PROBABLY FUTILE CALL TO 'FELLOW' PALE MALES

 So now MAGA and their Orange Julius Caesar have served notice on us: NO more heroes of color, no female heroes or exemplars to be held up AT ALL! And pale male mediocrities (maybe I should apply for a post; more than one person might see me as such a critter) will be promoted over better qualified women and people of color! And saying to all the out-groups, your excellence will no longer earn you anything; only saying 'Sho' Massa!' loud enough and long enough may get you a few picayunes!
But to all those pale males who think, perhaps with tremulous near-ecstasy, they are about to be restored to their 'rightful' position with the lowest of them still better than the best people of color, let me let you in on a secret which today's 'planters' will probably chase me down for telling you:
The new rule for women and people of color that excellence will gain you nothing but the blindest obedience may get you something also applies to....y'all! To all us pale males without money, connections or social capital!
Yes, that's right! We too are now subject to the same rules the oligarchs are reinstating for women and people of color. But no one, except women and people of color, are telling us that!
And how do I know this? I know it because of memories which came out in therapy decades after my dad erected a firewall against them by means of hypnosis. Memories of seeing my father rankly abused by his planter of a boss at the small Midwestern women's college where he worked and on which campus we then lived. I also know it by hints he dropped about his being let go from another business a few years later. Whether there's a connection between the two I don't know and don't expect to know in this world.
But I do know that my dad did what was expected of him and he still got knocked in the head. Maybe twice. And he was a white Southerner of mixed British ancestry (English, Scots, Welsh) Our family name is of impeccably English origin. Maybe what knocked him askew is that we come from the Southern whites the ex-planters called 'scalawags' during Reconstruction.
That is, Southern whites willing to work with the freedmen and the Yankee Carpetbagger transplants in the Reconstruction state governments. The ones with antebellum memories of being squeezed and muzzled by the greedy, arrogant and prideful planters. The ones who know why no Southern state had any public education for anyone of any color until Reconstruction. And the ones who knew that, already by 1835, no Southern state was any kind of democracy even for white men! Only for rich white men!
So two colors determined whether these states were democracies: white and green! Or, back then, white and gold, as coin was still 'specie' as was said. That fits better as white and gold were also the colors of the prerevolutionary French monarchy--and we all know what happened to that!
Probably that's a big part of how I got to be a second-generation Southern white anti-racist.
I used to wonder why my dad had such a passionate hatred for 'whiteness'. The sixteen years, and much of what I've seen and heard during them, have answered that question most emphatically. Today, I share my dad's deep hatred of the falsehood called 'whiteness', possibly with interest.
Anyway, 'fellow' pale males, I have pathetically little hope of you. I have little hope that you won't take the devil's bargain which, once again, the oligarchs offer you of doing their dirty work in exchange for lying to yourselves and thinking yourselves one of the ruling caste when you're not. You're only their bitches doing the work they consider too nasty for their delicate, inbred, palsied hands!
Mind you, I would never be happier to be mistaken in this than now. If you wise up and join with people of all colors and all women to build a strong working people's coalition capable of demanding what our country needs and seeing it done, I will be very pleasantly surprised!
Prove even LBJ mistaken when he said, "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him someone to look down on and he'll empty his pockets for you."
Prove both me and LBJ mistaken in that! You call yourselves Christians; so show yourselves so by not needing to look down on anyone!

FOR DEMOCRACY'S SAKE, DO NOT 'FOLLOW ORDERS'!

 

If I were the Canadian Prime Minister, I would be ordering a general mobilization, troops to the border and put a conscription bill before Parliament after Trumpelthinskin's latest expression of greedy lust to absorb our neighbor! Further, I would appeal to our Armed Forces to refuse to invade Canada if Orange Julius Caesar issues orders to do so. I might even suggest they might want to turn their weapons on the whole MAGA/Project 2025/Federalist Society gang!

What Donelon is after is the marginalizing of ALL of us who are not white, male, straight and RICH! And I suggest in the strongest possible terms that all my 'fellow' palefaces, be they male or female, should examine themselves to see whether, and how, each of us may have colluded in the marginalizing of our fellow citizens with darker skins and/or different sexual orientations, because, now, Donelon means to send us the same way unless we become their overseers and slave-patrollers! So, then, what will you do?

Will you take the devil's bargain that the oligarchs MAY (not necessarily WILL) offer you or will you do what's best for ALL of us, including y'all, and join with black, brown, yellow and red working people and be part of a working people's Rainbow Coalition?

I remember November 4, 2008. My heart was so full that night as I witnessed the election of Obama, something I did not expect to see in my lifetime. I actually thought we were becoming post-racial.

The sixteen years between then and now have taught this straight pale male a hard and bitter lesson.

I thought we were moving past racism. LOL, right? So much for what a straight pale male can know, right?

I used not to know why my dad detested 'whiteness', including his own. Boy, do I ever know why now and don't I share it--with interest!

I exhort you all to turn from your heedless ways and complete the rainbow of a working people's coalition to defend and extend democracy! Help us stay on the path of building something that has, so far, been absent from human history: a multiracial, multiethnic, multi-faith representative democratic republic!

Take up the pioneers' path and let's march forward together on it!

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CAN'T YOU GET THE IDEAS RIGHT SIDE UP?!

 We all need to 'know our tribes'. But neither can we make them into idols without losing what is best in them.
And this is just what both Islamists and 'Christian' nationalists do. They seek to grab all power in whatever countries are cursed by them. They seek to rob their neighbors of their God-given freedom of conscience, faith and worship. And, since neither can conceive of a god who is no more than the head of their particular tribes, they believe the whole world is organized exactly as are they and that all the talk about 'creative freedom' and 'the marketplace of ideas' is simply a ruse to clear the path for 'atheistic, komm'niss, sosh'list, FAG i-dees'.
Well, pardners, why, then, do you need the state's help in fighting such 'idees'? If your ideas are better for us and healthier for the planet, why are you losing the contention of ideas and losing it bigtime without prohibition on criticizing this or even saying that? Like, for instance, wanting to prohibit even the use of the words 'climate change'? Or any criticism of Islam and/or the Qur'an?
If your ideas come direct from God as you claim, why do they bring so much more DEATH and misery in their wake? No, dudes, I for one don't buy it. Serving the Lord our God with all our minds does NOT mean, we switch our minds off! No; the God I know wants us to engage our minds with his, even to the point of speaking up even to Him and asking why--but be prepared for at least the implication you can't digest His reply--at least not yet.
My continuing conversation with God seems to indicate that He shares infomation and answers question on a need-to-know/ability-to-digest basis. That is, whether we really need to know and/or can digest whatever answer(s) there might be. And He knows this far better than we can, in much the same way as we know what's good for our children's bodies and minds; what they can digest.
Those who want to 'freeze' their societies either in the 1950s or at around 1000 seem to think that they know what's good for the rest of us because they want complete and total overlordship over the rest of us--including those of us far more advanced than they are! Again, no dice, dudes! And you Islamists, beware: I have an electric shaver with your beards' names on them!
And your belief that you can 'freeze' culture is still more evil and ridiculous! If you knew any truthful history, you'd know how culture changes all! the! time!
Imagine culture as a 'tube' which is, indeed needs to be, open-ended towards the future! If you want a vigorous culture attractive to others, that's how it needs to be. Try to sew up the end of the tube pointing towards the future and you seal your culture's death warrant, for it will wither without the oxygen which comes from cultural interaction.
G. B. Shaw once wrote, "Our societies' vigor springs not from the purity of our genes, but from us being arrant mongrels." And I for one say he was right.
Anyone who owns dogs or cats, or who works with them, has seen how some breeds can be overbred and, when they are, they acquire ailments unknown to the more vigorous and fortunate mongrels, or mutts as we call them here.
I don't know what animal example the apostles of the lie of 'racial purity' will cite, but I have all dogs and all cats to cite to prove that lie for what it is!
I suggest the proponents of such lies as racial and/or cultural 'purity' are motivated by the nagging knowledge that their cultures, or subcultures, or 'tribes' really are less advanced than they 'ought to be.'
And they are eaten up with envy. Both among our fascisti and in too many Middle East Studies departments, they try to dress up their bad ideas with ten-dollar words which have nothing real behind them except bigotry.
Are they trying to be better than the Son of Man who, when a rich young man (a ruler? not sure) asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to attain eternal life?" responded with, "Why do you call me 'good'? There is none good save God."? Then they've set themselves up a mountain which cannot be climbed except by freely given and unmerited Grace. Are you ready to take hold of that? Not everyone is by a long shot!
We liberals have been too civil and polite for far too long. We need to refresh our memories as to whence the ideas we know are true come and to express them in as few words as is possible. Beginning with that, the more rights we all have, the more secure everyone's rights are. Power, not human dignity, is the zero-sum game and NO, the two are not the same by any means!
If you're interested in finding out more why we almost always get these ideas upside-down, askew, or any way but the right way, here's a link to another post where I put out an idea which I hope will be helpful.
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/1544353602029642191/6491367396937253970
No: diversity is, within a universally-supported democratic framework, our strength in the West, both in the variety of our DNA and how quickly we assimilate helpful new materials into our cultures. Within the universal support of democracy, diversity is not a weakness but a strength.

BACK AND FORTH

 A few days ago, I was quite surprised to see that the difficulty of high-powered, highly intelligent and, presumably, good-hearted women in finding a partner is still out there! Will and Ariel Durant mentioned this when they wrote a century ago!
But then, why should I be? The recent election showed that we still have more than our share of the type of male wuss I call 'doughfaced dinkyjohnnies'. They'd rather vote for a hereditarily rich white male (he is no man by my definition of that worthy thing!) who is also a convicted criminal and knows only how to make our government a private enricher for himself, rather than a woman of color who, all her working life, has had only one boss: WE! THE! PEOPLE! First, the people of San Francisco, then of Alameda County, then the state of California and finally the whole country!
And she has served each very well!
However, I've found that not all the onus is on we males. Let me ask the women out there a question: if a man (and I mean a real man; that is, one who lives with integrity, responsibility and courtesy) told you he could be a good and able househusband (a redundancy, really, as 'husband' means 'home manager') and was willing to be the primary caretaker for any children you might have---how many of you would want to take him up on that? Even if you are a high-powered, highly-salaried person?
I mean, look at his place by all means! If he says he'll clean, see if his place confirms that. If he puts himself forward as a cook, check his kitchen. If he has pets, check them out too. Not to mention his way with little young people.
But, having done all that and pretty much finding it all 'checks', will you still feel he's 'less of a man' because his monetary worth is judged less than yours? If you do, guess what: you're shooting yourself somewhere between the foot and your female parts, to use a dated description.
Again: if an adult male hominid lives his life with integrity, responsibility and courtesy (and works on all three) he is a man. And, so long as they are men according to this definition, none of them are 'manlier' than any other. Indeed, the only billionaires I'd dignify with that description are Nick Hanauer, Uncle Warren (Buffett) and maybe Bill Gates.
I was fourteen years old in 1970, when late 20th century feminism came center stage and TIME magazine 'ratified' it by featuring Kate Millett on its cover. I thought, now it'll all change.
I and my brother babysat for a number of families during our teens, mostly (but not exclusively) for families with boys. But the 1980s, in this respect, was a 'retro' decade. Some reasons for that were 1) inflation and 2) GOP giveaways to the already obscenely rich. Such giveaways tend to take money out of circulation. I remember when Bush II did the same thing in 2003; almost immediately in its wake the local economy felt like it had less 'oxygen' in it.
But as a result of the factors mentioned here, a two-earner family started to go from a luxury to a necessity. Thus, only now do ads feature husbands who are cooks and/or see to the laundry and even apply good old Vicks VapoRub on a sick child.
Anyhow, I hope my guideline for manly character and behavior proves useful for both males and women.
Before I go, let me tell my fellow males this: in the end, you will find being a man according to this definition more satisfying, in and of itself, than any other way of living. Also remember the great Lord Acton's maxim: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." If we are to save the souls of the wealthy, we must curb their earthly power. For our earthly good and their spiritual health!

TRANSCENDING BONELESS DISLIKE

 This is an open letter to all the traitors (imo) who either voted for MAGA or who did not vote at all:
I probably don't like any of you, especially the ones who see the only point to helping others is to make yourselves look 'good'. I think of you and then I remember John 1:5. "For the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not."
That darkness is y'all. Not that we're a set of particularly bright lights, but for good or ill, y'all put the bar plenty low! Y'all are used to squelching most, maybe not all, common human or even fellow-mammal feelings. Maybe if you have pets you're partially open to those feelings. I know many's the time I look at our two dogs in loving wonderment and appreciation, including and perhaps especially when I compare them with humans and it's us who come up short! I strongly suspect that those of you who have pets have known the same feeling, perhaps more often than I have.
As you are in the darkness, you can't comprehend kindly feelings for any human unlike yourselves. And so, you can only comprehend showing such feelings as being what you call 'virtue signalling'. That is, we're trying to show you benighted wicked fools how much better we are than you!
I admit, that's exactly what some of us are trying to do. But only some of us, and a minority among us at that. If it weren't so, we 'scalawags' would have bolted from their camp a long time ago!
And I'll let you in on a little secret: you don't need to 'love' nobody in order to do right by them as God gives us the light to see, understand and do what's right!
First, get--and keep--this straight: the God who brings up the sun on both the good (us) and evil (y'all) and brings the rain down on both the just and the unjust (harder to decipher who's who here) has NOT appointed you to say who's deserving of help in obtaining life's basics (decent food, clothing and shelter, health care, clean air and water) and who isn't! If God considers us all as equally deserving,
then who the hell (literally) are you to say who's deserving and who isn't?!
I know, pretty certainly, that it is possible to have no tender feelings for this or that set of bipeds in order not to maim them, internally or externally, in order to 'save' them, or because someone told you, "Never give nuthin' to no n***er, s**c, 'injun' or k**e", to make sure they, too, are decently fed and sheltered, etc. All you need to do--and you can do this, certainly if you ask God's help to do so, He will extend it--is remember how you would want to be treated.
And it doesn't hurt to recall this line from Proverbs--yes, I said Proverbs!--"If your enemy is hungry, give him something to eat, and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing so, you will heap glowing coals on his head." At least, if your enemy has a conscience, you'll be doing that. Because a human with a conscience, helped by you, her enemy, will probably ask, "Why are we enemies? This person just fed me and/or gave me water." If s/he has no conscience, then that's another matter for another time. I think I can confidently say, virtually all of us do have consciences. Some of us have such overweening consciences that they bid fair to drive the rest of us nuts, but, again, that too is for another time.
How do I know God will help you in this? I'll tell you: right now, he's helping me transcend my anger at and, indeed, my utter disgust for all you traitors--that is, traitors to our common birthright and to the promise of our country becoming something never before seen in human history: a multiracial, multiethnic, multi-faith democratic representative republic where there is no hierarchy save that of true knowledge and ability!
If you need help and we come across each other, I will do what I can and not mention politics. If you need more than I can do, I'll point you to where you might find what you need and, again, make no inquiry as to your politics. Get it?
That's what it comes down to: recognizing and honoring the things all living things have in common and the connections between us. That is, if I inflict real injury (by which I don't mean butthurt) on you, it'll come back somehow to bite me in my hairy ass. And the same applies to you, however frenetically you try to deny it.
In any case, the crew you've elected, that is, the Orange Ogre and his MAGAts, are poised to make some of those connections quite painfully clear to you and us. And that's why we are poised to fight them every millimeter of the way.
Many of us see the connections you either don't see or refuse to acknowledge. If we can, we'll save your asses as well as our own--but for you, the price may be to have the butts of your egos crimsoned; your egos might not be able to sit for a year. Be ready for that!

ESAUS--OR WHAT?

To all who gave a con their vote on Tuesday or before: do you know what you've done?
Do you really know for what you've voted?
To those who've sold our common birthright for the false promise of lower prices for milk, eggs, bread and gas: you have been hornswoggled by this con. Indeed, if he legislates the McKinley-era type tariffs he wants into law, expect to be paying a lot more for the goods you need and want!
That big plasma TV screen you'd like to buy? If it's made anywhere but in the good ol' USA, you'd better buy it now because anything made anywhere else, starting next year, will be 20 to maybe 100 percent more expensive! And why? Tariffs, that's why!
I need to ask God's forgiveness on a fairly constant basis because I am looking forward to, a year or so hence, to drinking your bitter tears over seriously high prices and smacking my lips to boot!
Then again, I might have tears enough to shed myself at the same time if Project 2025 gets its greedy hands on our SSI and thereby impoverishes us--and tens of millions of others! How many people do y'all know who rely on Social Security for at least a large chunk of their income, if not necessarily the bulk of it? Do your parents of grandparents rely on that? Know anyone incapacitated in an industrial accident who now needs that income? Or who do you know with chronic illnesses? Mike Johnson, Repiglican Speaker of the House, looks forward to ending the Affordable Care Act and having those people thrown out on the street to die. Very likely he and his political owners will dance on their graves as well, after making sure you're not looking. If you are, they know how to assume pious poses with remarkable speed!
And how many hunters have voted for the Orange Con? I got news for you: the policies that he means to pursue via Project 2025 will probably denude your favorite hunting grounds and eventually make them disappear. Do you think that preserving those areas is not connected with being 'green'? Well, enjoy (Muhahahahahahaha!) the consequences of your seriously large mistake! This might be a really serious matter; I've no idea how many impoverished rural fellow citizens rely on hunting to put meat on the family table. Will they be able to keep doing so? I wonder; so should you.
Last but by no means least: how many of you showed what dough-faced dinkyjohnnies you really are by not being able to bring yourself to vote for a woman at all, never mind a woman of color, however capable she might be? Wisconsin, Michigan and (I am bitterly ashamed to list a home state here!) Pennsylvania, ye all have shown yourselves to have more than your share of such dinkyjohnnies--and probably not all of you dough-faced as well. I saw the percentages of African-American and Hispanic males who fell for the con's scam! In any case, you showed us, both on Tuesday and before then, eight years ago, what your real problem is!
The only thing I have to say to those who've voted to make us cry is: boy, have you ever missed the point! We almost never cry for ourselves, but almost always for people, creatures and other life-forms in greater danger, and less able to help themselves, than are we. Including....y'all!
Do you really think that deluding yourselves that others are suffering more will ease yours? When your children cry from hunger, will it ease your mind to think that blacks and browns are hurting more?
Y'all remind me of John 1:5: 'The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.'
But to be fair, we are not completely enlightened either. Certain Yankees (and by that I mean New Englanders, not generic Northerners) act as if their region has a patent on virtue, and that addytood (to put it in 'Philadelphian') seems to have largely infected our educated class. David Brooks is right to point out that our educated class doesn't seem to see or comprehend how much working people require serious respect, not condescension, from them. Our educated class needs to listen to working people of all colors with much more open minds--and not with any predetermined agenda of our own. Brooks is right about that.
You've voted against your own actual interests with remarkable ignorance, and perhaps malicious ignorance, at that. Our educated class is by no means guiltless in this; I admit that. But in the end, it was you who sold our common birthright for what amounts to cheaper French toast, which is equivalent to a mess of pottage all right!
And I thought you all hated French things!

DEATH TO ALL SHARIAHS, BY WHATEVER LABEL!

 As propounded by nearly all Islamists, 'shariah' law is of the Devil.
That's right. You read that right.
Why do I say that? Simply this. As I contemplate those societies ruled by it, I notice that nearly everything in that code is directed towards keeping all the real power in the hands of a few males my age and older, including many of the young women.
Thus, a secondary aim of 'shariah' law is to keep the males between the ages of 18 and 25 from seizing what the older males have (mostly) stolen and divvying it among themselves, including and, perhaps, especially, the young women.
And to this end, they seek to outlaw music and, of all things, female laughter! Why? Because these might EXCITE the young males, who are such babies that they have NO self-control whatsoever! Of course, they are probably also jealous of the simple joy of life that such laughter can, and often does, betoken!
We who live in countries where more female flesh is seen ought to drive it into the heads and hearts of these diabolically-inspired male bipeds that we, not they, are the manlier ones: are we excited to the point of rape by bikini-ed women? For a preponderance of men here and elsewhere, the answer is a definite NO.
We, not they, are the ones who have learned (I admit, to varying extents) to control our hormones rather than be blown about by them!
I can hear a foaming reply from some of them, viz. "You have NO manly hormones in you; there is nothing you need resist! WE are the manliest; liquid fire runs through our veins!!"
I think the best answer to this and other such garbage is, "Ye-ah, dude. Whatever." Then, as they dance with foaming from their mouths, pass the popcorn and the iced tea. Then get ready for some serious conflict.
I say anyone and everyone living in any democracy who says democracy should be killed and shariah 'law' take its place ought to be immediately deported to a country so ruled! Then we'll all be quite happy, won't we?
Warning: we do have those here who seek to institute a 'Christian' version of shariah law. The best-known plan now goes by the name of Project 2025. Advocates of that can be deported to Russia, which is probably the closest thing to what they lust to do to us here.