Shout Out Saturdays

At left: me in October, honoring the late Elijah Cummings.




Out into the streets today! The Saturday crowd is a good deal rougher than during the week. During our Tuesday demonstrations, we meet the regular lunchtime workaday crowd, but on Saturday, the folks come out from the suburbs and surrounding rural areas, to shop and eat. Some are pretty uninhibited!

The Trump people love him with an unbridled passion. This isn't a "lesser of two evils" thing.

I think back to the way people haphazardly defended Richard Nixon: But he can deal with the Soviets! ... it was literally the only nice thing his defenders could think of, to say about him ... but now? They don't even bother. Trump is a football team. YEA TEAM! No reasons for their defenses are given.. or necessary. They are the pro-America side and we are the devils.

They stand there incredulous: "What do you have against Trump?" they ask, accusingly.

And the Yippies taught me how to answer such a question: "Why would anybody NOT be against Trump?"

"What reason is there to like Trump?"

"Why aren't you against Trump????" ... and I return their dopey incredulous expressions, measure for measure. Word for word.

They can't handle it and never could.

One notable exception: I told one stereotypical, nasty, awful moneyed-Southern-lady, that Trump was a pervert and pussy-grabber, and if she liked him, she must be a pervert too.

I wish yall could have seen her face. I am utterly certain it was the first time in her life anybody had EVER spoken to her like that, and I am proud it was ME who did. :D

One guy ostentatiously prays over us, kneeling and gesturing melodramatically to the sky. This brings my usual response when people are doing that, which I stole from my late mama: Who you wavin at?

In December, another devoted counter-demonstrator tried to sing Christmas carols to us, but of course that backfired since we knew all the words too, and sang right along with him, loudly. We incorporated his anti-protest into our protest and he was somewhat chagrined. He also seemed amazed we knew the songs, especially the particularly-religious ones like "O Come O Come Emmanuel"... honestly, does he think we were all raised to be heathens? Most of us could quote his own holy book back to him at length, in spades.

~~~

On my way to Trader Joes yesterday, heard the airwaves saturated with Mike Bloomberg ads. The South Carolina primary is Saturday, the Nevada caucus is today.

We'll see if money talks on 'our side' as well.

I think it probably does.

The Resurrection of Dead Air

At left: Our most recent Shout-out Saturday demonstration in front of Lindsey Graham's office, February 15, 2020. (I'm in front wearing the pink hat, holding the "SHUT DOWN TRUMP" sign.)




~~~




I thought about renaming my blog "thoughts on populism" or something, but that's so pretentious.

Because I hate academia and want them to stay away, and that would certainly work.

But no, sticking to my values. This is it.

I will not 'rewrite' myself; I will not engage in Stalinist rewrites of history to make it look like I've always been right. I haven't been, as this blog shows. At some point, I will also be 'wrong' again, since to err is human. But I have never deleted a post from this blog, not once, not ever. (On my tumblr, I think I deleted maybe 3 posts, all by request.) Overall, the dangerous and Orwellian idea that we have always been at war with Eastasia, has entered our discourse and twisted things in fascist, cruel, sick ways. People who 5 yrs ago hated the queers are now the champions of the downtrodden. When you go back and try to find the insults, the jokes (from leftists and liberals!) about Lindsey Graham being "light in the loafers"--well, those have been dropped down the infamous memory hole. We're all gay now.

Rather than try to explain themselves to us: well, when I was a homophobe/Christian/supporter of segregation, I believed such-and-so and I learned otherwise because...? Let's discuss, share histories, explain the process we want to share with others. BUT NO, this discussion is now thoroughly impossible, since everybody has always been on "the right side of history" and always thought exactly the way they do right now. Nobody on the Left will currently fess up to ever having any other view than the 'correct' one.
So only bad people, the unenlightened and unwoke, have EVER had the 'wrong' opinion.

And as we see, these are college kids speaking that strange, bizarre, elitist, limited postmodernese, and if you don't speak it, they will even tell you that you have never been a real leftist. Kids from private schools who learned about Social Justice a week ago, will inform old ladies who got hit in the head by right-wing lunatics and STILL protest every single week (none of them do), that if you aren't fluent in Judith-Butlerese, you can not possibly be a leftist, so of course, they do not even have to listen to you.

Thus, unlike boomers and Gen X, they are not learning from actual veterans in the movement.

This might be why there are so few (if any) ongoing protests, NO coherent position statements, NO journalistic-coverage of economic terrorism in the heartland, NO attempts at mass-organizing in unorganized neighborhoods, NO radical cells ... and why Donald Trump will handily be re-elected.

~~~

As many of you know, I was a Yippie. I am old. Look us up. We were batshit crazy and proud of it.

I regret a lot of it now, and yet, who would I be without that experience? I could not analyze and understand the current political situation at all, and I would be as frustrated as so many others are.
As it is, I was raised to closely examine anyone making lots of noise and why they were making it.
I was taught by my mentors to not only examine what they claimed they believed, but who they ARE.

And interestingly, this is integral to postmodernism. So I get it.

The postmodern Left claims words change meanings, literally shape-shifting and turning into something different, depending on who says them.

The best recent (rather shocking) example is a fawning, positive interview of Andrea Long Chu in The New Republic, a trans women declaring "We're all female now" (this came as a bit of a shock to the men I know) and what "woman" means:

I recently met with her in Washington Square Park to chat about her first book Females, which springs from an unsurprisingly audacious conceit: “Femaleness is not an anatomical or genetic characteristic of an organism, but rather a universal existential condition.” For Chu, “femaleness” is the urge to be a vessel for another’s desire. Gender in this conception is defined not only by the self, but also by the other—it is the expression of what someone else wants.

Chu is a trans woman of color, which in Leftist Postmodville, puts her way up on top of the oppression-food chain, so she can say this extremely-sexist, porn-derived drivel with total impunity.

But I ask you:
If the dreaded basement-dwelling, white 'incel' young hetero male, OR a right-wing Christian, dared to propagate this nonsense, defining women in that fashion????

What would be the reaction?

Convulsions from the #metoo crowd, calling for their execution.

So, we learn from this episode: all words are not equal.

Some people are permitted to say (apparently with a straight face) the meaning of womanhood is to be a porn-character. (In fact, the Chu interview seemed like a direct-rewrite of some parts of The Story of O.)

They aren't only ALLOWED, they are REWARDED for their misogyny with book deals and interviews and excellent health insurance and Ph.Ds.

Other unfortunate people, who don't live in Brooklyn and hang out with important editors, who may be foolish enough to think they have the right to say that same exact shit, would lose their jobs and be run out of town on the proverbial rail.

Yes, that's where we're at now.

Orwell, call your office: Some people are indeed more equal than others.

~~~

In 2018, The New York Times even hired a person (and then proudly refused to fire them) named Sarah Jeong, who had a sordid social-media history of hundreds of hateful tweets. Many of these authoritatively asserted there is no such thing as "white culture".

Talk about hating hillbillies, this snooty Harvard grad raised it to a whole nother level.

If you've ever wondered why the NYT deliberately refuses to cover bluegrass or country music (etc), we finally got an answer. We don't even exist, and they are perfectly fine with hiring people who proudly tweet this.

After all, she accurately speaks for and represents the bourgeois-class consensus on this. This has ALWAYS been the view of the NYT, so why not hire someone who comes right out and says so?

But do they realize, in proudly keeping Jeong on staff, they confirmed the anti-worker/anti-hillbilly bias of the Times, that we have been accusing them of for decades and decades???
(I guess there is not a single hillbilly or country-music fan on the staff of the NYT who might have ventured a daring, um, what did you say? They would have been fired outright if they had.)

Jeong was instead rewarded with an encouraging, loving, supportive statement from the Times. Roughly, you could translate it as: GOOD WORK INSULTING THE RIGHT PEOPLE, SARAH! YOU'RE IN!

However it IS notable that the Trumpsters talked up Sarah Jeong as 'typical' of the Times, for 2 solid months.

And the NYT didn't mind a bit; they seemed to revel in it. My whole point.

These people went to Harvard and Yale and they will be just fine. They can withstand Trump; they live in liberal states that took the Medicaid Expansion. They ain't worried. They don't have any militias nearby. They don't protest, so nobody will ever throw rocks at them.

To them, Trump is a remote academic theoretical exercise. Or some exotic animal in a zoo? Whatever he is, rest assured, they have never spoken to an actual Trump supporter and wouldn't know how.

~~~

The Yippies taught me to look at the class and actual history of the people who show up on the Left, not just their words.

Who are their parents? How were they raised? What neighborhood did they grow up in and who did they largely associate with, growing up?

Is there any indication they are who they claim they are?

Did they go to private schools, thus getting into the best colleges, writing dissertations and getting book deals, while living in the most expensive city in the USA? Chu does, unabashedly admits it too... and in my day, it meant OF COURSE this person could not be a leftist. There is absolutely nothing in their life to suggest that they are.

Just like those very-capable infiltrators during the COINTELPRO era, they said they were radicals but they were there to take us down.

THESE PEOPLE ARE TOO.

LOOK AT THE CLASS OF PEOPLE THEY REPRESENT.

These people are members of the class that keep the rest of us down, perhaps not the 1%, but definitely the 9.9% that calls the shots in this country. (linked article is notably titled "The 9.9 Percent Is the New American Aristocracy")

These people's parents get tax breaks under Trump, which is why they taught their kids to hate working class people when we try to question them.

They do not answer to US (the masses or the workers), as Karl Marx (as well as Trotsky, Gramsci, Luxemburg, Marcuse, Du Bois, Fanon, et. al.) instructed them. They are answerable to no one directly. They answer to "critical theory" and Judith Butler instead. They pointedly do not care about the working class and even enjoy directly insulting us, Jeong-style. Their health insurance is great. In fact, Chu wrote an entire article in the New York Times (!!) about how her new vagina would not make her happy, but she needed it anyway. (!!)

I am dead serious: bragging about wasting six-figure-health-insurance-costs on an apparently-empty surgical gesture. Lots more surgery to come as well, also mentioned in the article.

I wonder what the poor trans women of color who aren't writing dissertations and can't afford endless surgeries and Brooklyn co-ops, think of all this?

Well, true to form, Chu didn't ask any and obviously doesn't care.

~~~

And now we come to the re-election of Trump, which seems imminent. The working class has been exiled from the Left and not permitted to participate, since we don't know the highfalutin theory-language. So, the working classes go to wherever they/we are welcome.

If the Left is too good (or stupid, or pure, or whatever) to explain their incoherent, incomprehensible
horse-shit, then the Right will be happy to step in... and they have. Nature abhors a vacuum.

The Left will then respond with "If they talk to the Right, it proves they were right-wing all along!"--and since (unlike me) they have conveniently flushed their old blogs and embarrassing tumblr accounts down the toilet, there is no proof they haven't always thought the right thoughts. They are ideologically pure as the driven snow. They don't associate with the other side, they might get infected.

So the tribalist-polarization continues, which of course (as Gramsci explained about cultural-hegemony, which the kids haven't read, since they are busy with Judith Butler and similar meaningless gender horse-shit) always helps the party currently in power.

And that's YOU kids isn't it?

Andrea Long Chu's academic paper (!) titled "Did sissy porn made me trans?"(pdf) is much more important (and lets not forget prurient and sexy) than going to the heartland to research boring wonky health insurance and farm subsidies.

These opinions are obviously directed to the people getting the tax breaks, the people who can already afford all kinds of exotic surgeries.

We can imagine what its like when some poor guy whose company is closing, losing his 401K and health insurance and insulin, has kids (and maybe even grandkids) to support... reads about the exotic New Yorkers in cafes, writing dissertations and books about porn fantasies and getting paid for it (jackpot job of the world, he's thinking), reading for the first time about facial-feminization surgery, something so elite he has never even heard of it.

Then he is told that he is in fact oppressing poor Andrea (the one who actually gets paid to write about porn!) since he is a poor hetero white guy in West Virginia who can't even afford new boots or dentures.

Yes, this is where we are.

~~~

And so... our poor uneducated white guy finally figures out that Andrea, Sarah and all their friends will go insane if Trump is re-elected and he decides, hmm... I definitely need to vote for this guy, since they hate him so much. I mean, that means he must be RIGHT, isn't he?

Because these spoiled brats suck the big one.

I mean, certainly you DO understand the temptation?

I sure do, and I have been a Red since 1972.


~~~

But Trump is as Ivy-League as the rest of them. He has no intention of actually shutting them up (which is what our poor West Virginian is hoping for), since they are handily winning elections for him. He AMPLIFIES the rich-kid voices, just to antagonize the West Virginians. He has assigned loyal sonny-boy Don Jr the ongoing task of making fun of them, thus Junior Don produced a book (or rather, somebody did) and called it "Triggered"--a whole book making fun of the ridiculous excesses of the suburban hothouse-orchids of the Left.

Trump loves them.

They are like an enormous FREE pro-Trump campaign; the Left now a huge din of class-hatred and snobbery based on despising the people who don't use the right words/pronouns/etc, who do not subscribe to the Creed, who dare to question orthodoxy.

As they are alienating the vast working class, one by one, Trump and minions are there to say, See? Is the Left your friend? They hate you.

Since 2017, I have been protesting against Trump once a week (and for the past few months, twice a week) in the reddest, most conservative county in the USA.... and this is what the people actually say to me.

Dear Modern Left, and what do you say to them in return?

Since they ask you these things as regularly as they ask me, what is YOUR reply, since they often leave ME (48-yr veteran of the Left) speechless. I mean, you talk to them as often as I do, right? Since you claim to CARE so much? Please share your experiences organizing these folks.

(Hahaha, am I funny or what?)


~~~

TL; DR --

Modern rich-kid "Wokestasi" Left is actually a tool of the Right.

The actual working class, whom the Left was invented to defend and protect, is now totally marginalized and unprotected, as arrogant kids with Ph.Ds take over and decide everything. (In that sense, same as it ever was.)

Whenever they say "critical theory"--scream and scream again.

The modern "Left" represents the rich, which is why we no longer recognize it. And the rich want Trump, so the modern Left works hard to re-elect Trump.

Once you see it this way, you can't unsee it.

VOTE FOR LEE TURNER IN JUNE 12TH PRIMARY!

Babes in Transland

Things are getting certifiable over in Trans-land.

TRANSWORLD -- a major cannibalism-site, where you can directly observe the Left eating itself.

For background, newbies might want to read Michelle Goldberg's New Yorker piece from almost 4 years ago, still one of the best summations of the Troubles:

The most dramatic change in the perception of transgenderism can be seen in academia. Particularly at liberal-arts colleges, students are now routinely asked which gender pronoun they would prefer to be addressed by: choices might include “ze,” “ou,” “hir,” “they,” or even “it.” A decade ago, no university offered a student health plan that covered gender-reassignment surgery. Today, dozens do, including Harvard, Brown, Duke, Yale, Stanford, and the schools in the University of California system.

As I said, Goldberg's article was written almost four years ago. Transgender is now fully acceptable most everyplace in the West.

As a result, the omnipresence of radical trans postmodern 'theory' has skyrocketed, but they seem to have no real political agenda at all. You'd think health care would bring them out to protest with us about trans health care... but ((crickets)). You'd think they would be demonstrating in droves against Trump, a conservative who wants to roll back civil rights protections... but ((crickets)).

In short, shit has gotten very weird even since that eye-opening article.

For one thing, the split between the trans men (assigned female at birth) and trans women (assigned male at birth) has become almost-explosive, as these two groups continue to embrace very different agendas. Trans men want to blend in unobtrusively and simply be seen as males; by contrast, this new crop of young radical trans women (most of whom call themselves lesbian and "non-binary") pointedly do not.

The main thing trans women seem interested in right now is lesbians. On tumblr, it is a rather embarrassing and all-consuming fixation; they rarely even talk to non-lesbians like me anymore. They are obsessed with young lesbians and "lesbian spaces" (that they claim they are being kept out of) and talk about lesbians seemingly constantly.

One reason trans women are resentful and dislike trans men is that lesbians will sleep with them regardless of whether they are calling themselves men, and will not sleep with the trans women even if they call themselves women. This is because lesbians are attracted to vaginas and not penises. It used to be that the trans women went and got themselves surgical vaginas, but those days are long gone. The current statistic is that only 15-20% of trans women have genital surgery, although a large majority do get breast implants.

That means the new task is to convince lesbians to like penises. Or at least to convince them that they should show equanimity regarding all genitalia ... and let's face it, that is a tall order.

You hear that? No difference.

And if you think so, you are a "terf".("trans exclusionary radical feminist") [1]

For the record, there is no account of any "terf" physically harming a trans woman in any way, yet we repeatedly (daily!) read this scary stuff:

Extremely 'radical'--and yet... they gleefully quote that old dead European white hetero cis guy Sigmund Freud (they are permitted to dabble in misogynist patriarchal theories when necessary--but don't YOU try that, missy!):

And check out the science (or lack of it) ... this insane gibberish is likely what gets to me the most. Kids are being taught that hormones change "every cell in the body"--apparently, despite their ubiquitous Ivy-League educations, they do not even know what chromosomes are:

Read that carefully. If you do not subscribe to this nonsense, you are now "a bigot".

So take a number and stand in line.

Question: Since I have no more estrogen, does this mean "every cell in my body" has changed back to--what? Childhood? Old women are children now? What in the world----????!?

And I learned over on tumblr that simply asking that question, or any clarifying question, makes you an evilll terf who deserves to be beaten. Really. They will tell you that, over and over... if you protest that you are 60 years old and beating up grandmas is not a real good form of PR for your movement, they just laugh and promise you that yes it is, they hate old grandmas the most. One grandma already got slugged over in the UK for showing up at a demonstration; the hulking young trans woman went directly after the old woman, not the young ones, who far outnumbered her.

~*~

OHHHH DAISY you are being alarmist!--say my mild-mannered readers. Most trans women are like conservative activist Blaire White and just want to live their lives, etc. True enough, but I am talking about the activists, who have made "trans activism" their vocation, their life, their entire raison d'être.

BTW, it is notable that Blaire gets misgendered and called names by other trans activists who hate her--so always remember: misgendering is okay if trans people do it. (PS: they've done it to ME repeatedly too!)

In fact, many SJWs/trans activists actively seek to harm Blaire White; she did a whole video on that. Again, remember the rules: threatening violence against trans people is also okay if done by other trans people and social justice activists.

And on that note.. I must share the most recent violent insanity in wacky Transland that inspired this whole post.

BELOW is a tax-supported public library display in San Francisco, all about killing the terfs... when library patrons (of all genders and politics) dared to complain about it (as they would about a display advocating violence against ANY group of people, needless to say) the library staff and PR folks presented their concerns as "terfs attacking the poor trans women" again. Never mind that some parents did not want their children to see violence against women glamorized and endorsed by the public fucking library.

Right wing blogs are all over this (there's the warning, that is a right wing blog)--cackling about how the Left is eating itself, and "maybe the trannies will finally get rid of the feminists for us?" Their right wing dream come true.

Trans activists don't seem the least concerned about how the right wing is orgasmic over their genocidal plans for the terfs.[2]

This "art" is by a gang called the "degenderettes" which is obviously a deliberate play on the word "degenerates"--cute, huh? (Sounds like people who have never actually been afraid of degenerates, doesn't it? Maybe because they know they are the people everyone should fear.)

They claim to be part of Antifa. Of course.

~*~

Here is their library display.

First up, some t-shirts stating intent: "I punch terfs"--well that seems straightforward enough.

The "Your Apathy is Killing Us" slogan was brazenly stolen from ACT-UP, who were fighting the AIDS epidemic and earned the right to use it.

Apathy is not killing trans women since as we see, they are the ones intending to do the killing.

"Femme sledgehammer"--just so you know the person wielding it is a "feminine" trans woman (I guess?):

Check out the "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" barbed wire around that last bat. In case you need to pound some grannies when it really matters!

And did somebody just ask why we might not want to go the bathroom with this individual:

Its those "bloody highlights" that give you pause.

Thank god I live in the South, where they still have library displays about, you know, books.

Remember the famous last line of that movie about Mrs. Bates??? She wouldn't hurt a fly. I am sure the degenderettes wouldn't either.

Photo from Gendertrender, and here is GT's article about this event.

~*~




[1] This word used to have meaning, as I have explained in previous posts, but not now. I am regularly called a "terf" and as regular readers know, I had trans people on my radio show several times--the very opposite of "exclusion". When I say this in my defense I am either ignored or told that it doesn't matter, my "opinions" (that biology matters and is a scientific reality) are what makes me a terf. Further, as readers also know, I am a socialist feminist and not a radical feminist.

Using the correct terms and labels for people (like their pronouns) obviously is not a privilege granted to EVERYONE, right? They demand correct terms while zealously and deliberately mislabeling me, and don't miss a beat. THIS is why "terf" is called a slur instead of an accurate term--they use it to inaccurately-label women who aren't even radical feminists.

Why else would they do this, unless it IS a slur, like "alt right"?

This is why I no longer care about the pronouns. When they decide to label me correctly, I will return the favor, and not one millisecond before.

[2] This interesting fact reminds me of the billionaires at the helm of their movement, with openly-pro-military agendas. Mainly, Jennifer Pritzker, who funds university chairs in transgender studies. Pritzker is a billionaire and a Lt. Colonel, and I find it peculiar that trans SJWs who (like the degenderettes) call themselves Antifa and anarchists, would take the money of someone with such a zealously-fascist military career... and yet, they do.

As far as I know, not a single so-called social justice trans person has denounced this munitions-billionaire inserting their right wing pro-military agenda into the trans movement. Not one. If you have seen ANY trans criticism of Pritzker, please link in comments... as far as I can see, Pritzker is universally accepted, feted and welcomed by the trans movement, as is billionaire Martine Rothblatt. Money changes everything.

When the degenderettes tell the likes of Pritzker to fuck off out of their movement, I might believe they are serious about "anarchism"--but until then, they are posturing, ridiculous liars, greedily using Aunt Jennifer's lucrative munitions profits (made by dropping bombs on brown people of the wrong religion). Hey, a few brown people are a small price to pay for being able to fund your art exhibits, right? You would rather take money from someone who still has hard-ons over the Yom Kippur war.

Antifa, my ass.

~*~




EDIT: Trans activism is excusing & advocating violence against women, and it’s time to speak up (Feminist Current)

Anti-Ivanka Trump Protest in Greenville today

Ivanka Trump came to Greenville today to meet with the local Powers That Be (as well as all the little people who make her lovely life possible!) ... and a bunch of us were there to welcome her in our own special way.

The local ad-hoc band known as "The Swampdrainers" sang well-known peace songs as some of us chanted "Trump Go Home." The local news reports 50 protesters, but we now average that every Tuesday; it was at least double that.



Ivanka flew in coach, which is the talk of the town -- as well as obvious proof she is all down with the people.

From the Greenville News:

Ivanka Trump, a senior White House adviser, arrived on a commercial flight about 10 a.m. Friday at Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport.

"She was always smiling and very pleasant," Angela Martinez said after sitting behind the president's daughter on the flight.

Trump stopped at Coffee Underground, a popular downtown coffee shop, before her speaking engagement.

People swarmed her to take pictures outside of Frank's Gentleman's Salon. Wearing a tan blazer, black pants and black shirt, she posed for pictures before leaving in a limo.

A couple of people waited for her outside of the Westin Poinsett around lunchtime. They were disappointed to learn she entered the hotel through a back entrance. There was a notable police presence in the area, including Police Chief Ken Miller.

Police and Secret Service were stationed at nearly every corner of the lobby and mezzanine levels of the hotel.

An organization protested Ivanka Trump's visit on the plaza outside of the hotel. The protesters voiced their views on a number of issues ranging from tax reform to immigration.

They mean us. Yes, we did.

Above: The pope came out to demonstrate with us today! I guess you’re pretty impressed now, huh?

Yes, that’s me, I asked him what took him so long.

As stated above, they herded the pricey GOP donors in the back doors, of course. My co-activist Elaine Cooper chased both SC Senators Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott down Main Street and got excellent footage of both of them, trying to ignore her. Graham practically broke into a trot.

Below: one sign says “resist” and one says “nepotism!” so when they stood together, it said “resist nepotism!”

I really really wanted a sign that said “WELCOME STORMY!” but didn’t have time to make it. ;)

MORE:

Ivanka Trump in SC to talk taxes with women (The State)

Ivanka Trump, Tim Scott talk tax reform in Greenville (GoUpstate.com)

Ivanka Trump visits Greenville and talks taxes (WSPA)

History project, part 3

At long last!

Yipster Times cover, June 1975

Overthrow cover, April 1979

Rock Against Racism (poster), Chicago, June 1979

Steve Conliff gives speech at Rock Against Reagan concert and demonstration, Ohio State House. April 30, 1983























~~~*~~*~~~

Truth:

I am actually hosting/posting these so I can post them someplace else. Yes, ulterior motives! Enjoy!

Good news: Despite my hands disintegrating from old-ladydom (seriously), I will be back to post some recent photos and document local demonstrations and actions that have been totally ignored (nah, go on) by the local conservative media... and thus are in danger of disappearing into the ether... so stay tuned, sports fans. I knew this blog would come in handy again some day! ;)

Love, peace, hair grease,

Your humble narrator (who finally rallied sometime this summer and has stayed on fire since),

I call this last one, the grand-handmaid's tale.


:)

David Kulma Is Running for Congress in South Carolina!

Citizen Kane wins five primaries

Donald Trump swept the Republican primaries last night... and all I could think of was Hedley Lamarr, and the evillll for which he stands.

Yes, the Trump campaign makes me think of BLAZING SADDLES. Lots and lots of similarities.

Links:

Donald Trump Declares Himself 'Presumptive Nominee' After Tuesday Wins (NBC)

Trump sweeps GOP races (CNN)

Donald Trump completes sweep of five northeast states (USA Today)



~*~

I didn't post on this blog for quite a long time, and in the meantime, stored up a few stray links to discuss later.

And you probably know what happened, right?

About half of these are gone already, especially the tweets. Must have been some hard-hitting, gotcha tweets, for me to make a quick footnote of them. And now they are gone.

Dear Radicals, as I said two days ago, GET A GRIP! Citizen Kane and the Twilight Days of Empire await us. Stop feverishly erasing whatever it was that desperately needed to be said. STOP BEING AFRAID! Charles Foster Kane is who you need to be afraid of right now, not some damnable tweet that might have been heavy-handed, might have hurt some liberal's feelings. (Or worse, brought out the attack dogs.)

To sum up: Whoever deleted that tweet is not someone I want in my radical cell. If you are afraid of the consequences of a tweet, you are not going to be there when they start rounding people up, you will be out hiding in your shed or under your SUV. Count on it.

This is serious, people. THIS IS SERIOUS.

[Aside: See how it is? I eventually devolve into a hysterical splay of capital letters and explanation points because... what else can you say? How do we get the suburban white kids to panic? Take away all the phones?]

~*~

Other links of note:

[] Written during the 2012 election campaign, this post is now more pertinent than ever: Rethinking how we think about voting. THIS MEANS YOU!

[] Suzanne Vega found her old letter from Prince. (sigh)

[] Ted Cruz, John Kasich join forces to stop Trump. A day late and a dollar short, guys.

Speaking of old letters, I wish I had saved the nasty note I once received from Kasich, back when he was in congress and I was a born-and-bred citizen of the great state of which he is now governor. I wrote to him first and I was nasty, he replied and he was nasty right back, and we understood each other just fine.

I never dreamed he would be governor, let alone run for president.

My advice: Save those nasty letters from even the low-level politicians, kids! They could be worth something someday!

[] The diversity rally I tried to avoid, but in this town, I am spotted everywhere I go. Really.

Sometimes I wonder what life might be like in a really BIG town.

[] What you need to say to the smug atheist liberals who assure us religion is on the skids and down for the count: Not so fast.

Please understand, when they dwindle to "the remnant" -- that is exactly when they will fight like hell. And perhaps that is exactly what is happening right now.

Who among you, like me, grew up on the Christian term REMNANT? It was considered a compliment; the diehards who stay loyal until the Second Coming... and do you get it? They WANT to be The Remnant!! Looking around and deciding they are the legendary REMNANT will crank them up like nothing else you can imagine. They will REMNANTIZE the entire discourse, with Armageddon, the Rapture and the Tribulation right around the corner.

And see, here's the thing: they will MAKE Armageddon if they have to.

They will PUT US ALL through the Tribulation, my friends. (Does the term SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY mean anything to you?)

Fight them from within (as I once tried to do) or fight from without, but fight. Armageddon is an evil concept, and we must fight it that way. Accuse them of wanting to start it themselves, which I've learned, DOES make them blink and hesitate for a second.

Because I am sorry to tell you, its true. They can't wait for the endtimes war. Its behind everything they do.

~*~

Postscript/Obit

I lost a treasured friend right before Thanksgiving... in fact, right as I was getting ready to pick up this blog again, she passed away. Her death hit me hard and I once again dealt with acute writer's block.

