Demography is Not Destiny

It appears that Mitt Romney represents older, white, suburban, and exurban voters who earn more than 50k per year and a smaller percentage of women than men from that demographic. Obama, as per the last link, has super majorities among everyone else.  I understand that a non-trivial percentage of Romney voters are racists fucks but not all of them but the racists fucks, as I argue below, were never Romney's base and they would have voted for a cheese sandwich so long as the black man was voted out and White supremacy with its unearned privilege returned.

This is leading many on the left, the right, and in the center to insist that in these United States demography is destiny. Well, it isn't. All of the groups, whether "racial," "ethnic," or biological, this argument must run, vote as they vote because of some in-born, onto-genetic trait or traits.

This is obviously nonsense. The divide here is between folks who have it made and don't care about anyone else correctly identifing. Romney as one of them. In short, Romney, whose concession speech was the quintessence of dickiness and prickitude, base was never right-wing Evangelicals or Tea Party Patriots, it was always the dicks of the world with the added fillip of those whose idea of a decent argument is them making shit up, bullshitting, and generally lying about the world in order to deny that, just as an example, water is wet. And the rest of us who would prefer our elected officials be competent, more or less honest and generally reliable so that we can go about the important business of having lives and enjoying the refreshing beverages of our choice.

That there are a lot of these horrid people in the world as it is, is evidenced by Romney's "bounce" after the first debate. There his lying prickiness and general dickitude were on full display and many of our fellow citizens lapped it up. The same characteristics, lying, prickitudal and dickital tendencies, are what  makes Paul Ryan Romney's ideal running mate.

If you read around the intertubes in the run up to the election, you know doubt read some of the blather about lesser evilism, this will do for the vote Obama as lesser and this as its opposite. Both sides here missed the fundamental point that this election was about driving a stake through the heart of the rule by privileged lying pricks and the continued elevation of competent managers of a nasty, nasty system.

It may well be that over the next four years the Obama Administration will take steps to ensure that the system becomes less nasty by rolling back the obscene policies of the neoliberals. One can hope; however, any reversal of these policies and a revision to the New Deal, only this time for gays, women and non-whites, is going to be a decade long slog.

One can only hope that the sharp rebuke handed to the lying pricks amongst us leads to a much more rapid decline in horrid little men and women gallivanting around and insisting that America, real honest to god America, is a land of horrid people.

I mean just consider the endless garbage by the horrid people who engaged in official and unofficial voter suppression. They failed and in failing shot themselves nicely in the foot. It is one thing to think that the only way you can win is to cheat it; it is quite another to get caught cheating before, during, and after the election while failing to win. That kind of a situation makes the vote suppressors look like what they are: Horrid people to whom and for whom a lie isn't something shameful but a necessary and honorable act in the service of ruining the lives and stunting the fortunes of their fellow citizens.

In Russia the State Punks You

So here is the Pussy Riot video that led to the kerfuffle:




It is insane that the band got 2 years in jail for insulting Putin; the Dixie Chicks only had to go on tv and apologize. U S A U S A  

Two Ways of Thinking About Streets

Last night a motorist try to run me down. A couple of preliminary points. I use quite a few lights, to front lights, which is all that matters here as the motorist could only "see" the front of the bike. I was in a real neighborhood; one in which people jog,  walk dogs, wander to the grocery, and related etc. It was dusk and not pitch black and, because of the multiuser nature of the streets in this quiet area, motorist ought, but don't, drive the speed limit and pay attention.

I was coming up a hill riding toward the center of the lane, when I saw a car backing out of a street without paying attention, by which I mean the motorist clearly hadn't seen me. I rang the bell and slammed on the breaks. Well after the point at which the motorist would have knocked me down had I not been riding responsibly. The dolt saw me.

Like most motorists, the dolt seemed to think that saying "I didn't see you" was exculpatory instead of a condemnation of the dolt's inattentiveness. I said "I could tell."  The dolt responded "I was trying to be nice." To which I asked "How? By trying to hit me."


From my perspective some streets and roads are multiuser from the motorist's perspective all streets are belong to them, as they kids would say. This attitude, as Peter Norton points out, this attitude is the result of going on 100 years of lobbying, opinion buying, and other corrupt practices by the automobile industry. The dolt's implicit claim of motorists' ownership of the roads and idea that I need to get out of motorists' way isn't a natural condition but rather a sing and seal of how money shapes cultural assumptions.

