Dec 4, 2016
Dec 3, 2016
Joy In The Morning
I learned a new one today - Acute Discrimination Envy.
If the video feed isn't working, it's because Google is playing their shitty little games - trying to push everybody to their Chrome Browser thingie - and anyway, click here:
Silence Can Be Deadly
When there's an incident of somebody "going off", I try to remember that such behavior is often the language of repression (MLK's "language of the unheard") - it's a reaction to thinking you've been ignored for too long; or told to shut up; or that your needs are not being met and nobody seems to give a fuck, so "dammit, somebody's gonna hear about it one way or another".
New Republic:
New Republic:
Another week, another racist rant from a Trump supporter going viral.
This time it’s the white woman at the Michaels crafts store in Chicago, who, after she was apparently asked to buy a $1 bag for her bigger items, proceeded to berate black employees, with an onlooker capturing the incident on video. The ranting woman repeatedly claimed she’d been “discriminated against” because of her race and presidential preference (“I voted for Trump—so there”) while attacking the “black women” workers and calling one “an animal.”Important also to remember the White Anxiety angle when we're talking about Repressed thinking.
This was only the latest of the viral videos showing white Trump supporters going off in public places—most notably, a racist ranter at a Starbucks in Coral Gables, Florida, and a sexist Trumpeter on a Delta flight. There’s been widespread agreement about what these videos mean: “more evidence that Trump supporters are emboldened by his victory,” as the website Mic called the Chicago ordeal. And on the surface, they do look (and sound!) like the fulfillment of countless campaign predictions about Trump normalizing bigotry, evidence of the “trickle-down racism” that Mitt Romney, of all people, warned us about. “Trump victory would embolden the bigots,” CNN warned on November 7, summing up the long-running meme.
There’s unquestionably some truth to that. But what the viral videos of Trump supporters gone wild reveal is actually more complicated—and fascinating. The closer you look, the more you listen, the clearer it is that these bigoted ranters aren’t so much empowered as they are fragile and pathetic. And what’s gone largely unnoticed is the reactions that the other people in the videos have to their bigoted ravings—reactions that hint at something to be kinda, sorta hopeful about—that non-racist whites have also been woken up by the Trumpian surge of white nationalism.
On Letting It Go
It's just really hard to walk away. Sometimes it feels like you're lumping together your parents and your grandparents and everybody you've known and loved and respected your whole life - and you're calling them liars and fools.
John Pavlovitz on his troubles with American Christianity:
And I won't bore all of us struggling to come up with some wordy dissertation on "my journey".
Back to the point - it's not so much that there's a lot wrong with Religion; the problem is all the fucked up things Religious People do because of it.
All together now - Duh.
John Pavlovitz on his troubles with American Christianity:
If religion it is to be worth holding on to, it should be the place where the marginalized feel the most visible, where the hurting receive the most tender care, where the outsiders find the safest refuge.
It should be the place where diversity is fiercely pursued and equality loudly championed; where all of humanity finds a permanent home and where justice runs the show.
That is not what this thing is. This is FoxNews and red cup protests and persecution complexes. It’s opulent, big box megachurches and coddled, untouchable celebrity pastors. It’s pop culture boycotts and manufactured outrage. It’s just wars and justified shootings. It’s all manner of bullying and intolerance in the name of Jesus.
Feeling estrangement from these things is a good thing.I split with religion a long time ago, and only recently turned myself loose from the last bits of the Magical Thinking part of "Spirituality" (whatever the hell that word's supposed to mean), even tho' I still indulge myself in the use of the language and some of the ritual.
And I won't bore all of us struggling to come up with some wordy dissertation on "my journey".
- I was raised a Methodist
- I thought about it for 40 years
- Now I'm atheist
Back to the point - it's not so much that there's a lot wrong with Religion; the problem is all the fucked up things Religious People do because of it.
All together now - Duh.
Today's Silly Thing
You know you're going to try this pic.twitter.com/dHu58AeCek— Theater of SciFi (@theaterofscifi) December 2, 2016
Today's Tweet
"I just wish that I had not voted."— Trump supporter despondent over Mnuchin, who's bank foreclosed on her home: https://t.co/WZASUp9D5Z pic.twitter.com/k720708Y6h— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) December 2, 2016
So yeah - you got butt-raped with your pants on, and because you're just too fuckin' dumb to sort thru the obvious bullshit, you're forcing the rest of us to share in that little Personal Growth Opportunity. Thanks and fuck you so very much, you ignorant twat-waffle. I hope you enjoy a long and miserable period of well-deserved self-loathing, cuz you earned it, lady.
Almost forgot - generations yet unborn wanted me to pass this message to you:
(Ed Note: I guess I'm not quite ready for a lotta forgiveness and reconciliation just yet)
Dec 2, 2016
Slippery Little Buggers
"I believe"
That's about all it takes. The lady repeats the assertions she's heard her authority figures make, and she tries to back up those assertions by repeating the "supporting arguments" she's heard from those same figures, but as each bit of "evidence" is challenged and refuted, she eventually retreats all the way back to "I believe".
Once you have the Authoritarian Frame in place, all you have to do is make assertions and the true believers will fall in line. It's not as simple as it seems of course, but if I have to boil it down to baseline premises, that's why the God-Knobbers make such good Republicans.
Today's Tweet
Poor Donald Trump hates pics of his double chin, so the Internet decided to help - https://t.co/a8SgrCs5u7 pic.twitter.com/dyWlhQepuX— Dangerous Minds (@DangerMindsBlog) December 1, 2016
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