Still Think It Isn’t Facism?

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Our right to protest is going to be taken away. We have already seen the violation of rights when it comes to protesters – in Ferguson, it was one violation after another. The same thing has happened with many Black Lives Matter protests – people were told if they didn’t get on the sidewalk, they’d be arrested. It was quite convenient for the cops, as there was no sidewalk at that particular location. Another time, cops told protesters to disperse immediately, or they be arrested. A lot of people couldn’t do that, because they came by bus, and the cops shut down the bus terminal, so guess what? Arrested. Do I need to go back over what’s been happening at Standing Rock? The constant violation of rights on the part of the protectors? It’s already bad for those who have the strength and conviction to protest. It’s already dangerous. Cops are already completely out of fucking control. Cops are already murderous. Cops already have a wealth of bigots in their ranks. Pretty sure they have a wealth of Trump supporters, too. Protests, civil disobediance, the only tools of the powerless. We may not have those tools for long.

A Republican lawmaker in Washington state has proposed a new crime of “economic terrorism” to prosecute protesters who block streets, threaten jobs or endanger public safety.

State Sen. Doug Ericksen (R) said in a statement on Wednesday that he was preparing the bill for the next legislative session, KCPQ reported. The proposal comes after thousands of protesters took to the streets in opposition to President-elect Donald Trump.

“I respect the right to protest, but when it endangers people’s lives and property, it goes too far,” Ericksen said. “Fear, intimidation and vandalism are not a legitimate form of political expression. Those who employ it must be called to account.”

Under “economic terrorism” bill, protesters would be charged with a felony if they “intentionally break the law in an attempt to intimidate or coerce private citizens or the government by obstructing economic activity.”

Ericksen said that the law would also be extended “to those who fund, organize, sponsor or otherwise encourage others to commit acts of economic terrorism.”

The so-called “accomplices” could be “required to pay restitution up to triple the amount of economic damage,” Ericksen insisted.

“We are not just going after the people who commit these acts of terrorism,” the lawmaker warned. “We are going after the people who fund them. Wealthy donors should not feel safe in disrupting middle class jobs.”

For those pushing the idiot line, how ya doing with that, “nah, everything is okay, it’s not fascism” shit now?

Full story here.

Continuing on in regard to the normalisation of said fascism, NPR has enthusiastically jumped into the fascim pond, head first.

If you are curious about how racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric, and organizations dedicated to propagating the same are able to slip into the mainstream, do yourself a favor and listen to NPR’s Wednesday morning interview with Breitbart senior-editor-at-large Joel Pollak.

NPR apparently felt the need to invite on a Breitbart mouthpiece to put in a good word for Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s newly announced senior policy adviser. Bannon previously led Breitbart, a publication beloved by the so-called alt-right, a loose coalition of white nationalists, “identitarians,” neo-Nazis, anti-Semites, racists, and misogynists who were ecstatic over Bannon’s appointment. Pollak’s segment was a master class in obfuscation and a primer on how to flip the script and turn totally justified accusations of bigotry, misogyny and anti-Semitism into “reverse racism.”

“Let’s hear a defense of Steve Bannon,” NPR host Steve Inskeep began, offering a view of exactly what direction this interview would take.

Full story here. Mainstream media just can’t wait to propagate the happy thoughts about fascism spiel. I keep having scenes from a certain Twilight Zone episode in my head.

“A real good thing. And tomorrow… tomorrow’s gonna be a… real ‘good’ day!”

Then there’s this:

“This is not the French Revolution,” Bannon said, characterizing Trump’s achievement and goals. “They destroyed the basic institutions of their society and changed their form of government. What Trump represents is a restoration—a restoration of true American capitalism and a revolution against state-sponsored socialism. Elites have taken all the upside for themselves and pushed the downside to the working- and middle-class Americans.”

Who’s Calling Who Elite?

Bannon’s revolution is being led by the very people Trump demonized in his final political ads in Rust Belt states—the elite players in American finance and media. No one epitomizes that contradiction as clearly as the billionaire Mercers, and their long embrace of Trump’s new White House strategist, Bannon, who made a fortune at Goldman Sachs and in Hollywood before taking over Breitbart.

Full story here.

The Natural Reassertion of Biology (Continuation 7).

Daryush "Roosh V" Valizadeh.

Daryush “Roosh V” Valizadeh.

The laughable manosphere’s Roosh V is absolutely giddy over Trump’s win. If you aren’t familiar with this particular asspimple, have a wander at We Hunted the Mammoth. Roosh has all kinds of ideas, but they are always bad ideas which meet failure. One of those failed ideas was an attempt to make rape legal if it happened on private property. He’s quite thrilled to have a manly macho man as his prez, a dude who also doesn’t like fat chicks. Out of passing curiosity, I wonder if Roosh has bothered to ponder what Trump’s cabinet would make of his looks and name? There’s already talk of bringing back internment camps, like those which housed American citizens who happened to be Japanese. As usual, Roosh isn’t too good at that thinky stuff.

…We now have a President who will not encourage anti-male propaganda, rape culture, and female victimhood. While I do have minor concerns on the influence of his feminist-minded daughter, Ivanka, Trump will not continue the attack on men that has been institutionalized since the sexual revolution and accelerated during the eight years of Obama. Because our current cultural dystopia is the result of intense long-term manipulation, it is more than enough for Trump to simply not touch the gender issue to allow the culture to return to a more patriarchal order. Stop feeding the rot and it will die off, allowing biology to naturally reassert itself.

Full story here.

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Trans woman’s car vandalized in Denver, CO (Screengrab)

A transgender woman in Denver, Colo. woke up Wednesday to find her car covered in graffiti and hate messages, including a swastika and the phrase “fag die he she.”

“I got up this morning to go to work and the car was parked a couple of doors down,” Amber Timmons told Denver 7. “I came out and was surprised to see it all covered in graffiti and hate messages.”

Timmons’ car was covered in black paint with words like “tranny” and “Trump” drawn alongside Nazi symbols. She had previously written “love trumps hate” and “not my president” in erasable marker on her windows.

Full story here.

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All the Trumpty Dumptys.

Rep. Peter King. CREDIT: AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais.

Rep. Peter King. CREDIT: AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais.

Rep. Peter King (R-NY) spent some time deriding people. He first spent time moaning about all the protesters, then he decided to jump all over students for their inaction. There’s repub logic for you.

“These college students. I find it incredible. I dunno what would happen if a real war ever came. You think back to the greatest generation. And now you have these people, they’re having crying sessions, giving them comfort dogs, they’re giving them group therapy, they’re giving them consolation, because they’re so upset that Hillary Clinton lost the election,” said King.

“C’mon, have some guts, have some nerve, get out there, we’re supposed to be a great country. Are these the morons we’re counting on to be leaders in the future?”

They certainly can’t be more moronic than you, sir. [Full story.]

CREDIT: AP Photo/Seth Perlman.

CREDIT: AP Photo/Seth Perlman.

The Trumpoids are busy whipping up lists of everyone they should boycott. As might be expected, it’s a long and not terribly rational list.

While many in the country are protesting and condemning Donald Trump’s election as president, his supporters (including both the alt-right and other traditional conservatives) are trying to counter with their own demonstrations. At the top of their list of targets is PepsiCo, but it’s one of only many companies some are planning to boycott for criticizing Trump or otherwise working against what they believe to be his goals.

Full story here.

Ken Blackwell, who President-elect Trump selected to lead his domestic transition CREDIT: AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File.

Ken Blackwell, who President-elect Trump selected to lead his domestic transition CREDIT: AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File.

Then there’s Ken Blackwell, who is determined to get rid of all that queerness, in any way possible.

President-elect Donald Trump selected Ken Blackwell, a former Ohio secretary of state who ran for governor in 2006 and was crushed by a nearly 34 point margin, to lead up domestic policy for his presidential transition team. Blackwell is also a senior fellow with the Family Research Council, which the Southern Poverty Law Center designated a hate group because of its anti-LGBT positions.

Blackwell is not exactly shy about his anti-LGBT stance. Indeed, as The Guardian’s Scott Bixby notes, Blackwell claimed during his gubernatorial bid that homosexuality is a “choice” that “can be changed.”

Full story here.

The Fascism Spin Plays On.

The signs are there if you look for them. EPA.

The signs are there if you look for them. EPA.

Saad points out that CNN is fully onboard with the normalization.

Trump is the only person elected to the top job without political, diplomatic or military executive experience. And he ran a campaign rooted in breaking the mold of the gridlocked capital city. So no surprise that Trump is already approaching his presidency in an unorthodox manner.

