Topic: Current Events

[6pairsofshoes]

Re first amendment:

Think of Twitter as the Christian bakery and Trump and his followers as the guys that want them to bake a gay birthday cake.

Here's a link to the Trump Twitter page and an excerpt from its rules.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Violence: You may not threaten violence against an individual or a group of people. We also prohibit the glorification of violence. Learn more about our violent threat and glorification of violence policies.

Terrorism/violent extremism: You may not threaten or promote terrorism or violent extremism. Learn more.
...
Hateful conduct: You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease. Learn more.

Twitter is not denying people accounts for being homosexuals or Christians.  It is pulling the plug on a user for inciting violence and for issuing inflammatory lies that are intended to nurture violence.  Those are the bases for pulling Trump's account.  If he were a homosexual or a radical Christian espousing the same views, they'd still pull his account.  This is not a belief issue, but rather a question of public safety.  It's hard to know if Trump is really so deranged as to believe his own rhetoric, but I don't discount the possibility.  Still, yelling fire in a crowded theatre when it's not on fire, if it's done to wreak havoc, isn't protected speech and it should reap consequences if people are hurt as a result. 

Private businesses can be sued for the actions of their customers (think of the bartender who knowingly serves more alcohol to a patron who's clearly inebriated and who subsequently drives into another car and kills someone--in the U.S. there would be negligent liability involved).  And while it's a stretch for Twitter to think they might bear some responsibility for the havoc Trump's tweets caused, it's not impossible.

[smokester]

As I understand it (from a close reading of the acknowledged expert in the field Tom Clancy) the CIA isn't chartered to operate on US soil: that would be the NSA or FBI.

That's interesting as I thought not but always equated the CIA to the CID. Now I think of it, a Federal agency would be the ones listening in.

[6pairsofshoes]

I think you missed my intent: I fully support Twitter unvoicing him and think they should have done it years ago, as he has been posting hate speech ever since he was elected (and possibly before).

I was simply expressing the Twitter issue in a way that Trump followers may understand, as they were absolutely behind the bakery that declined to make the gay cake.

It's kind of funny that your intent was sort of ironic as I've seen that defense posted on FB by Republican sympathizers.  I hadn't really thought about it, but it's like someone on here decided to flame people and be a general pain.  smokes would be well within his right to tell them to get lost.  There are behavioral standards that this, and many other online fora establish and people get banned all the time.  I guess Trump's outraged followers aren't much for alternative sites.  FB and Twitter are very easy to access and I guess people are not much on reading the rules.

But, for the record, I would fight to have unpopular opinions voiced so long as they are not advocating murdering people or other kinds of violence.  A few years back, the right wing pundit, Ann Coulter, who's never been a candidate for Miss Congeniality, was to speak at UC Berkeley in an open air venue, known as Sproul Plaza.  This is an open space difficult to police.

For security reasons, the overflow crowds that were anticipated required her to shift within campus to a more secure venue--same access to student audiences, same university and date.  She was outraged, pulled out of the engagement, and accused the university of censorship, while all they were trying to do was to protect her skinny ass.  I don't like her, but I think it's important for students to be exposed to a broad variety of voices and different ideologies.

As for the CIA, my understanding is that they are not a law enforcement agency, but they gather intelligence that supports American global concerns, and to the extent that external actors might infiltrate the homeland, they will monitor terrorist activities on U.S. soil.  They cooperate with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other local law enforcement agencies.  I actually went to their website.  They are apparently recruiting as the first thing I saw was a welcome to those who might want to pursue careers there.  https://www.cia.gov/  They grew out of WW2 period intelligence efforts & were originally known as the Office of Strategic Services.  Headed, I think, by "Wild" Bill Donovan.

[6pairsofshoes]

Someone on FB yesterday posted a very thoughtful assessment of how the media is so driven by market concerns that even "reliable" fact-checking venues like the New York Times and the Washington Post tend to craft reporting of facts in such a way that the news stories are palatable for the intended audiences.  It's hard to determine how the general populace is to work around that.  Reality becomes skewed, so I agree with your general take on the state of affairs that drives many less sophisticated readers to sites that resonate with their basic cynicism and distrust.  The system isn't working for them, so, in their view, the system is rigged, and all politicians are crooked and simply working to further their own interests.  So the government is "evil" and all the logical ramifications that come from this premise simply follow only to be reinforced.  I don't understand how that ends up with ideas such as "6MWE" and the other hate filled rhetoric advanced by Trump's followers, but there you have it.

I'm stymied in trying to figure out how to fix this without a massive re-thinking of our educational system, and even that will be slow to have any noticeable effects.

[6pairsofshoes]

I have a digital subscription to the NYT, and had read the article (I am spending probably too much time reading that paper these days). 

