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Ask HN: Why was it hard to criticize Freedom Fries hysteria while it lasted?

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Re: Ask HN: Why was it hard to criticize Freedom Fries hysteria while it lasted?

#71

Post by xyzzy21 »

Imnimo wrote: post #54

During WW1, there was apparently some amount of effort to rename sauerkraut "liberty cabbage" to avoid the German association. My understanding is that this was at least in part driven by a worry from cabbage producers that the public would have a negative reaction to a German-named product. Thus, it may be that in some cases, the causality is reversed - it's not that products are renamed to stoke anti-X sentiment, b…

Indeed. WW1 was the cusp in the decline of German as #2 language in the USA. All the "Spanish bilingualism" you see now: that used to be German before WW1.

The same kind of witch-trial fanaticism made being German or speaking German or having any German cultural traits or celebrations completely verboten as cultural norms.

WW1 also saw the Sedition Act being used against anti-war protesters and conscientious objectors. It's all too familiar comparing that to 911 and now the Ukraine. Same thing. Same lack of rationality. Same overblown propaganda whipping up fanaticism. This when you see the WORST in peoples' behavior!

Re: Ask HN: Why was it hard to criticize Freedom Fries hysteria while it lasted?

#72

Post by adhesive_wombat »

mcphage wrote: post #67
adhesive_wombat wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leave even said it first: > In a 52-48 referendum this would be unfinished business by a long way. --Nigel Farage [1] [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-3630668...

And "unfinished business" seems like a good description for it. It's close, so some investigation needs to be done—what do people want, why do they want it, what can we get—but smashing head first into a brick wall doesn't seem the best next step.

It's not even that Remainers were universally happy with the EU in all aspects. No one thought it perfect.

If it had gone 48-52 the other way, it wouldn't have been a remit for adoption of the Euro, entry into Schengen and full integration into an EU military.

Re: Ask HN: Why was it hard to criticize Freedom Fries hysteria while it lasted?

#73

Post by high_pathetic »

AmericanOP wrote: post #68

People with a slavish devotion to counterintuitive explanations are just as predictable and pathetic as your so-called synthetic flock. Russia started a brutal war of aggression. People want to protest any way they can. Its not complicated.

It actually is. But, of course, it's much more comforting to paint everything black and white, choose a side and get a full rage mode on. It's hard to sit with a magnifying glass and be objective and emotions-free. That's not how most humans work.

Re: Ask HN: Why was it hard to criticize Freedom Fries hysteria while it lasted?

#74

Post by dole »

jeanluc_discard wrote: post #45
acadapter wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course - this post is not about the renaming of French Fries, but about the political bandwagons behind things like these

What's strange to me is the intensity of it all. It's like the entire media industry is willing to die on this hill. They're losing all credibility, inch by inch, day by day, and they won't get that back. They're killing their industry with each passing day and instead of backing off, they're doubling down. Why?

Fear and atrocity draw eyeballs and sell ad revenue. Credibility be damned; history is written by the winners and it seems everyone's attention spans get shorter and shorter.

Re: Ask HN: Why was it hard to criticize Freedom Fries hysteria while it lasted?

#75

Post by puffoflogic »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #66
mytailorisrich wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what you are trying to do... You acknowledge that some people took it seriously, that's all there is to it: it was not a joke. End of. I don't understand you arguing about me writing "cheese-eating surrender monkey", either. My point was obviously that some commentators pretty much thought that seriously when criticizing France. Edit: "some people", "some commentators", I have not generalized in an…

If you read what I wrote, I was careful to mention the intention of the source (the Simpsons) vs. the culture that they were basing the parody on. In the Simpsons case, it was definitely meant as a joke against people in rural Texas as opposed to the French. Using a phrase from the Simpsons as evidence is like citing an article from The Onion. Of course, they are based on real aspects of American society (or parts of…

You are basing your arguments on a very faulty assumption, namely, that the average HN commenter understands that there is a difference between parody of the culture of half of the US, and the actual culture of half of the US.

Re: Ask HN: Why was it hard to criticize Freedom Fries hysteria while it lasted?

#76

Post by jgwil2 »

Imnimo wrote: post #54

During WW1, there was apparently some amount of effort to rename sauerkraut "liberty cabbage" to avoid the German association. My understanding is that this was at least in part driven by a worry from cabbage producers that the public would have a negative reaction to a German-named product. Thus, it may be that in some cases, the causality is reversed - it's not that products are renamed to stoke anti-X sentiment, b…

> it's not that products are renamed to stoke anti-X sentiment, but rather that anti-X sentiment makes it necessary to rename products.

It may not even be that there is a demonstrable of anti-X sentiment on product sales; the fear of it could be enough.

Re: Ask HN: Why was it hard to criticize Freedom Fries hysteria while it lasted?

#80

Post by AmericanOP »

jeanluc_discard wrote: post #39

> Recently ... in PR, media, and other popularity-based professions, there seems to be a very different arrangement of perspectives and emotions It was never this bad. The "Freedom Fries" thing was a small subset and not taken seriously. What's going on now, however, is frightening. It's terrifying. Years ago, when the US invaded Iraq under the pretense that they had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and they were an…

https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/02/24/us-biolabs-ukraine-ru...
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