It would be hard to be more phony!

SATURDAY, MARCH 25, 2023

Spectacular con men R Us: Is anybody phonier than our blue tribe corporate hacks?

We refer to the foolishness which transpired last evening on The 11th Hour.

Once again, Mehdi Hassan was sitting in as guest host for Stephanie Ruhle. He launched the evening's most repulsive bit of hackistry at 11:33 P.M.

As the segment began, Hassan dripped with sarcasm about the dumb-ass, right-wing Florida school we discussed in today's first report. At the stupid right-wing school, three (3) parents complained when their sixth graders were allowed to see Michelangelo's naked masterpiece, David.

Hassan was joined by David Jolly and Robert Gibbs, a pair of blue tribe regulars. In turn, each ridiculed the stupid red state rubes for their stupid behavior.

What the three said was phony enough. The peak fraudulence consisted in this:

Each pundit took his turn ridiculing the "raw ignorance" (Jolly) involved in "the Michelangelo story." As they did, producers kept showing photographs of the famous masterpiece.

That said, the photographs only showed the masterpiece in head-and-shoulders mode, or in one case from the waist up! Even as these scripted hacks ridiculed three ignorant rubes for their reluctance to show the statue to sixth graders, The One True Channel was refusing to show the naked statue to a late-night adult audience!

It's impossible to have sufficient contempt for the people who agree to behave this way on a nightly basis. We'll expose you to these hacks' full statements, and to the comical visuals, when the Internet Archive posts the tape of last evening's show. 

It's impossible to have sufficient contempt for the people who agree to do this. On the corporate tribal level, a spectacular clownlike lack of decency is really and truly Us!

Willa Cather's contempt: In Book II, Chapter IX of My Antonia, Willa Cather voiced her contempt for the native-born boys of her native Nebraska who saw the beauty of their town's immigrant girls but refused to pursue them in marriage.

More precisely, Cather's narrator, Jim Burden, gives voice to his contempt. At the start of the chapter, he starts his portrait of these vibrant immigrant girls in the manner shown:

There was a curious social situation in Black Hawk. All the young men felt the attraction of the fine, well-set-up country girls who had come to town to earn a living, and, in nearly every case, to help the father struggle out of debt, or to make it possible for the younger children of the family to go to school.

Those girls had grown up in the first bitter-hard times, and had got little schooling themselves. But the younger brothers and sisters, for whom they made such sacrifices and who have had ‘advantages,’ never seem to me, when I meet them now, half as interesting or as well educated. The older girls, who helped to break up the wild sod, learned so much from life, from poverty, from their mothers and grandmothers; they had all, like Ántonia, been early awakened and made observant by coming at a tender age from an old country to a new.

I can remember a score of these country girls who were in service in Black Hawk during the few years I lived there, and I can remember something unusual and engaging about each of them. Physically they were almost a race apart...

They were almost a race apart! Later, the portrait continues:

The Black Hawk boys looked forward to marrying Black Hawk girls, and living in a brand-new little house with best chairs that must not be sat upon, and hand-painted china that must not be used. But sometimes a young fellow would look up from his ledger, or out through the grating of his father’s bank, and let his eyes follow Lena Lingard, as she passed the window with her slow, undulating walk, or Tiny Soderball, tripping by in her short skirt and striped stockings.

The country girls were considered a menace to the social order. Their beauty shone out too boldly against a conventional background. But anxious mothers need have felt no alarm. They mistook the mettle of their sons. The respect for respectability was stronger than any desire in Black Hawk youth.

As the chapter ends, Burden describes one native-born fellow, Sylvester Lovett, who falls for Lena Lingard, one of the (Norwegian) immigrant girls. 

He falls for Lena Lingard, and he falls very hard. The chapter ends with one of our favorite passages from fiction:

Sylvester dallied about Lena until he began to make mistakes in his work; had to stay at the bank until after dark to make his books balance. He was daft about her, and everyone knew it. To escape from his predicament he ran away with a widow six years older than himself, who owned a half-section. This remedy worked, apparently. He never looked at Lena again, nor lifted his eyes as he ceremoniously tipped his hat when he happened to meet her on the sidewalk.

So that was what they were like, I thought, these white-handed, high-collared clerks and bookkeepers! I used to glare at young Lovett from a distance and only wished I had some way of showing my contempt for him.

So that was what they were like, Burden thought. 

Burden was full of contempt for the young men who wouldn't act on their attraction to the vibrant immigrant girls. In the case of Lovett, Burden feels no sympathy for a young man who is walking away from a chance at his fullest and most authentic personal happiness.

So that was what they were like, Burden thought. At some point, will we liberals be willing to see what our tribe's corporate con men are like?


122 comments:

  1. If immigrant girls weren’t to their liking, they could have sought out indigenous girls.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Immigrant girls were to their liking but socially unacceptable so they denied their own attraction. Hard to see how Hassan is doing anything remotely similar.

      Somerby is pretending that if liberals want David to be shown in schools, then TV should show the statue’s dick up close for their audiences, or they are hypocrites. A child could see the flaws in Somerby’s argument. His contempt is not an argument at all, but a feeling. Somerby seems especially full of hate today.

      He also neglects to tell you that Burden is a romantic rival of Lovett and lusts after Antonia himself but commits the same hypocrisy in the book. Thus Somerby ignores the author’s message and intent, using the word contempt for his own purposes to malign the left.

      Delete
    2. If immigrant girls were socially unacceptable, they could have sought out indigenous girls.

      Delete
    3. Somerby never actually explains it, but the girls being described in My Antonia are from Scandinavia or Germany. Their so-called vitality arises from doing manual labor and thus being physically healthy and from being tall and blond and white-skinned. They used to refer to this as Aryan back in the 1930s.

      That makes Somerby's tendency to gush over such girls sort of embarrassing in the modern context. In the book, the girls tended to marry boys from their own ethnic group, farmboys from Norway, Sweden and Germany. They only dated the town boys to have a good time, dancing, drinking, eating meals on dates. They married within their own culture, as did the town boys Somerby (and Burden) have contempt for. Somerby also doesn't discuss the impression given in the novel that the farm girls put out, while the town girls didn't. That would clarify everyone's motives.

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    4. Willa Cather's books, including the Prairie trilogy, were widely read in Germany and never among the books banned or burned under Hitler. The extoling of blue-eyed, blond girls and their hard-working immigrant virtues appealed to those who engaged in national stereotypes and race-based thinking in that time period. It was written in 2018.

      Delete
  2. It is hard to have sufficient contempt for Somerby when he pretends that Hassan made any decision about how to show the picture on TV. It is also hard to have sufficient contempt for Somerby’s failure to understand the difference in contest between a 6th grade class and broadcast TV, which has different purposes and constraints. Is Somerby this big a moron?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Re-read the post. Somerby clearly blames the producers, not Hassan.

      Delete
    2. I re-read it and it seems like he is blaming everyone, referring to hacks (Hassan) and folks and one-true-network. I don’t see the word producers, but they are bound by network restrictions and govt.

      Delete
    3. 'Each pundit took his turn ridiculing the "raw ignorance" (Jolly) involved in "the Michelangelo story." As they did, producers kept showing photographs of the famous masterpiece.'

      Delete
    4. 2:31, cut the shit. When TDH wrote,

      "It's impossible to have sufficient contempt for the people who agree to behave this way on a nightly basis. We'll expose you to these hacks' full statements, and to the comical visuals, when the Internet Archive posts the tape of last evening's show.

      what "people" do you think Somerby was expressing contempt for? The producers? Or Hassan who had "launched the evening's most repulsive bit of hackistry at 11:33 P.M."

      David Jolly, a former Republcian Congressman from Florida, and Robert Gibbs?

      Or the producers?

      It's impossible to have sufficient contempt for the people who agree to do this. On the corporate tribal level, a spectacular clownlike lack of decency is really and truly Us!

      What precisely was indecent about what Hassan and his guests said?

      Delete
    5. 3:04,

      The post I commented on had to do with who was responsible for the display of the David. I was correct in pointing out that Somerby attributed the display choice to the producers, not to Hassan.

      Apology accepted.

      Delete
    6. Somerby never mentioned the producers. He lumped everyone together under the terms hack and folk and condemned them all without assigning specific responsibility.

      Delete
    7. Troll: "What precisely was indecent about what Hassan and his guests said?"

      Somerby "We'll expose you to these hacks' full statements, and to the comical visuals, when the Internet Archive posts the tape of last evening's show."

      Delete
    8. In other words, never.

      Delete
    9. 6:32,

      'Each pundit took his turn ridiculing the "raw ignorance" (Jolly) involved in "the Michelangelo story." As they did, producers kept showing photographs of the famous masterpiece.'

      Somerby wrote the above in his original post. I then quote it in my post. And yet you were still able to type, "Somerby never mentioned the producers.'

      Maybe an eye exam would help?

      Delete
    10. 5:59,
      so you agree that TDH mentioned producers one single time, but saved his maniacal vitriol for Hassan and the two guests who had nothing to do with what was shown on the monitors?

      Delete
    11. 10:42,

      I suppose you're correct that neither Hasan nor his guests controlled what was shown on the monitors. Having said that, Hasan and his guests are part of a corrupt corporate culture that profits from the us v. them narrative they've helped create. So I don't begrudge any vitriol that flows their way.

      Delete
  3. The quote from My Antonia has nothing to do with this school situation or Hassan except Somerby’s own contempt, arising from entirely different circumstances than in the book. Why is Somerby filling up space with this?

    ReplyDelete

  4. tl;dr

    "Is anybody phonier than our blue tribe corporate hacks?"

    No.

    ...this has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Somerby seems phonier.

      Delete
    2. Meh. Recently, dear Bob only gets close to it when he is triggered by incomparable Tucker Carlson.

      Delete
  5. This whole controversy is Michelangelo’s fault. Instead of leaving David naked, he should have let him wear an Israeli uniform.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. David wore a fig leaf for Queen Victoria.

      Delete
    2. Body shame was part of the curse received by Adam & Eve after they transgressed. It wasn’t the way they were initially created. Prudery is a vice.

      Delete
    3. Anonymouse 4:08pm, I agree.

      Prudery is different from modesty.

      Modesty focuses on others and the proprieties of a civilized society.

      Prudery is a false modesty. It’s about control and power via a demand for an exaggerated inhuman respectability and virtuousness.


      Delete
  6. We invent accusations of racism as a scapegoat to avoid honestly facing our lack of power within the corrupt institutions that dominate our lives.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tell that to the next black person you meet.

      Delete
    2. They already know it very very well!

      Delete
    3. I'm sorry, some of them do. The ones that are not also creating the same scapegoats.

      Delete
    4. Why else do you think we would invent accusations of racism? Accusations that are easily proved false outside our own bubbles of information?

      Delete
    5. Go ahead and prove that Trump is not a racist. We're listening...

      Delete
    6. For the 29 millionth time, one can't prove a negative.

      Delete
    7. Explain why the episodes that appear to be racist are actually not racist then. You said "accusations are easily proved false" but now you say they cannot be disproved at all.

      Delete
    8. I don't care if you believe my original assertion is false.

      Delete
    9. Trump admires Frederick Douglass.

      Delete
  7. There was a full length photo of the statue on the 11th Hour, Alex Wagner Tonight, and All In last night. Don’t let Bob bamboozle you.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Somerby says: "It would be hard to be more phony!"

    Actually, it is easy to be more phony. Look at Trump himself. Look at George Santos. Look at Somerby, who claims to be a libera while defending Trump (and other right wing miscreants).

    Redefining phony so he can apply the word to liberals is what Republicans do.

    ReplyDelete
  9. “ That said, the photographs only showed the masterpiece in head-and-shoulders mode, or in one case from the waist up! Even as these scripted hacks ridiculed three ignorant rubes for their reluctance to show the statue to sixth graders, The One True Channel was refusing to show the naked statue to a late-night adult audience!”

    Priceless!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are truly an idiot.

      The purpose of a class on Renaissance art is to show the artwork. David is a famous work of art that must be shown to teach about it.

      The purpose of a cable news show is to report news events. There is no reason to show the fully nude statue of David in order to report what happened to the principal who was fired.

      Somerby's false equivalence may strike you as funny, but that is only because you buy into the idea that the news guys were being hypocritical. They were not, because their actions and purposes were not the same in any respect other than showing a picture.

      Somerby thinks My Antonia is similar to this situation too, because the word contempt is being applied to both (by him). There is no greater equivalence there than between the grade school class and a cable news show.

      Somerby may be on the autism spectrum. What is your excuse? You only stupidly laugh at Somerby's lame equivalence because you are prepared to hate the folks Somerby hates. There is otherwise nothing funny about a cable news show declining to broadcast full frontal nudity to an unsuspecting audience, even after 10 pm (the hour most stations use to divide family-viewing from adult-viewing time).

      You are not laughing because you find this funny -- you, like Somerby, are needling liberals. It is ugly in both of you. Meanwhile, kids are being deprived of an education that includes cultural references to famous works of art. That means they will remain ignorant Southern rubes when they grow up, without any appreciation for art and experiences that middle class kids elsewhere take for granted. While you, DeSantis, Somerby and Trump are having fun at their expense, it is the children who will suffer.

      When I was a college student at UCLA in the late 60s, someone put clothing on all the nude statues in the sculpture garden. It wasn't funny -- it ws vandalism and provincialism and religious bigotry, and it defaced art. In honor of Somerby's stupid joke, I am now making another donation to the ACLU. I won't go live in FL to oppose the cretins harrassing school teachers, but I can donate to those who are defending freedom to view art in educational contexts.

      Delete
    2. Thank you so much for your generous gift of $25 to the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation in support of our LGBTQ rights work.

      The ACLU has a powerful, proven track record of defending our fundamental freedoms even in the most difficult of circumstances. And, with you at our side, we will continue this unyielding commitment to protecting civil liberties.

      Confirmation number
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      Delete
    3. Cecelia likes complete males.

      Delete
    4. Anonymouse 4:55pm, yes, we wouldn’t want to expose a news show audience to the statue of David. The channel would have to first issue a warning so that kids and sensitive adults could be warned to leave the room.

      Oh, wait…

      You’re so ridiculous, it hurts.

      Delete
    5. Anonymouse 6:12pm, guilty.

