How authoritarian faith caused an HIV epidemic

Rawstory has a comprehensive review of Scott County’s HIV epidemic, charging that Mike Pence’s negligence, belligerent refusal to assess scientific evidence, and sanctimonious grandstanding are major contributors to the County’s state of decay. It’s a long but worthwhile read. It introduces a number of extremely useful and effective public health concepts that have been governing more successful healthcare systems for decades. It also demonstrates that breaking the poverty cycle is complex and multi-faceted. Deteriorating mental health, trauma and violence, addictions, a lack of education, health complications compounded by no healthcare, teen pregnancy, epidemics–the list goes on, and it’s not a cheap list to fix.

Content Notice for brutal, sociopathic classism and ableism:

[Read more…]

Trump Youth: Totally not Hitler Youth

The founder of Trump Youth decided to take a page out of Mein Kampf and start a youth movement in a radical proposal to “remove the parasites from America.”

…I’m literally not making this up.

A website for the group encourages young voters to “[e]mbrace your destiny and become a part of the greatest battle the world has ever seen.”

“We Millennials are destined for greatness; no longer will we sit idle and watch everything our forefathers built be turned to dust,” the website says. “Our world is hurting, and it is up to us, the Youth, to become the Hero Generation and to save the world.”

…

Writing on his personal website earlier this year, Liardi said that he did not understand the “truth” about Adolf Hitler until he read Mein Kampf.

“I began to seek out the history without the propaganda– I wanted to understand the mind of the supposed most evil man in history,” he wrote. “So I studied the events leading up to the war, the german Weimar Republic, WWI and the climate of Europe in the early 20th century. And yes, I read Adolf Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’.”

Incidentally, I also studied the events leading up to the Third Reich. My term paper on WW2 was returned with a giant checkmark on it, which when pressed for an actual letter grade, my prof said it meant “A+.” Somehow I walked away from that project without coming to the conclusion that fascism is a sustainable or practical solution for… well, literally anything. I won’t bother with the ample material of ethical and moral considerations of fascism, because anyone persuaded by Mein Kampf is already an ethically bankrupt egotist that isn’t likely to be satisfied by any arguments that appeal to altruism or the slightest sense of empathy.

NSA, I know you’re reading this: This motherfucker and every other motherfucker who joins him better be on a list.

-Shiv

The Education Minister’s open letter to Alberta students

Alberta’s Education Minister, David Eggen, posted an open letter to Alberta students, reiterating the Minister’s stated declaration that all school boards would be in compliance with Bill 10 and the gender-affirmation guidelines:

A few weeks from now, you and thousands of other Alberta students will head back to class. And when you do, you have rights that your schools will respect.

You have the right to feel safe and welcome at school.

You have the right to create a Gay-Straight Alliance or a Queer-Straight Alliance, and you have the right to name your clubs this way.

You have the right to use the washroom that is consistent with your gender identity. I want you to know that I will support each and every one of you. Together, we will make sure that the rights you have, and the policies your school boards have worked on, are being lived out in your schools.

As Minister of Education, I have been working with your school boards to make sure that our schools are welcoming and caring. All boards have created new policies to support LGBTQ students and they will now come to life in your schools.

In the coming weeks, Alberta Education will be promoting new resources to make sure that schools are safe and welcoming. You can also reach out directly to my staff, who can help you ensure your rights are being respected, at studentsupport@gov.ab.ca.

As we stand together, let’s embrace the differences in one another.

We will all be better for it in the long run.

And remember: I’m with you one hundred per cent.

David Eggen, Minister of Education

I have criticized the NDP for doing a lot of ideological grandstanding with very little in the way of substantive change. After months of lobbying from reactionary groups (most of which are Catholic affiliated), the Minister releases this statement once again holding firm that no school board, Catholic or public, will be permitted to antagonize Queer students. And it’s worth noting that while the reactionary groups complaining loudly are mostly religious, the local trans community has reported antagonism from public school board administrators as well.

I suppose moving forward I’ll wait a couple months to actually see it in action. I want to see consequences for administrators who bully Queer youth before I believe the NDP’s intentions to be genuine.

And yes, I’m still writing and meeting and speaking with my MLA to write Catholic conscience exemptions out of law. Somehow I doubt that particular agenda will get anywhere. But at least by going to the forums, asking the question in front of everyone, writing in, and making meetings with MLAs and supporting staff, they are aware that some of their voting base would really like to see all public services governed by… you know, public law.

Radical idea, I know.

-Shiv

 

Edit August 17: Fixed formatting glitch.

The paradox of activism

Problem 1: As rationalists or empiricists, we probably agree we need to observe a problem before we can fix it.

Problem 2: The more we start to observe, the more we see that warrants fixing.

Problem 3: Truly grasping the immense cruelty that needs fixing tends to leave one terribly depressed.

Problem 4: Depression demotivates people to fix a problem.

This is the basic principle of career activists and their push to get activists to “turn off” and engage in periodic self care. Being woke is bloody exhausting. Trying to wrap your head around the state of world affairs leaves you with a cold chill–yet you must do it if changing the world matters to you. You need information. You need data. You need the patterns, the knowledge, because those lead to answers and solutions.

But you have to not snap like a twig under the weight of the whole world while you find them.

Good luck.

-Shiv

No, Washington Post–it’s not an “unusual fixation.” It’s called racism, and it’s quite common.

Let’s play a game called “edit out the whitewashing in this Washington Post article:”

Khalid Jabara was worried.