I May Be Inadequate But You Are Horrid

I was out on a not amble but now quite whiz-round of the Cap City today and was fairly far removed from habitation when I glanced to my left and saw a young man stripped to his boxers with his shorts on his head, no shoes on his feet, no shirt on his back, who was either passed out or sleeping. I called out "are you alright" two or three times while slowing down. He sort of sat up with a dazed look on his mug and some kind of a sore on his right temple.  I trundled back around and stopped the bike off the path and began to ask him some basic questions, do you know where you are? where are you going?, etc, the answers to which indicated that he was not a raving maniac.  I did not have a phone and he had no one to call. He was trying, he said, to get to a cul de sac by the Airport and had, he claimed, walked from Milwaukee. I tried to wave down a cyclist but, it would seem, the ride trumped a fellow human in clear distress.

 As for help he said  he really did not need any. I gave him a full water bottle, all the food I had with me, and 20 bucks and pointed him in the direction of the nearest set of building. As I rode away I was castigating my self for not doing more, giving him some kind of a lift, walking with him to somewhere and, just in general trying to figure out why I didn't do more or something more effective.

It occurred to me that the anti-good Samaritan cyclist, two city or county workers out mowing totally ignored the poor guy. And then as I overtook a jogger, who had run passed and turned back toward whence she had come, ask me what was going on. I slowed down and explained the situation to which she responded that the whole thing was creepy and by word and whathaveyou indicated that she wished the guy would just sort of disappear.

So I may be inadequate and will never qualify as an authentic good Samaritan and, this will come as no  surprise to those who know me, will always be a flawed human being but the rest of you are horrid little people and really need to rethink your relationship with those around you.

Feh, Meh, And Bite Me

The NR has "fired" John Derbyshire. Fine but read the post and remember that Derbyshire has made a career out of being a racist, homophobe, and misogynist asshole with the NR's blessing for low these many years. Rich Lowry claims that

Derb is also maddening, outrageous, cranky, and provocative. 

No he isn't; he is a racist, homophobe, misogynist asshole who has benefited from the Rights embrace of racists, homophobes, and misogynists. This firing changes nothing and the Right and the NR in particular need to atone for using their rights to free speech to behave like neanderthals and thugs.

Every "culture warrior" is engaged in the same despicable speech act as is Derbyshire and their supporters ought either embrace Derbyshire or reject a "cultural war" built on lies, vituperation, and vile rhetoric or get out of the "cultural warrior" game. And that includes the vicious scum bags Santorum and Romney.

UPDATE:
Derbyshire defended by Jeff Goldstein.

Post Racial

John Derbyshire, who has admitted he doesn't think, has an article up proving that he can't. Using "math" and "science" he "proves" that black Americans hate white Americans, kill at the drop of a hat, that most are dumber than the 10% of dumbest white Americans, and, among other horror show nonsense, if reasonable bright and presentable the most favored of all Americans. In the comments, on of his supporters, of whom there are many, takes him to task for not mentioning that black American males are sexually aggressive

What a horrid little man.

UPDATE:
It seems that there are calls for the NRO to fire the "Derb."  This needs to stop; the Right in the USA is racist and sexist.  They need to acknowledge this.  Making a case for not reading the NRO because it is filled with batshit crazy Religio-Fascists and related nutters is the way forward.  They are all of them crazy, liars, and horrid little people.  The "Derb" isn't an outlier.

 UPDATE:

Rich Lowry has a post up distancing himself and the Right from the Derbyshire debacle.  Oddly enough the comments are off. I suspect they are off because, being a race baiter himself, he is fully aware of the extent to which his readers are foaming-at-the-mouth racists.

Remember the bullshit, in the Frankfurtian sense of bullshit, about no one cares about black on black violence is bullshit, evidence that the speaker is absolutely ignorant of the reality of black Americans lives, and yet more bullshit.

UPDATE:
In 2003 Derbyshire said of himself that

I am a homophobe, though a mild and tolerant one, and a racist, though an even more mild and tolerant one, and those things are going to be illegal pretty soon, the way we are going.

For 8 years he has been an important part of the NRO and the Right wing noise machine.  Not only ought they not fire him but they should all come out and admit that they supported and support "mild" homophobia and racism.

Republicans

hate Baby Jesus, the Bible, Black people, and hats:



What happens when a nun becomes a member of Congress? No Habit for them?

Consider this "cartoon" from the UT Austin student newpaper:

Because that's the proper way frame the debate; particularly appalling is the "colored boy" comment.

What a horrid bunch.

Game Changer?

The Trayvon Martin story is horrific. The number of Floridians "legally" murdered because of its insane gun laws is horrific. Its economic condition is horrific.  All of these horrific events and conditions result from some neoliberal reform or another.

The Martin story alone ought to be enough to put an end once and for all to the idea that racism, institution if not personal, is dead. The unnecessary gun deaths ought to put an end to the idea that an armed society is a polite society. The economic misery ought to put an end to the neoliberal fantasies.

