Dispatches From the Culture Wars – July 18, 2023
- Science Activism is Surging
- Education and Climate in MAGAland
- Dutch Ban on Hoarding Housing
- The Witch Hunt Resumes
- Hard Times for Public Ed
- Iowa Women Throw Down for Abortion Rights
- LGBTQ Phobia and Moral Panic
- Re-Shaping Wildfire Policy
- Georgia Gremlins Who Almost Rigged the 2020 Vote
- Losing Your Mind? Fair Enough
By Scott Frickel and Fernando Tormos-Aponte
The Conversation
Scientists today are speaking out on a variety of political and social issues related to their own research fields and in solidarity with other social movements. The election of Donald Trump in 2016 triggered a wave of political mobilization not seen in the United States since the Vietnam War era.
Education and Climate in MAGAland
By Stan Cox
City Lights
In June, 16 young, environmentally conscious plaintiffs asked a Montana judge to strike down a law that bars state agencies from taking greenhouse-gas emissions into account when considering whether to issue permits for fossil fuel–related projects. Unfortunately, surging attempts to MAGAfy red-state education systems could stymie young activists trying to challenge the fossil-fuel juggernaut.
By Mark Gloom
CBC News
Netherlands Housing Minister Hugo de Jonge proposed a law that would have allowed municipalities to force homeowners, whose homes were worth up to €355,000 to put their property on the market only to low and middle-income earners. Local governments could refuse to grant residency permits to wealthy potential buyers and keep them out of the market for homes up to that value.
Montana’s State Library Commission has exited the American Library Association over the sexuality and leftist politics of the association president, bringing together a toxic stew of hysterical homophobia and classic red-baiting to attack public libraries.
Hard Times for Public Ed
- House GOP Out for Blood By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams
- The Road to the Chopping Block By Nora De La Cour, Jacobin
- NEA President Speaks By Becky Pringle, The 19th
Iowa Women Throw Down for Abortion Rights
By Tori Otten
The New Republic
Hundreds of people gathered last Tuesday at the Iowa state Capitol to protest a bill that would ban abortion after six weeks, targeting people before they even know they are pregnant. The bill passed by partisan vote and was signed into law on Friday.
By Erin Aubry Kaplan
HuffPost
The swiftly escalating campaign against LGBTQ people, notably trans people, feels like racism in that a whole group of people is being openly degraded simply for being who they are. For those who are both Black and LGBTQ, this is hardly a new crisis. But for white LGBTQ people, it must come as an unpleasant shock.
The FireGeneration Collaborative (FireGen, for short) advocates for centering Indigenous knowledge and bringing more young people into the wildfire space. That includes diversifying the workforce that responds to wildfires.
Georgia Gremlins Who Almost Rigged the 2020 Vote
A vast majority of the voter challenges since Georgia SB 202 became law — about 89,000 of 100,000 — were submitted by just six right-wing activists. Another 12 people accounted for most of the rest.
By Charlie Hertzog Young
Novara Media
Those whose psyches buckle upon contact with the reality of climate change are the ones deemed mad. This pathologising is a defence mechanism employed by the civilised to subjugate those whose minds stray from accepted norms. But blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light.