Sep 17, 2017

Rally vs Rally

So, the Mother Of All Rallies didn't quite live up to the billing, and actually finished second (out of two) behind the Juggalo get-together in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

First - I think it tells something of a story when supporters of Cult45 use the same rhetorical construction as Saddam Hussein's information guys.

How is your Daddy State any different from all the other Daddy States when your speech and your behavior line up so closely?

It's nothing short of gob-smacking to see so many people so thoroughly unaware of the self-mockery at work here.



Second, this is the real point:

It's estimated that fully one half of 45*'s "followers" on Twitter (eg) are not Meat Space Occupants. You know - people.

That "crowd" of about 1000 screwballs on The Mall yesterday is what happens when each of those self-isolating confirmation-bias-driven individuals is convinced there're millions more just like him.



I'm hoping we're starting to get a handle on the weird irony of just how dangerous it is to get sucked into believing this tiny, otherwise harmless, band of zealously credulous fringe-dwellers represents anything even remotely resembling some kind of "majority".

They don't. And they keep giving us good examples of the fact that they don't.

Read this one from Greg Fish:

Maybe it’s because the Republican Party, the group that claims to represent them, their ideas, and their interests, is no longer their party, what it calls conservatism is just an angry hodgepodge of grievances and scapegoating, and its leader is a shiftless, amoral populist whose political career is just a publicity stunt that spiraled completely out of control. Even worse, its base seems to display an almost cultish devotion to him, hanging on his every word, ready to turn obvious missteps into tales of victorious triumph over their many enemies. And conservative leaders warning fellow Republicans of this are in denial of how it got this way and just how angry and entitled their base has become at its core.


But don't forget this little wrinkle: the whole thing gets a lot worse a lot faster if Kris Kobach makes any real progress in his efforts to suppress the vote, cuz that makes it look like these idiots are in the majority, and all they really want is to believe what they're told.




Sep 16, 2017

Today's Quote


And I don't mean to romanticize suffering, but that person who can never suffer, can never grow up. 

That man who has to snatch his manhood out of the fires of human cruelty that rage to destroy it every day learns something about himself in the process that no school and no church on earth can teach.

And that is the sense of his own authority, and that is unshakable. Because in order to save his life, he has to constantly figure out the meaning behind the words. When a person is constantly having to survive the worst that life can bring, they cease to be afraid of the worst that life can bring.
--James Baldwin

Today's Pix

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Today's Axiom

Go ahead and build that 30-foot wall.

It'll make me a fortune selling 35-foot ladders.

Capitalism, dummy.

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Today's Tweet



Imagine growing up with this as your starting point.

We owe these kids a better effort at leaving them a better world.

Sep 15, 2017

Tim Wise Redux

A rerun from Tim Wise:


At about 13:30 - "Expectationalism"

Also, listen for things like White Fragility and the weird irony of being called "snowflake" by someone who melts down over casting black people in a movie remake, and the rebuttal for "Reverse Discrimination".

"You don't get on the boat if you're winning."

Lotsa good shit.

Today's Tweet



We spend a lot of time and energy on the "Never Forget" thing.  I'd like to add this one to the repertoire.

Sept 15, 1963

Cut Snip Hack Tear Shred


Vox, Sarah Kliff:

The Trump administration has informed government-funded Obamacare outreach groups of deep impending budget cuts next year, with some nonprofits having budgets slashed by as much as 98 percent.

“We’re letting 11 navigators go today, which leaves us with five navigators for the entire state,” says Brian Burton, director of the Southwest Louisiana Area Health Education Center. His funding was cut from a $1.07 million grant this year to $297,000 next year.

The Health and Human Services Department announced August 31 that it would cut funding for the health law’s in-person assistance program by 41 percent. Late Wednesday night, the administration sent each group its individual budget. It shows widespread variation in how big those funding cuts will be.

Louisiana and Indiana, for example, will have the outreach funding coming into their states cut by 80 percent. Maine, however, will have its budget held constant — while Kansas will only see a 9 percent funding cut.

Outreach groups are responding to the cuts by laying off staff and scaling back the geographic areas where they provide assistance.

Any time there's a significant decrease in Spending (government or otherwise), there's a downward push on the economy, and that has always cost us more than we've "saved".

As the funding is cut, the negative impact in those geographic areas left under- or un-served will be greater than it will be in the more densely populated and/or richer areas.  So I guess we can expect another hard round of "it may be tough for you Real Americans right now, but it's OK because you're helping us fuck over those big-city moocher-minorities, and we all know that's what you think is the most important thing".

Torpedoing the ACA is bad enough, but providing nothing to replace the economic benefits
of the ACA is a plain ol' straight up shitty thing to do.

So I have to ask the 'why' question.  It's not like they don't understand how an economy works.

I may be feeling paranoid, but that don't mean nobody's out to get me.

Keith


Keith agrees with 45* - so: