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F**k Civility

Monday, June 25, 2018

A few days ago a restaurant owner told Sarah Huckabee that, all things considered, she wasn’t welcome in her restaurant. The lack of civility on the left is now all the rage. As so many have argued, this is a one way street, for when the Trumpers are absolutely in your face, incivility wise (e.g., “fuck your feelings”), the media response is to send more reporters to backwater diners to try to understand why these idiots still worship their Führur. No time is spent bemoaning their incivility, since their targets are liberals and Democrats, and there’s an entire television network dedicated to demonizing them, so they should be used to it, and anyway, who cares. Consider, as another example, Anne Coulter, whose entire career has been built on lying about and demonizing liberals. No one ever asks her to be civil and she’s still constantly on the tube. But when a restaurant owner has a problem with someone who is the public face of a regime that tears children from their parents and puts them in concentration camps, then incivility is a problem.

I would argue that in many ways, civility is a problem. For one thing, since only those of us on the left are expected to be civil there is a dynamic that forces us to find ever more mild sounding euphemisms to describe those on the right. For example, we also learned today that calling Stephen Miller a “white nationalist” demonstrates a lack of civility. 

I’ve always had a problem with the term because it says too little. First of all, in this country, there is not that much appreciation for what the term “nationalist” implies, so that word coveys very little information. The term “white nationalist” is used because it is considered impolite to call someone a fascist, a Nazi, or a racist, all of which terms apply to Stephen Miller. Using the term is, to my mind, the equivalent of using the term “ethnic cleansing” in lieu of “genocide”. Again, there is no hesitation among those on the right to use any term they like against those on the left. No one objects to any term Sean Hannity cares to use to describe us, most if not all of which are lies. I mean, I wish Obama had been a socialist, but so far as the right was concerned, he was, and much more. I don’t recall anyone talking about incivility in that context. Obama just had to take it. Had he emitted one rage tweet, as the very stable genius does almost every day, we never would have heard the end of it.

So, if the term “white nationalist” becomes verboten, what term will we have to use to attempt to convey the idea that someone is a racist, fascist, and/or a Nazi? O, right: alt-right, a term that conveys absolutely no information. A perfect euphemism.

I’m for using the words that accurately describe our opponents. We are in an ideological war right now, and we are being asked to unilaterally disarm. You won’t see the term “white nationalist” used in this space. It’s quicker and more accurate to type Nazi, fascist, or racist, the specific word choice depending on the context. Oh, and by the way, they aren’t detention centers, they’re concentration camps.

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Friday Night Music

Friday, June 22, 2018

So, this is a little different. I guess this is all over the tube, or maybe it is, but since I don’t have a television I have no way to be sure. Anyway, I really enjoyed it. Watch the whole thing. If you’re of a certain age, I think you’ll have a hard time not shedding a tear or two, but some tears you’re glad to shed.

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Pity the Onion, part 2

Thursday, June 21, 2018

Okay, when I first saw this article, I thought the good folks at Crooks & Liars had been taken in. Could Melania Trump really have worn this jacket when she went to visit little children in the concentration camps:

 

It seemed obviously photoshopped, and so absurd that even the Onion would never have gone there. But, lo and behold, it is true, and the White House insists that sometimes a jacket is just a jacket, and why would anyone think there is any sort of message there.

I confess, I’m stymied. On the one hand, I can’t believe the White House spin. On the other hand, I can’t believe anyone would be so stupid as to dress her up in that jacket. After all, it would be the first time anyone connected with this administration has told the truth about anything.

I have stated before that I don’t believe any words attributed to Melania are her own creation, but this one has me stumped. Maybe they take turns at the White House, with the chief honchos alternating days that they can put things in her mouth, and today was Stephen Miller’s day. It certainly seems to echo his thinking. If, in fact, Melania actually chose, on her very own, to wear the thing, then what message is the woman who cares so deeply about children trying to send? Maybe it’s some sort of weird cry for help.

Speaking of the Onion and Stephen Miller, check out this article at New York magazine. The Onion really can’t keep up. 

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Is our media learning

Monday, June 18, 2018

As of late, a few hopeful signs have been springing up in the media’s coverage of the genius and his administration. They still aren’t calling a lie a lie, but they are coming ever closer. Consider this, from a story in today’s New York Timesabout a statement put out in Melania Trump’s name about the Naz-like separation of children from their parents. Melania allegedly parroted the White House line that the separation policy was mandated by law. The Times notes:

Contrary to the president’s public statements, no law requires families to necessarily be separated at the border. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s “zero tolerance” announcement this spring that the government will prosecute all unlawful immigrants as criminals set up a situation in which children are removed when their parents are taken into federal custody.

So that’s good, but on the other hand, attributing the sentiments distributed by her “office” or “spokeswoman” to Melania herself is obviously problematic. There is zero reason to believe she participates in the slightest way in drafting the statements that go out under her name. There is, in fact, every reason to believe that she is a virtual prisoner in the White House, with everything she says or does vetted by the propaganda ministry. The media should at least point out that there is no independent verification that the statements put out in her name reflects her actual sentiments, whatever they may be.

She may in fact, have no sentiments. I am not a Melania apologist. She is reaping what she sowed. There is no way she married the man for love. She wanted money, and she got it. If she’s miserable now, it’s only what she deserves. Still, in the interest of truth, the media should not pretend that these statements from her spokesperson reflect any of her actual views. At this point, mendacity on the part of this administration should be assumed, until there is clear and convincing evidence to the contrary.

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Random Rants

Sunday, June 17, 2018

A few observations about some random stories in today’s newspapers.

First, the Boston Globetells us that the Republicans are never going to stand up to Trump, because he’s giving them what he wants. No arguments with that, but thisis a common refrain that really has to stop:

The majority of his successes have been reversals of the Obama agenda, a goal shared by Republican leaders who are now tacitly or actively participating in his remake of the 164-year-old Republican Party to match his own image and priorities.

With incredibly minor exceptions, the Trump agenda is the Republican agenda. Trump is not remaking the Republican Party. It has been the party of plutocrats, racists, corruption, environment rapists, etc., for decades. Trump is merely the actual unvarnished expression of what the Republican Party has been trading on since Nixon. Every time the media draws this sort of distinction between Republicans and Trump they legitimize what is in fact a party dedicated to destroying the Republic.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reportsthat a high school in Andover, Massachusetts has had to stop distributing yearbooks, because one kid put a quote from Joseph Goebbels as a caption to his senior picture. The school reacted with the required shock and horror. The unidentified student allegedly did not know the source of the quote, and his reasons for using it were not explored, though the school says they were innocent. The Times partly chalked it up to anti-Semitism, or at the least, of being anti-Semitic, because of some anti-Semitic events from the school’s recent past, but that’s not at all clear, as there’s nothing about the quote that mentions Jews. Here’s the quote:

The quote, which reads “Make the lie big, keep it simple, keep saying it and eventually they will believe it,” is widely associated with Hitler and Goebbels’s use of propaganda to build the Nazi empire. The quote is not attributed in the yearbook, and appears in black text underneath the photo of the student, who has not been identified.

Seems to me the quote is a perfect description of the political strategy of the Nazis currently running our government, so it is not impossible to conclude that the quote may have had nothing to do with anti-Semitism, but may, in fact, have been a veiled attack on our current Führer. This possibility goes unmentioned in the article, but it seems to me that it fairly cries out as a distinct possibility.

The school’s investigation found, according to the principal, that the student in question did now know the original source of the quote nor did he have any hateful intent in using the quote. All of this raises an interesting question. Should we be expunging quotes from Nazis that shed light on the events of our own times? The fact that Goebbels said this, and the fact that it is precisely the strategy employed by the very stable genius and the state run media at Fox should be legitimate subjects of discussion. The conventional wisdom is that Hitler comparisons should be avoided, because simply nothing compares with Hitler. Therefore, such comparisons have no validity and undermine the argument of those making the comparison. We don’t have gas chambers yet, but we do have concentration camps in which we are imprisoning little children, and, as noted already, we have a government and enabling media spreading the big lie. If comparisons are apt, we should use them.

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Friday Night Music and More

Friday, June 15, 2018

This has been a banner day for fans of justice, in that Paul Manafort is where he belongs. I found it interesting that, from what I read, a number of experts in the field (I never practiced criminal law) felt it was unlikely that he’d be sent to jail. Personally, based on the allegations, I was pretty sure he would be, and here’s hoping he rots there. As a tribute to Paul, I am dedicating the first half of tonight’s music offering to him, in the hopes that, in the end, it will still be true that the law won.

Of course, the song is not entirely apt; Manafort didn’t rob people with a six gun, he was more of the ilk, as Woody Guthrie wrote, that robbed them with a fountain pen, but even that doesn’t quite describe it. Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that he has been sent to an institution of the nastiest sort, one where he can live the life he so richly deserves.

Anyway, before the good news broke, I had an entirely different song picked out for tonight. I don’t believe I’ve ever put anything up by Neil Sedaka before. A couple of weeks ago I heard one of his songs on internet radio, and it brought back good memories, so I bought one of his CDs. His songs are a kick, but are also almost guaranteed ear worms. Hear one today, and it goes through your head for a week or two. So beware.

None of his early videos that I could find are worth posting; they’re all obviously lip synced, and that’s a no-no on this feature. I checked out his Wikipedia page, and somewhere along the line, in the 70s, he changed his style a bit, and that was probably when he recorded this version of Breaking Up is Hard to Do. Different than the original, and, blessedly, not quite as likely to stay in your brain for several days.

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Look what I see in my crystal ball

Thursday, June 14, 2018

It appears that Lyin’ Sarah will be leaving her present positionsometime in the relatively near future, though she denies it now. 

There is a microscopic chance that she will not get a well paid gig bloviating on one of the cable networks, and not necessarily Fox News. No one will ever mention that she was a serial liar on behalf of Trump, even when she criticizes someone else for deviating from the truth.

This prediction is brought to you by CTBlue. I know it’s a slam dunk, but I just wanted to get it out there for the record.

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Pity the Onion

Tuesday, June 12, 2018

If you frequent the same type of internet sites as me, you have no doubt seen many posts that remark that this or that is “not the Onion”, but is in fact real. It makes you feel a bit sorry for the actual Onion, whose proprietors must be working overtime to come up with things that arethe Onion, and are somewhat more offbeat than everyday reality.

The latest example I stumbled upon was this post at Daily Kos, which notes that the following actual quote from the very stable genius is not the product of any imagination at the Onion, though it is precisely, practically to the letter, what one would expect to read there:

Trump: They have great beaches. You see that whenever they’re exploding their cannons into the ocean. I said, ‘Boy, look at that view. Wouldn’t that make a great condo? You could have the best hotels in the world right there. Think of it from a real estate perspective. You have South Korea, you have China and they own the land in the middle. How bad is that, right? It’s great.

Warning: This is not a cartoon. It was not lifted from the Onion. This is reality.

The Injustice Department recently argued that the emoluments clause is only triggered by a direct quid for quo bribe, an ahistorical reading if ever there was one. The above quote, which apparently really is real, shows that the genius is already thinking about how he can cash in on his friendship with yet another dictator. Will Trump Tower Pyongyang be built while he’s president, or will he wait until he leaves office?

But this raises another question about the genius. The previous undisputed champion White House criminal was, to give him his due, quite crafty. Of course you don’t have to be terribly crafty to realize that you oughtn’t to come right out and admit that you have engaged in, or intend to engage in, impeachable behavior. I have seen speculation that there is some method behind the genius’s madness, and the quote above, along with so many of his tweets, raises the question of whether this could be so. Usually, the argument is that he says and does these things in a calculated effort to distract from some other bit of criminality, but why would one distract from one crime by admitting to another?

I think that for the most part statements such as the above are byproducts of his mental illness. The truly scary thing about it is that while no one in their right mind would behave like he does, he has been the catalyst for the creation of a political order that, at a minimum, tolerates this behavior, and, particularly in the alt-world of Fox and Russian bots, rewards it. There is not a single Republican who calls him out for this behavior (“I’m sad about this” tweets don’t count) and the Democrats have utterly failed to develop a narrative that highlights and effectively attacks his mendacity, criminality, and authoritarianism.

As a side note, my current book is Robert Dallek’s biography of FDR. Dallek notes that throughout FDR’s presidency the Republicans attacked him as a potential dictator, and though FDR, in fact, stayed pretty firmly within constitutional bounds and norms, the attacks were often politically effective. The Democrats should certainly concentrate their fire on issues like health care (particularly given the recent gift of Session’s refusal to defend the pre-existing conditions provision of Obamacare), but that shouldn’t stop them from developing a line of attack that makes the point that Trump’s criminality and authoritarianism, and the criminality and corruption of his cabinet, are hurting everyone. Think back to Republican’s smears of Democrats like Max Cleland, tying him to Osama bin Laden. It worked. It would be no smear to say that Trump’s best pals are the worlds worst dictators, at the same time that he can’t get along with a Canadian.

Anyway, back to my main point. I think Trump’s tendency to say and do things that we would ordinarily expect to read about only in the Onion(or maybe Mad), are byproducts of his mental illness. But then, Hitler’s actions were probably byproducts of his. If our system can’t effectively deal with a mad president, then we are in serious trouble.

UPDATE: I saw this after the above was written. More proofof some sort of mental problem: Trump tells the truth about his intention to lie when Kim doesn’t live up to the promises he never actually made:

In a press conference on day two in Singapore, Trump told the media that he trusts Kim will begin to dismantle his nuclear weapons program as well as its testing site.

But if the president is wrong, he may never admit it.

“I may be wrong. I may stand before you in six months and say, ‘Hey, I was wrong,’” Trump told reporters. “I don’t know if I’ll ever admit that, but I’ll find some kind of an excuse.”

Also not from the Onion.

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Who could have predicted this?

Monday, June 11, 2018

A while back I wrote some posts inspired by a history of the Gilded Age, my main point being that we’re reliving that era now in many respects. I don’t think I mentioned that during that age the South, particularly, came up with various ways to criminalize being black. It was one of many ways that blacks were, among other things, disenfranchised, since the Southern states passed laws disenfranchising people convicted of crimes. It’s a practice that continues today. It was also a way to keep many black men in a legal state of bondage.

The North was by no means innocent of this sort of thing, though the process was a tad subtler up here, and it also continues today.

The latest twist has a Philip K. Dickish quality to it.. A company called Predpol is selling software to police departments that predicts where crimes are likely to take place. It uses the garbage in-garbage out approach. The likelihood of a crime being committed in a given area is a function of the past crimes committed in that area, which is itself a function of the past focus by police on said area. As the linked article reports, corporate boardrooms are not included in the data, and we all know they are high crime areas. So, since past arrests have been heavily influenced by racist policing, minority areas show up as likely areas for future crimes to be committed, so police concentrate their policing there, which leads to ever more arrests in minority areas. The likelihood of a black person being arrested for a relatively trivial offense becomes far greater than the likelihood that a white person will be arrested for committing the same trivial offense. Of course, no one could have predicted such a thing would happen.

On the bright side, some police departments have either rejected the software or stopped using it, in the latter case because concerned groups shone a light on the practice. On the dark side, some police departments are using the software without even telling their local governmental bodies they are doing so.

Just another example of how racism is firmly embedded in our institutions, often in ways that we can’t see or appreciate.

By the way, I highly recommend the Motherboard site, where I saw the linked article. Computer related news with a decided liberal bias, just like facts.

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Friday Night Music, Who are (most of) these people

Friday, June 8, 2018

Being as I’m getting on in years, and my memory’s failing, it is entirely possible I’ve put this video up before, but it’s well worth watching again. I know I should be able to identify most of these people, but I confess that I can’t get beyond Brian, Sir Elton, and Stevie.

Back to real blogging soon.

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