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Deb Haaland

Thu Nov 15th 2018 by abagond

Debra Haaland (1960- ) is the Congresswoman-elect for New Mexico’s 1st District. On January 3rd 2019 she and Sharice Davids of Kansas will become the first two Native American women ever in the US Congress. Both are Democrats. The two Native American men already in Congress are both Republicans from Oklahoma – Tom Cole and Markwayne Mullin.

Activism: In 2016 she took part in the #NoDAPL protests against the Dakota Access pipeline. The protest failed to stop the pipeline, but it showed her and many other Natives that their voices needed to be heard – and could be heard. It has led to a new wave of Native activism. Add to that the racist rise of Trump.

In 2018 ten Native Americans ran for Congress – and four won!

New Mexico’s 1st District takes in most of Albuquerque and parts nearby. It is almost half White and half Latino and leans Democratic (blue) by 7 points. It is only 3.5% Native, much lower than the state overall, which is 11% Native.

Laguna Pueblo is the reservation where she is from, 50 km west of Albuquerque. It started as a Spanish mission in the wake of the 1680 Pueblo Revolt. The reservation has uranium, yet her grandmother’s one-room house did not have running water or electricity till the 1970s. As a girl Haaland had to fetch water from a nearby pump. She calls herself a 35th generation New Mexican.

Military brat: She has lived all over, not just on the reservation. Her father was in the Marines for 30 years, winning a Silver Star in the Vietnam War. He was White – thus her Norwegian last name. Her mother is Laguna Pueblo. Both were Reagan Republicans. When she found out how terrible Reagan was, she learned to do her own research on politics – and became a Democrat. And, unlike her parents, she went to university, and later law school.

Politics: She got into politics by campaigning for John Kerry in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. In 2014 she ran for Lieutenant Governor of New Mexico and lost. In 2015 she ran for Chair of the Democratic Party of New Mexico and won.

Green New Deal: She is for a $15 an hour minimum wage, Medicare for all, and other “radical” left-wing causes, much in the vein of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But her two big issues are climate change and renewable energy. New Mexico is going through a terrible drought – while it gets so much sun it could become a leading provider of solar energy. The US needs to wean itself from fossil fuels for the sake of the earth.

“A voice like mine”: And of course she wants to be a voice for Native Americans:

“I don’t know if it’s actual legislation as much as it is just really advocating to make sure that Congress recognizes the fact that the United States has a trust responsibility to Indian tribes. So at every possible opportunity, I’ll work really hard to make sure tribal leaders have a seat at the table when there’s issues of importance.”

Thanks to Mary Burrell for suggesting this post.

– Abagond, 2018.

Update (December 17th 2020): Biden has chosen Haaland to be his Secretary of the Interior, of which the Bureau of Indian Affairs is a part! More than 130 tribal leaders have been pushing for this. If confirmed by the Senate, she will become the first Native cabinet secretary. Read more at Indian Country Today.

Sources: Vox, Newsweek, CBC, her speech in 2018 at Netroots Nation.

See also:

542

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Jemel Roberson

Tue Nov 13th 2018 by abagond

Jemel Roberson (c. 1992-2018) was a security guard at Manny’s Blue Room Bar in Robbins, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. At 4.00am on Sunday November 11th 2018, after subduing a shooter, saving the lives of everyone at the bar, the police arrived – and shot Roberson dead.

Eyewitnesses:

Mark Harris:

“The security guard that got killed, he caught somebody and had his knee on him the whole time, just waiting on the police to get there. I guess when the police got there, they probably thought he was one of the bad guys, cause he had his gun on the guy and they shot him.”

Adam Harris:

“Everybody was screaming out, ‘he was a security guard,’ and they basically saw a black man with a gun and killed him.”

Roberson was in uniform. His uniform said “SECURITY”.

Roberson had kicked out some drunks, but then one of them returned with a gun and started shooting. He shot three people. Roberson returned fire and was able to subdue him.

The Midlothian police:

“Upon arrival officers learned there were several gunshot victims inside the bar. A Midlothian Officer encountered a subject with a gun and was involved in an Officer involved shooting. The subject the Officer shot was later pronounced deceased at an area hospital”

President Trump and the NRA, both champions of gun rights, have been silent. Gun rights only seem to apply to White people.

