Jay Weber and The Cult of Right-Wing Media

 

Well, holy shit! Trump got Covid!

Okay, by now, the shock has worn off, and most people have gone back to the perspective they had before. In particular, conservative screed-weavers have gone back to their usual sheep-bleating in favor of Trump, in spite of the proven failure on top of proven failure which is his Covid-19 illness.

Just for funzies, I decided to tune in to 1130 WISN radio during my morning commute to listen to Jay Weber and hear what the right-wingers might have to say. I hadn't listened to Jay Weber in years, but this was a special occasion. What would he say about Trump? I was surprised to hear - or rather NOT hear - nothing about it whatsoever! Instead, I got treated to some horrendous, bald-faced lies attempting to spin Kaylee McInerny's press conference on Wednesday into something where Trump decried white supremacists. (More on that, later.)

Really? Fucking really? Maybe I've been negligent in ignoring idiots like Jay Weber.

What I've come to realize lately, and I'm ashamed to admit that it took me this long to fully grok the concept, is that Conservative Media has become an outright cult! I, who have studied religion for decades, should have seen it much, much sooner. But now that I have, I can't UN-see it! Evidence for Conservative Media being a cult is everywhere! And nowhere more so than on the Jay Weber show on the morning of October 2nd.

Here's what I heard on the Jay Weber show last Friday morning. I shit you not, this actually happened, on the air. 

"I'd like to play for you a couple of audio cuts from yesterday's White House briefing that the average working American is never going to hear. These briefings take place, of course, during the day and, they don't get a lot of tune-in from the public, so most Americans never see the brow-beating that President Trump's press secretary takes nearly daily and what a farce these are - daily. Nor do they hear the stellar answers that come from Trump's - people. But most of what occurs in the White House briefing room never reaches the air or gets reported on because 9 times out of 10, the press person, whether it's Sean Spicer or Sarah Sanders or now Kaylee McEneny - who's really good - 9 times out of 10, they slam the question and the answer doesn't fit the reporters preconceived notion of what it would be so the don't print it. If they don't get the answer they want, they won't print it or broadcast it. They're only really going for gotcha moments in these briefings, which is why I, as a former journalist, who will always defend the right of the free and honest press, urge the Trump administration to not even have these daily briefings. I cheered when these ended because they weren't journalists looking for information, they were grand-standers looking for their moment in the sun. I don't know why McEnany went back to them, but they did. It's just left-wing activists looking for camera attention. But, yesterday following Trump's debate performance that these D.C. elites found so distasteful, the press corps was in a sour fighting mood for some reason. They wanted to continue this false narrative that the racist Trump didn't denounce white supremacists during the debate, when he absolutely did! Listen back to it. He absolutely did! Twice! He was asked 'would he do it?' twice by Chris Wallace, and he said, 'sure, sure I do!' Twice!"

Okay, no he did not. He said "sure, I will," and then DIDN'T! Weber's refusal to see the difference between Trump saying he would say it, and actually saying it, is one of the more obvious things Trump opponents have ever had to debunk. And it was SUCH A SOFTBALL QUESTION! All Trump had to do was say, "I denounce white supremacists!" And he would likely have won back some center-right voters, gone up in the polls, and possibly even put himself in a position to win!

But he couldn't do it!

And Weber? Weber's in denial about it. But he knows by voicing his denial over the airwaves he lends legitimacy to the false perception, which, of course, is the whole point.

"But the entire left-wing media complex ignored that, because he had butchered what came afterward with the Proud Boys, you know, he butchered that take with the Proud Boys..."

See? Even Weber can't ignore that part!

"...which, by the way, is not a white supremacist organization. The leader of this organization is black and Cuban. One-fifth of their members are minority. They have said forever they are not a white supremacist organization and they denounce racism, to the point where the leader of this - Proud Boys is suing Joe Biden and his campaign over calling them white supremacists! So, just another instance of which, truth and details don't matter to the Left, they're going to plow ahead with the narrative. And boy do they!"

Okay, technically the Proud Boys aren't white-supremacist. They are neo-fascist, ultra right-wing, and male-only. None of that is particularly much better. Trump could have denounced the Proud Boys right then and there. But he didn't. He didn't say, "I denounce white supremacists," and he didn't say, "I denounce the Proud Boys." Instead he said, "Stand back and stand by."

To fascists. He said that to fascists. Hey, Jay Weber? That's not much of an excuse, you turd.

"In a perfect display of what the Left-wing media do, John Roberts of Fox News decides to be an ass and ask, yet again, for, you know, does Trump denounce white supremacy?"

"[Recording of McEnany's press conference on Thursday, October 1st] {Roberts:} 'As the person who speaks for the President, does the President denounce white supremacism, and groups that espouse it, in all their forms?'

"{McEnany:} 'This has been answered, yesterday by the President himself, the day before by the President himself on the debate stage, the President was asked this, he said "sure" three times. [Oh, now it's three times?] Yesterday, he was point-blank asked, 'Do you denounce white supremacy?' and he said, 'I've always denounced any form of that.' I can go back and read for you on August 2019, 'In one voice our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy.' In August of 2017, 'Racism is evil and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups." I have an entire list of these quotes that I can go through with you. He has condemned white supremacy more than any president in modern history.'"

The president said, "sure" when he said would make the declaration, but fell short of making the declaration itself, then seemed to give a verbal thumbs-up to the Proud Boys. Some conservatives have argued that the "sure" is enough. But it really isn't. Not when Trump has repeatedly laced his denunciations of white-supremacy with ambiguity and a "both sides" mentality. When Trump "denounced" the day before, he simply said, "I've always denounced any form of that." Of that. Meaning, he can't even bring himself to say it outright. He has to play the pronoun game! And that's the sort of thing dog-whistles are meant to do: send these subtle messages in the form of dodging the act of saying the denial directly. McEnany's quote from 2017 is precisely when Trump infamously said that there was bad behavior "on both sides." The part that McEnany leaves out from Trump's quote from 2019 is that he was goaded into finally making that statement by a mass shooting at a Walmart in Texas by a white supremacist who happened to be a big fan of Trump!

So it's quite understandable why any reporter would want a clear, unambiguous, current statement just this once.

"{Roberts:} 'Just to clear it up, this morning, can you, naming it, make a declarative statement that the President denounces it?'

"{McEnany:} 'I just did. The President has denounced this repeatedly.'

At this point, they start talking over one another, and it becomes difficult to follow.

"{Roberts:} 'You give quotes from the past. I'm just...'

"{McEnany:} 'The president was asked this. You're making, you're contriving a story line and a narrative...'

"{Roberts:} 'No, I'm not. I'm just asking you to put this to rest.'

"{McEnany:} 'I just did. I read you all of the quotes, and if you need to see them in writing... '

"{Roberts:} 'You read me past quotes. Can you do it currently?'

"{McEnany:} '...I will put them in an email. Call me.'

"{Roberts:} 'So, Kaylee, how does the - Can you, right now, denounce white supremacy and the groups that espouse it?'

