#Denialism

[mostlysignssomeportents]

A taxonomy of corporate bullshit

Next Tuesday (Oct 31) at 10hPT, the Internet Archive is livestreaming my presentation on my recent book, The Internet Con.

There are six lies that corporations have told since time immemorial, and Nick Hanauer, Joan Walsh and Donald Cohen's new book Corporate Bullsht: Exposing the Lies and Half-Truths That Protect Profit, Power, and Wealth in America* provides an essential taxonomy of this dirty six:

https://thenewpress.com/books/corporate-bullsht

In his review for The American Prospect, David Dayen summarizes how these six lies "offer a civic-minded, reasonable-sounding justification for positions that in fact are motivated entirely by self-interest":

https://prospect.org/culture/books/2023-10-27-lies-my-corporation-told-me-hanauer-walsh-cohen-review/

I. Pure denial

As far back as the slave trade, corporate apologists and mouthpieces have led by asserting that true things are false, and vice-versa. In 1837, John Calhoun asserted that "Never before has the black race of Central Africa, from the dawn of history to the present day, attained a condition so civilized and so improved, not only physically, but morally and intellectually." George Fitzhugh called enslaved Africans in America "the freest people in the world."

This tactic never went away. Children sent to work in factories are "perfectly happy." Polluted water is "purer than the water that came from the river before we used it." Poor families "don't really exist." Pesticides don't lead to "illness or death." Climate change is "beneficial." Lead "helps guard your health."

II. Markets can solve problems, governments can't

Alan Greenspan made a career out of blithely asserting that markets self-correct. It was only after the world economy imploded in 2008 that he admitted that his doctrine had a "flaw":

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/greenspan-admits-flaw-to-congress-predicts-more-economic-problems

No matter how serious a problem is, the market will fix it. In 1973, the US Chamber of Commerce railed against safety regulations, because "safety is good business," and could be left to the market. If unsafe products persist in the market, it's because consumers choose to trade safety off "for a lower price tag" (Chamber spox Laurence Kraus). Racism can't be corrected with anti-discrimination laws. It's only when "the market" realizes that racism is bad for business that it will finally be abolished.

III. Consumers and workers are to blame

In 1946, the National Coal Association blamed rampant deaths and maimings in the country's coal-mines on "carelessness on the part of men." In 2003, the National Restaurant Association sang the same tune, condemning nutritional labels because "there are not good or bad foods. There are good and bad diets." Reagan's interior secretary Donald Hodel counseled personal responsibility to address a thinning ozone layer: "people who don’t stand out in the sun—it doesn’t affect them."

IV. Government cures are always worse than the disease

Lee Iacocca called 1970's Clean Air Act "a threat to the entire American economy and to every person in America." Every labor and consumer protection before and since has been damned as a plague on American jobs and prosperity. The incentive to work can't survive Social Security, welfare or unemployment insurance. Minimum wages kill jobs, etc etc.

V. Helping people only hurts them

Medicare will "destroy private initiative for our aged to protect themselves with insurance" (Republican Senator Milward Simpson, 1965). Covid relief is unfair to people that are currently in the workforce" (Republican Governor Brian Kemp, 2021). Welfare produces "learned helplessness."

VI. Everyone who disagrees with me is a socialist

Grover Cleveland's 2% on top incomes is "communistic warfare against rights of property" (NY Tribune, 1895). "Socialized medicine" will leave "our children and our children’s children [asking] what it once was like in America when men were free" (Reagan, 1961).

Everything is "socialism": anti-child labor laws, Social Security, minimum wages, family and medical leave. Even fascism is socialism! In 1938, the National Association of Manufacturers called labor rights "communism, bolshevism, fascism, and Nazism."

As Dayen says, it's refreshing to see how the right hasn't had an original idea in 150 years, and simply relies on repeating the same nonsense with minor updates. Right wing ideological innovation consists of finding new ways to say, "actually, your boss is right."

