Democrats DON'T Control Cities - A Reponse To Kim Klacik

 

A relatively recent video has been making the rounds on the Internet, featuring Kimberly Klacik, a woman who is running for Congress in Maryland's 7th District, which includes Baltimore's north and west sides gerrymandered with some of its suburbs to the far north and west. THIS is the video that made her a star. THIS is the video that got her a speaking slot on the opening night of the Republican National Convention.

And this is the video I'm going to systematically destroy.

"Do you care about black lives?" she says in the video. "The people that run Baltimore don't. I can prove it. Walk with me. They don't want you to see this."

She then proceeds to be seen walking through Baltimore. "The real Baltimore," she says. And in the background are clearly seen some obviously run-down, unkempt, falling-apart properties. Although, it's somewhat difficult to see these because she's wearing a fire-engine-red dress that's more appropriate for a nightclub than a run for Congress. And far be it from me to objectify women for what they wear - I've always hated men who do that. But it's more than fair to ask, just what type of message is she really trying to send, here? Or is she merely trying to make sure that all the men don't click "Skip Ad?"

"This is the reality for black people every single day," she continues. "Crumbling infrastructure, abandoned homes, poverty and crime. Baltimore has been run by the Democrat Party for 53 years. What is the result of their decades of leadership? Baltimore is one of the top 5 most dangerous cities in America. The murder rate in Baltimore is 10 X the U.S. average. The Baltimore poverty rate is over 20%. Homicide, drug and alcohol deaths are skyrocketing in our city."

Is she right? I'll take a look at the statistics she quoted in a moment, but first I want to tackle her first point, that Baltimore has been "run by the Democrat Party for 53 years." Here's the kicker:

NO! Baltimore has NOT been run by the Democrats! Not for 53 years, not for a long time!

"But wait!" I hear you say, "Sure it has! The last Republican mayor of Baltimore was Theodore McKeldan who left office way back in 1967. It's been nothing but Democrats ever since! The 7th Congressional District has been controlled by Democrats since 1953, ever since a 7th district was added following the 1950 census! The other district representing Baltimore, the 3rd, has been Democratic since 1927! Didn't Elijah Cummings die in office here? Wasn't he replaced with another Democrat? How can you say Democrats don't run Baltimore?"

Because cities are not truly run by the local politicians who are elected there, that's how!

What really governs a city are state and federal interests. Most roads, bridges and infrastructure projects are funded by state and federal money. Most jobs programs and housing programs are also run by state and federal interests. Most laws are passed at state and federal level. And the decisions which determine whether jobs in the cities rise or fall are all made in state capitals, or in Washington D.C. When it comes right down to it, a mayor doesn't have much power to do jack shit! And whatever aldermen he has under him don't have much power, either. Oh, they can raise some local sales taxes. They can decide where parking meters go. They can charge fees for municipal services or levy stadium taxes. They can appeal to the state and the federal governments for aid. But if those funding sources dry up, if it's all their property taxes can do to pay for police and fire protection, well then they are S.O.L.! If they can't afford to buy more buses, buses simply don't get bought. If they can't afford to hire more people, people aren't hired. The residents of every city pay far, far more in state and federal taxes than either of them ever pays back in, and it's been that way for a very, very long time! A city's government is kept on two leashes, and those leashes get smaller and smaller every year!

Guess why?

The current governor of Maryland is Larry Hogan, a Republican. His predecessor, Martin O'Malley, was a Democrat, but before that, it was Bob Erlich, another Republican. That's two Republicans to one Democrat since 2003. And during the Republican administrations of Maryland, each governor has enjoyed the support of George W. Bush and Donald Trump, respectively. During these times, Baltimore, and indeed every city, did not fare as well.

May I also remind you, Maryland was the state where Nixon's vice president, Spiro T. Agnew, was governor. If you think his presence is not still felt in Maryland politics, you are mistaken.

So you see, cities are not "run by Democrats." Oh, they may have a Democratic mayor, or a democratic Congressman, and it may stay that way for decades, but these by themselves "rule" nothing, or at least nothing much.

For Klacik to march through the dilapidated sections of Baltimore and have the absolute nerve to say, "Look what Democrats have done," is one hell of a bullshit lie!

NOW, we can handle the stats. She says that Baltimore is one of the top 5 most dangerous cities in America. That the murder rate is 10 X what it is nationwide. That poverty and drug rates are going up. And yeah, she's right. Baltimore is a pretty dangerous city. What it needs to fix that problem is a real jobs program and some immediate federal hiring to put people to work right away, and reduce crime. It needs better schools to make sure the economy of Baltimore is strong when the next generation comes of age. It needs more housing to bring the cost of rent down. And potential entrepreneurs need federally insured, low-interest loans to start their own businesses. Unfortunately, under Trump and Hogan, we have a president and governor who don't care, as well as a HUD secretary who doesn't believe in housing, an education secretary who wants to destroy education, and a secretary of the USDA who doesn't believe in food stamps.

How the fuck is THAT supposed to help?

And what exactly is Klacik offering? MORE rollbacks? She doesn't bother telling us what alternatives she actually has, if any.

"Do you care about black lives? I do!" she says. She then points out, correctly, that the vast majority of crime is perpetrated against black people. "So why don't we do something about OUR cities?" She asks.

Like what, Kim? Like support a president who gives clear support to the Nazis of Charlottesville?

I don't doubt her sincerity. I think she genuinely does care - mistaken though she might be. And her pitch MIGHT actually work - IF there were a different president representing the Republican Party in the Oval Office. If such a rational Republican president were there, and said something like, "We acknowledge the mistakes of our past. The Southern Strategy was wrong. So I'm going to lead our party back to its anti-slavery roots and build a more diverse and strong America!" That would be a GREAT pitch! Hell, I might even vote for that over Joe Biden! 

Unfortunately, Klacik has chosen the wrong moment in history to make such a pitch. She is NOT striking while the iron is hot! Hell, the iron is about as cool as it gets!

She asks various black people on the street if they want to "defund the police." They all answer no. But I, myself, said in an earlier blog post how stupid the phrase "defund the police" is. This ad proves I was right when I chided my fellow leftists about that. We DO want to reform the police, and demilitarize many of the things that police are over-assigned to do. But we don't mean "defund" outright. Oh, yes, I've heard many of my fellow liberals say, "YES, we do!" But this ad is exactly why they're wrong.

See? I don't just scold conservatives.

"It's not just Baltimore," Klacik says. "The worst place for a black person to live in America is a Democrat controlled city. It's 2020. Name a blue city where black people's lives have gotten better. I'll wait."

Challenge accepted! Here's one: LONDON. How about VANCOUVER. Or Oslo, Paris, Sydney and Berlin?

And you might say, "But Eric, none of those cities are in the United States!" Well, exactly! Because those cities all have governments with strong social programs, and their right-wingers are at least respectful enough to not constantly get in the way!

"Look at this!" Klacik says as the camera shows one broken thing after another. "How are children supposed to live here and play here?" And she might have a good point, except Scopes pointed out that the video only shows a limited area of a two-block stretch, and keeps looping that area over and over again. If you look closely, you can see the same overgrown foliage in several different shots. It's hard to believe how bad Baltimore really is when Kim won't even show us all of it.

Okay, that's nit-picky. And I'll grant Klacik the argument that many places in pretty much all inner cities are dilapidated and in need of repair. We all know how run-down our cities are. So let's ask the corporate tightwads to loosen up a percentage or two so that we can fix that! Private industry won't move on it. That takes too long. The buildings must be repaired first before the businesses move in, that's just plain how it works. Only a government can invest in a community quickly, and that means, yes, Democrats, not Republicans.

At the federal and state level.

"Democrats think black people are stupid. They think they can control us forever; that we won't demand better and we will keep voting for them - forever; despite what they've done to our families and our communities."

Well, I've already debunked the "despite what they've done to our families and communities" part. Scratch past the surface of that argument and there's an elephant, not a donkey. But what really riles me is where she says, "Democrats think black people are stupid." Fucking really? Isn't it more of an insult to black people's intelligence to ask them to vote for an alternative - without actually providing one? Couldn't she have asked people to vote Republican down-ballot, but support Joe Biden, just as so many other Republicans are doing to save their own party? Isn't asking anyone, much less a black person, to not vote for the racist numbskull in the White House, a smart thing?

"I'm Kim Klasik and I'm running for congress because I actually care about black lives. All black lives matter. Our communities matter. Baltimore matters. And black people don't have to vote Democrat," she concludes. Well, fine. But for Klasik's argument to work, she needed to add six more words to her ad. Just six more little words:

"I'll stand up to Donald Trump."

What? Those six words are missing? Aww, too bad. Well, there went her entire argument.

But honestly? Part of me hopes she runs for president in 2024.

Eric

*

Why Defend Blake? A Response To Brandon Tatum

 

As my wife's home town of Kenosha burns, officials still refuse to do the one thing that will bring an immediate halt to the conflagration: fire and charge the police officer who shot Jacob Blake. It speaks volumes that city officials would rather endure the incredibly expensive damage caused by night after night of riots than allow one white officer to face the music.

Meanwhile, I find a video on social media which, predictably, points out how Jacob Blake had a warrant out for his arrest for domestic violence, had a lengthy and recent rap sheet, and was generally a skunk of a human being. This template has been used so often that it has become cliche; the man who was shot gets demonized, the trigger-nervous cop gets angelified, and the rioters get cast as irrational thugs who simply wish to destroy things.

The video is put together by a man named Brandon Tatum, a former Tuscon, Arizona cop who left the police force in 2017 to join Liftable Media, part of the right-wing media machine that includes The Western Journal and The Conservative Tribune. Since then, he's done public speeches, YouTube videos, and presentations on Turning Point USA and PragerU. So we pretty much know what to expect from this guy. Nevertheless, I will explore what he says based on its merit, and then show you why it's horse-shit.

If you want to see the video yourself, you can find it here.

"Let's get into this," Tatum starts. "Ladies and gentlemen, for the life of me, I don't understand why every single time there is a police-involved situation, that y'all have to go and support the dumbest of the dummies, the lowest of the low, the criminal of the criminals. I don't understand! 99.9% of police-involved shootings could be completely eliminated if people would just do a simple thing called not resist arrest. Follow directions. How hard is that?"

It's not hard, Mr. Tatum. But it does get old. It reminds me of another Facebook post I saw the other day (and I'm sorry, I'd like to re-post it here, but I didn't save it as a .jpg. If I find it again, I'll edit it in right here), where a black man talks about the many, many, many times he's been pulled over, in many different cities and counties, and was never shot, because he always cooperated. Okay, fine, but why were you pulled over so often? It's easy to say "always cooperate" when you aren't the one being constantly harassed. Sooner or later, especially given economic conditions where cutting corners is the only way to survive, people lash out at the ones harassing them about it.

"Now let's talk about Mr. Jacob Blake" he continues. "Because people are literally burning down their city in the name of - Jacob Blake. As if he's an innocent man, just gettin' in his car, he wadn't even doin' notin' to nobody n'dem!* Naw, yeah he was! What do you think he was doin' when he was goin' to his car after they had yelled at him and told him to stop? Mind you, they showed up to the car for a domestic violence situation."

Meaning what, Brandon? Do you really think "domestic violence situation" means "weapons free?"

[*Note: That was Mr. Tatum's "local color" as he made fun of what he thought BLM was saying. That's his condescension, not mine.]

To save time, I'll concede that Jacob Blake is a real shit. Yes, he had a warrant out for his arrest. Yes that warrant was for an earlier domestic violence incident. And there's a whole string of earlier incidents where this guy got in trouble with police over being violent at home. But the guilt or innocence of Blake isn't the point. The point is that a police officer deliberately and maliciously was shooting to kill. AND he got caught on video doing it.

Mr. Tatum, since you are a former cop, I would like to ask you if there is one single good reason why Blake shouldn't have been shot once in the leg the moment he reached for the car door handle? May I ask you why a single shot after he got in wouldn't have sufficed? May I ask you by what measure you presume seven bullets to be necessary? Or do you think eight would have been better because seven left him merely paralyzed and not dead?

Can you explain to me why cops seem to have a default setting of deadly force? Why they assume legs don't exist?

No, people are not burning down their city "in the name of Jacob Blake!" They are burning down their city in the name of the cop who goes unnamed! Everyone knows the name of Jacob Blake. Nobody knows who the shooting cop even is, yet! His name has not been released! And this cop has not yet been 1) fired, 2) arrested, or even 3) charged! Even after three straight nights of riots! And what does that say about a city's leadership? What can the police chief say to the car dealership owner, whose entire lot was destroyed by protesters, when that owner asks, "Why didn't you just arrest the cop instead of putting him on 'administrative leave?!'" How will this same chief make his case to the city's aldermen? To the mayor? What could possibly justify protecting this one badge?

It could have been superficial, even. The chief could have said to the shooter, "Look, me firing you is just for show. We'll have your back, but things are just too hot right now. If you're innocent, we'll simply hire you back and give you back pay."

Nah, that would make too much sense!

Okay, Mr. Tatum, I get the complaint that you, and Candace Owens, and Sheriff David Clarke, and several others keep making. It seems like every time a shooting happens that the person shot turns out to be a total crook. You don't want to defend scumbags. I get it. But the criminality of the person shot is not the point! The point is that cops shouldn't shoot black people to kill!

If you get nothing else, Mr. Tatum, get this: The line drawn in the sand by black people is, "DON'T KILL US!" Whatever the situation, whatever the crime, blacks in America are insisting that cops stop being judge, jury and executioner within seconds of arriving on scene.

That's my message to you, sir. BLM says, "DON'T KILL US!" And it's a very reasonable place to draw the line.

"But the guy had a warrant for domestic...."

Doesn't matter! DON'T KILL US!

"But he robbed a convenient st..."

We don't care! DON'T KILL US!

"He ditched a baggie with white powder..."

Irrelevant. DON'T KILL US!

"He was casing that empty house..."

Or exploring. And stole exactly nothing. DON'T KILL US!

Taze the shit out of them, if you must. Drown them in pepper spray, if that's required. Or, as previously said, one or two bullets to the leg if nothing else works. But the line has been drawn: COPS AREN'T ALLOWED TO KILL BLACKS. I won't even ask you if that standard is fair, because it is!

And you may rightly say, Mr. Tatum, that I have some arrogance speaking for BLM, being a white man speaking to a black man. Granted! But I would ask you, sir, why do I, as a white man, need to educate you, of all people, about this? Why do you not know where the line in the sand has been drawn? I maintain that it is because you've spent too much time on stage with Dinesh D'Sousa to really know what's true anymore. Your conservative bubble has insulated you against anything contrary to your MAGA-hat fellow sycophants, and you need to spend more time with the unwashed masses you spit upon.

What really makes me qualified to speak to you about this isn't the color of my skin, but my connection to the community. I know Kenosha! My wife is from there, and my in-laws still live there. I was married there! I visit frequently, and have come to know the landscape and its people. And the people who live there simply don't act like this! Black or white, Kenoshans are peaceful people! It it outsiders who have descended upon Kenosha from who-knows-where, and many of them belong to white-wing militia groups! They have no business being there!

Car Source, the auto dealership whose lot was burned, didn't do anything to deserve this. The owner of Dale's Jewlers didn't do anything to deserve having his store vandalized. The Danish Brotherhood building didn't need to be burned down. I know this town. I know The Spot Drive-In, Tenuta's Groceries, Paielli's Bakery - this is my second city! These are my friends!

And you, Tatum, are another outsider who doesn't know jack shit about what's going on, here!

No, I don't justify the looting, the destruction, the ruination of the city. But why should I? Much of the violence there is coming from you right-wingers! People like Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old militia member from Antioch, Illinois who shot two people last night! These assholes are firebugs who don't care about Kenosha because they aren't from here! Rittenhouse and people like him are people who love YOUR videos! Who love YOUR message! And while YOUR disciples stir up the pot with one hand, you blame BLM with the other. Fuck you, too!

You have one chance, sir, to throw water on the fire and tell your fellow right-wingers to STAND DOWN.

And if you don't, may you rot in every hell of every religion known to Man.

Eric

*

Ferguson Revisited - Another PragerU Lie

 

In my previous blog post, I remarked about how Dennis Prager referenced a different PragerU video. That other video, he says, proves the narrative behind the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri is a lie. His exact words were, "See Larry Elder's video on PragerU. He tells you exactly what happened in Ferguson, Missouri."

Challenge accepted, fool! Let's see what ya got!

And if you want to see the video for yourself, you can do so here.

This subject really matters, and not just because Prager and his "PragerU" regularly piss me off with blatant and obvious lying. This is THE event which established Black Lives Matter! To attack this is to attack the whole point of the movement itself.

So let's begin.

The video starts in typical PragerU fashion, presenting Larry Elder, who happens to be black, himself. Now, it bears repeating that it never, EVER works when PragerU does this "Sheriff Clarke" routine, as I showed in my recent debunkings of Carol Swain. But they continuously put any Quimbo they can find in front of their cameras. (Yeah, I said it. Go read Harriet Beecher Stowe if you don't know what I'm talking about.) Elder has built his career being a Libertarian gadfly, so it's no secret what sort of views he might have about the Michael Brown shooting. That having been said, I will deal with him based solely on merit of argument.

He uses a "True or False" method of dealing with the events of Ferguson. "True or False," he begins. "A young, unarmed black man, Michael Brown, was killed by a white police officer, Darren Wilson." This he correctly states is True. but he's just getting warmed up.

"True or False," he continues. "Wilson stopped Brown for no good reason. False."

Here, I'll mostly agree with Elder. He recounts how Wilson was driving a police SUV when he got a call about a convenience store which had been robbed. He then saw two men walking down the middle of the street who matched the description of the store thieves. What was the description? That the thief was a black male who wore a red St. Louis Cardinals hat, a white T-shirt, yellow socks, and khaki shorts, accompanied by another male. Now, a red St. Louis Cardinals hat in a St. Louis suburb could be anybody. The same goes for khaki shorts. But yellow socks? That's unusual enough. Surveillance video does show Michael Brown and his friend helping themselves to two boxes of Swisher Sweets, for which they do not appear to pay, and then the store owner coming out from behind the counter to confront them about it. Brown pushes the owner away, seems to jaw at the owner some more, then leaves. So when Wilson spotted two men, one of them with the tell-tale yellow socks, it was reasonable for him to suspect them. He slowed down and ordered them onto the sidewalk. Brown refused. So far, so good.

After this, the story goes two different ways. Wilson tried to open the door to get out of his vehicle. Brown blocked him with his body, keeping the door closed. Brown's friend, Dorian Johnson, says it was at this point that Brown was grabbed by the throat by Wilson. Wilson's story is that Brown punched him through his open window and then tried to grab his gun. I think it's reasonable to conclude that, at the very least, Wilson shoved Brown to get him away from the door, and that's when Brown reacted by fighting back, and trying to grab Wilson's gun. Wilson got to his firearm first and shot twice, wounding Brown in the hand.

"True or False," Elders goes on, "Michael Brown's back was turned to Officer Wilson when he [Brown] was shot and killed. False."

Here, I only agree with Elders 75%. (I'll explain in a minute why I phrase it that way.) He's fundamentally right, Brown was shot in the front, not the back, but he gets the intentions of Officer Wilson dead wrong. 

After getting shot in the hand, Brown ran off. That's when Wilson was finally able to exit the vehicle, which he did, and then ran after him.

And here's where the stories really diverge. According to Dorian Johnson, after Wilson fired a few shots at Brown, Brown turned around and came towards Wilson with his hands raised. That's when Wilson shot him six times in the torso. But Wilson's story is that Brown stopped, turned and then charged at him.

Elder's favorite witness describes it this way in the video: "[Brown] ran towards the officer full charge. The officer fired several shots at him, and... Mike Brown continuously came forward in the charging motion... When he charged once more, the officer returned fire with, I would say... three to four shots. And that's when Mike Brown finally collapsed."

Here's where I call bullshit. When you are unarmed, and someone else is firing at you with a gun, you don't stop, turn, and charge the person! That's purely insane! And contrary to every survival instinct out there! But it does make sense that you would stop, turn around, and raise your hands in the air as if to say "I give up! Don't shoot me!" That's entirely rational.

The real problem? The witness Elder quotes conflicts with what other witnesses say happen, and not just Dorian Johnson's! There were at least 68 witnesses according to a list provided by PBS! About a dozen or so got a good look. Those witnesses were organized into a nice, little chart so that people could see what each witness said about a particular aspect of the conflicting stories. So for Elder to pick one out of all those and base his opinion on that, he's being VERY selective about his cherry-picking! If you want to see the PBS list for yourself, you can find it here.

Here's the breakdown (in part) of the PBS chart of Ferguson, MO shooting witnesses:

Did Brown charge at Officer Wilson? Seven witnesses say yes, five say no. The rest aren't sure.

My conclusion: Defies sanity, survival instinct, and common sense. I say no.

Did Brown reach into Wilson's squad vehicle? Twelve say yes, three say no. The rest aren't sure.

My conclusion: Brown did. And I think he punched Wilson and grabbed for his gun, too.

Was Brown running away when Wilson first opened fire on him? Fifteen witnesses say yes. Five say no.

My conclusion: Yes. Brown was running away when he was initially fired upon (not counting the shots to the hand.) The number of shots Wilson fired totaled twelve. Two of those shots were fired at Brown's hand when he was reaching in through the squad car window to grab the gun. Six shots hit Brown in the body from the front. So that leaves four bullets shot at Brown when his back was turned while running away.

Was Brown facing Wilson when he was shot? Seventeen say yes. Two say no.

My conclusion: Yes. Brown was facing Wilson.

And HERE'S THE BIG ONE: Did Brown have his hands in the air when he was shot? Sixteen witnesses say yes. Only two say no.

In other words, Elder chose only one of the TWO witnesses who contradicted SIXTEEN others who clearly saw Brown with his hands in the air when he got shot!

Holy. Fucking. Shit!

Shame on you, Elder. Shame on you!

And here's where I say that I only agreed with Elder 75% about whether Wilson shot Brown in the back. No, Wilson didn't successfully shoot Brown in the back. He shot, and missed! And when Brown realized he was being shot at, he turned around and surrendered as his best, and only, realistic play at survival! In other words, Darren Wilson may not have shot Michael Brown in the back, but he meant to!

Larry Elder continues:

"True or False. Before Michael Brown was shot and killed, he raised his hands up in the air and shouted, 'Don't shoot.' False. Federal investigators from the Department of Justice found no credible evidence that Brown ever raised his hands in a 'Don't shoot' gesture, or in any way heeded the officer's commands for him to surrender."

 True, but the same report also didn't find any credible evidence that Brown didn't raise his hands!

"The federal report concluded that witnesses who originally stated Brown had his hands up in surrender recanted their original accounts, admitting that they did not witness the shooting or parts of it. Investigators also concluded the now iconic phrase. Again from the report, 'The media has widely reported that there is witness testimony that Brown said "don't shoot" as he held his hands above his head. In fact, our investigation did not reveal any witnesses who stated that Brown said, "don't shoot."'

Elder is citing the Department Of Justice Report Regarding The Criminal Investigation Into The Shooting Death of Michael Brown By Ferguson, Missouri Police Officer Darren Wilson, March 4, 2015. You can read the report for yourself, here. What the report actually says regarding witnesses recanting says, "Certain other witnesses [emphasis mine] who originally stated Brown had his hands up in surrender recanted their original accounts, admitting that they did not witness the shooting or parts of it, despite what they initially reported either to federal or local law enforcement or to the media."

In other words, some recanted, but not all! And Elder deliberately leaves this out by phrasing it, "...witnesses who originally stated..." as opposed to the truth, which is "some of the witnesses who originally stated...." This isn't splitting hairs, it's a blatant lie by omission. He knows perfectly well that some of his viewers will assume that ALL the witnesses recanted! But that simply isn't true! And when you see by the PBS report that the witness count about Brown having his hands up was 16 - 2 in favor, even if 2/3rds of those witnesses recanted, the witness tally would still be 5 - 2 in favor!

If Michael Brown did have his hands up in surrender, even for a moment, that's enough for any reasonable person. Certainly it is for me. It should be enough for you, and Larry Elder, and anybody else as well.

Okay, but what about "don't shoot?"

Here, I actually agree with Larry Elder - sort of. The phrase probably came from Brown's friend, Dorian Johnson, and was probably made up. But does that matter? Hell, no! Once Brown's hands went up, that was it! "Don't shoot," isn't what Brown necessarily said, but it IS what Wilson necessarily should have done!

Yes, "Hands up, don't shoot!" became an anthem for activists, even though it wasn't actually said. But did it need to be? Did it really?

Okay, let's make a slam-dunk on this case once and for all. Suppose everything Elder argues about the Ferguson shooting were true. Suppose Michael Brown was charging. Suppose Brown was irrational, high, or whatever. Suppose Wilson had every reason to fear for his safety. Well, in that case...

WILSON SHOULD HAVE SHOT BROWN IN THE FUCKING LEGS!!! Why, oh, why, do we see cop after cop refuse to aim for the legs of the person they are trying to arrest? Why is it constantly one kill shot after another? Do they not know legs exist? Do they not surmise that an unarmed man can be taken down most easily if he sustains a leg injury?

And why do we constantly let these non-leg-shooters off the hook afterward?

Oh, yes, that's Elder's next point. "True or False: A local grand jury investigation and a federal investigation both concluded that Officer Wilson was justified in his use of force. True." But then Elder says, with emphasis, "The local grand jury, and the federal investigation, supervised by Attorney General Eric Holder, reached the same conclusion: Officer Wilson did nothing wrong."

BULLSHIT! "Justified in his use of force" and "did nothing wrong" are two separate goddamned things! The one does not presuppose the other! And as I said, Wilson should have shot Brown in his goddamned legs! Then, at least Brown would be alive!

You see, the line in the sand drawn by the African-American community, and by Black Lives Matter, is simply this: "DON'T FUCKING KILL US!" And that's a reasonable place to draw the line.

Whatever sins Michael Brown may have committed, whatever crimes he may have done, he did not deserve a death sentence! And for police officers in Ferguson and everywhere else, the message is, "If you must shoot, shoot to apprehend! Not to kill!" Is that so goddamned difficult to comprehend?

Elder quotes Heather MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute regarding Ferguson. But this is a well-known right-wing think-tank. I won't waste time on it. Instead I will deal with Elder's own closing quote:

"The statement that an innocent black man was murdered by a racist white cop in Ferguson, Missouri, is a lie. Those who say otherwise are either willfully deceiving you for their own purposes, or are wholly ignorant of the facts."

Okay, at face value, maybe. Michael Brown was not innocent, that's a given. But he was murdered! So I'm not saying "otherwise," am I? But Elder is being deliberately misleading, and he knows it.

Was the white cop racist? Maybe, maybe not. But he was certainly vindictive. Brown had already punched Wilson in the face and tried to grab his gun before he got shot. It's more than fair to say that Wilson aimed for the torso instead of the legs because he was pissed off! Were I Wilson's captain, I would chain him to a desk job for the rest of his career. But I'm not. And sadly, there are those who want to give Wilson a gold star instead of a kick in the ass like he deserved.

Enough is enough. The cases of Michael Brown, and George Floyd, prove that it is possible to be a martyr without first being a saint.

