A Rolling Stone piece where it is argued that the use of the racism label to suppress free inquiry has led to a situation where each passing day sees more scenes that recall something closer to cult religion than politics.

A flurry of newsroom revolts has transformed the American press

Sometimes it seems life can’t get any worse in this country. Already in terror of a pandemic, Americans have lately been bombarded with images of grotesque state-sponsored violence, from the murder of George Floyd to countless scenes of police clubbing and brutalizing protesters.

Our president, Donald Trump, is a clown who makes a great reality-show villain but is uniquely toolless as the leader of a superpower nation. Watching him try to think through two society-imperiling crises is like waiting for a gerbil to solve Fermat’s theorem. Calls to “dominate” marchers and ad-libbed speculations about Floyd’s “great day” looking down from heaven at Trump’s crisis management and new unemployment numbers (“only” 21 million out of work!) were pure gasoline at a tinderbox moment. The man seems determined to talk us into civil war.

But police violence, and Trump’s daily assaults on the presidential competence standard, are only part of the disaster. On the other side of the political aisle, among self-described liberals, we’re watching an intellectual revolution. It feels liberating to say after years of tiptoeing around the fact, but the American left has lost its mind. It’s become a cowardly mob of upper-class social media addicts, Twitter Robespierres who move from discipline to discipline torching reputations and jobs with breathtaking casualness.

The leaders of this new movement are replacing traditional liberal beliefs about tolerance, free inquiry, and even racial harmony with ideas so toxic and unattractive that they eschew debate, moving straight to shaming, threats, and intimidation. They are counting on the guilt-ridden, self-flagellating nature of traditional American progressives, who will not stand up for themselves, and will walk to the Razor voluntarily.

Continue reading @ Rolling Stone

The American Press Is Destroying Itself

A Rolling Stone piece where it is argued that the use of the racism label to suppress free inquiry has led to a situation where each passing day sees more scenes that recall something closer to cult religion than politics.

A flurry of newsroom revolts has transformed the American press

Sometimes it seems life can’t get any worse in this country. Already in terror of a pandemic, Americans have lately been bombarded with images of grotesque state-sponsored violence, from the murder of George Floyd to countless scenes of police clubbing and brutalizing protesters.

Our president, Donald Trump, is a clown who makes a great reality-show villain but is uniquely toolless as the leader of a superpower nation. Watching him try to think through two society-imperiling crises is like waiting for a gerbil to solve Fermat’s theorem. Calls to “dominate” marchers and ad-libbed speculations about Floyd’s “great day” looking down from heaven at Trump’s crisis management and new unemployment numbers (“only” 21 million out of work!) were pure gasoline at a tinderbox moment. The man seems determined to talk us into civil war.

But police violence, and Trump’s daily assaults on the presidential competence standard, are only part of the disaster. On the other side of the political aisle, among self-described liberals, we’re watching an intellectual revolution. It feels liberating to say after years of tiptoeing around the fact, but the American left has lost its mind. It’s become a cowardly mob of upper-class social media addicts, Twitter Robespierres who move from discipline to discipline torching reputations and jobs with breathtaking casualness.

The leaders of this new movement are replacing traditional liberal beliefs about tolerance, free inquiry, and even racial harmony with ideas so toxic and unattractive that they eschew debate, moving straight to shaming, threats, and intimidation. They are counting on the guilt-ridden, self-flagellating nature of traditional American progressives, who will not stand up for themselves, and will walk to the Razor voluntarily.

Continue reading @ Rolling Stone

1 comment:

  1. Damned depressing overall, but it represents a common problem with 'Group Think'and it is sad what happened to the Intercept writer Lee Fang if that is accurate. There is a particular problems with this piece though. It is hyperbolic in relation to the 'Defunding the Police' concept. It does not mean abolishing the police and is in fact a fuzzy term that can mean a lot . Hence the Democrat leader of Minneapolis council was likely 'covering her arse' and has certainly no intention of abolishing the police but possibly restructering them in the (allegedly neo-liberal costcutter?) style of Camden, New Jersey, but hopefully more progressive as in using the money more sanely . The piece raises more questions than answers (including the motivation of the writer) , but yeah the white 'progressive' outrage is likely hyperbolic in the main and needs taking with a dose of salt . I doubt if they really are going to go voluntarily to some hypothetical Maoist gulag

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