Entries by tag: isms
When I first moved to Oregon I didn't make the trip down to the Wild & Scenic Rogue for quite a few years. I was busy with school, and then trying to start a practice. I was also quite pleased with how close Idaho is--for the whitewater paddler, there are few summer destinations more pleasing than Idaho. One time I applied for a Rogue permit in the lottery and got it, then gave it up because other things got in the way. Then, finally, I got on a summer trip down there and enjoyed it. On that trip I was rowing a "Clampitt" raft (stuff hanging off it all over) and following Pat's lines. This time I thought a lot about Nelbert, who died last week.
( Read more...Collapse )I've been interested in human xenophobia (which I think is instinctive) and race and class warfare since I become politically aware some time in my 20's. The more I study the less I know, other than that people naturally cling to those who are like them and mistrust those who are different. Other than that humans are more emotional than rational.
Human xenophobia is functional in an evolutionary sense: members of a tribe are far more likely to have survived in the past, hence we are biologically wired to be tribal in this way. Without even knowing we do it, we will dehumanize those who we do not like or trust, those who look and sound too different. Once we have placed someone in a "not like me" category, it becomes OK to treat them badly, even kill them. This instinct is difficult to manage in modern society. Our founding documents speak of "domestic tranquility" but we have precious little of that in these interesting times.
The Wolverine Watchmen is a newer group that became active in response to efforts to flatten the pandemic curve in Michigan, and in response to the president's exhortations to "liberate Michigan" from the Covid-19 sparked lockdown. Trump has repeatedly attacked Michigan's Governor in speech and writing, making the target quite clear.
The Wolverine Watchmen of Michigan intended to kidnap the Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and to put her "on trial" for treason. How they think that their version of a trial will be more just than that agreed upon by broader society speaks to their ignorance and isolation. They want to form "a society that followed the U.S. Bill of Rights and where they could be self-sufficient". I can understand that, though their methods leave a great deal to be desired.
The WW website has been deleted. Their social media activity revealed particular concern about taxes, gun control and the "Deep State". Michigan is also home to the Boogaloo Bois who, like other Boogaloo groups are focussed on fomenting civil war.
Thirteen people were arrested by the feds for two separate plots on the Governor. The arrests include 7 members of the WW. They wanted to use bombs to blow up police vehicles and storm the Capitol with 200 men. The militia leader and others were charged with "threat of terrorism, gang membership, providing material support for terrorist ats, and possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony". I presume that the feds waited until they had ample evidence to bust the militia because the last federal case again a militia in Michigan ended poorly for the feds in 2012 when all seven defendants were cleared.
One young member of the arrested WW group talked about sending a bomb to the governor, saying "I just wanna make the world glow, dude," "we're just gonna conquer" everything and it will all "have to be annihilated". Comments like this do not suggest that this young man in particular has any ability to think critically or to comprehend what the law or the rest of society might have to say about his ideas.
An expert named Amy Cooter (Vanderbilt U) estimates that there are 24-36 similar militia groups in Michigan with the potential for violence. Michigan's militias are the envy of armed groups nationwide. Most of them are law abiding and predominantly interested in protecting what they believe are constitutional rights. They may not start out racist but they could easily end up that way in an environment of racial tension and with the influence of social media, which has increased collaboration between white supremacy and conspiracy groups. Talk of inciting a civil war is becoming more common especially by the militarized portion of Trump's base.
Meanwhile the president has been stoking fear about the next election. I suspect that when he loses he'll do his best to invalidate the election. He'll use these thugs to tie up law enforcement efforts, and sue to stop a vote count in some battleground state. From there he expects that a conservative-stacked supreme court will make him POTUS for a second term, from which platform he'll be trying to keep the office for life.
This story is just the beginning of the intended violence, and it is not the anti-fa that is plotting it.
Interesting times, indeed.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-we-know-about-wolverine-watchmen-accused-of-terror-kidnap-plot-against-michigan-gov-gretchen-whitmer
Betsy Ross Flag (flying at ringleader's house) significance: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/betsy-ross-flag-nike-colin-kaepernick-patriot-movement-ku-klux-klan-854612/
https://www.refinery29.com/en-ca/2020/10/10085589/wolverine-watchmen-michigan-militia-history-boogaloo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boogaloo_movement
Human xenophobia is functional in an evolutionary sense: members of a tribe are far more likely to have survived in the past, hence we are biologically wired to be tribal in this way. Without even knowing we do it, we will dehumanize those who we do not like or trust, those who look and sound too different. Once we have placed someone in a "not like me" category, it becomes OK to treat them badly, even kill them. This instinct is difficult to manage in modern society. Our founding documents speak of "domestic tranquility" but we have precious little of that in these interesting times.
The Wolverine Watchmen is a newer group that became active in response to efforts to flatten the pandemic curve in Michigan, and in response to the president's exhortations to "liberate Michigan" from the Covid-19 sparked lockdown. Trump has repeatedly attacked Michigan's Governor in speech and writing, making the target quite clear.
The Wolverine Watchmen of Michigan intended to kidnap the Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and to put her "on trial" for treason. How they think that their version of a trial will be more just than that agreed upon by broader society speaks to their ignorance and isolation. They want to form "a society that followed the U.S. Bill of Rights and where they could be self-sufficient". I can understand that, though their methods leave a great deal to be desired.
The WW website has been deleted. Their social media activity revealed particular concern about taxes, gun control and the "Deep State". Michigan is also home to the Boogaloo Bois who, like other Boogaloo groups are focussed on fomenting civil war.
Thirteen people were arrested by the feds for two separate plots on the Governor. The arrests include 7 members of the WW. They wanted to use bombs to blow up police vehicles and storm the Capitol with 200 men. The militia leader and others were charged with "threat of terrorism, gang membership, providing material support for terrorist ats, and possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony". I presume that the feds waited until they had ample evidence to bust the militia because the last federal case again a militia in Michigan ended poorly for the feds in 2012 when all seven defendants were cleared.
One young member of the arrested WW group talked about sending a bomb to the governor, saying "I just wanna make the world glow, dude," "we're just gonna conquer" everything and it will all "have to be annihilated". Comments like this do not suggest that this young man in particular has any ability to think critically or to comprehend what the law or the rest of society might have to say about his ideas.
An expert named Amy Cooter (Vanderbilt U) estimates that there are 24-36 similar militia groups in Michigan with the potential for violence. Michigan's militias are the envy of armed groups nationwide. Most of them are law abiding and predominantly interested in protecting what they believe are constitutional rights. They may not start out racist but they could easily end up that way in an environment of racial tension and with the influence of social media, which has increased collaboration between white supremacy and conspiracy groups. Talk of inciting a civil war is becoming more common especially by the militarized portion of Trump's base.
Meanwhile the president has been stoking fear about the next election. I suspect that when he loses he'll do his best to invalidate the election. He'll use these thugs to tie up law enforcement efforts, and sue to stop a vote count in some battleground state. From there he expects that a conservative-stacked supreme court will make him POTUS for a second term, from which platform he'll be trying to keep the office for life.
This story is just the beginning of the intended violence, and it is not the anti-fa that is plotting it.
Interesting times, indeed.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/what-we-know-about-wolverine-watchmen-accused-of-terror-kidnap-plot-against-michigan-gov-gretchen-whitmer
Betsy Ross Flag (flying at ringleader's house) significance: https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/betsy-ross-flag-nike-colin-kaepernick-patriot-movement-ku-klux-klan-854612/
https://www.refinery29.com/en-ca/2020/10/10085589/wolverine-watchmen-michigan-militia-history-boogaloo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boogaloo_movement
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am,
And be ashamed—
I, too, am America.
-Langston Hughes, 1926
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melungeon
I had never heard this word until today.
Melungeon = Member of a triracial (black, white, native) group that supposedly is most prominent around Cumberland Gap, not that far from where I grew up. I saw an article suggesting that Abraham Lincoln was a melungeon.
The melting pot effect: we're all related whether we admit it or not.
I had never heard this word until today.
Melungeon = Member of a triracial (black, white, native) group that supposedly is most prominent around Cumberland Gap, not that far from where I grew up. I saw an article suggesting that Abraham Lincoln was a melungeon.
The melting pot effect: we're all related whether we admit it or not.
Chauvinist = "a person displaying aggressive or exaggerated patriotism", or "an irrational belief in the superiority or dominance of one's own group or people".
Male chauvinist = misogynist.
What's in a name: that guy who kneeled on George Floyd's neck is named Derek Chauvin. You have to wonder about his family history. Did he learn nationalist white supremacist bigotry from a very young age? Quite possibly. How many more adults in the U.S. have been indoctrinated in this way?
In the news today: the Minnesota correctional facility where Chauvin is being held kept all the black staff away from them. Perhaps the facility management was worried that they would kill him? Revenge would be understandable. Anyway the black staff is suing, saying that "protection" was discrimination. The facility's excuse is that it was protecting them from Chauvin. As if a man in handcuffs is a threat. It strikes me that the facility is protecting Chauvin from the indignity of being lorded over by black men. And it occurs to me that that is exactly the punishment he deserves. The next question then becomes what is the bias of the facility's decisionmaker who initiated the segregation of staff?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/us/derek-chauvin-detention-police-officers.html
Male chauvinist = misogynist.
What's in a name: that guy who kneeled on George Floyd's neck is named Derek Chauvin. You have to wonder about his family history. Did he learn nationalist white supremacist bigotry from a very young age? Quite possibly. How many more adults in the U.S. have been indoctrinated in this way?
