We need to keep making calls — they’re working! 5Calls, as always, has some suggestions, scripts, and phone numbers for your congress members.
Especially important, at least for voters in Ohio and Kansas: Calling to oppose Betsy DeVos for Education Secretary. The vote on her nomination was delayed, and now could come Saturday or early next week. See here for the latest news on the anti-DeVos efforts and phone numbers for the possible swing-vote Senators.
Another issue which has gotten zero media attention: Congresswoman Maxine Waters is calling for a serious investigation of Trump’s Russian ties. Urge your congressperson to support her!
But if you want to go beyond calls, consider joining a local Indivisible group and visiting your elected officials in person with a large number of new friends.
Find (or start) a local group here, and check out the Indivisible Twitter feed to see some inspiring pics of these groups in action.
@MAWG
Anecdata: I work in a big corporation. We pride ourselves on our inclusivity and valuing people exclusively based on their contribution. We even have working groups for every disenfranchised segment of society you care to name to encourage every employee to bring their full self and contribution to work.
Recently, a few of the groups got together to organise a big awareness event, with several very prominent women and POC folks within the firm talking about their experiences, with a specific emphasis on precisely the biases that Scildfreja outlined above. This was a widely attended event. I was one of the organisers.
Immediately after the event, people told me it was a success: Well put together, nicely coordinated, got the point across. The type of praise which would be expected for an event that came off well.
But a week or so that followed, I started getting a different kind of feedback. It came exclusively from white men, and took almost identical form: They would come up to me, in the hallway or the cafeteria, with a sheepish look. They would admit that, while they completely respected the experiences of the speakers, at the time they had dismissed them as not relevant to this firm. Not out of any sort of malice, you understand, just because that sort of thing doesn’t happen here, right? We’re a totally inclusive firm, everyone’s voice is equal, the only thing that matters is the quality of people’s ideas. They put the speakers’ experiences down to age (such things happened in the past, but we’re over that now), or location (different firm, different culture). So these guys had headed back to work and didn’t really think much more of it, but it turns out, some of it stuck. And they started noticing things. Little things – a woman getting interrupted here, a POC being talked over there. But the more they started noticing it, the more it seemed to be happening. In fact, it seemed to be happening *a lot*. And they also noticed that, while white men did sometimes also get interrupted, it was far less frequent, and the attitude of the group was different, more willing to continue with the interruptee’s train of thought afterwards. And that’s when these guys had their lightning bolt moment and were so amazed that they had to find me and tell me about it, because they suddenly realised that this sort of thing *does* happen in our firm as well, and, crucially, that *it had been happening right in front of them this whole time and they never noticed because *they* always felt completely heard*.
These guys learned, and I hope some at least took away the things white men can do to help ensure that others are heard back into those meeting rooms. This is just anecdata, but you seem like a reasonable guy, so please, no matter how equal or fair *you* think your groups are, or how they look to you in hindsight, take Scildfreja’s post to heart, and going forward, keep your eyes open for it. Just like the guys at my firm, you might be amazed at what you suddenly see.
@Dali
That is as stunningly offensive and uninformed as anything the Alt-right or KKK might say.
It frightens me.
Dali,
Did you mean the CEO of Papa John’s? Or did the CEO of Pizza Hut/Pepsi say a bunch of terrible things too?
The thing that me made me 100% certain (as opposed to the 99.99% certain I had been) that right wingers get off on people suffering was the infamous 2012 Republican presidential debate where Ron Paul was asked if someone without insurance had a medical emergency, should the hospital just let him die and some man in the audience yelled “let him die!” and many others cheered that sentiment.
Looking back, I think that was the moment that finally got me to stop even trying to respectfully disagree with these people. Why bother when they won’t respect anyone else and they have zero empathy?
@MAWG
You know what fucking frightens me? That the vice president is going to have me fucking tortured to death. Because he openly advocates torturing people like me until we kill ourselves. And the guy in the Oval Office has promised him a free hand. That fucking nazis are walking the streets of my neighbourhood waiting to catch me or one of my friends alone so they can beat us, or worse. That people like you, who pretend that these are simple fucking differences of opinion that good-hearted people can have, will continue to stand by and watch, like you have every fucking time these fuckers have fucked us, over and over and over since the fucking country began (and most recently since Ronald Fucking Reagan started rolling back every iota of progress that your generation claimed to have made while you all sat back and fucking watched). I’m afraid that when they kick in my door in the middle of the night, you’ll be the neighbour tut-tutting my struggles as they drag me away. I’m afraid that everyone I love and care about is going to die in the street if they’re fucking lucky. That’s what I’m fucking afraid of. What the fuck is your beef?
Seriously, MAWG?
Marginalized people should stop saying their oppressors terrify them because it terrifies privileged people to hear mean things about other privileged people?
There’s a reason people here aren’t warming up to you and it isn’t because you’re new and it isn’t because you’re a white man.
I know I was initially going to give you the benefit of the doubt even though I’m generally regarded as one of the “mean” and not putting up with any bullshit ones around here. But if you’re going to pull this every few days, I’m done.
MAWG,
I am side-eyeing you so hard right now.
@ALW
Thanks. Totally hear you and believe you have related a real, and likely common experience. For me to say any more might sound like I’m rebutting.
@TreeHugger
No, they should not stop.
@Dali
Scares the fuck out of me, too. That’s why I am actively working to make sure that does not happen.
Don’t have one. I’m frightened and sad, but don’t have a beef.
@ MAWG
The thing to remember about fascists is that cruelty is an end in itself. It’s not merely the byproduct of some ultimate goal. Take the Holocaust for example. One of the most bewildering things about the Holocaust was how ‘counterproductive’ it was. Resources vital for the war effort were diverted to the death camps. Transportation of victims was a priority for the limited railway stock rather than essential troop movement. Deportation was dismissed, only extermination would surfice. Suffering was the sole consideration.
And the same mindset is at work today. Immigration is objectively a good thing, even if you only consider purely utilitarian considerations. Migrants boost economies. They provide essential labour and they buy goods and services. Note also that opposition to migrants I’d greatest in areas where migrants are fewest. The people complaining about how migrants ‘don’t fit in’ hardly ever even have to interact with them. Opposition to migration is based purely on prejudice. There’s no logical basis for it and people are worse off when they succeed in limiting it. But they’re willing to accept that so long as making it clear migrants are not welcome succeeds as an end in itself.
I could go on, but I can think of no ‘progressive’ social policy that has a negative effect on conservatives’ supposed goals. Oftentimes it’s quite the reverse. It therefore seems like the ultimate example of cutting off ones nose to spite ones face. Unless you consider that the stated goals may not really be the priority.
Thought experiment for you: the government offers a choice. Tax cut or criminalising homosexuality. How do you think such a referendum would turn out?
MAWG, I am one of those people who has zero tolerance for trolls and troll-like behavior. I didn’t say it at the time, but after you walked back your original bad start, I was willing to give you another chance. It seems to me that you’re not a troll and you’re trying to learn, and I respect that.
But this?
This was as stunningly offensive and uninformed as anything the alt-right or KKK might say, to quote you. You might or might not agree with what Dali is saying, but what she said was neither offensive nor uninformed. And what the fuck is frightening about it?
You know, I bizarrely hope you stick around and continue to learn, because your learning curve is going to be pretty damned steep at this rate and you really need it.
Comparing Dalillama to the KKK indicates otherwise. At the very least, you seem to think she should only talk about it in ways that don’t offend the delicate sensibilities of the privileged. Which, is also silencing whether you intended it or not http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Tone_argument
I fell behind on this conversation, apparently. Huh!
@Dalillama, you’re right, I am far more generous, it’s a flaw of mine. I’m glad you keep critiquing me on when I shouldn’t be so forgiving. That’s one of my blind spots.
@MAWG, I’ll reply to a couple spots here for you. First, this one:
Hi, I’m Scildfreja. I study rationality and logic as a researcher (currently unpaid, the lab’s out of budget, but, you know. That’s how things are these days). I’m not going to rely on any credentials like that as proof for my points, but, well – that’s my background.
This “generalization/absolutist detector” that you have? It’s garbage, throw it out. It will only do you harm. Generalizations and absolute statements are wrong, true – but they’re also how people talk. That a statement is made as a generalization or an absolute does not make it necessarily false or worthy of rejection.
Smart people are bad for this one. They develop a library of reasons-to-reject-arguments, making their biased opinions unassailable. The “Malformed argument” rejection-reason is the most common, because it’s easy to apply and can be used on almost everything – humans don’t speak in perfect syllogisms.
(Notably, in western society men are taught from birth to value smartness, and to defend their own opinions, making them especially vulnerable to this behaviour)
You do yourself no favours by following the path that your “generalization/absolutist detector” suggests.
Second thing is this one:
I have two comments on this general direction of discussion.
First, in general. Fascism, authoritarianism, and the ugly shades of hate that they represent lurk in all of us. The past couple of years have taught me that quite thoroughly. It takes conscious, willful and explicit effort to fight it back. It’s a lot like recognizing sexism and racism. You can believe it’s not there and everything’s great, but something opens your eyes – as the remarkable @ALW’s story above illustrates- and suddenly you realize that it’s everywhere.
The weapon against this deep-rooted, instinctual hate is empathy, Compassion, an understanding of other people’s struggles. This leads me to my second comment. Conservativism is not about compassion. Correct me if you feel otherwise, everyone, but it’s about preserving inequality for the sake of overall “societal efficiency” it seems (though Dali raises good points about how much they really care about the efficiency).
Compassion argues for universal health care. That’s a progressive cause. Compassion argues for eliminating prison sentences for non-violent crimes. That’s progressive. Compassion argues for Planned Parenthood, raising the minimum wage, raising welfare, eliminating homelessness, equality for LGBTQ+ people, humanitarian aid missions. These are progressive causes.
The left holds Compassion close – the Right holds Greed, in the flowery prose of the Invisible Hand and the Free Market. Which of these two is a useful tool for subduing the hateful beast that’s so easy to rise in the heart of humanity? Rhetorical question, obviously.
And the argument, of course, is that greed creates prosperity, which is better for everyone – which creates wealth that everyone gets access to. This is compassion, right? Prosperity for all? But even if you believe this (I don’t), it still leaves compassion and empathy, at best, a satellite, welcome at the table so long as Greed can sit at the head and choose who eats what.
Conservative people aren’t evil, but their beliefs come to be at odds with compassion time and time again, when greed instead holds sway – as in all of those lists of things I listed above, and more. When they’re willing to barter away a compassionate cause because “it isn’t worth the money” (at best) or “I don’t believe in it” (an explicit lack of empathy, far too common). Whatever reason they give is immaterial.
Isolating ones’ compassion in this sense is a Conservative trait. When isolating to ones’ national group in an extreme fashion, we call it Fascism, Authoritarianism, or similar.
Sorry for the ramble – I’ve been exploring my own thoughts on this as I’ve been writing. I’m happy to take correction or exception.
The just-world fallacy plays a huge role in conservatism. Once you know to start looking for it, you see it everywhere. Just-world is there in conservative immigration policy and in conservative fiscal policy. Despite what conservatives will tell you about how life isn’t fair, the just-world fallacy could almost be called the foundational doctrine.
@AlanRobertson
Again, I agree with 99.9% of what you wrote… and the slight quibble can be saved for a future time.
I am sad that what I wrote earlier is being read as defense of fascism, or excusing any number of horrible things said and done by MANY of those on the Right.
I simply was objecting to the conflation of Conservatism = Fascism. It is understandable how people might conflate them, as Fascists and Alt-Right and Trumpsters have hijacked the term “Conservative”. However, one can be an economic and regulatory conservative (for example), and identify more as Republican………….. yet also be extremely caring and compassionate, and socially very, very liberal.
