Laissez-faire Politics Thread - Praxis? I didn't play Deus Ex, sorry.

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/RealScottRitter/status/1165231510808596480

[benjipwns]

[Joe Molotov]

How long did it take you decide whether to post that in the real politics thread, the joke politics thread, or the meme thread?

[benjipwns]

Even on a skylake i7 regression models basically take like half a second.

[VomKriege]

(Image removed from quote.)

The Turtle AchipelaGOP.

[benjipwns]

from a 2007 NYT Magazine article on Ron Paul's campaign:

Victor Carey, a 45-year-old, muscular, mustachioed self-described “patriot” who wears a black baseball cap with a skull and crossbones on it, drove up from Sykesville, Md., to show his support for Paul. He laid out some of his concerns. “The people who own the Federal Reserve own the oil companies, they own the mass media, they own the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, they’re part of the Bilderbergers, and unfortunately their spiritual practices are very wicked and diabolical as well,” Carey said. “They go to a place out in California known as the Bohemian Grove, and there’s been footage obtained by infiltration of what their practices are. And they do mock human sacrifices to an owl-god called Moloch. This is true. Go research it yourself.”

Two grandmothers from North Carolina who painted a Winnebago red, white and blue were traveling around the country, stumping for Ron Paul, defending the Constitution and warning about the new “North American Union.” Asked whether this is something that would arise out of Nafta, Betty Smith of Chapel Hill, N.C., replied: “It’s already arisen. They’re building the highway. Guess what! The Spanish company building the highway — they’re gonna get the tolls. Giuliani’s law firm represents that Spanish company. Giuliani’s been anointed a knight by the Queen. Guess what! Read the Constitution. That’s not allowed!”

[VomKriege]

"(U)nfortunately their spiritual practices are very wicked and diabolical as well,” Carey said. “They go to a place out in California known as the Bohemian Grove, and there’s been footage obtained by infiltration of what their practices are. And they do mock human sacrifices to an owl-god called Moloch. This is true. Go research it yourself.”

[Crash Dummy]

never heard of quadratic voting before! https://ethresear.ch/t/quadratic-voting-with-sortition/6065

[curly]

http://ppesydney.net/neoliberalism-and-the-strange-non-death-of-planning/

Interesting blog post about neoliberalism and economic planning (with an appearance by the subject of the new old ideology thread).

Ends with a To Be Continued before it offers concrete examples of modern managerial planning

http://ppesydney.net/planning-in-the-name-of-the-market-neoliberalism-and-managerial-governance/

spoiler (click to show/hide)

still doesn't give what you were asking for tho

[close]

[Mandark]

Christopher Hitchens repeatedly cited Saddam's draining of the Iraqi marshlands as a point in favor of the Iraq war, both before and after the invasion.

I don't think it convinced anyone or was even really intended to. It was more a troll for conservative audiences: "these libs say they care about the environment, but..."

[benjipwns]

Christopher Hitchens repeatedly cited Saddam's draining of the Iraqi marshlands as a point in favor of the Iraq war, both before and after the invasion.

I don't think it convinced anyone or was even really intended to. It was more a troll for conservative audiences: "these libs say they care about the environment, but..."

I won't speak to Hitchens specifically but I presume that most mentions of that was related to the ethnic cleansing of the Marsh Arabs that went along with it

[Mandark]

Hitchens specifically cited it as an ecological issue a few times pre-war. I remember him on a show with a liberal audience prefacing it with "of course I'm not saying this just to pander to your listeners' concern for the environment, but..." or some such.

He's the only one I ever remember bringing it up. The Marsh Arabs weren't held up in the same was as the Kurds, even on a smaller scale.

[benjipwns]

The Marsh Arabs were the ones who Saddam slaughtered most extensively after the Gulf War for their uprising, so I remember them being brought up a few times as an example of why we had to finish it this time. Or go back for abandoning them after telling them to rise up, etc.

All the arguments around Iraq were quite strange I thought in terms of how it often seemed inverse to the importance/relevance of the issue, WMD being kinda the ur-example.

