Today’s links Iowa’s starvation strategy: Maybe the cruelty IS the point? The Red Team Blues tour: LA, San Diego, Burbank, San Francisco, PDX, Mountain View, Berkeley, Vancouver, Calgary, Gaithersburg, DC, Toronto, Hay, Nottingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, London, Berlin. Red Team Blues Chapter One, part three: Danny does THE THING. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2008, 2013, 2018 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current reading Iowa’s starvation strategy (permalink) I don’t really buy that “the cruelty is the point.” I’m a materialist. Money talks, bullshit walks. When billionaires fund unimaginably cruel policies, I think the cruelty is a tactic, a way to get the turkeys to vote for Christmas. After all, policies that grow the fortune of the 1% at the expense of the rest of us have a natural 99% disapproval rating. So when some monstrous new law or policy comes down the pike, it’s best understood as a way of getting frightened, angry – and often hateful – people to vote for policies that will actively harm them, by claiming that they will harm others – brown and Black people, women, queers, and the “undeserving” poor. Pro-oligarch policies don’t win democratic support – but policies that inflict harm a ginned-up group of enemies might. Oligarchs need frightened, hateful people to vote for policies that will secure and expand the power of the rich. Cruelty is the tactic. Power is the strategy. The point isn’t cruelty, it’s power: https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/25/roe-v-wade-v-abortion/#no-i-in-uterus But that doesn’t…Pluralistic: Iowa's starvation strategy; The Red Team Blues Tour; Red Team Blues Chapter One, part three (19 Apr 2023)