Unrelated, So Related

Apropos of nothing. Wanted to let whatever readers I had know what was going on for the years I hadn’t posted. The world, for most, is collapsing. Mine did years ago.

Riots, in Black and White

One of these things is not like the other

There is definitely an obvious contrast here. But there’s another one, less obvious, that people often miss.

The gun-toting protestors at the state house, people rioting after sporting events, driving over anti-racist protestors, are predominantly white, true. But, unlike rioters in Minneapolis, Ferguson, or LA back in the day, they’re not threatening the existing power structure. THAT’S the biggest difference.

Imagine a coal mine in West Virginia collapses and kills a couple dozen miners, and the evidence clearly shows the company knew the mine was unstable and sent them in anyway. If their fellow miners demanded en masse that the company be held accountable, and rioted when the company got off scot-free, do you think the establishment response would really be different? I think not. Historical precedent says definitely not.

The quickest way to invite tear gas, bullets, media shaming, etc. is to aggressively challenge the system. Those in power know they can use skin color to divide us. It’s William Lynch and “How to Make a Slave” 101. But the only color they really care about is green.

It’s about class and power, period.

Joe Biden, FDR’s Second Coming

So Joe Biden wants to be “the next FDR,” or so he says. Excellent. Because FDR died before he could finish implementing his platform, which was based on the fact that

“We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.” People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.”

So, Joe, I’ll be looking forward to your unveiling of your platform that includes FDR’s Economic Bill of Rights. That these things should be guaranteed:

• A federal job guarantee
• A living wage
• Guaranteed decent housing
• Protection against trusts and monopolies
• Guaranteed health care (Medicare for all)
• Guaranteed quality education (free state college)
• Guaranteed economic security in case of old age, sickness, accident, or unemployment (Universal Basic Income)

I’m waiting. But not gonna hold my breath

None of the Above

Let’s talk numbers for a sec. There are 329 million Americans. Of those, about 180 million are “working age” (between 16-65). That’s about 55% of the population. 32 million have filed for unemployment in the last 90 days. Which makes an official number of about 18% of the work force in 90 days losing their jobs. Combined with the 3.5% who already were part of that number, official unemployment should be about 21.5%. But, consider this. Florida denied 95% of its pandemic-related unemployment claims, so they’re not counted. And I really doubt Florida is the only state doing this. Take that, and the fact that even in states where that hasn’t happened it’s extremely difficult to get a claim filed due to site outages and phone wait times upwards of 7 HOURS, I’d venture that the real unemployment rate is probably closer to 28-30%. This is equivalent to the worst years of the Great Depression.

“I take no responsibility” vs “Nothing will fundamentally change” is unacceptable. The establishments of both parties have catastrophically failed. Boycott them both. Vote all of them out.

Pandemania!

Ok folks, let’s get a few things clear about this pandemic, starting with numbers.
As of this writing, the US has had roughly 735,00 confirmed cases of Covid-19, and 39,000 deaths. This comes out to a little over 5% mortality. And yes, that means you have a 95% chance of getting over it if infected. 95% seems pretty good, right?
Well, let me ask you this…
If I had a bowl of 100 M&M’s, 95 of which were normal, and 5 of which would definitely kill you, and you were in a group of 100 people chosen to eat one M&M each, would you take part in this? I’m guessing not. I mean, unless you enjoy the thought of watching people die when they don’t have to.
Also, keep this in mind.
On March 4th, six weeks ago, there were 44 confirmed cases in the US and zero deaths. So 39,000 people have died from this in 6 weeks, even with “shelter in place” and social distancing.
If 1/5 people end up infected due to “opening up the economy” (whatever the hell that means), then we’re talking about roughly 3.2 million dead. And given that Covid-19 is, according to actually qualified scientists, at least as contagious as influenza, 1/5 doesn’t seem unlikely. How many fellow humans are you willing to sacrifice for the sake of the NYSE?
Herd immunity, you say? No. Covid-19 has a transmission rate of 3 infected per one person with the virus. Which epidemiologists will tell you means roughly 70% of the population will have to contract the disease. Which means about 12 million dead. Again, how many fellow citizens do you think it’s ok to sacrifice so you can go to the movies?
Ultimately, we’re faced with a real and genuine crisis here. We’ve lost, in six weeks, as many Americans as died in 3 years of the Korean War. And all our leaders have done so far is give our money to banks.
I know lots of you don’t like the idea of your hard-earned money going to people who you think are unworthy (for whatever reason, they got laid off, or furloughed, or something else through no fault of their own). But let me ask you this…
How much are you willing to part with to save the life of another living, breathing, human being just like you? How much is that individual’s life worth?
I hope it’s worth more than your owner’s stock dividends

Lest You Had Any Doubt…

In case you were wondering why people in general, especially non-white people,  and non-white men in particular, don’t trust police, I suggest you watch this.

To recap: Luis Rodriguez goes to the movies with his wife, Nair, and their 19-year-old daughter.  Outside the theater, Nair gets into an argument with the daughter, it gets heated, and Nair slaps her.  Bystanders called the police, who then proceeded to beat Luis Rodriguez to death.

Now, I know that most police are just doing their jobs, and by and large police interaction with citizens doesn’t go sideways like this incident did.  But for Christ’s sake, there is simply no excuse at all for this.

Based on the story, which you can read here, the police officers were acting within protocol.  But if this is protocol, then what exactly is not acceptable behavior for these cops?

These five officers should all be tried with murder, plain and simple.

How Do You Know if a Fish is a Serial Killer?

Seems like a strange question, I’ll admit.  But, a couple weeks ago I got each of my girls a goldfish to go into a tank we made together.  My youngest named her fish Lucille.  And after three dead tank-mates, Lucille is still hale and strong.  Something seems fishy about this…

*Yes, I know it’s a bad pun.  But it’s the most terrible puns that I like the best*

Bill Nails It

That said, I’m pretty sure the guy’s got a device in my brain to read my thoughts.

 

A Couple Things…

Big news in sports this week.  Evidently, the NFL is going to start flagging players for using racial slurs on the field, to the tune of a 15 yard penalty, as part of the rules against abusive language.  This seems to have come as a result of publicity about bullying in the Miama Dolphins’ locker room.  Here’s the thing, or things:

Language is Ever Changing

A while back, I had a post in which I argued that calling an oppressive system a “Patriarchy,” when it’s not one in any discernible way, creates an anti-male bias in one’s head, because it connect the idea of maleness (“Pater” is “Father” in Latin) with a nameless, faceless, oppressive enemy, who is the source of all one’s problems.  This happens much in the same way the word “gay” being used to describe unpleasant things creates an anti-gay bias, and calling women as a whole “bitches” makes one subconsciously mistreat women.

That said, “gay” once meant only “happy.”  “Bitch” only referred to female dogs, and calling a human one would be so contextually inconsistent as to be tantamount to gibberish.  “Patriarchy” was once used to describe genuinely patriarchal governmental systems, as opposed to being a catch-term to distract people from being oppressed by an Oligarchy.

The same goes for racial slurs.  Everyone knows the tired trope of “if black people can call each other ‘nigger’, why can’t everyone else use the word?”  Right?  It gets used all the time, and the response is often that black people use it to take the power from the word, and thereby make it less dehumanizing overall, giving the word less oppressive power over them.  And, to be honest, that actually makes some form of sense to me.  My first choice would be that anyone use whatever words they want, and my second choice would be that no one use “nigger” except to reference the term itself (more on that later), but as third choices go, I’m fine with the “black people can say it and white people can’t” argument.

But the fact is that the usage of that one word has changed dramatically over the last few decades, and will continue to do so.  Eventually, it will carry none of the weight it did in the antebellum south, or during the 1960’s, or even today.  Words change, and outlawing them will not change that.  Frankly, if people can’t say one thing, they’ll find a way to say it without saying it anyway.  Because…

Context is Everything

I don’t use racial slurs.  I find them coarse and ignorant and I just have no use for them.  Well, almost.  You see, Louis CK has a point when he says that saying “N-Word” is the same as saying “Nigger.”

In both cases, the listener knows what word or idea you’re referring to, so they are effectively the same.  They’re synonyms.

There’s really no difference between saying “Bob called Joe a nigger,” and “Bob called Joe the N-word.”  If you’re offended by the usage in that context, you’re over-sensitive and you need a better understanding of how language works.

That said, it is always wise to avoid calling anyone by derogatory terms (unless involved in some kind of S&M degradation role-play, in which case, you should know where your lines are).  But it should apply across the board.

What I’m getting at is that the context of when you use a word has a lot to do with whether or not it’s offensive.  And more importantly, the things you say have meaning not because of the arrangement of consonant and vowel sounds, but because of the meaning heaped on them in the context of when the words are being said.

I mean, come on.  It wasn’t called “sex in the daytime,” but who doesn’t know what “Afternoon Delight” was about?  But the most important thing is this…

The NFL Has ABSOLUTELY ZERO Room to Even Talk About Racism

Until they force Daniel Snyder to change the name of the fucking Washington Redskins, I don’t want to hear anyone in the NFL front office say a God damned thing about players using racial slurs.  Fuck you people.  Take the beam out of your own eyes, douchebags, before giving anyone shit about the speck in their own.  The hypocrisy here is pungent enough that the normal bullshit about supposedly supporting “player safety” is white lilac and fresh linen by comparison.

Sometimes, I just don’t fucking understand people…

Chivalry is Dead, and I Say Good Riddance

Valentine’s Day has come once again, and across the country, old ideas of chivalry are resurrected to pressure men into emptying their wallets to prove to their significant others that they love them.  It’s a sickening cycle of manipulation, of both sexes, that is amplified to the Nth degree every February 14th, but stretches to more than just Valentine’s Day.  Above all, though, chivalry is an ideology that treats women as incompetents, and men as beasts of burden.  It’s a trap and a disgrace.

Allow me to explain.

Everyone wants to be happy, que no?  The big question, though, for most people, is from whence will my happiness come?  In our society, the answer to that question depends on your sex/gender.  American culture teaches men that their happiness is achieved by making a woman happy.  And women are taught that their happiness is derived from a man giving them things (watch a couple of DeBeers commercials if you have any questions about this).

So, a man and a woman get together.  They want to be happy together, so he buys her things and does nice things for her, and he believes that this will make her happy, which in turn will make him happy.  But, of course, happiness is not a material thing you can buy (unless you’re a horribly shallow and materialistic person, in which case your partner likely will still be miserable, but I digress).  So what happens?

She’s still not happy.  But, she’s been socialized to believe that more things, more gifts, more more more (one guy in the video mentions this), will be the key to her happiness.  Because she’s not happy, he’s not happy.  And he knows that what’s “supposed” to make her happy is more (see previous paragraph).  So, he works and works to try and make her happy with gifts and houses and cars and lifestyle upgrades and fancy dinners (and diamonds, never forget the diamonds) and all those things that both of them have been taught are what will make her happy, and in turn, make him happy as well.

And before you know it, they are both broke and miserable, and neither of them knows why.  So they break up, and attempt the same cycle again, with another person, in the hopes that more of the same will somehow have a different result.

My favorite question is “cui bono?”  And the answer here is obvious.  Over $13 billion spent every year just on Valentine’s Day.  “Proving” your love to someone is big business.  And it all stems from old, chivalrous ideals of men taking on a role of patronizing benefactor, and women accepting the role of damsel in distress.

And it’s all bullshit.

I’ve seen a lot of failed relationships.  And, in all fairness, been in more than a few myself.  And from where I sit, it seems one of the biggest factors in so many of those failed relationships stems from people allowing everyone else’s expectations to dictate how they think they are “supposed” to be, instead of defining those expectations for themselves.

In a recent post, Jim Wright of Stonettle Station wrote

There is only one truly inalienable right, one right that can’t be taken away by gods nor governments nor men, and that is the right to define yourself.  If you limit who you are to the labels others apply to you, you’ve given up the only right that truly matters.

And though he was referring to the definition of a successful writer, the sentiment applies to so much more than that.

Over the last year, I have developed a relationship based on none of the labels and expectations foisted on us by our society.  Where neither of us feels obligated to one another beyond the bounds of mutual respect, regardless of whatever labels might be applied.  It’s not me who holds the door for her, it’s whoever gets to the door first.  It’s not me who picks up the tab on a date every time, it’s something we both do.  I don’t expect her deference because I’m a man and she’s a woman; rather, we arrive at mutually agreed-upon conclusions based solely on the merit of ideas.  She does not define her happiness by the things I give her, nor do I do that with her, and neither of us expects the other to ride to the rescue and solve one another’s problems.  Instead, we work on those things together, and do what we can to help and support each other.  She is a strong, talented, hardworking and independent woman, who defines herself on her own terms, and I love and respect that about her.  And it’s a love and respect that goes both ways.  Oh, we do things for each other that the other can’t do, sure.  We have different abilities and skill sets, which is entirely to be expected with different people.  But, we make a concerted effort to learn these skills from one another, because neither of us wants to be dependent on the other.  We are together because we want to be, not because we need to be, and it’s ever so much better that way.

And as far as labels go, when referring to one another in the context of our relationship, we use the term “partner,” because it fits so much better than anything else (thanks gay folks, for popularizing that, by the way).

Cultures are slow to change, that has always been the case.  But they do change, always, or they die.

The old chivalrous mentality is unable to change, and so it is dying.

And I say good riddance.