It’s incredible how quickly the obvious awfulness of this story is obscured with nonsense. Is this actually about me trying to get famous? Does Martin really mean it when he says on a public video feed that he "get[s] to f*ck Lauren Duca"? Am I the true aggressor because I tweeted about him being at Guy Fieri’s Flavor Town Bar & Grill in August 2016?Really just pounds of nuance to unpack here, but if we can set all of that aside, I’d love to zero in on the simple reality eternally holding this conversation back: Online harassment victims feel they are not allowed to share their stories.Edited to add (4-27-28): Now that Bill Cosby is going to J-A-I-L...O I thought a reminder is needed that that putting this justification in blackface doesn't make it any less ridiculous or disengeous.
He arrived at church ready for war, wearing black tactical gear and a ballistics vest and toting what authorities described as an "assault-type rifle."
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) views the deadliest mass shooting in his state’s history as evidence that more church parishioners should carry guns for self-protection.
“I’m not a neo-Nazi. I don’t belong to a German workers’ party from 1933,” he told the paper. “... I’m a moderate Republican.”
Taking my thoughts for a test drive here...
OK, if you were at the protests in Charlottesville, and you threw a rock or a bottle or a brick, you shouldn'ta done it. Regardless of whose side you are on. Causing someone else's serious injury will not advance your cause. It will stop it dead in its tracks, in fact. And you don't need that stain on your soul.
That being said (clears throat), if you traveled to Charlottesville to take part in the neo-nazi rally, and you marched around chanting nazi slogans like "Blood and Soil", and you got a bloody nose or a black eye or a bump on the noggin, I don't have the slightest bit of sympathy for you. You went looking for a fight, it found you, and you get to live with the outcome. You wanted war, you became a casualty. Think twice, count the cost, and understand there are consequences for living your racist dreams.
Sermon over, stay for the potluck
I think the problem is that too many people take "Liberal stereotypes" for granted (including, unfortunately, many liberals who feel pressured into internalizing them.) We're suppose to be all wishy-washy and "touchy-feeling" and spineless. We are the "equivocating party." We're suppose to "feel their pain" in a way that transforms empathy into hand-wringing rationalization. Our kindness is suppose to be taken for weakness to the point where it's blunted down to good-natured long-suffering, a Marge Simpson if you will ("Now let's forget this racist carnage with a big bowl of strawberry ice cream!") "Libs" are suppose to be be all "wimpy." We're not suppose to take a stand, remain firm in our resolve and (most importantly) fight back (sometimes vigorously and with passionate fervor). No, we're suppose to be like "the chick" in a stereotypical horror/action movie, a weeping mess flailing helplessly in a corner while her man is being hacked to death by demon axe murders ("LIBERAL SNOWFLAKE TEARS!").Therefore it confuses and infuriates these cretins when we don't act according to (artificially-imposed) orthodoxy with actions that are thought to be "reserved" (you can even say entitled) only for them (cue the "hypocri-shaming!") The fact that we can show gumption and subvert these stereotype being enforced upon us is what the assholes are REALLY protesting. The "America" they want to "make great" again is one where people simply took whatever they hashed out.
THAT is what's different
"Be wary of people who claim to have their finger on the pulse of society because often their extremities are somewhere a lot lower and smellier.
Long, but hopefully useful to some - from the March on Science Facebook group:
For folks who are expressing themselves to congresspeople, this comes from a high-level staffer for a Senator (who is a friend of my friend XXXXXXXX XXXXX):
There are two things that all Democrats [ED: or anyone leaning progressive wanting to register their opinion] should be doing all the time right now, and they're by far the most important things. [If you want to share this, please copy and paste so it goes beyond our mutual friends.]
--> You should NOT be bothering with online petitions or emailing.
1. The best thing you can do to be heard and get your congressperson to pay attention is to have face-to-face time - if they have townhalls, go to them. Go to their local offices. If you're in DC, try to find a way to go to an event of theirs. Go to the "mobile offices" that their staff hold periodically (all these times are located on each congressperson's website). When you go, ask questions. A lot of them. And push for answers. The louder and more vocal and present you can be at those the better.
2. But, those in-person events don't happen every day. So, the absolute most important thing that people should be doing every day is calling.
You should make 6 calls a day: 2 each (DC office and your local office) to your 2 Senators & your 1 Representative.
The staffer was very clear that any sort of online contact basically gets immediately ignored, and letters pretty much get thrown in the trash (unless you have a particularly strong emotional story - but even then it's not worth the time it took you to craft that letter).
Calls are what all the congresspeople pay attention to. Every single day, the Senior Staff and the Senator get a report of the 3 most-called-about topics for that day at each of their offices (in DC and local offices), and exactly how many people said what about each of those topics. They're also sorted by zip code and area code. She said that Republican callers generally outnumber Democrat callers 4-1, and when it's a particular issue that single-issue-voters pay attention to (like gun control, or planned parenthood funding, etc...), it's often closer to 11-1, and that's recently pushed Republican congressmen on the fence to vote with the Republicans. In the last 8 years, Republicans have called, and Democrats haven't.