There was a study a couple of years ago that showed that giving homeless people actually costs the government less money than letting them stay homeless does. Comments sections on articles about this study were still swarmed with right wingers saying that homeless people shouldn’t be given housing because they shouldn’t expect something for nothing and “I have to pay for my house, why shouldn’t they?” My right wing uncle (who is far from wealthy and only gets by because family members help him, BTW) once made some hateful joke that boiled down to Jesus not wanting to help homeless people because they’re lazy. It’s kind of hard to buy the argument that conservatives want the country/the world to be safe and prosperous and moral when you see that kind of shit. Homeless people suffering because they made “bad decisions” such as being mentally ill or addicted to drugs or losing their jobs in a recession is more attractive than the fiscal responsibility they claim to prize.
I’ve never seen a conservative attempting to make an argument that systemic poverty and the suffering that goes with it is a societal good. They just seem to enjoy that systemic poverty exists. They do make an argument that forcing people to bootstrap it is the key to eliminating poverty even though they never manage to provide remotely convincing evidence that this is true, but they do seem to realize that poverty is a bad thing.
Oh, you absolutely cannot have conservatism without the just world fallacy and a huge dose of magical thinking. Not surprisingly, this thinking and how common it is in American culture is a huge boon for very wealthiest. Train people to blame themselves if their wages are too low or they’re treated like shit at work or they’re taken advantage of by predatory creditors and train people to blame others for having similar misfortunes befall them, and people are less likely to agitate for better working conditions and more financial regulation.
I wish Bright Sided by Barbara Ehrenreich was required reading in all middle schools so kids would grow up knowing it’s okay if you put in effort and think positively and still don’t always have the outcome you want.
Yeah, you guys’re right, thanks @PoM, WWTH. It’s not that they’re reaching for social efficiency or anything of the sort. Howabout this, then: “Conservatism is interested in preserving social inequality for the sake of preserving hierarchy”? Does that mesh better with your understanding?
Either way, the expression of conservatism on a day-to-day basis is wildly different from the high-minded “invisible hand, free market, enlightened selfishness” that more intellectual Conservatives like to talk about. Those are just excuses for validating the expression of raw greed.
More babbling on the whole Just World Fallacy, it really is a deeply-ingrained thing in us. It’s not a Western or American thing, and it’s not new; it’s very intrinsic. We’re all prone to it, and it takes work to overcome.
Thanks for mentioning it specifically. I should do some writing down that vein tying that fallacy with Conservatism; it feels like a very deep root of that tree. Maybe when I’m less medication-addled.
@Scildfreja
Thanks, once again.
I’ll consider that “generalization detector” comment of yours… of course, it’s how people talk, but I find any “All X people think Y and are Z” comment to be offensive and threatening to open dialogue and communication.
Your rest, about compassion and etc.
Again, we are very similar in our views, at least as I understand what you have written. Should the statement have been “Conservative principles and politics are effectively discompassionate to other people’s lives” or “have the effect of being cruel”….. I would not argue.
“… the Right revels in watching people suffer” was the statement I objected to. Do you find that statement to be true?
Okay, MAWG’s posts are drifting all about the page now.
Why are we supposed to care if you have a sad when you’ve shown no concern for the feelings of anyone else here?
You posted before my post on conservative attitudes on homelessness went up. But see that story as an example that goes against this point. I’m sure somewhere out there the compassionate conservatives I keep hearing about but never see exist, but in my experience if you scratch the surface of fiscal conservative but socially liberalism, you’ll find that they aren’t all that compassionate. Lots of conservatives are perfectly capable of acting pleasant and polite, particularly if you look like them and are in their socioeconomic group or a higher socioeconomic group. That doesn’t mean their views aren’t toxic and mean. I can get along with conservatives at work or whatever, but I can never fully trust them because victim blaming is a feature of conservatism, not a bug.
@MAWG, not to pick on you! But this here:
Is a tough one. It involves an artificial division between (economic and regulation concerns) and (social, compassionate concerns).
We tell ourselves that they can be separated, but they can’t. Economy is just what you get when you reduce social concerns down to restricted metrics and then perform analysis on those metrics; regulations are the same when discussing restrictions down to a different set of metrics.
