"¡No sea inocente!"Una película anti-odio de 1947 válida para 2016

OPEN CULTURE.- If you aren’t seriously disturbed, even alarmed, that we in the U.S. have a presidential candidate from a major political party who succeeds by whipping up xenophobic fervor and telling us the country must not only reinstitute torture, but must do “the unthinkable”… well…. I don’t really know what to say to you. Perhaps more symptom than cause of a global turn toward tribal hatred, the GOP candidate has lent his name to a phenomenon characterized by cultish devotion to an authoritarian strongman, serial falsehood, and easy, uncritical scapegoating. We needn’t look far back in time to see the historical analogues, whether in the early 20th century, at the end of the 19th, or during any number of historical moments before and after.

We also needn’t look very far back to find a history of resistance to authoritarian bigotry, and not only from Civil Rights campaigners and leftists, but also, as you can see above, from the U.S. War Department. In 1947, the Department released the short propaganda film, “Don’t Be a Sucker!”, aimed at middle-class American Joes. Shot at Warner Studios, the film opens with some typical noirish crime scenarios, complete with convincingly noir lighting and camera angles, to visually set up the character of the “sucker” who gets taken in by sinister but seductive characters—“people who stay up nights trying to figure out how to take away” what the everyman has. What do naïve potential marks in this analogy have to lose? American plenty: “plenty of food, big factories to make things a man can use, big cities to do the business of a big country, and people, lots of people.”

“People,” the narrator says, working the farms and factories, digging the mines and running the businesses: “all kinds of people. People from different countries with different religions, different colored skins. Free people.” Is this disingenuous? You bet. We’re told this aggregate of people is “free to vote”—and we know this to be largely untrue in practice for many, necessitating the Voting Rights Act almost twenty years later. Free to “pick their own jobs”? Employment discrimination, segregation, and sexism effectively prevented that for millions. But the sentiments are noble, even if the facts don’t fully fit. As our average Joe wanders along, contemplating his advantages, he happens upon a reactionary streetcorner demogague haranguing against foreigners, African-Americans, Catholics, and Freemasons (?) on behalf of “real Americans.” Sounds plenty familiar.

The voice of reason comes from a naturalized Hungarian professor who witnessed the rise of Nazism in Berlin and who explains to our everyman the strategy of fanatics and fascists—divide and rule. “We human beings are not born with prejudices,” says the wise professor, “always they are made for us. Made by someone who wants something. Remember that when you hear this kind of talk. Somebody’s going to get something out of it. And it isn’t going to be you.” The remainder of the film mostly consists of the Hungarian professor’s recollections of how the Nazis won over ordinary Germans.

Seguir leyendo...

Getafe marca con perfil homófobo a los varones heterosexuales, delgados, blancos y católicos

Cuando el responsable de un delito -de odio racial, homofobia, violación, robo...- deja de ser una persona concreta y la presunción de culpabilidad se transfiere a todo un colectivo se produce la quiebra del Estado de Derecho. De ahí a marcar a los 'sospechosos' con una estrella o un triángulo sólo hay un paso.

ABC.- El Ayuntamiento de Getafe aprobará este miércoles una moción a propuesta de todos los grupos, excepto del PP, que establece que el perfil de la persona homófoba es el de un «varón, heterosexual, delgado, blanco y de la fe mayoritaria»; es decir, la católica. Este «Manifiesto por el día internacional del orgullo LGTBI+», redactado por los colectivos UC3M LGTB+, Colegas Getafe y Gaytafe LGTBI+, contará con el apoyo del PSOE (la alcaldesa, Sara Hernández, es también líder de los socialistas madrileños), Izquierda Unida, Ahora Getafe (marca municipal de Podemos) y Ciudadanos.

El PP es el único grupo que votará en contra. En un comunicado recrimina el apoyo del resto de ediles a un texto «cargado de sectarismo, que discrimina a la población por motivos como la apariencia física, el nivel de renta económica o las creencias religiosas».

El texto, al que ha tenido acceso ABC, defiende otras reivindicaciones, como la igualdad de todos los ciudadanos o los derechos de los refugiados/as LGTB+;pero, a renglón seguido, aseguran que existe la «pirámide social de la discriminación», en cuya cúspide se encuentra «el hombre blanco, heterosexual y cisexual (aquel que no es transexual)».

La descripción no termina ahí, pues se dan mas detalles: el homófobo, según esta tesis, es de «clase media o alta, sin diversidad funcional, joven y delgado. Incluso perteneciente a la fe mayoritaria», en referencia al catolicismo.

Recuperar la ambivalencia

Alice Dreger, the historian of science, sex researcher, activist, and author of a much-discussed book of last year, has recently called attention to the loss of ambivalence as an acceptable attitude in contemporary politics and beyond. “Once upon a time,” she writes, “we were allowed to feel ambivalent about people. We were allowed to say, ‘I like what they did here, but that bit over there doesn’t thrill me so much.’ Those days are gone. Today the rule is that if someone — a scientist, a writer, a broadcaster, a politician — does one thing we don’t like, they’re dead to us.”

I’m going to suggest that this development leads to another kind of loss: the loss of our ability to work together, or better, learn from each other, despite intense disagreement over certain issues. Whether it’s because our opponent hails from a different political party, or voted differently on a key referendum, or thinks about economics or gun control or immigration or social values — or whatever — in a way we struggle to comprehend, our collective habit of shouting at each other with fingers stuffed in our ears has reached a breaking point.

It’s time to bring ambivalence back.

Seguir leyendo....

¿Y si 2016 tampoco batiera el récord de temperatura de 1998?

Por fin la Agencia Estatal de Meteorología ha publicado, sin publicidad y sólo para entendidos, la temperatura media en España en el trimestre de la primavera de 2016, marzo-abril-mayo. Como se observa en la figura, la temperatura de esta primavera ha sido más bien fría, algo por encima de los 13 grados. También, como se observa en la figura, desde hace 20 años la evolución de la temperatura media no muestra una tendencia al alza, a pesar de lo que diga la propaganda. ANTÓN URIARTE

PLAZA MOYUA.- Roy Spencer en su blog:

Record Warm 2016? What a Difference One Month Makes

Con el rápido enfriamiento ahora en curso de la temperatura global media troposférica, mi anterior predicción de un año récord en las medidas de los satélites para 2016 parece … bueno … prematura.

Básicamente, si las anomalías (las temperaturas) se mantienen por debajo del valor de 0,34ºC de junio, 2016 no será un año récord.

Significado. Si eso ocurre, la “pausa” en el calentamiento global según lo miden los satélites alcanzará casi seguro los 20 o 21 años. Porque el Pacífico se pondrá muy probablemente en modo La Niña. Y en ese caso quedarán dos opciones.

1) Los satélites miden mal.

2) Los satélites miden bien y los modelos climáticos son una caca. Lo que querría decir que el cuento del Calentamiento Global Acojonante es … ¡un cuento!

El aburrimiento puede llevar al extremismo político

New research published in the European Journal of Social Psychology has found a link between boredom and political extremism.

“Boredom puts people on edge: It makes them seek engagements that are challenging, exciting, and that offer a sense of purpose. Political ideologies can aid this existential quest,” wrote Wijnand A.P. Van Tilburg of King’s College London and Eric Igou of the University of Limerick in their study.

The researchers’ previous study found that boring activities can trigger a sense of meaninglessness in people, along with a corresponding desire to “reinject meaningfulness in their lives.”

“Boredom motivates people to alter their situation and fosters the engagement in activities that seem more meaningful than those currently at hand,” van Tilburg and Igou explained in their new study. Their research suggests that adopting a more extreme political ideology is one way that people reinject meaningfulness into a boring situation.

Más...