Chamblee54

This is a repost from January 2020. Many of the youtube links no longer work. Sam Harris continues to get mixed up in controversy. … “You’re drinking from a firehose of bullshit.” Someone is talking. They are full of confidence. The speech gets faster, and faster. They have lots of data points that support their point of view. You suspect there is something wrong with what they are saying. The logic just follows too quickly. If you stop to think about point one, you will miss points two through eleven. It is persuasion, by intellectual bullying.
Sometimes, a good phrase used to support a not-so-good cause. The FOB quote is from Sam Harris. He was on the Joe Rogan Experience, talking with Abby Martin. (The opening clip is from this compilation.) Mr. Harris says the Iraqi casualties, after Operation Iraqi Freedom, were around 200,000. Ms. Martin says the casualties are closer to 2,000,000. Either figure is too high. Mr. Harris displays a certain heartlessness in his argument.
JRE #1419 – Daryl Davis washed up on the digital shore yesterday. Mr. Davis is a black man, who somehow befriended KKK members, and showed them the error of their ways. Here is an npr segment, How One Man Convinced 200 Ku Klux Klan Members To Give Up Their Robes.
Yesterday’s appearance came at an synchronistic time for Mr. Rogan. Last week, Bernie Sanders tweeted a clip from Mr. Rogan, along with a comment. “I think I’ll probably vote for Bernie…” Joe Rogan There was a reaction. @CNN “Bernie Sanders is facing a backlash from some Democrats after his campaign trumpeted an endorsement from comedian Joe Rogan, a popular podcast and YouTube talk show host with a history of making racist, homophobic and transphobic comments”
As Rogan listeners know, Joe is all over the place. The Sanders quote is from JRE #1415 – Bari Weiss. During that show, Ms. Weiss unleashed an FOB in support of Israel. This contrasts with Abby Martin, and other JRE guests, who severely criticize Israel.
The Davis show was an FOB. There were history lectures, that leave discerning heads shaking. (The term white supremacist was first used in 1896.) The firehose kept gushing, until there was one comment that could be easily checked out. “President Warren G. Harding was sworn into the ku klux klan in the green room of the White House”
Warren Gamaliel Harding is known, with some justification, as one of our worst Presidents. “One aspect of the Harding administration that is not well known is his attitude about race. In the years after World War I, America was engulfed in race hatred. The Ku Klux Klan had a revival. “In a speech on October 26, 1921, given in segregated Birmingham, Alabama Harding advocated civil rights for African Americans; the first President to openly advocate black political, educational, and economic equality during the 20th century.” Mr. Harding supported an anti lynching bill, which a Democratic filibuster kept from passing.” (This 2012 quote is based on a wikipedia article, that has been edited.)
“Not only was Harding’s alleged membership in the KKK never mentioned in the contemporary records of anybody who knew him, his public opposition to anti-Catholic agitation and his vehement support for anti-lynching laws, make him seem like an unlikely recruit. In fact, the only evidence that Harding was a Klansman comes from the deathbed confession of a former Grand Wizard, who may have made the whole thing up to get even with Harding for the late President’s anti-racist public stance.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.