The left's great curse is object permanence: the ability to remember things, like the fact that it used to be possible for a worker to support a family of five on a single income, or that the economy once experienced decades of growth with a 90%+ top rate of income tax (other things the left manages to remember: the "intelligence community" are sociopathic monsters, not Trump-slaying heroes).

When the business lobby rails against long-overdue antitrust action against Amazon and Google, object permanence puts it all in perspective. The talking points about this being job-destroying socialism are the same warmed-over nonsense used to defend rail-barons and Rockefeller. "If you don't like it, shop elsewhere," has been the corporate apologist's line since slavery times.

As Dayen says, Corporate Bullshit is a "reference book for conservative debating points, in an attempt to rob them of their rhetorical power." It will be out on Halloween:

https://bookshop.org/a/54985/9781620977514

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/27/six-sells/#youre-holding-it-wrong

#pluralistic #corporate bullshit #lies #books #reviews #taxonomies #labor #denialism #consumerism #Nick Hanauer #Joan Walsh #Donald Cohen #history #object permanence #taking the right seriously

[dougielombax]

Today is the Memorial Day for the victims of the Bangladesh genocide.

Where 3 million innocent Bengali people (both Muslims and Hindus (as well as Buddhists and Christians) alike!) were killed by Pakistani troops and mobs during Bangladesh’s war for independence in 1971.

A genocide which Pakistan still DENIES to this day. Openly!

A genocide which was spearheaded by the killing of intellectuals and university students as well.

Just as the ottoman Turks did to the Armenians and Assyrians in 1915.

Feel free to reblog this.

I’m including the links here for more information.

#dougie rambles #news #political crap #history #genocide #anniversary #Asia #pakistan #bangladesh #Bangladesh genocide #denialism #anti intellectualism #reblog this #reblog the shit out of this #feel free to reblog #iasg #lemkin institute #anti denialism #march 25 #armenian genocide #sayfo #armenia #assyria

[hero-israel]

...skepchick out there making videos about feminism v. israel. another leftist i used to respect gone, it seems. though I do wonder how she, and all the other everything-israel-says-is-a-lie people will deal with the un report - it seems to be this report is the first genuinely supported claim for sexual misconduct by the idf towards palestinians. I mean. I guess THAT bit will be considered true and fully evidenced, but that hamas terrorists raped people and used sexual violence as a systemic part of their violent dreams of restoring the caliphate is just made up. but still.

I defended her during "elevatorgate." I had online arguments about that for months and I took her side. And I never demanded she prove the incident had happened.

Not sure what's more disgusting:

-Leftists who build their entire moral framework around Jewish history and suffering and learn nothing from it

-Culturally Christian atheists who don't have to be embarrassed by believing in talking snakes and immaculate conceptions but who keep all the suspicions and contempt for Jews that their families and societies gave them

#Leftist antisemitism #atheist antisemitism #rape culture #rape apology #rape denial #denialism #culturally Christian atheists #skepchick #Rebecca Watson

[theexodvs]

Given the (warranted) suspicion given towards the disease denialism found in both Christian Science and Scientology, it can be said that if the claims of the neurodiversity movement were attached to organized religion, they too would be constantly lambasted.

#Christian Science #scientology #church of Christ scientist #Mary Baker Eddy #l ron hubbard #church of scientology #neurodiversity #neurodiversity movement #Just because a movement does not claim to be religious does not mean it isn’t cultic. #Scientific denialism #Denialism #autism is an illness #ADHD is an illness #Dyslexia is an illness #Down syndrome is an illness #Schizophrenia is an illness #Not all victims of a given illness will have an equally easy or difficult time #Not all illnesses have viral or environmental postnatal causes #I know most of the conditions the ND crowd champions are inborn #That still doesn’t mean they aren’t illnesses

[chronostachyon]

The rise of denialism (climate, COVID, homelessness and poverty) and conspiracy theory is an inevitable consequence of the multi-generational push toward individual responsibility.

When our brains are overwhelmed by responsibility and blame and shame, we shut it down. We argue that it's someone else's problem, or that it's not a problem at all. We all turn into Ardra from "Devil's Due" (Star Trek TNG S4E13): we become flim-flam artists, desperate to keep the lie going, often diving so deep into the blameless characters we craft and perform that we believe our own lies. Because the weight of the blame is unbearable.

If I personally cannot solve the problem, because it is bigger than any one human being could ever solve, then there must be someone else who can personally solve the problem... right? Because every problem has an individual who is The One Person In Charge Of That Problem , and that one person deserves 100% of the blame. That's what modern society tells us, over and over again. “I didn't cause it by myself, it's big enough that I can't fix it by myself, so it's not fair to blame me because I couldn't possibly be personally responsible.”

Either I invent someone else who is responsible… or I lie my ass off that it isn't a problem at all, just as Ardra lies that she likes the tremors when they are suddenly no longer under her control. She's in so deep that continuing to lie, even though it's almost guaranteed to fail, has no additional negative consequences: she is up shit creek whether she confesses the truth or gets caught in the lie.

While this push toward individual responsibility is being done to serve capitalist interests and capitalist ideologies, it is separate from capitalism and will persist after capitalism is gone unless and until we unlearn it.

Crossposted from Mastodon

#denialism #conspiracy theorists #psychology #personal responsibility #anarchism #climate change

[shadowstarkanada]

Apparently, people are still in denial about Covid.

I had a headache, then fever, then coughing and a sore throat. I'm thinking to myself, 99% Covid, stay away from family members as much as possible. I mean, I'm living with them so I can't fully isolate but you know. Took a RAT and... I have Covid. Not surprising to me at all.

But family members expected me to test negative. They were like... REALLY? You have Covid? We were sure you didn't!

Why would you be sure I didn't have it? Because I didn't lose my sense of smell? Because I'm not gasping for air?

#covid #denialism

[lizardsfromspace]

Stumbled across a Christian anti-psychiatry site whose main objection to psychology and psychiatry (like Scientologists they don't seem to understand, or care to understand, the difference between the two) was that not all mental health issues have the same source

Like they think it's the height of hypocrisy that...some disorders are caused by chemical imbalances and some are caused by trauma. And this led to an incredible moment where they got mad that people say trauma causes PTSD. In their eyes psychology would only be valid if you didn't have to have trauma to have trauma disorders but instead could just be born traumatized and in fact trauma couldn't even cause post-traumatic stress disorder, which. What

#denialism

[2am-anon]

#you can take it slow #r u the kind to keep me warm #rnb #krnb #sentimental #denialism #Spotify

[athousandrabbitholes]

Significantly, climate rejecters often accuse scientific truth-tellers of constituting a 'doomsday cult,' which could be partially a form of psychological projection but also an expression of repressed awareness of their own relation to a potential doomsday. In any case, climate change rejecters are likely to become an increasingly beleaguered group involving cultist gurus and followers.

Robert Jay Lifton, Losing Reality, 172

#Climate Change #Cult #Cultism #Losing Reality #Robert Jay Lifton #Denialism #Doomsday #Conspiracism

[animentality]

#twitter #covid denial #anti vaxxers

[dougielombax]

OH DEAR!

I knew this was gonna happen! (No I’m not a prophet! People are just predictable)

Just when I thought that ghastly old trout couldn’t get any WORSE!!!!!

I knew this would’ve happened eventually what with her going down a far right rabbit hole but I didn’t think it would be so quick!

It’s that ghastly TERF to fascist pipeline in action. Succumbing to and embracing brainrot.

To say nothing of her sickening neurotypical ableism too!

(She is explicitly and OPENLY DENYING that the Nazis targeted trans people despite evidence to the fact that they did!)

I have seen it before and it’s sickening. And yes it is real. (Much like the Ba’athist to Islamist pipeline. Shut up!)

Sickening shit!

She really has become a NASTY piece of work!

