My sister is an idiot politically. I’m not being mean when I say this- she will admit it. So she is always posting stuff on facebook about current events and people go in and explain things to her. Today, this was her offering:
“So if Trump ends the Dreamers program, why does that mean those already in it have to leave? Breaks my heart seeing all of these students afraid.”
At any rate, there was some random back and forth, and then this idiot shows up:
I’ve blocked out the name of the idiot posting that stuff, but I thought I would let you know that is my 1st grade teacher who used to be one of the nicest, sweetest, decent human beings. We all loved her. I have no idea what happened. Or maybe she was a closet racist the whole time and we were all too young to notice.
If you are wondering how we got to where we are now, there is your answer.
Walker
This. I had one of these in 4th grade, when Reagan was elected. She would say things offhand in class that we were not smart enough to catch then, but in hindsight…
Booger
Fox News? Rush? Hannity? All of the above?
debbie
Nice that it was provided both with and without numbers. Certain to lessen any confusion.
dmsilev
I’ll hazard a guess that it’s a combination of being a bit of a closet racist combined with twenty or thirty years of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh etc. stoking that closet racism into a full-blown overt case.
trollhattan
Huh.
On one hand “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”
Or “No mercy.”
Tough choice there.
schrodingers_cat
Does your first grade teacher listen to Limbaugh? Ignorance and paranoia are a potent combination.
Baud
Your comment was much nicer than what we have been subject to.
Baud
@Booger: Church?
trollhattan
@Baud:
His sister–such delicate ears.
dmsilev
Also, too,
You might think about pasting that in as a reply to her. It’d burn the bridges, sure, but sounds like it’s a bridge that you wouldn’t want to cross anyway.
West of the Cascades
@trollhattan: I think these people use the King James Version and stop after “suffer the little children.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The US is not a patsy… key part of the trumpian worldview. Someone’s getting away with something. They don’t know what, but they’re being cheated somehow. By somebody. Somewhere..
Dual citizenship? is that what she thinks they’re getting away with, or her proposed solution? I know that’s completely contradictory, but she’s a trumpster. So she’s an idiot.
dmsilev
@West of the Cascades:
The Bible, in its original English.
JPL
You might mention that even if the parents entered legally, that does not mean the children will have the same rights. What about them?
Starfish
There are a number of women in my circles who are like this. They are people who I did not know to be very political who spout off in just the dumbest ways. They weren’t always like this, and Facebook has made them all worse.
trollhattan
@West of the Cascades:
Well played.
clay
“And what exactly does this accomplish?”
Notice she didn’t answer this one…
Major Major Major Major
@dmsilev: my guess as well. And now we all have to live with having these people as a sizable portion of the voters.
Hoodie
Had a similar experience recently. A neighbor, nice guy, does a lot of sincere work for charity and is always the first to help out a neighbor, launches into a rant at a neighborhood gathering about how Obama is a Muslim terrorist. It was pure raw emotion. The guy used to be a coke addict, maybe that’s got something to do with it.
trollhattan
@Starfish:
Even parents we know who are circumspect about their politics are getting outed by their kids spewing stuff about “stupid liberals” etc. It’s jolting coming from a seventh-grader.
schrodingers_cat
Does your first grade teacher have any idea about the path to citizenship if you are here on a work visa?
My friend who won two prestigious and competitive fellowships (one to Johns Hopkins and the other to NIH) is having a hard time of it.
ETA: She is a pediatric oncologist.
The Simp in the Suit
I find it useful to remind myself every once in a while that the rightwing, including Koch Bros, other bazillionaires, Murdoch and Fox, and the GOP itself, have spent bazillions on Madison Avenue, think tanks, and individuals who bring to bear ALL that we have ever discovered about psychology — all of it — and how to use that knowledge to influence humans across a spectrum of thought and action. They use this knowledge on the populace in the certainty that about 25% will be completely manipulated and another 25% will be captured on some but not all broad issues.
Effective. Evil, but effective. They set out to intentionally appeal to and amplify the worst in human beings, and they succeeded. And all for a dollar.
One of the many outcomes is that people you and I used to know as kind, open-minded, and thoughtful have become over time, well, what you just described.
Major Major Major Major
@dmsilev: if it was good enough for jesus, then it’s good enough for immigrants.
schrodingers_cat
@Starfish: Its an amen chorus of ignorance and stupid.
Another Scott
Viewing the world in black and white makes things easy. I think a lot of people supported Clinton’s impeachment because it was (obviously) a black-and-white thing.
At least, it’s easy when you’re judging other people.
I’m sure she would have been happy with sending me and my playmates to juvenile hall when we (accidentally) burned down some trees when we were playing with fire as grade-school kids.
Rules are rules, after all, amirite?
What’s that you say??
Matthew 7:1-3?
(sigh)
Maybe ask her who is pushing for these DACA revocations, and how they’re benefitting if they come to be. Of all the problems in this country, is not prosecuting and expelling children and young adults really at the top of the list? If so, why?
Cheers,
Scott.
Elizabelle
Fox News.
Next?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@trollhattan: The first one sounds like “Hippy Jesus”, the second sounds like “Real ‘Merican Jesus”.
patrick II
She was probably just a normal good person with no reason to show racism if there were no minorities in your class. She might not have known herself and never found out until, as others say above, she has been taught otherwise by FOX and Limbaugh.
Leaders are leaders and followers are followers, and Trump, FOX, Limbaugh have led people with little imagination to their worst selves.
I am from Indiana, and I go back home on occasion to visit family, and talking to people there now has become a struggle. Things have changed. I generally stick to basketball.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
You know, they are being cheated, by Trump. It’s what he does.
geg6
Fuck that old hag. I’d take a million Dreamers over an asshole like her. I’m guessing that was a pretty white first grade or you would have noticed she was a bigot even at that tender age.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
I have a distinct recollection of my 1st grade teacher in my de facto segregated public elementary school refer to people of color conspiratorially as ni-GRAS. It was weird – even though my wife was an RWNJ, I knew she was being an asshole. I also remember the counselor on the steps when I was going n 4th grade whispering for us to not say anything or notice anything when the bus for the kids from a home for kids from troubled families arrived. Honestly, I’d have never noticed anything different.
schrodingers_cat
@geg6: Obama’s two terms have brought out the worst in many who used to be polite about their bigotries.
trollhattan
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
And the Patriot Lord spake: “WOLVERINES!”
Garbo
I would like to see the Venn diagram of the “we’re the world’s patsies” crowd and people who have never set foot outside the U.S.
Baud
Suggested response:
1. Mercy.
2. They can and should blame Trump and the GOP.
3. My U.S. is kind and generous, not hateful.
4. A path to citizenship for the children and their parents.
HRA
@JPL:
My parents and I at age 11 came legally in the US. I was given a green card, too.
dexwood
Racist all along. You now see it. If her posts are public (don’t know if they are, since I generally ignore the medium), why black out an idiot racist? Respect for the elderly? Not trying to cause trouble in a small town? I ask admitting I’m not sure what I’d do here, but lean towards identifying the “idiot”
geg6
@schrodingers_cat:
Sure did. Someone I have known since I was a teenager told me I was a race traitor because we had an Obama sign in the yard. Of course, he was always an asshole.
charluckles
I just don’t understand why people care so much. How is it going to make her life better to ruin someone elses?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Garbo: I dont have the data, but people on the TeeVee often say that anti-immigration sentiment is highest in areas where the number of actual immigrants is pretty low;
Hey, Cole, you wanna ask the old bat how immigration has negatively impacted her life ?
p.a.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: My wingnut relatives revel in the US’s military might yet at the same time conceive of the country as a delicate flower under constant threat. From immigrants, foreign gvts (and their trade negotiators!!!), ‘enemies domestic and foreign’ etc. It’s endemic. Remember 2002-2003 when ‘we’ actually conceived of Iraq as a threat.
Jeffro
People are tweeting passages from Hillary’s new book and all I can say is OUCH to Wilmer and his supporters
OUCHOUCHOUCH
Baud
@Jeffro: You’re making me want to read this despite the ongoing emotional pain.
karensky
Tooo much Fox News
kindness
Wow, your 1st grade teacher, eh? She seems……..nice.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: Agree.
trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Immigration killed coal.
cokane
she’s just really economically anxious, Cole
Zanamu
Only Arpiao gets to break the law.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@Jeffro: Sounds good, got any links ?
dexwood
Fortunately for you, for us, some lessons you didn’t learn from her.
