So that’s what they learn in private Catholic schools


I’ve always wondered what Catholic values were, and now I know. Covington Catholic school exemplifies them all: Disrespect. Contempt. Dogma. Oppression. Hatred. The students of that school made a spectacle of themselves demonstrating those values in Washington DC.

There was a lot going on in the Capitol recently. There was a “pro-life” demonstration going on; Covington Catholic, an all-boys private school, sent a mob of their students there, which is a problem in itself. Why are boys trying to dictate what women are allowed to do with their bodies? Next problem: they all seem to be wearing MAGA hats, which tells me where their wealthy parents are coming from, and what kind of indoctrination they received. And then there seems to be a definite lack of adult supervision for these kids.

The Catholic rabble then ran into another demonstration, the Indigenous People’s March. The Native Americans didn’t have a problem, they carried on with dignity…but the dreadful little Catholic children were something else again.

The elder is Nathan Phillips, an Omaha elder who is also a Vietnam Veteran and former director of the Native Youth Alliance. He is also a keeper of a sacred pipe and holds an annual ceremony honoring Native American veterans in the Arlington National Cemetery.

Jesus. I work at a university that was built on the site of a Catholic boarding school for Indians, where children were ripped from their families to learn white man’s ways and follow the Pope, and this is a history we earnestly feel here — we have reminders all over the school of that legacy. Seeing little Catholic assholes shitting all over other people fills me with anger.

And despair. Look at those faces. Someday you’ll see them again in Congress, and on the Supreme Court, and maybe even the presidency. Because that’s where they’re confident they deserve to go.

Comments

  1. says

    These entitled little creeps have been accustomed to getting away with whatever they do. Now they’re going to learn that such boorish behavior in the public forum can have consequences. Will the lesson take? I suspect at least half of the little monsters will merely become aggrieved that they’re being criticized. How dare people demand civilized behavior from them!

  2. leerudolph says

    the dreadful little Catholic children

    “Boys” would have continued to be a fine word.

  3. anchor says

    That punk sure has his smirking skills down. He’ll be using it a lot as he ages into a worthless lout.

    I’ve also noticed an epidemic of that very sort on YouTube videos CACKLING INSANELY over sequences depicting potentially serious physical injury or misfortune in friends or strangers. They get their jollies out of seeing suffering. It boosts their sense of superiority. They’re an example of the worst in humanity.

    The general tendency toward obnoxiousness is amplified to hideous proportions when they’re confident that Jesus is on their side. It seems indoctrination into the ‘faith’ cancels out any potential for empathy and tolerance.

    That their parents and priests don’t notice or don’t see the monumental hypocrisy in producing obnoxious, intolerant, unempathetic louts trained toward behavior diametrically opposite to the teachings of their Messiah and ‘Savior’ just goes to show how evil the religious enterprise actually is. To them it’s ultimately all about ‘US uber alles’.

    It’s an ancient cultural attitude that the Nazis adopted. When in the pursuit of power, what can possibly top the declaration that the Ultimate Authority of GOD is on one’s side? Religion invites people to act like God – fascism merely pretends to remove the supernatural veneer.

  4. Azkyroth, B*Cos[F(u)]==Y says

    intolerant, unempathetic louts trained toward behavior diametrically opposite to the teachings of their Messiah and ‘Savior’

    I dunno, I can see these fuckers killing a fig tree because it’s the wrong season for it to bear fruit.

  5. Kamaka says

    The kid front and center, the one with the smirk, all up in his elder’s face?
    That kid needs the uncle treatment. It’s what uncles were invented for, to teach smug assholes like him to have some respect.
    Confronted by an uncle or two, I’d bet that shit-eating smirk goes away fast.

  6. microraptor says

    wcaryk @4: Is that really such a surprise? Controlling women has always been a part of fascist ideology.

  7. gijoel says

    @1 ^this

    In just about any other Western country in the world this would have been greeted with a massive backlash against the school (or at least I hope so). America is truly insane.

  8. anchor says

    @#7 – yeah, that preposterous fairy tale is just chock full of weirdnesses and inconsistencies, isn’t it?

