From Pine View Farm

Culture Warriors category archive

Twits on Twitter 0

Would it be appropriate to refer to someone who sends bigoted “tweets” as a “twigot”?

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The Court Is in Sessions 0

Via Raw Story.

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Arts and Graft 0

Persons unloading stolen artifacts from a truck labeled

Via Juanita Jean.

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Monkey Trial Monkeyshines 0

Joe Patrice explains.

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Dude-Bros, Reprise 0

One of the most powerful weapons of rape culture for centuries has been indoctrinating victims, particularly women, to believe that, if they are abused, it’s somehow their fault, rather than the fault of the abusers. As our society has gotten more open about sex and sexual behavior (and, some would say, cruder), that may be changing. According the San Jose Mercury-News, women in tech have become more willing to expose the misconduct of tech dude-bros. Here’s a bit from a much longer article:

Now investors and entrepreneurs alike are scrambling for solutions. Insiders say sexual harassment is a rampant problem in an industry dominated by male investors and founders. Just 7 percent of partners at the top venture capital firms are women, and only 17 percent of startups have a female founder, according to Crunchbase studies.

Sixty percent of those women report experiencing sexual harassment, according to “Elephant in the Valley,” a 2015 survey by venture capitalist Trae Vassallo and others of more than 200 female tech executives, founders and investors.

“It’s reached epidemic proportions in Silicon Valley, and there’s so much more that needs to be done,” said San Francisco-based angel investor Karen Bairley Kruger, who founded Wingpact to support female entrepreneurs and investors.

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Dialectic 0

Thomas Chatterton Williams reflects on the opioid* epidemic and the contradiction embraced by supporters of Donald Trump. A snippet:

One of the great ironies of our era is that the (health–ed.) care that so many Americans of all colors need—imperfect though it may be—is being rejected by a significant minority of whites who would rather destroy themselves than be helped by someone who is black.

Follow the link to find out his reasoning.

___________

*When Not White people do it, it’s called “illegal drugs.”

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Republican Family Values 0

You can’t make this stuff up.

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Heh 0

Ken Hamm’s Creationist Museum is on the rocks not performing as expected in filling Mr. Hamm’s wallet.

One wonders whether Mr. Hamm has considered that this may be God’s will.

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In a Pence-sive Mood 0

Thom discusses a website that spoofs Mike Pence with eerie accuracy.

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Opposition to Birth Control Is All about Woman Control 0

At Psychology Today Blogs, Marty Klein muses on why the right wing and “Christian” culture warriors oppose birth control. He offers several reasons. Here’s an excrept, including the reasons; follow the link for his discussion of each (emphasis added):

Millions of people around the world will have sex tonight. And more than 99% of it will NOT be intended to create a pregnancy. Yet many cultural, religious, and political traditions treat contraception as an anomaly, something to be regulated and even criminalized.

(snip)

Most Americans of every faith pick and choose which parts of their religion they follow at various times in life (the First Amendment guarantees the right of such convenient selectivity). So there are reasons besides “sin” that so many religiously-oriented people oppose birth control—particularly for other people; here are some of those reasons:

  • Contraception makes it clear that people have sex for pleasure and intimacy
  • Contraception effectively limits family size, empowering women
  • Contraception reduces a key unwanted consequence of sex, promoting (women’s–ed.) autonomy
  • Contraception may make abortion more acceptable

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“One Nation, under God” 0

In The Guardian, Daniel José Camacho explores the intertwining of Christianity, racism, and right-wing politics in the United States. A snippet:

Condemning white supremacy and the alt-right movement shouldn’t be hard. But the Southern Baptist Convention – the nation’s largest Protestant denomination– had its doubts about whether to do so this week.

During the annual meeting, they initially declined to pass a resolution doing just that. Chaos ensued at the denomination’s annual meeting and a firestorm of criticism quickly followed. Delegates eventually passed a modified version of the resolution – originally drafted by one of its black pastors – but the damage had been done.

It would be a mistake to interpret this fiasco simply as a misstep. The Southern Baptist Convention’s reluctance to condemn racism is not only true to its history but it reflects how white supremacy is built into the very DNA of American Christianity.

Follow the link to see why he said that.

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Groups Think 0

Afshan Jafar, professor of sociology at Connecticut College, discusses how stereotypes reinforce stigma and bigotry. He’s discussing contemporary stereotypes of Muslims, but he could as easily be discussing any other group target for bigots to take the blame.

Here’s a bit; follow the link for the rest.

Many people, including President Donald Trump, point to “the Muslim community” as a cause and a solution. Let me say this bluntly: There is no such thing as “the Muslim community,” there is no such thing as “the Muslims” or even “the Muslim man” or “the Muslim woman.”

As a professor of sociology at Connecticut College, this is a lesson I teach my students early, by asking them to finish the sentence: “Muslim women are … ?” which they do readily and predictably (by using words such as “oppressed,” “silenced,” “passive,” “subjugated” and sometimes by using what they consider to be positive words such as “beautiful” or “strong”). I then ask them to imagine instead that the question is “Christian women are … ?” The second question makes no sense, they say. How, they ask, could we speak for all Christian women or make a universal remark about them?

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American Taliban 0

In the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Tony Norman marvels at evangelical “Christians” (Michael in Norfolk calls then “Christofacists”) support for Donald Trump. A snippet:

I was never one of those people who gave any credence to the theory that we’re all living in a computer simulation that mimics what we used to think of as the “real world” — until recently.

In the universe that I come from, Christians would rather have been fed to the lions than to have been allied with a vulgarian like Donald Trump. In this simulated universe, the American faction of Christianity appears to worship a Jesus that has contempt for the poor, hates refugees and embraces militarism. Here, Jesus blesses wealth and power and those who seek it relentlessly.

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Tales of the Trumpling: Snapshots of Trickle-Down Trumpery 0

Blame the victim.

An Apple Valley High School security guard was placed on leave after an altercation involving students last week.

(snip)

The group (Council on American-Islamic Relations or CAIR–ed.) released a statement Saturday demanding an investigation into the Thursday incident. They say a female Muslim student, a 15-year-old sophomore, was harassed by a male student and called a terrorist. An altercation between the students ensued and the security guard intervened, along with the school resource officer, a police officer assigned to the school.

“The security guard focused completely on her,” Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of CAIR, said Monday. “He proceeded to grab her.”

The story goes on to say that the guard ripped the girl’s hijab off her head, then was taken to the police station. No action was taken against the fine upstanding young man who started it.

Via The Root.

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American Taliban 0

Farron explains how the Trump circus is providing cover for bigotry at the state level.

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Down the Black Rabbit Hole 0

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Proxy Paper Trail 0

Elie Mystal explains.

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Have Cake, Eat It Too, Reprise 0

Bob Cesca skewers the “freedom of speech” hypocrisy of Republican special snowflakes.

Just read it.

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Have Cake, Eat It Too 0

Southernbeale dissects the hypocrisy of right-wing Christians. You know them: they are the ones who claim they are oppressed because they are unable to impose their will on others. Here’s a bit (emphasis added):

The idea that Christians have been “targeted, bullied or silenced” is bullshit: have they been denied marriage licenses or the right to adopt? Have their spouses of 40+ years been refused funeral cremation services, as recently happened in Mississippi?

Of course not. But they have been witness to the secularization of American society, something they have been powerless to stop. This is the real “oppression” they decry, and yet there’s a very good reason they can’t stop it: they are part of it. They want the benefits of secularism but not the costs. They want to attend football games on Sunday but don’t want their influence on American society to wane. They want to participate in secular culture while holding themselves above it.

(See the Mississippi story that she refers to. It is vile.)

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People of the Book 0

Catholic prelate, Jewish Rabbi, and Muslim Iman stand in circle.  Each holds a sign saying


Click for the original image.

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