Sadly, No!

If we all just believe we’re back in the 13th century hard enough, then we can return. So believe! Cause that’s how any of that works…

K-Lo, National Revue:
Politics Won’t Save Us

Things can often be disheartening. Society seems to be stagnant, waiting. Our bought and sold media has been shotgunning as many made up right-wing scandals as they can in the vain hope that something, anything will stick to Obama and allow them to paint Democrats as “scandalous”. Rich assholes continue to buy up more and more outlets to serve as their personal propaganda sources. And real issues go begging as we once again jump through the hoops set by a tiny minority of aggrieved octagenarians.

And so, sometimes, it can be hard to remember that we are actually winning. That meaningful political victory and long-delayed social justice are but a finger’s breadth away and the wingnuts know it.

And of course, being wingnuts, they are handling this realization with all the class and style we would come to expect from them.

Shorter:

• Holy fuck, we’ve created a monster with the marriage of Christian Dominists and Ayn-Rand-fetishists. Also, I think we might be losing. So can we just hit the reset button on everything and start over so we don’t have to go through the phase where we have to begrudgingly accept the long-delayed advancement of basic civil rights?

My favorite out-of-context mangos?

By keeping in mind that we may be wrong — that we are in fact very likely to be wrong in important ways — we help each other and ourselves to become less wrong over time.

And

The current chaos of our public debates about family life and fertility, about relationships and foundational vocabulary, is an opportunity to rebuild a culture that understands hard work, suffering, and sacrifice, including self-sacrifice, to be at the heart of what makes society work and work well.

If you dare go off the shore, I entreat you to enjoy more…

If you dare, that is.

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. A post under 500 words? What foul spore of madness is this? We are aware of all Internet traditions.™

And to think, this irrevocable road to evil all started when a single boy scout admitting to liking a Disney movie with a female protagonist. If only America had stood firm. Sniff.

The President of the United States of Renew America*:
Mormons morphing Boy Scouts into ‘Girl Scouts’?

Damn, I’m sure going to be disappointed when this turns out to be yet another transmisogynist (because the great flavors of misogyny and transphobia just go so well together like cranapple or being a complete fuck and being a conservative) tantrum rather than a description of some transformation or gender-swap fanfic.

In fact, why wait? Scrolling ahead and:

Shorter (or the last port before Jungle):

• The fact that the Mormon Church would even think about letting the Boy Scouts be anything other than a hate group about how much faggots and trannies suck and deserve to burn in Hell shows how much more “moral” Evangelicals are in comparison.

Read the rest of this entry »

If only we could have relief from wingnuts using our complicit media to gin up non-stories that displace genuine news… Oh fuck, that’s not funny, that’s just sadly true… I think I need to do some introspection on my life choices.

Sally Zelikovsky, American Idiot:
Obama thinks liberals are stupid

Benghazi. Benghazi. Benghazi. Benghazi. BENGHAZI!!!!!

It’s been pretty painfully obvious what the money men have been ordering all the winged monkeys to rant about for their wingnut welfare as of late. In possibly the most obvious case of manufacturing a story out of nothing in… well, months… maybe, every Tom, Dick, and Hairy Nut Sack on every wingnut blog has been cranking out post after post about Benghazi and how this is totally going to impeach Obama.

Which is impressive, because if Benghazi were any less of the story, it’d be… well, probably the oh noes, IRS looked into a Tea Party organization story that some of the more desperate wingnuts are hoping will lead to impeachment. And all attempts to manufacture something out of this story just make me think more and more about the genuine intelligence failures that lead to 9/11 or the various cover-ups done about the intelligence for ginning up support for the Iraq War and torture. Which, of course it should, seeing as how the only reason that wingnuts are pretending to care is a) out of open revenge for how liberals commented on that shit during Bush’s term and b) because having finally accepted the reality of a black president, they are now committed to manufacturing whatever BS excuse they can to impeach him away.

So, unless the wingnuts come up with something spectacularly batshit, this will be my one and only post on this made-up non-story, because fuck right-wingers getting to dictate the national “topic du jour” whenever they damn well want just by being loud and crazy.