"{McEnany:} 'I just did! The President has denounced...'

"{Roberts:} 'You read a bunch of quotes from the past.'

 "{McEnany:} '...white supremacy, the KKK, and hate groups in all forms. He signed a resolution to that effect. The president just last week, perhaps you all weren't covering it, but just last week, expressed his desire to see the KKK prosecuted as domestic terrorists. This president had advocated for the death penalty for a white supremacist, the first federal execution in 17 years. His record on this is unmistakable, and it's shameful that the media refuses to cover it.'"

The best defense I can come up with for McEnany's behavior here is that she didn't want to be led on. She didn't want the reporter to dictate the terms. In other contexts, that might be fine. But he was asking a legitimate question: 'That was then, this is now, can you give a denouncement NOW?' And, like her boss, Kaylee couldn't do it! The dog-whistle of ambiguity regarding the response got blown, loud and clear to the kennel!

Trump expressed his desire to prosecute the KKK AND ANTIFA as domestic terrorists. Let's be clear, Trump was doing his "both sides" bullshit again! Sure, he signed a resolution, because when a piece of paper, written by someone else, is presented to him, and all he has to do is sign it, that's easy for him. But again, this signed declaration came as a result of the 2017 Charlottesville debacle in which he verbally said something contradictory to the signed paper! And the death penalty is something Trump has long been in favor of. The fact that the first one just happened to be a white supremacist was probably meant more to silence the naysayers than it was to establish Trump as some sort of anti-racist.

Weber, of course, didn't bother to mention any of that, and sided with McEnany. "Isn't that astounding?" he said. "Just to clear it up. Just to clear it up! She just went through it! John Roberts: 'Does the president categorically deny? No hedges?' 'Yes! He's done so repeatedly.' She reads a literal laundry list of times Trump has done it, dating back to the first campaign, by the way, Trump has never expressed any support for these groups and he's denounced them every time he's been asked. McEnany cites a literal laundry-list of denials, Roberts' response is: 'But you haven't answered the question.' What?! See, this is the East-Coast media, my friends. It has been going on forever, but it really got bad under Bush and it's now out of control under President Trump. They refuse to acknowledge the reality of the facts and listen to what's being said to them, so they can preserve the narrative."

Of course, he clearly wasn't listening to the same press conference the rest of us were. Because the reporter wanted, finally, a clear and unambiguous condemnation from the President's own lips, or at the very least, from the lips of the Press Secretary. And she couldn't do it, either! She kept repeating "I just did," when she clearly hadn't! She read past denials, all of which were ambiguous, indirect or had special circumstances surrounding them. When has Trump EVER not had a string attached regarding a condemnation of white supremacists?!

The Press Gaggle knew. That's why John Roberts, of FOX NEWS, no less, pressed the issue! Even some on the Right-wing media are getting it.

Jay Weber claims to be a former journalist. Now we know why. He couldn't cut it as a truth-teller.

"After days of this Proud Boyz nonsense," begins Weber again after commercial break, "Kaylee McEneny had this to say to reporters about how they ignore Antifa:

"[Continuation of McEnany's press conference on Thursday, October 1st] 'They misreport, take out of context, ignore the verbatim words of this president when he denounced white supremacy yesterday, when he denounced it at the debate, when he's denounced it more than any other president in modern history. Um, and in fact, something else lost upon the media is the absolute turning of a blind eye to Antifa. Carrying the water for the Democrats, the media, apparently agrees with Jerry Nadler that Antifa violence is a myth. In August Senate hearings, Democrats refused to condemn Antifa. Again, no journalistic curiosity here, despite the fact that Andy Ngo, who was a victim of Antifa, said Democrats have mastered - Democrats, he should add the media, too - have mastered the art of making its violence appear innocuous. Their violence is not innocuous. Antifa is not an idea. Andy Ngo can tell you that because he was beaten by a group of protesters - Antifa protesters - suffering brain-bleed. Another man can tell you this, who in 2019, the victim, his name was Adam Kelly, suffered from a concussion and got 25 staples in his head, but still silence from Democrats ignoring this group, from Democrats. Um, and in fact, as we saw recently, there was a Trump supporter who was killed by a 100% Antifa man, that is how he described himself, and again, no reporting here, but I guess I did the job of the media by getting this information myself, this man who was 100% Antifa, this man, in fact, had been arrested before, at 2:00 a.m. on July 5th in a public protest, carrying an illegal weapon, he resisted arrest, he was taken to jail where he was merely given a citation, put back on the street, and the very next month, this 100% Antifa man was lying in wait before he killed an innocent Trump supporter. Ideas do not target police officers. Ideas do not burn down buildings. Ideas do not kill innocent Americans. Organizations do, and Democrats should condemn this shameful group in the same manner President Trump continues to condemn white supremacy.'"

Whew! Let's take a breath an dissect this one. There's too much bullshit for me to unpack in this post, or it would turn into a novella. Instead, let me start by picking apart McEnany's assertions that Trump "Denounced white supremacy when he denounced it at the debate." But he didn't. Again, when Trump was asked if he would denounce white supremacists, Trump at first said, "Sure." Now, right there, some Trump-defenders say, "That's enough." They say, "See? He denounced them!" But no, he didn't! He merely said he would, future tense, do so. So did he? NO! He then wavered, asking Wallace "What should I call them?" and Wallace clarified, among others, "Proud Boyz..." at which point Trump famously said, "Stand back and stand by."

No objective analysis of that moment can conclude anything other than that Trump not only didn't condemn white supremacists, he actually seemed to encourage them! But McEnany does not stop there! She goes on to say, "he's denounced it more than any other president in modern history."

This goes way beyond mere hyperbole. The idea, of course, is to over-exaggerate so much that the base feels that the smallest nugget must be true. "Oh, she wouldn't have said something that outrageous if there wasn't a small nugget of truth to it!" OH, YES SHE WOULD! And she did! It was a lie so incredible, so egregious, that the only term that applies is 'Pure, unadulterated horse-shit!' And the fact that a press secretary, speaking on behalf of the President of the United States, would so plainly, obviously LIE, is enough to drive one to despair.

Now, she proceeds to describe the horrible attack on Andy Ngo, and it was indeed horrible what happened to him. But that attack took place way, way back in June of 2019! Really, McEnany? You couldn't find anything more recent than that? Same thing with Adam Kelley. In fact, it was at the exact same protest on June 29 of 2019 that his attack took place as well! And what was going on in Portland back then? Why, some Proud Boyz AND Conservative activist Haley Adams of the "Him Too Movement," were staging a rally there in support of James Fields Jr., who was sentenced to life in prison in Charlottesville, Virginia, for ramming his car into counter-protesters of a “Unite the Right” rally in 2017, killing one and injuring dozens of others!

In other words, "Antifa" wasn't fighting, they were fighting back! 

And this was the most recent set of examples McEnany could come up with?

