Considering these folks are the collective Voice of the Unheard, how come they’re all so incredibly fucking LOUD? Absolutely nobody brays invective at a higher decibel than a MAGAt.
Also, “Agreed to a phone interview with the stipulation that he would masturbate throughout” is so outstanding it should be put in the Smithsonian.
The “voice of the unheard” bit always kills me. How many Cletus safaris does it take before they qualify as heard? A thousand? Ten thousand? A million? Whatever the number, we’ve had that and more over the last four years. News flash for reporters: we HAVE heard them. And we aren’t listening to them, because what they want is gays back in the closet and blacks back picking cotton and women as seen in The Handmaid’s Tale. Fuck that noise.
Hear, hear. “Why do the people we’re trying to disenfranchise, discriminate against, impoverish, oppress, control, sicken, and kill refuse to listen to us? It’s not fair, help, help, we’re being repressed” – the perennial White Conservative lament.
Also, in a season of bad faith appropriations of Dr. King's life & work, it is woth noting that, in his words, the riot is the "voice of the unheard" but the actual unheard, populations victimized & marginalized by our politics & economics.
So depressing that the Times still can't quit their addiction to this bullshit -- the fantasy relatively impoverished Trump voter -- even now. For another thing, the demographic focused on may not be all that accurate.
The worst is that the people the Times is spotlighting have a legitimate beef. The problem, as the condescending yet correct POV goes is that they're poorly informed. Blaming that ignorance on conservatives media overlooks the establishment media's failure to inform either. For example, the Times has never reported (or if they have, tucked away; an exercise in exception to the rule) a shit ton of what these people are upset over is that we have an extractive, hollowing out, parasitic, exploitative economy. Maybe if they had a clue, they wouldn't be so fast to keep electing Republicans. Likewise, the GOP can nearly never do anything worth significant criticism from the mainstream. Now that it's much too late, they crank up the criticism of Donnie without noting that the difference between Donnie and his party is insignificant for the most part.
As for the racism of these fine people, well, racism is our heritage, what America was and remains built on in, uh, huge part.
MM for the win: Liberalism is doomed to fail on its current course because it cannot face what really makes people unhappy -- this "extractive, hollowing out, parasitic, exploitative economy" it fetishizes & endorses. The (white) victims of that economy often drift to nationalisms because their assumptions that scapegoats are at fault is promoted by one side & never vigorously challenged by the other (I don't mean the left, but the liberal middle). It's been said over & over again: liberalism leads to fascism &, I might add, kind of depends upon it as a shadow & an enforcer.
What exactly does it even mean liberal? If one doesn't believe in a need to rein in lawless capitalism at the least, the rest means nothing.
Too, I think it's pretty clear than a frightened, exploited people would turn to fascism, not full on socialism. It's just the way people are wired. When civilization fails, barbarism fills the vacuum.
I mean "liberalism" as a philosophy, not "liberal" as in US politics. The philosophy has come down (through misunderstanding Adam Smith) has having no interest in stopping the free market at all. That's why they say "liberal" & "conservative" are two sides of the same coin: because they both rely on capitalist exploitation. Right now, one is more laissez-faire than the other.
When I say "liberalism leads to fascism" it's because that exploitation will lead (if the government is unwilling to change conditions for workers) to the ressentiment that leads to scapegoating, ultra-nationalism, etc -- because those fissures are already part of capitalist exploitation. That's why whiteness was invented: to create fissures that further exploitation.
Socialism can become acceptable over time if the government can provode services & support that make life sustainable & satisfying to its people. Right now we got nothing in stone: any of it can be taken from you lickety-split.
To me, the argument that socialism is impossible because "human nature" is really weak & baseless. People are how they are now, but they haven't always been that way. Think about it: if humans were so aggressive & competitive that they immediately start trying to kill & dominate each other, they'd have never formed communities in the fist place. Culture, under pressure from politics & economics, shapes humans into the bizarre ghouls they are today. Nothing human is natural (I mean more than just basic animal functions). All of it is acculturated.
