Notices by swtyndall.notwhatwethink (notwhatwethink@climatejustice.social)

Says it all! Conservatives have no real intellectuals, they just make excuses for their preferred policies.

There's no such thing as a conservative intellectual — only apologists for right-wing power--From Burke to Buckley to Patrick Deneen, we've seen a 200-year history of defending the indefensible
https://www.salon.com/2023/07/01/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-conservative-intellectual--only-apologists-for-right-wing-power/

#Conservative

"In 1950, author and critic Lionel Trilling wrote:

'In the United States at this time liberalism is not only the dominant but even the sole intellectual tradition. For it is the plain fact that nowadays there are no conservative or reactionary ideas in general circulation. This does not mean, of course, that there is no impulse to conservatism or to reaction. Such impulses are certainly very strong, perhaps even stronger than most of us know. But the conservative impulse and the reactionary impulse do not, with some isolated and some ecclesiastical exceptions, express themselves in ideas but only in action or in irritable mental gestures which seek to resemble ideas.'
...
The hundreds of conservative book titles that have geysered out of Regnery, Broadside and other right-wing imprints in recent years are almost invariably distinguished by their numbing sameness: a shrill cry of victimhood, a hunt for scapegoats, a tone that alternates between hysteria and heavy sarcasm, and a recipe for salvation cribbed from Republican National Committee talking points and Heritage Foundation issue briefs. The fact that they sometimes hit the bestseller list is principally due to the well-funded conservative media-entertainment complex's bulk-purchase scam.
...
However much modern theorists have elaborated upon the ideas inherent in conservatism during the two centuries since Maistre, they all seem to me to boil down to three simple points:

A desire for hierarchy and human inequality.

This belief derives from the medieval religious notion of the Great Chain of Being, whereby there is a place for everybody and everybody must know his place. It justifies economic exploitation and denial of political rights. Conservative writers propagandize on its behalf with a straw-man argument: Any gain in equality costs society an equal or greater loss in freedom; egalitarianism is the mere soulless equality of the gulag, where we cannot own property and must share toothbrushes. This sentiment pops up consistently in the works of American conservative theorists, from Buckley's "Unless you have freedom to be unequal, there is no such thing as freedom," to David Brooks' hankering for rule by a wise elite. American-style laissez-faire economics and libertarianism are largely based on this idea.

The only acceptable society is based on Christianity.

Never mind the establishment clause of the First Amendment; conservatives will forever try to smuggle in more and more official endorsement of religion until the United States is effectively a theocracy....Translated into the bumper-sticker mentality of American Christian fundamentalism, that means that if people don't believe in God, there's nothing to stop them from running amok and killing people...

We must obey tradition.

For some unexplained reason, our ancestors were infinitely wiser than us, and apparently they get a vote on present affairs. To paraphrase Edmund Burke, if we're going to have democracy, let's extend it to the dead. Scratch someone who fancies himself an educated conservative and you will often find a person who reveres the past; unfortunately they leave out details like slavery, witch burning and childbed fever. Many psychologists consider this mentality to be a cognitive bias in brain function, but whatever its source, the political utility of the attitude is obvious: Utopia only exists in an ever-receding past, progress is impossible, and future generations shall profess bygone superstitions...The idea is well expressed by Buckley's statement that conservatives must "stand athwart history yelling 'stop.'

One can grasp that the three precepts dovetail together in that they all rely on dogmatic assertion, denial of a scientific or empirical basis of reality and reactionary nostalgia. They are also pretty thin gruel for founding an intellectual tradition: there are simply too many departments of knowledge, for instance, much of science, that must be declared off limits to prevent them from tainting the party line. This is why conservatives habitually retreat into mysticism, gut feelings and the wisdom of our fathers when the facts are against them. It is more accurate to say that conservatism is a counter-intellectual activity that sometimes employs the trappings of intellectual discourse."

Those right wing Supreme Court Justices were Republican partisans before they were nominated and they are still hopelessly Republican partisans now. They lied and misrepresented themselves to get on the court, they've made bizarrely rationalized, nonsensical, partisan rulings, why should we be surprised they are still incorrigibly, ethically compromised now! They aren't going to step down and stop being Republican partisans because they got caught with their whole arm in the cookie jar, unless we force them to!