So, when you call:
A) When calling the DC office, ask for the Staff member in charge of whatever you're calling about ("Hi, I'd like to speak with the staffer in charge of Healthcare, please") - local offices won't always have specific ones, but they might. If you get transferred to that person, awesome. If you don't, that's ok - ask for their name, and then just keep talking to whoever answered the phone. Don't leave a message (unless the office doesn't pick up at all - then you can...but it's better to talk to the staffer who first answered than leave a message for the specific staffer in charge of your topic).
B) Give them your zip code. They won't always ask for it, but make sure you give it to them, so they can mark it down. Extra points if you live in a zip code that traditionally votes for them, since they'll want to make sure they get/keep your vote.
C) If you can make it personal, make it personal. "I voted for you in the last election and I'm worried/happy/whatever" or "I'm a teacher, and I am appalled by Betsy DeVos," or "as a single mother" or "as a white, middle class woman," or whatever.
D) Pick 1-2 specific things per day to focus on. Don't go down a whole list - they're figuring out what 1-2 topics to mark you down for on their lists. So, focus on 1-2 per day. Ideally something that will be voted on/taken up in the next few days, but it doesn't really matter - even if there's not a vote coming up in the next week, call anyway. It's important that they just keep getting calls.
E) Be clear on what you want - "I'm disappointed that the Senator..." or "I want to thank the Senator for their vote on..." or "I want the Senator to know that voting in _____ way is the wrong decision for our state because..." Don't leave any ambiguity.
F) They may get to know your voice/get sick of you - it doesn't matter. The people answering the phones generally turn over every 6 weeks anyway, so even if they're really sick of you, they'll be gone in 6 weeks.
From experience since the election: If you hate being on the phone & feel awkward (which is a lot of people) don't worry about it - there are a bunch of scripts (Indivisible has some, there are lots of others floating around these day). After a few days of calling, it starts to feel a lot more natural. Put the 6 numbers in your phone (all under P – Politician. An example is McCaskill MO, Politician McCaskill DC, Politician Blunt MO, etc...) which makes it really easy to click down the list each day.
As one of his final acts, I wish Barack Obama would tells people to breathe so that that way a particular segment of our society will compulsively stop doing so.
Happy Holidays! 😊
Da Mic Drop is a regular segment, where we look at people who make such a pointed "standing-ovation-worthy" commentary in regards to a person or issue that it has to be highlighted.
America just told all those people, my wife, my son, the planet itself, that it doesn't value them, it doesn't like them, it doesn't care what happens to them so long as they can feel safe and pretend new jobs are going to magically appear out of nowhere and go about their lives like it's still 1950 without anything anything even slightly outside their definition of "normal" coming along to shatter that illusion.
Yesterday, I went to my polling place and exercised my constitutional right to vote, an act which has always made me feel immensely proud to be an American.
Tomorrow, I will try to take heart in the fact that those of who didn't give in to fear and hatred yesterday are strong, and technically more numerous than those who did. That the majority of us are fundamentally good people, and that even the good can occasionally fall, that the better angels of their nature can be, momentarily, overwhelmed by their fear or ignorance, and that they'll eventually see the error in aligning themselves with the truly evil, those who legitimately believe the hatred and bile routinely spouted by our new president.
I will try to believe that we will pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off, and continue to fight the good fight, continue to do good, no matter how much harder it is now, no matter how many obstacles are put in our way, for as long as we have a planet to fight on.
Because doing good is the right thing to do. But today...Today, I have never been more ashamed to be an American. (emphasis mine)
People are tired of the guys who spout fucked-up and incoherent messages, so they voted for Trump.
That makes sense. I myself am tired of this persistent,pesky cough I've got so I voted for the bubonic plague.
In a bizarre case of ironic timing, this site has recently covered the beginning of the "Iceman's bigoted dad" subplot in Uncanny X-Men #289. And we are currently only a few issues away from Graydon Creed's appearance in #299. The funny thing is that when both of these people appeared, at the time they were being derided for being too exaggerated and over-the-top with their prejudice to be believable. Before this year, that was an assessment I would have agreed with. Now though...
Da Mic Drop is a regular segment, where we look at people who make such a pointed "standing-ovation-worthy" commentary in regards to a person or issue that it has to be highlighted.
"Voting is pointless"*The same could be said for getting out the virtual corkscrew to pop open a bottle of vintage Internet whine (this years vintage has been made from particular ripe sour grapes), and yet people seems more than willing to engage in that.
Da Mic Drop is a regular segment, where we look at people who make such a pointed "standing-ovation-worthy" commentary in regards to a person or issue that it has to be highlighted.
"I come here today to talk about how I feel, and I feel like we are treated differently than other people, and I don’t like how we are treated just because of our color and it doesn’t mean anything to me.I believe that we are black people and we shouldn’t have to feel like this. We shouldn’t have to protest because y’all are treating us wrong. We do this because we need to and have rights.I’ve been born and raised in Charlotte and I never felt this way until now. And I can’t stand how we’re treated. It’s a shame that our fathers and mothers are killed, and we can’t even see them anymore. It’s a shame that we have to go to the graveyard and bury them.And we have tears, and we shouldn’t have tears.We need our fathers and mothers to be by our side."
You can lead a horse to water, but you cant make him drink.