Someone who is claiming to be fiscally conservative but socially liberal is either a) just saying “I’m compassionate, I just don’t want to be stupid with money/regulation”, which is an empty statement because no one wants to be intentionally wasteful, or b) is using the lullaby of statistics to conceal the injustices that economic or regulatory conservatism entails. They save their compassion for their in-group, and may frown and be unhappy at the misfortunes of those outside, but don’t actually take action to help them because of their economic or regulatory conservatism.
There’s this weird idea that progressives want to waste money or legislate frivolous regulation. They don’t. Progressives want to spend money to help people, and want to create regulations to help people. That conservatives call this “waste” is telling.
Again, I’m no expert, that’s just my understanding – critiques are welcome.
I wonder if there’s any connection between the just world/bootstrap mindset and the Protestant heritage in the US. All that protestant work ethic ‘god helps those who helps themselves’ sort of vibe?
After all, Jesus was pretty explicit that ‘the poor shall always be with you’, so eliminating poverty is both impossible (according to the Bible) and defying god a bit to try?
Late to the party, but
@WASP
You may kindly fuck the fuck off. You are everything wrong with the ‘left’, and, if you could keep your invariably bullshit opinions to yourself, the whole of the world would be better off. Now, get to the back where you belong, nobody asked you!
I simply must insist you fuck the fuck off. I didn’t allow you to do jack shit. Don’t blame me for your failures. You didn’t listen to others’ points, cos you didn’t want to. That’s a choice you made, asshole. And you have the nerve to pretend like you’d know if your groups were toxic. WASP meet mirror. Remember when I said to change your nym? Don’t bother. If you wanna advertise that you’re a privilege blind, garbage person, who am I to stop you. At least it’s accurate
How’s that for “less accusatory”? Jackass…
@WWTH,
I’ve experienced the opposite, actually. I’ve scratched the surface of a number of “fiscal conservatives” who end up holding extremely progressive values – they’re just afraid of calling themselves progressive or liberal for fear of not being taken as seriously, or just general social pushback. A slice of our conservative party up here seems to be that way – they want to spend money on regulation, on progressive goals, etc. They’re progressives.
(They’re also in the process of being silenced and pushed out of the Conservative party entirely. There’s quite a dramatic shakedown goin’ on over there right now.)
Not to contradict what you’re saying – there are plenty of people who say they’re just “fiscal conservative, socially liberal” and turn out to be monsters. But I’ve seen enough to think that it’s not at all exclusive, and a lot of people are just afraid to be thought of as frivolous with money. Decades of trash talking from conservatives and all that.
Seriously asked…
Are my comments pain in the ass, or disruptive, or whatever enough that it’d really be better if I went away? Like in “No, I really mean it, go away!”?
Cause it’s pretty lousy for people to be talking, and you just invite yourself into the party… I don’t want to that. Maybe sometimes what people write is just getting stuff off their chest among friends… and then I come on to nit-pick. Like I said, don’t want to do that.
Not that you get the big say so……… but figured I’d ask for input.
In the meantime, I can promise that everything I write is written with absolute integrity and honesty (as best I humanly can) about how I see things. Try my best to be respectful, whether you see that or not. And give enough of a damn to give my opinion directly. To do otherwise would be insulting to the group.
@MAWG,
The Right does revel in the suffering of others. Go look at a Trump rally, fer Thor’s sake. Is there a spectrum? Sure! Is there nuance that Dali wasn’t talking about? Also sure! There’s a gradation of horror there. But that in no way invalidates her point, and arguing that instead of being horrified at the cruelty and hatred is being concerned about the colour of the drapes while the house is burning down.
Anyone who considers themselves a Conservative should be horrified right now, and should utterly recoil from the very label they put upon themselves. So too with Republicans – especially Republicans, the spineless quislings and greedy vultures that they are.
Anyone of moral character is outraged by the rise of fascism in America, and anyone who isn’t is being willfully ignorant.