Shorter (or the last port before Jungle):

• My dear, foolish, liberals, I have proved my intellect fierce on this day for I have noted the impossibility of someone knowing that something was terrorism and saying so and then later, by which I mean, the same sentence, not know who did it or why they did it. And as we know, when it’s terrorism, it’s impossible to not know who did something and why if we know it occurred. QED.

Read the rest of this entry »

And the irony is I wouldn’t even give a fuck about these constant pity parties if they weren’t constantly working to make the shitty lives of various minority groups even shittier.

W.F. Price, Not At All Compensating for Our Penis Head:
A NY Times Mother’s Day Op-ed: Trannies are Equal Moms

The denial of privilege is a very common thread in wingnut posts. Which makes perfect sense. If one can deny that one is more advantaged than other groups, you can imagine that your social advantages are due to inherent internal ability (i.e. you have a better job, easier life, etc… because of being super smart or better at life) rather than exploiting oppression. It also helps alleviate guilt when you enforce unfair or oppressive systems, because you’re not kicking the people below you on the ladder, you’re just standing up for the way the world naturally is, which is why it constantly needs to be enforced with legal and social backlash… wait, what?

Jeffrey T. Brown, American Schmuck:
Like the IRS Scandal? You’ll Love Obamacare

But of course, in a world where relative social benefits flow like eternal ice cream into the cups of the privileged groups (i.e. a world where dominating all media attention, all participation, and all control is seen as normal), there inevitably comes a time when a spare drop falls on an oppressed group. Maybe there is a historic first professional sports player or a historic rights bill gets passed or maybe a news media story or television show is focusing on someone other than a dominant group member for an episode. Whatever it is, for the person used to pretending that the current inequal state is a perfect equality, it seems like a disruption of the natural order. Something unfair to them.

Kyle Smith, New York is an Unwilling Host:
Gag Order

Matt “I Swear I Only Look at Gay Porn for Research” Barber, Renew Erection:
Memo to Christian Troops: “We’ve Got Your Back”

Robert VerBruggen, National White Supremacist:
Heritage was Wrong

Thus, we are, from time to time, “treated” to a particular variation on the conservative whine about privilege and oppression. A pure tantrum by a dominant group, not just denying their advantages, but trying to pretend that it is actually they who are the aggrieved minority whose important struggles are ignored by the media. That they are the ones whose lives are harder just for being a dominant group, the ones suffering societal oppression. And often there is an unspoken (or sometimes far too spoken) belief in these posts of… well…

Shorter Myopic Assholes Everywhere:

• Wah! Our lives would be so much relatively better if we were oppressed minority group instead of boring old “safe to hate” dominant group. If we were the real minority group, then we’d finally have the moral high ground we so desperately crave.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you make it here, remember this disclaimer:

For what it’s worth, didn’t have any sense there was a reason to be concerned.

Yeah, you hold that gun real high there, champ. That’ll prove your masculinity isn’t a glass flower, ready to shatter at the slightest cough.

Kevin D. Williamson, National Enraged Grue:
Frank Rich Is Wrong about Civil Rights

All right, let’s play a quick game of make-believe. Okay, let’s say you are a hack, specifically hired by a pack of racist dickweasels to help obfuscate the terrible social ills your party and ideology have foisted upon the world, especially against minority groups. Sure, every single post you write is a direct cash-in of your soul, a painfully obvious whitewashing of recorded history for the purpose of encouraging the continued ignorance of wannabe-intelligent dumb white hicks from the suburbs in ways that will continue to deny black people long delayed civil rights and public recognition as full human beings. It may be a terrible job, but hey, some whores weren’t born with a gifted mouth if you know what I mean.

Then imagine someone in the sane world notices and calls attention to the fact that you are a cheap sell-out deliberately trying to trade misinformation about black history in service to a squadron of historical revisionists without the balls to stand by the conviction of the ideas and actions they fought so hard to preserve and frankly, still fight for to this day. Imagine the pained rage at having your head forced against the mirror eyes locked on exactly what you said you’d never become.

Imagine trying to sputter out a feeble self-defense for your crimes. Imagine it sounds something like this:

Slightly Shorter (or the port looks nice this time of year):

• I shall defend against your scurrilous accusations of rewriting racial history in service to my paymasters by rewriting racial history in accordance to their whim. Did you know that the Party Switcheroo on race didn’t occur around the Civil Rights Act as lying reality might maintain but rather because of a refreshing grape soda in the 90s? Also, the only reason blacks and whites swapped places during the 60s is because blacks are welfare queens willing to part with their humanity and support bigots just for a taste of government dependence and white people are just moral enough to be appalled by that… what’s that? You can see my soul divorcing my body as I speak? How dare you notice that!

