Sunday, June 19, 2022

Althouse

Althouse

"Once we accept that abortion rights must be protected through political means, rather than judicial fiat, there is no reason not to be ambitious."

Posted: 19 Jun 2022 08:45 AM PDT

"A federal [statutory] guarantee should stick neither with Roe's argumentative faultiness — dubiously grounded in a right to privacy rather than women's equality — nor its narrow protections. A new federal abortion right could ensure that it is a funded entitlement for the poor women who most need it."

Writes history and law professor Samuel Moyn, in "Counting on the Supreme Court to uphold key rights was always a mistake/Liberals are re-learning the lesson that only democratically enacted rights are reliable" (WaPo).

Why does Moyn say that poor women "most need" the right to abortion? Maybe that's just awkwardly written, and he only means poor women are most in need of financial assistance, but all women equally need access to abortion. He says he wants the statutory abortion right to be premised on equality, then turns around and says "poor women... most need it." There's an unpleasant whiff of a suggestion that poor people overbreed. 

Moyn speaks of poor people earlier in the piece:

[I]n the abortion rights successor case Maher v. Roe (1977) — which said women on Medicaid were not entitled to financial support for abortions — and so many other domains, the court has never afforded constitutional protection to the poor, who most need rights of all kinds.

He really does seem to want to say that poor women need abortion rights more than other women do. I'd like to see that argument fleshed out. Perhaps it's simply that poor people have more interactions with the government, and constitutional rights are a defense against government. But the federal government has not been paying for abortions. The constitutional right women are (apparently) about to lose is the right to choose to have an abortion. Why would a poor woman need that more than a non-poor women?

"He was the clear extravert of the Beatles … yet 'For No One' is beautifully introspective, and even a song as extraverted as 'Hey Jude' has a contemplative side."

Posted: 19 Jun 2022 08:14 AM PDT

"John rightly gets most of the credit for 'A Day in the Life,' which many point to as the artistic high point of the Beatles' oeuvre — but it wouldn't have achieved those heights if it had been all John. Music is all about context, and the dissonant orchestral frenzy wouldn't have been as interesting if it had gone from John back to John again. It needs to give way to Paul waking up and reeling off the details of his ordinary life, before drifting off into a dream."

Writes my son John, in "Paul McCartney turns 80" (posted yesterday, Paul's birthday), in the first post of a new blog. The blog is titled "Music Is Happiness," and we'll see where that goes. 

John gives high marks to Paul's 2021 recording, "Deep Deep Feeling": 

A UW student from China was jumped and punched and kicked by "four tall men in athletic wear."

Posted: 19 Jun 2022 07:31 AM PDT

I'm reading in the student newspaper The Daily Cardinal, in "Updated: Asian international student assaulted near campus Tuesday, campus community rallies to #StopAsianHate." The quoted description comes from the Cardinal, and is based on this security camera photo. You can ask yourself why the newspaper chooses not to guess the race of the alleged attackers.

The Madison Police Department reported that the Tuesday night assault was the third of its kind to occur in the downtown area in the past week, though the two other incidents did not involve students and the "victims were from various backgrounds," the university said in an email. 

The department suspects the same group of people were responsible for these attacks, which appear to be random in nature. In an incident report released Friday morning, the department stated that detectives do not have any evidence that leads them to conclude that the incidents were motivated by race.

The victim himself, Wentao Zhou, did characterize the attack in racial terms — when he posted on Weibo (Chinese social media). That post was shared — in translation — at Reddit, where I saw it 3 days ago:

I was walking home alone tonight across University Avenue, which is the main street in downtown Madison. I was about to turn the corner and head towards my residence when a group of very tall and well-dressed young guys sped up to me and surrounded me, a black guy punched me in the left side of my face all of a sudden, then I was pulled to the ground by the people behind me, followed by punches and kicks. I was so dazed and dumbfounded that for the first 20 seconds, I didn't even realize I should call for help. It wasn't until I was spotted by the people around and I heard there were girls yelling that I realized I should call for help. After I shouted HELP twice, they ran away. When I stood up, my glasses were knocked off, my head was numb, and I couldn't see anything. I continued to yell HELP and crowds started coming from all over. A group of black girls who were partying at a bar across the street witnessed the whole attack, and they came over and sat me down, helped me call the police, handed me tissues and water, and took pictures of me. A passerby white guy, presumably a medical student, checked all parts of my body, checked the wounds, asked some questions, and made sure I was conscious. The police arrived about 5-10 minutes later and took statements from me and the passerby. The location where I was attacked was just across the street from a store, and I was attacked almost right under the store's security camera. The police will request the footage. And there were security cameras all over that busy street.... 
[I]ncomprehension/violence/conflict can happen in/with any country/era/race. I don't even feel any anger or rage at the young men who attacked me. They are just those who have lost their basic rationalities and common sense under certain ideologies/hatred/cultures. The limited resources in society/education almost decided that it's impossible to raise everybody into a decent person with common sense. While trying to fight against violence/hatred, we need to raise our own awareness of safety and learn to protect ourselves. 
Tonight it's my turn, and I'm glad it's my turn and not the turn of anyone else's, at least I could still take a few punches.

He talks about race, but in a distinctly sensitive way.

I didn't post about it then, because I couldn't see a story about the attack in any newspaper or on the Madison police report page. I don't rush to share things that are inflammatory and may not be true. The police were on the scene, so I would expect that not only to appear on local news sites but to result in a text warning me of a danger in the area. I am signed up for those police reports and get them with regularity. 

Back to the Cardinal article:

The university [emailed students:] "While we don't have evidence these incidents were motivated by race, we know that each time incidents like these occur, it has an impact on the well-being of all our students, and particularly our Asian, Pacific Islander and Desi American students, faculty, and staff, and other communities of color," read the email from three UW-Madison leaders. "We are committed to creating a safe community at UW–Madison where everyone feels they belong, and we know we have more work to do."

They're using the phrase "we don't have evidence" to mean we don't have conclusive proof. I'd like to see the word "evidence" used correctly, and I'd like some assurance that they'd resist speculating about a racial motive if the victim had been black. 

We're told that "many students are concerned that the incidents were racially motivated and have taken to social media to call out anti-Asian violence on a campus they say doesn't do enough to support them."

Still,  "Many international students chose @UWMadison because we thought Madison was safer than other big cities. BUT we feel REALLY REALLY upset now," Luhang Sun, a Ph.D. student at UW-Madison, tweeted. "Where's the support you claim to have for us?" an Asian student commented on Instagram. "What are you going to do to protect your Asian students going forward? How many more times is this going to happen before you realize this is an issue you need to address and shut down."

You can see that this is very damaging to the university's reputation, but clearly the university is also keen to maintain a reputation among black Americans. Yet it is insulting to virtually all black Americans to patronize the assailants. 

ADDED: From the comments at Reddit: "Ironically we got police alerts on the tornado yesterday, but no alert on this one"/"Ikr! I didn't know about this until I saw this on Reddit!"/"Yeah idk why we don't get alerts about this. We get alerts about this stuff normally."

At the Sunrise Café...

Posted: 18 Jun 2022 03:02 PM PDT

IMG_1140 

... you can talk about whatever you want.

The "bootstraps" metaphor.

Posted: 18 Jun 2022 07:33 AM PDT

I've already blogged about what Sonia Sotomayor said about Clarence Thomas, but here's one more thing:

I have often said to people that Justice Thomas believes that every person can pull themselves up by their bootstraps. I believe that some people can't get to their bootstraps without help – they need someone to help them lift their foot up so that they can reach.

What are bootstraps, and could we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps if we could only reach them?

 

Even if you can reach your bootstraps, you don't get anywhere by pulling up on them. Your entire body weight is still in your shoes. At best, you could pull one leg up, shifting your whole weight onto one foot, but that one foot would remain firmly planted in the original position. The phrase already embodies the idea that it can't be done. To stress helping people reach their bootstraps is really offering to distract them and lure them into wasting time waiting for assistance in doing something that is doomed to fail.

But it's just a metaphor. It doesn't prove that left-wing ideas about making life better for people is delusional. I'd find a different image if only to avoid cliché, but this is one cliché that is mostly used wrongly. It should be enough to say "Justice Thomas believes that every person can pull themselves up by their bootstraps." If you must say more, say: But it's impossible to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Go ahead. Try it!

"Members of a production team for 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert' were arrested by US Capitol Police in a congressional office building Thursday night and charged with unlawful entry...."

Posted: 18 Jun 2022 07:16 AM PDT

"CBS confirmed in a statement to CNN that on Wednesday and Thursday 'Triumph the Insult Comic Dog was on-site at the Capitol with a production team to record interviews for a comedy segment on behalf of' the show. 'Their interviews at the Capitol were authorized and pre-arranged through Congressional aides of the members interviewed,' CBS said. 'After leaving the members' offices on their last interview of the day, the production team stayed to film stand-ups and other final comedy elements in the halls when they were detained by Capitol Police.'... 'This is an active criminal investigation, and may result in additional criminal charges after consultation with the U.S. Attorney,' the Capitol Police statement said."

 CNN reports.

How bad is it to trespass on the Capitol Building? With the January 6th Committee working hard to horrify us about an incursion on the premises, it's an inopportune time to need to be arguing what's the big deal.

Glenn Greenwald asks why Marjorie Taylor Greene is saying this and AOC, Bernie, and their ilk are not.

Posted: 18 Jun 2022 06:59 AM PDT

"As the backlash gains steam, a lot of feminism feels enervated. There had been a desperate hope..."

Posted: 18 Jun 2022 06:39 AM PDT

"... among reproductive rights activists and Democratic strategists alike, that the end of Roe v. Wade would lead to an explosive feminist mobilization, that people committed to women's equality would take to the streets and recommit themselves to politics.... 'I don't know that I've seen a new influx of energy, [said] Samhita Mukhopadhyay, co-editor of 'Nasty Women: Feminism, Resistance, and Revolution in Trump's America.... ... Mukhopadhyay [used to be] the executive editor of the blog Feministing, which was once part of a vital feminist publishing scene. That scene is now mostly gone. Feministing closed a couple of years ago, and one of the last holdouts, Bitch Magazine, a publication devoted to feminist pop-culture criticism, is shuttering this month.... 'That type of earnest, identity-focused feminism has also grown out of style,' she said.... It is perhaps inevitable that a movement that was the height of fashion in the last decade would start to seem passé in this one. That's how style works; the young and innovative distinguish themselves by breaking with the conventions of their predecessors.... The left, feminism very much included, needs people to be optimistic and confident about change.... But this is a fearful, hopeless and even nihilistic time."

Writes Michelle Goldberg, in "The Future Isn't Female Anymore" (NYT).

If you have actual principles you don't need to worry about "fashion" and "style" and what's "passé." You just stick with it, your whole life, and it doesn't matter if you're winning or losing or how many people are crowding around you and generating a feeling of energy. 

Politics is a different way of life. If you choose that path, you'll have your big highs and lows. You can feel excited about your team and your heroes and fly into a rage when things don't work out. You can gush optimism and preen, then scream and spew pessimism. The Future Isn't Female Anymore! What over-privileged foot-stamping. Look around the world. Look at history. Get a grip. Get some real principles and stay faithful to them without expecting to look fashionable or anticipating taking over the world.

Tomorrow is Juneteenth, the newest national holiday: How should we celebrate it?

Posted: 18 Jun 2022 05:23 AM PDT

I'm not sure if "celebrate" is even the right word.

When I google my question, I also see "honor." How do we "honor Juneteenth"? People must sense that "celebrate" is wrong — too festive, too joyful and fun? — because they're not seeing that it's wrong to speak of "honoring" a holiday. It's not the holiday that is honored, the holiday honors something, and you wouldn't say you are honoring the honoring. 

At CNN, I'm seeing "Ways to celebrate and serve Juneteenth." Serve? Is the holiday our master? Juneteenth marks an escape from servitude. Why would we — how would we — serve this occasion? And yet we often speak of observing a holiday. I take a long break to research the prefix "ob-" in the Oxford English Dictionary.

But enough about language. The question is are we going to celebrate Juneteenth?

What are we supposed to do? I was thinking in terms of things you'd do privately with family and friends, a holiday like Christmas or Thanksgiving. I wanted some special foods or rituals. But perhaps there is a festival or event in your town, something you could go to.

I can see there are a bunch of things here in Madison, notably "Juneteenth in the Park." That's a "parade and celebration" that begins with a speech from Governor Tony Evers at the Fountain of Life Church, and continues with a parade to Penn Park, where there will be 6 hours of "festivities," including "a hands-on community science fair and basketball tournament."

That's happening today, even though it's the 18th and Juneteenth is June 19th. But it's Saturday, the best day for parades and gatherings in the park, and June 19th, tomorrow, is also Father's Day.

What's the plan for dealing with the Juneteenth/Father's Day conflicts that will happen over the years? You could merge the 2 events, switch Juneteenth to the Saturday, or forefront Juneteenth in the years when there is a conflict. Maybe we should move Father's Day to the second Sunday in June so there's never a conflict. That would be an appropriate gesture of respect.

Father's Day isn't a federal holiday, so who knows what it would take to move it? Oh! It's in the hands of the President! 

A bill to accord national recognition of the holiday was introduced in Congress in 1913. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson went to Spokane to speak in a Father's Day celebration and wanted to make it official, but Congress resisted, fearing that it would become commercialized. US President Calvin Coolidge recommended in 1924 that the day be observed by the nation, but stopped short of issuing a national proclamation. Two earlier attempts to formally recognize the holiday had been defeated by Congress. In 1957, Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith wrote a proposal accusing Congress of ignoring fathers for 40 years while honoring mothers, thus "[singling] out just one of our two parents." In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers, designating the third Sunday in June as Father's Day. Six years later, the day was made a permanent national holiday when President Richard Nixon signed it into law in 1972.

Nixon did it! So Biden can move it. Come on, Biden. Issue a proclamation moving Father's Day so that it never conflicts with Juneteenth.

And while you're at it move Pride Month. It's not good to have Juneteenth and Pride Month at the same time, what with the parades and special colors and flags. Who made June Pride Month? 

Three presidents of the United States have officially declared a pride month. First, President Bill Clinton declared June "Gay & Lesbian Pride Month" in 1999 and 2000. Then from 2009 to 2016, each year he was in office, President Barack Obama declared June LGBT Pride Month. Later, President Joe Biden declared June LGBTQ+ Pride Month in 2021. Donald Trump became the first Republican president to acknowledge LGBT Pride Month in 2019, but he did so through tweeting rather than an official proclamation; the tweet was later released as an official "Statement from the President."

So it's a year-by-year thing. Biden has the opportunity to make Pride Month permanent, and he can use that as a sweetener as he moves it to a different month. Seriously, I encourage Biden to do some proclamations to clear the way for Juneteenth. It's the holiday with the month's name on it — Juneteenth! 

And I'd still like to know a few things we could do annually for Juneteenth — things that will be appreciated and considered respectful. If the message to white people is Stand down and do nothing/It's not your day — that's fine too!

"If the government sponsored a euthanasia program for people 75 and over, would you consent to it?"