Investigation: At least the Midlothian police are not investigating themselves:

“It is the policy of the Midlothian Police Department to utilize the Illinois State Police Public Integrity Task Force for any officer-involved shootings so we can ensure transparency and maintain public trust.”

Yet they are not giving out the name of the officer, who is on paid leave. Nor is the press despite the officer being named in a:

Lawsuit: The family is seeking over $1 million in damages from the Midlothian police. They say the shooting was “excessive and unreasonable” and that there was a racial element.

Race: Just the other week police in Pittsburgh took Robert Bowers alive, a White neo-Nazi who had killed 11 people at a synagogue.

Video: None so far. There was a security camera in the parking lot where Roberson was killed. There might be some citizen video too. It is unclear whether the Midlothian police have bodycams or dashcams.

Criminal record: None. We know that because the police and the press would have been quick to point that out if Roberson had one. Instead they picked on the fact that he did not have a concealed carry permit for his legally-owned gun.

Roberson was an organist at the New Spiritual Light Baptist Church in Chicago. He played the keyboard and drums at other churches too. He was the light of his mother’s life. He was also a father. Avontea Boose, his son’s mother:

“This was going to be my baby’s first Christmas with his dad and now he’s going to miss out on everything.”

Roberson was getting ready to train to be a police officer.

– Abagond, 2018.

See also:

516

Posted in stuff | 19 Comments »

Maurice Ravel: Boléro

Sun Nov 11th 2018 by abagond

Remarks:

The song and the ballet were first performed in 1928 at the Paris Opera. It is probably one of the best known songs of the 1900s, somewhere up there with “Wannabe” (1996) by the Spice Girls. There are different versions on YouTube, even a 1934 Hollywood version with Carole Lombard and George Raft. This one by Spain’s Ballet Nacional Danza is my favourite.

See also:

Posted in stuff | 6 Comments »

Welcome to Native American Heritage Month 2018

Sat Nov 10th 2018 by abagond

The Mayan Long Count date for November 10th 2018.

Welcome to Native American Heritage Month, which in the US is in November. During this month I try to do some posts having to do with Native America.

Because Hispanic Heritage Month was such a bust, this year I am giving most of my attention to Meso-America, past and present.

Posts I might do:

  • The caravan
  • Hondura
  • Chiapas
  • Olmecs
  • Zapotecs
  • Maya
  • The Maya in the 900s
  • The Maya in the 1900s
  • Mayan religion
  • Mayan languages
  • Mayan books
  • Toltecs
  • Aztecs
  • Quetzalcoatl
  • The goddess Tonantzin
  • Montezuma
  • Bartolome de Las Casas
  • The Three Sisters (maize, beans, squash)
  • burrito
  • rubber
  • tobacco
  • chocolate
  • chilli
  • turkeys

Posts I have actually done so far:

Suggestions: If you have a post suggestion or want to second one, please leave a comment below.

Thank you!

– Abagond, 2018.

See also:

Posted in stuff | 19 Comments »

US White nationalism

Thu Nov 8th 2018 by abagond

US White nationalism (1776- ) is the belief that the US should be by and for White people. Some, not satisfied with the US, want to try again, creating a new White ethnostate in North America.

The two kinds:

  1. Explicit White nationalism – speaks in open terms, saying stuff like “Jews will not replace us”, “white ethnostate”, “white genocide”, “black-on-white crime”, “immigrant invasion”, “Reconquista”, and the 14 words: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”
  2. Implicit White nationalism – speaks in dog whistles, like “Make America Great Again”, “Make America Safe”, “our country”, “clash of civilizations”, and “globalist”. Above all, it avoids the word “White”.
    • Examples: Republicans (see below).

In Whitespeak, “White nationalist” means just the first kind.

Like with racism, most White people in the US seem to believe in the implicit kind – after all, the country was founded on it – but somehow regard only the explicit kind as bad or dangerous.

