Apologies, this one is smaller than usual, as I'm gonna be very busy over the next few days. It's the same amount of headlines, just not as much quoted from them.
Links and Stuff
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can, thank you.
Resources For Understanding The War Beyond The Bulletins
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map, who is an independent youtuber with a mostly neutral viewpoint.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have good analysis (though also a couple bad takes here and there)
Understanding War and the Saker: neo-conservative sources but their reporting of the war (so far) seems to line up with reality better than most liberal sources.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict and, unlike most western analysts, has some degree of understanding on how war works. He is a reactionary, however.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent journalist reporting in the Ukrainian warzones.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Yesterday's discussion post.
It's worth remembering that back in the 1970s Evangelicals, for the most part, did not :vote:. They had some end times bullshit going where they thought that Jesus was coming back and the secular government was sinful or something. But the Civil Rights Bill and de-segregation were really recent things, and Evangelicals are nothing if not racist, so their leaders and other right-wing leaders saw Evangelicals as a potential huge voting block that could reverse trends and re-install absolute white power. They just needed a way to get the Evangelicals to vote en masse as a block. So they set up a massive propaganda effort to convince Evangelicals that aborted fetus' were babies, which no one thought at the time. And it worked, they got a massive voting block that's been spreading through the government like cancer for fifty years.
And now they're on the verge of total victory. And they're going to get rid of abortion, but they're also going to bring back hard-core Jim Crow segregation, poll taxes, sundown laws, and god knows what other horrors.
I had no idea that's how it went down, but it really fits with mine and my dad's observation over the years. I remember him telling me that when he was younger (in the 60's and 70s) evangelicals were just some weird fringe that most people didn't pay any attention to. But by the 80's it was like they suddenly had started to become this massive political force. Do you happen to have any links or resources on hand where I could read up more on this? Specifically on how they were intentionally cultivated as a political tool.
I don't have anything on hand, but the key words to search would be "religious right", "silent majority", Jerry Falwell, Reagan and Evangelicalism, and anything about the political history of abortion rights.
@Frank is very much correct but the evangelical movement has even deeper political roots starting from the 1930s in response to the New Deal. One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America would be a good place to start if you wanted to explore this even older, reactionary history.
:O someone else mentioned this book! :stalin-approval:
They're not on the verge of victory as they're not really in control. The real power still remains vested in the police, the money men, and their capitalist administrators. Churches can't actually enforce this shit. They can't control who buys and sells contraceptives or abortion drugs. They can't dictate what goes on in hospitals - who gets registered as a miscarriage and who gets flagged as an abortion - or which individuals get to legally cross state lines.
They're actively working to concentrate power into an increasingly aggressive centralized government system. But their grip on that power still runs through the offices of those executives. So much of the original power of churches - their ability to engage and mobilize large groups of people into direct action - has decayed. Church attendance is down. Churches that don't command a high-roller audience are going bankrupt. And those that do are barely more than country clubs.
The insular Jesus-themed cults and privileged niches that still wear the trappings of a national religious movement can still operate as a network for powerful families. But the Mega-Church glory days are all behind us. 4chan and Facebook and Twitter are more effective at whipping up crowds of vocal adherents than any Protestant denomination. Yoga studios command larger crowds than your typical Baptist Church. This isn't victory for Evangelicals, its an Apotheosis. They're no longer a popular movement. They're just The Federalist Society with a cross hanging in the window.
I don't think we can do that shit again, nor do we particularly want to. The next generation of this shit is going to be driven by the Tech Sector and The Algorithm. We're already seeing the edges of it on Social Media, but I suspect we're going to be increasingly targeted based on our consumption habits rather than our race or gender.
The courts will open the door to a new kind of color-blind bigotry. Something more akin to Black Mirror's "Nosedive" or Community's "Meow Meow Beans", where everyone's in an endless popularity contest and access to amenities is dictated by associating more and more exclusively with "Five Star" people.
The rubes at the bottom aren't, but the leadership cadre has seized extremely resilient control over the government of many states, they own the police, the money men have no problem working for them, and the high capitalists don't care as long as the money flows. Their faction controls the SCOTUS, permanently after this election. They control all the red states at all levels of state and local government. With the SCOTUS and Congress in hand they can strip all human and civil rights off the books with no resistance. No more unions, no more financial independence for women, just pick something and they can get rid of it.
People have been talking about a demographic shift moving power to the center and left for years, and the GOP know that, and they're trying to finalize their coup to ensure that it doesn't matter.
They're going to finalize the coup just in time to be lowered into their graves.
The next generation has a different sent of priorities, even in the upper crust. Just look at the new Saudi Crown Prince. Or the Green Party takeover of Germany.
Even the Mormons are struggling to maintain membership. Churches can't command as niche cults. They need people power to function.