Eric

*

Kenosha Is Burning - And Prager Pushes Delusion

 

Last night, a Kenosha cop did his damnedest to kill a man. We don't know all the details yet, but we do have a 23 second video clip showing the exact moment it happened. What we appear to see in the video is a man walking around his car in a non-threatening way. Police follow him around the vehicle, guns drawn. When the man gets into his car, the lead officer tries to grab his shirt, and then a split second later, shoots him seven times in the back. The video has been shown on numerous news outlets, almost all of whom freeze the video just before the moment of shooting. But here at the Wursthaus, we don't do that spineless shit. You can see the entire video, unedited, here.

Witnesses say the man who was shot had just gotten done breaking up a fight. We can't see that part because it's on the opposite side of the car. But what we can see is the man getting up, walking around his car, apparently ignoring the cops who had their guns drawn on him. Whatever the events were leading up to this, when the man got into the car, the cop who opened fire was clearly shooting to kill.

Okay, I get it. Maybe the man had a gun in his car. If so, that earns him a bullet in the leg - maybe. But seven in the back? Come on! That's inexcusable, right there!

If the circumstances leading up to this do not reveal some MAJOR mitigating circumstances, we have yet another clear-cut case of a cop trying to murder an innocent black man in cold, cold blood.

Oh, did you know, the man's KIDS were in the car? The video shows what looks like a girl of about 11 utterly traumatized as she throws a fit, seeing a man gunned down right in front of her. What will these kids grow up to think about cops?

What followed last night was some rather appropriate riots designed to tell the Kenosha police, "This is some unacceptable bullshit right here!" Racine police were brought in. Police from other counties as well, according to various news reports. Protesters were gassed, at least one videographer was shot with a rubber bullet, bottles were thrown, and when garbage trucks and dump trucks were put in place to prevent traffic from getting to the Kenosha police station, they were fire-bombed. Some of the protesters lit off fireworks to goad the police. All in all, I can't blame the black residents of Kenosha! They had every right to be pissed at a public execution attempt in their back yard!

And then, this morning, on Facebook, I find this:

Okay Prager. You asked for it. Now you're going to get it!

When I followed the link, I was taken to one of PragerU's "Fireside Chats" (#142). You can watch the whole thing yourself, here. And here Dennis has the unmitigated gall to say that America is the LEAST racist country out of all countries with mixed races. "It's easy to be a non-racist country when everyone in it is one race," he says. Well, maybe, but also completely misses the point. He then makes several arguments, based on "pure logic," he says, about why America is not a racist country.

"Argument #1" he says (and he actually dares to say that he's tempted to say PROOF #1), "If America is so racist, why are there so many race hoaxes?"

And just what does he mean by "race hoaxes?" Well, the most famous example of this, he says, is the case of Jusse Smollett, who claimed he was attacked by white racists who put a noose around his neck, but it turned out not to be true. He claims to have documented fifteen such examples, even noting date and time of the event, of such "race hoaxes," and the existence of these somehow constitutes proof that racism doesn't exist in America.

Wow. The man is literally arguing that the prevalence of racially charged stories proves that racism doesn't exist! In Dennis Prager's twisted mind, the existence of the fake thing means that the real thing isn't there!

"I'll give you a dramatic example," he says. "In 1930's in Germany, do you think any Jews made up an anti-Semetic incident? Of course not! Because Germany was filled with anti-Semitism! So no Jew made up an anti-Semetic hoax! They would have been lucky to have to make up an anti-Semetic hoax!" He concludes, "Why are there so many hoaxes? You wouldn't need them, would you?"

Yeah, he really is that stupid! And that's argument #1? That's what he's tempted to call "proof?"

Come on, Dennis! Do large breasts not exist because there are so many fake breast implants out there? Do real cigarettes not exist because you documented kids "smoking" bubble-gum cigarettes fifteen times? Maybe Jesus never existed because there were so many other fake Christs during his time?! How about that?!

Here's an alternative hypothesis: Maybe Smollett's fake story rang true because there really is a lot of racist shit still out there! This video was shot in July of 2020, only two years removed from Trump equating Charlottesville Nazis with their protesters, and this guy doesn't even realize that the very existence of neo-Nazis in Charlottesville is proof positive that racism is a very real story!

Argument #2, "Why are we talking so much about slavery?" he asks. "Slavery ended 155 years ago. If things are so bad today, why not talk about today?"

Um, shit, Dennis, have you looked out your front window, lately?

"This constant reference to things that happened... 140... 145... whatever I just said... and Jim Crow that ended in the 60's.... If you've gotta go that far back, maybe that's because that's the only time you can find all this racism."

I don't know what's more myopic - that this guy actually said this, or someone else was stupid enough to post it to Facebook thinking it would do anything to convince anybody. Again, Dennis, look out your front window now and then! Jim Crow wasn't ended in the 60's! It started to end in the 60's, but shadows of it still remain! Slavery may be gone, but it's legacy has STILL not been dealt with! If you can't see the continuous racist things which go on in America, it can only be because you live in such a well-insulated bubble.

Argument #3 is the lies. He claims that the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, which touched off the riots in that city, was somehow a lie. "See Larry Elders' video on PragerU," he says. "He tells you exactly what happened in Ferguson, Missouri.

Okay, asshole! I'll take you up on that! There WILL be a separate blog post regarding that video! But how hollow your claims ring now that we've seen what happened LAST NIGHT in Kenosha, and after the murder of George Floyd. (And yes, he dares to question what we saw regarding George Floyd, too.) Lies, you say? WE HAVE IT ON VIDEO, FOOL!

"Is it Michael Brown?" he asks off camera. "Check on that." Fucker can't even remember his name!

He dares to bring up the shooting of Rayshard Brooks. "You don't know that was racism," he says.

Oh, really? Again, WE HAVE IT ON VIDEO! Yes, he struggled with the police officers. Yes, he wrestled a taser away from one of them. But then... he ran off! And the cop shot him IN THE BACK! Why? Shoot him in the goddamn leg! Better yet, let him go! It's just a drunk driving charge! You have his car. If he wants it back, he'll just have to come by the station! There was ZERO reason to shoot  him!

And Dennis Prager can't tell whether that is racist?

"According to the Washington Post, the last year we have records for, 15 blacks were killed by police. 25 whites were killed."

Yeah, except we don't really have all the police reports, because most precincts don't provide that information at all. only about 5% of precincts report any numbers, and so claiming only 15 of anything based on so small a sample is utterly useless!

Argument #4, Microaggressions. "There is so little racism that we have to make up racist things when they're really not."

Yeah, he comes close to making a point, here. He cites the old chestnut, "The human race is the only race" is considered a racist phrase at the University of California. But I dealt with that in a previous blog post.

Argument #5, Immigration. Prager points out that the country most Africans want to immigrate to is the United States. "Whoa!" he says. "That's powerful stuff. Are they stupid?" Fine, except I dealt with that one in the same previous blog post as well. "Why would they move to a systemically racist country?" Because any opportunity in America is better than no opportunity in Nigeria, that's why. America is modern Rome, and everyone, not just Africans, wants to come here at some point. America is also easier to get into than any other country, Trumpism notwithstanding. Besides, style of speech really counts. If you don't think a cop is more likely to let a black man with an Ethiopian accent go than a black man with an inner city accent, you don't understand cops!

