You cannot teach about an abomination in polite terms

In 2016 I started quoting and linking to tweets in my posts. I just did a search and it looks like I’ve done that about 2000 times. Since then there have been a few Twitter accounts I’ve perused regularly. For a while it was Sarah Kendzior (until it got too depressing). For a couple years it has been Leah McElrath, a friend of Kendzior, and most recently I added Michael Harriot. All that was through the Twitter policy that anyone can look but only members can participate in discussions. Alas, that policy appears to be changing. Starting a few months ago when I put up a tweet I got an overlay demanding I sign up or log in. I found I could put the tweet in a fresh browser tab and click outside the overlay and read the tweet or account. I was surprised and pleased that overlay stopped appearing when I switched browsers earlier this month. Starting a couple days ago and much more insistently last night the overlay is back. And I can’t just click beside it for it to go away. I would open McElrath’s account and get about five tweets in and the overlay would lock it down. If a tweet or thread is linked elsewhere I can still see the tweet. But I can no longer browse an account. I’m facing whether I want to join Twitter or say goodbye to voices I appreciate. I did a bit of checking. Twitter is not a subsidiary of tech behemoths Google or Facebook. It is its own company. But it still makes its money through advertising, which means even if I use an ad blocker (I never saw ads when I looked at tweets) Twitter is collecting data on me – at least on which accounts I look at. I’ll still include tweets (see below) but I haven’t decided if my desire to keep following McElrath is stronger than my distaste of joining Twitter. This morning Scott Simon of NPR discussed the Ukraine/Russia situation with senior editor Ron Elving. Elving summarized the situation well:

Ukraine itself is no threat to Russia in the usual military sense, but to Putin, Ukraine poses a real threat nonetheless because if Ukraine can break away from the sphere of Russian influence, if Ukraine can have a free democracy and a growing economy with less corruption than it had in the Soviet era or the more recent past, that is a fundamental threat to Putin's regime and Putin's way of doing business. So he's not afraid of Ukraine's weapons or soldiers. He fears what the success of an independent and democratic Ukraine may mean to other countries that were once under the Soviet umbrella or behind the Iron Curtain, as we used to say, Scott, including, ultimately, Russia itself.

Jared Keller tweeted, “War is a racket.” Then he quoted Nick Cleveland-Stout, who studies national security and foreign influence, who tweeted:

Raytheon CEO openly celebrating a drone attack in the UAE + rising tensions in Eastern Europe and the South China Sea

The reason for the celebration: Those rising tensions mean opportunities for sales. Joan McCarter of Daily Kos urged Biden to ignore what Republicans say about whoever he nominates for the Supreme Court. Sure, allow the nominee to meet Republican senators. But ignore what they say. As an example, Moscow Mitch said:

The American people elected a Senate that is evenly split at 50-50. To the degree that President Biden received a mandate, it was to govern from the middle, steward our institutions and unite America. The president must not outsource this important decision to the radical left. The American people deserve a nominee with demonstrated reverence for the written text of our laws and our Constitution.

I’ll translate for you, now that I’ve shut off the irony alarm. “Govern from the middle” ... Don’t follow the Republican example wielding the filibuster to make sure half – the majority – of the Senate can’t get anything done. Yeah, I know Supreme nominees can’t be filibustered. “must not outsource this important decision to the radical left” ... while Republicans are free to outsource the decision to the radical right Federalist Society. “demonstrated reverence for the written text of our laws and our Constitution” ... like the originalists on the right who say if the Founding Fathers didn’t put a right in the Constitution we won’t approve it. Mark Sumner of Kos collected a few more radical right voices freaking out over the idea of a black woman being nominated to the court. I’ll let you read the nonsense for yourself. Laura Clawson of Kos wrote a bit more about the McMinn County School Board and their banning the book Maus. The board had complained about the book’s “unnecessary use of profanity and nudity and its depiction of violence and suicide.” That prompted Clawson to quote Sumner:

You cannot teach about an abomination in polite terms. Monstrous acts deprived of monstrous language will always, always fail to relay the depravity of these events. It has to be upsetting. Has to be unsavory. Has to be ghastly. Or it’s a lie.

