Here is the best article I have seen on what I see as an alarming obsessive right-wing trend, the child sex trafficking conspiracies. Do you remember the conspiracy about Hillary and Bill Clinton running with other Democrats a child sex trafficking operation in the Comet Ping Pong pizza restaurant in Washington, D.C., otherwise known as Pizzagate? I am not really sure why the United States is so vulnerable to this craziness. Partly, I think, it is the weaponization of misinformation on the internet; partly it is the fact that 54% of Americans can’t read past the 6th-grade level, and 43% can’t get past the 5th-grade level, which means half the American population can’t read and properly comprehend a story in The New York Times, or The Guardian, or The Atlantic Magazine. Partly, I think, it is a manifestation of the sexual insecurity and confusion of christofascism, and partly it is the decline in the quality of American journalism. It is a trend doing real damage to our democracy and social wellbeing.
Sex workers and their supporters protest a police raid on Oct. 25, 2016, in Minneapolis saying shutting down sites like Backpage.com exposes them to more risk. Credit: Fibonacci Blue
Americans adore a moral panic.
During the Red Scare, we believed that Soviet agents were everywhere, having secretly infiltrated all levels of society. In the 1950s, the U.S. government banned switchblades over unfounded fears that we were in the throes of “West Side Story”-style knife violence. The Satanic Panic convinced Americans of the 1980s that absurd claims of ritual abuse and sacrifice were somehow credible. Around the same time, there was “stranger danger” — which was debunked like other moral panics, but never went away entirely.
At any given time, America is moving in and out of some moral panic or another. Harm to children is a persistent theme. In recent years, however, our national obsession with these moral panics has consumed our politics. We’ve come to believe that sex trafficking rings are all around us. The driving force may come as a surprise: a […]
What I am seeing on college campuses today remains me more than anything of the anti-Vietnam war rallies of the of the late 60s early 70s. What Hamas did was a war crime, no question, but what Israel under Netanyahu has done is far worse. The way I see it Netanyahu like Trump, a fellow fascist, has destroyed his country’s reputation in the world, and it may take more than a generation for it to rebuild, if it ever does. These two men will go down in history as historically evil individuals. But Biden is not going to escape historical condemnation either. What the Israelis have done was done with weapons America gave them.
Palestinians in Khan Yunis have continued to unearth dead bodies in what is believed to be the largest mass grave in Gaza’s history, first discovered at Nasser Hospital last Saturday. The discovery comes two weeks after the Israeli military withdrew its troops from the southern city on April 7 after a three-month siege, leaving utter destruction in their wake.
The massacre site is teeming with rescuers in hazmat suits digging corpses out of the ground with primitive hand tools and digging trucks, while horrified survivors and family members stand there in fraught anticipation, waiting for a sign of their loved ones who have been missing for two or more months. A video taken by Motasem Mortaja, a Palestinian journalist in Khan Yunis, shows a grieving mother kneeling on the hospital grounds and embracing the body of her son, weeping. She is one of the fortunate ones, as most bodies remain unidentified. Of the nearly 400 bodies recovered so far, only 65 have been identified, the head of the Khan Yunis Civil Defense told Al Jazeera.
Hundreds of mothers have gathered daily at the hospital, looking for their children, moving from body to body. One woman toldAl Jazeera, “I came here for the fifth day looking for […]
Selcuk Uluagac, Professor of Computing and Information Science, Florida International University - Raw Story / The Conversation
Stephan:
The internet is becoming an increasingly dangerous world, as this article describes. Why? Because governments have not really comprehended or been willing to develop regulatory approaches that do not impact freedom of speech but do hold people who misuse the net accountable. Personally, I suspect what is required is simply above the comprehension of members of the U.S. Congress or the Biden Administration.
Hacker over a screen with binary code. Credit: Shutterstock
You probably know better than to click on links that download unknown files onto your computer. It turns out that uploading files can get you into trouble, too.
Today’s web browsers are much more powerful than earlier generations of browsers. They’re able to manipulate data within both the browser and the computer’s local file system. Users can send and receive email, listen to music or watch a movie within a browser with the click of a button.
Unfortunately, these capabilities also mean that hackers can find clever ways to abuse the browsers to trick you into letting ransomware lock up your files when you think that you’re simply doing your usual tasks online.
I had the most informative email exchange this morning with a MAGAt, a man I have never met, who wrote to tell me I was being very unfair and biased against Trump. I was making him out to be a criminal. I responded by saying to him This is a man who is a convicted rapist, who has multiple fraudster convictions and is under indictment for 44 federal and 44 state felonies, including treason, and an attempted coup. What would you call him? He responded by saying it was all a scheme by Biden and the Democrats to make Trump look bad so that he, Biden, would win the election. I spent some time looking at conservative websites, and watching the Fox propaganda operation, and I realized that the Trump trials are another example of the Great Schism Trend. We have become two quite different countries, and I don’t quite see how we are going to go on. But I don’t see how to come apart either.
By the way, I also got an email from a reporter who has been in the courtroom who told me that apparently, because Trump is reported to wear diapers and doesn’t have control over either his bladder or his bowels, the smell in the courtroom is appalling. I did a Google on this and found a number of confirmatory reports from reliable sources. As much as I loathe Donald Trump it made me feel sorry for him. It must be extraordinarily stressful to try to maintain a facade of wellbeing when you are this disabled. Psychologically, ethically, and physically this man should never be president again, and yet millions of voters, as this article describes, just don’t get or care to get the reality of Trump.
Donald Trump appears in court with his attorneys Emil Bove, left, and Todd Blanche during his trial on 25 April in New York City. Credit: Getty
In one America, he cuts a diminished, humbled figure during coverage that runs from morn till night. “He seems considerably older and he seems annoyed, resigned, maybe angry,” said broadcaster Rachel Maddow after seeing Donald Trump up close in court. “He seems like a man who is miserable to be here.”
But in the other America – that of Fox News, far-right podcasts and the Make America Great Again (Maga) base – the trial of the former president over a case involving a hush-money payment to an adult film performer is playing out very differently.
Here, anger at what is seen as political persecution meets with another emotion: sublime indifference. Barely a handful of Trump supporters bother to protest each day outside the court in New York, a Democratic stronghold. The trial receives less prominence in conservative media, which prefers to devote airtime to other national news including protests on university campuses against the war in Gaza.
As this article describes, in the Southern Red states the Republicans are doing everything they can to undercut and stop unionization. It is part of The Great Schism Trend that is transforming the United States into two quite different countries. It surprises me that many hourly workers vote Republican because the Republican Party for decades has done everything it could to undermine unions. Many workers don’t seem to comprehend that the two things that created the middle class in America are the post-World War II veterans’ housing and education programs, and before and during that time the rise of the unions. If you look at the social outcome data it is very clear that if you work for an hourly wage and you want to improve your and your family’s wellbeing you want to join a union. If you live in a Red state though that may not be possible.
United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain, right, speaks as local organizers raise their fists at a UAW vote watch party on April 19, 2024 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Credit: Elijah Nouvelage / Getty
Since six Southern Republican governors last week showed “how scared they are” of the United Auto Workers’ U.S. organizing drive, Tennessee Volkswagen employees have voted to join the UAW while GOP policymakers across the region have ramped up attacks on unions.
The UAW launched “the largest organizing drive in modern American history” after securing improved contracts last year with a strike targeting the Big Three automakers—General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis. The ongoing campaign led to the “landslide” victory in Chattanooga last week, which union president Shawn Fain pointed to as proof that “you can’t win in the South” isn’t true.
The Tennessee win “is breaking the brains of Republicans in that region. They’re truly astonished that workers might not trust their corporate overlords with their working conditions, pay, health, and retirement,” Thom Hartmann wrote in […]
