Hate Sells category archive
Dis Coarse Discourse 0
Mike Kelly of northjersey.com goes on a road trip and finds the force that holds Trump World together.
Guns and Posers 0
The ADL runs the numbers. A snippet (emphasis added); follow the link for the report.
Foxy Shady 0
The writer of a letter to the editor at NJ.com thinks it’s time to close the cable TV loophole.
Methinks the writer has a point.
The regulation of radio and, later, television was based on their using a public resource, that is, the airwaves. In its very early days, cable was exempted from regulation on the theory that it did not use the airwaves and therefore should be exempt. (Mind you, this was back when the “fairness doctrine” still applied to broadcast media.) Cable has grown to dominate, even in areas where broadcast is freely available.
And it, like the internet, has become a disinformation superhighway (primarily for “news” organizations that lean right, because the truth leans left).
The Graham Cracker Has a Notion of Immigrants 0
Republicans play the race card because it’s the only card they have left. Otherwise, they got nothing other than their fealty to the robber barons of our New Gilded Age.
The Republican Party of my youth–the party that could include persons of integrity, such as Dwight Eisenhower, Nelson Rockefeller, and Everett Dirksen–no longer exists.
Richard Nixon’s racist Southern Strategy is all that remains of it.
The Actual Cancel Culture 0
At the Des Moines Register, Shoshana Salowitz discusses the recent and escalating right-wing campaigns to ban books. A nugget:
They are about denying the humanity of Queer folks, Black folks, Brown folks.
Methinks she is onto something.
Aside:
Facing consequences for one’s own actions is not “cancel culture.”
It’s consequences. Consequences that one brings on oneself.
Decoding de Code 0
At The Seattle Times, Solomon D. Stevens decodes the code word, “woke.”
It is a culture war badge.
Follow the link for context.
Borderline Disorder 0
Jim Wright minces no words about the Republicans’ reaction to President Biden’s visit to Ukraine.
Thought Control 0
Read the article that David discusses.
Aside:
David’s distinction between Orwellian and Huxleyan dystopias provoked a thought or two.
Motivations for Meanness 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Bernard Golden explores seven factors which he posits contribute to group violence. Here’s part of what he says about one of them, characterized as “Relative Deprivation and Basic Needs”; follow a link for a discussion of the seven.
Obsession 0
David discusses the right-wing’s obsession with transgender persons (who, remember, are an almost infinitesimal portion of the population).
Aside:
The ugly truth is that right-wing pols really dsn’t care about transgender persons one way or the other.
What they care about is using hate to get votes, because hate sells.
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All That Was Old Is New Again 0
At the Kansas City Star, Dion Lefler sees echoes–well, heck, more than echoes–of Joe McCarthy’s Red Scare in the tactics Republicans are deploying to stoke fears the American students might (gasp!) be taught America’s history. Here’s how he starts his article:
The best answer to that question is another question: Why are we allowing it in Kansas, in 2023?
Follow the link for his reasoning.
“What They Don’t Know Can’t Hurt Me” 0
Michael in Norfolk looks at Florida Man’s war against history. A snippet: