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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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Sorry for the ad hominem, but I really can't understand the sorts of people who think this way. It's very strange to me. My assumption is that you probably believe there's a high likelihood for many other conspiracy theories. Can you please prove me right or wrong and tell me your opinions on the JFK assassination, Pearl Harbor, 9/11, Seth Rich, and the 2020 election?

So ask. You're here, you're more thoughtful than most, I'm happy to explain. I'll explain now, I hate power. Look at history, it's always the same story. Titans of men raise great nations and their people enjoy golden ages. But those men die, their power must be passed on, and inevitably, every single time, someone reigns who is wholly unfit to rule. Often they kill nations outright, at best they sow ruin for their children or great-great-great-grandchildren to suffer through or else die by. Some intrinsic inadequacy in our specific personage births tyrants, petty and brutal, and the more the population grows, the more tyrants appear and for the last century they have grown enough to infest the American government at all levels. I am cynical of them to a man, I know their crimes, certain ones I'd give you as "conspiracies" for the sake of magnanimity in this discourse, but there is a laundry list of abominable deeds perpetrated by the American government that there is absolutely no debate happened. Iraq at the top of the list. We started a war and maybe a million people died over a fucking lie. The perpetrators are still around, they weren't elected to begin with and they weren't fired, they weren't jailed. They're still working, or enjoying comfy retirements. Same as the generation before them, same as the generation before them. The machine never changed. The Company never changed.

The disposition isn't specific, it's broad. There are powerful career individuals in the United States government and I do not believe there is a single action they consider unacceptable to their morals because the evidence cries thunderous, they have no morals.

Last November Vivek Ramaswamy was giving speeches to tiny crowds where he was saying there's no chance Biden is on the ballot for 2024. A month ago this was still a "right-wing conspiracy", before the debate, Biden's obvious lack of fitness for office was a "right-wing conspiracy." Now we know for sure how the people running the executive were not elected, and they were enabled in their deceit and their necessary tyranny by an effective state-media establishment.

Now, the party who brands themselves as the "protectors of democracy" are by all appearances going to run a candidate for President who nobody wanted, and if truly democratic primaries had been held this year, a candidate who indeed no one would have voted for. The party, the media, the state, have justified extraordinary measures targeting President Trump under justification of him being a "threat to democracy", they fight tooth and nail against anything and everything they perceive as a move to disenfranchise voters, yet their most recent major move was to disenfranchise their entire constituency. This is a fact, I describe reality.

I also describe reality when I say if there was no conspiracy at work in the attempt on Trump's life it was neither for lack of motive nor opportunity.

Isn't there a bit of a vocabulary disconnect here? "Conspiracy" is obviously a bit of a slippery term and often used in a colloquial sense to refer simply to unpopular opinions. "Actual" conspiracies involve multiple people and a knowing deception of some sort, I think those are generally the two innate ingredients.

Like, take Iraq. What we currently understand about the flow of information in the lead-up to war was that indeed Cheney and a few people around him, probably including Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, not only hid info that didn't match their desired conclusion but even manipulated the report-writing process by assigning top CIA analysts to other things and protecting their pro-WMD from challenge. This meets the definition of conspiracy easily. However, we should probably mention two things -- one, George W Bush was elected, along with Cheney who he chose himself after winning the primary democratically (basically, the people in representative democracy style are saying they trusted his judgement) but also Rumsfeld was confirmed by the Senate. I have often claimed and continue to do so that the buck probably does stop with Bush in the sense that he chose bad people to trust, but more direct blame can accurately be laid at Cheney's feet and the people around him who, and this has also been documented, wanted a war in Iraq for their own reasons (a mix of corrupt motives, such as oil and personal feelings, but also probably at least a little bit of ideology). Note that a lot of people in the government did in fact oppose this Iraq push, not everyone was corrupt, but they sadly did not win the day. It must be said however that at least in a loose sense, the Iraq war's legacy lost the Republicans the presidency for the next 8 years almost single-handedly, so even though that's obviously far short of the accountability we wanted, and the accountability we deserve, there was some change at least in a moving-forward sense. Also, quite frankly, it is actually worrying that not enough people acknowledge that Iraq does in fact meet the classic "conspiracy" definition. I am in total agreement in that respect.

Does Biden's age count as a conspiracy? While in a sense there's a knowing deception yes, some of the actions of his aides and close circle also resemble regular "spin" and clever politicking. Biden is probably still capable of performing 95% of his job even in his current diminished state, so even though we were clearly lied to, and I'm upset about it, I am not quite willing to say it was completely corrupt -- I think claims that Biden was/is actually incapable and that his inner circle wanted it that way so that they could control the strings or something is ridiculous. So of course "spin" can come quite close to a lie -- in fact we just heard something of that nature tonight in Biden's address where he at once claimed to never lie to the public and in the same breath talked about how he is stepping aside to be a bridge and protect democracy, which is an obvious falsehood as it's manifestly clear he was forced out by public and private pressure. It's a total farce. However, I think it's still useful on some level to distinguish between these sort of spin-lies and more corrupt ones.

Anyways all of this as a long-winded way to say that while I think the spirit of your answer was excellent and directly in line with what was asked, answering with substance which I applaud, I don't like the original question very much. There's a difference between being generally mistrustful about the government, and regularly placing trust in implausible conspiracies involving a ton of people. Like, specifically, the Iraq conspiracy only required a few useful idiots in the CIA (see for example this posthumous interview which talks about what I mentioned about the less-skilled analysts being assigned the WMD analysis and the lack of internal challenge) and only about 2-5 administration officials in the defense department (chosen by Bush, however) to effectively cut the President off from critical info. Contrast this with 9/11 conspiracies, which in their most popular form (the famous jet fuel can't melt steel beams) require a very large circle of complicit and perfectly secretive people across many areas of government. Basically, a good rule of thumb is the more localized a group, the more likely the conspiracy is, and the converse is a strong argument against many popular theories.

JFK assassination: the proof is that the files are still sealed 100 years later, something was off there

Pearl Harbor: the powers that be knew that by denying japan access to oil they were effectively declaring war themselves

9/11: Building 7

Seth Rich: didn't kill himself. Is this controversial, even to you?

2020 election: the pipe burst in Atlanta, everyone (but a select few caught on camera) was sent home in Milwaukee, Maricpoa suddenly found 145k ballots, Pennsylvania put up pizza boxes in front on the central tabulation office

I purport you are the weird one who thinks the government lied about the Maine, the Lusitania, the xyz, the etc but everything since then is above board. Why the gishgallop otherwise?

JFK assassination: the proof is that the files are still sealed 100 years later, something was off there

I'm having a hard time parsing this. If you mean "the files are still sealed 100 years after the assassination", JFK was assassinated just under 61 years ago. If you mean "the files will still be sealed 100 years after the assassination", most of the files were originally planned to remain sealed until 2029. However, most of the outstanding JFK files were unsealed in June 2023. My understanding is they contained no bombshells or anything that might significantly differ from the conclusions of the Warren report.

I think the main thing we learned was that the assassin's ties to Cuba were deeper than first thought, but most of the coverup of that fact appears to have been post-facto reputation-saving rather than an actual government-involved plot to off Kennedy (or a mafia one as first thought). I'm pretty sure most experts who have looked at the stuff concluded the Warren conclusions were fundamentally correct.

JFK assassination: the proof is that the files are still sealed 100 years later

I have really lost track of time since the covid pandemic.

Can't decide between these two jokes:

That's the reason they call it long covid

Or

I was taught to round up if it's more than 50

Are the correct answers supposed to be, the official story every time?

Because we have enough evidence for Pearl Harbor and JFK to disprove the official story. Pearl Harbor was Let It Happen On Purpose so we would have causus belli to enter the war. There were at least two shooters in Dallas, and enough evidence of a coverup that I'm fairly certain who to blame (Dulles, among others).

