Feels Soft and Squishy

 

This is just a quick observation, but there's some overlap between the people who insist on men being manly men and mewling babies who are a-scareded of WWIII with Russia. Charlie Kirk isn't talking to Russian people in the above screencap (do they care who he is?) or even to Putin--he's telling his followers that what Russia is doing (invading Ukraine, threatening to go further, sabotage against European energy/communication infrastructure) is not their problem. People who want to do anything about that are the problem.

The question isn't "Do American people want war with Russia?" Of course not. The question is "Did the Cold War actually end?' and maybe not. The next question is, "What is Russia actually doing to us?"

Well, a campaign of disinformation, election interference, paying western-based influencers to spread RU propaganda, weakening our long-established ties with our allies...and the actual heroes in Europe--the people physically defending their own homeland with bravery and ingenuity, are somehow being treated as if they are "prolonging a war" by not rolling over for a genocide.

We had a great generation in this country that despised the idea of a genocide in Europe, who appreciated the fight for freedom and democracy. On the right, I see genocide-deniers and people who want to see we are not even a democracy.  I don't care for propagandists who have no moral convictions to even bother having the courage of, except possibly for culture war (a distraction, and a dangerous one that divides our country and weakens it). 

This sort of thing feels very weak and squishy to me 

The Muckrakers and the "Penitent"

 

There is a rumor about one of our GOP congresspeople that I want to obliquely address because it is not well-founded and the timeline doesn't necessarily make a lot of sense. The person in question is not someone I am a fan of, in fact, I think she is a clown who cheapens the political discourse and has no real interest in government policy as much as signifying and showing herself. 

I will not ever call out someone for fucking for money, because if you know what it is to need the money, you get it. And I also don't think anyone's abortion is immoral. If you ever did sex work or terminated a pregnancy for reasons--those are your reasons, and I don't come at someone for that. But if you ever have been there, a sex worker, or having had emergency reproductive care, you don't get to judge other people about what they have done for their lives. Good for me and not for thee isn't morality, it's just selfish and judgmental. She has done other things.  

Scoundreltown

There is a saying to the effect that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, and I guess it looks a little bit to me like some folks want to set up a flag-draped resort community and throw stones from their little red white and blue glass bungalows. Of course, it's the Squad, alleged Ayatollah sympathizers, who can't be patriotic enough, or even deserving of PTSD if they came up in a war zone. According to the new hymnal,  Democrats are supposedly "in love with terrorists" now, as Rep. Doug Collins wants to put it, prompting veteran and Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth to respond explicitly:

"I left parts of my body in Iraq fighting terrorists." Sen. Tammy Duckworth, who lost both of her legs serving in the Iraq War, ripped into the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee who has accused Democrats of being "in love with terrorists." https://t.co/2NpcDSyWdk

— CNN (@CNN) January 10, 2020

I don't expect Republicans to feel the sting of that one. I remember Max Cleland, who also left body parts behind, having his patriotism questioned, too.  I remember how scurrilous lies against John Kerry (who was later integral to the Iran nuclear deal and speaks about it eloquently) led to propaganda against his presidential campaign that also had some confused partisans practically mocking all purple heart recipients.

I know Trump had no problem mocking John McCain's service, or feuding with Gold Star families (plural--more than once). All the more reason for Collins to rethink his sycophancy for Trump if he really cared about who supports Gold Star families. (Trump, by the way, penalized Gold Star families with his tax plan, habitually lies about who achieved the veteran's CHOICE bill (it was a McCain-Sanders bill, signed by Obama)  and has given lip service to reducing troop levels in our wars abroad while raising troop levels.

Entirely Different Worlds

.@RepTedLieu plays recording of Candace Owens: "I don't know Ms. Owens. I'm not going to characterize her. I'm going to let her own words do the talking. So, I'm going to play for you the first 30 seconds of a statement she made about Adolf Hitler." pic.twitter.com/xiilLBUIwF

— CSPAN (@cspan) April 9, 2019

Man, sometimes I hate the little hamsters that make my brain-wheel go round. They've been chirruping to me that I should have something to say about the white nationalism hearing the other day and how really dystopic it was and whether it was just really weird that the person who actually made a "gotta hand it to em" comment with respects to Hitler was somehow picked by some Republican to publicly say things like the Southern Strategy didn't happen. Except it very factually did. It should matter that she really only came to slam liberals and try to talk about whatever her definition of nationalism was, but here's the really weird thing--

It should have been apparent with the replay of her Hitler quotes that she was a little off--and her saying that a longer version would necessarily make her point clear doesn't really help, because she is simply wrong in every respect. The nationalism of Hitler was blood and soil nationalism, and Hitler did not fail to be a nationalist because he killed his own (German Jewish) people--he was very much a nationalist by his own definition because he did not consider people of other races to be his people regardless of where they were living. The character of nationalism is very much a part of identity politics. Understanding this point is something it might very well help Turning Point as it reaches out to and is reached out to by supposed "like groups" like Identity Evropa.

But anyway, even though liberals think this display meant that Owens was revealed to be a lightweight who says flakey things that are not supportable by facts, some conservatives think that her comments totally "owned the libs" because our reaction was perceived as so butthurt and reactive.

To which I would have to say, "Um, what?" I don't know how being wrong and staying confident in one's wrongness is winning, and making people who know better just want to correct the wrongness is owning anything but apparently, the ability to wallow in bullshit without minding the stink is the new conservative hotness.

It is weird to consider that there is a parallel universe currently observable where facts do not matter, can be dismissed as biased, and where bullshit artists and grifters can be lionized. And yet, this is apparently our current politics.

President Trump is a Complete Horror-show

While being broadcast live on camera, President Trump claims media cameras are being turned off https://t.co/cf0mASESyI

— CNN (@CNN) August 23, 2017

Lying about something as basic as whether the cable news organizations are even covering him while they are actually covering him, is pretty much the stellar, stand-out example of how much Donald Trump, actual President of the US, actually holds your (meaning you--a sentient person) intellect in contempt. He is going to lie about things and his lies will be manifestly untrue. He will say there are no protestors (yep, many). He will say there is such a huge crowd (eh!) And then he goes on to insult the intelligence of intelligent people in other ways.

Does he continue to think his response about Charlottesville was genius--yes, he doubles down. Does he threaten to shut down the government to fund his border wall with Mexico? Mmmm-hmm. Both houses of Congress are held by his party and this idea is stupid, but he thinks it is great. He implies he will pardon Sheriff Joe Arpaio, birther, self-proclaimed "concentration camp" runner. He praises Jeffrey "Sieg Heil" Lord.

And now,because he's a fuckwit and doesn't understand that words have meanings, there will be more agitation--because he doesn't know how to pour oil on troubled waters. He sets shit on fire and thinks this is his tribute, his sacramental flame.

Nothing about this is okay. Nothing. Nothing at all.

(Also, Ben Carson, Hatch violation--this is a campaign rally, and he had no business being there.)

Somebody Else's Babies

Although I'd like to think I speak fluent "white asshole" having grown up around that dialect my whole life, I spent a long while staring at this comment wondering why Iowa Rep. Steve King (R) thought babies of any particular parentage weren't capable of carrying on with "our civilization". There's nothing about what I think of as American culture that excludes the children of immigrants--on the contrary! Our American way is made up of immigrants who wanted to work hard and achieve a good standard of living, to experience freedom of thought, religion and political access denied to them in their home countries. I, like Steve King, am the descendant of European immigrants. There is nothing about me that privileges me to better understand America as a German/Irish/English, etc. mutt,  than a child of any other heritage because we are a nation on paper, made of laws and words and ideals, but not bloodlines.

A baby learns language. A baby learns religion. A baby learns what their parents or guardians and the world around them teach it.  But one thing a baby shouldn't be expected to do is "restore a civilization". Steve King supposes a civilization already in peril. It is for adults to lead and teach--not to count on children, who can only learn what is around them, regardless of who their mothers and fathers are. If our civilization is so fucked it is down to diaper-wearers to rescue it, maybe it was already fatally flawed?

But this is just more racist nonsense from a tiresome racist--an Iowan who for some reason sports a Confederate flag on his desk:

and has a history of saying appallingly white nativist things. But he has been representing his district in Iowa since 2003. As a US Representative. While being pretty openly racist.

I guess what I'm getting at is, this whole thing where liberals say things like "Some conservatives are racist" (not, by the way, all conservatives are, because fuck no, and fuck that, and "Strawman, much?") this guy is what we're talking about. The guy who doesn't realize nonwhite civilization is also a thing. (It has actually been most of the civilized things.) The guy who gets kudos from David Duke and Richard Spencer:

Rep @SteveKingIA is praised by two of the biggest #WhiteSupremacist names in the country. Take note, #GOP, this is the company you keep. pic.twitter.com/be57Y4EpGe

— Avi Bueno (@JasperAvi) March 13, 2017

Which reminds us of?

I'll take our chances of continuing civilization with "somebody else's babies" over reinforcing Steve King's hateful bullshit, any time.

Let's Not Make the Super Bowl Weird, OK?

I don't follow sports because for the most part, nothing is actually ever going to be as good IMHO as WWE/WCW/ECW through the mid-to-late 1990's. That was just an incredible era for wrestling, and the fact is, I never bothered to learn all the plays or teams or could follow who was part of what team anyway. I really did super great at fantasy baseball for a couple of years because even if I suck as a sports fan, I am really great at understanding how statistics work and managed to get players like Wade Boggs and Lenny Dykstra in my batting rota to maximize hitting for on-base which routinely led to higher scoring, while keeping stiffs like Canseco off because who needs the errors? He totally gave up more bases than he hit for (homers are a misleading stat).