In the news today: the Minnesota correctional facility where Chauvin is being held kept all the black staff away from them. Perhaps the facility management was worried that they would kill him? Revenge would be understandable. Anyway the black staff is suing, saying that "protection" was discrimination. The facility's excuse is that it was protecting them from Chauvin. As if a man in handcuffs is a threat. It strikes me that the facility is protecting Chauvin from the indignity of being lorded over by black men. And it occurs to me that that is exactly the punishment he deserves. The next question then becomes what is the bias of the facility's decisionmaker who initiated the segregation of staff?
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/21/us/derek-chauvin-detention-police-officers.html
patriotism,
it is unsafe
to be intelligent.
--Isaac Asimov, quoted in TheBulwark.com
--Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt in Coddling of the American Mind; How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure, p113.
I was impressed. He was there to promote his latest book, Our Man, which is about the controversial diplomate Richard Holbrook and the old America that he symbolizes. The new America is something different. Packer understands the changes in our culture better than most and I fully intend to seek out his writing in the future. I have probably read him in the past but the name did not stick in my head.
Our Man is written in an unusual style for a biography. Rather than being overfull of dates and details, it is told in narrative style by a fictional narrator who is older than the author. The narrator was "there" for the whole story, and tells it in a style that the author repeated calls "a yarn". I'm sure it will be a good read, and I will read it as soon as the demand for it at the library goes down a bit.
The book that he wrote in 2013 is called The Unwinding and it is about the cultural shifts that led to the election of Trump--except that at the time nobody knew it would lead there. It is on my reading list. The NY Times says it explains why Trump was elected. For many of us that bears some thought.
When Packer first took the stage he looked up at the audience in the Schnitzer auditorium and he said that Portland is not the biggest city, but it was the biggest crowd. The auditorium is huge and a beauty. It holds 2,500 people, and it was full. After his talk he took out his phone and photographed the crowd from his view on the stage.
Portland, Oregon is an interesting place, full of many highly educated individuals who dearly want to save the world. They share Packer's sadness and fear about the changes that have come to our country and our politics in the last 20 years. The patterns of applause during the Q&A period at the end reveal the overall agreement of this crowd with Packer's assessment of what is happening because of Trump. His answer to the question about Syria (after the Trump-licensed Turkish bombing of the Kurds) made the situation more clear to me than months of reading in the Times.
Packer recommended three books to read (not his own) at the end of the talk. I put them all on my library list but the one that really excites me is more current. It is called Intellectuals and Race, by Thomas Sowell. Amazon says it is an inclusive critique of the intellectual's destructive role in shaping ideas about race in America. Other sources talk about how much ruckus this book has raised. Intellectuals don't like to be criticised but in this day and age, they need to respond to criticism rather than dismissing it.
I would say that the ivory tower has made some missteps in shaping ideas about sexuality and gender, too. I have been subject to some pretty strong progressive brainwashing in this town and witnessed it being misused to shame and alienate. We would do well to pay attention to George Packer and other thoughtful people in the future as we try to find a way out of the stalemate we are in culturally and politically. Our democracy is on its way toward failure and if we care about this experiment enough to continue it, we need to find a way that we can talk across the rather deep divisions.
I didn't mean to have anything to do with the protests in PDX yesterday but by accident I visited the fringe. I worked until 1pm and then I went into SE PDX for an appointment. My appointment was on Morrison, just a block east of the bridge. When I parked at 1:15pm, the first oddity I saw was two large trucks loaded to the gills with PDX cops dressed out in riot gear. The trucks are set up such that the police can stand around the edges of the back and hang on, and when the truck stops they all step off. They had helmets with face guards and a large assortment of weapons. There appeared to be a medic on each truck.
There was a helicopter hovering overhead, and another helicopter roaming. Soon two more truckloads of police came by my parking spot. I got out of my vehicle and walked around. There were drunken white tourists coming out of a bar. They climbed onto one of those big bicycle carts and rowdied off down the street. Then a crowd of black and camo-clad men sauntered by, wearing masks and armor and carrying medieval looking weapons. There was at least one woman with them. They were scary, intentionally so. I think they were anti-fa. They appeared to simply be making their presence known. Two truckloads of riot police unloaded from their trucks and stood on the street corner. Another two truckloads of riot police came through behind the anti-fa after they left. I read this morning that Rump is talking about treating the anti-fa as another terrorist org. I don't think so. Their goal is not violence. Their goal is to be there and intervene in bigoted violence when the cops aren't around. I am grateful, frankly, that there are local citizens willing to step in and stop white supremacists from hurting/killing for their "cause". I'm not about to risk my own neck.