Lastly, she cites the man who killed a Trump supporter. The man she was referring to is named Michael Roenoehl, who said in an interview with VICE that he felt he had to shoot the man because he believed he and his friend were about to be stabbed!

Roenoehl never got a chance to plead his case. Federal officers shot and killed him when attempting an arrest.

Now, had this man's name been Michael Rittenhouse instead of Michael Roenoehl, the Right-wing media machine would have lionized him. "Self-defense!" they would have said. But the "Liberal Left-wing media" simply ignored him. See the difference? In balanced media, killers are not lionized!

And does any of this prove that Antifa is not "just an idea?" NO! Because these were individual acts, made by individual people! None of this proves the existence of any sort of organization! Antifa, in fact, is deliberately disorganized! It may have people who, on their own, ascribe to it, but it has no leaders, no meetings, no newsletter, no email list. It's just, as Biden said: an idea. Anti-fascism. Simple. 

McEnany says, "Ideas do not kill innocent Americans. Organizations do." Wrong again! People do! Whether they are part of an organization or not!

Now, most media outlets have heard this kind of non-stop bullshit from McEnany before during her press conferences, debunked it repeatedly, and had no interest in debunking it yet again. They know when she says "President Trump continues to denounce white supremacy," they know she's full of shit! So they rightly ignored her this time, because she's been spewing this same nonsense, and apparently the same names, for over a year, now. But Jay Weber completely blows past all that. In pure anti-journalistic fashion, Jay Weber takes McEnany at her actual word, not bothering to outline anything I just detailed above!

"But instead of reporting it," Weber says, "the members of the White House Press Corp ignored that. I swear to you! The left-wing blogs characterize this as a wild rant and a meltdown by McEnany, they use it to trash her, and the, you know, the credible news organizations, the so-called-quote "credible" news organizations that were sitting there, had reporters right there, didn't report on it. As a former journalist, that's what makes my blood boil. With the Antifa thing? It was still ignored by the so-called reporters that are sitting right there listening to it! They still didn't report a thing she said! Not even a story about how, "Well, boy, the White House sure is angry over this Antifa thing!" Total blackout! On that minute or so that you heard, there. And the only reason not to report on it, is because they are what Kaylee says they are. Honestly. For a journalist to sit through this and find none of it newsworthy, just to repor - not - even just to report on how the White House feels it's being treated unfairly, it' s just journalistic malfeasance! I've done this job. For two dozen reporters to sit in that room and watch this, and put a dark blanket over it afterward suggests one thing: They are who we say they are. They are the left-wing activists masquerading as journalists that we have long said they are."

Now, Jay Weber's listeners are likely uninformed as to how McEnany has spewed this crap before and had it totally shot down. Why should they be? If they're people who like shows like his, the odds of them being informed as to McEnany's lies are remote. So Jay Weber knows he can say this and get away with it!

But Jay Weber KNOWS McEnany has said this before, he KNOWS that it's shit, and he covers it this way regardless! And has the NERVE to say that it makes HIS blood boil!

Either that, or he's as insulated as his listeners are, and by no means can I rule that out!

He makes the signature move of any cult. Exclude the opposing opinion! Twist the truth until it's completely unrecognizable. Then ground your audience to accept only your word exclusively.

In case you aren't familiar, the primary elements of a cult are simply these:

1) Lure people into the inner circle.

2) Isolate those people from any outside world influences.

3) Emphasize loyalty only to the inner circle.

4) Excommunicate all those former members who speak out against the inner circle.

We see this constantly. Once people are lured into the Trumpism circle, a.k.a. the Church of Right-Wing Media, they are constantly told to isolate themselves against "liberal media." They are even told, on occasion, that any balanced media sources are "The enemy of the people." Remember that one? Jay Weber executes this perfectly, depicting the balanced media as not only left-leaning, but outright left-wing activists! His listeners will actually believe this! Because they likely hear no opposing opinions. They have been effectively shielded from competing ideas by their own doctrine!

What if there are apostates? What if Jay Weber's primary competition, the man who eclipsed him for decades, the one and only Charlie Sykes, speaks up and says that these people have lost their minds? Well, then they are ostracized! Condemned! The Lincoln Project? It gets declared a RINO outlet. Same thing for The Bulwark. Charlie Sykes, once the most trusted conservative on Milwaukee Radio, doesn't even count anymore. Not to them. He's a "suppressive."

Just out of curiosity, I went back to hear what Jay said earlier in the morning. Just to make sure he said something about Trump having come down with Covid. Sure enough, he said some stuff early on, like at 6:00 in the morning, and then moved on to other things. "I don't want the whole program to be about just that one thing," he said. 'Nothing to see, here!' was basically the message on that. Here are some of the highlights of what he said early on in that broadcast:

Around minute 17, you hear this:

"In fact, former White House doctor, Ronnie Jackson, has already said, 'I'll bet you that he [Trump] does not develop symptoms and he moves on and this does not become a big deal.' Well, that's why the bigger deal is how it affects the campaign. At the very least it makes the Coronavirus the preeminent issue of the campaign again. You know the  left is going to pile on. They're gonna pretend that karma got Trump. They'll claim he's an example of people who don't take it seriously, you know. 'He wasn't careful and he encouraged other people, you know, to be, to be sloppy, and he got sick. He flouted the rules!' You'll hear a torrent of crap about this, and it's going to be insufferable. But the truth is Trump has been careful. He and the people around him have been tested daily, sometimes twice, they've been doing temperature checks on everyone coming into the White House, they were doing temperature checks on everyone going into the rallies. Trump hasn't been saying, 'Don't follow the rules and don't be careful.' He's been saying, 'We can't cower in fear and we have to live our lives.' "Oh, it's just so sloppy and awful and irresponsible..." Oh, you're gonna hear that today. Who cares?! Tune it out over the weekend, by Monday it might have calmed down. But you know they're going to try and flog this all they can on the Left. You know, we can't close down an economy for two years waiting for this to go away. But the Left will twist this all around and it'll be a weekend of high-whining and ninnying and preening over this."

And this was pretty much what everybody was saying that day. "Ignore the obvious implications, don't blame Trump for his own ineptitude, ignore it, and by Monday it will all go away."

And here I thought Trump ignoring things, and his fans ignoring Trump, was the very thing which got us into this mess in the first place.

And there it is again. The primary tenets of the Cult of Conservative Media. 1) Don't trust any balanced media source. Only trust US. The cult doesn't want you to see outside opinions or have a balanced outlook.

There's more. A lot more. And I could go on with this at some considerable length. But you get the idea. And all this crap was from a small sample of the kind of bile this moron spews on the airwaves for three whole hours, every single day, every working day, out of nearly the entire year!

And this is just one out of half a dozen or so conservative pundits who are on the radio for the entire remainder of the day!

And there are dozens more of these nitwits on television!

No wonder people are so confused about someone as obvious at Trump!

It's a cult, people! These radio preachers are its "ministers," (I hate using that term, because they don't "minister" to anybody!), Hannity and Limbaugh are its Cardinals, McEnany is the High Priestess and Trump is the Golden Calf whom they all worship.

