What a couple of squishes!
Those of us who have the privilege of being white must prepare ourselves in case it becomes necessary to place ourselves between harm and people of color and visible religious minorities in the US. Because the party of Reagan and Bush, from the invertebrates elected to Congress, state houses, and state legislatures who are living in mortal fear of a mean tweet to the ideologically rabid base that is the Republican Party in 2018 and the movement conservatism and politicized white evangelical Christianity* that sustains it, aren’t going to do a damn thing to rein in the President and his appointees. It will not rein them in in their degrading the rule of law. It will not rein them in in their dehumanizing the most vulnerable and desperate seeking safe haven in the US. They have all gone all in on the factually inaccurate belief that they are history’s greatest victims. That they are discriminated against, derided, denigrated, and mocked at every turn. And that they have the right to their bigotry, racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, xenophobia, Islamaphobia, and nativism because it is part of their sincerely held religious and political beliefs. And that no one has the right to call them out on it because that would be the one true form of discrimination.
The three meter targets are keeping the pressure on to get families separated at the border reunited and then proper hearings on their asylum claims before immigration judges, keeping the House Republican majority from pushing through legislation that reverts US immigration law to what it was in 1924, from defunding Social Security and Medicaire to cover the gaping budgetary hole created by the tax cuts for the uber-wealthy they rammed through, and to completely destroy what’s left of the ACA. The ten meter target is the midterm elections in November. So keep calling your members of Congress and senators. And keep making sure everyone you know is registered to vote and everyone those people know are registered to vote and that everyone you know and everyone those people know do vote!
Stay focused!
Open thread.
* This is neither all of evangelical Christianity, which includes Evangelicals, Charismatics, and/or Fundamentalists, in the US, nor the totality of whites in the US who are evangelicals broadly defined. Rather it refers to both those adherents and their leaders who have completely flipped and flopped on their very publicly, stridently held beliefs about the need for morality and ethics and godliness in politics in order to justify their support for the current President. A president who does not in any, way, shape, and/or form reflects what these folks had been publicly stated were the personal characteristics required to hold any public office, let alone the presidency.
efgoldman
YAY!
Sure. Elizabelle asks, and the new thread drops right away.
Sick old fart in a weelchair begs? Maybe tomorrow
James Powell
@efgoldman:
It’s all in how you say it.
dmsilev
Those of us who are Jewish/Eastern European/Italian/etc. might find that our white-privelege was only provisional.
Adam L Silverman
@efgoldman: I’ve been away all day and just got in. I had planned to do this yesterday, but with the lack of sleep and the canine issues, yesterday got well away from me…
Sorry.
Platonailedit
Who is the male equivalent of Cassandra? Excellent post, man. Voting matters.
Elizabelle
@efgoldman: Adam was already putting new thread up, no doubt.
And nobody takes efgoldman for granted anymore, buckaroo.
lollipopguild
@efgoldman: Breaking news-“Old man yells at website!’ Glad to see you around.
efgoldman
@Elizabelle:
Mrs efg might
MagdaInBlack
Mr Axelrod feels we are wrong to shun Ms Sanders. Mr A can kiss my ass and Sarah should pray this is the only biblical punishment visited upon her.
Amir Khalid
@efgoldman:
It’s a technique issue. You also need to make the big pleading kitten/puppy eyes at the frontpager you’re dealing with. Doing it with a keyboard is the tricky part.
Jeffro
I’m tempted to say that Reagan and Bush Sr would be Democrats if they were alive/active in today’s politics.
But in reality they’d probably be McCain and Flake, respectively.
Adam’s right: let’s make sure EVERYONE is registered to vote and fired up this summer and fall.
Platonailedit
efgoldman
@Amir Khalid:
I’ve met her. She’s much better at that than I
Duane
@Elizabelle: “When efg talks, people listen”.
dmsilev
The Washington Post Editorial Board would have you know that the Real Problem is that a restaurant owner was mean to poor Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
Jeffro
@MagdaInBlack: David Roberts thread on Twitter is amazing & right in line with your thoughts here
TriassicSands
That video clip is a reminder that yesterday’s terrible Republicans are not today’s terrible Republicans. There was a lot wrong with Reagan and Bush and I would never support them, but they sound like virtual communists when compared with the hate-filled fascists of today’s Republican Party.
All the phonies in the GOP should listen to Reagan, their god, and try to reconcile their own despicable beliefs today with his prescription for our “immigrant problem.” Open border? Could Reagan get 20% of the Republican vote in most primaries today? Even Democrats are too timid to call for an open border.
efgoldman
@dmsilev:
And also there’s too much swearing and bad language.
Fuckem
TriassicSands
@Jeffro:
Or they might be Romney.
RepubAnon
It’s important to distinguish between Christians (who actually believe in and try to follow Christ’s teachings) and KKKristians (who pretend to be Christians, but do not follow Christ’s teachings and instead preach hate in Christ’s name.)
Omnes Omnibus
@TriassicSands:
Do we want a open border?
A Ghost To Most
Care to elaborate?
Omnes Omnibus
What is up with ‘nyms disappearing?
SiubhanDuinne
@efgoldman:
I have met Mrs efg. I think not.
Platonailedit
efgoldman
@SiubhanDuinne:
Public face
raven
@A Ghost To Most:
Amir Khalid
A question: is it the Christian denomination or the individual Christian that is (or is not) evangelical?
JR
@MagdaInBlack: Axelrod should recognize that there’s a line and he’s on the wrong side of it right now
EBT
@A Ghost To Most: Are you going to hide people in your home, or call the police on those who do?
Omnes Omnibus
@A Ghost To Most: Step in front and interrupt. Be loud and posh. Dare them to arrest you too.
Peale
Yeah, it’s a nice thought. There was a time when the GOP felt that they needed to appeal to the concerns of immigrant communities, and there were still a lot of conservative Democrats who weren’t going to do much to attract voters from the pool created by the recent arrivals made possible by 60s era immigration reform. But let’s not go overboard with the praise here.
It’s been a long time since immigration reform meant anything more for the GOP than making sure Mexicans and Cental Americans had limited access to legal immigration and that were subject to ever more stringent border enforcement. Whatever gains in opening the borders to more entrants have come with moar border crackdowns in order to secure support. Even the confusing diversity lottery was designed so that Mexicans would never have access to it. If the GOP could get away with enforcement only immigation reform, they would. It’s been that way since Nixon. What they bring to the negotiating table since the 1950s has always been the promise to their voters of fewer Mexicans. The only thing that’s changed since this Bush Reagan clip is that they no longer feel the need to even try to win over an naturalized citizen .
HinTN
@Platonailedit: Soon to hit the magical mythical 27%.
raven
@A Ghost To Most:
dm
Maybe Democrats in red states should run tapes of Reagan saying stuff like thatas a way of giving Republicans-out-of-habit a lifeline, and permission to do the decent thing.
Reagan used to talk about how he used to be a Democrat, but that the party had changed. Well, two can play that game.
The Ancient Randonneur
@Amir Khalid: Both
Uncle Cosmo
@dmsilev: As one of my good friends of the Semitic persuasion said to this d*go-amurkkin t’other day, Remember what it was like before we were white?
HinTN
@Omnes Omnibus: This is where we must plan to be.
Onnes Omnibus
@raven: You got ahead of me.
MagdaInBlack
@A Ghost To Most:
This may be something as simple as standing up for some one being bullied/harrassed in a place of business : the “speak english” nonsense.
Or it may be something bigger. Just be ready.
” Storms a comin’ ma “
TriassicSands
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ultimately, yes. But we have to help Mexico (and other Central American countries) make the kind of progress necessary to allow that to be possible. Have you ever traveled in Europe? Open borders are the ideal. MAGA isn’t going to ever get there.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: You got ahead of me.
James Powell
@Omnes Omnibus:
An open border for refugees? I’m down with that, though I understand the management problems it creates.
Uncle Cosmo
@MagdaInBlack: Is Mr Axelgrease perhaps referring to Jawbbone the Butt, Press Suckertary to the Whites-Only House?
Shit, I woulda thowed her flabby alibi-ino Butt outa that restaurant on the grounds her
presenceexistence was nauseating the other customers.James Powell
@JR:
His transformation into a Beltway Courtier was some time ago. He’s a typical Village asshole.
Omnes Omnibus
Hi, the site won’t let me reply anymore.
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thank you, Omnes. Because I am concerned that is where liberals are being manipulated — picked up on that real early — and I am not sure it is (a) in our best interests, speaking of those already here, with incomes rarely rising for those not in the professional and tech sector and (b) am concerned it’s a trap — lot of emotion, leading to overrreach. Do we have a border, or don’t we?
Time for some out in the open discussions about this, honest ones.
Honest for me means: It’s not the wall. It’s e-verify. Along with sending some employers to jail for noncompliance, and huge and meaningful fines. Folks come for jobs and to better their opportunities. It’s not all fleeing gang violence, although that sounds good on TV.
We could match our visa system to actual jobs we do need supplementing with foreign workers, although not with El Trump and crew in office. They are deplorable.
Migrants are going to be the issue of the 21st century.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: dang
EBT
Have this biting social commentary on a 6-10 age range kid’s show. https://twitter.com/HypraSeaPea/status/1010391822110056448
TriassicSands
We also have a lot of work to do in this country before an open border would be workable.
Omnes Omnibus
@James Powell: I said open border.
raven
@Elizabelle: throw the motherfucker that hire illegal folks in the slammer
EBT
@Elizabelle: Fuck having a boarder at all. This is a growing sentiment in my age bucket. And the next one down.
Elizabelle
@EBT: I do not see how that is remotely workable.
schrodingers_cat
@Elizabelle: Canada’s immigration system is far more straightforward not so byzantine.
MagdaInBlack
@Uncle Cosmo:
From Wonkette comments :
“It was a pure business decision. How likely is it our other customers will stay if there’s a shambling mound of garbage drawing flies in the middle of the dining area?”
Uncle Cosmo
@RepubAnon: I seem to recall from many moons ago a webpage by a guy who claimed to be in the room at the very moment a major slab of the fundies abandoned the teachings of Jesus to sell their immoral souls to Mammon, aka the Prosperity
GospelGoyspiel. Anyone got the Google-fu to dig it up?Omnes Omnibus
@EBT: That is practical, isn’t it?
Adam L Silverman
@Platonailedit: Cassandro?
NotMax
Hm. we’ve seemingly lost the Recent Comments list.
Steep price to pay.
Omnes Omnibus
Jesus, fix the blog.
Chetan Murthy
@Omnes Omnibus: Snort.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Yeah; I sneak away for a while to play some WoW and the place goes to wrack and ruin.
;)
Omnes Omnibus
I can’t fucking reply to people.
Tenar Arha
@efgoldman: @Amir Khalid: I shall provide Adam with funny signs outside of vets offices as comic relief for his pets’ easy recoveries (& payment for future new threads ;)
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: It is a concern.
Peale
@TriassicSands: what are you talking about? Integrating Eastern Europe into the EU has always met stiff resistance and comes with moratoriums on internal migration for set periods of time. The fear of Polish Plumbers! It’s not just a UK thing. Christ, Polish immigrants are the major reason behind Brexit.
I do agree that NAFTA should have eventually led to open borders with Mexico, but a lot changed after 1990s that made it a pipe dream. First and foremost, we had the annihilation of Mexican agriculture which was supposed to have been offset by US MNCs investing in Mexican manufacturing capacity, which was delayed by US MNCs deciding to move production to China instead. Finally after 20 years it looks like the infrature is in place for Mexico to serve, the US elects a nutcase who accuses Mexico of cheating and wants it to revert to the late 1990s economy, which is like asking us to relive 1931.
dmsilev
@Omnes Omnibus: I have a ‘click to edit’ button for your last couple of comments.
Must. Avoid. Temptation.
Steeplejack (phone)
And my power went out a little while ago, just as I was settling down in the cushy chair to watch Endeavour. Damn.
Good thing I was just bragging to someone today that my power has gone out only a couple of times in the last six years.
Phone’s at 44%, so I guess I’ll make an early night of it and try to get some sleep. Don’t know where my Nook is, and it’s probably not charged up anyway.
Steep out for the time being.
cintibud
Got me thinking of Springsteen thinking of Steinbeck:
Tom said: “Mom, wherever there’s a cop beating a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there’s a fight against the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me, Mom, I’ll be there
Wherever somebody’s fighting for a place to stand
Or a decent job or a helping hand
Wherever somebody’s struggling to be free
Look in their eyes, Ma, and you’ll see me”
The highway is alive tonight
Where it’s headed everybody knows
I’m sitting down here in the campfire light
With the ghost of old Tom Joad
Adam L Silverman
@RepubAnon: That’s why I put that footnote in.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Bill Mumy has been wishing them into the cornfield.//
satby
@Omnes Omnibus: Ok, testing.
Bizarrely, all of the recent blog problems reported haven’t happened at all to me on my Kindle Fire, with the exception of the non-sticking nyms on the mobile site. Kindles are pretty cheap right now. Might be easier than getting all these FYWP plug-ins working.
Omnes Omnibus
@dmsilev: Oh, dear.
WereBear
@James Powell: I was shocked about that. I read his book last summer and saw no such clues.
Adam L Silverman
@A Ghost To Most: Sure. It means that if you see one or more people berating or threatening or menacing a person of color or a visible religious minority for simply being a person of color or visible religious minority because they now feel empowered to do so, that it may be necessary to place yourself between the abuser and the abused. Especially if the chance/risk of actual physical violence is imminent. And that should the dehumanization not stop with just undocumented immigrants seeking asylum and then be expanded to all LatinX and Hispanic people, as well as Muslims or those perceived to be Muslims through ignorance (Sikhs), and eventually to African Americans, that it would be necessary to do the same thing to stand up for them too.
Does that help?
Alain the site fixer
@Omnes Omnibus: I thought I had that too, but it was the ad refresh happening. I fing hate these ads, let me tell you.
Adam L Silverman
@Platonailedit: Just 7 more points to go to hit the magic number…
West of the Rockies
@dmsilev:
Oh, my…
You don’t think OO really meant to call Adam Captain Stinky Pants, do you?
satby
@WereBear: just wanted to tell you how much I’m enjoying your book! Learning some new kitty wrangling tricks. Thanks!
Omnes Omnibus
@Alain the site fixer: My ‘nym is no longer sticky either.
NotMax
First world problem.
More upset than ought to be that now, after all these years, am forced to install a cable company box for the TV. Cable company is switching over to all digital in July and my trusty analog (box free) connection/service is destined to swim with the fishes.
Yet one more thing to find an empty socket to plug it into, no easy task. At least there is no clock on the front of the box.
Remote (yet another one – ugh) that came with it has more buttons than a regiment’s worth of Goslin Zouave uniforms.
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: Both. So there are specific denominations that are evangelical – like the Southern Baptist Convention – or Charismatic (Pentacostal) – like the Assemblies of God – or fundamentalist – like the Independent Baptists (Fallwell’s denomination). There are also some mainline Protestants that, because they are born again, consider themselves evangelicals. So, for instance, Attorney General Sessions who is a Methodist, a mainline Protestant denomination, also considers himself to be born again. So he would be an evangelical Methodist.
Does that help?
dmsilev
@Omnes Omnibus: Fortunately for all concerned, it seems to have been a temporary glitch in the Matrix.
Or was it…
Dan B
I read on a gay blog that the owner asked the gay employees if they were okay with Sanders and they said no because of her anti LGBT animus and her prejudice against muslims and people of color.
Jackie
@Adam L Silverman: And, too, when a brown person is berated for not speaking “American” it’s time to remind them we’re ALL Americans – whether from north, central or south America.
debbie
@Elizabelle:
Or find activist non-interventionist ways to improve conditions in the countries people are fleeing from.
Matt McIrvin
@Elizabelle: The people currently streaming in from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala really are fleeing gang violence. Nobody is going to make that enormous trek just to get a better job.
The people who came in from Mexico in huge numbers during the 1980s and 1990s were primarily economic. But that’s slowed to a trickle. The Mexican undocumented immigrants mostly aren’t new arrivals; by and large they’re people who have already been here for years.
That’s the thing that strikes me, that the whole debate is taking place in this atmosphere of unreality. The people who are afraid of illegal immigrants think it’s still 1990, and it’s not.
Steeplejack
And my power came back on just as I was in the kitchen making the housecat a late supper by lamplight. Romantic.
Total time out about an hour, maybe a little less. Job one, got the cell phone on the charger. Now back to puttering around. Guess I’ll catch Endeavour tomorrow afternoon.
Adam L Silverman
@Uncle Cosmo: Yep. This is one of the key flaws in Stephen Miller’s plans.
Jager
@dmsilev:
Scotch-Irish, English, Welsh, Norwegian , Dutch and German, I’m probably safe although the Scotch-Irish blood could be dicey. Mrs J is safe, all English, maybe, but her grandmother’s first husband was a Jew. This shit is complicated in the “Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave”
WereBear
@satby: This thrills me, thanks. One of my favorite forms of feedback is when someone with a lot of cat experience learns something new from me.
The Way of Cats on Kindle
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: I’ve pinged Alain. In case he’s still up.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: Be afraid, be very afraid.
Jeffro
Geez…somehow I just managed to delete a longer comment…need an editor and also some basic tech skills…
Anyway, it’d be amazing to see the Dems not overdo it re: immigration. 75% of the country is already with us (meaning 25% are not, meaning we’re already down to the hardcore 27% and even a couple of THEM are on the fence)
Just explain that it’s good for immigrants, good for business, good for our hospitals, etc, and shine the light right back on the unnecessary cruelty and short-sightedness of Trumpov’s policies (plus all the attendant lies about what the policy exactly IS, why it’s there, etc)
Gelfling 545
@EBT: My grandkids watch that weird little show. It’s pretty out there but occasionally it startles me with its sharp commentary. Still quite weird, though.
