SocraticGadfly: 8/30/20 - 9/6/20

September 05, 2020

COVIDIOTS at Friday Night Lights

This is from last week's initial action.

"Somehow," I don't think this is UIL-acceptable.



That said, small town north Texas? It's possible all three are first cousins.

But, if they're not living in the same household? Doesn't matter and doesn't count.

And, note both kids (even under Gov. Strangeabbott's 10-year-old exemption age) and adults behind this trio wearing masks.

COVIDIOTS.

There were students who were COVIDIOTS, too. You can see one group at the album link.

But, beyond that? Just plain idiots.



That's from an injured player on the sidelines.

That said, I took a pass from leaving my current job to go to another place with no more pay, possibly less work, but an even deeper-fried level of wingnuttery. I'm sure I could find more of that there.

September 04, 2020

RIP David Graeber; you'll be a bit but not totally missed here

David Graeber, the somewhat "heterodox" economist and historian of economics anthropologist, died yesterday. I had thought he was an economist but am informed otherwise.

 Late friend Leo Lincourt turned me on to him while also noting that his writing and thought were ... "uneven." He was specifically speaking about the book "Debt," so it's not only neoliberals who have criticized it.

Here's an interview of him about basic income and bullshit jobs, discussed by him in detail here. Generally good stuff.

But?

His one big idea, as in his book "Debt"? Built on somewhat false pretenses.

Like heterodox economist Michael Hudson, Graeber called for jubilee years like those in the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible.

Problem? Those jubilee years of every seven years (actually the sabbatical year), and the super-jubilees of every 50, were almost surely aspirational, ideational. They weren't real. They come from the P section of the Tanakh, drafted in Babylonian exile or after. I mean, per the Wiki page for the book, even Jacobin, although it's not THAT far left, called it anecdotes that don't add up to proof. Wiki's pages on the sabbath year and the jubilee year are both useless. The sabbath year piece presents sabbath years as though they actually happened. The jubilee years piece cites Graeber as a reference, while even then noting that jubilees were (allegedly) offered when a new king was enthroned, and were for noncommercial debt only.

Contra conservative biblical scholars, 2 Kings 19 / Isaiah 37 do NOT imply a regular system of sabbath years at the time of Hezekiah. Rather, the passage seems to imply that Israelites couldn't plant in the current year, and in the second year, the soil might still be too disrupted (salted by Sennacherib?) to grow anything beyond more "volunteer" plants, and that "Yahweh would provide."

As for ancient Near Eastern kings doing this on their ascents in general? Given that we have but a few examples of this, and that "winners not only wrote history, they were the only ones writing" back then, if not fully ideational, there's probably less truth and more legend to these ideas than Graeber, Hudson or others would admit.

Per his Wiki page, he's then to blame, in part, for the myth of Occupy Wall Street vs. its reality? It wasn't as anarchist as he claims, though it was more than anarchist enough. Yet, it had leaders. Oh, it did. Also, riffing on the likes of Doug Henwood saying racism almost always reduces to classism? Graeber either missed, or papered over, that by demographics, OWS was BOTH racist AND classist.

He was also a big MMT touter, and I've called that a Maoist cult.

I don't know what all Leo had in mind by "uneven," but one piece I saw yesterday illustrated that to a T.

Here's a piece from him in The Baffler which shows the range of thought he had, though he's just wrong in his apparent support for panpsychism. And, his dismissal of the whole idea of emergent properties is simplistic. And, if, in light of the real thing called scientism, there's something called anti-scientism, this comes close.

And, in what must have enlivened editorial conversations at The Baffler, fellow writer there Thomas Frank said that Occupy Wall Street didn't accomplish shit. And, he was right

===

Update, March 3, 2022: I have given Graeber's posthumous "Dawn of Everything" a thorough deconstruction at Goodreads, with a 2-star review. I have also offered background to that, including links to other critical reviews and what I learned from them, at this blog post.

Top blogging in August

At No. 1 was an old one from 2018, highly relevant with last Sunday's Movement for a People's Party convention, and that is "Roses, sunflowers and red flags on Twitter." Roses being the DSA Roseys, ie, Berniecrats as today's Roseys, behind MPP, sunflowers being the Greens (which I am for now) and red flags being socialists, which I am of some sort, or communists, which I will never be.

Speaking of? No. 2 was "Fuck the Movement for a People's Party."

No. 3, from early in August, was "Georgia schools get an F on COVID after one week."

No. 4 is an old favorite, trending again: "Timothy Treadwell was really fricking nuts." And he was!

No. 5 is from just this last week, about The Three Sleezekeeters of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, state Sen. Pat Fallon and state Rep. Drew Springer on the timing of a special election to fill Fallon's seat.

No. 6? One with personal relevance. I dissected Kroger's Kabuki theater PR bullshit over the coronavirus, masks, and "Kroger Andy" in Louisville. (I've started boycotting Kroger.)

No. 7? As I know professionally, because they're not going to save mail in general, No, FedEx and UPS aren't going to save mail voting.

No. 8 and 9 are related. No 8 is my discussion of "Coronavirus 2021 and beyond," starting with the fact that we WILL NOT have a vaccine both safe and effective by the end of this year.

No. 9 was this week's installment of my split version of the Texas Progressives roundup, looking at coronavirus, reinfection, Deborah Birx a Trump toady again, Stephen Hahn maybe starting to be, and much more.

No. 10? It's about how both L//l-libertarians and neoliberal Democrats refuse to recognize the fact that behavioral economics undercuts their economic ideas base.

September 03, 2020

Texas progressives: election races, racism races, hurricanes, more

Lots of stuff on this week's Roundup, a lot of it again centered on policing and Black lives.

But, we've got election news, other wingnut news and plenty more.

So, let's dive in with regional news first, then state news, and then the national stuff after all of that.

Dallas

Why does new Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson, Black himself, hate the largely Black population of South Dallas, specifically Joppa, in not doing more about Shingle Mountain?

The Fort Worth cop who allegedly fatally shot Atatiana Jefferson has been indicted for murder.

Denton/North Texas

SocraticGadfly talked about the Threes Sleezekeeters: — Abbott, Fallon, Springer — while having the latest updates and some prognostication on the SD 30 special election race.

Anti-masking wingnut incumbent Sheriff Tracy Murphree faces a write-in challenge from a transsexual (sic on this blog) former county jailer.

Houston

Jeff Balke breathed a huge sigh of relief at Houston's luck in avoiding Hurricane Laura.

Texas

Yours truly said Fuck the Texas Democratic Party on its cock-blocking Green candidates.

There's actually going to be an ersatz fill-in State Fair of Texas.

Off the Kuff lauds Harris County going all in on expanding voting access, while noting the objections from the Secretary of State to the plan to send mail ballot applications to all registered voters.

Dan Solomon has some suggestions for ensuring that your vote counts this fall.

Grits for Breakfast asks why the number of police shootings in Texas keeps going up.

There's an official group called the Romance Writers of America. It — and the larger romance writing industry (and it IS an industry, I know) — also has a racist past history, it seems. As Vivian Stephens, who it pushed out, and the group, are both from Houston, Texas Monthly has the details.

Pro-life huckster Abby Johnson was profiled by Nathan Blakeslee at the Monthly when she quit Planned Parenthood. She refused to cooperate for his piece, but has recently, in the wake of an upcoming Religious Right movie about her, penned some blather for The Federalist. Blakeslee responds with a thorough refutation. She's not only doubling down on her old lies, she's telling new ones. She comes off as an opportunistic grifter in the same vein as Candace Owens.

Chernobyl on Galveston Bay? Terence O'Rourke, in the Harris County Attorney's office, says a Category 4 hurricane with a direct hit on the bay could be just that. Sorry, Houstonians, even if an Ike Dike were in place, environmental damages, certain cost overruns and everything else I've noted, it likely would do little to mitigate that.

A federal judge has ruled the state is violating federal motor-voter law by not automatically letting people register to vote when they update their driver's license online. Judge Garcia has given the state a month from the time of his ruling to fix this. Kenny Boy Paxton will surely appeal.

Despite the Texas Workforce Commission's sunny PR optimism of its commissioners on monthly unemployment news releases (and it's especially disgusting out of the mouth of Aaron Demerson, the "commissioner representing employees"), the TWC sux if you're unemployed right now, and like many red states, knew it sucked before the pandemic.

National



Knowing what I do about bad cops, or more, a bad police chief, I suspect that the Kenosha PD in its overreaction to arresting out-of-town protest supporters is probably working some sort of grapevine of rumor milling by other police chiefs. Or maybe the grapevine is with the alt-right, though that's not (yet) been documented in Wisconsin.

As for Jacob Blake? I am still certain he didn't need to be shot seven times from behind. BUT? Police were called by an ex-girlfriend, and the state's investigation has said they tried to Taser him ... and it didn't stop him. So, as Blake's attorneys squabble with the Kenosha police union and the Wisconsin AG's office continues to investigate, the latest partial news may never be fully fleshed out.

EX Sheriff Todd Wright shows why Blacks rightly need to approach police with caution.

What should NBA (and other) athletes do with their (we hope) new powers? ESPN talked to legal, civil libertarian and social justice experts. Among the answers I really like? Fight to end pretextual traffic stops. That's where cops use a "pretext" (because just about all of us do something that could be a moving violation, as noted) to stop a car, and then go on a fishing expedition when the car is stopped. Intimidated people, especially minorities, may not know their rights and undercut themselves.

Yours truly said Fuck the Movement for a People's Party, founded by a bunch of Our Revolution grifting butthurt Berners with a sprinkling of conspiracy theorists.

The USPS is likely not going to be the only thing affecting vote by mail this year. Cumbersome laws in many states about not counting mail votes before election day will be another problem. Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are among states where local election officials cannot even do preliminary work on mail ballots until election day. Many would be hard to fix before election day even without Trump weaponizing this.

Michael Moore, repeating his 2016 warnings, says that Trump could pull out a win.

As long as national Democrats won't talk about accountability for climate change inducing carbon polluters, they don't really care about climate change.

Trump is trying to illegally remove his FTC chair.

Sounds like Melania Trump, to invent a mashup hyphenation, is a racio-germophobe. (In other worse, she didn't want to use Michelle Obama's White House bathroom cuz she thinks Black people have cooties or something.)

Paradise in Hell channels Melania Trump.

September 02, 2020

Blockchain: A solution in search of a problem

Blockchain is "a solution in search of a problem," and that's only half its problem, if that much. (The piece doesn't mention the anti-government libertarianism of bitcoiners, but does mention other issues.

Blockchains are used for data and are based on data. But, as the author notes, modern fraud is generally fraud by data suppliers.

Finally, Frederik notes that in many cases where small governments and organizations are based on blockchain usage? It's hype, and they're not.

Basically, it's a new version of salvific technologism. It's not going to save the world, nor is it going to magically change it. And, if anything, overuse of it, because of yet other problems, like its general irreversibility, could be for the worse, not the better. The sooner others realize that, the better.

September 01, 2020

Texas Progressives on coronavirus Week 22: Reinfection clinically proven, more layoffs ahead, Stephen Hahn sucks

COVID reinfection has officially been confirmed. Masks UP!

Even worse? Good old American exceptionalist capitalism, plus nationalism on which the US has no leg up on either Russia or China, is bollixing up scientific research for a vaccine.  This thing is going to get ugly before a new vaccine that is both safe and effective hits the market.

Meanwhile, new Trump pandemic advisor Scott Atlas, neither a virologist nor an epidemiologist, is openly advocating Trump push Swedish-type herd immunity. As the story notes, it hasn't worked, and Sweden has a higher death rate than the US, despite all of Trump's OTHER fuck-ups on handling COVID. The UK, which started down the herd immunity road, is also higher. This:
With a population of 328 million in the United States, it may require 2.13 million deaths to reach a 65 percent threshold of herd immunity, assuming the virus has a 1 percent fatality rate, according to an analysis by The Washington Post.
Is the reality.

Deborah Birx goes further down the Trump toady road by saying she's "optimistic" about a vaccine this year. I don't need Fauci to tell me she's full of shit.

Stephen Hahn, whether a secret Trump toady or, as many feared when he was nominated to run the FDA, a guy without any political history and likely without any political backbone, is letting his agency cave to Trump's politicization, first with blood plasma treatments and now with medically unindicated expanded use of remdesivir.

Related? A Health and Human Services mouthpiece claims a COVID vaccine will be ready by the end of the year after announcing clinical trials will start by the end of the month. No it won't, not in the normal definition of "safe" and "effective." If Hahn caves on this, he is really part of the problem, not part of the solution. If Hahn even caves on not challenging this statement, he's part of the problem, not part of the solution.

A Trump plan to supplement Obamacare for COVID patients has been a big old fail so far, for a variety of reasons.

Trump's attempt to put new smiley faces on his handling of the pandemic continue to fail. A number of companies have announced that old furloughs will become permanent, or at best that any people recalled will have work modified (ie, paid less), while other companies have announced new layoff plans.
A survey of human-resources employees released by Randstad RiseSmart found nearly half of U.S. employers that furloughed or laid off staff because of Covid-19 are considering additional workplace cuts in the next 12 months.
The story goes on to note that many companies expect the pandemic's problems to be worse than they first planned months ago. Question: Assuming he's elected, is ConservaDem Joe Biden preparing for this? And, per the "Obamacare" link, is there even a snowball's chance he changes his mind on national health care? There is no Joe Lieberman (D-Zion) to block it if the Dems get to 51, not 50, in the Senate.

More employment-related news? Trumpy was told by the IRS he cannot unilaterally waive employees' portion of FICA taxes. Only Congress can, and the ConservaDems better not! All Trump can do is allow employers to delay collecting employees' half until the end of this year, and then collect the whole outstanding amount at once. Even conservative biz organizations are balking at that. So, Trump's executive declaration on this will likely be ignored.

DosCentavos points you to a post by researcher Angela Gutierrez regarding a Latino Decisions survey of Latino parents and the challenges they face as schools reopen.

ISIS was scamming America with fake N95 masks. (Dear ISIS: Want to do this right? Scam ONLY red-region America with real Ben Carson Brand and My Pillow Guy Brand oleandrin.)

Meet "Doctor" Roger Marshall, the MD COVIDIOT Kansas Congresscritter running for Senate.

August 31, 2020

RIP Ed Brayton

I already said RIP to the co-founder of Freethought Blogs at my Philosophy of Socratic Gadfly site but wanted to speak here as well, with expansion of some of the political ideas I wrote about there, both where I agree and where I disagree.

Basically, the political issues of disagreement reflected some of the same tribalism of Gnu Atheism, with which Ed had a conflicted, but yet enabling, relationship. Let's dig in.

I've long since stopped following "movement" skepticism or most "organized" atheism, especially anything that tilts Gnu-ish. I knew Brayton had been in somewhat declining health for some time, indeed, even from when he split off from the Freethought Blogs he co-founded with P.Z. Myers.

And now I see he died the early part of August, three days after his last blog post. Unfortunately, his dying reportedly was not as pain-free as he had hoped.

My take? He'll be missed to a degree, but not as much a degree as many paeans would have you believe.

I wrote about problems at FtB when Ed was still large and in charge. Tolerance of social justice warriors, above all Stephanie Zwan and "husband" Greg Laden, which sent Laden the rabid pit bull after me when I joked, with roles reversed, of him and his "wife."

The big thing I have against Ed, per the link above, is this, and that's Ed getting into bed with PZ in the first place. And, the loonies he let stay there far too long. And the hypocrisy a year before that. Per the first link in the graf, he and PZ were both cheap asses to the late Leo Lincourt in not paying his surely reasonable price to make FtB better as a website. And, I have no doubt Leo's price was reasonable, and that FtB would have looked like what Patheos, and Ed's eventual "Dispatches from the Culture Wars," did look like.

Probably what I'll miss most about him is what most of us miss about ourselves later in life: The could have beens. That would mainly be, in Ed's case, a FtB that never had P.Z involved in the first place. Can't say you weren't warned, Ed, from this small corner of the blogosphere; as I noted, from the start, you were turning over too many of the keys to PZ. Had that been the case, Greg Laden and Stephanie Zwan might not have been part of FtB, as well, and the problems never would have reached that point. In other words, a secular humanist version of Panda's Thumb or something.

Patheos wound up kind of fulfilling that, but not really. The Patheos "nonreligious" vertical doesn't have some of the broader secular humanism and civil liberties focus Ed did himself, and that he surely originally intended for FtB. Nor does it have a personal "face."

Leo and I used to talk about looking for the sweet spot in the center of a triple Venn diagram between non-Gnu atheism, or a modernized secular humanism, on one circle, a broad-focus skepticism that looked beyond Skeptics™ (I first met Leo online in the old Skeptics' Circle blog circle), and a non-conspiratorial leftist politics. Ed wasn't lefist, but his civil libertarianism would have halfway checked the box on the third circle. He could have checked, pretty much, the first and second circles had he done things differently. Picture something like the Venn at left, which is a snapshot of my takes on philosophy, atheism and secularism, and true skepticism.

But, he had his good points, and he wasn't fully a Gnu, and he called out Islamophobia in people like Dawkins and Harris, which is why some weren't fans of him at all. And, in today's day and age, calling out Islamophobia is a big deal. Contra some full-on Gnus who disliked him, his battles against things like Islamophobia were battles for social justice. And fact based. If you don't like being challenged that Islamophobia is real, and not just an excuse word for Islamic bad behavior, you can go fuck yourself. And, that too, I think was part of what was being him running away from PZ again.

I also, per this piece, apparently had disagreement with Ed on something related to the Seth Rich conspiracy theory. Can't remember what it was, but I think it was twosiderism, in that he believed not only Trump wanted Putin's help, but Putin gave it. Nope.

It was probably related to his thinking being confined to within the duopoly parties, and being a Dem tribalist there, as he showed in discussing American exceptionalism. And, that's one of the areas I want to expand on. Joe Biden is just as much an American exceptionalist, in his own way, as is Donald Trump. Especially at the national level, most members of both duopoly parties are.

If I am correct, all the faults of the Green Party aside (and all the things I reject about the Libertarian Party), it's a shame that a sharp thinker couldn't work more outside the duopoly box in general, and on particular things like the 2016 election, outside the twosiderism box.

Guess Ed hadn't familiarized himself with Idries Shah.

This is clearly an Idries Shah issue:


Yes, yes, Electoral College straitjackets and other issues, but I'll continue to look for third sides, either on duopoly politics in general, or on things like Russiagate that transcend duopoly, and third party, lines.

I've said before that being an atheist is no guarantor of either moral or intellectual superiority. Ed was above average on both, but again, nothing was guaranteed.