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Jeet Heer Profile picture
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26 Oct, 4 tweets, 2 min read
1. Some in CIA want to go all out to punish Russia for using microwave weapons to harm US spies & diplomats causing Havana Syndrome. My suggestions: we find out first a) is it Russia? b) does weapon exist? c) does Havana Syndrome exist?
2. Given how conjectural "Havana Syndrome" caused by microwave weapon theory is, it's unnerving to see it being used to advocate hostile action against another country.
3. In some ways, threat inflation on Havana Syndrome is worse than WMD claims in run-up to Iraq war. After all, the non-existent weapons at least were things that we knew exist in some form in the world & CIA was pressured by Bush admin. Here it's conjectural weapon & from CIA
4. To get a primer on Havana Syndrome story, I sat down & talked with @nataliesurely, who has been doing stellar work tracking the story. jeetheer.substack.com/p/podcast-a-di…

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More from @HeerJeet

Jeet Heer Profile picture
24 Oct
1. This is a good thread on why the dream of an American Orban is a fantasy but the people who it is addressing won't be able to listen because it's premised on working within a democracy and they've given up on democracy.
2. The post-liberal right recognizes they can't win a majority but they also realize (as liberals like @nate_cohn refuse to do) that you can govern in USA as a minority. Lots of leeway to do that through electoral college, gerrymandering & courts. And lots of precedent.
3. As Willmoore Kendall used to say, the true American tradition isn't just the town hall but running someone out on a rail. So, the true American tradition isn't just individualism & democracy but also Jim Crow, courts & Senate thwarting popular majorities, etc.
Read 4 tweets
Jeet Heer Profile picture
22 Oct
1. As a whittled down reconciliation bill is in final negotiations, it's worth asking "what's the deal with Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema?" An urgent question not now but for the forseeable future since they'll set the limits on what Democrats can do.
2. Manchin is legible in way that Sinema isn't: he's just a plain old conservative Democrat, willing to horse trade to get pork in his state in exchange for other things he doesn't like. Since his vote is necessary he has leverage and is using it with frustrating ferocity
3. Sinema puzzles people more because she hasn't been upfront about demands and a lot of what she does makes sense politically (evidenced by her sinking poll numbers). Combined with her colorful background (Green Party) & attire, she's presented as a freak. That's a mistake
Read 6 tweets
Jeet Heer Profile picture
19 Oct
1. This gets at something very odd about how the Democrats see politics which came out in the debate over Shorism & popularism -- as a service industry where the job is to get as many customers as possible but provide them with the bare minimum to keep their patronage.
2. I mean, what exactly is the point of getting involved in politics? If it's to advance some exercise power to achieve actual goals but just to win elections without changing much, then why not go into some other, more rewarding line of work?
3. One reason I'm predisposed to like Shor does open the path for turning bad service politics into the direction where it has to actual deliver the goods: not just talk about what's popular but do it ("deliverism" as @ddayen says).
Read 5 tweets
Jeet Heer Profile picture
18 Oct
1. Oh, like you've never forged a divorce certificate in order to sleep with an underling in a workplace that's wildly tolerant of sexual harassment. Or: some thoughts on Axel Springer emerging as a force in America media.
2. Ben Smith's typically excellent column yesterday on Axel Springer focused on the toxic workplace culture and only made glancing reference to the company's culture of ideological conformity, which is also inimical to good journalism.
3. There's an ideological framework of centrist liberalism (articulate by Jonathan Chait or the Atlantic) which is attuned to free speech threats from the extreme right & extreme left but is blind to the problem of extreme centrists (Axel Springer being center right in USA).
Read 5 tweets
Jeet Heer Profile picture
15 Oct
1. This terrific in-depth @LV_Anderson profile of Dan Savage, highlighting both how he's changed the conversation about sex & has himself changed from reader pushback, offers a way out of much of the culture war gridlock. slate.com/human-interest…
2. The thing with the "culture war" as metaphor is it implies fixed and unchanging sides, like troops facing each other in the trenches of World War I in long combat. but in actual cultural strife, people are mobile & change.
3. Dan Savage is an interesting figure because in his column he's been both an educator & has himself been schooled, sometimes harshly, by readers (particularly bi, trans & Black readers).
Read 5 tweets
Jeet Heer Profile picture
15 Oct
1. some context for this: In 1991, the 22-year old Tucker Carlson described himself in his college yearbook as a member of the Dan White Society. White was the homophobe who in 1978 assassinated San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk.
2. More context for Carlson's homophobia: this story Carlson told (and later walked back) in 2008. Image
3. Carlson's family background definitely part of the homophobia story.
Read 4 tweets

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