#dougie rambles #personal stuff #vent post #news #jk rowling #fuck jkr #bigotry #denialism #bad history #shit takes #Holocaust denial #genocide denial #fuck TERFs #transphobia #genocide #Holocaust #scumbag behaviour #rabbit hole #pseudohistory #lies #bullshit #Nazis #pipeline #brainrot #brainrot in action #neurotypical bullshit #fucking hell #fuck’s sake #feel free to reblog

[endusviolence]

Rowling isn't denying holocaust. She just pointed out that burning of transgender health books is a lie as that form of cosmetic surgery didn't exist. But of course you knew that already, didn't you?

I was thinking I'd probably see one of you! You're wrong :) Let's review the history a bit, shall we?

In this case, what we're talking about is the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, or in English, The Institute of Sexology. This Institute was founded and headed by a gay Jewish sexologist named Magnus Hirschfeld. It was founded in July of 1919 as the first sexology research clinic in the world, and was run as a private, non-profit clinic. Hirschfeld and the researchers who worked there would give out consultations, medical advice, and even treatments for free to their poorer clientele, as well as give thousands of lectures and build a unique library full of books on gender, sexuality, and eroticism. Of course, being a gay man, Hirschfeld focused a lot on the gay community and proving that homosexuality was natural and could not be "cured".

Hirschfeld was unique in his time because he believed that nobody's gender was either one or the other. Rather, he contended that everyone is a mixture of both male and female, with every individual having their own unique mix of traits.

This leads into the Institute's work with transgender patients. Hirschfeld was actually the one to coin the term "transsexual" in 1923, though this word didn't become popular phrasing until 30 years later when Harry Benjamin began expanding his research (I'll just be shortening it to trans for this brief overview.) For the Institute, their revolutionary work with gay men eventually began to attract other members of the LGBTA+, including of course trans people.

Contrary to what Anon says, sex reassignment surgery was first tested in 1912. It'd already being used on humans throughout Europe during the 1920's by the time a doctor at the Institute named Ludwig Levy-Lenz began performing it on patients in 1931. Hirschfeld was at first opposed, but he came around quickly because it lowered the rate of suicide among their trans patients. Not only was reassignment performed at the Institute, but both facial feminization and facial masculization surgery were also done.

The Institute employed some of these patients, gave them therapy to help with other issues, even gave some of the mentioned surgeries for free to this who could not afford it! They spoke out on their behalf to the public, even getting Berlin police to help them create "transvestite passes" to allow people to dress however they wanted without the threat of being arrested. They worked together to fight the law, including trying to strike down Paragraph 175, which made it illegal to be homosexual. The picture below is from their holiday party, Magnus Hirschfeld being the gentleman on the right with the fabulous mustache. Many of the other people in this photo are transgender.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of a group of people. Some are smiling at the camera, others have serious expressions. Either way, they all seem to be happy. On the right side, an older gentleman in glasses- Magnus Hirschfeld- is sitting. He has short hair and a bushy mustache. He is resting one hand on the shoulder of the person in front of him. His other hand is being held by a person to his left. Another person to his right is holding his shoulder.]

There was always push back against the Institute, especially from conservatives who saw all of this as a bad thing. But conservatism can't stop progress without destroying it. They weren't willing to go that far for a good while. It all ended in March of 1933, when a new Chancellor was elected. The Nazis did not like homosexuals for several reasons. Chief among them, we break the boundaries of "normal" society. Shortly after the election, on May 6th, the book burnings began. The Jewish, gay, and obviously liberal Magnus Hirschfeld and his library of boundary-breaking literature was one of the very first targets. Thankfully, Hirschfeld was spared by virtue of being in Paris at the time (he would die in 1935, before the Nazis were able to invade France). His library wasn't so lucky.

This famous picture of the book burnings was taken after the Institute of Sexology had been raided. That's their books. Literature on so much about sexuality, eroticism, and gender, yes including their new work on trans people. This is the trans community's Alexandria. We're incredibly lucky that enough of it survived for Harry Benjamin and everyone who came after him was able to build on the Institute's work.

[Image ID: A black and white photo of the May Nazi book burning of the Institute of Sexology's library. A soldier, back facing the camera, is throwing a stack of books into the fire. In the background of the right side, a crowd is watching.]

As the Holocaust went on, the homosexuals of Germany became a targeted group. This did include transgender people, no matter what you say. To deny this reality is Holocaust denial. JK Rowling and everyone else who tries to pretend like this isn't reality is participating in that evil. You're agreeing with the Nazis.

But of course, you knew that already, didn't you?

Edit: Added image IDs. I apologize to those using screen readers for forgetting them. Please reblog this version instead.

#transgender #trans history #transsexual #transphobia #Magnus Hirschfeld #holocaust #holocaust denial #book burning #j.k. rowling #jk rowling #just in case you missed what i mean by all this: go fuck yourself anon :) #trans people have always existed #and we will always exist #if you really wanna pick a fight with me over well-documented history then you better bring in some sources to back your shit #queer history #queer #lgbt+ #lgbta+ #lgbt #lgbt history #edit: i finally got around to those damn image IDs. i am so very sorry for totally forgetting that's my bimbo moment of the month #also real quick i thought about adding an image of the actual building but the only one i can find has a Nazi parade in front of it #it was taken the day of the book burning raid and honestly if i were to include it then i'd add it to the first few paragraphs #and i think the story's better told when you uphold the hope Magnus Hirschfeld and all the researchers he worked with had #also keeps being brought up: yes Hirschfeld was a eugenicist. it was a popular belief set that was only discredited after WW2 #Hirschfeld died in 1935. he literally didn't live long enough to see science turn against those beliefs and practices #considering how he changed his mind on transitions i like to think he would've changed his mind on eugenics too if he'd lived

[theexodvs]

Illness is a real thing. Illness can affect any part of anyone's body at any time. Illness can be, and often is, inborn. Illness can be, and often is, lifelong. Pursuing healthy lifestyles can lessen, but never eliminate, the possibility of illness, including permanent illness. The brain, being as much a part of the body as the foot or the spleen, can also suffer illness, in this case a mental illness.

The neurodiversity movement generally denies the existence of mental illness. Its adherents is uncomfortable with the fact that there are things that are expected of most people that the mentally ill are unable to perform, cradle to grave. Therefore, it retreats in medical denialism, calling mental illnesses "neurotypes."

The Word of Faith movement does not deny illness, but instead says that if someone lives in a certain way or says certain things, that they can be healed of various ailments. This includes dismemberment, chromosomal disorders, and, in extreme cases, death. Their attempts at ridding the world of illness has proven fruitless

The neurodiversity and Word of Faith movements are two cultic sides of the same denialist, escapist coin. Illness is a fact of life, and a fact of some people's entire lives. Sometimes it can be healed, and sometimes it cannot. Denying its existence does not improve anyone's life, and neither do lies about the ability to miraculously cure it. What the ill, including the mentally ill, need is compassion and assistance.

#mentall illness #neurodiversity #neurodiversity movement #word of faith #prosperity gospel #cult #cults #escapism #escapist #denialism #pseudomedicine

[hermemescabin]

Percy pre last Olympian: I don’t like Annabeth. We are FRIENDS. My feelings are FRIENDLY. Stop looking at me.

Percy post last Olympian: My beautiful, talented, wonderful girlfriend Annabeth. Light of my life, the sun rises and sets with her smile. My greatest accomplishment is being her boyfriend and I killed a titan once.

#percy jackson #annabeth chase #percy jackon and the olympians #percabeth #pjo #heros of olympus #the last olympian #he’s so proud #he goes years being in denial the goes full speed ahead #percy x annabeth

[blanketforcas]

i think what saves me from a lot of discourse is that i'm simply Not Reading All That

#sometimes that means i miss really good posts unfortunately #until every now & then i get an extra neurotypical braincell for like 10 min and i read a good post #jk i'm still in denial about possibly having adhd

[strawberrydykke]

yes all my favorite characters are desperate to be loved. no i don’t think that says anything about me

#personal #sorry i thought too hard about izzy hands and now i want to throw up #also obviously it does say something about me but i'm in denial <3