Last week, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter were mocking efforts to publicize the kidnapping of Nigerian schoolgirls by Boko Haram. (Jon Stewart did an excellent job puncturing those blowhards). Apparently, we’re all supposed to shut up and be silent about any deplorable action in the world, because it’s pointless to communicate, say a couple of right wing bozos who’s entire business model is about complaining over left wing perfidy.
Here’s another one. Ben Shapiro thinks publicizing villainy is a bad idea because it doesn’t magically eradicate it.
#BringBackOurGirls #IranNoMoreNukes #KimJongUnResign #ChinaStopIt #PutinCutItOut #AlQaedaEnough There, world peace achieved. You're welcome.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) May 7, 2014
Also ironically, on his twitter page he advertises his book, BULLIES: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America. How dare we encourage talking about world problems, that’s the same as silencing everyone on the right!
Sounds familiar.
Haven’t atheists been told that harassment policies are useless since they don’t stop all harassment? Or that talking (and writing) about the fact that some women didn’t feel safe at cons without strong and public was wrong because publicizing a problem never helps (and it chased women away (and a few other things))?
(Please note, my comparison is not an attempt to correlate the fate of the kidnapped girls and far different fights on the misogyny front here in the US, but rather to point out the similarity of the authoritarian right’s response — pick one: There is no problem; Talking about the problem is useless since it doesn’t immediately solve the problem; Others have it worse; It doesn’t affect me. Of course, not every response will be used every time, but the OP is pretty much standard reaction from the insensitive authoritarian right (not that there is a sensitive authoritarian right).)
On one hand, I feel that these sorts of Twitter campaigns substitute feeling good for meaningful action, and as a result, am cynical of these sorts of things. On the other hand, in a situation like this, there literally is no meaningful action available to the majority of us, other than to express our outrage. None of us are going to travel around the world to confront Boko Haram and explain the error of their ways. Their rescue isn’t the plot of the 5th Rambo movie.
As cynical as I want to be about these sorts of group activities that are more focused on the feeling of action rather than actual action, there are limits. People are caring, are worried, and are using the one tool that gives them an option to participate, even if it is at great remove. So no, I’m not going to join them, but I have no call to mock them.
We should never mock anyone who says, “We can do a thing to make the world better,” no matter how small and inconsequential the thing may be. Do you know who we should mock? Who we should excoriate, and drag over the metaphorical coals? The people who sneer and say, “That’s just the way things are. You can’t change things. Accept reality.”
Those people can fuck the hell off. “That’s just the way things are,” is possibly the most evil statement that anyone can utter after, “Grow up.”
There’s also a massive false equivalency in there… or maybe he’s just extra ignorant.
#BringBackOurGirls isn’t aimed at Boko Haram, asking them for favors. The hashtag is aimed at the Nigerian government, demanding action. (how that’s been co-opted is a whole other thing)
But he’s interpreting it as a ‘just ask the bad people nicely to do good,’ so all his hashtags are aimed at people he interprets as bad people. (Stop it? Cut it out? Boy, these are totally specific, huh?)
But you know what? The SOBs in that group are sadly human, and maybe, JUST MAYBE, appealing to the so-called better angels of their nature could at least convince them to treat their captives somewhat more humanely than they otherwise would. It is not uncommon at all to respond to an attacker or hostage taker or kidnapper in this way. Do they mock some poor parent who goes on national TV to appeal to their child’s kidnapper to let them go?
Regardless, I’d argue he is fully aware of the motives behind this hashtag campaign and is choosing to be a total fucking ass simply because Michelle Obama is involved.
remyporter 2:
Media Matters did an absolutely masterful job of mocking Ben Shapiro.
@4 You’re absolutely right that this is all because of Michelle Obama.
Furthermore, you know that if the administration HADN’T said anything yet, these exact same people would be whining about that. Even iron bands around their knees would not be able to prevent them from jerking.
Just the typical right-wing imperialist solution to any and every problem overseas–if we’re not going to use force why talk about it? Raising awareness is for cowards. Men of action demand no less than cruise missiles, drones, and, why the hell not, even nuclear weapons, as how we are to effectively defeat our enemies.
It is a Well Known Fact™ that if you talk about A Thing:
1) You don’t care about Other Things.
