It’s my granddaughter’s birthday this weekend, so yesterday we spent 7 hours traveling all across Minnesota and Wisconsin, and boy are my knees sore. We’ve got a party to go to tomorrow.
He looks like death already
Let’s take a look at how RFK Jr. demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt in this video that he is, in fact, antivaccine. I will repeat what I’ve been saying for months now: RFK Jr. is definitely coming for your vaccines; he’s coming for all vaccines, in fact. It’s just that he’s strategic enough to know that he can’t do it all at once, which is why he purged the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) and replace the fired members with antivaxxers and the antivax-adjacent, only one of whom has any significant experience in public health or vaccine policy. Personally, I’ve been saying that the only thing that’s saved us (thus far) is the inexperience and incompetence of RFK Jr.’s ACIP. In the meantime, President Trump has embraced Andrew Wakefield’s old grift about separating the components of the MMR vaccine as somehow being “safer,” even as he talks about adding autism to the list of table injuries for the Vaccine Injury Compensation System, a move that would certainly bankrupt and destroy it.
Yes, things are grim out there.
Fortunately, my granddaughter has responsible parents who have kept her vaccination status up to date, which is why I get to go hang out with her and watch her open presents and celebrate her 7th birthday. It’s absolutely insane that we have a director of health and human services who is committed to killing young children with disease, while our Secretary of War favors more direct execution of children. This really is the death cult coming into fruition in our federal government.
Reminder: we have a podcast this afternoon!
Why the hell can’t the Democrats start impeachment proceedings of Roadkill Jr. for his rank incompetence? He is going to get many people killed with his incompetence.
This is the man who is in charge of health care policy in the USA:
RFK Jr. Complains About TikTok Video of Woman Taking Tylenol With a ‘Baby in Her Placenta’
I didn’t think I would be able to get a COVID vaccination this year, especially in Florida, but last Saturday realized I qualified as a “former smoker”. At one point the CDC defined this as someone as someone who had smoked 100+ cigarettes in their lifetime, but do so no longer. Anyway I survived the mRNA invasion into my precious body fluids yet again.
I’m really confused now on the vaccination guidance. Are there still restrictions on those younger than 1965 in the US? That might have changed this past week…or not…???
I think RFK Jr is on a revenge tour for his dad. We are all stand-ins for Sirhan Sirhan. RFK Jr is a wretched embarrassment to the memory of his dad, who played a role in averting a nuclear exchange in October 1962, at least according to a Kevin Costner movie. Junior is facilitating preventable disease. Apple fell very far from the tree.
@1 OptimisticCharlie
“Why the hell can’t the Democrats start … anything?”
Did who let the dogs out kill the mainstream media? It sure seems to have died from both-sides-ism. A couple I know who I try to avoid but because “family” intrude into my bubble of reality, I have become quite firm. “No, you’re wrong.” “But, that’s my opinion!” “Well, your opinion is wrong. Wrong is wrong.”
It seems to be working but it’s tiring to have to do it over and over again. If only the now dead, former mainstream media had done the same.
@ cheerfulcharlie @ #1 — “Why the hell can’t the Democrats start impeachment proceedings…” That’s simple: Because they don’t have a majority in the House, so they don’t control the agenda. I believe they can introduce measures to do that effect, and perhaps they do, but Johnson and company will kill it immediately and you’re unlikely to hear anything about it.
@1 impeachment
Because it would take a simple majority in the House to impeach, and the Republican Party holds the majority. All the Republicans refuse to cross up Trump’s pick, either out of enthusiasm, loyalty, or fear.
To actually convict would take a 2/3 majority in the Senate, and the Republican Party also holds the majority there, because a lot of people voted while stupid.
Doc Bill @ #4 — Have you heard Jon Ossof’s “both-sides-ism” case (here, I think)? The system is rigged, there’s corruption on both sides…thanks to Citizens United…and that’s a lot of the problem. But what are we going to do?
A lot of this drop in child deaths was due to the invention and use of vaccines.
I’ve seen it myself.
When I was growing up in the 1950s, a lot of adults around us limped in various idiosyncratic ways. We didn’t have to ask. It was polio. As little kids, we didn’t worry much about polio but every summer our parents did it for us.