Now that we know it's a cult, let's fight it like one!

Eric

*

The Supreme Court

 

By now, it should be abundantly clear, the Republicans are going to use the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg to ram through a conservative justice onto the Supreme Court. Never mind what Lindsey Graham said last year - if he were concerned about integrity he never would have kissed up to Donald Trump in the first place. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins aren't enough. With Mitt Romney announcing that he will allow a hearing for Trump's SCOTUS pick, the stage seems set for RBG to be replaced with a conservative woman, because Trump has already announced that it will be a female justice. Amy Coney Barrett is the early favorite.

The irony that a conservative woman is only considerable as a candidate because of RBG's tireless, liberal championing of women's rights, will be entirely lost on the Republicans pushing for this.

What could I add that hasn't been said a thousand-fold already? Simply this:

There's not much that can be done to stop it. Republicans hold the votes in the Senate to get it done. So fight it tooth and toenail, and then plan to ride the backlash!

"But that means a 6-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court!" you argue. "Gay marriage, religious freedom for non-Christians, and of course, Roe v. Wade will all be overturned!"

Yes, but I don't think for long. IF we play our cards right.

Look what happened in Ireland in 2018. After years of Catholic-influenced anti-abortion laws, Ireland changed and legalized abortion. There was cheering in the streets! And the Catholic Church, for all its influence, found itself on the outside looking in.

The best argument for abortion's legalization was a period when it was illegal! People learned the hard way! (As they so often must.)

I liken this to a "prohibition moment," similar to when alcohol prohibition was in full force here in the U.S. (And this, too, was the result of a militantly conservative movement!) During that period, there was not only organized crime, fueled by the underground trade in booze, but also flippant violation of the law. People needed the outlet, and a little over a decade later, prohibition was overturned.

There will be a similar backlash once abortion is outlawed. If you think it's over once the Supreme Court has ruled, you're wrong! The fight will only have just begun!

Oh, it will be horrible, to be sure. There will be great suffering. Two generations of young women have never had to cope with the twin nightmares of coat-hanger abortions or back-alley abortions. Some young women will die. Some will flee abroad for the services they cannot get here. But after all the suffering that will ensue, after the hard lessons have been learned, the ban on abortion will be ended. And a new ban will no more be considered than a new ban on alcohol.

And what will conservative Christians fight for after that? Where can they go slay more dragons? Well, who knows? It could be that Christians will return to the old standbys of feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, healing the sick - you know, those values Jesus advocated. Remember those?

About two and a half years ago, I incurred the wrath of my wife for nearly publishing a post on this blog which argued that we on the Left should do a strategic retreat on the subject of abortion. The rationale was based on the recognition that all of the fervor of conservative media, all of the vitriol and hate-porn, is driven by the abortion debate. Remove that item from the equation, and much of the fervor behind conservative media dies.

It would be a little bit like the dog who finally catches up to the sports car, and has no idea what to do with it afterwards.

My wife's counterargument was a valid one. She told me that it would be too large a sacrifice to make if that assessment were wrong. The sacrifice might become permanent.

Well, now we don't have a choice, do we?

When Roe v. Wade falls, we must be ready to make that prohibition moment happen. When the wind goes out of the sails of the conservative media machine, we must tear at it with everything we've got!

Oh, and you guys at NARAL and NOW, who ignored me when I argued that emphasizing fetal brain development was the proper way to fight? Well, YOU'RE IN THIS POSITION NOW BECAUSE YOU DIDN'T LISTEN TO ME! FUCK YOU! GET OFF YOUR ASSES, AND START ARGUING THAT FETAL BRAIN DEVELOPMENT MARKS THE ONSET OF A NEW BEING!!! NOW!!! RIGHT FUCKING NOW!!! YOU BLIND BATS!

(Okay, sorry. I really needed to vent that.)

I suppose I should also argue that a Supreme Court Pick win for the Republicans will make the prospect of Civil War within the U.S. much less likely. Do I think it's likely that the Alt-Right will take to the streets if Trump loses? I do! Or at least, it's not so far-fetched as you might think! If Trump loses (and I think he will), the loss will be mitigated by the SCOTUS win. The Trumpers will stay home with their AR-15's. A few of the ones who only supported Trump because of the possibility may even stay home on election day because, well, mission accomplished, right? With the Supreme Court won, Trump can finally go to hell.

And if a SCOTUS vote came just one shy, after coming so close to winning the Supreme Court for the foreseeable future, Right-wing radicals might well take to the streets. Hell, they've already had armed thugs roaming the cities already!

There's still cause for hope. If Trump puts forth a conservative justice, and the vote fails, and then he loses the election, that would be the worst possible outcome for him. After all, Trump and his cronies in the Senate would undoubtedly try to ram through a justice again in a lame-duck session just before Biden takes office in January. And that would be an unprecedented theft of a Supreme Court seat! The consequences for that would be huge.

And if Biden and the Democrats in the House decide to add 2 or 4 more seats to the court? Well, that means the next cycle of Republican dominance in the House could add more conservatives to the court later, and the Supreme Court gets so watered down that it's useless. I don't think Democrats should consider that. But they should threaten it! Especially now! Make Republicans think twice about thinking that this scorched-earth nonsense might actually win!

In short, get ready for the plunge! The Trump Era has been dark. But the fallout from the Trump Era will be even worse! Get ready for it, and be ready to fight like you've never fought before!

And let's win just one more for the Ginsburg!

Eric

*

The Electoral Clown-College

 

Have you ever played around with one of those "calculate your own electoral college map" websites? There's one called 270 to Win which is fairly good.  Real Clear Politics has one as well. But instead of using it to figure out if Biden or Trump will win, have you tried seeing just how disproportionate the map can get? Give it a try, sometime. If you do, you'll see that, given our current electoral structure, it is entirely possible, mathematically, for a candidate to receive less than 30% of the vote and yet still win the presidency!

Take a look at the spreadsheet below:

As you can see, if one wins only 51% in the 11 states with the largest population, it is possible to win 270 electoral votes with only 29.19% of the overall vote total!

That's INSANE!

Yet that's the system we have right now. 

Okay, that's just a mathematical exercise. It is quite impossible to lose 100% of the vote in 39 states while winning 51% in the 11 largest ones. But still, to know that such a lopsided outcome is even remotely possible should be quite sobering!

Now, this could easily be fixable. If a 51% win in a particular state only meant getting the majority plus one in the electoral college, that would be fine. Such systems are already in place in Maine and Nebraska. For example, winning a 51% majority in California would net the victor 28 electoral college votes, and the loser would get 27. That's fair. It gets more interesting in states like Wisconsin, where only 10 electoral college votes would get split 6 to 4, but that's still fairer than giving the whole shebang to only one winner in a near-tie! If such a system were in place, then 51% of the vote in the 11 states shown above would only total 144 Electoral College votes, and that's fair with only 29% of the vote total!

But nah, that would make too much sense!

The system is lopsided, and right now it leans clearly in favor of Trump. According to Nate Silver's website, fivethirtyeight.com, Joe Biden could lose the election if he wins by less than 53%.

Think of that. A candidate could win a clear and decisive victory, and still lose!

There's only one word for that: bullshit!

And yet Trump keeps saying, "The only way the Democrats could win is if they cheat!" Because, of course, in Trumpland, everything is backwards, inside out, and upside down.

Just consider how fucked up this is. The Republicans, with their thumbs clearly and unambiguously with their thumbs on the scale, calling the Democrats the cheaters.

It's time for a change. The system we have in place must be updated. It was fine when the only thing that connected us was a railway system and maybe a telegraph line or two, but those days are gone! We need a system that represents all of us, and now!

But to get that change, we must first win using the existing fucked-up structure. GO VOTE!

 Eric

 *

The Ultimate News Story!

 

The story of the Century just broke this past week. No, not the formation of Hurricane Sally. Not the continued wildfires in California. Not the return of the NFL or the fact that every single player has now become Colin Kaepernick - who still doesn't have a job for some strange reason.

No, the real news story was that one of the biggest news outlets has NOT been covering the news. In fact, pretty much reporting the exact opposite of the news.

CNN's Brian Stelter reported on September 11 how Fox News reported the bombshell story that Bob Woodward gave the world: That Donald Trump openly acknowledged in an interview that the Covid-19 virus was indeed deadly, and far worse than any flu, and yet flatly said otherwise shortly afterward.

Now, this is by no means the first time Trump was caught lying. We have Trump on video nearly every day for four, solid years lying his ass off, often times reversing what he was saying in mid-sentence. But this time, it has the weight of a global pandemic behind it. This time, it has the weight of Trump deliberately throwing everyone under the bus. And this time, it's reported on by Bob Woodward, the man who arguably brought down Richard Nixon. With the horrid milestone of 200,000 Covid-19 deaths bearing down on us, likely by the end of this week, just about everyone knows someone who has died of it, whether a friend, a family member, or a friend's family member.

Trump said he "didn't want people to panic." And by "people," he means, of course, the stock market.

And on Fox News? If it was reported on at all, it was utterly ignored, or viciously dismissed. They instead praised Trump for the peace agreement between Israel and the UAE, as if Trump had anything to do with that other than appointing his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to act as host and make sure everybody had coffee. Hannity claimed to have live footage of Joe Biden "downplaying" the virus. In that footage, Biden did assure people it was not a time to panic. Hannity then said, "Will the media, the mob, spend the next 24 hours freaking out about those comments?" Hannity asked. "I wouldn’t hold my breath."

No, you wouldn't, Sean, because you haven't been able to hold in your breath in for forty years!

But according to Hannity's own clip, Biden called it a "serious public health challenge." And Donald Trump did not even bother to say that much. How does that help him?

The biggest bullshitter prize goes to Tucker Carlson, who attacked Lindsey Graham for setting up the interview, implying that Lindsey apparently had some sort of vendetta against Trump. Never mind that, regardless of who initiated the interview, Trump still agreed to it. Regardless of who Trump interviewed with, Trump lied all on his own. And Trump went on lying to the American people long after Woodward had left.

Contrary to Tucker's conspiracy theory, Lindsey Graham had actually been kissing up to Trump for years, proving that if Trump decides he doesn't like you, it doesn't matter how much you kiss up to him afterwards, you're OUT!

Careful, Tucker. There but for the grace of Trump goest thou.

When The Atlantic ran its landmark story about how Trump called military veterans "losers" and "suckers," it rang true, because we had already heard Trump say disparaging things about John McCain, about the gold-star Khan family, and about Alexander Vindmann. And Fox News made the mistake of assigning a reporter with integrity to cover whether or not the story was true. This reporter, Jennifer Griffen, confirmed parts of the Atlantic story. But True to form, Fox went out of its way afterward to deny that Jennifer said exactly what she did on its own airwaves. Trump called for her to be fired. How dare this person tell the truth on Fox News!

And this is THE story! That an entire swath of the "news" media is dedicated, completely and thoroughly, to disinformation and bullshit. It's the reason Trump gets ANY votes. It's the reason Trump seems so in tune with his base. It's not that he's smart, or able to discern what his base wants. It's that he is part of the base! Fox News' base! And OAN's base! And Hannity's and Limbaugh's! It was no accident that Limbaugh got the Medal of Freedom. Trump was MADE by these people! Trump is the symptom, not the disease! It's not a state-run media, it's a media-run state!

I mean, holy shit! 45% of the American people are being constantly lied to?! How is that not an all-hands-on-deck, nuclear-war-level emergency's emergency!

The story is not treated that way, because we've gotten used to it. One might be tempted to say that the frog has boiled to death. But the truth of the matter is, the frog is dead, the water has evaporated away, what's left of the frog is now a charred cinder, the beaker has melted, and the Bunsen-burner fire has spread throughout the entire lab and is threatening to burn down the whole building!

A typical blue-collar worker can start his day by listening to WISN's Lindsey McKenna during the morning commute, listen to Rush Limbaugh in the afternoon at work, listen to Mark Belling in the late afternoon commute home, have dinner watching his Sinclair-owned local channel, and then close out his evening with Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity on Fox News. If he's religious, he may even watch a little bit of TBN, CBN, or some local religious network like WVCY, which confirms all his positive feelings about Trump, thus giving him not only a secular but a religious reason to think that Trump is All-Holy, and that only the "liberal media" want to attack him. And then THIS poor, misinformed sap will actually dare to think of himself as "informed!"

This is bigger than gerrymandering.

This is bigger than climate change.

This is bigger than universal healthcare.

This is bigger than wildfires or a hurricane.

This is bigger than riots.

This is bigger than the national debt.

THIS is the reason why people actually think that Q-Anon is a valid viewpoint! Given the size and intent of the evil media machine, there is absolutely no shit its viewers and listeners won't eat!

This is the evil machine which must be stopped! And so this is the ultimate news story. The lies ARE the news! Because not only is the news lying, it has institutionalized lies in a more radical way than we've ever seen before!

This means WAR! Truth above ALL, damn it!

Hey! So-called "liberal" media! Go report this!

Eric

*

Cultural Fugue - A Review of Samuel R. Delany's 'Stars In My Pocket Like Grains Of Sand'

 

In Samuel R. Delaney's landmark novel, 'Stars In My Pocket Like Grains Of Sand,' which many people rightly regard as his best book, he describes something he calls "cultural fugue," where a civilization becomes so technologically convoluted and socially volatile that the entire planet's population dies in a massive, suicidal conflagration. The phenomenon seems to be a euphemism for global thermonuclear war, which was the primary political threat at the time Delany wrote the book, and he wanted to write of its consequences without actually naming it.

Our society is no longer poised on the brink of nuclear war between two superpowers. But given recent events, I'm beginning to wonder if Delany, without intending to, might have actually hit on something.

And there lies the only extent to which this blog will get political - this time.

