Hate Sells category archive
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
At the Charlotte Observer, Issac Bailey notes that we are seeing a trend of would-be oppressors claiming to be victims: Persons who wish to discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, etc., are claiming that they are the real victims of discrimination because they are not allowed to discriminate. It’s a marvelous mental mobius strip of malicious mendacity.
Bailey also notes that such claims have a long history in the United States. Here’s a bit of his article:
Now, a growing number of white conservatives and others have been making the case that being called racist or the removal or rethinking of traditional standards that had long favored them is the real discrimination.
A Notion of Immigrants 0
I could not determine whether the victim is, in fact, an immigrant. She was not identified other than as an 18-year-old student in the news reports as of this writing. I suspect there she’s likely no more an immigrant than I am.
But whether she was born here or abroad is irrelevant. What’s relevant is so many feel free to unleash their bigotry and hatred on others, sadly, with encouragement from far too many public figures.
We are devolving into an uncivil society.
Normalizing Nastiness 0
Methinks Steven M. has a valid question.
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
Methinks Steve M. has a point when he says:
(His complete article is at the link.)
Afterthought:
We look forward to two years of a House of Representatives ruled by persons (at least profess to) believe that Fox News speaks truth.
I am not sanguine.
An Uncomfortable Truth 0
Brian Greenspun, publisher of the Las Vegas Sun, looks at the Republican Party’s week-long struggle to select a Speaker and reaches the depressing conclusion that voters get what they vote for (emphasis added). A snippet; follow the link for his reasoning.
I believe we deserve exactly what we are getting right now. There have been no surprises. The entire country has known exactly who these people are and exactly what they want to do.
I know that it’s a depressing thought, but I think he may be onto something.
American Exceptionalism 0
Once again, the United States sets an example that others follow.
Afterthought:
Americans need to stop kidding themselves that loftiness of the American dream somehow washes away the reality of America’s history.
“But I’m the Victim Here” 0
Right-wingers, racists, and, especially these days, evangelical they-call-themselves Christians often claim that they are being persecuted for their beliefs, they they are, to quote the cliche, “the real victims here.” Their definition of “persecution,” match, is not getting everyone else bend to their will.
At Psychology Today Blogs, Araya Baker explores why these folks portray themselves as–indeed, can convince themselves that they are–victims. It is a complex and timely article and well worth the few minutes it will take you to read it.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Yet another “responsible gun owner” discharges his responsibility, to (no surprises here) his detriment.
Meanwhile, at the Orlando Sentinel, Cindy Sawyer tries to make sense of gun nuts’ rationales for gunnuttery and concludes that, well, they just don’t make sense.
Nazis for Neighbors 0
A little girl leaves her house to go to school and finds Nazi swastikas strewn over her front yard.
We are a broken society.
Critique of Poor Reason, Disinformation Superhighway Dept. 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Armin Zadel explores why so many persons seem to be abandoning reason for ideology. It does not surprise me that he points one finger towards the Disinformation Superhighway and “social” media (emphasis added).
This dramatically changed with the advent of the internet, particularly social media. Suddenly, folks around the world found others who shared their obscure ideas, which not only allowed nonsense to propagate but also emboldened many silent supporters to join. The result is a delusion pandemic, with ideas mutating and becoming increasingly hostile toward academics and the “elite” who try to expose and disparage illogical thoughts and theories.
I commend the entire article to your attention.
The American Demean 0
Robert Reich offers some thoughts about why some persons are so fascinated with Elon Musk and Donald Trump, two personalities who seem to dominate (or pollute) the discourse in this new Gilded Age. An excerpt:
People who have been bullied their whole lives want to identify with super bullies who give the finger to the establishment, answerable to no one but their own ravenous egos.
Their arrogance and certitude attract millions of followers, fans and cultish devotees, along with a fair number of goons and thugs who want to vicariously feel superior.But they are not leaders. They are bullies who demean America.
Manufactured Malice 0
David Roth is fed up with the mongers of the phony non-existent “War on Christmas.” Here’s a bit from his article at the Idaho State Journal:
A Notion of Immigrants, 0
Thom suggests that Republicans are trading on a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Afterthought:
Methinks Thom is onto something.
I doubt that this is some sort of conservative conspiracy. Frankly, I don’t think the American right is capable of thinking that far ahead. (Indeed, their preference is to look back, not forward.)
Nevertheless, given the pervasiveness of “social” media (and I think Americans tend to forget that other countries have are plagued by it too), I think he makes a strong case that one society’s rhetoric could affect other societies’ perception of reality.
Save Just What, Exactly? 0
:quality(70)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tronc/AAG4JUULB5BLTDYFU6VJRTFOYM.jpg)
I have found that those who trumpet most loudly their own patriotism, those most likely to wrap their bodies in the stars and stripes (in violation of the Flag Code, by the way, but that is quite another issue) while waving the Stars and Bars–the flag of treason, for Pete’s sake–are also those most likely to reject the idea that “all men are created equal,” however imperfectly it might have been practiced at the time of the Founding.
Rather, they would will restore if they could can America’s original sin of chattel slavery.
I say this as one whose ancestors wore the grey.
I’m a Southern Boy who grew up under Jim Crow.
I know racism when I see it.
