Blackcap Blog

Published at 09:56 on 7 July 2021

This is Not Over

Worldwide, the vast majority of individuals have yet to see so much as a single dose of vaccine, and the numbers of new cases and deaths are comparable to spring and summer of last year, when everything was shut down due to the risk. Yes, in the First World things are returning to normal, but the First World is not the entire world. Far from it, actually: the First World is a tiny sliver of wealthy nations. The vast majority of the world’s people live in poverty or near-poverty.

Not Over, Part II

Not only is the virus circulating widely, new variants are continually evolving. So far, the existing vaccines seem to do a good job of protecting against those new variants. There is, however, no guarantee that this will hold into the future. Influenza viruses continually evolve to the point where new vaccines must be continually developed to protect against them.

So long as COVID-19 continues to circulate, and particularly to circulate unimpeded in the Third World, the pandemic is not over. It will not be over until it is over for all. Seen in this light, aid to developing countries is not mere charity; it is self-interest.

Hard to Feel Sorry for Most Refuseniks

Then we get to the First World, where a not-insignificant chunk of individuals, particularly in nations like the USA that are plagued by widespread backwardness of thought, refuse to get vaccinated at all.

First of all, this is their choice: forcing people to get a medical procedure is anti-freedom and should be off the table. This has two sides, however: forcing people to associate with the irresponsible is also anti-freedom and should also be off the table. If businesses and other organizations wish to have vaccine mandates, they should be free to do so. If this causes the refuseniks difficulty in their personal lives, so be it. Choices have consequences.

Secondly, it is very hard to feel sorry for most of the refuseniks that get sick and/or die as a result of their behavior. To reiterate: choices have consequences. COVID vaccination is a rare example of something done very right in the USA. Instead of vaccine access depending on social privilege, the vaccine is available to all, free at the point of delivery. Nobody has to decide between their children having enough to eat and getting a shot. The standard point about many being victims of their unchosen circumstances does not apply this time.

Yes, there are groups that are mistrustful of the medical establishment because of past history (type “Tuskeegee experiment” into your search engine of choice for one such example). And there are people for whom it is just plain unsafe to receive a vaccine. But those cases are a minority of those refusing to get vaccines. I chose my wording carefully: it is hard to feel sorry for most refuseniks.

I Blame Trump, Too

No, he’s not president anymore, but he is still very much politically relevant. Anyone who doubts the latter statement need only consider how much the GOP is still cowering in fear of his every word, refusing to so much as entertain the idea of investigating the January 6th insurrection. Trump created and weaponized the sort of know-nothing-ism that the anti-vax crowd is part of.

There is nothing stopping Trump from agreeing to star in a public service advertisement or two targeted at his demographic, encouraging people to get vaccinated. This would almost certainly be a huge help in increasing the vaccination rate, and Trump himself is vaccinated, proving that he has no objection in principle to vaccination. Yet he insists on running a death cult and killing his followers.

Then again, those followers chose to be followers. The USA is not North Korea; Trumpism is not a mandatory state ideology. Again, it is hard to feel sorry for most of those getting sick and dying as a result of their own personal bad decisions.

Published at 07:41 on 2 July 2021

Remember him? He is (or rather was) the Evergreen State College professor who got his undies all in a knot the time their annual Day of Absence asked White students to consider staying off campus for a day.

The organizers of the event had asked the same of students of Color for decades, and Weinstein had never raised a peep about it. He only objected the one year when they thought to reverse it. That latter fact caused many leftists, including Yours Truly, to conclude that, despite Weinstein’s protestations to the contrary, white fragility was at the root of his objections.

At the time, I pointed out (not on this site, but in conversations), that I considered him for the most part a “nutty professor” who was himself responsible for most of the brouhaha he found himself involved in. This was not to say that I supported everything done by his opponents (which degenerated at times into threats of physical violence).

Anyhow, where is this nutty professor today?

Answer: promoting COVID vaccine denialism and quack remedies, and as such causing YouTube to exercise editorial discretion by removing many of his videos. Then, of course, playing the victim card and acting like he’s being “censored” due to YouTube’s act of free speech. And yes, part of free speech is the right to not say something, and to be free from others forcing you to say what you do not want to say.

You think I’m making this up? Go to his Twitter feed and see for yourself.

Oh, he also famously once tried to lecture the International Chess Federation about chess rules and strategy:

Looks like my earlier characterization of him as a nutty professor was spot-on.

Published at 13:10 on 25 June 2021

In a recent post of his, he claims, regarding extreme heat waves:

There is no evidence that such a wave pattern is anything other than natural variability (I have done research on this issue and published in the peer-reviewed literature on this exact topic).

This is a recurring pattern with Mass: passing off a topic on which there is debate in the scientific community, as something that is settled, with his own personal opinion in the debate as the settled truth. Actually, there is some evidence of the sort Mass denies:

“This is a weather system that can be very persistent, it can last for many days,” said Dim Coumou, a researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. “It brings clear skies, very high temperature[s].”

While climate change has already warmed the planet about 1.2C since pre-industrial times, scientists such as Coumou believe it has also shifted atmospheric patterns.

His research shows that a gradual weakening of the jet stream during summer makes these high-pressure systems more persistent, resulting in longer heatwaves. The jet stream, a band of fast-moving wind high in the atmosphere, greatly influences weather patterns in the northern hemisphere

Source.

Edit: And his grasp of statistics is all wrong, too.

Published at 10:48 on 24 June 2021

Mind you, this is distinctly a positive development, but contrary to Pelosi’s assertion, Congress does not have “as long as it takes.” It is imperative that a substantial part of the truth be uncovered and released to the voting public in advance of the November 2022 elections. Voters must be informed as to just how institutionally complicit the GOP was in the insurrection. Failure to do so would be a gross disservice to the Republic and its Constitution that Pelosi has sworn an oath to defend.

Also, it must be understood that the goal of having the investigation be bipartisan is in tension with the one of having it be thorough. At this stage, not many House Republicans can be trusted to act in good faith. Ones who, like Peter Meijer and Adam Kinzinger, have demonstrated their faith to Constitutional norms, are acceptable. The vast majority, however, have demonstrated by their own words and actions that they are fascists loyal to to their führer Trump and nothing or nobody else. As such, it is absolutely unacceptable to place such individuals in positions of power sufficient to sabotage the necessary work of the Committee.

Published at 17:04 on 23 June 2021

Really, this is simply terrible. There are only two choices: uphold standards, or set precedents that the old standards do not apply anymore, and it appears Garland is choosing the latter option. This will only compound the Democrats’ coming loss in 2022, as it creates yet another reason for left-leaning voters to be cynical and apathetic about electoral politics.

Not much else to say but to repeat two bleak observations I have made before:

1. When the historians of the future write about the USA’s transition to fascism, they will fault the Democrats almost as much (for failing to oppose it) as they do the Republicans (for pursuing it).
2. It’s almost bad enough to make one seriously wonder if the Establishment “left” isn’t all just a deliberate charade to promote right-wing dominance.

Published at 23:14 on 22 June 2021

Earlier I offered one particular reason why the Democrats are likely to lose in 2022. Here are some additional, more general ones:

The political cycle. Remember when I started getting bullish about the Democrats’ chances in 2018? A lot of it was based on the normal political cycle: a party that’s in power tends to lose a big chunk of it during the midterms. It’s been a very persistent trend in American politics for many decades now, and this time that trend is not in the Democrats’ favor.

Redistricting. The Democrats have continued their record of not doing as well at state and local levels as they have at the Federal one. The result is that most states are under Republican control. Republicans have never been shy about using their control of the redistricting process in their favor, and their rhetoric in this direction is getting increasingly bold. They are almost certain to pick up a half-dozen or more seats due to this one reason alone.

Voter suppression. Scores of state laws are being passed to make it disproportionately harder for Democrats to vote. It is reasonable to expect that such laws will bear fruit, particularly because (with a few exceptions, like in Texas), Democrats have generally been afraid to fully confront such tactics. The latter gross political malpractice brings up the final reason…

General incompetence. The post mentioned at the start of this entry was but a specific example of this. Not only won’t Democrats play hardball with legislative maneuvers, they won’t play hardball on the campaign trail, either: they are generally too timid to go negative. It goes beyond an unwillingness to play hardball, however. Democrats tend to labor under the delusion that voters are well-informed, care about the issues, and will automatically reward them for their positions. These assumptions are hilariously wrong, and bear little if any resemblance to the actual reality of the voting public. The Republicans understand this, base their campaigns on simple, repetitive messaging, and as such tend to reap the natural and expected rewards of doing so.

Conclusion. None of this proves the Democrats will do poorly next year, but it sure makes such an outcome likely.

Published at 11:39 on 21 June 2021

No right-wing judge would have the least hesitancy about doing so. In fact, most in a comparable situation would have probably done so already (or very soon).

Only the judges on the Establishment “left” are so totally situationally unaware as to fall for the selfish temptation to serve as many years as possible. This is huge part of why institutions tend to lean right. If one side always brings knives to gun fights, the side that brings guns will tend to win.

It is part of the reason why I couldn’t join the great RBG Admiration and Eulogy Society when she passed away. If she had not selfishly clung to the desire to serve until age ninety (despite not only a cancer diagnosis, but a pancreatic cancer diagnosis), she could have retired during Obama’s second term.

At times, it’s almost bad enough to make one seriously wonder if the Establishment “left” isn’t all just a deliberate charade to promote right-wing dominance.

Published at 16:54 on 20 June 2021

Really, now, this should be Exhibit A in any argument made by an Establishment type of how radicals are needlessly divisive and impractical.

At a time when the country is undergoing a transition to fascism that desperately needs to be interrupted, the DHS wants… not to drag the putschists and discredit them, but to seek common cause with them by demonizing anarchists as well as fascists.

Listen, you fucking morons: Anarchists did not violently invade the Capitol. Anarchists are not phoning in death threats to election officials who won’t ignore the vote totals and declare the fascists the winners no matter what. Fascists are doing those things. The fascist party wants to destroy you. It is not interested in allying with you!

Maybe act a bit more strategically, for once? Listen, I get it: I don’t expect you people to have any love for radical left politics. I don’t expect praise for anarchism from you. But you don’t have to: all you have to do is shut the fuck up about anarchism and focus on fascism. Fascism is Priority No. 1.

Churchill even managed to shut the fuck up about his many disagreements with Stalin and ally with him. Stalin! Surely you can STFU about anarchists, can you not?

Original document here.

Published at 11:19 on 17 June 2021

Earlier I wrote (emphasis added):

The Republic is basically dead already. Most don’t know it yet because the corpse has not started stinking yet, but it is dead. Nobody much believes in (or abides by) its core professed principles, and this goes for the Democrats about as much as it does for the GOP. The lack of any meaningful, substantial outrage over 1/6 proves it.

Many people realize that emphasized point on some level. Many pundits do, too, but refuse to say it aloud because of the fear that it will demoralize left-leaning voters. If I were a prominent pundit, I would have that fear, too. It is only because I am a random nobody with a blog of approximately zero national political import that I feel comfortable saying it.

But whether it is said or not, a non-trivial number of people feel it, and it does not take a whole lot of demoralized voters abstaining to change the outcome in a system where power is as balanced between two parties as ours is.

The remedy, of course, is for the Democrats to grow a pair and start using what power they do have to pursue accountability. Conveniently, this will be an exercise in basic law-and-order which will appeal to Never Trump moderates and conservatives approximately as much as it will appeal to liberals and leftists. The logical effect will be to inspire and energize a Big Tent base of support in the coming elections.

In other words, that which is best for world as a whole is also best for the short-term political fortunes of the Democratic Party. The question is: are enough Democrats capable of realizing this, and escaping the comfort zone of their timeworn battered wife role, always blaming themselves for the fact that the opposition never loves them?

My money is solidly on this particular old dog being unable to learn any new tricks, but I certainly hope I am wrong.

Published at 08:52 on 16 June 2021

Almost three weeks on from the filibuster of the 1/6 commission and there are no signs of the House or the Executive Branch lifting so much as a pinky finger to pursue accountability for instigating the coup attempt.

By any reasonable and objective measure that I can conceive, today’s USA has less commitment to the basic principles of democracy and the rule of law than the Weimar Republic did. Remember, within two days of the Beer Hall Putsch, a putsch that failed to take over a defense ministry because the ministry was so well-defended, the top instigators were in detention awaiting trial. By contrast, it has now been over six months since 1/6, yet nothing.

The Republic is basically dead already. Most don’t know it yet because the corpse has not started stinking yet, but it is dead. Nobody much believes in (or abides by) its core professed principles, and this goes for the Democrats about as much as it does for the GOP. The lack of any meaningful, substantial outrage over 1/6 proves it.

Late last year, I had an estimate that the USA was within a dozen years of completing a transition to an authoritarian fascist state. The lack of meaningful response to 1/6 indicates I was being overoptimistic in that estimate. A far more realistic estimate is that the USA will become fully fascist within five years.