The thing is that "socialism" is really a political formation beyond the state (states exist primarily to organize violence against laborers, according to Lenin & I think Fanon would agree). THAT, my friend, may indeed be impossible before the planet becomes lifeless, because it will take a long time for people to unlearn their trauma responses, embrace empathy, share the means of production & life.
People need to have their needs met -- otherwise they'll attack & blame others. That's the only thing that will protect against fascism, but those needs, & the way those needs are met, will have to evolve, because as we have seen in the UK, leaving the 1% with enough power & influence will corrode that public faith (through greed & austerity) & allow fascist embers to rekindle.
I don't know why Marxists get such a bad rap -- we're basically the only optimists on the planet.. :)
Watched The Circus this weekend. The crew's most-far-Right reliable Republican reporter went to Trump's wall event down in Texas. It was, as you might expect, awash in MAGAs.
At one point, he asked a woman about the insurrection. Two other women leaped forward to proclaim that they were there! They were at the whole event! These women, swathed head to toe in Trump 2020 and MAGA swag, both swore that the whole thing was actually Antifa and BLM. "Yeah!" chimed in a third woman, "It was all those Antifa people and the BLM."
Though he was wearing a mask, you could see the reporter's jaw drop. He stood there completely aghast at what he'd just heard these women say, unable to grok exactly how it was that they could actually say and apparently believe these things.
My big takeaway from the past 4-20 years is that conservatives have zero interest in facts. In my family alone, there are people who believe GW Bush was "actually a Democrat" because he started a war, that the Mueller Report exonerated Trump -- and that all the indictments it also got only prove that lifelong Democrat Mueller (!!!) was out to get him. Trump then fired Democrat Comey because Comey suppressed evidence that would have gotten Hillary indicted. Obama incited riots at Ferguson and spoke with hate all the time.
I'm not talking about Qballs here. These are normal people -- but willing to rewrite all of US history to make themselves feel right. One of them told me how he couldn't buy his first house because Carter had destroyed interest rates, but then Reagan took over and within weeks he was able to buy! A great deal! Thank you, Reagan! His memory was clear and detailed. But: He bought his first house in 1972. He bought his other houses in '78 and '95, so he didn't mix up houses. His memory just... wasn't true. And there's no way to correct this habit because none of them want to correct it.
So I'm not shocked if "Antifa stormed the Capitol" ends up "true" for millions.
I keep saying that the reason people support Trump is he lets them feel good about themselves. There's no "policy" or (God forbid) "philosophy" involved. Demonstrating the ability to bend reality to your will is all it takes. If anyone does pick up the mantle it will by providing that same benediction.
"He bought his other houses in '78 and '95, so he didn't mix up houses. His memory just... wasn't true." I'm surprised he still talks to you, since you know the truth. Then again I'm not surprised.
Yeah, I want unity and healing with motherfuckers who even now continue to accuse me and the others on my side - WITHOUT SO MUCH AS A SHRED OF ACTUAL EVIDENCE - of cheating them. This when they've been laughed out of court again and again by their own judges.
So I'm seeing two possibilities here. (A) they're nuts, and who wants to unite with a bunch of lunatics? Or (B) they're arguing entirely in bad faith so fuck them and their phony pleas for unity and healing.
Either way unity ain't happening until there's an acknowledgement of objective reality.
Well, at least Mr. J’s interview had a happy ending. I’m waiting for a real report on the real feelings of real Americans in the real heart of real America: the South Side of Milwaukee. Standing in line for hours in a rain of coronavirus and racist taunts to vote out the most fascist president since (choose one: Wilson, Reagan, Bush II), then be ignored by the media in favor of some West Virginian who thinks George Soros has a secret robot factory with enslaved White children microchipped by Bill Gates’ mRNA vaccine turning out androids who will take over local governments and kill all Christians.
Yeah. Remarkably, this is exactly how my brain reads the "experts say what?" sections of these stupid articles. Roy must be like some kind of living EEG. I thought the tinfoil was to keep the beams and rays from coming in, and all along it was transmitting them out.