Last year, his mother had been jogging through the family’s quiet Tulsa neighborhood when she was nearly killed in a vicious hit-and-run. Police quickly arrested Vernon Majors, who, according to a police report, confessed to the crime and even offered a motive, calling the Jabaras “filthy Lebanese.”

On May 25 of this year, however, Majors bonded out of jail.

That’s when he returned home — right next to the Jabaras.

Must be some of that “tough on crime” policy to let loose an attempted murderer.

On Friday, Khalid learned that his next-door neighbor, the man accused of harassing his family and attacking his mother, was now armed.

Not “attacking.” Attempting to murder. Let’s not beat about the bush here.

“Khalid called the police stating this man had a gun and that he was scared for what might happen,” his sister, Victoria Jabara Williams, wrote on Facebook. “The police came and told him there was nothing to be done.”

Police useless until there’s a body? Say it ain’t so.

[Read more…]

Internet proves how not racist it is by hurling racist abuse on social media

Content Notice: Virulent racism.

Brad Wall, the Conservative Premier of Saskatchewan, is normally a slime ball.

He still is, generally, but when he asked social media commentators to tone down their racist content following a confrontation that left an Indigenous man dead, the internet decided the best way to prove how not racist it was was to up the ante on anti-Native racism:

[Read more…]

Consider becoming a patron of the TransAdvocate

The TransAdvocate is an investigative journalism news site focused primarily on trans issues. In addition to fact-checking current events, it also roasts routinely dishonest media outlets that sensationalize and misinform whenever trans people are involved. The TA has interviewed radical feminists who are salty as fuck about how their work has been appropriated by TERFs, like Catharine MacKinnon. It’s one of the few news outlets these days actually doing news, and certainly one of very few reliable sources I can find for coverage on events where trans people are involved.

They’ve opened a Patreon and I strongly encourage you to chip in every month. A few bucks from a dozen of us can go a long way.

-Shiv

Breaking News: Conservative talk show host has existential crisis

On today’s issue of “no shit Sherlock,” a rightwing radio host is on the cusp of an existential crisis as he questions his involvement in a fact-averse American electorate:

“We’ve basically eliminated any of the referees, the gatekeepers. There’s nobody. Let’s say that Donald Trump basically makes whatever you want to say, whatever claim he wants to make. And everybody knows it’s a falsehood,” he explained. “The big question of my audience, it is impossible for me to say that. ‘By the way, you know it’s false.’ And they’ll say, ‘Why? I saw it on Allen B. West.’ Or they’ll say, ‘I saw it on a Facebook page.’ And I’ll say, ‘The New York Times did a fact check.’ And they’ll say, Oh, that’s The New York Times. That’s bullshit.’”

According to Sykes, any attempts to continue fighting back against misinformation is dismissed with complaints that he has “sold out,” adding, “Then they’ll ask what’s wrong with me for not repeating these stories that I know not to be true.”

Sykes warned “There’s got to be a reckoning on all this.”

“We’ve created this monster,” he warned. “Look, I’m a conservative talk show host. All conservative talk show hosts have basically established their brand as being contrasted with the mainstream media. So we have spent 20 years demonizing the liberal mainstream media. And by the way, a lot has been justifiable. There is real bias. But, at a certain point you wake up and you realize you have destroyed the credibility of any credible outlet out there.”

“And I feeling, to a certain extent, that we are reaping the whirlwind at that,” he continued. “And I have to look in the mirror and ask myself, ‘To what extent did I contribute?’”

Nope, couldn’t be connected with The Terrible Fascist Cheeto. Nothing to see here, folks. Remember: Feelings are facts, up is down, and Mexicans are taking yer jerbs, and if you pray hard enough you will be forgiven for being a selfish piece of… work.

-Shiv

That’s an odd way of using the word “choice”

I’ve long lamented the role of Catholic institutions in my government. Initially a persecuted minority, Catholic institutions that were established prior to Canadian confederation had their role cemented by law as part of the agreement to confederate. It was an agreement to legitimize what was, at the time, an organized–if widely discriminated against–minority. The problem, of course, is that these days education tends to be a matter of the theoretically secular government that runs the province… except that these Catholic institutions are happily trodding on secular law by shoehorning “conscience exemptions” into every damn bill that crosses the Legislature’s table. In other words, Catholic institutions don’t have to follow the law.

We’re long past the openly violent conflict between Protestants and Catholics, yet Catholics still enjoy their role in government. Or, I would say that, if not for my favourite advocacy group ever, Parents for Choice in Education. Apparently not satisfied with indoctrinating their children in both faith-based school and church (and in homeless shelters and hospitals–their reach is far), PCE, despite being called a “choice” organization, seems chiefly interested in making everyone else follow their choices.

I’ve written about PCE before. They were the ones who said the new Albertan government would “foist comprehensive sex education on schools next,” and meant it as a bad thing.

Just let that sink in for a moment. Comprehensive sex ed. The thing that reduces teen pregnancy. The thing that reduces the rate of abortion. The thing that reduces the rate of STI transmission. The thing that allows women to participate in the economy, drives up the GDP, drives down the cost of healthcare, stabilizes population growth, mitigates numerous health problems, reduces the rate of domestic and relationship violence, and perhaps most noticeably puts a dent in the poverty cycle.

Class mobility. Cheaper healthcare. Lower crime rate. Bad. 

[Read more…]