I wrote a few words on tumblr, with photos. I always tell everyone that one of the worst aspects of aging is losing your friends, your teenage idols, your neighborhood, etc. Even though inevitable, it deeply hurts; what Buddha called "the suffering of change" (vipariṇāma-dukkha).

Tricia Earle always encouraged me and thought I was creative; she gave a generous speech/introduction for me once, and presented me with my 10-year AA chip. I realized, in reading the Facebook pages about her: not everyone knew she was in AA. After all, its supposed to be anonymous, and everybody isn't like ME, broadcasting all their innermost secrets to the world. I therefore didn't know if I should mention our friendship or not. Finally I decided, yes, I would. "Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions," but it does not extend beyond death.

And what I needed to say about Tricia was also about Alcoholics Anonymous itself.

Tricia, whose last name I didn't know for years, came from an elite old-South family. And I didn't know it. ME, the ultra-class-conscious socialist who can ferret out Harvard posts online... I did NOT KNOW she came from THE EARLES (there is a street here named after her family). She did not in ANY WAY act like she was elite, and this was the power of AA. We were "all in it together"-- and just as the homeless and poor are part of that deep, blood-brotherhood fellowship, so are the rich, so are the famous. When AA works correctly, when people are working the program correctly, you shouldn't be able to tell who the rich people are.... and I couldn't tell.

This means she did it right.

This is the greatest thing I can say about her, the highest compliment I could give her.

And you know what? She would hands-down agree with me. :)

Rest in peace, dearest one.

TL; DR -- update from the Front

I used to love the internet.

I used to spend hours and hours... it was the most magical place to me.

Around about 2007, I joined some email lists that started as political but ended up (in the space of a couple of years) as entirely too personal. My experience ended badly, with all manner of bloodletting. Even after I left these lists, the bloodletting continued with the remaining participants. So, it wasn't me. It was the lists themselves; it seemed inevitable. Since 1998, I have participated in message/bulletin boards, email lists, google groups, all of that... and most have ended badly. I have witnessed this again and again and again.

Why? Real-life connections don't always end badly.

In fact, most just 'fade away'--in stark contrast to the vicious break-ups of the online groups.

On tumblr, this constant bloodletting and public evidence of following/unfollowing (constant measures of 'popularity') is standard operational procedure. I have been eviscerated publicly numerous times for (example) wanting to discuss whether "trigger warnings" are a good or bad thing (PS: they're bad) or why so many tumblrites seem to believe John Lennon is the worst white man to have ever lived. They trash Lennon far more than they do Ted Cruz, for instance.

My abject terror at what tumblr and Reddit says about the youth of today, has been a major aspect of my disillusionment with the net, since they are its primary users.

Baby-boomers' parents worried that we were insane radicals, but *I* worry that the kids of today are too afraid to leave the basement. They say they are "radicals" and actually believe they are more radical than we ever were, since they watch some wild-ass porn and purport to believe some wild-ass stuff, and perhaps on one level, that is true. But as we know, faith without works is dead, and most of these kids are dead. They have been brainwashed to think they are radical because they purchase 'alternative' brands, eat 'progressive' foods, wear 'edgy' clothing (often displaying provocative slogans), watch 'radical' TV shows or listen to 'radical' music, and in particular, think certain wayward thoughts. Since they believe they are radical by fiat (or something), they don't actually have to do anything, like vote. (And some even authoritatively counsel the other kids not to vote too!)

They have not even met each other; they don't even know the actual activists in their own communities.

Their radicalism is a role-playing game. That's all.

The simple curiosity that used to rate rolled eyes and whispers in a high school classroom, now warrants hundreds of young women calling me nasty names and instructing me to go away: old people "don't belong" on tumblr. The idea that the internet "belongs" to everybody is also a thing of the past. Now, "everybody" is supposed to go their own corners. The quaint 90s idea that the net would break down barriers and allow us all to talk to each other, regardless of differences? So dated, so 90s. One tumblrite snidely asked me, did I really believe that shit? I answered, not only did I believe it, I briefly experienced it... and if she had too, she might be bored and disappointed with the internet discourse she is currently stuck with, wherein everyone she talks to appears to be of her same suburban economic class (they don't dare even venture into the cities!) and obediently repeats the same dogma. Its like walking into a middle-school classroom, but: the kids are geniuses, the vocabularies are astounding, the knowledge is amazing. Imagine how effective they might be if they organized others, if they left their suburban basements and the echo chambers they now inhabit. Think of how smart they could be! Think of the progress we might make!

[Amusing aside: Interestingly, they often tell me to go away in the same post in which they proudly extol diversity and difference. Not kidding you one bit. The irony escapes them totally.]

~*~

OH COME ON Daisy! Somebody is yelling at me: what about the Bernie Bros? What about the Sanders campaign, Ferguson demonstrations, Black Lives Matter? There are lots of young people in all of these movements.

Yes... well, those are interesting, and I have decided, after much close analysis, they are not the same people.

The tumblr kids and the the Reddit kids are not the Ferguson kids and the Bernie Bros, although they echo the rhetoric (dogma). The kids out doing real activism are using Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and get reblogged/linked on the other platforms like Tumblr, Reddit, Google Plus. Actual activists simply don't have time for all the theoretical, nitpicky back-and-forth that the tumblrites specialize in.

Which brings me to the next problem.

The fakes.

The early internet, like now, was full of fakes, but the difference was that it was a basic one-line fake vs a full-grown, fully-imagined fake. Somebody might say they were married, then later completely forget who they had claimed to be and say they were dating some new person. Or somebody would claim to be male or female, and later mess up and complain about their period, their pregnancy, their old football injury or their prostate test. Busted.

Pretty simple though. People rarely shared their geographic location, and many refused to say what race they were. (If you guessed they were white, they might ask why you came to that conclusion, when they had never said what race they were. That was actually fairly common.) Asking too many questions about identity could get you banned on bulletin boards; it was considered rude and intrusive. ANSWER THE ARGUMENTS ON THE MERITS, moderators would instruct us repeatedly, YOU DON'T NEED TO KNOW *identity* TO MAKE THE ARGUMENTS. And I discovered that no, you don't. We started to think: Maybe it's better to get appeals to IDENTITY out of they way and get to the heart of the matter: civil rights for all people, fairness and justice for all people.

But... but... here's the thing: identity politics (what Will Shetterly has correctly and incisively named Identitarianism) tells us exactly the opposite.

In fact, identity politics is the flip side of the elitism it was born to counter: identity politics posits that some identities are sacrosanct. In short, some identities are simply "better" than others. It is basically the same as saying: if you went to THIS school or THAT school, you are smarter than regular people; if you are rich and well-traveled, you are a better class of person and more worthy of being taken seriously and listened to. ("when you're rich, they think you really know!") A staggeringly-rich idiot who has never held political office might well be our next president, while a poor idiot would be laughed at... in fact, a poor idiot would have more humility and never even attempt such a thing.

The online youth culture tells us that identity is the thing, they demand IDENTITY lists before they will interact with each other, or with you. They list their identity markers the way girls used to proudly point to their charm bracelets and tell us what all the charms meant.

I chart the beginning of the deification of identity politics as coinciding with the Advent of our first Identity Politics president, the one who duly mentioned the laundry list of identities in his presidential acceptance speech. This is the New Order, people, are you listening? I thought it was cool at the time, but that was before I realized identity would (once again) be used to shame people, only a different group this time; in fact, like shape-shifting, the shamed-group constantly changes.

And what has happened, in this toxic atmosphere that worships "identity"?

Well, what happens when one identity is considered superior?

I refer you to SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION, THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY and similar stories. Ambitious poor folks have often claimed to be independently-rich white people, well traveled, good schools, all the stuff I just mentioned. Why? To be well-regarded, to have status and to be taken seriously. Your words take on GRAVITAS when your impressive identity backs your shit up. And when it doesn't, you might be told that everybody has opinions (just like assholes) and yours don't matter. But just re-invent yourself tomorrow as **worshiped IDENTITY** and write the same opinion, then watch everyone tell you how great and important it is.

This whole phenomenon used to make me mad. Then it made me laugh. Then it made me tired, weary. And finally: embarrassed. I am wholly embarrassed and disgusted with the Left. As I said once before (and I was right, so pay attention): if we can't change this sorry-assed state of affairs, we will LOSE, and LOSE BIG... and furthermore, if we are this catastrophically clumsy and pedestrian in our analysis: we DESERVE TO LOSE.

So, get ready for President Trump or REPENT KIDDIES. REPENT NOW or get used to it being far far far worse than you ever remember in your lifetime. The American Raj is over, but Trump is preparing us for the Last Gasp of the American Century. (As for me, all I have been able to think of, over and over, is the end of WHEN THE MUSIC'S OVER by the Doors, when Morrison screams JESUS SAVE US!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Yes, please save us.

~*~

My advice, which may well be too little, too late... a day late and a dollar short:

Leave the basement and get out there with the Black Lives Matter people. Stop nitpicking with people on your same ideological side, and start fighting with the REAL ENEMY. How about you bring self-doubt, tears and weakness to the OPPOSITION rather than your own comrades?

And if you don't want to do this, as I asked once before, who are you really working for?

Tumblrites: for every argumentative post with someone on your own side, do one angry post addressed to the opposition. HOW?--they ask (they have never MET the opposition)... well, take a hashtag like MRA or BLACK LIVES MATTER or TRUMP and go find them. Then, pick a fight (i.e. criticize their posts, stay focused, no cussing) and preoccupy them for long periods and drain their energy. (Since that is exactly what they do to you, and you don't seem to realize it.) For every nasty insult you level at a fellow Leftist or sister feminist, make sure you deliver twice, three times that to the enemy, the Right wing. If you cannot argue with the Right wing, you are not a Leftist, you are engaging in Role-playing games and FASHION (identity politics) only.

[Amusing aside: A favorite reply when I argue with the identitarians is "I CAN'T EVEN" ... which obviously means that despite the fancy-ass schools they constantly brag about, they are too stupid to complete their own sentences. What is I CAN'T EVEN.... you can't even WHAT??? GO AWAY then and leave politics to the grown-ups who CAN EVEN.]

~*~

I recently ran somebody off tumblr when I found evidence of her fakery. I promised to print her name and elite college employer (hint: most elite college in the country and how did I instinctively KNOW that?) if she continued the lying bullshit about how oppressed and radical, etc, she is. I didn't hesitate for a second.

Later, I felt guilty, but then I realized that of course she will be back in still another (oppressed, ultra-PC) incarnation, and I probably won't even recognize her. Granted, she won't have the thousands of adoring-groupie followers that she once had; that will undoubtedly take some time to accumulate again, but I have no doubt she can do this. They loooove her. They dedicated posts to her and lovingly called her their "blog crush".

They love a fake.

Repeat: they love a fake.

And I would jeer if it not already happened to me too. Lisaquestions/Lisa Harney (one of the people who ran me off one of the aforementioned email lists) has also turned out to be a fake. They appear to be a tag-teaming, white, highly-educated hetero cis couple living in an amazing Seattle-area house priced at over a half-million... not the poor wittle disabled trans woman on a fixed income that they have always claimed to be. (And this is why nobody has ever met them in person!) In fact, this busybody couple proudly lists their brag-worthy running times on Facebook, so apparently, disability is another PC identity in lefty circles, even as real-life disabled people are systematically excluded and shit on. Adding descriptors such as "genderqueer" (nobody can agree what that means, but it means you are oppressed) and "disabled" (means you are on anti-depressants, good thing nobody can tell by looking!) to an already-privileged suburban background, guarantees that you will not be attacked as harshly.