WereBear
Okay, i was able to reply to satby and put a link in my comment, then edit it. iPad with Chrome browser for Alain.
And I have my nym etc, yay! It had vanished.
Peale
@EBT: the current quota based system is a problem. It was specifically designed to keep Latin American numbers down. Other groups are now caught up in it now are Indians, Filipinos, and Chinese, who face caps on legal migration against a huge backlog of applications that runs decades. That’s the problem. Also very few ways to turn temporary status into permanent status. Plus a enough barriers to converting permanent residency into naturalized citizenship that about 1/2 of greencard holders will never become citizens. There are lots of avenues for reform, but you’ll have to convince me that Open Borders wouldn’t just exacerbate problems. Especially that last one. Our political system is designed technically, but not perfectly, around the idea that it’s best to be responsive to voters. Allow in millions who have needs that can be ignored and they remain vulnerable.
TriassicSands
@Peale:
I thought what I wrote was pretty easy to understand. What both Reagan and Bush said was aspirational, not something that would be in place tomorrow or next year. There is a tremendous amount of work that would have to be done on both sides of the border before we could hope to have anything resembling an open border. But it is something worth working toward. Anywhere we stopped along the way would be better than what Trump wants.
Up until 9/11, I could go to Canada anytime I wanted to by flashing my driver’s license and answering a question or two. (I live across the Strait of Juan de Fuca from Vancouver Island.) It’s not that there weren’t any controls, but they were minimal — stuff like not taking pitted fruits into Canada to avoid spreading disease. I found the agricultural inspections in Arizona and California at least as “intrusive.” And the Canadian officials were always more friendly and polite. The two worst borders I’ve crossed in my life were entering Great Britain and, sigh, the United States. No one would mistake me for a Mexican or Central American. As it was, the GB border was stupider than the US, but the US was much ruder and more offensive. (And I’m referring to a time long before 9/11.) Even returning to the US from Canada was always more obnoxious that going the other way.
Steeplejack
@satby:
Same for me on computer (desktop, Windows 10, Firefox), tablet (desktop, Android, Chrome) and phone (mobile, Android, Chrome). I think there is some factor outside FYWP and/Balloon Juice that is contributing to the problems people are having.
Although when I got on this computer after my recent power outage I found that my nym and e-mail had disappeared. Reëntered them for my previous comment, and they appear to be sticking again.
Villago Delenda Est
@MagdaInBlack: Mr. Axelrod can take a flying fuck.
Adam L Silverman
@Elizabelle: @Omnes Omnibus: There are a couple of related issues here. I’ve not heard anyone saying that there shouldn’t be some amount of appropriate customs, borders, and immigration rules and controls in place. What we do have, however, is a system for dealing with asylum requests that is significantly overburdened and, because of several things that go back to the 1920s, far, far stingier than it should be. We also are in constant need of just the actual immigrants into the US to help make up the deficit that is coming when the baby boomer population fully hits retirement age. We are in dire need of actual, well thought out, practical reforms. Which is not what you’re going to get from this crowd of revanchist nativists and white supremacists.
Give this a read:
https://www.propublica.org/article/behind-the-criminal-immigration-law-eugenics-and-white-supremacy
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
At least yours was sticking.
Matt McIrvin
@Adam L Silverman: The case where I am afraid I may come up inadequate is the one where the guy doing the menacing is a cop with a gun. Can I take that bullet? Will I risk being beaten, imprisoned, tortured in a basement somewhere? Will I risk physical danger to my family–can I, if necessary to protect others, consider their lives forfeit? I don’t know and I’m afraid the choice may come up soon.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: The issue is that if it’s something beyond the tools that Alain has as site administrator, then he has to submit a ticket. And it’s a weekend. So he’s unlikely to hear back until tomorrow.
Kayla Rudbek
@Adam L Silverman:
And then there are Catholics who are closer in belief/political opinions to the Evangelicals than they are to their supposed co-religionists (e.g Opus Dei for starters). When my husband and I moved to DC, his comment was “oh, God, we’re moving to the Diocese of Arlington, and I’m never going to go to Mass again.”
efgoldman
@debbie:
Nym, email gone.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: I would love to discuss it if the site worked.
Steeplejack
@WereBear:
Which version of the site, desktop or mobile? They are two different modules, with overlapping but not always identical problems.
Adam L Silverman
@Tenar Arha: Thanking you!
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: Alain just texted this back:
Amir Khalid
@The Ancient Randonneur:
@Adam L Silverman:
Thanks for sorting that out for me.
Omnes Omnibus
@Adam L Silverman: Second reply. I would be happy to discuss this but…..
khead
Re: Pair of RINO’s video and the GOP.
“You’ve come a long way, baby
To get where you’ve got to today…
You’ve come a long, long way”
sgrAstar
@raven: Mario Savio! I was there. ✊️
Adam L Silverman
@Dan B: It was in the original WaPo reporting and in every follow on I’ve seen from The Guardian to RawStory.
Matt McIrvin
@Adam L Silverman:
I’ve heard some saying that in this thread.
I don’t know; I don’t think I want the abolition of all customs and border controls but I do think my preferred system would be much closer to completely open borders than to what we’ve got now. That’s not saying much, though, since we seem to be on the fast track to hermit-kingdom status.
Patricia Kayden
@MagdaInBlack: Conservatives like Sarah are fully supportive of business owners who refuse to serve members of the LGBT community on religious grounds.
They should have zero problems with business owners refusing to serve liars for the Bigot-in-Chief.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack (phone):
Endeavour was most enjoyable but was the most ridiculous mystery I’ve ever seen, and I’m including Death in Paradise. I’ll say no more.
zhena gogolia
Nyms are gone, have to be typed in each time.
Adam L Silverman
@Jackie: When I was doing my MA in religion in Miami, I went to grab something quick and fast foodish for lunch one day – sandwich shop across from the university. The girl working the register was having trouble because of language issues between herself and the customers, as well as the way the register was configured. A number of people in line began to grouse, then grouse loudly, then begin to mock. I turned around and said to no one in particular in my inside voice, which is most people’s outside voice, that: “How about you all cut her a little slack. I know from your conversations that at least 1/2 of you speak Spanish as well as English, so instead of making fun of her, how about you volunteer to help her out because she’s trying hard and the more you mock her, the more stressed she’s getting because you’re embarrassing her.” You could have heard a pin drop until I left the place. I may also be the only person in line that didn’t get the “extra special sauce” on his order. And I don’t write this or relate it to make it out that I’m a paragon of virtue, but because it isn’t hard to just do the little things to make a difference.
efgoldman
@Patricia Kayden:
To object would be rank hypocrisy.
Oh, wait.
debbie
@efgoldman:
No matter how many times I post, I still forget to add that #!*% info! Maddening!
Gah, I did it again! ?
Peale
@Jeffro: I wouldn’t put much faith in those high numbers. Conservatives like forever are well conditioned to wiggle out of racism charges by stating that it’s only illegal immigrants they oppose. Or poor immigrants. Applying for asylum is legal. We have a process for discovering whether those applicants are covered by the rules. But conservatives are convinced that Latinos are using a loophole and cheating, so asylum, which was legal, is now a form of illegal immigration. Americans may say they like immigrants, but if polled, they’ll favor, say, the use of local police to “check papers”, much like even liberal New Yorkers had no problem with stop and frisk for African American males as long as they didn’t have to see it. Snatching children may be a bridge too far, but there’s lots of border enforcement harshness that gets support since it’s directed at the Southern border crossers.
zhena gogolia
This is after having my laptop turned off for several hours. No nym, no e-mail. Chrome on laptop.
Omnes Omnibus
The site is broken. Arguments I would make can’t be countered.
Yarrow
@Platonailedit:
Makes me think of what McConnell said after it passed Congress:
Yes. Couldn’t agree more. Make it so.
Adam L Silverman
@Jager:
I’ll put this down under the new business portion of the agenda for the next meeting of the Elders. If they decide to take action, she will be contacted in accordance with the ancient traditions…//
MagdaInBlack
@Patricia Kayden:
Conservatives like Sarah et al, are completely incapable of making that obvious connection.
As I’m sure you’ve noticed ?
A Ghost To Most
@Adam L Silverman:
Sure, thank you. As I’ve said too many times, peak wing nut is way past words.
Duane
@Omnes Omnibus: You can’t reply now? Apparently Alain has fixed the site!
Adam L Silverman
@Matt McIrvin: I understand. Everyone has to do their own risk assessment and take the actions they feel are both appropriate and are comfortable with. This leaves a wide range of responses.
ETA: I’m almost tempted to see if there’s enough interest to set up seminars with me and my two co-instructors to come to areas with large concentrations of our readers and commentators to do weekend seminars on close quarters and personal protection defense. Our costs, including instruction, would have to be paid for and I’m loathed to ask anyone here to pay me for stuff, but we can’t just afford to take the time up, fly to say the greater Boston or New York areas or DC or to a place where most of the California crowd could get to easily and cheaply, pay rental for a training space, pay for our meals out of pocket. So I’ve largely not mentioned it.