[Mandark]

Either Weekly Standard or National Review (maybe both) did a "Suddenly We Remember That We've Always Cared About The Marsh Arabs" piece in the run-up, but they never became a regular cause celebre. Like if you were pro war in 2003 you'd absolutely learn that part of it was supporting the Kurds but you probably wouldn't adopt the Marsh Arabs the same way. Though I guess in "Saddam massacred his own people!" they were the unspecified object of the sentence. Actually reminds me that most of the pro war rhetoric ignored the cultural schisms and was just about The People Of Iraq who all hated Saddam.

They'd probably have done better if they'd had any sort of political organization or ostensible leaders who could talk to the western press like Chalabi and the other exiles.

[Mandark]

Walking down memory lane is a good reminder of how truly deranged the Bush years were and how Trump being president is dumb in a somewhat different way but not in a much greater magnitude.

[benjipwns]

That's sorta what I meant with my Trump "is the greatest non-interventionist president of all time" statement that everyone recognized as pure genius analysis, he doesn't have the patience or the coalition building ability to somehow force the entire government, including winning over Democrats in Congress and people inside his administration like Colin Powell, into a two year march to a predetermined conclusion. Plus I personally think, despite his public persona, he has far more of a dominant CYA desire over what Bush called being "the decider" towards any risks.

[Mandark]

That's sorta what I meant with my Trump "is the greatest non-interventionist president of all time" statement

More specifically you said he "was right about Iraq" which is just straight up giving credence to one of his more obvious and well-documented lies.

[benjipwns]

He got Iraq "right" simply because he was posturing

[Mandark]

He did not oppose it at the time.

Surely I don't need to explain this to you.

[curly]

https://twitter.com/HenryKrinkIe/status/1170191030517489664

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/digitalboyfrnd/status/1170968034854359040

 

[Great Rumbler]

https://twitter.com/femceldreamgirl/status/1170831842402078721

what is going on with twitter

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/AllisonJRiggs/status/1171546487085395968

[nachobro]

https://twitter.com/GarbageApe/status/1171457462676803585

[team filler]

[benjipwns]

https://twitter.com/AllisonJRiggs/status/1171546487085395968

Without looking into it, on its face, this is actually superior to most "independent" redistricting methods. Most maps are corrupted by where the lines are begun to be drawn, it's the easiest way to draw favorable partisan maps.

In theory the best way to draw a map is to randomly select start points along a border and then draw districts in which no lines intersect another. It's usually shown that inputting both population data and state-level internal borders like counties, will automatically draw "ideal" districts following this. The problem of course is that by law, as noted in this tweet, states aren't allowed to draw districts like this. Districts are basically legally required to be gerrymandered.

A lot of states that run into these problems are because the mandate for minority-majority districts creates small single Democrat districts and larger multiple Republican districts inherently as long as partisan voting keeps patterns. If you split the population of a city to create say, two more evenly weighted partisan districts you can trigger the Voting Rights Act. If you don't split the population of a city leaving you with the above you're often good according to the courts.

[Mandark]

A lot of states that run into these problems are because the mandate for minority-majority districts creates small single Democrat districts and larger multiple Republican districts inherently as long as partisan voting keeps patterns. If you split the population of a city to create say, two more evenly weighted partisan districts you can trigger the Voting Rights Act. If you don't split the population of a city leaving you with the above you're often good according to the courts.

yeah probably that's what happened in north carolina they were just trying their best

[benjipwns]

I always assume that actors in the government are trying their best.

[Baiano19]

thread

https://twitter.com/ishaantharoor/status/1171859029225869313


https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1171859029225869313.html

Hard right Brazilian Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo, who believes climate change is a Marxist conspiracy, is speaking at @heritage right now. Currently complaining about left "infiltration" in the system.
mentions Araujo says @jairbolsonaro is creating "a liberal-conservative amalgam" on top of "nationhood, family, traditional ties" and opposed to "globalism."
mentions This is a fascinatingly ideological speech for a foreign minister abroad (and somewhat incoherent). "Our civilization is losing its symbols," he says. Now is talking about theories of "hegemony" and lecturing about Rosa Luxembourg and "symbolic confiscation."
mentions Straight up projection here: Re the left, "what they're criticizing is what they're preaching."
mentions I've never heard Araujo speak before and it's striking how rambling and incoherent his remarks are. Now says something about 21st century socialism being Gramsci meeting the drug cartels. Now is namedropping Marcuse and the whole Frankfurt school. Now is talking abt Foucault.
mentions This is amazing. Unclear if he's ever read critical/neo-Marxist theory beyond Wikipedia entries, but he's asking a lot of an audience at the Heritage Foundation to know what he's talking about. Okay, now to the meat of his views:
Globalism is three parts: Climate change ideology, hatred of one's own and another I missed, sorry.
"The whole point of climatism is to end normal, democratic debate," says Araujo, and now lumps his people alongside Americans, Brexiteers and says the "system" of climate change activists (I guess) want to end freedom of speech.
"Climate became a debate shutter," says Brazil's foreign minister, complaining about the uproar over the Amazon. Says Trump and Bolsonaro "are the main ones fighting the system," "outside of the globalist pact."
The speech by the Brazilian foreign minister at @heritage could have been delivered by a US campus conservative as a PragerU, complaining about the media, globalist system, etc. It's been an endless screed of victimhood from someone in power.
mentions Yep, Araujo now complaining about the evil left wanting to take red meat away from us.
mentions "Social justice" is only "a pretext for dictatorship," says Araujo. Now they want to do the same with climate change, he adds. "Brazil is being Otherized." He's firing shots across the bow ahead of a politically fraught week at the UN later this month.
mentions Concluding statement: "The Amazon is ground zero in the fight against globalism and the recovery of human dignity [or was it soul?]."
mentions There's a fascinating disconnect between US right and whatever it is Araujo represents: The latter truly sees his politics as a reaction to a left-wing orthodoxy (hence all the snarling at Lacan, Lukacs, and all the other leftist intellectuals he name-checked.)
mentions Beyond its moping about campus leftists, the American right would never care about these people or engage their ideas (however absurdly) in a foreign policy speech. Araujo offered a distinction between Leninism and Stalinism, as if anyone in @heritage gives a damn.
mentions When I interviewed Brazilian VP @GeneralMourao earlier this year, he seemed pretty exasperated with Araujo. washingtonpost.com/world/2019/04/…
mentions Bem-vindos, meus novos seguidores brasileiros. Assine aqui a minha newsletter

Apoio o Bolsonaro, mas o Ernesto Araújo é louco.

[curly]

the tankies have their own jacobin http://homintern.soy/. Only read a couple articles but like it so far.

[Crash Dummy]

https://arcdigital.media/sam-harris-has-a-problem-ad5debba9d62

Like most episodes of Making Sense, this one consists mostly of Harris rehashing the myriad ways he feels he has been mistreated or misunderstood by progressives. As any consistent Harris listener can attest, the man sustains an immense amount of self-righteous anger over this. The problem is the measure of anger outpaces his understanding of the topics he’s angry about.
Like his late friend Christopher Hitchens, Harris is a gifted rhetorician who possesses the preternatural ability to speak not only in complete sentences but complete paragraphs. This talent can be mesmerizing, but it masks something The Hitch never had to hide and of which the Diamond episode is a prime example: a general hollowness of mind reinforced by a stunning lack of intellectual rigor and curiosity.

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/Algemeiner/status/1171881249755029505

 

[Joe Molotov]

I always assume that actors in the government are trying their best.

Trusting actors in the government is what gave us Bedtime for Bonzo.

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/kg_ubu/status/1171778308729638912

https://twitter.com/ThomasIsOnline/status/1171931592354390017

 

[nachobro]

how many of those emails were to epstein

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/BrandyLJensen/status/1172195630359437312

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/chunkymark/status/1172076394282725376

[benjipwns]

That superhero article is horrible. It's entirely about the action schlock Nolan Batman films. It never had the chance to tackle the much more cerebral and philosophical works of Zach Snyder.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Also the guy knows basically nothing about the actual history of comics, yet writes as if he does. Strange.

[close]

[curly]

 

People who apply a classical framework think having a capitalist society that arose from feudal society is the sole criterion to measure capitalism. But the ancestry of capitalists within a socialist society—a society which is still in the process of becoming capitalist—is very different. That’s why it looks different. Let me explain how people with a metaphysical way of looking at things approach this question. If you look at maggots and earthworms, they all seemingly belong to the same non-flying species. And flies and hummingbirds both seemingly belong to the flying species. Here, we’re just looking at whether they’re able to fly or not. Yes, flying is a big difference but maggot and fly are the same species. So, you cannot just say: “Oh! Flies—or capitalists—came from the feudal society. But look at maggots, they cannot even fly. How come they can be capitalists?” This is ridiculous! If you wait, maggots will, of course, become flies. So, capitalists in socialist society are in the “maggot stage.” They constitute the nucleus of the capitalist class in the “fly stage.”

 

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/MorningBluberry/status/1172731147178188800

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/LoveCass_/status/1172549315853717505

 

[Tripon]

Sam Seder recommends Howard Zinn's A People History of the United States instead of Settlers as a recommended book to learn more about the left and socialism. Shosta blasted.

[curly]

https://twitter.com/OsitaNwanevu/status/1171793575849398272

Read this and it really goes nowhere. Trump is vulgar (obv), except when he talks about America (not really), and the key to beating him is to go after America or something.

[Rufus]

Read this and it really goes nowhere. Trump is vulgar (obv), except when he talks about America (not really), and the key to beating him is to go after America or something.

Thanks. I feel vindicated in not bothering to track it down.

[Mandark]

I assume Zizeks been exiled to the Spectator because of all the shit idpol takes

He cites Angela Nagle in the second paragraph, so it checks out.

[Oblivion]

it was only a matter of time, sadly

[Nintex]

https://twitter.com/GarbageApe/status/1171457462676803585

Stephen decided to go for the easy money. I'm sad he sold out but I can hardly blame him.
The Comedy Central train wasn't going to last with Jon Stewart heading towards retirement and he knew it.
He also knew that the Colbert character that he played had an expiration date so he needed to be 'himself' again.

We did lose a great comedian to some shitty writers though. Once in a while he does something not terrible,
like his parody on Alex Jones which was pretty much the best parody of Alex Jones anyone has done.

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/wyattreed13/status/1172926681146953733

[Crash Dummy]

I assume Zizeks been exiled to the Spectator because of all the shit idpol takes

he kinda said nothing, only interesting part to me was:

When he was elected president, I was asked by a couple of publishers to write a book which would submit the Trump phenomenon to a psychoanalytic critics, and my answer was that we do not need psychoanalysis to explore the ‘pathology’ of his success – the only thing to psychoanalyze is the irrational stupidity of the left-liberal reactions to it, the stupidity which makes it more and more probable that Trump will be re-elected. To use what is perhaps the lowest point of Trump’s vulgarities, the left has not yet learned how to grab him by the pussy.

interesting because he puts pathology in air-quotes, suggesting that his election was not as abnormal as everyone thinks and probably systemic, and that the left needs to figure out its own failings that created the space to let him become president (although i'm not sure wtf he means at the end of the paragraph)

[team filler]

[Crash Dummy]

https://twitter.com/PedanticRomantc/status/1172982164964528129

[benjipwns]

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/scaachikoul/lauren-duca-book-teen-vogue-how-to-start-a-revolution

When I first asked to profile her in advance of her new book, How to Start a Revolution: Young People and the Future of American Politics, I did it over Twitter DM. She agreed, but seemed to get anxious as we got closer to settling on a meeting time. “Hold on lol,” she wrote. “Are you not following me? Feels like that would be helpful for a profile. And, not gonna lie, that makes me a bit apprehensive!”

When we eventually met in person in mid-August, she clarified the source of her anxiety a bit more. “I assumed it meant you were one of my haters,” she said. “There’s a level of reasonable paranoia. It’s weird being public-facing. It’s weird to interact with an idea of you.”

Her rise coincided with Teen Vogue’s own political awakening as a leader in the anti-Trump resistance. Suddenly the country realized that Teen Vogue wasn’t just focused on makeup and fashion; it was giving young people a place to read about social justice, politics, inequality, and the power of activism.

Whatever the general public might think of Duca’s personal politics, her book, How to Start a Revolution, is set to be published on Sept. 24. The 178-page manifesto has the lofty goal of laying “the groundwork for a re-democratizing moment as it might be built out of the untapped potential of young people,” according to the book jacket. It’s been blurbed by heavy hitters, including Rather, Janet Mock, and Ariel Levy, the latter calling Duca “the millennial feminist warrior queen of social media.”