2) You are doing nothing effective because discussing A Thing has Never Changed Anything. It is Proven History™ that no one ever discussed the abolition of slavery for example. There is no such thing as the Overton Window, average political discourse, and the general acceptability of specific ideas in societies at large.
3) If you talk about A Thing online then you are never, ever, EVER anything more than a Keyboard Warrior. Which is the worst insult ever because it means you cared enough about A Thing to talk about it to people on the internet. This insult has in no way been transmuted directly from every historical criticism of people caring enough about A Thing to talk about it in some fashion or in some medium ever. It’s entirely new. No. Really.
4) Talking about A Thing NEVER leads to action. It is always done instead of action. ALWAYS. Che Guevara, for example, never spoke. Ever. And if you are anything less than Che Guevara multiplied by Double Gandhi and Florence Nightingale in your activism WHILST BEING ENTIRELY SILENT ABOUT IT, then you are clearly some dilettante fake activist. I, for example, am WAY more activist than you. All the time, forever. Because reasons.
5) You only ever talk about A Thing to be Politically Correct. It is only possible to hold views to be Politically Correct or to Adhere to Correct Dogma or something. It is never possible to arrive at conclusions for oneself, nor can talking about A Thing ever, EVER inform one’s learning about a subject. That’s right out.
There are other things I could mention, but I’m not allowed to talk about them. Because that would make me worse than Hitler. Possibly Quadruple Stalin.
At least.
Louis
That book title… “BULLIES: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences America.”
That right there might be the most ironic thing I’ve ever seen. Ever.
By the same token you would have to say that voting is not meaningful. What difference does your vote make to who is President? None whatsoever. But it’s still vastly meaningful to vote, because lots of people do it. ( Not enough, but that’s because lots of people don’t think it’s meaningful, in part for the same reason you say Twitter campaigns aren’t meaningful. )
When there’s a large and healthy Twitter campaign or similar making noise about things like this, it makes it more likely that politicians, media pundits &c will pay attention to it and exert pressure. That’s meaningful. There are other important effects as well, but directing the powerful to get on the case is more than enough justification right there.
The other fallacy:
Because you can’t do everything, right now!!!, you should do nothing, never!!!
This atrocity against teenage girls by Boko Haram is a good example. I/we can’t put on our Superhero uniform and fly over to Nigeria and free those girls. But we do what we can.
And it seems to be working. Everyone knows at least that Boko Haram is evil, and a classic example of why religion is not a source of morality. And the Nigerian government has interrupted its slumber to try to do something.
Anyone read the comments in the Jon Stewart link?
There’s people defending Rush in there. What the ever loving fuck?
To be fair, right wingers do have a point – world peace won’t be achieved by focussing on kidnappings by Boko Haram. It’s going to take a relentless focus on Benghazi to achieve something as big as world peace.
In point of fact, the PR has done a lot.
The US, UK, France, and Israel have sent military forces to assist Nigerian troops.
AFAICT, that the Nigerian government hasn’t done much isn’t because it doesn’t care but because it can’t. The area is remote and the population not very pro-government.
@ Celtic_Evolution #9:
Don’t forget Jonah Goldberg’s 2008 screed Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Change.
Quoting every word for truth.
That one was at least vaguely cringeworthy. BULLIES is just… so much simpler. :-)
If Boko Haram were xians, they would probably be considered heroes by the christofascists.
Around 1,000 alleged child witches are killed in Africa, often Nigeria each year, mostly by xians. There are a few groups trying to stop it. They appear to be secular.
Besides which, I’m sure the Loonytarians are screaming about letting the Invisible Hand of the Free Market take care of it. The Invisible Hand is magic and can do anything.
Wingnuts are so quick to canonize the founding fathers for their brilliant documents like the Constitution. In that constitution are special protections for the press. Those protections were put there because the founders knew the profound value of information and knowledge in the control of tyranny.
Thus, when Rusho and Shapiro and O’Really? lampoon this twitter campaign aren’t they lampooning the founding fathers?
“How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation”
Next time I’m wading through a thread filled with gun fondlers insisting that they HAVE to have assault rifles because of burglars and Obama’s drones, and threatening to shoot those who disagree with them, I’ll have to remember how it’s the Left that has the culture of fear and intimidation.