Adam L Silverman
@Kayla Rudbek: Look on the bright side: you get to sleep in on Sundays and go to brunch!//
B.B.A.
Some glibertarians I encounter are fond of pointing out that some of the British administrators in Hong Kong intentionally refused to collect economic data in order to prevent other bureaucrats (especially their higher-ups in London) from having enough information to meddle with the Almighty Holy Free Market, praised be it.
I support abolishing ICE and CBP (and, hell, TSA while I’m at it) for much the same reason – starve the bigots of information and control points and thereby cripple their bigotry. I don’t expect this to get anywhere, but the barriers are more political than practical. The main practical issue is that it’d mean setting loose the thousands of jackbooted fascists who populate those agencies to terrorize us on the streets.
Suzanne
@Adam L Silverman: It should also be noted that evangelicals tend to believe in
1) a literal interpretation of the Bible, and there is a strong sub-cultural emphasis on reading the Bible oneself, rather than led by a Biblical scholar
2) a personal and active relationship with God developed through prayer, and they believe that God often intercedes on their behalf
3) the gospel must be shared (so they evangelize).
This makes them different than many mainline Christians in practice and culture, even though many of the professed beliefs are the same.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: You seem to be able to reply to me.
Matt McIrvin
@Peale: Yes and no. The interesting thing about those high numbers is that they only happened recently, and most of the gain is among Democrats. Anti-immigration sentiment spiked really high after 9/11, but it’s been gradually dropping ever since, with some short-lived fluctuations.
That suggests to me that there’s a bit more going on here than just people being nostalgic about their white European immigrant ancestors; people are really thinking about brown people to some extent.
On Gallup’s own page, they show the historical results for another question that asks whether people want immigration to increase, decrease or stay about the same. “Stay about the same” actually has a pretty constant constituency. There’s never been a big cohort in favor of increased immigration, and there still isn’t. But 2018 is the first time since they started asking the question that “increase” and “decrease” are even.
EBT
@Peale: Remove the quotas totally, and simplify the system to become a citizen. I sincerely take the Pratchett idea of If everyone is us, there isn’t any us and them.
EBT
@Gelfling 545: I have seen bits and pieces of it, and the first thing I appreciated from it is that the walking, talking, oxygen breathing, fish with legs is named Darwin, and looks like one of those little “darwin” jesus fish squashed alpha thingie.
Adam L Silverman
@Omnes Omnibus: And I’ve received this reply as well.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
Oh, dear. Nonetheless I will watch it tomorrow. The characters are enough to be going on with most of the time.
I have watched Death in Paradise off and on and have always been a little uncomfortable with it. Partly it’s the, uh, colonial vibe that they just can’t escape. The show is very respectful to all the characters and gives them a lot to do, but it’s still “white guy in charge.” And what’s the deal with the revolving door of white guys? I was okay with the first two—the really uptight suit guy and then the big, curly-haired guy—but aren’t they on number three or four now?
Oh, yeah, forgot to mention that I agree, sometimes the plots are exceedingly threadbare. I guess we’re supposed to coast on local color.
Checked something on IMDB just now and saw that Sara Martins (Camille Bordey on Death in Paradise) will be showing up in the Father Brown episode this week (for me, at least): “The Two Deaths of Hercule Flambeau.” She also showed up a year or so ago starring in a French series, Détectives, on my third-tier Eurotrash channel MHz. Was driving me nuts because I knew I had seen this person before but could not make the connection, because in Détectives she is a sophisticated Parisienne speaking fluent French.
Chetan Murthy
@Suzanne:
Is this really accurate, in the sense that evangelicals actually -do- read the Bible and figure it out for themselves? B/c it sure seems like they’re all parrotting the same damn lines, the same bigotries, and never getting around to the other parts. I’m not Christian, so I wouldn’t know for sure. But I’m educated enough to know that the book of Leviticus has a lot more stuff than “man lying with man as with woman” in it.
Specifically recently I saw a recent post at Slacktivist about Sessions’ use of Romans to justify his family separation policies and, in combination with the massive parrotting of that position on the right, and the history of its use in defending slavery and segregation, I sure have difficulty believing that Evangelicals actually come to their views by direct unmediated interaction with the Bible.
I also remember that lovely youtube video of a priest giving testimony to some city council about an anti-LGBT-discrimination ordinance, with a speech about how it was anti-family, and how important family was, based on his Christianity. And halfway thru, he switched to the actual text, which was a speech arguing against interracial marriage, based on the same arguments.
Matt McIrvin
@B.B.A.: I sometimes wonder if it’s be like the de-Baathification of the Iraqi army… if these guys would just turn into a terrorist paramilitary and start blowing shit up and declaring the Holy Empire of White Jesus. Maybe there’s not enough of them.
Brickley Paiste
@Matt McIrvin:
The problem with this country is that all the wrong people have the guns.
Adam L Silverman
@Matt McIrvin: Let me rephrase that: I’ve not heard anyone in any position of authority with the Democratic Party or even of anyone in any position of authority with the Democratic Party say that. I’ve seen the President and a number of his supporters and enablers say it about elected Democrats and members of the Democratic Party.
Chetan Murthy
@Matt McIrvin: They and their kin need insulin and anti-cancer meds. Kind of incompatible with blowing shit up all the time. I’m sayin’: they want modernity, only on their terms. If they can’t get their terms, they’re not gonna jettison modernity so quick. Nobody wants to die of sepsis, or untreated diabetes.
Matt McIrvin
@Chetan Murthy: Fred Clark is really good on this stuff. He’s noted how you’d never get the premillennial End Times folks’ detailed story of the coming Rapture, Antichrist, Tribulation and Second Coming, and particularly not the bits about how it all fits into contemporary politics, from any plain read of the Bible; they’re relying on specific exegeses that do a lot of cutting and pasting and creative interpretation, though they insist throughout that it’s absolute literalism.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
It is formulaic to the max. One can almost set his watch by the time in each program when something similar occurs.
Did appreciate Kris Marshall (2nd guy) over the first guy. Main reason I kept up with it was Danny John-Jules (Officer Dwayne), who played Cat on Red Dwarf. Took me a while to recognize him as he has certainly aged.
hugely
@Elizabelle: i endorse this message, thank you
Brickley Paiste
@Matt McIrvin: A great benefit to open borders is that it would be a metric fuckton of money to people who set up businesses arranging charter flights from China, India, and heck the whole rest of the world into the US.
If it now costs 7000 for a flight from there to here, demand will increase by thousands of percent and but there would be so much business you would be ordering 797s and that is what you would be ordering because the manufacturer would have realize that there was actually a need for 2,000 seat aircraft with no luggage.
It would be like having a thousand flowers bloom, but those blooms would be gigantic buds of the green master.
Yarrow
Has Betty Cracker checked in? Last post I saw from her was that things were not going well. Hope she and her family are okay.
Platonailedit
Craig McGillivray
Thanks Adam. I look forward to reading your posts, because of the clear thinking and effective writing. It helps me to sort through all the squid ink on the internet, and helps me organize my thoughts on matters of policy, and politics. I appreciate the time you put in here. Back to lurking on dead threads.
Adam L Silverman
@Suzanne: Yep.
Villago Delenda Est
@Matt McIrvin: Some crazy in the 19th century invented a lot of this armageddon crap out of whole cloth, and these idiots have no idea in the world how to interpret Revelations. They just like the tone of the story…the wicked are damned to torment, and they are ushered off to the hell of other fundies.
Matt McIrvin
@Brickley Paiste: I don’t know who the right people are to have the guns but I’m positive I’m not one of them.
Platonailedit
@Brickley Paiste: @Brickley Paiste:
What are you blabbering about?
MagdaInBlack
@Chetan Murthy:
Short answer is that they may well read the bible, they read it, as you say: literally.
They have no interest in the context: the political or social situation when it was written, for whom it was written, or the bias/intent of the author.
They quite literally lift bronze age belief and law and apply it now.
Per Leviticus ( feel free to correct me, Adam) I would be married to my husbands brother ( gah!) as my husband, the eldest, died without issue/a male heir.
?BillinGlendaleCA
Here’s a really cool flower that was in front of where we parked last night at The Huntington.
PJ
@Elizabelle: Climate change will be the issue of the 21st Century, and mass migration from hot zones and flooded coasts and famines will be a big part of it.
Kayla Rudbek
@Adam L Silverman: Heh. I miss having a third place other than work and home to go to as part of a community (especially a third place that I can find regardless of physical location), but I’m not inclined to buy into all the nonsense of sexism, homophobia, and the cover-ups of crime. Nor do I miss the constant message that in order to be considered a good Catholic, that I had to always vote Republican “pro-life” and have a ton of kids. I’m too ethnic (and too conscious of history) to really feel comfortable going to an Episcopal or Unitarian Church, but I think that’s who I would have the most in common with in terms of beliefs. Have you ever seen this? two Christianities
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Suzanne:
I think a literal interpretation of the Bible goes hand in hand with authoritarianism. Because if you believe in a literal, omnipotent god, then what real value is there in democracy? What value in accountability or transparency? The god in the Bible was a total monster.
Ex: The Second Coming. I’m sorry I don’t care how good the guy claims to be. I don’t trust anyone with absolute power that can’t be checked and I like living in a democracy as flawed as it is.
Adam L Silverman
@Chetan Murthy: There’s a lot of reading from only the approved translation with the approved commentary and focusing on the commentary. And doing so in bible studies that reinforce very specific interpretation from people and led by people that may not be qualified. The guy that runs the one for the Cabinet members and members of Congress, who focused on the passage from Romans in his bible study for the Cabinet the day before Sessions used it, is a former basketball player with no formal training or education in religion or theology:
https://thinkprogress.org/white-house-bible-study-group-trump-child-separation-policy-24de236c4824/
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/freethoughtnow/an-open-letter-to-ralph-drollinger-the-pastor-who-conducts-the-white-house-bible-study/
https://splinternews.com/trump-is-definitely-reading-his-far-right-bible-homewor-1825102709
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43534724
Steeplejack
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Cool indeed! Do you know what it is?
Chetan Murthy
@MagdaInBlack: Well, no. Your own example is an excellent illustration. They’re not reading it literally — they’re reading the parts they like literally, and any parts they dislike, they skip right over. They have a filter, and coincidentally it seems like a massive number of them have the same precise filter. Right down to “whatever you do to the smallest of these, you do to me” not applying to fellow Christians, b/c those fellow Christians are brown. I mean, it’s real difficult for me to believe that they’re actually figuring this out for themselves.
It seems much more believable, that they’re swallowing/regurgitating pap fed to them by propagandists in disguise as preachers and such.
GregB
Remember when the media told all of the tea-partiers to shut up and be nice to the politicians?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack: No idea; it was out in the parking lot, so it didn’t have a label say what it was.
Chetan Murthy
@Adam L Silverman:
How can it be (ahem) kosher for evangelicals to read such a commentary? It seems like that goes directly against the idea of direct interaction with the bible, and with the Lord thereby?
Brickley Paiste
@Matt McIrvin:It’s sort of the opposite of not wanting to be in any club that would have you — it’s more that the club should only want you if you didn’t want to join.
Adam L Silverman
@Brickley Paiste: You keep telling yourself that cupcake.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
Which makes me wonder: if the god of the Bible actually showed up and started interfering like it did in the OT, would people believe it was the same being and worship it or would they attempt to resist it, however futilely?
Kay
Huckabee was always horrible. These people are just really poor judges of character. They have to get better at it. They’re going to kill us all with this.
Is there a class they can take? Ten tips for recognizing charlatans and con men, 3 hours. We’ll have to hold it in a stadium.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: I’ll check on her via email.
Brickley Paiste
@Adam L Silverman:
For someone stalking about like a ghost on the moors muttering on about the approaching hour of decision about putting oneself in harms’ way between immigrants and the force of the federal government, I’m glad to see that you and I are in agreement.
Ruckus
@Elizabelle:
It’s changed since raygun on several levels.
It’s easier to travel today and cheaper.
The population in 1980 was over 4.4 billion, today it’s over 7 billion.
The world’s manufacturing is a lot different than it was 40 yrs ago.
The world’s agriculture is a lot different than it was 40 yrs ago.
We’ve started wars since 1980 that have created a lot of people searching for a life, that can not get that in the lands they were born in.
Neither we nor others can afford to try to fix things using only a rear view mirror. The realities of the world have changed that. (Of course that’s been true for over 100 yrs but we are talking now.) Where things are mfg, where food is grown, where people are oppressed for things they have no control of. People looking for guidance through religion and for the most part it looks back farther than our conservatives. People want stability and life really hasn’t ever had that. People want simplicity and life hasn’t had that for a long time either. We are living longer because we have stopped some horrific diseases and made others far less life threatening.
Adam L Silverman
@Platonailedit: Lot of have my baby born in America tourism from Russia being done through the President’s owned and/or branded properties in south Florida.
Jager
@Adam L Silverman:
Thanks Adam, I’ll let her know she’s on the agenda.
Brickley Paiste
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
passiformes edulus?
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Lots of money laundering being done there too.
Edit: @Adam L Silverman: Thanks.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Brickley Paiste:
Resisting the federal government doesn’t have to include violent armed resistance. We’re not there yet and hopefully never will. Some of us still believe in democracy.
Chetan Murthy
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: Well, Dostoevsky wrote a famous passage about Jesus coming back, and he was pretty clear that the Church (and ts inquisitors) would not have looked kindly on that.
Yarrow
@Kay: Honestly, I think we need a training sessions on recognizing propaganda and disinformation.
Viva BrisVegas
@TriassicSands:
The rhetoric is different, but the cruelty and indifference to suffering is the same.
Has no-one wondered why the bulk of these refugees are coming from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala?
These two “upright” Republicans oversaw a program of despoliation of those countries in the name of anti-communism. They installed and supported right wing death squads who raped and pillaged those countries until nothing was left except violent street gangs fighting over the scraps that were left.
They created these failed nation states in pursuit of their own political interests, and damn the consequences.
Those consequences are now on the border.
Brickley Paiste
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
Quite right. I was responding to someone who apparently does not share your feeling.
VOR
@Chetan Murthy: Exactly. The translation of the bible matters. Not an evangelical, but my understanding is that one of the translations is commonly printed with commentary or annotations (Geneva bible??). Many readers believe this commentary to have the same weight as the actual biblical text. The King James Bible does not have annotations.
Jager
@Suzanne:
When i was doing my time at Fort Benning, one of my classmates was from New Orleans. He maintained that other than going to one of the fine establishments in his home city, the easiest way to get laid was to go to Southern Baptist Church picnics.
Ruckus
@Jager:
Similar background here with the addition of Sicilian and Native American. All of which is family lore, I could be the abducted son of a visitor from outer space, as far as anyone really knows. Or been abducted by visitors from outer space and had my brain replaced by a Casio watch movement. With warranty issues.
Duane
@Kay: Republicans are such bad judges of character they should stop voting before they kill us all. Their moralmeter is way off.
Adam L Silverman
@Villago Delenda Est: William Miller. His followers were called the Millerites. In specific, those that hung on when the rapture didn’t happen – the Great Disappointment – became the 7th Day Adventists. But a lot of his atheological teachings (prophecies?) about the end of days wound up spreading through the Burned Over District in the late 1830s through the mid to late1840s influencing a lot of the other Protestant denominations and sects in regard to what the end times would be and how they would happen. I wrote a chunk of my masters thesis in religious studies on Miller and his teachings.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Matt McIrvin:
This is the choice that many in Nazi Germany faced and obviously many came up short. Defying a regime as evil and brutal as the Nazis wasn’t an easy feat. People did it but it took special people to do that. A brave few who could summon immense courage in the face imprisonment and death.
Perhaps people judge the individuals who lived under Hitler’s rule too harshly. Many had families themselves and didn’t want to risk them. It’s not an easy choice to make, to risk everything you have to save strangers.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Brickley Paiste: Looks like it.
Adam L Silverman
@Kayla Rudbek: I had not, but that makes a lot of sense. Sorry that you’ve experienced this. Is there not a Catholic church in the area with a Jesuit as the priest that you could attend? Perhaps something at/affiliated with Georgetown University?
Adam L Silverman
@Chetan Murthy: It is, indeed, selective literalism.
Matt McIrvin
@VOR: There are all sorts of these things. The premillennial dispensationalists’ favorite one is called the Scofield Reference Bible; it’s a KJV with a bunch of added notes explaining how it all really means this, that and the other thing, and they pay particular attention to the apocalyptic parts.
When I was in college I remember one of my classmates taking the Gideons’ endnotes in his pocket New Testament as an authoritative source on the authorship of the Gospels.
Jager
@Ruckus:
Those damn Vikings were everywhere, spreading their seed…’we come from the land of the ice and snow…”
Neldob
@?BillinGlendaleCA: It’s a passion flower.
efgoldman
I went away for a while, cmae back, comment page is now totally wonky
No nym, no email.
Pah.
Adam L Silverman
@Chetan Murthy: I merely report so you can decide.//
Honestly, there is a lot of intellectual bricolage within the overarching evangelical denominations. Even more so among Protestants from mainline denominations who consider themselves born again and therefore evangelicals. And a lot of this is pure Americana as these are all made in America developments within Protestantism with roots in the early to mid 19th century.
Adam L Silverman
@Kay: I lived outside Little Rock after he was governor. I was teaching at University of Central Arkansas, which is one of the few civilian university professorships I’ve ever enjoyed. Should never have taken that position in Long Island. Of course, had that happened, I’d not be the me that is able to write here. Anyhow, he had been a terrible governor and they were still feeling the effects after he was out of office.
Chetan Murthy
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
I don’t think this is quite accurate. True, most Germans wouldn’t have wanted to kill a Jew personally, but antisemitism was rampant and to a great extent Germans of the time didn’t mind that the Jews “disappeared”. True, each of them probably had a “deserving Jew” they knew, but that didn’t stop them from being antisemitic to them as a group. This is rather well-documented (Robert Gellately’s _Backing Hitler_, Milton Mayer’s _They Thought They Were Free_, Johnson’s _What We Knew_, and others). I think the big thing we have going for us, is that a giant part of the population does not by any stretch of the imagination hate immigrants and people of color. I’ll go out on a limb and say it’s greater than half. This is very, very different from what things were like in Germany before the War.
The thing that really troubles me, is that state&local govts aren’t doing more to stop ICE. If Philando Castile can be killed for having a licensed gun, I’m sure there are bureaucratic and administrative things that could be done to make ICE’s work a living morass of rapidly-congealing molasses.
Adam L Silverman
@Brickley Paiste:
Ruckus
@Duane:
They are trying to save power by shutting it off completely. Some have even gone so far as to have it removed. That way it won’t waste power and it can’t turn on every minute or so and show them what fucking assholes they are.
CaseyL
I’ve seen some PSAs about how to protect Islamic women, specifically, from harassers.
Basically, greet them like a friend (“Hey! Haven’t seen you in a while!”) and use a casual, natural movement to get between them and the harasser. Then walk away with them, ignoring the harasser. The PSA also recommended keeping long scarfs in your purse, as the harasser might yank off her headscarf and that is as bad as the verbal attacks – so you can offer her a scarf immediately to cover her head.
All of this assumes the harasser won’t turn violent. It’s meant to be non-escalatory – you don’t confront the harasser at all, just ignore them.
I haven’t had to do this, not yet, as I live in a relatively civilized area.
I’m not sure what to do if things get Kristallnacht ugly. I mean, I know what I want to do – and I’m old enough that if I die defending someone I will consider that a Good Death – I just don’t know what form it’ll take, or how much opportunity there will be to hit the barricades.
Ruckus
@Jager:
I’d imagine it might be difficult to turn down someone carrying a broadsword. Who has friends with broadswords.
B.B.A.
@Ruckus: If Fire Emblem has taught me anything, it’s that the only way to stop a bad guy with a broadsword is a good guy with a polearm.
J R in WV
@Omnes Omnibus:
Funny, I can reply to you…
Linux Ubuntu and Firefox… some things are a bit squirrely…
Ooh, dammit, my name and email went away again!!! Dammit!!
Adam L Silverman
@Jager: Right after we discuss the New World Order annual Independence Day softball tournament and picnic brought to you by a grant made public by the Charles Koch Foundation. Even though we do this in complete secrecy and just leak fuzzy pics on social media to give Alex Jones something to freak out about over the long weekend. This is always a mess! Every year! Every stinking year the Illuminati say they’re bringing the sides – cole slaw, potato salad, things like that. And every single year they’re either inedible or store bought. How freaking hard is it to shred white and red cabbage and carrots, salt and pepper to taste, mix in good mayonnaise and cider vinegar, and then tie it all together with a couple of dashes of celery seed and a bit of sugar to cut the bitterness? How do you expect the rest of us to take your part of the plan for global domination seriously if you can’t get cole slaw right? Baked beans should be baked, after being mixed with some really good stone ground mustard, a shot of bourbon, and some brown sugar. Not just poured out of the tin and heated.
And don’t get me started on the Bilderbergers! Every year they sign up to bring the plastic cups, paper plates, plastic flatware, and napkins. This from the so called uber-wealthy masters of the universe. Sure, we get you didn’t get to be uber-wealthy by spending money like it was going out of style, but for Deity’s sake would it kill you to sign up to do deserts one year. Why should we believe you can manage the southern hemisphere after we take over if you can’t even get the decent chinette?
You have no idea what we have to deal with in trying to coordinate and conceal total global domination!//
SectionH
@Steeplejack: It’s a passion flower. And yes, some variety of passiformes edulus, to give the poster due credit.
n.b. trying a reply post again. Previous one disappeared. See OO’s comments above. Don’t care, so happy to have BJ mostly working again.
ETA, Yay! It worked. And I also see others have already ID’d it.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Chetan Murthy:
I agree with all of this. I forgot about antisemitism being so virulent at the time and can’t believe I made such a dumb error.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Adam L Silverman:
This reminded me that the Walhberg family has a restaurant and reality show named Wahlburgers.
Adam L Silverman
@Craig McGillivray: Thanks for the kind words and you are quite welcome.
Please comment more/as much as you’re comfortable with.
Kayla Rudbek
@Adam L Silverman: Thank you very much. Georgetown would probably be best if I want to try Catholicism again (I went to a Jesuit law school so I appreciate their style and their intellect). Or maybe I could try the Episcopal services nearby. There may be more ex-Catholics there than I realize- the blogger I linked to wound up going over to the Episcopals, as did one of my fellow majors from college. (I shouldn’t be so nosey about my college classmate, but when a Knight of Columbus member switches over to being an Episcopalian, it makes you wonder).
Peale
@Adam L Silverman: that article was good. I hope that this current xenophobic crisis will lead to more. I’m still trying to find out what are the origins that led to this current system of legal immigration that doesn’t seem to work very well. Was it intentionally designed to go from crisis to crisis? There are so many categories of visas that seem designed to solve some kind of problem. Not all of them designed to be unfair. I’m hoping someone writes a history article on the history of the legal Permanent residence status. We’ve never gotten beyond the idea of a quota as a way control immigration levels. But we have this status of limbo with a green card that appears to be safe, but is denied to many people. It seems that it exists to confer some kind of sense stability, but it also seems to be taken for granted that we need this limbo period where the state can slow down the progression towards citizenship and monitor immigrant populations. I wonder how benign it really is. When did we start making people wait five years and hold this special document first? Before 1951, applications for were done at the post office.
Adam L Silverman
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: @Chetan Murthy: Give this a read.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/14/books/review/benjamin-carter-hett-death-of-democracy.html#click=https://t.co/ItaXXquZs5
SectionH
@SectionH: bugger it: passiflora edulis. Grump.
Davebo
We’re a long long way from Ronnie and GHWB.
Like centuries. Honestly, if there was a statute of Reagan in Philadelphia, Mississippi right now they’d be hooking on to it with their 4×4’s and pulling it down.
Adam L Silverman
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: Not the same thing.
Wapiti
@Platonailedit: this raises 2 issues for me:
Any offshore money should be required to pass through a US bank to buy goods in the US. (shell company does not mean offshore, but it reminded me that Manafort was paying for house renovations from a Cyprus account).
We really, really need to look at the passive investors getting US passports. I could see millionaire passports if someone is creating jobs with an active investment. But how many of the condos that Trump or Kushner sold translate into a newly minted citizen or green card holder with a newfound ability to donate money to campaigns?
Brickley Paiste
@SectionH:
but apparently not all variations are edible. We had one with a wheel-barrow full of fruits but they were all so desiccated and had such a thick membrane that they absorbed virtually all of the juices. And we watered them like crazy.
The the house down the street has them so laden with juices that they would pop when they would fall and hit the ground and splash up onto the walls.
Adam L Silverman
@Kayla Rudbek: No worries. I went to a Jesuit high school. Appropriately and creatively named Jesuit High School. And my first publication, in high school, was a class paper I did for my theology 2 course on the Epistle of James. It was published in their magazine because I won a writing award that they sponsored for the high school students in the Catholic schools in the greater Tampa Bay area.
One of my professors in my MA in religion was also an Episcopalian priest and canon. She’d also been the first female Navy chaplain. She used to describe it as all the smells and bells without all the other issues that had developed in the US Catholic Church.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Adam L Silverman:
Mitchy-poo should read this article. What comes next, asshole?
Still, I think too many people are aware of this history and will not go quietly into the night.
Mart
@Chetan Murthy: When at rural factories on lunch I have had several different groups of men discuss their bible studies. After they get their stories in they look at me and I say – I am sorry, but I am a heathen. Gets a chuckle and we move on. My impression is it is like a book club/High School history class. Next week we will discuss John X-XX. They are not all assholes, many a D among them!
Amir Khalid
Why does The Bloglord hate Lena Dunham? (Not a rhetorical question; I am genuinely curious.)
A set of roller string saddles that I hope to put on my white Stratocaster arrived today. But not the Stratocaster herself, not yet, which is starting to make me antsy. AH WANTS MAH GEE-TAR!
Davebo
@Wapiti: HB-5 (investor) Visa recipients don’t get passports but green cards (that aren’t green) and they can’t legally at least vote in elections.
And over 80% of them are Chinese.
Davebo
@Amir Khalid: Calm down Francis.
And you should have gone with the Tele….
Kayla Rudbek
@Adam L Silverman: all of the ritual and half of the guilt, to quote Robin Williams!
So to try to bring this onto the subject, I think that a lot of the animosity towards immigrants is driven by racial and religious prejudice, as your ancestors and mine experienced. And that memory of prejudice from the Establishment is part of why I’m reluctant to join a Protestant church. Even though I’d have more in common with your Navy chaplain professor than I do with Callista and Newt Gingrich.
Adam L Silverman
@Peale:
Like a lot of things in the US – from laws to regulations to policies – they are legacies. Because we have a written constitution that is almost impossible to revise appropriately as times changes, we are constricted with the Foundational Laws we have. On top of this the form of the US government also makes it difficult to cleanly undue what’s been done legislatively, so you either get new laws intended to fix problems arising from old laws that weren’t foreseen or specifically because of old laws that reflect the now discarded/rejected mores of times long past or you get attempts at regulations to reinterpret stuff and fix them that way.
The result in the case of immigration, as in the case of so much else from how we provide and fund health care to how we approach solving the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, is a lot of built up over time laws, interpretations of laws by courts and executive branch agencies, and regulations that instead of making a coherent, cohesive whole instead just make a patchwork mess that is internally contradictory and illogical and externally a mess.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
And AFAIK, there wasn’t increased amounts of activism and liberal voter turnout like we’re seeing in the US in the German Reich in the runup to the Nazi regime. And as racist as American society is, I don’t think we’re as virulently racist as a typical society in the 1930s was.
Adam L Silverman
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: A lot like what I wrote about how McConnell has operated here:
https://balloon-juice.com/2018/06/12/if-only-there-was-something-that-senators-corker-or-flake-or-collins-could-do/#comment-6905340
Platonailedit
@Wapiti: All of govt oversight agencies have collectively dropped the ball for decades when it came to traitorous thug and his family’s “business dealings”. Dereliction of their duties, in my view.
Adam L Silverman
@Kayla Rudbek: I understand.
Amir Khalid
@Davebo:
I already got the Tele. And the Les Paul, too. I need a Strat to complete the set. And a Fender Champion 100 amp, just because it’s big and BF loud.
Adam L Silverman
Some positive movement:
Mnemosyne
@Brickley Paiste:
Aww, look who can’t wait to make himself into the new Horst Wessel. So adorbs.
Chetan Murthy
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: Well, there was a lot of activism in Germany. There were vigorous Socialist and Communist parties. The problem was, they were at daggers drawn. There’s that famous saying of the leader of the Communists (Ernst Thalmann): “Nach Hitler, Uns” (After Hitler, Us). So Hitler gets in, and his opposition is divided. He proceeds to immediately throw their leaders in prison, start beating up and torturing activists, etc.
So a different lesson is that whatever we do, we need to not be divided for reasons that pale in comparison to the existential threat we all face. *cough* Wilmer *cough*
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Adam L Silverman:
I remember reading it.
I want your honest opinion. You’ve spoken in the past about how well our civil society is resisting the forces of reaction. Do you think our current situation, while having similarities to the Weimar Republic, is different?
Matt McIrvin
@Adam L Silverman: A while back, probably during one of the periodic symbolic controversies over people protesting during the national anthem or refusing to say the Pledge of Allegiance, I was wondering when all this bizarre ritual symbolic patriotic stuff originated. I knew most of it was not around during the Revolution or the early days of the republic.
Turns out most of it–the Pledge, the elevation of the anthem to a holy ritual, the flag salutes and such–was part of a panicked reaction to mass immigration in the late 19th and early 20th century. People decided we needed rituals of mass patriotism so that all these immigrants wouldn’t tear the country apart with disloyalty. There was another burst in the 1950s as part of McCarthy-era disavowal of Commies; a lot of ostentatious public invocations of God popped up then too, because the Commies were Godless. But the big one was the reaction to the old wave of immigrants.
Brickley Paiste
@Mnemosyne:
Medications should be monitored closely because the identical dosage can have quite different effects over time.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Brickley Paiste:
Implying someone is crazy by quoting drug warnings. That’s very ableist of you.
Adam L Silverman
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: I am still pleasantly surprised by what I’m seeing. And despite what we may think of any of their previous views and actions, this includes a lot of prominent conservatives and Republicans who are aghast, are actively opposing this, and, at least for now, are willing to make common cause. Even if some still want to bitch and moan about how the Democrats and liberals do things. What they don’t realize is that bitching and moaning about how the Democrats and liberals do things is what Democrats and liberals do best…
I also think that the vast majority of national political reporters, especially those that spend much of their time focused on DC, are missing what is growing and moving under the surface in the center left to left of center in American politics. The reason for this is that the vast majority of this is by women and women of color, which are groups that these journalists and reporters largely don’t pay any attention to. There’s no guarantee that the elections will go the way the data so far seem to indicate they will and we’d like to see them go, but I think a lot of the national level reporting is way off because of who is actually making news – not that that news is being reported at the national level.
Matt McIrvin
@Chetan Murthy:
Here’s Gallup’s page on that poll that somebody else mentioned. The striking thing to me here isn’t the static number, that 75% of Americans say immigration is good; as others have said, that could mean anything. We’ve all heard “these new immigrants are different, not like the old ones–they don’t assimilate!” Etc. etc.
But the trend is really dramatic. I honestly expected these numbers to be getting worse, not better. The most telling graph is the one at the bottom, about whether people want there to be more immigration, less or about the same. “About the same” has stayed in the 30-40 percent range for 20 years. “Less immigration” spiked way up to 60% at 9/11 and has been sliding downward ever since, with some notable bumps.
But “More immigration” was this completely fringe marginal position for most of the time they were asking the question, but now it’s up close to 30%… and is tied with “Less”. For the first time probably ever. There’s some kind of reaction to Trumpism going on here, but the trend actually goes back further. The VDARE-ish attitude currently controlling US immigration policy is actually way more unpopular now than it was 15 years ago.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Adam L Silverman:
How do several of EU nations differ from us and why do they seem to have to gone fully into authoritarianism and we haven’t yet, like Hungary, Poland, and Turkey? Because of the decentralized nature of our elections?
Chetan Murthy
@Matt McIrvin:
Maybe part of it is that there are immigrants in so much more of the US today, than even 20-30 yr ago? I remember reading about these white-bread town out in the middle of nowhere, that are basically still going b/c of immigrants. And as we all know, the strongest correlate of “liking immigrants” is “knowing and living around immigrants”. So yeah, I can believe that over time, more people’s response to “immigration?” is “what? more taco trucks? What’s not to like?”
Matt McIrvin
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: Decentralized nature of our everything, maybe. I mean, some of our states basically are right-wing authoritarian polities. But people can vote with their feet.
Matt McIrvin
@Chetan Murthy: Also, the immigrants themselves are answering the survey.
Davebo
@Amir Khalid: Damn! You’ve gone all in!
I’m shopping now after about 5 years of not/barely playing because a new guitar tends to get me interested again. I’ve sold three over those years just because I knew the buyer would play them and I wasn’t.
Looking at an older Gretsch cause I’m feeling a bit Rockabilly in my old age.
Mnemosyne
@Brickley Paiste:
NRA shill says what?
You must be really relieved that this whole immigration thing is taking attention away from our daily mass shootings. Have you managed to hide the donations from Russia yet?
Amir Khalid
@Davebo:
I can’t afford a Gretsch. My guitars are Squiers and an Epiphone.
Adam L Silverman
@Matt McIrvin: Yep.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Matt McIrvin:
I don’t think it was a coincidence that European states that started having an influx of non-white refugees and immigrants began to go right-wing, destroying their welfare states in the process. Kind of reminds of me of the US a little.
Turns out, the real difference between us and European social democracies is that their societies are more homogeneous than ours.
Adam L Silverman
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: How about we pick this up sometime tomorrow at a decent hour. I’m getting ready to go rub some doggie bellies and watch TV before racking out. This is a bit of a deep dive for 1 AM EDT.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Adam L Silverman:
No problemo. Have fun with your doggies and the boob tube.
B.B.A.
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
My grand unified theory of everything: White people are the worst.
Matt McIrvin
@Adam L Silverman:
They’re a tiny, inconsequential elite, though, with little influence on the party. If you look at the mass of Republicans they are still absolutely all in for Trump.
James E Powell
@Amir Khalid:
I thought you were going with the Les Paul. What made you go with the roller saddles?
Davebo
@Amir Khalid: Well hey, a JapStrat is better than NoStrat. OK, that sounds worse than I intended.
My first was an Epiphone acoustic back in 1984. Carried that thing on two Med Cruises. Learned hundreds of songs from all the players on America and Eisenhower. That’s my problem. You have to be learning new songs or you lose interest and while the internet is a great resource nothing beats a guitar buddy.
Matt McIrvin
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: For values of “non-white” that sometimes mean “Polish”.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Matt McIrvin:
I think that numbers of self-identifed Republicans are shrinking though. That’s why Republican approval of Trump is so high. It’s a shrinking hard-core of extremists.
Chetan Murthy
@B.B.A.:
*grin* By which I mean, “let me introduce you to Hindu nationalists in India”. Or we could stroll over to Myanmar. Probably a few dozen other countries all over the world.
Peale
@Matt McIrvin: which is good and well. They will show up in any sample. Now I wish that they’d go and file their citizenship papers and register to vote and turn out in numbers a little closer than 25 points behind white voters, and voice their displeasure with this administrations policies and stated aims. Heck, they just voted on a bill that would end family reunification. But, ugh. A guy can only hope for so much. Naturalization applications, after a little surge in 2017, have already fallen back to their Obama levels. Apparently, only about 250k of the 12 million immigrants who have had their green cards for 5 years and could apply for citizenship if they wanted to see any danger in this change of administration.
Matt McIrvin
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: If that were the explanation, I’d expect Trump’s overall approval to be dropping, and it’s not. I think it’s more that for the Republicans who aren’t complete batshit Trumpies, what really matters is that they’re making money, their investments are still doing OK and their taxes got cut, and the rest can go to hell.
Chetan Murthy
@Matt McIrvin: Oh yes, I think Matt’s got an important point here. I read someplace somebody saying: Putin is fostering blood-and-soil nationalist movements all over. But don’t kid yourself, they’re not all going to unite in common cause, b/c lots of them hate people of “that other country over there”, where Putin is ALSO fostering a movement. The Brits hate the Poles, and the Hungarians hate the Romanians, and it goes on and on and on. Which might account for how it was easier to start these proto-fascist movements in Europe than here.
Matt McIrvin
@Peale: I suspect more than a few of them are actively afraid that they’ll get deported or disappeared to an internment camp if they do anything to rouse the notice of the authorities, like applying for citizenship. ICE seems to have discovered a new zest for trying to deport legal immigrants and the occasional naturalized citizen.
Suzanne
@Chetan Murthy:
In my experience, most of them do read it. But they don’t read it with a critical, contextual approach. Many of them would tell you that the Bible doesn’t need a scholarly approach and that you can just read it and pray about it.
Mainline Christians tend to think that having a learned person to help one understand the Bible, the history of the time and place, and the theological issues involved is more important to understanding.
It should be noted that many evangelical pastors have no degree or theological training at all. Mainline Protestant clergy go to divinity school or seminary.
Matt McIrvin
@Chetan Murthy: There’s been more of a viable fascist international than I expected, partly because so much of the international influence is hidden behind layers of trolling.
normal liberal
@WereBear:
I had an odd thing happen-I had pre-ordered on Amazon and two weeks before the release I got a message telling me the order had been cancelled. I will try again, since once I get past a bunch of hardcore household repair jobs I am seriously planning on finding a couple of youngish cats to adopt. I’m going to be deliberate about this, as it’s been a long time since this house had resident pets.
Amir Khalid
@James E Powell:
Some guy on the YouTubes said they’d help tuning stability on a Strat. I keep hearing that the Strat design needs all the help it can get in that area. I’d put a roller string tree on The Girl (she’s the Tele) and I liked the results, so I’m putting roller trees on the Strat as well. As for Sister (the Les Paul) tuning stability seems fine on her as is, so I may put off putting in a roller bridge for now.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Matt McIrvin:
Is his approval still improving because of the Korean Summit?
Timurid
@Matt McIrvin:
The original fascist international failed because this planet is only big enough for one master race.
The new one appears to have longer legs because they’re focusing more on generic white identity than on national identities.
Chetan Murthy
@Timurid: Give it time: if the Serbs & Croats can’t get along, I don’t hold out much hope for “generic white identity”. At least, not in Europe.
Mnemosyne
@Peale:
Or, like a few commenters here, they’re afraid of being deported if they stick their heads up and apply for citizenship. Some people with valid green cards are already being taken into custody by ICE for 20-year-old misdemeanors, so some people with green cards are feeling like it’s best not to draw attention to themselves right now.
patrick II
I think we can call Republican immigration policy preemptive voter suppression.
Amir Khalid
@Chetan Murthy:
It isn’t really about whiteness. That is just the criterion of the moment for differentiating between “us” and “them”. When “us” and “them” are both white, some other criterion is always adopted — language, religion, denomination within a religion, tribal affiliation, whatever’s available.
Jager
@Adam L Silverman:
Let them know her grandfather’s name was Stein, a Jewish boy, born in London, who moved New York because he was seeking his fortune or something like that, The legend is he had a flat cap,a change of underwear, an itchy woolen suit and a small cardboard suitcase, He had either 12 dollars or 76 dollars in his pocket and the overwhelming desire to become a dairy farmer. Somehow he did just that. Left grandma at the age of 37 with 4 kids, a nice farm and 300 head of milk cows. The story is he pretty much worked himself to death. But his hands were soft.
Calouste
@Mnemosyne: I’m a green card holder, and I explicitly don’t apply for citizenship because I want to be able to get out (and plan to get out eventually). Due to the US taxing citizens worldwide, US citizenship is an expensive hobby if you don’t plan on spending the rest of your life there.
Gex mobile
Reagan and H.W. were there on this issue because that’s where the Southern Strategy was in its lifecycle. Dogwhistle antiblack politics were sufficient. Today they’d be no better than the current crop of Republicans. Whatever serves the needs of the oligarchy.
Calouste
@Chetan Murthy: @? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: Hungary and Poland have never really been democracies. Both became independent after WWI, and almost immediately devolved into a dictatorship. WW2 resulted in changes in territory. Then communism. There was some democracy from 1990 onward, but that was kind of Weimar level.
Turkey is a slightly different but similar story, with frequent military coups instead of communism after WWII.
Calouste
@Chetan Murthy: Funny thing about the resurgence of Fascism in Eastern Europe is that Slavs were considered “untermenschen” by the Nazis (and the earlier Germans didn’t like them much either). Not as bad as the Jews and the Roma, but certainly not Aryans. Good enough to be serfs for the master race, that was about it.
Somehow, the Eastern European Fascists ignore that bit of history.
Doug R
@TriassicSands:
Shortest interrogation I ever had was stumbling back across the bridge/border from Fort Kent Maine, back to Clair New Brunswick at about 1am. The Canadian guard looked at me through the window and waved me on.
frosty
@Adam L Silverman:
I had no idea how difficult it would be!
TriassicSands
@Viva BrisVegas:
Both should have been impeached and removed from office. Failure to hold Nixon fully accountable for his crimes made it easier to let Reagan and Bush slide as well.
frosty
@Davebo:
I’ve had the same experience. Good for music, not so much for the checkbook .. although I’ve got some surplusage I could disinvest.
Jager
@Doug R:
Driving back from Ensenada after two days of non-stop partying. I’m at the wheel of my pal’s Chevy pickup. He’s in a sleeping bag passed out in the bed. I drive through at about 8 in the morning on a Sunday, the Border guy asks, “Country of birth?” I answer ‘USA”. Then the border guy says, “How about your buddy in the back?” Dennis says, “Fort Knox Kentucky, motherfucker!” He laughed and waved us through. Not a peep about the dog Dennis picked up on the street in Ensenada, His mom and dad had that dog for about the next 12 years.
Platonailedit
@Chetan Murthy:
So, guessing twilter’s election is nothing then?
Sister Golden Bear
@Adam L Silverman: Might I also add those of us who are heterosexual and cisgender also need to step up, since LGBT folks — in particular trans folks — are being targeted as well.
Not only physically — a friend of mine was gay-bashed and severely injured last week in San Francisco — but also the legislative assaults against us in numerous states, as well as by the Trump administration. They’re getting far less publicity than the infant internment camps, but are also having enormous, if less immediately horrific, impacts.
hugely
@debbie: I also endorse this solution
Dan B
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Passion Flower, Passiflora, probably P. caerulea but dont quote me. Is hardy all the way to Victoria B.C. and probably across the deep south.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack:
Oh, I wish we were getting a Flambeau episode of Father B. We’re getting reruns with the dreaded Bunty.
The Pale Sc.......
@Omnes Omnibus:
Hey! What’s Happening? Where’d everybody go? Where are my feet? What’s with the tunnel with light…….AAaaaahh……
Matt McIrvin
@Timurid: “Generic white identity” as opposed to a finer-grained ethnic bigotry is a much stronger thing in the US than it is elsewhere, though, since it was invented to justify our particular atrocities. I suppose it has a toehold in the whole Anglosphere.
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
It’s sometimes hard for me to tell if a series is national or “local,” because both of the flagship PBS stations in the D.C. area (WETA and Maryland Public Television) are big enough to buy series on their own—which they do a lot. One of them just got done running the latest (short) season of Vera, a favorite of mine, and the current Father Brown episodes are also from the latest season. Of course, they also run a lot of reruns, which further clouds the situation.
Matt McIrvin
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: I think Trump’s rising approval is just regression to the partisan mean. The economy isn’t in bad shape (yet); he hasn’t gotten us into a new major war (yet)… white straight people who keep their heads down and don’t pay huge attention to the news can just assume things are basically OK. So if they’re Republicans, they decide Trump isn’t that bad after all; the guy may be gross but he’s doing all right. And they got their tax cut. Liberals are screaming about him but they’re liberals, they always do that (and that might be a sign that he’s fine after all).
It’s not the level of rising approval that, say, Reagan had after the early-80s recession ended and he was powering toward reelection. It’s more people slowly returning to their tribe.
Bill Door
@?BillinGlendaleCA: It’s a triffid! Run, Run!