JPL
@HRA: Thanks It is my understanding that it’s not automatically renewed.
In Houston a person on DACA died while trying to aid in rescues of Harvey victims. His father was here legally, and he came at the age of fourteen.
Baud
@Zanamu: And Trump!
Starfish
@dexwood: Not wanting to get someone you know doxxed is completely legitimate.
They are probably not going to listen to you telling them that they are wrong, but the internet pile ons are not going to change their mind.
Jeffro
@Baud: I am so incredibly reading it asap
On a side note, I have a funny feeling we will be hearing from PBO sometime this week re: DACA. Just a feeling…
Starfish
@schrodingers_cat: My mom is a pediatrician in a medically underserved area and took twenty or more years to complete her citizenship process.
Chet Murthy
@dexwood: I think John did the right thing by anonymizing. We’re still the good guys, and we shouldn’t be doxxing people unless they’re active hazards to life and decency. She didn’t (so far as we know) show up at a rally waving a burning torch, after all.
[Lemme put it this way: Washington insisted on decent treatment for POWs, and one of his reasons was that it would encourage his (our) adversaries the Brits to reciprocate. The RWNJs can escalate this genre of tactic as far as they want, b/c they don’t see us as human. Let’s not give them that oppty.]
Chet Murthy
@Jeffro: uh, link? for the curious?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes, but they have to press “1” to hear things in English. And yes, this bothers some people and they think it’s because the liberal government requires companies to do that.
JPL
When my younger son was in first grade, he came home and told me that the number of deaths during the holocaust was exaggerated. He was advanced in reading so we sat down and looked at a book about WWII. The next day, you bet I was at the school, and the teacher said he misunderstood the lesson. Fortunately, other parents called in.
Yeah not all first grade teachers are angels.
Baud
@JPL: They cover the Holocaust in first grade?
Another Scott
@Chet Murthy: Downstairs has one.
Cheers,
Scott.
JGabriel
John Cole’s First Grade Teacher:
I always love it when people who are nominally devout Christians start shouting, “No mercy here!” It’s like they’re completely oblivious to Christ’s opinions on the subject of mercy.
Barbara
And yet, you live in a state where it seems that No One is responsible for figuring out how to do something besides mine coal, and doctors and pharma and bla bla bla are responsible for all the bad choices that get made when it comes to opioids. What if I said to the parents of someone who died from overdose — “No mercy. They knew those drugs were addictive when they started taking them. It’s their own fault. We shouldn’t be patsies for having to bail them out of their own illegal choices.” I’d be an asshole and possibly a monster. And so is your first grade teacher. Responsibility is only for other people.
Eural Joiner
Wow – Mr. Cole you just described my mom – sweetest, kindest most generous woman, taught first grade 30+ years, salt of the earth. In the past 10 years she sits in front of FOX news alone (my dad passed away) and she’s now a raving, racist lunatic who is constantly worried about “the thugs” (that aren’t even in our small town). Sad. Tragically sad.
Major Major Major Major
@?BillinGlendaleCA: they also think the government can do something to make it so they don’t have to push 1 for English.
Deport everybody who doesn’t speak English, I guess.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Scott: OMG, that’s funny. #HillaryHatesPonies
james parente
This reminds me of a neighbor, in Copiague NY. His house was not substantially damaged in Sandy. Mine was.
I was complaining to him about the problems with the flood insurance companies and the confused “recovery” efforts of NYS. This asshole responds: “If you were a Nig-(clang) they would be throwing $$ at you!”
Union Operating Engineer and class A bigot.
What can I expect, though? The district keeps electing Peter King (R, NY 2).
Baud
@Another Scott:
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
The reply tweets are butt hurt.
Snarki, child of Loki
How do you say “your ancestors came in illegally, so YOU can be summarily deported” in Navaho?
AFAF
JPL
@Baud: Well imagine my surprise. When a first grader comes home with a statement like that, it didn’t take me long to correct the information. The principal transferred her to fourth grade, then she found a job elsewhere.
Not sure how that was a misunderstanding.
I wonder what she would say about DACA
HinTN
@Another Scott: I believed in “black and white” when I was twenty. The world has taught me a lot of shades of gray since then. But those shades require discernment and thought to evaluate and plot a course through them. And that takes effort, which we’re told should not be required… because we’re chosen, or whatever fuck all panacea du jour is in vogue today.
/ grump
debbie
@Baud:
My nieces and nephews were taught about the Holocaust and about slavery at that age. Hard to reconcile with my Dick and Jane primers.
dexwood
@Snarki, child of Loki:
To be fair, the Pueblo Indians were here before the Navajo, a nomadic people before their sedentary existence.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major:
With a good number of these folk, I think that’s the plan.
Starfish
@Barbara: There are people making those exact arguments because they don’t want to find money to give first responders, librarians and others Narcan to carry to prevent overdose deaths.
skip
If you follow that logic, it’s a great argument for African-Americans being paid reparations for slavery.
eemom
This depressing as shit post is the perfect accompaniment to my present state of mind.
JGabriel
@West of the Cascades:
… While conveniently forgetting that the meaning of suffer in that context is: “show tolerance for and/or acceptance of …” the little children.
Millard Filmore
@Zanamu:
And Trump.
And Trump’s close family.
And his inner circle.
And his outer circle.
And top Republicans.
And some mid-tier Republicans.
And billionaires.
Millard Filmore
Ben Wexler
@mrbenwexler
I have no sympathy for these kids.
Their parents broke the law.
They don’t have jobs.
They cost taxpayers money.
Deport Eric & Don Jr.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029552801
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: “How dare you compare Health Care to ponies…”
dexwood
@Starfish:
I understand your point. I know too many people who will not listen.
Baud
Hillary should have visited first grade classrooms.
HinTN
@eemom: Honey, I love you. Just the other night I was thinking, “Where the hell is eemom?” Seriously, I respect the shit you stir up that i cannot!
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Well, they are both a right and not a privilege.
Amaranthine RBG
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/04/summer-employers-trump-guest-worker-visas-immigration-242271?lo=ap_c1
dmsilev
@?BillinGlendaleCA: What about health care _for_ ponies, huh?
dexwood
@Chet Murthy:
I’d like to agree, but i still don’t know, were her comments open to all, or limited to her contacts?
Sloane Ranger
Her reply is almost word for word the same as her original post. She doesn’t seem to be responding to your points John. Could she be suffering from dementia?
patrick II
I checked Trump’s Gallup poll numbers today, as I do most days. Since his DACA announcement, his numbers jumped four points (34% to 38%), which is disgusting enough as way too many of our fellow Americans show their racist hearts. But it also made me worry that Trump’s drop in the polls from the 46% that elected him to his present 38% isn’t because he is being a bad president, but, as DACA shows until now, he has not been bad enough. Maybe he isn’t successful quickly enough at building the wall, or taking insurance away from 20 million people, maybe his EPA isn’t destroying our environment fast enough, or he hasn’t war-mongered enough. That 12% of Trump voters may be unhappy with him for entirely different reasons than me.
Shell
Its that ‘no mercy’ that gets me. So much viciousness in one phrase.
Baud
@patrick II: No way DACA is reflected in the polls.
Chet Murthy
@dexwood: Since I don’t use FB, I can’t answer. But really, it shouldn’t matter. Purely instrumentally, do you want your loved ones doxxed? I sure don’t. In which case, we shouldn’t doxx others, right? Simple rule goes a long way. It’s not ironclad: there comes a point where you do it, or support it, b/c people go beyond the pale. But *solely* posting nasty shit on FB? That’s not really enough, is it?
dmsilev
@patrick II: He hasn’t officially announced anything (right now, all we have are leaks, which have gotten some news coverage but nothing like what will happen when there’s an actual announcement). Besides, polls always lag the news by a few today’s, between the time needed to collate the data and the fact that the tracking polls are typically three-day running averages. More to the point, four percentage points is within the noise band for these polls; wait a month and look at the long-term trends before losing all hope in humanity.
patrick II
@Baud:
It’s gallups daily poll and often moves with recent news. It is not smart to take one day too seriously, (but I’m not that smart anyway) but we’ll see where it goes over the next little bit.
zhena gogolia
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Yeah, maddening!!!!!
dexwood
@Chet Murthy:
In my mind it does matter. Not a FB user myself, but public comments matter regardless. I am not responsible for my relatives or my first grade teacher who ought to know better. Really, why shouldn’t people who say and do hateful things be named if they are so open about their prejudices ? Silence really does imply consent.