Duca also spent this past summer teaching “The Feminist Journalist,” a six-week New York University journalism course for both high school and college students. After Duca agreed to our interview, she also acquiesced to letting me sit in on the final day of the class. She asked her students to come prepared with questions for her for what would be an AMA-style session in Washington Square Park. Her students sat in a circle around her in the wet grass. It was, I imagine, exactly what Tucker Carlson would envision a liberal journalism class might be: a bunch of kids from varied backgrounds, ethnicities, orientations, and gender identities, who could each afford a $6,500 class, wearing T-shirts that said “GenderQueer” or “Kill Patriarchy.”

In the park, Duca praised her students for their ideas and pitches: “You so totally learned what I was trying to teach you.” Nearly four weeks after the course ended, however, her students sent a collective formal complaint to the heads of the NYU journalism school about Duca’s conduct. “We are disappointed at the department and NYU for hiring a professor with more interest in promoting her book than teaching a group of students eager to learn,” they wrote. In the days after the course ended, several of the students also reached out to me to share more of their concerns. “Her ability to exploit the movement is really frustrating,” one former student said.

At Teen Vogue, Duca was brought on to work the weekend shifts by Phillip Picardi, then the magazine’s online editor. “She demonstrated a range of coverage: She could write things from a perspective that would bring in a social or cultural commentary that I felt was important to add to Teen Vogue,” he told me. “It also helped that I found her, and still do find her, extremely funny.”

Together, Picardi and Duca had big plans to make TeenVogue.com more than just a fashion and lifestyle site by bringing politics to the forefront of its coverage. Teen Vogue Editor-in-Chief Elaine Welteroth was doing something similar at the time for the print side. This was in the — comparatively — halcyon days of 2016 and 2017, when people on the left were still struggling to figure out what to do. Seemingly every weekend there was a march — the Women’s March, A Day Without Immigrants, A Day Without Women — even the Juggalos came out for their own.

...

Duca’s piece wasn’t the only or the best example of Teen Vogue’s foray into politics, but it did hit the hardest. “The gaslighting piece was able to sum up a lot,” Picardi said. “It created a consciousness around misinformation and abuse of power that I think was extremely sharp and really cut through the noise. Obviously the numbers and Lauren’s trajectory speaks to its impact wholeheartedly.”

Duca’s book certainly speaks to its readers in very simple terms — it defines “democracy” and “oligarchy” and “gaslighting,” terms that you might be familiar with if you’ve ever taken a civics class or two. But for Duca’s audience, whom she considers to be between 14 and 24, it’s a perfectly reasonable and non-condescending education; how else are you going to get young people to care about politics if you don’t explain it to them? “I think a lot of political writing is written from this high-perch, omniscient view that it's just not accessible, and it’s disempowering at times,” Duca told me. “I think I tend to forget how much I have the IV plugged in and how high my knowledge level is.”

The book has some confusing factual errors, too. In one chapter, Duca uses the infamous 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese as a case study for the bystander effect, when in fact that specific myth around Genovese’s murder had long been debunked. (Though she uses this comparison, she also concedes on the next page that the events are disputed.) Finished copies of the first hardcover printing also come with this erratum slipped in: “On page 29, reporter David Folkenflik is incorrectly identified as a media consultant for the NRA. Mr. Folkenflik works at National Public Radio, where he is a media correspondent.” The cover itself — George Washington in pop art makeup — has also been readily mocked.

Privilege comes up often when criticizing Duca, and her book does her no favors on this front. Like the work of a lot of white women in political writing, the book only fleetingly examines the intersection of race when she talks about political engagement. “Before the 2016 election, I only ever understood politics as a spectator sport,” she writes early in the book. “Once upon a time it was possible to say ‘I don’t like politics’ as if expressing a distaste for olives.” Which of course makes you ask: Who exactly has been so lucky to spend their entire pre-2016 life thinking this?

The real purpose of the book — as stated by Duca in our interview — is to help galvanize young people to get involved in politics and help them be informed. “Well, friends, being a good citizen is as easy as three simple steps,” she writes in the conclusion. Her steps include “learn — empower yourself with information,” “decide — form a political opinion,” and “act — put your beliefs into action.” It’s simple, but sometimes simple is enough. Simple can make you go viral with a message that’s far more helpful than just sitting around and waiting for someone to leave office. “I think that journalism is necessarily an activist practice,” she told me. “I think the function of journalism should be to empower people with information, and the information people need to act and raise their voices.”

