Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Right Wing News' White Supremacy Propaganda

The following image was shared from Right Wing News on my Facebook timeline by a friend wanting me to debunk it. So I did.


1. “Ask the average school student about slavery and they think that only white people had slaves”

What’s the difference between a school student and a student? Did they mean high school student? Anyway, unless someone can provide a source for this, it can be dismissed. I’m not about to conduct a poll to prove this wrong.

2. “In the 16th - 18th century, Africans enslaved 1.5 million white Europeans in the Barbary slave trade.”

Rewritten to be factual and grammatically correct: “Between the 16th and 19th centuries, pirates from coastal cities in North Africa enslaved as many as 1.25 million Europeans during the Barbary slave trade.”

The region of North Africa that we’re referring to, the Barbary Coast, is populated almost entirely by Arab-Berbers (97–99%). Berbers are the indigenous people of North Africa west of the Nile. They are caucasian, not black. Furthermore, not all Europeans are white. The image is promoting a racist agenda by making it sound as if blacks were enslaving whites.

3. “Whites were the first to stop slavery in modern times…”

This is true. It’s also convenient that the time period is restricted to the beginning of the modern era. Even more convenient, of course white-dominated modern societies would be more likely to end slavery. That’s where most of the slaves were! You can’t end slavery in a place that doesn’t have slaves to begin with.

4. “…whereas slavery still continues in Africa to this day.”

The word “whereas” denotes a contradiction or comparison, but there is none. Yes, there is slavery in Africa. There’s slavery on every continent except Antarctica.

Monday, May 12, 2014

"Free market" is a euphemism for market anarchy.

"Free market" is a euphemism for market anarchy. It’s lawless. There’s no accountability and no penalties.

We saw this when California loosened energy regulations, which led to the California electricity crisis: The worst power crisis in history. Companies caused rolling blackouts to drive up the cost of electricity. Without regulations, they were free. Free to put their responsibility to the public second to their responsibility to shareholders.

We saw this when the Fed loosened financial sector regulations and kept derivatives completely unregulated, which led to fraud on a massive scale and consequently the Global Financial Crisis and the Great Recession. Tens of millions of people lost their savings, homes, and jobs. Only Iceland’s government held their bankers responsible. Everywhere else, those responsible got away with it because there were no laws saying they couldn’t.

And we’re seeing it happen again as the FCC is loosening regulations. They’re granting internet companies greater self-regulation and “freedom”. Freedom from liability. Freedom to fuck their customers over. Except for the wealthiest customers, of course. Because in a market, votes are cast with dollars.

The wealthy already have too much power over the economy. Why grant them more?

If you don't believe in human rights for criminals, you don't believe in human rights.

A moral measure of society is how it treats those of the lowest status. In the US, that's criminals. As much as we might want to see them as monsters or demons or evil incarnate, they're human.

Compassion should be unconditional. Crimes against incarcerated criminals are still crimes. Yet they're largely omitted from the news, public discourse, and most importantly the justice system. Rapists are sent to prison only to continue to rape inmates with largely no consequences. That's backwards.

Human rights is essential to ethics. It's abhorrent that people condone suffering, whatever the crime. That's vengeance, glorified in movies, but ultimately petty. That's a "two wrongs make a right" mentality. Taking satisfaction in another's misery is the definition of sadism.

Ignoring basic human rights is shameful and ignorant because it's nothing more than a hateful and contemptuous emotional reaction. There's no logic or reason to it. It serves no higher purpose. Nothing of practical or moral value is accomplished by violating human rights.

Prisons are supposed to be correctional. A punitive system doesn't work. Capital punishment doesn't deter murder. Longer sentences actually increase recidivism. Of course, for the safety of the public, lock criminals up. But treat them like the human beings they are.

Further reading:

Credit to Noam Chomsky for formulating a similar idea about free speech: “If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.”

Update: A friend alerted me to this Dostoevsky quote: "The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons."