Fanaticism at War with Creativity (and it's winning)

 

It's obvious now in the U.S. that we got used to thinking all the censorship and persecution was in the past. Movies are made about it and tons of books have been written on the subject. Most of these presumed an evolved, more aware society looking back on a terrible time with the perspective of those who have learned "the lesson" and moved forward. 

It turns out the religious fanatics were quietly getting themselves into positions where they could enact sweeping censorship across the entire nation, the South in particular. This is not an altogether surprising event to me. I have been tracking the Religious Right's mostly successful strategy since the 1990s. Once they realized Ronald Reagan was not the Evangelical-friendly president they'd been hoping for, they set their sites on more realistic targets. Local school boards, City Councils, small-town mayoral elections and even courtrooms were slowly infiltrated by them until the time came for them to begin enacting their agenda for social control in the name of spiritual salvation.

And they were really, really good at it too.

"Questionable" books began to be challenged in school libraries. Laws were passed that would never have withstood the light of day a mere decade before. Harmful deprogramming techniques aimed at gays gained popularity in certain circles and there was a bizarre shift from blaming Jews for the crucifixion of Jesus to hailing them as wonderful because in their view, these people needed to be slaughtered in order to bring on those wonderful End Times. But that's okay because they will be given a second chance to accept Christ as the messiah and everybody will live happily ever after for a thousand years because ancient people couldn't conceive of a number larger than that.

But let's take a quick step back. This is a highly motivated, resentful and frighteningly large group of Americans who have felt marginalized and disrespected for generations. And, to be fair, they kind of were. Most mainstream so-called "secular" Americans saw them as little more than a pack of ignorant hayseeds, members of a vocal minority whose predilection for following flawed, charismatic nutjobs had descended into self-parody. And, to be fair, they kind of had. 

So, where did that leave us? Simply put, with a two-sided coin sitting on its side in the middle of a field of general apathy. On one side of that coin sits a large, angry, delusional minority of religious zealots whose entire lives have been spent in a veritable echo chamber of self-righteousness and magical thinking. On the other sits their opposite extreme, far left social engineers with an alarming level of self-interest pushing various agendas with no real awareness of what they are up against. Meanwhile, on that field of apathy, we have small groups of people just starting to open their eyes and realize what's happening while they watch their streaming shows and stupidly put the names of their children on signs outside their houses complete with the names of their schools as celebration. 

The demands for censorship we are seeing are primarily but by no means exclusively coming from the Right. The difference is the Right's agenda is far more organized because Right-wingers tend to think alike whereas one of the strengths and weaknesses of Left-wingers is their lack of constant, mindless agreement with one another. But where exactly are these calls for book banning coming from and who is initiating them? You might be surprised by the answer:

Surprised? You probably are. Who would have expected school and library boards to issue more challenges than political and religious groups? Who expected the number of elected officials doing it to be lower than the percentage of librarians and teachers? The second column tracks with conventional wisdom, however, as does the third one. It is interesting to note how much importance is placed on the written word vs. other types of media. No matter what, words on a page (or a screen) still cause more discomfort than images and songs. The reason for that should be obvious. Their entire worldview is based on the written words in a book they believe is the only one anybody needs because all of the answers are found in its pages.

Here's the part so many non-believers and rationally minded believers do not get about these people. They indulge in constant magical thinking. In their minds, all fiction is based on belief, most of it running contrary to theirs. They are a bizarre combination of irrationality and literal-mindedness that makes it nearly impossible for them to grasp metaphor and subtlety, let alone allegorical social commentary. In fact, those words are meaningless to them because their over-simplified worldview is based on the most basic concept of good vs. evil resulting in simplistic reward or punishment. There is no nuance there.

This is why when these groups are challenged to present one specific example of why they consider a book unacceptable, they either cannot do it or can't be bothered to even try. What's the point in offering specifics when the entire thing is based on Satanic appeasement? Trust me, when they use the word "Worldly," it's not a positive thing. The actual definition of that word is someone who is well-rounded and educated, but they use it to mean someone who is by default in league with the devil because they are "of the world." The world is evil because of humanity's fall from Grace, despite the efforts of Jesus in the New Testament to usher in an Age of Grace.

It is this very contradictory nature that makes it impossible to reason with book banners who are doing it for religious reasons. Reason is just another way of moving away from God in their estimation. Science is the devil's religion, at least that's what a similar-minded friend once said to me in a matter-of-fact tone of voice.  Funnily enough, following the tiny bit of logic contained in that mentality, one would think politics would be the devil's playground. Yet Evangelicals have been infiltrating local government for decades so they could enact their peculiar brand of American Christianity. Library boards, school boards and city councils were just the beginning. They are well beyond that now and their lack of willingness to engage in the realm of ideas is slowly affecting our lives in ways that are becoming more and more apparent.

(If you wish to join the fight against library censorship, contact these fines folks and make your voices heard)

Open Letter to the Participants of "Operation: Gridlock"

Dear Inconsiderate, Uncaring, Self-Absorbed Children,

This video probably makes you feel proud. Actually, anything where you can be seen acting like spoiled fools probably accomplishes that and, thanks to the Internet, you can gain that satisfaction pretty much as often as you would like. And while I recognize the inherent risk of providing yet another, albeit smaller format for your stupidity, the gain from exposing you far outweighs it.

As I wrote two posts prior, yours is a movement filled with ill-informed, selfish, ignorant people who value the economy above the well-being of your fellow human beings. Many of you aren't shy about admitting it, either. Take this prize-winning scholar, for example who,  a woman asked him how he felt about doing exactly what is pictured to the left, referred to her as a "fat lesbian" and the "C word":

I know this person's identity and the city he lives in (I have the non-blacked out version) but unlike him and his ilk, I would not post his identity because I believe in actual Freedom, not "Freedumb." Besides, he's certainly not alone, as there are tons of complete pricks just like him espousing similar if not identical douchenozzlery. Apparently, using ANTIFA as some sort of example to justify your own behavior is favored by your movement as well. Basically, you're using a group of extreme left-wingers you despise and find morally bankrupt as your model of behavior. That just shows those of us who are reasonable how intellectually stunted and hypocritical most of you are.

Of course, it's doesn't help that you have opportunistic bastards like this encouraging your stupidity:

I expect this kind of irresponsible rhetoric from bought-and-paid for lowlives like him, but you're supposed to be real people dealing with real-life situations such as the biggest pandemic since 1918. Oh, right. It's all being exaggerrated and blown way out of proportion so the Governor can use fear to launch a coupe de tat against the occupant of the White House who issued similar stay-at-home edicts. The conspiracy theories that have resulted from this are legendary. Here are a few of the truly idiotic ones that you probably believe:

• All hospitals and their workers are part of a vast concpiracy to inflate the numbers of the dead for...reasons.
• This is really the result of 5G technology.
• Bill Gates wants to create a "digitial vaccine" so he can track our every moment. etc.
• The liberal governors (anybody who isn't a Trump ass-kisser) are working in tandem to overthrow the federal government by using the virus as a springbaord for taking away "our freedoms."
• Covid-19 was created in a lab as a weapon or a form of population control.
• The virus was created by Democrats, presumabley with the cooperation of several other countries,to "stop President Trump" because he's so damn awesome.
• (This one is the best!) It's part of a long-range plan to turn people into cyborgs!

Under normal circumstances, all of those would be prime fodder for lots and lots of amusing quips and you would be easily dismissed as mental furballs. But online culture has emboldended all of you and turned you into more of a unified uber-twit, ready to do battle for the right to not be mildly inconvenienced from mowing lawns and planting gardens in 30-degree temperatures. Boy, you're really showing that commie Whitmer by creating a traffic jam in the capitol!

