The madness unparalleled, genuinely epic

James O’Brien explains the chaos in the UK. He’s incredulous at how incapable Parliament is at confronting a bad idea like Brexit. I’m similarly boggled at how the US is incapable of confronting the obvious problem that the president and leaders of congress are venal incompetents are sending us careening down a greased chute to our doom.

But at least it fills me with a feeling of deep connection with people across the Atlantic. We’re both neck deep in shitholes.

After Kavanaugh’s Destruction…

That’s news to me, but it’s actually good news, I’m just missing the details. Did he explode, was he loaded into a missile and fired into the sun, was he fed to crocodiles? Inquiring minds want to know.

That was the title of a whine by Rod Dreher, wonders After Kavanaugh’s Destruction, Who Is Safe? Really, that’s his title.

Someone should break the harsh news to his persecution complex that Kavanaugh wasn’t destroyed, but was instead appointed to the Supreme Court, the pinnacle of achievement for an American lawyer who likes his brewskis. The President of the US made it a great big partisan event! A Facebook executive threw a big party for him (Facebook loves the Trumpster, and the Russians who make all those ad buys for him). The Nazis are celebrating on the internet!

I don’t know how he missed it all. Maybe it’s because his source on this article is David Brooks, whose head is so far up his own ass that he vocalizes by vibrating his hemorrhoids while farting.

But if there’s anyone dumber than David Brooks, it’s Rod Dreher. He proceeds to out-Brooks Brooks with a story.

I can’t tell this story often enough: In my rural Southern town, back in the 1940s, a black man and a white woman were discovered in sexual congress. The woman accused him of rape. The sheriff and two deputies hunted the black man down through the woods, captured him, dragged him back to the jailhouse, and lynched him. Days later, the white accuser broke down under the weight of her conscience. She confessed that the black man had been her lover. She had accused him of rape to save her own reputation in that white supremacist culture.

There was never any chance that that black man would have had the opportunity to defend himself in court. There was never any chance that he would be considered innocent until proven guilty. Everybody (that is, all whites, who held all the power) knew that black men seethed with lust for white women. Everybody knew that no white woman could possibly find black men sexually desirable. In a case like this one, there’s no need for a fair trial; you believe the woman. If you don’t believe the woman, and exact swift and sure punishment for her assailant, then it will be open season for black men to rape white women. That was what the power-holders in that time and place believed.

So let me get this straight. In this metaphor for the current situation, a wealthy white prep school boy and Yalie is…the Southern black man in the 1940s? And Christine Blasey Ford is the wicked woman who lied to protect her honor…by stepping forward and revealing an otherwise unknown act, paying for it with loss of security, the need to leave her home, and receiving a deluge of death threats? And “lynching” is being used as a synonym for “being appointed to the Supreme Court”?

Does Dreher think Ford and Kavanaugh were secret lovers? I would not be surprised. Conservatives have been flinging all kinds of ludicrous justifications around.

Everything about this story is totally inappropriate and misplaced. This is a guy weaponizing racism to make bogus excuses for a wealthy, privileged white man.

His conclusion is also bizarre.

Brett Kavanaugh, from what I can tell, is a by-the-book pinstriped Washington Republican. If the liberal mob can turn him into History’s Greatest Monster on the basis of unsupported allegations from his teenage years, and on the basis of his race and gender, then who is safe?

Errm, “by-the-book pinstriped Washington Republican” has become synonymous with “History’s Greatest Monster”. That’s not the work of a liberal mob, but the actions of Republicans — you can’t support Republican policies like denial of science, gutting of education, an overt attack on women’s autonomy, widespread corruption and incompetence, and then be surprised when people wear garlic necklaces and throw holy water as you pass by.

And who is safe? Men who didn’t assault women. It’s like suddenly every Republican is tugging at their collar and beading up with sweat, as if they have a guilty conscience or something. It makes one wonder.