Even with that grueling exercise in empathy, is there even a remote chance you don’t want to kick ol’ Kev in the balls until he fully recites the Southern Strategy’s effect in exploiting racism for temporary Republican electoral gains?

‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. It turns out I actually am capable of performing a quickie from time to time. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™

It’s also worth noting that Kevin Williamson is on record knowing damn well when the switch over between the parties happened. But hey, if they were intellectually honest, they wouldn’t be conservatives.

Sorry, Superman, there’s no cure. You’re just going to have to punch him repeatedly in the nuts.

Matt Welch, Yet Another Reason to Hate Libertarians:
The Importance of Allowing People to Say That You Can’t Be a Gay Basketball Player and a Christian

Ah Libertarians. The end result of people who really do believe that it doesn’t matter who you are or what you believe, just how you market yourself.

If we want to understand how modern conservatives got to the point where they really seem to think that “better branding” will solve the fact that they’ve spent the last 30 years directly antagonizing everyone who isn’t a rich white cissexual heterosexual male and overall fucking up every aspect of the planet, we need look no farther than “libertarianism”.

Not only is libertarianism in and of itself, a rebranding effort to disguise support of segregation into the modern age as a principled stand for the free market and state’s rights. It is also a testament to how for all its blather of being made up by the “true makers” of society, who claim to deeply understand capitalism and how marketing works, they absolutely fail to take advantage of easy opportunities to lend even minor support to their marketing claims.

Take for instance it’s oft sold “libertarianism matrix” argument that it combines traditionally conservative economics (or economic “liberty”) with socially liberal beliefs. Not only do they fail to stand for this when it would coincide with their supposed small government beliefs (like not supporting the government trying to get all up in women’s uteruses), but they also fail to stand up for easy slam-dunks with increasing social support where it would separate them from traditional conservative beliefs.

Like gay rights. It should be a no-brainer for libertarians who want to take advantage of the fact that conservatism is looking about as palatable as mämmi. Gay rights are starting to earn a majority of social support, thus it wouldn’t be all that outside the bigoted normal, but it would generate a whole bunch of media noise about “how this brand of conservatism is more liberal”. Marketing-wise it’s the easiest lay-up in history. It’s easier to do the right thing than doing certain people’s mothers. And yet, they can’t help it, because at their hearts, libertarians are the same small-minded idiots as the conservative movements that spawned it, or rather…

Shorter (or the last port before Jungle):

• We really need to trumpet ignorant bigotry as an important part of the dialogue for reasons that aren’t because we’re homophobes, like… oh, how it made Martin Luther King Jr a better martyr… Ok, bad example, how about how it forced Jackie Robinson to suffer endless bullshit with a smile on his face lest he make it impossible for any other black athlete to cross over… er… you need to “go slow”?

Read the rest of this entry »

So if we continue the baseball notation for all three strikeouts performed we get… oh… ohhhhhh. Awkward.

Frank Louis, The Latest We’ll Let America be Renewed to is 18th Century:
A new twist to the “three strikes and you’re out” policy: the agenda to make criminals out of law-abiding citizens

Yes.

That is in fact the real title from the article. Just in case there was a tiny little spark of hope left in you that dared to believe that what I was offering today was anything other than the sweaty drippings off Alex Jones’s conspiratorial ball sack.

Now, even then, there might be a small little ball of hope still working in you going “sure it may be crazy, but hey, maybe it is a belated acknowledgment of the way the over-expansion of the prison industrial complex has begun inconveniencing even white middle class members in its abuses” like an injured puppy trying to lick its wounds.

Let me bash that poor puppy’s brains out on the sharp rocks of reality.

Shorter (or the last port before Jungle):

• Ooh be scared! They’re going to throw you in prison just for owning a gun, being a dick to gay people, or buying a house you can’t afford! Sure, not a single one of those things is even remotely illegal on its own much less in any way equivalent to actual real people who have been sucked up into permanent imprisonment because of bullshit “tough on crimes” laws, but still, we want to borrow their suffering (while acknowledging exactly zero of said suffering) in order to make our myopic whining seem principled!

Read the rest of this entry »

Apparently conservatives have gotten all their information on how civil prisons work from 80s cartoon villains.

Jan LaRue (not to be confused with LaRouche), American Bloodsport:
Tsarnaev the Fraud

Sigh…

When I first heard about the terrible bombings at the Boston Marathon, I was in the middle of writing a post on some storm in a tea-kettle thing wherein the only objectionable thing seemed to be the only thing no one wanted to talk about in any real depth.

Which admittedly, after the attack, felt a bit cold and hallow. And it didn’t feel right writing about frivolous matters when something so big was in the radar.

At the same time, it was difficult to write about the bombings themselves, because there was little to no real information. I mean sure, there were enough early responses from wingnuts that deserved a good kicking. This piece of work was impressively bad in terms of reflexive “anyone who suspects us just because we have done the last 12 attacks and tend to blow shit up around Tax Day is a vile commie rat” is impressively bad.

But empathy and good judgment demanded waiting until the facts come out.

And the facts are that the bombers, motive yet to be fully determined, turned out to be foreigny, Russian-adjacent, immigrant, muslim types. And my heart just sank straight to the ground. Not just for those victims of the bombings who had their days and some their lives ruined for such ill-defined bullshit reasons. Not just for the immigrant or muslim communities who do not need another hot-head asshole blowing shit up when the dominant population has treated them so terribly for so long after every time something like this happens. But also, sad to say, for the quality of right-wing noise we’re sure to be drowning in for the next couple of months/years.
Read the rest of this entry »

Well, I’m shocked, shocked to discover that greater Wingnutistan has latched on to the Boston bombings as an opportunity to find their favorite liberal bogeymen hiding behind the explosions. Who would have thought?

Of course, you don’t have to be the fastest shooting wingnut in the butthurt corral to point your fingers at immigrants and immigration and all that. Hell, they were going to do that even if the bombers’ parents had immigrated to the United States on the May-fucking-flower itself. I mean, even if the perpetrators were whiter than Tagg Romney, then that just goes to prove that swarthy Middle Easterners are bound to be even worse if we let them in. I mean, if a real American could do that just imagine what a devil-worshiping foreigner would be able to do!

Of course, you can always count on America’s Shittiest Website™ to take any normal right-wing talking point and give it that special little twist, that slight whiff of eliminationism, that makes them so special. Let’s see that in action by paying a little visit to Stanley Kurtz, shown above in his profile picture on ChristianMingle.com. Stanley isn’t just worried about keeping the foreigners and immigrants out in the wake of the bombings. No, the bombings have him all worried about the ones that are already here and who pose an existential threat to the American way of life because they speak multiple languages fluently, because they like soccer more than baseball, because they dress funny and because they listen to scary music with funny instruments and weird ululations that sound like, at least to patriotic ears, cattle fucking in a crowded parking lot.

Thanks to the rise of multiculturalism and bilingualism in the United States, our assimilation system now suffers from the same flaws as its European counterpart. The proposed immigration bill does little to fix this, and if anything aggravates an already critical situation. Without fixing our system of patriotic assimilation first …, a path to citizenship will surely do more harm than good.

(And you thought I was joking about Stanley being afraid of people who spoke more than one language!)

Not surprisingly, Stanley isn’t letting us in on his secret plan to assimilate all the furinners already here, although I suspect it goes beyond doling out jail sentences for people speaking anything other than English in public. Probably he’s got in mind reeducation camps where Muslims and Buddhists are forced to watch “Leave It To Beaver,” “Father Knows Best,” and the “700 Club.”

The number of immigrants who might someday turn into terrorists is small. Yet it only takes a few to cause trouble.

You know, the number of right-wing evangelicals who might someday bomb abortion clinics or gay bars is also quite small, but, as Stanley says, it only takes a few to cause trouble. Perhaps right-wing evangelicals need to be assimilated better as well although, oddly, Stanley doesn’t seem to advocate that. I do think, however, that re-education and assimilation camps where right-wing evangelicals are required to watch “The New Normal,” to go to the gym, to eat sushi and to learn how to make a bone-dry martini might be way more fun! What do you think?