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The upcoming election in the US, at least from a Canadian perspective, a bit lost in the deluge of media coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic. The American Left business party has a chance to regain the White House, but Webb asks the question in his essay on Unherd, “What if the new American Left is — as the philosopher Richard Rorty put it, exhausted?”
“And, he argued, national pride in America is just what the American left had lost — and if that was true in 1998 it is true with knobs on in 2020: to quote the great philosopher, “a spectatorial, disgusted, mocking Left” understands the nation in a way that “leads them to step back from their country and, as they say, ‘theorize’ it. It leads them to … give cultural politics preference over real politics, and to mock the very idea that democratic institutions might once again be made to serve social justice.”
Suggested readingRorty, who died in 2007, was not an complete enemy of the new Left’s keenness on race and gender — he thought they had a point — but he knew that it would end in tears. He knew that identity politics would ditch the uncomfortable, sweaty-smelling folks in the unions, the welders and electricians and carpenters and that those (mainly white) men would in turn ditch the Democrats. And so it came to pass, and now we might be post-Rorty with no road back.
Does the American Left have what it takes to knit together the nation when its modern iteration so clearly dislikes so much about it? After the statues ,what else must fall? What other horrors must be uncovered? The jury is out, to put it mildly, on whether American atonement might be over soon or just beginning. If the question is between social solidarity or continued struggle, plenty of modern Democrats have had it with the former and are willing to embrace the latter.
They may or may not be right, or justified, but if America finds no comfort and no direction we will all suffer the consequences. There’s a lot riding on the Biden presidency, if it comes. For them, and, as ever, for us.”
The other problem I see is that Biden may want to return to the status quo which if one recalls – the permanent war economy, gilded age level of economic inequality, and predatory capitalism – isn’t exactly a noble cause.
Twitter usually isn’t the best place to find valuable insights into complex topics and ideas. I do like to be proven wrong though, and that was very much the case when I saw this thread by “H”. This person precisely identifies a several key points where the ideology of transgender has gone markedly afoul. Much has to do with the correspondence between their activism and narcissistic male entitlement.
Common threads do exist between feminism and the trans movement. The current focus though of putting the validation of (usually) men’s gender-delusions ahead of female rights makes progress in this area difficult at best.
A big shout out to those who will be starting and solidifying the next wave of the pandemic.
“Many B.C. restaurants and retailers already struggling to recover from the pandemic are now imploring the public to be patient with staff and respect the rules — after reports of customers behaving badly in response to COVID-19 safety protocols.
From verbal attacks to physical assaults, the backlash directed against employees is forcing some business owners to take extreme measures.
“It’s a death by a thousand cuts, it’s day after day,” restaurant owner Robert Stodola told Global News.
“This is stressful for every single person.”
Our society, to avoid the tailspin that the US is currently in, needs to adapt to a new normal. The status quo is changing and the old expectations of ‘how things work’ must be discarded.
“Things literally reached a “breaking point” inside another restaurant in the Southern Interior city earlier this month, when one of the owners attempted to enforce a health order on a tour group that kept pushing their tables together.
“They threw their plate of food on the ground and actually assaulted the restaurateur,” said Pangilinan.
“That is completely unacceptable.”
Kamloops RCMP are investigating the July 4 incident at Mittz Kitchen, in which an owner was allegedly pushed over a table.”
Imagine that. Thinking that you know better than the health authorities and the owner of the restaurant about how to behave within their private premise. The people responsible for assaulting the owner and putting other people at risk should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Given the evidence available, it is possible to not have society in complete lockdown for the remainder of the pandemic. What it does require though is people to alter their expectations and adopt new behaviours that won’t cause a further spread of the virus.
See you all in the Xmas Lockdown. :(
Source: globalnews.ca
The second wave of the pandemic now has a date. The beginning of the school year.
“The Alberta government is targeting a return to “near-normal” conditions with students returning to classrooms across the province for the beginning of the 2020-21 school year, Education Minister Adriana LaGrange says.
“Our goal is to get us back to normal learning as soon as possible,” LaGrange said Wednesday at news conference. “We are targeting a return to new-normal operations with some health measures in place.”
LaGrange laid out three scenarios that have been part of the planning for weeks now.
The first scenario would see near-normal operations resume with students returning to daily in-school classes with some health measures…”
Wow. We’re just gonna throw the kids back into the mix.
“Jason Schilling, president of the Alberta Teachers’ Association, said there are outstanding questions about safety.
“If you have a look at staffing as well, as teachers can’t spend the day cleaning their classrooms because they’ll be busy teaching, and if we have students that are in cohorts that are expected to be socially distanced, how is that going to work in some of our classrooms where we have 30 or 40 students? And are they going to split those grades and then hire more teachers?” he said.
“Unbelievable to me that we would move forward on a plan to restart school without making sure that it is adequately funded and that everything that needs to be in place for students, teachers and staff and the broader community, for that matter, are safe.”
Oh, and masks won’t be mandatory.
“LaGrange says wearing masks to school will not be mandated for either staff or students.
“From what Dr. [Deena] Hinshaw has been advising us, the data shows that particularly in young children that it is not something that is required.”
Students or staff who choose to wear a mask may do so, but there is no standalone funding for this type of thing.”
Yep. Looking forward to the second wave.
The Intransigent One
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