Anyhow, I don't know much about football even if I once wore one of the world's homeliest Eagles starter jackets back in the day (I think it was like this) when I was dating a total sportshead. (I looked so boss, though, with my mall-bangs, door knocker earrings, and skintight acid wash jeans. I am so glad pictures do not still exist of this late '80's/early 90's incarnation of yours truly, even if I was quite the Generation X East Coast artifact.)

But anyhow, the Super Bowl is like some kind of weird national holiday even for people who don't really follow sports. Even if you don't like football, there's something just right about the everybody eating snacks and judging commercials that feels so uniquely American. We're watching millionaires give each other brain damage, but we're also coming together as a nation to absorb something to say to our co-workers the next day in the break room.

Then along comes this weird post-2016 election season where people are still all politicized and being weird. Tom Brady and Bill Belichik are Trump supporters, apparently. Anyhow, the graphic above represents some alt-right guy making it weird.

Um. I don't really think it's cool to make the fandom of people in the US northeast about white supremacy without their signing off on it, and from what I gather--not all of them really would based on things like the electoral scoreboard. I'm not sure it's really a great thing for Trump that some of his followers automatically assume his support is also an endorsement of white supremacy, but I am damn sure it is not a great reflection on the New England Patriots organization that the alt-right wants to co-opt their talent and sports prowess to try and make some bullshit point--but I don't think the team invited this at all. And I know of so many NE sports fans who manage to be gung-ho about their sports teams while not being actual RW assholes at all! They are cool people who are homers! They just represent with the jerseys and the ticket buys. They aren't like, goose stepping and what not.

I'm just saying--let's not make the Super Bowl weird, where odd political signifying nonsense takes up our bandwidth, instead of factual sportshead stuff like whether the Atlanta defense collapsed and Brady et als capitalized. Let's just enjoy nachos and rewatch commercials like they were shorts put up for Sundance. C'mon. This should be entertainment. Not another "But I want to punch Nazis" day.

FWIW--I kind of always want to punch Nazis. But that has nothing to do with football. And also doesn't always mean "with a fist".

The Trump Two-Step

For a variety of reasons, I went with the screen-cap and not the embed on this one. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, once a potential challenger for Speaker of the House (although OMG--what if something were to befall Golden Boy Paul Ryan? Who knows?) and applicant for the Secret Service, who is so capable of handling classified information, just a matter of weeks after rescinding his endorsement of Trump,  and having also in the past been critical of Trump's failure to "open (his) kimono" with respects to tax returns, has decided that it's probably really dodgy to go on as a GOP Congressman and not 1) Support the party's nominee, 2) allow the possibility of seeming to support the Democratic nominee, who the fix has long been in to start trying to impeach from Day One of her Presidency, and 3) he wants to justify his role in being "that guy". The guy who is trying to take down the bad lady.

Now, this isn't just to single out poor Rep. Chaffetz. This is to talk about what our current political situation is: One side, in this case, the GOP, is demonizing and delegitimizing the apparent Democratic winners in advance. The other side--my side, has got to figure out a way to stop this vicious cycle (since they don't seem to show any inclination to stop) of making Democrats pay for our successes.

Now, my first choice is a wave election where we get on-board with voting out all the R.'s wherever we feasibly can--I think this year the Senate could be in reach if Clinton is performing where the polls say she is. The House is probably not reachable this election--so we need to already be thinking about the 2018 mid-term. That said, there needs to be a vocal strategy about priorities--lay it out on the table: Do we have time for fake-scandal bullshittery that spends taxpayer money on free attention for congressional grandstanders, or do we think addressing the real problems facing this country's citizens are worth taking seriously?

This two-step is being done by several red-state politicians who can't disturb where the primaries told them their natural voter base leans. Or so they think. But that base they are looking at is not set in concrete. I'm a little confident about the Clinton win, and if I'm right, the DNC needs to treat Trump like an albatross. A stinking albatross. And no one gets to have it drop from their neck until they appreciate the little things that might actually result in something called "good governance". Like--not demonizing. Not holding show-trials for b.s. reasons. And listening to one another and crossing the stupid aisle. Year after year we are told this is what a lot of Americans would like to see, and year after year, they get more bullshit.

So let's get Chaffetz the hell out of there for his current flexible principles, or at least stay on attention with him for future planned partisan stupidity. But pay attention to your own possible local Chaffetz-that guy (like my Senator Pat Toomey) who can't even put who he endorses or will vote for on the record. Lots of people this year are seeing the presidential vote as very much a moral choice--I am not opposed to this way of thinking.