Driving all over, weekend away which was WORK, in-laws surprise visit, and a complete crash of Garage Band leading to its replacement delaying my podcast recording.
I’m done in. Will try to take it easy today, my first opportunity in weeks.
@Eric Nny: Linked video in honor of anyone who has ever faced an unresponsive audience.
7.
piratedan
saw via a twitter hit that there were CSA flag burnings in cities last night. Can this be a thing? Do we need to do this to make them confront the fallacy of honoring that heritage? Every time the MBF tried to speak in my ear I tell it to STFU because they’ve carried this fucking torch a 150 years now. We need to cut this shit out and be a NATION, no a couple of siblings, one of whom has been butthurt and wrong for the last 150 years. Move the fuck on already.
8.
ultraviolet thunder
I’m at the Detroit airport waiting to go to Dallas, then right back again. Garland, TX actually, which sticks in my mind as the locale of some recent anti-Muslim chicanery.
Yeah, I’ve seen enough of the Confederate flag. Time to bury that relic and let the ideas behind it finally fade. It’s been called America’s swastika and that’s not far wrong. But ‘cold, dead fingers’…
I got nuthin.
Have soapy orders to fill (thanks, you know who you are!) And I have to make double the amount of hand cream and shampoo bars for next Friday’s Farmer’s market, and all the yard work, litter boxes, and all I want to do is veg…
10.
khead
So Ms. Noonan and Ms. Parker (no links) have hit the ground running today with pieces on how we should all step back and take a few moments to grieve instead of wallow in the political with respect to Charleston. I’m guessing there are more like those out there but I am still surfing over coffee.
Edit – Working today and getting ready for some rain and possible flooding.
11.
piratedan
@khead: a case of “mourn your dead” because we intend to do fuckall about it, same game plan as Sandy Hook, Aurora and Tucson.
12.
Hal
Very interesting to me that several white friends who were filled to the brim with opinions on social media, particularly Facebook, in the cases of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Freddie Grey and Michael Brown amongst others, have no opinion on the Charleston murders. Not a peep. I guess when you can’t accuse Al Sharpton of just trying to make white people look bad, as one friend of a friend said, it’s just not as interesting.
13.
Germy Shoemangler
Losing streak: Glenn Beck defeated in court again as judge sides with Muslim in defamation suit: Things look pretty bad for psycho talker, the judge just doesn’t like shit like this. (The Raw Story)
14.
Mike in NC
@piratedan: Having lived in Virginia and North Carolina for many years, I can’t say that I’ve come across very many places where you could actually find Confederate flags for sale, except maybe shops that specialize in Civil War memorabilia in Gettysburg or Fredericksburg. Must be a mail-order thing.
Since eBay has a policy against selling items with a Nazi swastika, then they could be pressured to do likewise with the CSA hate banners.
15.
Big ole hound
I guess no one has the balls to walk up and cut down the the conferate flag that proudly waves at the SC state capitol. What are they afraid of?
@khead: Gah.
They know which master they serve and all of the GOP are spinning HARD to make this not about race or terrorism. They’re a bit afraid of the spotlight that Roof has shown on their racist enabling and they’re going to work overtime to defuse the simmering rage.
We can’t let them be successful. We need an Occupy style general strike against any entity that displays the Confederate flag, but we can’t get sidetracked by a symbol alone. Time to fight back hard against what that symbol represents and the political party that has used racism to achieve its goals.
@satby: We can’t let them be successful. We need an Occupy style general strike against any entity that displays the Confederate flag, but we can’t get sidetracked by a symbol alone. Time to fight back hard against what that symbol represents and the political part that has used racism to achieve its goals.
Quoted for truth. And I do like the flag burning. It’s disrespectful and that’s appropriate.
Wish I had known the Pre-Code “Search for Beauty” was on. Came in on it late, but pretty remarkable. It would be daring today.
23.
raven
@Big ole hound: Delta is ready when you are tough guy,
24.
piratedan
@Schlemazel: well they’re ALREADY stating that, bleating that any mention of the flag is an attack on their heritage. Fine, we’re attacking their heritage but news flag, your heritage sucks as it promotes above all else, slavery. They want to honor something, how about the actual American flag that they supposedly love so much and wrap themselves in any time people who speak differently than us are around.
25.
Schlemazel
Interesting the efforts to deny the reality of what happened and why. The asshole said “You are raping our women and trying to take over our country” Yet Rev. Huckleberry claims this was an attack on Christians! SOmeone needs to ask him why Christians are raping all our women. Gov. Yosemite Sam says this was an “accident” oops, oops, oops, oops, oops, oops, oops, oops, oops – apparently the gun was a bit greasy? Senator Frothy Mix says that people should not try to politicise these murders but has no problem with Pam Geller encouraging people to get killed and making hay from it.
I’d like to think that this flailing around for an excuse and making light of the situation would finally lift the veil from people of good faith and honest intentions so they would see what assholes they have been supporting. I’d like to think that but am afraid this too shall pass and we will play out the same bullshit again soon, too soon.
26.
Woodrowfan
@Mike in NC: and flea markets/antique mall places often have a place that sells various tea party/Bircher/neo=confederate crap. Of course flag stores like Alamo Flag usually have one hanging outside along with the other flags.. But yeah, you’re right, it’s not like I can go into Home Deport or CVS and buy one like I can an American flag.
Its a term tossed around by the gamergate, sad puppy and like mouth-breathing morans for anyone who will admit that people of color, women, Non-Christians and non-cisgendered people may deserve to be treated as humans
28.
Woodrowfan
“I have to do it,” the gunman was quoted as saying. “You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go.” Dylan Roof
“When Mexico sends its people, they are not sending their best. They are not sending you. They are sending people that have lots of problems, and they are bringing those problems to us. They are bringing drugs and they are bringing crime, and they’re rapists.” Donald J Trump
29.
ultraviolet thunder
@Schlemazel:
The invaluable Charlie Pierce has been scrupulously documenting the media’s abetting GOP politicians in decorously redirecting attention away from the obvious racial motivation of these heinous murders. It does the MSM no good for the public to discuss the fat streak of bigotry in our culture. They can’t monetize that. But people will tune in to be told calming stories about healing.
Healing, hell. The Civil War is still on.
30.
Gator90
@Betty Cracker: You watching the baseball game today? At least UF is still pretty good in sports involving bats and gloves.
31.
Schlemazel
@piratedan:
When ever I hear that thing about “heritage” all I can hear is that speech from “Oh Brother” particularly the way he pronounces “Heritage”
Oh, brothers! We have all gathered here, to preserve our hallowed culture and heritage! We aim to pull evil up by the root, before it chokes out the flower of our culture and heritage! And our women, let’s not forget those ladies, y’all. Looking to us for protection! From darkies, from Jews, from papists, and from all those smart-ass folks say we come descended from monkeys!
The “pencil test” decreed that if an individual could hold a pencil in their hair when they shook their head, they could not be classified as White.
34.
BBA
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.
35.
Eric S.
My softball team has playoffs today. We need to win a triple header for the championship.
36.
MattF
No links from me, but apparently Geraldo Rivera broke the ban on FOX News against saying that the Charleston murders were racist. And that, folks, is exactly how low the right wing in this country has descended.
There’s even a retail shop nearby that specializes in Confederate signage: Dixie Outfitters, which has the tagline “Southern Heritage.”
A man and woman working at Dixie Outfitters on Friday politely declined to discuss the statehouse debate. “We don’t do interviews,” the man said. “It never works out.”
But, referencing the statehouse flag, the woman couldn’t help but add, “It ain’t coming down.”
I wonder why “it never works out”
41.
Germy Shoemangler
Anyone here listen to Marc Maron podcasts?
Obama visited his garage for an interview. I’m looking forward to hearing it.
They can monetize outrage, scandal, and denigrating a belief just fine. They do it every day.
The problem is that the media, specifically the national level journalists, are themselves bigots and conservatives. They are ‘polite racists’, and it galls them when anyone outright says blacks are bad. That might suggest that there’s something wrong with saying that the victim had it coming whenever blacks are brutalized. Hasn’t that been the consistent reaction from the vast majority of the media to all the recent race-based atrocities?
44.
Elizabelle
When they talk about Dylann Roof “targeting Christians — it’s Christians, I tell you”:
ask yourselves how many other churches he drove past on his way to carry out the massacre at Emanuel AME.
South Carolina is thick with churches, and he lived at least two hours from the attack site. Probably can’t swing a cat without hitting multiple churches in a lot of communities.
So why this church? Why this particular group of Christian congregants?
So Ms. Noonan and Ms. Parker (no links) have hit the ground running today with pieces on how we should all step back and take a few moments to grieve instead of wallow in the political with respect to Charleston. I’m guessing there are more like those out there but I am still surfing over coffee.
We can grieve by taking steps to make sure no one else suffers the same fate. Anger is part of grief.
@Elizabelle:
Because, as the killer who wore the flags of apartheid regimes clearly stated, those Christians weren’t ‘raping our women and taking over the country.’ I look forward to whatever he says in jail, since he is plainly unrepentant.
50.
Ejoiner
I’ll try to answer a question I saw a few posts back – I live in Columbia, SC and I (like most of the people I know) would very much like to see the flag brought down. However, most of our neighbors (white, southern born and bred) do not and see it as yet another issue where “those people” are just trying to degrade and remove another part of the proud heritage of the South. I know it’s crazy and unhistorical, you know it’s crazy and unhistorical but they will defend it to their last breath because it is a symbol of their stand against all the wrong they see in the world – blacks, welfare, the tyranny of the federal government, liberal agenda, the LGBT movement, etc. I’m going to a rally today supporting removing the flag but my prediction is it will be another generation before it does come down. Sadly, it will take the death of another generation to get enough momentum for change. On a brighter note, I have (in my 25 years here) seen the baby-steps that slowly but surely are burying the Old South and it’s tainted culture. So there is that.
Also – the reason no one is out cutting the flag down is because it has a dedicated state trooper assigned to protect it. Usually sitting in his car a few feet off the monument. I bet they will even beef it up some now.
IWhy did the killer target this particular church? His killing spree seems preplanned and not spur of the moment. How did he know about the Bible study group and when it was held. I am wondering whether the pastor of the church was a particular target? He must be affiliated with white supremacist groups, where did find out about apartheid South Africa and Zimbabwe?
A.
We talked about racism. We talked about gun violence. We talked about the Affordable Care Act. His disappointments. The obstacles of his presidency. His family, a little bit. How he goes on, day to day, with the same determination and optimism that he’s had throughout his presidency. The disappointments of the left and the right. His successes.
Q.
People’s disappointments over what he didn’t accomplish? Or his own disappointments over what he didn’t do?
A.
I didn’t get a sense that he experiences disappointment in that way. I got a sense that he’s a guy that realizes that growth and progress in a democracy are slow. He looks at the big picture. Specifically, he knows that there’s always going to be those voices. Why didn’t you do this faster? How come you didn’t do that? Why are you doing that? That’s the nature of it. He just keeps moving though because of his commitment and his vision that he made this country a better place, incrementally.
Q.
Did you feel that you could be adversarial with him? Was there anything you challenged him on?
A.
A bit. I did refer to the president, on some level, as being middle management, between corporate interests and what can be done for the people. I did make reference to that, and he reframed it. I don’t think I angered him. …
However, most of our neighbors (white, southern born and bred) do not and see it as yet another issue where “those people” are just trying to degrade and remove another part of the proud heritage of the South.
Can they articulate what is it exactly, that they are so proud of?
It is a thing….and not only that, when I Googled it, apparently there was already actions on Memorial Day to make it “Confederate Flag Burning Day”, and it has its own Facebook page.
While everyone of good will is wondering what to do, I have a suggestion: join theNAACP. Anyone can join-and if enough people do, then things will change for the better. Sometimes numbers are the best remedy-what if they had 10 million members?
This is why Fox, the Republicans, and others are spinning to try and cast the terrorist act in Charleston as anything but racially motivated. They need to maintain plausible deniability that they have in any way enabled racism for political purposes.
Unfortunately many of us have learned the hard way that it just isn’t safe to be too vocal or public about gun violence prevention, feminism, and racism. You end up getting harassed, intimidated, and even threatened. When elected officials try, the issue becomes their agenda and the issue they were trying to address gets lost.
I’m starting to think we should just dismiss them as losers who cling to the losing flag and guns because they are too pathetic and dumb to compete fair and square in any kind of contest requiring skill or smarts.
56.
Kathleen
@Germy Shoemangler: I love Maron’s podcasts. PBO? Really? How cool. I will have to check that out.
57.
Kathleen
@Frankensteinback: I think targeting the mainstream media for enabling mainstreaming of racial hatred without challenge (eg, statements/actions by Rethuglican politicians, etc) should be the focus of a media campaign.
58.
Elizabelle
@schrodinger’s cat: I think he targeted Pastor Pinckney, who was well known and may have appeared on local TV where Roof lived (Columbia media market; Pinckney was, of course, also a state legislator).
Pinckney worked against concealed carry guns in churches, and against guns for domestic abusers. Could have been a lot of additional reasons to target Pinckney.
The N.R.A. official, Charles L. Cotton, argued in an online discussion that Mr. Pinckney, a state senator, bore some responsibility for the other deaths because he had opposed a change to South Carolina’s gun laws that would have made it legal to carry a concealed weapon into a church.
Good news! And his rally in Charleston yesterday fizzled out. There could be tears on Monday.
61.
Schlemazel
@Elizabelle:
I have tried mightily but come up empty. There is a site called “anyclip” that promises to deliever but just keeps running trailers for other movies POS.
A.
Over time, we all have to adjust to a changing media landscape. Some of it is noise and some of it is small, but there’s a lot of it out there. There’s a lot of surprising outlets by which people can communicate and people want to be part of. I’ve been doing this out of my garage for years, and I’ve had plenty of people come up here, at the end of the first year, saying, “So this is where you do it?” Many times, I’ve walked people into my garage and said, “This is the future of media.” And as years went by, fewer people were like, “I can’t believe this – where the hell am I?” They knew exactly where they were.
Q.
This is an extremely fragile moment for the country, two days after the shootings in Charleston. Is there a part of you that thinks, maybe this isn’t the time for him to be appearing on this show?
A.
Brendan [my producer] and I never really believed [the interview] was going to happen until it happened. We knew at some point that, if it didn’t happen, it was going to be because there’s a problem in the country or a problem in the world. Something horrible happened. As that news broke on Wednesday night, we were like, It’s probably not going to happen. The next day, he made his statement and it became clear he was going to move on with his plans. He’s the president, and he manages a lot of stuff.
64.
Mike in NC
@Germy Shoemangler: Nobody should ever be allowed to forget that so-called leaders like Ronald Reagan and Dick Cheney were huge supporters of the apartheid regime in South Africa.
@schrodinger’s cat:
They believe their culture is friendly, honest, and hospitable, celebrates a simple life, represents farming and ranching and other rural, agricultural traditions, is devotedly Christian (which they see as obviously a good thing), loving of family, and generally moral.
Anyone who has lived among them and is not a mean, racist shit is constantly awed by how far their head is up their ass to believe any of that. Actual southern culture is the opposite on every point. It is about hate, self-serving lies, clannish distrust, poverty, contains almost no farmers, cares about Christianity only as a weapon to force conformity, encourages and even celebrates domestic abuse of wives, children, and even husbands if the wife can pull it off, and applauds any means to accomplish these ends.
66.
Big ole hound
@raven: Since I’m in a wheelchair from defending our flag, I’ll leave it up to you.It’s a short trip from your place and I’m 2500 miles away.
67.
Gimlet
So Ms. Noonan and Ms. Parker (no links) have hit the ground running today with pieces on how we should all step back and take a few moments to grieve instead of wallow in the political with respect to Charleston.
I would usually dance on command but I am down with bronchitis, have no voice and am trying to read up on anarchist movements in Argentina but my brain is not cooperating.
How did he know about the Bible study group and when it was held.
I’d guess almost every church in the area has Wednesday night bible study.
70.
beth
@Elizabelle: I was involved in protesting against that bill. I don’t think any of the articles express just how evil it really was – it didn’t just make it legal to carry a gun into the church, it made it illegal for the church to prohibit it. Think about that – the party of state’s rights and private property rights wanted to take away the ability of a private property owner to decide whether or not guns were allowed on their property. Our church was very against this, as were most of the churches here in the Charleston area.
71.
Kathleen
@Elizabelle: He does that a lot. I think that’s one of the reasons The Village can’t stand him. Plus he’s much smarter than they are which they are too insulated to even realize.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes one has to wonder how those words she utters sound so terrible when printed in black and white.
@Elizabelle: Based on what he says I can’t wait to hear the podcast when it comes out. I often find that in this kind of interview we get better questions than those lobbed at him by the tweens of the WHPC
74.
Schlemazel
@schrodinger’s cat:
Well for one they stood up to an over-reaching Federal government that was going to take their rights and their property away from them. Plus that guy was a tyrant & they never voted for him!
Now, try to forget the details of what it was that they were actually fighting for and this can be made to sound pretty damned impressive.
“Mr Young should remember, a Southern man doesn’t need him around anyhow”
@schrodinger’s cat: Wednesday Night Bible Study is very, very common among certain Christian churches, especially evangelical Protestant churches in the south. I remember complaints some years back when a TV movie about Jesus was aired on Wednesday night and some evangelicals complained that it was aired “when Christians were in church.” Wednesday Night Bible Study is less common among non-Protestants and the more liberal mainline Protestant churches.
We are literally on the same page. Dear everything that is good but that is sickening.
80.
Schlemazel
@schrodinger’s cat:
Yes, very much so. Particularly the popular culture. Movies and TV, novels and music all seem to suffer from Southron delusional syndrome.
81.
beltane
Southern Heritage: If it didn’t exist, no one would have felt the need to invent it. It’s positive contribution to humanity is nil. The Confederates didn’t even build the autobahn. If killing and enslaving other people is all they’ve got, they’ve got nothing.
Sucks to be them, and sucks to be us having to put up with them.
@Big ole hound: Well then you should know better. The godamn confederate flag we are talking about is on the state capitol grounds on a pole that without a pulley and padlocked. Do you really think someone could walk up to it, climb the pole, take out some shit to light it on fire?
It is a thing….and not only that, when I Googled it, apparently there was already actions on Memorial Day to make it “Confederate Flag Burning Day”, and it has its own Facebook page.
While everyone of good will is wondering what to do, I have a suggestion: join the NAACP. Anyone can join-and if enough people do, then things will change for the better. Sometimes numbers are the best remedy-what if they had 10 million members?
@Woodrowfan: Thanks, I have heard about Sunday school but not Wednesday night Bible study.
86.
srv
There is so much damn freedom in Texas now, I may have to move back. Libs will never understand:
Texas Agricultural Commissioner Sid Miller proposed earlier this year to end the decade-long ban on deep fryers and soda machines in public schools statewide.
…
“We’re all about what our country was founded on – we’re about giving our school districts freedom, liberty and individual responsibility,” he said.
…
“Texas will no longer keep you from bringing cupcakes to your parties and celebrations at your schools,” Miller said. “It’s not about cupcakes – it’s about freedom and liberty.”
87.
Villago Delenda Est
@schrodinger’s cat: I guess they’re proud of a legacy of white supremacism. And being racist fucks. And being dogshit in general.
88.
beltane
@srv: I guess we can add morbid obesity and “diabeetus” to the the “heritage” these people are so proud of.
@MomSense: @khead: What more proof do the dittoheads needs that this guy was deeply involved with a group, was not a loner and not deranged? I hope the FBI is looking for whoever took those pictures and what the other members of his terrorist organization are up to.
Roof called it a “mission” It’s possible that he gave himself a “mission” by himself, but I expect he had people who at a minimum egged him on.
I’d love to see an investigation of his contacts, online buddies, where he bought his apartheid patches and so on.
@schrodinger’s cat: I remember reading a long article years ago suggesting that FDR used (exploited, went along with) the myth of the Glorious Cause to bring the Southern states along on the New Deal, inspired by or coincident with the popularity of Gone with the Wind. I tried to google it but the search terms are too vague.
A guest columnist in the NYT a few weeks back observed that a lot of white Americans still have a vague idea of the plantation system, partly inspired by GWTW and the like, as a sprawl of country club-like farms, contented and prosperous, when we should be thinking of a mass of forced-labor concentration camps. With mansions.
93.
beth
From the manifesto:
I have no choice. I am not in the position to, alone, go into the ghetto and fight.
He’s nothing but a little coward. He could have gone a mile up the block and took on some real armed gangbangers but he had to pussy out and take on old ladies in church. What a disgusting little shit.
94.
beltane
@Villago Delenda Est: Hey, any port in the storm. When you’re from a culturally impoverished society with little in the way of actual history and achievement, you’ve got to make up something to be proud of.
@Ejoiner: Also – the reason no one is out cutting the flag down is because it has a dedicated state trooper assigned to protect it. Usually sitting in his car a few feet off the monument. I bet they will even beef it up some now.
I gather this is routine? Jiminy Christmas on sesame seed crackers… this is whacked out stuff.
Nothing says Flag of the Oppression than an armed and uniformed person protecting it…
In the case of the Civil War it seems like the losers got to write its history and the winners let them do it.
That’s close.
I think good and reliable histories have, indeed, been written, including by descendants of what you call “the losers.” What many other descendants have been allowed to do, however, is to pretend those histories do not exist.
By now, it’s a habit of mind. They are many the same people who thrive by ignoring or striving mightily to deny entire bodies of knowledge, not only history. Ignorance is their sword and they wield it with a vengeance.
98.
beltane
This fellow also seemed to have an awful lot of friends for a so-called loner.
@schrodinger’s cat: Can they articulate what is it exactly, that they are so proud of?
I’m speaking as someone from a predominantly white area, Upper Midwest, who never had actually slave owning in my heritage (that I know of,) yet have plenty of relatives who identified with the “cause” probably because they moved North but retained the culture. I’ve also lived in the South.
It was something I repudiated, as it never meant much to me, and while I have Native American heritage, so do millions of others — there was a lot of assimilation in the Prairie states. My genetics explain the kinds of foods I thrive on and my ability to make Vitamin D from sunlight, but were never part of my self-identity. I have lots & lots of things that make me unusual and unique, perhaps that’s why.
But for people who don’t feel talented or unique, or are in cultures which actively denigrate and are suspicious of such qualities, their group identity is really all they have. And so it is blown up out of all proportion to its actual accomplishments or heinous acts, defended to someone’s death, and utterly irrational.
@MomSense: I skimmed through the rambling rant that you linked to. Some of the stuff is out there but there is some stuff that I can easily imagine some one like Louie Gohmert or Steve King saying.
@beth: Thank you, beth, for your part in getting this awful bill tabled, at least, in the meantime.
Small government and liberty: except when we force you to allow guns onto your property, whether you want them there or not.
104.
Ruckus
@schrodinger’s cat: Can they articulate what is it exactly, that they are so proud of?
I can answer this as well. Haven’t lived in SC for decades and while it may be getting better, slowly, they (those who think this flag is the absolute last indicator of truth and justice) are proud of their racism, of the idea (theirs, not mine!) that there are tiers of civilization and blacks are on the bottom, they were slaves for a reason and that reason hasn’t changed in centuries.
105.
Elizabelle
@schrodinger’s cat: There’s a late night segment probably already in development: read off the quotes and guess: is it the white supremacist shooter or a member of Congress?
Make them own that shit.
106.
Iowa Old Lady
@MomSense: The fact he survived to babble about his intentions is a good thing. The conservatives going on about “we’ll never know” are reading from talking points that don’t apply when the killer can speak. The ones selling the “attack on faith” can be confronted by the guy’s own words, and wind up looking like the desperate liars they are.
Great news! Plus his rally in Charleston yesterday fizzled out. There may be tears on Monday.
108.
piratedan
The South has generated a lot of beautiful literature, almost all of it sorrowful that its people cannot put the Civil War behind them and move on
109.
Ruckus
FYWP
Has eaten 2 comments. Either that or I’m in moderation for who knows what.
If someone releases them, please do just one.
110.
beltane
@Elizabelle: The awful thing is that people who spout off this crap on a regular basis are considered respectable while the Rev. Wright was treated like a dangerous radical.
@MomSense: Absolutely. For anyone to say that is pure delusion and obfuscation. Still the Village will allow them to get away with it. Because it’s what they do.
112.
Cacti
I was going back over the various stories since 2008, and I came to the conclusion that there is a war on religion in this country, but one that you won’t hear any Republican talking about.
Violent attacks on worshippers and houses of worship by right wing extremists. To wit:
-Knoxville Unitarian Church mass shooting (2008)
-Assassination of Dr. George Tiller at the Wichita Reformation Lutheran Church (2009)
-Murfreesboro, Tennesee Mosque burning (2010)
-Wisconsin Sikh Temple mass shooting (2012)
-Joplin, Missouri Mosque burning (2012)
-Houston, Texas Mosque burning (2015)
-Death threats against ministers of Perryville and Cape Girardeau, Missouri Presbyterian ministers over same sex weddings (2015)
-Emanuel AME Church mass shooting (2015)
But they all have the “wrong” religion, so I guess it doesn’t count.
113.
Elizabelle
The NYTimes just sent out an email alert about the photos and manifesto. On its way to being verified, it seems.
BREAKING NEWS
Website With Racist Manifesto and Photos of Charleston Shooting Suspect Surfaces
Saturday, June 20, 2015 11:56 AM EDT
A website with a white supremacist manifesto features dozens of photos of Dylann Storm Roof, the man accused of killing nine people at a church in Charleston, S.C., posing with weapons, burning an American flag and visiting Southern historic sites and Confederate soldiers’ graves.
It is not clear who wrote the words and who took the pictures, but it traces the evolution of the author’s racist worldview and concludes with a section labeled “An Explanation.”
“I have no choice,’’ it reads. “I am not in the position to, alone, go into the ghetto and fight. I chose Charleston because it is most historic city in my state, and at one time had the highest ratio of blacks to Whites in the country. We have no skinheads, no real KKK, no one doing anything but talking on the internet. Well someone has to have the bravery to take it to the real world, and I guess that has to be me.”
The ghetto?
Dammit. Am I going to have to watch Fox News again?
Rev. Clementa Pinckney addressed this himself in an interview. It wasn’t about the flag, specifically but it was about South Carolina’s penchant for history.
It was interesting because he counted himself among the South Carolinians who respect history, but he was talking about the history of black people in South Carolina.
Do they get that by flying this flag they’re ignoring the history of a whole bunch of South Carolinians? Claiming “a” history as defined and told by one group while excluding that of another group who had a very, very different experience isn’t “history” at all.
in this kind of interview we get better questions than those lobbed at him by the tweens of the WHPC
The tweens. LOL. Too true.
118.
Villago Delenda Est
@beltane: The thing is, they’re NOT culturally impoverished, except that many of them choose to be. They’ve got William Faulkner, they’ve got Tennessee Williams, they’ve got Harper Lee. No, instead they hang out with William Bedford Forrest, with George Wallace (who went segregationist purely out of opportunism), with Lester Maddox, with Theodore Bilbo.
Zimbabwe hasn’t been called Rhodesia since the 1980s. So why is some one born in 1994 call it that? He definitely seems to be inspired by someone or some group that has carefully nursed these perceived slights.
Also, too. Amazingly but Mitt Romney went ahead and called for the bringing down the Confederate flag. Apparently a position he has held for years no. Good on him.
@Elizabelle: It’s what they are and how they behave. No better than gossip girls. Remember when earlier in the week (or week before) it was all about did Obama smoke? Gah.
121.
Ruckus
@raven:
He’s 2500 miles away, maybe he doesn’t realize that the government of SC knows that there are easily enough people that want to get it down and burn it that they had to make it very hard to do. Post a guard, permanently mount it, all so it would fly forever. Or at least till they could mount another civil war and succeed this time, starting their own country and putting all those blacks in their proper place and finally return to that graceful time when it was OK to shoot/hang/beat/enslave a black person for whatever the hell they decided they had done wrong, or for nothing at all, just kicks on a Friday night. Then they wouldn’t have to take it down at all.
@Valdivia: Why do you hate tweens? I am sure tweens could come up with better and more intelligent questions than the White House press pool generally does.
123.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ruckus: “Too small for a republic, too large for an asylum.”
Tweens have often not focused on the fact that they might have to work for Fox News some day. They have not yet perfected their careerist skills.
127.
beltane
@schrodinger’s cat: It was also strange seeing the Apartheid-era South African flag again. I remembered it from the atlas I had as a kid, but it’s something I haven’t seen in many, many years.
128.
beltane
@Villago Delenda Est: How do we know for sure that it’s too large for an asylum?
129.
Ejoiner
@schrodinger’s cat:
Oh, it’s all about their proud ancestors fight for freedom and a very nationalistic view of the Confederacy and Southern culture that’s been handed down from generation to generation. It’s so inbred they don’t even question it. I’ve taught kids who are now members of the US military and served tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan who are livid about the treatment of their flag. And it makes no difference to point out it was a flag of rebellion against their armed services and the soldiers in it would have killed them in attempting to eradicate the union they are today defending. I really think it represents – almost on an subconscious level – Traditional Southern Whites vs. “those people” (minorities, liberals, gays, etc.) which is why it is such an angry and emotional debate.
@schrodinger’s cat: You know, I was going to say exactly that. They are probably more keen and intelligent than the WHPC. Apologies to tweens.
131.
Suzanne
@schrodinger’s cat: SERIOUSLY. What are they proud of? I can’t think of anything awesome that came out of the South that wasn’t invented by black people.
There are times I wish the South would secede again. This time, I wouldn’t fight to stay unified. I’d airlift out the cool people, and say DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU ON THE ASS ON THE WAY OUT to the rest.
132.
Villago Delenda Est
@Suzanne: Then we’d quickly be stuck with a third world country on our Southern border.
133.
Villago Delenda Est
@Valdivia: The Council of Conservative Citizens. AKA the “political arm” of the KKK.
@Villago Delenda Est: And we already have one. It’s just subject to some Federal control.
137.
Ejoiner
@WereBear: @Kay:
Oh, absolutely – it’s kind of an unwritten identity thing (as others have pointed out). It goes along with political affiliation. I know a lot of white, semi to well educated people who vote Republican and support the flag simply because that’s what you do in the South if you are white. They may disagree with the party platform or not care a bit about the history of the flag or the Lost Cause, etc. but it doesn’t matter. Taking the flag down, voting Democratic,etc. – that’s what “those people” do. There are exceptions (islands of blue, etc.) but it’s all about the unspoken cultural/racial rules that are generations deep.
It also has a dedicated state trooper guarding it 24/7.
140.
Elizabelle
@Suzanne: I’d be fine with using a passport to visit South Carolina.
141.
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
The number of patients it would have to house would make it the worlds largest hospital/asylum by several orders of magnitude. It would eradicate the unemployment situation though, having enough people to care for them.
And the idea that racists would have to live with no freedom, have no real rights to move about, be told what to do every day and who to do it with/for…………
@gogol’s wife: There were some subversive elements in Gone With the Wind, and Rhett Butler voiced them the best: “All we’ve got is cotton and slaves and arrogance. They’ll whip us in a week.”
144.
beltane
@Suzanne: The small handful of acclaimed authors that emerged from the white South does nothing but underscore the general impoverishment of the culture. Once you take out the contributions of African captives, you’re left with very thin gruel indeed.
145.
Ruckus
@Elizabelle:
I’m fine with never visiting/living in SC again, passport or not.
Yup. Their philosophical inconsistency cracks me up. See also WereBear at #93, who got there first.
148.
Ruckus
@Elizabelle:
They aren’t against the growth or size of government. They aren’t against government making people richer. They are against anything that might just improve someone’s life, especially someone who is any darker than they are.
I remember reading a long article years ago suggesting that FDR used (exploited, went along with) the myth of the Glorious Cause to bring the Southern states along on the New Deal, inspired by or coincident with the popularity of Gone with the Wind. I tried to google it but the search terms are too vague.
To garner support for the New Deal, but also simply to reduce the chance of losing the next election.
There are numerous examples. Look up the history of the Costigan-Wagner anti-lynching bill, for instance.
And what role did Mitchell’s book play? Well, it was extremely popular, allowing its starving Depression-era audience to identify with the troubles of slave-owners. Recall Scarlett’s declaration that she’s “never going to be hungry again.”
Writer Jane Tompkins argues that:
Gone With the Wind is a novel about what people will do in order to survive, and that millions of readers in this country responded to it, not because it was “false to human nature,” but because it was true to what so many were thinking and feeling at that time.
Could the wild success of the book thereby have made it a little easier for the system to ignore or dismiss continuing injustice in the South? Sure.
“It’s not about cupcakes – it’s about freedom and liberty.”
They’ve done it. At long last they’ve sucked any and all meaning from those words, which now exist on the plane that hosts “Tastes great/less filling.”
Congratulations “conservatives” you sure have learned how to not conserve anything, including self-dignity.
Trent Lott or some other GOP bigwig got in trouble for associating with the CCC.
It was funnier than that.
Sen. Trent Lott once addressed this group’s national board, welcomed its leaders to Washington, had photos taken with them in his office and then said he didn’t know what they were about. The CCC’s directors wink and nod at that. One of them was a county chairman of Lott’s ’94 reelection campaign. One of them is his uncle.
Asked recently during an impromptu news conference why he couldn’t support a resolution condemning the CCC, Lott’s face conveyed that it was not the kind of question he yearned for.
“I think if anybody wants to have a resolution condemning any groups that advocate white supremacy or racism, then we should support that,” he said. “But when you start naming one group or another group or this group or that group, the list is going to get to be pretty long.”
Got that?
Article was by Kevin Merida, Washington Post, March 1999 — while Lott was Senate Majority Leader.
Also, too. Amazingly but Mitt Romney went ahead and called for the bringing down the Confederate flag. Apparently a position he has held for years no. Good on him.
And Jeb! as Governor had it removed from the Florida State Capitol back in 2001. So good on him, too.
@Baud: So recognized as the vile organization it is. With Roof name checking them there is no wiggle room anymore for denying the racist character of the attack, one would hope.
@SiubhanDuinne: I didn’t know that. Interesting then that Jeb can’t bring himself to say that now eh? I saw somewhere that Rubio sponsored a bill that apparently protected the use of the flag need to hunt it down.
Also, too. Amazingly but Mitt Romney went ahead and called for the bringing down the Confederate flag. Apparently a position he has held for years no. Good on him.
Proving once and for all that he’s not a “real” conservative and if they had run a “real” conservative in 2012, the Republicans would have beaten Obama handily.
Also too, there’s a photo of Roof burning the American flag. The dumbest man on the internet and his followers are pointing to this as proof that Roof is a “typical leftist”.
This has been a preview of next week’s Fox News talking points so no one here has to subject themselves to watching it.
161.
Howard Beale IV
@MomSense: And watch how Fox will not say one word about this.
162.
Villago Delenda Est
@Valdivia: There are a lot of these little peckerwood organizations about, all dedicated to white supremacy. They’re obscure and need to be watched, as they have this nasty tendency to produce firearms wielding shits like Dylann Roof.
The Donald will build it! CHEAP!! Because he’s RICH! And it’ll be the biggest, best, YOODGEST wall EVER!! And he’ll make the South Carolinians pay for it!! Because he’s RICH!!!!
In every single photo of Dylann Roof that I’ve seen so far, he has this blank and opaque expression on his face. He actually had the impulse not to shoot these nice people… but he suppressed that impulse.
The horror of such hate groups is that they scoop up this unformed clay and make their own Golems out of them.
@Villago Delenda Est: To think that when Napolitano released that report about these organizations and the danger they posed all we heard was the outrage and it being Obama’s presecution of the right (repeated gleefully by the MSM). The SCLC does great work keeping track of them.
@beth: @Baud: I see the wiggle room will be that national socialism (the fascists) were actually leftists. One would think being a member f the quasi KKK would make that argument impossible, but Fox news will try. I am sure.
@WereBear: Have to admit, I see that face and I really want to slap it all over every single Tourist Board Brochure trotting out Southern Hospitality! and Gentile Old-Fashioned Breeding and Civility!
172.
trollhattan
@SiubhanDuinne:
I think we should all be concerned the Donald has SO MUCH MONEY he can afford to invade our body once his hair is done killing him.
173.
metricpenny
Hillary Clinton speaking at Mayor’s conference right now. She just finished speaking frankly on race in America.
The “breeding” part always cracks me up… human attempts at Pure Lines and all that rot creates Upper Class Twits of the Year and Hapsburgs unable to chew their own food.
I dont pretend to understand why jews do what they do. They are enigma.
Rubbing salt in the wound, he concludes with:
Please forgive any typos, I didnt have time to check it.
181.
Villago Delenda Est
@Valdivia: The “wiggle room” of thinking National Socialists are leftists is only present if one is appallingly ignorant about the origins and nature of the National Socialist movement. “Socialist” and “Workers” were in there strictly as marketing ploys. Full name of the party was Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers’ Party).
It was a right wing party from the outset, strongly opposed to the Social Democrats and anything to the left of them.
@Omnes Omnibus: I do in a way, but important too that they got on my radar now. The awfulness though. Ugh.
@Villago Delenda Est: Oh yes absolutely. The stupidity and willful blindness of this must have appeared before but I date it to that horrid book Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg.
@Cervantes: yep, typo. I am blaming the meds. Have a good day out there.
183.
trollhattan
@WereBear:
Similar reaction here. And a question: how many times did he go through the motions before deciding to open fire? I’m guessing he worked himself up to the murders and has been packing that gun for awhile. Shopping malls and college campuses were other potential targets; did he go there armed and decided not to shoot that day? How many times?
184.
Amir Khalid
@metricpenny:
But no matter what she says about the Charleston shooting and race, she”ll never have Knowbody’s.
I know a fair number of Republicans that are not backwater hicks.
When confronted with all the craziness about evolution, a six thousand year old planet, etc., the reply is they vote Republican because they themselves are financial conservatives.
@Gimlet: Translation: They are rich and don’t like to pay taxes. If you look at the objective reality the Democratic Presidents have been far better than their Republican counterparts where the economy is concerned. Compare Obama and Clinton to Bush II, for example.
191.
KG
thanks to all who offered music suggestions last night, everything being taken into consideration.
If you look at the objective reality the Democratic Presidents have been far better than their Republican counterparts where the economy is concerned. Compare Obama and Clinton to Bush II, for example.
But those tasty Bush II tax cuts!
It boils down to them not wanting to pay taxes. They literally feel like they’re being robbed. It’s how they think. Any tax on them is (in their minds) no different from a pickpocket.
195.
Elizabelle
Granted, this is from the Daily Mail UK, which is pretty much a TMZ type scandal and celeb rag.
Do not be drinking coffee as you scroll down to pic of the dad walking around shirtless in the aftermath of his son’s violence.
The meanness and derision to the stepmom, financial and emotional control, escalating to physical violence. And then Dylann, pretty much abandoned and dropping out of school at age 15. Sounds like the stepmom provided some structure for him. (Of course, it’s her side of the story.)
Does not excuse anything he did, but curious as to how he became the shooter who acted on his rage. What does it say that his peers did not find his language or threats that unusual?
I didn’t say I agreed with them, I just wanted to point out they don’t have to believe all that ridiculous crap to vote Republican. And yes I know the “financial conservative” position is ridiculous too.
197.
Amir Khalid
@Cervantes:
Knowbody himself (herself? itself?) has already made this plain.
198.
opiejeanne
@schrodinger’s cat: I am a Methodist (one of the mainline Protestant churches) and Thursday night is choir practice; I think it’s one of the articles of faith, like coffee is for Lutherans. Bible study for us was not set on Wednesday, though. At one church it was Thursday, during choir practice, at other churches it was Tuesday or Wednesday evening. We are more adamant about choir practice than Bible studies, it appears.
Hours before the shooting, Rev. Clementa Pinckney had campaigned for Hillary Clinton
Just hours before he was killed, Pinckney had campaigned for presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who was in Charleston that day. During her campaign rally, she spoke on the death of Walter Scott, the Black man who was fatally shot by a police officer in April, calling it a “terrible tragedy.” Pinckney left the rally to attend bible study at the church, which is when the shooting occurred.
203.
JPL
So the unemployed, high school dropout, Dylann Storm Roof thought blacks had low i.q.’s.
He became racist because of Treyvon Martin. What a sorry ass little weasel this guy is and I hope he’s tried on federal terrorist charges and sent to supermax.
204.
Liquid
Must Add Somewhere — Mad Max is the first movie in twenty+ years that I will see twice.
205.
JPL
@scav: What a neat idea. Have stickers made saying welcome to South Carolina with Dylann holding the confederate flag.
@opiejeanne: What is the distinction between mainline and borderline (evangelical)? Antiquity? Numbers?
207.
Germy Shoemangler
The unemployed high school dropout with the vacant stare of a mole rat and an Ish Kabibble haircut thought blacks had low IQs, and so he shot a group of successful, college-educated black people.
He should be locked up and forced to endure what Kalief Browder (an innocent man) suffered.
@WereBear: Yeah. The only two presidents who have nearly doubled the national debt are Republicans. Anyone who is a Republican because they claim to be “fiscally conservative” must acknowledge that it has nothing to do with debt and deficits, just selfishness.
“Fiscally conservative” is just a meaningless associated tag like “Fair and Balanced”.
211.
beltane
Is Mitt Romney the only national Republican to call for the removal of the Confederate flag from the SC capitol?
212.
scav
@gogol’s wife: Probably. I’m stellar at misspelling, especially when agitated and I’m acing my lack of gruntletude score at the moment. Trying desperately to better my mode (ETA or mood, I’ll take either. See!) with old editions of In Our Time on totally unknown to me topics.
213.
JPL
@beltane: McCain did ages ago, but he’s been so busy pounding the war drums, he hasn’t the time to comment on the home grown terrorist.
214.
Villago Delenda Est
@Gimlet: It’s projection. They know that they’re parasites deep down inside.
Mitt Romney, the Republican Party’s nominee for president in 2012, demanded that South Carolina remove the Confederate flag flying above the grounds of its state Capitol on Saturday, calling it a “symbol of racial hatred.”
His unambiguous statement will immediately intensify pressure on Republicans seeking the White House in 2016 to confront the thorny issue, which has long divided the state and bedeviled national candidates campaigning in it.
So far, none of the party’s 2016 presidential candidates has gone as far as Mr. Romney in demanding that the flag come down.
Mr. Romney’s words are striking because many Republican leaders, including those now running for president, have seemed reluctant to discuss the role of race — and racism — in the killing of nine parishioners at a Charleston, S.C., church.
Seemed? Just seemed?
… The issue is not entirely new for Mr. Romney. He spoke out against flying the Confederate flag as far back as 2008, when he first ran for president. “That flag shouldn’t be flown,” he said at the time. “That’s not a flag I recognize.”
Good on Mitt.
And he’s just dropped a hot ball into other candidates’ laps. The high road must seem all the sweeter chez Romney today.
@Gimlet: Yes, but unfortunately it’s in use by a much broader segment of the population. Everyone knows now that “fair and balanced” labels you as a Fox viewer, so it’s been poisoned for the rest of the population (mostly.) “Fiscally conservative” is still used by people like my dad and my senator (Warner) and NPR, who buy into the idea that deficits are a very serious problem, and think Republicans are part of the solution instead of the major cause of the problem.
220.
mai naem mobile
@JPL: I don’t want him in Supermax. From what I understand you ‘re basically in solitary in Supermax. This guy needs to be in the general population preferably in a facility with a lot of black inmates. I don’t want any harm to come to him. I just want him to be living in stark terror(like he did to the church) fearing that one of the inmates is going to shank him.
221.
beltane
@Elizabelle: It’s amazing how the so-called moderate wing of the GOP has vanished over the past couple of decades. Now, even the most basic gesture acknowledging American values is something most members of that party are totally incapable of. Kudos to Romney here.
I want his picture holding the confederate flag plastered all over far and wide, so anytime some one sees that symbol, they associate only with hate. If it hurts the SC economy, so be it.
Should note that some of these defenses are several years old. If any of these candidates admits to changing positions on this issue, I’ll be the first to applaud. Loudly.
224.
tazj
@Gimlet: That’s exactly how people who I know, that aren’t evangelicals, explain voting Republican. They can’t elaborate as to why the Republican party should be considered more fiscally responsible but they just know it’s true. They don’t know or care that Bush and Reagan ran up deficits or that a deficit isn’t always a bad thing. They supposedly don’t believe in discriminating against minorities and gays or making it harder for women to get birth control but they just can’t , can’t, vote for a Democrat. That would be irresponsible and they’re responsible people after all.
As I’m sure everyone knows by now, flying the the Confederate battle flag on the grounds of the state house is hardly a longtime South Carolina tradition. In fact, it’s only been up since 1961
It went up to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Civil War, it was assumed it would only fly for a year, but no one wrote that into the legislation. So it stayed.
But look at what was going on in South Carolina the very week the flag went up, on April 11, 1961:
Sen. Marrion Gressette, the head of the State Segregation Committee, created in 1951 to recommend measures to maintain segregation, was supporting a resolution condemning former North Carolina Gov. Frank Graham, who had spoken at Winthrop College defending the civil rights movement and calling for integration.
Thurmond was fighting in Congress to keep federal funding for segregated schools. Political sentiment against school integration was so strong that state politicians vowed to stop all funding to public schools rather than integrate.
The Freedom Ride with integrated bus loads of civil rights workers was on the road, and there were reports of violence along the route.
The major story of the week was Kennedy’s executive order to end segregation in work places that do business with the government. The forced integration of South Carolina’s mills outraged politicians and editorial writers.
Drum says the flag stayed up as a “safe” protest against civil rights. And it is time to take it down.
226.
Villago Delenda Est
@Elizabelle: They not only benefit, their wealth would not exist except for the invisible infrastructure of the state, which must be paid for, if the state is to continue and their wealth to be preserved.
@mai naem mobile: I understand the vengeful impulse, but the worst thing that could happen to him is actually him actually developing, becoming mature and self-aware, realizing what a number was done upon him by hatemongers and parents, and coming to understand the horror and enormity of what he did.
But this would require actual rehabilitation, which he’s not going to get. So your scenario, while far more likely, will just make him more of a violent jerk than he is now.
People in that situation never think, “Gee, I’m being a violent jerk.” It will just confirm his feelings about racism. And perpetuate the dangerous and unsupporting world-view that drove him into hate groups in the first place.
He’s absolutely dangerous and he’s done an incredibly awful thing. He had his chance to NOT do it, and he didn’t take it. You might say he did choose the Dark Side.
I’m just against making our prisons actual hell holes. If only because of the innocents who get sent there.
I wonder if we will hear anything from the Republican leaders of the more moderate past, Bob Dole (who saw ADA legislation go kapow due to Tea Partiers when he was personally on the Senate floor to advocate for it); Nancy Reagan, Ma or Pa Bush (although they don’t want to step on Jeb!, and who knows what part of his foot he has in his mouth today)
… Maybe former Senator John Warner, John Danforth, Nancy Landon Kassebaum … who else is around? Not expecting anything out of Trent Lott or Newt Gingrich …
@tazj: When I was a child, the Republicans were the Party of Grownups, and the Democrats were the party of minorities, hippies, and whiny babies who should man up and go over to the ‘Nam like real men.
They can’t be a part of that group. Even if, especially if, that group turned out to be right about everything.
230.
Suzanne
@schrodinger’s cat: It’s no fun sharing a country with them, either.
231.
Elizabelle
@Villago Delenda Est: So true. We could ask these fiscal conservatives where they would like to emigrate to. Perhaps they should, getting such a raw deal here.
232.
piratedan
and after South Carolina, we should have a chat with the folks of Georgia and Mississippi about their state flags
It was moved to its current location ONLY because of the threat of economic boycott nationally. That is what it will take to get any further action on it.
234.
Elizabelle
I honestly think this kid is young and unformed enough that he might eventually realize what he’s done. He needs to be in prison, but he need not be tortured, and SuperMax sounds like it’s more punitive than protective.
I think we are going to have a public discussion on SuperMax in the next few years.
@WereBear: They are now a party of toddlers, who throw a hissy fit when they don’t get what they want. Apologies to toddlers who don’t know any better because they are 2. GOPers have no such excuse and are not as cute either.
@Gimlet: South Carolina may see a drop off in tourism.
Disney saw the light after they replaced their Orlando-based American IT Disneyworld employees with temporary Indian contractors — who had to be trained by the laid off. Disney decided against pulling the same trick with a TV division (would have affected 35); cancelled that move.
I don’t know how many of the 250 laid off Orlando employees got called back. Disney mumbled that a few had been; haven’t followed that story …
Point being: hit them in the wallet. Money is about the only thing that talks to these weasels.
@Suzanne: Problem is that they are everywhere. There is a Confederate flagger about two miles from where I live. Its Massachusetts for crying out loud not the Dixie heartland.
239.
trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
One thing for sure: he won’t be in with the general population, where his lifespan would best be measured in hours.
240.
different-church-lady
@Elizabelle: Yes. Now all we have to do is convince him that yes, the bottom 47% of the country actually do deserve to have things like food, and he’ll be well on the way to reformation.
241.
Woodrowfan
@opiejeanne: @schrodinger’s cat: I am a Methodist (one of the mainline Protestant churches) and Thursday night is choir practice; I think it’s one of the articles of faith, like coffee is for Lutherans. Bible study for us was not set on Wednesday, though. At one church it was Thursday, during choir practice, at other churches it was Tuesday or Wednesday evening. We are more adamant about choir practice than Bible studies, it appears.
I’m mainline Presbyterian (PCUSA) so we have committee meetings during the week. If he’d gone to one of our churches on a Wednesday night he would have a found a group of people discussing a budget or some other nitty-gritty details required to run a small organization and maintain a building. Ernest, polite, and dull.
I honestly think this kid is young and unformed enough that he might eventually realize what he’s done.
If you ain’t figured out that slaughtering nine human beings is wrong by the time you’re, say, 12, you ain’t never going to figure it out.
245.
Elizabelle
@Gimlet: I think that might be what happened with Disney. Again, I don’t know that (and will look). But the NYTimes story got like 2,000+ reader comments, virtually of them against Disney, and a lot of folks were planning to cancel and boycott.
Has anyone else seen any Disney coverage lately on that issue?
I’d guess almost every church in the area has Wednesday night bible study.
It’s traditional in American Protestant churches to have Bible Study on Wednesday night. Choir practice is almost always on Thursday night. This is nation-wide. The Lutheran congregation I belonged to for 10 years had Bible Study on Wednesday and Choir on Thursday. Education committee met on Tuesday,. I forget what happened on other night, like Women’s Altar Guild, Executive Committee, etc. And you can’t have two groups meeting at the same time because so many of the group memebres belong to multipke groups. It got to the point that I was spending 4 or 5 nights a week at church for something. ETA: I’m in NYC.
247.
Elizabelle
@different-church-lady: He knows it’s wrong. In his manifesto, he was applauding himself for being the one brave enough to put action to words.
But after a few years, perhaps the swagger will wear off and he will comprehend what he did. He took 9 lives, and destroyed his own in the doing.
Mainline tend to be much less interested in “saving” the “unchurched.” We also tend to be more liberal, although we can also be conservative. We also tend to answer to larger organizations (as opposed to the independent little churches you see that answer to nobody but God, and he tends to tell them what the ministers wants.) Our mission trips tend to be to work on things like clean water systems or new school houses rather than preaching. Oh, and our ministers tend to have advanced degrees from real, accredited universities as opposed to Jim Bob’s Bible School and Muffler Shop.
Some examples of things you may have seen/
Big church on town’s main street built before 1970: Mainline
Church in small storefront in decaying strip mall: Evangelical
HUGE church in suburbs build after 1980: Evangelical
long name like “Four-Square Fundamentalist Bible Baptist Church”: Evangelical
Named after a Saint: St Mark’s”: Mainline
Named after a Pope: Catholic
Minister is a woman but she is NOT the wife of another of the church’s ministers: Mainline
Minister’s wife also preaches but goes by “Sister something”: Evangelical
Church has own TV show or “Christian School”: Evangelical
Secular daycare rents basement of church during week: Mainline
Has food bank or clothing bank: Either
Does not preach to those receiving food or clothing: Mainline
Supports Gay Marriage: Probably Mainline (but not all do)
Minister invites local Muslim Imam to come talk during Interfaith Week: Mainline
Minister has Darwin Fish AND a Jesus Fish on back of car: Mainline
Leaves religious pamphlet for waitress instead of cash as tip: Evangelical
Pronounces “Jesus” using at least three syllables: Evangelical
Minister uses slightly dated pop culture reference in sermon: Mainline
Minister uses slightly dated pop culture reference in sermon AND gets it totally wrong: Evangelical
Bible Study Wednesday Night: Evangelical
Committee Meeting Wednesday night: Mainline
249.
Liquid
@Elizabelle: Your optimism warms the sub-cockles of my cold heart; The few remaining bits of hope fly with you.
250.
Kathleen
@Elizabelle: Do I need to come over there and take your remote?
251.
scav
His resolution/redemption, for good or ill is almost the least of it. How this society, at multiple scales and sub-populations — local, state, nation, media, political, church-going, purple, white, non-religous, gun-worshipping, gelatophobic — is of far more long-term interest to me. He can stew in his own juices, whatever they may be, preferably as far away as possible from anyone or anything he can damage further for as long as possible. I want society better after this, or at least to make a feeble pretense of learning and adaptive change.
@WereBear: Yeah. Have not seen it for several years, and she was great. It’s young Willie Stark now. The Kanoma school just collapsed due to graft (poor building materials). He’s in the news …
He got his law degree. His teacher wife helped him. Cuz who would dream of sending a well educated woman to law school, then …
And: Mercedes!! Think her first line was “Find a dummy.”
And here she is. In Willie Stark’s living room.
259.
PurpleGirl
@schrodinger’s cat: Yes, it has been shown that man evolved in Africa, in the Rift Valley. But, hey, evilution ain’t true… G_d created the world in 6 days, 6,000 years ago.
ETA: We mock the History Channel for lots of solid reasons, but Discovery Communications has other channels where they do show lots of science-based shows. Recently they had a show tracing mankind back to the primates we came from. Also, it seems that the enlarging of our brains may be tied to climate changes we had to cope with.
@Redshift: “Fiscally conservative” means “I don’t want the government to take my hard-earned money and waste it on lazy Negroes, dope fiend Negro-lovers, and irresponsible girls who can’t keep their legs shut.” It’s dressed up in other sentiments as well, but that’s all it really means. Ask an avowed fiscal conservative what the government is supposed to spend less on. The answer will be “Welfare” or something that means the same thing.
263.
Villago Delenda Est
@FlipYrWhig: Or “Foreign Aid”, but don’t touch the billions going to Israel.
264.
J R in WV
Someone from away asked about churches and the variations of them, so here’s a non-church-goer’s version of that:
Mainline religions pay their ministers a living wage, cut them a paycheck on a regular schedule. Evangelilcal “churches” pay their ministers their cut (percentage take) of the donations, so that if there are thousands of “paying customers” coming each sunday, those ministers make a wheelbarrow full of cash money, tax free, as it’s a cash donation, mostly.
My Episcopal minister friend sat beside an evangelical on an airline flight, and was very disappointed with what she learned about the evangelicals and how they run their churches for profit.
Plus the education, mainstream churches have well educated ministers, as mentioned, and evangelicals have ministers who have memorized the important (to their denomination) chapters and verses of the specific gawd-blessed bible they believe in. Without much of any understanding of the history or translations their “Word” has passed through. 6000 years old is a real belief! Just not a true fact.
My immediate family helped form a Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship, which is a lay-organized group that can’t afford a full-time minister. Unitarians largely don’t believe in the god-hood of Jesus, but believe in a single deity. But there is no set of rules and beliefs you have to ascribe to in order to join a U-U congregation, so the beliefs of the members vary quite a bit compared to most religions.
We were preached against on the radio because we weren’t “Christian” and would lead ordinary people to hell with us if they weren’t warned every Sunday on the radio by…I forget his name now, but it will come to me. I got quite a bit of flack from other kids on Mondays on account of Rev. Waldron, there it is, I knew it was still in the archives somewhere. I didn’t listen to him very much, as he was quite the hell-fire and brimstone preacher. As I was the fuel for his fire, it wasn’t very comfortable to hear every Sunday.
Haven’t had any use for those folks since I was a little boy.
Comments are closed.
Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone.
Off to swim and run errands.
WereBear
Driving all over, weekend away which was WORK, in-laws surprise visit, and a complete crash of Garage Band leading to its replacement delaying my podcast recording.
I’m done in. Will try to take it easy today, my first opportunity in weeks.
Germy Shoemangler
“why is a cat’s tail like a long journey?” “Because it’s fur to the end”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r6uEm5Ll3U
Eric Nny
@Germy Shoemangler: Bad.
Germy Shoemangler
The exact moment this Corgi realized the rock was a turtle
Germy Shoemangler
@Eric Nny: Linked video in honor of anyone who has ever faced an unresponsive audience.
piratedan
saw via a twitter hit that there were CSA flag burnings in cities last night. Can this be a thing? Do we need to do this to make them confront the fallacy of honoring that heritage? Every time the MBF tried to speak in my ear I tell it to STFU because they’ve carried this fucking torch a 150 years now. We need to cut this shit out and be a NATION, no a couple of siblings, one of whom has been butthurt and wrong for the last 150 years. Move the fuck on already.
ultraviolet thunder
I’m at the Detroit airport waiting to go to Dallas, then right back again. Garland, TX actually, which sticks in my mind as the locale of some recent anti-Muslim chicanery.
Yeah, I’ve seen enough of the Confederate flag. Time to bury that relic and let the ideas behind it finally fade. It’s been called America’s swastika and that’s not far wrong. But ‘cold, dead fingers’…
satby
I got nuthin.
Have soapy orders to fill (thanks, you know who you are!) And I have to make double the amount of hand cream and shampoo bars for next Friday’s Farmer’s market, and all the yard work, litter boxes, and all I want to do is veg…
khead
So Ms. Noonan and Ms. Parker (no links) have hit the ground running today with pieces on how we should all step back and take a few moments to grieve instead of wallow in the political with respect to Charleston. I’m guessing there are more like those out there but I am still surfing over coffee.
Edit – Working today and getting ready for some rain and possible flooding.
piratedan
@khead: a case of “mourn your dead” because we intend to do fuckall about it, same game plan as Sandy Hook, Aurora and Tucson.
Hal
Very interesting to me that several white friends who were filled to the brim with opinions on social media, particularly Facebook, in the cases of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Freddie Grey and Michael Brown amongst others, have no opinion on the Charleston murders. Not a peep. I guess when you can’t accuse Al Sharpton of just trying to make white people look bad, as one friend of a friend said, it’s just not as interesting.
Germy Shoemangler
Losing streak: Glenn Beck defeated in court again as judge sides with Muslim in defamation suit: Things look pretty bad for psycho talker, the judge just doesn’t like shit like this. (The Raw Story)
Mike in NC
@piratedan: Having lived in Virginia and North Carolina for many years, I can’t say that I’ve come across very many places where you could actually find Confederate flags for sale, except maybe shops that specialize in Civil War memorabilia in Gettysburg or Fredericksburg. Must be a mail-order thing.
Since eBay has a policy against selling items with a Nazi swastika, then they could be pressured to do likewise with the CSA hate banners.
Big ole hound
I guess no one has the balls to walk up and cut down the the conferate flag that proudly waves at the SC state capitol. What are they afraid of?
satby
@khead: Gah.
They know which master they serve and all of the GOP are spinning HARD to make this not about race or terrorism. They’re a bit afraid of the spotlight that Roof has shown on their racist enabling and they’re going to work overtime to defuse the simmering rage.
We can’t let them be successful. We need an Occupy style general strike against any entity that displays the Confederate flag, but we can’t get sidetracked by a symbol alone. Time to fight back hard against what that symbol represents and the political party that has used racism to achieve its goals.
khead
@Hal:
They are busy grieving.
WereBear
Quoted for truth. And I do like the flag burning. It’s disrespectful and that’s appropriate.
Germy Shoemangler
@Big ole hound:
confederate flag supporters are a violent bunch.
HEADLINE: Vigil For Charleston Church Shooting Victims Dispersed By Bomb Threats
Link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXliKWnE7Pk
Schlemazel
@piratedan:
While I love the idea my guess is this will be just another attack on white christian men by the SJW.
Omnes Omnibus
@Schlemazel: SJW? It might be obvious but I am not really a morning person.
bystander
@Schlemazel: Single Jewish Women?
Wish I had known the Pre-Code “Search for Beauty” was on. Came in on it late, but pretty remarkable. It would be daring today.
raven
@Big ole hound: Delta is ready when you are tough guy,
piratedan
@Schlemazel: well they’re ALREADY stating that, bleating that any mention of the flag is an attack on their heritage. Fine, we’re attacking their heritage but news flag, your heritage sucks as it promotes above all else, slavery. They want to honor something, how about the actual American flag that they supposedly love so much and wrap themselves in any time people who speak differently than us are around.
Schlemazel
Interesting the efforts to deny the reality of what happened and why. The asshole said “You are raping our women and trying to take over our country” Yet Rev. Huckleberry claims this was an attack on Christians! SOmeone needs to ask him why Christians are raping all our women. Gov. Yosemite Sam says this was an “accident” oops, oops, oops, oops, oops, oops, oops, oops, oops – apparently the gun was a bit greasy? Senator Frothy Mix says that people should not try to politicise these murders but has no problem with Pam Geller encouraging people to get killed and making hay from it.
I’d like to think that this flailing around for an excuse and making light of the situation would finally lift the veil from people of good faith and honest intentions so they would see what assholes they have been supporting. I’d like to think that but am afraid this too shall pass and we will play out the same bullshit again soon, too soon.
Woodrowfan
@Mike in NC: and flea markets/antique mall places often have a place that sells various tea party/Bircher/neo=confederate crap. Of course flag stores like Alamo Flag usually have one hanging outside along with the other flags.. But yeah, you’re right, it’s not like I can go into Home Deport or CVS and buy one like I can an American flag.
Schlemazel
@Omnes Omnibus: @bystander:
Social Justice Warriors
Its a term tossed around by the gamergate, sad puppy and like mouth-breathing morans for anyone who will admit that people of color, women, Non-Christians and non-cisgendered people may deserve to be treated as humans
Woodrowfan
“I have to do it,” the gunman was quoted as saying. “You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go.” Dylan Roof
“When Mexico sends its people, they are not sending their best. They are not sending you. They are sending people that have lots of problems, and they are bringing those problems to us. They are bringing drugs and they are bringing crime, and they’re rapists.” Donald J Trump
ultraviolet thunder
@Schlemazel:
The invaluable Charlie Pierce has been scrupulously documenting the media’s abetting GOP politicians in decorously redirecting attention away from the obvious racial motivation of these heinous murders. It does the MSM no good for the public to discuss the fat streak of bigotry in our culture. They can’t monetize that. But people will tune in to be told calming stories about healing.
Healing, hell. The Civil War is still on.
Gator90
@Betty Cracker: You watching the baseball game today? At least UF is still pretty good in sports involving bats and gloves.
Schlemazel
@piratedan:
When ever I hear that thing about “heritage” all I can hear is that speech from “Oh Brother” particularly the way he pronounces “Heritage”
schrodinger's cat
@ultraviolet thunder: MSM’s treatment of this President has shown that they are not immune to that bigotry themselves.
Germy Shoemangler
The racist signs South Africans had to look at every day for 40 years
BBA
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.
Eric S.
My softball team has playoffs today. We need to win a triple header for the championship.
MattF
No links from me, but apparently Geraldo Rivera broke the ban on FOX News against saying that the Charleston murders were racist. And that, folks, is exactly how low the right wing in this country has descended.
piratedan
@Eric S.: good luck to you and your team
Betty Cracker
@Gator90: I’ve got plans this evening, so I’ll miss it. But Go Gators!
ultraviolet thunder
I gotta get on the plane. Off to TX, the self proclaimed “America of America” (and also the last bastion of slavery). Have a good weekend everyone.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mike in NC: From a HuffPo story about a white woman living in a predominantly black Charleston suburb who flies the Confederate flag, because that’s her family history. And she’s a tea bagger
I wonder why “it never works out”
Germy Shoemangler
Anyone here listen to Marc Maron podcasts?
Obama visited his garage for an interview. I’m looking forward to hearing it.
Villago Delenda Est
@piratedan: Let me say this just once.
FUCK their “heritage”.
Frankensteinback
@ultraviolet thunder:
They can monetize outrage, scandal, and denigrating a belief just fine. They do it every day.
The problem is that the media, specifically the national level journalists, are themselves bigots and conservatives. They are ‘polite racists’, and it galls them when anyone outright says blacks are bad. That might suggest that there’s something wrong with saying that the victim had it coming whenever blacks are brutalized. Hasn’t that been the consistent reaction from the vast majority of the media to all the recent race-based atrocities?
Elizabelle
When they talk about Dylann Roof “targeting Christians — it’s Christians, I tell you”:
ask yourselves how many other churches he drove past on his way to carry out the massacre at Emanuel AME.
South Carolina is thick with churches, and he lived at least two hours from the attack site. Probably can’t swing a cat without hitting multiple churches in a lot of communities.
So why this church? Why this particular group of Christian congregants?
WereBear
@Germy Shoemangler: I love Marc Maron. Now that’s going to be quite an interview.
Elizabelle
@ultraviolet thunder: Happy jet trails. Safe travels.
Elizabelle
@Schlemazel: linky? (And good morning.)
Iowa Old Lady
@khead:
We can grieve by taking steps to make sure no one else suffers the same fate. Anger is part of grief.
Frankensteinback
@Elizabelle:
Because, as the killer who wore the flags of apartheid regimes clearly stated, those Christians weren’t ‘raping our women and taking over the country.’ I look forward to whatever he says in jail, since he is plainly unrepentant.
Ejoiner
I’ll try to answer a question I saw a few posts back – I live in Columbia, SC and I (like most of the people I know) would very much like to see the flag brought down. However, most of our neighbors (white, southern born and bred) do not and see it as yet another issue where “those people” are just trying to degrade and remove another part of the proud heritage of the South. I know it’s crazy and unhistorical, you know it’s crazy and unhistorical but they will defend it to their last breath because it is a symbol of their stand against all the wrong they see in the world – blacks, welfare, the tyranny of the federal government, liberal agenda, the LGBT movement, etc. I’m going to a rally today supporting removing the flag but my prediction is it will be another generation before it does come down. Sadly, it will take the death of another generation to get enough momentum for change. On a brighter note, I have (in my 25 years here) seen the baby-steps that slowly but surely are burying the Old South and it’s tainted culture. So there is that.
Also – the reason no one is out cutting the flag down is because it has a dedicated state trooper assigned to protect it. Usually sitting in his car a few feet off the monument. I bet they will even beef it up some now.
schrodinger's cat
IWhy did the killer target this particular church? His killing spree seems preplanned and not spur of the moment. How did he know about the Bible study group and when it was held. I am wondering whether the pastor of the church was a particular target? He must be affiliated with white supremacist groups, where did find out about apartheid South Africa and Zimbabwe?
Elizabelle
NYTimes interview with Mark Maron. He’s releasing the Obama podcast Monday.
schrodinger's cat
@Ejoiner:
Can they articulate what is it exactly, that they are so proud of?
CarolDuhart2
@ultraviolet thunder: https://twitter.com/Uncucumbered/status/612236701948227585
It is a thing….and not only that, when I Googled it, apparently there was already actions on Memorial Day to make it “Confederate Flag Burning Day”, and it has its own Facebook page.
While everyone of good will is wondering what to do, I have a suggestion: join theNAACP. Anyone can join-and if enough people do, then things will change for the better. Sometimes numbers are the best remedy-what if they had 10 million members?
https://twitter.com/search?q=burning%20confederate%20flag&src=tyah
MomSense
@Woodrowfan:
This is why Fox, the Republicans, and others are spinning to try and cast the terrorist act in Charleston as anything but racially motivated. They need to maintain plausible deniability that they have in any way enabled racism for political purposes.
Unfortunately many of us have learned the hard way that it just isn’t safe to be too vocal or public about gun violence prevention, feminism, and racism. You end up getting harassed, intimidated, and even threatened. When elected officials try, the issue becomes their agenda and the issue they were trying to address gets lost.
I’m starting to think we should just dismiss them as losers who cling to the losing flag and guns because they are too pathetic and dumb to compete fair and square in any kind of contest requiring skill or smarts.
Kathleen
@Germy Shoemangler: I love Maron’s podcasts. PBO? Really? How cool. I will have to check that out.
Kathleen
@Frankensteinback: I think targeting the mainstream media for enabling mainstreaming of racial hatred without challenge (eg, statements/actions by Rethuglican politicians, etc) should be the focus of a media campaign.
Elizabelle
@schrodinger’s cat: I think he targeted Pastor Pinckney, who was well known and may have appeared on local TV where Roof lived (Columbia media market; Pinckney was, of course, also a state legislator).
Pinckney worked against concealed carry guns in churches, and against guns for domestic abusers. Could have been a lot of additional reasons to target Pinckney.
Recall the NRA board member who complained about Pinckney’s concealed carry opposition took his tweet down. (Message delivered, dogwhistle or not, though.)
Into churches, preschools, hospitals.
CarolDuhart2
https://twitter.com/search?q=burning%20confederate%20flag&src=tyah
Debbie
@Germy Shoemangler:
Good news! And his rally in Charleston yesterday fizzled out. There could be tears on Monday.
Schlemazel
@Elizabelle:
I have tried mightily but come up empty. There is a site called “anyclip” that promises to deliever but just keeps running trailers for other movies POS.
schrodinger's cat
@Elizabelle: This was a preplanned attack on a political target, nothing crazy about the shooter I think. This act of violence was not random.
Elizabelle
More from Marc Maron (NYT interview). And how smart of PBO to do an end run around the mainstream media.
Mike in NC
@Germy Shoemangler: Nobody should ever be allowed to forget that so-called leaders like Ronald Reagan and Dick Cheney were huge supporters of the apartheid regime in South Africa.
Frankensteinback
@schrodinger’s cat:
They believe their culture is friendly, honest, and hospitable, celebrates a simple life, represents farming and ranching and other rural, agricultural traditions, is devotedly Christian (which they see as obviously a good thing), loving of family, and generally moral.
Anyone who has lived among them and is not a mean, racist shit is constantly awed by how far their head is up their ass to believe any of that. Actual southern culture is the opposite on every point. It is about hate, self-serving lies, clannish distrust, poverty, contains almost no farmers, cares about Christianity only as a weapon to force conformity, encourages and even celebrates domestic abuse of wives, children, and even husbands if the wife can pull it off, and applauds any means to accomplish these ends.
Big ole hound
@raven: Since I’m in a wheelchair from defending our flag, I’ll leave it up to you.It’s a short trip from your place and I’m 2500 miles away.
Gimlet
So Ms. Noonan and Ms. Parker (no links) have hit the ground running today with pieces on how we should all step back and take a few moments to grieve instead of wallow in the political with respect to Charleston.
When delay IS the final solution.
Pretend they are talking about Benghazi.
Valdivia
I would usually dance on command but I am down with bronchitis, have no voice and am trying to read up on anarchist movements in Argentina but my brain is not cooperating.
Mike J
@schrodinger’s cat:
I’d guess almost every church in the area has Wednesday night bible study.
beth
@Elizabelle: I was involved in protesting against that bill. I don’t think any of the articles express just how evil it really was – it didn’t just make it legal to carry a gun into the church, it made it illegal for the church to prohibit it. Think about that – the party of state’s rights and private property rights wanted to take away the ability of a private property owner to decide whether or not guns were allowed on their property. Our church was very against this, as were most of the churches here in the Charleston area.
Kathleen
@Elizabelle: He does that a lot. I think that’s one of the reasons The Village can’t stand him. Plus he’s much smarter than they are which they are too insulated to even realize.
schrodinger's cat
@Mike J: Is that right? I have no idea since I am not a church goer or follower of any other organized religion.
Valdivia
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes one has to wonder how those words she utters sound so terrible when printed in black and white.
@Elizabelle: Based on what he says I can’t wait to hear the podcast when it comes out. I often find that in this kind of interview we get better questions than those lobbed at him by the tweens of the WHPC
Schlemazel
@schrodinger’s cat:
Well for one they stood up to an over-reaching Federal government that was going to take their rights and their property away from them. Plus that guy was a tyrant & they never voted for him!
Now, try to forget the details of what it was that they were actually fighting for and this can be made to sound pretty damned impressive.
“Mr Young should remember, a Southern man doesn’t need him around anyhow”
schrodinger's cat
@Schlemazel: In the case of the Civil War it seems like the losers got to write its history and the winners let them do it.
MomSense
Oh my I just saw a link on Twitter to a document cache someone found from a website called lastrhodesian.com
I’ll try to post the link with this stupid phone but I plan to tweet this to all the media outlets so they can take some time to reflect on this.
http://lastrhodesian.com/data/documents/rtf88.txt
khead
http://gawker.com/here-is-what-appears-to-be-dylann-roofs-racist-manifest-1712767241
Not even bothering with formatting.
Woodrowfan
@schrodinger’s cat: Wednesday Night Bible Study is very, very common among certain Christian churches, especially evangelical Protestant churches in the south. I remember complaints some years back when a TV movie about Jesus was aired on Wednesday night and some evangelicals complained that it was aired “when Christians were in church.” Wednesday Night Bible Study is less common among non-Protestants and the more liberal mainline Protestant churches.
MomSense
@khead:
We are literally on the same page. Dear everything that is good but that is sickening.
Schlemazel
@schrodinger’s cat:
Yes, very much so. Particularly the popular culture. Movies and TV, novels and music all seem to suffer from Southron delusional syndrome.
beltane
Southern Heritage: If it didn’t exist, no one would have felt the need to invent it. It’s positive contribution to humanity is nil. The Confederates didn’t even build the autobahn. If killing and enslaving other people is all they’ve got, they’ve got nothing.
Sucks to be them, and sucks to be us having to put up with them.
beltane
More on the terrorist here: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/06/20/1394948/-Racist-manifesto-and-selfie-collection-confirms-what-we-knew-Dylann-Roof-a-racist-terrorist
He truly is the face of red state America.
raven
@Big ole hound: Well then you should know better. The godamn confederate flag we are talking about is on the state capitol grounds on a pole that without a pulley and padlocked. Do you really think someone could walk up to it, climb the pole, take out some shit to light it on fire?
CarolDuhart2
https://twitter.com/Uncucumbered/status/612236701948227585
It is a thing….and not only that, when I Googled it, apparently there was already actions on Memorial Day to make it “Confederate Flag Burning Day”, and it has its own Facebook page.
While everyone of good will is wondering what to do, I have a suggestion: join the NAACP. Anyone can join-and if enough people do, then things will change for the better. Sometimes numbers are the best remedy-what if they had 10 million members?
schrodinger's cat
@Woodrowfan: Thanks, I have heard about Sunday school but not Wednesday night Bible study.
srv
There is so much damn freedom in Texas now, I may have to move back. Libs will never understand:
Villago Delenda Est
@schrodinger’s cat: I guess they’re proud of a legacy of white supremacism. And being racist fucks. And being dogshit in general.
beltane
@srv: I guess we can add morbid obesity and “diabeetus” to the the “heritage” these people are so proud of.
Valdivia
@MomSense: @khead: What more proof do the dittoheads needs that this guy was deeply involved with a group, was not a loner and not deranged? I hope the FBI is looking for whoever took those pictures and what the other members of his terrorist organization are up to.
Gian
@Elizabelle:
Roof called it a “mission” It’s possible that he gave himself a “mission” by himself, but I expect he had people who at a minimum egged him on.
I’d love to see an investigation of his contacts, online buddies, where he bought his apartheid patches and so on.
Omnes Omnibus
@Schlemazel: Thanks.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodinger’s cat: I remember reading a long article years ago suggesting that FDR used (exploited, went along with) the myth of the Glorious Cause to bring the Southern states along on the New Deal, inspired by or coincident with the popularity of Gone with the Wind. I tried to google it but the search terms are too vague.
A guest columnist in the NYT a few weeks back observed that a lot of white Americans still have a vague idea of the plantation system, partly inspired by GWTW and the like, as a sprawl of country club-like farms, contented and prosperous, when we should be thinking of a mass of forced-labor concentration camps. With mansions.
beth
From the manifesto:
He’s nothing but a little coward. He could have gone a mile up the block and took on some real armed gangbangers but he had to pussy out and take on old ladies in church. What a disgusting little shit.
beltane
@Villago Delenda Est: Hey, any port in the storm. When you’re from a culturally impoverished society with little in the way of actual history and achievement, you’ve got to make up something to be proud of.
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
I think we should say it every day.
Fuck their asshole heritage.
We should even yell it.
FUCK THEIR ASSHOLE HERITAGE!
WereBear
I gather this is routine? Jiminy Christmas on sesame seed crackers… this is whacked out stuff.
Nothing says Flag of the Oppression than an armed and uniformed person protecting it…
Cervantes
@schrodinger’s cat:
That’s close.
I think good and reliable histories have, indeed, been written, including by descendants of what you call “the losers.” What many other descendants have been allowed to do, however, is to pretend those histories do not exist.
By now, it’s a habit of mind. They are many the same people who thrive by ignoring or striving mightily to deny entire bodies of knowledge, not only history. Ignorance is their sword and they wield it with a vengeance.
beltane
This fellow also seemed to have an awful lot of friends for a so-called loner.
WereBear
I’m speaking as someone from a predominantly white area, Upper Midwest, who never had actually slave owning in my heritage (that I know of,) yet have plenty of relatives who identified with the “cause” probably because they moved North but retained the culture. I’ve also lived in the South.
It was something I repudiated, as it never meant much to me, and while I have Native American heritage, so do millions of others — there was a lot of assimilation in the Prairie states. My genetics explain the kinds of foods I thrive on and my ability to make Vitamin D from sunlight, but were never part of my self-identity. I have lots & lots of things that make me unusual and unique, perhaps that’s why.
But for people who don’t feel talented or unique, or are in cultures which actively denigrate and are suspicious of such qualities, their group identity is really all they have. And so it is blown up out of all proportion to its actual accomplishments or heinous acts, defended to someone’s death, and utterly irrational.
MomSense
@Valdivia:
His manifesto doesn’t mention Christianity at all. This wasn’t an attack on faith.
schrodinger's cat
@MomSense: I skimmed through the rambling rant that you linked to. Some of the stuff is out there but there is some stuff that I can easily imagine some one like Louie Gohmert or Steve King saying.
Debbie
@srv:
The Founders weep.
Elizabelle
@beth: Thank you, beth, for your part in getting this awful bill tabled, at least, in the meantime.
Small government and liberty: except when we force you to allow guns onto your property, whether you want them there or not.
Ruckus
@schrodinger’s cat:
Can they articulate what is it exactly, that they are so proud of?
I can answer this as well. Haven’t lived in SC for decades and while it may be getting better, slowly, they (those who think this flag is the absolute last indicator of truth and justice) are proud of their racism, of the idea (theirs, not mine!) that there are tiers of civilization and blacks are on the bottom, they were slaves for a reason and that reason hasn’t changed in centuries.
Elizabelle
@schrodinger’s cat: There’s a late night segment probably already in development: read off the quotes and guess: is it the white supremacist shooter or a member of Congress?
Make them own that shit.
Iowa Old Lady
@MomSense: The fact he survived to babble about his intentions is a good thing. The conservatives going on about “we’ll never know” are reading from talking points that don’t apply when the killer can speak. The ones selling the “attack on faith” can be confronted by the guy’s own words, and wind up looking like the desperate liars they are.
Debbie
@Germy Shoemangler:
Great news! Plus his rally in Charleston yesterday fizzled out. There may be tears on Monday.
piratedan
The South has generated a lot of beautiful literature, almost all of it sorrowful that its people cannot put the Civil War behind them and move on
Ruckus
FYWP
Has eaten 2 comments. Either that or I’m in moderation for who knows what.
If someone releases them, please do just one.
beltane
@Elizabelle: The awful thing is that people who spout off this crap on a regular basis are considered respectable while the Rev. Wright was treated like a dangerous radical.
Valdivia
@MomSense: Absolutely. For anyone to say that is pure delusion and obfuscation. Still the Village will allow them to get away with it. Because it’s what they do.
Cacti
I was going back over the various stories since 2008, and I came to the conclusion that there is a war on religion in this country, but one that you won’t hear any Republican talking about.
Violent attacks on worshippers and houses of worship by right wing extremists. To wit:
-Knoxville Unitarian Church mass shooting (2008)
-Assassination of Dr. George Tiller at the Wichita Reformation Lutheran Church (2009)
-Murfreesboro, Tennesee Mosque burning (2010)
-Wisconsin Sikh Temple mass shooting (2012)
-Joplin, Missouri Mosque burning (2012)
-Houston, Texas Mosque burning (2015)
-Death threats against ministers of Perryville and Cape Girardeau, Missouri Presbyterian ministers over same sex weddings (2015)
-Emanuel AME Church mass shooting (2015)
But they all have the “wrong” religion, so I guess it doesn’t count.
Elizabelle
The NYTimes just sent out an email alert about the photos and manifesto. On its way to being verified, it seems.
The ghetto?
Dammit. Am I going to have to watch Fox News again?
beltane
@Elizabelle:
Don’t do it! Time for an intervention.
Kay
@Ejoiner:
Rev. Clementa Pinckney addressed this himself in an interview. It wasn’t about the flag, specifically but it was about South Carolina’s penchant for history.
It was interesting because he counted himself among the South Carolinians who respect history, but he was talking about the history of black people in South Carolina.
Do they get that by flying this flag they’re ignoring the history of a whole bunch of South Carolinians? Claiming “a” history as defined and told by one group while excluding that of another group who had a very, very different experience isn’t “history” at all.
WereBear
I appreciate your fortitude. My nerves can’t take it for more than five minutes.
Elizabelle
@Valdivia:
The tweens. LOL. Too true.
Villago Delenda Est
@beltane: The thing is, they’re NOT culturally impoverished, except that many of them choose to be. They’ve got William Faulkner, they’ve got Tennessee Williams, they’ve got Harper Lee. No, instead they hang out with William Bedford Forrest, with George Wallace (who went segregationist purely out of opportunism), with Lester Maddox, with Theodore Bilbo.
Neil Young had these motherfuckers down.
schrodinger's cat
Zimbabwe hasn’t been called Rhodesia since the 1980s. So why is some one born in 1994 call it that? He definitely seems to be inspired by someone or some group that has carefully nursed these perceived slights.
Valdivia
Apparently Roof was indoctrinated by the Council of Conservative Citizens. Hope the manifesto will shine a light on them.
Also, too. Amazingly but Mitt Romney went ahead and called for the bringing down the Confederate flag. Apparently a position he has held for years no. Good on him.
@Elizabelle: It’s what they are and how they behave. No better than gossip girls. Remember when earlier in the week (or week before) it was all about did Obama smoke? Gah.
Ruckus
@raven:
He’s 2500 miles away, maybe he doesn’t realize that the government of SC knows that there are easily enough people that want to get it down and burn it that they had to make it very hard to do. Post a guard, permanently mount it, all so it would fly forever. Or at least till they could mount another civil war and succeed this time, starting their own country and putting all those blacks in their proper place and finally return to that graceful time when it was OK to shoot/hang/beat/enslave a black person for whatever the hell they decided they had done wrong, or for nothing at all, just kicks on a Friday night. Then they wouldn’t have to take it down at all.
schrodinger's cat
@Valdivia: Why do you hate tweens? I am sure tweens could come up with better and more intelligent questions than the White House press pool generally does.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ruckus: “Too small for a republic, too large for an asylum.”
Germy Shoemangler
@Ejoiner:
The shooter was 21 years old. We have a long wait.
Villago Delenda Est
@schrodinger’s cat: With both hands tied behind their backs.
The WH press corpse is utterly worthless, as is the Village in general.
Wipe them out. All of them.
Elizabelle
@schrodinger’s cat: There is that.
Tweens have often not focused on the fact that they might have to work for Fox News some day. They have not yet perfected their careerist skills.
beltane
@schrodinger’s cat: It was also strange seeing the Apartheid-era South African flag again. I remembered it from the atlas I had as a kid, but it’s something I haven’t seen in many, many years.
beltane
@Villago Delenda Est: How do we know for sure that it’s too large for an asylum?
Ejoiner
@schrodinger’s cat:
Oh, it’s all about their proud ancestors fight for freedom and a very nationalistic view of the Confederacy and Southern culture that’s been handed down from generation to generation. It’s so inbred they don’t even question it. I’ve taught kids who are now members of the US military and served tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan who are livid about the treatment of their flag. And it makes no difference to point out it was a flag of rebellion against their armed services and the soldiers in it would have killed them in attempting to eradicate the union they are today defending. I really think it represents – almost on an subconscious level – Traditional Southern Whites vs. “those people” (minorities, liberals, gays, etc.) which is why it is such an angry and emotional debate.
Valdivia
@schrodinger’s cat: You know, I was going to say exactly that. They are probably more keen and intelligent than the WHPC. Apologies to tweens.
Suzanne
@schrodinger’s cat: SERIOUSLY. What are they proud of? I can’t think of anything awesome that came out of the South that wasn’t invented by black people.
There are times I wish the South would secede again. This time, I wouldn’t fight to stay unified. I’d airlift out the cool people, and say DON’T LET THE DOOR HIT YOU ON THE ASS ON THE WAY OUT to the rest.
Villago Delenda Est
@Suzanne: Then we’d quickly be stuck with a third world country on our Southern border.
Villago Delenda Est
@Valdivia: The Council of Conservative Citizens. AKA the “political arm” of the KKK.
Germy Shoemangler
@Suzanne:
I wonder how many of them know the banjo originated in Africa?
Germy Shoemangler
@Villago Delenda Est: They would declare war on us within a year.
WereBear
@Villago Delenda Est: And we already have one. It’s just subject to some Federal control.
Ejoiner
@WereBear: @Kay:
Oh, absolutely – it’s kind of an unwritten identity thing (as others have pointed out). It goes along with political affiliation. I know a lot of white, semi to well educated people who vote Republican and support the flag simply because that’s what you do in the South if you are white. They may disagree with the party platform or not care a bit about the history of the flag or the Lost Cause, etc. but it doesn’t matter. Taking the flag down, voting Democratic,etc. – that’s what “those people” do. There are exceptions (islands of blue, etc.) but it’s all about the unspoken cultural/racial rules that are generations deep.
gogol's wife
@Germy Shoemangler:
And there isn’t a cannon factory in the entire South.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
It also has a dedicated state trooper guarding it 24/7.
Elizabelle
@Suzanne: I’d be fine with using a passport to visit South Carolina.
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
The number of patients it would have to house would make it the worlds largest hospital/asylum by several orders of magnitude. It would eradicate the unemployment situation though, having enough people to care for them.
And the idea that racists would have to live with no freedom, have no real rights to move about, be told what to do every day and who to do it with/for…………
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: That’s my fave part.
Aren’t these folks against the growth of government? That would be seem to be a government employee out there.
WereBear
@gogol’s wife: There were some subversive elements in Gone With the Wind, and Rhett Butler voiced them the best: “All we’ve got is cotton and slaves and arrogance. They’ll whip us in a week.”
beltane
@Suzanne: The small handful of acclaimed authors that emerged from the white South does nothing but underscore the general impoverishment of the culture. Once you take out the contributions of African captives, you’re left with very thin gruel indeed.
Ruckus
@Elizabelle:
I’m fine with never visiting/living in SC again, passport or not.
Valdivia
@Villago Delenda Est: I am ashamed to say I had not heard of them until today.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
Yup. Their philosophical inconsistency cracks me up. See also WereBear at #93, who got there first.
Ruckus
@Elizabelle:
They aren’t against the growth or size of government. They aren’t against government making people richer. They are against anything that might just improve someone’s life, especially someone who is any darker than they are.
Baud
@Valdivia:
Trent Lott or some other GOP bigwig got in trouble for associating with the CCC.
WereBear
@Ejoiner: Reminds me of the “fragility of manhood” structure so many misguided men carry around in their head:
Men are strong! Yet can be undermined by a single pink tutu.
It’s manhood defined by absence. That’s psychologically troubling.
Cervantes
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
To garner support for the New Deal, but also simply to reduce the chance of losing the next election.
There are numerous examples. Look up the history of the Costigan-Wagner anti-lynching bill, for instance.
And what role did Mitchell’s book play? Well, it was extremely popular, allowing its starving Depression-era audience to identify with the troubles of slave-owners. Recall Scarlett’s declaration that she’s “never going to be hungry again.”
Writer Jane Tompkins argues that:
Could the wild success of the book thereby have made it a little easier for the system to ignore or dismiss continuing injustice in the South? Sure.
schrodinger's cat
@Germy Shoemangler: Forget banjo, if you go far back enough, didn’t we all came from Africa?
Suzanne
@Villago Delenda Est: Then maybe we could build a big fence. I might support it, in that instance.
trollhattan
@srv:
They’ve done it. At long last they’ve sucked any and all meaning from those words, which now exist on the plane that hosts “Tastes great/less filling.”
Congratulations “conservatives” you sure have learned how to not conserve anything, including self-dignity.
Kerry Reid
Someone else may have already posted this, in which case apologies, but I dropped a line to Rep. Brannon thanking him for this statement and for his plan to introduce legislation to remove the flag. http://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/uncucumbered/republican_state_rep_will_introduce_bill_to_remove_confederate_flag
Cervantes
@Baud:
It was funnier than that.
Got that?
Article was by Kevin Merida, Washington Post, March 1999 — while Lott was Senate Majority Leader.
schrodinger's cat
@Suzanne: Be careful what you wish for. It is no fun having a basket case on your border always spoiling for a fight. Think India and Pakistan.
SiubhanDuinne
@Valdivia:
And Jeb! as Governor had it removed from the Florida State Capitol back in 2001. So good on him, too.
Valdivia
@Baud: So recognized as the vile organization it is. With Roof name checking them there is no wiggle room anymore for denying the racist character of the attack, one would hope.
@SiubhanDuinne: I didn’t know that. Interesting then that Jeb can’t bring himself to say that now eh? I saw somewhere that Rubio sponsored a bill that apparently protected the use of the flag need to hunt it down.
beth
@Valdivia:
Proving once and for all that he’s not a “real” conservative and if they had run a “real” conservative in 2012, the Republicans would have beaten Obama handily.
Also too, there’s a photo of Roof burning the American flag. The dumbest man on the internet and his followers are pointing to this as proof that Roof is a “typical leftist”.
This has been a preview of next week’s Fox News talking points so no one here has to subject themselves to watching it.
Howard Beale IV
@MomSense: And watch how Fox will not say one word about this.
Villago Delenda Est
@Valdivia: There are a lot of these little peckerwood organizations about, all dedicated to white supremacy. They’re obscure and need to be watched, as they have this nasty tendency to produce firearms wielding shits like Dylann Roof.
Baud
@Valdivia:
There is always wiggle room in their world.
SiubhanDuinne
@Suzanne:
The Donald will build it! CHEAP!! Because he’s RICH! And it’ll be the biggest, best, YOODGEST wall EVER!! And he’ll make the South Carolinians pay for it!! Because he’s RICH!!!!
Omnes Omnibus
@Valdivia: Count yourself lucky.
Baud
@Cervantes:
Nothing worse than unfairly singling out just one racist group for special condemnation.
WereBear
In every single photo of Dylann Roof that I’ve seen so far, he has this blank and opaque expression on his face. He actually had the impulse not to shoot these nice people… but he suppressed that impulse.
The horror of such hate groups is that they scoop up this unformed clay and make their own Golems out of them.
trollhattan
@SiubhanDuinne:
You scared me just then.
Valdivia
@Villago Delenda Est: To think that when Napolitano released that report about these organizations and the danger they posed all we heard was the outrage and it being Obama’s presecution of the right (repeated gleefully by the MSM). The SCLC does great work keeping track of them.
@beth: @Baud: I see the wiggle room will be that national socialism (the fascists) were actually leftists. One would think being a member f the quasi KKK would make that argument impossible, but Fox news will try. I am sure.
SiubhanDuinne
@trollhattan:
Sorry. I was just
quotingparaphrasing.scav
@WereBear: Have to admit, I see that face and I really want to slap it all over every single Tourist Board Brochure trotting out Southern Hospitality! and Gentile Old-Fashioned Breeding and Civility!
trollhattan
@SiubhanDuinne:
I think we should all be concerned the Donald has SO MUCH MONEY he can afford to invade our body once his hair is done killing him.
metricpenny
Hillary Clinton speaking at Mayor’s conference right now. She just finished speaking frankly on race in America.
And she just won my support.
Cervantes
@Valdivia:
The SCLC is fine but I think you meant to refer to Morris Dees and the SPLC.
In any event, I’m off. Have a great week-end.
gogol's wife
@WereBear:
Yes, but unfortunately he undergoes “character development” later in the novel.
WereBear
@scav: Yep.
The “breeding” part always cracks me up… human attempts at Pure Lines and all that rot creates Upper Class Twits of the Year and Hapsburgs unable to chew their own food.
It should be INbreeding.
gogol's wife
@scav:
I hope you mean “genteel.” “Gentile” is understood.
SiubhanDuinne
@trollhattan:
And now you’re scaring me!
SiubhanDuinne
@metricpenny:
Any link to video or transcript?
Cervantes
@gogol’s wife:
From his “manifesto”:
Rubbing salt in the wound, he concludes with:
Villago Delenda Est
@Valdivia: The “wiggle room” of thinking National Socialists are leftists is only present if one is appallingly ignorant about the origins and nature of the National Socialist movement. “Socialist” and “Workers” were in there strictly as marketing ploys. Full name of the party was Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers’ Party).
It was a right wing party from the outset, strongly opposed to the Social Democrats and anything to the left of them.
Valdivia
@Omnes Omnibus: I do in a way, but important too that they got on my radar now. The awfulness though. Ugh.
@Villago Delenda Est: Oh yes absolutely. The stupidity and willful blindness of this must have appeared before but I date it to that horrid book Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg.
@Cervantes: yep, typo. I am blaming the meds. Have a good day out there.
trollhattan
@WereBear:
Similar reaction here. And a question: how many times did he go through the motions before deciding to open fire? I’m guessing he worked himself up to the murders and has been packing that gun for awhile. Shopping malls and college campuses were other potential targets; did he go there armed and decided not to shoot that day? How many times?
Amir Khalid
@metricpenny:
But no matter what she says about the Charleston shooting and race, she”ll never have Knowbody’s.
Omnes Omnibus
@gogol’s wife: Ha!
@Amir Khalid: Also, ha!
Baud
@Amir Khalid:
Another point in her favor.
Gimlet
I know a fair number of Republicans that are not backwater hicks.
When confronted with all the craziness about evolution, a six thousand year old planet, etc., the reply is they vote Republican because they themselves are financial conservatives.
Cervantes
@Amir Khalid:
Resist the temptation to speak for someone else!
WereBear
@Gimlet: So they vote for the party who crashed the world economy, TWICE, in the last hundred years?
Smooth move!
schrodinger's cat
@Gimlet: Translation: They are rich and don’t like to pay taxes. If you look at the objective reality the Democratic Presidents have been far better than their Republican counterparts where the economy is concerned. Compare Obama and Clinton to Bush II, for example.
KG
thanks to all who offered music suggestions last night, everything being taken into consideration.
Germy Shoemangler
@metricpenny:
One of the shooting victims had appeared earlier that day at a HRC campaign rally.
trollhattan
@Germy Shoemangler:
Really? Wow.
Germy Shoemangler
@schrodinger’s cat:
But those tasty Bush II tax cuts!
It boils down to them not wanting to pay taxes. They literally feel like they’re being robbed. It’s how they think. Any tax on them is (in their minds) no different from a pickpocket.
Elizabelle
Granted, this is from the Daily Mail UK, which is pretty much a TMZ type scandal and celeb rag.
Story on domestic violence in shooter Dylann Roof’s home. Documents filed in his father’s divorce from the step-mom. Although the current neighbors say the dad is a nice guy.
Do not be drinking coffee as you scroll down to pic of the dad walking around shirtless in the aftermath of his son’s violence.
The meanness and derision to the stepmom, financial and emotional control, escalating to physical violence. And then Dylann, pretty much abandoned and dropping out of school at age 15. Sounds like the stepmom provided some structure for him. (Of course, it’s her side of the story.)
Does not excuse anything he did, but curious as to how he became the shooter who acted on his rage. What does it say that his peers did not find his language or threats that unusual?
Gimlet
@WereBear:
I didn’t say I agreed with them, I just wanted to point out they don’t have to believe all that ridiculous crap to vote Republican. And yes I know the “financial conservative” position is ridiculous too.
Amir Khalid
@Cervantes:
Knowbody himself (herself? itself?) has already made this plain.
opiejeanne
@schrodinger’s cat: I am a Methodist (one of the mainline Protestant churches) and Thursday night is choir practice; I think it’s one of the articles of faith, like coffee is for Lutherans. Bible study for us was not set on Wednesday, though. At one church it was Thursday, during choir practice, at other churches it was Tuesday or Wednesday evening. We are more adamant about choir practice than Bible studies, it appears.
Elizabelle
@Gimlet: Hope they enjoyed the Great Recession!
Although they probably loved seeing government scaled back, on the federal and local level. Whatever it takes …
Gimlet
@Germy Shoemangler:
And they HATE the perceived moochers ala Romney.
WereBear
@Gimlet: Oh, I figured that. It’s just that every excuse for voting Republican turns out to be a lie.
Germy Shoemangler
@trollhattan:
JPL
So the unemployed, high school dropout, Dylann Storm Roof thought blacks had low i.q.’s.
He became racist because of Treyvon Martin. What a sorry ass little weasel this guy is and I hope he’s tried on federal terrorist charges and sent to supermax.
Liquid
Must Add Somewhere — Mad Max is the first movie in twenty+ years that I will see twice.
JPL
@scav: What a neat idea. Have stickers made saying welcome to South Carolina with Dylann holding the confederate flag.
schrodinger's cat
@opiejeanne: What is the distinction between mainline and borderline (evangelical)? Antiquity? Numbers?
Germy Shoemangler
The unemployed high school dropout with the vacant stare of a mole rat and an Ish Kabibble haircut thought blacks had low IQs, and so he shot a group of successful, college-educated black people.
He should be locked up and forced to endure what Kalief Browder (an innocent man) suffered.
Mike in NC
“The American Civil War: both sides did it!”
/ Media Village Idiots
Redshift
@WereBear: Yeah. The only two presidents who have nearly doubled the national debt are Republicans. Anyone who is a Republican because they claim to be “fiscally conservative” must acknowledge that it has nothing to do with debt and deficits, just selfishness.
Gimlet
@Redshift:
“Fiscally conservative” is just a meaningless associated tag like “Fair and Balanced”.
beltane
Is Mitt Romney the only national Republican to call for the removal of the Confederate flag from the SC capitol?
scav
@gogol’s wife: Probably. I’m stellar at misspelling, especially when agitated and I’m acing my lack of gruntletude score at the moment. Trying desperately to better my mode (ETA or mood, I’ll take either. See!) with old editions of In Our Time on totally unknown to me topics.
JPL
@beltane: McCain did ages ago, but he’s been so busy pounding the war drums, he hasn’t the time to comment on the home grown terrorist.
Villago Delenda Est
@Gimlet: It’s projection. They know that they’re parasites deep down inside.
Elizabelle
@beltane: So far, apparently.
Michael Barbaro in the NY Times:
Seemed? Just seemed?
Good on Mitt.
And he’s just dropped a hot ball into other candidates’ laps. The high road must seem all the sweeter chez Romney today.
WereBear
@Villago Delenda Est: And not even successful parasites!
Left unchecked, they kill the host.
Elizabelle
@Villago Delenda Est: They benefit from public services, whether they admit it or not. And they don’t want to pay their fair share.
scav
2007, January: Archimedes
2001, January: Mathematics and Platonism
2001, June: The Sonnet
Anything!
Redshift
@Gimlet: Yes, but unfortunately it’s in use by a much broader segment of the population. Everyone knows now that “fair and balanced” labels you as a Fox viewer, so it’s been poisoned for the rest of the population (mostly.) “Fiscally conservative” is still used by people like my dad and my senator (Warner) and NPR, who buy into the idea that deficits are a very serious problem, and think Republicans are part of the solution instead of the major cause of the problem.
mai naem mobile
@JPL: I don’t want him in Supermax. From what I understand you ‘re basically in solitary in Supermax. This guy needs to be in the general population preferably in a facility with a lot of black inmates. I don’t want any harm to come to him. I just want him to be living in stark terror(like he did to the church) fearing that one of the inmates is going to shank him.
beltane
@Elizabelle: It’s amazing how the so-called moderate wing of the GOP has vanished over the past couple of decades. Now, even the most basic gesture acknowledging American values is something most members of that party are totally incapable of. Kudos to Romney here.
JPL
@mai naem mobile: That works.
I want his picture holding the confederate flag plastered all over far and wide, so anytime some one sees that symbol, they associate only with hate. If it hurts the SC economy, so be it.
SiubhanDuinne
@beltane:
@Elizabelle:
Hard to tell, but here are some who are defending it (I especially like the quote from Huckabee):
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/meet-republican-candidates-who-have-defended-confederate-flag
Should note that some of these defenses are several years old. If any of these candidates admits to changing positions on this issue, I’ll be the first to applaud. Loudly.
tazj
@Gimlet: That’s exactly how people who I know, that aren’t evangelicals, explain voting Republican. They can’t elaborate as to why the Republican party should be considered more fiscally responsible but they just know it’s true. They don’t know or care that Bush and Reagan ran up deficits or that a deficit isn’t always a bad thing. They supposedly don’t believe in discriminating against minorities and gays or making it harder for women to get birth control but they just can’t , can’t, vote for a Democrat. That would be irresponsible and they’re responsible people after all.
Elizabelle
Timely blogpost from Kevin Drum: It’s Long Past Time For South Carolina to Stop Flying the Confederate Flag
It went up to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Civil War, it was assumed it would only fly for a year, but no one wrote that into the legislation. So it stayed.
But look at what was going on in South Carolina the very week the flag went up, on April 11, 1961:
Drum says the flag stayed up as a “safe” protest against civil rights. And it is time to take it down.
Villago Delenda Est
@Elizabelle: They not only benefit, their wealth would not exist except for the invisible infrastructure of the state, which must be paid for, if the state is to continue and their wealth to be preserved.
They want to freeload on everyone else.
WereBear
@mai naem mobile: I understand the vengeful impulse, but the worst thing that could happen to him is actually him actually developing, becoming mature and self-aware, realizing what a number was done upon him by hatemongers and parents, and coming to understand the horror and enormity of what he did.
But this would require actual rehabilitation, which he’s not going to get. So your scenario, while far more likely, will just make him more of a violent jerk than he is now.
People in that situation never think, “Gee, I’m being a violent jerk.” It will just confirm his feelings about racism. And perpetuate the dangerous and unsupporting world-view that drove him into hate groups in the first place.
He’s absolutely dangerous and he’s done an incredibly awful thing. He had his chance to NOT do it, and he didn’t take it. You might say he did choose the Dark Side.
I’m just against making our prisons actual hell holes. If only because of the innocents who get sent there.
Elizabelle
@beltane: It is horrifying.
I wonder if we will hear anything from the Republican leaders of the more moderate past, Bob Dole (who saw ADA legislation go kapow due to Tea Partiers when he was personally on the Senate floor to advocate for it); Nancy Reagan, Ma or Pa Bush (although they don’t want to step on Jeb!, and who knows what part of his foot he has in his mouth today)
… Maybe former Senator John Warner, John Danforth, Nancy Landon Kassebaum … who else is around? Not expecting anything out of Trent Lott or Newt Gingrich …
WereBear
@tazj: When I was a child, the Republicans were the Party of Grownups, and the Democrats were the party of minorities, hippies, and whiny babies who should man up and go over to the ‘Nam like real men.
They can’t be a part of that group. Even if, especially if, that group turned out to be right about everything.
Suzanne
@schrodinger’s cat: It’s no fun sharing a country with them, either.
Elizabelle
@Villago Delenda Est: So true. We could ask these fiscal conservatives where they would like to emigrate to. Perhaps they should, getting such a raw deal here.
piratedan
and after South Carolina, we should have a chat with the folks of Georgia and Mississippi about their state flags
Gimlet
@Elizabelle:
It was moved to its current location ONLY because of the threat of economic boycott nationally. That is what it will take to get any further action on it.
Elizabelle
I honestly think this kid is young and unformed enough that he might eventually realize what he’s done. He needs to be in prison, but he need not be tortured, and SuperMax sounds like it’s more punitive than protective.
I think we are going to have a public discussion on SuperMax in the next few years.
schrodinger's cat
@WereBear: They are now a party of toddlers, who throw a hissy fit when they don’t get what they want. Apologies to toddlers who don’t know any better because they are 2. GOPers have no such excuse and are not as cute either.
Chickamin Slam
On a more light hearted note …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyCbrhwK_ek
Betty did say “Everybody dance” …
Elizabelle
@Gimlet: South Carolina may see a drop off in tourism.
Disney saw the light after they replaced their Orlando-based American IT Disneyworld employees with temporary Indian contractors — who had to be trained by the laid off. Disney decided against pulling the same trick with a TV division (would have affected 35); cancelled that move.
I don’t know how many of the 250 laid off Orlando employees got called back. Disney mumbled that a few had been; haven’t followed that story …
Point being: hit them in the wallet. Money is about the only thing that talks to these weasels.
schrodinger's cat
@Suzanne: Problem is that they are everywhere. There is a Confederate flagger about two miles from where I live. Its Massachusetts for crying out loud not the Dixie heartland.
trollhattan
@Elizabelle:
One thing for sure: he won’t be in with the general population, where his lifespan would best be measured in hours.
different-church-lady
@Elizabelle: Yes. Now all we have to do is convince him that yes, the bottom 47% of the country actually do deserve to have things like food, and he’ll be well on the way to reformation.
Woodrowfan
I’m mainline Presbyterian (PCUSA) so we have committee meetings during the week. If he’d gone to one of our churches on a Wednesday night he would have a found a group of people discussing a budget or some other nitty-gritty details required to run a small organization and maintain a building. Ernest, polite, and dull.
Gimlet
@Elizabelle:
Has to be more than theoretical.
There must be cancelled events, cancelled vacation reservations. It must be measurable.
schrodinger's cat
@WereBear: So they are more like viruses, then.
different-church-lady
@Elizabelle:
If you ain’t figured out that slaughtering nine human beings is wrong by the time you’re, say, 12, you ain’t never going to figure it out.
Elizabelle
@Gimlet: I think that might be what happened with Disney. Again, I don’t know that (and will look). But the NYTimes story got like 2,000+ reader comments, virtually of them against Disney, and a lot of folks were planning to cancel and boycott.
Has anyone else seen any Disney coverage lately on that issue?
PurpleGirl
@Mike J:
I’d guess almost every church in the area has Wednesday night bible study.
It’s traditional in American Protestant churches to have Bible Study on Wednesday night. Choir practice is almost always on Thursday night. This is nation-wide. The Lutheran congregation I belonged to for 10 years had Bible Study on Wednesday and Choir on Thursday. Education committee met on Tuesday,. I forget what happened on other night, like Women’s Altar Guild, Executive Committee, etc. And you can’t have two groups meeting at the same time because so many of the group memebres belong to multipke groups. It got to the point that I was spending 4 or 5 nights a week at church for something. ETA: I’m in NYC.
Elizabelle
@different-church-lady: He knows it’s wrong. In his manifesto, he was applauding himself for being the one brave enough to put action to words.
But after a few years, perhaps the swagger will wear off and he will comprehend what he did. He took 9 lives, and destroyed his own in the doing.
Perhaps optimistic ….
Woodrowfan
@schrodinger’s cat:
Mainline tend to be much less interested in “saving” the “unchurched.” We also tend to be more liberal, although we can also be conservative. We also tend to answer to larger organizations (as opposed to the independent little churches you see that answer to nobody but God, and he tends to tell them what the ministers wants.) Our mission trips tend to be to work on things like clean water systems or new school houses rather than preaching. Oh, and our ministers tend to have advanced degrees from real, accredited universities as opposed to Jim Bob’s Bible School and Muffler Shop.
Some examples of things you may have seen/
Big church on town’s main street built before 1970: Mainline
Church in small storefront in decaying strip mall: Evangelical
HUGE church in suburbs build after 1980: Evangelical
long name like “Four-Square Fundamentalist Bible Baptist Church”: Evangelical
Named after a Saint: St Mark’s”: Mainline
Named after a Pope: Catholic
Minister is a woman but she is NOT the wife of another of the church’s ministers: Mainline
Minister’s wife also preaches but goes by “Sister something”: Evangelical
Church has own TV show or “Christian School”: Evangelical
Secular daycare rents basement of church during week: Mainline
Has food bank or clothing bank: Either
Does not preach to those receiving food or clothing: Mainline
Supports Gay Marriage: Probably Mainline (but not all do)
Minister invites local Muslim Imam to come talk during Interfaith Week: Mainline
Minister has Darwin Fish AND a Jesus Fish on back of car: Mainline
Leaves religious pamphlet for waitress instead of cash as tip: Evangelical
Pronounces “Jesus” using at least three syllables: Evangelical
Minister uses slightly dated pop culture reference in sermon: Mainline
Minister uses slightly dated pop culture reference in sermon AND gets it totally wrong: Evangelical
Bible Study Wednesday Night: Evangelical
Committee Meeting Wednesday night: Mainline
Liquid
@Elizabelle: Your optimism warms the sub-cockles of my cold heart; The few remaining bits of hope fly with you.
Kathleen
@Elizabelle: Do I need to come over there and take your remote?
scav
His resolution/redemption, for good or ill is almost the least of it. How this society, at multiple scales and sub-populations — local, state, nation, media, political, church-going, purple, white, non-religous, gun-worshipping, gelatophobic — is of far more long-term interest to me. He can stew in his own juices, whatever they may be, preferably as far away as possible from anyone or anything he can damage further for as long as possible. I want society better after this, or at least to make a feeble pretense of learning and adaptive change.
SiubhanDuinne
@piratedan:
Georgia?
Elizabelle
@Kathleen: Not watching Fox; promise you. But thank you for the concern!
TCM just started “All the King’s Men”; had only missed 5 minutes so got that on now.
WereBear
@schrodinger’s cat: Brilliant! Yep.
Elizabelle
Betty’s put up a fresh thread.
Two swans swimming …
WereBear
@Elizabelle: Mercedes McCambridge is my favorite part of that one, actually.
different-church-lady
@Elizabelle:
Jeez, the Twelve Days of Christmas already?
Elizabelle
@different-church-lady: It’s often cooler and dryer then!
@WereBear: Yeah. Have not seen it for several years, and she was great. It’s young Willie Stark now. The Kanoma school just collapsed due to graft (poor building materials). He’s in the news …
He got his law degree. His teacher wife helped him. Cuz who would dream of sending a well educated woman to law school, then …
And: Mercedes!! Think her first line was “Find a dummy.”
And here she is. In Willie Stark’s living room.
PurpleGirl
@schrodinger’s cat: Yes, it has been shown that man evolved in Africa, in the Rift Valley. But, hey, evilution ain’t true… G_d created the world in 6 days, 6,000 years ago.
ETA: We mock the History Channel for lots of solid reasons, but Discovery Communications has other channels where they do show lots of science-based shows. Recently they had a show tracing mankind back to the primates we came from. Also, it seems that the enlarging of our brains may be tied to climate changes we had to cope with.
piratedan
@SiubhanDuinne:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Georgia_%28U.S._state%29
rikyrah
@Germy Shoemangler:
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
FlipYrWhig
@Redshift: “Fiscally conservative” means “I don’t want the government to take my hard-earned money and waste it on lazy Negroes, dope fiend Negro-lovers, and irresponsible girls who can’t keep their legs shut.” It’s dressed up in other sentiments as well, but that’s all it really means. Ask an avowed fiscal conservative what the government is supposed to spend less on. The answer will be “Welfare” or something that means the same thing.
Villago Delenda Est
@FlipYrWhig: Or “Foreign Aid”, but don’t touch the billions going to Israel.
J R in WV
Someone from away asked about churches and the variations of them, so here’s a non-church-goer’s version of that:
Mainline religions pay their ministers a living wage, cut them a paycheck on a regular schedule. Evangelilcal “churches” pay their ministers their cut (percentage take) of the donations, so that if there are thousands of “paying customers” coming each sunday, those ministers make a wheelbarrow full of cash money, tax free, as it’s a cash donation, mostly.
My Episcopal minister friend sat beside an evangelical on an airline flight, and was very disappointed with what she learned about the evangelicals and how they run their churches for profit.
Plus the education, mainstream churches have well educated ministers, as mentioned, and evangelicals have ministers who have memorized the important (to their denomination) chapters and verses of the specific gawd-blessed bible they believe in. Without much of any understanding of the history or translations their “Word” has passed through. 6000 years old is a real belief! Just not a true fact.
My immediate family helped form a Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship, which is a lay-organized group that can’t afford a full-time minister. Unitarians largely don’t believe in the god-hood of Jesus, but believe in a single deity. But there is no set of rules and beliefs you have to ascribe to in order to join a U-U congregation, so the beliefs of the members vary quite a bit compared to most religions.
We were preached against on the radio because we weren’t “Christian” and would lead ordinary people to hell with us if they weren’t warned every Sunday on the radio by…I forget his name now, but it will come to me. I got quite a bit of flack from other kids on Mondays on account of Rev. Waldron, there it is, I knew it was still in the archives somewhere. I didn’t listen to him very much, as he was quite the hell-fire and brimstone preacher. As I was the fuel for his fire, it wasn’t very comfortable to hear every Sunday.
Haven’t had any use for those folks since I was a little boy.