Quote of the Day
All empires die. The end is usually unpleasant. The American empire, humiliated in Afghanistan, as it was in Syria, Iraq, and Libya, as it was at the Bay of Pigs and in Vietnam, is blind to its own declining strength, ineptitude, and savagery. Its entire economy, a "military Keynesianism," revolves around the war industry. Military spending and war are the engine behind the nation's economic survival and identity. It does not matter that with each new debacle the United States turns larger and larger parts of the globe against it and all it claims to represent. It has no mechanism to stop itself, despite its numerous defeats, fiascos, blunders and diminishing power, from striking out irrationally like a wounded animal. The mandarins who oversee our collective suicide, despite repeated failure, doggedly insist we can reshape the world in our own image. This myopia creates the very conditions that accelerate the empire's demise." ~ Chris Hedges (via azspot)
365 Days of UNF: Day 245
America's Got Talent
Quote of the Day
When we landed on the moon, that was the moment where God should've come up and said, "Hello." Because if you invent some creatures, put them on the blue one and then they make it to the grey one, you fucking turn up and say, "Well done!" It's just a polite thing to do." ~ Eddie Izzard
And Today Is One Of Them
I Am Asshole, Hear Me Roar
From Greg Fallis:
At the beginning of August I wrote a post about the response of the patriots at FreeRepublic to all those anti-vax fuckwits who, as they're about to die a preventable death from Covid, suddenly see the benefits of being vaxxed. I titled the post Asshole Culture.
A few days later somebody asked me, "Greg, old Sock, this 'Asshole Culture' of which you speak, qu'est-ce que c'est?" Which is a good question. For those of us who spent too much time hanging out in grad school Sociology coffee shops, "culture" is an overarching term to describe the social behaviors and norms of groups, grounded in the shared knowledge, beliefs, customs of the individual members of those groups. So Asshole Culture is basically the associated social behaviors of assholes.
Back in 2015 I began calling certain members of the Republican Party the Fuckwit Collective. I did that because they were, you know, a collection of fuckwits. Seemed pretty obvious. It was pretty obvious. But it was also naive.
See, I thought the Fuckwit Collective was doing cruel stupid shit because they were just too stupid to understand that what they were doing was cruel. Silly rabbit, that was naive. It's become clear to me now that a LOT of conservatives are doing cruel stupid shit NOT because they're stupid, but because they're cruel. Either the Fuckwit Collective has evolved into full blown Asshole Culture, or they were always assholes and I failed to give them credit for it.
Let me simplify it even more. This is the mantra of Asshole Culture:
I do/do not want to do this thing. I don't care if it helps other people. You can't make me do or not do this thing. I will go way the fuck out of my way to create a disturbance sufficient to make others miserable in order to do/not do/stop other people from doing this thing. I am Asshole, hear me roar.
Examples? You want examples? Dude. Obviously, the anti-vax assholes. It's not just that they don't want to be vaxxed, they don't want other folks to be vaxxed. Why? Because it makes them feel bad, it makes them feel weak and vulnerable. So they act like assholes. They disrupt free vaccination sites to prevent other folks who WANT to be vaxxed from getting the vaccinations. They not only refuse to wear masks themselves, they don't want others to be masked. They will disrupt school board meetings that want to keep kids safe by enforcing mask mandates. They will threaten school board members at their homes.
Open carry assholes. The assholes who want to be openly armed in line at the Dunkin Donuts. Others (and I've done this my own self) will mock them for being timid, afraid to stand in line at Dunkin Donuts without their guns, but that's not true. They're not afraid; they're just assholes. Their intent isn't self protection; their intent is to intimidate others, to make other people uncomfortable.
Another example? Aggressively Christian assholes. The assholes who insist on putting Christian religious symbols in public non-religious venues. Like the Christian cross recently placed at the entrance of the Mission Command Complex at Fort Dix. That wasn't an assertion of religious belief; it was just some asshole trying to provoke a response which will allow them to claim to be persecuted. The intent wasn't to promote Christianity; the intent was to piss off non-Christians.
Still more examples? Defending the 1/6 insurrectionists as "tourists." Calling for Biden to be impeached for withdrawing from Afghanistan. Performing fake audits on the 2020 election results. Claiming there's a war on Christmas. Protesting at citizenship ceremonies. Insisting on "patriotic" fireworks displays during a drought. Scaring people about trans folks using public toilets. None of these behaviors are sincere expressions of belief; they're all examples of assholes being assholes.
Asshole Culture is nothing more than performative indignation intended to insult or outrage or intimidate others. It's now the dominant culture in the modern Republican Party. How did that happen? Why did it happen?
My assumption is it happened because there's almost zero consequences for being an asshole if you're white.
My First Thought Every Damn Day
The last 18 months—hell, the last four and a half years—have done a number on me.
365 Days of UNF: Day 244