      Delete
    6. If it is easier to remind people what the statue of David looks like by showing his head and chest instead of his private parts, why not do it that way? Why create trouble for anyone by showing a nude on a news show? The same concern is not true of an art history class. Nudes are part of art and there are many famous ones that educated people recognize and appreciate. Educating kids is what schools do. If a child has already encountered a sex education class, nothing about David will be traumatic. Most kids have already seen their dad or brothers nude at some point before 6th grade. Making this into a porn-related prudish sex-negative experience is wrong. That said, news shows are in the business of discussing current events, not educating kids. I didn't suggest any viewer or audience message -- it is fine to show the statue from waist up -- those who have seen it before will recognize it from that and the rest don't need to see a male appendage to understand what is being talked about.

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    7. Anonymouse 6:29pm, most kids have already seen their father’s or brother’s (or their own) penis.

      But not the people who watch MSNBC. Those dolts didn’t even take Art History.

      Absolutely right, Anonymouse 6:29pm. For once you are on the money.

      Delete
    8. It isn’t the job of MSNBC to show nudity, even in art, without a reason. It is the job of teachers to introduce students to famous art, even if it includes nudity. Why is this so hard for you to understand? If David were stolen, you would see it on the news, nudity and all.

      The point is that the principal was fired for unstated reasons and the art is being used as a pretext. It is irrelevant and ugly that Somerby is using this incident to call MSNBC hypocrites for using judgment about showing a nude photo. We get it that Somerby hates cable news (except Tucker) but what does this have to do with teaching art to kids? Do people in FL really value controlling teachers over giving kids a chance to marvel over the creation of a David?

      Delete
    9. “Do people in FL really value controlling teachers over giving kids a chance to marvel over the creation of a David?”

      Anonymouse 8:26pm, three of them did.

      MSNBC isn’t taking any chances with the rest of you,

      Delete
    10. You are incapable of getting the point.

      Delete
    11. But do you actually feel any wonder at Michelangelo's creation? Do you have an artistic sense that values art? Or are you just a mean-spirited munchkin who drinks herself to sleep because she hates her life? "She" is of course being used metaphorically here.

      Delete
    12. Anonymouse 11:47am, teachers wouldn’t need my permission to show classical nudes to my daughter at any age.

      I think parents who choose otherwise are working out their own issues, but that’s all right. The ability to protect your children based upon your own concerns and sense of propriety is almost (but not quite) sacrosanct.

      You argue that a news channel and an art history class are not the same thing. To you, that obvious, but specious fact means that MSNBC was not only fine, but justified in avoiding any potential complaints that could occur by showing the entire work of art. Complaints that could come even after issuing a nudity warning. Evidently, it’s not the place of a news organization to wholly inform their viewers by showing them the art work in question. THEY should put a brown wrapper on the statue of David.

      I do understand that you think it was good thinking on their part to crop David though the genius and the overwhelming beauty of that masterpiece is truly what the story is about. However, MSNBC didn’t try to avoid criticism via their decision to just crop the picture. They’ll get criticism one way or the other. They assume that.

      MSNBC knew they would look like ridiculous hypocrites if they gave a nudity warning BEFORE THEY reported on the hick parents who were angered because THEY hadn’t been given a nudity warning by the school. A warning the parents HAD received in the past.

      Without the philistine Florida parents angle, this “story” isn’t even a story, let alone national news.

      MSNBC wasn’t about to mess that up by making it clear that such nudity warnings and such sensibilities concerning nudity are totally common.

      You can try to put pants on that fact all you wish, but you’re really only showing your disingenuousness.







      Delete
    13. The news report was not about the beauty of David. It was about the firing of a school principal because parents complained about David being presented to their kids during a unit on Renaissance Art (what else would you expect to see?). This is part of an ongoing conservative attack on schools, libraries and higher education. It has nothing to do with benefit to kids, parental rights or the merits of David as art. It has everything to do with DeSantis and other conservative aspirations to office -- in other words, it is about politics and political power.

      Pretending that this was hypocrisy entirely ignores that this is yet another political stunt, perpetrated by conservatives against a woman who was made a target for no good reason other than politics. She needed her job, as most workers do. Using her for political purposes is evil. Pretending this is about children or hypocrisy is evil too when it condones the harm done to an innocent educator who was just doing her job.

      Somerby's motive of attacking MSNBC using this stunt as a pretext is no better than the political motives of the school board who deprived this woman of her job in order to make political news.

      And you seem willing to laugh at any craven ugly thing that Somerby says or does. Kevin Drum said that this shouldn't have been national news. I disagree. When conservatives attack the jobs of educators for political reasons, that shoud be a national outrage. Those rumored "other reasons" that the school board refused to specify make it seem like this poor woman was doing something heinous, when she was doing what she did every year and was targeted because conservatives seek out these manufactured outrages to motivate voters.

