Jesus H. Christchurch

The world should be reacting in horror.

It is not.

Not all of it.

And that’s the problem.

Let’s call them White Nationalists. There are many other expressions we could use — Violent Racists comes to mind — and really, call them what you will. The problem isn’t what we call them, but that they exist, and a significant number of people, including many who hold power in the United States, and many more who empower them, fundamentally agree.

The problem is that we are afraid, as a nation, to call them out. We are afraid to see them as they are, for what they are. We are afraid to shun them. We are afraid to resist them. We are afraid to fight them.

That’s on us.

Moral clarity has consequences. People who share the view that others not like them are somehow less than them, are evil. Period. Full stop. End of discussion.

There was a time, perhaps, when you could get away with calling them merely ignorant. That time ended, just to be arbitrary, in 1980. Or 1968. Or 1963. Choose any date you’d like, really, but we’re turning 60 next month, and anybody younger than us has no excuse. Neither does anyone older than us still living. We’ve had at least forty years to get this right. Or fifty. Or sixty.

We’re not getting this right. We’re not getting this right because a substantial number of Americans prefer to get this wrong, insist on getting this wrong. Not just the 40 percent who solidly support Our Racist President, but substantially more who refuse to call them out, who refuse to see the evil they carry and spread, who refuse to see the continuum of evil, from a casual bigoted remark to a violent attack.

It’s all evil. The only difference is methodology.

And because we collectively refuse to see this evil, refuse to acknowledge to continuum of its existence, we know how this moment is going to play out. It’s going to play out as it always plays out, in the media, in politics, in conversation. It will play out, and then it will happen again, because people refuse to do what is necessary to stop it, starting with seeing it for what it is.

We could stop it, of course. We could stop it in its tracks. Or at least fight it. Or at least resist it. We, the collective dominant critters in this planet, wield a lot of power to make shit happen, and to stop shit from happening.

But we don’t, and we won’t, because a substantial number of us are evil, and a great deal more have too much at stake in that evil to do anything about it. These are nice people. It’s just their opinion. It’s not our job as journalists to render judgment. It’s not our job as geeks to deny a platform for open discussion. It’s not our job, it’s not our place. It’s only in our prayers.

It’s all real easy to fix, easy to change, all very simple. Except for the part where nobody wants to deal with it in the first place.

11 Comments

All of this. The mass shootings in Norway and “Enn Zed” affected me much more than the ones every other day in the U.S. because I have been lucky enough to spend a fair amount of time in both of those countries and meet the many kind, intelligent, open-minded people who live in those countries and have governments and laws that are evidence-based. And thus the residents of New Zealand and Norway represent everything the repellent white nationalist supremacist terrorists hate: intelligence, empathy, compassion, and humor (true witty humor, not snide/cruel laughing at the disabled person humor that MAGAtts engage in).

I’ve read way too much history, and I honestly don’t see how this ends other than a fucking civil war that starts in one country and spreads globally. Since our planet is going to implode in 15 years due to unchecked climate change, it may not matter.

/Call me Cassandra and pour me another glass of wine

Since November 8, 2016, I have screamed into the void. You can’t grab the writhing firehose that is the news and slow it down so you can make sense of it. I just listen to episodes of Gaslit Nation again and again, and I wonder where the promise of the 60s went. We walked on the moon. Now, the most racist president in 100 years lives off our tax dollars in a pretty nice mansion – I’ve seen it.

Again I say – these people must not merely be shamed, must not merely be imprisoned. They must be destroyed. Conservatives, the GOP, torn out root and branch. Yet I fear the worst.

@SanFranLefty: there isn’t enough wine for this … I want to forget it all and go back to comics, movies, and funny podcasts. Yet I can’t do it.

@SanFranLefty: Honestly? I have absolutely no hope for the future. At this point, I consider giant asteroid striking earth our best outcome.

@Mistress Cynica: The imminent collapse of life on Earth really throws off the whole Arc of the Moral Universe thing.

For what it’s worth, as a gay man, a vegetarian, and someone who cares deeply about equality and the environment, I’ve seen an incredible sea change in all of these areas in just the last 20 years. Society isn’t changing rapidly enough to meet our various crises, but it is happening. Even the installation of the worst regime in our lifetimes hasn’t slowed it down, and in fact the backlash seems to be accelerating the demand for positive change. I mean, just 20 years ago, these were barely recognized as issues in the public consciousness.

So definitely vote and donate and make your voice heard, but tune out and take breaks to enjoy life when you need to. We have to trust each other to move forward on crises like climate change and inequality, and it is happening. The more hysterical and insane the lunatic American white trash right becomes, the more one realizes it’s due to the fact that they’re in their death throes and on the verge on ending up in history’s trash heap. It can’t come soon enough.

On a lighter note, is our Sports Commissioner MellBell going to organize the annual March Madness trashtalking?

@SanFranLefty: I’ve been swamped at work for, uh, let’s see (checks calendar), the last year, hence the prolonged absence here, but I got your bat signal and am working on it as we speak!

“A foolish faith in authority is the worst enemy of truth.” — Albert Einstein

We the people need to recognize the role of the authoritarian personality in human nature and history. There are authoritarian leaders and authoritarian followers.

More Americans need to learn to identify and understand Right Wing Authoritarian Personalities. Two books can provide that understanding of the portion of humanity with authoritarian personalities: “The Authoritarians” by Bob Altemeyer and “Conservatives Without Conscience” by John Dean

If it has not been made obvious by the rise of Trump, there are a lot of authoritarian personalities. Authoritarian personalities tend to comprise upwards to 25% of a human population. And they are the most active 25% in voting and attain the greater share of power. This is when the trouble happens.

This:

“The reason Democrats have to talk about the electoral college is that it’s part of a system, some parts of which are old and some parts of which are new, that undermines democracy at every turn, whether it’s by restricting voting rights, allowing those in power to draw district lines for partisan gain, granting outsize power to small states, or allowing the super-rich to shape electoral outcomes to their liking.

Every one of those anti-democratic features of the system works to the advantage of Republicans, which is why they defend them so fiercely. Indeed, most of the power Republicans have is made possible only because of the anti-democratic features of the system.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/03/20/electoral-college-is-an-abomination-democrats-should-keep-talking-about-it/?utm_term=.c12141440575

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