Lliira

The last time people believed what the intelligence community said, they lied us into an illegal war which killed millions of Iraqis and set the stage for Daesch and the current state of the Middle East in general. We -- meaning Obama and Hillary Clinton -- utterly destroyed Libya.

Trump is now bombing 8 countries, including helping Saudi Arabia and the UAE commit genocide in Yemen. And the media and corporate Democrats are angry that this unhinged toddler isn't more belligerent toward a nuclear power, after he already pulled out of the Iran deal, built up NATO, increased sanctions on Russia, and bombed and occupied part of Syria. His first bombing killed an 8-year old American girl -- remember that? He truly became president that day.

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People calling Republican assholes "Nazis" has been bugging me. Not because I think it's politically inexpedient, though I do. Not because I care about Trump supporters' feelings, because I don't. (Though I wish people would stop pretending they're working class. Trump won far more votes among the upper class than the working class. The typical MAGA type lives in a 4-bedroom on a cul-de-sac, not in a trailer.)

No, it bugs me for the usual reason: Someone is Wrong on the internet. Nazis were, and are, a specific phenomenon. They're fueled by anger and hate. Further, if you don't have a burning hatred and conspiratorial resentment toward Jews, "Nazi" truly doesn't fit. Republicans, however, are fueled by arrogant indifference with a spice of  wounded superiority complex. It's a different thing. It's not a new thing, but it's not Nazism. So I lay there thinking of what it was like, and it didn't take long to remember a historical parallel:

The prosperous English during the Irish so-called "Potato Famine." I say so-called because it wasn't the fault of natural forces -- it was because of policies purposefully put in place by the English government in order to harm and kill the Irish. The wealthy and most of the middle class among the English saw the Irish exactly the same way the MAGA crowd sees most immigrants: As criminal "pests".

A Modest Proposal is as spot-on a satire today as it was then.

The Senate Intelligence Committee demanded records of any Green Party communications with "Russian persons."

I've had a lot of communications with "Russian persons." I wished my Russian cousin-by-marriage a happy birthday a little while ago on Facebook, for instance. Then there are the Russian cat posts I've thrown likes at. And the Russian persons who play Sims 2 whom I follow on Tumblr.

I'm joking, but this is something we should actually be screaming on the streets about. Before it's too late. We're looking at full-on McCarthy mode at this point, if not worse. And there are no Edward R. Murrows trying to stop it this time -- instead, the so-called liberal media is all in for xenophobia.

I don't think saying "why should I waste my beautiful mind" on thinking about the war her son started was civil discourse.

Reminder that they've always been this way, just with less Twitter. Hugging up on George W. Bush like Ellen literally did is despicable, and it's despicable to do metaphorically as well. Unlike Nancy Pelosi, I do not "miss" Dubya. I bet Iraq doesn't either. As for bombing Syria, it's terrible, Obama did it too, and Hillary Clinton not only pushed for bombing, but wanted a no-fly zone over the country which would mean we'd be shooting down Russian planes and vice versa. Oh and then there's Libya and Yemen. Conversely, there are all the places in which leaders can commit crimes against humanity with impunity because they don't have oil or do have nukes/alliances with nuclear powers. If I were the leader of a small country sitting on a lot of resources, I'd prioritize getting nukes as quickly as possible too -- it's possibly the only entirely rational and non-evil thing Kim Jong-un's ever done.

Tellyawhat, I'm sure glad Syria didn't bomb Michigan over Flint, and that no one is threatening to bomb us over our cops shooting people constantly. Also, Guantanamo Bay's still up and running. As for Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria? Well but there's RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA can't talk about that because RUSSIA RUSSIA PEE TAPE RUSSIA RUSSIA

That anyone believes in bombing people to save them is nuts, but that anyone believes the U.S. is bombing people to save them is triple nuts.

Why White Evangelicism Is So Cruel

Excellent article, though it would have been better if the writer had been more clear in the end paragraph that white evangelicism only cares about RICH straight white men. That fact is laded through the rest of the article, though.

And this is why Southern Baptism has always felt like pure blasphemy to me, raised Northern Baptist-Lutheran-Quaker. I don't believe in such a thing as "blasphemy" any longer, and yet there's that gut response. The Christianity I was raised in centered human rights, environmentalism, helping the poor, justice and mercy. My grandparents marched with the Civil Rights movement and gave huge amounts of time and money to left-wing causes. And even the vast majority of other Christians I grew up with who weren't leftists loved science, did not take the Old Testament literally (or even care about it except for the Ten Commandments), and saw the Sermon on the Mount as the foundation of all of Christianity.

In Michigan, that mass media keeps conflating us with the Bible Belt is deeply offensive to people who are proud of our history of sending some of the first large regiments of volunteers to the Union side. People who never thought the Earth was 6000 years old, are fascinated by science, and who really do have plenty of black friends and family and don't appreciate being called names and treated like idiots because of things they cannot control by people who've never worried about the grocery bill. It was pissing people off enough when I moved. With the mainstream so-called "left" more interested in which celebrity used a word wrong than with lead in Flint's water, the rage is incandescent at this point.

But what are you gonna do? The Democratic Party recently put up someone for president who makes it ever more clear with every passing day that she hates us. Yes, us, I'm not gonna pretend where I came from isn't where I came from, and it was a pretty good place all in all. Trump's foul in every conceivable way. So what are you gonna do? Go fish.

After the union meeting, that is. 

It's November already? Last year was maybe the longest I've ever experienced, but this year is zooming by.

So let's see: our federal government's about as shit as we can get in this part of the 21st century, but the world hasn't blown up and likely won't any time soon, there will be no internment camps, and people are actually paying attention for once. It's been shit, but our constitution's holding, and the checks and balances are strained but doing their jobs. Congress actually curtailed presidential powers during a time when the president is nominally of the majority congressional party. Our two parties are imploding and past damn time. Such interesting times -- and unlike under Dubya, hating the president is the thing to do! I don't know how many people remember those times, but even among mainstream supposed "liberals," it was often considered near-treason, if not outright treason, to doubt the president.

We'll see how this pans out. Both good and bad, I'm guessing. But I can guarantee this: the United States will not ever go the way of 1930s Germany, unlike what so many people feverishly predicted. There is such a thing as national (not racial, but cultural) temperament. Jerome K. Jerome noted the authoritarian temperament of Germany in Three Men On a Bummel in 1900:

Individualism makes no appeal to the German voter.  He is willing, nay, anxious, to be controlled and regulated in all things... Hitherto, the German has had the blessed fortune to be exceptionally well governed; if this continue, it will go well with him.  When his troubles will begin will be when by any chance something goes wrong with the governing machine.

But Americans in the 2010s?



Don't tell me what to do. Don't tell me what to say. You don't own me. Don't try to change me in any way.

Getting us to all go in the same direction is like herding cats.

That's both good and bad. It can be expressed in an immature way an awful lot. It can cause us to resort to violence double-quick if we feel impinged on in any way. It caused a LOT of people to vote for Trump specifically because they were told by condescending, technocratic snobs not to. Like, a lot. A WHOLE FUCKING LOT. I have personally run into dozens. Seriously, I'm almost positive that the reason Trump won the Republican nomination (and therefore the presidency -- only Ted Cruz could have lost to Hillary Clinton, as he is quite obviously something from the space between spaces) is that Americans were lectured and scolded by wannabe aristocrats claiming they were above the vast unwashed masses that they were not allowed to vote for him. We do not take well to that shit. To put it mildly. BUT. That means we do not take well to anyone telling us what to do at all unless we are provided very good reasons for it. And yes, we've got a minority of authoritarians, religious and otherwise, who can't wait to line up zombie-like behind someone who tells them what to do, think, and feel in every aspect of their lives, but all they are is a minority, and a thoroughly despised one at that.