Been a lurker for a while, but I'll pony up a month's subscription to make a post and then we'll see.
I'm a left of center Gen X liberal, and I have appreciated the recent outpouring of critiques about some of the more disturbing directions that "woke" (sigh, hate the appropriation of that term, but it's the shorthand we all recognize to…
Been a lurker for a while, but I'll pony up a month's subscription to make a post and then we'll see.
I'm a left of center Gen X liberal, and I have appreciated the recent outpouring of critiques about some of the more disturbing directions that "woke" (sigh, hate the appropriation of that term, but it's the shorthand we all recognize to describe what it is, so fine, I'll use it) ideologies and movements have taken, particularly in reaction to the Trump era. But for a site priding itself on "investigative journalism", you're long on grievance and very short on solutions. Take this article for example. OK, homeless friendly policies may be creating some real quality of life and safety issues for SF city residents, and may not be in the best service of the homeless population itself. So what are the proposed solutions? Because I'm not seeing any, other than yet another post in the long catalogue of this site offering up the Progressive Boogeyman of the week to bash for the Two Minutes Hate Fest that the (majority) right wing paying subscribers are clearly getting their money's worth for, and getting such satisfaction from. What are the "conservative" solutions that don't involve a bus pass to export their city's and state's homeless population to "homeless friendly" climes in blue states - which is then of course used as a cudgel to bash blue cities for their massive (imported) homeless problem? Doesn't seem like much of a solution, IMO, or proof of the validity of conservative "solutions" one way or the other over progressive solutions, other than efficacy of sweeping out "problems" for other people to deal with, and then bitching about how they're doing it.
What are the other solutions I've seen offered in the comments here? More Drug War/border enforcement over fentanyl and other substances? Yeah, because that's worked so well for the last 60 years of the Drug War, in which we've spent way more money than SanFran will spend on homeless tents in 1000 years to prosecute a "war" that at current tally, has resulted in more, not less, hard drug use, pushed the manufacture and distribution of various hard drugs (like meth and other synthetic drugs) domestically, and essentially ruined the central and southern hemisphere of the Americas - a consequence of which is a major push factor in the immigration patterns conservatives will also complain about in another post. Oh, and the elevation and strengthening of seriously criminal gang elements that took over "distribution" and accelerated violent crime as a result, a lesson from Prohibtion and the rise of the mafias that so many seem unable to correlate in the rise of the modern drug distribution based territorial gangs.
More policing/incarceration/forced institutionalization? That costs money too, possibly more than the lamented tents and encampments. Recall it was Ronald Reagan who ended federal funding for state mental institutions that unleashed the waves of mentally ill and addicted homeless onto the streets back in the 80s and we’ve been dealing with that ever since. And of course, there are issues of abuse of these solutions to simply “lock up” and institutionalize an inconvenient population, out of sight out of mind, and many of the conditions in those facilities were third world worthy of themselves, so I’m not going to hang this all on Reagan’s neck either, in that involuntary commitment didn’t have major civil rights and humanitarian problems. Or that there’s no social cost to filling up the prisons with addicts and indigent homeless, and putting policing right back into social servicing.
And nary a whisper about the real root cause for the decade recent spikes in heroin and Fentanyl addiction, which came via our good ole' home grown capitalist corporations like Perdue and Oxycontin, of which not yet one single family member that sat on that board and approved the manufacture and distribution plans to purposely addict vast swaths of Americans on their poison pills and then blame the addicts for the result, has been jailed. Or the many politicians, many of which were Republicans hailing in those states, that looked the other way and in many cases, actually eased the deregulation and lack of oversight of this industry, while it was Ground Zero for their constituents in those states (and yes, there were Democratic hands on this as well, but the initial epicenter for Oxy was in red states/communities and actively enabled by the Republicans that dominated those regions - and often as a consequence of Republican deregulatory ideology to boot, and yet the fallout is being presented almost entirely as a consequence of *progressive* ideology, fuck that! There are many avenues of responsibility here to be given but I'm only hearing what the Devil Left is responsible for, the Angel Right is not even mentioned in a freaking footnote!). Not a coincidence that one of the heroin addicts Shellenberger interviewed in SF actually came from Alabama, the red and working class states and communities being the epicenters for that distribution when it began. What are the conservative answers to policing this industry, given conservatism/libertarian preferences for "laissez faire" policies when it comes to corporate oversight? Apparently civilian lawsuits (the preferred remedy) has not actually put the Sackler family into penury, nor slowed the copycat industries and distribution chains, to serve as the "disincentive" from legally mass producing a highly addictive substance, pushing it under the guise of "patient first" care, gaslighting and bullying doctors into prescribing, and lying about the studies and risks. Oh well.