Chet, my apology, but I really do need to go.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
#EconomicAnxiety
Splitting Image
My mother’s cousin (who lives in Ireland) told her awhile back that she doesn’t believe the Holocaust ever happened. Trump supporter, naturally. My mother stopped talking politics with her but she still gets regular reports from my aunt.
A friend of mine from years ago who was one of the most militant feminists I’ve ever met (not anti-male, but anti-“alpha male” asshole types) also turned by degrees into a Trump supporter. Turned out she hated Muslims more than she valued women’s rights, or her own.
hueyplong
Maybe someone who is so proud of “no mercy” might soon find herself in a position to be soliciting some.
Then we’ll see what kind she gets:
(a) None
(b) Strained
(c) Provided for profit
(d) Full and unqualified
It’s probably too much to hope that the situation would prompt some self-aware introspection.
cain
Was the penis shaped blocking on purpose or not?
Major Major Major Major
@Baud:
I am shocked to find butthurt lefties on Twitter.
patrick II
@dmsilev:
Probably wise advise. But it got me thinking that maybe his poll numbers the same sort of miscalculation that Obamacare numbers had. At one time 60% of voters “disapproved” of Obamacare, but twenty percent of those just wanted it improved or single payer, not repealed, as the Republicans found out. So, we accumulated two reasons for not liking Obamacare into one number. What is Trump disapproval is the same? What if some Trump voters are angry not because he is doing bad things, but he is not accomplishing the dismantling of the government fast enough?
Felonius Monk
@JGabriel:
It is thus written in “The Art of Christian Bigotry”.
Ruckus
@Hoodie:
The one flaming drumpf supporter that I know was a meth addict. So you may be on to something. Of course he’s also been very quiet the last few months and stays as far out of my way at work as possible so maybe not every brain cell is dead.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
TCM is currently running “GIANT”
It’s full of decent white folk who hate brown people.
Joy in FL
@patrick II: That is a very disturbing thought that I cannot now unthink.
I bet you are right about his far right supporters not approving of 45* for very different reasons from ours.
SFAW
@Baud:
Is “are butt hurt” the Safe-For-Work version of “are a bunch of moronic BernieBro assholes failing to get the fucking point, with a vengeance”?
Ruckus
@schrodingers_cat:
Do you think she’d care if she did actually know how hard and difficult it is? Or that she’d think that it should be much harder?
I call them drawbridge citizens.
They want all the avenues closed once their families got here, no more immigrants for them, coming in and screwing up the place.
Major Major Major Major
@patrick II: you shouldn’t really look at any individual day’s results. I think the 3-day rolling average is standard.
JPL
@patrick II: Recent news was his visit to Houston.
tobie
@Baud:
@patrick II: I suspect the bump in his poll numbers has more to do with his handling of Hurricane Harvey, which people perceived as competent and his seemingly presidential demeanor during his second visit. The press gushed about this.
cain
@patrick II:
I grew up in Indiana, but grew up in a college town. Most of my high school friends tend to be progressives. My conservative friends tend to be fairly rational for the most part with genuine affection for me. I haven’t seen any of them go on some anti-immigration rant, but they do reflexively defend Republicans.
What I usually do on Facebook is do double entendres so they don’t react negatively. My last post was something along the lines of “In the 80s life was really simple back then, we all hated Russia. Now I can’t get my hate on without pissing anybody off.”
polyorchnid octopunch
Hi John.
Give her Zechariah 7:9-10
And also Proverbs 29:7
Jim, Foolish Literalist
old friend of my mother’s, now gone to her reward, was driven into a frothing rage by that message. And a lot of other things.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
I’ve realized something. Forget ethics, or upbringing, or policy analysis; I don’t have the *energy* to be a modern American conservative. Spending that much time worried that someone, somewhere is getting away with something is exhausting. I don’t know how they do it.
cain
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Did your wife turn progressive or something or is she still a RWNJ?
Mary G
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: Photo of page from Hillary’s book in this tweet:
cain
@dexwood:
Because everything is a fabric and increased scrutinization will only bring more polarization. Don’t shit in your neighborhood.
Also first grade teacher? Damng, she was must have been pretty young when you were in first grade..
Ruckus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Probably the easiest to listen to the faux news and not know any better, if you don’t have much exposure.
Major Major Major Major
@Mary G: savage. I’m starting to think I should read this book. Maybe I’ll feel up to it in a year or two.
patrick II
@tobie:
Good point. I probably didn’t catch that because I knew it was a do over and didn’t pay much attention and the DACA news pretty much wiped that out for me. But I am probably not typical (as Dad used to tell me).
But even at that, how could Trump awkwardly trying to show empathy outweigh his statement on DACA? and wasn’t that (from the point of view of Trump watching) much bigger news?
cain
@kindness:
Proper phrasing is “bless her heart”
Feebog
I’m convinced this is the right wing Wurlitzer effect. A lot of people who are not politically aware or active listen to this garbage and fall into the abyss. For most of them, there is no coming back.
Major Major Major Major
@Feebog: this happened to AL or BC’s mom, we have descriptions! Turning it off helped so much.
dimmsdale
@The Simp in the Suit: Yeah, EXACTLY. I think the (seemingly staggering) rise in wanton cruelty and vitriol from people we formerly thought of as humane, is perfectly understandable given the prevalence of right-wing media over the years. George Lakoff (cognitive linguist) posits that we all have some mix of authoritarian jerk-off on the one hand, and humane, empathetic ‘helper’ on the other, either of which dominates our reactions to various events. (His work is the only thing I’ve found that really makes sense, to ME, in explaining the advent of Trump and the New Sadists of the Right Wing.) Which of the two sides comes to dominate a person depends partly on whether that part (either force for good, or force for cruelty) is being supported by outside influences, i.e. the stories we hear every day. I think the 24/7 nature of cable and Fox puke funneling has truly altered people’s brain chemistry, and I don’t know what we do about it.
The right-wing puke funnel sets up an adrenalizing situation where you keep coming back to it because you get addicted to righteousness and outrage, and get encouraged every minute to feel butt-hurt about ______ (fill in the blank), and that is how normal people turn into Nazis. And like Hoodie said, they can be selectively Nazis one second and compassionate about their neighbors the next.
Anyway, I recommend Lakoff; there’s a great clip of him on Tavis Smiley laying the whole thing out, and it’s like the light bulb going on (at least for me).
And I think we need to have a serious conversation in this country about the public-health-hazard aspect of all this puke funneling, because it’s toxic.
cain
@JPL:
You are good people and so it seems many others. This is the only way we can fight back against the scourage that is anti-semitism.
gene108
@clay:
Punishes people. Teaches them to fear the white power structure. Keeps the country from becoming majority-minority or at least slows it down.
Gelfling 545
@Sloane Ranger: I wondered about that. Or maybe in a senior housing facility where Fox plays all day. I’d guess she’s fairly well up in years.
cain
@JGabriel:
The response is that “Gosh, what would our world looks like if Jesus took that attitude as our Father in Heaven. Pray with me, dear, so that we may glorify his mercy for us, so unlike yours.”
Ruckus
@dexwood:
He was a republican for a long time, until not all that long ago, as these things happen. Yes he woke the hell up, it’s been grand watching it happen, but he was an enabler at one time. We don’t beat him up for that because we don’t need to, he does it for us, and because he really is one of us, as much as he might have denied it once upon a time.
ArchTeryx
@Zanamu: And Michael Clarke, our very own Idi Amin wannabe.
Another Scott
@polyorchnid octopunch: “Old Testament. Doesn’t count (unless you’re quoting (selected parts of) Leviticus and Genesis.”
Something like that.
They always have a (rote) comeback.
(sigh)
Cheers,
Scott.
cain
@Eural Joiner: We need some serious govt regulation. Fox News is the physical manifestation of the Devil. Who whispers in your ear and corrupts you. Of course, just like Satan it is a completely human construct that will do us all in.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I hate to Godwin the thread, but this sounds really familiar.
cain
@Snarki, child of Loki:
Win.
Raven
@Ruckus: it’s also none of our fucking business what he includes and doesn’t include.
cain
@dexwood: To be fair, the hispanics were here too before whitey.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
Honestly, I could barely understand what your first grade teacher was trying to say. You would think an educated person could write a concise persuasive paragraph, even on Facebook. Instead she wrote in a truncated, confusing form with incomplete sentences.
Major Major Major Major
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: not only that, it was something she thought well enough of that it’s something she copies.
cain
@patrick II:
It shows that Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and alt-right news is working on the weak. Govt regulation is required if we want to keep our Republic.
Ruviana
@cain: From the native perspective the hispanics were whitey.
Raven
@cain: and I want a pony
cain
@Splitting Image:
She was seduced by the fact that a lot of Muslim men are mysognist assholes (and I include Indian men too in that) and of course she went down that rabbit hole after hearing the horrors of honor killings and all that other shit. She grew to hate the religion because it was anti-female.
Major Major Major Major
@Ruviana: if I may quote Hegel, it’s whiteys all the way down.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@cain:
I committed an awful slip – meant to say “MOM”. I was being commanded something irritating from the other side of the couch when I typed that.
gene108
@schrodingers_cat:
Path to citizenship is the wrong question. Going from a Green Card to US Citizenship is not a big hurdle to get over.
Getting a work visa is hard. Getting from a work visa to a Green Card is harder, especially if you are from India, where the backlog is over 10 years.
Also family sponsorship for Green Cards is also stuck in antiquitated quota system that makes no adjustments for the fact a majority of cases come from a few countries, which creates years to decades (for Mexico) long backlogs.
The racists keep talking about immigrate legally, but refuse to allow fixes to the system to eliminate the current bottle necks and now Cotton and another dofus in the Senate want to cut back on legal immigration, with Trump’s blessing.
Another Scott
@Major Major Major Major: I thought that was Pratchett, or maybe it was Russell…
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@p.a.:
It is crazy. So many Americans don’t understand what being a global superpower requires. They just think if you have the best guns and the most soldiers you’ll always win, which isn’t always the case. War is often the worst option and soft (diplomatic and economic) power is preferable and more effective. People who wear the American flag for clothes outside of some patriotic holiday are how I spot entitled authoritarians.
Hero worship of the military and police is another problem. When I saw a bunch of those “Thin Blue Line” American flags go up beginning last summer, I immediately thought, “This is just a knee-jerk reaction against the scrutiny police are starting to get”. Those flying that flag can claim all they want that they’re just supporting the police and the “Thin Blue Line” is just meant to honor those fallen in the line of duty. I don’t believe them. Symbols change over time. Just look at the Swastika. People who reflexively defend abuses of power disgust me so much.
Sab
@Major Major Major Major: At my bank in Ohio I have to push 1 for English. Otherwise I get Polish, not Spanish.
cain
@Raven:
Just give us a govt majority and puting back the Fairness Doctorine and we can stop this bullshit.
efgoldman
@cain:
Never happen, forget it.
SCOTUS has already said there’s no regulating cable networks
Putting any kind of fairnness doctrine on broadcast (over the air) radio or TV requires legislation to pass congress. As long as the RWNJs are at least a significant minority, it won’t happen.
cain
@Ruviana:
They are only mildly whitey. Weren’t the pueblo indians pretty dark themselves?
Ruckus
@patrick II:
I responded to an comment in another thread that the drumpf voters were not duped, they were rewarded for their bigoted vote.
And now that it’s time for that lottery ticket to be paid, they aren’t getting what they thought they were. They voted for the bigotry and the ICE crackdown, and all the other crap that racist drumpf promised them. They aren’t getting any of it. And right now they are still blaming liberals. At some point they might see that it’s his ineptitude that’s the problem. He isn’t giving them what they want because he doesn’t know how. He doesn’t know how to work with anyone other than a mirror so he doesn’t know how to work with congress, which would likely be willing to give him most of what he wants but he keeps pissing off the closest thing he has to friends. They suck him off and he gives them shit. As some point they may stop giving him all the blow jobs and at that point who knows what will happen. Maybe he’ll explode.
Raven
@efgoldman: hey ace, great “it’s over” call in the 1st half last night!
Sherparick
@dmsilev: This. It’s would be a good study on how listening to Rush, Hannity, & Fox et al. for 25 years have turned moderate, slightly racist white boomers into Nazis.
Percysowner
Off topic, but Bobo Brooks has spoken. David Brooks Blames Al Gore For GOP Climate Change Denial
Baud
@Percysowner: Who else would he blame? Republicans?
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Shell:
Right? Who does she think she is, Major Chip Hazard?
efgoldman
@Raven:
Win a few…
Tell me you didn’t think the same thing after the first half turnovers.
WVa-VT was a hell of a gamed, though.
cmorenc
@John Cole:
My own dear grandmother and grandfather in a small town in NC near Goldsboro were among the most caring, thoughtful, moral, pleasant people ever, not merely by my own highly biased experience, but by accounts of all neighbors, relatives, and town folk who knew them. However, they were both of the generation of southern whites born in the 1890s and grew up to adulthood in such an intensely racist period of southern history that today’s bigots are bland tapioca by comparison – but were members of the polite part of upper-crust small-town society where it wasn’t considered polite to openly voice racism or any trace of meanness or ingraciousness toward blacks in daily social interaction with neighbors. While she was alive, I never heard her say anything worse than her habit of pronouncing “negro” as “nigrah”, but never the raw N-word itself because that was considered the crudely mean language of white trash.
HOWEVER, after my grandmother’s death in 1982, I came across a box of her correspondence with my mother and aunt and was utterly shocked at the raw ugly racist crap she freely spewed in private written correspondence. I still remember her very fondly as a mostly nice person, but seeing those letters definitely took some of the shine off my memory of her.
THE POINT HERE is that like my dear grandmother and your teacher, and indeed many racially bigoted people of today, they exist on two conflicting planes – one genuinely thoughtful and good in person-to-person relations (my grandmother was never mean nor spoke disrespectfully to black folk face-to-face), and the other more impersonal where they harbor some really ugly resentments and attitudes. The late Jesse Helms, former US Senator from NC, for example, was the kind of face to face guy who would be a peach of a neighbor to get along with – but viciously racist on a more impersonal level. And lots of Trump supporters fit this mold, not that I forgive them one tiny bit for inflicting this asshole on the country, or retaining their bigoted streak in an era where they should know better than the folks who grew up in the 1890s or even 1950s segregated south.
mai naem mobile
@Percysowner: if Dolt45 shits his white golf pants and the pictures make it all over, Bobo would blames the Dems for Dolt shitting his pants. It never changes.
Major Major Major Major
@Percysowner: ha, wow, but also not surprising.
JMG
Just another crabby old white person frightened and angry they’re gonna die soon who’s taking it out on other people. People ought to lose the right to b vote at 65. PS: I’m 68.
Raven
@efgoldman: I never turned the UCLA game on. This is a Hokie household when they are on. I did catch the score on the crawl and watch it this morning. That fake clock is one of my favorites , I wish we’d done it when we had the rock on the 1 against the Tide in the SEC championship
Major Major Major Major
@JMG: p.s. I am not a crackpot
schrodingers_cat
@gene108: When I say path, I mean the entire journey not just GC to citizenship.
Gvg
@patrick II: yes some of his negative poll numbers must be from Trump not managing to do most of his extreme promises. This was inevitable because many of his promises were impossible like the wall and Mexico paying for it, plus he doesn’t know squat about real economics nor international relations and his bullshit wasn’t going to work the way he said but clearly some angry fools bought his bull. Since it was all fantasy, it could never happen and he doesn’t even know where the levers of government are.
It kind of amuses me to notice that he himself would have turned on any other guy who disappointed him the way he is going to disappoint all his real believers. His plans are all magic. Do something that sounds tough and magically all other countries will give us everything.
