Culture Warriors category archive

From the Youtube page:

While anyone even suspected of being an undocumented immigrant is facing the threat of violence from Donald Trump and Stephen Miller’s ICE agents at any moment, U.S. citizens, as predicted, are also getting caught up in the lawlessness these thugs are operating with and are becoming victims of the same brutality as their fellow community members. Rick Strom breaks it down.

Via the Charlotte Observer, Jodi Bondi Norgaard expresses concern over the ethnic and national slurs, invective, and insults that have become routine under Donald Trump and his maladministration. She has qualms about what this behavior may portend.

Methinks her concerns may not be misplaced. A snippet:

Children model adult behavior; when cruelty becomes normalized, so do bullying, misogyny, racism and xenophobia. Marginalized communities absorb the harm first and worst through fear, trauma and harassment. And democracy itself corrodes. Cruelty becomes a brand. Authoritarian swagger becomes a leadership style. Governance loses the possibility of compassion.

So we must ask, as citizens and as humans: What kind of society do we want?

Writing at The Sacramento Bee, Erwin Chemerinsky, dean and professor of law at the UC Berkeley School of Law, reminds us that mean for the sake of mean seems to have become the overriding Republican family value. Here’s how he opens his piece:

Although there is much to lament in the unconstitutional and illegal policies of the Trump administration, not enough has been said about its lack of compassion and basic human decency.

The entire article is worthy of your attention.

Who’s making money from the racist crackdown by the New Secesh? Truthout follows the money. A snippet:

In the wake of the major operations in Louisiana and North Carolina, Facing South and the Institute for Southern Studies collected and analyzed data from USASpending.gov on more than 50 businesses headquartered in those states who are receiving CBP and ICE contracts for fiscal years 2025-2026. The contracts for companies based in Louisiana and North Carolina total more than $341 million.

Michael in Norfolk decoded de code:

Seemingly, the Felon’s concept of “make America great again” boils down to promoting racism and white supremacy while pushing an agenda aimed at enriching the Felon and his billionaire friends.

For some fool reason, I seem to hear a rhyme in this statement of the Commander of the U. S. S. Gravely upon its return from patrolling the Caribbean against the dangers posed by Venezuelan fishing boats (emphasis added):

Since September, the U.S has struck 23 small boats, killing at least 87 people. The Trump administration has said without providing evidence that the boats were carrying drugs. The Gravely’s captain, Cmdr. Gregory Piorun, wouldn’t elaborate on the destroyer’s role.

“I follow the news. I also follow the orders of the Secretary of War and the President of the United States, and so that’s what we carry out,” he said.

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*Mark Twain.