  9. harryblack says

    I went to catholic schools in Ireland and never saw anything like that kind of thing nurtured or encouraged.
    Yes, they are a corrupt, hypocritical, murderous, torturing, colonialist organisation made up of rapists and those who make excuses for rapists (sorry, got carried away) but that kind of animosity and confrontational attitude just wasnt seen in the last few political issues they have been involved in here. And they REALLY struggle to mobilise youth in any way.

    All this to say- Maybe less a catholic thing and more a private school entitled scumbag thing?
    American catholicism is pretty unrecognizable to me though. Cultural differences can make a huge difference to interpretation and expression.

  10. jrkrideau says

    @ 13 harryblack
    I went to Catholic schools (not private) in Canada never saw anything like that either. It would be a rather nasty scandal in any private school. Friends of mine who did go to private schools would be horrified. Possibly a few of the boys would have been looking for a new school or, at least, warned within an inch of their lives.

    The principal was grossly irresponsible and should be looking for a new job for letting the boy loose but I suspect it is the wealth & sense of privilege that are the main drivers of the boys’ behaviour. Plus the licence that the Donald’s MAGA hats confer?

    I suspect that elite private boys’ schools of many other denominations would be just as bad—heck, one probably would not need a denomination. Elite private boys’ school would do.

  11. zetopan says

    @#7:
    Don’t forget that Jesus was also pro-slavery and he “cast demons” out of someone into a herd of pigs* that subsequently committed suicide by running into the sea**. Of course these little shits are smug – they belong to the “One True Religion” which is combined with their willful ignorance.

    *In a country where raising pigs was illegal!
    **No statement about compensating the owner of the pigs in this particular fable.

  12. Kamaka says

    @13 “American catholicism is pretty unrecognizable to me”

    On this side of the pond, the nuns were the bullies and it was bullies all the way down.
    The nasty boys in this vid were cultivated. I know, I lived it.
    How I hated catholic grade school, I still hold a grudge 50 years later.

  13. stwriley says

    Kamaka @#8

    I’d bet that shit-eating smirk goes away fast.

    Actually, it starts to slip pretty badly by the end of the video. Phillips is so cool and collected, carrying right on with his drumming and singing as though the kid isn’t even there, that it finally starts to shake him. You can see he just doesn’t understand why he’s not getting the reaction he wanted and how this “old guy” isn’t behaving in any way like what he expected. What the kid got was a lesson in how someone with real courage stands up to a cowardly potential bully, and he didn’t like it one bit.

  14. bcwebb says

    Covington has a spot on in the list of top ten most racist towns (biggest klan presence) in Kentucky. Of course, traditionally the klan was also anti Catholic but I expect that has gotten blurred with time.

  15. bcwebb says

    I’m not sure at say eighth grade whether I would have understood the Native Americans any better, given that American education about Native Americans was pretty much teepees and Pocahontas then but that was almost 50 years ago. However, there should have been a teacher or adult to shut them up and talk to them about what and why they were seeing these men.

  16. bcwebb says

    As another thought, of course the Anti-choice march is distinct among protest marches in that it is solely about the unilateral imposition of the marchers rules for society on the rest of the country. The very concept is about exerting power over everyone who doesn’t think as they do.

  17. joehoffman says

    @1 Tete à claques [.fr], Face made for punching [.us]… Has anyone ever counted how many languages need a word for this?

  18. says

    I don’t want a bloody revolution. I just want a few (dozen? hundred?) motherfuckers in jail and several million other motherfuckers to get a good, hard, backhanded slap from reality.

    Sadly, history tells me that, very often, the latter two things simply don’t happen without the first: a physical removal of the ruling classes from their fucking perches, and a whole lot of collateral damage.

  19. Jeremy Shaffer says

    I went to private Catholic school, and the above is very reminiscent of something that happened my senior year.

    Our theology teacher invited some speakers from a local Native American organization to give a presentation to the classes so we could learn about other cultures and beliefs of some the local tribes. It was something they did every so often- inviting people from other religious beliefs to speak to us- and was a great contrast from the rather implicit preeminence naturally given to Catholicism in the regular courses. I almost always enjoyed them, and throughout the day what I heard about it I was looking forward to hearing this one.