[Amusing aside: Many of these same fake-disabled identitarians also refused to vote for politicians who accepted the Medicaid expansion in their states, thus guaranteeing that many disabled people will die, of course. In my local political work, I learned that people with actual disabilities, activists or not, were acutely aware of this issue and how it impacted them; South Carolina pointedly did NOT take the Medicaid expansion. Therefore, this issue and the discussion around it became one foolproof way I ferreted out the disability-fakes.]

~*~

What does it mean, that fakes are all over the discourse? How do they impact it?

What is their agenda? To look good to others, to feed their ego, or ... do they actually intend to engineer leftist concepts/theories in ways that will benefit them? How would they do this and how WOULD it benefit them?

It has been pointed out to me by interested parties (meaning: I didn't figure it out all by myself) that some of the most contentious crap on tumblr and Reddit, the source of so much ideological in-fighting, has started with the fakes. (This takes me back to my earlier proposition that provocateurs are the problem, or at least that they are successful in "pointing" the arguments in certain directions.) One activist pointed out to me that Lisaquestions' first (and very influential) blog, Questioning Transphobia, was the first place the "my penis is a woman's penis" argument was made. Before Lisa's QT dogma was formulated, trans women did not usually discuss their penises. After Lisa's proclamations, their penises seemed to be a major subject with them, just like when your obnoxious little brother discovered his and couldn't stop waving it around. Bloggers like Toni Dorsay took up the banner, decreeing that anyone who says trans women were socialized as male is a transphobe, anyone who says a trans woman has a male organ is a transphobe, any lesbian who won't sleep with trans women due to a dislike of (or no discernible reaction to) penises, was a transphobe. In fact, everyone is a transphobe; even trans people like my real-life friend SCBoy are screamed at for not getting with the dogma.

And now real life and the internet meet in strange ways. SC state senator Lee Bright, dangerous right-wing creationist crackpot and official Tea Party looney tune, has proposed a transgender bathroom bill here in SC, just like the one in NC. This has brought about the witty hashtag #peewithLee.

I do not want to pee with Lee, and in fact, I want nothing to do with Lee. Lee needs to disappear. (note: he once had libertarian tendencies and supported Ron Paul, but that didn't get him enough votes and he is now on the BIG GOVERNMENT, MORE LAWS AND MORE WAR side of the fence, with Ted Cruz and the whole Hee Haw gang.) Although I dislike the online trans discourse (much of which I believe is dominated by fakes--being a supposedly 'stealth trans person' is a perfect, airtight excuse to avoid meeting people in real life, isn't it?) -- I will NOT be agreeing with Lee Bright about shit. I once agreed with him about war and weed and Ron Paul, but this was way back in that exciting, hothouse year of Occupy, when anything seemed possible. We have gone our separate ways. Lee Bright sees trans people as an easy way to get votes in hyper-conservative South Carolina. The online-fakes see trans people as a way to needle feminists and leftists and handily bring us down.

Very similar isn't it? Using groups of unpopular people for political gain is the way Southern politics has always been played, but I never thought it would CATCH ON everywhere else.

Then again, I am reminded that this is how that famous German Chancellor was elected ... and don't ever forget that, yall. ELECTED. He was ELECTED.

I know, I have just ruined my endless tl;dr post with the Godwin rule, but sometimes, you just have to.

~*~

And what does all of this mean for me, my blog, my politics, yada yada?

It means I do not blog the way I once did.

It means I now keep my private life very private, when I used to broadcast my business all over creation.

It means I am suspicious of everyone online (including even Facebook friends), that I have not personally verified.

It means when I change my mind about something, I will often not be sharing that here.

I am hoping to get this blog started up again as an outlet for reviews, links, local news, etc... but I always wrote in a very personal, chatty, Good Housekeeping/hey-yall style, as if we were all just girls trying to get by. I honestly don't know if I can pull that off anymore; I am no longer sure that is who we are at all.

At least, I no longer am.

~*~

After 4 years of doing the radio show, I changed. My methods, my outlook, changed dramatically. For instance, I learned firsthand that there are rabble-rousers and other loud types who will categorically refuse to go on the air, refuse to publicly give their point of view, and even refuse to provide me with someone who CAN. And I would think, annoyed, WHAT THE HELL GOOD ARE YOU THEN? I became angry at inaction, angrier than I ever was before. I constantly heard complaining and pleas for help, and then... observed the learned helplessness as that individual would refuse any help I offered, such as... GO ON THE RADIO AND TELL US ABOUT IT, GODDAMMIT. This is what you do: tell the world. And you start with us.

Some would. Many did. Others? Ha.

And what was the difference between the people who would and the people who would not?

I finally figured it out: they did not take themselves seriously! And they seemed surprised when anyone else did.

Is this why we have the fakes? Because they feel like they can only take themselves seriously when they are someone else?

If only identitarians are sacrosanct, important, worthy of being taken seriously... it stands to reason that those who want to be taken seriously will invent identities for themselves, to join this rarefied, special club. Just like the talented Mr Ripley. They may even believe these fake identities are real, like the kids on anti-depressants who claim to be disabled, although no one IRL has any clue they are on anti-depressants.

Or they may just make up these identities wholesale, and pretend to be someone else entirely.

In any event, the internet and the political discourse have been irreparably damaged. I am looking forward to the day when we can track them all down, every single one, not just the ones who get sloppy and/or simply can't hide which elite college they work for.

I used to be afraid of that, but no more. As some famous, miracle-producing rabbi once said, the truth shall set you free.

Back in the day, at the Christopher Street Gay Pride March in NYC, we chanted, OUT OF THE CLOSETS AND INTO THE STREETS!

How about now?: OUT OF THE BASEMENTS AND INTO THE STREETS! OFF THE FUCKING INTERNET AND INTO THE STREETS!

Time to update the slogan, add your own, play along at home.

~*~

In the meantime, what will happen to us? Can we turn this around? Is Citizen Kane going to be president?

When the music's over, turn out the lights.