Across the Echo Chamber, a Quiet Conversation About War and Race
“Am I changed? Is she changed? Was there any point to this?” Ms. Minkin said she asked herself. “I don’t know that her overall opinion has changed, and I don’t know that my overall opinion has changed. But maybe if we’re all softening at the hard edges, that’s enough?”
Her voice made clear it was a question, not a conclusion.
A Secret War, Strange New Wounds and Silence From the Pentagon
But it meant that a small number of troops had to fire tens of thousands of high-explosive shells — far more rounds per crew member, experts say, than any American artillery battery had fired at least since the Vietnam War.
Military guidelines say that firing all those rounds is safe. What happened to the crews suggests that those guidelines were wrong.
The cannon blasts were strong enough to hurl a 100-pound round 15 miles, and each unleashed a shock wave that shot through the crew members’ bodies, vibrating bone, punching lungs and hearts, and whipping at cruise-missile speeds through the most delicate organ of all, the brain.
Strange, isn’t it, how the mysterious can suddenly become obvious.
Trump Leads Biden in Nearly Every Battleground State, New Poll Finds
The results show Mr. Biden losing to Mr. Trump, his likeliest Republican rival, by margins of three to 10 percentage points among registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Mr. Biden is ahead only in Wisconsin, by two percentage points, the poll found.
Being a citizen of this country feels like standing on the rails, watching a train barrel down the track right at you. You want to move, but none of your limbs seem to agree on what to do.
And I’m becoming angry.
It’s hard not to be angriest at the people most like you, which is why the Left seems to be eating itself alive. It hurts to watch people you know to be kind, caring, and compassionate succumb to the hate, the vitriol, the judgment, the division that’s long polluted the Right.
And it’s hard not to take their succumbing as a betrayal. They so easily gave up on all the shit they claimed to believe in, which only fuels my rage. I’ve known for a long time that the Right was only about power, never about morality or religion or “family values.” But the Left, too?
But watching the hatred consume Liberals has been agonizing, though not unrelatable. I get it — I really do. It’s so delicious, so righteous to hate the people that hate you. I’m guilty of this very thing.
But it’s easy. And unoriginal. And only makes a bigger mess of things.
The Resilience of Republican Christianism
The idea that members of the religious right form an “infinitely diverse and contradictory group” and were in no way “hyperpartisan” is now clearly absurd. Christianism, in fact, turned out to be the central pillar of Trump’s success, with white evangelicals giving unprecedented and near-universal support — 84 percent — to a shameless, disgusting pagan, because and only because he swore to smite their enemies.
Andrew Sullivan, once again seeing through the bullshit.
The fusion of Trump and Christianism is an unveiling of a sort — proof of principle that, in its core, Christianism is not religious but political, a reactionary cult susceptible to authoritarian preachers. And Christianism is to the American right what critical theory is to the American left: a reductionist, totalizing creed that “others” half the country, and deeply misreads the genius of the American project.
The submission to (male) authority is often integral to fundamentalism, which is why it isn’t actually surprising that self-professed Christians came to support a man who cultivates greed, gluttony, pride, lust, envy, sloth and anger more assiduously than Satan. Trump was an authority figure, period. He was a patriarch. He was the patriarch of their tribe. And he was in power, which meant that God put him there. After which nothing needs to be said. So of course if the patriarch says the election is rigged, you believe him.
What I do know is that, unchecked, this kind of fundamentalism is a recipe not for civil peace but for civil conflict. It hasn’t gone away, even if its actual policy prescriptions are unpopular, even if it represents only a fraction of Americans, as wokeness does. It’s a mindset, a worldview, as deep in the human psyche as the racial tribalism now endemic on the left. It controls one of our two major parties. And in so far as it has assigned all decisions to one man, Donald Trump, it is capable of supporting the overturning of an election — or anything else, for that matter, that the patriarch wants.
The Aftermath of a Massacre Is Always the Time to Push for Gun Legislation
This “now is not the time” argument gets trotted out by Republicans after each and every gun massacre. Right after their tweets offering “thoughts and prayers”. Bullshit. The aftermath of a massacre is the time to demand sane gun control measures. That’s when the issue is clarified. Would Republicans argue that October 8 was “not the right time” for Israel to discuss Hamas terrorism? Was September 12, 2001 “not the right time” to discuss Al-Qaeda? Should FDR have delivered an address to the nation on December 8, 1941, advising that we relax, let cooler heads prevail, because the aftermath of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor “was not the time” to consider retaliating?