Clawson also wrote about the school library in Granbury, Texas pulling books off the shelves and carting them away. These are some of the books that state Rep. Matt Krause listed as suspect, though there is no actual law demanding removal. These are some – the books with an LGBTQ theme. Those with a racial theme are staying on the shelves. For now. Kerry Eleveld of Kos reported on the results of a Daily Kos/Civiqs poll. The results show 93% of voters and 88% of Republican voters believe books about people of color should be in local classrooms and libraries. The response for LGBTQ characters is still good, though barely – 48% approve, and 34% disapprove of libraries and classrooms including these books. By party, 79% of Democrats support inclusion, 50% of independents, and 11% of Republicans do. This means banning books is not a winning issue with voters and Democrats need to emphasize that. McElrath, in a tweet in my browser tabs and a few days old, quoted Matthew Chapman of Raw Story commenting on the Virginia tipline to report teachers teaching “controversial” topics.

I don't think Republicans get the damage they're doing. Teachers in will resign in droves over fear of this witch hunt. We may struggle to staff public schools for years, and deal with worse student outcomes and high turnover, because no one wants to work in these conditions.

McElrath added:

Destroying the public education system has been a GOP goal since school were racially integrated. They know exactly the damage they’re doing. It’s intentional.

Clawson reported the voter suppression laws passed in Georgia are working as planned. She looked at the analysis that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution did of November’s municipal elections. The number of absentee ballots that were rejected quadrupled over the previous year. Mother Jones added if it was rejected the person is 45 times more likely to not vote at all. If the law had been in effect in 2020 the number who would have not voted was about three times greater than Biden’s margin of victory. Also consider that only dedicated voters show up for municipal elections. The new law would have greater effect in years where Congress or the President is on the ballot. This is a reason why the voting rights law is essential. Well, look at that. Walter Einenkel of Kos reported Ken Langone, co-owner of Home Depot and now a billionaire, decided that Sen. Joe Manchin and been such a good obstructionist that Langone and his wife broke their rule of donating only to Republicans. Since one must oppress workers to accumulate billions and since Langone has donated to seditionist members of Congress I’ve decided to do my home improvement shopping at Menard’s or Lowe’s. Samuel Perry, a sociologist who studies religion and power, tweeted:

How dog whistles work: I say "x is an A," knowing my target audience also thinks As are Bs, thus hearing "x is a B." I say "Dave is a socialist," knowing my white Xtian audience also thinks socialists are CRT-loving atheists, thus hearing "Dave is a racial & religious threat." Here you see the keys for good dog whistle are culturally specific knowledge about listeners & plausible deniability. You're talkin economics (socialists) but they hear racial & religious threat. Score. Like Lee Atwater: Can't say N-word, so you say states rights & forced busing.

Witgren of the Kos community started a series on logical fallacies. This one about the strawman. That’s when one side misrepresents the other side, usually by distorting the other’s position. Then they attack the distortion rather than the real position. For example, if the original is, “The COVID vaccine is not 100% effective,” the strawman is “Vaccines don’t work!” Obviously, these statements are not at all similar. Witgren intends this to be an ongoing series. Several commenters suggested what logical fallacy to tackle next. Though one said Spock has already been there. CHDanhauser has created a series of 38 videos explaining fallacies in logical thinking. Each is about 2-4 minutes long. These are all animations in which Spock of Star Trek fame overhears a discussion by other Enterprise crew members and steps in to correct their thinking. He concludes each time “It’s only logical.” I watched three of them. They’re decent, good enough to get the point across. CHDanhauser doesn’t say whether he got permission from whoever owns the Star Trek franchise.