      I hope she sues them. But the people targeted like this mostly don't have the money for attorneys either. Somerby, instead of identifying with a teacher who did nothing wrong, identifies with the conservatives and mocks MSNBC for respecting its audience instead of pointing out the ways in which this woman was wronged by a political stunt.

      Delete

    14. Oh dear. Someone who also needs this job (as most workers do) will get it, dear government scientist. So, no harm done.

      And, presumably, this new employee will be more tolerant to sensitivities of some of the normal ordinary parents than the dismissed employee. That's to say: the new employee will be more competent.

      ...just as tolerant as MSNBC apparently is to its viewers.

      Delete
    15. Anonymouse 2:10pm, the principal lost her job because she did not follow well established procedure.

      The media made this about politics and you are making this about politics.

      Without the politics part, there’s no there there in this story.

      Delete
    16. “ Oh dear. Someone who also needs this job (as most workers do) will get it, dear government scientist. So, no harm done.”

      It’s all breast-beating by design. They’ll simultaneously bemoan the politics involved in the system even as they totally politicalize any parental instincts and pull their hair out over upper-level school system administrators for having any sense of concern towards a parent.

      Delete
    17. Cecelia, has your daughter seen her father’s david? Has your son seen your bathsheba?

      Delete
    18. You have no idea why she lost her job. Read the interview. The board chair won’t say, except it wasn’t the David picture.

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    19. @Cecelia

      It's not surprising. Being brain-dead themselves, they naturally sympathize with the brain-dead school principal.

      ...this is how they understand "empathy".

      Delete
    20. Anonymouse 3:06pm, nope, and she has no siblings.

      She is an adult now and I make a conscientious effort to avoid concerning myself with possibility that this scenario has changed.

      Delete
    21. As to the Bathsheba question. Yep.

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    22. Fathers are usually more upset by their grown daughters having sex than mothers are. Mothers tend to prepare their daughters for adulthood.

      Delete
    23. Cecelia, your party controlling the House just passed a pure piece of performative breast-beating gibberish legislation which they are calling the Parents Bill of Rights Act. You know, I know, and they know it is going nowhere fast. They just want to use it now to attack Democrats with nonsense bullshit spewing forth from that pack of pygmies you refer to as republican congressmen. Yes, according to the bullshit hate spouted out by your representives, Democrats are anti-parent.

      This bill passed by your party controlling the House, passed by the party who claims to be the party of smaller Federal Government and more control to the state and local governments, (BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!) would impose monumental new demands, orders, procedures and red-tape forms and paperwork to every single public school in this country. They did this all without once blushing.

      In 2020 election cycle I have had young poll workers for Youngkin who was running for governor come to my house and tell me I have to vote for Youngkin because he's pro-parent. Me, with three children all finished with college - except for one who is finishing her third year of medical school - and multiple grandchildren am being told I am anti-parent, because I don't happen to believe one parent should have the power to remove any book from the school library they and they alone decide the entire student body shouldn't have access to.

      Any you smugly reply that a parent can always go to Amazon if they so choolse.

      I ask you, who the fuck is totally politicalizing parental instincts?

      Delete
    24. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete

    25. “I ask you, who the fuck is totally politicalizing parental instincts?”

      The people who are not open to debate as to what content is suitable for students at particular grade levels.

      The people who want kids indoctrinated as to America’s system of institutional racism.

      The people who want parents put on notice from the Dept of Justice for getting heated at a school board meeting.

      The people who openly argue that parents are not qualified to make decisions to the content of their child’s education and should shut up and listen to the experts.

      Those are the people who can thank themselves for legislation concerning schools.

      Delete
    26. It is child abuse when parents do seek medical treatment for their kids. Also when parents do abusive things to kids out of ignorance or anger or religious zeal. It is abuse to fail to meet children’s needs, treat them like property of slaves and abuse to fail to educate them. The state has rights when parents jeopardize the well-being of theor kids, for whatever reason. Using children as pawns in political machinations is beneath contempt, and it is illegal if it harms kids.

      That legislation won’t pass the senate, and would absolutely be vetoed because the law protects children from abusive or neglectful parents, including the fanatics who harm kids in the name of religion or Trump.

      Delete
    27. do not seek medical treatment

      Delete
    28. Dear dembot at 3:52 PM, 4:18 PM,
      we would like to send you $25, to attend this excellent workshop tomorrow:
      https://web.cvent.com/event/65a2fab6-3e43-46a9-922e-1f55b719d3db/summary

      You "will leave the workshop with a better understanding of how to center ourselves as a form of resistance against the harmful effects of whiteness in our lives, the organizations we work for or direct and the communities in which we serve."

      ...hopefully it'll help you stop being constantly aggrieved; one of the harmful effects of your whiteness, no doubt...

      Delete
    29. Who should say how much a 10 year old should weigh? A doctor with tables of average weight-by-age and height, or a parent who is obsessed with the idea her daughter is fat and will never attract a husband, even though the child is being starved and malnourished? Do you trust an expert then, or the parent? And yes, this actually happens.