One day in the third grade, I got to school and the playground was in a state of chaos. One of our classmates had died. This never happened and we never thought about dying. The word went around. Polio.
RFK jr. wants to take us back to that era.
Just say no. We aren’t going.
The situation at the CDC is bad but the 344 million people in the USA aren’t all idiots or helpless.
The western states of California, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii have formed their own version of the CDC.
They are simply going to ignore the crackpots at what was once the CDC, and issue their own vaccine recommendations.
This is an example of soft secession.
What is the Federal non-government going to do?
Send in the National Guard and arrest all the doctors?
Cut off federal funding? They’ve already done that so what is left to cut.
Then there’s Ebola.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-11/hazmat-ebola-emergency-practice-exercise-at-sydney-hospital/105877344?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web
One of our organization’s leaders and wife got covid and flu vaccinations 2 days ago. However, the huge pharmacy chain they went to was running out of both and they could only get substitutions for the nexspike and fluzone they signed up for. THIS NATION IS BEING MURDERED BY THE MAGAT AND HIS IGNORANT MALICIOUS CULT.
@9 raven posted: The situation at the CDC is bad but the 344 million people in the USA aren’t all idiots or helpless. . . .western states. . . .formed their own version of the CDC.
I reply: That is a good but relatively small step, the rest of the country is in deep trouble:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/cdc-mass-layoffs
Oct 11, 2025 ‘It’s a Disaster’: Medical Experts Horrified by Trump Administration ‘Friday Night Massacre’ at CDC CDC insiders are estimating that “between 1,100 and 1,300 employees are being cut” by the Trump administration.
I wonder how the “Dept. of War” feels about this? Anyone who has ever been in the U.S. military remembers the vaccinations they received during basic in-processing. It was an assembly line. Both arms were hit simultaneously with the vaccine gun. I forget how many shots I received that day, but I still have my yellow WHO booklet, which has 20+ vaccines listed. If RFK is intent on banning all vaccines, he’s going to get some serious push back from the brass. I doubt that even Pickled Pete will be able to steamroller them on that.
raven @ #8 — Infant mortality was still high into the 1920s. Of my grandfathers first six children, four died in infancy, one died as a young adult…perhaps due to birth complications, another big factor in the past…and the youngest survived until her 80s. Of his second group of children, one died in infancy, but three…including my mother…survived until old age. My mom died at 91. She has a sister still living who is in her 80s.
The world has changed signifcantly and much of that change is due to vaccines and other healthcare advances. RFK and DJT are both idiots. They are just trolling. Taco is probably mostly wrecking havoc because the COVID pandemic wrecked his first term.
@12
Assuming he’s sober enough, I’m sure he’d say:
“Pffft! Anyone who needs a vaccine is obviously too weak to be one of the unstoppable, white, male, straight, Christian
soldierswar-fighters in Trump’s military! A REAL American hero is someone who can take three-to-four sucking chest wounds and still kill a village full of non-combatants, not some wimp who lets a measly virus make him sick! Once natural selection (which we’ll otherwise deny exists in any other context) has done its job, America will have an unconquerable fighting force! Now where’s the nearest bar?!”…RFK Jr. has been maintaining his old lie … that he’s “not antivax” and is only interested in making vaccines “safer.”
Yeah, IIRC that’s what a lot of racists say — “I’m not anti-Black, I just want Black people to be SAFER before I let my delicate little child go near one! And Black people still aren’t safe enough that I should take any risk with my child’s safety!” Seriously, isn’t that what lots of White parents almost literally said when we started integrating public schools? Isn’t that what homophobes have been saying about gay or lesbian people being in the same restrooms with straight kids?
I work in a children’s hospital and was discussing the impact of decreasing vaccination with one of my ENT surgeon colleagues. There are a number of serious conditions that we almost never see anymore that will almost certainly make a comeback as vaccination rates drop. For example; respiratory papillomatosis is the growth of wart-like tumors in the airway and is prevented by the HPV vaccine. It can require multiple surgeries (even a tracheostomy) to treat and can be fatal. Epiglottitis is an inflammation of the flap of tissue that protects the airway while swallowing; it can be fatal if not treated quickly. It is prevented by the Haemophilus influenzae vaccine. Both have become rare since the relevant vaccines became widely available.
More information:
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/23101-recurrent-respiratory-papillomatosis
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/epiglottitis/symptoms-causes/syc-20372227
Pretend General Pete won’t have a problem with unvaccinated soldiers. He wants to take the military back to the good old days when most casualties in war were from diseases, not battle wounds.
There is no part of the current bunch of fuckups pretending to run this country and make it great again that does not fly in the face of the reality of what things are and how things work that does not make me depressed watching so many just knuckle under and say nothing. let alone do the right thing
unclefrogy, maybe think of it as stress-testing the system.
(So far, so good… for values of good that include no hot civil war)
I think both Kegsbreath and RFKwack need to be reminded that penicillin was first invented in response to THE U.S. FUCKING ARMY asking for antibiotics for their troops who were stationed outside the USA. If that sort of thing didn’t work, they wouldn’t still be spending money on it.
Raging Bee, your expressed certitude is unwarranted;
cf. https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/project-bring-penicillin-wwii-troops.html
A serendipitous discovery, and an appropriate employment, sure.
But no causal link or invention.
The vultures are already launching themselves into the air.
Gen. Washington ordered his troops to get the smallpox inoculation.
as the saying goes, “those who forget the lessons of the past…are welcomed with open arms into the MAGAt bunch.”
Lot of phrases like ‘murderer’ and ‘will cause many deaths’ and so on being linked above to RFK Jr, and I agree with that. But were he to be murdered, would it be political violence? Would it therefore be unjustified under any circumstances? My answers recently have been unpopular, but here they are:
Yes, or no, maybe, I don’t care. I don’t rule out violence as a solution to a demonstrably harmful person of that kind of multi-person death causing ilk.
No, sometimes political violence, up to and including assassination, is justified. See also war, an almost definitional expression of political violence. And there are just wars, there just are. Also also, see popularly cliched first stop on a time machine tour to Germany in the 1930’s. But see above for better justification for violence in this case and most others aka harm caused.
indianajones:
“No, sometimes political violence, up to and including assassination, is justified.”
↓
I know, it’s not literally what you wrote, but… what else could you mean?
(Just an abstract observation? Come on!)
Fuck off Morales you’re a disgrace to yourself and a stain on this community.
“Lot of phrases like ‘murderer’ and ‘will cause many deaths’ and so on being linked above to RFK Jr, and I agree with that. But were he to be murdered, would it be political violence?
…
Yes, or no, maybe, I don’t care.
…
No, sometimes political violence, up to and including assassination, is justified.”
I stand by my observation.
—
Again:
indianajones:
“No, sometimes political violence, up to and including assassination, is justified.”
↓
I know, it’s not literally what you wrote, but… what else could you mean?
(Just an abstract observation? Come on!)
(Way to not care!)
@24 indianajones
You seem like the sort that would rather sit back and encourage other people to do that on your behalf. Have the courage of your convictions and do the nasty deed yourself, at least.
@ indianajones – 12th October 2025 at 12:34 am : Maybe but this and indeed any blog is not really the best or wisest place to say so and advocate for such. Being public and accessible to all including, well, folks that will use that sort of argument in ways that could end up seeing you and the blog itself and other commenters targeted in seriously bad ways. Life ruining ones.
Especially a left leaning blog given that massive tolerance the FBI, LEOs generally have for far less justifiable reichwing violence and incitement to violence. Almost all political terrorism is demonstrably (when studies are allowed to be honestly done and displayed) coming from the Fascist & Trumpist (but I repeat myself) associated wing of politics.
Everyone really should remember that President
TrumpMiller and his regime are itching desperately for any excuse for a huge repressive crackdown and absolute bloodbath and that the reichwing are primed and ready and chomping at the metaphorical bit for that at the faintest even remotely possible excuse. They are foaming at the mouth to unleash ever worse hell and carnage and let’s not play into their hands & be suckers and excuse-providers for them please.Folks should also recall that the tactics used by MLK, Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela ultimately worked really successfully and are to be preferred here too.
@12 Snarki, child of Loki: “Gen. Washington ordered his troops to get the smallpox inoculation.”
There are some misconceptions about this sort of thing floating around out there. Although now most people think of inoculation as synonymous with vaccination, during the American Revolution there was no such thing as vaccination, which wouldn’t be discovered by Edward Jenner until 1796. What was practiced before then was the practice of variolation, deliberately infecting a healthy patient with smallpox in order to induce immunity. It worked, but also had a 1-2 % mortality rate. Unacceptably high now, but much better than the 30% mortality rate of naturally occurring smallpox.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variolation
@28 Beholder. Close, and I see how you get there. My actual position is similar to how I feel about Capital Punishment. I would not legalize CP or vigilantism because I don’t want to sit next to either of those people on the train while they are really looking forward to ‘Bring your daughter to work day’ next week. That is not to say that some people don’t deserve CP for their crimes, they do, but not enough to justify executioners. So I’ll settle for forever prison. With vigilantism, I would say let the punishment fit the crime. And in the case of the guy who almost shot Trump, the guy who did shoot Charlie Kirk and in the case of someone taking aim at RFK, for mine? That punishment would be ‘You deserve to be rebuked. Consider yourself so rebuked!’
Also, beholder, I have used violence against bullies and in defense of friends and so on before and at cost to myself. I do not encourage people to do it on my behalf, and have in fact at times offered to do so on theirs, rather. And that’s just personally, I’m not sure how much you count 11 years in the good ol’ Royal Australian Navy as being on the front foot of this, but that, which included 2 active deployments, too.
@29 Stevor. If told by PZ that I am now to restrict myself in some way, I will. Everyone else chooses to be here or not, risks my input here, or not. Including me, though as an aussie I am not so fearful of ICE et al. Having said that, there is some element of taking risk where I do not necessarily share the consequences or costs of said risk. See oil companies, Exxon Valdez, and who ends up paying for what. I hold myself to higher standards than oil companies and, whilst it hadn’t occurred to me before in context of this blog, still I shall take your thoughts into consideration in the future.
Oh, and sry for the double comment but
@Stevor 29 again, MLK, Gandhi, and Mandela would have gotten nowhere were it not for their sometimes violent foot soldiers. The Black Panthers, not sure what they are called for G’s followers but some of them, and the terrorist organization branded so in the 60’s anyway the African National Conference. These leaders preached, even practiced personally pacifism. Their followers did not universally do so, and I reckon their movements would not have succeeded if their followers were universally pacifist. Those leaders names would not be famous now, because their causes would have failed, and the only inconvenience they would have caused the bad guys would be for their ashen skulls to have clogged up a few boot heels or tank treads.
Pacifism is for leaders, sometimes. Maybe.
@ 28 beholder
This is really inappropriate. Please do not incite violence. :-(
@28. Bad faith troll & Trump enabler beholder : “You seem like the sort that would rather sit back and encourage other people to do that on your behalf.”
Like someone who advocates for Trump under the fake cloak of supposedly advocating for someone else who has effectively ZERO chance of achieving anything in reality other than helping Trump you mean? Under the thin veil of a spoiler candidate who is also an anti-Science Putin shill. Hmm..
You sound – as you have struck me as sounding previously in past comments of yours – as an agent provocateur here.
PS. Can anyone here think of any time or comments by our disingenuous troll “beholder” here when they have suggested anything that was actually useful, helpful and productive to those on the Left progressive wing of politics? Thus obvs NOT their advocating for worse than useless counter-productive spoiler votes e.g. for Stein and attacking the actual relatively Left wing party that has (or formerly had) some power to actually accomplish things in UsoA politics? I sure can’t..
Making room under the bus:
Trump received COVID vaccine and flu shot during second physical of the year
“But what are we going to do?”
Have you ever just sat down and read both the US Declaration of Independence AND the full US constitution with all amendments?
what you need to do is written down, right in there. really.
Nobody is honest about what needs to be done in the face of tyranny, until it is already too late. You all remember Robespierre, but not what was BEFORE Robespierre. You have good hearts, but have failed to understand the paradox of tolerance. If you want to get rolled over and stand on your principles, I can understand it. But realize the people you are fighting against are COUNTING on you to do just that. Don’t criticize those that call for stronger measures to stop fascism, because history shows us that so far, there is no other way to stop it. hell, even Ghandi managed to use massive nonviolent (on his part) protests to accomplish something, but there was still sacrifice involved, still violence; much death, much pain.
YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO. stop pretending you don’t.
“You seem like the sort that would rather sit back and encourage other people to do that on your behalf. Have the courage of your convictions and do the nasty deed yourself, at least.”
and what about what YOU just did? How would you describe THAT? dishonest git.
Actual studies by real scholars show that nonviolence is twice as effective as violence at regime change.
No nonviolent campaign that had more than 3.5% of the population participating has ever failed.
There are a lot of reasons for this but one fact stands out.
.1. More people will be in nonviolent protests than in violent uprisings.
Most people just aren’t all that interested in violence in the first place. And, a huge number of people aren’t even able to be effective guerrilla soldiers. There are a lot of not physically fit and/or people with medical problems in the USA. Some of my Boomer friends have a difficult time making it to the grocery store and back. One guy has a Medicaid helper for that.
If you have small children or pets at home, that effects your risk tolerance. You can’t afford to get killed or sent to a concentration camp.
.2. That 3.5% rule is a maximum. At that point, you are going to win.
But you don’t need 3.5% of the population in the streets to win.
There are a lot of examples of nonviolent movements that have succeeded. We’ve all seen some of them in real time.
A few examples:
.1. The fall of the USSR.
This was a relatively peaceful event. People just got tired of the Soviet government, it had little support, and one day just collapsed.
.2. The captive slave nations of the USSR saw their chance and took it. Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, etc. all managed to get rid of their commie governments.
.3. The Euromaidan protests of Ukraine. Got rid of a pro-Russian oligarchy.
.4. The fall of the Shah of Iran. The Iranian army just kept shooting protesters until one day, they decided they didn’t want to kill unarmed civilians any more.
.5. The various Arab spring uprisings.
Closer to home.
.6. The US civil rights movement of the 1960s.
.7. The end of the VIetnam war.
I was there for this one. I’ve got an FBI file to show for it and consider that one of my life’s more notable achievements.
All governments, even dictatorships, depend to some extent on the consent of the governed.
They fear people in the street for good reasons. It means they are losing control and may well soon lose their jobs.
I’m reading that Gorski article, and yes, RFKwack and his “sources” are so full of shit their back teeth are probably permanently stained. Take this quote from one of the papers RFKwack cites:
The modern “heresy” that medical care (as it is traditionally conceived) is generally unrelated to improvements in the health of populations (as distinct from individuals)…
Excuse me for stating the obvious, but individuals (note the plural there) are not “distinct” from populations, they’re part of populations; so if medical interventions benefit individuals, they benefit their populations. QEDuh.
Also (stating the obvious again), it’s pretty fucking obvious that Trump, Republicans and ICE have already initiated political violence against unarmed noncombatants, and are doing so well outside the bounds of any law or legal mandate. Therefore, any violence against agents of this pogrom, from ICE goons through Cabinet loons up to Trump himself, can be considered SELF-DEFENSE. (The only question being the strategic/tactical one of which specific targets it is most appropriate and timely to attack.)
raven @ # 39, quoting David Robson: … those engaging a threshold of 3.5% of the population have never failed to bring about change.
a) By my calculations, a given society could have 28 factions of 3.5% with a few left over.
b) Most of MAGA is (physically) non-violent so far, and MAGAts comprise much more than 3.5% of the US population.
Also, please see Chenoweth’s follow-up:
Could and does are two different things.
Polling shows that MAGAts are a small minority of the US population. A recent poll has them at 20%. This poll is current as of October 6, 2025. The current number of US people who are MAGA is at 17% and dropping.
Don’t forget that Trump didn’t even win 50% of the vote.
And he has done nothing since but alienate a lot of US people including parts of his voting base.
They wouldn’t be trying to destroy the USA and set up a dictatorship if they had a majority of popular support. They wouldn’t have to.
while some here are mentioning classic “nonviolent” protests, do recall one thing:
they actually were VERY violent. the violence was just performed ON the protestors instead of BY the protestors. over 60 THOUSAND people were brutalized by the Indian Government on the Salt March.
NOTHING successful in changing government is ever REALLY nonviolent. It always takes sacrifice, always takes violence, you’re either using violence, or taking it. How many students were killed in the “nonviolent” protests against the Vietnam war at Kent State? It had an effect, but MUCH of that effect was BECAUSE people took the violence from the state. MLK DIED for his nonviolence; that’s a pretty violent outcome, right?
So you’ve already got Pestilence running your Department of Health and Human Services and War running your Defence Department. Is it going to be Famine running the Food and Drug Administration next, with Death in the wings to take over as President?
raven @ # 43: … Trump … he has done nothing since but alienate a lot of US people …
Nothing constructive, as I think you’ll agree.But to his base, he has purged much of the Dreaded Deep State, stopped 7 or 8 wars, rescued at least 4 cities from Those People, survived multiple political and physical assassination attempts, restored the economy & the military, blown away a fleet of drug smugglers, saved girls’ sports, protected countless Widdle Babies from getting chopped apart alive, …
Ichthyic @ # 44: How many students were killed in the “nonviolent” protests against the Vietnam war at Kent State?
I don’t recall whether anyone solidly confirmed the allegations that the ROTC building bombing that preceded/precipitated the protests (and killed one person) was the work of agents provocateurs, but to much of public perception — crucial to the point at hand — your scare quotes tell the whole story.
cartomancer @ # 45: Is it going to be Famine running the Food and Drug Administration next…
No, Pestilence has that well in hand. Famine gets the Dept of Agriculture, and the farmworker corners of the Labor Dept & ICE.
StevoR
Two of those men were assassinated and the other was imprisoned for decades. I’d rather not share any of those fates honestly. I’m non-violent but if it’s between them and me (and my loved ones), I’m going with me.
Walter, you have tacitly conceded that StevoR’s claim is true, though you phrased your retort as disputatious.
But sure.
Helping society is all good and whatnot, but if you or your loved ones suffer detrimental effects thereby, it’s not for you.
For me, it depends.
After all, a better society is a safer one, even for you and your loved ones, no?
@ ^
Yes, Stevo. That famous advocate of non violence. Not a person who would ever advocate torture, genocide, or “bombing them back to the stone age”. Stevo, the famous harbinger of peace and love. (Remind me what he was banned for again, Morales? You were there.)
Honestly, Morales, how do you not choke on your own bullshit? I’m gagging from here!
@33 Silentbob
Fair enough. My statement doesn’t convey my intent on a second reading. Let’s try that again, it’ll dovetail nicely with the nonviolence topic:
That the coward who wants others to kill for them is marginally less respectable than the actual killer is dithering over nearly indistinguishable differences on the immoral end of the spectrum. Don’t go around murdering people, mmkay?
I consider myself a pacifist, but I don’t practice nonviolence. Those who follow the nonviolent moral system and who additionally put their own lives at risk in the practice of deliberate nonviolence in violent circumstances deserve the most respect IMO. Dying for what you believe in isn’t a requirement, but knowing it could result in your death and not shirking from that duty is sufficient.
Ahem. That is incoherent, beholder.
Pacifism entails opposition to violence, typically including a commitment to nonviolence in principle and practice. That’s what it means!
To express that as your belief and simultaneously claim “but I don’t practice nonviolence” is incoherent.
Pacifism in practice entails nonviolence; if you don’t practice that, you are talking the talk but not walking the walk.
(heh)
@49. Silentbob : As I have explained patiently before here (only for you, of course, to ignore that) that was many years ago – about a decade really.
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/30/why-are-they-on-the-front-lines/#comment-2279775
Another age really.
Since then my views have changed, I’ve apologised and changed and I’ve learnt better and think and hope I’ve become better.
You , OTOH, still troll John Morales incessantly sniping at him as you have done for just about a decade or so it seems and, more recently and pertinently here, you still fail to address my questions asked of you many times including here :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/09/30/why-are-they-on-the-front-lines/#comment-2279758
Plus here :
https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2025/10/09/i-already-hated-stephen-miller-but/#comment-2280337
@51 John Morales
No, it means I don’t have what it takes to practice disciplined nonviolence, which is a step up from my regular old pacifism. I respect those who do, though.
Might as well say you are an honest person, only you don’t have what it takes to practice disciplined non-thieving. But you respect those who do.
(Did you imagine you were disputing the claim at hand? I already told you I get it)
@53. Laughably dishonest troll : ” a step up from my regular old pacifism.”
As exemplified in your incitement to extra-judicial violence here with your #28 no doubt..
Stevo is lecturing me about nonviolence. Uh huh.
The same Stevo who wants a military dictatorship to arrest Congress and the Supreme Court at gunpoint.
Take his advice on violence or the lack thereof at your peril.
@ ^ dishonest troll : Your obvious lies are obvious.
Also learn to read for comprehension in future if you can.
In addition to the link to Chenoweth’s follow-up from Pierce R. Butler@42, her work (which was funded by the Pentagon IIRC, and was related to how US-friendly “colour revolutions” could be encouraged), there has been more fundamental criticism of Chenoweth’s work, on the grounds of cherry-picking and misrepresenting cases. See:
Alexei Anisin
“Debunking the Myths Behind Nonviolent Civil Resistance”
Critical Sociology · April 2020
DOI: 10.1177/0896920520913982
I note that Gandhi advised British people (and presumably other Europeans) to resist Hitler non-violently. How do people think that would have gone?
My favourite example of a beneficial assassination is ETA’s killing of Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco on 20 December 1973. Very theatrically, they blew his car over a five-storey-high church, having planted the explosives in a tunnel under the road he regularly followed to church. He was by that time the day-to-day head of the Spanish dictatorship due to Franco’s poor health, and would have been in charge of maintaining the Francoist regime after Franco’s 1975 death. In his absence, the transition to democracy was relatively smooth (bar one rather farcical attempted coup); his death probably saved the Spanish people at least years more dictatorship, and possibly a new civil war. But the problem is, it’s generally impossible to know in advance whether the outcome of a specific assassination will be good or bad.
I really appreciate what PZ provides here on his site. And, it is a privilege to be allowed to comment. I try to make mine on point or humorous, civilized dialog with other commenters and sometimes harsh criticism of the fascist, murderous plutocrats running/ruining what is left of this society. However, when people who comment to each other, personally, like nasty, mud-throwing pre-schoolers, it detracts from the credibility of the article and wastes large amounts of time of the rest of us.
Also, controversial parody video is available for only 1 hour at the link below. It is ~1min in length:
http://theartsinarizona.org/Caught_in_a_Fascist_Death_Spiral_in_2025.mp4
My apologies shermanj. But I have in the past tried over years to engage honestly with my little bugbear and never received good faith in return. Rather, time wasting as a gleeful policy always, and occasionally vile insult. As I have detailed elsewhere. I try to keep my responses low-key by only responding when directly addressed. And even then, I keep it short. Still, I understand your irritation and I am sorry that discourse here has, sometimes, been so far reduced.
yes absolutely RFKjr is at best a hypocrite and a coward, and maybe a lying phony just trying to be famous and powerful. a few phrases come to mind. play with fire and you might get burned, so the wind and inherit the whirlwind, what goes around comes around.
he has apparently made a deal with trump for his election support but trump hardly ever has kept his side of any deal so it is a house of cards built on sand.
He has made his deal and is doing the shit he “advocated” but has not been so “pure” himself that something bad might result for him is assured time will tell what it might be.
@60 indianajones responded to my request for civility in interaction here.
I thank you, indianajones, for being sensitive to the need for some civil interaction in this ever more uncivilized world. The level of destruction, murder, deceit and chaos in which we are immersed has reached the point where we are all tempted to respond with violent words.
[meta]
Ah, yes… .
“But I have in the past tried over years to engage honestly with my little bugbear and never received good faith in return. Rather, time wasting as a gleeful policy always, and occasionally vile insult.”
(O so civil!)
@63 John Morales: John Morales
I reply: Hey, John, we’ve had civil intelligent discussions. Your knowledge is always appreciated. However, I wish you’d use your ‘bear poking stick’ more judiciously. You sometimes really upset old Ed Hominem. Save the vitriol for the real aholes lurking outside pharyngula.
shermanj, you are being evasive.
To whom do you imagine indianajones refers by the lovely term ‘my little bugbear’?
(The asymmetry of vitriol is quite remarkable, care you to do a bit of a search)
—
Again: hateful sentiments expressed civilly may have surface polish, but back in the day, this place sneered at insults cloaked in civility.
I am direct.
@65 John Morales wrote: but back in the day, this place sneered at insults cloaked in civility.
I reply: You seem to refer to a more primitive, early, irascible dark ages in the evolution of this blog. I had hoped it had evolved into a less petty, more enlightened Lyceum, in which serious topical discussion would prevail.
I am not being evasive. I was hopeful that my suggesting, eliciting and encouraging would further a pervasive mindset here that would welcome a reduction of internal aggression and violence and lead to more productive, topical discussions rather than wallowing in mud. It is sad that a few here seem to need to overreact to every slight. An enlightened mind would ignore the buzzing of loud, but innocuous, pests.
Also, I have always understood the concept of civility to be far more than just superficial politeness. I have always considered it to be a mindset and behavior that is an important element of a civilized society. As in:
Civility – from Wikipedia
Civility is orderly behavior and politeness, as well as empathy and respect for others.
@65 John Morales wrote: I am direct.
I reply: Yes, you are. But, as are others, you are, many times, direct in a distracting, combative way, rather than a positive, productive way.
With all due thanks and respect to PZ and all he offers, I must thoughtfully ponder whether it would be more emotionally healthy for me to seek a more consistently enlightened, satisfying, intellectual setting in which to participate.
The hour is late, I must engage in extended consultation with Morpheus, lest my mental acuity further diminish.
shermanj:
“@65 John Morales wrote: but back in the day, this place sneered at insults cloaked in civility.
I reply: You seem to refer to a more primitive, early, irascible dark ages in the evolution of this blog. I had hoped it had evolved into a less petty, more enlightened Lyceum, in which serious topical discussion would prevail.”
No. That presupposes that nastiness cloaked in civility is better than honest nastiness.
Form is not function.
But yes, I refer to echoes of a heyday, maybe 2008-2011. When discussions were robust, and hectocomments were a baseline. Kilocomments were routine, too. Pharyngulation. Mollys. Antediluvian.
— let’s get into some specifics. Semantics. Semiotics. Significance.
You: “I reply: Yes, you are. But, as are others, you are, many times, direct in a distracting, combative way, rather than a positive, productive way.”
Ahem. Here is a recapitulation.
The response?
—
Go back and look.
Tell me who exactly is “direct in a distracting, combative way, rather than a positive, productive way.”
Where the vitriol lies.
—
Ah well. Your stance and degree of perception are informative.
[ah, days of yore]
@StevoR:
That’s… overly simplistic.
MLKjr’s tactics mostly worked because of the implied threat of Malcolm X. Whether MLKjr intended it that way or not, a lot of the reason why his plan worked as well as it did was because there was always an aspect of ‘do you want to deal with the reasonable black man who openly shares your religion, or the unreasonable one who wants to start a fight?’ Also, he got assassinated because there were (and still are) people in power who would rather have a genocidal fight than give any ground to anybody who wasn’t them.
Gandhi’s tactics worked at least in part because the British liked to think of themselves as being civilized, and the realization that British troops were literally slaughtering unresisting Indian civilians hit them badly in the national pride. It was essentially ‘civil disobedience’ taken to its pathological extreme. It wouldn’t have worked without lots of people willing to lay down their lives, and frankly Gandhi was borderline cult leader at that point. The same tactics obviously wouldn’t have worked against anybody who didn’t have any shame, because they relied on that shame to be effective; his suggestions that the British try non-violence against Hitler wouldn’t have gone anywhere near as well. And it’s pretty clear the current administration has already ejected anybody capable of shame.
Mandela’s tactics worked for reasons similar to Gandhi’s, though it was less national pride and more economics that got hit; by (correctly) making the South African apartheid regime out to be a borderline-fascist group as they slaughtered others, he ended up triggering one of the most massive international boycotts the world has ever seen and brought down the economy. (There’s a reason Israel has been fighting so hard against the Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions tactic. It has a history of working.)
Basically, non-violence can be a very important resistance tactic, and it can be especially important for keeping legitimacy and rebuilding afterwards, but by itself it’s never enough and often results in a lot of pain and death for the side using it.