    I didn’t get to see the talk from the NA group, however, since they were forcefully ejected from the school the class period right before mine. We were told by the faculty that the representatives had been exceptionally rude and testy all day until they finally began shouting about how Catholicism was a blood religion and various other sorts of accusations. We were also told our parents would receive apologies and blah, blah, blah. I was surprised and disappointed by this, but didn’t think too much of it until certain tidbits started rolling out.

    Among the student body, regardless of class, we had plenty of kids at my school with attitudes and manners like the smirking dipshit in the video displays. In each one of the class periods that day there were always a vocal group of (mostly) boys who decided racist and bigoted antics were a better use of their time than learning about a different culture. More, not a single one of them seem that concerned about keeping it hidden, and were pretty blatant about what they were doing. From what I gathered the people from the NA organization were obviously annoyed by the insults and belittlement from the students, but what likely frustrated them was the equally obvious inaction by the faculty and teachers present.

    One could say the outburst from the guest was wrong, but I can’t and don’t blame them. Knowing some of the students involved in that were ones who tended to get away with all sorts of crap because of their families, but a good bit of it was also the chauvinistic mindset many of the teachers and staff had when it came to beliefs other than Catholicism. Needless to say, as far as the school was concerned the blame lay solely on the NA group, and not a single one of the students involved got so much as a scowl from any member of the faculty of note.

  20. marcoli says

    Well, it’s all over the news. CNN and even our local news, and in many web outlets. These punks are going going to feel an internet shitstorm.

  21. microraptor says

    Hmm, at the Catholic elementary school I attended in the late 80s/early 90s, the extent of or education on Native Americans was basically “Lewis & Clark met a bunch of tribes, they were really friendly and treated them all well, Indians got upset with White People who’d been nice and understanding, Indians live on Reservations.”

    It was sanitized to the point of outright lying to us, really.

  22. methuseus says

    @Jeremy Shaffer #25:
    I would agree that the outburst by the guest was wrong, but I would also say that it was completely warranted in the face of what was happening. It would have been more constructive to leave, saying “We are being given no respect and are being actively disrespected.” rather than insulting Catholicism. But even though the outburst may have been wrong, I don’t think the individual(s) should have been chastised in any way for it.

  23. methuseus says

    I’m a little confused as to what’s going on in the video. It appears that Nathan Phillips walked up to the boy and continued to sing and make music very near him. Were the boys in the route of the Indigenous People’s March, and that’s why they walked through the group and stopped right next to that boy? Were they trying to spark a confrontation? I hope not, but it sort of looks like that, and I’m sure, if I find more info about it, it’ll make more sense.

  24. methuseus says

    Ok, so looking into it a little more, it seems that the individuals in the Indigenous People’s March were suddenly mobbed by the boys who surrounded and mocked them. Nathan Phillips was trying to extricate himself and his group from the boys, and the grinning idiot is the one who wouldn’t move to let them leave the area. The video, because it started after they had already been mobbed by the boys, makes it appear that Nathan approached the boy for some reason, which is incorrect. I’m glad to find that out as it seemed awfully aggressive on the part of Nathan Phillips without realizing the boys had mobbed them.

  25. methuseus says

    Oops, and forgot to mention that the aggressive stance that it seemed like to me is out of Nathan Phillips’ character, which is part of why I was so confused.

  26. DLC says

    I am not catholic. But then I’m not “christian” either. But right now, I find myself wishing I were not white. This crumbs disgust me.

  27. anchor says

    @29-31 – yeah, you’re confused. It seemed clear to me that Phillips was just standing there the whole time as the punks confronted him.

    To be sure, Phillips easily won the staring contest. Its easy enough to see that punk got pretty rattled and had to break off eye contact several times. He was completely outclassed. Methinks he could not avoid hearing the echoes of that drum and song throughout the following night. May it haunt him for the rest of his life.

  28. says

    As for those whose own experiences of catholic schools don’t match, remember that catholics usually always reflect the community around them. They do what they know they can get away with.
    Just like all the things they now call “Christian values” which is something they were usually forced to accept kicking and screaming.

    As an aside:

    The elder is Nathan Phillips, an Omaha elder who is also a Vietnam Veteran…

    I wished Americans would stop doing this. American progressives will never get their shit together until they stop that bullshit veteran worship. I know, back in the days of the Vietnam war those young men didn’t have a choice but to go there, but they were the wrong ones who participated in war crimes and genocide.
    And that doesn’t even touch on the subject of how you’re for some reason supposed to be super respectful of “two times Afghanistan veterans”.

  29. Holms says

    I have already seen this being circulated on social media as the drummer approaching and accosting the ‘innocent students’ as an act of aggression. There is no dishonesty that is too far for the right.

  30. says

    It seems to me (as an ex-Catholic) that the Catholic hierarchy in the US could use this moment to raise their mitred heads out of the sump of scandal they find themselves in– if only for a moment– by excommunicating these little toe-rags. Make them do penance by volunteering at a homeless shelter or a soup kitchen for a year in order to get it lifted. Or by removing their patronage from the school until such time as it proves it’s instilling proper Catholic values, demonstrating that being a Catholic is no mere label, and that calling yourself one comes with certain obligations in how one acts towards one’s fellow human beings. But they won’t, of course, because that might upset the rubes filling the collection plates…

  31. a_ray_in_dilbert_space says

    Perhaps the proper honorific for Catholic bishops should be “Your excrescence.”

  32. says

    My mom’s family was Mexican-American Catholic. Most have left the Church for other reasons, including my parents, but I’d have to say this is a white thing rather than a Catholic thing.

  33. Matt G says

    This same Diocese banned a non-gender conforming and gay valedictorian from giving his speech at last year’s graduation (not the same school as here). They also closed a church temporarily to investigate “financial irregularities” in November.

  34. Akira MacKenzie says

    Already seeing attempts to ”reverse the narrative” and place the blame on the Native American marchers for interfering with the anti-abortion demonstration. Those poor boys were only standing up for themselves in the face of an obnoxious Leftist mob.

  35. anbheal says

    Can we also note that the boys were shouting “Build That Wall” at indigenous people? At the freakin’ Lincoln Memorial! The nearest border crossing, at Brownsville/Matamoros, is about 1800 miles southwest of there. And, em, Earth to Catholic boys: a wall won’t keep out Cherokees and Sioux and Seminoles and Navajos and Wampanoags.

    Proving, with no shadow of a doubt, that the Wall has nothing to do with border security, drugs, terrorism, migrant workers, gangs, or anything else. It is a monument to White Supremacy. Period.

  36. Matt G says

    A month ago, a recent graduate (and sports star) of Covington Catholic was arrested for rape and sodomy.

  37. says

    “Oh, hello, Mrs. Cleaver. I was just telling Wallace and Theodore about the importance of listening to the wisdom of tribal elders.”

  38. fentex says

    I happened across a reasonavbly well put argument today at…

    http://reason.com/blog/2019/01/20/covington-catholic-nathan-phillips-video

    …that this is a very misrepresented event, with out of context use of selective video.

    The TLDR; is, according to the author, Phillips walked up to the students thinking he was putting himself between two groups that were at odds (having observed another group berating the students) – and it was not a case of the students confronting him.

    There are links in the article claiming to be more complete, lengthy, views of events providing a different context – which I haven’t watched to offer an opinion on, but people who are interested may want to.

  39. Acolyte of Sagan says

    #52…. or not wrong. 16 minutes between fentex’s comment and your dismissal of it suggests that you did not look at the video evidence in the link supplied, but relied instead on your own prejudices to provide the ‘facts’ necessary to state your claim so definitively.
    Maybe look at the link first, or at least condemn the kid for what he does do wrong (protesting women’s rights to abortions; supporting Trump) rather than what is claimed he did but which video evidence (the full video, not carefully edited highlights) suggests is incorrect.
    https://reason.com/blog/2019/01/20/covington-catholic-nathan-phillips-video

  40. flakko says

    WMDKitty, how do you know the article is wrong? When I watched the video, I went into it with an impression of over-privileged white kids wearing MAGA hats at an anti choice rally – I wanted to hate them. After watching it I came away with a feeling of being hoodwinked (yet again) by the outrage machine. The kids literally did nothing wrong. There is no taunting, and no disrespect beyond what you would expect from a group of kids. There is no indication that the kids surrounded Phillips, and other videos seem as though Phillips himself entered the group. That is also the account of others.

    So, do you know the article is wrong or do you just want to hate these kids?

  41. flakko says

    Who are the MAGA fucks who showed up? Am I one for not blindly accepting the narrative? I am someone who would be called by the MAGA fucks a snowflake and a SJW, both I am happy to accept. But I will not blindly accept the outrage machine every time I am ordered to. How many times has the narrative been wrong after days of national outrage? Many times. It’s time to stop this bullshit.

  42. microraptor says

    It’s amusing that the defense of this kid boils down to “he wasn’t doing anything wrong right that moment.”

  43. John Morales says

    Meh. Two narratives, three groups; one of them religious loonies, one of them schoolkids, one of them native Americans. I did bother to skim the cited videos and read up a bit, since it’s an interesting topical cultural phenomenon.

    None of them comes out of this looking good.

    Also, I personally can’t see the relevance of the kids’ purported Catholicism to their actions; for me, it’s their status as privileged school kids that’s of significance.

    It’s amusing that the defense of this kid boils down to “he wasn’t doing anything wrong right that moment.”

    But that’s the whole thesis: that “this kid” (since self-identified as Nick Sandmann) was supposed to have been doing something wrong right that moment. So the objection stands.

    BTW, so viral was it that it made the news here in Oz (national broadcaster link):
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-21/native-american-surrounded-maga-trump-supporters-what-happened/10730988

    What did amuse me was this quotation (in that article):
    “The student in a red MAGA hat at the centre of the video, Nick Sandmann, later released a statement published by CNN in an attempt to explain what happened.

    “Because we were being loudly attacked and taunted in public, a student in our group asked one of our teacher chaperones for permission to begin our school spirit chants to counter the hateful things that were being shouted at our group,” he said.”

    (Catholic school spirit chants?! Once upon a time, that would have been sufficient for the Inquisition to do its thing)

    PS flakko, fentex: good on ya for having the guts to speak out.

  44. Acolyte of Sagan says

    Akira MacKenzie
    20 January 2019 at 10:28 pm

    And, as predicted, the MAGA-fucks show up to defend their own

    And as usual, deviation from the hivemind is seen as an attack by the enemy.

  45. Akira MacKenzie says

    flakko, the lying sack of right-wing shit, said:

    I am someone who would be called by the MAGA fucks a snowflake and a SJW, both I am happy to accept.

    Liar.

    Meanwhite, Accolyte of Sagan Trump said:

    And as usual, deviation from the hivemind reality is seen as an attack by the enemy racist, capitalist, right-wing shits.

    Fixed that for you.

  46. alkisvonidas says

    Seeing that smirk, I am so, SO reminded of The Chocolate War (a must read). And Young Törless.

  47. alkisvonidas says

    @Giliell

    American progressives will never get their shit together until they stop that bullshit veteran worship. I know, back in the days of the Vietnam war those young men didn’t have a choice but to go there, but they were the wrong ones who participated in war crimes and genocide.

    Assuming you mean they were in the wrong, or fighting on the wrong side: I agree. But they were also a major part of the anti-war movement back home, and they knew what they were talking about. Which is good reason to respect their views, if not them.

    Civilians with war experience, in general, usually have the sanest views on war, regardless of which side they find themselves fighting for. There are exceptions, of course; a certain Austrian corporal managed to come out of the WWI slaughterhouse without learning a thing.

  48. Rob Grigjanis says

    Akira @61: I nominate your comment for Pharyngula Misfire of the Month. There was nothing wrong with flakko’s, fentex’s, or Acolyte’s comments; they just didn’t go along with the narrative established in the OP. And seriously, “Accolyte [sic] of Sagan Trump”? C’est à rire.

    Just change your name to Locutus.

  49. drst says

    Giliel @34 – to me the fact that he was a Vietnam Vet is more relevant to the fact that the swarm of aspiring lynch mobbers were disrespecting a veteran, which according to the right is the most heinous crime of all time, though I suppose they didn’t take a knee at least.

  50. drst says

    @John Morales – how was the mob of white boys being “attacked” by 3 black people and a handful of Native Americans? They wildly outnumbered the other protestors.

    Nathan Phillips put himself in between two groups to try and protect the black protestors from the mob of angry white teen boys (all of whom, let’s not forget, were in DC to attack the rights of women to control their own bodies) and defuse the situation. The white teens surrounded him and started screaming at him.

    https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2019/01/20/native-american-leader-nathan-phillips-recounts-incident-video/2630256002/

    Y’all can keep trying to spin this to somehow make the large group of angry white men the poor widdle victims, but the videos show what really happened. We can see the truth for ourselves.

  51. Rob Grigjanis says

    drst @67: John didn’t say they were being attacked: the kid in the MAGA hat said that. Ask him.

    If anyone is spinning, it’s you and Akira. Nobody said the teens were “poor widdle victims”, and they didn’t look angry to me. And nobody “forgot” why the kids were there.

  52. Akira MacKenzie says

    Stop calling these fucks “Kids.” They’re more than old enough to grasp political issues and should be held accountable for their deplorable positions. Besides, we don’t like it when our young activists are dismissed by the Right for their age.

  53. Akira MacKenzie says

    Nobody said the teens were “poor widdle victims”…

    Nobody… except Fox News and the rest of the right-wing media.

    …and they didn’t look angry to me…

    What they look like are smug, right-wing, theist, Trump-loving, shits.

  54. Acolyte of Sagan says

    <

    blockquote>drst
    21 January 2019 at 9:45 am

    @John Morales – how was the mob of white boys being “attacked” by 3 black people and a handful of Native Americans? They wildly outnumbered the other protestors.

    Just so we’re clear, questioning the claims of trans people is actual violence but yelling homophobic abuse (yes, watch the video) at a bunch of students is….ok?

    Akira MacKenzie
    21 January 2019 at 11:31 am

    Nobody said the teens were “poor widdle victims”…

    Nobody… except Fox News and the rest of the right-wing media.

    So nobody here, in this conversation.

    …and they didn’t look angry to me…

    What they look like are smug, right-wing, theist, Trump-loving, shits.

    None of which I disagree with, but not angry, which makes it 2 for 2 dishonest statements from you.
    Oh, and Acolyte of Trump? How old are you? Ten?

  55. says

    For those claiming the poor kids did nothing multiple witness said that they were doing tomahawk chops at the native American protestors and were yelling “Build the wall”. It was not all caught on the video because of the noise.

    Also @Acolyte of Sargon why did you feel the need to bring in “questioning the claims of trans people”? Trans people had nothing to do with this…just a random shot at us or what?

  56. Acolyte of Sagan says

    Nope, just wondering how questioning one thing can be called ‘actual violence’ but yelling homophobic slurs at students is somehow not.
    Also, I’m sure that the noise would not have prevented ‘Tomahawk chops’ from showing on the video, what with them being physical rather than vocal.

  57. stroppy says

    What teh hey, I’ll throw my 2 cents in. The vet thing is important for at least one reason. It shows that the flag-waving wingers who make such a big deal about American warriors are hypocrites. But once again Native Americans are left holding the shitty end of the stick in the midst of left, right and center white politics.

    In general I’d take more care in deconstructing what happened. You can be sure that fascists are watching for any faults in the discussion that they can repeatedly exploit with distortions in similar, future viral arguments.

    As a starting point, staring someone down is an act of aggression, more so if it’s from a superior physical height. The smiling is not smirking, it’s flat and intentional psychological intimidation. Are you all so old that you don’t remember high school?

  58. says


    At the 1 hour 12 minute mark of the video the elder enters the video and shortly thereafter you see the chanting and tomahawks at him and his group. The black Israelites were clearly in the wrong taunting the boys but the response of going to racist gestures and taunting were not an appropriate way to deal with their anger and especially to people who had not in fact ever taunted the boys.

    Well they may have been provoked by the other group it does not excuse how they responded. If they street preacher from my last city who always called me homophobic slurs had started yelling at me it does not give me the right to use slurs against someone who tried to intervene and deescalate. They should face the consequences of that choice.

  59. ck, the Irate Lump says

    Acolyte of Sagan wrote:

    Nope, just wondering how questioning one thing can be called ‘actual violence’ but yelling homophobic slurs at students is somehow not.

    So, were those students protesting in favor of gay rights? If not, it’s highly irrelevant to the discussion at hand. I don’t think anyone has defended the actions of the black Israelite group.

    stroppy wrote:

    The smiling is not smirking, it’s flat and intentional psychological intimidation. Are you all so old that you don’t remember high school?