Other “supporters” seem to have projected whatever they wanted on him and they all have a contradictory idea of what he said. No idea how they managed to fool themselves but they aren’t going to be able to keep supporting him. There is also the republican tribalism thing going on.
gene108
@cokane:
Yup. She misses the factory job or coal mining job she never had.
schrodingers_cat
@Ruckus: Well at least they won’t say stupid things like get your citizenship then you won’t need DACA to DACA holders.
scav
@JGabriel: Most vocally devout ‘mercan xians anymore have domesticated the Lord and Savior into their Chief Enabler and Smite-Master-2000: for He Forgives all of their Trespasses while condeming others on Command.
tobie
Someone may have mentioned this already but what I find really strange about the number of 70 year olds who have become rabid right wingers is that most of them really benefited from unions (pensions; spousal benefits; good health insurance; etc). Prior to Reagan even teachers in red states had strong unions and hence strong benefits. There’s something so perversely selfish about this group of boomers, who perceive the world around them as crumbling and assume it’s because anyone younger than them or of a different color than them doesn’t work hard. Their entire political philosophy can be summed up as, “I’ve got mine” and the hell with all of you. They’ve really taken Luther’s doctrine to heart: I’m comfortable in my retirement because God showered grace on me and don’t dare think you’re entitled to the same.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
I have a half-thought of proposal: presidential elections should have runoffs instead of the Electoral College. Even if the Interstate Compact went into force,I imagine an amendment would be needed for the runoff elections, right. France is an example I thought of, but probably won’t line up with America’s system, ie France is a unitary state.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@tobie:
That is the poison that is the Puritan work ethic for you.
mai naem mobile
@schrodingers_cat: I worked with a black woman when Obama was elected. She was apolitical, a non voter and wasn’t all that excited about Obama being the first black president. She was socially conservative(gay rights/abortion.) She was married to a white guy and didn’t think much of affirmative action because people like her husband hadn’t owned slaves. Anyhow, less than a year after Obamas election she mentioned how Obamas election had really brought the racists out.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@tobie: 70 year olds or folk in their 70’s? Most folk in their 70’s are not Boomers.
smintheus
Did you ask her, “What the hell happened to you? You used to be a decent, caring human being.”
jl
@Gvg: I think some of Trump’s declining polls are from his hard core racist and fascist base who are sad he hasn’t done as much as they had hoped. Some of this is due to Trump incompetence, and some due to fact that Trump cons everyone, and some of his pitch to them was just as much a swindle as his pitch to any other group that he captured.
So, I’d bet repealing DACA will get him some points, though hard to tell from a swing within MoE over a couple of days. But the bad publicity from the moral and practical disaster of a DACA repeal and substantial effort to follow-up will be big too and cost him. So I’d bet over the long run a wash at best.
If this is sixth month delay thing is Trump looking for a way out of a disaster, this is one time I wish his plans success. It probably is just that. We know now he doesn’t give one shit about his professedly most important thing in the world, crucial issue, headline issue, the dumb ass Mexico border wall.
bottom line though that though, if Trump does attempt a delayed repeal to his ass out of the fire on it, I am very sure that left to his own devices, he will totally mess it up. So, I;m getting ready to contact my Congress critters regularly. Though from statements today, both DiFi and Harris seem to be thinking along my lines.
We need a campaign to pester Congress about DACA, like we did for Obamacare repeal/replace. Might be easier, since I think there are more reactionaries who will think DACA repeal problems outweigh any benefits (no tax cuts in it, for example). The racist reactionaries are going to dig in like their lives depended on it, though. They will howl, and that will fun it we can win the issue.
tobie
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
Precisely. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. The prosperity gospel is pretty unique to the US and it is usually accompanied by a real miserliness vis-a-vis others.
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Sorry if I got my generations wrong. I meant people who are now in their 70s, born right after WWII.
Another Scott
@tobie: Really? More boomer bashing?! It hasn’t even been a month…
The oldest boomer turned 70 last year. The 72 year olds you come across today are somehow different than the 71 year olds??
(mumble-grumble)
Cheers,
Scott.
smintheus
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Basically none are boomers. They’re late Depression or war year kids. They came of age in the Eisenhower years, when the federal govt. was run by an absentee half-wit president, Dick Nixon, and a whole band of repulsive cronies. That was the era of Operation Wetback. No wonder if they grew up to be heartless.
jl
@tobie:
” Sorry if I got my generations wrong. I meant people who are now in their 70s, born right after WWII. ”
I guess its hard for some of you oldsters to keep track of all these dang kids these days running around.
Raven
@tobie: I’m 67 and there is a wide gulf between me and my 70’s cousins. They twarnt no hippies.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@jl:
I was thinking even if it did fall through, DEMs could use this to campaign on in 2018 and help win the House and again in 2020 for the presidency, where the program could be reinstated until a legislative fix. In the meantime, Dreamers could jam the judicial system up with appeals, because of due process, etc.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@dimmsdale: We need to take control of the conversation – people are sick of Trump and ready to talk about solutions to our problems. Let’s name the problems and offer solutions. Let’s tell the stories that need to be told. What they lack are empathy and creativity – the elements of a good story.
Baud
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Why would it work better in 2020 than it did in 2016?
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: as the Obamacare repeal mess showed us, programs that weren’t enough to win in 2016 become extremely popular when somebody tries to get rid of them.
jl
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: i think enacting DACA into law over next 8 months is an issue, like Obamacare repeal/replace, that we absolutely have to win. The human disaster of a repeal with real attempts at enforcement would just be too big a disaster for the people deported and nation.
We need Congressional contact info, repeated reminders. A real campaign. Losses on some losses are just to big to live with unless we do absolutely everything we can to win.
The human toll of deporting people who have lived here since they were kids, the corrosive effects of enforcement of such an enormity on our society, the damage to the country’s reputation. I hope BJ and other organizations get up a real campaign, just like for Obamacare.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: Fair point. But Obamacare would have been replaced with a bill no one liked. Everyone understood what eliminating DACA meant.
Still, if people are more “woke,” that’s a good thing.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Baud:
4 years of Trump, you don’t know what will happen and if did come to pass (DACA repealed) a lot of people (non-voters perhaps?) might hate it after seeing the actual after effects.
NobodySpecial
Name and shame.
jl
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: And the nativist, racist cant and BS on immigration is so toxic and vile, I just want their asses beat like a drum on it. Beaten into the damn ground. I’m sick of their hypocritical ‘rule of law’ BS on it. And the racism.
I want the other side on this issue crushed, and listen to them howl. Doing it now is far better than waiting to 2018.
Edit: If it appears Trump will nominally be on the same side of it, well, life is rough, tough choices and such a so forth. He’ll mess up enough in other areas to make up for it.
BCHS Class of 1980
@Barbara: And without immigrants, WV would be really short of doctors and professors.
Baud
@jl: It’s a worthwhile effort. But passing a bill is more difficult than stopping a bill.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Major Major Major Major:
This. I imagine the effort and expense of trying to deport all of these innocent people will be a major headache. The images on TV and the internet wouldn’t be flattering for the US (like the firehoses in the CRM, for example) either.
jl
@Baud:
” It’s a worthwhile effort. But passing a bill is more difficult than stopping a bill. ”
We’ll put in an amendment to allow Baud to hold campaign rallies at convenience markets nationwide. You on board now?
danielx
@JGabriel:
Well, they are. They loves them some Old Testament advice and rules from bronze age savages fighting for survival of themselves and their faith. New Testament admonitions about justice, mercy, love, etc…..not so much.
Of course, I am certain beyond a reasonable doubt that various evangelicals would say with absolute sincerity that they are fighting for the survival of themselves and their faith as well. Meaning they are worried about being judged, rather than being judged.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Baud:
My scenario assumes this will be a long-term project. Congress will have to be taken back, with presidency first, to preserve the DACA. Hopefully appeals will keep most Dreamers in the US. There’s something like 800,000 of them right? I assume that once less professionals propping up their neighborhoods, as a result of mass deportations, will change their minds, coupled with the expense and effort of trying to enforce the deportations. This will likely be a humanitarian nightmare that will tarnish the reputation of the US.
Sab
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: It’s might be interesting to see where Tim Ryan Ohio 13th district Democrat comes down on this. He went on Fox announcing he was for delaying immigration of Syrian refugees.
Baud
@jl: Free Twinkies?
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: Agreed.
gene108
@schrodingers_cat:
But a lot of people do not understand the steps involved and where the bottlenecks are. They think going from a GC to citizenship is the barrier, when it is not.
They need to be better informed to push for better decisions
Matt McIrvin
My wonderful first grade teacher was black. The inexplicable hate I remember was from other students, toward her. And I only perceived that vaguely.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Sab:
Ryan is an asshole and is only slightly better than a Republican at times. He’s certainly not always on board with social justice a lot of the time. I suspect it’s because of the aging white population in his district.
danielx
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?:
I’ve not noticed that the Trumpkins are particularly concerned about anything being flattering about the United States. As far as they are concerned, if you weren’t born here you don’t belong here and for that matter a lot of people who were born here don’t belong here either, which is a separate but related deal. A good many of them would likely get off on images of ICE agents in full combat regalia dragging college students out of their dorm rooms, with the more use of force the better.
Major Major Major Major
@Sab: Tim Ryan, the white male working class savior the Democratic Party needs? Classy.
jl
@Baud: ” Free Twinkies? ”
I see, ‘nice guy’ Baud who all the girls like is doing some hard and heartless bargaining, on the backs of innocent kids. I see you’re finding your way as a stone cold pol.
But, anything to get the Baudists on board. With them, the forces of righteousness will pulverize all in its way.
Get those hobos out and kicking some shit.
Edit: Everyone wait for the stories on the notorious Twinkie, the ‘Ho hos for hobos’ rider in the bill.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@danielx: Yes, but the Trumpets aren’t everybody. My assumptions hinge on the chance that the chaos of ICE trying to deport 800,000 people, some of them still children, will be enough to get many normally apolitical engaged and sympathetic to their plight. That wouldn’ t be the only issue the DEMs would run on, but I hope it would be powerful told in stories by emotional Dreamers in ads who sound like ordinary, hardworking Americans for both 2018 and 2020. Hopefully the courts would be jammed with appeals for a few years.
Sab
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: He’s better than the Teaparty, but that’s all I can say for him. I hate when the choices are a**hole Democrat and Teaparty Republican. I’m in his district too, and he doesn’t begin to reflect the values of me and my neighbors. My city puts up signs celebrating our “international district” and welcomes our Bhutanese and other refugees.
schrodingers_cat
@gene108: Getting the GC is the hardest step in my opinion.
catclub
@Baud:
remembering someone else: “I don’t believe in God, but at least the god I don’t believe in is a loving God, not the hateful God you are talking about.”
tobie
@Sab: Tim Ryan has also come out in favor of Trump’s tax proposal. He’s no progressive hero. A populist, yes, but of the grievance, hate-for-the-elites type.
Exurban Mom
Tell the teacher this: so, if I arrest the parent of a 1st grader for robbery, shouldn’t the whole family go to jail? I should send the little 6year old to juvie, right? On account that he’s teaching his kiddo wrongdoing?
catclub
Did anyone else think that the blacked out bits at the top of the page look like a silhouette of an enormous male organ? Maybe something Freudian.
It seems to me that Mitt Romney can fake human emotions better than Donald Trump.
I was thinking of Trump taking two trips to Houston to realize that having empathy for the people there who are not high level government officials is something a human President might have.
Ruckus
@Raven:
True as well.
Tim C.
The last few months, this story is coming back to me again and again:
The 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Regiment was the first black regiment recruited in the North. Col. Robert Gould Shaw, who led the regiment, was killed in a Union attack of Fort Wagner. The Confederates stripped his body and threw him into a mass grave, along with the bodies of the African American soldiers who had been killed. When Gould’s father, a wealthy Massachusetts abolitionists, found out how his son had been buried, he said: “the poor benighted wretches thought they were heaping indignities upon his dead body; but the act recoils upon them … We can imagine no holier place than in which he is.” Sgt. William H. Carney, of the 54th Massachusetts, became the first black man to win the Congressional Medal of Honor. Lincoln himself noted that the Union forces might have had to negotiate a peace with the Confederacy if the black soldiers had not taken part in the war effort.
We are thankfully not in a time of carnage like the civil war, though the seeds of climate change are now sprouting. We are not in a time of carnage like the civil war, but the embers of the fire that burned our nation before have given rise to the orange shit-gibbon. We have to remember that while it’s important to win, it’s also important to have faith in out fellow humans, that our opponents are willfully blind moral midgets who cannot understand what it is they do behind the hate that seems to exude from every word and statement they make. Have faith my friends… the night will end. Eventually.
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: Yup.
When I was a young kid in suburban Atlanta in the ’60s, my friends were highly enamored of “Polack” jokes. They never made much sense to me because even at a young age I couldn’t see that such characteristics would be limited to one nationality or geographic location on the globe. Youngsters don’t think up that stuff on their own.
You’ve got to be carefully taught…
Cheers,
Scott.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Sab: @tobie:
If he ever gets primaries by someone better, I’ll vote for them.
Sab: I can’t say my community is exactly as progressive as yours. The Mahoning County Democratic Party is fairly corrupt and all the local Dems always campaign against the anti-fracking intiantives on the ballot, like the Community Charter (I think). Granted, the state would overrule it, but the principle still counts. Injection wells caused earthquakes a few years back around here and brine is still sprayed on roadways in the dead of night.
catclub
@jl:
So you would have to be okay with swapping approval of Trump’s wall funding in exchange for DACA extension legislation.
That is going to be a shit sandwich to swallow, while Trump is gloating over it.
Ruckus
@JMG:
Maybe those of us over 65 who are white could be limited to 3/5 of a vote. Wonder how that would work out.
Omnes Omnibus
@Raven: If we want to play this game, my parents are in their mid-70s and were on the leafing edge of those who became hippies. They are still liberals. This generational shit is stupid.
danielx
@tobie:
Disclosure: I’m a boomer. Sue me.
Granted that baby boomers are bequeathing a truly fucked up world to our descendants, to say “baby boomers are…” is about as accurate as saying “black people are…” or “women are…” or “Jews are…”…etc*. For every self absorbed and self satisfied boomer out there who was brainwashed by Limbaugh and his ilk, or for that matter just rode increasing home values to glory and retirement, there’s one who got screwed out of part of all of their pension and other retirement benefits and is suffering as a result. Not to mention those who never had them to begin with…
Some of them blame that on their fucked up former corporate overlords who made bad decisions, some on whatever the hate-flavor-of-the-day is in right wing media. A couple of years ago it was teachers. Before that city employees, utility employees…never, you may have noticed, police officers or firemen. I have never had a pension plan in my life, and I’ve been working for a hell of a long time. To the extent I blame anyone for it, I blame congress for passing laws permitting corporations to act like sociopaths, allowing them to terminate current and future retiree benefits through bankruptcy and the like, and to self interest on the part of corporate officers and rich folk in general.
*Except for right wing assholes. They are always assholes, without exception.
germy
another interesting LGM comment:
Major Major Major Major
@catclub: approval of wall funding will be a pointless boondoggle and a lot of obvious looting. DACA as a program enshrined in legislation will have a big actual human impact. I’ll take some wasted money as a price to pay.
What if it’s the prior senate immigration bill (2014?) plus $15b wall funding, would that be worth it?
Ruckus
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Good point. Boomers, as it is generally known would be at most 71 this year. I’m an early boomer and I’m just 68. (That cracked me up saying, just 68)
Major Major Major Major
@germy: this makes it sound exactly analogous to the Obamacare repeal.
germy
@Major Major Major Major: Dogs catching cars.
jl
@catclub: Some BS funding bill that is just money. most of which will just sit there while those fools demonstrate that they are too incompetent to get the project off the ground, and a diverse horde of people, many GOPers (property owners near the boarder), will fight to death with lawsuits?
Set that a against kids and young adults, who have been here for decades, the vast majority of whom would be considered model citizens if the GOP hadn’t been playing racist games on the issue since Dub proposed an updated immigration reform. Lawsuits won’t stop ICE from sweeping people up and putting them in concentration camps, and deporting enough so there will be plenty of stories about lives wrecked and ended, some horribly. I guarantee you some of the ICE people are goonish enough to throw some DACA college kids to vicious gang goons on the other side of the boarder in the worse parts of Mexico. (Edit: I’ve seen some news stories that they are already doing this, but with repeal of DACA, it will make headlines)
I think it is an easy choice. And always a good bet that Trump will find a way to make himself noxious, even if it looks like, finally, one of is legislative proposals is successful. If he goes for delayed repeal, we have to make it a cause and play for keeps on it, IMHO.
Trump’s toxicity will take care of itself very nicely. We should do what is best for the country, and trust Trump will continue to destroy himself. His toxicity will survive one victory.
Insane Clown POTUS
@jl:
I think that there is a floor to the polls because there are still people who are thinking that stocks are doing well and they are going to get a tax cut. We’ll be lucky if we get out of September with a clean debt ceiling increase and a continuing resolution. The odds that we’ll have a budget or tax reform in the next 29 days are not very good. Probably for the best, on both counts, but I expect that the economic cargo cult Republicans are going to start losing faith.
Matt McIrvin
@danielx:
Like Trump, they are mortally concerned about the United States and by extension themselves being perceived as suckers. Other countries are always “laughing at us” because we’re weak or because they’re getting away with something. And the only way to prevent this is to be a terrifying, volcanic bully, full of deadly bluster and cruelty.
Matt McIrvin
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: I have seen self-described liberals read Very Serious Centrist pieces about how the Democrats are getting killed on immigration and immediately decide we need to throw the immigrants under the bus.
dnfree
@HinTN: Bob Dylan on the certainty of youth, “But I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.”
danielx
@jl:
Leave us not forget that people who are citizens will get swept up in this shit accidentally or on purpose, documentation be damned – who carries a copy of their birth certificate around with them? Once a person is in the system, what happens to them is whatever ICE says happened to them.
ETA: I’m waiting for a presidential order that say Dreamers won’t be “under arrest”, they will be in “administrative detention” or suchlike, and that since they are not trueborn Americans the legal protections of the Bill of Rights, various laws, and court rulings don’t apply to them.
jl
@Matt McIrvin: They are idiots. I notice in the news that with US influence out of TPP, other countries, lead by Vietnam, are going to chip away at US demands for strong US style IP and patent protection. The lower tariffs on US squid exports that economic illiterates like Tom Friedman yelled about have much lower priority.
By US corporate standards, the Trumpsters are generating far more laughter and attempts at roll back that hurts the US big business bottom line. And I don’t think it will all be a bad thing.
Anyway,point being is that they will fail by every standard. Even Trump’s private plutocrat standard that he covered up with fake economic populist BS.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: Those jokes were still big in the Seventies, and I was only vaguely aware that “Polacks” were real people rather than some kind of fantastical joke-land creature. I recall it all abruptly stopped when Solidarity became a cause celebre.
Percysowner
@Baud:
Because the Dems will make damned sure to nominate a white male for their candidate for President. If Joe Biden had run and managed to beat Hillary, I’m pretty sure Trump would not have won. Certain people just couldn’t stomach 4 more years of an uppity (insert slur here) running the country.
Jeffro
@Another Scott: thanks AS! I don’t know how to post the tweets I saw
tobie
@danielx: I apologized in comment #180 about getting my generations wrong. I was talking specifically about people who benefitted from unions during their own working years and then complain about everyone today trying to fleece the system.
For the record I’m 54, so I think that makes me a boomer.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Ruckus: My folks just turned 70 and they are super active in our local anti-global warming efforts, as well as our local NAACP and state Dem Party. They have always been activists and I am rather proud of them. But the rest of their generation… ;)
West Texan 70
@JMG: I’m a 57-year-old white Texan. I got no problem with taking the vote away from ALL white guys over 50.
Because for every liberal guy like me, there’s three flaming assholes …
efgoldman
@Sab:
He’s a Democrat like I’m a giraffe.
Fuckem
Shakti
I notice, though, you never said she was bright. Then again, an average adult can easily pull one over on the average six year old. What nincompoop thinks anyone gets dual citizenship after being expelled from one country?
Also if she was racist toward minority children in your classroom it may have gone over your head. I hope she retired before she had any nonwhite children in her class because when I see people yammering about racist white women promoting the school to prison pipeline, she’s the exact bitch they’re thinking of.
danielx
@tobie: I missed that. Sorry, I shouldn’t have jumped so fast.
Sab
@? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?: The first political campaign I worked on, when I was 16, was for a guy named Seiberling. He was initially just an anti-Vietnam war candidate. He won, and went on to serve for about 25 years.
He was mostly an environmentalist. H e did environmental legislation re Alaska that Sarah Grifting Palin from Idaho is still pissed about.
His big accomplishment locally was to get Ralph Regula, R from Canton, and Louis Stokes, D from Cleveland (and others on both sides) to agree that we needed the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, so that we could preserve the pretty river valley, and urban folks, especially from around Cleveland, could go to the woods and a beautiful river nearby.
This is what I am used to in a Congressman and in Congress. People who disagreed a lot coming together and occasionally agreeing to do good stuff.
I commend you for your enthusiasm, and I am glad you are so young. I am in my 60s and I am a bit disheartened. Its good to see younger people still working at it.
dnfree
@tobie: I was born right after World War II, in 1946, which makes me among the very first of the baby boom. I’m 71. Those further along in their 70s were born before or during World War II, a generation usually referred to as the “silent generation”. Those who grew up in the 1940s and early 1950s were thought of as conformist compared to those who grew up in the later 1950s and early 1960s.
But more to the point, my father (who died a few years ago in his 90s) lived most of his life as a relatively normal conservative Republican who was then tipped over the edge by Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and numerous mailings from the Tea Party. So at first I thought when his generation was gone the country might return to sanity. But I see the same symptoms in too many people my age now, and even some who are my children’s age (in their 30s and 40s). Not to mention those very young white supremacists. So this isn’t going away just based on age. It really is a problem of which media people consume. It’s especially frustrating to be told I live in a “liberal bubble” by those who consume fake news all day long.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@Matt McIrvin: Anecdotal.
ET
I’m betting that she was a closet racist.
Omnes Omnibus
@danielx: It is still absurd generation bashing. tobie just shifted it by about five years.
Ruckus
@danielx:
Similar story and about the same age. Been blue collar my entire life, even when I was one of those asshole business owners. All that meant was that I had to work more hours than the guys I paid. And sometimes not take home a paycheck so that they could. I paid for healthcare insurance. And of course worker’s comp insurance. I’ve lost everything. Twice. Once earthquake, once recession. I have no pension, I have SS. And some of the best people that I know were not born in the US. I’ve known people who worked here and paid taxes right along side of me from Russia, Iran, Estonia, Mexico, England, Ireland, Finland, The Netherlands, France, Portugal, Italy, Canada, China, Korea, Japan. I’m sure that isn’t the entire list. Not one of them expressed the level of racist shit I’ve heard from Americans all my life.
cain
@Le Comte de Monte Cri@efgoldman: sto, fka Edmund Dantes:
I realize that, but eventually things will aign and putting the Fairness Doctrine is something with pursuing.
Omnes Omnibus
@dnfree: The SDS and the Yippies? The people who organized Woodstock? When were their leaders born? I am guessing 1939-44. That covers The Beatles, The Stones, Hendrix, and more. Conformist as fuck, weren’t they?
Gretchen
@tobie: Didn’t Tim Ryan challenge Pelosi for Speaker because he thought those needed new (male) leadership?
The Moar You Know
Fuck. You gotta wonder what the hell is happening to people. It’s like a goddamn prion disease.
Ruckus
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
glad you put that ;) at the end.
I like the Monty Python way a little better though “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” but of course that takes longer and far more characters to put on the page.
BTW when did we start eating our young? Are they tasty? I mean if I’m going to be the worst human on the planet then I’d like to get something for it.
tobie
@danielx: No problem! I’m still curious how people who were the beneficiaries of union protections became so opposed to the social safety net. I didn’t enter the work force until the age of Reagan, so I’ve never really known union protections. But John Cole’s elementary school teacher did and instead of wanting others to enjoy the benefits she did, she wants to show “no mercy.”
cain
@cmorenc:
There are parts of me that is racist without question. i think that years of media bullshit have conditioned me in the 80s that they are untrustworthy. But reject it, because I have met so mamy womderful people of color.
The thing is, without greater mixing of the races, we cannot fight against the inherent racism in our culture. Engagement, conversation, sharing of thoughts is how we mitigate racism. It is a problem hat everyone needs to own
Same with foks who live in encalves… move out and mix with the general population. If you made the concious effort to move here, you have left your home country behind, within 2 geneations your progey would hve been part of the culture. Don’t fight it, revel it and educte because your strength, our experience becomes part of the hold. America is a natin of immigrants and our diversity is what makes us great.
tobie
@Gretchen: Yup.
GeorgeHayduke
Friend in line at local walmart with mixed-race grandchild today. Stranger: “I ain’t standing in line with no nigger-baby”
True fucking story.
Ruckus
@tobie:
Because some unions weren’t all that and a bag of chips. But mostly because republican politicians repeatedly told them that unions were the cause of all of their problems. That and a lot of people weren’t able to gain union protections because of both business and government violence and the old if I can’t have it no one can took hold, especially after all the republican bashing.
There really isn’t much if anything that republicans haven’t be completely fucking wrong about in the last 70 yrs is there?
tobie
@dnfree: I can’t imagine what it’s like to see your parent turned into an extreme right winger and not be able to do anything. Fox taps into some weird psychic fear and turns it into hate. Who benefits from this? The Koch Brothers? Other oligarchic interests? If Dems regain power, they need to pursue anti-trust legislation. It’s the only way to fight those who underwrite Fox.
Ruckus
@GeorgeHayduke:
Who left the line?
dnfree
@Omnes Omnibus: I agree. That’s why I said “usually referred to”, not intending to imply that they actually were conformist.
My husband is a couple of years older than I, so he’s theoretically part of the “silent generation”, but he too participated in anti-Vietnam-war activities. That’s the folly of attributing characteristics to an entire artificially-defined “generation”, as someone noted above. This problem goes well beyond which age group someone falls into.
Ruckus
@tobie:
The people who think they benefit are the people who pay to hear this shit on their TV and radio stations and read it in their newspapers. They are the racist fucks that you thought everyone over 70 was. We aren’t all asshole racists. And some asshole racists that I know of are well under 70. But neither is everyone in their 20s asshole racists. Some of us humans are just assholes no matter our age. Has always been that way and probably always will be. The US is a young nation as these things go and we really only started to break out of that in the 1950s/60s, with the integration of the military and MLK and the civil rights act. We are still going through growing pains and haven’t all figured this out yet. And that is only 50-65 yrs ago. It has become a very large part of our lives because it hasn’t been accepted yet that we are all humans. We think, “Why the hell has it taken so long to make little progress?” Conservatives think, “What is wrong with what we had 2000 yrs ago?” The answer to the first question is because a lot of people are assholes and the answer to the second is, fucking everything.
dnfree
@Ruckus: Unions in the early days were a real force for workers. Unions in more recent years degenerated into bureaucracies with highly-paid people at the top. I worked in several unionized environments (factories), although I was not a union worker myself (computer programmer/analyst). Unions defended the jobs of every union member, even if the other union members agreed that the person in question wasn’t a worthwhile employee. We had one third-shift employee who made a makeshift bed for himself in a huge air duct and slept his way through most of his shift. He got fired, the union fought the firing for two years, and eventually he got his job back and all that back pay. That’s not what the unions in the 1930s and 1940s were fighting for.
Some unions also spent years as corrupt enterprises that made money for their officials while doing nothing or less than nothing for their workers. You could for instance watch the excellent documentary “Harlan County USA” about coal miners who were fighting their own union as much as they were their employer. And the Teamsters Union of course was also legendary. The union story is not one of unalloyed heroism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_County,_USA
Matt McIrvin
@Major Major Major Major: “Fine, we’ll make it so you push 2 for English.”
Ruckus
@dnfree:
Hence my first sentence. I didn’t always like unions, because of the actions of a few of them and because of some of those who climbed to power in them. But I never viewed them as unnecessary because of the attitude of so many who owned/ran businesses, especially big business and the politicians who subscribe to the dictum that business can do no wrong. I think it’s worse today than 40 yrs ago with Ronnie and his ilk. And it’s not the unions that are the problem.
Omnes Omnibus
@dnfree: @Ruckus: Are workers better with or without unions?
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
The vast majority of workers, the vast majority of the time, no question, absolutely better with.
Jackie
@?BillinGlendaleCA: The first Boomers were born in the mid fifties. They have become Trumpers, in large part.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jackie: You are kind of an idiot. No?
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
LOL
How do you really feel? Please don’t hold back.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: I thought that was what you would say. The other person has remained silent. We can draw conclusions, if we chose.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: It’s not even my age range, but WTF?
Lynn Dee
@Booger:
My response too. Fox News happened.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
From my read, I would expect the reply to be stronger than mine. I was wrong once before though so the probabilities are slim of it happening in the same decade again………
@Omnes Omnibus:
I think this one commented before and you had a similar reply for similar reasons. Once again, I was wrong once before though………..
Dnfree
@Omnes Omnibus: I agree with Ruckus, but I’m frustrated that unions should be more relevant and more helpful to workers. They lost a lot of ground during the time when they appeared to be at their most powerful and it’s going to take a lot of work to recover.
(The only conclusion you should draw regarding my lack of comment, if that’s what you meant, is that it’s my bedtime.)
Ruckus
@Dnfree:
It’s hard to be as relevant as you’d like when people keep voting not to have a union. There was a European car company building a plant in the south, VW I think who was fully wanting and willing to work with the auto workers because that’s how business is done in Germany and the workers voted out the union, I think within the last 2 yrs.
It’s a topsy, turvy world, up is down, down is up, so I’m not sure what makes sense any more.
ETA Also a lot of union power has been legislated out of existence (either labor laws or bankruptcies by corps) so I think that is why a lot of them are less powerful.
Dnfree
@Omnes Omnibus: in addition to wages, working conditions and safety are huge values for unions. I once saw a worker almost hit in the head by a huge tool dropped from someone working high above her. This obviously violated safety requirements, and the first words out of her mouth were “I want my union steward.”
Dnfree
@Ruckus: agree also. In my unionized workplaces the involvement of employees was more and more sought and emphasized over the years, as with the Japanese and European models.
dc
What is with the enter legally canard? They do not have that option, realistically. Where does this come from? There is no line for most people who enter undocumented or who overstay visas. If there were, the vast majority would enter that way. Here is a link to an explanation, see other pages of the site for more, should you have to face this stupid argument of standing in line or most people having a way to enter legally: https://americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/why-don%E2%80%99t-they-just-get-line
ChrisGrrr
@Tim C.: your post, and particularly the conclusion, are appreciated this day. Needed.
Ruckus
@dc:
As a few, some of whom are recent citizens, have told us, most of the assholes yelling about this have no idea how difficult, time consuming and yes expensive it is to move to another country, especially this one. I’ve looked into becoming an expat and my options are extremely limited, both by money and by legal restrictions. And I have a fixed income. But most civilized countries have healthcare and laws that protect citizens and make their lives better and those things cost money. Someone old like me that wants to retire somewhere else will be a drain on their new country and without putting much if anything into the pot. And I think some countries have made it more difficult for US citizens in response to how difficult the US has made it to their citizens just to visit.
Funny isn’t it how few people want to find out first hand how the Gestapo worked. Unless of course they had some reason to like what the Gestapo was doing.
My Truth Hurts
All caps is always the tell of an idiot.
chopper
that’s a good start. so they get to stay.
Raven Onthill
“For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax-collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” – Matthew 5:46-48.
You’re pretty lame, if you got pwnd by JC 2000 years ago.
But who actually reads the bible?
Porlock Junior
Trivial in the scheme of things, but sort of uncanny for me:
A month ago, with my teacher still out of town, and with the end of summer coming, and with it the need to concentrated on learning my choral part for the Fall performance, I flipped through the song book and picked two pieces I knew nothing of, to work on for repertoire. Both by Schubert, one being The Wanderer.
Then came the DACA announcement and the patriotic need to deport young people to a foreign land where they don’t know the language, and my choice was better than I knew:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR8_n-B8qu0
From about 3:20,
…I am a stranger everywhere.
That land, that land so green with hope, …
That land where my friends roam, …
That land that speaks my language.
O land, where are you?