DCUM Weblog

Over the weekend, the Gaza war thread was again the most active thread, adding over 600 new posts. The second most active thread was also one that I've already covered, the thread about weird things that in-laws do. So, I'll start with what was actually the third most active thread over the weekend. That thread was titled, "A difficult truth to accept: Liberal democracy is not favored around the world" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster contributes a rather lengthy essay summarizing various musings he has had about opinions in other countries regarding politics. The main thrust of the post is that the ideas espoused by liberal democracy are not universally popular and that in many parts of the world, authoritarian ideas are supported. The responses in the thread go in many different directions, but one surprise for me is how many supporters of dictatorships there were. I guess one outgrowth of Trumpism is that authoritarianism is now popular among some Americans. This is a 14 page thread and instead of trying to summarize the responses, I'll just provide my own reaction to the original poster's thoughts. First, and most importantly, I think that it is important to separate the ideas and values espoused by liberal democracies, especially the United States, from the practices actually implemented abroad. More often than not, the US quickly discards its stated values when its perceived interests are at risk. There are any number of examples of the US assisting in or actively leading the overthrow of democracies because the winner of the election was not sufficiently pro-American. This hypocrisy does not go unnoticed and, as a result, our professed values ring very hollow in much of the world. In many countries, citizens are not presented with a choice between liberal democracy supported by the US or authoritarianism supported by Russia or China. Rather, their choices are pro-American authoritarians or pro-Russian or pro-Chinese authoritarianism. Free elections and democracy are supported by the US only to the extent that they produce pro-US politicians and policies. Moreover, "pro-US" is frequently, "pro multinational corporations". When faced with an economic landscape dominated by international corporations, the residents of many countries lose any enthusiasm they may have for capitalism. Just as in the case of American political values which are often seen as empty to foreign audiences based on the lack of application of those values internationally, claims about free enterprise and the benefits of capitalism are frequently betrayed by how capitalism is actually implemented abroad. That is often in the form of monopolistic foreign entities that dominate local businesses. To summarize, it is not that liberal democracy as we understand it is becoming less popular internationally, but that foreign populations are rejecting the hypocritical version of "liberal democracy" practiced abroad that generally lacks most of the values of true liberal democracy.

Thanksgiving is traditionally one of the slowest days on DCUM as users are travelling, spending time with family, or, like me, spending a great deal of time cooking. Since I took yesterday off from this blog, I'll review the most active threads of the last two days. Both days, as expected, had much less traffic than normal days. The Gaza war thread was back at the top of the most active list, but with barely more than 100 posts a day, the thread is a shadow of what it once was, previously receiving more than 900 posts a day. The second most active thread, the one about Covid lockdowns, was also one I've previously covered. The third most active thread, and the first one I will discuss today, is mostly a repeated topic even though the thread itself is new. Titled, "Come here if your in laws do weird crap at thanksgiving." and posted in the "Family Relationships" forum, the original poster claims that her father-in-law flosses his teeth at the table. Based on the original poster's example, I assume that this thread was meant to highlight strange idiosyncrasies, but it almost immediately turned into a general complaint thread, mostly about mothers-in-law. One of the first examples — a mother-in-law who attempted to divide a rotisserie chicken with her bare hands, was not considered by everyone to be strange behavior and caused a long-running argument between posters. Disagreement about whether the mother-in-law was wrong was still continuing 13 pages later. Another example, serving ham slices rolled around a dill pickle and cream cheese, was also not seen as weird by all posters and actually inspired several posters to try it. Frankly, most of these posts could have gone into the "petty vents" thread that I discussed earlier this week because none of them really amounted to much. Another example that was not universally received as being weird, but rather funny by most who responded, involved a long-delayed wedding gift. Apparently, the poster's sister-in-law went down in her basement and retrieved a wedding gift that had been meant for the poster's husband's first marriage 30 years ago. The poster, in her own words, "pitched a fit" and made her sister-in-law take it back. Several posters wanted to know what the gift was, a question that could not be answered since the gift was not opened. Moreover, it later turned out that this happened last Thanksgiving, not even this year. I didn't realize that serving Thanksgiving buffet style is the current trend (at least according to this thread), but a number of the "weird" behaviors involved how food was served for the holiday meal with mother-in-laws often being found out of sync.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "I think I win the Thanksgiving 2023 petty vents already" and posted in the "Family Relationships" forum. Complaints about family members around Thanksgiving are, of course, fairly common and threads about such issues are an annual DCUM tradition. Just as in the case of yesterday's bagel controversy thread, many of the complaints tend toward the petty end of the spectrum. The original poster of this thread owned the nature of her gripe which involved her in-laws arriving at her home 9 hours before the were expected. As the original poster acknowledges, it's not the worst thing that could have happened, but it was a nuisance. She and her husband were working at home during the day and, therefore, not available to entertain guests that early and had not finished their preparations. There was laundry still to be done and beds to be made. However, if the original poster thinks that this is going to be the most petty complaint over the holiday, she vastly underestimates DCUM. As this 16 page thread demonstrates, DCUMers can vent about a lot more petty things than this. The annual petty vent thread has a lot of fans. I guess it is sort of a guilty pleasure. Posters can enjoy other's misery but, since it's only petty, they don't really have to feel bad about it. Those who don't understand the concept and urge the venters to "get over it" are met with disdain. "Here for the petty, rolling my eyes at every poster who's told a venter to suck it up/she's the problem", wrote one poster. Because yesterday was a bit early for many posters to already have vents, petty or otherwise, some posters brought up things from previous years. One poster complained about her mother-in-law moving furniture around in order to search for dust bunnies. The poster recounted how she gave her mother-in-law the phone number for her cleaning service and asked her to lodge a complaint with them. Another poster's petty vent got quite a bit of attention. In this case the poster was the guest, visiting her brother and his wife. The poster says that she doesn't have high expectations for how she is treated, but it appears that her sister-in-law has taken the advice commonly offered on DCUM and made the poster her brother's responsibility. He, in turn, hasn't seemed capable of offering the poster a cup of tea, some cheese to eat, or even clean sheets or the bed. The initial post from this poster appeared to blame the lack of hospitality on her sister-in-law, causing a number of replies questioning why her brother was such a poor host and why the poster expected better treatment from her sister-in-law. This poster's story, buttressed by constant subsequent posts that did little to calm the storm, practically took over the thread and she was dubbed variously the "tea poster" or "cheese lady". She may well go down in the annals of DCUM folklore.

