forsetti

[forsetti]

Tumblr Anniversary

Today marks the twelfth anniversary of my posting on this site. I started writing here as an outlet for the emotions I was going through after the death of my six-year-old son, Max, a divorce, and the loss of a business. I am sincerely grateful to anyone and everyone who has ever read anything I've posted. At the same time, I apologize for the lack of posts over the past few years. Between the constant barrage of complete bullshit during the Trump years and some personal issues, I found it difficult to find the time and energy to write. In the coming year, I am hoping this will change and I will get back to writing and posting more often. Again, thanks to everyone who follows this obscure blog.

[forsetti]

On Personal Identity: It's Complex And Personal

Once gay marriage was upheld by SCOTUS, the right needed a new, under-represented group to attack in order to placate their base’s lust to make themselves feel superior and punish those they deem inferior.

It took a few years for conservatives to really hone in on who to attack. Finally, their broken moral compass led them right to the transgender community. To the right, transgender individuals have the ick factor of gay people on steroids, and since there are a lot fewer of them, the pushback would be minimal. Many people know someone in their family, someone they love, a close friend, or who is gay. This isn’t true of the trans community. If you are a morally vacuous bully, the farther down you can punch, the better.

Think about this strategy for a moment. The right tried desperately to make gay people their scapegoats for all that was wrong with America, and they lost. They lost big. They got bitch-slapped by Will and Grace, Ellen, and thousands of other examples that gay Americans are as normal, if not more so, than their Bible-thumping neighbors. Instead of learning even the most basic lesson from their loss, the right decided the best thing to do was punch down even farther on the social and cultural ladder. This right here should tell you everything you need to know about modern-day conservatism. As Adam Sewer poignantly stated in The Atlantic about the right, “cruelty is the point.” When it comes to people who identify as transgender, the only question that really matters is, “So fucking what?” Here is where I want to acknowledge that I am not completely aware of the terminology when it comes to people who identify as transgender. I’m trying to learn. If I misidentify or make a mistake in verbiage, I apologize in advance.

What difference does it make to Aunt Freedom and Uncle Tight Ass if anyone, especially people they don’t know and will never encounter, identify as transgender? The answer is, “Not a God damn thing!” There are side arguments about how respecting which pronouns someone wants to be referred to by is an affront to God, the Founding Fathers, and Strunk & White, but they are 100% bullshit. The argument, “Boys/men competing against girls/women is unfair" is specious and nonsensical as “it goes against nature." Especially since almost all of these arguments come from people who haven’t given a damn about women’s sports and/or who have spent years speaking about them derisively. The only time they’ve given a single thought to women’s sports is when they can use them to prop up their bullshit worldview and punch down.

Personal identity isn’t black-and-white. It isn’t something that is defined by others. If it was, then it wouldn’t be called “personal identity."

I have no idea what it is like to identify as part of the LBBTQIA community. I do have an understanding of what it is like to not feel comfortable in your own skin and not be accepted, and this understanding alone makes my heart break for the way the LGBTQIA community is viewed and treated for either being comfortable with who they are or for trying to be. I grew up in a very small town in a very sparsely populated county in rural Idaho. Anyone on the outside looking in would assume I fit in perfectly. I was a white, Christian, straight male in a society that was 99.999% run and dominated by white, Christian, straight males. Hell, I came from an upper-middle-class family, and my father held a prominent position in the community and the local church. You couldn’t script a more perfect character to play the lead part in “Fits Right The Fuck In.” However, never, not once, did I ever feel like I fit in. Who I am, how I feel about myself, and who I know I was (not wanted to be but was) never fit the role I was “born to" and “written for me.” I wanted to fit in. I tried to fit in. I did everything I possibly could to fit in. All of this led to anger and frustration. When I was growing up, this anger and frustration were mostly directed at the community in which I lived because I blamed them for not fitting in. While they were a big part of the problem, I was just as culpable. I was trying to be someone I wasn’t.

It took a number of years for me to truly realize not only that I was part of the problem of trying to fit into something or somewhere to which I didn’t belong, but also that I needed to begin to discover who I was or am. While I was going to college at Utah State University, I got glimpses of this, but that was even closer to being realized because Logan, Utah, was only an hour away from my hometown and only slightly less regressive and repressive.

It wasn’t until I attended graduate school at Michigan State University that I really started to be me. I’m pretty sure this is why I feel such a strong bond to East Lansing, where I still live, going on year thirty-eight of a five-year plan. Even through all of this, I still don’t really feel comfortable in my own skin. I never really feel like I belong in just about any social situation. I’m not sure if these feelings are remnants of past experiences and conditioning; there are still parts of me that haven’t been realized, or something else. What I do know is that these sixty-plus years of feeling lost, not fitting in, and not being myself have not been kind to my psyche. I cannot even begin to imagine how someone in the LGBTQIA community must feel because they have all the things I’ve felt at much higher levels and so many more pressures, abuses, and ridicule to the nth degree. Whenever I’m in a group situation where they ask everybody to identify themselves and say a little bit about themselves when it is my turn, I give the boilerplate answer but finish with, “Something most people don’t know about me is that on the weekends, I dance under the name “Raven.”” I say this as a joke, but there is an underlying, not true, but possible truth to it. I’ve always leaned more toward the cultural definition of “feminine.” Almost all of my friends throughout my life have been women. I feel at home around women. I’ve always preferred to have longer hair. In a group of men, I have absolutely never felt I fit in. There is a rooster inside of me. It took me a while to understand this, but it is absolutely true.

Not being who you truly feel you are and are supposed to be is a horrible feeling. Why on earth would anyone deny this to someone else? Why would anyone go out of their way to punish and/or ridicule people, either trying to discover this for themselves or for fully realizing it? All the answers I’ve seen given to justify these behaviors are specious at best and batshit crazy at worst. Don’t give me some bullshit argument and try and substitute it for an argument against the transgender community - What if someone identifies as a serial killer or child molester? Are we supposed to be okay with that?” Sell crazy somewhere else.  The transgender community harms society. No one is being harmed by someone from the LGBTQIA community being true to how they feel about themselves. No one is being harmed by honoring which pronouns someone wants to be referred to by. NO ONE. Every single argument or example you can make that tries to say otherwise is 100% rectally extracted. The vast majority of pedophiles who are grooming children are Christian youth pastors, the clergy, and members of your local police force, not the LGBTQIA community.

Pronouns: We're having a hissy-fit over pronouns? How dumb is that? A lot of people I know don’t use their given names. My maternal grandfather went by his middle name his whole life. One of my brothers has gone by three different names over the years. How did this affect my life? I’m sure I probably referred to my brother by an outdated name once or twice, only to be corrected, and then I moved the fuck along. In other words, it didn’t affect my life one scintilla. If it did, then the only reason would have been that I was the problem. Pronouns: Part II: This isn’t about proper names. This is about “men” wanting to be referred to as “she/her/they.” This is social and linguistic chaos.” Is it? Is it, really? Do you need the world to be so black and white and so perfectly defined that any ambiguity or things that go against your preconceived norms are automatically labeled “bad” or "dangerous"? The world is a very, very, very complex place. I understand the desire to have it make sense on every single level, every time, all the time. However, that isn’t reality. That is, you want to force reality to fit your worldview. The world is always going to win that battle. You're not accepting its complexity doesn’t impact it at all. The only one who suffers in this situation is you. The world doesn’t give a fuck about your feelings, your beliefs, your preconceptions, what your mom and dad taught you, or what your preacher said last Sunday.

Attire: Does it matter what someone else wears? How does Bob, who now goes by Sarah, wearing makeup, a dress, and pumps impact your life? I'm pretty sure it doesn't, and if it does, you are the problem. Does this make you feel uncomfortable? So? I have a deep, visceral reaction to people eating cheesecake, cauliflower, and dozens of other foods. As repulsive as these things are to me, I’m not advocating for any laws against them. Their personal preference doesn’t really affect me in any meaningful way. Also, why is it so damn important to be able to perfectly identify someone by how they dress? Are men’s egos so fragile they can’t stand the thought of someone thinking they are a woman or being wrong when they hit on or catcall someone? (This is a rhetorical question because we all know the answer is a resounding "yes.") However, this isn’t the fault of the person wearing the clothes, no more than it is when a woman in a “skimpy” dress is raped. They aren’t the problem. They aren’t the cause of or responsible for the actions of others. Bathrooms: Since when do you see someone’s genitals in a bathroom unless you intentionally look at them? If a transgender woman walks into a women’s bathroom, there aren’t any urinals (because there are none). You aren’t seeing their plumbing unless you bust down a door and start poking around. If this happens, who is the “weirdo” here? I’m pretty sure it is you. I’m really not sure I understand the fear here. The Children—the go-to when all your other arguments have epically failed. “I don’t want some guy in a public restroom when my daughter is in there.” The question has to be asked again: “How do you know it is a “guy””? Do you feel up to everyone who goes into a women’s restroom whenever your daughter is in there? If you do, you should be arrested because you are a pervert. Transgender women aren’t using the ladies' room to hit on your daughters. They are using the ladies' room because, wait for it, they need to use the ladies' room. Why is it that there are no bathroom sexual assaults in countries where same-sex bathrooms are normal? I find it very odd that the people who worry the most about their daughters being molested in bathrooms by the LGBTQIA community have no worries in the world about them being around church leaders, the police, male family members, or neighbors—the people who are absolutely most likely to assault them. I’d happily have my daughter babysat by anyone I know in the LGBTQIA community over a youth pastor, scoutmaster, or self-professed Christian. The Children: Part II: How am I supposed to explain to my children about transgenders?” Easily. Be honest. Be straightforward. Answer whatever questions you can, and whenever you can’t, be honest about them too. Kids have an amazing ability to grasp complexity and be okay with ambiguity. What they can always sniff out are bullshit and hypocrisy.

Cultural conditioning is a big part of how/why we identify the way we do, but other things are at play. Genetics, experiences, and sometimes just an innate sense—you don’t belong to the group others have placed you in. I often ask myself, “What would my life be like if I felt more like Raven if that was the dominant side of who I am?” I honestly don’t know what the answer to this question will be. What I do know is the very existence of this question gives me a small understanding of the LGBTQIA community. It is quite possible that I will never really know who I am or feel comfortable in my own skin. If that is the outcome, so be it. No matter what happens, I never want someone else to feel this way, to any degree, and I will never know why anyone would not only not understand this but go out of their way to make the situation worse.

Being comfortable in your own skin isn't something an outsider can really understand or judge. Why is someone else's happiness anyone else's concern if it doesn't directly affect them? It doesn’t unless you stretch and bend the definition of 'directly' in ways that defy linguistics, logic, and ethics.

#trans rights are human rights #transgender rights #trans issues

[forsetti]

On Sinead O’Connor: The Lioness And The Orchid

At the young age of 56, Irish singer Sinead O’Connor passed away today. I’ve loved her music since the first time I was introduced to it in 1987, when I was in grad school, by my close friend, Terry Johnson. There was something about her voice that struck something deep in my heart. I don’t know if it was the power behind it, the raw emotion, or something else. All I knew was that this twenty-one-year-old singer was unfuckingbelievable.

A few years later, when she covered Prince’s "Nothing Compares to U," her place among the top singers was etched in stone. If you listen to this song, you FEEL her longing, her pain. If you watch the video with the sound off, these same feelings come across. By the early 1990s, she had positioned herself as one of, if not the top, female musical artists. Her rise to prominence came to a screeching halt on October 3, 1992. During her live performance on Saturday Night Live, she pulled out a picture of Pope John Paul II and ripped it in half as a protest against the Catholic Church’s cover-up of sexual assaults. The aftermath of her performance was a tidal wave of condemnation, outrage, anger, banishment… In that one picture-ripping-moment, Sinead went from one of, if not the top, female artists to a cultural pariah. If you weren’t alive or culturally aware of how this all played out in 1992, all of this sounds unbelievable, knowing what we now know about the breadth and depth of the sexual abuse by Catholic priests around the world and to what extent the Vatican went to cover it up. What Sinead did in 1992 wasn’t just a protest. It was an act of sacrifice. She willingly sacrificed her fame, status, and career to protest the injustice and immorality that had been going on for decades in the Catholic Church. I have a real soft spot for and admiration for people who know exactly their position in life but are willing to sacrifice this for the truth. Malcolm X did this. Wittgenstein did this. Sinead O’Connor absolutely did this.  This sacrifice for the truth cost Malcolm X his life. It cost Sinead her mental health. The abuse heaped on her took a serious toll. She openly and bravely spoke about her mental issues, in the hopes that it would help others.  In January 2022, her seventeen-year-old son, Shane, committed suicide. I can’t speak to exactly what this did to Sinead, but I know what it is like to lose a child. I know the stress, depression, anger, loneliness, sadness... this brings. I can’t imagine what kind of toll this took on someone with an empathetic soul. All I do know is that the pressures, abuses, and losses Sinead suffered were unimaginable, and they would have destroyed most people. Sinead had a pure voice, a pure heart, and a pure moral compass.  If I were Pope Francis, I’d fast-track Sinead for sainthood, and when I made the announcement, I’d rip up a picture of John Paul II.

[forsetti]

On Overcompensation: Josh Hawley’s “Manhood”

Sen. Josh Hawley has come out with a new book about manhood. Why?  Because there is nothing more misogynist than patriarch-enabling dimwits, they like to do more than spend time rationalizing and justifying why they are "special" and why their whims and desires need to be catered to. This way, Hawley can have his political PACs buy up thousands of copies as a way of laundering money and pumping up his wingnut cred by being able to claim, "New York Times best-selling author." In an essay, "The Antidote to Dependence Is Building," an adaptation from his book, Hawley pulls out all the typical bullshit to make his case that conservatives, and only conservatives, are and defend "real men." Using their hands, creating things, and building things are how men are of value to society and how they earn their mythical "man points" until they get enough to be called a "real man" at the "Real Man Ceremony" at their local Cracker Barrel.

Let’s put aside the fact that Hawley went to a private Jesuit prep school, went to Stanford as a legacy, graduated from Yale Law School, and spent his adult life as a lawyer, Missouri Attorney General, and U.S. Senator. These are hardly the tracks to manhood Hawley argues for and claims to defend. Instead, let’s focus on how he sets up the problem and his arguments.

Hawley starts defining "manhood" with a description of his uncle, Bruce, who ran a concrete company:

"The truth is that manual work of the kind Bruce does has become less and less valued in our society, not least because the elites who set the cultural tone largely disdain those who work with their hands." The media regularly admonish schoolchildren to go to college precisely to avoid the kind of labor Bruce has been doing for 40 years. "The tech start-up wizard and the Wall Street maven are liberal culture’s beau ideals."

Manual labor has become less and less valued in our society. However, not because of left-leaning disdain but because economies around the world have shifted and a big chunk of those doing the type of work Hawley ties to manhood are minorities, Democrats have been trying to get better wages and working conditions for the people in this country doing manual labor forever. Republicans have been demonizing them. Hawley doesn’t go down this road because it exposes the bigotry and racism built into today’s GOP. Hawley wants to use the example of his white uncle and cousin as a stand-in for all manual laborers, even though they represent the minority of this group.

Next, Hawley claims the media admonishes kids to attend college to "avoid the kind of labor Bruce has been doing for 40 years." Without providing even a single example of the "media" doing this, Hawley throws all media under the bus. Why?  because it is a lazy trope. When all else fails, blame the "media," because the GOP base has been conditioned for decades to believe that the media is run by elite leftists. Hawley knows this and is readily willing to use it to support his bullshit position. 

The media hasn’t been the one pushing for kids to get a college education. Parents who want their kids to have a better life than they do are behind this push. Businesses run by GOP owners, CEOs, and managers have been demanding college degrees from their workers. The world economy has been behind this push. What Hawley is mad about is the fact that women have been earning bachelor’s degrees at a much higher rate than men since 1981.

Having more educated women and minorities defeats the "men are superior" bullshit. If women and minorities excel scholastically, financially, and culturally, then the entire "men are superior" house of cards comes tumbling down. Women and minorities earning college degrees, especially at a rate higher than men, is just another reason for Republicans to denigrate a college education. 

You don’t get to bitch and moan about how American kids are falling behind kids from Japan, India, South Korea, etc. when it comes to test scores while undermining college educations. If you want American kids to be able to compete with kids from around the world, then they need to be as well or better educated. These won't happen through thoughts and prayers.

You don’t get to bitch about having to see medical personnel and specialists with names you can’t pronounce while complaining that American kids are being "admonished" to be better educated. 

You don’t get to bitch about people from India, Indonesia, China, etc. taking over tech jobs in Silicon Valley while berating those pushing for more STEM programs and education for American kids.

Wanting kids to attend college isn’t about avoiding the "kind of labor Bruce has been doing for 40 years." It is about wanting kids to have the necessary skills in an ever-more technical world. If you want to be nostalgic, there used to be a time when stories about a manual-laboring father making sacrifices so his kids could go to college and not have to do the hard work he’d endured were seen as the epitome of the American Dream. I guess if "dad" in this story is "mom" and/or the child going to college isn’t a white male, it doesn’t count.

Hawley claims being a tech start-up wizard and Wall Street maven are "liberal culture’s best ideals." What the actual fuck? A lot of tech start-up wizards are not liberals. They are libertarians. If you don’t understand the differences between liberals and libertarians, you probably think Hawley’s claim has merit. It doesn’t.  Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Jack Dorsey, etc. might have some liberal views when it comes to social issues, but they are ultra-conservative when it comes to things like tax cuts, regulations, government oversight, etc.

As ridiculous as claiming liberals are fans of the start-up tech bros is, stating liberals love Wall Street mavens is not just outlandish; it is an outright lie.

Vulture capitalists and hedge fund managers are reviled by the left. Democrats, from FDR to Joe Biden, have tried to regulate Wall Street mavens, sometimes successfully, often not. When the housing market collapsed in 2008–09, it was on the left, not the right, behind Occupy Wall Street. Since Reagan, Republicans have catered to, fawned over, and lionized Wall Street mavens. If there was a Wall Street ball gargling contest, the top 100 ranked garglers would all be Republicans. 

After lying about who caters to Wall Street and why college educations are encouraged, Hawley does what any Republican trying to make their argument unassailable does—tie it to the Bible.

"The antidote to dependence is building." The antidote to passivity is work. And work is, according to the Bible and the Western tradition it defines, an invitation that speaks to every man. "It is an invitation to do what every man wants to do: matter in the most lasting way possible."

This is the Yale Law School reframing of "Give a man a fish, he eats for a day." "Teach a man to fish; he eats for life." It might sound smart to the rubes, but it is overly simplistic and ignores all economic progress over the past three thousand years. 

In an agrarian society where it was necessary to work hard in order to survive, this kind of pithy view might have made sense. In the high-tech world economy, it doesn’t. Humanity has intentionally created things to make their lives easier. Whining about this and/or demanding some allegiance to the past is moronic. There are good reasons why humans live longer, have lower poverty rates, and are better educated than their ancestors. It isn’t because we still churn our own butter or work the back forty from dawn to dusk. It is because science and innovations have created a world where more and more of us don’t have to do things that shorten our lives and make them more difficult.

Hawley’s view that men get value from work is very similar to the view that slaves were lucky to have work and be of value to their owners. Work is only valuable if it gives value to the person doing it. Hawley seems to believe that work has some intrinsic property and that merely by doing it, a man gets value.

Working = value is useful for Hawley and the right because if this is true, then there is no reason to increase the minimum wage, have workers place safety measures, provide healthcare, or have some sort of pension plan. If you are a good Christian American, you should work for the sake of work because it has some magical property that gives you value.

All this bullshit about work, for Hawley, is limited to men (and by his examples, white men) because "being a man," in these very specific ways, is necessary to protect the white Christian American male world Hawley grew up in and needs to keep him in office. 

He could easily use the same work = value argument for women, but he doesn’t because it is necessary for him to have a world where men are the ones who need to have value. I’m sure if pressed, he’d say women do have value, but as wives and mothers, because that too protects the world where he and his ilk are special, they need to be reminded they are special, and their specialness must be protected at all costs.

Hawley and his ilk are hothouse orchids. They grew up in a world where they were the default members of every social pyramid. They didn’t have to really compete in an open job market because women and minorities weren’t allowed or given equal consideration. Television, movies, magazines—they told them they were special. What these mediums didn’t tell them is that they were told this because they were the largest consumer group. They were told they were special for so long and in so many different ways that they believed it. Why are white Christian men special? because white Christian men wrote the book on who gets to be considered special.

Instead of recognizing this and doing the bare minimum to change, people like Hawley make up new and uninteresting arguments as to why they are special. Their entire self-worth is tied to this notion of being special. As America becomes more diverse and cultural norms change to be more accepting of women, minorities, and the LGBTQI community, it becomes more difficult for people like Hawley to claim and defend their archaic worldview. The more examples of non-male, non-Christian, non-white people succeeding and doing as well or better than their white Christian male counterparts, the more obvious it becomes that the Josh Hawleys of the world are overcompensating because, whether they will ever admit it or not, they know they are full of shit.

[forsetti]

On Another Day In America: Part Infinity

In 1985, I moved to Michigan to attend graduate school at Michigan State University. I was on a five-year plan. Thirty-three years later, it is still my home. This is why, today, I feel like Michael Corleone in “The Godfather Part II,” “IN MY HOME!?” This was an attack on my home. And, just like mass shootings in other communities, in other people’s “homes,” the recent mass shooting at MSU wasn’t just another tragedy. It was a tragedy that was as predictable as it was avoidable. I honestly don't know what it will take for America, as a nation, to take gun violence seriously, to address any of the complex symptoms underlying mass shootings. Twenty small kids gunned down in Sandy Hook? Nothing. Nineteen in Uvalde? Didn't even move the needle. The more mass shootings, especially at schools, the more the people who willfully ignore the issues and are responsible for many of the situations leading to mass shootings dig in their jack-booted heels to ensure nothing ever gets done. A decade ago, I wrote “Another Day In America,” about the causes, hypocrisy, gas lighting, lying...about mass shootings. It is as true today as it was ten years ago. Just once, I'd like to be wrong about this but after watching half the country fight against and ignore basic public health recommendations during a pandemic, I don't see any significant progress in my lifetime. Another day in America, another mass shooting.  Another speech by the president asking for the most basic gun controls, another day conservatives scream about the coming tyranny of gun confiscations. Another plea or common sense, another day of gun and ammo sales going through the roof.  Another set of families trying to cope with the sudden loss of loved ones, another call from the NRA to make guns more readily available.  Another shooter who in a civilized world would not have been allowed to purchase guns, another day mental health services are cut.  Another day our citizens are killed by a tool whose entire purpose is to kill, another day of people rolling out the intellectually lazy argument of “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”  Another list of names to add to the hundreds of thousands of others who’ve been killed by guns the past few decades, another day people go out of their way to pretend the deaths are isolated, unrelated and unpreventable.  Another day someone shoots people due to some perceived grievance, another day people feed the fear, anger, hatred behind the killings and act like there is no connection.  Another day where children are killed in cold blood, another opportunity for “false flag” conspiracies and deniers to minimize the loss.  Another day politicians will talk about “sending our prayers to the victims’ families,” another day they don’t do anything meaningful to address the problem.  Another stunned community dealing with overwhelming grief, another very profitable quarter for gun and ammo manufacturers.  Another set of chalk outlines on a school room floor, another day where nothing is done to prevent it from happening again.  Another day when the media pretends to care about killings, another day they feed a constant red meat diet of misogyny, racism, xenophobia, religious persecution…to their audience.  Another police officer holding a press conference to describe a shooting, another day an unarmed person is killed by another law enforcement officer.  Another day a child finds a loaded gun and kills themselves or someone else, another day physicians around the country are not allowed to ask if there is a gun in the home.  Another day of eighty people dying from gun-related causes, another day the CDC isn’t allowed to research and study gun deaths. Another day a couple has a heated argument, another day a woman is shot and killed because there was a gun in the house.  Another day a woman is shot and killed by an estranged boyfriend or husband, another day a state legislature refuses to pass a law preventing people with a history of domestic violence and restraining orders against them from purchasing and possessing a gun.  Another emotional teenager in a moment of lax judgment takes their own life, another day the gun lobby talks about the need for guns in the home.  Another day a person walks into a movie theater with multiple weapons and hundreds of rounds of ammo and opens fire, another day someone is arguing high capacity magazines are necessary for hunting.  Another day a “good guy” who legally purchased gun shoots and kills a half-dozen people, another day someone rolls out the trope, “the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”  Another day  of eighty Americans killed by guns, another five years goes by in other industrial countries before they reach that number.  Another day someone who does own a gun doesn’t shoot someone, another day they think because they don’t use their gun improperly guns shouldn’t be regulated.  Another day of people say, “if people want to get a gun they will because criminals don’t follow the law,” another day they’ll argue for drug laws, drunk driving laws, speed limits, etc. with no sense of irony.  Another day where someone else’s children are killed by guns, another day people will call for nothing to done because it didn’t happen to them. Another day someone calls for universal background checks, another day of opposition by people who have Red Dawn fantasies of protecting the homeland with AR-15s against a military with jets, tanks, and cruise missiles.  Another day someone suggests we close the gun show loophole for gun purchases, another day someone will say, “You know who else took away guns?  Hitler.”  Another mass shooting in America, another day every single person who defends and argues for our current approach to guns is morally culpable for the deaths.  Another mass shooting in America and no one is surprised anymore because it’s treated as just another day.  It’s just another day in America because eighty people die from guns every single day and we not only don’t do anything to reduce this number, we are allowing laws to be passed that are making this number bigger.  It’s just another day in America because Americas love guns more than they love civility.  It’s just another day in America because Americans have delusional fantasies of Cowboys and Indians, John Wayne, John McClane, Wolverines, Dirty Harry, and Bryan Mills.  It’s just another day in America because America is too arrogant to admit it does something wrong.  It’s just another day in America because it more important to hold on to a centuries-old idea than evolve ethically, socially and culturally.  Tomorrow more people will be killed with guns in America and no one will think twice about it because it will be just another day.

[forsetti]

On Good Guys With Guns: “Not All Men,” But With Guns

"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun."

We've all heard this phrase about good guys and bad guys and guns. It is a go-to mantra for the NRA and Republicans, especially after any mass shooting. Their argument is that if there were more "good guys" with guns roaming around out and about in society, there would be fewer "bad guys," with guns and fewer casualties if/when a shooting occurs for reasons-very vague, non-specific, never fleshed out, magical reasons.

Putting aside the whole, "here is where the magic happens," when it comes to good guys with guns part of the argument, let's look at the first part of the argument about "good guys." The way Republicans define, "good guy," is anyone who owns a gun and doesn't use it in any improper way. On the surface, this sounds reasonable, but the way they use it is in a No True Scotsman way. If you are not familiar with the No True Scotsman fallacy, it is where a generalization is made and nothing is allowed to contradict the purity of it. Any evidence or counterexamples provided that disproves the generalization, is met with, "That really isn't X."

"No true Scotsman would put sugar on their porridge."

"My friend Angus is Scottish and puts sugar on his porridge."

"Angus isn't a true Scotsman."

"Conservatives care about the deficit."

"Ronald Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Donald Trump...exploded the deficit."

"They weren't true conservatives."

In this last example, it is used to show that conservatism can NEVER fail, it can only be failed. Conservatism is the generalization that is pure and nothing can count against it.

No amount of evidence contradicts the generalization. This allows those making the generalization to avoid any real criticism. It also protects those in the group being generalized from any evidence or counterargument to their positions. For example, a gun owner who leaves a loaded weapon around that is found by a child who uses it to harm or kill someone or themselves is often given a pass because they are just a "good guy" who made a mistake. No, they are a bad guy who were negligent and are directly responsible for the damage their negligence caused. On the other hand, people who use weapons they obtained legally, who use these weapons to shoot up a church full of people, or a mall, or a school, are instantly labeled as "bad guys" because their actions bring bad attention to the NRA and Republicans. Guns are never the problem. People are the problem. Mental health is the problem. Too many doors are the problem. Critical Race Theory, wokeness, the decline in traditional families... are the problems with mass shootings. Guns don't kill people. People kill people. Yes, they do, and they do it efficiently, quickly, and in large numbers with FUCKING GUNS!

However, the real problem with the whole, "good guy with a gun," argument is how do we know who is a good guy and who is a bad guy in any meaningful way, in order to prevent or minimize the damage and carnage done by bad guys? The way it is defined, every single gun owner is a "good guy," right up to the moment they aren't. This is true, definitionally, but is meaningless in any useful way. If we can't identify the bad guys before they become bad guys, then they have free reign to cause harm. If we don't take steps to prevent bad guys from causing carnage, we are failing as a society. Of course, we can't prevent all the bad things done by bad guys. We can, however, easily prevent a lot of bad things, especially when it comes to gun violence.

Not being able to identify who is a "good guy" and who is a "bad guy," is exacerbated by open-carry laws and eliminating gun-free zones. If open-carry was illegal, someone walking down the street with a long gun or with a holstered pistol would automatically, and rightfully, be viewed as a threat. The very fact that they are doing this moves them into the "bad guy" status and society can take preventative measures. They might still be able to cause harm and death, but having the opportunity to address this as a potential problem instead of after-the-fact, is the smart and ethical thing to do.

With open-carry and other policies that make gun ownership and when/where they can be carried, it is impossible to identify who is a bad guy until after they've started shooting, until it is too late. This is why it is so infuriating when people like Gov. Abbott from Texas say, "It could have been worse," when talking about the killing of twenty children and two teachers. The ONLY reason it could have been worse is because the problem wasn't identified and addressed before it happened. It is like never going to a doctor, never being allowed an examination, never having any tests run, finding out you have a horrible strain of cancer, and someone saying, "It could have been worse." Yes, it could have been worse, but it could have easily been a lot better.

"We can't identify who is a bad person until they do something bad." Sure, we can. We do it all the time. The entire TSA is designed specifically to identify potentially bad people. Bars/restaurants are liable for identifying people who have had too much alcohol before they get in a car and potentially hurt/kill themselves and/or others.

The inability to potentially identify threats that could prevent or limit harm and death and the excuses and "reasoning" of "a good guy with a gun," is similar to "Not All Men." This comparison is even stronger and more meaningful when you take into consideration that almost all mass shootings in America are done by men.

Before I get into this comparison, I want to fully acknowledge that sexual assaults and rapes happen to people other than women. However, for the sake of brevity and the reality that women are the victims of these crimes at a higher rate and number than other groups, I'm using them exclusively for this analogy.

As Me Too took off on social media and gained national attention, a counter-position quickly arose, "Not All Men." Not All Men, regardless of the intention of the person using it, diminished and minimized the real, life-changing experiences many women have gone through. Whenever a woman would come out and describe the very painful, very personal experience of their sexual assault or rape, without fail, a horde of guys would come out of the woodwork to interject, "Not all men."

The MeToo Movement wasn't about "all men." It was never claimed that all men sexually assaulted or raped women. It was entirely about exposing the reality that many men are these things, and that these attacks happen to women at a much higher frequency than most of us know or want to admit. Saying, "Not all men," minimizes this reality, often intentionally so. "Not all men," was a Strawman Argument responding to a claim that was never made by anyone.

The real issue with, "Not all men," is similar to the issue of open-carry-there is no meaningful way to identify who is a threat, who is a bad guy, and who is a good guy. For women, every single man is a potential bad guy because there is absolutely nothing to distinguish between good guys and bad guys. Every guy is a good guy right up to the moment they are not. This means that every single guy is a potential threat.

Saying, "Not all men," doesn't reduce the potential and real threats women must deal with and navigate every single day. "Not all men," is nothing more than a defensive reaction to a situation that needs understanding and support, not fragile egos. It can also be very harmful because it gives a false sense of security in a situation where being on high alert all the time is necessary. I can be the nicest, safest, non-threatening man on the planet, but to a woman who doesn't know me personally, I am, and should be, viewed as a potential threat. My saying, "Not all men," is not evidence. It is a true but meaningless statement. Much in the same way, "not all gun owners," is true but meaningless.

These threats can only be addressed by men changing their behaviors and by the legal and political systems taking these threats and the harm done by them, seriously. When it comes to sexual assaults and rapes, as a man, I can be aware of my own actions, how they can be viewed by women, and change them, in order to reduce the stress women must endure each and every day. As a society, we can take women's experiences seriously. We can make investigating and prosecuting sexual assaults and rapes a top priority. We can identify potential threats and take measures to reduce the damage they might do.

We can do the very same thing when it comes to gun violence. As individuals, we start by not carrying guns in public, whether it is legal or not. We can make it easier for potential victims and law enforcement to take steps to address a potentially dangerous and harmful situation before it happens. We can pass laws that make it easier to identify who is a bad guy. We can and should call out anyone who uses the "good guy with a gun," bullshit argument.

What the NRA and Republicans know but will never admit is that they want people to not know who is a good guy and who is a bad guy because, like sexual assaults and rapes, it is about intimidation and power. There is no reason for anyone not part of a security team hired to protect state legislatures to be carrying a weapon on statehouse grounds or in legislative buildings. This is done and allowed for one reason only-intimidation. It is a show of power to intimidate anyone who does not agree with and support the beliefs of those with the guns. Sexual assault and rape is used for the very same reasons.

The idea that guns are a phallic symbol used as an outward expression of anger and aggression is pretty spot-on when you consider how men talk about their guns and their dicks. While we can't take away one, though it wouldn't be the worst idea, we can and should take away the other because the damage they do isn't just horrible and immoral, it is completely avoidable. Major, democratic countries around the world have successfully been able to have reasonable gun control. They listen to the same music as Americans. They play the same video games. They have poverty, mental health problems, divorces, everything America has. What they don't have, what they chose to control to protect their citizens, are guns. America has the most guns not because it is the "freest" country in the world but because it is the most arrogant, most stupid, and, if you understand the history of guns in America, one of the most racist.

America loves guns because guns are what allowed white people to take land from Native Americans. America loved guns because they allowed white people to control slaves. America loved guns because they helped enforce Jim Crow. America loves guns because too many white Americans believe they are the rightful owners, protectors, and leaders of America, and the only way they can ensure this is true is through threat and intimidation. You can't separate America's love of guns from its racism. You can't separate America's love of guns from white supremacy. You can't separate America's love of guns from misogyny.

The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a society that puts the lives of their children, the lives of their neighbors, the lives of their parish/church, or synagogue... over an object whose design and function is to kill. Having watched half of America refuse to take a world-wide pandemic seriously and not give a flying fuck about how this led to the deaths of over one million of their fellow citizens, I don't have much hope they will do a damn thing about what is now, the number one cause of deaths among young people. The desire to protect the mythology they've bought into and perpetrated about their supremacy, is more important than the lives of even the children in this country.

Mass shootings in America are as American as apple pie and baseball. We built this. We own it. We could easily change it if we wanted, but too many of us don't want to because we benefit from the fear and intimidation guns bring to the table. Too many of us are afraid that those we've mistreated for so many years will treat us the same if they get power. Too many of us are willing to sacrifice others to protect a mythology that, if you dig just below the surface, is complete bullshit. Too many of us, especially when it comes to guns and how we treat women, are not good guys. Not all men but too many many of us. If you support the NRA, the Republican’s stand on guns, are okay with open-carry, owning assault-style weapons, large capacity magazines, owning body armor... no matter what anyone tells you, especially yourself, you are not a good guy. 

[forsetti]

On Republican Political Strategy: Using Kids As Human Shields

We've all seen movies where a bad guy finds himself in a situation where he really doesn't have a way to escape so he grabs some innocent bystander and uses them as a human shield, putting them directly in the line of fire, in order to save their own miserable hide. Bad guys grab another guy. Really bad guys grab a woman. Really, really bad guys grab an elderly woman. However, the worst of the worst are those that grab a small child. Whenever this happens in a movie, the visceral, correct response is, “Fuck that guy!”

Putting someone who is the most vulnerable between you and the consequences you brought upon yourself is pure cowardice. Using a child as a human shield is as cowardly as one can get. This is EXACTLY what Republicans are currently doing when it comes to their strategy to attack Democrats regarding abortion, Critical Race Theory, crime prevention, transgender issues, etc. All the arguments Republicans are using rest almost entirely on, “Think of the children.” Abortion-”Dems want unlimited abortion, on-demand, to kill as many babies as possible. Think of the kids.” (This belongs in a special, “Think of the children,” place because it isn't really about thinking of the children but thinking about the possibility of a child. It is a meta-bullshit argument.)

Critical Race Theory-”Dems want to teach your precious little white children they are racists. You don't want that, do you? Think of the children.” Crime Prevention-”Dems are defunding the police and crime is out of control. It isn't safe for your precious young ones to ride their bikes, walk to school, play in the part. Think of the children.”

Transgender Issues-”Dems want men to share the bathroom with your precious daughters. They want men to humiliate them in sporting events. They want men to be able to prey on them. Think of the children.”

“Think of the children,” is the go-to move right now when it comes to just about every Republican political attack. There are two main reasons why this is the case: 1-It works; And, 2-They are moral cowards.

“Think of the children,” works because it is a natural inclination to want to protect children, whether they are our own or others. Children are vulnerable and dependent on adults to keep them safe. Risking your well-being and possibly your life to protect and save a child from harm is socially viewed as an act of heroism. Rightfully so. This line of attack also works because just about every single parent wants to believe they are a good parent, whether this is true or not. Buying into a “Think of the children,” attack allows someone to do the very minimum possible and feel they are being a good parent/person.

“Think of the children,” is the “thoughts and prayers,” of political involvement. It takes no real effort, no real commitment, no real anything other than voting for the people who use it as a political cudgel. Like offering up thoughts and prayers when there is a tragedy, buying into the “Think of the children,” arguments and voting for the candidates pushing them is literally doing nothing other than trying to make you feel better about yourself. It's as useless as it is intellectually lazy.

Even though, “Think of the children,” works, that is only part of the reason Republicans are using it with such intensity and frequency right now. The other part is they are moral cowards. They know they can't go to the American public and say what they really believe, what they really want to do because they'd be politically exiled for the next fifty years. They know they can't go out on the campaign trail or on Tucker Carlson's show and say, “We want to undo the Civil Rights Act. We want to put women back in the home where we believe they belong. We want minorities to be second-class citizens. We want Christianity to be the national religion. We want fewer people voting and those who do must meet our criteria. We want the LGBTQI community to be viewed and treated as degenerates and cast from society. We want fewer nonwhites in the country and we really don't care how we achieve this goal because we believe whites are naturally superior to other races and it is our God-given right to have this view. We want private businesses to be in charge of everything because making a buck is more important than things like rights, public good, democracy. In fact, we really don't believe in democracy at all.”

This is what they really want. This is what they hint at all the time. This is what the laws they propose at state and federal levels imply. This is what they've been talking about in articles, conferences, blog posts, online for decades. To anyone who has paid the slightest bit of attention the past fifty years, none of this should be surprising. It should be self-evident. That they don't come out and be honest about what they really want but instead hint around the edges is cowardice. That they hide their true intentions behind, “Think of the children,” is cowardice combines with immorality with a poison cherry on top.

No one with any sense of politics or history of modern-day conservatism can possibly believe Republicans give a single fuck about kids, in general. Sure, Ted Cruz cares about his kids. That's why he sent them to Cancun when Texas was hit with a cold spell that resulted in some Texans freezing to death. His kids needed protection. His kids needed to be safe. However, Ted didn't give a flying fuck about the children of Texans who weren't part of his social network. He didn't give a fuck about them so much, he fled the country to “protect” his own kids at the posh resort where they were staying instead of lifting a single finger to help those people and children in Texas who really need it. He offered “thoughts and prayers.” Meanwhile, Beto O'Rourke and other Democratic politicians, many who don't even come from or represent Texas, were organizing shelters, food, medical care...for those affected by the cold.

Republicans don't give a fuck about children, in general. They have time and time again cut or denied funding for programs that actually help children. They have time and time again pushed to roll back or outright get rid of healthcare for children, especially those who need it the most. They have time and time again refused to do anything about paid maternity leave or pre-K schooling or daycare...things that really matter to and benefit children. They've refused to do anything about environmental issues that negatively impact children like lead pipes, contaminated drinking water, lax food inspection, etc. They've refused to do anything to address the real problem of child sexual abuse and/or the cover up by churches. They have done everything possible to damage public education, especially in areas that need it the most.

Don't talk about how important it is to, “Think about the children,” if you aren't willing to do things that actually help them. Don't grab a child and use them as a human shield when everybody knows full well, you don't give a damn about that child. Don't use, “Think of the children,” when doing so is intended to protect yourself from people really knowing what you are up to. If you really care about children, then support people and policies that are designed to promote their health, education, well-being, safety. If you think a law school graduate-level topic like Critical Race Theory is more important for the safety and well-being of children than clean water or well-funded schools, you are delusional and a huge part of the problem. If you think transgender women are preying on your daughters/grand daughters and this is a bigger concern than kids having access to good, quality healthcare, you have serious problems and no real capacity to understand issues and risk assessment. “Republicans DO care about kids!” No. Republicans care about select groups of kids and by coincidence, their kids always end up belonging to these groups. They do not care about children in general. There is no history of this in any meaningful sense from the GOP for the past half century.

I live in Michigan. I watched the Republican governor and Republican-led legislature watch the children of Flint suffer for a long, long time with high levels of lead in their water. Lead in the bloodstream of a child causes long-term, permanent physical and cognitive damage. What Republicans did was offer up thoughts and prayers and didn't really lift a finger to help the children of Flint. Meanwhile, if a white kid from Bloomfield or East Grand Rapids claimed they were psychologically harmed by a teacher who showed them “12 Years A Slave,” the entire Michigan GOP would have written, passed, and signed a bill in twenty-four hours not only condemning what happened but making it punishable under law. They would have passed this bill under the guise of “Think of the children,” but the fact is they passed it to prevent their precious white kids from learning anything that might pop the bullshit bubble that is their belief in white superiority. This is what the entire Critical Race Theory is all about-making sure white kids don't learn the history of white people's beliefs and behaviors towards nonwhites in America. It isn't about protecting little Barron and Tiara from being called “racist.” It is about them learning their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents sometimes believed, did, and said racist things. The attack on CRT is holding kids hostage to protect white people from talking about and owning up to their histories.

Whenever a Republican pulls out the, “Think of the children,” line, you should have the same reaction as when a bad guy in a movie snatches up some child and uses them as a human shield to protect themselves-”Fuck that guy!”

[forsetti]

On Dumbassery: It Is Only Going To Get Worse

Two months ago, I took myself off of social media because after a decade or more of constant bullshit and stupidity, I'd finally reached a breaking point. I've watched people, sometimes family and friends, who I used to think were level-headed, rational people, lose their minds. People I once considered reasonable, even if I disagreed with them politically, seem more than willing to believe and pass along absolute nonsense without the slightest hesitation or speck of shame.

In the past two months, there have been some things happening that really have brought out the dumbassery. The doesn't even include all the pre-existing dumbassery of the 2020 election or the pandemic. Two-thirds of Republicans still don't believe Joe Biden fairly won the election and to a lot of this group, having to wear a mask is equivalent to the Trail of Tears, The Bataan Death March, and Dachau all rolled up in one freedom-killing, complete waste of time. Never mind there hasn't been a single example of voter fraud from any state and how every time mask requirements are put in place, cases of COVID go down and every time they are relaxed, cases go up. Fucking facts getting all uppity and pretentious with their truthfulness.

So, what has happened in the past couple of months that have raised the Dumbassery Threat Level?

Let's start with Russia. Russia invaded Ukraine and all same people who were election and viral disease experts perfectly pivoted without hesitation to their foreign policy and Russian/Ukrainian historian bona fides. You know, the same people who claimed the COVID vaccine contained a microchip and who willingly drank bleach and ingested animal deworming medicine to cure a virus they claimed was a hoax. Those same people are now experts in all things Russian and Ukrainian. What could possibly go wrong?

It is a thing of beauty to watch the “Party of Reagan” become Putin and Russian aggression apologists. Putin is a thug. Ukraine is a democracy and not a democracy like Iran and Russia are democracies. They aren't Nazis. The role of fascists in this tragedy is being played perfectly by the Russians. This isn't debatable. The only “sin” Ukraine committed is being next door to Russia. This has been their “sin” for centuries and the only people who deem this a sin are the Russians.

It doesn't matter the people on the right who are defending Putin and Russia couldn't find Ukraine on a map if it was highlighted in neon pink and had a pin in it with a bedazzled flag that said, “HERE IS UKRAINE!” sticking out of it. It doesn't matter they know absolutely no one scintilla about Ukraine or its history with Russia. It doesn't matter that Russia is intentionally bombing hospitals, schools, food storage supplies, places of refuge... All that matters is Putin is a white nationalist, anti-gay, autocrat that Trump idolized and spoke highly of. I mean, Thomas Jefferson is the one who said, “The tree of white nationalism must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of civilians who get in the way of a dictatorial oligarchy.”

Of course, you can't talk about Russia without bringing up how badly Biden is screwing hard-working Americans with high gas prices and inflation. America is the only county experiencing high gas prices and inflation, right? Wait. Do you mean every other country is experiencing the very same things? Doesn't matter, we're America dammit. We didn't stop after the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor. In a world economy, if we had a “real leader,” we could fill up our tanks for pennies and prices would never go up. On anything. Ever.

This economic idiocy comes from the same crowd who talks about and praises “the free market,” like they are vegan Mormon missionaries who do Crossfit. Yet, the most basic concept of their beloved economic theory-supply and demand, somehow is a complete mystery to them. “What do you mean, when more people want something the price goes up?” “What do you mean, when production can't meet demand, prices go up?” “What do you mean, I couldn't spell 'cat' if I was spotted the 'c' and the 't'?”

Speaking of that mysterious, elusive concept of supply and demand having an impact on prices, the people bitching the loudest about the cost of gas are the same ones who refuse to drive a vehicle that gets good gas mileage, who refuse to do anything to increase renewable energy, who won't use or invest in public transportation, who drives a huge SUV even though the only things they “haul” are a couple of kids and bags of takeout food.

“Fuck you! You don't know what it is like for a hard-working, blue-collar guy who needs a gas-guzzling monstrosity to carry the tools of his trade.” One of my jobs is painting houses. I have lots of equipment in two large, plastic bins, two ladders, a six-foot step ladder, and a multi-positional ladder that can open up to twenty-two feet. I can fit all of this into my Chevy Trax along with my photography equipment, bags of groceries from the store, and my daughter. BTW, I get 30+ miles a gallon. There are some people who legitimately need larger vehicles to do their jobs. However, a huge section of owners of such vehicles doesn't need them. Not one damn bit. It's a status symbol for some. It is an ego thing to others. It is not, however, necessary in so, so, so many instances.

If you want lower gas prices, use less gas. It is that fucking simple. Stop acting like there is some Manifest Destiny where Americans who make up 4.5% of the world's population but are the largest consumers of oil, in the entire world, are entitled to not only be the beneficiary of such a grotesque imbalance but immune to the basic laws of economics. The arrogance to think and demand this is only topped by its sheer stupidity.

These same economic geniuses are the ones saying things like: “Gas would be less expensive if the Keystone XL pipeline has been allowed to be built.” “There are thousands of idle oil wells because Biden is stopping them from being operated.” “America is “energy independent,” the only reason gas prices are high is that Biden sucks.”

Sure, John D. Crockafeller. That's exactly what is going on. Never mind the simple facts that the type of oil the Keystone XL pipeline would have carried isn't the kind that is processed into gasoline and would be sold on the open market or the reason thousands of wells are idle is that private businesses who own them have calculated it would be more expensive to operate them than not or “energy independent” is a meaningless term when your country imports 8.5 billion barrels of oil A DAY. America is oil independent in the way a thirty-year-old living in his parent's basement having “Mommy,” make him breakfast every morning and cut the crust off his bologna sandwiches is independent. This might sound good when you say it to yourself or to the woman at the end of the bar who keeps trying to not make eye contact with you and begging to cash out but in reality, it is a bullshit statement that isn't supported by facts.

Also, if you take the current annual oil consumption rate of the U.S. and divide it with ALL the known U.S. oil reserves, we'd run out in 5 years if we were truly, “independent.” Just to put it into perspective, the U.S. ranks 11th in the world when it comes to known oil reserves. Even this ranking is misleading when you consider the leader, Venezuela, has 8.5 TIMES more oil reserves than we do. The U.S. has 2.1% of all known oil reserves in the world. 4.5% of the population. 2.1% of the oil reserves. Uses the absolute most oil of any country. Yeah, we're “oil independent.”

Russia, gas prices, inflation...these are certainly leading contenders in the Dumbassery Bracket but the two number one seeds are Critical Race Theory and Transgender Rights.

The anti-trans bullshit from people is really ire-inducing. As if most of the people bitching about a trans athlete competing gave a single fuck about women's sports or fairness for women. The Venn Diagram of people bitching about lack of fairness in women's sports wrt transgender competitors and those who are against equal pay for women for equal work or equal say over their healthcare decisions is an almost perfect circle.

Also, enough with the phrase, “competitive advantage.” Lebron James has a competitive advantage by being Lebron James. Michael Phelps' biology gave him an incredible competitive advantage over his competitors. I don't hear anyone bitching about “competitive advantage,' when Lebron backs down a smaller defender and dunks on him or when Michael Phelps was winning gold medal after gold medal.

Since we're on the subject of trans athletes competing in women's sports, the idea that there will be an onslaught of men going the trans route, in order to compete in and win women's athletic events shows a complete lack of understanding a whole lot of things but mostly, social pressures. Do you really think some guy is going to go through all the physical changes and social pressures/ridicule, just to win a game/match/event? If you do, you really don't understand men in general and what being a trans person is specifically.

I grew up a white, Christian male where those traits were the desired, viewed as the best-of-all-possible-worlds traits. Yet, I never felt I belong or was allowed to be myself. This didn't come until I moved away to grad school when I was twenty-five. Being able to be me for the first time in my life was revolutionary and life-changing. I cannot even begin to imagine how it must feel to not be able to be yourself, how you really know yourself to be and be at the bottom of the social value chart. Trans people, especially kids deserve every single bit of love and opportunities other people get. If a trans person loves swimming and is good at it, they should be encouraged, not berated because they may beat some other person who also loves swimming.

What is outrageous is all these people who don't have kids in sports adding their two cents of stupid to the conversation. THE ONLY REASON they are doing this is they are hooked on outrage like an addict is hooked on heroin. In no possible way does some trans woman competing in a sport truly impact these people's lives. In the same way gay marriage being legal didn't impact a single non-gay person's life, trans people doing anything, including sports, doesn't affect 99.9999% of the population.

Another thing that angers me is those people who placed 14th and 15th in the latest swim meet where a trans woman won bitching about how unfair it was. Really? Is there some universe where bragging you placed 13th or 14th in the prelims carries more weight, opens more doors, has more meaning for your life than 14th or 15th place? If so, you have many, many more problems than being a mediocre competitive swimmer.

Speaking of mediocre, watching Republican Senators roll out every single possible racist, misogynist, bullshit trope about blacks, black women, Critical Race Theory, liberals being “soft on crime,” especially child pornography, during the confirmation hearings of Kentanji Brown Jackson's SCOTUS nomination, is something to behold. Not something to behold like seeing a double rainbow at Angel Falls. More something to behold like watching a drunk Mel Gibson go on an anti-semitic tirade or listening to Alec Balwin leave a drunken message for his daughter. The idea that a black person, let alone a black woman is qualified and really, really good at her job doesn't even enter the minds of these Senators because they deep down, to the core of their very beings, believe minorities are inferior to whites.

KBJ's confirmation hearings are not just a chance for Republicans to spew their racist bullshit but to throw out every single possible conspiracy theory about liberals they can possibly come up with. Liberals hate God-loving Christians. Liberals are soft on crime. Liberals are cool with child pornography. Liberals hate America. Liberals want to kill babies. All these attacks are de rigueur for today's Republicans. It is neither unexpected nor surprising. What is interesting is in their attacks on Justice KBJ, they've exposed some of their true beliefs and goals. Their own words show they want to not only roll back the protections of Roe-v-Wade but make all abortion, for any reason, a criminal offense. They want to undo the personal freedom's of Griswold-v-Connecticut, especially when it applies to birth control. They want to undo Obergefell-v-Hodges and make gay marriage illegal. They want to undo Loving-v-Virginia and make interracial marriages illegal. They want to undo NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp and bring back child labor. These are all things Republican Senators have directly brought up this week. All of these are couched under an argument these civil rights cases should be left to individual states. Rights don't work like that, especially civil rights. They can't be given/taken away at a state's border, something that is as arbitrarily created as it gets.

State's rights was the main argument for slavery and for segregation. It was bullshit and on the wrong side of history and ethics then and it is now. Conservatives HAVE TO construct a world where the things they believe and the thing they do are at the top of the social/cultural pyramid. Being white HAS TO BE given top billing. Being Christian HAS TO BE deemed better than not being Christian. Being married to someone of the opposite sex HAS TO BE given priority for no other reason than for conservatives to have another thing they do and believe in be the special/preferred thing.

There have been a lot of dumbass, “gotcha” questions from Republican Senators to Judge Jackson. My personal favorite was Sen. Buy-a-Fucking Comb Blackburn's trying to box Judge Jackson into some imaginary corner where the “far-left agenda” is finally exposed by asking her if she knew what the definition of “woman,” was. As a student of Wittgenstein's philosophy of language, I would have told the idiot Senator from Tennessee that meaning comes from use. Words are tools. And, like tools, how you use them gives them their definition. I can use a hammer to hammer nails or prop open a door. In one case the definition of hammer is “hammer.” In the other case, the definition of hammer is, “doorstop.” It all depends on how it is being used. Words are the same.

This isn't a controversial or difficult to understand concept. “White,” when used to describe race, has been used to exclude certain groups of people that are now included under the same definition. The Irish were not considered, “white,” at one time because the powers that be didn't want the Irish to have the rights white people did, at the time. This is why race is an artificial construct. Words like “white” are intentionally used to denote the privileged group and terms like “black,” “immigrants,” “minorities,”... are intentionally used to denote “does not belong to the privileged group and the rights that group are granted. All words are made up. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. From “man” and “woman,” to “one” and “two.” Sometimes, for convenience sake, we maintain a strict adherence to a particular definition. It would really fuck things up is the definition of “two” fluctuated or was flexible.

If we use “woman” to mean whoever identifies as a woman, does it really fuck up anything? If Meryl Streep won the Best Actress Oscar for portraying a man no one would raise as much as an eyebrow. If she won Best Actor for the same role, would it really matter? If the Oscars went away from Best Actor and Best Actress categories and just came up with a different category, would it make a difference? To whom? Why? Whose lives would really be changed? Would Ma and Pa Liberty in Texarkana's lives be altered in any real way if this happened? Of course not. If a trans person identifies as a woman or a man, does it really impact a single person other than her/him/they? It shouldn't.

At this point, some dumbass will bring up, “I don't want a man in a public bathroom when my daughter is in there.” First, it isn't a man, it is a woman. Second, just like gays, trans folks are not sexual predators. Those would be your run-of-the-mill heteros. I'm a million times more comfortable having a trans person or a gay person in the bathroom with my kids than I am a youth pastor, Scout leader, or Republican politician. There is a huge pile of evidence that shows these people are sexual predators and a nonexistent pile that supports the fear of the LGBTQI community. Watching Republicans attack transgender individuals is like watching a horror movie where the innocent outsider stops in a strange town to ask for directions and the locals end up killing them because they are “different.” It is morally reprehensible.

Of course, no conversation about dumbassery would be complete without talking about Critical Race Theory. “How am I going to explain to my innocent, beautiful white children they are evil and racists because they are white?” I'd start by telling your kids you are a complete dumbass who doesn't understand what CRT is and have no passable understanding of U.S. history. The next thing I'd do, if I was you, is call CPS and have them take my kids away because I'm too stupid and too reactionary to be a parent.

NO ONE. NOT A SINGLE FUCKING LIVING SOUL has ever said the mere fact of being white makes someone a racist. What is said, and supported by four hundred years of our history, is being white is the default position when it comes to status, power, economic prosperity, legal protections, rights... What is said is the mere fact of being white in America affords you certain things non-whites don't get with the same intensity, frequency, authority. What is said is being white in America is like having an American Express Card-membership has its privileges.

As a white male in America, when I go to a bank to apply for a loan, I am much more likely to get it and at a better rate than someone who doesn't have my traits.

When I am out driving, I am much less likely to be pulled over by the police because of the color of my skin. If I am pulled over, I am much less likely to be given a citation.

If I am arrested, I am much more likely to be presented in a positive light, both with a picture and description of who I am.

If I commit a crime, I am much less likely to spend time in jail and have a lower bond.

If I am found guilty, I am much less likely to be jailed and my “potential future” will talked about and used to lighten my sentence.

If I am jailed, I am much less likely to spend as much time as POC who committed the same crime.

If I go to a doctor, I am much more likely to be believed when I describe my symptoms and pain.

If I apply for a job, I am much more likely to get it over equally or more qualified candidates of color. If I assault someone, my story of events is more likely to be believed by the police.

If I am an academic and submit an article, my article, if not presented anonymously, will be more positively received because of my male Anglo-Saxon name than someone who doesn't have this trait.

When I was in school, my outbursts, insubordination, breaking the rules, etc. would have resulted in much less punitive consequences.

If I am wandering around in an area where I don't live, I am much less likely to have the police called on me.

The schools I attended K-12, were much more likely to be properly funded and staffed with more qualified teachers.

When I attended schools, I was much more likely to learn about my history taught to me by people just like me than not.

If a new highway is being planned, my home, my business is much more likely not going to be negatively affected by its construction.

If I plan on voting, I am much less likely to wait in long lines that last for hours, have old voting machines that break down, and have my district constantly gerrymandered, in order to make my vote count less.

My wealth is going to be considerably more than POC who have the exact same education level and even those with much higher levels. My family's wealth going back generations is much more likely to have contributed to the economic status in which I was born, the schools I was able to attend, the help I was able to get, the connections I was able to make...

I could go on for pages. From the economic situation I grew up in to currently enjoy, to the schooling, financial, health, political...advantages I AUTOMATICALLY get for no other reason than being a white, Christian male, to say these are not privileges and somehow, I don't benefit both directly and indirectly, is asinine. All of these things are true, regardless of my personal, individual views of race. This is how systemic racism works. This is what CRT addresses. Not whether little Billy or Tammy are racists because they are white. This, “what about the children,” Republicans hide behind to justify their horrid beliefs and actions when it comes to minorities and the LGTBQI community is not just dumbassery, it is intentional dumbassery that is morally reprehensible. It is also an entirely different topic for its own separate essay. Just know that the dumbassery that has been on display the past few months is just the beginning. It is going to get a lot worse between now and the 2024 election.

[forsetti]

On Information In The Internet Age: The Good, The Bad, And The Very Ugly

I'm an information junkie. Have been for as long as I can remember. Whether it was consuming pop culture through countless hours of watching television or falling asleep, well after midnight every night, reading a volume of the encyclopedia or some other reference book series, information was my drug of choice. Information was just that, a drug. It was something I craved. It was something I had to have. I didn't know anything different than consuming information, especially facts. It wasn't until I was in an American Lit class my first year of college that I realized I hadn't read just about any popular, critically acclaimed novels. I knew about them and could tell you lots of facts about authors, plots, characters... However, I had never read any of them. If it was fiction, I had no real use for it. This constant diet of information made me a really good Trivial Pursuit (Original Edition) player and it provided me with very useful, specific tools when it comes to searching for, evaluating, and mentally organizing information. Way back in the Paleozoic Era of information, before everything was available 24/7 to anyone with access to WiFi or a phone in their pocket if you had a question about something, you had to spend real time and energy finding the answer. Sometimes, this meant nothing more than getting off the couch, heading upstairs to the bookshelf where the collections of encyclopedias, the Time-Life Books series, and other reference books were kept, searching through which book(s) were relevant, and finding the answer. At other times, it meant doing some serious work by going to the local library, searching through possibly relevant sections, thumbing through card catalogs, and winnowing the options down to the one(s) that would give you the right answer. Finding an answer could take days, weeks, even months. If you haven't spent hours at home or in a library going through volume after volume searching for the answer to a particular question, it is impossible to describe the effort and time involved. It is impossible to describe the frustration that often came from searching. It is also impossible to describe the joy of finally finding the answer after so much effort. For me, it was like being Indiana Jones finally discovering a gold statute in some ancient temple in South America after months and years of analysis and hard work. However, instead of a physical object, my reward was a fact-a fact that was hard-earned, unassailable, and to me, as precious as any golden idol. Growing up, information was a drug. A drug that forced me to go out constantly looking for a fix. Before the internet, getting a fix took a lot of time and energy. Once the internet took off, it allowed my drug of choice to be pumped directly into my brain with little to no effort whatsoever. It takes no effort to access information using the internet. Sorry, but sitting on the toilet, touching your phone's screen a couple of times and scrolling doesn't take effort. It is convenient and accessible. Convenience and accessibility should never be mistaken for effort or quality or anything other than convenience and accessibility. For someone like me, the internet was like a heroin addict having a never-ending supply of 100% pure China White in an IV drip being pumped into my veins non-stop. It was nirvana, ambrosia, and Shangri-La all wrapped up in perfectly for me at my fingertips. Did I also mention, I have an addictive personality? Hopefully, you see where this is going. If you give an addict an unlimited supply of what they crave, a few things happen. First, they dive into whatever they crave like Scrooge McDuck into a room full of money. Second, they NEVER, EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES want the edge they feel to stop. There is no dimmer switch if you are an addict. Addicts don't ever say, "That's enough. I'm good." If they could do this, they wouldn't be addicts. Finally, if at all possible, addicts want the good stuff. They don't want a water-down, cut version of their drug of choice. The purer the better. For a while, when the internet was new, it wasn't a problem for me. In fact, it was about as perfect a situation, as I could ask. Non-stop information that I could search for and discover from the comfort of my own home whenever I wanted. And, since I had developed really good research skills, I knew what questions to ask and how to search in ways that mostly avoided nonsense, half-assed opinions, and the garbage that often passes for knowledge... Going back to my Raiders of the Lost Ark analogy, it would be like Indy being able to discover the golden idol without being almost killed by a gigantic boulder, being betrayed by Satipo, or eventually having the idol taken from you by the Hovitos and Belloq. No trauma. No drama. Here is your prize. No one can take it from you. And, you never have to leave the comfort of your home. Having grown up in an ultra-religious fundamentalist area around people who, for the most part, weren't/aren't driven by intellectual curiosity but quite the opposite, I know all too well what it is like to be overwhelmed with bullshit and beliefs so flimsy they make gossamer look like titanium. For the first twenty-one years of my life, this is pretty much all I knew. For reasons I've discussed elsewhere, arbitrarily signing up for and walking into an Intro To Philosophy Class at USU was the universe throwing me a life preserver. For the next twenty-five years, things made sense and I felt a peace I didn't when growing up. The frustration and anger I'd felt for so long and so intensely, were gone. These feelings of contempt and happiness lasted until the internet was "democratized." Once this happened, the very same people I'd worked so hard to distance myself from and ignore were brought right back into my life and they brought tens of thousands of their idiot friends with them. For many years, I was fairly successful in getting my information drug fix from the internet and either ignoring the stupid masses or at least not letting them negatively impact me. However, in the past decade or so, one thing after another has happened that has made it harder to keep the stupid at bay. The financial crisis in 2008/09, the election of Barack Obama, the passage of the Affordable Care Act, the Black Lives Matter and Me Too Movements, the election of Trump, and the COVID-19 pandemic have been the milkshakes that brought all the stupid to the yard. The internet, for all its wonderful potential, also created an environment where every racist, bigot, misogynist, fear-monger, hate-monger, and all-around jackass not only got their opportunity to scream their bullshit in the public square but were rewarded for doing so with confirmation via likes and/or with money. The internet just didn't just dummy down information, it weaponized and monetized something that should not be monetized. It didn't/doesn't matter how accurate the information is. The only thing that matters is can it turn a profit, can it be used to harm someone. Facebook absolutely knows it has/does allow misinformation about elections, vaccines, etc. to be spread on its platform. No matter what Zuck says in Congressional hearings, he really doesn't care about truth and accuracy because Facebook makes a ton of money from this misinformation. Facebook, to a lesser extent, followed the FOX News model of information where the goal isn't truth or good information. The goal is selling advertising. Facebook is a free service. Yet, Facebook is valued at $128 billion. The difference between free and $128 billion was created by pushing the idea that beliefs are as factual as knowledge. The difference between free and $128 billion was created by treating the dissemination of facts as something that can/should be democratized, consequences-be-damned.

The "democratization" of information, like political democracy, only works if the citizenry is properly educated. Thomas Jefferson was absolutely right about this. "All beliefs are valuable and should be given equal time and weight in a public forum and may the best beliefs win," might sound good on the surface, but in practice it is atrocious, border-lining on sociopathic. The ONLY way this view works is if everybody has a sound, working skill set where they can properly process and assess information. It is an idealistic view of humanity that is completely invalidated by humanity. Agent K in "Men In Black," said it best-"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." Our brains are still pretty primitive in many ways. This is especially true when it comes to our Fight or Flight responses. We can be easily manipulated by fear, hatred, anger... Every propagandist knows and exploits this aspect of humanity. This "Golden Age of The Internet," didn't last very long. Once the Libertarian-minded dudebros in Silicon Valley decided the "smart" and "just" thing was to "democratize" and monetize information and open up the gate-keeping of "knowledge" to any Chad, Billy Bob, and Neo-Nazi, the Golden Age of the internet was officially killed. Say what you want about the past when news and information were controlled by gatekeepers, as many potential and real issues there were with this, there were, for the most part, at least smart, experienced, dedicated people in charge. Now, any moron with access to the internet can dictate, control, and change public perception. This isn't healthy. In fact, as we've seen during the last election and the pandemic, it is literally dangerous. When what Joe Rogan or the multitude of talking heads on FOX or AM radio says about a topic, any topic gets more clicks, views, listens...than actual professionals who have spent years, sometimes decades, carefully researching their various fields, it's a big fucking problem. People like Rogan are the kind of drug dealers who cuts their product with baby powder, bath salts, oregano...to the point, it isn't just a crappy product but causes real harm. People like this have no problem selling bath salts as top-shelf cocaine and don't give a damn how many people it kills because they make lots of money and they have lots of people telling them how smart they are. Personally, I want my drug of choice to be as pure as possible. I don't trust just anybody or get my supply from a shady character who has no qualifications. If I'm going to buy meth, it is going to be from someone like Walter White not from the guy driving a rusted-out Ford panel van, wearing mismatching shoes who can't string two coherent sentences together or someone whose previous job was that of an unsuccessful comic. I'm fortunate enough to have grown up when there were gatekeepers. More importantly, I learned how to properly search for, assess, and process information. My kids have never had these opportunities or really been able to learn these abilities because the entire bedrock of what constitutes information has shifted. Information is no longer presented and viewed as something that, when properly studied, is pretty solid and accepted. What passes as information now is something that basically boils down to, "I really believe it." Knowledge is now being equated with belief. "If I really believe X is true, then it is." I don't even know how to teach my kids how to view and research information the way I learned because the systems of how information is accumulated and disseminated are completely different. More importantly, the foundations of what counts as legitimate evidence and sound arguments in the public square, which wasn't rock-solid but fairly solid, have been turned to sand. Belief has replaced knowledge as the standard as to what is true and what isn't. We've entered the George Costanza era of knowledge-"It isn't a lie if you believe it." All of my life, I've heard conservatives wail and gnash their teeth about the perils of moral relativism being pushed by the left. "If gays can get married, what's next, people can marry their pets?" "If women are allowed to control their reproductive health, what's next, they'll demand men get impregnated?" "If we allow sex education in schools, what's next, field tips to brothels?" If anything is allowed, then everything is allowed. There are no standards of morality. Of course, none of these dire outcomes have ever happened, let alone even suggested. However, when it comes to information, the right is more than happy to push relativism. This is exactly what elevating beliefs to the level of knowledge is-relativism. There are no longer standards of truth or what counts as evidence or valid arguments. There are feelings as beliefs. However, this "standard' only applies to themselves. Their feelings and beliefs and only their feelings and beliefs are allowed the status of factual, truthful. Of course, anyone with two functioning neurons knows there is a massive chasm between knowledge and belief. I can believe I'm the last Russian Tsar and believe it with every fiber of my being. Yet, no amount of emotional investment makes this true. All it really shows is not only I am wrong, but delusionally so. This is how it should work in a just and perfect world. This is how it sort of worked pre-internet where actual arguments and evidence mattered much more than they do now. We used to live in a world where facts mattered to some degree. We now live in a world where this is rarely true. Beliefs and feelings have replaced evidence and knowledge at the top of the Truth Pyramid. There are many reasons why this has happened. First and foremost, is the "democratization" of information. Second, is the influence of fundamental religion in all aspects of American culture. Under any reasonable Truth Pyramid, religions can never attain the top levels because they are not founded on or maintained by facts. They exist almost entirely on the concept of faith. "Trust us, X is true because we say it is and at some point, most likely after you die, the "real truths" will be shown to you." Religions are not built on facts or arguments. They are built on statements that all too often, have the same merit as when I claim, "I'm the last Russian Tsar." For a system of knowledge, based mainly on beliefs, feelings, and faith to exist and function, it can only really do so if it has some built-in mechanism that prevents actual evidence/facts from entering the system and gumming up the works. Don't get me wrong, all of our knowledge systems rely to some degree or another on belief and faith. How much and who/what they are tied to is the difference between people who get vaccinated during a pandemic and those who go drink their own urine to prevent being infected. It is the difference between rushing your kid to the ER when they have a fever of 105 and hoping thoughts and prayers will make it go away. It is the difference between thinking Comet Ping Pong in Washington D.C. is a mediocre pizzeria and believing it is a front for child sex trafficking. The more someone centers and relies on faith and beliefs for their knowledge, the less tethered they are to facts. The more someone trusts untrustworthy, unqualified people for their knowledge, the less tethered they are to reality. Beliefs being treated as true have always been a problem. It has become a much bigger problem in the past few years because, thanks to the internet and the concerted efforts of Evangelical Fundamentalists, the Republican Party,  and a whole lot of justices who have been placed on the courts. These justices have started to legally legitimatize the concept of "deeply held beliefs." If you really believe something, then how you act on it cannot/should not be prohibited. If you believe The Pill is an abortifacient, no matter how absolutely not true this is, it doesn't matter, you can stop your business's insurance plan from paying for contraception. If you really believe people who are gay or trans or whatever are subhuman and not entitled to basic rights, then your discrimination is legally protected. Of course, it is only the "deeply held beliefs" of conservatives that are allowed to be elevated to the status of truth. It is apparently just fine for a "Christian" doctor to not treat someone who is gay, trans, a drug addict...because they don't approve of their choices/lifestyles. However, the first time an atheist doctor refuses to treat someone who is an Evangelical Christian, for the very same reasons, the gates of Hell will open up and every single conservative "deeply held beliefs" defender will be screaming how outrageous, unfair, ridiculous it is that someone's beliefs are allowed to override anything they want. This convergence of dumbass Libertarians in Silicone Valley "democratizing" the internet and the push by evangelical fundamentalists to elevate beliefs over facts has created the Perfect Storm of Stupid. Having actual knowledge of something takes time and effort. Anyone can believe anything and it takes no effort whatsoever. I go back to something my mentor in the Philosophy Department at Utah State University said to me one night at his house while drinking gin and tonics and discussing a wide range of issues, "Being right and believing you are right are not the same thing. It is more important to be right than believe you are right. Being right takes a lot of time and effort. Believing you are right takes no time or effort, at all." I kind of always knew and appreciated this growing up. It is the reason I felt pride in discovering a new truth or finding the answer to a puzzling question. You can't Participation Trophy and orange slice your way to knowledge. There are no shortcuts. This is where the cries of "elitism" come in from the peanut gallery accusing me of being arrogant and condescending. Okay. I guess that is one way of looking at it. Another way is gaining real knowledge is a skill and you don't learn and master a skill without putting in serious time and effort. Pointing this out shouldn't be controversial. We used to not question someone who was at the top of their field because Barbara down at the deli said they were wrong. Yes, there have always been those on the lunatic fringe who wouldn't believe the most decorated, revered person in a particular field but they were just that-the lunatic fringe. That lunatic fringe has been mainstreamed and given a place at the adults' table by the Libertarian internet dudebros, by conservatives, by fundamentalist Christianity because these groups know they cannot compete if the knowledge playing field is level if there are actual standards of what counts as good evidence and arguments if knowledge is treated more importantly than beliefs. I don't want this to come across as if I have all or even a lot of the answers, I don't. There are certain things I know a lot about and am very confident in my knowledge about them because I've spent countless hours making sure I'm not wrong and if I am wrong, I'm wrong on the fringes, not core concepts. There are a bunch of other things I think are really true but if counter-evidence comes up that would make me question these beliefs, I would be very surprised but not upset. I'd adjust my belief system accordingly and move one. Then, there is a whole other set of things I really don't have much knowledge about, and rely on people who have earned my trust to tell me what is true and what is not. Sometimes, one of these people turns out to be a scam artist or for whatever reason, sells out their previous views, mostly for money or prestige, and every belief tied to them needs to be reevaluated. The entire point of science/knowledge is to make the best decisions based on the information you have and if new information comes along that either better explains something or completely overthrows what you previously thought was true, you go with it because that is how it works. "The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist." ―Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism There are two sides to every argument/debate is true but not really useful, especially when it comes to evaluating truth. In most cases, this is used to elevate beliefs to facts and blur the line between fact and fiction. It is one of the go-to moves used by propagandists. What's the point of all of this? To be honest, I'm not entirely sure. Like too many important things, I understand the problem, can explain it in great detail, make interesting connections and analogies about it but when push comes to shove, I have no idea how to solve it. Not because there aren't solutions but because the solutions rest on a more educated society. Without this, every real solution seems to be nothing more than hypothetical wishing. However, even without tangible solutions, I feel not trying is unforgivable. Searching out, finding, and advocating for truth are things that should always be primary concerns and goals. I'm not going to lie to you, this isn't easy. It takes a lot of work and mindfulness. And, the more things you want to really understand, the more work it takes. I understand why a lot of people, at some point, become content with the "knowledge" they have and basically shut down the learning and critical analysis functions of their brains. This doesn't make what they do right, just understandable. I also understand why people who put knowledge at the forefront of their priorities become disenchanted and despondent by the overwhelming amount and veracity of bullshit that is passed off as "facts." Oh, boy do I relate to this. I've always related to this. As a kid, I was always complaining to my mother about how unbelievably stupid a whole lot of people seemed to be. Not just stupid, but arrogantly and defiantly so. She would sympathize and empathize with me, pat me on the head and say, "There are a lot more of them than there are of you so you need to learn how to pick your battles and stop fighting against every injustice, every stupidity. Otherwise, you'll always be angry and exhausted." Another way of putting it is from “The Wire,”- “There you go, giving a fuck when it ain’t your time to give a fuck.”. Obviously, I've never really learned this lesson. I want to. I've tried to. But, I've never learned how to turn it off. To turn it off, I feel I have to be apathetic to it all and I can't do that. At least, I haven't figured out how to do it. I think part of the reason why I find this so difficult is trying to figure out what counts as a "good fight" and what doesn't. Aren't truths to be told and defended all the time? Shouldn't misinformation and lies always be corrected, regardless of where/who they come from? To paraphrase a famous quote-"The only thing necessary for the triumph of stupid is for smart people to do nothing."  Basically, I don't know how to not give a fuck. I still believe it is important to have standards for knowledge, evidence, arguments, facts... The problem I am having is how to continue to care about this in any meaningful way, when so many people don't give a damn about any of this I guess all of this is nothing more than putting my frustrations in writing. I'm worn down. I feel like the masses of stupidity have overwhelmed me like zombies in World War Z and no matter what I do, my brain is going to be eaten by a horde of idiots with a side of ketchup, mayo, and ranch, then washed down with a room-temperature Coors Light. If this is what eventually happens, so be it but I won't be going gently into that that good night. They'll have to pry my copy of “Logic and Philosophy,” by Howard Kahane from my cold, dead hand.

[forsetti]

On Loss and Grief: Handling The Holidays

Grief is a double-edged sword-the more important someone was to you, the more powerful the memories are of them, the greater the loss you feel. The more you remember them and the more things remind you of them, the more painful it can be. For people who are grieving, this double-edged sword is even more pronounced, sharper, more painful, during the holidays. Under the very best of circumstances, the holidays are emotionally and physically draining. If you are grieving the loss of a loved one, the holidays can be even more difficult to deal with even if you have a great support system around you. The holidays are going to happen. A sense of loss and grief, especially during the holidays is going to happen. The question is, “How can we deal with loss and grief during the holidays?” When we lose someone, we lose them from all future moments, from all future holidays. We lose all possibility of making any more memories of them. The memories we have are all that is left of them. Some of the most precious memories we have that we’ve lost are from special occasions like the holidays. Whether the person we lost was a parent, sibling, child…that person was a usually big part of our holiday memories. The ones we’ve lost are intrinsically tied to the memories we have of these special times of the year. It is impossible to think of one without thinking of the other. It is impossible to go through the holidays without thinking of the ones who helped make them special.

For most of us, the holidays signify very special times in our lives. Times filled with sharp, pleasurable, emotionally positive memories. These memories are ingrained in our psyche from a very early age. Most of us can conjure up very vivid memories of Halloweens, Thanksgivings, and Christmases of our childhoods. These memories are not only very clear, but they also have very strong emotions and triggers attached to them. The memories of the holidays are reinforced, year after year, with repetitive sights, sounds, smells that remind us of very personal times spent with the people we care/cared about in our lives.

In my own case, my son Max’s favorite times of the year were Halloween and Christmas. He loved dressing up in his costume starting early on in October. He would even wear it to bed. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he would parade around his school with the other kids wearing their costumes or when we’d carve pumpkins. I’ll never forget how excited he would be trick or treating or how upset he’d get when I told him it was time to stop and go home. Max passed away sixteen years ago. Every time I see pumpkins, pictures of my friends’ children in their costumes, bags of bite-sized candy, anything related to Halloween, it is impossible to not think of Max and not just him but him at some of his happiest moments. The same is true of Christmas-baking and decorating Christmas cookies, putting up and decorating the tree, decorating the house, building snowmen, the anticipation of Christmas morning, opening presents…all of these memories with him have been etched in my psyche with a diamond-tipped bit.

With the many good memories of Thanksgivings added to the mix, from the start of October until the end of the year, for three months, something is constantly reminding me of Max and him at his happiest. Every jack-o-lantern, every fake cobweb, every plastic spider…reminds me of him. Every Christmas song, every length of garland, every string of colored lights, every wrapped present, every snowman, the smell of sugar cookies baking…reminds me of him and the joy he had during the holidays. All of these also remind me of how great I felt watching him enjoy himself as only a child can.

This is what makes the holidays so difficult for those grieving the loss of a loved one every time you turn around there is something to remind you of them, a trigger. These triggers bring up not just memories of holidays past, but of the people we shared them with, who are no longer with us. These triggers can make our loss stand out even more because here we are during special times, surrounded by all the sights, sounds, smells that remind us of the people we shared them with but without them. We don’t miss things that are associated with bad memories. We don’t grief for the loss of people in our lives who didn’t mean anything to us. We grief because of just how important and special someone was to us. The memory of special times with special people is a powerful combination. Anyone who has lost someone special to them experiences the pain of this combination. The question is, “What can be done, especially during the holidays to handle all these triggers and memories, our grief?”

One thing not to do is try and avoid the holidays and your feelings. Unless you go off the grid and live in a yurt in Outer Mongolia, it is impossible to avoid all the holidays and their triggers. It is a normal reaction to want to seal ourselves off from things that will trigger powerful memories of the person we lost. For some people grieving, they want to avoid the holidays because they don’t want to create new holiday memories-they don’t want to dilute or replace or in any way disrespect the memories they have of the ones they’ve lost. Just like some people never change the bedroom of their loved one after they have passed away, people sometimes do the same mentally-they hermetically seal their memories for fear of losing them. They try to wall off the memories of their loved ones by not allowing in any new memories in the spaces currently occupied by the ones of the person they’ve lost. If they don’t go out during the holidays, they can’t create new holiday memories. If they avoid family get-togethers, parties, doing the things they did with the one they lost, they believe they can preserve the holiday memories they already have.

I know why people feel this way. Our memories of the ones we lost are all we really have left of them. We don’t ever want these to fade or be replaced so we often cling to them with everything we have. We already lost them, we don’t want to lose anything else associated with them. We don’t have to do this. Nothing, I mean nothing is going to replace or change these memories. Adding new holiday memories isn’t going to push out the ones we have that mean more to us than anything else. New memories are not going to dilute the ones we already have. The nature of the memories we have of those we lost is immutable. It has been sixteen and a half years since I last saw Max. I can conjure up any memory I have of him and it is as vivid and powerful as it was a year ago, five years, ten years, the day it was created. Going out and creating new holiday memories isn’t going to change the ones I have of Max. If anything, new holiday memories only enhance the ones I have of him because they remind me of just how wonderful and powerful the ones I have of him are. If I build a snowman with my other children, I am creating a new memory of them and at the same time remembering the special memories I had doing the same with Max. Avoiding making these new memories would be unfair to my other children, they deserve their own special memories of me. It would be unfair to me, I want special memories of my other children as well. It would be unfair to Max, he loved his siblings and would want them to have special memories of me and me of them. The same is true no matter who you lost, mother, father, sister, child… Another reason people who are grieving don’t want to put themselves in situations that are strongly associated with the person they lost is that there are so many memory triggers and those memories are still painful to deal with. Avoid the triggers, avoid the pain. We do this is out of self-preservation. We want to protect ourselves from things we know can cause us pain. This is a very natural reaction, but it is self-defeating. We can’t avoid the memories nor should we want to. Dealing with the holidays isn’t about avoidance, it is about handling. We can’t learn how to handle situations if we don’t put ourselves in them. It isn’t about avoiding the triggers, the grief, the pain. It is about learning how to handle them so they don’t handle us.

You have to be willing to put yourself in situations that can trigger the strong memories you have of the ones you’ve lost. Putting yourself in situations you know contains triggers to your grief is the first step. This is hard, especially at the beginning when grief is fresh and raw. However, the really hard part is learning through trial and error where any misstep can be emotionally devastating, crippling. The real key to handling the holidays is to learn how to handle grief and its triggers during normal times so when the holidays come around, you are as prepared as you can be. It is important to learn how to handle how you react to the things that can trigger or grief. In order to do this, you need to know who you are and what you can handle at any given moment. You need to learn how to put your grief away, even if it is for a short period of time. You need to learn how to be aware of what you are feeling and why. This entails a lot of introspection and a lot of hard work until it becomes a habit where you don’t think about it anymore it is just instinctual. If you learn how to do these when triggers are less frequent and spaced out, allowing time to reflect, learn and heal, it is much easier to handle them during times like the holidays when they are non-stop for long stretches of time. Learning what your grief is, what it means and how to handle it takes practice and it can’t be practiced in theory. In order to learn how to handle triggers, memories, and grief, you have to be exposed to them. Sometimes you will handle it well. Other times you will handle it horribly. The important thing is to learn from both. When you handle it well, you have to ask yourself, “What did I do that made this time go well? When it goes bad, you have to ask yourself, “What happened? What did I do/not do that made this time not turn out well?” If you do this each and every time after feeling grief, you will start to see patterns, how things fit together, what works and what doesn’t. This will help make each successive time easier to handle.

I wish could say, “Do these things and all will be good.” I wish I had a recipe for success, a list of things to do that if followed, would ensure someone’s being able to handle their grief better, especially during emotional times like the holidays. I know what has and does work for me. However, my experiences, circumstances, beliefs…are unique to me. They are not only responsible for what I think and feel but how I evaluate and deal with them. Grief is a lonely path. While you and I might be both be experiencing grief, our paths are different. I can tell you about the nature of grief which we all share, but I can’t tell you how to discover and navigate the path you are on. I run into a lot of people who have lost a child and when I hear them express the pain of their loss and grief, it makes my heart ache not because I know what they are going through but because I know I can’t help them walk their path. All I can do is empathize and if they ask, tell them what has worked for me and hope some of it can help them, even in the slightest way.

For me, I view my grief and memories of Max as drawers in my mind that I can pull out and look at whenever I want. Occasionally one or both will be pulled out unexpectedly by circumstances, an unanticipated trigger. Even when this happens, I know how to close the drawer if that is what is necessary. I know when I am mentally, physically drained, and probably not as equipped to handle opening up a drawer. I know how long I can expose myself to the memories or grief and when it is time to put them back in their drawer and close it. I know how to do these because of a lot of trial and error, especially the first couple of years after Max’s death. I know, for example, the holidays are filled with not just triggers, memories, and situations that remind me of Max but they are also very stressful in their own right. I try to minimize the stress that is in my control. I try not to spread myself too thin emotionally and physically because I know there are going to be a lot of times over the course of a couple of months where I am going to want to pull out my memories of Max or they are going to get pulled out for me and I want to be able to treat them with the respect they deserve and be able to put them away when I need to. I also know there are going to be times when I am not successful in recognizing or handling my memories and grief. I know I have to allow myself to make mistakes because they are part of the learning process. What I don’t want to do is compound a mistake of mishandling my grief with a bunch of other negative thoughts, emotions. Grief is powerful and damaging enough, it doesn’t need any help from me making it worse than it already can be or is.

A word of warning. If you are diligent about learning who you are, what you can/cannot handle, the nature of your grief, and how to handle it, you will spend a lot of time thinking about all of these. From the outside looking in, it will seem to those around you, you are either being distant and not coping with your grief or you are being so quiet because you are overwhelmed by your grief. Often times the truth is you are neither. You are doing what is necessary for you to deal with something they can’t fully understand and don’t really ever want to. It is important to explain to those around you what you are doing, how you are feeling. They want to help you and the only way they can is if they know what you are really doing and need and why. However, remember, explaining is not the same as apologizing. You never have to apologize for grieving. It is not your responsibility to make other people comfortable or understand how you are dealing with your loss. Sometimes, telling others you are not just grieving but thinking about your grief, will lead to a conversation about the nature of grief which will help both you and them. Thinking and talking about grief in the abstract is beneficial because it strips away the personal nature/pain from it. This is what the end goal should be for all of us, understanding our loss, our pain, our grief, but not have them interfere, get in the way of the memories we have of those we’ve lost.

Finally, while we can’t make new memories with the people we’ve lost, we can make new memories with them in mind. Whether it is lighting a candle in their memory or planting a Christmas tree or buying presents for a family in need in honor of our loved ones, there are countless ways in which the ones who have left us can still be a big part of our holidays in very positive ways.

[forsetti]

On The Right’s Response To Covid: The Backlash of Losing Cultural Relevance

Right now we are in the middle of a surge of the Delta variant of the COVID-19 virus, a virus that has already claimed the lives of 640,000+ Americans. Yet, in spite of hospitals in the hotbed states of Florida, Alabama, Texas...being filled to capacity, people suffering from the virus being sent out of state for care, makeshift patient rooms being set up in hospital garages, and the new variant hitting younger people much harder than its previous version, there is an angry sector of the public that is still adamant the virus is a hoax, refuses to get vaccinated, protests any mask mandate, and is getting more and more violent against anyone who disagrees with them. Whenever all this madness comes up in conversation with anyone not part of the anti-science, anti-functioning cerebral cortex, the following always comes up, “I just don't understand why they are acting this way. It makes no sense.”

I fully understand and appreciate why it is difficult to grasp why there is a very vocal, very angry faction of our country that is actively doing whatever it can to undermine even the most basic solutions for dealing with a world-wide pandemic. Their words and actions defy fundamental common sense and basic humanity. When things like this happen a lot of people respond with shock, amazement, and even anger. Whenever someone expresses these feelings to me, a part of me completely understands and sympathizes. It is when the discussion shifts from, “Can you believe?” to “Why are they acting this way?” is where a discussion about the hard truths need to happen.

Whenever someone asks, “Why are they acting this way?” what they mostly want is some quick, easy explanation to make them feel good about why some of their family, friends, coworkers...are acting so horribly. I wish the answer to this question was something that was easy and allowed the person asking the question to feel good when they heard it. Most people have a difficult time believing people they know, care about are not the sweet, caring, smart people they think they are. The hard truth is, in a lot of cases, this is exactly who these people are. This answer may be difficult to come to terms with but it should be is easy if you understand the big picture of how/why of belief systems, a passing understanding of American history, and a grasp of modern-day conservatism.

