Right-wing propaganda claims that increasing rates of violent crime result from local policy changes, which in many cases did not really happen.

On the issue of cancelling books to express disapproval of their authors.

I am terrified by the reported contempt of publishing staff under 40 for freedom to disagree with them. If they succeed in excluding from publication all disagreement with their ideology -- regardless of what the ideology eventually comes to be -- the result is likely to be tyranny.

On the issue of whether two sides in a dispute are "morally equivalent," or even in the same region of morality.

False equivalence is a kind of fallacy that can be used to argue for various conclusions. Often that fallacy is used to defend unjust power; the article presents examples. The article also presents examples of false or misleading accusations of use the fallacy.

Was it better to be in Eastern Europe under the Soviet Empire than in Central America under US dominion? I think that depends on where and when. Stalin's rule also included massive arbitrary imprisonment and execution, sometimes almost at random, but he died in 1953 and after him the repression was less wild and brutal (but it was still repression).

I have a feeling that the term "genocide" is being stretched when applied to the repression in Guatemala. It was a crime against humanity, for sure; but genocide is something different. In order to be genocide, the killings would have to have been intended as a step towards _eliminating_ the Maya of Guatemala. Was that the army's intent? I don't know for ceertain, but the basis presented here seems insufficient to show that.

*Amnesty: ‘catalogue of violations’ by Israeli police against Palestinians.*

Big Pharma corrupts the UK Parliament via hiden funding to various parliamentary "all-party" groups.

They don't have official status; nonetheless, funding one gives support to its members, and can therefore corrupt them.