      Delete
    30. Tucker Carlson is one of the most aggrieved white men on the planet.

      Delete
    31. If that's how you feel, don't watch, dear dembot.

      Delete
    32. Dear dembot at 4:24 PM,
      "Do you trust an expert then, or the parent?"

      It doesn't matter who we trust.
      What matters is who the parent trusts.

      Delete
    33. I understand, Cecelia. You would like to be able to make anonymous death threats to school board members and public-school teachers with impunity and then play the aggrieved victim if the law enforcement deigns to protect these people. Anyway, it has its effect, don't you know, by scaring and intimidating these public-school workers to just quit. Kind of like what you guys do to do election workers. I think Donald J Chickenshit learned it from John Gotti. That's your party now, the Mob.

      By the way, that is why we elect school board members to form the curriculum. I sure don't want Billy Bob cousin fucker making my child's curriculum.

      Delete
    34. Yes, this is why so many right wing people have unnecessarily died of covid, after trusting what the right said about Fauci and the vaccine, instead of trusting a more reliable source of information.

      Education is important because it helps people evaluate who to trust, helps them avoid being conned, helps them have better lives in many respects, including parenting. One of the biggest contributors to child neglect and abuse is ignorance and lack of parenting skills. It is sad that politics on the right have expanded to telling parents what to do, since right wing Trump followers have enough problems without creating more for themselves by trusting what the right tells them, including about schools and other aspects of parenting.

      Consider a map showing the patterns of obesity across the country. Notice that the worst stats are for those living in the red states that are Trump's core voters, the states enacting repressive legislation affecting family decisions:

      https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/prevalence-maps.html

      Here is the same kind of map for smoking rates:

      https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/65/wr/mm6539a1.htm

      You get the same pattern if you look at gun deaths for children in the USA:

      https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/14/magazine/gun-violence-children-data-statistics.html

      The red states have the worst statistics. Given their attitudes about expertise and listening to advice from others, it seems clear that not listening is producing poor results for then, and the people living in those red states are clearly the ones who most need to start listening to expert advice.

      Better outcomes for people and their kids are highly correlated with more education. That's why this attack on schools by the right wing is particularly distressing. Right wing politicians are hurting their own voters and their voters are too stubborn to realize it.

      Delete
    35. I know you understand all that anonymouse 5:03 pm, and I know that you will jump to and argue from the most extreme scenarios that you can find and in return put extreme arguments in my mouth and then call me an extremist.

      I know.

      Delete

    36. According to our humble observations, liberal brain-dead idiocy is highly correlated with bullshit (non-technical) education, also known as brainwashing.


      Delete
    37. Parents, with no training whatsoever, are not the best people to decide how or what to teach children at various ages. They have no expertise in that topic, no matter how much they might love their kids. If they love them, they should seek out the best schools they can and then support teachers in their efforts to educate their kids. That is what middle class people everywhere tend to do, when not derailed by political or religious extremism. They do this because it works and helps provide their kids with a better start in life. Attacking the schools, as right wingers are now doing, is both self-defeating and foolish, most of all because it harms children.

      It astonishes me that Somerby would aid in that destructive effort, but he has become an odd old man. I cannot imagine a teacher supporting this right wing crap.

      Delete
    38. Cecelia, you said this:

      "The people who want parents put on notice from the Dept of Justice for getting heated at a school board meeting."

      Reality was this:

      death threats to school board members and public-school teachers

      And the DOJ acting to investigate and protect targets of this uncompromising hate from your side.

      But that won't stop your political leaders from demagoguing the matter so that you can come on here and say what you said. I watched with my own eyes how your political representatives attack AG Garland for acting modestly to protect good people.

      Just off the press:

      Lauren Boebert has sponsored an amendment to abolish the Dept of Education because they are pushing drag shows, gender ideology, CRT and "all this other woke BS".

      You vote for this shit, Cecelia. Own it.

      Delete
    39. "Parents, with no training whatsoever, are not the best people to decide how or what to teach children at various ages."

      Oh yes, they most certainly are, dear dembot.

      ...at least for as long as we're not living yet in a full-fledged huxleyan/orwellian dystopia.

      Delete
    40. If parents are such experts, why do they always hand their kids to someone else to educate?

      Delete
    41. Anonymouse 5:40pm, I’m sure that school boards have been threatened by overwrought parents who need to go to jail.

      If you deal with other people’s children, the best thing and vital thing that you can do is to understand that you’re dealing with other people’s children.

      They are the most precious things that we have and nothing will turn Shrinking Violet into Godzilla faster than messing with Violet’s young’n and treating Violet as though she should be grateful for your dismissal of her.

      Still, if she gets out of hand there are local law enforcement and local judges who can dispense her to jail or to a psychiatric ward.

      Most parents will appeal to local and state politicians who will get involved on the behalf of either side.

      You’re just going to have to live with these dynamics.



      Delete
    42. Yeah. If some school board members and public-school teachers got numerous parents enraged to the point of death threats, then perhaps these school board members and public-school teachers need to look for a different line of work.

      ...like maybe in a slaughterhouse?

      Delete
    43. Thank you for that patronizing reply dripping with condescension. I was particularly impressed with your explanation of how right wing christofascist bigots see their children as the most precious things we have. I never knew that, since you know us Dems just hatch our children and toss them out of the nests as soon as they can fly.

      I'll have to check back with my oldest daughter, who is now teaching Special Ed in a high school nearby, whether she understands that the children she cares for every day are precious to their parents. Of course, she's kind of busy with her daily communications and meetings with the parents.

      What do you think should be done when some foaming out the mouth rube chases a school board member out to their car shouting "we know where you live", while local law enforcement stand by with their thumbs up their asses?

      Delete
    44. The cock on that statue is incredible.

      Delete
    45. Anonymouse 6:49, evidently, I got above myself in replying to your post in which you asked to me to explain myself, the politicians you hate, and people who threaten public school personnel.

      That I have this extreme level of temerity could only mean that I’m somehow suggesting that anonymices don’t care for their children and also mean that I failed to perceive via ESP, the special authority you have on the subject by virtue of your daughter being a teacher.

      How dare me…

      If you feel that I’m being condescending towards you it may be because you don’t think your contrarians have the right to answer your heated rhetoric.

      That we do is just one more thing you must reconcile to yourself.

      Delete
    46. Children aren’t things, precious or otherwise. They have rights under the law independent of their parents.

      Delete
    47. Having a child doesn’t give you license to behave badly. Teachers also care about and worry about the kids in their care. Parents can learn from their kids’ teachers. Shame on the right wing for fostering mistrust when parents & teachers are on the same team and should work together. Shame on Somerby for siding with the politicians.

      Delete

    48. "What do you think should be done when some foaming out the mouth rube chases a school board member out to their car shouting "we know where you live", while local law enforcement stand by with their thumbs up their asses?"

      We feel that what should be done is that this school board member needs to resign, immediately.

      ...the purpose of public schools, dear dembot, is to serve the local people, not to antagonize and madden them.

      Delete
    49. Cecelia, you're a real slippery little worm.
      When are you going to concede that what you wrote,

      "The people who want parents put on notice from the Dept of Justice for getting heated at a school board meeting."

      was a lie? That's all I am asking.

      Delete
    50. If you are gullible enough to believe CRT is being taught in elementary schools, you should certainly be gullible enough to think the 501(c) political groups threatening school boards are "concerned parents".

      Delete
    51. So it’s a lie that the NSBA asked the DoJ to investigate angry parents rather than letting them be handled by local law enforcement, if necessary?

      It’s a lie that in the association’s request to the DoJ, irate parents were likened to terrorists?

      It’s a lie that the NSBA later apologized for its terminology, but the damage was done and pols started getting involved?

      It’s not a lie. Go pound sand.

      Delete

    52. "...gullible enough to think the 501(c) political groups threatening school boards are "concerned parents""

      In that case, dear dembot, what's with all that ranting and raving about deplorable local parents not being good-decent brain-dead liberals, happily bending their knees before utterly superior "experts"?

      Delete
    53. Anonymouse 8:21am, no has ever said that a graduate level course in CRT is being taught in elementary schools.

      There are CRT precepts about institutional racism, what predicated the founding of the country, and white culpability that can be communicated to children.

      Even flying monkey anonymices can understand that.

      Delete
    54. "Except for the entire Republican party and the 501(c) political groups cosplaying as "concerned parents" at school board meetings, no one ever said CRT is being taught in elementary schools."
      Fixed for accuracy.

      Delete
    55. Yes, Cecelia, it's a damned lie.

      Garland’s 2021 memo, which ordered federal law enforcement to meet with local authorities around the country to “facilitate the discussion of strategies for addressing threats” against education personnel, came after a spate of protests and other disruptions targeting school officials over Covid policies, school curriculum and other issues.

      The National School Boards Association asked the Justice Department at the time to address these issues, and wrote to President Joe Biden asking for federal help to address the violence and threats against school administrators. But the association later apologized for “some of the language” in the letter, which said the “heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism.”

      The memo issued by Garland specified that it was concerned with “illegal” threats and harassment – but the memo never equated parents to domestic terrorists.


      You ignored my question, Cecelia. Would you call this "getting heated" at a school board meeting?

      You know damn well the NSBA was concerned about these incidents and anonymous death threats that local law enforcement was doing nothing about, and your representatives in Congress were attacking the DOJ for responding to those concerns.

      Hey, what should I expect from the party that goes on field trips to visit DC jail to party with violent insurrectionists.