The main reason there is a good-sized chunk of American society who are standing in the way of properly dealing with a pandemic is the same reason the U.S. is the ONLY major economy that doesn't have some form of universal healthcare. It is the same reason twenty three school children were murdered in cold blood and not one single law could be passed to protect against future school shootings. It is the same reason a significant number of Republican voters still believe President Obama was not born in the U.S. It is the same reason these same voters believe the 2020 election was stolen. There is a significant portion of American society who have been on the losing end of the “culture wars,” and instead of adjusting their belief systems to adopt even a fraction to meet these changes, they've dug in their heels in order to protest not only past loses but the ones they are certain to lose now and down the road. These cultural loses can be traced back to the South losing the Civil War. More recently, the loses go back to the Supreme Court decision in Brown versus Board of Education. For a good number of Americans, black people are naturally inferior to whites and that is just the way God intended the world to be. How dare anyone suggest or make mandatory that their precious, God-blessed, God-preferred white children be in the same classroom, be considered in any way equal to black children. To make matters worse, a few years later, these “inferiors” were legally given the right to eat at the same diners, drink from the same water fountains, swim in the same public pools, and *gasp be allowed to vote. In 1964, black people didn't have one iota of economic, legal, or political power. Hell, one can easily argue they don't have these things in 2021. Yet, to those opposed to the Civil Rights Act, it doesn't matter what black people really have. The ONLY thing that matters is the very idea that black people can be equal, even theoretically, to whites. The next “L” American conservatives took was with women's rights. No matter how adamant they have been that women don't belong in the workplace, shouldn't be treated equally to men, have no rights over their bodies...our society has delivered them one loss after another and continues to do so. Conservatives feel “forced” to have a woman as the Vice President. They are “forced” to see women referees and assistant coaches in major league sports. They are “forced” to have women as their bosses, doctors, state representative... Deep down, they don't want any of these things and see these changes as a slap in their face and in the face of God because, like whites being inherently superior to non-whites, men are naturally superior to women. People don't “get over” things like this. They internalize them. They fume about them. They build up anger and hatred about them. They do not get over things like this or cope with them. The next major cultural losses conservatives experienced was the election of the first black president which was quickly followed with gay people being granted the right to marry. Despite what the Civil Rights Act says, for a lot of Americans, black people are inferior to whites. For conservatives, having a black man sitting in the Oval Office was like having Judas being granted sainthood or Bin Laden being given the Congressional Medal of Honor. It was an affront to God, America, apple pie, and the ghosts of the Founding Fathers. Instead of coming to terms Barack Obama was president, even if they didn't vote for him, the conservative outrage cottage industry fed their base's already built-in racism to undermine not just his policies but the very legitimacy of his election. This didn't happen by accident or came out of nowhere. It was already baked into the belief systems of conservatives and has been reinforced over and over and over again for decades. As bad as having a black man as their president was for conservatives, it wasn't nearly as bad as gay people being allowed to marry. For these people, blacks are inferior. However, gay people are an abomination. America may have elected an inferior to be president, that can be rationalized as a one-off, a Black Swan event (no pun intended,) something that will never happen again. Barack Obama was a single individual. Gay people being allowed to marry is an entire subset of people and, unlike a one-off, happens over and over and over and over...again. After eight years in office, the black man in the White House went away. Gay couples legally being able to marry doesn't have an end date. It may be decades before America elects another person of color to the highest office in the land. Every day, gay couples are getting married, having kids, attending PTA meetings, being accepted as normal, fully functioning members of society. If Brown versus Board of Education and the Civil Rights Act were the genesis of American conservatives losing their minds, the election of President Obama pushed them to the edge and Obergefell versus Hodges pushed them right the fuck over. Because these two events took place directly after a major financial crisis, a lot of people missed the real underlying reasons why conservatives lost their minds and blamed it on “economic anxiety.” Excusing racism and bigotry on “economic anxiety,” allowed people to “feel good” about the batshit nuttery coming from every pore of the American conservative movement. White people, in particular, will go to amazing lengths to avoid viewing or calling a fellow white person, “racist,” “bigoted.” Deep down, we know being a racist/bigot is really, really horrible. This is why we have such a difficult time calling out people when they say/act in racist/bigoted ways. Yet, this is exactly what has been going on and driving American conservatism since the first European stepped foot in the New World. As deeply ingrained as racism and bigotry are in conservatism and even though it has been this way for centuries, the one thing white conservatives could always rely and fall back on has been the fact they are the majority and had all the power in society. However, since the passage of the Civil Rights Act, in spite of their majority, it has been one cultural loss after another for American conservatives. Each loss doesn't count as a single loss to be added to the total. Because of the personal nature of the issues involved, each loss increases the sense of loss by a factor. It isn't three straight losses equals three. It is three straight losses equals eight. Four losses becomes sixteen. The more they've lost, the more angry they have become. In Trump, they really believed they had someone who was going to reverse this losing tread and put them back in their self-appointed place of prominence in society. Trump knew this and used it to his advantage and in the process, gave conservatives a false sense of hope which is and will continue to be dashed on the rocks of reality, only fueling their outrage.

Certainly, there have been cultural “wins” for conservatives since 1964 but they have been few and at best, briefly slowed the culturally shift. They have never completely stopped or reversed the changes they've spend their lives fighting against. Deep down, conservatives know, when it comes to culture wars, their winning record is in Washington Generals territory. This has to sting. It sure as hell has led to some very nasty and dangerous consequences. Consequences we are seeing played out right now when it comes to dealing with a pandemic.

If you feel your belief system, which in turn becomes inseparable from your self-identity, your self-worth, is always under attack and no matter what you do, you can't get a “win,” you will latch onto anything and everything that might remotely make you feel like you are on the right side of things. If you've lost a bunch of large battles, this means you are relegated to fighting small, often meaningless ones. Conservatives can't win the war against blacks, minorities, women...being viewed and treated as equals but they will damn sure try to win the war over wearing masks or getting vaccinated. Because they've lost so many big battles, making sure they win the smaller battles take on even greater importance. The fights whether to wear/not wear a mask or get/not get vaccinated are not really about these particular issues. If they are, it is only tangentially. The fight is about winning a battle against their opponent, against a world, that has kicked their ass up and down the cultural field their entire life.

This is why so many people on the right are willing to risk the health and well-being of others. The “others,” are viewed as the enemy and must be defeated, no matter the cost. This cost even means the health and well-being of themselves and their own children. If someone is willing to sacrifice their kid's health to “own the libs,” which really means, “win a culture war,” they can't be reasoned with. There are not arguments or data point sets or incentives that will change someone's mind who is willing to let their own child get sick, suffer, and possibly die rather than wear a small piece of cloth over their mouth when in public or get vaccinated just like millions and millions of Americans of all political persuasions have done for decades. It doesn't take much to see just how far conservatives are willing to go right now to get a cultural win. They will willingly inject bleach into their system. They will happily inject medicine specifically to rid livestock of worms. They will scream at grocery store cashiers for wearing a mask. They will be on their deathbed in a hospital, dying of COVID-19, and with oxygen-depleted lungs, insist they don't have the virus. They will assault cancer clinic workers and patients over a mask mandate for the clinic, even though they themselves don't work their and aren't a patient. They will threaten public health experts with harm and death for telling them things they don't want to hear and/or believe. They will literally put themselves, their families, their friends, their coworkers...at risk of a very transmittable, dangerous virus rather than wear a piece of cloth other their nose and mouth when they are out in public. If this sounds crazy, it is because it it.

As crazy and seemingly unbelievable the right has been the past few months with their reactions to the 2020 election and the pandemic, they are only going to get worse. The world where they have relevance and where their ideas are deemed even marginally acceptable is shrinking. There really are not many big cultural battles for them to fight anymore. This doesn't mean they have or will stop fighting these large battles. They do and will continue to do so. However, I don't think they really believe they can win battles they lost years ago and continue to lose. This means they are reduced to fighting smaller and smaller battles-battles that have crazier and crazier rationalizations and justifications. The size of the battle no longer matters. What matters is getting a win, even if it means the deaths of hundreds of thousands of their fellow citizens. Even if it means losing their own lives or their children's. This kind of mindset cannot be changed through persuasion. An individual here or there might change but it will only be because of some deeply personal reason. For the masses, they are going to be who they are. The only thing the rest of us can do is make sure they don't get the levers of power because as they continue to rack up cultural losses, they will lash out in more and more violent ways against anything and anyone they see as being responsible for their losing streak. America has been moving towards this moment for a long time. It is very much at a “make it or break it,” moment where it either becomes the multicultural democracy it has promised it could be or it becomes some form of an apartheid, authoritarian state. My heart is always with the former but knowing how mean, angry, and spiteful conservatives are, the latter is more of a possibility than I like to admit.

[forsetti]

On Loss and Grief: Handling the Holidays

Grief is a double-edged sword-the more important someone was to you, the more powerful the memories are of them, the greater the loss you feel. The more you remember them and the more things remind you of them, the more painful it can be. This double-edged sword is even more pronounced, sharper during the holidays for people who are grieving. Under the very best of circumstances, the holidays are emotionally and physically draining. If you are grieving the loss of a loved one, the holidays can be even more difficult to deal with even if you have a great support system around you. The holidays are going to happen. A sense of loss and grief, especially during the holidays is going to happen. The question is, “How can we deal with loss and grief during the holidays?” When we lose someone, we lose them from all future moments, from all future holidays. We lose all possibility of making any more memories of them. The memories we have are all that is left of them. Some of the most precious memories we have that we’ve lost are from special occasions like the holidays. Whether the person we lost was a parent, sibling, child…that person was a usually big part of our holiday memories. The ones we’ve lost are intrinsically tied to the memories we have of these special times of the year. It is impossible to think of one without thinking of the other. It is impossible to go through the holidays without thinking of the ones who helped make them special.

For most of us, the holidays signify very special times in our lives. Times filled with sharp, pleasurable, emotionally positive memories. These memories are ingrained in our psyche from a very early age. Most of us can conjure up very vivid memories of Halloweens, Thanksgivings, and Christmases of our childhoods. These memories are not only very clear, but they also have very strong emotions and triggers attached to them. The memories of the holidays are reinforced, year after year, with repetitive sights, sounds, smells that remind us of very personal times spent with the people we care/cared about in our lives.

In my own case, my son Max’s favorite times of the year were Halloween and Christmas. He loved dressing up in his costume starting early on in October. He would even wear it to bed. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he would parade around his school with the other kids wearing their costumes or when we’d carve pumpkins. I’ll never forget how excited he would be trick or treating or how upset he’d get when I told him it was time to stop and go home. Max passed away ten years ago. Every time I see pumpkins, pictures of my friends’ children in their costumes, bags of bite-sized candy, anything related to Halloween, it is impossible to not think of Max and not just him but him at some of his happiest moments. The same is true of Christmas-baking and decorating Christmas cookies, putting up and decorating the tree, decorating the house, building snowmen, the anticipation of Christmas morning, opening presents… all of these memories have been etched in my psyche with a diamond-tipped bit.

With many good memories of Thanksgivings added to the mix, from the start of October until the end of the year, for three months, something is constantly reminding me of Max and him at his happiest. Every jack-o-lantern, every fake cobweb, every plastic spider…reminds me of him. Every Christmas song, every length of garland, every string of colored lights, every wrapped present, every snowman, the smell of sugar cookies baking…reminds me of him and the joy he had during the holidays. All of these also remind me of how great I felt watching him enjoy himself as only a child can. This is what makes the holidays so difficult for those grieving the loss of a loved one every time you turn around there is something to remind you of them, a trigger. These triggers bring up not just memories of holidays past, but of the people, we shared them with who are no longer with us. These triggers can make our loss stand out even more because here we are during special times, surrounded by all the sights, sounds, smells that remind us of the people we shared them with but without them. We don’t miss things that are associated with bad memories. We don’t grief for the loss of people in our lives who didn’t mean anything to us. We grief because of just how important and special someone was to us. The memory of special times with special people is a powerful combination. Anyone who has lost someone special to them experiences the pain of this combination. The question is, “What can be done, especially during the holidays to handle all these triggers and memories, our grief?”

One thing not to do is try and avoid the holidays and your feelings. Unless you go off the grid and live in a yurt in Outer Mongolia, it is impossible to avoid all the holidays and their triggers. It is a normal reaction to want to seal ourselves off from things that will trigger powerful memories of the person we lost. For some people grieving, they want to avoid the holidays because they don’t want to create new holiday memories-they don’t want to dilute or replace or in any way disrespect the memories they have of the ones they’ve lost. Just like some people never change the bedroom of their loved one after they have passed away, people sometimes do the same mentally-they hermetically seal their memories for fear of losing them. They try to wall off the memories of their loved ones by not allowing in any new memories in the spaces currently occupied by the ones of the person they’ve lost. If they don’t go out during the holidays, they can’t create new holiday memories. If they avoid family get-togethers, parties, doing the things they did with the one they lost, they believe they can preserve the holiday memories they already have. I know why people feel this way. Our memories of the ones we lost are all we really have left of them. We don’t ever want these to fade or be replaced so we often cling to them with everything we have. We already lost them, we don’t want to lose anything else associated with them. We don’t have to do this. Nothing, I mean nothing is going to replace or change these memories. Adding new holiday memories isn’t going to push out the ones we have that mean more to us than anything else. New memories are not going to dilute the ones we already have. The nature of the memories we have of those we lost is immutable. It has been ten and a half years since I last saw Max. I can conjure up any memory I have of him and it is as vivid and powerful as it was a year ago, five years, ten years, the day it was created. Going out and creating new holiday memories isn’t going to change the ones I have of Max. If anything, new holiday memories only enhance the ones I have of him because they remind me of just how wonderful and powerful the ones I have of him are. If I build a snowman with my other children, I am creating a new memory of them and at the same time remembering the special memories I had doing the same with Max. Avoiding making these new memories would be unfair to my other children, they deserve their own special memories of me. It would be unfair to me, I want special memories of my other children as well. It would be unfair to Max, he loved his siblings and would want them to have special memories of me and me of them. The same is true no matter who you lost, mother, father, sister, child…

Another reason people who are grieving don’t want to put themselves in situations that are strongly associated with the person they lost is that there are so many memory triggers and those memories are still painful to deal with. Avoid the triggers, avoid the pain. We do this is out of self-preservation. We want to protect ourselves from things we know can cause us pain. This is a very natural reaction, but it is self-defeating. We can’t avoid the memories nor should we want to. Dealing with the holidays isn’t about avoidance, it is about handling. We can’t learn how to handle situations if we don’t put ourselves in them. It isn’t about avoiding the triggers, the grief, the pain. It is about learning how to handle them so they don’t handle us. You have to be willing to put yourself in situations that can trigger the strong memories you have of the ones you’ve lost. Putting yourself in situations you know contains triggers to your grief is the first step. This is hard, especially at the beginning when grief is fresh and raw. However, the really hard part is learning through trial and error where any misstep can be emotionally devastating, crippling. The real key to handling the holidays is to learn how to handle grief and its triggers during normal times so when the holidays come around, you are as prepared as you can be. It is important to learn how to handle how you react to the things that can trigger or grief. In order to do this, you need to know who you are and what you can handle at any given moment. You need to learn how to put your grief away, even if it is for a short period of time. You need to learn how to be aware of what you are feeling and why. This entails a lot of introspection and a lot of hard work until it becomes a habit where you don’t think about it anymore it is just instinctual. If you learn how to do these when triggers are less frequent and spaced out, allowing time to reflect, learn and heal, it is much easier to handle them during times like the holidays when they are non-stop for long stretches of time.

Learning what your grief is, what it means and how to handle it takes practice and it can’t be practiced in theory. In order to learn how to handle triggers, memories, and grief, you have to be exposed to them. Sometimes you will handle it well. Other times you will handle it horribly. The important thing is to learn from both. When you handle it well, you have to ask yourself, “What did I do that made this time go well? When it goes bad, you have to ask yourself, “What happened? What did I do/not do that made this time not turn out well?” If you do this each and every time after feeling grief, you will start to see patterns, how things fit together, what works and what doesn’t. This will help make each successive time easier to handle.

I wish could say, “Do these things and all will be good.” I wish I had a recipe for success, a list of things to do that if followed, would ensure someone’s being able to handle their grief better, especially during emotional times like the holidays. I know what has and does work for me. However, my experiences, circumstances, beliefs…are unique to me. They are not only responsible for what I think and feel but how I evaluate and deal with them. Grief is a lonely path. While you and I might be both be experiencing grief, our paths are different. I can tell you about the nature of grief which we all share, but I can’t tell you how to discover and navigate the path you are on. I run into a lot of people who have lost a child and when I hear them express the pain of their loss and grief, it makes my heart ache not because I know what they are going through but because I know I can’t help them walk their path. All I can do is empathize and if they ask, tell them what has worked for me and hope some of it can help them, even in the slightest way.

For me, I view my grief and memories of Max as drawers in my mind that I can pull out and look at whenever I want. Occasionally one or both will be pulled out unexpectedly by circumstances, an unanticipated trigger, but even when this happens, I know how to close the drawer if that is what is necessary. I know when I am mentally, physically drained, and probably not as equipped to handle opening up a drawer. I know how long I can expose myself to the memories or grief and when it is time to put them back in their drawer and close it. I know how to do these because of a lot of trial and error, especially the first couple of years after Max’s death. I know, for example, the holidays are filled with not just triggers, memories, and situations that remind me of Max but they are also very stressful in their own right. I try to minimize the stress that is in my control. I try not to spread myself too thin emotionally and physically because I know there are going to be a lot of times over the course of a couple of months where I am going to want to pull out my memories of Max or they are going to get pulled out for me and I want to be able to treat them with the respect they deserve and be able to put them away when I need to. I also know there are going to be times when I am not successful in recognizing or handling my memories and grief. I know I have to allow myself to make mistakes because they are part of the learning process. What I don’t want to do is compound a mistake of mishandling my grief with a bunch of other negative thoughts, emotions. Grief is powerful and damaging enough, it doesn’t need any help from me making it worse than it already can be or is.

A word of warning. If you are diligent about learning who you are, what you can/cannot handle, the nature of your grief, and how to handle it, you will spend a lot of time thinking about all of these. From the outside looking in, it will seem to those around you, you are either being distant and not coping with your grief or you are being so quiet because you are overwhelmed by your grief. Often times the truth is you are neither. You are doing what is necessary for you to deal with something they can’t fully understand and don’t really ever want to. It is important to explain to those around you what you are doing, how you are feeling. They want to help you and the only way they can is if they know what you are really doing and need and why. Sometimes, telling them you are not grieving but thinking about your grief, will lead to a conversation about the nature of grief which will help both you and them. Thinking and talking about grief in the abstract is beneficial because it strips away the personal nature/pain from it. This is what the end goal should be for all of us, understanding our loss, our pain, our grief, but not have them interfere, get in the way of the memories we have of those we’ve lost.

Finally, while we can’t make new memories with the people we’ve lost, we can make new memories with them in mind. Whether it is lighting a candle in their memory or planting a Christmas tree or buying presents for a family in need in honor of our loved ones, there are countless ways in which the ones who have left us can still be a big part of our holidays in very positive ways.

[forsetti]

On Racial Justice: Time For Action

When I was in high school, a young girl went missing. There was a rumor she had been abducted. This was years before cell phones and then internet. Word spread through phone trees, in diners, at the gas station, in the barbershop and hair salon. The entire county became quickly invested into finding her. It was as if someone took a big stick and beat the hell out of our little beehive.

She was found, later that day, up one of the canyons that bordered the rural valley where we lived. She had been killed. I know this because my father was the county coroner, as well as the local mortician. As the news of her murder spread as quickly her abduction had earlier in the day, a wave of anger and fear blanketed the valley. Anger because of what had happened to “one of their own.” Fear because there was an existential threat to their own children out there, somewhere, still at large. The beehive was whipped up into a frenzy.

I can't remember if it was later that same day or the next but the local police soon found and arrested what they described as “a drifter from California,” for the young girl's abduction and murder. They locked the man up in the little jail that was located in our town hall.

Once news of the arrest and jailing hit the hive, the emotions that had been building over the past couple of days began to boil over. By that evening, after a number of drinks at one of the local watering holes, a number of men had worked themselves up into a frenzy over what had happened. At some point, one of the men suggested they drag that “mother fucker” out of the jail and administer some “good ol' country justice.” Before you could say, “vigilante justice,” a number of armed men in pickup trucks were parked in front of the town hall ready to reenact their own personal version of “Death Wish.”

With all respect to the local police force, the few officers on duty were able to talk the inebriated, heavily armed group off the ledge. The men eventually drove off to their respective homes, no one was lynched, and a crisis was averted. A few hours later, in the middle of the night, the police transferred the prisoner to a larger jail a hundred miles away.

The reason I bring up this story is because I am reminded of it every time I hear white people lecture black people on how to behave after one of their unarmed sons and daughters is killed by the police. I watched, in real time, an entire community get worked up to a fever, murderous pitch over the course of a couple of days over the murder of one of their own. Yet, people just like those I grew up around who, within a few hours, rationalized a lynching over one unjust death, cannot imagine the release of pent-up fear and anger many black communities feel that has been building for generations.

The reason Colin Kaepernick kneeled during the National Anthem wasn't because of the killing of one person. The reason there were riots in Ferguson MO in 2015 wasn't just because of the death of Michael Brown. The reason there are protests and riots in all fifty states right now isn't just because of the deaths of George Floyd or Breonna Taylor. The reason for all of these is the centuries-old, systemic practice of viewing and treating black bodies as expendable.

When citizens do this like we've recently seen with the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, it is horrible and deserves moral outrage and legal repercussions. When this happens at the hands of those entrusted to serve and protect the very people it kills, without consequences, it is evil. When this happens over and over and over and over....again, it is a moral failure not just of the law enforcement officers who do this but of our society because we've turned a blind eye to the deaths, pain, and suffering of our own.

It doesn't take a lot of thought to imagine what would happen if it was unarmed white people being killed by the police. One of the turning points in how the nation viewed of the way our government was handling the Vietnam War was shooting deaths of four young, unarmed students at Kent State in 1970. Like the rural area where I grew up, white America doesn't tolerate the killing of their own by agents of the government. Not for one fucking second.

Yet, a whole lot of white America can't seem to understand why Black Americans get so worked up whenever one of their own is murdered by the police. I've seen more video of white people screaming at police for pulling them over or for asking them to obey safe practices during a pandemic than over the killing of their fellow, unarmed citizens.

I know there are a host of hot takes as to why white America doesn't really give a damn about the killing of unarmed minorities. If the analysis doesn't begin and end with, “as a whole, white America views minorities as inferior and expendable,” it isn't worth a damn. This doesn't mean all of white America is racist. It means that, as a group, white America doesn't care enough to change the status quo. This shouldn't be a revelation to anyone who pays attention to the world around them. White America hasn't given a damn about minorities since, forever. They have really never cared about Native Americans. They've only given a half-assed care about blacks and that was only after seeing images of church-dressed men, women, and children being attacked by police dogs and brutalized with batons and fire hoses at the hands of racist, Southern police. Once the Civil Rights Act passed, White America pretty much went back to not giving a damn about black people. It almost seems like giving blacks the right to vote was all the care White America could muster and a lot of them couldn't (and still can't) do that. The fear and anger the people in my community felt over the course of a few days back in the late 70s led them to be willing to break whatever laws they deemed necessary to get the justice they felt they deserved. Imagine this same fear and anger not building up over a few days but a few centuries. Imagine not one member of your community being unjustly killed but dozens and dozens each and every year. Imagine the fear and anger not that these deaths were the result of some random person but by the very people hired and entrusted to protect your community.

The surprising thing isn't that black Americas are angry. The surprising thing is they've kept their anger in control as well as they have. White Americans protest and riot over their favorite sports team winning or losing. They protest and riot over a beloved football coach being fired. They protest and riot over having their favorite drink being taxed. They protest and riot over not being able to get their hair cut and flower beds properly tended. Black Americans are protesting over the killings of their loved ones.

I cannot imagine what it is like to fear for your life every time you encounter the police, regardless of the circumstances. I cannot imagine worrying about any of my children being harmed, let alone killed by the police. I cannot imagine being punished more harshly by the police and courts for doing the same things that others have done. I cannot imagine being viewed as “violent,” “lazy,” “a thug,” “a threat,”... , no matter how wealthy or successful I am, by a good portion of society, just because of the color of my skin. I cannot imagine my water supply being poisoned with lead and no one with any power gives a damn. There are thousands of things about being black in America I cannot even imagine.

Just because I can't imagine these things doesn't make them not real. It doesn't make them not important. That I cannot imagine these things just means I've been fortunate enough to be on the other side of the systemic racism in our country. As I watch the current protests over the latest police killings of unarmed blacks, I'm hopeful and afraid. Hopeful because the number of protests not just in big cities but around the country in towns large and small means, like the images on tv from the 60s of the Civil Rights marches, are having a real impact on white America. Fearful because I know the history of this country when it comes to the levels it will go to protect the white patriarchy.

Within the past few years, I watched the election of someone who is the personification of white supremacy as a backlash to the first black president. Trump won the election because the majority of white men and women voted for him. They may not do the same next time around but that they did the first time tells you all you need to know about where White America stands when it comes to racial justice and equality.

When it comes to the deaths of unarmed blacks by police, to the overpopulation of our prison system, to the gross wealth disparity of whites and blacks, to too many issues to list here, to my fellow White Americans, I quote Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” You know damn well you wouldn't tolerate being treated how blacks our in our country. You know damn well you wouldn't tolerate the killing of your sons and daughters by anyone, especially the police.

It is time to stop pretending the problem isn't systemic and it is the responsibility of minorities to fix. White America built the system. White America has and still does, to a great extent, support it. White America, all of it, benefits from it. It is up to us to dismantle it. We can either go down as the ones who did what was necessary to live up to the promises of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, or we can go down in history as just another era that made promises it never intended to live up to. This isn't something that could or should wait another day to happen. It is centuries behind schedule. Trying is no longer enough. To quote a Jedi Master, “Do or do not, there is no try.” We owe it ourselves but, much more importantly, we owe it to Black Americans past and present.

[forsetti]

On Conservative Economics: America As A Company Town

Just like how the racism that led to slavery morphed into Jim Crow laws and morphed again after the Civil Rights Act, conservative economic ideology has done the same. Before FDR’s New Deal, the government played a limited role in society.  Roosevelt showed not only that the government can help society, but it can do so much better and without the self-serving interests of the private sector.  Conservatives have been trying to undo not just FDR’s New Deal, but LBJ’s Great Society and every other government program that helps society.  Their mantra is “government isn’t the solution to problems, it is the problem.” They believe the private sector can do anything the government does better and for less money.  Never mind the history of the country shows differently, conservative ideology isn’t beholden to facts. When left unchecked, conservatives push policies that undo and disempower the public sector in favor of the private sector. Currently, Kansas under Governor Brownback and a Republican-dominated legislature have put this conservative economic ideology to the test and within a few short years have turned the state into an economic wasteland.  

Kansas should be the canary in the conservative coal mine.  Anyone with two working neurons and a single moral fiber would look at the results in Kansas and say, “This approach not only doesn’t work, it makes the problems much, much worse.”  This is what the lesson from Kansas should be.  In reality, the lesson for conservatives, as it always is when their ideas fail, is to say, “The only reason it failed is that it wasn’t CONSERVATIVE ENOUGH!  Conservatism doesn’t fail. People fail conservatism.”  Don’t try and make sense of this “logic” because none exists.  It is like saying, “I got really, really sick drinking this concoction that was promised to bring me vitality.  The reason I got sick must be I didn’t drink enough.” The idea that the concoction is the problem and not the solution does not cannot enter their analysis because their view is it is the cure is an accepted, fundamental belief.  It is a belief they’ve been spouting for over a century.  For conservatives, The Great Depression didn’t happen because of the failures of the private sector, FDR’s policies didn’t help us get out of it, George W. Bush’s policies didn’t lead to the Great Recession, President Obama’s policies didn’t have any impact on getting us out of it…  A Mount Everest of evidence-be-damned.   The conservative economic failures of Kansas are going to be promoted from Single-A to the Majors with Republicans controlling the Executive and Legislative branches for at least the next two years.  The economic policies that turned Kansas into an economic wasteland are going to be given a triple shot of stupidity, zealotry, and scope as they are imposed on a lot more states and the country in general.  America is about to be Kansas on steroids.  The government programs and services that helped create the largest middle class in the world are about to be severely damaged or outright destroyed.  America is about to be turned into a company town.

During the industrial revolution, company towns sprung up around the country usually near factories, plants, and mines.  A company town is one where almost all of the businesses, housing, and services are owned by the company.  The company controlled every aspect of your life-job, wages, supplies, water,  housing…  In a few select cases, like Hershey Pennsylvania, these places were model towns.  A benevolent owner would create and use the amenities the company town offered to attract workers.  Places like Hershey PA were the exception, not the rule.  Far too many companies used the monopoly in their town to mistreat and basically enslave their workers. Sometimes companies only paid in company script that was good only in the company-owned business in town.  The company could, and did, lower wages and/or raised the cost of goods and housing high forcing workers to go into debt to the company, then they made it so employees could not leave until they paid their debt in full. Children of employees went to the company-owned school and learned only what the company deemed permissible.  Company towns in their less than benevolent sense are an example of what happens when the private sector takes over public services.  The company benefits, the public suffers.

The privatization of social services and programs is nothing more than the conservative economic morphing of company towns into a modern form.  If the private sector controls your health care, your roads, your food safety, your water supply, your education system…then they control you.  You’ll take what they feel like giving you and like it because there will be nothing to stop them, nothing to protect you.  If the private sector gets a hold of your social security, it can and will be put into risky ventures by people who will benefit whether or not the ventures pan out or flop.  Private prisons lobby for more strict laws and sentencing because they help their bottom line.  Private health insurance with no regulations intentionally kicks people off their plans if they look like they might become a liability.  Privatizing schools pushes disadvantaged students out, takes money from the states who in turn cut funding from public schools, leading to even greater disadvantages which lead to workers who are forced to take low-paying jobs with no power.  Privatizing the public sector leaves no one to protect the public.  When the private sector controls the resources, the laws, and the power over just about every aspect of people’s lives, the result is a company town. In order to make a company town work for the company and not for the workers, it needs to make sure the employees have few choices, few rights, and no power.  Anything that gives the workers power must be eliminated.  This is why conservatives are so anti-union and against collective bargaining. These give some leverage to the workers.  In 1894, the Pullman strike occurred because the Pullman company town on Chicago’s Southside when the company laid-off workers and cut wages but kept the cost of housing and services the same.  This resulted in Eugene Debs forming a union of many of the unskilled Pullman workers who later went on strike.  This strike impacted most of the railway lines west of Detroit.  Opposition to the union was formed.  Riots and violence broke out.  Thirty people were killed.  Finally, President Grover Cleveland ordered the Army to break up the strike which led to more violence.  When the strike was broken, Debs was tried and found guilty of violating a court order and sentenced to prison and the union was dissolved.  This cycle of abuse, workers organizing, violent opposition, and unions dissolved or made powerless was played out over and over again across the country.  It wasn’t until FDR’s New Deal that unions really began to prosper.  By 1954 35% of American workers belong to a union.  Today it is 11.3% almost exclusively due to conservative efforts and policies to take away the power unions have to represent and bargain for workers.  They want people to think that a single individual has power against a company. They don’t and what little power they do have is consistently being taken away by conservative policies.

Conservatives don’t want workers to have any leverage of any kind.  Their hatred of the Affordable Care Act is rooted in a lot of conservative ideology, that it gives workers freedom, choices, and leverage is part of this. If your health insurance is tied to your job, then the company controls your health outcomes.  If it is difficult to quit or take another job because you will lose your health insurance, then the company has undue influence and control over your choices.  If your health insurance coverage is not tied to your job, then you can take a job that doesn’t offer coverage, start your own business, take a part-time job, quit working… because you have access to affordable coverage through the exchanges.  Along with not wanting a minimum wage, stripping workers of bargaining rights, and gutting unions, repealing the Affordable Care Act is part of the conservative plan to turn America into a company town. Conservatives have sold and convinced a lot of their base that wealthy business owners are wealthy and successful because they are better, smarter, and more moral people.  Workers don’t deserve leverage because they aren’t smart or good enough.  They also don’t need it because the company is being run by a good, moral person who will do what’s best.  The entire idea of trickle-down economics rests on this assumption about the nature of the wealthy.  If they get massive tax cuts and have more money, they, in their benevolent kindness, will spread this wealth down.  Of course, this is complete bullshit and defies all evidence and understanding of human nature.  There are some business owners who do this, but they are a rarity.  The main reason income inequality has risen so sharply since Reagan and the conservatives pushed trickle-down policies is because the wealthy often not kind, moral people but rather egocentric, hyper-competitive individuals who want more and more no matter how much they have.  As wealth has become more concentrated in the hands of a few, so too has power. With conservative efforts and policies limiting workers’ rights, companies have more power and control over their workers.  With no way for Democrats to stop conservatives from imposing even more company-friendly policies and taking away even more workers’ rights. Kansas was just the beta test.  Conservatives want to turn America into a company town.  It’s what they want.  It’s what they’ve always wanted. While conservative politicians are in the process of turning America into a company town, conservative voters are more than willing to play along.  How many rural towns are dominated by a single company or sector?  How many rural conservatives work in a mine, plant, business that has economic control of the area?  How many of them have been more than willing to allow the company to hold their town/area hostage when it comes to paying their share of taxes? How many have become so used to and comfortable with the expectation they and their kids will get a job at the company, they don’t broaden their education?  How many of these towns haven’t diversified their economic base relying too heavily on one company?  Conservative voters have been more than willing to create situations where their economic well-being is reliant on a single company.  When this company becomes outdated or decides to move, the people who allowed it to dominate their area are left with nothing.  When this happens, it isn’t the fault of coastal liberal elites or immigrants or social safety net spending.  It is the fault of conservative politicians and conservative voters. The COVID-19 pandemic is laying bare the conservative desire to turn America into a company town. They want people to be completely reliant on their employers for their health insurance, their wages, their well-being, almost everything. They want to undo social safety nets so people will not only have to work longer but be willing to do whatever the company requires just to barely survive. They want workers to be forced to put their health and lives at risk in order to prop up the stock market.  This would be fine if the only people affected were the ones responsible for the situation but they aren’t. Everyone in the area is negatively affected when a company controls the economics in that area.  Everyone in the state is affected when conservative politicians allow this to happen across a state. Everyone in the country is affected when enough states allow this to happen and right now, this is exactly what is happening and it is about to get a whole lot worse.  The Republican-led Congress and the Trump administration are going to do everything they can to privatize as many things as they can, undo regulations that keep companies in check, and turn America into a company town.  When this happened in the 1800s, the only thing that stopped it was massive strikes, protests, and a lot of violence. I’m not sure what will have to happen for people to revolt and hold massive strikes. A good chunk of the country seems willing to toe the company line, even at the risk of their lives and others. 

[forsetti]

On The Myth of American Individualism

In light of people completely, and sometimes arrogantly, defying public health recommendations to address a pandemic in the name of “Freedom” and “American Individualism, I thought I'd repost this article I wrote in 2012.

Recently, New York Times resident hack pundit, David Brooks, wrote an article arguing that Republicans are the party that “celebrates work and inflames enterprise”.  The GOP come from a long lineage of hard working, God fearing individualists that can be traced back through American history from Mitt Romney to the first Pilgrim who stood, buckled shoed, atop Plymouth Rock. Here are his opening two paragraphs: “The American colonies were first settled by Protestant dissenters. These were people who refused to submit to the established religious authorities. They sought personal relationships with God. They moved to the frontier when life got too confining. They created an American creed, built, as the sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset put it, around liberty, individualism, equal opportunity, populism and laissez-faire.

This creed shaped America and evolved with the decades. Starting in the mid-20th century, there was a Southern and Western version of it, formed by ranching Republicans like Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Their version drew on the traditional tenets: ordinary people are capable of greatness; individuals have the power to shape their destinies; they should be given maximum freedom to do so.”

For Brooks, America was built by hard working people who cowered from a smiting God, lived like Ted Kaczynski , didn’t accept handouts and loved the soft reach around from the Invisible Hand.  From this great tradition sprouted great men who were the salt of the earth, ordinary men who lived off the fruits of the sweat of their brow.  People like Mitt Romney and George W. Bush, two men who grew up in luxury, went to topflight prep schools and colleges, were able to walk into business with a long list of powerful, influential people already in their contact lists and didn’t fuck up and when they did, had other doors and opportunities open for them because of who they are and who they knew.  I highly doubt that John Q. Colonialist could get a government bailout to safe his business (Romney) or have one failed business after another yet have people willing to throw money and opportunities at you over and over again (Bush).  

On the claim that Republicans are the party of work and this tradition has been passed down from John Smith and Patrick Henry to Laura Ingalls Wilder and Belle Starr, I call “Bullshit!”  This country was discovered, settled, expanded, progressed and rose to the world’s greatest economic power because of the community, not the individual.  This love affair and worship of individualism in America is not based on its history or facts.  It is a complete myth.  A myth that has become a fundamental underlying principle of today’s Republican Party.  A myth, that Jim Jones-like devotion to has resulted in horrible, often progress stifling, policies.  It is an even more deeply rooted myth in conservative lore than Ronald Reagan being a tax cutting, small government, hard line hawk.