Scapegoating: Despite the Asian brain drain, hundreds of years of Black slave labour and then more than 150 years of cheap Black, Latino, and Asian labour, despite most of the country being built on Native land, somehow White nationalists still see people of colour as being bad for the US, as the cause of its ills.

Anti-Semitism: Some, but not all, White nationalists see Jews (“globalists”) as the greatest threat of all to White people. Thus Hitler – and thus Robert Bowers, the Pittsburgh synagogue shooter.

Their huge policy issue: immigration.

The Republican Party is now the party of White nationalism. Trump did no worse in the midterm elections that just took place than Obama or Clinton in their first term. That means Trump is no longer an electoral fluke but the new normal for Republicans: the Border Wall, the Muslim ban, family separation, fear-mongering over refugees, Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, etc. He has lost little Republican support for any of it.

It comes as no surprise, not after 50 years of the Republicans’ Southern Strategy of whipping up White racist fears to get votes, and with Whites set to become a minority in less than 30 years.

Richard Spencer says explicit stuff like this:

“We conquered this continent. Whether it’s nice to say that or not, we won. And we got to define what America means, we got to define what this continent means. America at the end of the day belongs to White men.”

Does Donald Trump disagree with that?

Neo-Nazi tactics: Trump even uses the two main neo-Nazi tactics:

  1. Fear-mongering: Instill fear of the unknown.
  2. Scapegoating: Blame others for the troubles of White people.

And he uses one more: White Christian identity politics.

– Abagond, 2018.

See also:

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Posted in stuff | 78 Comments »

Vote!

Tue Nov 6th 2018 by abagond

Poster from MoveOn.

Vote! If you live in the US and are registered to vote, then vote! Today, Tuesday November 6th 2018, is the day of “the most important midterm election of our lifetime” as both the left and right seem to agree. It is one of the few things that both former president Barack Obama and right-wing blowhard Sean Hannity agree on.

If you have any questions about voting, check out vote.org.

This election will determine whether Congress will be a check on President Trump. If the Democrats gain either the Senate or the House of Representatives, they can block laws he wants to pass. They can ask for his tax returns. They can do proper investigations. If they gain the Senate, they can block his judges, who are filling up the courts, not just the Supreme Court. Those judges will still be there long after Trump is dead and gone.

I am going to vote straight Democratic. The Republicans are not standing up to Trump as they should. They have become the Party of Trump, not a conservative party or even a little-d democratic one. As vote suppressors Republicans are the enemies of democracy.

Even if you are Republican, vote! The more people who vote, the more the government can express the will of the people, however imperfectly. Politicians need donors, but they also need votes.

– Abagond, 2018. 

See also:

Posted in stuff | 42 Comments »

Ringo Starr: Photograph

Sun Nov 4th 2018 by abagond

Remarks:

My favourite Ringo Starr song. It came out in 1973 and went to #1 on the US pop chart, #2 across the Anglosphere as a whole (weighted average).

It sounds like a George Harrison song to me. As it turns out, he was the composer.

The video shows photographs of Ringo Starr and Barbara Bach. Bach was a Bond girl in “The Spy Who Loved Me” (1977) and became Starr’s wife in 1981. Now in their seventies, they are still together – which completely undercuts the words of the song!

See also:

Lyrics:

Ev’ry time i see your face,
It reminds me of the places we used to go.
But all i got is a photograph
And i realise you’re not coming back anymore.

I thought i’d make it the day you went away,
But i can’t make it
Till you come home again to stay-yi-yay-yi-yay.

I can’t get used to living here,
While my heart is broke, my tears i cried for you.
I want you here to have and hold,
As the years go by and we grow old and grey.

Now you’re expecting me to live without you,
But that’s not something that i’m looking forward to.

I can’t get used to living here,
While my heart is broke, my tears i cried for you.
I want you here to have and hold,
As the years go by and we grow old and grey.

Ev’ry time i see your face,
It reminds me of the places we used to go.
But all i got is a photograph
And i realise you’re not coming back anymore.

Ev’ry time i see your face,
It reminds me of the places we used to go.
But all i got is a photograph
And i realise you’re not coming back anymore.

