History. Forget your own history, and you won't know who you are. You'll lose the understanding of yourself. So if I can change the historical narrative, I can make you believe you're someone other than who you are. And then it'll be just that tiny bit easier for me to influence (if not control) your thinking and your behavior. The Professional Left podcast (via Stitcher):
#ThingsJesusNeverSaid I will only heal you if you can prove you didn't have this illness when we first met.
— MATTY ICE (@MattyIceAZ) April 2, 2015
#ThingsJesusNeverSaid "I'd like my life to inspire a massive pompous money-grubbing global corporation that harbours child abusers"
— Will Black (@WillBlackWriter) April 2, 2015
Christian holocaust. The delusions of persecution just get deeper and deeper, right along with the phat stacks of spending green in Glenn Beck's bank accounts.
Bob Menendez may be carted off the field pretty soon - for stepping on his own dick with a track shoe. And while I won't say it shouldn't happen, I guess I could say this looks a whole lot like Praising-By-Faint-Damnation.
It's pretty obvious ol' Bob is a fine example of the kinda Coin-Operated Politician I love to slag. The guy sold favors. He used the power of his office to grease the skids for a buddy in exchange for campaign donations. First, let's be real clear - this should come as no surprise to anybody. It's a manifestation of the system of legalized bribery we've developed. I'm a lot more amazed that Bob's buddy, Salomon Melgen was willing to pay $750k in campaign contributions to get visas for a coupla Dominican girlfriends - that is some top-shelf high-priced pussy, my friend - and hey, what else is this guy willing to overpay for? And how do I get in on that action? (sorry, not sorry - even if you think I should be a bit more restrained in my expression, or that I'm being cynical because of course we're all supposed to have evolved enough to believe power and money are used for better purposes, thinking they won't be used in the traditionally relentless pursuit of sex is just silly). But that leads me to the second thing, which is: what the fuck - Bob Menendez is the guy we need to go after? Maybe that's why there's not a whole big magillah being made about it - yet. Or maybe there's a lot more to it(?) - like maybe everybody else is really busy making sure all their own hookers and pimps are properly masked before they jump into it. Dunno, but it is politics after all. And it's Jersey to boot.
(I was desperately hoping this was some kind of April Fools gag - but alas, Beshear put his name to this crap and sent it to SCOTUS ... and so the search for intelligent life among Republicans continues)
Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear's administration is arguing the state's ban on same-sex marriage isn't discriminatory because it applies to straight people, too.
"Kentucky’s marriage laws treat homosexuals and heterosexuals the same and are facially neutral. Men and women, whether heterosexual or homosexual, are free to marry persons of the opposite sex under Kentucky law, and men and women, whether heterosexual or homosexual, cannot marry persons of the same sex under Kentucky law," the Democratic governor said in a brief filed with the Supreme Court on March 27.
That's what passes for "logical thinking" in the GOP now. So the argument in favor of (eg) the anti-miscegenation laws in the Jim Crow era would be: "the laws against Inter-Racial Marriage are not at all discriminatory because they make it illegal for both whites and blacks to marry outside their race". It seems so easy to identify this Beshear guy as just another dipwad politico pandering to a slice of the voter demographic. My standard complaint is that he needs the rubes to send him their butter-n-egg money on a regular basis, and he needs to count on 'em showing up on election day, so he needs to rile 'em up with some bullshit issue-du-jour that keeps them feeling justified in thinking they have somebody they can spit on (which keeps them too busy to notice what Beshear's bosses are doing to them and everybody else); and that what he can't afford to let happen is for any one slice of the voter demographic to make common cause with certain other slices of the voter demographic, because if we ever really get hip to these divide-and-conquer strategies, these guys are toast. But my main problem now is that it seems like Beshear (eg) isn't simply making cynical calculations on how to stay in power. It's possible he's just not good at the Rhetorical Spin Game, but I'm thinking some of these guys actually believe the shit they say. How does Beshear try to make that point if he's not a true believer? Seriously - we gotta stop electing these assholes. We have to show up and vote every time we get the chance.
Keith makes a great point by stitching the actions of "sports figures" to the politics of their contemporary circumstance. He says you don't get to separate sports-world events from the political environment in which those sports-world events occur.
Here's my fer-instance: If racial segregation wasn't political; if figuring out ways to force the realization of the need for change wasn't political, then how is it that Bear Bryant waited for exactly the right time to invite USC and Sam Cunningham to come to Tuscaloosa and kick Bama's all-white SEC ass on national TV?
Ya gotta be a little careful about drawing parallels between (eg) racism and LGBT discrimination, but when we're talking about equal rights, we're supposed to be talking about everybody being afforded the same rights as everybody else.
If I had any real money - and if there was still something a lot less rare than a Community Orchestra to give it to - I'd give a lot of dough to get something like this going. Teenage Dirtbag (cover) --The Ukulele Orchestra Of Great Britain
No matter what the source, there's just nothing like good tunes played by good players.
Apparently, Mike Pence has been quite surprised and even a little shocked that the reaction to his little Fuck-Them-Uppity-Queers-Anyway law has caused such a stir. I'd really like to see the law as just another political calculation to appease the Right Radicals who got out the vote and put his ass in the governor's chair etc etc etc, but I think he's being fairly genuine here - I think he was actually convinced that what he did was gonna be OK with everybody. And I think he believed it because he's so totally insulated from everything that might in any way run contrary to his preconceptions. Nobody ever says 'no' to this guy, and that's the way he wants it. Pence is like your knuckleheaded brother-in-law or Uncle DumFux who never seeks out any information that might require him to modify his positions, or to rethink any of his opinions on policy. Call it Government By Confirmation Bias, or whatever, but here's the thing, Mikey: when you've got your head up your ass, even if you open your eyes, all you're gonna see is your own shit. hat tip = phantom power at Democratic Underground And I'm still wondering (as well as still waiting for a Press Poodle to step up and ask) - precisely what "religious freedom" has been lost that makes government intervention necessary to restore it?
Guys like Mike Pence just always seem not to understand that laws regarding anybody's rights have to ensure everybody's rights - and it doesn't matter that you didn't think of all the extreme shittiness that follows the logical progression of the effects of the law - you don't get to elevate the rights of your favorite group over the rights of any other group based solely on who they are, Mr Pence. And the fact that you were completely in the dark about that shittiness shows how insular and beholden and captive you are to a radical cadre of Theo-Fascists.
And we're off to the races now.
I hereby do establish my religion - the Church of Our Lady of None Of Your Fuckin' Business, and I do further establish and ordain myself Lord High Inquisitor and Defender Of The Fairytale. I will therefore go forth to impose upon the great unwashed the Holy Admonition according to The Gospel of The Coital Conifer Flower, for it is truly the foundation of faith for all who are stoopid enough to believe as I do - and judging by the current crop of idiot rubes who're more than willing to subscribe to just about any nonsense anybody can imagine as long as it allows them to feel special by slagging people they need to believe are worthy of being beaten down, my coffers will be filled beyond the dreams of Croesus in no time at all.
So here's the thing - my religion requires me to tell Gov Pence to go fuck himself with a pinecone, so the laws against public verbal assault and threatening behavior towards public officials mean nothing. As of this summer, Indiana law requires the cops and the prosecutors to leave me alone and let me scream my silly little profanities at the governor every time I'm in earshot of him, or any of his staffers, or any of the suckers who think this stoopid law was a good idea.
But also, I wanna say it loud and clear to every eligible voter who stayed home on election day; everybody who was eager to sit on their asses while somebody else was out there doing the work of self-government. Ya'll sat there and let this happen, so you can all go fuck yourselves with a pinecone too.
