[Periodicals Chat] THE NEW GOON

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Periodicals Chat] THE NEW GOON

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

GalacticAcid posted:

why

To attack, in ascending order of importance, Marxism, CSPAM, and you personally?

Seriously dude it's not a good sign that I mention "blind partisanship" and you immediately are worried about, I dunno, a scathing critique directed at you

# ? Jan 10, 2021 21:51

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# ? May 9, 2024 16:40

GalacticAcid: Apr 8, 2013; NEW YORK VALUES

weirdo

# ? Jan 10, 2021 22:23

Helianthus Annuus: Feb 21, 2006; can i touch your hand; Grimey Drawer

i dont know of any leftist treatments of partisanship, because im not well read enough. its a weird thing to fixate on, because its just one of the many, many ways that the ruling class uses the media to distract us from doing class analysis and building solidarity. so i think it's fair to ask what you're after, since you appear to be walking into a smokescreen!

if you're still looking to read about partisanship, the liberal media has a lot to say about it, but i encourage you to take this with a grain of salt https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/partisanship/

# ? Jan 11, 2021 01:51

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

GalacticAcid posted:

weirdo

Helianthus Annuus posted:

i dont know of any leftist treatments of partisanship, because im not well read enough. its a weird thing to fixate on, because its just one of the many, many ways that the ruling class uses the media to distract us from doing class analysis and building solidarity. so i think it's fair to ask what you're after, since you appear to be walking into a smokescreen!

if you're still looking to read about partisanship, the liberal media has a lot to say about it, but i encourage you to take this with a grain of salt https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/partisanship/

Fair enough. Yeah, the fact that criticisms of partisanship are often in themselves just partisan attacks is something I'm familiar with - for example, the framing of partisanship as an issue with the other side, you see that a lot in David Brooks op-eds. But recently I've had this hunch that blind partisanship is precisely the same, no matter if you are storming the capital in a maga hat or building class solidarity, and that actually explains a few things.

It's a difficult thing to google though, since even good sources of longform stuff it's usually mentioning partisanship, but never examining it, so I figured that the longform CSPAM thread might know of some, it being the political subforum.

# ? Jan 11, 2021 03:03

Helianthus Annuus: Feb 21, 2006; can i touch your hand; Grimey Drawer

to me, "partisanship" reads like a quaint PR concept from 2013-2015 -- today, i think of it as a thin veneer for hate, or a tedious excuse for legislative inaction

# ? Jan 11, 2021 05:21

Finicums Wake: Mar 13, 2017; Can't post for 8 years!

Nebakenezzer posted:

Does this thread do requests? I'm looking for articles or relevant book reviews on partisanship, particularly blind partisanship.

the book democracy for realists sort of covers this stuff. check out summaries or reviews to see if it sounds good to you, imo

chapters 8 and 9 are titled "The Very Basis of Reasons: Groups, Social Identities, and Political Psychology" and "Partisan Hearts and Spleens: Social Identities and Political Change," respectively

there's a bunch of other poo poo in the book, but it's written by two political scientists so it'll at least point you to some of the other work on the topic

edit: i agree with the other posters criticizing 'partisanship' as a useful concept in explaining or understanding us politics. voters' beliefs and actions aren't really what drive the political process, so examining one aspect of voter psychology or political preference formation or whatever isn't going to be super revealing

Finicums Wake has issued a correction as of 08:55 on Jan 11, 2021

# ? Jan 11, 2021 08:39

Finicums Wake: Mar 13, 2017; Can't post for 8 years!

mike davis on the storming of the capitol, intra-party republican conflict among elites, etc

https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/riot-on-the-hill

# ? Jan 11, 2021 08:49

Finicums Wake: Mar 13, 2017; Can't post for 8 years!

StashAugustine posted:

I got Adam Tooze's Crashed for Christmas; does anyone have comments on it or good reviews about it?

cspam favorite michael roberts reviewed it: https://www.google.com/amp/s/thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2018/08/24/crashed-more-the-how-than-the-why/amp/

# ? Jan 11, 2021 08:57

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Finicums Wake posted:

mike davis on the storming of the capitol, intra-party republican conflict among elites, etc

https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/riot-on-the-hill

This was good - thanks for sharing. The idea of a split between pro-Trump Republicans as a faction of the House, while establishment Republicans from the Senate form new core leadership, was a perspective that was new to me.

# ? Jan 11, 2021 09:12

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Finicums Wake posted:

edit: i agree with the other posters criticizing 'partisanship' as a useful concept in explaining or understanding us politics. voters' beliefs and actions aren't really what drive the political process, so examining one aspect of voter psychology or political preference formation or whatever isn't going to be super revealing

Eh, fair. Snark and hitting slow pitches aside, it's fine that people disagree about the overall importance of blind partisanship. I just feel a particular intellectual itch about this, and I've learned that scratching these itches is always beneficial, even if I end up agreeing with your view.

# ? Jan 11, 2021 13:51

Helianthus Annuus: Feb 21, 2006; can i touch your hand; Grimey Drawer

this post about "undecided voters" from the bush years is still relevant and interesting. and it really goes to show that the political mind of a typical voter is an inscrutable black box of half-truths and gut feelings https://chrishayes.org/articles/decision-makers/

"partisanship" probably plays into this somehow, but i dunno how you go about parsing that out of this mess

# ? Jan 11, 2021 20:07

GalacticAcid: Apr 8, 2013; NEW YORK VALUES

the reason I asked �why� is i that �blind partisanship� is a vague & ambiguous concept and probably not very useful for explaining much of anything in recent events. Not because I thought you were plotting some master own of me lol

# ? Jan 11, 2021 20:41

pospysyl: Nov 10, 2012

From the LRB The Bergoglio Smile is a great political history of how Jorge Bergoglio politically maneuvered his way to the top of the Argentinian church, became Pope, and governed the Vatican.

# ? Jan 13, 2021 20:15

GalacticAcid: Apr 8, 2013; NEW YORK VALUES

Oh nice, Colm T�ib�n. Queued up, thanks

# ? Jan 13, 2021 22:40

Stato-Masochist: Aug 22, 2010; the air is fresh, there's plenty of parking, plenty of space to walk around

is there a good article (or book for that matter) that outlines all of the instances of the fbi goading people into pursuing terrorist plots only to sweep in and act like they saved the day, or in enough instances fail at doing that i guess

# ? Jan 14, 2021 05:24

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Stato-Masochist posted:

is there a good article (or book for that matter) that outlines all of the instances of the fbi goading people into pursuing terrorist plots only to sweep in and act like they saved the day, or in enough instances fail at doing that i guess

https://theintercept.com/2015/02/26/fbi-manufacture-plots-terrorism-isis-grave-threats/

https://citationsneeded.medium.com/episode-31-fake-isis-plots-and-the-selling-of-forever-war-141e7e6dbf25

# ? Jan 14, 2021 07:38

Finicums Wake: Mar 13, 2017; Can't post for 8 years!

this has some of the first information i've been able to find on the anti-mask/anti-shutdown protestors' class locations

https://bostonreview.net/politics/william-callison-quinn-slobodian-coronapolitics-reichstag-capitol

# ? Jan 15, 2021 11:34

Finicums Wake: Mar 13, 2017; Can't post for 8 years!

idk where else to post this, but the bulletin of atomic scientists are always an interesting read. the following will warning will almost certainly go unheeded by our dipshit 'liberal internationalists' employed by the biden admin and as commentators in the mainstream press

https://thebulletin.org/2021/01/my-advice-to-president-elect-biden-break-the-dangerous-pattern-of-nuclear-competition-with-russia/

# ? Jan 21, 2021 19:47

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Finicums Wake posted:

idk where else to post this, but the bulletin of atomic scientists are always an interesting read. the following will warning will almost certainly go unheeded by our dipshit 'liberal internationalists' employed by the biden admin and as commentators in the mainstream press

https://thebulletin.org/2021/01/my-advice-to-president-elect-biden-break-the-dangerous-pattern-of-nuclear-competition-with-russia/

I'm certainly with you re: the MSM.

The good news is that any sort of nuclear competition was mostly the delusion of Trump reacting to Russia. The reason Russia is all about the new nuke delivery systems lately is compensation for the re-capitalizing of their armed forces in a large part failing.

To go back a bit, "peak oil" made Russia, one of the top oil producers flush with cash. They decided, not unreasonably, to modernize their armed forces. This wasn't just new equipment; the Russians hoped to reform their military to something more on western lines, getting rid of conscription and making NCOs [non-commissioned officers] more important. Also, many systems and units developed in Soviet times were very costly, as the USSR often built things as cost-no-object exercises. This is bad, not only because it costs more to keep, but that's money being spent on upkeep that could in theory be used to build new, just as effective but less costly units instead. This is why a top priority of the Russians post-USSR was developing a ballistic missile submarine replacement. The Russians had Delta III & IV subs, which were ready for replacement in the 1990s, plus the Typhoon class, which was modern but ruinously expensive to operate - the USSR even developed the Typhoon its own bespoke ballistic missile. The Borei class aimed to replace all three types with a modern sub using a new ballistic missile. This program saw setbacks, but now has a good number of hulls in operation.

The challenge they had from any standpoint was big. First, Russia as a former empire has less money than the USSR did (the GDP of Russia last I checked was near Italy's), so some types of capability would have to be eliminated. Second, rust out. You can't really have an industry sitting idle for 15 years and expect it to just work like it did before. Workers and skills are lost, facilities fall into ruin, etc. An additional fun challenge here is that lots of important Soviet defense industry was now Ukrainian, or Belarusian (etc.) Yet another challenge was counterfeit experts. So it turns out "bad money drives out the good" is true of diplomas and degrees, too: ever since the fall of the USSR, the corruption the state found itself in saw lots of people purchasing, rather than earning credentials. So the science and engineering bench, a notable strength of the USSR, was not as deep as it was.

I think all those challenges could have been met with the right leadership (and assuming oil prices remained high.) What happened instead was failure

In a moment of wrath, Putin invaded Ukraine. This got Russia an economic embargo, and completely alienated former Soviet states from Russia. Bad enough, but the Ukraine, as mentioned, was up to that point an important part of this modernization program - especially for turbines. Now Russia 1) can't trade for weapons tech, and 2) has to spend vast sums of money building entirely new industries to replace Ukrainian ones. Then the peak oil passed, shrinking already crimped revenues. Then, a string of delays and public failures. Their stealth Fighter, the Su-57, is by all appearances a turd, with India backing out of co-development, apparently because the results are underwhelming. They developed a new tank and a new APC, but the results break constantly. The xenophobic turn of Russia saw institutional reforms falter. And now, no money for any of it.

So the Russians went (mostly) wunder-waffen. Science fiction weapons that make great propaganda copy but compared to existing systems, of questionable worth. And like other systems, there have been engineering problems. That nuclear powered hypersonic missile has had multiple crashes, and has killed at least one engineer. The 100 megaton drone sub torpedo thing exists, sure, but it was built in the first place because the Russians were sure American missile defense was going to neutralize conventional MAD, even though on the American side, I'm not sure if that's even a projected goal. So the whole thing has turned into dick swinging on the part of Russia - and of course, if you want somebody to join you in a dick-swinging contest, do it around Trump. The really dumb thing that just happened was the cancelling of the clear skies treaty, which allowed prescribed overflights of Russia and the US by both nations. It actually served an important purpose; keeping cold war paranoia slightly in check. Trump mighta cancelled it because hes timp, and the Russians flew of Mara Largo once.

The good news here is that a new "nuclear competition" is something Russia wants but can't afford, and the US doesn't have much interest in. Frankly, the rot in American forces and the rebuilding of those is a far higher priority.

# ? Jan 22, 2021 00:22

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

Perry Anderson has a stunning, very long critique of the EU and its institutions in a recent LRB: https://lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n01/perry-anderson/ever-closer-union. If you ever want a detailed blow-by-blow account of the EU's fundamentally undemocratic, authoritarian, and neoliberal character you probably can't do much better than this.

This article is part 2 of 3 of a lengthy analysis of the EU, but I haven't read the other two yet so can't comment on them.

vyelkin has issued a correction as of 23:18 on Jan 23, 2021

# ? Jan 23, 2021 23:16

Syncopated: Oct 21, 2010

Also, and maybe this has been posted, but you can circumvent the LRB article limit by creating a free account and browsing in private mode.

# ? Jan 23, 2021 23:39

Finicums Wake: Mar 13, 2017; Can't post for 8 years!

a book review of The Hitler Conspiracies by Richard Evans
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2021/01/14/hitler-conspiracies-antarctica/

# ? Jan 24, 2021 11:13

im on the net me boys: Feb 19, 2017; Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhjjhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhjhhhhhhjhhhhhhhhhjjjhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh cannabis

Kevin Drum is leaving Mother Jones at the end of the month!! Good riddance 🎊

# ? Jan 24, 2021 18:16

Fortaleza: Feb 21, 2008

I thought my LRB subscription expired a while ago but turns out I was supposed to be getting it all year but they had my address wrong :negative:

# ? Jan 24, 2021 19:43

GalacticAcid: Apr 8, 2013; NEW YORK VALUES

Aw man lol that blows

# ? Jan 24, 2021 20:07

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

My physical delivery of the LRB has been spotty all year. I thought it was probably the pandemic, but maybe they're just bad at physical delivery these days.

# ? Jan 24, 2021 20:15

GalacticAcid: Apr 8, 2013; NEW YORK VALUES

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v38/n04/james-meek/robin-hood-in-a-time-of-austerity

This essay on the Robin Mood myth and the competing political programs built on its edifice is phenomenal, I�ve reread it several times through the years. Obviously all the chatter about the dumb Robinhood app jogged my memory, though it has nothing to do with it.

# ? Jan 28, 2021 16:04

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

I'd like to share this long-form article covering the current events, and historical background, of the Philippine military's obsession with being allowed entry into the University of the Philippines

https://www.philstar.com/other-sections/news-feature/2021/02/01/2074564/militarys-obsession-up-some-historical-notes

# ? Feb 1, 2021 10:02

Algund Eenboom: May 4, 2014

In the january issue of monthly review there was a short article regarding the history of aerial bombing and its apex in the korean war, which is amerika�s �forgotten war� because of the number and variety of war crimes we committed

https://monthlyreview.org/2021/01/01/the-continuing-korean-war-in-the-murderous-history-of-bombing/

Of note

quote:

Due to the limitations of bombing technology and the efficacy of air defenses, the damage in Europe, although devastating, had been limited. Even in the more vulnerable Japan, destruction was incomplete: Kyoto, for instance, was spared due to its cultural significance and other cities were left untouched because clean targets were thought to be necessary for testing the efficacy of atomic bombs. Not so in Korea.

One North Korean source gives some statistics:

quote:
More than 428,000 bombs were dropped on Pyongyang alone, the number more than that of Pyongyang citizens at that time. At the time, the US had completely reduced the whole territory of Korea into ashes by showering bombs of nearly 600,000 tons, 3.7 times greater than those dropped on Japan during the Pacific War, even using napalm bombs prohibited by the international conventions.

The US massacred more than 1,231,540 civilians in the northern part of Korea during the three-year war.

The figures are plausible and corroborated by, among others, Blaine Harden, a virulently anti-North Korean journalist writing in the Washington Post:

quote:
The bombing was long, leisurely and merciless, even by the assessment of America�s own leaders. �Over a period of three years or so, we killed off�what�20 percent of the population,� Air Force Gen. Curtis LeMay, head of the Strategic Air Command during the Korean War, told the Office of Air Force History in 1984. Dean Rusk, a supporter of the war and later secretary of state, said the United States bombed �everything that moved in North Korea, every brick standing on top of another.� After running low on urban targets, U.S. bombers destroyed hydroelectric and irrigation dams in the later stages of the war, flooding farmland and destroying crops.

In his autobiography, Curtis LeMay (whose mantra was �bomb them back into the Stone Age�) �offered this observation,� as John Dower wryly put it: �We burned down just about every city in North and South Korea both.� We killed off over a million civilian Koreans and drove several million more from their homes, with the inevitable additional tragedies bound to ensue.�

The word genocide is much bandied about, but it surely fits here. Although there are no definitive internationally comparative statistics, it seems certain that the U.S. bombing was, in terms of the percentage of the population, the deadliest in history.

# ? Feb 1, 2021 14:07

Finicums Wake: Mar 13, 2017; Can't post for 8 years!

unlike the usual poo poo i link itt, this isn't from some marxist journal or w/e. but it's a surprisingly frank long-form article about how power actually operates in US politics, so i feel like people who read this thread might find it interesting as well

https://time.com/5936036/secret-2020-election-campaign/

# ? Feb 9, 2021 00:10

Fortaleza: Feb 21, 2008

Recently subscribed to High Country News, an independent outlet with focus on the western U.S.. Things like land and water use, indigenous affairs, politics, climate change, that sort of stuff.

Only gotten one issue so far, but it's pretty good IMO. There are two articles I want to post here, one about the capitol riot on Jan 6th and one about the Biden admin's plan to re-establish Bears Ears National Monument to its original size, undoing the Trump admin's moves.

A siege with Western roots and consequences
Carl Segerstrom
https://www.hcn.org/issues/53.2/north-extremism-the-washington-d-c-siege-has-western-roots-and-consequences

quote:

Five years and four days after armed militiamen took over the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, a remote federal wildlife preserve in eastern Oregon, for 41 days, supporters of President Donald Trump stormed and briefly occupied the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6.

It�s not hard to trace the links between Malheur and Washington; familiar insignia, instigators and ideologies fueled both anti-government actions. Extremist leaders and movement regulars from the Western U.S., including former Washington State Rep. Matt Shea, who supported the efforts from afar in Spokane, and recent U.S. Senate candidate Jo Rae Perkins, R-Ore., who joined the crowd that laid siege to the Capitol, helped fuel the melee. Backing their message, if not their tactics, was a bevy of Western legislators, who lent the movement legitimacy by supporting Trump�s baseless election-fraud claims.

Meanwhile, one of the most visible figures in the anti-federal government movement in the Western U.S., Cliven Bundy, expressed dismay that President Trump didn�t stick to his guns after he issued a half-hearted message calling for a peaceful end to the occupation.

The anti-government occupations bookending the rise and fall of Trump�s presidency show the mainstreaming of right-wing extremism in the United States. They also portend the potential for future conflicts here in the West. When President-elect Joseph Biden takes charge of the federal government and its vast Western landholdings, he will enter an already-delicate situation, where armed extremist groups stand ready to rise up against the federal government.

The western U.S. isn�t the only place where anti-government sentiment festers, but here the wounds are open, frequently endured and historically recent. Violence and the threat of violence in the region occur within the context of a nation founded on the genocide of Indigenous people. Leaders of anti-federal movements lean into this violent history and include factions that are specifically anti-Indigenous. In defending his right to graze cattle on federal land in Nevada � a claim he successfully defended at Bunkerville in 2014, when federal authorities withdrew after being outgunned by militiamen � Bundy argued that his claim to the land was more legitimate than the Southern Paiutes� because �they lost the war.�

This white-plus-might-makes-right sentiment is a pervasive feature of Western mythology and cowboy culture. Over the last half-century, anti-government leaders have rallied to that image as the West�s population swelled and control over its natural resources became more contested and regulated. The original Sagebrush Rebellion of the mid-to-late-1970s � which inspired the modern Bundy-led standoffs but were not nearly as paramilitary � came in response to federal public-land laws like the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, Wilderness Act and Endangered Species Act, which increasingly restricted how natural resources could be used.

Those restrictions were seen as unconscionable overreach by rural Westerners who were accustomed to using public-land resources as they wished. �The hardest thing to do in American politics is to withdraw a right,� said Daniel McCool, a political science professor at the University of Utah. Even though those rights were privileges in the legal sense, the perception that they were rights, and that they were being taken away, fueled the original Sagebrush Rebels, McCool said. �The roots of the Sagebrush Rebellion were when they no longer got what they wanted,� he said. �There�s a direct line from there to the Bundy groups active today.�

Entitlement isn�t the only feature today�s anti-government protesters � who snapped selfies and strolled casually through the Capitol after overcoming police barricades, sauntering off with trophies taken from the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. � have in common with the original Sagebrush Rebels. They also share an alliance with the Republican Party and a lack of accountability for breaking the law. None of the original rebels were prosecuted, and their movement faded with the election of Ronald Reagan, who publicly backed their anti-regulatory ideology. Reagan showed his support by installing Interior Secretary James Watt, who weakened many of the federal regulations they chafed against.

Far-right terrorism is the most prevalent form of terrorism in the U.S., according to the FBI. Reporting by Reveal News and Type Investigations found that right-wing extremism during the Trump administration has become more common and far more deadly. But that uptick comes with a caveat when it comes to Western extremism. During the Trump era, right-wing extremism and the militia movement shifted its focus from the federal government to other targets, like anti-fascist activists and state and local governments, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

The explanation for this shift in target is simple: Anti-federal extremists found common cause with Trump�s presidency as he promised to �drain the swamp,� catered to racist ideologies and flirted with QAnon conspiracy theorists. He and his administration acted directly in the interest of Western factions within the right-wing extremist movement, including the Bundys. In 2018, Trump pardoned Dwight and Steven Hammond, whose imprisonment for felony arson on public lands helped spark the Oregon standoff in 2016. No attempts were made during his administration to enforce federal law by rounding up Cliven Bundy�s cattle, which continue to illegally graze on federal public lands in Nevada. Just a week before the siege of the Capitol in Washington, D.C., the Bureau of Land Management restored the Hammonds� public-land grazing rights in Oregon, despite their record of endangering federal employees and committing arson.

