[Happy blog-a-versary! I started this project in 2016 stderr and look at the wild ride! If you told me that Russia was going to be attacking its neighbors I’d have said “that’s as likely as Donald Trump getting elected president LOL LOL!” 2,484 postings, 30,971 comments, I don’t know how to see how many comments I’ve made and I’m scared to find out]
This is where I am right now:
My brain has been scrambling around trying to think of things that a non-cowardly Biden could do without being blocked by congress. I believe that these things could be done with executive orders and would not require congressional approval:
1) Defund the Supreme Court. No more money. Y’all will just have to have a bake sale.
2) Sell the Supreme Court building. [I think that is doable without congress having to be involved] Maybe Trump would buy it. Or Elon Musk. Maybe just start demolition and not worry about the finances; the US Army Corps of Engineers could blast the place.
3) I believe it is important to hang this on the christians. It’s their stupid fantasmagoric belief system (“souls” and whatnot) that drives the whole anti-abortion concept. Guess what? That’s political activity. If I recall, the deal was that churches get to exist tax-free as long as they don’t play politics. Which, of course, they do all the time. So: Start Taxing The Churches. Congress, of course, controls the budget, but I don’t believe that it takes more than an executive order to get the IRS targeting a new revenue opportunity. In fact, give the IRS a bunch of money to hire all the auditors that will be sending dunning letters; they’ll get it all back. Make sure to go after the catholics, particularly, because you know how those bastards are always claiming bankruptcy to shelter their assets because of all the lawsuits they’ve lost for being a bunch of child molesters.
4) A long-term trope that American baptists have leaned on since, forever, is that catholics can’t be trusted because they take orders from the pope, who is an evil Italian. That’s actually the case, pope Palpatine said that overturning Roe was a great thing; he really said that. Rational/decent people should not just be hanging this whole debacle around christian’s necks, but they should be pointing out that they’re serving papists. Get some wedge in that issue.
5) I bet you’ve forgotten about the faith-based / community initiatives program that Bush started. It funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to churches – which promptly (I am not making this up!) spent it on things like new parking lots and roofs, nice cars and residences for the staff, and propaganda centers aimed at children, called “schools.” Obama’s administration, in a foolish attempt to not have the churches hate him – which they were going to do, anyway – did not turn the money valve off. [wik] Under Bush the churches were handed about $3bn. Obama left the money valve open. So did Trump. So has Biden. The government has been throwing billions of dollars at organizations that hate it. If that’s not the dumbest thing, ever – it’s flat-out trying to give the playground bully your lunch money so he’ll be your friend.
I know that all this sounds crazy, but what we are seeing is the end state of a lengthy propaganda campaign, in which the republicans whipped their base to a frenzy using religious intolerance. They are doing the same thing, again, with gay/transphobia. Standing around singing “kum ba ya” and waiting for the decent republicans to step forward is a fools’ move. In fact, decent people should be going on the air and saying things like, “you know, the muslims mostly reacted very quickly to disown 9/11 – but there was a hardcore of muslims that were resolutely anti-American. We’ve got the same damn situation with the christians. We need good, decent, jesus-loving christians to stand up and disown this thing and all the ones that don’t disown it are suspicious.” The good guys are incapable of organizing a propaganda campaign, because we’ve (more or less reasonably) relied on the obviousness of righteous morality. Meanwhile, the other guys are throwing frenzied shitfits of bullshit. We need to not sit back and say, “hey, gay people are decent human beings, too” and switch over to “there is something really fucking wrong with christians. They are way too concerned about other people’s genitals, and bathrooms, and elective medical procedures – they’re sick and they need to get out of politics because they’re lying, twisted, creepy people. People who have been spewing hatred tax-free for a long time. Don’t ask what’s wrong with me, ask what’s wrong with them.” For the sake of Great Ghu’s blind, bleeding eyeballs, the republicans are going around accusing “lefties” of being pedophiles and they’re not looking at the catholics and the ${whatever}-scouts and all the right-wing organizations that are pushing their political agendas into the public sphere.
There is some actual method behind this madness, and it’s based on the martial arts principle that if you punch your opponent very hard in the face, it disrupts their offensive strategy like nobody’s business. Seriously, though, the decent people of this country have sat back and completely ceded the initiative to the bad guys who are a) sneaky b) ruthless c) stay up all night thinking of sneaky ruthless things they can do. If they’re burning their midnight oil worrying about protecting their money you just watch how their focus shifts to defense.
Also, I do not understand why someone hasn’t hired armed guards to protect people going into an abortion clinic. 9mm of “shut the fuck up” taken intramuscular once or twice and I bet the crowds of screaming shitheads would evaporate. Because nothing says “I believe I am going to heaven in the afterlife” like running away from someone who is prepared to defend themself.
Can you believe that Ireland has legal abortion, and now the US does not? That’s the humpty fucking dumptiest thing I’ve ever heard of.
Above, I said “things a non-cowardly Biden could do…” and that’s really the problem, right there.
If I recall, the deal was that churches get to exist tax-free as long as they don’t play politics.
As long as they don’t play electoral politics (supporting or opposing candidates). They can and do speak out on issues day and night, completely within the rules.
That long-term trope mentioned at 4) doesn’t seem to be as operative now as it was in times past. Go back to the election of JFK and how much consternation there was about his catholicism and following orders from the pope. These days, it seems like the protestants and catholics have a united front against non-christians: muslims for sure, but also nones, atheists, and “spiritual, not religious” folks. Jews don’t seem to be on the enemies list the way they used to be either. Probably because they like how Israel treats the Palestinians, but also there’s that whole Armageddon thing that they can’t wait for. Come to think of it, there doesn’t seem to be as much animosity toward Saudi Arabia either–maybe it’s just authoritarians and fascists tend to flock together. I don’t doubt that protestants and catholics will return to fighting each other if they actually gain absolute control of the country.
From yesterday (dog do my legs hurt right now):
Nice country you have there where 6 theocrats can decide anything as long as they dress their pre-made opinions in legalese, which cannot be appealed, who all lied under oath to be appointed for life and where half of them were appointed by an (arguably) illegitimate president (who definitely was not elected by a majority).
Once again, but a bit more seriously this time, I’m vaguely considering making a trip out of state to purchase an item that the people passing this bullshit adore.
mostly, I’m just trying to figure out the rational/kneejerk my urge is, and also what specific model I should be looking for – what I’ve got a bit of training and familiarity with, or what is maybe “better”, and if I can put in some training and practice to compensate, and how much extra difficulty that will be…
I’m over here in the “it’s going to get (a lot) worse before it gets better” camp….
:(
Be careful about making sweeping generalizations regarding Catholics, especially when it comes to politics. I grew up in a Catholic family and most of my friends did likewise. In my experience, there are Catholics and then there are Catholics. The former are probably the majority. Some people call them “cafeteria Catholics” but I think of them as “inertia Catholics”. That is, they grew up with something and like parts of it (be nice to people, try to help, things will work out in the end, etc.) but they are not committed to any dogma which strikes them as regressive or which goes against their lived experience. A prime example is the number of Catholics I know who support Roe and have no problem with gay marriage. On the other hand, you have the sort who erect crosses on their front lawns and have bumper stickers that say “Save America-Pray the Rosary” or “I love the old Latin mass”. These are the folks who are rapidly anti-choice, anti-gay, etc. Personally, it appears to me that this second group is being used by the white conservative evangelicals who would be happy to throw them under the bus when the time comes.
So when we talk “Catholics”, we’re really talking about two different socio-political groups. In any case, current demographics show that there are more Catholics (total) than evangelicals, and the total number of Catholics is about the same as the total number of “Nones”. Nones, of course, are the one group that modern politicians generally ignore (at best, or more typically, denigrate).
… I do not understand why someone hasn’t hired armed guards to protect people going into an abortion clinic.
You mean like Officer Robert Sanderson (KIA at New Woman, All Women Health Care Clinic in Birmingham, AL), or Lt. Col. James Barrett (USAF, ret) (KIA at The Ladies Center, Pensacola, FL)?
NB: The “good guy with a gun” concept doesn’t work, even with actual good guys.
I really like this list of Biden could do. I hope someone make sure the Democrats know this and hope they act on and adopt some or even all of all these measures ASAP. Thanks.
StevoR@#8:
I really like this list of Biden could do. I hope someone make sure the Democrats know this and hope they act on and adopt some or even all of all these measures ASAP.
I don’t know if those are “actionable” recommendations, or not. The point of the exercise is that, if I can sit here and bash out a few ideas that could cause pain, why can’t the democrats? “They don’t want to upset the republicans!” Heh. The republicans are already upset and are going to attack any opportunity they see. It’s stupid the way the democrats fetishize cooperation. Basically, they’re like the Vichy French: maybe Hitler won’t slaughter us if we take half-measures along his program. Despicable cowards. Except I think Biden’s brain is too mushy for him to manage a good fit of cowardice.
Also: it’s really easy to say “that won’t work!” (as an excuse to just float downstream, unresisting) when the reality of government is that working loopholes and so forth is the name of the game. Can’t defund the supreme court? Impose mandates on how they spend their money, that have the same effect. Etc. etc. There are an infinite number of ways to cause pain in government and the democrats have done exactly nothing, when there are all sorts of unpleasant things they could do if they just showed a little malicious creativity. Then “we will stop doing this if you stop doing that.”
Fund the IRS and tax the churches are both simple, reasonable steps that should be fundamental to any coherent political agenda. Unfortunately, so long as the sole overriding purpose of the US govt in general and the Democrats in particular is ensuring that nobody worth taxing is ever taxable, I think you’re out of luck.