Right-Wing Activism

By Wayne Brown

DeSantis, GOP are fighting against 'woke.' But what does that mean?

After the stunning victory of reversing Roe-Vs-Wade, Right Wing Activists* are now going after how we think: blatantly shutting down any view of society and history that conflicts with theirs. DeSantis takes particular pride in actually shutting down or taking over educational institutions and curricula that teach "woke" stuff, such as how America really works from the viewpoint of people he doesn't like (or pretends not to like), such as LGTQ+, non-whites, Liberals and Democrats.

The movement itself seems to have gathered steam as a backlash against the Black Lives Matter protests.

What inspired me to write this is that "woke" now includes ESG Investing or what most of us would call responsible investing. The US Congress is attempting to force pension funds not to take ESG considerations into account. Biden will veto the measure, but the point is that ESG is now "woke." and anti-woke seems to be the theme of the Republican Party going into the 2024 elections.

Why this matters in this blog is that concern for the climate is now "woke," further polarizing the issue. For example, a "woke" investor would refrain from investing in new oil and gas infrastructure, exploration, or drilling**.

Such brute-force activism polarizes the issue further and acts as a mirror image of the activism that drives the "other side." It is similar to Fox News, which looks like a news network but isolates its right-wing audience from awkward news ("fake news").

So an anti-woke educational system will look like a regular educational system, but, to my eyes, it starts to look like 1984.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Hitler was a right-wing activist. Just saying.
** While I am skeptical of efforts to fight climate change, I think an important feature of a democratic society is the ability to vote with our dollars. In fact, sad to say, such votes have more influence than the paper we pop in a box from time to time. From a long-term investment point of view, it is quite sensible to worry that oil and gas assets will be "stranded" as alternatives are developed. Similar considerations apply to the other ESG categories. For example, a union busing company (such as Starbucks) is vulnerable to labor unrest, making investment risky or, to put a fine point on it, making the stock over-valued. You can have these concerns even if they are not "moral" in the usual sense.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Panic Part 6 - The IPCC Summary for Policymakers

By Wayne Brown
Image
Love it or hate it, the discussion revolves around this report Bottom line: I accept the IPCC report as a kind of "hub" around which my view of climate issues must turn. It is important to understand what it is saying, along with its limitations. Legions of cherry pickers have descended on this report - many to raise alarm, many to rebut, many to blow smoke over it. It is not difficult for a reasonably intelligent person to read the report itself, especially to examine the baskets of cherries emerging from the forest. Generally speaking, I have found critics of the report to be highly misleading. To call the report "alarmist" is perhaps simply to admit that there is no shortage of worrying facts in the report. For example, the frequently cited concern of the "alarmists" - namely sea-level rise - is completely well documented. To me, the "let them drown" response at COP26 forms the basis of my assumption that the politicians of the world will not...
Read more

Dennis Hoffman and The Nature of Reality

By Wayne Brown
Image
Perplexity Massive data loss.... The great math mystery "Math works so well to describe reality because math is all there is." just 32 numbers and a bit of math Lex Fridman & Dennis Hoffman The Case Against Reality (In Kindle) This may be the wrong question: Does math work so well because it's how we perceive reality or is math a fundamental property of the Universe? Missing is the idea that consciousness itself is essential and that a mathematical description of consciousness could be "fundamental" - more "fundamental" than what we think of as "reality." "The elegance of math meets the messiness of reality" - but this is a clue to how we simplify reality for efficiency. 
Read more

A Challenge to the "Settled Science" Meme

By Wayne Brown
Image
I've read at least a dozen books on the climate issue in the last month. This is the best. Koonin is not just another "skeptic." His approach to the matter rises above "controversy" and depends on evidence. Yet, he acknowledges where the panic is coming from. A lecture by Koonin covers much of the key material and provides color versions of the slides, which are black and white in the book. Another interview, without the slides, is here . In reading IPCC reports, it's evident that the "summaries" don't "summarize" the actual science. The ultimate summary, the speech by the head of the IPCC , bristles with inaccuracies and has no message beyond panic. As a senior climate scientist, Koonin provides some startling stories of the "blow-back" he gets by simply asking for an independent review of IPCC conclusions. In fact, there was a brief attempt to cripple such a review by denying federal funds to any study that challenged t...
Read more