liberals he will listen to. And economic stagnation reduces the power of the bourgeois, which is the main counterbalance to the petty lords.
Blocking fox news channel on their tv is useful too though
So in a fantasy legislative world, there's no well-written policy available that could muzzle Fox News and the teat of troll farms planting crazy ideas on social media?
1: my worry is that in some circles, I'm the only voice countering the bullshit. No one else is telling my dad that infowars is wrong. So me disengaging just means he bullies my mom over getting vaccinated and then she winds up believing that she's changed her DNA.
10: We need a liberal ALEC with ready made legislation for state legislatures.
10: Reinstating the Fairness Doctrine would help. Same for maintaining sanctions on Russia. We know they were (are?) funding those groups a lot. Those might not be legislative policies, but they're governmental policies. Governmental policies aside, I hesitate to resurrect the last Democratic primary, but offering a coherent, strong leftist alternative would be both good for its own sake and might be more persuasive than centrism for its own sake. Agreed with 12 too.
I think we should give Democratic members of Congress equal time to explain why their husband had no choice but to show his penis to the bartender in a bowling alley.
There was a surprisingly decent impact from insurrectionism being explicitly banned from Twitter, YouTube, etc., no? I can't see a way to make it now, but maybe eventually there'll be some kind of private organization with broad membership dedicated to determining what kinds of speech are legal but abominable, not to be spread directly or indirectly, or financially contributed to. Then companies, associations, etc. could just sign on to voluntarily abide by their determinations. Obviously so, so many wrong paths this could go down.
13(a) -- So we can finally get 'both sides' of the Holocaust into the public discourse? The worst of the brainwashing is on cable or on the internet anyway, so resurrecting the FD isn't going to do much. Anyway, I don't think the problem is even a little bit about access to information -- in enough places to make all the difference, Fox News geezers could listen to Democracy Now instead, but they don't, because they don't find it entertaining and affirming.
16: Yeah, it's really more a problem of demand than supply. Which makes it really hard to fix.
15: I really think it matters that Trump isn't on Twitter, though I don't suppose I could back that up with evidence.
I was once something of a free speech absolutist and an internet triumphalist. I have learned better.
I'm the only voice countering the bullshit
But has it changed his mind? I've not found engaging to be productive at all.
I mean its not a quick fix, but its better than anything else. Slow boring and all that.
Like my dentist with a drill powered with a dog running on a wheel.
I can't get over the fact that Marketing Genius Matthew Yglesias literally named his newsletter that.
"Hm, I'm a former Boy Wonder with a reputation for impulsive contrarian hot takes and writing really fast with numerous typos. I need a name that suggests none of that and also sounds really dull in general."
I mean, I get where he's coming from with it, and it seems to be working out fine for him. But geez.
22-23: Branding is all about being memorable. Pets.com (and most of the other internet names like it) failed for that reason.
Yglesias' brand is impulsive contrarian hot takes, but also wonk-wit and irony. The name suits his brand. And yeah, I'm sure I smiled the first time I saw it -- that shit is right up my alley.
I still assume "substack" is a sex thing.
19: I've got a nephew whom I've reduced to Facebook-friend-on-unfollow, and he had a minor role in spreading this ugly bit of business. I linked this on Facebook primarily to point out that the spreaders of this nonsense are horrible people. But I didn't direct anything at him.
I don't suppose he'll absorb the point at all, but it makes me feel a little better.
Re: Yglesias, I'll add that his brand has evolved into "practical-minded liberalism," and the name works from that angle, too.
25, 29: Yeah, like I said, I do get it and it does seem to be working. The irony of it (which I'm sure is largely intentional) is just so striking though.
16: So we can finally get 'both sides' of the Holocaust into the public discourse? The worst of the brainwashing is on cable or on the internet anyway, so resurrecting the FD isn't going to do much.
Obviously it couldn't be a perfectly resurrected FD, but I can't see any way to ramp down the delusions that doesn't rein in cable or the internet.
Anyway, I don't think the problem is even a little bit about access to information -- in enough places to make all the difference, Fox News geezers could listen to Democracy Now instead, but they don't, because they don't find it entertaining and affirming.
I strongly disagree. Yes, Fox News viewers have an appetite to be poisoned, but we've got to turn off the spigot.
The Poison Spigot would be a good name for Roger Ailes's penis.
"Why do all these old people keep sucking my poison spigot?"
Probably also to indicate that the newsletter is something different than the 'worth what you paid for them' shitposting tweets
we've got to turn off the spigot
I don't disagree with you about the ineffectiveness of most everything else absent this step. I really think this step is simply off the table, though.
Heebie: "a principle of acceleration"
This is spot-on. In Gellately's _Backing Hitler_ he writes about how Hitler tried a nationwide boycott of Jewish-owned businesses soon after taking power. It failed, b/c the German population, while latently anti-semitic, wasn't ready for that sort of overt anti-semitism. It failed. But five years later, on Kristallnacht, they were ready. What happened in-between, was the execution of a systematic plan of radicalization and education in hatred. We're seeing it today, and this time it's the GrOPers, not the National Socialists. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
So: precisely as you wrote: they're educating their base in hatred, educating them in the work to come, for the day when their Radio Milles Collines (aka Fox, etc) broadcast the call to take up the machetes.
You ask about blocking Fox. From what I understand, Germany has explicit laws that forbid the sort of incitement to destruction of the Republic, that Fox trafficks in. From a German point of view, we in the US are laughably naive about the power of media to destroy democracy. And of course, other democracies have other safeguards. I remember Jacinda Ardern sort of laughing at the US' naivete, pointing out that they didn't let noxious weeds like Fox take root in NZ. Though I don't remember what specifically she was referring to, in terms of countermeasures.
FWIW Rwanda also has extremely rigorous No-Genocide-Denial laws, but there they've mostly resulted in anyone who objects to literally anything Paul Kagame does (or has ever done) being kidnapped, show-trialled & imprisoned, and/or disappeared
13.first - You're making a mordant joke, but politicians in Ohio have outpaced you:
"You should talk about these atrocities that have happened in history, but you also do have an obligation to point out the value that each individual brings to the table," [State Representative] Fowler Arthur said.... "Maybe you're listening to it from the perspective of a Jewish person that has gone through the tragedies that took place," [she] continued. "And maybe you listen to it from the perspective of a German soldier."
"Fowler"? Since when did Dickens get to name Ohio politicians?
And that was to 16.first. Like Ohio politicians, I am covering myself with glory this week.
The Ohio Republican Party presents a serious inquiry into whether it is better to be a participant in or a target of mass murder. All persons considering mass murder are encouraged to attend this informative seminar.
Re: Yglesias
"We were somewhere around 10th St on the edge of Capitol Hill when the drugs began to take hold."