    Exactly. Its the expression a bully makes when he knows his misdeeds will be defended by the established power structure. There is rage behind that expression, expressed as a performance for the gullible who will inevitably defend him.

  60. says

    @Acolyte of Sargon who wrote “Nope, just wondering how questioning one thing can be called ‘actual violence’ but yelling homophobic slurs at students is somehow not.”

    Your post in the other thread about puberty blockers tells me that you are not being entirely truthful there.

  61. Pablo Campos says

    I must reply now that there are people who showed up in the comments defending the MAGA kid. It’s true that this situation was more complex than at first glance but the concern trolls are blowing out of proportion. First of all the double standard. Where were these people when the Parkland kids were getting harrassed and even threatened? If this MAGA kid and his friends were black and Nathan was white instead then the uproar would be even more immense and nobody would defend them. As the “out of context” claim. I refer you to Wonkette where they have a excellent rebuttal. Also the private school and mom themselves gave a version of the story. Should we really consider their story 100 percent accurate? Thery are going damage control mode and would be justified to whitewash the story. The kids mom is a “fake news Muslims made him do it” loon. Also even if the Black Israelites did provoke the kid, then harassing Nathan was no way to compensate. Also some people here link to Reason. That Libertarian garbage site where “both sides” is considered dogma and leans Right. Sure. I hate when these stories appear and concern trolls come to the rescue of the perpetrators. A white conservative professor harrassed a queer Muslim student that later prompted her to leave college and the professor got out free. He also says he’ll openly discriminate against student who are LGBT in his classroom. This happened 2-3 years ago and there was little uproar. Few came to defend the student. In fact the same type of people here came to defend the professor because freeze peach. It wasn’t headline news. I bring this point because real discrimination and racism is being ignored by the concern trolls while they arrogantly come here to point their finger to others to proclaim “both sides!” and to set the record straight about the poor misrepresented MAGAers. Sigh… I’m tired of this bullshit.

  62. Pablo Campos says

    This the kind of nation we live in now. Conservatives are given a slap in the wrist for misinformation and even inciting violence while Liberals are given the boot and talked down to by the entitled centrists, Libertarians, classical liberals or whatever they call themselves this week for a mistake that conservatives purposely do on a daily basis. I’m sure this is just further bias confirmation for the trolls to fell righteous and to claim how much more clever and rational they are. Liberals wrong about some MAGA kid? I’m all over that! Conservatives shutting down the government, fucking up the environment, studies showing the radicalization of the GOP, evolution denial, gutting education and healthcare. No that’s definitely not something to talk about. I guess the real problems that the GOP are causing is nothing compared to what the Liberals are doing. I’m even more tired of this bullshit and the smug attitude of the trolls.

  63. Saad says

    CNN has published the MAGAt’s account in which he says was just there to innocently call for the end of women’s right to decide what happens to their body while donning fascist white supremacist paraphernalia. He was just picked on for no reason, the poor kid. Fucking Richard Spencer in the making.

  64. rietpluim says

    What Saad said.

    A MAGA cap is as much a sign of fascism as a swastika is. Stop playing this down.

  65. rietpluim says

    Acolyte of Sagan
    And as usual, deviation from the hivemind is seen as an attack by the enemy.
    We agree? Hivemind.
    We disagree? Deviation from the hivemind.
    Either way it’s hivemind.
    Pretty little “heads I win, tails you lose” fallacy you’ve got there, buster. Pretty ironic too, regarding the group we’re talking about.

  66. Akira MacKenzie says

    Newsweek is reporting that Covington had to close down after receiving a “death threat.”

    Let the Right-wing Christian “persecution” whine-fest begin!

  67. Rob Grigjanis says

    Things I’ve learned in this thread:

    It’s OK de rigueur to misrepresent events in order to cast your ideological opponents in the worst possible light. Fox News agrees.

    It’s not OK to point out the misrepresentation, because:

    1) If you do so, you are a concern troll who is somehow defending/enabling said opponents. In fact, you might even be one of them.
    2) These are bad people.
    3) If you do so, it somehow means you don’t care about all the horrible things the bad people do.
    4) These are bad people.
    5) Credibility no longer matters a damn.

    Again, Fox News heartily approves.

  68. says

    Cross posted from the Political Madness All the Time thread.

    Followup to comment 282 on the Political Madness thread.

    So what happens if you are Nick Sandmann, child of wealthy parents and student at a private Catholic school, and you get yourself in trouble for smirking at a Native American elder? Your family hires a high-profile PR firm to spin the story. Preferably a PR firm run by conservatives who have gotten other MAGA-hat-wearing dunderheads out of trouble.

    PR firm RunSwitch, co-run by adviser to Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Scott Jennings, has played a significant role in quelling the outrage over a video that at first appeared to show a MAGA hat-wearing teen disrespectfully crowding the space of and smirking at a Native American man.

    The firm said in a statement that it “has been retained by the Sandmann family to offer professional counsel with what has become a national media story. We are working with the family to ensure an accurate recounting of events which occurred this past weekend,” according to the Louisville Courier Journal, where Jennings is a columnist. […]

    Extended video has muddied the story, as it backs up student Nick Sandmann’s claim that he was approached by Omaha elder Nathan Phillips, not the other way around.

    Link

    Yeah, but the smirking teen refused to move out of the way as the Native American elder tried to walk between two groups of people that had been hurling insults at each other. The elder was trying to calm the situation.

    From the readers comments:

    Scott Jennings was also a big Kavanaugh supporter. The title of this op-ed he wrote is sure pretty funny in light of the Covington Catholic students’ behavior on Friday. “The Brett Kavanaugh case shows we can’t let angry mobs rule America: […] Kavanaugh deserves the benefit of the doubt […]”
    ——————
    Adviser to Mitch McConnell? He frequently appears on CNN and is described as a “Republican strategist.” with no mention to his connections to McConnell. Is there a reason we are not supposed to know about his connection to McConnell?
    ——————
    So, little rich entitled white catholic boy’s wealthy father hires an expensive right-wing PR firm to “correct the narrative” so it doesn’t impact his spawn’s future political endeavors?

    Typical. and they say irony is dead……
    ——————
    Latest Covington Catholic video from the Lincoln Memorial incident on Friday has surfaced where one of the students yells, “It’s not rape if you enjoy it!”

    Good luck spinning this one… https://twitter.com/girlsreallyrule/status/1087733862283776003
    ———
    Not only is it totally weird if not totally unacceptable that an advisor to McTurtle is also a columnist at his home newspaper, but it should give a lot of people pause because being a political hack and being allowed to use a paper to advance one politician’s personal agenda should be a direct conflict of interest by anyone’s standards. I do hope every time he posts at the Courier Journal they identify this guy as McConnell’s advisor and on his payroll, at the very least.

    Even Trump got in on the Twitter action designed to excuse the students from the Catholic school:

    Looking like Nick Sandman [sic] & Covington Catholic students were treated unfairly with early judgements proving out to be false – smeared by media. Not good, but making big comeback! New footage shows that media was wrong about teen’s encounter with Native American.

    On Fox News, Tucker Carlson devoted an entire segment to excusing the Catholic school students.

  69. stroppy says

    …teen refused to move out of the way as the Native American elder tried to walk between two groups of people that had been hurling insults at each other. The elder was trying to calm the situation…

    From various statements, Sandmann apparently thought it was all about him… which is about what you’d expect from a clueless, wing-nut, adolescent twit. If he had any manners, he would simply have moved aside and let the elderly Phillips proceed up the Memorial steps.

    See also Interview vid from WaPo. Apparently there’s is no news source that attempts to analyze the whole situation in detail. Bits and pieces here and there…

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/picture-of-the-conflict-on-the-mall-comes-into-clearer-focus/2019/01/20/c078f092-1ceb-11e9-9145-3f74070bbdb9_story.html?utm_term=.f1519f55e32e

    Greg Laden’s take:
    http://gregladen.com/blog/2019/01/21/make-america-gullible-again/

    Can we please stop normalizing the MAGA-holes now?

  70. steve1 says

    What the Parents should be advising: Do not stand so close in someone’s personal space while smirking. This is considered aggressive behavior. If this person moves in your personal space try to back off. Tell him that you’re glad no one got hurt and hope he learned something.
    What the parents did instead: Hire a GOP hack PR firm to spin the narrative, in the process further spoiling this adolescent.