29 Matching Annotations
  1. Aug 2023
    1. Meador, Jake. “The Misunderstood Reason Millions of Americans Stopped Going to Church.” The Atlantic, July 29, 2023. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/07/christian-church-communitiy-participation-drop/674843/.

      Meador looks at how churches might offer better community as a balm to W.E.I.R.D. lifeways and toxic capitalism.

      Why must religion be the source for these communal and social supports? Why can't alternate social structures or institutions handle these functions?

      Is this why the religious right is also so heavily opposed to governmental social support programs? Are they replacing some of the needs and communal desires people in need have? Why couldn't increased governmental support programs be broader and more holistic in their leanings to cover not only social supports, but human contact and community building as well.

      Do some of these tensions between a mixed W.E.I.R.D. and non-W.E.I.R.D Americans cause a lot of the split political identities we see in the last few decades? What is the balm for this during the transition?

    2. Contemporary America simply isn’t set up to promote mutuality, care, or common life. Rather, it is designed to maximize individual accomplishment as defined by professional and financial success. Such a system leaves precious little time or energy for forms of community that don’t contribute to one’s own professional life or, as one ages, the professional prospects of one’s children. Workism reigns in America, and because of it, community in America, religious community included, is a math problem that doesn’t add up.

      Extreme focus on financial and professional success has driven people to give less time to communal spaces and experiences including religious life.

      Is this specific to America's brand of toxic capitalism or do other WEIRD economies experience this?

  2. May 2023
    1. An analysis of the modern capitalist state that distinguishes between political society, which dominates directly and coercively, and civil society, where leadership is constituted through consent

      What is the current separation of political and civil society in America in 2023? Do the differences in these two (particularly with respect to Antonio Gramsci's framing) still have distinguishing features?

  3. Jan 2023
  4. www.thepostil.com www.thepostil.com
    1. This site is a cesspool of authoritarian, fascist-apologist, conspiracist mind-mangling content. It's a good place to find out what kinds of bizarre notions people (particularly Catholics of an authoritarian bent) are being fed, and consuming — ridiculous fabrications and warped interpretations of the sort contributing (with giddy joy) to the suffocation of democratic inclinations and institutions.

      The site does have some interesting images. I think this will be an inspiration for some dystopian and horror fiction ideas.

    1. Discourse within the public sphere signals the normative will of the democratic citizenry to the steering institutions of governance. It also articulates and rearticulates (expresses and reshapes) the core of the civic, the vital beating heart of a democracy. This core is a political morality of intentional action motivated by reasoned understanding and moral imagination. In the political morality I see emerging, the separation of the political and the normative is subsiding. Conceptually, power and right are becoming entangled rather than bifurcated. 

      !- quotable : growing impact of democratic citizenry affect the steering institutions of governance

  5. Sep 2022
    1. McConnell said it’s up to the Republican candidates in various Senate battleground races to explain how they view the hot-button issue.   (function () { try { var event = new CustomEvent( "nsDfpSlotRendered", { detail: { id: 'acm-ad-tag-mr2_ab-mr2_ab' } } ); window.dispatchEvent(event); } catch (err) {} })(); “I think every Republican senator running this year in these contested races has an answer as to how they feel about the issue and it may be different in different states. So I leave it up to our candidates who are quite capable of handling this issue to determine for them what their response is,” he said.

      Context: Lindsey Graham had just proposed a bill for a nationwide abortion ban after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

      McConnell's position seems to be one that choice about abolition is an option, but one which is reserved for white men of power over others. This is painful because that choice is being left to people without any of the information and nuance about specific circumstances versus the pregnant women themselves potentially in consultation with their doctors who have broad specific training and experience in the topics and issues at hand. Why are these leaders attempting to make decisions based on possibilities rather than realities, particularly when they've not properly studied or are generally aware of any of the realities?

      If this is McConnell's true position, then why not punt the decision and choices down to the people directly impacted? And isn't this a long running tenet of the Republican Party to allow greater individual freedoms? Isn't their broad philosophy: individual > state government > national government? (At least with respect to internal, domestic matters; in international matters the opposite relationships seem to dominate.)

      tl;dr:<br /> Mitch McConnell believes in choice, just not in your choice.

      Here's the actual audio from a similar NPR story:<br /> https://ondemand.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/me/2022/09/20220914_me_gop_sen_lindsey_graham_introduces_15-week_abortion_ban_in_the_senate.mp3#t=206


      McConnell is also practicing the Republican party game of "do as I say and not as I do" on Graham directly. He's practicing this sort of hypocrisy because as leadership, he's desperately worried that this move will decimate the Republican Party in the midterm elections.

      There's also another reading of McConnell's statement. Viewed as a statement from leadership, there's a form of omerta or silent threat being communicated here to the general Republican Party membership: you better fall in line on the party line here because otherwise we run the risk of losing power. He's saying he's leaving it up to them individually, but in reality, as the owner of the purse strings, he's not.


      Thesis:<br /> The broadest distinction between American political parties right now seems to be that the Republican Party wants to practice fascistic forms of "power over" while the Democratic Party wants to practice more democratic forms of "power with".

  6. Aug 2022
  7. Dec 2021
    1. Mumford (1964) - Authoritarian and Democratic Technics

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  8. Oct 2021
    1. Coronavirus Pandemic Data Explorer. (n.d.). Our World in Data. Retrieved March 3, 2021, from https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer

      is:webpage lang:en COVID-19 graph case death Germany Sweden UK Afghanistan Africa Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Anguilla Antigua Barbuda Argentina Armenia Asia Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Congo Costa Rica Cote d'ivoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czechia Democratic Republic of Congo Denmark Djobouti Dominica Dominician Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia Europe Europian Union Faeroe Islands Falkland Islands Fiji Finland France Gabon Gambia Georgia Ghana Gibraltar Greece Greenland Grenada Guatemala Guernsey Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana Haiti Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Isle of Man Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jersey Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macao Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Mashall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria North America North Macedonia Northern Cyprus Norway Oceania Oman Pakistan Palestine Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philipines Poland Portugal Qatar Romania Russia Rwanda Saint Helena Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South America South Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Switzerland Syria Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Timor Togo Trinidad Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turks and Caicos Islands Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates USA Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican Venezuela Vietnam World Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe test vaccine chart map table data case fatality rate mortality

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  9. Jul 2021
    1. The narrative of Free America shaped the parameters of acceptable thinking for Smart America. Free trade, deregulation, economic concentration, and balanced budgets became the policy of the Democratic Party.

      The deregulation part has hurt us immensely. Cross reference this with the thesis found in American Amnesia by Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson.

      Which parts of the Democratic party went along with this? Evidence? More of the deregulation parts seemed to be identified with the Republican party.

  10. May 2021
  11. Mar 2021
    1. Even liberal media fed up with Biden administration over lack of access to border crisis

      ugh Fox you terrible pieces of shit. the only conservative media concerns there have ever been is that we aren't sufficiently horrible to people at the border. Liberals, unlike Conservatives, are happy to do own-side criticism. We want good. We want progress. We want to be decent to our fellow humans, who we recognize as worthy & good. Of course we're distressed at this bad situation. We don't shield our leaders from criticism, we expect active Democratic engagement.

      You could not better show yourselves for who you are with this headline, you useless evil villians.

  12. Feb 2021
    1. This task force could also meet regularly with tech platforms, and push for structural changes that could help those companies tackle their own extremism and misinformation problems

      there's a solid enough conceptual idea here, that society ought be able to voice some sense, direct & govern the platforms forward & along & upwards. there is something lacking, certainly, in that the companies have nothing to listen to, are so alone. (oh yes there are voices but it's a chaos of voices, there's no scheme for guiding oneself through, so the entity must keep picking for itself what to do.)

      still though,

      It sounds a little dystopian, I’ll grant.

      no. it sounds a lot dystopian. very very dystopian.

      society could use means to weave together coherence, to establish a democratic growth, proclaim the unity it does have. celebrates, accepts & socializes core things to itself.

  13. Oct 2020
    1. A lot of Democrats believe in what is called Enlightenment reasoning, and that if you just tell people the facts, they’ll reach the right conclusion. That just isn’t true.
  14. Aug 2020
  15. Jul 2020
    1. Labaree argues that American education has had three goals that have shifted in importance over time: democratic equality, social efficiency, and social mobility. Democratic equality supports the idea that education is a public good, necessary for creating informed citizens.

      Raising informed citizens as a goal of education

  16. Jun 2020
  17. Sep 2019
  18. Nov 2017
    1. Wm Jones

      Personally, I did not believe the Democratic Writing Project to be helpful or well designed. It is a good idea but it would have been more beneficial if this conversation took place out loud among a class, rather than online. I will never read any annotations outside of my own and the four that I will comment on, and that is upsetting. This is nothing more than a way to force everyone to participate and have something tangible to grade, and the students are not retaining the value of analyzing this document. I think this would have been better if we all read it at home and we compared physical annotations in class.

  19. Jun 2016
    1. Title: House Democrats Stage a Sit-in on the House Floor on Gun Control - The Atlantic

      Keywords: john lewis, democratic majority, wednesday afternoon

      Summary: He tweeted during the sit-in Wednesday afternoon that GOP leaders should put his proposal to prohibit suspected terrorists from buying guns on the floor.<br>Politico reports that Speaker Ryan’s office does not seem amenable to Democrats’ move.<br>This is reminiscent of when Republicans staged a protest against the Democratic majority during the summer recess in 2008, speaking in a darkened chamber to demand action on energy legislation.<br>Can we see?<br>CSPAN is still not broadcasting a live feed of the chambers, but the network is replaying members’ speeches online.<br>John Lewis has championed nonviolent protest his entire career.<br>House Democrats, led by civil-rights pioneer and Georgia Representative John Lewis, are staging a sit-in on the House floor to protest what they see as congressional inaction on gun control.<br>“We have to occupy the floor of the House until there is action,” Connecticut Democrat John Larson said, as his fellow members began to sit down late Wednesday morning.<br>Members have instead taken to Twitter to spread awareness of their action, tweeting statements and pictures from the floor.<br>#NoBillNoBreak #DisarmHate pic.twitter.com/C7BZpzNvxL<br>The 15-hour Senate filibuster led to votes Monday on four gun-control-related measures, but all failed.<br>Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy is reportedly headed to the House floor to join his House counterparts.<br>Mr. Speaker, not one thing.”<br>She said a minority of pro-gun voices “are forcing a false choice between constitutional rights and safe streets.”<br>—Nora Kelly<br>

  20. Oct 2015
    1. establishing democratic management over its urban deployment constitutes the right to the city.

      easier said than done.. but what are some suggestions for how this could succeed?