Ev’ry time i see your face,
It reminds me of the places we used to go.
But all i got is a photograph
And i realise you’re not.

Source: AZ Lyrics.

Posted in stuff | 2 Comments »

tribal epistemology

Fri Nov 2nd 2018 by abagond

Art by a Trump fan. (Via Skeptical Science)

A tribal epistemology is where you believe not what facts or reason or top experts say is true, but what your group or tribe says is true, especially its leaders. Like in a religious cult.

David Roberts of Vox, who came up with the term in 2017, put it this way:

“information is evaluated based not on conformity to common standards of evidence or correspondence to a common understanding of the world, but on whether it supports the tribe’s values and goals and is vouchsafed by tribal leaders. ‘Good for our side’ and ‘true’ begin to blur into one.”

Epistemology: Roberts was trying to understand how Republicans in the US seem to live in a separate world of facts, how they came to live in the Republican Bubble, cut off from things like science. Epistemology is the study of how people know what they know, how they tell true from false.

A clear example of the Republicans’ epistemology was given by Congressman Lamar Smith of Texas in 2017:

“better to get your news directly from the president. In fact, it might be the only way to get the unvarnished truth.”

That is a tribal epistemology all the way.

Some effects:

  • Climate change: If Republicans lived in the same universe of facts as the rest of the Western world, the debate in the US would be about how best to fight climate change, with Republicans likely offering more business-friendly, market-driven policies. Instead the debate is about whether man-made climate change is even real!
  • Russiagate: Robert Mueller is about to make public his findings. Both Democrats and Republicans agreed that Mueller was honest, fair, and capable enough to carry out the investigation. It is as close as we are ever likely to get to the truth while Trump is still president. But like climate change, the Republicans could simply choose not to believe it. Then what?

How we got here: Back in the 1990s the right wing in the US complained about how the press and the universities were controlled by the left. But instead of pushing to reform those institutions to rid them of left-wing bias, the right created its own institutions: think tanks, talk radio, conspiracy websites – and especially Fox News.

An alternative information space was created. But instead of being more fair and balanced, it was more given to conspiracy theories and fake news than mainstream US culture. And that was before Trump became president.

Fox News is not CNN with right-wing spin or right-wing priorities, like you might expect. It is not a Republican window onto the same set of facts, as you might hope. Instead it is a living, breathing stereotype of what people on the right think CNN is: a propaganda channel spewing out self-serving lies 24 hours a day with no one to hold it accountable to stuff like facts.

Who is to call out Fox News or Trump on their lies and be believed by the 35% of the country who make up Trump’s tribe? No one.

– Abagond, 2018.

Sources: mainly Vox (2017).

See also:

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Posted in stuff | 15 Comments »

Republicans are going over a cliff

Thu Nov 1st 2018 by abagond

In the US the Republican Party is going over a cliff. They have tied their fate to Donald Trump, a brainless wonder with no moral centre. That can only end badly. But Trump is more effect than cause.

Republicans no longer follow democratic norms:

  • In the press, they rely on propaganda, not facts.
  • On the campaign trail, they rely on a cult of personality, not ideology.
  • At they ballot box, they rely on voter suppression, not majority votes.
  • In Congress they rely on obstruction, not compromise.

Even before Trump: Mitch McConnell was already obstructing Congress, Fox News was already spewing propaganda, and Republicans on the Supreme Court had already gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

This is not normal: A functioning party in a democracy will compromise to get laws and budgets passed, not bring the country to the brink of default on its public debt. A functioning party that starts losing elections will broaden its message to appeal to more people – not try to strip those people of their votes.

Science and stuff: There used to be a set of facts, stuff like science and news reporting, that both parties more or less agreed on. Their differences were philosophical. But now the Republicans have become largely cut off from reality by Fox News propaganda, Trump’s tweets, and their own echo chamber of fear mongering. So much so that the US government now seems to think that the greatest threat to the nation is a few thousand Honduran refugees – something the US used to take in stride without calling out the army.

Republican Bubble: Cable news and the Internet allow people to know more about the world than ever before. But they also allow people to withdraw into filter bubbles where they hear only what they want to hear – reality à la carte.

Southern Strategy ad absurdum: The Republicans used to stand for stuff like family values, balanced budgets, and national security. All that is gone. The religious right no longer even demands moral leadership. What remains is the naked capitalism of the Republican donor base and the naked racism of their voter base.

Demographic death: As if all that was not bad enough, the Republican Party has tied itself so closely to White racism that it faces demographic death: by the 2040s Whites will be a minority. Doubling down on racism, as Trump has done, can only work for so long.

Three main ways this could go:

  1. Republicans go extinct, like the Whig Party in the 1850s. A new right-wing party rises from the ashes.
  2. Republicans go democratic and broaden their message to appeal to more than half the people, presumably after some shocking defeat wakes them up.
  3. Republicans go fascist and destroy what is left of democracy. This is the direction they are headed in now with voter suppression, Citizens United, Orwellian propaganda, and their cult of personality.

A large number Whites seem to believe not so much in democracy as White rule.

– Abagond, 2018.

See also:

544

Posted in stuff | 52 Comments »

Michael Jackson: Thriller

Wed Oct 31st 2018 by abagond

Remarks:

This song came out in 1983, but neither the song nor the video came out in time for Halloween. It went to #3 on the US R&B chart and #5 across the Anglosphere (weighted average). The video features Ola Ray, Playboy Playmate of June 1980. Quincy Jones produced the music, horror film actor Vincent Price narrates.

Happy Halloween!

See also:

Lyrics:

[Michael Jackson:]
It’s close to midnight and something evil’s lurkin’ in the dark
Under the moonlight you see a sight that almost stops your heart
You try to scream but terror takes the sound before you make it
You start to freeze as horror looks you right between the eyes,
You’re paralyzed

‘Cause this is thriller, thriller night
And no one’s gonna save you from the beast about to strike
You know it’s thriller, thriller night
You’re fighting for your life inside a killer, thriller tonight

You hear the door slam and realize there’s nowhere left to run
You feel the cold hand and wonder if you’ll ever see the sun
You close your eyes and hope that this is just imagination, girl
But all the while you hear a creature creepin’ up behind
You’re outta time

‘Cause this is thriller, thriller night
There ain’t no second chance against the thing with the forty eyes, girl
Thriller, thriller night
You’re fighting for your life inside a killer, thriller tonight

Night creatures call
And the dead start to walk in their masquerade
There’s no escaping the jaws of the alien this time (they’re open wide)
This is the end of your life

They’re out to get you, there’s demons closing in on every side
They will possess you unless you change that number on your dial
Now is the time for you and I to cuddle close together
All through the night I’ll save you from the terror on the screen,
I’ll make you see

That this is thriller, thriller night
‘Cause I can thrill you more than any ghoul could ever dare try
Thriller, thriller night
So let me hold you tight and share a killer, thriller, chiller
Thriller here tonight

‘Cause this is thriller, thriller night
Girl, I can thrill you more than any ghoul could ever dare try
Thriller, thriller night
So let me hold you tight and share a killer, thriller

I’m gonna thrill you tonight

[Vincent Price:]
Darkness falls across the land
The midnight hour is close at hand
Creatures crawl in search of blood
To terrorize y’all’s neighborhood
And whomsoever shall be found
Without the soul for getting down
Must stand and face the hounds of hell
And rot inside a corpse’s shell

[Michael Jackson:]
I’m gonna thrill you tonight…

[Vincent Price:]
The foulest stench is in the air
The funk of forty thousand years
And grisly ghouls from every tomb
Are closing in to seal your doom
And though you fight to stay alive
Your body starts to shiver
For no mere mortal can resist
The evil of the thriller

[Into maniacal laugh, in deep echo]

Source: AZ Lyrics.

Posted in stuff | 7 Comments »

Robert Bowers

Tue Oct 30th 2018 by abagond

Robert Bowers (c. 1972- ), a US neo-Nazi, is the suspected gunman in the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. On Saturday October 27th 2018, eleven were killed, six were wounded.

It is the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in US history according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Anti-Semitism has been on the rise across North America and Europe. It took a huge jump in the US with the rise of Trump.

Bowers entered the synagogue, shouted “All Jews must die!” and then opened fire on a bris, a baby-naming ceremony. He used an AR-15 assault rifle and three handguns. There were 100 people in the synagogue at the time. On the way out he shot and wounded four police officers. He was shot several times but lived – thanks to a Jewish doctor. That was shortly after he informed police:

“They’re committing genocide to my people. I just want to kill Jews.”

All this played out just three blocks from where Fred Rogers of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” (1968-2001) once lived.

Gregory Bush, another White supremacist, tried to shoot up a Black church in Louisville, Kentucky just three days before. Finding the church locked, he went to a Kroger supermarket and gunned down two unarmed Black people.

Cesar Sayoc, a huge Trump fan, was arrested the day before, on Friday, for mailing pipe bombs to more than a dozen Trump critics, like CNN and former President Obama.

Bowers, Bush, and Sayoc were all taken alive by police.

Bowers is NOT a fan of President Trump. As he said on Gab:

“For the record, I did not vote for him nor have I owned, worn or even touched a maga hat.”

(MAGA = “Make America Great Again”.)

Bowers:

“Trump is a globalist, not a nationalist. There is no #MAGA as long as there is a k*** [kike, Jewish] infestation.”

Some of Trump’s top people are Jewish, his son-in-law and daughter among them. Trump claims to be a “nationalist”, which seems to be a dog whistle for “White nationalist”.

Bowers is against Blacks and Latinos too. He used the N-word in nearly 20 posts and made references to lynching.

MAGA fear mongering: Trump and Fox News over the past few weeks have been pumping up fear about a caravan of some 4,000 men, women, and children who have fled Honduras and are now walking north across Mexico. The US is fully capable of handling over 100,000 refugees a year. Despite that, Trump is calling it a national emergency. He is calling them invaders and sending over 5,000 troops to the border.

Bowers liked that word “invaders”.

Six days before the massacre he said:

“I’ve noticed a change in people
saying ‘illegals’ that now say
‘invaders’. I like this.”

Five minutes before the massacre:

“HIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people.
I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered.
Screw your optics, I’m going in.”

HIAS is the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, helping refugees since 1881. As Bowers knew, HIAS had an event at the Tree of Life just the week before.

– Abagond, 2018.

See also:

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Posted in stuff | 20 Comments »

Carly Simon: Coming Around Again

Sun Oct 28th 2018 by abagond

Remarks:

My favourite Carly Simon song. Her voice reminds me of ketchup, but in the video she reminds me of me in some strange way.

This song came out in 1986 and went to #18 on the US pop chart, #5 in Canada, #10 in Britain, and did well in Brazil.

See also:

Lyrics:

Baby sneezes
Mummy pleases
Daddy breezes in
So good on paper
So romantic
But so bewildering
I know nothing stays the same
But if you’re willing to play the game
It’s coming around again
So don’t mind if I fall apart
There’s more room in a broken heart
You pay the grocer
You fix the toaster
You kiss the host Good-bye
Then you break a window
Burn the Souffle
Scream a lullabyI know nothing stays the same
But if you’re willing to play the game
It’s coming around again

So don’t mind if I fall apart
There’s more room in a broken heart

And I believe in love
But what else can I do
I’m so in love with you

I know nothing stays the same
But if you’re willing to play the game
It will be coming around again
[repeat and fade]

Source: AZ Lyrics.

Posted in stuff | 5 Comments »

Bolsonaro

Sat Oct 27th 2018 by abagond

Bolsonaro in Minas Gerais on September 6th 2018, right before he was stabbed by someone on a mission from God. (Via VOA News)

Jair Bolsonaro (1955- ), a Brazilian congressman from Rio, is running for president of Brazil in 2018. Opinion polls show that he is likely to win the run-off election on October 28th.

The Brazilian Trump: Like the US Trump, Bolsonaro:

  • Admires Donald Trump.
  • Is far-right and proto-fascist.
  • Says nice things about dictatorships.
  • Wants generals in his cabinet.
  • Deeply divides the nation and even families.
  • Makes openly racist, homophobic, xenophobic, and misogynistic comments. Therefore:
  • Is heavily favoured by Whites and Evangelical Christians.
  • Is running as a supposed outsider who will shake things up and clean up government.
  • Accuses the press of fake news – while well-financed supporters busily spread fake news on the Internet.
  • Wants to pull out of the Paris Agreement on climate change.
  • Wants to scale back affirmative action.
  • Believes that greater gun ownership and police violence will bring down crime.
  • Wants to give police a freer hand despite their hideous rates of police brutality against Blacks.
  • Is good at reaching the masses through the Internet.
  • Has little understanding of economics.
  • Seen as a dangerous nut by the right-wing Economist.
  • Endorsed by White nationalists David Duke and Steve Bannon.

Army captain: He was an army captain under Brazil’s military dictatorship, which ruled from 1964 to 1985. Since 1991 he has been in Congress.

Lava Jato (Operation Car Wash) is a huge scandal that has overtaken Brazil’s rich and powerful, sending politicians and millionaires to prison. Even Lula, who was president from 2003 to 2010, is now in prison. The scandal has destroyed faith in the main political parties, particularly Lula’s left-wing PT, which had lifted millions out of poverty.

Bad times: On top of the scandal, 13% are now out of work. Brazil’s already high murder rate is at an all-time high, 5.5 times higher than in the US.

Enter Bolsonaro: Five years ago he was a congressman mainly known for homophobic remarks. But now, untouched by Lava Jato, he steps forward into the power vacuum left in its wake.

Fernando Haddad, of the now-discredited PT, is running against him. Haddad was mayor of São Paulo from 2013 to 2017.

Paulo Guedes is Bolsonaro’s top economic adviser. Guedes was educated at the University of Chicago and is a naked capitalist of the Milton Friedman sort.

Bolsonaristas hope Bolsonaro can restore faith in government and put the country back on the right course.

São Paulo, September 29th 2018: 150,000 protest against Bolsonaro. Click to enlarge. (Via Portal Vermelho)

#EleNão: Those against Bolsonaro fear he will destroy Brazil’s young democracy as well as turn back the clock on people who are poor, queer, female, or not White. Hashtag: #EleNão (#NotHim).

Some infamous quotes:

“The dictatorship’s mistake was to torture but not kill.”

“A policeman who does not kill is not a policeman.”

“She doesn’t deserve to be raped because she’s very ugly.”

“I’d prefer a son to die in an accident than appear with a moustacho [be gay].”

“I went to a quilombola [a settlement of African slave descendants] in Eldorado Paulista. The lightest Afro-descendant weighed seven arrobas [a unit used for livestock not humans]. They don’t do anything. They’re no use even to procreate.”

Bolsonaro and the very dark-skinned Hélio Negão, whom Bolsonaro likes to be pictured with. Neither thinks Brazil is racist. Notice the Margaret Thatcher T-shirt. (Via Black Women of Brazil)

– Abagond, 2018.

Update (October 29th): Bolsonaro won 55% of the vote. He will become the next president on January 1st 2019. His term lasts four years (till January 1st 2023).

See also:

 

Posted in stuff | 58 Comments »

Megyn Kelly and blackface

Fri Oct 26th 2018 by abagond

So this week in the US, Megyn Kelly talked about blackface and Halloween on her television talk show, “Megyn Kelly Today” on NBC. That was on Tuesday (October 23rd 2018). On Friday NBC cancelled her show, but will likely have to pay off her contract of 69 million dollars.

It was a fail on so many levels:

  1. In 2017 NBC hires Megyn Kelly, an unrepentant White racist from an infamously racist cable news channel, Fox News. NBC sinks $69 million into her.
  2. To make way for “Megyn Kelly Today”, they fire two Black people, Tamron Hall and Al Roker, who had good ratings and were paid nothing close to Megyn Kelly.
  3. Kelly gets worse ratings but NBC keeps her on anyway.
  4. Megyn Kelly did a discussion on blackface – with an all-White panel.
  5. Megyn Kelly apparently did no research on blackface. At all. It seems she did not even talk to a Black person or do a Google search.