For only the second time since October 7, the Gaza war thread was not the most active. In fact, it slipped all the way down to fourth most active. This is really not a surprise as the thread has become unreadable and consisting of little more than an exchange of insults. The thread that was the most active was titled, "Hoping these kids are OK" and was posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum. The thread is about a tragic event that occurred yesterday morning at around 5 am. A SUV in which 7 teenagers were riding crashed into a tree, apparently at a high rate of speed, and spun several times before coming to rest across the street. Five of the occupants were ejected from the vehicle and one was trapped and needed to be extricated. Only the driver, who seems to have been the only one using a seatbelt, was able to walk away from the crash. The 17-year-old driver was initially charged with Driving Under the Influence, but was then released without charges. Charges remain pending and the investigation is continuing. The thread started out with posters simply trying to gather more details. Several posters, including the original poster, live near the scene of the crash and were very concerned about the condition of the kids. One topic posters wondered about was which school or schools the vehicle's occupants attend. That information began to trickle out as first one school, then another, and then a third, released statements. My understanding is that one of occupants attends McLean High School, one goes to Longfellow Middle School, and the rest are students at Marshal High School. Posters also focused on what might have lead to the accident. They found it odd — as do I — that teens would be out early on a school day morning and under the influence of drugs or alcohol. There was speculation that they might have stayed the night after a party or been up the entire night. Posters wondered why parents would allow their kids out over night. This launched a huge debate about the ability of parents to control headstrong teenagers who have been known to sneak out of their homes without their parent's knowledge. Some posters have apparently turned their houses into virtual prisons to ensure their kids are home at night. There is considerable discusion about whether poor parenting contributed to this tragedy with some posters more than willing to put full blame on the parents and others arguing that even the best parenting is sometimes not enough. In reaction to events such as this, there is often a rush to identify a factor that parents don't believe applies to them or their children in order to provide some assurance that this couldn't happen to them. This thread is full of such efforts. For instance the insistance of several posters that their kids would never be out at such hours without a legitimate need. But other posters are quick to remind them that you can't be smug when it comes to parenting.

As has been the case every day except one since October 7, the Gaza war thread was the most active with over 900 new posts since Friday. The most active thread after that was titled, "Stop asking student tour guides where they're applying to college". The thread, which was posted in the "Private & Independent Schools" forum, was started by a poster whose son conducts tours for prospective students at his high school. The original poster says that on almost every tour, he is asked to which colleges he is applying. The original poster considers this to be personal information and asks others to stop asking this question. I've noted before that DCUM can be very supportive to those that responders believe to be in legitimate need, but can be brutal to those whom users don't find sympathetic. The original poster appears to have fallen squarely into the second category. While there are posters that agree with the original poster, most of the responses reflect various levels of hostility. The first poster to respond called the original poster a "snowflake" and suggested that her son was not cut out for the job of tour guide. Other posters considered the question to be perfectly acceptable and suggested that her son should know how to politely deflect it. This thread managed to make it to 21 pages over the weekend which I think is surprising for such a mundane topic. The original poster sock puppeted a number of responses, but not really in a manner that would provoke conflict. Without having read all 21 pages, it appears that the main issue of debate is whether a question such as "where are you applying to college" is personal or not. A number of posters argued that private school students are more likely to consider this to be a personal question than public school students. Their reasoning is that the prestige of educational institutions is more important to private school students and parents. If this is true, and I don't know that it is, it may well be rooted in the commonly-held belief that one motivation for choosing private schools is to open doors for prestigious colleges. If a parent on a tour with a perspective student is mentally doing a cost-benefit analysis of the school and one benefit is thought to be enhanced college application prospects, it is understandable how this question might come naturally. At the same time, it is similarly understandable that a tour guide who knows the parent is hoping to hear "Harvard, Yale, and Princeton" may be reluctant to answer, "The University of Maryland, Rutgers, and Tufts". Some posters recognize that college opportunities are an important question to perspective students, but argue that the question should be asked generally. Instead of "where are you applying?", it should be asked as "Where do students normally apply?". Still others argue that where they apply is less interesting than where they actually end up attending and that information can be found elsewhere.

Again the Gaza war thread was the most active thread of the day yesterday. The most active thread after that one was somewhat related. Titled, "Capitol currently in lockdown" and posted in the "Metropolitan DC Local Politics" forum, the thread is about a lockdown of the US Capitol building that resulted from a demonstration at the Democratic National Committee headquarters. Both this thread and much of the media reporting of the story show how a distorted understanding of events can become widespread. Semafor reporter David Weigel was at the DNC when events occurred. He posted a considerable amount of video of what took place on X (formerly Twitter). In addition, other witnesses also made video available. Based on first-hand reports which are supported by video, what occurred was that a group of peaceful demonstrators consisting of members of mostly Jewish peace groups who support a ceasefire in Gaza blocked all or almost all doors of the DNC headquarters. This building is located about 3 blocks from the Capitol grounds and is not part of the Capitol complex. The protesters stood with their backs to the doors and locked arms in a human chain. They made no attempt to enter the building. Police tried to pull the protesters away, but this was made difficult due to their interlocked arms. Police appeared to get frustrated and angry and became more violent as time went on. In addition, at least one of the doors was at the top of a set of stairs. As police pulled protesters away from the door and shoved them down the steps, some protesters fell. The scene grew very chaotic as police struggling with protesters who were resisting being removed intermixed with one another with police doing a lot of pushing and shoving. Video and photographic evidence shows one police officer unleashing pepper spray at the protesters. None of the protesters were shown to be using pepper spray and none of the witnesses reported such a thing. Other than Weigel, I don't think any reporters from major media outlets were on the scene. They, therefore, had to rely on second-hand information and many led with an account by Congressman Brad Sherman that was extremely misleading. Sherman accused the protesters of being "pro-terrorist" and "pepper spraying police officers and attempting to break into the building." None of this is supported by either first-hand accounts or photographic evidence. In fact, as I have said, the opposite appears to be true. This sort of misleading report was circulated widely and became the basis of many people's understanding of the event. Right-leaning posters in this thread seized on the misleading account to compare the protest to the January 6 insurrection led by former President Donald Trump. Pro-Israel posters challenged the authenticity of the Jewish organizations behind the protest. But, soon enough the thread went completely off-topic in several different directions. At that point, I locked the thread.

The Gaza war thread continued as the most active thread yesterday with over 500 new posts. The most active thread after that one was titled, "Rob Reiner: a vote for No Labels, Bobby Kennedy, Cornel West or Jill Stein is a vote for Trump". The thread was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster linked to a tweet by actor and filmmaker Rob Reiner in which he made the claim in the thread's title, essentially that a vote for anyone other than President Joe Biden is a vote for former President Donald Trump. This, of course, is only true if you would have otherwise voted for Biden. As one poster pointed out, if you choose to vote for a third party rather than voting for Trump, your vote helps Biden. This is the dilemma of a two-party system. Third parties act as little more than spoilers. It is no surprise that right-wing billionaire Harlan Crow, who has famously lavished extravagant gifts on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has given a maximum donation to the presidential campaign of Cornel West. Crow obviously has no interest in West becoming president and probably doesn't agree with him on a single policy issue. However, Crow does have an interest in seeing West draw votes away from Biden. Many of those who agree with Reiner portrayed those who might vote for a third party as naive or childish. One pro-Biden poster referred such voters as "idiots" and "morons". I am not sure that such language is going to be helpful in attracting others to your viewpoint. It is true that some of the posters who rejected Reiner's stance appear to be motivated primarily by emotion, but that is probably true of voters across the political spectrum. One, non-emotional argument that I see in response to Reiner is that third-party voters are disaffected and that they wouldn't vote for Biden in any circumstances. As one poster put it, "If Cornel West dropped out, his voters would either vote for another hopeless 3rd party candidate, sit out the election, or vote for Trump—in that order." While I didn't notice it in this thread, one of the biggest groups of disaffected voters that I've noticed are those who sympathize with the Palestinians in Gaza. They tend to strongly oppose Biden due to his complete support for Israel in the Gaza conflict. Their criticism of Biden has often been countered with a reminder that Trump will likely impose a Muslim ban and also be pro-Israel. Nevertheless, many of those concerned about Gaza have signalled that it is the line in the sand for them. They are essentially single-issue voters and should be viewed no differently than single-issue voters on any other topic. Moreover, with increasing frequency, I've heard the argument that Trump may ban Muslims, but Biden is participating in killing them. They don't necessarily see Trump as the lesser evil. Ultimately, attempting to guilt, shame, or bully voters to your viewpoint is probably self-defeating. If such voters are important to you, then they should be treated as such.

