Useful but Depressing Video

The flat earth premise is the set-up for a Dan Olson thesis about some dangerous political crank beliefs we’re all having to deal with at this horrid moment in history.  Watch it if you can handle it.  I personally have been avoiding the specifics of what fascist facebook dads believe as much as possible, so it was a useful look at the other side.

The thesis here is to not expect empathy or reason to reach fascists, or at least not easily.  Others have noted the antisemite-flat earth connection and extended some sympathy – the world is unjust and most of us are oppressed by the systems of power around us, you’re right to feel aggrieved, maybe think twice about what the source of that pain is.  Same reality check different approach: “It ain’t the jews or the libs you fucking nazi trash” (commit assault).  Mr. Olson here isn’t on either of those tracks.  He’s just trying to let people know what they’re really up against in this discourse.

So I needed this video as a check-in on what the jerks are up to these days, but it was also useful to compile a list of hashtags to block/blacklist on social media.  This list has redundant entries for platforms that allow spaces and those that do not, edit as required:

BLOCKING QANON:

#adrenochrome #deepstate #deep state #epstein #epsteinisland #epstein island #inittogether #in it together #pedoisland #pedo island #pedovore #pedovores #pedowood #pizzagate #qanon #savethechildren #save the children #spygate #stormer #thestorm #the storm #thestormishere #the storm is here #thesepeoplearesick #these people are sick #trusttheplan #trust the plan #wwg1 wga #wwg1wga

Blocking is a good idea because these asswipes will say agreeable things to stealth you into spreading their ideology, like the situation of the house of rumored child traffickers that got mobbed in Wisconsin.  Were the people in the house up to no good?  I don’t know, but the missing girls turned up somewhere else completely, the supposed photo evidence was being tweeted by somebody that included a nod to motherfucking pizzagate.

Staying woke ain’t as easy as it used to be.  Some BLM activists are sometimes – knowingly or not – reblogging literal nazi content from people who literally want them dead.  Look at the hashtags.  Eyes open.

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Fuck the DA

Kamala Harris sucks.  She lost out in the primaries specifically because her cruelty corruption and hypocrisy were on easy display for anyone with a marginally lefty social media feed.  Denying trans prisoners medical care, going “tough on crime” which has been a fig leaf for suppressing the black vote since the Clintons were doing it, and trying to repaint herself more softly for the presidential bid.  Gross.  Choosing her was a direct rebuke of Black Lives Matter and progressives in general – it was a canny calculation.

Because Biden wants to present his commitment to centrism as a strong, non-negotiable position.  He wants us to know we can go get fucked, we’re going to vote for him just to stave off the apocalypse for an extra two minutes, and we’ll have to accept more corporate and military welfare and racist oppression and just generally eat the shit directly from blue dog democrat assholes.

He’s right.  I’m going to vote for them.  Anyone who believes individual human lives matter will vote Biden-Harris, unless they’re a delusional asshat or a rethuglican plant.  Because need I remind you?  It doesn’t matter how many people will be directly or indirectly murdered by Biden-Harris governance, the number will be less than it would be under Trump-Pence.

One of that set of assholes will take the presidency.  You have some amount of human lives in your hand on this deal.  Will you save ten thousand people?  Forty-thousand?  A hundred thousand?  The exact numbers are impossible to know.  But it will definitely be a positive number.  I would vote for these fucking pigs to save the lives of ten people.

If you wouldn’t, and you feel the need to either deny that’s what this is, or to say that you wouldn’t, come take a shit in my comment section so I can ban you and delete your comments.  And if the melting codcake and the fucking DA win in November, if you’ll join me in helping them win, then I hope you will also join me in making their fascist little lives hell.

It ain’t over ’til it’s over.  Long live the fighters.

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“Wie ein Hund” – Murder Imitates Art

Spoiler Warning: I reveal the end of a Franz Kafka story
Content Warning: Murder

In Franz Kafka’s The Trial, as Josef K is being murdered by a couple of state goons just doing their jobs, he says “Wie ein Hund” before his throat is cut. “Like a dog,” that’s how he’s dying. Not allowed human dignity. There’s a transcript of George Floyd’s last words over at Mano’s, I can’t testify to the veracity of it because I’m not going to watch somebody get murdered and scrutinize the poor audio. But it’s believable. No human dignity allowed, no mercy from the thugs in blue, the state goons just doing their job.

I’m really glad that a big swath of people around the world aren’t buying the simplistic narrative of “riots bad.” Thank you for giving me a glimmer of hope. To all the “tough on crime” politicians and pundits pushing curfews and lockdowns and state violence, eat shit.

If I was a mayor, I would make a deal with my people. I order every cop in the city to go eat donuts in a suburb for a day, in exchange for a request that the protest be as minimally destructive as possible. Then I’d pick up the tab for whatever happened after that. Something tells me when you don’t bring militarized bullies in blue to a protest, they might not end in as much property damage.
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–Again, I don’t feel up to moderating comments on this topic, so they’re closed–

This Ain’t Your Race War, Jackoffs

For people new to the subject of White Supremacist Bullshit, there’s this concept that’s been around for a while: The Coming Race War, when all races must fight to the death for who has the right to rule. White elves vs. other shades of orcs and goblins for control of Middle Earff. Sometimes you’ll see it rendered as RaHoWa, for Racial Holy War. Anyhow, whenever racist oppression sparks a riot, the nazis and klan and sympathetic republicans mount up their trusty steeds to do battle. Like this asshole over here.

You know who burned that police station? Mostly white people. I’m sure you’ve seen the photographs. Who went around in masks and walkie-talkies causing surreptitious property damage? Your white pals in the five o, trying to manufacture excuses to kill innocent people. Let’s say that with the help of the nazi in chief, you manage to make this into a full blown war. It won’t be you brave kkknights against the sub-people. It’ll mostly be white people that are going to kill you.

It isn’t a race war, just because it started with racism. It’s four years of nazi rule and empowerment pushing good people to form a resistance. When the cops are involved, that resistance can’t stay passive because the cops won’t let it. You push, you get pushback. Nobody is going to like how this goes, as much as you racist death fetishists might get a few kicks along the way. It’s going to be bad for everybody. It already is.

I’m gonna do my best to stay out of it. Hopefully this will be my last post on the subject. It’s too depressing. And hopefully it blows over with a minimal amount of death. I don’t have a lot of hope left at this point.
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—I’m not moderating comments on this so I’m not allowing comments.—

Is Coughing on People Assault?

Content Warning: post and comments have a lot of violence in ’em.

Says Johnson Catman over in Mano’s comments:

I would think that, at this time, if someone purposefully coughs or spits on you, that should be considered assault. Also, the one coughed or spat upon should be able to respond in self-defense.

I don’t have a strong opinion on that right now, even though I can easily imagine myself responding to these intentional coughing or spitting incidents by committing unequivocal assault. I have enough restraint that I never have assaulted a person, but I’ve felt the urge so strongly it burned. (I’ve wanted to pick up an old man and embed him in a plate glass display, back in my Walmart days.) I have heard in the past that spitting on somebody is already legally considered to be assault – coughing would surely not be covered by those laws, even if that’s true.

Any legal experts know the haps on this? I think our nation’s retail workers deserve to know. And deserve to wear brass knuckles, depending on the answer.
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When Fascism Continues to Reign

Content Warning: Political Despair

Michael Moore recently had some dire predictions for us:

“I think if the election were held tonight, Trump would win. Not in the popular vote. Oh, no. Hillary won by 3 million votes? Whoever the Democratic nominee is, is going to win by 4 or 5 million votes. The gap will be even larger. The popular vote is going to be huge. But Trump has not lost his base. They’ve gotten bigger, and angrier, and whiter, and madder.”

I know this. I’m not sure if most people are noticing the extent of the problem here. The narrative has turned against progress. Public discourse in America and places like it around the world has been soaked in fascist propaganda for long enough that even some of the best of us regurgitate “common sense” we got third hand from neo nazis via our friends, family, lovers, the comedians and cultural figures we grew up with. Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld, harmless innocent funny people are telling us social justice has gone too far, people are too entitled, etc etc.

Kind and reasonable (but naive) people have been drinking from this cyanide well for so long there are young voters who have grown up knowing nothing else. Progressive movements like BLM get exploited by corporations to sell shit like Netflix TV shows that admit, yeah, maybe there’s some problems and you should stand up in some ambiguous way, but at the end of the day your political opponents are good people who can be reasoned with. You don’t need to do anything truly radical. You don’t need to care or to fight *that* much.

So the middle is kept too passive to vote, while conservatives are feeling more empowered and engaged than ever. Literal nazi propaganda has normalized so much that Fox news might as well fly the swastika. White people are gagging for it like sweet ambrosia. They believe it, they buy it, they sell it, they wallow in it. The belief that all of the woes of the world are the fault of outsiders, interlopers, anyone but themselves and the institutions they’ve been trained to revere.

Together with the fruit of decades of racist vote suppression, gerrymandering, and prison industry, that can sew it up for Trump – or his successor, whoever that great white fuck happens to be.

I’ve said it before and Mr. Moore reminded me today to say it again: Be ready to lose. To live under full bore fascism. To struggle to do right with no reward in sight, no light at the end of the tunnel. I wonder what it will look like from the inside, rather than from stories about other countries and other times in history. Some of it is already here, but when the scale tips – when we don’t even get the half-assed power to wag our fingers publicly at the tyrants, like at the impeachment – what will that feel like for us? I hope we don’t get to find out.
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Chelsea Manning Back in Jail

As predicted, they convened a new grand jury just to toss her back in the clink, along with an unprecedented from of punitive extortion.

Chelsea E. Manning, @xychelsea, May 16:
** Today, Chelsea was not only put back in jail, but Judge Anthony Trenga ordered her to be fined $500 every day she is in custody after 30 days and $1,000 every day she is in custody after 60 days. This is unprecedented.
Linked article: https://www.sparrowmedia.net/2019/05/statement-from-chelsea-mannings-lawyers-regarding-chelsea-being-remanded-into-custody/

Like a champ she was streaming video games the night before the trial. I’d say the dirtbags doing this need a lesson in class, but they get one every time they’re in the room with her. Maybe that’s why they want her out of sight. Anyhow, storm every Bastille, smash the state, yadda yadda.

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This Six Year Old Tweet

Content Warning: Apocalypse Despair

Via Alex Wild, entomologist, six years ago:

Alex Wild @Myrmecos
“Being a naturalist in the 21st century is like being an art enthusiast in a world where an art museum burns to the ground every year.”
-12:20 PM – 22 Dec 2013

It’s an appropriately depressing way to phrase the problem. To that I would only say it’s more accurate if every drawing would take hundreds of thousands of years to complete and every painting millions. I see the value that investment of time represents in every species and it creeps me the hell out when I see them being smoked like cigarettes, by the dozens, the hundreds. Entire populations of organisms lost forever, many every single year.

Some people also see that value and the destruction gives them an erection. Some people would pay big money to personally kill the last rhinoceros. The same kind of people who destroy art, who blow up thousand year old statues. What can I even say about people that evil? Nothing. Whatever I say they’d enjoy it, wallow naked in it. I’m done.

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