This is an age of thuggery

It’s Monday. Get depressed even more. Read David Neiwert’s summary of right-wing extremism. A few excerpts:

And now we have gangs of heavily armed right-wing thugs, largely outsiders from rural and exurban areas, invading liberal urban centers with the full intent of provoking violence so that they can portray the American left as innately violent.

I’ve covered about a dozen of these events. I hang out among the alt-righters and militiamen who populate that side and listen to them. They all are brimming with eagerness to beat the shit out of liberals, and they’re prepared to kill if they deem it necessary.

The Proud Boys are selling t-shirts that celebrate the idea of throwing liberals out of helicopters, emulating the Pinochet regime. That’s right. They’re openly promoting the idea of “Right Wing Death Squads”, and they think this would be a great thing.

So now the faction that has long fantasized about civil wars is openly fantasizing about murdering their fellow Americans by various means, most of them as cruel as a good psychopath can dream up. These folks are fanatical authoritarians.

And they are entirely right-wing. There is no counterpart to this on the left. Even the most rabid anarchist/communist/whatever group doesn’t direct this kind of rhetoric at its opponents. Moreover, the far left is a tiny and powerless faction. Unlike the alt-right.

Moreover, it is the far right that now controls all three houses of government in the United States. And the most powerful of all, the president, has a long habit of using eliminationist rhetoric to attack his opponents: “Lock Her Up!” was just one of many such.

Now he is describing half of America – the larger half that did not vote for him, and which now opposes his agenda at every turn – in such terms. Dismissing them as a “mob” and suggesting that they not only cannot govern but cannot BE governed is lethally dangerous.

Yet to hear the centrist media figures and their favorite subjects, centrist politicians, discuss all this ferment, you would think that both sides are engaging in this kind of prewar rhetoric. It’s absurd.

So, listen up, Chuck Todd, Evan McMullin, Susan Collins, and every other hand-wringing centrist wannabe: IT’S NOT BOTH SIDES. Only one side is trying to gin up a civil war in this country.

But it’s not just the USA. Look at Brazil, where elections may make Jair Bolsonaro, AKA “the thing”, president. A few quotes:

• “I had four sons, but then I had a moment of weakness, and the fifth was a girl.”

• “I’m not going to rape you, because you’re very ugly” – to a female representative in Congress.
[That one echoes Carl Benjamin, AKA Sargon of Akkad, who insists that phrase is not a threat. Good work, Carl, sharing slogans with a monstrous thing]

• “I’d rather have my son die in a car accident than have him show up dating some guy.”

• “I’m pro-torture, and the people are too.”

• “They don’t do anything. I don’t think they’re even good for procreation any more” – referring to quilombolas, the black descendants of rebel African slaves.

His followers also have a charming t-shirt to advertise their position: it features the face of “one of the most sadistic torturers and murderers in the military dictatorship that choked Brazil between 1964 and 1985”. How can such a thug become a leading contender for the presidency? I think we Americans can guess: by forming a coalition of religious bigots, the obscenely wealthy, and racists, and because the opposition party is ineffective, unfocused, and uninspiring.

In the cities, he has the support of the leaders of evangelical religious empires, who defend the concept that marriage is possible only between a man and a woman. The far-right candidate also leads among wealthier, more educated men, reflecting the calibre of the Brazilian elites.

In addition to his staunch supporters, he attracts a slice of the population that is simply anti-PT [PT=the Workers Party]. These people hate the PT for many reasons. Some because under former presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Rousseff, the party reduced poverty, widened university access to black students, and strengthened rights for housemaids – for a long time, a form of modern slavery in Brazil. Others because they cannot forgive a party that rose to power promising change, only to become corrupted and aloof. Poor, mostly black, women are most vociferously against Bolsonaro.

Jebus, that sounds painfully familiar. Even the part about black women being the most reliable leaders against misogyny and racism.

Now if only there were a way to form a coalition of humanists, egalitarians, scientists, decent people from all walks of life, who didn’t brag about compelling authority at the point of a gun, didn’t celebrate torture and murder in their slogans, and didn’t live to serve the whims of the extremely rich, maybe we could make some headway against the forces of thuggery. Somehow, a t-shirt that announces “We won’t throw our fellow citizens out of a helicopter!” just isn’t very compelling, maybe because it’s declaring something that we ought to take for granted, and find hard to believe that anyone would disagree. If you’re one of those “hand-wringing centrists”, anyway, you’re fine with sitting in your safe, quiet lair surrounded by people exactly like you, who aren’t threatening you, because they’re busy threatening other people.

Susan Collins can smugly dismiss those others, because the Republicans are sucking up to her — while her colleague Orrin Hatch can sneer at victims of sexual assault, and her president can mock them at rallies. Meanwhile, Christine Blasey Ford is still in hiding and still receiving death threats.

But oh no, there are decent people on both sides.

And that’s how the Republic will fall — because we lie to ourselves about the severity of the threat, refuse to believe that murderous thugs even exist, and roll over and let them seize power, enabled by these contemptible apologists.

John Oliver has a few things to say about the Brazilian election.

Not incivil enough

Chuck Wendig eloquently says what I think.

There will be renewed calls for civility. Ignore them. They ask for civility as a way for you to grant them complicity in what they do.

Civility is for normalcy. When things are normal and working as intended, civility is part of maintaining balance. But when that balance is gone, civility does not help return it but rather, destabilize it further. Because your civility gives them cover for evil.

Note: this isn’t the same as calling for violence. But it is suggesting that you should not be shamed for using vigorous, vulgar language. Or for standing up in disobedience. Or for demanding acknowledgement and action in whatever way you must.

Fuck Trump. But he’s just the ugly fake-gold mask they’ve put on this thing. Fuck all the GOP, fuck that blubbering, bristling frat boy judge, fuck McConnell, Ryan, Grassley, Collins, every last one of them. Fuck them for how they’ve shamed victims and helped dismantle democracy.

They will tell you to smile, that we need to get back to business, that we gotta heal the rift and blah blah blah — but that’s the desire of a savvy bully, who wants you to stop crying after he hit you, who wants you not to fight back. But you can cry. And you can fight back.

They can eat shit. All of them. They can eat a boot covered in shit.

Winter is coming, you callous fucknecks, you prolapsed assholes, you grotesque monsters, you racists and rapists and wretched abusers, you vengeful petty horrors.

Sidenote: some will tell you to be civil because our rage and scorn will fuel the other side, but fuck that double standard in both its ears.

“Well, if you hadn’t said those SASSY WORDS and demonstrated ANGER at our whittled-down democracy, I for a second might’ve been convinced not to eat this baby. But fie! Fie on you! Your incivility MADE me eat this baby!”

Spoiler warning: they were always gonna eat that baby.

Meanwhile, over on the other side of entitled apologists for the status quo, we’ve got Jonathan Haidt blaming both sides:

He’s ably rebutted by Gretchen Koch, but I have a shorter response: fuck Jonathan Haidt.

You want more speech? You got it.

I kind of despise Turning Point USA. A few students splatter their stupid, shallow red, white, and blue slogan signs all over campus, and what can you do? They just sit there all trite and jingoistic, but students get to use that space as they see fit.

It turns out, though, there is something our smarter students can do: they can splatter back with signs refuting Charlie Kirk’s idiotic propaganda, and this year they’ve been doing that. Everywhere there’s a TPUSA sign in the science building, there’s another sign or two right next to it.

Once again, our students earn my affection.

How gracious

I guess the bad PR was getting to be a bit much: Amazon has raised its minimum wage to $15/hour, up from the US minimum wage of $7.25. It’s still too low, but christ, how can someone live on seven bucks an hour? American labor policies are disgraceful, and it sure would be nice to have a political party that hadn’t abandoned support for workers ages ago.

But still…

Amazon’s market capitalization currently stands near $1 trillion; it paid Bezos, its founder and CEO, $1.68 million last year. But as Amazon’s stock has risen, so has Bezos’ net worth — it’s currently estimated around $165 billion.

Anyway, it’s a little progress, so this seems appropriate.

Let’s distort history!

That seems to be a right-wing theme. You may recall that a few weeks ago I posted a letter to the editor by Michael Lackey, who is actually an authority on German cultural history in the 20th century — he has published a book on Nazi propaganda of the time, and one of the things he emphasized is how the Nazis fully embraced Christianity, used Christian imagery in their propaganda, and established the legitimacy of their regime by relating it to the dominant Catholic and Lutheran faiths of the people. He compared that to the current Republican adoration of evangelical Christianity, which has been a remarkable enabler of fascism.

Of course, he has gotten pushback in the local paper. The latest is a letter from Evelyn A. Guggisberg, who is appalled that anyone would think Nazis were Christian.

It is unconscionable for Lackey to say what he is saying. When one sees tho that one of his sources is the Washington Post, a noted fake news outlet, it does become understandable why he thinks such folly.

So what is a conservative Christian anyway? A Christian is one who follows Christ. Either you follow Him, or you don’t. For Lackey to say that the Nazis or Hitler were Christian is ludicrous beyond belief! Christ was once accused of being of the devil. It is not uncommon for true followers of Christ to be accused of all kinds of things which are not only not true, but quite opposite.

She doesn’t actually refute his claim with any evidence, because she doesn’t have any. She’s reduced to an argument by definition, rather than any facts. Nazis couldn’t have been Christians, because Christians by definition are all about love and tolerance, and wouldn’t ever be associated with anti-immigration policies, homophobia, racism, discrimination, or police-state violence.

I guess America isn’t Christian then, either.

I kind of stopped reading her letter at this point:

I happen to be an avid Trump supporter. I wasn’t always. It was my faith which brought me around. I happen to abhor perpetual lying. I have come to learn that is what democrats and fake news reporters excel in. How mournful that Lackey still believes such lies apparently. I don’t believe that there ever has been a president in our nation’s history who has been more belittled or lied about than Donald Trump.

This historical denialism seems to be a major strategy on the American Right — in particular, the demonization of the American Left by claiming that they are indistinguishable from Nazis in all of their views and policies, which requires some pretty serious lying about the positions of the Nazis in order to pretend that Bernie Sanders and Adolf Hitler are identical. The video below by Three Arrows is an excellent antidote to that, and also exposes Steven Crowder, Ben Shapiro, and Dinesh D’Souza as the dishonest buffoons they are.

Have our senators read their Bible?

The reading for today is Genesis 18, in which Abraham bargains with God to save the city of Sodom.

22And the men turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom: but Abraham stood yet before the LORD. 23And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? 24Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? 25That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? 26And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes. 27And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes: 28Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous: wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five? And he said, If I find there forty and five, I will not destroy it. 29And he spake unto him yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall be forty found there. And he said, I will not do it for forty’s sake. 30And he said unto him, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak: Peradventure there shall thirty be found there. And he said, I will not do it, if I find thirty there. 31And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord: Peradventure there shall be twenty found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for twenty’s sake. 32And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten’s sake. 33And the LORD went his way, as soon as he had left communing with Abraham: and Abraham returned unto his place.

And we look upon the Republican party today, as they gather to decide whether to elevate a drunkard who abuses women to the Supreme Court. Peradventure there will be one or two found there who will be among the righteous? Trust not in Susan Collins, who will play with the media as one does with a cat toy. Do not let your faith rest in Jeff Flake, who can speak piously while acting as a loyal servant of Satan. Face the day with equanimity, for either one Republican will find reason and justice in their soul, or the people shall rain upon the Republican party brimstone and fire, and overthrow that party, and all the electorate that grew upon the ground. Justice will be had one way or another.

Also remember the end of that story: the LORD only found one righteous man in Sodom, and he was the kind of guy who’d send out his daughters to be raped by a mob. The LORD destroyed his city. The “righteous” man ends up hiding in a cave near Zoar, drinking himself into oblivion, and fucking his own daughters.

Who says there are no good stories and no lessons to be learned from your Bible?