Megyn Kelly, far right, discusses blackface with an all-White panel in 2018.

What do you even call this? White Privilege? No Black People In the Room? Neither seems to do it justice.

Underlying each step is racist White arrogance, one that says Black people do not matter, that White people are so much better. So much better that they get to keep their shows despite terrible ratings. So much better that they do not have to even do a Google search when talking on national television about anti-Black racism.

And then, when the disaster that was waiting to happen happens, they and their defenders plead cluelessness. Even though NBC and Megyn Kelly are paid millions to inform the rest of us of what is going on!

Exhale.

Reckneckism with a pretty face: On Fox News she said far worse things – and went right on smiling. NBC, to its slight credit, made her apologize and then cancelled her show. It was the right thing to do, something Fox News apparently never thought to do.

What she said on NBC about blackface:

“But what is racist? … Because you do get in trouble if you are a White person who puts on blackface on Halloween, or a Black person who puts on whiteface for Halloween. Back when I was a kid that was okay, as long as you were dressing up as, like, a character.”

and then proceeded to defend a case of blackface that appeared last year on “Real Housewives of New York”.

(Kelly was born in 1970 and grew up in lily-White towns in upstate New York.)

On Fox News:

  • Said Black people suffer from a “thug mentality” where it is “cool” not to be there for your family.
  • Had Mark Fuhrman on regularly to talk about police brutality. Fuhrman was the infamously racist police officer in the O.J. Simpson case.
  • Called the First Lady “Obama’s baby mama”.
  • Said Sandra Bland would still be alive if she had obeyed the police.
  • Said the Black teenage girl pinned to the ground by police at a pool part in McKinney, Texas was “no saint”.
  • Said: “Santa just is White … Jesus is a White man too.”

– Abagond, 2018.

Sources: mainly Google Images, USA Today, BBC.

See also:

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Barbara Cartland: Imperial Splendour

Thu Oct 25th 2018 by abagond

“Imperial Splendour” (1979) is a romance novel written by Barbara Cartland. It is set in the same time and place as Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”: Russia in the 1810s during the war against Napoleon. Like “War and Peace”, it features ballrooms and battlefields and the lives of the rich and famous. It is like “War and Peace” baked down to a 180-page romance novel for an English-speaking audience, making it shorter and easier to read.

Barbara Cartland: In the 1900s she wrote over 700 books and sold over a billion copies, putting her up there with the Bible. She was easily the best-selling writer of romance novels in the English-speaking world. That made me want to see what she was about.

Cartland is no Tolstoy, or even Jane Austen. “Imperial Splendour” is shorter, more formulaic, and more a romantic fairy tale than a book that shows the breadth and depth of life or love.

History, geography, and astronomy: It seems Cartland took pains to get the history parts right, going so far as to visit Russia in 1978. And even her moon, unlike Hollywood moons, is in the right phase at the right time in the right part of the sky. From her book I could correctly deduce that the city of Odessa looks east across the sea.

Love: But I could not correctly deduce much about love. Not only is her heroine a virgin, as are most Cartland heroines, but she does not get kissed till seven pages from the end. The story ends on her honeymoon night. No bodices were ripped, no water bills paid, no love gone wrong.

Money: The heroine, a Russian ballet dancer with no money, wants to marry an English duke! It is never pointed out that for him to marry her, he would be giving up the fortune that he could have by marrying someone of his own class. In this book love conquers class, as it sometimes does, but class in Cartland’s world is not much more than shallow, mean-spirited snobbery. In Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” (1813), money comes up in the first sentence of the first paragraph of the first page:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

Inner struggle: The heroine, Zoia Vallon, is born of a French father and Russian mother – and lives in a time and place where France is invading Russia! What a wonderful idea for a character. But Cartland does not do much with it. It is just another plot obstacle, like Napoleon’s invading army. I wish she had shown more of Zoia’s inner and outer struggle with it.

Page-turner: The book was well-written in the sense that I was never bored and I always wanted to turn the page. Never a dull moment what with the French burning down Moscow. But if it was longer or if it was not Barbara Cartland, I might have stopped after the first chapter or two.

– Abagond, 2018.

See also:

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