I walked around the area for a while because I was early to my appointment. I saw three very clean black suburbans slowly creeping through the blocks. I presume those were the feds behind bulletproof glass. Large ford trucks were arriving and parking in the area, and from each truck spilled four white men. They were mostly wearing polo shirts and blue jeans, and were mostly young to middle-aged and in good shape. They looked like they were ready for a brawl. Itching for a fight, maybe. I presume those were the so-called Proud Boys in spite of the fact that none were wearing black polos with yellow trim which is their uniform. That group is required to physically fight for their "western chauvinism" cause in order to reach the top level of membership. They are racist and misogynist and I was glad our local anti-fa and the cops were there ready to suppress their efforts to beat up gay and brown people.
I am proud of Portland with its bubble of relative safety for LGBT and brown people. Oregon doesn't have the finest of history in this regard, but at least now there are a lot of people willing to stick their necks out to stop hate.
Below are some of the links I visited on Saturday morning when trying to understand what is going on. I think McInnes and his crew will continue to come here because they get attention, and that is what they want. Attention and a fight. The PDX goal was to stop the fighting. After the protests the word was that they plan to return every month. It will be expensive for the city to continue to provide the kind of police presence that I saw.
I find it interesting that they call themselves boys. Oh yeah? Not men? So desperate to belong that they'll revert to boyhood? And proud of what, exactly? Their white skin? They had nothing to do with that, they were just born with it. Their tatoos? Their toughness? Not very proud of their independence I guess. Not too proud of their critical thinking or compassion. They may be proud but we are not proud of them.
Wiki on Proud Boys
There was a helicopter hovering overhead, and another helicopter roaming. Soon two more truckloads of police came by my parking spot. I got out of my vehicle and walked around. There were drunken white tourists coming out of a bar. They climbed onto one of those big bicycle carts and rowdied off down the street. Then a crowd of black and camo-clad men sauntered by, wearing masks and armor and carrying medieval looking weapons. There was at least one woman with them. They were scary, intentionally so. I think they were anti-fa. They appeared to simply be making their presence known. Two truckloads of riot police unloaded from their trucks and stood on the street corner. Another two truckloads of riot police came through behind the anti-fa after they left. I read this morning that Rump is talking about treating the anti-fa as another terrorist org. I don't think so. Their goal is not violence. Their goal is to be there and intervene in bigoted violence when the cops aren't around. I am grateful, frankly, that there are local citizens willing to step in and stop white supremacists from hurting/killing for their "cause". I'm not about to risk my own neck.
I walked around the area for a while because I was early to my appointment. I saw three very clean black suburbans slowly creeping through the blocks. I presume those were the feds behind bulletproof glass. Large ford trucks were arriving and parking in the area, and from each truck spilled four white men. They were mostly wearing polo shirts and blue jeans, and were mostly young to middle-aged and in good shape. They looked like they were ready for a brawl. Itching for a fight, maybe. I presume those were the so-called Proud Boys in spite of the fact that none were wearing black polos with yellow trim which is their uniform. That group is required to physically fight for their "western chauvinism" cause in order to reach the top level of membership. They are racist and misogynist and I was glad our local anti-fa and the cops were there ready to suppress their efforts to beat up gay and brown people.
I am proud of Portland with its bubble of relative safety for LGBT and brown people. Oregon doesn't have the finest of history in this regard, but at least now there are a lot of people willing to stick their necks out to stop hate.
Below are some of the links I visited on Saturday morning when trying to understand what is going on. I think McInnes and his crew will continue to come here because they get attention, and that is what they want. Attention and a fight. The PDX goal was to stop the fighting. After the protests the word was that they plan to return every month. It will be expensive for the city to continue to provide the kind of police presence that I saw.
I find it interesting that they call themselves boys. Oh yeah? Not men? So desperate to belong that they'll revert to boyhood? And proud of what, exactly? Their white skin? They had nothing to do with that, they were just born with it. Their tatoos? Their toughness? Not very proud of their independence I guess. Not too proud of their critical thinking or compassion. They may be proud but we are not proud of them.
Wiki on Proud Boys
The Proud Boys say they have an initiation process that has four stages and includes hazing. The first stage is a loyalty oath, on the order of "I’m a proud Western chauvinist, I refuse to apologize for creating the modern world"; the second is getting punched until the person recites pop culture trivia, such as the names of five breakfast cereals; the third is getting a tattoo and agreeing to not masturbate; and the fourth is getting into a major fight "for the cause."
CBS
No one has applied for permits for today's protests
FBI will be there
SPLC
Proud boys = "general hate" white supremacist, misogynist, antisemitic
Gavin McInnes
Gavin's website: http://streetcarnage.com/
He's from NY: https://www.huffpost.com/
Several articles: https://www.huffpost.com/
Rollingstone
Israel
https://www.newsweek.com/
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