Culture Warriors category archive
It Was All about the Benjamins 0
Dartmouth professor Randall Balmer tells the story of the rise of the “religious right.” It’s not what you might think, and certainly not the stories they tell themselves. A nugget:
Follow the link for the rest.
Aside:
Many years ago, I visited Bob Jones U. while researching a paper I was working on for some class I forget which one but most likely a sociology class my senior year.
It was one of the spookiest places I have ever seen.
Easy Marks 0
The editorial board of the Las Vegas Sun is somewhat taken aback by Republicans’ willingness to believe anything. Here’s a bit:
Imagine his fellow legislators’ surprise in learning the findings of the report, including that the vaccine contains a “living organism with tentacles” and is causing the babies of vaccinated parents to be born “transhuman” with “pitch-black eyes.”
Amazing. And, of course, completely insane.
Follow the link for a litany of lunacy.
School Daze, Reprise 0
Today’s local rag took a close look at disruptive behavior, threats of violence, and even occasional acts of violence at school board meetings in these viral times. Adam Laats, a historian at New York’s Binghamton University, was one of the persons cited in the article; he pointed out that this is not a new or isolated phenomenon, but a recurring one in times of stress and change, supporting that point with numerous examples.
One phrase, in particular, caught my eye:
The full article is at the link.
The Call of the Cult 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Darcia F. Narvaez explores the psychology of cults and how they maintain control over their adherents.
(She uses what I consider an absurd term, “totalist,” in the piece, in order to differentiate from the term “totalitarian”; I think she does so in order to include non-governmental entities. But it’s still absurd.)
Here’s a bit:
Mind control occurs thorough an alternation of fear and love within the isolating environment. Followers are threatened by the leader at the same time they are promised love. They are entrapped within the group, glued in anxious dependency to the group, in a constant state of fear arousal but seeking proximity to the group in a failed attempt for comfort.
I commend the rest to your attention.
A Case of Identity Politics 0
Tim Steller looks at the assumptions behind the voter fraud fraud and Arizona’s no-account recount. A snippet; follow the link for the rest.
By logical extension, their votes should not count. And if their votes are counted, democracy itself is the problem.
Aside:
In his list of characteristics, methinks he left out the one that underlies and ties together all the others: Whiteness.
If the Truth Hurts, Make It Go Away 0
In the midst of the current who-shot-john over whether students should be taught the truth about American’s history, Leonard Pitts, Jr., offers some thoughts on National Banned Books Week. A nugget:
That’s something worth remembering here in Banned Books Week, a yearly observation sponsored by the American Library Association to call attention to that crude human impulse that, with apologies to the Tennessee moms, stands against liberty of knowledge and ideas. There is, after all, a reason one of the first acts of the Nazi regime was a massive book burning — 25,000 texts consigned to the fire — and it wasn’t to celebrate freedom. The spirit of that atrocity lives on in Tennessee. And in Pennsylvania. And in America.
Maskless Marauders 0
We are a society of stupid.
A Notion of Immigrants 0
Sam, Emma, their guest, attorney and writer Sam Melo, discuss the history of immigration and immigration legislation in the United States.
Maskless Marauders 0
Note the part where the owner of the restaurant admits that “it’s political.”
And he’s not the only one . . . .
We are a society that no longer understands the concept of the “common good.”
Myth America 0
Billy Field argues that truth matters, even when some of it hurts.
Vaccine Nation, Dropping the Ball Dept. 0
Field seems concerned that our media and, for that matter, our polity don’t have their eyes on the right ball.
Twits on Twitter 0
A twit who says he didn’t intend to sound anti-semitic.
It appears that they just can’t stop themselves from showing their true colo–oh, never mind.
Courting Disaster 0
At Above the Law, Elizabeth Dye minces no words.
Hazards 0
Robin Alcarian is also fed up with the governors of what blogger Ted McLaughlin has dubbed “The Petri Dish States.” A nugget:
In response to legal threats by Republican governors like Kristi Noem of South Dakota, Biden was blithe: “If those governors won’t help us beat the pandemic,” he said last week, “I will use my power as president to get them out of the way.”
The refusal of otherwise healthy people to vaccinate is, in fact, a trampling of common sense, decency and the very idea that any of us owes a measure of respect to those around us.