Unorthodox? Really, that’s what they are going to go with. Great. Absolutely nothing about how Trump is an full blown ignoramus, a fraud, a failed businessman, a criminal with court dates coming up, and an unrepentant sexual predator. Nothing about the core of white supremacy now poised to infest the white house, either, because I guess that just got lost in the glitter storm of the new reality show. And that’s what’s happening, that’s the blinder expected to blinker the American public, and unfortunately, in large part, it’s going to work.

“I am the only one who knows who the finalists are!” FFS, this gold-plated idiot is treating the presidency like it’s another reality show, where he can do whatever the fuck he likes, and a team will make sure it’s scrubbed up nice for mass consumption. If you find yourself buying this vomit, wake the fuck up. This is not normal, this is not okay, this is terrifying, and it’s a nightmare come true.

The media is busy spinning an old evil, fascism, into a brand new, exciting, “outsider” kind of thing. It isn’t any of that. It’s plain old white supremacy, it’s plain old fascism. You can pour all the glitter you want on it, it’s still rancid shit, and it’s what we are all being fed.

James McDougall has a good article up at The Conversation: No, this isn’t the 1930s – but yes, this is fascism. Highly recommended.

The spread of fascism in the 1920s was significantly aided by the fact that liberals and mainstream conservatives failed to take it seriously. Instead, they accommodated and normalised it.

The centre right is doing the same today. Brexit, Trump and the far right ascendant across Europe indicate that talk of a right-wing revolutionary moment is not exaggerated. And the French presidential election could be next on the calendar.

Yep.

“Pres. Trump Says This Is Okay.” (Continuation 6)

Brittany Daughenbaugh. Facebook.

Brittany Daughenbaugh. Facebook.

Brittany Daughenbaugh couldn’t sleep, so the Capital University student decided to go on a Pokemon Go hunt in the early hours of Thursday morning. She had seen the men across Francis Street but paid them no mind. She was on the trail of a good catch.

“Suddenly, they’re behind me,” Daughenbaugh, 20, said Monday. One man wore a “Make America Great Again” hat and the other a “Trump-Pence” sweatshirt.

She said the sweatshirted man grabbed her arm and told her, “Don’t you worry, honey. President Trump says this is OK.” He then punched her in the face and the arm. She fell, hit her head on the pavement and blacked out.

[…]

She wrote a lengthy Facebook post Friday about the attack, in part as a warning to other Capital students to be careful, but also to encourage only nonviolent opposition to the bigotry and aggression.

“Protest and fight, but do it peacefully. Do not burn the flag. Do not vandalize. Do not fight hate with hate,” she wrote. “The only way to fix this is with willpower, passion and love.”

Her post drew scores of comments of support, but one man wrote that the facial bruise in her Facebook photo was a “terrible makeup job.”

“Take your agenda and lies someplace else and quit trying to get attention and smear someone’s name,” he wrote.

Full story at The Columbus Dispatch.

[Read more…]

Right Wing Rumbling.

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Right wingers have been polishing their rhetoric and goddidits, and they are increasingly leaving the halls of right wing for alt right, throwing their lot in with the white supremacists.

Michael Hill, president of the neo-Confederate League of the South has had plenty to say:

Once the globalist-progressive coalition of Jews, minorities, and anti-white whites stops reeling in confusion from the results of yesterday’s election, we can expect them to start striking back with trickery and violence. Thus, we as Southern nationalists face both danger and opportunity.

Now, more than ever, we need tight organization and numbers to help drive a stake through Dracula’s heart and keep him from rising once again to menace our people and civilization. No mercy should be shown to the enemies of our God, our Folk, and our civilization. None would be afforded us.

Dracula? How did a literary figure get into this? I’m sure that stands for someone or something, but right now, I don’t give a damn. It’s idiocy. Why not invoke the ever popular zombie apocalypse? As for no mercy would be afforded them, oh, that wins some sort of hyperbole prize. These people start crying over criticism, which is what they tend to call being treated mercilessly. Hill also had a warning for all those pure Southerners:

…So here is my warning to the victors: do not go back to sleep and think all is well. If you don’t finish the job by routing your enemies and driving them into the sea while you have the chance, they will re-group and be back at your throats in no time! You have been given a reprieve by God (probably undeservedly so); do not give your enemies and His a reprieve.

