The Biden administration’s favorite centrist pundit produces smug pseudo-analysis that cannot be considered serious thought. He ought to be permanently disregarded.

You can see how, before we even get to the arguments, just the attitude on display here is likely to provoke irritation, because it is condescending and smug. When Yglesias writes of the “socialist niece who posts obsessively about Genocide Joe,” he is not taking seriously the possibility that this woman could be correct: that she has been persuaded by the International Court of Justice filings showing evidence that Israel is engaged in genocide and posts “obsessively” because she sees genocide as morally urgent. Instead, there is an implication that this person is somehow mentally unwell. Indeed, Yglesias’s reaction to seeing a poem about the Gaza genocide is that it shows the “increasingly porous boundaries between mental illness and leftwing politics.” Setting aside the question of whether Yglesias is persuaded by the ICJ case against Israel, this is the attitude of an asshole.

We should show the same level of respect for the opinions of Matt Yglesias and his ilk that he shows for the “socialist niece who posts obsessively about Genocide Joe,” that is to say, none at all.

chefs-kiss

  • InevitableSwing [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    27·
    23 days ago

    In 2013 - there was a horrible and preventable distaste in Bangladesh in a sweatshop.

    Rana Plaza collapse

    The Rana Plaza collapse (also referred to as the Savar building collapse or the collapse of Rana Plaza) occurred on 24 April 2013, when the eight-storey “Rana Plaza” commercial building collapsed due to a structural failure. The rescue team’s search ended on 13 May 2013, with a confirmed death toll of 1,134. Approximately 2,500 injured people were rescued from the building.

    It is considered as one of the deadliest structural failures in modern human history, as well as the deadliest garment-factory disaster in history, and the deadliest industrial accident in the history of Bangladesh. Amnesty International called this “The most shocking recent example of business-related human rights abuse.”

    Matty then wrote a defense of sweatshops as long as they weren’t in the US. He quoted a source that said 87 people died. Big brain that he is - he didn’t think that might be the tip of the iceberg.

    Different Places Have Different Safety Rules and That’s OK

    April 24, 2013

    Then when the scope of the horror was developing - Matty followed up with a very hostile non-apology apology.

    Some further thoughts on Bangladesh.

    April 26, 2013

    It seems like the entire Internet has registered its objections to this piece I wrote on the Bangladesh factory disaster. And I have to say that my overwhelming personal response, as a writer and as a human being, is to be annoyed by the responses that I’m getting.