Well, that's certainly a caution. Can't we all just get along? But seriously I am amazed by how quickly folks want to avoid simple questions about lying. I think of Mark Twain's sophisticated understanding of lies and still I can't account for the open ways people pick and choose what they want to believe even when there's no proof, evidence, or a good reason. A bad reason or just because apparently will do. Someone clever should take up the subject and make me laugh.
So what happens come Thursday? And thereafter? If, as we've said and seen, Trump gave the MAGAts permission and encouragement to be loathsome in public, what happens when he's no longer center stage? They're not going to flock to Ted Cruz or Josh Hawley, no matter how repellent they are. Does Qanon fade away? Does the GOP base erode until the edifice collapses? Even if Trump stays out of jail, he'll never get the coverage he's just had for 4 years. Yeah, yeah, they call me a cockeyed optimist (immature and incurably green), but I could be right.
Trump is the boss daddy douchebag, alright. If he's in prison that'll be a hard knock. Maybe another of the bully-boys? But I can't see any but the fringiest marching behind Seb Gorka. This bears some thought. Maybe it's time for an actual WWF star. (A heel, naturally.)
And we'd all like to think the establishment press' coverage of Donnie will be much less heretofore, but I wouldn't bet on it. Happy to be proven wrong.
As a friend and professional associate of Booger Dump, I feel compelled to say the following: Booger Dump is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.
That black people were the children of Ham and thus rejected by God was mainstream evangelical teaching when I was growing up back in the 60's. Yeah... that shit.
I'm astounded that any of them trust Americans. I don't trust your average American as far as I can throw him, and given the obesity epidemic in this country, that ain't far! And I live in this shithole country.
A third of the people in this country are outright fascists and another third of the country can't tell you what a fascist is and wouldn't care anyway. The remaining third is left wondering WTF!!!
I commend you Mr. Edroso, satire is a tough row to hoe when reality has achieved escape velocity. I suspect we're seeing the end of the Cletus Safari, since it's only purpose was to give Media a frame to wrap their heads around the reality of Trump. Once he's gone, that imperative goes with him.
Uh, I heard an episode of "The Daily" that may have directly inspired this, and though I hated the feel-goodism of ending it with a best-case interviewee and didn't try to estimate the fractions of the Trump supporters represented by their contacts, I found a couple of the segments heartening in a way I'd hoped to do.
One was a 'well they fixed the election but we shouldn‘t sack the Capitol' guy, which can at least be lived-with, and another content with 'they won, we lost, I was sorry we lost but that‘s how elections work'.
(Another restored my excessive faith in our own side's impression, that being of the incredibly snowflake-y Trumpist whose plaint was entirely 'they called us bad names for so many years so what else _could_ we do?'—now there's someone who couldn't survive being anything except a stereotype-made-flesh white, Christian, man.)
I think some of these people will be wise-up, and others at least not be active threats, and I'd much rather have to worry about (say) forty-five million people than seventy-four million. I'll take what I can get.
Considering these folks are the collective Voice of the Unheard, how come they’re all so incredibly fucking LOUD? Absolutely nobody brays invective at a higher decibel than a MAGAt.
Also, “Agreed to a phone interview with the stipulation that he would masturbate throughout” is so outstanding it should be put in the Smithsonian.
The “voice of the unheard” bit always kills me. How many Cletus safaris does it take before they qualify as heard? A thousand? Ten thousand? A million? Whatever the number, we’ve had that and more over the last four years. News flash for reporters: we HAVE heard them. And we aren’t listening to them, because what they want is gays back in the closet and blacks back picking cotton and women as seen in The Handmaid’s Tale. Fuck that noise.
Hear, hear. “Why do the people we’re trying to disenfranchise, discriminate against, impoverish, oppress, control, sicken, and kill refuse to listen to us? It’s not fair, help, help, we’re being repressed” – the perennial White Conservative lament.
Also, in a season of bad faith appropriations of Dr. King's life & work, it is woth noting that, in his words, the riot is the "voice of the unheard" but the actual unheard, populations victimized & marginalized by our politics & economics.
(In this case, the riot was the Voice Of The Swineherd.)
Hey, I know some very progressive swineherds, so lay off.
So depressing that the Times still can't quit their addiction to this bullshit -- the fantasy relatively impoverished Trump voter -- even now. For another thing, the demographic focused on may not be all that accurate.
The worst is that the people the Times is spotlighting have a legitimate beef. The problem, as the condescending yet correct POV goes is that they're poorly informed. Blaming that ignorance on conservatives media overlooks the establishment media's failure to inform either. For example, the Times has never reported (or if they have, tucked away; an exercise in exception to the rule) a shit ton of what these people are upset over is that we have an extractive, hollowing out, parasitic, exploitative economy. Maybe if they had a clue, they wouldn't be so fast to keep electing Republicans. Likewise, the GOP can nearly never do anything worth significant criticism from the mainstream. Now that it's much too late, they crank up the criticism of Donnie without noting that the difference between Donnie and his party is insignificant for the most part.
As for the racism of these fine people, well, racism is our heritage, what America was and remains built on in, uh, huge part.
MM for the win: Liberalism is doomed to fail on its current course because it cannot face what really makes people unhappy -- this "extractive, hollowing out, parasitic, exploitative economy" it fetishizes & endorses. The (white) victims of that economy often drift to nationalisms because their assumptions that scapegoats are at fault is promoted by one side & never vigorously challenged by the other (I don't mean the left, but the liberal middle). It's been said over & over again: liberalism leads to fascism &, I might add, kind of depends upon it as a shadow & an enforcer.
Manqueman Johnson is right!
What exactly does it even mean liberal? If one doesn't believe in a need to rein in lawless capitalism at the least, the rest means nothing.
Too, I think it's pretty clear than a frightened, exploited people would turn to fascism, not full on socialism. It's just the way people are wired. When civilization fails, barbarism fills the vacuum.
I mean "liberalism" as a philosophy, not "liberal" as in US politics. The philosophy has come down (through misunderstanding Adam Smith) has having no interest in stopping the free market at all. That's why they say "liberal" & "conservative" are two sides of the same coin: because they both rely on capitalist exploitation. Right now, one is more laissez-faire than the other.
When I say "liberalism leads to fascism" it's because that exploitation will lead (if the government is unwilling to change conditions for workers) to the ressentiment that leads to scapegoating, ultra-nationalism, etc -- because those fissures are already part of capitalist exploitation. That's why whiteness was invented: to create fissures that further exploitation.
Socialism can become acceptable over time if the government can provode services & support that make life sustainable & satisfying to its people. Right now we got nothing in stone: any of it can be taken from you lickety-split.
To me, the argument that socialism is impossible because "human nature" is really weak & baseless. People are how they are now, but they haven't always been that way. Think about it: if humans were so aggressive & competitive that they immediately start trying to kill & dominate each other, they'd have never formed communities in the fist place. Culture, under pressure from politics & economics, shapes humans into the bizarre ghouls they are today. Nothing human is natural (I mean more than just basic animal functions). All of it is acculturated.
The thing is that "socialism" is really a political formation beyond the state (states exist primarily to organize violence against laborers, according to Lenin & I think Fanon would agree). THAT, my friend, may indeed be impossible before the planet becomes lifeless, because it will take a long time for people to unlearn their trauma responses, embrace empathy, share the means of production & life.
People need to have their needs met -- otherwise they'll attack & blame others. That's the only thing that will protect against fascism, but those needs, & the way those needs are met, will have to evolve, because as we have seen in the UK, leaving the 1% with enough power & influence will corrode that public faith (through greed & austerity) & allow fascist embers to rekindle.
I don't know why Marxists get such a bad rap -- we're basically the only optimists on the planet.. :)
"in the fist place," is an interesting typo, given the context...
Depends on whose fist at or on or in whose place.
I meant liberal like the ever more meaningless label applied to people to, uh, the left of MAGAts?
Philosophy is so beyond me.
Skeezix or Skeezicks? Gotta be the latter if he’s an Uncle Wiggly fan. 😀
Watched The Circus this weekend. The crew's most-far-Right reliable Republican reporter went to Trump's wall event down in Texas. It was, as you might expect, awash in MAGAs.
At one point, he asked a woman about the insurrection. Two other women leaped forward to proclaim that they were there! They were at the whole event! These women, swathed head to toe in Trump 2020 and MAGA swag, both swore that the whole thing was actually Antifa and BLM. "Yeah!" chimed in a third woman, "It was all those Antifa people and the BLM."
Though he was wearing a mask, you could see the reporter's jaw drop. He stood there completely aghast at what he'd just heard these women say, unable to grok exactly how it was that they could actually say and apparently believe these things.
My big takeaway from the past 4-20 years is that conservatives have zero interest in facts. In my family alone, there are people who believe GW Bush was "actually a Democrat" because he started a war, that the Mueller Report exonerated Trump -- and that all the indictments it also got only prove that lifelong Democrat Mueller (!!!) was out to get him. Trump then fired Democrat Comey because Comey suppressed evidence that would have gotten Hillary indicted. Obama incited riots at Ferguson and spoke with hate all the time.
I'm not talking about Qballs here. These are normal people -- but willing to rewrite all of US history to make themselves feel right. One of them told me how he couldn't buy his first house because Carter had destroyed interest rates, but then Reagan took over and within weeks he was able to buy! A great deal! Thank you, Reagan! His memory was clear and detailed. But: He bought his first house in 1972. He bought his other houses in '78 and '95, so he didn't mix up houses. His memory just... wasn't true. And there's no way to correct this habit because none of them want to correct it.
So I'm not shocked if "Antifa stormed the Capitol" ends up "true" for millions.
I keep saying that the reason people support Trump is he lets them feel good about themselves. There's no "policy" or (God forbid) "philosophy" involved. Demonstrating the ability to bend reality to your will is all it takes. If anyone does pick up the mantle it will by providing that same benediction.
"He bought his other houses in '78 and '95, so he didn't mix up houses. His memory just... wasn't true." I'm surprised he still talks to you, since you know the truth. Then again I'm not surprised.
Yeah, I want unity and healing with motherfuckers who even now continue to accuse me and the others on my side - WITHOUT SO MUCH AS A SHRED OF ACTUAL EVIDENCE - of cheating them. This when they've been laughed out of court again and again by their own judges.
So I'm seeing two possibilities here. (A) they're nuts, and who wants to unite with a bunch of lunatics? Or (B) they're arguing entirely in bad faith so fuck them and their phony pleas for unity and healing.
Either way unity ain't happening until there's an acknowledgement of objective reality.
“Honey, take me back. Or I’ll fucking kill you!”
I am hearing strong abuse vibes here
Well, at least Mr. J’s interview had a happy ending. I’m waiting for a real report on the real feelings of real Americans in the real heart of real America: the South Side of Milwaukee. Standing in line for hours in a rain of coronavirus and racist taunts to vote out the most fascist president since (choose one: Wilson, Reagan, Bush II), then be ignored by the media in favor of some West Virginian who thinks George Soros has a secret robot factory with enslaved White children microchipped by Bill Gates’ mRNA vaccine turning out androids who will take over local governments and kill all Christians.
Happy ending? You mean like "massage parlour" happy ending or "happy ever after" happy ending?
The paragraph beginning with “a political science professor” should be bronzed and hung inside the lobby of The NY Times. Aces.
Yeah. Remarkably, this is exactly how my brain reads the "experts say what?" sections of these stupid articles. Roy must be like some kind of living EEG. I thought the tinfoil was to keep the beams and rays from coming in, and all along it was transmitting them out.
Well, that's certainly a caution. Can't we all just get along? But seriously I am amazed by how quickly folks want to avoid simple questions about lying. I think of Mark Twain's sophisticated understanding of lies and still I can't account for the open ways people pick and choose what they want to believe even when there's no proof, evidence, or a good reason. A bad reason or just because apparently will do. Someone clever should take up the subject and make me laugh.
A comment to the original Times article: "When will you be writing about and interviewing all of us that are happy that Biden won? Just checking!"
Good question. Has anyone ever read such a piece? Do conservative publications endlessly send reporters on Dierdre safaris?
So what happens come Thursday? And thereafter? If, as we've said and seen, Trump gave the MAGAts permission and encouragement to be loathsome in public, what happens when he's no longer center stage? They're not going to flock to Ted Cruz or Josh Hawley, no matter how repellent they are. Does Qanon fade away? Does the GOP base erode until the edifice collapses? Even if Trump stays out of jail, he'll never get the coverage he's just had for 4 years. Yeah, yeah, they call me a cockeyed optimist (immature and incurably green), but I could be right.
Trump is the boss daddy douchebag, alright. If he's in prison that'll be a hard knock. Maybe another of the bully-boys? But I can't see any but the fringiest marching behind Seb Gorka. This bears some thought. Maybe it's time for an actual WWF star. (A heel, naturally.)
I think Ted Nugent will pick up the swastika
It's clear Pompeo or Hawley think it should be them. But yeah, the way forward for them is down: Based Joe Rogan Fan 2024
I bet they go for the Texas pirate melon guy. They're suckers for shallowfakes.
The MAGAts will do whatever Donnie says.
And we'd all like to think the establishment press' coverage of Donnie will be much less heretofore, but I wouldn't bet on it. Happy to be proven wrong.
As a friend and professional associate of Booger Dump, I feel compelled to say the following: Booger Dump is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life.
To the best of my knowledge there’s no actual Flatnut, South Dakota. However, we have an Athol. In fact, we’ve got lots of Athols.
Nice
I would have picked Nunda, as it pairs nicely with the masturbation. Also, Nunda has 51 people all white
That black people were the children of Ham and thus rejected by God was mainstream evangelical teaching when I was growing up back in the 60's. Yeah... that shit.
53 percent of Germans don't trust Americans.
https://www.pmcarpenter.com/2021/01/a-majority-of-germans-say-what.html
I'm astounded that any of them trust Americans. I don't trust your average American as far as I can throw him, and given the obesity epidemic in this country, that ain't far! And I live in this shithole country.
A third of the people in this country are outright fascists and another third of the country can't tell you what a fascist is and wouldn't care anyway. The remaining third is left wondering WTF!!!
I commend you Mr. Edroso, satire is a tough row to hoe when reality has achieved escape velocity. I suspect we're seeing the end of the Cletus Safari, since it's only purpose was to give Media a frame to wrap their heads around the reality of Trump. Once he's gone, that imperative goes with him.
Sadly, no. Joe Biden owns an exercise bike, and the NYT is ONIT!!!
https://www.eschatonblog.com/2021/01/back-on-their-bullshit-already.html
Uh, I heard an episode of "The Daily" that may have directly inspired this, and though I hated the feel-goodism of ending it with a best-case interviewee and didn't try to estimate the fractions of the Trump supporters represented by their contacts, I found a couple of the segments heartening in a way I'd hoped to do.
One was a 'well they fixed the election but we shouldn‘t sack the Capitol' guy, which can at least be lived-with, and another content with 'they won, we lost, I was sorry we lost but that‘s how elections work'.
(Another restored my excessive faith in our own side's impression, that being of the incredibly snowflake-y Trumpist whose plaint was entirely 'they called us bad names for so many years so what else _could_ we do?'—now there's someone who couldn't survive being anything except a stereotype-made-flesh white, Christian, man.)
I think some of these people will be wise-up, and others at least not be active threats, and I'd much rather have to worry about (say) forty-five million people than seventy-four million. I'll take what I can get.
Way to go, Kitty Bennett.