Those actions � and the inability of federal prosecutors to secure convictions for leaders of the Bunkerville and Malheur occupations, who clearly threatened federal agents and held federal land at gunpoint � emboldened anti-government extremists. After the acquittals, the movement felt vindicated and victorious. �It�s a very heady thing to be involved in,� said Betsy Gaines Quammen, the author of American Zion: Cliven Bundy, God and Public Lands in the West. �It was pivotal in empowering this movement and laid the groundwork for what we saw (on Jan. 6 in the Capitol),� she said.

A former BLM staffer from Southern Utah echoed that conclusion. �There is a clear link with the Bunkerville showdown and Malheur Refuge occupation and what happened yesterday at our nation�s Capitol,� Richard Spotts wrote to High Country News. In dodging accountability for their actions the Bundys �have been aided by weak and incompetent federal law enforcement officials,� wrote the former BLM employee who was based in St. George, Utah from 2002-2017. �I hope that the incoming Biden administration won�t make Obama�s mistakes nor allow meek federal land managers and law enforcement officials to continue hiding under their desks,� Spotts wrote.

While the Trump era has empowered anti-government extremists in new and dangerous ways, it has offered some relief to the public-land employees in the West who often bear the brunt of extremist ideologies. Data collected by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a group that supports public-land reforms and agency employees, found that threats against federal employees and facilities dropped precipitously following Trump�s election. In 2017, the BLM recorded a 25% reduction in such incidents, the lowest number since 1995. The Bundys didn�t see the federal government under the Trump administration as the enemy, said Jeff Ruch, the former executive director and current Pacific director of PEER. �The administration acted in concert with the violent movement�s demands,� he said.

With the target no longer on the federal government�s back, anti-government extremists in the West have aimed their tactics at left-wing protesters and at state and local governments. Throughout the Trump administration, the president�s supporters went to Portland, Oregon, ready to brawl with locals and anti-fascists, who countered their demonstrations and often obliged their violent impulses. Members of the Three Percenters vowed to support Oregon state legislators who fled the state to avoid a vote on climate change legislation in 2019, including Sen. Brian Boquist, who said that if the state police wanted to arrest him for fleeing his legislative duties, they should �send bachelors and come heavily armed.� This summer, when protests over racial inequity spread across the nation in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by police, right-wing paramilitary groups in places like Coeur d�Alene, Idaho, and Olympia, Washington, showed up in combat gear, ostensibly to keep the peace and protect property.

Recently, right-wing extremists have found a new cause: the COVID-19 pandemic and consequent public health measures, such as business closures and mask mandates. Western extremist groups like the Three Percenters and Ammon Bundy�s newly formed People�s Rights organization have been �seizing on the pandemic and trying to build political power, mainstream their beliefs and build public trust,� said Amy Herzfeld-Copple, the deputy director of the Western States Center. Ammon Bundy, who has played a prominent role in protests against public health orders, was arrested twice this summer for disrupting the Idaho Legislature.

A couple of weeks before the insurrection in Washington, D.C., demonstrators in Salem, Oregon, made a sort of watered-down test run. On Dec. 21, protesters demonstrating against public health restrictions broke down doors at the state Capitol and attacked journalists covering their rally. Since then, reports have emerged that they gained access to the building with aid from Republican state Rep. Mike Nearman, a claim that draws comparison to accusations that federal police officials aided the crowds that entered the U.S. Senate and House.

�We�re likely to see the effects of their violence for years to come. It�s an extension of a pattern of local government being threatened by political violence.�

This groundswell of anti-government extremism in response to Trump�s failed claims of election fraud and the coronavirus pandemic has turned the nation into a possible powder keg. �We�re likely to see the effects of their violence for years to come,� said Herzfeld-Copple. �It�s an extension of a pattern of local government being threatened by political violence.�

While no one knows whether Trump�s departure from office will be a source of continued unrest, history clearly indicates that the threat of future violence is likely to lie in the West and its federal public lands. Biden�s pledges to act on climate change and restore Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, two national monuments that were shrunk by Trump, could be flashpoints. �By simply doing their job, the Interior Department will create more potential flashpoints,� said Aaron Weiss, the deputy director for the Center for Western Priorities. �Being good stewards means rounding Bundy cattle up. They can�t continue to coddle these extremists.�

Now, the West and rest of the country are left wondering where these tensions will flare up next. History tells us that any attempts at an ambitious federal public-land policy will be met with right-wing resistance.

And yet there are hopeful touchstones in the region, including the site of the last Bundy occupation in Burns, Oregon. Collaboration and community conversations around land management, both before and since the 2016 occupation, blunted local support for the extremists who descended on the small eastern Oregon town. According to Peter Walker, a University of Oregon geographer who chronicled the occupation and aftermath in his book Sagebrush Collaboration: How Harney County Defeated the Takeover of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, one local rancher told him: �Collaboration is what inoculated us from the Bundy virus.�

�Instead of a glamorous revolution,� as promised by the Bundy-lead militants, Walker told Oregon Quarterly, the community embraced a less exciting, but far more democratic and peaceful approach. �Harney County (has) returned to the much less glamorous, time-consuming, sometimes tedious but often effective work of sitting across the table with people of different viewpoints to find mutually beneficial, practical solutions to shared problems.�

My takes:

The leaning into the riot as a "siege" is a bit much, but I'm not sure when this was written (it's part of the February issue) so the false narratives about the severity of the riot may have not been laid bare as they have been by now.

