Comments

  5. wzrd1 says

    Totally ruined by having been educated by dik-dik gazelles, who I literally hand fed.
    For those unfamiliar, they’re around the body size of an adult cat. They approached me, I handed over the finer grasses for them to much upon.
    Got pictures around here somewhere of the entire event. Didn’t dare try to touch them, that’d be an abuse of trust granted by allowing me to offer them food.
    Cutest and most delicate looking herbivore I’ve ever saw!

    As for PZ’s actual point, slavery is good, because it’s part of the Party’s view, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.

    Pierce @ 4, nope! Gnus and wildebeests farts are far too smelly, so they’re not allowed to count with gazelles. Zebras, well, if they fart, they’re gone before one notices. But then, they’re total jackasses anyway.
    I’ll just get my hat…

  6. wzrd1 says

    Wow, utterly OT, but, just finished off a bot on antisocial media.
    Pure Ruskie bot, timing matched, a hidden URL in a response revealed the inner IP address, Saint Petersburg.
    Utterly predictable response, the subject being age and Mitch’s gaffes, but he burst into named agencies and POTUS, trying to link Senate and Executive, predictably and poorly.
    And defeated, even if I got drunk, kicked in the head by an angry mule, then oxygen deprived.
    Yet, Trumplets follow that crap religiously.
    The world is doomed.

    Oh well, in a few hours, I’ll have enough light to fix a multipole motor failure, due to a failed thermal fuse, due to dust clogging the motor bearings, then move onto ginning up a new router from my Raspberry Pi.
    Then, enjoy a fine lunch of leftover stew from last night, with the remnants of of rye bread that was home made (and a fair amount of rye flour left for more), which a neighbor absolutely adored.
    Then, I’ll move onto more complex problems, like being nearly 62 and finding a fucking job.
    After, maybe Grand Unification or something.

    But, when the low hanging fruit poaches you off from poaching the low hanging fruit, one might reconsider one’s career path.

  7. birgerjohansson says

    (Yells) “Social Darwinism, motherfuckers!” (Takes selfie wearing MAGA cap)

    Wzrd1 @ 6
    Well done.
    BTW I am the same age, had the extreme luck of landing in a job that I enjoy. The winter in North Sweden is bad, but it keeps lions, ticks and Republicans away. The odd bear is no problem.

  9. robro says

    Heather Cox Richardson wrote this in her essay on Saturday, which seems apropos:

    On March 4, 1858, South Carolina senator James Henry Hammond rose to his feet to explain to the Senate how society worked. “In all social systems,” he said, “there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life.” That class, he said, needed little intellect and little skill, but it should be strong, docile, and loyal.

    “Such a class you must have, or you would not have that other class which leads progress, civilization and refinement,” Hammond said. His workers were the “mud-sill” on which society rested, the same way that a stately house rested on wooden sills driven into the mud.

    He told his northern colleagues that the South had perfected this system by enslavement based on race, while northerners pretended that they had abolished slavery. “Aye, the name, but not the thing,” he said. “[Y]our whole hireling class of manual laborers and ‘operatives,’ as you call them, are essentially slaves.”

    While southern leaders had made sure to keep their enslaved people from political power, Hammond said, he warned that northerners had made the terrible mistake of giving their “slaves” the vote. As the majority, they could, if they only realized it, control society. Then “where would you be?” he asked. “Your society would be reconstructed, your government overthrown, your property divided, not…with arms…but by the quiet process of the ballot-box.”

    He warned that it was only a matter of time before workers took over northern cities and began slaughtering men of property.

    Ironically, I think Hammond was right about the place of the “hiringly class”…you and I…as essentially slaves but wrong about the South’s slavery arrangement being perfect. What industrialists/capitalists have achieved has far exceeded the ability of chattel slavery to dominate and control working people to the point where workers routinely vote against their own interests.

  11. seversky says

    I don’t see the hireling class as slaves. They have far more in the way of right and rewards. No the problem is apathy. Most can’t be bothered with the minutiae of running a country or even a county. Turning out to vote ever few years is the most they are prepared to do, They will complain, quite rightly, about corruption and hypocrisy in government but they would far rather hand over the job to the first vacuous but plausible demagogue that comes along than do it themselves.

  13. robro says

    seversky — To me, that’s the “brilliance” of the scheme. Rather than enslave people per se, with all the complications and expenses that entails, just get people to not care, or believe that caring is pointless. Go watch some TV, and let the rich and powerful run things. Don’t even vote because they’re all the same. In the last election 66.8% of people 18 years old and older voted…or fully 1/3 of the population did not vote.

  14. John Morales says

    I’ve always enjoyed the sheer style and competence and communicativeness of the art itself. I know how it works, but it still works on me.

    (Love the second and third panels, reckon the last panel is deliberately silly lest it be grim)

  15. StevoR says

    @5. wzrd1 :

    Totally ruined by having been educated by dik-dik gazelles, who I literally hand fed.
    For those unfamiliar, they’re around the body size of an adult cat. They approached me, I handed over the finer grasses for them to much upon. Got pictures around here somewhere of the entire event. Didn’t dare try to touch them, that’d be an abuse of trust granted by allowing me to offer them food. Cutest and most delicate looking herbivore I’ve ever saw!

    Awesome! That’s something incredibly special..

    I’ve heard of Dik-Diks before – think from an Attenborough doco & yeah, the name made adolesencent me giggle.. but never see in wild or even zoos that I can recall. Remarkable animals see :

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dik-dik & featuring at the start of this clip – 2 minutes 35 long in total here.

    As for Jackasses and zebras, well, certainly both equines ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equidae ) albiet the Jackass is but one gender of Donkey. For the guy featured in the previous thread chucking the tanty the pronouns here is actually the handy clue that reveals which one that is!

  16. imback says

    This morning, inspired by this, I threw together a parody song…

    The Lion Eats Tonight

    We-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee deem it is this way
    We-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee deem it is this way

    For lions feed, gazelles are meat, that feeds the seed, of grass they eat
    For lions feed, gazelles are meat, that feeds the seed, of grass they eat
    For lions feed, gazelles are meat, that feeds the seed, of grass they eat
    For lions feed, gazelles are meat, that feeds the seed, of grass they eat

    In the jungle, the Ayn Rand jungle, we lions eat tonight
    In the jungle, the Ron Paul jungle, we lions eat tonight

    In our village, plantation village, we lions sleep tonight
    In our village, mcmansion village, we lions sleep tonight

    Hush my deerfolk, remaining deerfolk, we grant you one more night
    Hush my deerfolk, make nextgen deerfolk, we grant you one more night
    Ho, ho!