Their goal is to dispossess you of everything. If you have not heard that over the past year, then you have not been listening. Just what the hell do you think multiculturalism, diversity, and tolerance are all about? Your enemies care nothing about those things. They are merely used as weapons against you for your dispossession and ultimate destruction. The sum of their effect is White Guilt.

[…]

These media elites (and others of their elite ilk) look forward to the demise of old white America and the rise of a new paradigm in which they will hold sway. You will be dispossessed, sequestered in the equivalent of ghettos, and will be a despised and hated minority in the country your ancestors built.

Just once, I’d like for one of these clowns to acknowledge that they just love ghettos, as long as they aren’t in them. Those ancestors of yours did not build this country. They stole it through genocide, then had slaves do the actual work.

You, by God’s grace, may have been given a short reprieve from this scenario. Redeem the time! As for me, I recommend that we get busy with Southern independence. We need our own country, and it must be run by us for our own interests. It must once again be White Man’s Land.

I’m just fine with you founding White Man’s Land. First of all, you need to get the fuck out of this country, find a place which is completely uninhabited, purchase it, and there ya go, white fantasy land! You won’t do that though, because at the bottom of it all, you’re a chickenshit. You wouldn’t have the slightest idea of how to run your little ‘country’ or island, or whatever you found. Via RWW.

Elsewhere, Mike Huckabee has been waxing folksy on what a great president Trump will be, wait, the greatest ever, you betcha!

Horowitz’s annual “Restoration Weekend” allows far-right activists to mingle with conservative elected officials. This year, Steve Bannon, who left Breitbart News to run Trump’s presidential campaign and has since been named the president-elect’s chief strategist, was scheduled to attend, although we have not been able to confirm that he actually showed up. Milo Yiannopoulous, a Breitbart editor and apologist for the racist alt-right movement, was given an award.

In remarks to the conference that were broadcast on Periscope by Andrew Torba, the CEO of an alt-right version of Twitter, Huckabee told attendees that Trump “will turn out to be one of the great presidents of our time and may be one of the greatest ever.”

[…]

He also said that Trump would make sure that government agencies “will run a fair show,” saying that in contrast he would have had to “seek asylum in some foreign country” if Hillary Clinton won the presidency “because I knew I was going to be a target.”

Again with this remarkable hyperbole. Does anyone even think about Huckabee? I don’t. There’s such a need for puffery in the old white guys’ club, they are just so darn important they have to keep reminding people of it. Via RWW.

Sam Rohrer is positive that Trump’s being elected was god’s doing. He doesn’t say which god. Maybe Loki. Jim Bakker is of the opinion that Trump’s election is the greatest miracle ever. Janet Porter is gleeful over the green light to illegalize abortion. More dead women, ain’t that great!

David Kupelian, of World Net Daily, has declared that a very particular disaster has been avoided:

“We would have seen how evil works if we had Hillary Clinton as president,” Kupelian said. “She would have literally driven many people insane. I mean that in a clinical way.”

While older people would have responded to a Clinton presidency by praying more and stocking up on food and supplies, Kupelian asserted, young people would have been driven over the edge and soon started carrying out mass killings.

“To have an outright criminal married to a certified sexual predator in the White House and to glorify that and all that is implied in society elevating these people back into positions of ultimate power, as basically the rulers of the world,” he stated, “to a lot of young people whose souls and views are still being formed, they’d go nuts. And you’d see more acting out and criminality and people doing crazy things. You’d say, ‘My God, how did that happen? Why did this person go and shoot up a classroom of people?’ and so forth. I’m saying, you elevate somebody like that to the president and you unleash hell.”

People have elected a criminal and a sexual predator to the presidency, and fascism has been unleashed. We can go ahead and call that hell.

Resistance Roundup.

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Some bright spots, and boy do we ever need them. I hate sitting down at my desk every morning, because the tide of hatred and bigotry just gets bigger. I’ll be trying to track the resistance as well as all the fascism. I’m sure to miss things, so feel free to let me know about what’s going on.

[Read more…]

The New Normal (Continuing 5).

jresized

P.S. Not for niggers:

ps

“KILL KILL KILL BLACKS” written inside a bathroom late last week at the Sligo Creek Elementary School in Silver Spring, Maryland. One student reported the incident to their teacher, who apparently didn’t inform the school’s administration, which only learned about the graffiti after a member of the building service crew found it and reported it.

[Read more…]

The Normalization Has Begun.

Source: Twitter.

Source: Twitter.

The above, and all like it, are being normalized as you read this. There’s an almost feverish desperation in the attempts at normalizing Trump, his appalling choices for the cabinet, his complete lack of policies, his complete lack of knowledge and experience, and his openly bigoted, violent fans. The core of white supremacy is being steadfastly ignored, as is the fact that America has gone fascist. As Giliell pointed out:

Yes, and it’s going to get normalised. I studied my country’s history well. Nobody would have stood for the Reichspogromnacht in 1933 and people just thought that it wasn’t too bad. By 1938 they cheered on as the Synagogues burned.

We’re right there, right now. I’m already seeing people deflecting in an attempt to ignore what’s happening right in front of them; people are continuing to talk about how liberals and minorities must build bridges; people are busily trying to convince themselves and everyone else that everything will be fine, nothing unusual at all, no. There’s even an attempt by people trying to say just how good a Trump presidency will be for women. A little reminder here:

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(Gretchen Robinette / Gothamist).

We’ll start with Alternet. This is going to be a long post, so grab your drink of choice.

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Our New Minister of Propaganda.

A scene from 1984 by George Orwell @ Nottingham Playhouse. Directed by Robert Icke. (Opening 16-09-13) ©Tristram Kenton 09/13 (3 Raveley Street, LONDON NW5 2HX TEL 0207 267 5550 Mob 07973 617 355)email: tristram@tristramkenton.com

A scene from 1984 by George Orwell @ Nottingham Playhouse. Directed by Robert Icke. ©Tristram Kenton 09/13.

Donald Trump announced on Sunday that he would be appointing former Breitbart boss Steve Bannon as his official chief strategist — and a leading white nationalist couldn’t be happier about it.

Reacting to the news of Bannon’s appointment, white nationalist Richard Spencer gushed on Twitter that he was in the “best possible position” to implement long-term strategy inside the Trump White House.

Spencer, who first coined the term “alt-right” last decade with his website Alternative Right, believes that America should work to eject all non-white races from our borders and make the country into a giant “safe space” for white people. He believes that Bannon’s appointment means that the Trump administration will push the country more in a direction favored by white supremacists like himself.

Spencer’s fellow white nationalists were similarly giddy about the appointment, and one of them gushed that Bannon would be the perfect “Minister of Propaganda” for the Trump administration.

Former Breitbart editor Ben Shapiro, for instance, has called Bannon “a legitimately sinister figure” who pushed the website to “openly embrace the white supremacist alt-right.” Additionally, former Breitbart spokesman Kurt Bardella, meanwhile, has said that Bannon represents “a worldview that is incredibly dangerous and divisive.”

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The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) sent out an email alert Sunday night that explained Bannon’s ties to the racist, antifeminist alt-right and white nationalists. Here are a few of the things they listed:

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Empathy for White Conservatives? No.

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Kali Holloway has an excellent article up at Raw Story: Stop asking me to empathize with the white working class. Here’s just a bit of it:

[…] Trump stoked racial hatred, but he didn’t invent it, so stop acting like he did because it makes you feel good. The irony of this whole thing is that Trump knew better than a lot of “good” white folks—even recognized as well as folks of color did—how much white power and supremacy means to white people. From day one, he bet that it would be enough to get him elected. He ran a brilliant campaign, in a country where a brilliant campaign can almost solely consist of telling white people they might not be on top forever. He called it. Credit where it’s due.

The only surprise to come out of this election is how many, and how quickly, white people want us to empathize with the people who voted against our humanity, our right to exist in this place. Even before the election, the Washington Post actually had the audacity to berate us for not crying for the white working class. In the days since Trump won, the number of articles urging everybody to be cool to Trump’s America, to understand what they are facing, to hear their grievances, has added insult to injury. Bernie Sanders issued a statement saying Trump “tapped into the anger of a declining middle class that is sick and tired of establishment economics, establishment politics and the establishment media.” I read it at least three times and couldn’t find the words “white supremacy” anywhere in it.

