False Equivalence

Why does the mainstream media keep depicting lunatic-right Republicans and normal Democrats as equidistant from the center?

With the final passage of the debt ceiling deal, Democrats got off easier than one might have expected, given that it was a deal between a mainstream Democratic president and a Republican House in thrall to the lunatic far right. In drastic contrast to the scorched-earth budget bill initially passed by the Republican-controlled House, the cuts were about par for the course in a divided government; and they spare the country a repeat of this debt-hostage ordeal for two years.

However, much of the media played the agreement as a compromise between two equal extremes. The New York Times story about the House passage of the deal included this astonishing sentence: "With both far-right and hard-left lawmakers in revolt over the deal, it fell to a bipartisan coalition powered by Democrats to push the bill over the finish line, throwing their support behind the compromise in an effort to break the fiscal stalemate that had gripped Washington for weeks."

Think about that for a moment. There is no doubt that Matt Gaetz, Elise Stefanik, Lauren Boebert, Paul Gosar et al. are far-right by any definition, as white supremacists, Christian nationalists, election deniers, and nihilists on fiscal policy.

But no Democrats in the House can fairly be described as hard left. Those who voted against the deal included moderate liberals such as Joaquin Castro, mainstream progressives like Rosa DeLauro and Jan Schakowsky, as well as self-described democratic socialists including Cori Bush and AOC. But none of them are "hard left," which suggests anti-democratic, any more than Franklin Roosevelt was hard left.

The Times coverage reinforces a narrative of false equivalence that the media keeps repeating, with lazy catchphrases like "partisan bickering." It also plays into the hands of corrupt No Labels and Third Way types, who promote the idea that the best course for the republic is to split the difference between neofascists and a normal mainstream Democratic Party and president.

Big media, obsessed as it is with the appearance of fair and balanced coverage, took years to give itself permission to accurately describe Donald Trump with the impolite word "liar." But its treatment of the two parties as in any sense symmetrical is far more insidious than using euphemisms to characterize Trump’s lies.

Our friend Peter Dreier, whose observations inspired this post, points out that by any reasonable definition, "even the most left-oriented Democrats (AOC, Bush, Bowman, Raskin, Jayapal) are not extremists. They are shades of social democrats. They are pro-union, pro-choice, pro-affirmative action, pro-LGBT equality, pro-Green New Deal, pro-progressive taxation. But the most right-wing Republicans are extremists and reactionaries."

(continue reading)

This two and a half hour long video by People Make Games is probably the most comprehensive and balanced look at the whole controversy. It's a tough watch at times, but I think it's an important piece of journalism that will hopefully allow for a more nuanced discussion.

Getting ready to see transphobic family for the next 2 days!

I've been out for almost a decade and they STILL refuse to use my pronouns... I'm so tired and I'm not even at the party yet

I've been increasingly letting myself also treat my journal as like, letting myself cut out stuff and paste it in and just artifacts from my life, like my mafumafu chapstick went bad but I liked the art on the thing but it was sticky a bit so I sealed it with tape (+cleaned a little) and then I could stick it in on that daily page, or parts of an envelope that a friend sent me, or from a box of miku curry I got or snow miku figure box had a cute lil thing, stuff beyond like peeling off washi tape

this glue tape is great btw, midori one is good too but I might lose the cap on that

Thank the media

Hi! sorry can I ask? Are you british? And if so is the BBC trustworthy for news? I’ve tried following the news on Palestine there because I thought being british would have at least a little less bias than the news I get on my country or in my language, but it’s so weird how their narrative changes everyother day! I’m mostly reading al jazeera now,

Thanks!

Hey yeah I'm British and the BBC is hit and miss in terms of bias and accuracy. It used to be better but it is officially state funded media and therefore doesn't like to go against the government narrative, especially under the Tory government. Said government is extremely biased in favour of Israel and frankly I would intensely scrutinise any British media's reports on Palestine. Sometimes that bias is apparent in the BBC's reporting and sometimes they actually do journalism. It really seems to change day to day depending on which journalists are doing the work.

I think following al jazeera and Palestinian journalists is absolutely the best call here. Even if the BBC was a spotless perfect source, those are the people who are on the ground witnessing this horror or in personal contact with those who are, and I'd prioritise their accounts over the BBC's interpretation of their reporting. It's always best to get as close to the original source as you can.

Feeling normal about that old man (lying)

idk if ur fr. but like be a clown. i went to theater school so my adviser a full ass doctorate haver was a clown (people love this ill tell them this and theyll be like. ‘wow you really have beef w her?’ and i gotta be like. no shes a whole ass performance clown?) sf has a clown troupe that is historically notable and i gotta believe there are others PLUS ur more typical traveling stuff. and hey. birthday party gigs are always there when ur not traveling. the world needs more clowns. u could probably always get some sort of office job qhen ur done clowning, but getting into clown school young is probably best if you want to do physical stuff too

honestly i'd love to be a clown. but i do have a passion for psychology so i'd want to finish my bachelors at least before i start with anything more. but i also really do want to perform. i love dancing i love being funny i love making people laugh i think i'd like to be a clown. i would need to do some research on schools/classes and the costs but i think i really want to take a shot at it

Pills were working great and still kind of are except now every time the sun goes down I wanna die. So there’s that.

trying to stay up to date by listening to a 15 minute daily npr news podcast but yesterday they talked about the "lab leak theory" by saying "it should be noted that many scientists say there is no evidence supporting this theory and it is very unlikely. however some Republicans feel very strongly that this is what happened" then played a clip of some republican talking about the suppression of truth or whatever. when are reporters going to stop pretending that they aren't taking a side when they present these things as equals

just found out about the RQ medium article and ????? THE GIRLS R FIGHTING !!!!! 😭 Rusty quill just released a follow-up statement on the article n ooohh the tea is piping ur honor.

enough giffing for now i guess. time to write some thoughts about the latest episode of sbs. because. i just have some. and somehow i feel like i need to. and then gonna have vice versa for the rest of my night.

hi! a while back I wrote my first smutty pierresteban fic on ao3 and you wrote the nicest, most thorough review I’ve ever read in my life and it honestly made my entire month 💕 so thank you!!

not sure if you’ve spoken about this before but I wanted to ask - what goes through your mind when you write reviews / read fic? how are you able to just capture the essence of what spoke to you and at the same time convey such appreciation to the writer? it’s truly an art. as a writer yourself, what kind of reviews make you the happiest / most satisfied?

omg!!! I'm so honored that my comment made such an impact - I'm sure what you wrote was absolutely lovely!! It's really nice to know that my comments have an impact for you as well as for me bc I do rlly enjoy writing them. This is also such a nice question - I don't think I've been asked it before - and I definitely have thoughts hahaha!! Many thoughts. Many more than are even below the cut perhaps...

What goes through my mind when I write a comment?

I guess it's a couple of different things. For me, the fic I like best catches on something - a theme, a twist on a relationship - that I don't find elsewhere. I really like fic that makes me think about something differently. I think part of this is how I like to engage with texts generally - I read a lot but like, you can't tell the author of a novel what you thought so easily. So those thoughts I have generally get harnessed into comments bc I know someone will read them.

Within that, I'm like... I guess I try to be a critical thinker and consider things deeper than surface level and that of course applies to fic. So I try to pull out a couple of ways I think the author did things differently than maybe I would expect - a plot twist, or a characterization choice, or a thematic engagement. Idk i want people to know that I take their writing just as seriously as anything else I read. A big worry when I'm commenting is being accidentally mean - I've been called condescending a lot in my life hahaha - so that is also always on my mind as well.

I don't really think about my comment til I get to the end of a fic where I usually ask myself what was the most memorable and then I give it a little bit of time to percolate and then write the comment... Idk. Some of this is probably also affected by both like... how being a history major trained me to think about reading and also bc - I'm fairly picky about what I read (I don't read that much fic and I honestly am not a great commenter overall - I do have to really like it/want more of it/find something of interest in it), I read a lot, and I'm very confident in what I like.

How do I capture what spoke to me and convey my appreciation to the writer?

Okay to be honest I worry about this a lot... Like is it too much of what I thought?? Am I getting away from the meaning of the text? I feel like also I am kind of a hater generally but I 1) never want to make anyone feel bad about their writing and 2) especially don't want to do so accidentally.

So for me, when I'm writing a comment, I try to chunk it out into the different ideas that I liked (for example: main ship dynamic, external friendships, and fate), and jot my thoughts down for them. I try to focus on those ideas over like idk writing technique. Once I get down all my vague thoughts, I'll go back and flesh them out into sentences and include something specific about each of those points. For at least one point, I try to include a line I particularly liked. Then I go back through again and try make sure I didn't say anything accidentally insulting (I generally do also have critiques when I read but I try and lean as heavily into the positive as I can and make sure I only ever tell someone that if they ask me). For shorter fics, I'll do maybe only one or two ideas, but for longer ones my comments can get... Long. I'm not sure if that totally answers your question but that's the like... balance I try to strike?

As to what kind of reviews make me the happiest/most satisfied...

I was actually talking to one of my very good friends about this the other day. Unsurprisingly, the comments I like to get are similar to those I try to write. My favorite comments are the ones that go deeper - what themes did you like and did you see, how do you see the characters thinking about their lives. I really enjoy when people make external connections whether that to be of other books/articles or music (but this can be hit or miss based on if we have similar taste lol) or pieces of art, especially bc its often stuff that idk about!! For me, I try with most of my fic to weigh in on some larger theme or question and I really like when ppl engage with that because they're always going to bring in new thoughts and ideas that I can't come up with on my own!!! My friend says that I like debate (I love debate) hahaha so I do like stuff that pushes me about the text can be understood.

That being said like. I also really appreciate when people tell me lines they like, or even just a single line that they enjoyed the fic. I don't want to sound like I'm complaining about engagement bc I'm not!!! I just love when people are willing to go deeper. I do also think like I'm a person whose very willing to have a conversation in the comments which like... Idk not congrous with current ao3 culture hahaha.

I also really appreciate when people say my fic is like.... very understandable but still has a lot to say because that makes me very proud (especially because I don't consider myself a very strong writer... I consider myself middling in both quality and popularity). I also really appreciate stuff from my friends bc like... They know me, yknow? But anyway, I really do appreciate all comments but that's a bit of what makes a comment special!!

Anyway... That's the gist!!! Thank you for the questions and I'm sorry if I accidentally said something cruel in all my rambling. I would say this is fairly accurate to how I read and comment and I hope it's interesting at the very least!!! Please feel free to weigh in with your thoughts/comment strategy etc as well!!!!

google search for "how to tell therapist that "inner child" is another person in brain"

bury your gays moment in OBLIVION???????

105%ing hk didnt rly feel like i was which was cool