Delany's writing is perfectly suited for readers. Not audiobook consumers, readers. His is a writing style that rambles in a way which delights readers who want to re-read portions as they go, revel in little turns of the phrase, or become awash in the experiences of the characters. Readers who like to relax and read can delight in how a character felt with each look in the eye, each new event, and every nuance.

For audiobook users, the whole thing splays out in too many directions at once, and devolves into a kind of fog.

This is what I discovered when I tried to experience Delany's book in audio form. The purple prose that Delany uses is wonderful when read. When spoken as a recording, the constant digressions and descriptions end up boring the listener and bogging the entire experience down. Just as an experiment, I picked up the print copy of the book and found myself drawn right in. But the audio format consistently left me lost. Delany is the sort of author whose work is meant to be ruminated upon. Not merely consumed in a single shot.

An additional obstacle presents itself in the form of the person who usually narrates Delany's fiction, Stefan Rudnicki. He doesn't do a bad job of narrating per se, but his deep, deep voice is prone to being absurdly loud one moment, and sultrily quiet the next, depending upon which character he is enacting. I found that if any background noise was present, any at all, I tended to lose whole paragraphs and had to rewind to the point I'd lost after things quieted down. Rudnicki's voice is pleasant, and I enjoy listening to him, but the volume aspect is a hurdle. Combine that with Delany's nuanced detailism, and it becomes pure negative synergy.

Delany is rightly regarded as a pioneer of fiction. He wrote bluntly homosexual scenes, or even alien-bestiality, at a time period when such things might still get one arrested if the book were sent through the U.S. Postal Service! He took the genre of science fiction and helped elevate it to high-brow literary quality instead of merely greasy-kid's-stuff. Yet for all Delany's pioneering, both as a writer and as an African-American, I find his plot lines to be character driven in a way that is unsatisfying. I first experienced this when I read Dhalgren, another of Delany's landmark books, and found when it was done that I really didn't see the point. The main character of that book enters a city, experiences a wide variety of things, and then leaves the city a somewhat changed man, but this character-driven milieu left me wondering what the point was. With Stars In My Pocket, I think I finally know. Delany writes of a specific person, based on someone he knows in real life, whom he truly loves. He places that person in an alien and futuristic world or series of worlds, and then runs the scene forward, re-living the love he knew. In this case, Delany probably based his man character, Rat Korga, on a man he actually met, possibly tall and red-haired like his character, fell in love with him, and delighted in knowing him all over again in his fiction. It works for those who grow to love the character through Delany's microscopically detailed descriptions. You end up relating to the character, and find yourself drawn in. But the plot lacks any ideas or conflicts. There is no obstacle which has been overcome, no lesson which has been learned. The entire plot of Stars In My Pocket is this: Object of love's backstory, love found, love lost. End of book. How the hell did that last a few hundred pages?

I'm well aware that my disappointment comes from my generational differences with Delany. I am a Gen-Xer, critiquing a New Wave writer. I know perfectly well how Delany's fiction broke ground up until and even through the Cyberpunk Era. But having grown up with my roots permeating that previously broken ground, I find that seeing that ground broken anew doesn't surprise or phase me. The soft-core homosexual porn that Delany writes isn't new to my eyes, scandalous though it was in the 80's. Instead of being blown away by someone daring to write such things, I and my generation are a bit more like, "Been there, done that." And while I acknowledge Delany's rightful place at the Vanguard of societal change, I simply have a hard time getting worked up about it. The track has been laid, and there's blood on the tracks - Delany's blood - which I acknowledge and salute. But I must render it a product of its time.

I hope one does not get the impression that I did not enjoy the book. I most certainly did. Nor should one think that I am one of those who is trying to toss Delany on the same "canon irrelevant" pile as some in the modern sci-fi community have done with foundational writers such as John W. Campbell or H.P. Lovecraft. Delany is as far removed from those racist hacks as Everest is from the Marianas Trench. Yet I cannot deny that an afterward included at the end of the book, in which Delany discusses the philosophies and motivations of science fiction, delighted me much more than the book itself. I am a Transhumanist, both in my philosophy, and in my tastes in sci-fi. Delany is damned good, but just a bit outside my personal comfort zone.

In conclusion, I give Stars In My Pocket 4 out of 5 stars, IF one reads it. Don't bother trying to audiobook this author. I imagine gay male or straight female readers will find Delany's gay lovemaking scenes exciting, as opposed to my straight-white self, who finds them boring, and so they will think my review is too harsh. That's both fine, and fair.

We all march to the beat of a different cultural fugue.

Eric

*

PragerU Gets Abortion Wrong

 

Well, wouldn't you know it, Dennis Prager gets it wrong again. This time, on everyone's favorite subject (not!) abortion.

"Oh, no!" you say. "Anything but another abortion debate!"

But have you considered fetal brain development in your position on abortion? No? Then you haven't really had a debate on abortion! That's how central the fetal brain is to the issue. You'll need to revisit this difficult subject before you can consider yourself even remotely informed on the matter. Sorry, but there it is.

At issue is PragerU's video titled (what else?), "Unborn Babies Are Children, Not A Choice." You can watch the entire video, here.

Interestingly, the video begins, not with Prager's opinion, but with a fairly good sample of what the liberals have to say on the topic, as a woman says, "Hey guys! Do you ever wonder why lawmakers who claim to be pro-life make it so hard to live life? They love the unborn, but once you're past the birth canal, get a job! Okay, let's get something straight: A woman's uterus isn't a potluck, and if it was, then men are the kind of guests that only bring paper plates! [Snip here! Something got edited out.] The day it should be necessary to get consent from the father is the day we invent the male uterus. We'll call it the 'duderus.' Until then, our bodies, our choice!"

I would love to find out just which women's rights video PragerU is clipping here, so that I could provide a link and invite everyone to watch the whole thing, unedited. Unfortunately, PragerU doesn't think it very scholarly to provide links to the loyal opposition, so I'll have to do without the citation as well. (If any of you out there recognize it, please tell me! I'll edit it in!)

After the video, the doleful, somber voice of Dennis Prager comes in and says, "Is ending the life of a human fetus moral?"

Right there, you can guess what's coming. Dennis is going to treat all 9 months of development as one, legal block, unencumbered by things like developmental stages or milestones. Fetal brain development, the crucial point of ANY abortion argument, is going to be completely ignored. Sure enough, that's exactly what Prager does.

"Let's begin with this question," he says. "Does the human fetus have any value and any rights? Now, it's a scientific fact that a human fetus is human life. Those that argue that a human fetus has no rights argue that a fetus is not a person. But even if you believe that, it doesn't mean the fetus has no intrinsic value or no rights."

For once, Prager gets it somewhat right. He does correctly say that we pro-choice advocates argue that a human fetus is not yet a person when aborted early, i.e., ethically. But because Prager cannot fathom treating the 9 month development period as anything other than a single block, with no stages, he is incapable of realizing that fetal brain development provides an exact milestone when a fetus does become a person!