Detroit synagogue president Samantha Woll found fatally stabbed outside home
and
6-Year-Old Boy Dead in Anti-Muslim Attack Near Chicago, Police Say
This is unacceptable. What the fuck is wrong with people.
On Elite Campuses, a New Protest Demand: Unwavering Support
Young people now arrive at elite colleges with the assumption that not only will they be seen, heard and meticulously cared for, but also that their own politics will broadly align with those of the institutions they have chosen to attend. They have been given little reason to think otherwise.
With universities run as for-profit business, why are we surprised that students are now insisting “the customer is always right?”
To be clear: the customer is not always right.
Yet we’ve let this attitude persist in the larger economy for at least as long as I’ve been alive. Let’s not act surprised when this attitude follows capitalism everywhere it insists on going. Academia is no exception.
The naivety of some grown adults — in this case, college administrators hell-bent on making ever-more money off their students — is astonishing. If you use people, expect them to use you in return.
How Race Categories on U.S. Census Forms Have Evolved
The reality of categorizing people with distinct labels has never been simple.
People with identical lineage may choose different boxes, and the same person may choose different boxes in different years. Former President Barack Obama, the son of a white woman from Kansas and a Black man from Kenya, for example, marked himself as “Black,” even when checking more than one race was an option.
Historically, some edits to census race boxes reflected changes in policy or public sentiment. As the nation’s laws on slavery shifted, the census began phasing out the counting of enslaved people and instead introduced new terms to define the Black population.
Fascinating.
I’ve long struggled with categorization, both self- and not. It’s no wonder we humans attempt to categorize (it is, after all, the basis for all language), but when we attempt to categorize another person, that’s when it all goes to hell.
Recently, the term ‘LGBTQ’ (or ‘LGBTQIA+,’ if you’re feeling radically inclusive) has come into fashion. I hate it. No, I loathe it. As a gay man, my experience has little in common with that of a trans person or someone who is “questioning.” I’m not questioning anything, so why am I grouped with those folks?
I see the LGBTQ label as insulting, created by a hetero-majority that can’t be bothered remembering the specifics of my lived experience. Instead, we’re all just thrown into this alphabet soup of ‘otherness.’
Stop Being Shocked—Once and for All
Many of us at Tablet believed strongly, and still believe, in the possibility of creating a better world. But something bothered us from the very beginning about these ideas, and the people pushing them. Every time we pressed on one of the newly mass-embraced policy proposals or narratives—intersectionality, decolonization studies, the Iran nuclear deal, Russiagate, Black Lives Matter, the Women’s March, critical race theory, COVID lockdowns—a weird thing would happen: The idea itself fell apart at the seams within seconds of contact with reality, and yet its defenders got more sure of themselves, more performatively boastful, more passionate and gleeful about smearing anyone who dared to question them.
The more we listened to freshly minted universal experts, the more we were struck by the increasing lunacy of their pronouncements on every topic under the sun, always backed by “studies” and “science”—where COVID–19 came from, how many genders there are, which skin tones and personal experiences qualify a person for protection status and which do not, whether it was OK for a Syrian dictator to bomb and gas 500,000 of his people, whether the U.S. should ally itself with a Holocaust-denying medieval theocracy, whether the president of the United States was secretly a Russian agent, whether large American cities should let drug addicts and violent schizophrenics get high on the streets and steal stuff—and more. Indeed, over time, we were struck by how little the ideas themselves seemed to matter; what so many people seemed most attached to was power.
The U.S. Is Giving Israel Permission For War Crimes
Tom Dannenbaum, an expert on siege law at Tufts University, affirmed this assessment, describing Israel’s policy as an abnormally clear-cut instance of starving civilians as a means of war, an unambiguous violation of human rights.
Israel’s aerial bombardment of Gaza also appears to flout international law’s prohibition of the disproportionate killing of civilians. The Israeli Air Force has dropped more than 6,000 bombs on a stretch of land roughly the size of Queens. Its targets have included hospitals and schools. By its own account, Israel has not been firing “warning strikes” to encourage civilians to exit a given building before incinerating it. As of this writing, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, Israel’s airstrikes have killed more than 1,799 people, including 583 children. According to the ministry, 60 percent of all the injured are women or children.
Five hundred and eighty-three children.
So far.
When it was completed in Lower Manhattan in 1974, 33 Thomas Street, formerly known as the AT&T Long Lines Building, was intended as the world’s largest facility for connecting long-distance telephone calls. 1 Standing 532 feet — roughly equivalent to a 45-story building — it’s a mugshot for Brutalism, windowless and nearly featureless. Its only apertures are a series of ventilation hoods meant to hide microwave-satellite arrays, which communicate with ground-based relay stations and satellites in space.
MAGA is not interested in building anything, in winning a real majority, in constructing an actual future rather than lamenting an invented past. Everything is performative and destructive. It’s all driven by who they are against rather than what they are for. As a Republican Senator told Romney as he settled in, their view is that the first consideration in voting on any bill should always be: “Will this help me win re-election?”
There’s no definitive moment in the collapse of a republic, but that quote comes close. If all you care about is your own grip on power, regard the opposing party as ipso facto illegitimate, and give zero fucks for the system as a whole, a liberal democracy has effectively ceased to exist. A single major party, captured by radicals and nihilists, can do that.
That morning, there were so many moments I was hopeful. First, it was just an accident. Next, that everyone could escape the towers if given the chance. Then, that only one tower would fall. Then, that these would be the only casualties. Then, worst of all, that something this profound and dramatic would soften people’s hearts and make them reflect.
I was wrong, over and over again. I don’t know exactly where the line is between optimistic and naive, but these days I feel tremendous compassion and empathy towards the young man who had all those foolish beliefs. I don’t regret hoping that such a horrible day could lead to something better.
But I really did underestimate how power works, and how little it would take to push people from their better angels to their most vicious, vengeful selves.
How Brad Polumbo Sees the Rise in Anti-L.G.B.T. Rhetoric on the Right
I think I’ve accepted the rhetorical framing of the L.G.B.T. community simply because it is widely adopted in our politics and in our discourse. But I tend to agree that it’s not necessarily a legitimate concept in that I’ve never really felt a part of any community. I’ve never felt welcomed. In fact, I’ve mostly felt rejected or attacked. I also think that I’m completely supportive of the rights of transgender adults to live their best lives however they see fit. But I’ve never truly understood the lumping in or connection of transgender issues and gay rights issues. They always have seemed to me to be somewhat distinct.
It doesn’t sound like Mr. Polumbo and I have much in common politically, and while I can’t agree that “I’ve accepted the rhetorical framing of the L.G.B.T. community” (I have not), I really feel his sentiments about community.
In my humble opinion, gay culture has far too warm an embrace with hedonistic capitalism, with empty consumerism, with the vacuous pop culture of Instagram and People magazine and Bravo. Put simply: we sold out. And to express this sentiment openly is to be labeled a traitor to “the community.”
Bessel Van der Kolk on Trauma, America’s Favorite Diagnosis
The appeal of traumatic literalism is not so much its scientific rigor as its scientific sheen, which seems to promise objective, graspable solutions to our defining political crises. For the past three decades, liberals have insisted that the institutions of American power, while flawed, were in essentially good shape. Those for whom the status quo wasn’t working out were welcome to jockey for inclusion by claiming identity-related injury. For a liberal politics of inclusion founded on claims of injury, what could be more useful than a way to turn that injury into biological trauma, something objective, observable, and measurable in the brain? In their focus on narrative — that is, on recovering and integrating declarative memories — the battle lines of the ’80s and ’90s trauma culture wars were staked out along clear lines. If you were a feminist or an antiwar activist, you invoked trauma; if you were a conservative, you didn’t. But today’s literalization of trauma is politically promiscuous. In fact, rather than treating trauma as an ideological weapon of the left, now the right wants in on it too.
Emphasis mine.
Something to chew on.
Even if you do have a smartphone, it’s not great to have it be a single point of failure. It could be lost, stolen, away from cell service, or have a low battery. Most electronic tickets and admission passes don’t seem to work with the Wallet app, and who knows whether an e-mail, app, or Web link will fail when you need it, even if it was cached. A common pattern is to take a screenshot of the barcode or QR code, but that requires more tech-savvy.
I run into this problem all the time. Rather, I watch people I love run into this problem all the time.
A very dear friend lives in an off-the-grid cabin. He’s proudly never used a computer (aside from an Apple Watch, which I set up as his phone and sole electronic device a few years back). Lately, he’s had some health concerns that require near-constant communications with doctors via MyChart… which can only be accessed by a computer or smartphone.
People like him get lost and left behind in a digital world. I say this as an evangelist of the iPhone: the pocket computer is an incredible tool — camera, GPS, offline maps, streaming music, FaceTime, plant identifier, etc. etc. — but the simple fact is that most people have no clue how to use their phones to their max potential…nor do they care to.
There’s a head-in-the-sand element to this I’ve always found frustrating. More than one friend reacts with what looks like rage when their phones (or the internet) doesn’t behave as it “should.” (And when you become known as the “tech friend,” that rage is often directed at you.) I’ve had to learn to handle those people with care and not mirror their anger back at them. Which ain’t easy, because if people just took a fucking second to learn something…
But then there’s my friend in the cabin, who abstains entirely. I cannot convey how much I admire his conviction, and how much I agree when he says that tech is going to be our downfall. “Sure,” he says, “you use it to identify that star, but everyone else uses it to get on instagram and make themselves feel like shit.” He has a point.
The world is leaving him behind, and it can’t rely on people like me to constantly bridge that gap.
Vivek Ramaswamy Is Suddenly Part of Our Political Life
Don’t worry, this article is only a touch about Vivek. Much like the man himself, I encourage you to skip over that part and get right to the take-away line:
Ron DeSantis was right when he said at the debate that America is a nation in decline and that decline is a choice. He just wasn’t right in the way he meant it. We’re in decline because a spirit of lawlessness, shamelessness and brainlessness have become leading features of a conservative movement that was supposed to be a bulwark against all three.
The Supreme Court Has Killed Affirmative Action. Mediocre Whites Can Rest Easier. via Kottke
I guess I can take some small solace in knowing that even without affirmative action, there will still be a lot of white rejects out there who will die mad.
What a line.
As I approach 40, I must remind myself that I’m glad I’m no longer young. This country — my home — seems to be tearing itself apart. If all we expect is the worst from each other, haven’t we lost the republic?
There’s a phrase that’s been rattling around my head for the last several months.
“I love you, but you are not serious people.”
Some narrative context.
These words feel like an indictment, both of me personally and of the country in which I live. We Americans are no longer serious people.
Our brains have been so thoroughly hijacked by capitalism. Our attention spans have corroded. We no longer believe in anything but money — everything has a price. Morality, integrity, civic duty… those ideals are antique and ornamental.
I want to have hope for us. I often wonder what my grandfather — the one that fought in World War II — felt about our country. I want for just a moment to feel what he felt. He seemed to believe in us.
Now, ten years later, I offer this as a time capsule of what those early months of Snowden were like.
Cormac McCarthy, Novelist of a Darker America, Is Dead at 89
With an eye for the darker side of human nature, his novels remain some of my favorite.
Headed Into the Abyss by Brian T. Watson 📚
I just finished, laying here in my bed, the dogs and cat asleep beside me. Crickets chirp out my window. In the distance a train’s whistle breaks and rolls over the valley.
More than anything, I prize seeing things clearly. Nothing fills me with that particular and precious joie de vivre — that electric sizzle — quite like close proximity to the truth. But most people don’t like the truth. We’ll do anything to avoid it, if we know it at all. So it’s a rare thrill to read something so transgressive in its honesty, so clear-eyed.
Credit to Brian T. Watson for his courage to accept the inevitable, and then to write it. May his acceptance be an inspiration.
America Is Headed Toward Collapse
The long history of human society compiled in our database suggests that America’s current economy is so lucrative for the ruling elites that achieving fundamental reform might require a violent revolution. But we have reason for hope. It is not unprecedented for a ruling class—with adequate pressure from below—to allow for the nonviolent reversal of elite overproduction. But such an outcome requires elites to sacrifice their near-term self-interest for our long-term collective interests. At the moment, they don’t seem prepared to do that.
Will a Dollar General Ruin a Rural Crossroads?
Some say they recognize that the county needs tax revenue. “But are we going to sell our soul for anything that comes along?” said Bobby Conner, who grew up in Ebony and now works on tourism initiatives for Brunswick County.
Welcome to America, where everything is for sale.