Oldie but goodie: The Turn (2021)

submitted by penelopepnortneyBecome ungovernable from (archive.md)

all 5 comments
sorted by:
new (suggested)
topinsightfulfun

[–]BerryBoy1969It's not red vs. blue - It's capital vs. you 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Good article that explains what a lot of people have been going through since the Circle D Corporation nominated Hubert Humphrey to protect themselves from the left with back in 1968.

How bout a little background music to go along with a short Sunday read?

[–]penelopepnortneyBecome ungovernable[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Great choice!

[–]kingsmegLiberté, égalité, fraternité 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

One of these in her list is not like the others. On this, she is still firmly in the Dem enclosure:

You are living through The Turn if you seethed watching a terrorist organization attack the world’s only Jewish state, but seethed silently because your colleagues were all on Twitter and Facebook sharing celebrity memes about ending Israeli apartheid while having little interest in American kids dying on the streets because of failed policies.

Always with the projection, these people. The terrorist organization is Israel, attacking Iran, Syria, and Lebanon almost daily. They may be attacking other Muslim states in the region, who knows, they launch so many bombs at Muslims it's hard to keep track. Including the attacks on Muslims within their own 'Israel', which somehow includes a whole parcel of Muslim lands that they 'administer', which is code for 'bomb'.

[–]penelopepnortneyBecome ungovernable[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I agree, ergo my disclaimer. Disagreement on this issue is one thing, but as you point out, labeling the Palestinians as terrorists given what Israel is doing to them and their neighbors is exactly why people like the author have zero credibility on the issue.

[–]penelopepnortneyBecome ungovernable[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Excerpt:

If you’ve lived through it yourself, you know that The Turn doesn’t happen overnight, that it isn’t easily distilled into one dramatic breakdown moment, that it happens hazily and over time—first a twitch, then a few more, stretching into a gnawing discomfort and then, eventually, a sense of panic.

You may be among the increasing numbers of people going through The Turn right now. Having lived through the turmoil of the last half decade—through the years of MAGA and antifa and rampant identity politics and, most dramatically, the global turmoil caused by COVID-19—more and more of us feel absolutely and irreparably politically homeless. Instinctively, we looked to the Democratic Party, the only home we and our parents and their parents before them had ever known or seriously considered. But what we saw there—and in the newspapers we used to read, and in the schools whose admission letters once made us so proud—was terrifying. However we tried to explain what was happening on “the left,” it was hard to convince ourselves that it was right, or that it was something we still truly believed in. That is what The Turn is about.

You might be living through The Turn if you ever found yourself feeling like free speech should stay free even if it offended some group or individual but now can’t admit it at dinner with friends because you are afraid of being thought a bigot. You are living through The Turn if you have questions about public health policies—including the effects of lockdowns and school closures on the poor and most vulnerable in our society—but can’t ask them out loud because you know you’ll be labeled an anti-vaxxer. You are living through The Turn if you think that burning down towns and looting stores isn’t the best way to promote social justice, but feel you can’t say so because you know you’ll be called a white supremacist.

[I depart from the author here vis-a-vis his views on Israel-Palestine, i.e., "if you seethed watching a terrorist organization attack the world’s only Jewish state"]

Because, after 225 long and fruitful years of this terminology, “right” and “left” are now empty categories...You are not “a supporter of free speech” if you oppose free speech for people who disagree with you. You are not “for the people” if you pit most of them against each other based on the color of their skin, or force them out of their jobs because of personal choices related to their bodies. You are not “serious about economic inequality” when you happily order from Amazon without caring much for the devastating impact your purchases have on the small businesses that increasingly are either subjugated by Jeff Bezos’ behemoth or crushed by it altogether. You are not “for science” if you refuse to consider hypotheses that don’t conform to your political convictions and then try to ban critical thought and inquiry from the internet. You are not an “anti-racist” if you label—and sort!—people by race. You are not “against conformism” when you scare people out of voicing dissenting opinions.