If you'd like to wait fifty or seventy years, we'll find out about the others, but I don't think your list is doing what you want it to be doing.

I get why people don’t buy the JFK story, even though we’ve disagreed on it before.

But Pearl Harbor? Who masterminded this, and how? Why would they need a “casus belli” other than the actual aircraft launched in anger? Wouldn’t they at least have the defenses ready to shoot back, maximizing the material gain from such a convoluted scheme?

Who masterminded this, and how?

FDR, and his administration, and anyone else who wanted to enter WW2. How is ignore warnings and set up the circumstances.

Why would they need a “casus belli” other than the actual aircraft launched in anger?

Because Americans remembered Woodrow "He Kept Us Out Of War" Wilson, and were smart enough to avoid another European land war. FDR couldn't go after Hitler just because, he didn't have the coalition or the political will.

Wouldn’t they at least have the defenses ready to shoot back, maximizing the material gain from such a convoluted scheme?

The material gain is to drive the country into war it didn't want. The material gain is to get attacked by Japan in the Pacific, which justifies crossing the Atlantic to invade France and drive out the Germans, which is what they wanted the whole time. Germany was allied with Japan, but we squeezed Japan because we wanted to attack Germany, so when Japan predictably attacked due to the fuel blockade, we had the excuse to invade Europe.

Assuming you’re completely right about the strategy—enact an intolerable fuel blockade to “invite” an attack—the tactics are still absurd. From the moment bombs were dropped, you had a perfectly good casus belli. Why not warn the defenders and rack up some kills while you’re at it? Why not give the elusive Pacific Fleet contingency plans to capitalize on the not-so-shocking attack?

That said, we’d been fussing over Japanese aggression since before the Nazis seized control of Germany. It’s hard for me to see the equipment and oil embargoes as a diversion from existing plans.

There were at least two shooters in Dallas, and enough evidence of a coverup that I'm fairly certain who to blame (Dulles, among others).

What's the evidence for a second shooter in Dallas?

The best I've seen is the unaccounted for bullet which left a mark on the curb and exploded near a witness (James Tague).

The best I haven't seen is the video which shows puffs of smoke, like gunshots, coming from the grassy knoll. The reason I haven't seen that video is because it disappeared after too many people saw it and described it.

One thing I found amusing is that, while filming JFK, Oliver Stone filmed scenes of people firing period-appropriate rifles over the fence on the grassy knoll - but to his dismay, they hardly produced any smoke at all, forcing him to resort to smoke machines to achieve the desired effect. This obviously undermines the credibility of witness testimony reporting rifle smoke from the grassy knoll (cue the obvious jokes about Stone "blowing smoke" at the American public).

And what about James?

This article argues that Tague was struck by a fragment of Oswald's third bullet: https://www.jfk-online.com/jfk100tague.html

Given that the Warren commission established that Oswald's first shot missed the car and its occupants entirely, the most likely explanation is that Oswald's first shot struck the pavement near Teague and caused a chunk of concrete to strike him in the face. In the absence of any more persuasive evidence for a second shooter (which both the Warren commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations were unable to find), that strikes me as the null hypothesis.

(We could have moved more of our fleet out of the harbor and still let the Japanese bomb the harbor if we had in fact had advance warning. If you want to use deceit to get into a war there are far less stupid ways to go about it.)

Bruh this is beneath this place. What are we doing here. All of the carriers and multiple battleships were out of 'the' (pearl) harbor that day on a 'last-minute training exercise.'

K, but far from all, like the 2400 killed personnel and eight battleships that took damage.

With advance warning, the US could have intercepted the attack, which was an act of war from the get go, and simultaneously had the justification for war and started off by fucking over the Japanese. An ambush on a surprise attack is the best kind.

What’s beneath this place is conspiratorial thinking that doesn’t even make sense in the context of what the damn conspiracy theory context even is.

‘My opponent believes things’ is not an argument.