Culture Warriors category archive
Freedom of Screech 0
Jonathan Friedman of PEN America argues forcefully that the current crusade against books, particularly books available to students, is ideologically driven and unprecedented in the level of coordination amongst the anti-idea brigades and that it is part of a larger crusade against public education in general. Here’s a bit from his article:
In Walton, Florida, when the superintendent decided to yank two dozen books off school library shelves, for example, he told the press, “I haven’t read one paragraph of the books at this time.” His decision to pull those titles was done unilaterally, based on a list emailed to him by one of these advocacy groups. Those groups somehow held more sway than the views of teachers, librarians and parents who disagreed with the bans in the district.
The entire article is worth the three or four minutes it will take you to read it.
Republican Family Values 0
There been quite a bit of who-shot-john lately about Herschel Walker and his family values (or perhaps one should say, “families values”). Some are taken aback that, despite his family values (or lack thereof), Republicans seem to still support him in his race against Georgia’s Senator Warnock.
Will Bunch has a theory as to why that is. Here’s a bit of his article:
The conservative movement is about one thing: preserving traditional hierarchies, especially around white privilege and patriarchy, by any means necessary. In the past, democracy — in times and places where white Protestants were the majority — often served that agenda well, and there were dirty tricks like Jim Crow laws for the places where it didn’t. But in an increasingly diverse and better-educated America, the old hierarchies are fading. So today, the far-right has a brand-new tool kit — a belief that Christian law trumps the will of the voters, or that vote counts don’t matter because elections are rigged (although they aren’t), or merely faith in the raw power of imposing unqualified candidates on the body politic.
I commend the entire article to your attention.
A Notion of Immigrants 0
At the Portland Press-Herald, Victoria Hugo-Vidal exposes the dirty little secret of the anti-immigration crowd. A nugget:
The first would be to mandate the use of E-Verify at every employer in America. E-Verify is a simple government system that checks to make sure a person is legally allowed to work in America, using records from the Social Security Administration – to see if the employee has a legitimate Social Security number – and from the Department of Homeland Security. . . .
So why aren’t we, as a country, using these two very simple steps to cut down on demand for undocumented labor? Because big businesses and politicians don’t actually want to do that.
Follow the link for her reasoning.
Playing the Pawns 0
Michael Paul Williams has serious qualms about and see grave ethical issues with Virginia Governor Trumpkin’s decision to use transgender students (which, remember, are an almost infinitesimal proportion of the populace) as political pawns.
But, then, using innocent persons as pawns seems to be all the rage with today’s Republican Party.
Know Them by the Company They Keep 0
Charles Blow notices a pattern.
Republican Family Values, Reprise 0
Jeff Shapiro argues that a political party that wants to follow little children into bathrooms and look at their private parts cannot credibly claim that it’s the party of small government.
Republican Family Values 0
Read the news story that David discusses.
Afterthought:
What is the paramount Republican family value: cruelty or patriarchy?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
At the Roanoke Times, Roland Lazenby describes how Virginia Military Institute’s “Old Guard” has united with Virginia’s Governor Trumpkin to fight a rear guard action.
A Notion of Immigrants 0
Miami Herald columnist Fabiola Santiago catalogs Florida Governor DeSantis’s lies about the asylum seekers he had kidnapped and transported. Here’s a bit from her article:
“They aren’t from Jupiter or Mars,” says Emilio Martinez, a Cuban American immigration lawyer. “And the ‘unauthorized’ is categorically untrue.”
“What they’re doing [arriving at the border and asking for asylum] is not illegal,” Martinez said, an assertion echoed by other lawyers, citing federal laws.
The Privatization Scam 0
The Arizona Republic’s E. J. Montini says that you can vouch for it–school vouchers a bait-and-switch.
The Artless Dodger 0
Honest to Betsy, you can’t make this stuff up.
Suffer the Children, the Children Strike Back 0
Sam and his crew discuss Virginia students’ protest against Virginia’s Governor Trumpkin’s bigoted actions towards trans kids, who, ass the writer of a letter to the editor of my local rag pointed out, are a minuscule percentage of the population.
It wasn’t just in Northern Virginia, folks.
Misdirection Play, Thought Police Dept. 0
Clarence Page, in a longer article about attempts to ban books and shove ideas under the rug, sums up the current, exptremely popular misdirection play on the part of the right-wing. He even mentions our own Governor Trumpkin:
Follow the link for context.
Afterthought:
I share Page’s opinion of Huckleberry Finn.
Despite the prolific use of the n-word, as was common in the time that the novel was written, the arc of the story is a powerful indictment of racism; Huck chooses friendship and humanity over bigotry. Those who are distracted by the n-word miss the message of the missive.
Mark Twain understood America, and he understood the stain of its original sin.
(Spellink erorr corexed.)
Florida Man 0
I think that Florida’s Governor DeSantis has plucked Grung_e_Gene’s last nerve.
Methinks he is onto something.
After all, I’m a Southern Boy who grew up under Jim Crow. I am familiar with–er–DeSantis’s type.
The Disinformation Industrial Complex 0
Joe Pierre, writing at Psychology Today Blogs, is less than optimistic about the role mistrust and misinformation play in dis coarse discourse. Here’s a bit of what he says; follow the link for the rest (emphasis added).
Now, why is there so much misinformation out there? Misinformation and disinformation—the deliberate spread of falsehoods—is a for-profit industry where the pay-offs are financial and political.
Those sitting atop of the disinformation food chain are masters of exploiting the normal cognitive machinery that we use to process information, taking full advantage of our propensity for confirmation bias, cognitive dissonance, and motivated reasoning that all act in the service of preserving a stable sense of self where ideology and identity are fused.