Article: Details around the income of Chief Justice Roberts' wife raise more ethical red flags at the Supreme Court

#PartisanCaptureOfJudiciary

https://flip.it/RvsJv_

SVB failed because it was a perfect example of greedy capitalism. They took risks, they exploited GOP-led deregulation, and they gambled ineptly with other people's money. The GOP, their obscenely wealthy donors and their fawning sold-out servants, will do or say anything to make it look like it wasn't what it was; greedy capitalism in action. If they could, they would blame it on trans people, or whoever is the right-wing scapegoat of the day. This was greed, plain and simple. Greedy bankers bought off politicians, mostly republicans but others, like Synema, to weaken regulations put in place to prevent another financial meltdown. The bribes paid off, they made a fortune, got their bonuses, and like the last time, will probably not pay a price for this travesty! Our system continues to serve the wealthiest and pillage the rest of us, and that is exactly how the GOP and their donors want it!

Silicon Valley Bank didn't fail because it's "woke" https://link.motherjones.com/view/5eb477beb01fd7378a70b24cicnru.1jsi/da299f9e

#GreedKills
#GreedKillsTheEconomy
#GreedKillsDemocracy
#GOPLovesTheGreedy

"Silicon Valley Bank collapsed on Friday amid a bank run. The reasons are complex, even for those well-versed in the jargon of finance. (I am not.) The gist is that the Federal Reserve has raised interest rates in hopes of taming inflation. That requires banks to pay higher rates on their deposits. But since SVB's assets (like loans) were issued at the lower rates, they earn far less. At the same time, the higher rates from the Fed caused Treasury bonds to go down in value. SVB over-diversified on Treasury bonds and had to sell them at a lower value, leaving the bank without enough capital, as Michael Hitzlik explained in the Los Angeles Times.

So, you can blame increased interest rates. You can blame deregulation for allowing SVB to act as more of an investment tool than a bank, which made it particularly susceptible to a bank run. You can blame the very idea that this is how financialized capitalism works. You can even maybe blame Peter Thiel? Or, if you choose not to attempt to understand what happened, you can blame some DEI programs and say the word "woke" a lot.

"I mean, this bank, they’re so concerned with DEI and politics and all kinds of stuff," Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said. "I think that really diverted from them focusing on their core mission." The idea, as a former Trump economist said on Fox News, is that SVB over-invested in green-energy products, leading to its doom.

"SVB is what happens when you push a leftist/woke ideology and have that take precedent over common sense business practices," Donald Trump Jr. tweeted, not mentioning the role his father played in loosening bank regulations.

Investor Andy Kessler, in a Wall Street Journal opinion column, went so far as to suggest that SVB's focus on diversity and inclusion was somehow responsible for the bank's collapse:

SVB was regulated like a bank but looked more like a money-market fund. Then there’s this: In its proxy statement, SVB notes that besides 91% of their board being independent and 45% women, they also have “1 Black,” “1 LGBTQ+” and “2 Veterans.” I’m not saying 12 white men would have avoided this mess, but the company may have been distracted by diversity demands.

This is, of course, nonsense. As my colleague Michael Mechanic explained in a newsletter last week, American conservatives (and some Democrats) have been loath to accept any whiff of progressivism in our financial institutions. That's why the Senate blocked a Labor Department rule that would have allowed retirement fund managers to let clients invest in ESG funds—those that consider environmental and social factors. And it's also why they choose to focus not on Silicon Valley greed or lax government regulations, but on the bank's stated support of LGBTQ causes.

Do you think Bear Stearns was "distracted by diversity demands"? Lehman Brothers? Bailey Building and Loan from It's a Wonderful Life? Give me a break."

Yes, Fox is greedy and in it mostly for the money. Yes, they don't care about journalism, unless it confirms their own or their audience's bias. Yes, they are all about promoting right-wing perspectives that benefit the wealthy and corporate America. Yes, their audience is more concerned about having their biases confirmed than the truth. Yes, this is a toxic combination for democracy and any society.

Fox chief Rupert Murdoch said network aired 2020 election conspiracies for the money: court documents
https://www.rawstory.com/fox-news-rupert-murdoch-mike-lindell/

#FoxLies
#RepublicansWant2BLied2
#RepublicansRRealityAverse