around the web

about those social media purges (2)

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Counterpunch's Jeffrey St. Clair writes: "The lesson the Left should take from the Jones Affair is that if you’re organizing on Social Media platforms you’re building movement on a trapdoor that will open beneath your feet the moment you become a threat."

Counterpunch has a Twitter page and uses Facebook for comments (uggh) but continues to be hosted and funded independently of those platforms, so St. Clair isn't being entirely hypocritical here. Quitting Facebook ahead of being kicked off would be a nice gesture, though.

around the web

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SIMPOL (minded). The main article, about "a new way to think about solving the world's biggest problems," isn't very good, but the discussion thread veers off into intriguing directions. See, in particular, the subthread about indigenous Australians and nomadic uses of fire (Naked Capitalism)

Alex on Film discusses Slacker (1991). In some ways slackers were the prototype of The Blogger, in some ways they were the sui generis product of a particular time and place (Austin, TX, late '80s/early '90s). Still mulling this one over.

Noam Chomsky on intellectual Heathers (he doesn't use that term).

The town where some Roman-era mosaics are being studied (Hyperallergic) was Palestinian until 1948, when, according to Wikipedia, it was "depopulated."

Libertarian Sheldon Richman thinks depopulation is bad because it violates individual property rights, not so much because it ethnically cleanses a "people." That's a point worth considering, but in the bigger picture, some people have title to land because of their individual efforts, tenacity, and innate Ayn Rand-ian talents, but many more have it because of their social connections and/or leverage within an organized group. A scheme of recorded land titles protects both types, yet it depends on having a government in place to enforce it.

gaslight this

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In the film Gaslight (1944), Charles Boyer plays tricks on his wife (Ingrid Bergman) to make her think she is crazy, so he can have her committed to an asylum and find some jewels hidden in her house. Alex Good, at Alex on Film, prefers the less-well-known 1940 version:

In 1944 MGM managed to get a bunch of stars in alignment (and it wasn’t easy), but I prefer Anton Walbrook [in the 1940 film] to Charles Boyer. Walbrook is a more believable and altogether nastier piece of work. His creepy voice has an unnerving way of making his lines sound a bit like perverted baby-talk. And while it will be accounted heresy by some, I think Diana Wynyard is more convincing in the role of the bride coming unglued than the always composed Ingrid Bergman. Wynyard has the haunted, neurotic look of Véra Clouzot in Les Diaboliques, or Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby. Finally, the amateur sleuth/hostler Frank Pettingell is a lot more fun than Joseph Cotten (“Saucy shirt, isn’t it?”), and Cathleen Cordell is a more erotic housemaid than Angela Lansbury, without having to try so hard. There’s some real heat generated between her and her louche master.

In the comments we discuss the term "gaslighting." The Maddow mafia evidently thinks Trump invented it but it was slung around quite a bit in the Bush II era. Good notes that Maureen Dowd even applied it to Bill Clinton, in the 1990s. How long has the verb "to gaslight" been around? One article traces it as far back as the 1960s TV show Gomer Pyle USMC:

Here’s an example of the verb “gaslight” in “The Grudge Match,” an episode that aired on 12 Nov. 1965 (antedating OED’s 1969 cite for the verb, as well as the Dec. 1965 cite for the verbal noun).

Duke: You know, you guys, I’m wondering. Maybe if we can’t get through to the sarge we can get through to the chief.

Frankie: How do you mean?…

Duke: The old war on nerves. We’ll gaslight him.

In addition to being a hoary cliche of political discussion, "gaslighting" has also been embraced by the therapy community. Search the term and you'll pull up many articles with titles such as "12 Signs You Are Being Gaslighted by a Narcissist." (Shouldn't that be gaslit?)

But for all its cliche-dom, repetition, and use as a Trump-cudgel, what does the term even mean? Politically, it seems to have devolved from “employing elaborate ruses to make a person think he or she is crazy” to merely “scaring people or psych-ing them out.” As a therapy trope its connection to the film(s) is tenuous. Most spouse abuse is not predicated on a calculated program of deceptions for material gain, it's just the guy being an a-hole. Both the pundits and the shrinks make the term mean what they want it to mean. They are, y'know, gaslighting us.

commie dupes and useful idiots

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So-called Russiagate is turning into a two-fer for centrist (Clinton) Democrats and their backers. It supposedly discredits the Pres. and can also be used to discredit the Sanders left! Corey Robin posted the following unsearchable text on twitter in response to some imaginative claims by Harper's writer and Clintonite Scott Horton:

coreyrobintweet

Below is the (unsearchable) text of Scott Horton's screed (originally on Facebook), from Doug Henwood's twitter. It's so unfactual and paranoid one might wonder if it's fake.

scotthortontweetcrop

FYI, there are two Scott Hortons. The one above appears to be the Harper's Scott Horton, not the libertarian producer of the Scott Horton Show.

to put it bluntly

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Russiagate is a Ruling Class Diversion (Black Agenda Report)

Also, a little history of US "meddling" in the Eastern Bloc (Counterpunch). Didn't know that the US sent "expeditionary" troops to Vladivostok in 1918 -- the Russians certainly remember it -- here's a photo.

In the Counterpunch article Paul Street thinks Americans in 2018 are being swayed by the constant drumbeat of anti-Russian propaganda on TV. Polls seem to indicate this is true, if by Americans we mean Americans who voted for Hillary Clinton. (chart source)