But what I was getting at was this:  it's one thing to mistrust one's government, and quite another to suggest that the Holocaust that resulted in the murder of 6 million Jews didn't go far enough.  That's what the "6MWE" teeshirts mean.  Feeling disenfranchised is a far cry from recommending the genocidal extermination of the adherents of a particular faith.  Especially in the United States.  It disturbs me to no end.

[6pairsofshoes]

And, chris, the thing I vaguely remembered reading on FB was a quote from Matt Taibbi, here:

“The moment a group of people stormed the Capitol building last Wednesday, news companies began the process of sorting and commoditizing information that long ago became standard in American media. Media firms work backward. They first ask, “How does our target demographic want to understand what’s just unfolded?” Then they pick both the words and the facts they want to emphasize……What happened last Wednesday was the apotheosis of the Hate Inc. era, when this audience-first model became the primary means of communicating facts to the population. For a hundred reasons dating back to the mid-eighties, from the advent of the Internet to the development of the 24-hour news cycle to the end of the Fairness Doctrine and the Fox-led discovery that news can be sold as character-driven, episodic TV in the manner of soap operas, the concept of a “Just the facts” newscast designed to be consumed by everyone died out.’
Matt Taibbi

[6pairsofshoes]

We don't have cable tv, so we don't generally watch CNN unless we are traveling.  We once were tuned into CNN when the topic of the day was a group of Boy Scouts missing in a cave.  They were 3 hours late returning, and CNN blathered on and on speculating about the state of the Boy Scouts until they returned, unharmed.  What an anticlimax.  I think the hotel only had about 10 channels worth watching and there was nothing else on, so the Boy Scout drama was about the only game in town.  I'd rather read a book, myself.

One would hope that with that kind of budget and audience, the network might actually devote itself to coverage of less well known parts of the world.  Like what's happening in Venezuela or Ecuador right now.  But I guess Boy Scouts are more compelling.

p.s. Trump was just impeached again.  Most of the Republican representatives left their spines at home today. 

p.p.s.  Apparently the fact that 10 Republicans did vote to impeach makes this the most bipartisan impeachment vote in history.  Wowza.

[goldshirt*9]

I'm sorry how much
Biden unveils $1.9tn US economic relief package

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55670801

[6pairsofshoes]

It's sad how much this lockdown and social distancing restrictions have hurt businesses.  So many restaurants are closing permanently, and many tenants are unable to pay rent.  While many jurisdictions prevent landlords from evicting them for non payment of rent, the landlords depend on those monthly payments for expenses like paying mortgages and that sort of thing.

So people are hurting.  The sad thing in the US is that much of the help has gone to people who need it least.

[8ullfrog]

Please consider dropping the NYT? They paywall their site to hell and just expect people to crap out money.

Same for WP honestly.

Plenty of honest free media out there, and then you hit an NYT or WP link and stub your digital toe.

[6pairsofshoes]

chris, sorry.  Of course fear of disseminating the disease is the reason behind those restrictions.  I have no issue with the limitations on personal liberty that the pandemic necessitates.  But, it doesn't make it any less of a fiscal disaster for those affected.

8ully, most public libraries offer free online access to the NYT.  I can also post long quotations if it will help.  A friend put me on her WaPo account, but if I use my iPad instead of my laptop I keep getting hit with a paywall and it won't accept my p/w, which is super annoying.  So I get it.  I think you are in San Diego County?  If not, all CA libraries offer access and some even have streaming videos.  https://www.sdcl.org/help-librarycard.html

There's a link for a token here for digital access to the NYT, https://www.sdcl.org/refdb2.html
Let me know if you have any trouble gaining access.

[6pairsofshoes]

Oddly the article I linked isn't behind the paywall for me.

Many journals that require a subscription, have lifted restrictions to access on any articles that have to do with COVID or the pandemic, as a public service.

[8ullfrog]

So, today happened. I still don't love the concept of "Free speech zones", but I understand why they had to be all over this one. Inaugurations are fraught with peril at the best of times and... we're not in the best of times.

I'm glad they rehearsed this one to death, no "retake the oath" nonsense like Obama that led to a thousand conspiracies, they damn near speed rapped that oath.

Locally we've got problems. We've got one total Cockbite, goes by the name Mike Hess, he's operating his breweries and restaurants in defiance of the public health order "as protest"

And apparently the response is... to let him do it.  I'm glad I've never given the man money, and I am perplexed on why people continue to do so. Apparently the IB location has led to TWO outbreaks... but they won't shut him down.

[smokester]

It's no secret that the U.K is in hell with COVID deaths right now and this really has to do with a half-hearted approach to the rules. It's not that people wanted to defy them and most had the best intentions, they just never got on board with the enormity of it and here we are.

We may have been ok if it hadn't become more transmissible, but either way, it wasn't really a good idea to take the relaxed approach. It is a pandemic after all.

[8ullfrog]

I just watched the end of the Biden Ingaugraganza, Katy Perry damn near blew up the Washington monument.

When the pyrotechnists asked "which fireworks do you want?" Tom Hanks must have said "YES"