The part that struck me was the Bureau of Land Management recording a huge plummet in violence towards federal employees 2017, the lowest in more than twenty years. We hadn't been hearing as much about western white extremists attacking BLM during Trump's tenure and it turns out it's mostly because they were just getting what they wanted.

Now that we have an admin in power that's not quite as overtly anti-indigenous and is more likely to enforce federal land use laws we're liable to see a huge increase in violence from Bundy types.

# ? Feb 13, 2021 21:06

Fortaleza: Feb 21, 2008

Bears Ears is just the beginning
Jessica Douglas and Graham Lee Brewer
https://www.hcn.org/issues/53.2/indigenous-affairs-bears-ears-national-monument-tribal-leaders-say-bears-ears-is-just-the-beginning

quote:

Long before former President Barack Obama established Bears Ears National Monument � and former President Donald Trump nearly destroyed it � these geographically stunning southern Utah canyons were the setting of countless battles over who belongs to this land and whose history is worth saving.

In the first weeks, if not days, of his administration, President Joe Biden is expected to restore the boundaries of two national monuments in Utah, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. But tribal leaders say that returning millions of acres should be only the beginning of Biden�s commitment to protect more public lands � and that tribal nations should be leading the charge. It�s more than just the threat of degradation, they say; Indigenous voices are long overdue in public-land management.

While Biden�s nomination of U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland as secretary of the Interior has given Indian Country reasons for hope, tribal leaders and advocates say she should be only one of many Indigenous people working with or inside the new administration. Biden has pledged to work toward protecting 30% of the country�s land and oceans by 2030. Tribal nations and communities have always asserted that their ties to and knowledge of the land should be consulted when land-management decisions are made. That�s a notion likely familiar to Biden.

The Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, a group of tribal governments, worked with the Obama administration to create the original boundaries of Bears Ears. The partnership demonstrated an unprecedented reliance on tribal consultation for the federal government. For many Indigenous leaders, it became a blueprint for how to involve tribes in the stewardship of lands that were originally stolen from them but are also important to the country as a whole.

But many locals, most notably those who descend from Mormon settlers with a long distrust of government intrusion, saw the expansion of federal protections over millions of acres of Utah�s iconic landscape as government overreach. Painted on business windows, stapled to cattle fences, and printed on bumper stickers, lawn signs and billboards, messages advocating either for or against the monument dotted every pocket of southeastern Utah.

For Indigenous peoples, both inside and outside of Utah, the conflicts were only the most recent in a long history of colonial theft and cultural genocide. Five tribes were involved in the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, which were consulted in the monument�s establishment, and three of them � the Hopi Tribe, the Pueblo of Zuni and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe � had been forcibly removed to reservations outside Bears Ears� original boundaries. And for many of the Indigenous people who call Utah home, racism � both overt and systemic � remains a daily trauma, whether it appears in a racial slur hurled at a Little League game or when the public is allowed to trample the ruins of ancient dwellings.

By the time Trump reduced the monuments in 2017, the battle over protected lands had long since spilled over into local Utah politics. In 2014, San Juan County Commissioner Phil Lyman led a group of ATV riders through a canyon where off-road vehicles are prohibited due to the presence of numerous important archaeological sites. Lyman, now a Utah state representative, was convicted and eventually spent 10 days in jail and ordered to pay $96,000 in restitution. He was pardoned by President Trump in December.

When Willie Grayeyes, a Navajo community organizer and prominent advocate for Bears Ears, ran for the San Juan County Commission in 2018, his attempt to make the commission majority Navajo for the first time in history was met by political opposition tinged with racism.

�In a time when we�re trying to heal, in a time when we�re trying to bring people together, when we�re trying to find things that unite us, this stirs up some really deep resentment.�

U.S. Rep. John Curtis, R-Utah, acknowledged that racism still exists, but said he worries that restoring the boundaries of Bears Ears would only exacerbate it. �In a time when we�re trying to heal, in a time when we�re trying to bring people together, when we�re trying to find things that unite us, this stirs up some really deep resentment,� he said in a December interview. �Particularly when the federal government forces something on somebody � that doesn�t go well no matter where you live, right, no matter what you are.�

Curtis, whose district covers Bears Ears, has always opposed the designation of the national monument. His position has put him sharply at odds with tribal leaders before, but he said that recently he has made efforts to conference with them, including those involved in the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition. Curtis said he believes that allowing presidents to change monument boundaries at the stroke of a pen leaves relationships between the federal government and tribes on shaky ground.

�I think we have to remember, just like these Native Americans have traditions and history associated to the land � and sure, many of them predate the others � but many of these other people have these life commitments to this land and a way of life. And when there�s a presidential declaration, it tends to discount those, whether it�s Native Americans or pioneers.�

For the members of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, that history is exactly what is at stake, and it reaches back much further than contact with settlers. Bears Ears continues to be an important place of worship for his people and has been since time immemorial, said Clark Tenakhongva, vice chairman of the Hopi Tribe and one of the coalition leaders.

�To other people that view it as just a bunch of rocks and rock art and small dwellings that are placed there � they don�t know the in-depth reasons of why the structures were built,� Tenakhongva said. He often uses the concept of the kiva � a circular, underground Puebloan meeting room � as a metaphor to explain the gravity of these cultural sites. �I try to focus on the relationship. Like a church and the kiva: What is the resemblance? It�s a place of worship. It�s a place of prayer, and it�s a place where community gathers. This is a place where a lot of decisions of culture, hope and recognition of life (are made).�

�It�s a place of worship. It�s a place of prayer, and it�s a place where community gathers.�

After tribes forcefully rebuffed Curtis� efforts to redraw and manage Bears Ears in 2018, Curtis expressed his willingness to communicate with the tribal nations. Tenakhongva wrote him a letter offering to explain the importance of Bears Ears and its cultural sites, and the two met in Washington, D.C., where Tenakhongva invited Curtis to �come out to Hopi and see what Hopi is all about.�

Curtis was invited to observe one of the most sacred summertime ceremonies of the Hopi Tribe. �It really took him to a different state of respect,� Tenakhongva said. �From there, (Curtis) said, �I am so grateful that you allowed me to be part of this. I know I�m not a Hopi. I know I�m an Anglo. I know I practiced different religions, but this is something that I will deeply take and sincerely respect and never forget.�

They have even hiked together into Bears Ears to see some of the important cultural sites still intact. Tenakhongva explained their importance to the Hopi people and why they are in need of protection. �We both are family men, and those are things that we related to � meaning our family first, our people, the protection of the land and the importance of culture and religion and practicing of religion,� he said.

When President Trump reduced the monument�s boundaries in 2017, many of these cultural sites, including the kivas, were left unprotected, vulnerable to looting and desecration. While areas outside the reduced boundaries of both Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante are still protected by tribal and state laws, their removal from national monument status opened them back up to mining claims and oil and gas leasing.

Because archaeologists only had access for a couple of years to the more than 1 million acres that Trump removed from Bears Ears, many of the important cultural and historical sites have yet to be adequately documented. Now, archaeologists are using decades-old records, some handwritten and others mere sketches, in the race to re-map and ideally stabilize archaeological sites before they deteriorate any further. Many are also working to repair trails to keep the public from trampling fragile ruins.

�When Trump reduced the monument and basically cut out a lot of culturally significant areas, that created a lot of risk,� said Hopi archaeologist Lyle Balenquah. �So they weren�t viewed as important. They were cutting out part of the narrative.�

�It�s been difficult working in this administration; we�ve been forced by the federal government to approach (Bears Ears) piecemeal-like,� said Carleton Bowekaty, the lieutenant governor of the Pueblo of Zuni. He called the monument reductions a slap in the face to tribes. �We fought hard for it.�

The Biden transition team has been in conversation with the Zuni�s legal team since December, Bowekaty said, in stark contrast to the relationship between the tribe and the federal government under the Trump administration, which routinely failed to work with tribal nations as respected sovereign governments. Bowekaty remains hopeful that Biden will put the same energy into rebuilding the tribal coalitions that were formed by President Obama. �Now, under this administration, we can address the bigger picture and make sure that there�s no further desecration. There�s no further looting. There�s no further negative effects from people visiting without being educated.�

For many, like Clark Tenakhongva, even if Biden restores both national monuments in Utah, that�s just the beginning of the conversation. �Then what happens after that?� Tenakhongva said. Like other tribal leaders, he wants some reassurance that land protections can no longer be so easily diminished. �I would like to have a permanent, formal legislation that � no matter what other president comes in 20 years from now, 40 years from now � would not undo what work we have sacrificed our lives basically for.�

My takes:

Really highlights the dichotomy between a National Monument and a National Park. For those not aware, National Monuments can be created from federally owned land via executive action, and National Parks must be established by an act of congress. Because congress isn't in the business of enacting things these days we tend to get a hell of a lot more of the former than the latter. A consequence of this is that monuments can also largely be undone by executive action, as a lot of people that suddenly started paying attention in 2017 found out.

Congress giving up its authority to the executive tends to mostly come up when talking about foreign policy, this is just another example of its domestic consequences.

I hadn't heard of Haaland's nomination to run the Department of the Interior, actually a pretty good move. It would mean one less pro-M4A and GND voice in congress (which probably played a role in the nom, imo) but having an honest-to-goodness progressive indigenous person in charge of the DOI could be pretty great. We're going to see lots of fights about what exactly the DOI has power to do in the coming years, to go along with that spike in violence mentioned with the other article.

# ? Feb 13, 2021 21:26

Fortaleza: Feb 21, 2008

Anyway, HCN seems like the real deal and I'm glad I subscribed.

Official Fortaleza Verdict: Worth Reading

# ? Feb 13, 2021 21:27

Finicums Wake: Mar 13, 2017; Can't post for 8 years!

HCN looks legit, thanks for the links

# ? Feb 13, 2021 22:57

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

More academic than this thread's usual ambit, but a recent article in the AJPS (one of the highest-profile academic political science journals) is worth reading.

It finds that union membership, independent of other factors, seems to reduce racial resentment among white workers.

quote:

Abstract: Scholars and political observers point to declining labor unions, on the one hand, and rising white identity politics, on the other, as profound changes in American politics. However, there has been little attention given to the potential feedback between these forces. In this article, we investigate the role of union membership in shaping white racial attitudes. We draw upon research in history and American political development to generate a theory of interracial labor politics, in which union membership reduces racial resentment. Cross-sectional analyses consistently show that white union members have lower racial resentment and greater support for policies that benefit African Americans. More importantly, our panel analysis suggests that gaining union membership between 2010 and 2016 reduced racial resentment among white workers. The findings highlight the important role of labor unions in mass politics and, more broadly, the importance of organizational membership for political attitudes and behavior.

Excerpt from the introduction:

quote:

In this article, we investigate the relationship between union membership and the racial politics of white Americans. We develop a theory of labor unions and racial attitudes that predicts union membership reduces racial resentment toward African Americans.1 Union leaders, because of the need to recruit workers of color in order to achieve majority memberships in racially diversifying labor sectors, have ideological and strategic incentives to mitigate racial resentment among the rank and file in pursuit of organizational maintenance and growth (Rosenfeld and Kleykamp 2009). Because of historic institutional ties to the Democratic Party, union leaders also have incentives to encourage support for the party, an organization of its own right that ought to have strategic and ideological incentives to promote interracial coalition building (Ahlquist 2017; Dark 1999; Hajnal and Lee 2011; Minchin 2016). Finally, unions� organizational structure facilitates political socialization through the dissemination and sharing of political information among workers as well as the mobilization of those workers in union election drives and contract negotiations (Ahlquist and Levi2013; Rosenfeld 2014).

Our theory is contextually and temporally bounded. We would not expect, for instance, that segregationist unions allied with a pre-civil-rights-era Democratic Party would have the same incentives, behavior, and impact as more racially diverse unions allied with the modern-day Democratic Party. Nor would we expect in the modern era that all unions would act and impact equally: Our theory is predicated on the perceived coalitional needs of the union, driven both internally and externally through its alliances with political parties. As such, in developing and testing this theory, we bridge behavioral and historical institutionalist approaches to understanding the dynamics between unions and the attitude formation of their members (Frymer 2010; March and Olsen 1984; Skocpol and Pierson 2002).

Our empirical analysis draws on national survey data to estimate the relationship between union membership and racial resentment among whites. Cross-sectional analysis consistently shows that union membership is associated with lower levels of racial resentment. More importantly, our panel analysis of two distinct data sets shows that gaining union membership reduces racial resentment among white workers. In addition, compared to nonunion respondents, white union members are more supportive of affirmative action and other policies designed to benefit African Americans.

Taken together, the results point to the importance of unions for influencing the racial attitudes of its members, and more broadly for the development of civil rights policies. This influence also points to a major consequence of union decline in the modern era. As a critical organization associated with promoting racial toleration weakens in organizational reach, its relative influence over political outcomes and the formation of sociocultural identities, particularly within the white working class, will likely continue to weaken with it.

vyelkin has issued a correction as of 15:35 on Mar 6, 2021

# ? Mar 6, 2021 15:29

GalacticAcid: Apr 8, 2013; NEW YORK VALUES

I will give this a read. I wonder whether there�s a pronounced trade union - as distinct from industrial and public sector union - effect. I suppose I�m working from anecdotal evidence and not hard data but I wouldn�t exactly call the Trades hotbeds of progressive views on racial issues.

I�d also be curious what the regional effects are, as I�d posit union traditions unfolded from markedly different histories in the northeast and midwest compared to the South and West.

# ? Mar 6, 2021 15:52

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

GalacticAcid posted:

I will give this a read. I wonder whether there�s a pronounced trade union - as distinct from industrial and public sector union - effect. I suppose I�m working from anecdotal evidence and not hard data but I wouldn�t exactly call the Trades hotbeds of progressive views on racial issues.

I�d also be curious what the regional effects are, as I�d posit union traditions unfolded from markedly different histories in the northeast and midwest compared to the South and West.

They address that briefly in the conclusion.

quote:

Future research will need to scrutinize the differences between unions. Just as historically, CIO unions were typically far more progressive than those unions of the AFL, to this day there are strong differences be-tween union sectors�teaching versus construction, for instance�that would provide far more nuance and specificity in understanding the mechanism at work in our analysis. Union members are increasingly likely to work in the public sector and less likely to work in manufacturing. And in the current era, worker centers and alternative labor forums are increasingly on the rise, with typically more diverse and immigrant populations and leadership, and with important implications for the workers involved (Fine 2006).16

16. As a first step, we check for heterogeneity in the union effect by occupation type to the extent possible with our data. The results, shown in SI Table 11, show a slightly greater effect among professionals such as teachers than manual laborers, but the differences are insignificant. Similarly, we present effects by college education in SI Figure 4, with a similar finding that the union effect is slightly stronger among college-educated individuals. Further research is needed to shed light on variation in racial politics across unions and industries.

So it seems to be a slightly stronger effect in public sector or professional unions, but they claim their findings at least appear to be robust across industries even if they aren't as strong in certain unions than in others.

I didn't see anything about regional or geographic variation.

# ? Mar 6, 2021 16:02

GalacticAcid: Apr 8, 2013; NEW YORK VALUES

Nice. I�ve got this queued up, glad you posted it (just don�t feel like reading something long on my phone right this second).

# ? Mar 6, 2021 16:10

gradenko_2000: Oct 5, 2010; HELL SERPENT; Lipstick Apathy

Hello thread, long time no see.

A contribution from a local socialist:

Does liberal democracy promote inequality?

# ? Apr 11, 2021 07:56

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# ? May 9, 2024 16:40

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

The NLR launched a blog that features some good stuff: https://newleftreview.org/sidecar

A few early highlights include Tariq Ali talking about Yemen, Mike Davis talking about the Capitol riot, Kevin Young talking about Biden and Latin America, and Adrienne Buller talking about climate capitalism.

# ? Apr 11, 2021 15:24

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Periodicals Chat] THE NEW GOON

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