Once again the Gaza war thread was the most active thread of the day yesterday. The continued interest in the war was further demonstrated by the fact that the next most active thread was directly related to the war. Titled, "Pro Israel demonstration in DC?" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum, the thread was originally started back on November 5th by a poster asking if a pro-Israel demonstration was being planned. Discussion meandered along as the demonstration was planned, discussing logistics and specific focuses of the event. Yesterday was the day that the demonstration was finally held and, as such, the thread added 24 pages of discussion, resulting in a thread that is currently 42 pages long. I won't have time to read the entire thread, or even all of the new pages, but since several posts in the thread were reported to me yesterday, I did get some exposure to the discusion. As the day started, most of those posting were concerned about possible violence provoked by pro-Palestinian counter-demonstrators. This emphasis reflects the mindset of the pro-Israel posters. They tend to see Palestinians and their supporters as inherently violent. Similarly, any support for Palestinians is portrayed as support for Hamas. As a result, much of the early discusion involved debate over whether there is significant support for Hamas, with many posters contending that there is not, and that those demonstrating against Israel's attacks on Gaza don't present a violent threat. Many of the pro-Israel posters argued that the demonstration would be aimed at opposing antisemitism, supporting Israel's right to exist and to self-defence, and to call for releasing the hostages. But, as the event proceeded, these messages were somewhat undermined. As noted in the thread, the Israeli Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, suggested that Gaza could not survive as an independent entity and that it would be a welcome development if the Palestinians were displaced to another country. One of the more prominent speakers at the event was Pastor John Hagee, a notorious antisemite. But, as the Forward magazine says, "support for Israel has long overridden or excused antisemitism within many Jewish circles" and, hence, Hagee was welcomed at the event. Those attending the demonstration routinely broke out into chants of "No Ceasefire" which distinguished them from pro-Palestinian protesters who generally call for a "Ceasefire Now", but did little to alleviate the claims by critics in the thread that the demonstration was in support of genocide. The anti-ceasefire chants may prove awkward as rumors circulated all day yesterday that a ceasefire will soon be announced as part of a hostage exchange. Less controversially, the event was attended by many leading politicians including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. However, the attendance of the top Congressional Democrats did little to quell claims in the thread that Democrats are anti-Israel.

The Gaza war thread continued as the most active yesterday. The most active thread after that one was titled, "Picky eaters and Thanksgiving (and holidays generally)" and posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. The original poster's six-year-old daughter is a very picky eater who doesn't like most of the traditional Thanksgiving dinner food items. Last year, the only thing the child would eat was dinner rolls. The original poster has come up with three possible strategies. The first is to serve her daughter a big breakfast and then not worry about what she eats or doesn't eat at dinner. The second is to prepare side dishes that her daughter will like and others might enjoy as well and the third was to prepare a special plate for her daughter with food that she will eat. This thread managed to reach 24 pages as of this morning. As such, I can't read all of it. But, the first few pages showed that there were posters supporting each of the three options, though the first idea of providing a big breakfast and then not worrying about what the girl ate seemed to have the most supporters. To reach this length, there would most likely have to be a fairly big argument in the thread and I expected that such a debate would be provoked by a poster arguing that the girl should be told that she is expected to sit at the table and can either eat what is served or starve. However, no such post arrived until the 4th page. But then that post didn't cause much of a dispute, though a much more milder post caused a momentary contretemps. It looks like things really started to fall apart later over the issue of boxed macaroni and cheese, which ironically was not one of the original poster's suggestions but was offered by someone else. Apparently, DCUM posters have very strong feelings about boxed mac and cheese. Especially at Thanksgiving. The fight that I was expecting to be provoked earlier eventually did get started when a poster stipulated that, "When you are a guest you eat what is served." This caused a backlash, but one poster in particular stood out for her strident opposition to this idea. This poster, who appears to have posted at least 22 times in the thread, generally provided responses along the lines of "Oh, stuff it, MeeMaw", "What a nasty, rigid old bat you are", and "No one is interested in you dull old people." DCUM is so fortunate to have users of this sort to contribute such substantive and helpful content.