Rest in Power, Sheila Jackson Lee

 

The time is now to unite behind the President and get to work beating Donald Trump — one last time. https://t.co/d84qoX5n5h

— Sheila Jackson Lee (@SJacksonLee) July 19, 2024

What an admirable career of fighting for others! In that spirit, let's get right, unite, and fight.

Climate Sunday: Bless Texas

This man is a preacher checking for people inside cars at 610 & 288 PC Brian Roberson Jr @KPRC2 #Harvey pic.twitter.com/NJx58ZN8N8

— Sara Donchey (@KPRC2Sara) August 27, 2017

There is an amazing grace people can show in a time of overwhelming tragedy, and while a part of me does feel a need to point out that this possibly 500-year flood can't be separated from the specter of climate change, and that city-planning in future needs to be wiser overall, it's the heroes I want to point out--people who are helping one another.

An unbelievable but honest photo of nursing home residents waiting to get rescued in Houston. 😢 pic.twitter.com/XtOXdjE7dZ

— Citizen Servant 🔆 (@citizenservant) August 27, 2017

I meme

I just wanted to get this image onto the interwebz.

Which Side are You on? (Trump?)

I could spend time breaking down President Trump's bizarre press nightmare, but I don't really fucking care what he said today. He was saying it all along, but some people just weren't paying attention. Hillary Clinton gave an entire speech about Trump and the so-called "alt-right" almost a year ago, and I thought the case she made was solid and apparent--my bad. It turns out, someone like Donald Trump can be a lifelong racist surrounding himself with other racists, and people will actually pretend they don't notice. That shocked me more than it should have, I will admit.

But then again, I am a funny old thing--I believe Americans should kill fascists. 

Look at the header of my blog--"This blog kills fascists. Eventually. It's a process I'm working on. Be patient with me." That header is a call-back to Woody Guthrie, who just forthrightly put "This machine kills fascists" on his guitar. My blogging isn't up to Woody Guthrie's songwriting, but I aspirationally hope I'm doing my bit. I'm not going to kick fascist ass all at once, but I will attempt it. Like I thought it was my job. 

And what do you know--Guthrie had his dealings and complaints about Old Man Trump (Donald's daddy).  Donald Trump started the hell off in this life Team Racist and fascist-associated. (No really, I'm not linking The Nation and I don't want to say Roy Cohn was such a fascist, but am I pretending Roy Cohn was not a fascist? Go--read Politico. McCarthyism is fascism. It doesn't matter that Cohn was a gay Jew. Demonizing and destroying and doubling-down and publically lying about everything? Shit's fascist. )

This blog is rooted in the mid-20th century ideas that Keynes rocked, that civil rights for all were a positive good, and that we all are supposed to stand against fascists. It's what the good people do. It's what Churchill and FDR did. (Stalin--I don't know him.)

It's what heroes are supposed to do. 

In the United States of America, where I thought I was living, Nazis are stupid and bad at best and are history's worst monsters because of course they are.  I mean, who demonizes and singles out ethnic minorities and gay and trans people and religious minorities  and disabled people and tries to codify into law ways to make the oppression of these people permanent? 

Oh, right. Trump. Because he is what he is. (And let's not actually "go there" and pretend his honesty is refreshing-it's shit. I don't expect people to eat shit and smile. You like this? You like eating shit, and there's something fundamentally wrong with you.) 

We are supposed to see Dictators as bad and even clowns in this society.

Hitler and those who are Hitler-adjacent are supposed to be targets of our scorn, not our admiration. People waving Swastika flags are not okay--ever.  You should expect better. The people who would easily accept standing right by them--are not okay either. And this Confederate thing--kind of fascist, also too, with the added problem of being treason against the US in the defense of bondage-slavery, because read the actual articles of secession of the states in question. Yes, it was always about slavery, not states' rights. Because it was about states' having the right to endorse slavery. Because the South was like, "Screw it" with respects to Northern States' feels about the Fugitive Slave Acts, which made catching free human (black) bodies and delivering them back into a pernicious bondage incumbent upon people who didn't want any part of it. Which was obviously fuckery. Northern states had to comply with making black people slaves, and the South at first simply didn't give a shit if the Federal law was about determining what states were free--but then when GOP President Lincoln happened, they had a total freak-out and got scared he'd take away their bondage humans. 

Wow. Fucking snowflakes. Makes you wonder why the Party of Lincoln is being all about Confederate statues now, doesn't it?

There's More to Life than Politics, I Guess

For just a moment, I want to touch on what a really great time it is for sf/fantasy in my book. I mean, I think Wonder Woman was one of the best blockbuster movies this year, and am completely happy about the potential of the coming sequel and pretty jazzed about the Justice League trailer. I'm going to preface this with a brief disquisition that will probably make your eyes glaze over if you come here strictly for the politics stuff and maybe even if, like me, you are a geek. 

I liked Batman Vs. Superman. There, I said it. Furthermore, I think Affleck as Batman is actually, among other things, what an Affleck might even be good for. He physically is Bruce Wayne/Batman-sized. He somehow inhabits Bats' obsessions and trauma vs. privileged intersections. I think the Christ-symbolism with Cavill's Superman was kind of heavy, but the addition of Wonder Woman, and the later good, solid, origin-story Wonder Woman tale, and the way both establish that meta-humans are now part of reality, were not bad--just possibly waiting for something like JL to break out the way Marvel's Avengers did. (I like Justice League just because--they were my playground pantheon.)

Speaking of Avengers--I've got a lot of love for Thor: Ragnarok. So, how would we make a Thor movie good for me--okay, be a Thor Movie, have Loki and maybe another character like the Hulk. Greeeeeaaaat. How would I make that better ? Okay, Cate Blanchet is the baddie and there's Jeff Goldblum.  And now I'm so...take my money!

Also excited for Black Panther! (Okay, what the Marvel films are doing is basically creating a thing where I just need to give them my money. How they have not realized that a Black Widow movie is the best way to make feminists give up the ducats is not a thing I totally understand, but I get that they are having a major creative arc--this is how they made me buy all the comic books in the 90's. I both still feel like the biggest mark and enjoy the sheer world-building escapism. But going with Black Panther's world is also a challenge they want to live up to. )

Wonder Woman Hit the Right Spot

(Disclaimer--does contain spoilers.)

I'm going to put my hand up and admit to the ugly theater-cry phenomenon of just having a superhero movie that does origin without forgetting to also be about something, that shows a woman as hero where her gender isn't treated like an oddity, where bravery can be about protecting and caring and wanting to do the right thing, and strength is shown as being just as much about what is going on inside of a person, as what they can physically do.

Diana of Themyscira comes from a place and time outside of the 20th century larger world in which she will have her adventure. She is from a world where female excellence is actually the only kind she knows of. And all Amazons strive for it. Her world is disrupted by the outside world at first, when American spy Steve Trevor crashes into the beautiful water of her island home, and she rescues him, seeing for the first time an actual male bodied person. She then is introduced to the world from which he came in the form of the enemy army that followed him through the rift and, despite not even knowing where they are, respond to the Amazons with violence, killing several, including Diana's aunt, Antiope, who also trained her in martial skills.

There is something compelling about the idea of a feminist paradise where the world crashes in and needs to be dealt with. We are treated to the image of feminine strength and grace, a system that seems to be monarchic but at least somewhat democratic (there is an Amazon referred to as being a senator) and a justice system backed up with a truth-compelling lasso (which seems a little like a torture device, but it's magic, so I'm gonna buy-in that truth-compelling, even if my little US Constitutional heart says "But you can't even plead the Fifth!" is somehow working for them--maybe their society has the sense to ask contextual questions to determine if laws are broken for the right reason? )

Tragedy, then Farce

It seems like it was only a couple months ago (it was only a couple of months ago) that I was lamenting the current GOP field and strongly suggesting that Mitt Romney had certain qualities that not any of the current challengers could even fake, up to and including the ability to fake it.

It took them two months to catch up with me, but some of the good conservative show-runners are thinking of knee-walking to Mitt and seeing if the dream is still alive.

What do you think they'll get?

This city is afraid of me...I have seen its true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout "Save us!"... and I'll look down and whisper "No." They had a choice, all of them. They could have followed in the footsteps of good men like my father or President Truman. Decent men who believed in a day's work for a day's pay. Instead they followed the droppings of lechers and communists and didn't realize that the trail led over a precipice until it was too late. Don't tell me they didn't have a choice. Now the whole world stands on the brink, staring down into bloody Hell, all those liberals and intellectuals and smooth-talkers... and all of a sudden nobody can think of anything to say.

Or he'd be like "If I have to, but you have to hold your fucking end up, peasants." And we'd be having something like an election I even recognize.

Australian PM Julia Gillard calls out the Oppostion's Misogyny

It's a shame I didn't get to this sooner, but it's a fierce, well-spoken, detailed and particular call-out regarding   the bullshit she and other women have put up with from the sort of jackass who needs to drag gender up and throw shade at women for being in politics whilst female, amongst other grievance.

She's not perfect, nor necessarily a feminist role model, and she falls short in my book for not supporting marriage equality (but perhaps there's room for evolution?)--but I don't follow Australian politics closely enough to say anything other than I really do admire this dressing-down, and Tony Abbot is truly only smiling on the outside as the recipient of the brunt of it.

RIP, Sally Ride, 1st US Woman Astronaut

I remember when Sally Ride was in the news for being the first US woman in space--I was happy for her, but thought it weird that NASA wasn't already sending women up into space all the time. All things considered, given her commitment to science education, especially for women, I suspect she felt the same way. She was a pioneer and an inspiration.

I've read a bit about her kind of "obituary outing".  In that she was a pioneer in science, in the courage to be a part of the NASA space program, in being a fine educator, I don't know that it was necessary to be an activist--she wasn't "not-out" but it wasn't a public issue for her.  But I think it does bear noting that despite being an American hero, her relationship with her partner, despite 27 years of devotion, isn't considered the equal of any similar, sanctioned, straight marriage.  This strikes me as a singular travesty of our still-bigoted system under DOMA. In what way is her partner not widowed by her passing? How is the loss not the same?

That certainly isn't right. Her example still has something to teach us--as it once did about gender equality, about marriage equality, now.

Dorli Rainey--in her own words:

She was pepper-sprayed for being in the right place at the right time. That's as good a reason as any to question authority.

The kids at Gunn HS are all right.

These are awesome cool young people, and their response to hate is right-on. Check out the video. I really think this is the unintendended best consequence of the WBC--they wanted to spread the word of religious hate--but they actually create unity because of the people who find themselves against them and who unite in love and banish fear, and basically mock them by being better people in response to them.

I think pride parades and love-ins should follow Westboro Baptists wherever they go. Maybe they'll someday learn from that. I'm kind of a romantic--I hold out hope that anyone can find the humanist inside of them. Learn how to love and forget how to hate, as the Ozzy song puts it.