“This moment is not about suddenly caring. It’s about finally doing,” she writes in How to Start a Revolution.

While the right attacks her with outright inhumanity, some on the left questions her sincerity in the movements she writes about and engages in, and wonder whether she deserves whatever success she’s had. Plenty of the criticisms, according to Duca, are just bad-faith arguments. “An example is Pride of 2017: I ate pussy for the first time the night before, and I tweeted the next day, ‘Happy Pride to everyone because no one’s 100% straight.’ I was just, like, pumped. People, women, predominantly in New York media, framed it as if I was All Lives Mattering Pride.” Duca later deleted the tweet after she received backlash.

“Their idea is that I’m espousing equality for personal gain, and that’s what they’re attacking. They're using the language of equality to attack me,” Duca says. “[Do] they think someone who’s out here putting their literal life on the line — death and rape threats, the word ‘literal’ does apply here — to stand up for equality and blaze a trail for young women is doing that to get famous and to — I don't know — barely be able to have health insurance and a home and write a book?”

Older tweets have also resurfaced, ones where she mocked fat people and community college attendees. These, at least, Duca will acknowledge and apologize for. “That’s something I really had to evolve from. I thought I was fucking fat when I wrote that. I was bulimic when I wrote that. I was miserable when I wrote that and I was socialized to think that fat jokes were okay,” she said. “I don’t defend that shit at all. I apologize. Those were horrible. I appreciate that someone would feel skeptical, and I think if their heart is in the right place, they would also be able to hear me say I’m sorry and understand that it was a different time, 2012, in terms of what we understood as politically correct, and we’ve all had to evolve.”

Duca was hesitant to allow me to join her for her last day of her NYU class, and I understood why. After her syllabus started circulating on Twitter, so did the endless mockery. The syllabus seemed to focus heavily on personal branding (students would have to tweet for 20% of their grade) and ironically included Jon Ronson’s So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed as required reading. Plus, she spelled Rashomon wrong, which upset just about everyone.

“I think that they’re fucking corny. They’re making fun of me — for putting Twitter on my syllabus — on Twitter, which is the only place they have a voice,” Duca said. “I wish the people who spent a ton of time criticizing me would use that energy to make a thing. To have an idea.”

A few days after I sat in on Duca’s class, I received a number of emails, unprompted, from her former students who wanted to talk about their six weeks in her class. “It was an interesting experience to say the least,” one student wrote.

Out of 10 students, five spoke to me on the record, under the condition of anonymity, specifically due to fear of reprisals from Duca or any of her professional connections. All of them had similar allegations against Duca and the class’s structure: that Duca didn’t follow her own syllabus, that she spoke often and inappropriately about her personal life, that she would belittle and yell at students, and, most pressingly, that she targeted one student in particular. All the students wrote a formal letter of complaint to NYU and signed it, “Sincerely, ‘The Feminist Journalist’ Class - Summer 2019.” When I reached out to Duca for her comment on the complaint, she started by saying, “I guess I'm not a teacher.”

The complaint, filed to NYU journalism school’s institute director, Ted Conover, and associate director, Meredith Broussard, on Sept. 11, details many of the same things the five students told me. “There was a consistent lack of professionalism that persisted throughout every aspect of the course,” the complaint reads. “We are disappointed at the department and NYU as an institution for hiring a professor without a syllabus and classroom management skills. We are disappointed at the department and NYU for hiring a professor without a clear course objective.”

Most of the students had never taken any sort of structured journalism class before, and their ages ranged from high school students to college students in their mid-twenties, some of whom had a few internships under their belts. “There was no syllabus or clear expectations of what she would be teaching us. The class kind of banded together to teach each other things so that we weren’t the subject of Lauren’s wrath,” said one student. “I was expecting to learn how to write an article.”

“I created a dynamic, experimental, ever-evolving course structure that pulled from my syllabus, added things in based on our conversation and allowed each of them to individually craft their pieces, and I watched the pieces evolve over the course of the semester,” Duca said in response. “I think that they, on some level, internalized some of the objectives, whether they know that explicitly or not.”