That point is the point in which the cerebrum, the center of thinking, cognition, and experience, undergoes a growth spurt and completes final formation. When is that? About 24 weeks. The growth spurt begins at about 20 weeks, and completes at about 26. This is why preemies, babies born before full term, cannot be saved earlier than 19 weeks. Without a viable brain, the body can't function. That means that the place to draw the line is this point: 24 weeks, or roughly 6 months. At the very earliest, 20 weeks, or 5 months. Prior to that...

Early term abortion can be done ethically. Because the fetus has not crossed the threshold from growing life to growing being.

And just what radical, left-wing organization did I get that from? Why, the National Right To Life Committee! Because it was THEY who pushed for "20-week abortion bans" on the premise that 20 weeks was the earliest a fetus could feel pain! Remember those? 40 states, plus the District of Columbia, and the Federal Government, all passed or tried to pass such bans. They were usually phrased, "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act." But what they failed to grasp was that these bills admitted, for once and for all, that conception was not the place to draw the line!

Let me go back to something Dennis said in the video. "Now it's a scientific fact that a human fetus is human life." True. But you can bet when a conservative says "scientific fact," there's some bullshit coming. Sure enough, there is. And he rightly clarifies, "Those who argue that a human fetus has no rights argue that a fetus is not a person." True again! But only to a point. The point of personhood is, at the earliest, the mid-way point of a woman's pregnancy. Early term abortion is ethical, and kills no one!

A human fetus, is prior to that point, 1) alive, yes, and 2) human, yes, but not 3) a "living being." That crucial third category is missing in the first five months, because the brain has not sufficiently formed yet. There are many other situations where something is alive and human without being a living human being. For example, if a doctor removes someone's appendix, all those cells are 1) alive and 2) human, but definitely not a 3) person or living being. In fact, if you think about it, every single organ in your body can be replaced with a donor organ and/or a mechanical device, and you would still fundamentally be you, with one notable exception: your brain. Why? Because your brain is, essentially, "you." Everything "you" are, is there. And if someone, someday, invents the technology to transplant a brain into a newer, younger body, your name, social security number, and all other aspects of your self-identity will be transferred there, even if that new body has different fingerprints, a different blood type, or (and this is an interesting possibility) a different gender.

The brain defines the being! Five words. And with those five words, Prager's argument dies.

What about after that 6-month threshold point? Well, a fetus is a person after that point, and should have certain protections, but there are many medical situations where the fetus is doomed in the third trimester, where the pregnancy causes significant risk to the mother, or even to another fetus. Twin to twin transfusion syndrome is one, where in such situations, one twin must be aborted or else both are lost. Or severe hydroencephalitis (water on the brain), which kills most of the brain. Or anencephaly, where the brain simply doesn't form. Only a brain stem. Lissencephaly is another one, in which the fetus, if it even survives until birth, will only live 2 to 5 years, and will likely choke to death on its own saliva.

Prager and I can agree that late-term abortion should not be done for contraceptive purposes. But that's simply not done anyway, so the agreement is moot. And holy shit is it necessary as a medical procedure in certain circumstances!

Now, I could end the blog right here. But where's the fun in that?

"There are many living things that are not 'persons,' but have value, and rights," says Praeger. In the video, one sees outlines of dolphins, elephants, and other legally protected animals. He specifically names dogs as an example. Which is true, dogs do have legal protections under the law, as do many other pets. "And that's moral argument #1. A living being doesn't have to be a person in order to have intrinsic moral value and rights."

We cannot seriously equate a fetus without a brain with a grown animal which has a fully formed one! To do so is missing the point. Morally, we must draw the line between human tissues having rights vs. human beings having rights. And Prager said it himself, "A living being..." Yes, but a being requires a brain. Specifically, a brain which has developed past threshold. In the case of early-term abortion, that critical requirement is missing.

"When challenged with this argument, people usually change the subject to the rights of the mother," Prager goes on. (We don't need to change the subject, but we'll humor Prager anyway.) "Meaning, the right of the mother to end her fetus' life under any circumstance, for any reason, and at any time during her pregnancy. Is that moral?"

I love how pro-lifers ALWAYS include "at any time during her pregnancy" as part of the argument, as if somehow we on the left would be so silly as to play into their "partial birth" trap.

"It is [moral] only if we believe that the human fetus has no intrinsic worth. But in most cases, nearly everyone believes that the human fetus has essentially infinite worth, and an almost absolute right to live. When? When a pregnant mother wants to give birth. Then, society and its laws regard the fetus as so valuable that if someone were to kill that fetus, that person could be prosecuted for homicide."

I have to interject something, here. Because as a resident of Milwaukee, WI, I know this better than most. It was here in Milwaukee that Glenndale Black attacked his estranged girlfriend, Tracy Marciniak, who was 8 1/2 months pregnant, punching her twice in the abdomen, then refusing to let Tracy call 911, or call 911 himself. Tracy was hospitalized and survived, her unborn baby did not. When she tried to prosecute Black for manslaughter of her unborn child, she found that she couldn't because Wisconsin law didn't recognize a fetus as a person with rights. This happened in 1994. The incident led to a State Supreme Court Case, and public sentiment regarding it led to the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which President George W. Bush signed into law in 2004.

Now, Marciniak had a legitimate gripe. Black DID commit murder. But isn't it interesting that, only 16 years after pro-lifers got the law changed, that they are now citing the law as an argument?

"Only if a pregnant woman doesn't want to give birth do many people regard the fetus as worthless," Prager goes on. "Now, does that make sense? It doesn't seem to. Either a human fetus has worth, or it doesn't. And this is moral argument #2: On what moral grounds does the mother alone decide a fetus' worth? We certainly don't do that with regard to a newborn child. It is society, not the mother or the father, that determines whether a newborn child has worth and a right to live. So the question is, why should that be any different before the human being is born? Why does one person, a mother, get to determine whether that being has any right to live?"

I don't even need to debate this point, because it isn't "the mother alone" who decides this. It is the FETAL BRAIN and its development which decides this. Others on the Left may say differently, but I'd argue with them as well.

"People respond by saying that a woman has the right to control her body. Now that is entirely correct. The problem here, however, is that the fetus is not her body. It is IN her body. It is a separate body. And that's moral argument #3. No one ever asks a pregnant woman, 'How's your body?' when asking about the fetus. People ask, 'How's the baby?'"

Sure they do. Because by the time most people find out a woman is pregnant, the pregnancy is already fairly well along. When a woman is visually showing, threshold has typically passed for fetal brain development. And so, the question, "How's the baby?" is entirely appropriate, and scientifically accurate.

Okay, the fetus is a separate body. True. But until that fetus has a sufficiently developed brain, it's the woman's call, and no one else's!

And it goes without saying that if a woman hasn't aborted by 20 weeks, she's having the baby, barring something medically unforeseen.

"Moral argument #4: Virtually everyone agrees, that the moment the baby comes out of the womb, killing the baby is murder. But deliberately killing it a few months before birth is considered no more morally problematic than extracting a tooth. How does that make sense?"

