STWorgman versus Godwin’s Ghost
We’ve had some fraught discussions on this blog as to when, if ever, it’s justified to call extra-legal authoritarianism “fascism.” I don’t want to open that painful discussion again, except to make the trite observation that context is important, and an angry comment on your own blog made by a private individual is not held to the same standards of precision as a public tweet by an award-winning professor of psychology and widely cited expert on misinformation.
Professor Lewandowsky has been having a field day on Twitter. Forsaking his day job as a humble debunker of fake news, he has donned his superhero costume and is currently exercising his superhuman powers as @STWorg man. Here are some of his observations over the past 24 hours:
White trash has trashed democratic institutions, now people of color are fixing it again… The world owes them so much – where are the statues?
Sadly, the normal rules of civility and compromise do not apply when you are dealing with a mob of fascists. They can only be defeated, not placated. Even if they are called “Republicans.”
Never forget that the road to fascism is littered with the body of people who were told not to overreact. A coup cannot go unpunished or the next one is sure to follow.
“If we confront Hitler he’ll only get stronger” worked out really well. Oh, wait….
[In reply to a tweet about a “horrifying” t-shirt]
I guess it isn’t horrifying to those Republicans who think nothing of trying to overturn a free election but refuse to impeach a fascist who incited a coup against American democracy.
Antifa – U.S. Army, 1941-1945
The criminal trifecta: Fascism, climate denial and COVID denial, all nicely revealed on Twitter, for all to see: (with a link tohttps://www.desmogblog.com/2021/01/08/climate-deniers-morano-briggs-heartland-misinformation-trump-capitol)
So there. We’re part of a criminal trifecta. Not worrying about a degree or so of warming per century is right up there with provoking world war and genocide, says the expert witness to the Parliamentary Committee investigating fake news on social media.
That’s what comes of closing the universities. Tenured professors who used to be confined to their ivory towers are now roaming the streets in broad daylight. It’ll end badly.
[apologies for the irrelevant tweets which embedded themselves the moment I uttered the word “STWorg.”]
Climate Scepticism 
Every time I read something like this I appreciate my status as a non-social media user. I know that if I joined the ranks of the Twitterati, I would blow gaskets, send out my personalised hate messages and be, like Trump, consigned to the Great Void.
But every time I read something like this I also appreciate being updated.
LikeLike
Glad to see you are posting again, Geoff 🙂
Lew has always been the best example of the theories he proposes for everyone else. Didn’t know he’d swallowed Critical Race Theory though, a pretty decent measure that there is nothing left of the once social psychologist in him. Of course by tying climate denial into it all, this happens to highlight his own area of ‘expertise’; probably just a coincidence 0:
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well I love Twitter, even though I sometimes get a little irked over Jack Dorsey’s heavy handedness. I’m not very wordy so it’s a great forum for me.
The really great thing about Twitter is that you can go right up to the various professors, journalists and blowhards and ask direct pointed questions or post rebuttals that they can’t delete and they are there for the whole world to see. You may get muted or blocked and people may have to do a little extra clicking to see your tweets, but they are still there — and you can retweet them. If you get blocked, you can still use an incognito window to view the scaredy cat’s tweets. Of course you can’t directly respond to them, but you can respond to the tweets that do respond.
Twitter also has a great advanced search feature and it works in incognito mode:
https://twitter.com/search-advanced
LikeLike
Found this lovely tweet:
LikeLike
That series of tweets must be the most awesome example of psychological projection by a ‘professional psychologist’ I have ever come across.
Lew is a legend in his own lunchtime and a chicken breast, lemon and pepper mayonnaise, tomato, cucumber and lettuce malted bread triple sandwich in his own ideational conspiracist lunchbox.
LikeLiked by 3 people
My previous comment is in the context of debate where there’s usually not a huge mob.
LikeLike
Michael E. Mann. A credit to his profession, and a worthy recipient of the AGU Climate Communication Prize and the AAAS Public Engagement with Science award.
Perhaps Cliscep could award him a prize too, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the field.
LikeLiked by 1 person
MIKE DOMBROSKI (10 Jan 21 5.40 pm)
Thanks for explaining how Twitter works. I follow a few people and have never been able to understand who is replying to whom. I can see how it’s useful for the likes of Steve McIntyre, who corresponds with the half dozen other people in the world who understand the arcane ins and outs of the Democratic Party hack. He’s been recommending a book by David Blake called “Loaded for Guccifer 2.0.” which looks like the definitive account of this key event in the decline and fall of the American Empire. You can read more about it at this Greek site
https://alethonews.com/2021/01/05/the-russian-hacking-nato-psyop-has-finally-been-solved/
which acknowledges Steve’s input. It’s also the site that informed my recent article on Green Foreign Office Asset Emma Thinberg or whatever her name was.
It’s a small world, that of quirky informative websites, and to think that at the swipe of a billionaire’s finger it could all disappear…
I see Twitter has embedded itself in my post and is updating itself like a virus. I typed out each tweet by hand to avoid such a thing; isn’t the internet wonderful?
LikeLike
Has anyone looked at the desmogblog article linked by STWorgman which is the basis for his alignment of climate denial with fascism? His accusations against Marc Morano seem to be based entirely on tweets in which Morano quotes incendiary remarks by Thomas Jefferson. If it’s not too late to impeach Trump, why not include Jefferson too?
Here’s my problem with Twitter. It tells me thatSTWorgman said, @LindaSkitka
I think this was in reply to Skitka [Social-political-moral psychologist and distinguished professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago (she/her)] saying:
This conversation between two real social scientists reveals more than can be analysed in a twitter thread. For example, Missy Skitka, by her choice of pronouns, is asserting that she is a real woman. Isn’t that a bit overtly discriminatory? On the other hand, STWorgman (Professor Lew in civvies) by his heavily ironic use of caps in talking of “REAL MEN” suggests that he is not averse to being identified with the unreal sort. Also, his evident disdain for chaps who do manual work and chew tobacco suggests the attitude of an18th century French aristocrat just asking to be hanged from a lamp post, as is hinted at in the Ocasio-Cortez comment that he retweets.
I first noticed this vein of contempt for the lower orders – the deplorables – on the part of the educated classes the night of the Brexit vote, when the Guardian journalist running the live coverage (a certain Sparrow, I think) spent the night sneering at the victors (“the victory of the Last Night of the Proms of the Proms over Glastonbury” etc.) The hatred was palpable.
I can say all this here. What would happen if I said it on Twitter? Nothing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve just read an article, Psychopathy and the Origins of Totalitarianism, which goes a long way to explaining the (real) world, particularly Climate Change, Covid and even the state of the Democratic Party. I thing I now need the lie down for a bit to digest it.
But half way through the old saw came to mind:
T’whold world’s mad except me and thee, and the a bit queer sometimes.
LikeLike
https://newdiscourses.com/2020/12/psychopathy-origins-totalitarianism/
LikeLiked by 1 person