Look. Again. Go forth with the left critique. It is badly needed. But I am a bit disconcerted about how much this site has become a haven for right wingers who are not forced, in the slightest, to confront their own house demons, where they are even mentioned, they are laughably minimized. Does anyone actually think the Republican Party, as currently run by the Gaetz/Greene/Boebert/Ghosar/Cawthorn caucus is at all capable of "solutionizing" any of these issues? That they will do anything more than "own the libs" via conservative media and social media when in power? Even the "stars" DeSantis/Cotton/Hawley are still little more than professional trolls, albeit with more erudition.
So, is there a point where you move past repeatedly describing the problems (and overwhelmingly attributing a one sided story and blame for those problems) and onto solutions, as I would guess a site that bills itself as “non partisan investigative journalism” may have an interest in doing, beyond providing red meat for a rapidly expanding subscriber base hungry for grievance and finger pointing against their “enemies” it seems?
And if the implied solution is “vote against Democrats”, which is a default vote for Republicans in our structurally binary party system, then what are the Republicans proposing to address any of these woes? If the answer is not a Republican infestation of some truly scary and nutty GOP politicians and all the anti-democratic/authoritarian/nihilistic/conspiracy laden baggage they are bringing, then what should we be looking to do instead to fix the Democrats, or elevate Independents, particularly for those of us for whom voting Republican to fight the "woke" is akin to shooting off a foot to spite the big toe?
Or what about non-political solutions to addressing homelessness, drug addiction, etc? Please move past the “woke boogeyman” bashing to attract more of the readers that you *really* need to hear these things (us center leftists who are uncomfortable with the loud minority in our Party, and some of the spates of very ill considered policy and the reaction to "debate" over it is to shut it down by "racism") to actually fix what’s going wrong in our party, but who are absolutely turned off by the right wing circle jerk going on in here, unless of course, the right wing circle jerk and its subscription dollars is the point. Then just be up front about that so us “politically homeless” can support more productive outlets. I'd like to fix these problems and move towards a more civil debate and policy making space, but I don't see that happening given your commentariat who are mostly engaged in old fashioned 'lib bashing and smug superiority, which I strongly feel is enabled by the editorial slant and preferred "narrative" of this site. Prove me wrong or tell me to piss off, either way, it would be nice to know where you stand regarding the "right wing yay! libs suck boo!" sentiment you are creating, intentionally or not, within your readership.
Been a lurker for a while, but I'll pony up a month's subscription to make a post and then we'll see.
I'm a left of center Gen X liberal, and I have appreciated the recent outpouring of critiques about some of the more disturbing directions that "woke" (sigh, hate the appropriation of that term, but it's the shorthand we all recognize to describe what it is, so fine, I'll use it) ideologies and movements have taken, particularly in reaction to the Trump era. But for a site priding itself on "investigative journalism", you're long on grievance and very short on solutions. Take this article for example. OK, homeless friendly policies may be creating some real quality of life and safety issues for SF city residents, and may not be in the best service of the homeless population itself. So what are the proposed solutions? Because I'm not seeing any, other than yet another post in the long catalogue of this site offering up the Progressive Boogeyman of the week to bash for the Two Minutes Hate Fest that the (majority) right wing paying subscribers are clearly getting their money's worth for, and getting such satisfaction from. What are the "conservative" solutions that don't involve a bus pass to export their city's and state's homeless population to "homeless friendly" climes in blue states - which is then of course used as a cudgel to bash blue cities for their massive (imported) homeless problem? Doesn't seem like much of a solution, IMO, or proof of the validity of conservative "solutions" one way or the other over progressive solutions, other than efficacy of sweeping out "problems" for other people to deal with, and then bitching about how they're doing it.
What are the other solutions I've seen offered in the comments here? More Drug War/border enforcement over fentanyl and other substances? Yeah, because that's worked so well for the last 60 years of the Drug War, in which we've spent way more money than SanFran will spend on homeless tents in 1000 years to prosecute a "war" that at current tally, has resulted in more, not less, hard drug use, pushed the manufacture and distribution of various hard drugs (like meth and other synthetic drugs) domestically, and essentially ruined the central and southern hemisphere of the Americas - a consequence of which is a major push factor in the immigration patterns conservatives will also complain about in another post. Oh, and the elevation and strengthening of seriously criminal gang elements that took over "distribution" and accelerated violent crime as a result, a lesson from Prohibtion and the rise of the mafias that so many seem unable to correlate in the rise of the modern drug distribution based territorial gangs.
More policing/incarceration/forced institutionalization? That costs money too, possibly more than the lamented tents and encampments. Recall it was Ronald Reagan who ended federal funding for state mental institutions that unleashed the waves of mentally ill and addicted homeless onto the streets back in the 80s and we’ve been dealing with that ever since. And of course, there are issues of abuse of these solutions to simply “lock up” and institutionalize an inconvenient population, out of sight out of mind, and many of the conditions in those facilities were third world worthy of themselves, so I’m not going to hang this all on Reagan’s neck either, in that involuntary commitment didn’t have major civil rights and humanitarian problems. Or that there’s no social cost to filling up the prisons with addicts and indigent homeless, and putting policing right back into social servicing.
And nary a whisper about the real root cause for the decade recent spikes in heroin and Fentanyl addiction, which came via our good ole' home grown capitalist corporations like Perdue and Oxycontin, of which not yet one single family member that sat on that board and approved the manufacture and distribution plans to purposely addict vast swaths of Americans on their poison pills and then blame the addicts for the result, has been jailed. Or the many politicians, many of which were Republicans hailing in those states, that looked the other way and in many cases, actually eased the deregulation and lack of oversight of this industry, while it was Ground Zero for their constituents in those states (and yes, there were Democratic hands on this as well, but the initial epicenter for Oxy was in red states/communities and actively enabled by the Republicans that dominated those regions - and often as a consequence of Republican deregulatory ideology to boot, and yet the fallout is being presented almost entirely as a consequence of *progressive* ideology, fuck that! There are many avenues of responsibility here to be given but I'm only hearing what the Devil Left is responsible for, the Angel Right is not even mentioned in a freaking footnote!). Not a coincidence that one of the heroin addicts Shellenberger interviewed in SF actually came from Alabama, the red and working class states and communities being the epicenters for that distribution when it began. What are the conservative answers to policing this industry, given conservatism/libertarian preferences for "laissez faire" policies when it comes to corporate oversight? Apparently civilian lawsuits (the preferred remedy) has not actually put the Sackler family into penury, nor slowed the copycat industries and distribution chains, to serve as the "disincentive" from legally mass producing a highly addictive substance, pushing it under the guise of "patient first" care, gaslighting and bullying doctors into prescribing, and lying about the studies and risks. Oh well.
Look. Again. Go forth with the left critique. It is badly needed. But I am a bit disconcerted about how much this site has become a haven for right wingers who are not forced, in the slightest, to confront their own house demons, where they are even mentioned, they are laughably minimized. Does anyone actually think the Republican Party, as currently run by the Gaetz/Greene/Boebert/Ghosar/Cawthorn caucus is at all capable of "solutionizing" any of these issues? That they will do anything more than "own the libs" via conservative media and social media when in power? Even the "stars" DeSantis/Cotton/Hawley are still little more than professional trolls, albeit with more erudition.
So, is there a point where you move past repeatedly describing the problems (and overwhelmingly attributing a one sided story and blame for those problems) and onto solutions, as I would guess a site that bills itself as “non partisan investigative journalism” may have an interest in doing, beyond providing red meat for a rapidly expanding subscriber base hungry for grievance and finger pointing against their “enemies” it seems?
And if the implied solution is “vote against Democrats”, which is a default vote for Republicans in our structurally binary party system, then what are the Republicans proposing to address any of these woes? If the answer is not a Republican infestation of some truly scary and nutty GOP politicians and all the anti-democratic/authoritarian/nihilistic/conspiracy laden baggage they are bringing, then what should we be looking to do instead to fix the Democrats, or elevate Independents, particularly for those of us for whom voting Republican to fight the "woke" is akin to shooting off a foot to spite the big toe?
Or what about non-political solutions to addressing homelessness, drug addiction, etc? Please move past the “woke boogeyman” bashing to attract more of the readers that you *really* need to hear these things (us center leftists who are uncomfortable with the loud minority in our Party, and some of the spates of very ill considered policy and the reaction to "debate" over it is to shut it down by "racism") to actually fix what’s going wrong in our party, but who are absolutely turned off by the right wing circle jerk going on in here, unless of course, the right wing circle jerk and its subscription dollars is the point. Then just be up front about that so us “politically homeless” can support more productive outlets. I'd like to fix these problems and move towards a more civil debate and policy making space, but I don't see that happening given your commentariat who are mostly engaged in old fashioned 'lib bashing and smug superiority, which I strongly feel is enabled by the editorial slant and preferred "narrative" of this site. Prove me wrong or tell me to piss off, either way, it would be nice to know where you stand regarding the "right wing yay! libs suck boo!" sentiment you are creating, intentionally or not, within your readership.