Posted: 18 Jun 2022 06:47 AM PDT

"'Most people were very positive about it,' [Chie] Hayakawa said. 'They didn't want to be a burden on other people or their children.'... In her first feature-length film... the government of a near-future Japan promotes quiet institutionalized deaths and group burials for lonely older people, with cheerful salespeople pitching them on the idea as if hawking travel insurance. 'The mind-set is that if the government tells you to do something, you must do it,' Ms. Hayakawa, 45, said in an interview in Tokyo before the film's opening in Japan on Friday. Following the rules and not imposing on others, she said, are cultural imperatives 'that make sure you don't stick out in a group setting.' With a lyrical, understated touch, Ms. Hayakawa has taken on one of the biggest elephants in the room in Japan: the challenges of dealing with the world's oldest society."

From "A Filmmaker Imagines a Japan Where the Elderly Volunteer to Die/The premise for Chie Hayakawa's film, 'Plan 75,' is shocking: a government push to euthanize the elderly. In a rapidly aging society, some also wonder: Is the movie prescient?" (NYT).

"Stephanie Yeboah, a body image activist and the author of 'Fattily Ever After'... said spending an hour or two naked several days a week was a crucial step..."

Posted: 18 Jun 2022 02:25 AM PDT

"... early on in her own body acceptance journey. She would take off her clothes and read, watch TV or tidy her house.... Centering the senses can help you connect brain and body. Ms. Yeboah has also turned showering into a regular meditation. She buys nice lotions and oils, and takes the time to apply them slowly, carefully noting how they smell and feel on her skin. 'It was something I started doing on my self-love journey in order to kind of come to terms with — and learn how to re-love — my body'...."

From "How to Feel Better Naked/Whether you want to find joy in your body, or just greater self-acceptance, these four strategies from psychologists, activists — and, yes, nudists — might help" (NYT).

At the Sunrise Café...

Posted: 17 Jun 2022 06:55 PM PDT

IMG_1137X 

... you can talk about whatever you want.

Here are 5 TikTok items to amuse or intrigue you. Let me know what you like.

Posted: 17 Jun 2022 07:01 PM PDT

1. I had this feeling when I was a kid: That numbers have a personality!

2. How silently does an owl fly?

3. And speaking of birds: Imitating a parrot.

4. Tones a voice actor can use in a corporate training video.

5. Steve Coogan demonstrates the difference between young Al Pacino and old Al Pacino.

"The Iowa Supreme Court on Friday overruled a 2018 decision that said the right to abortion was protected under the state constitution."

Posted: 17 Jun 2022 08:46 AM PDT

 The Des Moines Register reports. 

The composition of the court has shifted since the 2018 decision, with Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, appointing four of the seven justices....

"Although we overrule (the 2018 decision), and thus reject the proposition that there is a fundamental right to an abortion in Iowa's Constitution subjecting abortion regulation to strict scrutiny, we do not at this time decide what constitutional standard should replace it," Justice Edward Mansfield wrote in the majority opinion.

"He is a man who cares deeply about the court as an institution.... Justice Thomas is the one justice in the building that literally knows every employee’s name, every one of them."

Posted: 17 Jun 2022 07:52 AM PDT

"And not only does he know their names, he remembers their families' names and histories.... He's the first one who will go up to someone when you're walking with him and say, 'Is your son okay? How's your daughter doing in college?' He's the first one that, when my stepfather died, sent me flowers in Florida."

Said Sonia Sotomayor, speaking to the American Constitution Society, quoted at The Hill.

What a dismal time for American politics! Fortunately, I have a solution (for myself).

Posted: 17 Jun 2022 04:01 PM PDT

Look at the lineup of items to be clicked on at Real Clear Politics this morning:

 

It's that approach to balance that takes the form of alternating between being for one major party and then for the other. Neither party has my support, so I see no reason to click on any of it. How dreary for the partisans who pick through that list to find some comfort or nourishment. 

2 images of male beauty — side by side this morning on the front page of the New York Times.

Posted: 17 Jun 2022 06:26 AM PDT

I found this juxtaposition entrancing:

  

We see the idealized domesticated males, together, with idealized dog, on a park bench, looking simply and virtuously for a modest home. And we see the ominous male, heterosexual, standing in the dark next to an empty space where there once was a woman. Somehow his very looks have brought on madness! He — standing alone — is proof of the causal connection between male beauty and madness.

 

I've read both articles, but let's take a closer at the one about Johnny Depp, which is titled, when you click in "Johnny Depp Through the Looking Glass/Examining the madness that male beauty elicits." This is an opinion piece by Rhonda Garelick, School of Art and Design History and Theory at Parsons/The New School:
Mr. Depp, like many Hollywood megastars, has long benefited from his striking good looks, which clearly played a role in the enormous social media support he garnered during the trial....

Garnered. They called my name.

Beauty remains a subject reserved largely for and about women.... Women, metaphorically, occupy the realm of faces and bodies. Men are presumed to live in the realm of ideas and action. So, according to conventional thinking, to focus on a man's beauty (as opposed to, say, his virility), or use it to adjudge his character, risks emasculating him, depriving him of his inner value, his spirit, strength or accomplishments. 

And so we shy away from mentioning male beauty very much. Mr. Depp proves an exception to this rule. In his middle age, he still possesses an unusual, arresting facial beauty. A beauty that exceeds conventional handsomeness, and — especially in his youth — wandered into a kind of feline, even feminine territory....

Yes, the NYT displays 1989 photograph of Depp. He was the kind of man about whom people used to say — quite commonly and openly — He would have made a beautiful woman or Too bad such looks are wasted on a man.

And that specter of Mr. Depp's striking earlier beauty hovered over him in that courtroom like a protective force field, impossible to dispel.... 

In the end, while Johnny Depp was declared the victim of defamation, and garnered sympathy by implying he had been physically abused, he has emerged more able than ever....

Whoa! We have sighted the rare second "garner." For Johnny Depp and Johnny Depp alone there is the madness that manifests itself in the form of a double "garner." We have surely lost our mind!

He's so beautiful he must have won the lawsuit because of his beauty. Well, the woman is beautiful too, but it was some sort of battle of the sexes... or rather, beauty contest of the sexes. Who was more mesmerizing? Who drove us more mad?

The alternative theory is that the jury followed the instructions and perceived her to be lying and him to be telling the truth. But wasn't comparative beauty part of that perception? Even if looks inevitably influence how we weigh credibility, it's not madness. It's the human mind, being human. When you look at a face and perceive beauty, isn't part of that an intuition about the soul within the face?

"Julian did nothing wrong. He has committed no crime and is not a criminal. He is a journalist and a publisher and he is being punished for doing his job."

Posted: 17 Jun 2022 05:34 AM PDT

"It was in [U.K. home secretary] Priti Patel's power to do the right thing. Instead she will for ever be remembered as an accomplice of the United States in its agenda to turn investigative journalism into a criminal enterprise."

Says a statement from WikiLeaks, quoted in "Julian Assange's extradition from UK to US approved by home secretary/Appeal likely after Priti Patel gives green light to extradition of WikiLeaks co-founder" (The Guardian).

The most marital answer ever to the old question "You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?"

Posted: 17 Jun 2022 05:17 AM PDT

From the novelist Geraldine Brooks, interviewed by the NYT:
First, I would bring back [my late husband] Tony Horwitz, because he was more fun at a dinner party than anyone I know. Then, because I think it's rather rude — and a little dull — to invite writers without their partners, I would have my fellow Australian Tim Winton and his wife, Denise, who is a marine scientist. I'd add Margaret Atwood and bring back her partner, Graeme Gibson, a passionate conservationist.

You could have anyone. You could have Shakespeare or Dickens. But you're going to have Margaret Atwood's husband, "a passionate conservationist." I wonder what's the conservationist position about bringing people back from the dead. But the only person she exercised her resurrection power on was her own husband.

That last link goes to Wikipedia, where I see that Brook's husband died suddenly of a heart attack 3 years ago, when he was only 60. 

I look up Atwood's husband and see that he too died 3 years ago, so the dinner-party resurrection power was exercised on 2 persons — both because of their status as husbands.

Gibson was 85 and had been diagnosed with dementia the year before:

Despite having written a book on birds, he could no longer identify those he liked to watch in his garden, but said "I no longer know their names, but then, they don't know my name either."

The resurrection power is a fantasy, but doesn't it seem to assume that the person is brought back in their prime?

ADDED: I had one more question, and I see a NYT column addressed it last year: "Why Is Jesus Still Wounded After His Resurrection?" 

A small excerpt:

Simon Steer, the school chaplain at Abingdon School in Abingdon, England, said to me, "The risen but scarred body of Christ is the ultimate signifier of divine empathy." It is a reminder to Dr. Steer that in his own struggles with depression, "Christ is with me in the dark night of the soul." Jesus himself experienced a "dark night of the soul" at the Garden of Gethsemane, where we're told his soul was "deeply grieved," and especially as he hung on the cross, naked, beaten and left to die, feeling forsaken by God. 

The artist Makoto Fujimura, author of the marvelous recent book "Art and Faith: A Theology of Making," writes about the Japanese tradition of Kintsugi. Kintsugi is the art of repairing broken pottery pieces with lacquer dusted with gold. A Kintsugi master will take the broken work and create a restored piece that "makes the broken parts even more visually sophisticated," according to Mr. Fujimura. "No two works, done with such mastery, will look the same or break the same way." It is built on the idea that in embracing flaws and imperfections, you can create a more beautiful and more valuable piece of art. 

Applying that concept to theology, Mr. Fujimura makes this point: It's through our brokenness that God's grace can shine through, "as in the gold that fills fissures in Kintsugi." Jesus came not to "fix" us, according to Mr. Fujimura, and not just to restore us, but to make us something new.

CNN's new president Chris Licht wants staff to staff to stop saying "big lie" and just say "Trump election lie" or "election lies."

Posted: 17 Jun 2022 07:44 PM PDT

Mediate reports.
On a Tuesday conference call with management and show executive producers, Licht was asked for his thoughts on 'the big lie'.... According to a source, Licht argued that using "the big lie" makes the mistake of adopting branding used by the Democratic Party, thereby weakening the objectivity of the network....

That is, the problem is not the blithe evocation of Hitler, but the similarity to Democratic Party branding. To denounce the Hitler analogy would be to impugn the Democratic Party. Licht apparently just thinks CNN is better off looking less partisan.

"It's worrisome that we're being told how to talk about one of the worst things that ever happened to American democracy," a CNN insider told Mediaite. "We have to call lies, lies, whether they're small lies or big lies. Is there any lie bigger than that lie?"

But Licht endorsed the use of the word "lie," and this insider is acting as though "big lie" isn't a term of art.

Here's how Joseph Goebbels put it:

The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence. Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid thick-headedness. The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.

And here's the what Goebbels is often said to have said:

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State. 

Whether he actually said that or not, that is what the term of art "the big lie" has come to mean. In that view, what Trump has been saying about the 2020 election is obviously not an example of the big lie. It's important to maintain the distinction, because we ought to worry that he might have wanted to do something like that. But don't just assert that he did.

"Test the limits of your abilities! No, screw the limits, are you ready to break yourself every day?"

Posted: 17 Jun 2022 02:52 AM PDT

"You've decided to prove something to yourself. You are trying to detect an enemy in every shadow because if there is no enemy, there is no fight, and if there is no fight, there is no victory."

Says a deep voice in a recruiting ad, quoted in "Russian army ramps up recruitment as steep casualties thin the ranks/With Moscow wary of ordering a general mobilization, the military is offering perks and applying pressure" (WaPo).

Maybe "break yourself" has more allure in Russian. 

And that last sentence is a conundrum of paranoia: "You are trying to detect an enemy in every shadow because if there is no enemy, there is no fight, and if there is no fight, there is no victory."
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