Any decent society would denounce the Florida syndrome without hesitation. Anybody is actually interested in our common good and collective future would denounce the Florida syndrome.  Anybody who actually cares about the current crises in America would not be running around wringing their hands about contraception and abortion but would rather denounce the Florida syndrome.

Will we? Will they? Will this be the moment when we finally start to get our country back from the small-minded theocratic thugs, the empty-headed political and tv grifters, the lying cultural warriors, the plutocrats and their academic shills?

God, I hope so. But don't hold your breath.

How Horrible Are The Republicans

Here is a harrowing account of a woman's experience with the Texas law concerning forced probing and mandated moralization. The woman's account, I think, exposes the heartless cruelty and horridness of the wretched god-botherers who think that their blinkered concept of religious life is the tune to which we ought all march.

These Horrid Little People

Rustication refers to the process of expelling someone from Oxbridge. It features prominently in 19th century British fiction usually associated with some nerdowell or another. Recently, one of Britain's neoliberal twits came to Cambridge to announce the destruction of higher education in the service of expansionary austerity. The students and professors were not pleased and so they

as he came to the lectern, a number of audience members (both students and academics) stood up and read, or performed, collectively, a poem articulating opposition to the policies he was advocating. They continued to read and repeat the poem until after a few minutes Willetts was ushered away and the lecture and question and answer session cancelled.

In response, 

one PhD student was singled out for reprisal by the university authorities, and made subject to the university’s disciplinary procedures.

This singling out despite

a letter signed by sixty dons and students advertising their own actual or implicit part in the protest was drafted and sent. This had no effect on the proceedings, and the hearing went ahead.

The result? The student was given

a sentence of seven terms rustication which, as earlymodernjohn points out, is almost the whole period of PhD study.

From gambling and drink to protesting the absurd idea that the best way to respond to years of neoliberalism more neoliberalism.

Failure to Communicate

Over to the NRO Jason Lee Steorts misses the point about the Rights "culture war." He warns that 

[t]he article by Angela Morabito to which Kathryn links is a good example of how conservatives must not sound if they wish to win the debate over the HHS mandate. It suggests that Sandra Fluke has too much sex, says she speaks for “skanks who don’t want to take responsibility for their choices,” and rebukes her for having “missed the ten commandments.” Maybe the author was trying to be funny, but instead she conveys arrogance, condescension, and a total lack of manners. 

But it’s not just about manners. It’s also about making the right arguments. Nothing in this debate hinges on the particular sexual choices of Sandra Fluke, whatever they may be. (She might have been a married student who wished to use contraception with her husband.) And nothing hinges on whether the Catholic teaching about contraception is sound. The fundamental point is twofold: that the government should not dictate to private institutions what sort of health-care coverage they must provide, and that the government should not force a religious institution to violate its conscience. There are a great many people who hold this position but are disgusted by remarks like Morabito’s. They are people we need on our side

.

The Obama administration would like nothing more than to drag opponents of the HHS mandate into debates over the character of a particular young woman or the moral permissibility of contraception. These are traps. Don’t walk into them.

They vitriol and vile name calling are ancillary to the "culture war"; they are the the "cultural war." A reasoned debate about the state's power to set standards for health insurance and the limits of religious and moral convictions in evading these standards is an argument the Right loses, at least in part because of the hysteria they have been whipping up over Sharia.

The non-existent "culture war" can only be waged in the twilight of lies, distortions and invective; once mannered debate and facts come into play, the Right loses its base of rageholics and fails to persuade the average American, who really doesn't care what its neighbors get up to. Most of the Right now this and that's why they lie, distort, and use vile  invective, like the horrid little men and  women they are.

Culture War

Rush Limbaugh sort of apologized for being a vile, lying, cretinous bastard, which is to say a proud member of the Conservative Movement. In the course of that apology he continued to distort reality and consequently implied that that his cretinous and vile lies and language we're, in fact, the result of the target of his hate-filled lying and vile nonsense. Some see this as a step in the right direction; others think, rightly in my opinion, that the response is simply one more example of the shameless lying and vileness without which the "culture war" could not continue.

And this is, I think, the point that has to be emphasized: Limbaugh constructed a lie and then became enraged about his lie and consequently attacked an innocent human being in the vilest way he could think of. That he was telling one lie after another is obvious. As one example, there is no  correlation between the number of times anyone has sex and the amount of birth control pills needed. It's not, in other words, like condoms.

The fact of the matter is that there has never been a "culture war" in this country but rather a bunch of dishonest, vile, and contemptuous conservatives who fear freedom and liberty used one lie after another to whip up a  minority of the population.

This isn't, I know, news. It does, sort of, help to remember that the only way the Right wins is to lie in the vilest and most obvious way possible.