Pros and Cons of Punching a Nazi Just Square in the Dick

[Thad]

I'm seeing plenty of false equivalence in various interweb comments sections, but given that all of Trump's business councils have dissolved over the past two days, it sure seems like "no, people who oppose nazis are not equivalent to nazis" is the general consensus. (The late-night comics are all over that shit too, of course, but I feel like the CEOs leaving in droves is what really hits Trump where it hurts.)

[Blossom]

I think nearly everybody agrees that Lincoln deserves a monument of that stature, but the point is that US monuments either show blacks as helpless or not at all.

There's room for more than just that one memorial. Especially on some recently-cleared pedestals in the South.



INCIDENTALLY, apparently Virginia is now taking suggestions to rename the Jeff Davis highway. I am reminded of a running gag an American friend of mine has that the federal government should build a highway from Atlanta to the coast and name it "The William T. Sherman Memorial Highway".

:trollface:

They are taking submissions from locals for new names, and you can submit up to three. I suggested renaming it after Mildred Loving, Henrietta Lacks, or John Brown. Two black Virginian women responsible who can't be honored enough, to be thanked for ending anti-miscegenation and anti-race-mixing laws in the US and the majority of biomedical research in the US since the 40s including the vaccine for Polio respectively, and one abolitionist who was martyred doing work in Virginia I would call not just good, but moral imperative - killing slavers and trying to foment open revolution against the slave state.

I liked Sherman's approach to warfare against the Confederacy, but not so much his role in the Indian Wars from 69 to 83, pushing that same strategy against Native Americans. There's no shortage of good namesakes for the road, we can do better than that guy.

[Mongrel]

Well, the joke doesn't exactly work with a highway in Virginia instead of Georgia.

[Thad]

James Murdoch calls out Nazis and Trump, and pledges to donate $1M to the ADL.

I'm of two minds on this. On the one hand, condemning Nazis and a president who triangulates about them is not really praiseworthy; it's a low fucking bar. (Putting his money where his mouth is is good, though; that part is praiseworthy.) But when the CEO of Fox does it, that's a little bit of a different tone than when other CEOs do it.

[François]

I have a message to the neo-Nazis, the white nationalists and the neo-Confederates. Let me be as blunt as possible: your heroes are losers. You are supporting a lost cause. Believe me, I knew the original Nazis. I was born in Austria in 1947, shortly after the Second World War. Growing up, I was surrounded by broken men, men who came home after the war filled with shrapnel and guilt, men who were misled into a losing ideology. And I can tell you: these ghosts that you idolize spent the rest of their lives living in shame. And right now, they're resting in hell.

Dang!

[Thad]

Man, remember that time a celebrity with a history of sexual assault allegations got elected to executive office and thought he could govern by acting tough and spouting catchphrases, but then he realized it wasn't working and he changed?

[Mongrel]

Goddamn.

That's some amazing work Arnie.

[Mongrel]

A Churchill quote is apt here:

“You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing - after they have tried everything else.”

[Destynova]

Might of heard of this guy, internet tough with guns down his pants starts getting real worried he might get tossed into OZ.

[Mongrel]

We were talking about the various waves of Confederate statues being put up. Interestingly the Globe happened to have a feature article today that goes into a lot of detail about this - including a full graph showing exact dates and types of individual monuments.

[Büge]

Might of heard of this guy, internet tough with guns down his pants starts getting real worried he might get tossed into OZ.

I've read that his crying video is just an act to engender sympathy. I can't remember the exact phrasing, but it's intended to look bad so that his eventual comeback will seem like courage.

[Yoji]

I've read that his crying video is just an act to engender sympathy. I can't remember the exact phrasing, but it's intended to look bad so that his eventual comeback will seem like courage.

Yeah, I think Wonkette said something like that. This is his "heart of darkness" moment on the hero's journey, where he sinks into despair before finding the strength to do what must be done and save the day in Act 4. And for that reason, you shouldn't indulge him with page views.

[Joxam]

I get that he just cant spell but god damn.

[Destynova]

I've read that his crying video is just an act to engender sympathy. I can't remember the exact phrasing, but it's intended to look bad so that his eventual comeback will seem like courage.

Yeah, I think Wonkette said something like that. This is his "heart of darkness" moment on the hero's journey, where he sinks into despair before finding the strength to do what must be done and save the day in Act 4. And for that reason, you shouldn't indulge him with page views.

Plus this isn't Just as Keikeku(sp), he got his face captured pepper spraying someone and now has the big clench of fear.

[Mongrel]

I know a really nice guy who's one of the four heads who organize the annual MLP con in Seattle. He's been doing the job for about as long as the con's been running and tries his best to ensure it's a fun affair, mainly oriented towards children, but a nice space for everyone.

Anyway, he was talking about how this year they're trying to be extra careful to not let any political stuff into the con and trying to balance neutrality with keeping out really awful people.

Because there are Nazi bronies.

They made up their own pony.

A white pony named Arrie Ann. With a swastika cutie mark.



This is apparently a sizable group because both bronies and alt-right types share 4chan as a point of origin.

I mean... I wish I could say I was surprised? Just loop that bit where Arnold says "Your heroes are losers" over and over.

[Büge]

[Thad]

Medievalists Respond to Charlottesville

In light of the recent events in the United States, most recently the racist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, the undersigned community of medievalists condemns the appropriation of any item or idea or material in the service of white supremacy. In addition, we condemn the abuse of colleagues, particularly colleagues of color, who have spoken publicly against this misuse of history.

As scholars of the medieval world we are disturbed by the use of a nostalgic but inaccurate myth of the Middle Ages by racist movements in the United States. By using imagined medieval symbols, or names drawn from medieval terminology, they create a fantasy of a pure, white Europe that bears no relationship to reality. This fantasy not only hurts people in the present, it also distorts the past. Medieval Europe was diverse religiously, culturally, and ethnically, and medieval Europe was not the entire medieval world. Scholars disagree about the motivations of the Crusades—or, indeed, whether the idea of “crusade” is a medieval one or came later—but it is clear that racial purity was not primary among them.

[...]

The medieval Christian culture of Europe is indeed a worthy object of study, in fact a necessary one. Medieval Studies must be broader than just Europe and just Christianity, however, because to limit our object of study in such a way gives an arbitrary and false picture of the past. We see a medieval world that was as varied as the modern one. It included horrific violence, some of it committed in the name of religion; it included feats of bravery, justice, harmony, and love, some of them also in the name of religion. It included movement of people, goods, and ideas over long distances and across geographical, linguistic, and religious boundaries. There is much to be learned from studying the period, whether we choose to focus on one community and text or on wider interactions. What we will not find is the origin of a pure and supreme white race.

Via Gaiman.

[Joxam]

Apperently WI took down some Confederate monuments last week. A state where 1 in 9 people (total population not just elegable men) fought in the war with a 13.4 percent casualty rate. Half of the eligible voters at the time were fighting in the war. It is estimated that EVERY SINGLE FAMILY in this state at the time was touched by the war.... but we still had monuments to the Confederacy in our fucking Capital.

[Mongrel]

So, you may have seen it coming out that there were also gunshots fired by some redneck at Charlottesville and the cops stood by and did nothing.

What hasn't been publicized much is that the shooter actually drew, aimed his gun at a black man's head while yelling "Hey nigger!" and misfired because his safety catch was on. The instant he takes to put the catch off may have given him just enough time to rethink that little idea and he instead just fires a "warning shot". Video:



While it's possible the misfire was an intentional fake out, that's not what it looks like in this video. This looks like a second degree murder which was only averted by the attempted murderer's own incompetence.

The shooter was charged of course. With "discharging a firearm within 1000 feet of a school".

[Mongrel]

:D