Monthly Archives: August 2016

08.03.16
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Ron Johnson, Climate Change, and The Most Republican Paragraph Ever

 

“I don’t really understand things.”

 

We haven’t talked much on the blog about Ron Johnson, Senator of Wisconsin. Wisconsin being literally near me, and dear to my heart, we’ve spent a lot of time on the destructive reign of Scott Walker, the intellectual horrorshow of Paul Ryan, and even some on the quisling nebbishness of Reince Priebus. They are sort of the Big 3 in the new era of Wisconsin politics: ruthless hyper-capitalists with zero respect for the state’s progressive traditions, who think any hint of community is communism. But we’ve ignored the Senator, who defeated the great Russ Feingold in the catastrophe of 2010.

That’s because he’s…well, he’s pretty dumb. He’s one of those “I’m good at business so let me screw over the poor” kind of guys. He was perfect for Wisconsin in 2010. Honestly, the most remarkable thing about him is that he’s the head of the Homeland Security Committee, which could be shorthand for just what a stupid and unserious party the Republicans really are. Anyway, he smuckered together some words today about global warming, and you’ll never guess: it’s a hoax.

“The whole climate change debate gives, and there are all kinds of quotes from adherents of and promoters of climate change, the reason they’re doing it is it’s such a great opportunity to control, you know, pretty much, government, and control your lives,” Johnson said Monday, onthe Glenn Klein Show on the WRJN radio show. “There’s an arrogance of power there that they’re utopians, that they really think they can create heaven on earth, and where it’s failed in the past, those people like Stalin and Chavez and the Castros, the nutcases in North Korea–by the way, if you want equal results, go to North Korea, you have equal misery.”

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08.03.16
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Throwback Thursday: The CIA and The Killing of Dag Hammarskjold

 

If this man was killed by the CIA it’s a really big deal, or at least it should be. 

 

Here’s today’s must-read: Foreign Policy‘s Colum Lynch on the UN reopening an investigation into the Congolese plane crash that killed heroic UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold in 1961. If you want to understand what the early 60s were actually like for actually oppressed people, the opening paragraph has a lot of pretty important keywords.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki­-moon will propose reopening an inquiry into allegations that Dag Hammarskjold, one of the most revered secretaries-general in the organization’s history, was assassinated by an apartheid-era South African paramilitary organization that was backed by the CIA, British intelligence, and a Belgian mining company, according to several officials familiar with the case.

Christ. That’s a rogue’s gallery right there. Basically, in a nutshell, Hammarskjold was working for Congolese independence and security, and try to broker a treaty between the government of the new Congo and the separatists in uranium-rich Katanga, who were backed by the Belgians and other western powers to make sure that the Soviets stayed away (and let’s be honest: to make sure that other riches continued to flow into the right pockets). Hammarskjold believed that the Congo should be one independent nation, and not carved up by colonialists.

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08.02.16
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Mommas, Don’t Name Your Babies After Star Wars Bad Guys

 

You better hope he gets way cooler. 

 

One of the more annoying arguments that racists make is to insult “black” or other “non-American” sounding names. Basically, it’s the idea that any name that hasn’t become whitened by time’s burning khaki sun is absurd, or silly. It’s true words sound odd to ears, and that I am sure there are plenty of people in Madagascar or wherever think “Brian” is a weird name.

But that’s exactly the point. All names, like all words, are just a collection of letters and sounds to which we impute meaning. Even “made-up” names just sound dumb because they are new. I am guilty about this as well with white striver names– your Jydens and Jaxes and such. It’s a hard thing to name a baby. You do want some uniqueness, but too much sounds silly, too “ethnic” legitmately makes it harder to people to get ahead in a racist society, too conformist makes you acede to the problem, too twee makes you too twee, etc. I really don’t know what to do with names.

That said, don’t name your baby Kylo.  Certainly don’t make it the #1 baby name of the year. It’s not just that he’s the villian, and its not just that it’s a made-up name (again, all names were just made up, at some point). Honestly, I think it’s a pretty badass-sounding name. Kylo. It flows kind of well.

The problem is that while The Force Awakens was pretty boss, you have no idea how the next two movies will be. What if they are terrible? What if the Kylo Ren turns out to be an awful character, and not just in a bad guy way? What if he never gets less emo, and whines his way through the next four or five hours of film? What if he loses a lightsaber fight to an Ewok? What if he becomes a punchline?

I’m optimistic about the next two movies, but I wouldn’t be optimistic enough to stake my child’s sense of self-worth and entire life on it. Go with “Han”. Han is a good name, and is fun to say. “C’mere, Han”, you can say, when you want your kid to come here. Try it. It sounds cool. And you also won’t have to worry about the “killing your parent thing” like with Kylo. At worst you’re passing it off to their generation. And that’s fine. That’s good child-raising.

This has been Shooting Irrelevance’s first and absolutely only Parenting Corner.

08.02.16
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Pence Pretends To Take The High Road

 

Mike Pence quieted the crowd at a rally in Carson City, Nevada, that was booing a women named Catherine Byrne who asked Pence about Donald Trump's treatment of members of the military on Aug. 1.

2016

 

 

(via Politico)

CARSON CITY, Nevada — The woman, in a quiet voice, stood before the crowd of hundreds at a town hall-style event here with Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and announced that her son serves in the Air Force. The crowd applauded.

Did someone say veteran? Good, I like where this is going. I can work with this. Fingers crossed she says she was going to get an abortion but changed her mind, and her son killed bin Laden. That would be great. She’s about to say that, right?

But then the woman said, “Time and time again, [Donald] Trump has disrespected our nation’s armed forces and veterans. And his disrespect for Mr. Khan … ”

Wait, what the mudflap? Ah man, I really didn’t want to have to think about this. I issued a statement where I said that my candidate believes the opposite of what he keeps, keeps saying. God in Muncie, he won’t shut up about it. Uh oh- I think I hear the ritual Bellowing of Lungs.

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08.02.16
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“Gonna Be Rigged”: The Next Stage of the Con Steps Toward Violence

 

Classy! Big success. 

 

Donald Trump’s entire career has been a testament to the chicken-in-the-rain stupidity people get when surrounded by money, or at least the trappings of money. Despite being a serial failure, he’s been able to get investors in his bankrupt casinos and optimistic gulls to enroll in his phony school, because he seems really rich. One of the tricks to pulling this off is supreme confidence. People love to see that, and get sucked in. They feel that if this person, who seems rich, is saying “we’re all going to make so much money and we’re going to win” then by gum, we are. It’s seductive.

To say he’s run his campaign as a long con should be a cliche by now (it is on this blog). It’s carried on entirely by brazen lies and force of personality, which, amazingly, many millions of people don’t find ungodly repellant. But what happens when the casinos go bankrupt? What happens when the con is exposed? That’s easy: blame everyone else. Oh, this would have worked if it wasn’t for these people getting in the way or gumming it up. And I’ll tell you what: it’s no accident. They’re jealous, ok? Of our success. But we’ll get them next time. “The game was rigged” is always the cry of the conman when he isn’t able to properly rig it himself. It is absolution and conspiracy, and if successful, draws the mark even closer in.

If it is successful in an election, though, it could lead to violence and discontent like few of us have seen in our lifetimes. That’s the game Trump is playing now, and we’re all on the board.

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08.01.16
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Trump and the Khans: Two Tweets That Tell You All You Need To Know

gop-2016-trump_jack

What, me, act like a reasonable human being? 

The news flowed hot and ridiculous over the weekend, as Donald Trump decided that he was forced to break his stoically heroic day-long silence about Humayun Khan and his family. Khan of course was the soldier killed in Iraq, whose parents, Khizr and Ghazala, spoke so eloquently and forcefully at the convention on Thursday. They provided probably the finest moment of either convention, laying out the case why Trump’s reckless racism was anti-American, and why he was too terrible a person to even be considered for the top job. Needless to say, Trump couldn’t let this stand. So he attacked the family, claiming

Needless to say, Trump couldn’t let this stand. So he attacked the family, claiming the the mother wasn’t allowed to speak (and how flippantly bigoted and childishly-speculative is that?). He accused Khizer of reading from a script Hillary’s people wrote, and said he had “no right to stand in front of millions of people” and attack Trump. As the weekend wore on, the Khans (both of them) became more and more forceful about the wretched character of this miserable person.

The key to understanding the whole thing isn’t Trump’s bigotry, per se, but in his need to react. If you want to understand how deeply unserious and un-Presidential this man is, his Sunday morning tweet is enough.

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

I was viciously attacked by Mr. Khan at the Democratic Convention. Am I not allowed to respond? Hillary voted for the Iraq war, not me!

8:32 AM – 31 Jul 2016
That, by itself, should be enough to convince people that he isn’t deserving of any vote, much less the majority. Forget that he was responding to the parents of a Gold Star hero. It’s his unshakable notion that no one, anywhere, is allowed to say a bad word about him. That if he is attacked he has to be able to strike back, regardless of the circumstance. That is anyone is “vicious” to him, it’s not just his right, but his duty to antagonize them back.
That’s madness. You know who gets “viciously attacked” quite a bit? The President. Obama does, for sure. Do you see him responding every time someone smears his character? You know who else did? George W. Bush, who also kind of let things roll off him. Same with Bill Clinton, George HW, etc. Every President, every politician, everywhere, is attacked. Part of the job is ignoring it. Part of being a grownup is ignoring it.
But that’s not Trump. He’s a 70-yr-old child, because no one has ever said no to him. He’s titanically arrogant and wildly insecure. He feels that being “allowed” to respond, which as a citizen of course he is, means that he should respond. He can’t handle the slightest provocation, because he feels that anyone who pokes at him gets close to revealing the pathetic, calamitous baby that he truly is.
Another tweet from just this morning, after he’s been getting savaged for two days for his insane behavior, read “Mr. Khan, who does not know me, viciously attacked me from the stage of the DNC and is now all over T.V. doing the same. Nice!” There’s a lot to unpack there as well, mostly the idea that Trump should be immune to criticism from people who don’t know him, which is a little antithetical to the idea of a citizen’s relationship to power. Mostly though it’s the “Nice!”, that sarcastic sort of “can you believe this guy?” It’s all unfair, you know. Why should a man like Trump have to put up with this?
This isn’t an act, and it isn’t a political strategy. It’s who he is. He feels that being rich and powerful should make people cower before him, and if they don’t, well, woe betide them. And the more powerful he gets, the less criticism he should receive, and the more he should use his power to shut critics up by attacking them and unleashing his followers to do the same. To say that this in inimical to our beliefs is understatement, and to say his thumpish fake machismo is an inversion of the Khan’s actual courage is obvious on its face.
Forget that he is retaliating against the parents of a fallen soldier. Forget that he is going after private citizens. Forget that they were 100% correct in their attacks. That he feels the need at all to respond tells you everything you need to know about this man’s twisted, spoiled, ludicrous character. This might actually begin to sink in now. We an only hope.