All five students alleged that Duca’s class was disorganized and “a master class in Lauren Duca’s personal life.” (“The point of it is that I'm oversharing all the time. And I think that, yeah, some people like it, some people don't. Apparently you fucking hate it, but that's fine,” Duca told me.) They said that she would vanish for 30 to 45 minutes per class to “meditate.” (“It was a three-hour class and we took a break and I would meditate for 15 minutes and they would be gone getting snacks and stuff,” Duca responded.) And that the class was a “waste of six weeks for all of us, and we don’t want anyone else to make this mistake again.” They claim Duca would snap at them for small problems, accuse them of not having done the readings, and never actually read any of the assignments they submitted to her.

Duca responded that she did read all the assignments, though she added: “It's okay if I'm not a great teacher because I'm great at lots of other things.”

But most galling is that all the students — both in interviews and in the formal complaint to the college — claim that Duca went out of her way to target one student in particular: an exchange student who was visiting New York for school. “Her English wasn’t perfect but that’s hard,” one student told me. “She came from another country. She was very courageous for taking this class.”

The students claimed that Duca would unfairly admonish this particular individual in class. “We all clocked it two or three classes in,” said a classmate. They claimed that Duca said the student “won’t have a lot to say” during class presentations, that she refused to accept assignments from this student while accepting them from others, that she called her work “basic” and “vague,” and that during one class Duca made the student cry during a one-on-one meeting. To this Duca responded, “I said, ‘You need to do the work’; she cried. Like, come on. Is that targeting? What am I supposed to do? ‘You didn't do the work; here's a trophy’?”

“That day was the day that I decided that there’s no way we’re going to let this person teach students again. It was awful. It was absolutely awful,” one of the students told me. “She definitely picked favorites, and she picked people she blatantly didn’t like,” said another. (In the complaint the students wrote to NYU, it says that Duca “consistently targeted this student on the basis of a communication difficulty the student cannot change.”)

“We received a complaint pertaining to Ms. Duca’s course only yesterday and are carefully assessing it,” Conover told me in an email statement on Sept. 12. “After our review, we will determine the course of action that is in the best interests of our students and their education.” Since receiving the complaint, Conover has already reached out to one student to meet in person and discuss the complaint in more detail.

As I continued asking Duca for comment about the specifics of the complaint, she became more and more agitated. “You should put in there that my tone was expressly pissed off and frustrated,” Duca told me. “You're being so fucking hard on me, Scaachi, and I really, really, really, really would ask you if you would be grilling a man in this same way. It's amazing. The shit that I have endured to continue to sustain a voice where I'm just fighting every inch for the same thing that I think that you want, which is public power and equality, and I'm trying my goddamn best, okay?”

The line went silent and I asked Duca if she was still there. She was, and she continued questioning me about my motives around this article before saying, “Congratulations, you thrillingly, thrillingly adept journalist, you have discovered that Lauren Duca is not perfect. Put it in the headline, baby.”

Duca is already on her way to writing a second book, this one about her “major, major god experience,” which she is tentatively titling Ego in Retreat. Since our first interview and my observation of her final NYU class, Duca has unfollowed me on Twitter.

[curly]

https://twitter.com/jacobinmag/status/1173997543488774144

That shit you like? It's socialism.

[curly]

Believing that we actually have democracy in our lives as things stand

In Mao’s China, the working class was the master of society. So, when there is a lot of different opinions among workers, how are you gonna resolve that? This was the key issue. Today, people always talk about “democracy.” In many cases, that is a lie! Active, day-to-day democracy was exercised in Mao’s China! For heaven’s sake, tell me: People were getting into arguments, even getting into fistfights to defend what they think was right! If this is not the working class in power, tell me what it is?

[Crash Dummy]

on todays episode of what zizek is up to:
https://twitter.com/EvanPlatinum/status/1174326717357289472

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/stereogum/status/1174319395113512960

[OnlyRegret]

https://twitter.com/mishellbaker/status/1173279358435258373

[OnlyRegret]

woke wh*tes are cringe

https://twitter.com/g3thaunted/status/1174169375563296773

[team filler]

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/The_Law_Boy/status/1174760098188734465