Please miss me with all this nonsense. I’m not even going to get into how this is based on an easily refutable economic lie, especially since others have already spent precious time they’ll never get back breaking this down. But even if it was true—and I am well aware of what’s plaguing the white working class, from substance abuse to suicide to a loss of manufacturing jobs—I refuse to take part in the endless privileging of white pain above all others. (Martin Gilens, who has studied this stuff going way back, notes that when the media face of poverty is white, this country suddenly gets a lot more compassionate.) Latinos and African Americans remain worse off than the white working class—which is still the “largest demographic bloc in the workforce”—by pretty much every measurable outcome, from home ownership to life expectancy. Where are these appeals for us when we protest or riot against the systemic inequality we live with? Where are all the calls to recognize and understand our anger?

For hundreds of years, white people have controlled everything in this country: the executive office, Congress, the Supreme Court, the criminal justice system, Wall Street, the lending institutions, the history textbook industry, the false narrative that America cares about liberty and justice for all. But I need to understand white feelings of marginalization because a black man was in the White House for eight years? Because political correctness—a general plea for white people not to be as awful as they have been in the past— asked that white people put more effort into being decent than they felt up to? Because white folks didn’t like that feeling when politicians aren’t singularly focused on the hard times and struggles of their communities? Audre Lorde said (I wonder if that woman ever got sick of being right), “oppressors always expect the oppressed to extend to them the understanding so lacking in themselves.” For a people who have shamed black folks for supposedly always wanting a hand out, for being a problem of the entitlement state, I have never seen people who so firmly believe they are owed something.

Let me pass along some advice black folks have been given for a long time: stop being so angry and seeing yourself as a victim, and try pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. That’s really all I have for you right now, this re-gifting of wisdom. […]

I’ll stand with Ms. Holloway here, and I stand by Iris, too. Over at Death to Squirrels, I said that my days of empathizing with cons of any stripe are over, and they are. White people have gone full court whiny now, wanting everyone to pat them on the head and say, yes, yes, you have it so bad, darling. No. Even liberal white people are getting in on the Whine Wagon. “But you have to be nice to them! They’re just misunderstood!” My response to that? The fuck I do, and the fuck they are.

Before I go on, the standard disclaimer: no, all white people aren’t awful. No, all white people aren’t unrepentant bigots. No, all white people are not willfully ignorant assholes. Yes, lots of white people get it.

This nonsense of “you must have empathy for them, you must!” needs to stop, right now. The people who voted Trump into the position of president-elect did so for specific reasons, but the primary one is exactly what Ms. Holloway said: power. White people are all about power, and they love their privilege. Of course they listened to a fucking gold-plated idiot who told them their power as Mighty Whitey was slipping. They’ve already felt that, and yep, they’ve been very upset about it, and grabbed onto Trump with a death grip in order to get firmly ensconced on top of the people pile once more. I have no idea why white liberals have latched onto the tone argument; Trumpoids have no interest in anyone being nice and understanding, they want obeisance and submission. They want to be what they always have been in this country – lords of the manor. They want to be able to spit, sneer, and be in a position of authoritative judgment of all others. White cons have no use whatsoever for white liberals, either, so that makes the tone argument even more inexplicable.

I’ll be 59 in a matter of days. I grew up in the ’60s and ’70s. Tumultuous times, rife with change, change for the better. There was such hope in the ’70s, people had such faith in the future. This is not what we were dreaming about. The 80s saw the serious rise of conservatism once again, especially Christian conservatism. I’ve been around for the whole thing, and decade by decade, cons have gotten worse, more extreme, more hateful, more spiteful, more poisonous. It’s not a surprise the white wall of conservative xianity took their one chance to power, nor is it surprising that white supremacists have wrapped themselves around Trump like a cloak. All that, I understand. I don’t like it at all, but I understand it.

What I don’t understand is this hand-wringing call for sympathy, tea and cookies. No. No, no, no. When have Christian Cons every had empathy for anyone except themselves? When have white supremacists ever had empathy for anyone except themselves? Christian Cons and white supremacists are evil people, perfectly willing commit themselves to evil to gain their goals. We’re dealing with one of those acts of evil right now. They did the proverbial deal with the devil in order to get closer to all the things they want, and what they want, more than anything, is to stomp people into submission, one way or another. They want to stomp all those feminist sluts into the ground, removing any sort of bodily autonomy, unless it happens to be their bodily autonomy on the line, natch. “No More Uppity” might as well be their battle cry, along with the requisite god, guns, and bible business.

I haven’t recovered quite yet, but to anyone who thinks that “you gotta be nice to them” is some sort of strategy or argument, I have one response: Fuck No.

Kali Holloway’s full article is here, highly recommended. Also recommended: https://twitter.com/drskyskull/status/796916965956874241

Sunday Facepalm.

Mother, Jennifer Reynaga -- (NBC4 screen grab)

Mother, Jennifer Reynaga — (NBC4 screen grab)

A Los Angeles area substitute teacher has been fired after a student recorded him taunting Latino sixth graders about the election of Donald Trump, telling them their parents were going to be deported, reports NBC4.

According to Jennifer Reynaga, she expected Latino students to be harassed after the election of Trump who made bashing immigrants,and Mexicans in particular, a cornerstone of his campaign.

“I would think the kids would do it, but I never thought a teacher would do it,” said Reynaga said in an interview.

The Reynaga family turned over the recording, captured with another student’s cellphone, to the school district where the unidentified substitute physical education teacher can be heard speaking to students at Bret Harte Middle School in South Los Angeles.

“If you were born here, then your parents got to go. Then they will leave you behind, and you will be in foster care,” the teacher can be heard telling Reynaga’s 11-year-old daughter.

When the sixth grader asked how Trump would find them, the teacher replied, “I have your phone numbers, your address, your mama’s address, your daddy’s address. It’s all in the system, sweetie.”

Emphasis mine. So, this is adulthood, is it? A person supposedly mature enough to be trusted with children? Apparently, all those people who decided to cast a vote for Trump are immature assholes who represent a clear danger to others. This ‘teacher’ has been fired, but it’s not enough. Such incidents also need to see charges and arrests. Here in the lost country, it’s perfectly okay to abuse the hell out of people who are simply trying to keep water clean, to arrest them and charge them for doing nothing at all, but someone who threatens children has nothing happen outside the loss of their job. Welcome to Trump Land indeed.

Via NBC4 and Raw Story.

Another teacher is on the receiving end of a suspension, but for offending Trumpoids:

The Monterey Herald said that Mountain View High School placed teacher Frank Navarro on paid leave after a parent complained in an email about the lesson and statements that Navarro made in class.

Navarro — a 40-year classroom veteran and expert in Holocaust studies — said, “This feels like we’re trying to squash free speech. Everything I talk about is factually based. They can go and check it out. It’s not propaganda or bias if it’s based on hard facts.”

The school district, Navarro said, would neither reveal the contents of the complaint email nor go over the lesson plan with him to determine what the parent found problematic.

Mountain View/Los Altos High School District Superintendent Jeff Harding told the Herald that Navarro was originally suspended through Wednesday, Nov. 16, but he could return to the classroom as early as Monday.

“We are interested in getting Frank back in the classroom … we’re just trying to maintain our due diligence,” Harding said. “We have a heightened emotional environment right now with the election. It’s always a challenge to maintain a line in a classroom.”

Mountain View High School’s newspaper, the Oracle said that some of Navarro’s students that his lessons were “one-sided” and that he used language that Trump supporters would find offensive. Other students have defended the 65-year-old teacher, who has won multiple awards for his studies of the Nazi Holocaust.

[…]

“I’ve had Mexican kids come and say, ‘Hey, Mr. Navarro, I might be deported,’” he said. “Is it better to see bigotry and say nothing? That’s what the principal was telling me (during our conversation). In my silence, I would be substantiating the bigotry.”

Aaaaand:

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“Your headscarf isn’t allowed anymore. Why don’t you tie it around your neck and hang yourself with it off of your neck instead of your head.”

The note was signed, “America!”

Full story here.

The White Wall of Christianity.

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Religion was almost invisible during the presidential campaign, and yet it is the missing piece in understanding Mr. Trump’s victory. The Christian right worked largely under the national media’s radar this year, but it helped deliver the presidency to a thrice-married mogul who bragged about groping women and has been accused by multiple women of actually doing it.

They were willing to forgive Mr. Trump’s personal transgressions because he stoked their fears that a Hillary Clinton administration would take away their religious liberties, use their tax dollars to fund late-term abortions at home and abroad, and expand the rights of gay and transgender people, political analysts said. Mr. Trump warned at rallies and at conservative Christian gatherings that he alone was their last hope to protect them against a changing culture, using the refrain, “This is your last chance.”

Now that he has won, evangelical leaders say they are confident Mr. Trump will deliver on the political promises he made to them. These include appointing a conservative to the Supreme Court, defunding Planned Parenthood, protecting businesses that refuse to provide services for same-sex weddings and rescinding the mandate in the Affordable Care Act that requires insurance coverage for birth control.

