Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Josh Marshall is right

(My bold)

 As the Trump rally antics and violence have grown they too have taken on an increasingly ritualized form.

1. Protesters disrupt Trump rally and create disturbance as angry Trumpites gather around to express anger at caricatured versions of 21st century loser class who threaten their inheritance.

2. Trump engages in brief parley with protesters before calling for them to be ejected with now trademark "Get'em outta here!" (Sort of the paramilitary version of the once iconic, corporate "You're fired!")

3. Crowd ecstatic as security guards escort protestors out through a sort of Tea Party walk of shame, eventually along an aisle which is actually a gauntlet of jeering and taunts.

4. Self-selected Trumpite assaults protester being led out of arena, bringing the ritual to a conclusion.

So, parodic left-wing protester, fight, ejection, ritual violence, symbolic confirmation of Trump's role as destroyer of bad guys and losers.

Trump's rallies too are quickly becoming as ritualized as pro-wrestling.

Sunday, March 13, 2016

Donald Trump's brown shirts


This is something potentially very bad. Trump has already told his supporters that he wants them to use violence at his rallies against people with whom they disagree. Now, he is threatening to organize them and send them to his opponents rallies, ostensibly, to use violence. That would mean Trump is starting to think of his most ardent supporters as a radicalized force he can use to silence his opponents with the threat of violence. People told to prepare to use force and go to a specific place to take action against the political opposition--this is a next level scenario that would suggest Trump sees violence as a tool for gaining office, which would mean he is having thoughts akin to someone planning not to win an election, but to seize power. He hasn't done all this yet--but that seems to be how his mindset is evolving. If this happens, it would definitely be time to take legal action to end his campaign. ‪#‎notgood‬

Sunday, March 06, 2016

A Sunday slurry

A completed survey of the southern hemisphere's Milky Way.

A solar farm built over a large reservoir... clean drinking water, solar energy... what's not to like?

Dick wars in the GOP.  Because being a large dick matters apparently.

An environmental activist Berta Cáceres murdered in Honduras.

The return of DIY abortions.

A Tudor vegetable.

Still fucked at Fukushima.

Saturday, February 27, 2016

When you invest in people

They can rise to the occasion:

In 1993, Harris Rosen “adopted” a run-down, drug-infested section of Orlando called Tangelo Park. Rosen offers free preschool for all children prior to kindergarten and a free college education for high school graduates. Today, the high school graduation rate for Tangelo Park is 100 percent. And no, that is not a typo.
and:
The Tangelo Park Program, started in 1993, gives every neighborhood child age 2 to 4 access to free preschool. Parents have access to parenting classes, vocational courses and technical training. 
For a program that took just one hour and four people to develop, the impact has been wide and deep. Tangelo Park Elementary is now a grade-A school. Every high school senior graduates. 
But there’s more. Much more. 
Every high school graduate who is accepted to a Florida public university, community or state college, or vocational school receives a full Harris Rosen Foundation scholarship, which covers tuition, living and educational expenses through graduation. 
Nearly 200 students have earned Rosen scholarships, and of those, 75 percent have graduated from college—the highest rate among an ethnic group in the nation. 
“I was part of the first generation of pre-K children in the Tangelo Park Program. Now I’m about to be the first generation of my family to go to college,” says Antionette Butler, a senior at Dr. Phillips High School. Butler plans to use her Rosen scholarship to attend UCF and study neurology. 
Donna Wilcox used her Rosen scholarship to earn a bachelor’s degree in interpersonal/organizational communication at UCF, and then went on to complete her M.A. in mass communications at the University of Georgia. 
“When people have the resources to go and succeed, there’s a ripple effect,” she says. “It becomes generational. No one in my family ever went to college before, but now, my baby sister can’t even picture a life without college. My mother even went back and got her degree. I showed her that she could do it.”

Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Can I talk about Hitler and his rise to power?

Or is it too Godwin's Law?  Because things like this (my bold)
Hitler began each speech in low, hesitating tones, gradually raising the pitch and volume of his voice then exploding in a climax of frenzied indignation. He combined this with carefully rehearsed hand gestures for maximum effect. He skillfully played on the emotions of the audience bringing the level of excitement higher and higher until the people wound up a wide-eyed, screaming, frenzied mass that surrendered to his will and looked upon him with pseudo-religious adoration.
Hitler offered something to everyone: work to the unemployed; prosperity to failed business people; profits to industry; expansion to the Army; social harmony and an end of class distinctions to idealistic young students; and restoration of German glory to those in despair. He promised to bring order amid chaos; a feeling of unity to all and the chance to belong. He would make Germany strong again; end payment of war reparations to the Allies; tear up the treaty of Versailles; stamp out corruption; keep down Marxism; and deal harshly with the Jews.
Seem to echo this:  Donald Trump on a protester: ‘I’d like to punch him in the face’, blames Mexicans for almost everything, fights with the Pope, to wild cheers, it makes me think of this:
Nazi storm troopers dressed in civilian clothes celebrated their electoral victory by smashing the windows of Jewish shops, restaurants and department stores, an indication of things to come.
Noam Chomsky: We Owe the Rise of Trump to Fear and the 'Breakdown of Society':
Chomsky: Fear, along with the breakdown of society during the neoliberal period. People feel isolated, helpless, victim of powerful forces that they do not understand and cannot influence. It’s interesting to compare the situation in the ‘30s, which I’m old enough to remember. Objectively, poverty and suffering were far greater. But even among poor working people and the unemployed, there was a sense of hope that is lacking now, in large part because of the growth of a militant labor movement and also the existence of political organizations outside the mainstream.
And this: It’s official: ‘Idiocracy’ writer says his satire about a dumber America has become a reality