It makes sense based on the arguments I've described above. Prager, who cannot see the 9 month gestation period as anything but a one-step process, is incapable of grasping this.

"And finally, moral argument #5: Aren't there instances in which just about everyone, even among those who are pro-choice, would acknowledge that an abortion might not be moral? For example, would it be moral to abort a female fetus, solely because the mother prefers boys to girls, as has happened millions of times in China and elsewhere? And one more example, let's say science develops a method of determining whether a child in the womb is gay or straight. Would it be moral to kill a gay fetus because the mother didn't want a gay child?"

Give Prager some credit: he's not afraid to take the argument in at least one direction that isn't really friendly to his own position. After all, aborting a child because it's gay would be something a conservative Christian or a Muslim mother might do. Or would they? It brings Christians face-to-face with the possibility that their own child might be gay, for one. And this also comes dangerously close to Prager admitting that there is such a thing as a "gay gene," which most other conservatives deny, in spite of much scientific evidence to the contrary.

No, it isn't moral to abort a fetus based on gender. (Of course, we are one technological generation away from being able to determine a baby's gender before conception, so the entire argument might become moot very soon!) It is also not moral to abort a fetus because it might be predisposed to homosexuality. But it might be moral to abort a fetus if it is revealed to have tetrasomy-21 (Down's syndrome). Or trisomy-19 (Edward's disorder). Or XXY and XXX disorders. If these things are caught early, parents should be given the choice before the fetal brain crosses threshold.

"People may offer practical reasons not to criminalize all abortions. People may differ about when personhood begins, and the morality of abortion after rape or incest. But with regard to the vast majority of abortions, those of healthy women aborting a healthy fetus, let's be clear: most of these abortions, just aren't moral."

Prager would think so. Because he cannot distinguish the difference between an early-term abortion prior to the fetal brain's formation, and a frivolous late-term abortion done for contraceptive purposes (which, by the way, simply doesn't happen). Most abortions are done early. That makes them moral, because they happen before the six-month mark, which is where our laws should draw the line.

And what of the measly 1.3% of abortions done after that point? They are done for damned good medical reasons. The potential parents who go endure the terrifying news and undergo the heart-breaking procedure are devastated enough without you politicizing their situations for political gain.

"Good societies can survive people doing immoral things. But a good society cannot survive if it calls immoral things moral."

I could not agree more with that closing statement. Of course, what Prager considers "moral" could use a little work.

Eric

*

Kenosha Speaks

 

My father-in-law, Gregg, is an amazing man. He's done auto repair and restoration as a profession for many years, but also does custom builds and dwarf-racers that blow me away. He's gifted. He's also a pretty good writer, as I've seen in various "Letters to the editor" he's written for the local papers. So when he wrote a touching email to all of us expressing what it felt like living in Kenosha, the epicenter of the Cultural Cold War, I couldn't help but be impressed yet again.

I asked his permission to re-print the email in my blog, and he consented. He also gave me an update: "Kenosha Sheriff David Beth announced (news video) that there have been 200+ arrests since the Blake shooting.  Beth says that more than half of those have been non-residents ... which begs for more details surrounding this 'imported' conduct.  A news media opportunity, says me."

Indeed. It confirms what we intrinsically knew to be true already - these agitators are largely coming in from outside Kenosha.

Gregg references the six arsonists who set the Danish Brotherhood building ablaze, and they have become a focus of my interest as well. They seemed a little too coordinated, too polished, too prepared, even. And I can't prove whether these arsonists were right-wing or left-wing agitators, but Gregg is right - we need to be far more interested in finding out.

What that introduction, I present the words of one of Kenosha's finest residents. Most people hate their in-laws. I love mine. You're about to see why.

Eric

*

Family, 

I do read the exchanges .... as well as the blathering links, the templates of expressions of sympathy, and the political posturing.  It does little for me.  

What I'm feeling is pain and rage - akin to discovering that a dozen friends have been rounded up and killed.  It is that kind of shock, a body-blow, and it spawns fear in me.  Am I next?  

I'm invested here - 74, arriving in Kenosha in 1952, entering the third grade.  I have supported this city, behaved myself, paid my taxes, I married 'up', raised two trophy kids, and I proudly picketed George Wallace in Library Park.   Kenosha is home to me.  This week, one man survived a police shooting and multiple sole-proprietorships were deliberately burned or looted.  The losses were aimed at local business owners, not corporations.  Personally, a slice of my history was destroyed.   

Since the outset of these assaults, the government's collective response has been reactive - it's been defensive and behind the curve.  The community is vocal - it wants change, within an envelope of security.  A panel of our 'leaders' sat before the media and made toothless promises - "We're committed to protecting Kenosha", say the mayor, county exec, police chief, Nat Guard commander -  but I feel no safer. The city didn't realize it was (... and  maybe still is) at war with itself.  Credit the mayor, who vowed to listen.  Damn, I hope so, because law enforcement has an attitude problem that needs fixing, and it's not just local.          

As the days unwound last week, sadly, Kenosha mistakenly lumped peaceful-but-outraged citizens (exercising free-speech) together with violent rioters who disregard law.  They are not one group.  

The mother of the victim of police gunfire pleaded with everyone for unity, equal justice, and peace - an amazing display of character and restraint.  In contrast, six athletic arsonists bound out of the Danish Brotherhood building, setting a consumate blaze.  These people represent two distinct groups - one peaceful, one not.   

Was Kenosha the victim of an imported semi-pro team, or were the burners home-grown?  We don't know who's responsible for these photos, and personally it's perplexing that I've seen little interest in finding the answer.  Our collective indifference manifests itself as finger-pointing, division, and hate,  ... but I believe that's misplaced and fixable.  Kenosha's truer character has shined thru.  Immediately, volunteer cleanup crews pitched in - no one asked.  Boarded-up store-fronts have become billboards of hope.   Owners' commitments to re-build have raised our defeated emotions.  That is this city's character, emerging.   

From the Racine Times editorial, on Kenosha:  "It cannot happen to a city like this ever again. Never."   Well, that's an interesting  post, but it's empty unless change happens.  

We are all human beings.  No group is superior to another.  We are created equal.  Every one here is endowed with the right to life, to liberty, and to the pursuit of happiness.  If we can agree to that much, then policing can shift to genuine law enforcement and community protection, away from posing a threat to any one group. Civility can be restored, so that one faction can hear and understand another.  Justice can be ensured, so that arsonists can be held to account for destroying both property and the spirits of communities like Kenosha.  And the right of those who speak out against oppression must be guaranteed - by the police if necessary - not crushed or lumped in with anarchists.    

If inclusive democracy is what Racine's paper meant with their editorial, then I'm on board. If it's intended as an executive order, count me out - I've had my fill of noble and aspiring autocrats, who neither recognize an attack on society when they see it, nor seek out those responsible.  A little justice and peace in the valley, please.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to find joy where little is to be had.  

Gregg

Two examples, of the dozens to pick from: