2012 archive

Contradict Me offers a handy tool for classifying bigots.

This is one of my favorites, one seen frequently in the wild over the past two weeks:

The Enlightened- This bigot calls for peace. The problem is, their call for peace is only directed at the victim of hate. Rarely, if ever, is this “Call for peace” directed at the person who has caused the pain. They are anti-retaliation but not so much anti-attack. This bigot will talk of Ghandi or quote “An eye for an eye…” They’ll say, “Whatever the hate fueled person did was bad BUT…” All the while stepping directly on the hurt person and remaining completely silent in the face of the person who has caused the harm. They will often go on a faux peace rant, end it with an incorrect use of Nameste and be completely shocked that everyone doesn’t immediately fall at their feet and start singing We are the World.

This is the one that, after some bigoted massacre or other, can be recognized by its plaintive cry:

Now is not the time to politicize.
Now is not the time to politicize.
Now is not the time to politicize.

Follow the link for the rest. I expect that you will recognize them all.

Mike Papantonio and Ed Schultz consider what happens when Senator Harry Reid talks like Fox News, complete with “Some people say . . .” and “The word on the street is . . . .”

They also wonder whether there’s a there there:

If there is a there there, it’s the only there that’s there over there in Mitt world.

Following the Milwaukee massacre, the press has discovered the seamy underground of white power punk (as an SPLC supporter, I was already aware of it and other manifestations of the mongers of extreme hate).

Psychology Today blogger Anthony Lemieux, who has studied that music, considers the message in the music and its use in recruiting haters. A nugget:

A couple of years ago, one of my former students did a detailed research study examining the lyrical themes in White Supremacist music and in short found a series of reliable and recurrent themes. Those mentioned here are just a small (but representative) sample of what we found. But it is important to note that emphasizing the need for ‘awakening’ is one of the themes that is particularly important in the context of violence, because violence is positioned as the means by which the masses can be shocked from their collective complacency. Not only are the perceived problems and threats that Whites face attributed to racial and religious minorities, but the solution to those problems is purported to be through the embracing of eliminationist themes and justification of violence.

Profit is an important measurement of business.

What happens when it mutates from measurement to idol?

Excerpt:

I do not think Mitt Romney realizes what he has done to anyone, and furthermore I do not think he cares.

Via the Booman.