Culture Warriors category archive

Witchcraft strips the conscience bare.

In related news news of the crafty, Christine O’Donnell, who assures us that she is not a witch (she certainly failed to bewitch Delaware!) returns because everyone needs some chuckles.

Chris Hayes and his guests discuss how political hate scams get pulled off and how “economic conservatives play social conservatives for suckers.”

A local candidate in Florida does not think her opponent is Godly enough, or worships the correct flavor of God, or something.

To which I say, “Matthew 6:5”.

. . . Arizona seeks help from Dear Abby.

Via Delaware Liberal, which adds commentary you should read.

Also, Josh Marshall has a wonderful post which deserves a read.

Stay classy, Virginia Republicans.

There’s a quotation, likely apocryphal, often attributed to Winston Churchill (though I have not found an authoritative citation) to the effect that

Of course, the United States will have fascism, but it will be called “anti-Fascism.”

Case in point:

I should have realized this, but it took the Professional Left Podcast (subscribe now if you haven’t already; it’s fun and it’s free) to remind me that Arizona’s “Let’s All Hate on the Gays” legislation is nothing more than Sharia law, fundy style.

I seldom agree with the resident curmudgeon at my local rag, as her default position seems to be that “other persons don’t deserve nice things,” but she got this one right.

I commend the musings of PoliticalProf to your attention. He said it better than I can.

It’s an empty person who must mistreat others to feel alive. There is a word for such a person.

“Sadist.”

Once a pervert, now a self-designated “Christian,” but one unknown to Christ.

Excerpt:

The Stand-Your-Ground Defense is like bleach. It does work for whites, but it will ruin your colors.

Below the fold because it autoplays on some systems.

Read more »

A. When it takes place in Florida, where, if you are a white guy who kills a black kid, murder is only attempted murder.

“Vile” does not begin to characterize this.

To be clear, the problem is not the jury. The problem is Florida and its laws and the culture they reflect, a culture that exists not only in Florida, but in much of the rest of the country.

It is the culture of the “Lost Cause” (tell me again, exactly what cause was lost?), the culture of “black lives don’t matter,” the culture of white racism and white racists, the culture of Judge Lynch.

My words may be harsh, but no harsher than the reality.

It lives among us still, white racism, the legacy of chattel slavery and its rationalizations, of theft of labor, America’s original and continuing sin.

The Rude One rudely explains how “James Taranto just couldn’t help himself, bless his soul.”

Prepare yourself for rudeness and read it.

(For a bonus, here’s his delicious takedown of Bobo from yesterday.)

The streams of syrup unleashed in media stories about the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ appearance on the Ed Sullivan show have been silly and stultifying. I have relentlessly avoided them.

The times were not so syrupy.

Young men were dying for old men’s lies in Viet Nam, as today different youngsters die for different lies from different old men in a different part of the world; the protest movement was starting to bloom. The Civil Rights struggle (which still is going on, by the way) was nearing its height. The great civil rights and anti-war demonstrations were yet to happen. Acid rock was just on the horizon. A culture war was brewing, one that continues still as the forces of reaction continue to, well, react.

I remember boys getting suspended from school for “Beatles haircuts,” which were quite short in retrospect. One of the students in my high school, directed to cut his hair by the principal, had his head shaved; the principal forced him to wear a toboggan cap until it grew back.

Michael Tomasky tries to bring some reality to the orgy of saccharine nostalgia.

Full Disclosure:

I did not pay much attention to the Beatles until later, after seeing a Leonard Bernstein “Young People Concert” in which Bernstein praised the richness and complexity of their music. I was more into Cannonball Adderley and Rimsky-Korsakov. And I was always more of an Airplane freak.

Moved below the fold because it rudely autoplays on some systems.

Aside:

When I wrote this post, I was using Slackware Linux (once you Slack, you never go back–Slackware, the purest Linux, the Distro of Iron). The video does not autoplay on Slackware, but does autoplay on Mageia Linux, which I use on another computer because I like to explore different distros (“distributions”) of Linux operating systems.

I have a Windows computer, but it’s dual boot with Linux and is usually booted into the Linux side of the house, because, frankly, Linux just works better than Windows. Windows users, please use either the email link on the sidebar or the comments to let me if something is autoplaying, so I can deal with it accordingly.

Autoplaying is rude and obnoxious.

Read more »

Texas twits.

It’s an all or nothing thing, folks.

Via BartCop.

In a stunning reversal of the policy of his predecessor, Virginia’s new Attorney-General chooses to stop persecuting persons for being. A nugget (more at the link):

Newly-elected Democratic Attorney General Mark R. Herring said he would support gay couples who have filed lawsuits challenging the state’s ban.

“After thorough legal review, I have now concluded that Virginia’s ban on marriage between same sex couples violates the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution on two grounds: marriage is a fundamental right being denied to some Virginians, and the ban unlawfully discriminates on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender,” Herring said.

Eight years ago, Herring supported Virginia’s constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, but has had the courage to grow and change. I commend him for that.

Elections matter, folks.

The North may have won the war, but the South won the peace with masterful post-war propaganda, such as Gone with the Wind, that exploited the latent bigotry of white America.

The tide finally seems to be turning in the battle for the peace–maybe–but the Secesh fight on. In a recent skirmish, Daniel Ruth took on the Sons of Confederate Veterans. A nugget:

If anyone has more egregiously twisted the facts of time, it has been the Sons of Confederate Veterans, who would have you believe the Civil War was all about defending the rights to have juleps on the verandah.

On its website the group argues the Confederacy “personified the best qualities of America. The preservation of liberty and freedom was the motivating factor in the South’s decision to fight the Second American Revolution.”

And if you believe that poppycock wrapped in balderdash enshrouded in piffle, you probably also buy into the notion the nearly 4 million people owned as chattel by their slave owners at the start of the Civil War happily wiled away their hours, gleefully toting those barges and lifting those bails with their only care in the world centered around how to invest their 401k plans.

Full Disclosure:

I could qualify to be a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, but I find even the fleeting thought repulsive.