MOVING HIATUS

I'm moving tomorrow - failed relationship - so I don't think I'll be able to post here for a few days until all the wreckage is cleared, etc.  But I will definitely be back!

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JOHN WINSTON ONO LENNON

October 9, 1940 - December 8, 1980



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"PRAYER SHAMING"

"Prayer shaming" is the right wing totally ignoring the left's poignant criticism that meaningless prayer and bland platitudes are just about the only "solution" conservatives offer for the mass epidemic of gun violence this country has been experiencing for years. "Prayer shaming" is a sleazy rhetorical feint intended to discredit the left while allowing the blood to continue flowing with maximum efficiency.

It's a sick joke. There is no "prayer shaming." It's a total conservative fabrication. And it's fairly typical of conservatives. "No, WE'RE the victims." "No, YOU'RE the oppressor." "Look! Over there!"

Don't be fooled by this stupid bullshit. And screw any conservatives that push it. They're lying scum bags who like people dying.

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Why mass shootings don't convince gun owners to support gun control

From Vox:

It's not even clear that opinions on guns and gun violence remain amenable to argument. Over the past few decades, gun ownership in the US has evolved from a practical issue for rural homeowners and hunters to a kind of gesture of tribal solidarity, an act of defiance toward Obama, the left, and all the changes they represent. The gun lobby has become more hardened and uncompromising, pushing guns into schools, churches, and universities.

This has taken place in the context of a broader and deeper polarization of the country, as Red America and Blue America have become more ideologically homogeneous and distant from one another. The two sides are now composed of people who quite literally think and feel differently — and are less and less able to communicate. The gun issue is a salient example, but far from the only one.

More here.

A friend of mine posted the above linked essay on my facebook page a couple of days ago.  Here's the comment I made:

Okay, really good essay. A couple of thoughts.

First, I think one can successfully argue with another identity. You just have to take a wildly different approach. You can't just say "here are the facts." You've got to appeal to other conservative ideas. You've got to use emotion. You've got to be nice and you've got to be mean. The point is that dealing with identity is just a totally different process, more propagandistic than argumentative.

And it takes a lot more patience, time, and understanding. That's the key. Understand who it is to whom you're talking.

Second, I think I might be, deep down, conservative myself. Not in terms of ideology, but in terms of personality. I've struggled with pretty intense anxiety for over a decade, and I think I might be genetically prone to it. But my intellect, honed around communists and artists in Austin years ago, won't let me take the right-wing bait. So I'm afraid, but I don't really know what I'm afraid of. Or rather, I see different monsters from the ones ideological conservatives see. Something like that.

I mean, I grew up in a conservative family in a conservative neighborhood, and went to a conservative church. In lots of ways, I'm comfortable around Texas conservatives, who still kind of feel like my people. All this goes back to my first point, that conservatives can in fact be persuaded. I feel like I'm evidence of that. But it's a totally different game than simply duking it out with facts.

'Nuff said.

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FRANK ZAPPA FRIDAY AND 70S POP MONDAY ON SATURDAY

Two of my facebook features exported to Real Art.



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FRIDAY CAT BLOGGING

Stella

Be sure to check out Modulator's Friday Ark for more cat blogging pics!

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Former Massey Energy C.E.O. Guilty in Deadly Coal Mine Blast

From the New York Times:

Donald L. Blankenship, a titan of the nation’s coal industry whose approach to business was scrutinized and scorned after 29 workers were killed at the Upper Big Branch mine in 2010, was convicted Thursday of a federal charge of conspiring to violate mine safety standards, part of a case that emerged after the accident, the deadliest in mining in the United States in decades.

More here.

This guy is a real piece of capitalist pig shit.

While his miners were still trapped underground, suffocating to death, he got on television and insisted to the entire nation that the disaster was an earthquake, an act of God, having nothing to do with his penchant for violating safety regulations.  That last bit is also very likely why he coupled his absurd earthquake statement with a massive rhetorical attack on the miners union, which had been asserting for years that Blankenship simply saw the fines for safety violations as a cost of doing business.

You could tell he was full of shit at the time.  A fricking earthquake?  Attacking the union?  Even while his workers were dying?  Man, the size of his balls are exceeded only by the size of his ego.  And his evil.

I mean, fuck this guy.  He killed twenty nine miners.  Because, as a conservative, he doesn't believe in government regulating business.  A year isn't enough, because he's a murderer, but it's something--usually these fat cat sociopaths never see any justice at all.  But he really ought to spend the rest of his life behind bars.

He's the poster boy for everything that's wrong with this country.  Go to hell, Blankenship.  You make me want to vomit.

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San Bernardino Gunmen Kill at Least 14, Wound 17

From the New York Times:

Hours after as many as three gunmen stormed a service center for people with disabilities here on Wednesday, killing at least 14 people and wounding at least 17 others, the police engaged in a shootout in nearby surburban neighborhood, that officials said left one suspect dead, one likely wounded in an S.U.V. and a third suspect on the run.

More here.

This is me biting my tongue until we learn more about the San Bernardino shooting. But I can safely say at the moment that this is yet another American gun horror, and that these events are now happening daily.

I mean, one happened in Georgia earlier today.

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Former wife says Planned Parenthood terrorist is conservative, religious and anti-abortion

From Raw Story:

Dear was politically conservative, religious, owned guns and believed that abortion was wrong — but he was not obsessed with any of these issues, Ross said.

“It never, ever, ever, ever crossed my mind” that he would be capable of a mass shooting, Ross told The Times. “My heart just fell to my stomach.”

More here.

You know, it is personally insulting to me when conservatives push totally outlandish bullshit and expect me to take it seriously. I mean, if I were to take this transgender liberal activist crap seriously, it would be nothing short of humiliating. But that's how conservatives roll these days. They essentially dare us to call "bullshit" on their bullshit, and when we do, they freak out.

Bunch of whiny wussies.

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