I'm sure you take great pride in causing ambulances carrying people who might be dying to slow to a crawl because your cars are in the way. I'm sure you take great pleasure in defying social distancing guidelines like rebellious teenagers, at least until you start feeling sick in a couple weeks. I'm not wishing that on you, that's just how the virus works. And you are basically inviting it in by doing everything you can to show that supposed "dicatator" in Lansing. 

If you see her as a tyrant, you must have been seriously pissed off when Trump declared he has "total authority." No? Gee, I wonder why not? You dislike fascism in all its forms, right? Not just when it has lady parts and you didn't vote for it?

Well, leaving aside that unsolvable mystery, I would honestly like to thank you for something. You have done an excellent job of revealing who and, more importantly, what you are. Now we know your names, what many of you do for a living, and what towns and cities you live in. Now we know who won't be getting our business, who we don't want to work for or working for us, and for damn sure who we don't want to live next door to. For that invaluable gift, I am truly grateful.

To the obvious white supremacists among you, the so-called "Proud Boys" who have nothing to be proud of except their false perception that a skin color makes one superior, we see you, too. And despite all the anti-female horseshit that spews forth from the orifices located beneath your noses, despite all the abusive rhetoric you employ against Governor Whitmer, guess what?

So, suck it up, Baby Hitler!

Quote of the Week

This one gets awarded to a member of the "Michiganders for Staying Home to Defeat Covid-19 facebook page in reference to the ridiculous "demonstration" against Governor Whitmer's stay-the-hell-home order:

If you have to protest at an empty Capital 🏛from your Car 🚗wearing a Mask 😷it might not be the best time to #OpenMichigan

Dispatches from the Coronavirus Days #10- Personal Edition

There aren't going to be any attempts at clever sub-headlines this time around. I'm rapidly burning out anyway and besides, my observational instincts are waning under the strain of this pandemic. As of right now, all I have are my own thoughts, feelings and reactions. Apologies in advance if this Dispatch doesn't bring comfort on, at the very least, the "we're all in this together" level.

Residing in the Covid-19 epicenter of Michigan is a sobering experience. Any hope, any faith in humanity I might have somehow stored up over the years of disappointment and revulsion have evaporated like a water stain on the concrete in summer. Even I, cynic that I am, never realized just how stupid, how arrogant, and how self-destructive most people are until I watched them ignore something as simple as social distancing on a daily basis.

From my vantage point, I can see two grocery stores, both of which are packed from the moment they open until they close two hours earlier than normal. How much panic buying can people do? More importantly, what the hell did they do with all the food and supplies they bought previously? Are we such a consumer culture that people can't conceive of actually holding onto the thigs  they buy instead of consuming and going back for more? If you're wondering whether or not these simpletons are gloved and masked, while I don't have an actual scientific study to show you, my own observation is that maybe one out of four is masked and nobody is gloved. That means these panic shoppers are potentially shedding virus on a regular basis.

I guess that explains why, as of this writing, Michigan now has over 5,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19.

I have not stepped foot inside a building in over a week and have been home for over two weeks. When I went, I had no choice but to go because my wife's prescriptions needed to be picked up. This was at Walmart, where literally no one was social distancing, forcing me to jump, dodge and backwards run like an olympic athlete. Because of that brief excursion into virus hell, I am now in week two of hoping no symptoms manifest.

Let's not lay all of the blame on the customers, however. The stores should also be doing their part. They should agressively limit the duplicate items people can purchase as well as the amount of people who can enter the store at any given time. Time limits on shopping should also be imposed. Instead, I watch clumps of people at a store with a security guard enter and exit all the live-long day, often pausing to stand right next to one another.

So, I am lucky enough to have a grocery store right across from my house during an emergency but because of idiots shopping there and the greedy corporation running it, I can't step foot inside. Additionally, my attempts at ordering online for delivery have been stymied by an over-abundance of people using it and a possible workers strike based on complaints of the company not providing appropriate protections. An order I placed at a different store four days ago will hopefully arrive two days hence, while the order I placed with the store that is literally across the street cannot give me a delivery date. Under normal circumstances, this would be absurd, considering the delivery driver could literally walk across the street.

Clearly we're living in an insane time, a fact compounded by the way people are reacting. Americans are like children in so many ways. I've always said we're the adolescents of the international community, a young nation still trying to assert its uniqueness and not let the old farts tell us how to live our lives. To borrow an expression I detest, Americans are constantly saying, "Okay, boomer" to the rest of the planet.

What about Canada, you say? They're even younger. True. Canada is the mature, old-soul younger sibling who sees what the obnoxious know-it-all sibling does and goes the opposite way. It's why their prime minister delivers his virus updates alone and our president sits in a room full of sychophants, almost daring the virus to fuck with him. He's not alone either.

People on my Facebook page are posting images and videos of themselves visiting relatives...not just once, but often. I see children in my neighborhood playing with their neighbors. I hear and see morons comparing this pandemic to auto accidents and drawing false parrallels to the flu's death rate as if one can compare a brand new, incurable illness to one our bodies can actually fight. I've been called "melodramatic" by someone who knows better for writing that irresponsible memes claiming the things listed above will lead to deaths, because it will inspire the unintelligent to ignore safety protocols. And if that sounds like hysteria, take a look at the churches that have defied the "stay and shelter" rules and get back to me.

By the way, that isn't me calling churchgoers unintelligent. Millions of intelligent churchgoers are keeping their asses at home as they should. But it only takes a few people to spread a virus:

 

I don't know what's going to happen at this point. I know I haven't felt this level of anxiety since the threat of nuclear war loomed on the horizon before Gorbachev saved us all from that. Back then, we only had to worry about the idiots in government and a handful of jingoistic lunatics on both sides. Now, thanks to thirty-plus years of disinformation and a culture based damn near exclusively on consumption instead of production and invention, we have to worry about everybody doing exactly the wrong thing.

Dispatch Over~

Read previous Disptach here.

Dispatches From the Coronavirus Days #9- Vaguely Humorus Edition

There isn't much to laugh at right now and any attempts are no doubt strained. However, even in the midst of bleak tragedy, there will always be idiots sent forth to amuse us. That's why I'm starting with

Florida Man got Elected to Office to Share a Cure: A County Commissioner from Florida whose last name, of course, is Culpepper claimed he had found a Covid-19 cure which he happily shared with the world. Citing a non-existent doctor on a non-existent segment on the One America News Network. That miracle cure? A blowdryer aimed right up the nose. That's right. According to Culpepper, since the nasal passages are the wettest part of us (no comments, please) the blowdryer can be used to kill the virus before it moves on to the lungs. Culpepper was later called out on his cure claim and issued an apology for instilling false hope. His reasoning? He was trying to give hope to those without health insurance. Let's file this one under well-intentioned/indicative of our healthcare system.

China and the Gay Mafia are to Blame: One of the many truly frightening things about the Trump administration is how so many of them, sans Trump, of course, are insane religious fanatics. Case in point: Ralph Drollinger, a minister who leads  morning prayer meetings every Wednesday for the president's cabinet. In a series of blog posts and *ahem* "study guides," the former college basketball player turned clergyman alludes to God's judgment without fully commiting to the idea that this particular virus is the outcome of it. He did, however, mention the Chinese as if they maliciously released the virus on us, also as if they haven't suffered the most from it so far. He also, somewhat masterfully, implicated homosexuals and environmentalists. This is the person to whom Mike Pence, Betsy Devos and Ben Carson listen WEEKLY for spiritual guidance. If that isn't tragically and horrifyingly hilarious, what is?

Teenagers Eating Corn are Tired of being Quarantined: If that title doesn't make sense to you, it's probably because you know how to spell "Quarantine," unlike several online folk who spell it like this:

Embiggen the image and see for yourself.


Eye-talians Don't Play: I've already written about the teenagers who think spitting on produce during a global poandemic is cool and funny, but I'd love to see them give that a try in Italy. If this video of a man getting his ass handed to him for spitting on produce is any indication, Italian justice suits the offense.

Profiteering, it's not just for Vulture Capitalists Anymore: We all know there's a whole pond of scum doing their level best to profit from his horrible tragedy from Hobby Lobby CEO David Green, who refuses to close for "shelter in place" orders unless the power is turned off and various other businessmen and politicians. But who says it has to all be negative? Well, certainly not whoever compiled the list pictured below:

Ah, gallows humor. Eases the pain...for about eight seconds.

I'll see myself out, but first, a meme that is both poignant and funny, especially to this kaiju fan:

"Besides, he'll probably only kill the slower, elderly people and I'm sure they're willing to sacrifice themselves so the economy doesn't collapse!"

More to come~



Read previous Dispatch here.

Dispatches from the Corona Virus Days #2

This Just In!: One of two things learned today while standing on line at Aldi came when a woman expressing shock and dismay at all the perceived last-minute stockpiling of food, etc. mentioned that she had just heard about this whole global pandemic thing yesterday. She was all decked out in a surgical mask and shower cap and was surprisingly young-looking.

Storage Options May Vary: Lesson number two came from the same woman and was learned by another woman in line to whom she was speaking. When the other woman said she always had lots of food stored away in her freezer and pantry, the woman who'd just heard about the quaranting a day ago said, "Yeah, but don't everybody got no pantry." Never assume was the lesson, but also that double negatives are sometimes the least of the grammatical offenses.

To the Bars, the Idiots: Just like the rest of the state's schools, Michigan State University was closed by official governor's order. However, that didn't prevent many among its student population from immediately running to the bars in town to congregate in close quarters and cough and sneeze all over each other in the name of "fun." This trend infected other portions of the state to the point where Governor Whitmer has now ordered all restaurants and bars to close and only provide "to go" food orders.

Long Lines Will Save us: According to this article in The Texas Tribune, long lines of people being delayed due to the virus are just a'sittin' around, cramped together, coughin' and sneezin' within inches of one another because the best way to halt the spread of a virus that is transmitted those ways is to better ensure that hundreds of people are unable to spread apart!

Church Bells Ring, Can't Help Listenin': Since yesterday, a nearby church has been ringing its bells every hour on the hour. It is both comforting and maddening. They just started back up while that previous sentence was being typed. End of Days much?

Welcome To 'Murica: In the other countries dealing with Covid-19, the citizens know they will not have to worry about getting paid while they are practicing social distancing. Italy has even suspended mortgages until the crisis is over. But here in the country that apparently hadn't been great for a long time until a red hat told us it could be great again, many of us don't know if we will continue to get paid. As usual, everyone discounts those of us who interface with the public for a living and assume working from home is an option for most of us. A bill was introduced to provide continuing pay but the Republcan senate shot it down because it didn't remove federal funding for abortions. Yep. Even now, they're playing politics with our lives. And while another bill has been sent over, it is a watered down version.

Morons with Fingers: No dispatch would be complete without at least one tale of a wretched twit making assinine comments online, so of course here are two such tales:

• One guy making Michigan proud he lives here cried "fake news" at the undeniable fact that Governor Whitmer has ordered the closures of restaurants.
• The other prize winner took humbrage at a post detailing Trump's many failures regarding dealing with the virus by trying to make it appear as if the "liberal presidents" in other countries did nothing to help their citizens. Forget that this shouldn't be about liberal vs. conservative as seen through narrow American prisms. Instead of accepting that his glorious leader made mistakes, this guy was more interested in "whataboutism" and interpreting facts as "taking shots." 

More to come~

(Read Dispatch#1 here)