Now, I'm not going to post @asatarbair's links, because the point, I suspect, of all this hooey is to bait people into debating him so others will see those links.
If they are as turgid as the 1960-ish Soviet level of his tweets, you are not missing anything. /1
@asatarbair My advice, however, to Dr. Bair, as a colleague, is that creating a stir on Twitter - and, ahem, I have created many - is not a substitute for basic competence in the scholarly field he has chosen to argue. /2
@asatarbair There's nothing wrong with pissing people off about music, food, and which James Bond was the best.
But teachers have a responsibility to know at least *something* about a scholarly matter before weighing in on it.
This is where Dr. Bair has gone very wrong. /3
All of us occasionally wander out of our subjects and there's nothing wrong with having strong opinions on politics. I am proof of that. If Dr. Bair prefers Stalinism to other systems, that is his right and he is free, as we all are, to express himself on it. /4
But long disquisitions on why Stalin was pretty good and why the Uighurs aren't really being genocided from someone who has no evident background in either matter - none, that I can see - is questionable intellectual rigor, at best. /5
I will now leave Dr. Bair to his rather obvious attempts to build an audience by issuing hot takes on Stalinism (and Chinese policy).
We all have views - and many of mine on many things do indeed suck - but on some subjects, actual expertise really should precede the takes. /6x

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More from @RadioFreeTom

30 Jun
So, it's been a long time since I dealt with Guard issues (which I did briefly many years ago), but what I think happened is that Noem is not funding this privately. This is Boob Bait for Bubba. I'll speculate here.
/1
How this works - I think - is that Noem is just responding to the request from TX. The State of SD says "this deployment will cost X dollars."
Some wealthy jackass says "oh, btw, I would like to contribute X dollars to the State of SD, no strings attached." /2
So Noem says "Well, lucky coincidence, but I woulda done it anyway - but isn't it nice that Rich Jackass is donating exactly that much to the state!"
It's all legally clean - no quid pro quo - but it's still a contrary to the notion of civil political control. /3
Read 5 tweets
27 Jun
Okay, so a short thread on terrorism.
Basic idea is: Scaring civilians into demanding changes in government policy. But that's not enough.
For example, has to be non-state actors. If a *state* attacks civilians, we have a term for that: "War," or sometimes, "war crimes." /1
Also, the attacks have to be indiscriminate. They have to be aimed at *terrorizing*, in the sense that ordinary people fear for their lives. Attacking a military vessel overseas isn't even in the ballpark of "terrorism." Military people are armed and accept that risk. /2
All political violence is not terrorism. An anti-Vietnam riot outside the Pentagon is not "terror," in the way that the Weathermen planting a bomb in a post office was. One of them is violent protest; the other makes you afraid to mail a letter. /3
Read 10 tweets
23 Jun
Unrelated to anything: I finished listening to the unabridged version of "A Clockwork Orange," with the final chapter that U.S. editors cut from the original issue. Burgess was pissed, but having heard it now, I'm going to say: The editors were right. *no spoilers* /1
Burgess apparently felt that the U.S. ending - the version you see in the film - was incomplete and thus made the book a parable rather than a real novel. Far be it from me to disagree with a genius, but it seemed like a raggedy, tacked-on final chapter. /2
The U.S. editors felt the UK ending wouldn't fly with American audiences, and at least for me, it didn't. I can't see it really landing with anyone, but it seems anti-climactic. /3
Read 5 tweets
4 Jun
@dcherring I have Republican friends, too. It's easy to be sociable but as I said to a friend who quoted Hannity to me: You can believe me, or you can believe Hannity. But not both. And it's okay not to talk about it after that and move on to other stuff. /1
@dcherring In other cases - like with a longtime friend who has become an OAN zombie - I just said: "You're wrong. You're being lied to." (I broke off the friendship when I was getting swarmed on FB with threats and he basically said: Well, you know, you caused this.) /2
@dcherring I guess my point is: I don't treat their views as sacred. They wanna talk politics with me, they get what they get. When it gets crazy or I think they've crossed a line, I walk, but up till then, I tell them what I think if they ask me - and I don't care if they like it. /3
Read 4 tweets
29 May
So, to amplify on a point in my @TheAtlantic piece today. There are a lot of objections to my argument that whether you loved or hated what conservatives were back 40 years ago, they believed in certain things and reflected that in policy. /1
theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
I think this howling about the eternal evil of conservatives is dumb, and worse, it's myopic and misses the point about the danger of the GOP as it stands today. Conservatives are not extinct - nor will they ever be. But that's not what Trumpers are and that's not the point. /2
People keep raising comments by @SykesCharlie or @stuartpstevens to say "see, it was all just lying nonsense," but having read both their books, I think people misunderstand something they (and I) are saying, and miss something important about conservatism back in the day. /3
Read 10 tweets
26 May
I'm tired of Tom Cotton getting away with the motte-and-bailey maneuver he pulled.
People citing his Fox interview are ignoring Bartiromo, who said "bioweapon," and then Cotton carefully said "well, no one knows."
This was a "you think might that, I couldn't comment" moment. /1
Then, Cotton went on Twitter to list "possibilities," including a bioweapon. He put it out there, let others run with it, then said "well, it's not *likely*" - because Cotton knows exactly how the Fox and right-wing info swamp works. /2
This is a recurring tactic on the right. Imply it, let the echo chamber run with it, then deny it, then say you were right all along. Because the goal, as always, is to plant the idea in the heads of stupid people who will not bother with later nuance or explanations. /3
Read 5 tweets

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