The first wave of immigrants that came to America came for economic, not religious reasons and they didn’t migrate to our shores to frolic in the Fountain of Laissez-Faire. They were employees, mostly indentured servants, of major trading companies who sent them here to harvest resources like timber and furs.  They were “company men”, not individuals who were looking to forge a new life by braving the elements or testing their mettle. The manner in which they worked and lived was communal.

The next wave of people coming to America was the religious immigrants.  For Brooks, this meant the hardworking, God fearing Protestants who sired America’s work ethic, loved the eight pound, six ounce baby Jesus and who planted the love and respect of individualism into the country’s psyche where it grew and flourished for three hundred plus years and can now be seen in the standard bearers for the Republican Party. Unfortunately, “There goes another wonderful theory about to be brutally murdered by a gang of facts.” (author unknown).

There certainly were groups of very devoutly religious people who came to America during this time. However, what Brooks conveniently omits are the multitude of the other groups that also made their way across the Atlantic to avoid the religious persecutions and heavy handed dogma in Europe. Atheists, Deists, Agnostics, etc., left Europe for the New World because of the religious environment in Europe.  Being part of the religious wave didn’t mean you were religious, it meant you left because of religion.  There were just as many, if not more, non-religious, non-fundamentalist immigrants to America during this period than the “Forebears of Freedom and Republican/American Greatness” as Brooks would have it.  This group played as much a role in America’s formation as a country and culture, if not more, than the Puritans or Quakers.  Some of the non-religious people who played a bit part in the formation of America include: Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Adam Smith…

The fundamentally religious in early American history was not the dominant group and it was not individualists.  They in fact were the opposite.  They were communal socialists.  In order to afford ship passage to America they often pooled their money together to ensure they could travel as a group. They formed settlements where they helped build each other’s homes, businesses and defenses.  They had community storages and would mete out food and other resources as necessary.  They didn’t cut off someone who was sick.  Instead they would get together and, as a group, figure out the best way to address this or any other problem. What they didn’t do is as they were ascending the gangplank of the Mayflower wave to each other and say “Good luck!  Maybe I’ll see you around.”  They stayed together, worked together and helped each other.  They didn’t abandon the sick and weak or withhold food or shelter.  If you want to see the modern day version and descendants of the early religious settlers to America, visit the Amish community in Ontario Ohio or Lancaster Pennsylvania.  The Amish, Mennonites and similar groups have been the ones to continue the traditions of the early settlers.  One word that is never used in describing these groups or their members is ‘individualism’.

Not to mention that there were a lot of other settlers in the early America who were not the Protestant, white New Englanders yet had just as much impact on society and culture then and now.  The Spain heavily influenced Florida, California and the American Southwest.  France’s influence was felt all along the Mississippi River and Great Lakes areas.  To ignore or deny these groups’ impact on American culture in favor of a tiny sliver of white, New England Protestants, is intellectually dishonest.  Brooks takes a sliver of early America, ascribes general characteristics to it that were not true and then claims these traits are what made this country great.

Let’s fast forward a dozen score years or so to the early 1800’s and visit another group of people touted as the champions of The American Spirit of Individualism-The Pioneers.  You know the salt of the earth, lovers of capitalism and all things holy, the people who settled the West and spread the seeds of rugged individualism like they were John Holmes at Burning Man. According to people like Brooks, the Pioneers were the hardworking, Bible toting, individualist progeny of John Smith, William Bradford and Adam Smith.  Again I call “Bullshit!”  Hardworking? Absolutely.  It was pretty difficult to not have to work hard to survive during this time unless you were filthy rich.  The technology at the time was better than it was in colonial times but it still wasn’t good enough to diminish the day-to-day demands of life in the 1800’s.  Individualists?  Hell no!  I don’t even know where this idea came from.  Even the most cursory look at this era shows quite the contrary.

Remember the stories and pictures of the Pioneers moving across the Great Plains along the Oregon Trail? Did they make this trek one wagon at a time, as individuals?  No. There is a reason they were called wagon trains because they moved as groups.  When they arrived at their intended destinations did they head off in different directions and go all Jeremiah Johnson?  No. They either joined settlements already in progress or started their own, as a group.  They moved as a group, built communities as a group, defended their properties and families as a group…  I come from Pioneer stock.  My genealogy tree has a branch that goes back directly to Brigham Young (of course with 56 kids from 16 of his 55 wives, you can’t swing a dead cat along the Wasatch Range of Utah without hitting someone who is related to Brigham).  Every single aspect of Mormon history, from moving to and building up Nauvoo Illinois, to crossing the prairie, to Brigham leading the faithful into the Salt Lake Valley through Emigration Canyon and pronouncing “This is the place”, to building Salt Lake City was a group, not an individual activity.  It was so communal and such a collective effort that Marx and Engels would have been “Whoa, lighten up a bit, let a brother get some alone time.”

One argument against my take is-“These groups had to band together for pragmatic reasons.  There were extenuating circumstances and variables that forced them to operate as a group in order to survive.”  My response to this critique is-“Yeah.  Your point being what?”  Either working together, spreading out risks and rewards works and yields positive results or it doesn’t.  What the reasons are for doing so are irrelevant.  It doesn’t and shouldn’t matter what the reasons are for opting for the group versus the individual approach.  I fail to see how changing the reasons either changes the efficacy or the results.  Another way of looking at it is to ask the question, “Do you think they could have achieved the same results via the individualism route?”  There doesn’t seem to be any historical evidence to support that they could.  I’m skeptical that the Pioneers didn’t know how to deal with the big issues they faced and followed the community approach to problem solving out of ignorance, stupidity or tradition.  If you think they could have achieved the same or better results by acting as individuals, I would need to see some evidentiary support to back up this position.

The next defense of individualism is along the lines-“That was then, this in now.  The world has changed so the need for the community approach has diminished in importance and has been replaced with the superior, individualism approach.” There are two main problems with this argument.  First, Brooks and the defenders of individualism are not saying, “The community approach WAS the driving force behind early American exceptionalism but now it is the individual.”  The view they hold to be innately true is that it WAS individualism that made America great. Individualism brought to this country by God fearing, religious freedom seeking, hardworking  Europeans, passed down through the generations or absorbed by some sort of osmosis where the trait, like blond hair to Scandinavians, is dominant in conservatives.  Brooks and company might admit that the community approach played a role, just not THE role in making America great.  It was individualism that built that.  Uh......., no.  

Second, the “but the circumstances have changed and the individual plays a fundamentally more important rule” argument is also bullshit.  Certainly the nature of the problems have changed.  We don’t typically worry about packs of wolves, marauding Indians, small pox, the plague, dysentery, being snowed in an unable to get food for weeks in today’s society.  We live in a much more technologically advanced world where these types of problems have adequately been addressed and dealt with.  When it comes to many of the problems and situations that faced the early settlers, we will never face them.  Why?  Because are Founders and those that came after them, as communities, found solutions to those problems.  But, just because those problems either don’t exist or are rare does not mean that we currently are sans problems.  With the advancement of technologies, the world has expanded where people are not limited to living in a small area of the world most of their lives, where commerce and ideas travel around the world at an unbelievable speed.  We’ve gone from regional to a world economy. While the small, regional problems of the past have been handled, there are larger often global problems that need our attention.  I don’t see how, if individualism couldn’t properly deal with the small, regional problems, it can possibly take care of larger ones. If anything, the larger problems need a larger community.

Imagine a small town in Nebraska in the late 1800’s whose local bank is having a cash flow problem.  The town needs the bank so they come together and as a group, deposit enough money to keep the bank going.  Fast forward to September 2008 where the large banks and financial institutions in the U.S. who have branches across the country and all over the world and also have deep, financial ties to other countries’ banks.  They have a serious cash flow problem.  One of these banks was Bank of America. Imagine the B of A branch in Minden Nebraska, population 3000.  It doesn’t matter how community minded and organized the kind citizens of Minden are, nothing they do can safe their local bank from collapse because it belongs to a much larger entity.  So, in order to address the problem, the definition of community needs to expand. The financial problem was nationwide so it took the entire nation to adequately address the U.S. banking problem.  The global financial problem took the global community to address and fix it. It is not that individuals have not made significant contributions but outside the arts, very few have had a big impact on the economy or culture of America.  What makes America great and the advantage we have over just about every other country is our diversity. Homogeneous societies can accomplish a lot and often quickly because as a group, they think pretty much alike.  Their greatest limitation is thinking outside their cultural box.  America, with its wide diversity of cultures always has voices outside the box providing input.  This is a major force behind our innovations and progress the past couple of hundred years.

Name a major economic event in America’s history that was the result of individualism.  There might be some but the majority are ones undertaken by either groups or the government (group) for the betterment of its citizens (huge group).  Louisiana Purchase, Seward’s Folly, Transcontinental Railroad, Interstate Highway System, Tennessee Valley Authority, Space Race, WWII, GI Bill, Erie Canal, St. Lawrence Seaway, Panama Canal, Hoover Dam…all were paid for by the group, built by groups and benifitted groups of the population.

Individuals who have been put on the pedestal of individualism didn’t accomplish what they did by themselves.  Edison is thought to be one of America’s greatest inventors (Tesla was much better but Edison was a better marketer). Growing up, the image of Edison was him laboring long, arduous hours by himself in is laboratory. The reality is he had a very large team of some of the world’s top people working in his lab in Menlo Park and was heavily funded.

Individualism is important and certainly has played a role in America’s rise to power.  But, individualism didn’t have the starring role in “Making America Great”. That role was played by a cast of thousands.  Individualism was a bit player whose name wouldn’t come up in the end credits until half the audience had already left the theater.

[forsetti]

On The Social Contract: Pandemics

Fifteen years ago today, my then almost seven-year-old son, Max died from complications of bacterial meningitis he contracted when he was seven months. The type of meningitis he had was streptococcal, the same strain of bacteria that causes strep throat. For reasons no one really knows or can explain, sometimes, this bacteria passes through the blood-brain membrane and enters the spinal fluid causing meningitis. At the time, there wasn't a vaccine for bacterial meningitis. It came out six months after Max contracted it.

I'm not writing this to rehash what happened to Max or have some cathartic moment on the anniversary of his death. I'm doing it in light of the current pandemic rapidly approaching our country. When Max died, it completely altered the lives of me and my entire family, irrevocably. His death was very sad and very unfortunate. However, it was also an accident. A lot of people have and are going to die from the coronavirus and many of them won't be accidental. They will be the result of negligence-theirs and others.

This negligence is often the result of ignorance, arrogance, and selfishness. Too many people don't believe in science or experts who have spent their lives dedicated to a single thing. Too many people don't understand basic biology, physiology, and statistics. Too many people think, “I won't happen to me because _______.” Too many people think, “I don't belong to a group at risk so I don't have to take the necessary precautions.”

Not that I would ever root for a virus but it would be fair and just if it only attacked adults who didn't take it seriously. That's not how viruses or diseases work. They are equal opportunity abusers. Yes, some times they prefer certain groups over others, but the really nasty ones don't care about your age, gender, race, income bracket... We are ALL susceptible.

Not only are we all susceptible, but we are also all potential carriers and transmitters of the virus. You can not have or show any symptoms yet have it and pass it along to others. To not take this possibility seriously is morally unacceptable. If you don't care about yourself and want to take whatever risks you want that only impacts you, Godspeed Darwin. You just go ahead and reenact every episode of Jackass to your heart's content. If, on the other hand, your actions can and will impact others negatively, it is your responsibility to not be a selfish jackass. It is your responsibility to not be negligent.

There are a lot of people in the next few months who are going to lose people they love. In some cases, there is nothing that could have been done to prevent this. In a whole lot of other cases, they could have easily been prevented. Don't be part of this outcome. Don't be part of the reason someone loses a child, a parent, a spouse... Don't be part of the reason someone has to deal with loss and grief when it didn't have to be so.

You might think the Social Contract is a bunch of European, philosophical, poppycock but it isn't. It is the foundation for our Constitution, The Bill of Rights, The Declaration of Independence... It is what makes a civil society, civil. It means we all look out for each other not for what we can get from them but because we are all in the same boat. We spend too much time in our own little niches and with our own tribes so we forget just how intricately tied we are to each other. It's not that we don't some times understand the importance of how reliant we are on each other. We do it every day whenever we get on the road and drive. We rely on others to take our health and well-being seriously and they do the same for us.

“It takes a village,” isn't some socialist, commie talking point. It is how societies survive and thrive. In the past, this applied to a literal village, a small group of like-minded people. In today's world, the village is just that...the world. It's the moral spin of Chaos Theory-”The flaps of a butterfly's wings in the Amazon can cause a tornado in Texas.” In this case, the washing of hands and social distancing in your world can protect the health and life of someone thousands of miles away from you. Be smart. Be better. Be safe.

[forsetti]

On Political Decorum: Fuck Your Feelings

At the conclusion of last night's State Of The Union address, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripped her copy of the speech in half.  At that moment, around the country, thousands of Republicans and media scolds clutched their pearls, frantically searched for their smelling salts, and dizzily stumbled to their fainting couches. Luckily, within a nanosecond, they miraculously recovered just in time to pull their broken moral compasses out of their grift-lined pockets to locate faux outrage at Speaker Pelosi specifically, and Democrats in general.  They took to social media and the pages of political punditry to express their outrage at the “optics” and “lack of decorum.” How dare she sully the institution of government, the office of the presidency, gasp, the very foundations of democracy?

Of course, they either didn't notice or didn't care about optics and decorum when Trump refused to shake the Speaker's hand, as has been the custom after she introduced him.  It was okay for him to play the spiteful, narcissistic man-child towards the first woman Speaker in history because reasons-misogynistic, double-standard, fucked up reasons.  Yet, heaven forbid she tear pieces of paper in half after a speech.  Didn't she understand those pieces of paper were as sacred as Mary's virginity, the Shroud of Turin, and Ronald Reagan's cowboy boots, combined?  After Speaker Pelosi ripped those pages in half, the sound you heard was thousands of scolds doing their best Marlon Brando impressions from “Apocalypse Now,”-”The horror.. The horror... The horror...”

I refuse to be lectured about decorum from people who angrily chant “Lock her up,” at political rallies.

I refuse to be lectured about decorum from people who stand up and clap or nod in agreement as he brags about kicking seven million needy people out of SNAP.

I refuse to be lectured about decorum from people who either are okay with or don't give a damn about a president asking a foreign government to investigate a private U.S. citizen, especially for political gain.

I refuse to be lectured about decorum from people who have no problem with asylum-seeking families being separated and their children being thrown into cages without any basic human rights or healthcare. I refuse to be lectured about decorum from people who are okay with the Medal of Freedom being awarded to a well-documented racist, bigot, misogynist, hate and fear-mongering talk radio host. I refuse to be lectured about decorum from people who eagerly support a travel and visa ban on entire groups of people based on their religious, ethnic, and/or race. I refuse to be lectured about decorum from people who cheered on birtherism.

I refuse to be lectured about decorum from people who had no problem with Republicans meeting during Obama's first inauguration to make sure they opposed every single thing he tried to accomplish.

I refuse to be lectured about decorum from people who spent over eight years calling the then-president and his wife “terrorists,” “Muslim sympathizers,” “traitors,” “apes,” “UnAmerican,”...

I refuse to be lectured about decorum from people who thought it was awesome to deny a Supreme Court nominee interviews or a vote.

I refuse to be lectured about decorum from people who have spent years spreading dangerous conspiracies from Pizza Comet and Jade Helm to Seth Rich and Vince Foster. I refuse to be lectured about decorum from people who either see no problem with or support tiki torch-bearing, khaki pants-wearing white supremacists chanting “blood and soil.” I refuse to be lectured about decorum from people who savagely attacked the Affordable Care Act and have done everything in their power to weaken the law, taking healthcare away from millions.

I refuse to be lectured about decorum from people who hide behind “economic anxiety” as the reason they support horrible people and policies. I refuse to be lectured about decorum from people who happily deny rights to women, minorities, the LGTBQ community...

I refuse to be lectured about decorum from people who don't give a damn about leaded water in minority areas.

I refuse to be lectured about decorum from people who have no problem with voter suppression, closing polling places, kicking people off voting rolls... just as long as it affects their political opponents.

I refuse to be lectured about decorum from people who excuse Trumps many sexual affairs, sexual harassments, paying off strippers to hide his infidelity...

I refuse to be lectured about decorum from people who can look at Trump's actions and listen to his words and call him “God's chosen.” I refuse to be lectured about decorum from people who don't care about Trump's remarks about minorities, the disabled, women, lifelong civil servants, Gold Star families...

I refuse to be lectured about decorum from people who are thrilled with lifetime judgeships being handed out to people with an F-rating from the American Bar Association.

I refuse to be lectured about decorum from people who are willing to screw over their children and grandchildren's futures because it is more important to make liberals cry than it is to ever admit being wrong about economic and ecological policies for the past fifty years.

I refuse to be lectured about decorum from people who take no issue with Cabinet positions being filled with people who want to destroy the very structure and reasons for said office.

I refuse to be lectured about decorum from people who, for any reasons, believe they are superior in any way because of their religion, race, gender... I refuse to be lectured about decorum from people who are okay with tax cuts for the wealthy, military intervention without provocation, massive deficits (when they are in power,) socialism for farmers but not for anyone else.

I refuse to be lectured about decorum from people who cheer policies that deny kids school lunches.

I refuse to be lectured about decorum from people who happily weaken public schools because of White Flight, School Of Choice, Charter Schools...

I refuse to be lectured about decorum from people who proudly wore t-shirts directed at their political opponents that said, “Fuck Your Feelings!”

All of these examples and many, many more from Republicans, media scolds, and the Decorum Police are the reasons why their “outrage” at Nancy Pelosi is as contrived as it is hypocritical. If you honestly believe tearing a bunch of pages in half are in the same ballpark as any of these examples, I'll paraphrase Jules Winnfield from “Pulp Fiction,”-”Ain't no fucking ballpark neither. Now, look, maybe your moral compass may differ from mine, but, you know, caging kids and ripping apart a speech ain't the same fucking ballpark. It ain't the same league. It ain't even the same fucking sport.”

Or, to put it another way, if you are upset about the tearing up of a speech, a speech filled with lies and more dog whistles than a puppy mill, but sat silently as these other things have happened, well then, fuck your feelings.