I’ve seen plenty of liberals and farther left folks take similar potshots at hashtag activism. The whole issue of “slacktivism” is fairly complicated. I will start by saying, if all you do is make a couple of tweets with a hashtag, you’ve done more than 90% of people and those 90% can shut the fuck up about it. On the other hand, it doesn’t mean you get to be complacent and think “well, I’ve done my part”. Sometimes criticizing hashtag activism is also about trying to motivate people to do something more meaningful, and when doing something more meaningful is possible, that’s probably a good thing, but it’s also tricky, because you don’t want to tell people to just give up entirely, which is another possible outcome.
On the negative side, we have campaigns like Kony2012, which accomplished basically nothing, ignored the reality on the ground, and was questionably related to a questionable NGO. Care is warranted in hashtaggery.
The real problem with this particular tweet is that it’s not aimed at slacktivists encouraging them to do more, it’s aimed squarely at the Obama administration (notice the selected issues for the made up hashtags: these are all things that the average person can do absolutely nothing about. Things that require complex and nuanced diplomatic approaches from the government more than they require individual action by citizens. Raising awareness of the Nigerian girls and telling our government and the Nigerian government that we’ll hold them accountable is probably the best we can do. Those other issues: well, we can all tell the administration what we think they should do, but these are government policy issues. What this guy is trying to do is claim the Obama administration is doing nothing but asking people to use hashtags. Never mind the difficult an ongoing diplomatic efforts in those areas and the American personnel of all stripes now working on the Nigeria kidnapping, if we’re not dropping bombs and marching troops, we’re not doing anything, according to conservative pundits.
I’ll just leave you with this piece from one of my favorite left wing cartoonists on the same topic. Note the entirely different focus simply by choosing different hashtags:
https://medium.com/the-nib/800b09c68b6f
David Chapman: “What difference does your vote make to who is President? None whatsoever.”
Vote totals for Florida in 2000:
Bush: 2,912,790
Gore: 2,912,253
537 votes brought us the Iraq war, the Bush tax cuts, the economic collapse of 2008, the end of balanced budgets and 8 years of stagnation on the problems our nation faces. 537 votes made it possible for Bush to steal the election–and that’s even with the influence of Ralph Nader.
Don’t tell me my vote doesn’t count.
Reactionary cranks screaming oppression at people actually answering their bullshit, yeah, I guess I should be used to it by now, but it continues to amaze me. Like, seriously, how do they pull that hairpin turn from rage monkey aggression to ‘stop picking on me!’ without spraining something….
They just always seem so wounded. Like wow, they were just innocently going their own way, happily slagging feminists, progressives, and whomever else is the agreed upon universal enemy of the day, and it was all happy happy joy and Christmas morning and warm fuzzy hugs until you came along and spoiled the party by dissenting. Meanies. And we were all having such a good time, too.
537-1 = 536
=> Bush still gets elected. An individual vote doesn’t count for anything. OK, it counts for 1 divided by 537 in this case. Which was not enough, in this case, to avert disaster. But individuals voting is one of the most important things in the World.
I can only think either you didn’t read my comment carefully, or I didn’t express myself very well. Didn’t you see the bit where I said:
?
Perhaps I should have said
But I’m puzzled that you didn’t see that that was what I was getting at. How is twittering etc meaningful if voting isn’t meaningful?
Don’t tell me my vote doesn’t count.
That depends on where you live, though. I’m a liberal in Texas, so my vote doesn’t mean shit on any level.
Let’s not get distracted by ex post facto analysis. “One vote out of the X that voted the same way, means the value of one vote is just 1/X, If that 1 vote flipped, it would’ve made no difference. So a single vote don’t matter.”
yes and no.
Can I call this, “fallacy of big numbers”? A vote is a statement about what you want to happen in the future. The number of people who agree or disagree is not what values your vote. Numbers (quantities) matter to the result of the question (candidate), but is not what makes your vote valuable. It is a way to express one’s opinion about a relevant issue. Even the “winner” of an election will consider the size of the opposing results, when considering his actions in office (except Bush’43 took his marginal quasi-victory as a 100% validation).
I must rant some more about usual elections campaigning about, “X is going to win, so vote for X.” aarrggh too much to say about that type of “campaign”. I’ll just leave that there… ^_^
re @26:
I gotta clarify:
it ain’t “campaigns” sayin that nonsense, it’s voters themselves, “X is going to win, so I better vote for X (so I win too)” or also the opposite, “X is going to win so I better vote for notX (whoever that is, it don’t matter)”
There’s also the “magical” thinkers that take statistics that every vote for X will include 10,000 others voting for X. etc. etc.
@25
You vote wouldn’t matter if you were a conservative in Texas, either.
Hi schism,
I am also a liberal in Texas that makes at least 2 of us. Maybe if we can get a few more of us to show up to vote for the midterm we can fix things.
So when are the macho-gun-loving Republicans going to send their volunteer militia over to Nigera and rescue the girls?
Yeah, I thought so.
Yet another failed metaphor from conservatives. They think paying taxes is the same as slavery, so they need to belittle examples of actual slavery since it weakens their narrative of shitting on poor people.
Yep, you’ve all done a great job rationalizing your #BringBackTheGirls campaign. Are they back yet? How about Kony?
It might be a good idea for people to actually, you know, LEARN about the regions and countries they know nothing about, before spouting off. But yeah — better to write pointless straw missives like @Louis. Especially when the interest in actually bringing back the girls seems to have died down. In other words, all those good white liberals feel good, and then move on. The girls? Not so lucky. Twitterverse is on to the next two-minute hate, or two-minute love — take your pick. Whatever gets you through your day.
Oh — here’s another thing: Try actually listening to the people from these regions and their opinions on your love-fest. It might save you from incalculable embarrassment next time.
“Especially when the interest in actually bringing back the girls seems to have died down. ”
fuck you jacksmith
jacksmith #32
Please, by all means then, educate us… what is it specifically that you in your infinite wisdom have learned about “the regions and countries” in question that so clearly eludes the rest of us? And what are the lessons you’ve learned from “listening to the people”?
And while you’re doing so please don’t be modest about your contributions to “the solution”.
I humble await your tutelage.
one of the other important effects about the useless actions like this hash tag thing goes right along with voting and free speech. It is one of the ways we anyone can use to express themselves on the issues of the day. It may not change much by itself but it does something none the less.
It helps create the space in public for ideas to be expressed. Others who might tend to agree might see that others are also thinking about issues differently. There is no market place of ideas if different ideas are not expressed.
for far too long the public space and the way ideas have been expressed has been under the influence of the reactionary right wing. The way ideas are expressed and the kind of ideas that are acceptable has been filtered by the right wing noise machine.
If just talking or tweeting about it does nothing to help how much more nothing does silence do?
uncle frogy
I wish to second Celtic_Evolution’s question to you jacksmith, what aren’t we grasping? This short comment thread has had a lot of good comments on both the values and limitations, the virtues and flaws of twitter hashtag activism. You put forth that we are ignorant, but rather than actually saying “You should know this about the kidnapped girls…” your post seems to be “You morons are all wasting your time, bow to my superior but not elaborated wisdom”.
In my experience one of the surest signs someone is a self-important asshole is pretending to be better and smarter than everyone else (the sheeple as it were). Would you like to post again to confirm or deny your projected assholiness jacksmith?
Tweeting, like voting, is a collective action. One tweet (or one vote) accomplish nothing, that’s true. The sneering at both is a result of the right-wing (and libertarian) demonization of anything “collective”. Anything that can not be accomplished by a Lone Hero™, guns blazing, is not worth doing. 1,000,000 voters are just ineffectual posers who are each 1/1,000,000 as effective as a True Individual™, so the best thing they can do is stay home and let their betters take care of things.
Oh-here is another thing. In your next life, try to get towards the front of the line when they pass out the brains.
It might save you from wasting your life and our time.
PS We know what the people from that region want. They’ve told us many times. Surprise dumb troll, they want their kids back. Just like any parent any where would.
We’ve been trying to develop a modern civilization for millennia. We aren’t there yet as you amply demonstrate by existing.
Life and the world isn’t like a video game. Things don’t necessarily happen in a few hours or not at all.
Trying tobringbackthegirls might well work or might fail.
Not trying is guaranteed to fail.
BTW, you are an evil idiot.
Here is what the parents of those girls are doing.
They are going after Boko Haram. With whatever guns they can get and no real military training. And at risk of their lives.
Contrast this with Dumbsmith the driveby troll. Spouting really dumb gibberish on a comment thread and then running away.
OMG, and Colbert didn’t get fired either! What are you talking about rationalizing “our” campaign? It certainly isn’t mine, but what about it needs rationalizing? It’s a hashtag campaign for crudsake.
What the hell makes you think we have not? You’ve made an awfully big assumption based on a handful of comments on a tangential subject. But do enlighten us. What should we be LEARNING? Why don’t you actually say something about the situation that you feel would be good for the room to know rather than spouting off and then smugly (I assume) flouncing?
Which has fuck all to do with most of the commentariat here. I think you got lost on your way to Facebook.
Obligatory 1984 reference. Didn’t see that one coming! There should be an Orwell corollary to Godwin’s Law for fuck sake.
Well, let’s see what a woman from that region thinks? Hmm…based on everything I’m reading, I’m not “incalculably” (whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean) embarrassed by her opinion on the so-called love-fest. I pretty much agree with what she has to say actually. Now fuck off back to the fork in the road and hang a left toward Reddit, Facebook, or whatever internet sewer it is you thought you were at.
<blockquote cite="" class=""25
schism
That depends on where you live, though. I’m a liberal in Texas, so my vote doesn’t mean shit on any level.</blockquote cite="" class=""
That's like saying, if you're speaking to someone in Texas, your opinion doesn't mean shit.
And of course lots of liberals, and other opponents of the republicans and what they stand for, think the same way and many of them don't bother voting. So the republicans get stronger.
That's why everybody's voting, everywhere is meaningful. If people start to treat it as some sort of mocking joke, the forces of irresponsible power and authority get stronger.
jackasssmith,
Uh, dude, I actually travelled through Maiduguri and Bama on my way from Kano (where I spent about a week) to Calabar. All told, I spent about a month in Nigeria, travelling by bush taxi and talking to people. It puzzles me how you could imagine that they would think it is a bad thing for people in the west to take an interest in what happens to their daughters.
Or perhaps you are just trying to rationalize the fact that you’ve never done anything to help anyone and so wasted your pathetic life.
No, no, you misunderstood. Jacksmith just meant that their daughters aren’t “Young Attractive Blonde Missing White Women™ </Fox News>, so it Just. Doesn’t. Matter.
inb4 everyone makes up statements about what one dissenting commenter says so they can keep the moral high ground by saying “fuck fuck fuck” over and over.
Oh wait, too late. lulz, hivemind.
Sparkles, what is your point? Since you provide no evidence for one, you must not have one….
@46, perhaps you should take a class in reading comprehension. I’m sure you’ll learn some when you get into high school.
@ 47
I may be a little slow and do not understand all the subtleties of the only language I speak so could you try again please. What is your point about the post and the responses here?
Is it the language used or the disagreement that you are referencing?
uncle frogy
Post graduate education illiterate pointless person.
Sparkles @ 45:
Please, be daring and try something original. The same old shit gets tired. Ta.
Everything comment sparkles has ever made here translates to “nyah nyah nyah”.
And, seriously, who still uses ‘lulz’?
Sparkles = Jacksmith = Substandard troll. (Most likely.)
Too pathetic and boring to deal with any more.
This guy flunked out of troll school.
Chigau:
People with no imagination. Or wit.
LOL
Earlier this week I was listening to National Public Radio (NPR), and some seemingly legitimate expert on hostage negotiation was of the opinion that the large amount of publicity was bad for release negotiation possibilities.
It must be out there somewhere, but I wasn’t able to find a transcript.
It’s probably worth reading our own FTB expat-Nigerian blogger Yemmynisting to see what she has to say.
By the way, preview is doing some weird things, so apologies in advance.
I like that.
Not by any legal way to count the ballots, no.
Fun with transitive & intransitive verbs!
The cite attribute doesn’t work here, and the only class attribute that works is class=”creationist”. The list under the comment window contains those tags and attributes that aren’t removed by the software, not only those that actually do anything.
I don’t mean to single you out, Nerd of Redhead… but please pay attention anyway: I spent 10 seconds trying to figure out what it meant to be postgraduate-education illiterate.
Commas, folks. Please use them when talking to someone. Postgraduate education, illiterate pointless person would have been perfectly unambiguous! We can’t hear your tone of voice, so you need to write it down.
roflcopter