@xankarn@mastodon.online
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xankarn

@xankarn@mastodon.online

Associate Professor at SLAC. (NY, USA) and #Histodon working on #HistoricalJustice and #HistoricalDialogue. Personal acct, not representing employer. Interests: #HumanRights #Reconciliation #Restitution #Reparations

Social democracy when I can. Liberal democracy when I must.

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xankarn, to random
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Authoritarian movements, as they ramp up, depend on the enthusiastic embrace of supporters. These are the true believers.

At a certain point, these voluntary conversions hit a threshold, a high water mark. In the case of Nazism, it was ~37 percent.

When the movement reaches this point, its further advance depends on terror, coercive force, and the capitulation of those who could not otherwise be brought to heel.

That’s the “bloodbath” Trump has promised.

xankarn, to random
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Is there a party that wants to control what you read?

A party that wants to strip women of the right to choose?

A party that rejects LGBTQ+ people and denies them equal citizenship?

A party that denies racial inequalities?

A party that gives tax breaks to mega-corps and the super rich?

A party that seeks to wipe out Medicare and Social Security?

A party that rejects climate science?

A party that views violence as an option?

If there is, would it be worthwhile to stop these things?

xankarn, to random
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Trump 2024: “I don’t know if you call them people. In some cases they’re not people, in my opinion. But I’m not allowed to say that because the radical left says that’s a terrible thing to say.”

Reagan 1986: “When talking about human rights, we're not referring to abstract theory or ungrounded philosophy.”

xankarn, to random
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Ill fares the land.

“Although the United States comprises only 4% of the world’s population, it accounts for roughly 40% of the globe’s firearms, according to Small Arms Survey, an independent research project based in Switzerland. There are an estimated 393 million privately held firearms in the United States — more than one gun per person. In fact, there are more civilian-held guns in the United States than the other top 25 countries in the world combined.”

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/16/opinions/us-brink-of-civil-war-hoffman-ware/index.html

xankarn,
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The pyromaniacs invoke freedom then pitch their torches into the dry grass.

xankarn, to random
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Could it one day be true?

“The welfare of America is intimately connected with the happiness of all mankind; she will become the respectable and safe asylum of virtue, integrity, tolerance, equality, and a peaceful liberty.”

—Marquis de Lafayette (to his wife)

xankarn, to random
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Yesterday, I wrote a thread about poverty, the two-party system, and binary thinking.

The same construct pervades historical memory.

Here’s a shot from my January museums excursion. It’s the Rotunda at U. Virginia in Charlottesville with a sculpture/monument to Thomas Jefferson in front. This was the epicenter of the “Unite the Right” tiki-torch march in 2017.

In the public discourse, Jefferson is now stuck in the same hero/villain binary where Columbus and “seminal” figures also feature.

xankarn, to random
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One of the tragedies of the two-party system is the way it reduces every issue and collective challenge to a partisan binary.

Like cancer and heart disease, poverty doesn’t care a shred about red v blue.

Journal of the American Medical Association cites poverty as the fourth leading cause of death in the USA (2023).

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2804032

xankarn,
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Since the late 1960s, spending on poverty has risen steadily (about $1.2 trillion annually as of 2022), but meanwhile poverty has remained stuck between 10 and 15 of the population.

As it stands, this failure is almost always read through a partisan lens.

xankarn,
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For Dems, it points to the need for more spending. For GOP, the suggestion is normally increased spending = increased dependence (so cuts galore).

But if we stand back from the partisan binary, we might arrive at a different conclusion and a different formula.

Combatting poverty requires significant (i.e., greater) investment AND our current spending model is broken.

xankarn,
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The biggest problem here is that most of our anti-poverty spending goes toward healthcare.

Healthcare is obviously important, but it cannot by itself help people to escape poverty.

If you’re serious about fighting poverty, you must take serious steps to rein in healthcare costs. We have the most expensive healthcare system in the world because we’ve left it to the marketplace and to insurance companies.

xankarn,
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So first thing’s first.

If you’re not ready to reform the healthcare system, then you’re not serious about combatting poverty.

It’s not an accident that US poverty rates and wealth inequality are the worst in the industrial/developed world. Our poverty is directly linked to our insane spending on healthcare and the “market forces” that have ballooned those costs.

xankarn,
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Going back to the two-party system, it’s worth remembering how all this gets translated into narrative.

In today’s GOP, what I’m gesturing toward is SOCIALISM. It’s UN-AMERICAN.

For mainstream Dems, it’s UNREALISTIC. This is the stuff that alienates centrists and, in doing so, tips the scale to the other side.

In summary, one side WOULD NEVER and the other CAN’T RISK IT.

xankarn,
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Here’s what I think this means for the next election.

Both parties have failed us in the fight against poverty. One through moral indifference (GOP). The other through lack of imagination/courage (Dems).

Which of these two can be brought to the heel of reason?

That’s easy. Only the Dems, where a progressive caucus still exists and where the current poverty rates can still elicit shame, at least in theory.

On the other side, it’s the same old thing. Private affluence and public squalor.

xankarn,
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We don’t have to live this way. We can do better. In fact, EVERY other developed democracy in the world does better. If we are exceptional, it’s in the way we stuck. To get unstuck, there is currently just one option. Beat the GOP up and down the ballot and then let the Dems know that they’re insane to try the same things over and over, while expecting a different result.

xankarn,
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To bring this to an end. See below for one ranking of top 10 national healthcare systems.

Sweden sits at the top. Meanwhile, how are they doing in terms of poverty? Less than 1%.

USA poverty hovering around 12-13%. Healthcare ranking? 29th.

BUT THAT’S SOCIALISM….

Nonsense, it’s capitalism with a collective conscience. It capitalism with real patriotic concern, not puffery and lapel pins.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/slideshows/countries-with-the-most-well-developed-public-health-care-system?slide=2

xankarn, to random
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Jon Stewart this week remembered that truth and consequences might be more important than the laughs that come from ironic detachment.

https://youtu.be/LJUl77rsFEw

xankarn, to random
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Teen daughter has bet me $20 that I will not be able to double my followers here.

Official bet was “in six months’ time,” but she added, rather haughtily, “you can have six YEARS if you want.”

Question for my current followers.

Who’s in?

xankarn, to random
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Nothing says “independent judiciary” quite like three Supreme Court justices—Thomas, Alito, and Barrett—skipping the State of the Union.

xankarn,
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  1. No semi-conscious person believes this is about the justices “distancing themselves” from partisan politics. That horse left the stable when they accepted gifts from political mega-donors and took speaker’s fees from ideological think tanks.

  2. News flash: You serve the people. You’re oath-bound to preserve the Constitution. Sit there stoically like the Joint Chiefs and civil servants do because it’s our national democracy at work and because it’s your goddamn job.

jackhutton, to random
@jackhutton@mstdn.social avatar

oh puh-leeze.. this choreographed 'endearing' sorority girl shrug..
oh.. gag me! Katie Britt response

Who is this.. I mean who does this remind us of? Its so sacchrine..so unctuous ... so sneering.. calculating.. classic mean white girl.. lol.

video/mp4

xankarn,
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@jackhutton

Yet somehow, almost unbelievably, NOT the worst senator from Alabama.

tzimmer_history, to random
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The best argument for applying “American fascism” as an analytical framework to Trump / Trumpism is the fact that it emphasized - rather than dismissed or sanitized - these fascistic elements from the start and rightfully diagnosed an acute threat to constitutional self-government.

🧵1/

xankarn,
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@tzimmer_history

With another election on the horizon, I’m losing interest in ontological debates. For me, the question of labels is now pragmatic. What does using the term fascism accomplish at this point? Does it keep the Biden coalition of 2020 together? Can it peel GOP voters away from Trump? Is it a term that will move the needle from its current (precarious) position?

“Fascism” is doing the necessary work in some instances. In others, it’s a dead end. Let’s be ready with ALL the tools.

xankarn, to random
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American democracy has plenty of problems right now, but NIMBY-ism and the perverse idea that the purpose of wealth is to ensure that poverty will never encroach on one’s space (whether mental or physical) are somewhere at the core of our troubles.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/01/us/politics/affordable-housing-florence-south-carolina.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ZU0.mb8J.LR5P9zq8IHgT&smid=url-share

xankarn, to books
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I chair the campus committee that selects the annual “Community Read.” This book is assigned to all incoming first-year students, but faculty, staff, alumni, and the entire learning community are encouraged to engage. It’s one of the cooler parts of my job.

This year, we’ve narrowed things down to these three:

Clint Smith, How the Word Is Passed

Matthew Desmond, Poverty, By America

Kristen Radtke, Seek You

Final selection today!

xankarn,
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Read the book.

Learn the facts.

Demand more from elected officials.

And then, if you’re fortunate enough to
live in abundance, take a look at what your privileges and advantages contribute to the problem.

That’s the tough part, if we’re being honest.

https://matthewdesmondbooks.com/

xankarn,
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Combatting poverty is patriotism.

Pass it on.

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