Prager argues against the idea that all whites are racist. I'm not going to even bother with this one. I'm white, and I'm anything but racist. But I will say this: every one of those Charlottesville Nazis would probably say they aren't racists, either. That's how racism manifests itself today. It disguises itself as something else, and makes many white people "buttheads." Meaning that they say, "I'm not a racist, BUT..." No, not all whites are racist, Praeger is actually right about that. But every white racist sure thinks he isn't!

Prager argues that "white privilege" doesn't exist. But he doesn't give any really good answer to that one. The fact that whites are not harassed the way blacks are in this country doesn't seem to cross the man's radar.

The video says some other things about gays and conservatives, Dennis talks about his dog for awhile (his dog is smarter than he is, in many ways), and talks about "if it bleeds it leads," but none of that is relevant to the main stuff I wanted to debunk. I choose to not waste my time on it.

In the meantime, if any of you down in Kenosha want to hurl a bottle Dennis Prager's way, I won't feel bad about it in the slightest.

 Eric

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John Scalzi, AND Luke Burrage

 

This is something of a double-review. I'll be reviewing John Scalzi's new book, The Last Emperox, while simultaneously reviewing another reviewer. Yeah, yeah, I know, that's not normally done, but this guy got on my nerves, and I need to vent.

 ***SPOILER ALERT!!!*** If you don't wish to know how The Last Emperox ends, please stop here and come back when you're done reading it. If you don't care whether you know the ending, well, you're special.

The reviewer in question is Luke Burrage. He's a professional juggler, and from all I can gather, a rather good one. (Nothing wrong with that. So is Penn Jillette, and I love his opinions.) He's written some fiction of his own, which is good (if there's one thing I can't stand, it's a reviewer who can't write), and he does a podcast where he reviews every science fiction book he reads, as he reads it, with no set schedule. He seems like a nice enough guy, but I'm not sure he ought to be reviewing science fiction books at all. His tastes are so narrow, so hyper-specific, that I wonder how many writers can actually satisfy him.

I finished audiobooking The Last Emperox a week ago, and enjoyed every minute. It was every bit up to Scalzi's usual high standards, in spite of having an ending which I found slightly klutzy. But I'll get to that later.

Not long after, I found Luke Burrage's podcast. I think I happened upon it because I was desperate for more science fiction news and reviews which actually inform me as to what's going on. I very much want to feel informed before I take up the burden of voting at the Hugo Awards, which I definitely want to be able to do by the time Worldcon comes to Chicago in 2022. As a resident of Milwaukee, which is only an hour and a half away, there's no WAY I'm missing out! But how does one really know what's hot and what's not? How can people sort through the dizzying amount of short fiction out there to separate the wheat from the chaff? I still don't know. So you can understand my mindset when I typed "science fiction review" into my iTunes player, and Burrage's podcast came up.

And then, yesterday, I made the mistake of listening to it.

Oh, it's not that I found the review itself detestable. It's not even that I hated the podcast. I didn't. In a strange way, I enjoyed it. But I ended up listening to this well-meaning, yet utterly mistaken, professional stage performer absolutely SHIT on my favorite writer for one hour and twenty-three minutes!

He began by saying that he wouldn't make the mistake of listening to Wil Wheaton's narration via audiobook. Luke's evaluation of Wil's audio work is that Wheaton fails to differentiate his voice enough between different characters to make the dialogue more understandable. When I heard this, I could scarcely believe someone had actually said it! Clearly, he must have Wil Wheaton mistaken for someone else, or perhaps he has some form of hearing loss which my own tinnitus-plagued ears cannot relate to. Wil Wheaton does a fantastic job of narrating! I have deliberately sought out his work in relation to other authors, such as Roger Zelazny's Nine Princes of Amber. So I knew right away that Burrage was not quite on my wavelength. I sensed it further when he kept mispronouncing "Emperox" as "Emper-oks." (It's "Emper-oh," non-gender-specific.)

What kept me engrossed throughout the podcast was the utterly inane reasons Burrage gave for calling it crap. "I want a participatory experience," he says. "And John Scalzi takes away the participatory nature of it."

Okay, that's basically true. Scalzi's latest does skim over some of the details regarding battles, such as a revolutionary space-battle on the Planet End. He shortens long stretches of descriptions and events to give a synopsis so that he can get to the zinging one-liners, witty dialogue, and world-champion put-downs he's famous for. When he does give descriptions, he does so only when he has an outrageous one, and those are always good. But most of us don't need every scene of the story described in painting-with-words detail to enjoy it.

"This book," he says, "is like listening to a podcast about a movie which you don't get to watch."

Okay, here I call bullshit. I can see why, if he prefers the long descriptions of events in between the witty dialogue, or the great battles of ships in space, or even a picturesque description of what those ships look like, he might feel a bit cheated. But Scalzi is part of a class of writers I call the Ultra-Fans, who were raised on sci-fi, really know about what fanboys like, and serve it up - red hot! This isn't Herman Melville, here! Nor is it Jean LeCarre! This is John Fucking Scalzi! The man who writes dialogue fans live for! And we can abridge the stuff in between and get to the good stuff because that's Scalzi's brand!

In other words, Scalzi's stuff is pure candy. And yet here sits Burrage, complaining about its low nutritional value. Well, no shit, Sherlock! What did you expect? Scalzi is meant to be delicious, not nutritious! 

"I knew what sort of book this was going in," he claims, "and I was still disappointed."

No, sir, you didn't. You knew it was sugar, ate it all at one sitting anyway, gave yourself a tummyache, and now you're blaming the confectionery. Well then, eat less candy! But don't tell us that Scalzi's editor should have made him go back and include a salad!

Okay, I get it. Some people might not appreciate too much frosting and not enough cake. But others live for the frosting. Those are Scalzi's fans. If Luke hasn't as much of a sweet tooth, that's fine, but he oughtn't be telling a pastry chef to serve more vegetables!

One thing that really stood out for me, and made me research who the hell Burrage really was, was his comment calling himself an "A-lister in science fiction," and this gave him the right to demand more from Scalzi. Really? Burrage is on the A-list? Yes, his podcast has been around a long, long time (since 2008), but this guy is no Gardner Dozois! How dare he claim a chair at the grown-ups table!

Scalzi wrote at the end, "This was a very satisfying writing experience for me. I hope that it was satisfying for you as well. Thank you for coming along with me." Apparently, Burrage doesn't appreciate this sort of thing. He says it's like having sex, and telling the person you're with that you just had sex, and that you hope the person found it as fun. He went off on this for several minutes, saying what a horrible postscript this was. Okay, I can understand how that might annoy you if you didn't like the book, but shit, man! It's just a postscript! It didn't deserve adding an extra ten minutes onto your podcast just to complain about that.

I think what Luke was trying to say, without actually getting around to saying it despite having 83 minutes in which to do so, is that Scalzi's work seems geared to audiobook format. It's for people who want to hear what's being said, and don't want extensive details breaking up the tete-a-tete. This is true! Scalzi and the other Ultra-Fans, such as Ernest Cline, Dennis E. Taylor, James S.A. Corey, Hugh Howey, Cory Doctorow, and Andy Weir, are all people who appeal directly to the fans, and they don't give a rat's ass about what higher literary critics might have to say. And yes, audiobook does influence writers to write more pop dialogue and less purple prose, especially since e-books and piracy have made audio versions more profitable than print books by far. Burrage can complain about this until the proverbial cows come home. But he is the man who also gave a bad review to The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal - which won the Nebula Award! So that tells you just how finicky his particular tastes are.

As for Scalzi, expect the same fun and wit as you found in the first two books of the Interdependency Trilogy. Nothing about it was disappointing to me, although the ending did have an unusual twist which I found odd. The main character, Emperox Grayland II, saw a plot to assassinate her, and instead of thwarting it, which she could have done easily, chose instead to die and let her consciousness be uploaded into a computer, where she ended up defeating her enemies posthumously. She did this, she said, to prevent any further attempts on her life, which is a bit like curing the disease by killing the patient. That was a left-turn which I found unnecessary. I kept expecting Grayland to re-emerge as her living, breathing self, having fooled everyone into thinking that she'd died. But no. She and her lover, the physicist Marce Claimont, never get their happily-ever-after. Okay, stories are expected to have unexpected twists to break up the cliches, but I never expected Scalzi, of all people, to go all "George R.R. Martin" on us.

Aside from that? A great book! Find it, read it, love it!

And Luke? If you ever read this (which I doubt), I'll go on listening to your podcast, but try to be more understanding of the many, many fans who do not share your bizarre tastes in literature, please?

Eric

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Was George R.R. Martin Racist And Transphobic At The Hugos?

A lot of folks aren't happy with George R.R. Martin's performance as host of the 66th annual Hugo Awards Ceremony, part of ConZealand, the 1st WorldCon held in that country. Well, technically not actually "held in." Which is part of what makes R.R. Martin's performance so abysmal. Much of his presentation was pre-recorded, thus giving him time to correct major mishaps, like mispronouncing names or generally acting like a doofus.

Some are saying that George was acting like a racist. Others are saying he was being transphobic. Was he?

The short answer is, no, I don't think so. He was just being an old fart. Let me explain my reasons.

It's true, George spent an inordinate amount of time reminding people of the central role played by John W. Campbell, and this didn't go over well in a year when the award for Best New Writer had been changed from the "John W. Campbell Award," to the "Astounding Award."

During the 2019 Hugos, Jeannette Ng, who won the award, took the stage and said, "John W. Campbell, for whom this award is named, was a fucking fascist!" There was cheers, applause, and from some, gasps of shock. But it really isn't so shocking, in retrospect. Michael Moorcock had been calling Campbell a fascist for years, as Ng reminded all of us when she won the Hugo again this year for Best Related Work. Samuel R. Delaney recounted how his manuscripts were sometimes rejected by Campbell because he didn't feel a black main character would be appreciated by his readers.

So was George R.R. Martin's repeated nods to this racist dick really an affront to Jeannette? Was it meant to undermine the inclusive turn the Hugos took?

I don't think so. In one of his many historical ramblings (and I apologize, I went through the streaming cast one more time looking for the exact quote, and couldn't find where it was in the 3+ hour video, so I'm going ahead without it), he said something like, "Some people said that too many men were winning the award before. Some say too many women are winning it now. I say that's all nonsense. It's about excellence, and always has been." That should have put the whole thing to bed. But somehow, things being what they are these days, it didn't.

Let's remember that it was Martin who took a leading role in rallying the troops against the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies. It was Martin who defended many female sci-fi writers, and wrote many of the strongest female lead characters of all time. And it was Martin who taught us how fun it is to watch wealthy white people die in gruesome ways.

Yes, George made a stupid joke about the Oscar technically being a eunuch, because he had nothing "down there." Natalie Luhrs wrote in a blog about the event. “There was also a whole segment about the Oscar statuette and its crotch,” she also wrote. “It was gender essentialist and transphobic.”

No, Natalie, it was an old fart making a bad joke. Let's call it what it is. And it wasn't a "whole segment." It was a joke in passing, which George flummoxed.

We need to face facts that George R.R. Martin is old, and has lost some flexibility. Ever since he abandoned science fiction for fantasy he has had his eyes more on the past than on the future. Like most people his age, he's preoccupied more with what happened 50 years ago than what he ate for breakfast this morning. But that doesn't mean we should treat him like Al Franken. (Hell, we shouldn't be treating Al Franken like Al Franken!)

My real fear is that, now that Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies have been put to sleep, we make the Hugos so politically correct that they become a joke to the moderate centrists of the world. We won't win any friends, not that way. And we won't achieve the wonderful humanistic worlds many sci-fi authors dream of, either. No, let's keep our integrity. Sci-fi can be a little less white and male today without trying to irrationally copy the outrage machine of the radical right.

John W. Campbell should be thought of as the crappy uncle we have to put up with during holiday dinners. We can't get rid of him, because he's family. But we can tell the kids to avoid him. And, of course, there's always grandpa, the one person at the party who offers him a beer and talks with the gross bastard all night long.

That's George. George has fond memories of Campbell, even though Campbell was a shit. George is the grandpa who keeps the jerk from being totally ostracized. That's because George is the type of guy who just has to be nice to everybody. Does that make him a pariah? No. It makes him old. And maybe a little old-fashioned, too.

Meanwhile, the kids have their table, and the young adults have their table. Good. Let them. But I'll be damned if I let any of them kick grandpa in the shins at desert!

So, thank you, Mr. Martin. Not for your Hugo performance. Your jokes sucked, and your hats were ridiculous. But you stood by women during some of their darkest days in science fiction. That earns you a pass for mentioning John Campbell once too often, in my book.

I hope the sci-fi community of today remembers that.

Eric

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Sad Puppies, Rabid Puppies, and Republicans Screwing With Your Vote

[Note: The following is an excerpt from my history of science fiction, "The Trek Wars Tardis." It has been slightly edited in the intro, but it otherwise unaltered.]

Republicans don't give a damn about your vote.

Case in point, Donald Trump's recent tweet where he floated the question on possibly postponing the election. He said, "With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history."

The problem, of course, is that Absentee Voting and Mail-In voting ARE EXACTLY THE SAME DAMNED THING! This proves, once and for all, from Trump's own, damned, mouth, that Republicans cheat.

And this Tweet follows a general pattern in recent years of the Alt-Right not only not caring about the integrity of the vote, they see fairness in voting as their absolute enemy. They don't want the vote to be fair. They don't care that there's more of us than there are of them! Cheating means nothing to them. They want to rule us - from below.

Even in the reclusive world of science fiction, this trend can be seen. Case in point is the strange case of the "Sad Puppies" and "Rabid Puppies." Between 2013 and 2016, a band of more conservative writers waged a campaign to shift the Hugo Awards away from what they saw as “touchy-feely,” feminist, and left-leaning writing to more masculine, right-wing, libertarian authors. To poke fun at those they were campaigning against, they riffed on an SPCA ad done by Sarah McLachlan (in which she appeared with a golden retriever) and called it the “Sad Puppies Think of the Children Campaign.” Later, this was shortened simply to, “Sad Puppies.”

The Sad Puppies were initially led by fantasy writer Larry Correia (1977 - ?) who strongly felt his popular fantasy novels, such as his Monster Hunter series and Grimoir Chronicles, were being passed over in favor of leftist, feminist, writers. He had been nominated for a John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2011, and observed how many people had “freaked out” over his conservative views. When he didn’t win, he blamed “the liberals.” During the 2013 Worldcon, he organized a little over 100 voting members and used them to get more right-leaning and populist authors nominated, focusing primarily on his own novel, Monster Hunter Legion (2012). This initial effort fell 17 votes shy of getting Correia’s novel nominated. But the Sad Puppies were just getting started. None of the other recommended writers were nominated.

In 2014, he tried again. This time, he organized a slate so that people could vote as an organized bloc. The Sad Puppies succeeded in getting 7 out of 12 nominees onto the final ballot, including Correia’s novel, Warbound, Book III of the Grimoir Chronicles (2013). However, Correia lost to Ann Leckie’s novel, Ancillary Justice. None of the Sad Puppies slate nominees won a Hugo.

In 2015, the Sad Puppies tried once more to steal the balloting from “the Left.” This time, they were led by Brad R. Torgersen, who recommended five times the number of authors that Correia had. He also added a new twist to the Sad Puppies’ rationale. He argued that the Hugos had become too interested in high literary form, and needed to return to its more traditional pulp fiction and populist roots. He even included a few minority and female authors on the slate to diffuse potential criticism. In the end, this new tactic fooled almost no one.

By this point, the Sad Puppies had gotten the attention of a radical named Vox Day (Theodore Robert Beale). He organized a second slate, even more extreme-focused than Torgersen’s. He called his block “Rabid Puppies,” emphasizing that his was the more radical version of the same idea (and creating no end of confusion, as two groups with the same goal now had completely contradictory names). The year before, there had been a controversy known as “Gamergate,” in which several women who spoke out against sexism and misogyny in the video game industry were harassed for speaking out. Vox Day, in a particularly sleazy move, reached out to those who sided against the women of Gamergate so they could add their votes to the Hugos and stuff the ballot for the Rabid Puppies slate.

The net result of the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies’ joint slates (although both differed somewhat), was devastating. 51 out of 60 Sad Puppy recommendations were nominated. 58 out of 67 Rabid Puppy recommendations were nominated. The effect was so overwhelming, that in five categories, Best Related Work, Best Short Story, Best Novella, Best Editor (Short Form), and Best Editor (Long Form), all the nominees were Puppy nominees!

Some within the SF community saw what had been happening in previous years and were worried, but now they became outright alarmed! Key people withing science fiction and fantasy began rallying their fan base to the cause of beating the “Puppies” back, and the counter-campaign worked! They were too late to correct the nominations, but they could influence the final voting, and DID! Voting memberships for Sasquon (the 61st Worldcon in Spokane, Washington) went through the roof! George R.R. Martin rallied fans to the cause on his blog. He called the incident “Puppygate,” and suggested that the Hugos may be irrevocably broken. John Scalzi rallied his fan base. Scalzi’s friend and frequent narrator, Wil Wheaton (Wesley Crusher, from Star Trek: The Next Generation), spoke out against the Puppies. Connie Willis withdrew as a presenter. Mark Kloos withdrew his novel, Lines of Departure, from consideration. Several other nominees also withdrew. Edmund Schubert tried to withdraw his nomination for Best Editor, but missed the deadline.

The sci-fi fan base prevailed! In the end, the Sad/Rabid Puppy votes were only 19% of the overall total. Cixn Liu’s book, The Three Body Problem, which had been translated from Chinese, and was one of the few nominees that weren’t Puppy-influenced, won the Hugo for Best Novel. In other categories, the Puppies lost outright. In all five categories where all nominees were Puppy-nominees, the award went to – no one! The votes for “none” outweighed any other considerations. The presenters – David Gerrold and Tananarive Due – tried their best to retain their composure every time another “No Award” was handed out, but even they couldn’t keep from looking a bit awkward and embarrassed as things developed.

And yet, despite the fans’ success in thwarting the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies, it should be noted that the Puppy-bloc was successful in keeping many other deserving authors from being nominated. With five Hugos lost, potentially five careers missed their opportunity. All for the sake of right-wing politics.

At the 2016 Worldcon, the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies tried again. This time, many media outlets were on to what had been happening. The previous Worldcon had gotten the attention of media outlets such as Slate, Wired, NPR, and Vox, and no one was sneaking up on the nomination process this time. But the Puppies, too, were on to the game changes, and expected such a move. This time, the recommendation list was put together by Australian short-story writer, Kate Paulk, and she changed tactics in an interesting way. Instead of pushing hard to get specific recommendations through, she watered down the recommendations by adding so many names to the Puppy list that it became nearly impossible for protest voters to exclude them all! On the Sad Puppies 4 list, there were 10 recommendations just for best novel alone. Altogether, the Sad Puppies recommended a whopping 123 names! The protest vote couldn’t keep all of them from being nominated, no matter how hard they tried! The Rabid Puppies, again organized by Vox Day, followed suit by making 81 recommendations, many of which were already popular minority writers. Of course, this tactic had the additional effect of watering down the intended outcome of the vote, but this time, they wanted to send a different message. Instead of, “We want the right-wing authors to be heard!” the message was, “We’re not going away, and you can’t make us leave!”

After 2016, the Hugo Awards Committee finally had enough. They implemented a change in the vote tally system (cleverly nicknamed “E pluribus Hugo”) so that bloc voting could not stuff the ballot. In other words, the more names that got written down on a ballot, the more that ballot’s point totals for each nominee got subdivided. This change had been proposed after the 2015 Sasquon fiasco, but it had taken a couple of years to work its way through the system. Never again would the Sad Puppies or Rabid Puppies be able to put their thumbs on the scale.

The Puppies tried in 2017 anyway. This time, Sarah Hoyt led the Sad Puppies campaign. But she failed miserably, and it fell dead off the table. The recommended list was supposedly forthcoming, but never came. The Rabid Puppies, still led by Vox Day, altered tactics by recommending only one name in each category to maximize the impact of the vote. This succeeded in getting one nominee in most categories, but it also revealed how paltry a minority the Rabid Puppies were. None of the Rabid Puppy nominees won.

In 2018, neither group staged an attempt to steal the vote, and thus ended “Puppygate.” But it was a lesson to all that even the literary world was not insulated from political extremism.

Now, if that's how much the Alt-Right is willing to cheat over a science fiction award, imagine how much they'll want to cheat in 2020!




Eric

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