And with Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, an evangelical with a record of legislating against abortion and same-sex marriage, as vice president, Christian leaders say they feel reassured they will have access to the White House and a seat at the table.

I wrote about this in a comment at Pharyngula, because all kinds of people have been writing some less than stellar pieces about rural white Americans. A lot of people attempting to parse rural America don’t live in it. I do. I’m in a very tiny town in nDakota. This is what I wrote in that comment:

I live rural. One thing you often hear from people is “oh, I don’t understand that stuff”, so they go with confirmation bias. This is very clear when it comes to something like climate change. The rest of it can simply be explained by good old conservatism, the preserving of the colonial, Christian, white status quo. A lot of people who live rural are older, conservative, and fearful. They don’t approve of women being able to obtain abortions; they still think single women having sex is scandalous, and they don’t think it’s okay for them to pay for their contraception. They understand healthcare, but are terrified of “creeping socialism”, so they are against ACA. They aren’t terribly keen on that feminism stuff, and anything queer they find very unsettling, set their lips in a straight line and shake their heads. Most won’t come out and say anything nasty, but the “that’s unnatural” vibe is very strong. They don’t think it’s okay for queer people to marry, and they are easily scared by propaganda about transgender people using a public lav.

It is true, to an extent, that rural farmers feel isolated and ignored, but that’s not why they voted for Trump. They aren’t so stupid as to not understand that a one percenter doesn’t give a shit about them, but they think he’ll keep the conservative status quo.

I’ll add to this that to a large extent, in rural areas, you have people who will simply buy, lock, stock, and barrel, whatever the hell they hear on Fox. It seldom bothers them that all those screaming pundits who are pandering to fear don’t actually believe what they spout, but are happy enough to get rich off all those who swallow the shit whole. There are more resources than ever, when it comes to finding out whether or not a fear is legitimate; it’s easier than ever to educate yourself and learn, but in spite of that, most older rural people stay very insular on the internet, too. They might email, they might have an account at Facebook, but to them, the rest of the ‘net is as bewildering and just as frightening as the ‘real’ world. They yearn for those imaginary good old days, they want their 1950s back, when people of colour knew their place and those uppity women were properly punished if they had sex.

Christians have a great capacity for hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance. In a matter of a few short decades, they’ve gone from denouncing politicians who couldn’t keep their pants zipped, and other activities they considered immoral. That doesn’t matter anymore. What matters now is the ends justifying the means. Oh, when a raging pundit gets caught with his pants around his ankles while swallowing fistfuls of illegal drugs? Eh, we should pray for the poor man. Bill Clinton gets a blow job? Pretty sure most people remember the conservative Christian outrage on that on. Trump is a sexual predator, a rapist, and a cheater, but white Christians don’t seem terribly concerned about that. Nor are they terribly concerned about the amount of boys who are grabbing girls by the crotch, claiming it’s okay because the Prez said so. Those Christian values are amazingly elastic, they expand and contract to either cover something unacceptable, or to exclude anything or anyone disapproved of by them.

As recently as five years ago, Christians were far more judgmental of politicians accused of transgressions in their personal lives. Now, in the era of Mr. Trump, there is more tolerance, especially among evangelicals, according to a study by Mr. Jones’s institute. The group often called “values voters” was not dissuaded by headlines about Mr. Trump sexually harassing women, lying, refusing to pay taxes or stiffing contractors.

“Trump has really changed their entire political ethic. It’s moved from a principled basis to more of a utilitarian ethic, where the ends justify the means,” Mr. Jones said.

The hypocrisy there is absolutely stunning, but Christians excel at justifying the most awful and evil actions. They are quite comfortable with evil, and being evil, because they always think it’s okay if they do it. It’s only wrong if those others do it. Yes, Christians have marched fascism into power, and like fascists before, they have all the justifications in the world why it’s the right thing to do. In order to get their way, in order to be in control of other people, they have joined arms with the very worst of white supremacists. As evil blossoms in this lost country, white Christians will continue to justify the flames even as they are being consumed by them.

Two sources here: Religious Right Believes Donald Trump Will Deliver on His Promises and The Rage of White, Christian America.

Recommended Reading: What happens in the US doesn’t stay in the US.