      Delete
    56. forgot the link

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAcpKEPmwTA

      Delete
    57. Cecelia,
      Can you teach the media how you were able to ignore the cosplayers who lied about CRT being taught in elementary schools? They could really use the help.

      Delete
    58. Dembot at 10:14 AM,
      that's exactly what Cecelia at 9:03 AM said.

      What is your point, dear government scientist? That every event must be described by exactly the words your brain-dead cult chooses? Is that it?

      ...there's no federal law to that effect yet, nicht wahr?

      Delete
    59. Anonymouse 10:14am, by your own link nothing I said was lie.

      Your overheated problem is with the term “overheated”. I expressly stated that parents who threaten people should go to jail.

      THAT is a distinction I made between being angry, loud, and argumentative and breaking the law by making threats.

      Your problem is a typical anonymouse issue and that is that anonymices don’t make distinctions between their contrarians, at all. It’s same hackneyed militant denunciations of everyone who doesn’t agree with them in almost every post.

      My contention is that this a matter for local enforcement, not the feds. Biden should not have gotten involved. It’s not domestic terrorism, which the NSBA backed off and apologized after media exposure and denunciations from pols.

      You may not agree that these parents are not domestic terrorists, but that doesn’t make it a lie for me to say that they are not.

      As to 501c, are they not composed of people who have common goals? Of parents?

      Why is it suspect that parents would be amendable to the help of that sort of organization any more than it would with parents who might seek out the help and the “voice” of BLM (another 501c)?

      Delete

    60. "I expressly stated that parents who threaten people should go to jail."

      Meh. Investigated, rather. There are 'threats' and there are 'criminal threats'. And even in case of 'criminal threats' people don't necessarily go to jail. Depending on the circumstances, history, etc...

      Delete
    61. I expressly stated that parents who threaten people should go to jail.

      Well bravo for you, Cecelia. You want a cookie?

      The point is, once again, that nothing was being done about it by good old boy local law enforcement. Which prompted the desperate NSBA to ask the DOJ to do something about the rash of "targeting school officials over Covid policies, school curriculum and other issues". And then for the DOJ to act.

      It is a disgusting but familiar pattern with the lawless republicans. Provoke good people to the point of desperation and then whine to the heavens about how your good "concerned parents" are being victimized.

      Delete
    62. "...nothing was being done about it by good old boy local law enforcement."

      ...or so says an anonymous dembot.

      "Which prompted the desperate NSBA to ask the DOJ to do something about the rash of "targeting school officials over Covid policies, school curriculum and other issues"."

      We have the impression that the NSBA did no such thing. The letter was sent by one liberal asshole. The NSBA then stated that
      "The sentiments shared in the letter do not represent the views or position of the NSBA. The NSBA does not seek or advocate for federal law enforcement intervention at local school board meetings."

      https://www.nsba.org/News/2022/independent-review

      Delete
    63. screw off, Mao. Daddy Putin needs some help rattling his tactical nukes. Run along now.

      Delete

    64. Sorry about distracting you from helping your daddy, dear dembot.

      ...feel free to reply when you're done with that.

      Delete
    65. Anonymouse 12:05 pm, I don’t think there’s geometrical position left for you to move your argument.

      There were members of the NSBA who thought the letters to Biden and Garland were over the top. The board WITHDREW letter. They apologized for the letter.

      By that time Garland had already referenced Homeland Security and was left looking a little too eager for that sort crackdown.

      How, oh, how did this all get politicized?…

      Why won’t these right wing terrorists political operatives hick dumb bunnies listen to us when we tell them we have the best interests of their kids at heart?

      Because you don’t. It’s obvious.

      That’s why.

      Delete
    66. Cec, I have no idea why these members of the NSBA decided to withdraw the letter. I suspect they made the same mistake the media makes over and over again believing the mighty right wing media industrial complex Whineappalooza.

      What I do know is there was not a goddam thing wrong with that letter, and nothing in it suggested putting normal parents attending school board meetings on some sort of list. I defy you to show me anything suggesting what YOU claimed was being done and you went further to claim this false representation of the letter as a pretext for your dumbfuck congressmen to pass a completely performative pile of garbage, the so-called Parents Bill of Rights.

      Tell me, Cecelia, did the NSBA ever before have to write such a letter to the DOJ, before they started getting death threats over covid policy and bullshit CRT made up issues by your demagogic representatives who sure know how to tickle that good old boy racist funny bone.

      Delete

    67. Dear dembot at 4:42 PM,

      Alas, it doesn't look like you attended our best "how to overcome your whiteness" workshop today, dear government scientist: you're still acting super-aggrieved.

      ...tsk, oh, well. So sad...

      Delete
    68. Right, Anonymouse 4:42pm, parents just walked into school board meetings and started acting out for no discernible reason.

      There were no issues about the education of their kids, no conflicts over certain material, no gender issues about bathrooms. Parents were just bored and decided to stir something up.

      Everything is like CRT curriculum. We all know that doesn’t exist outside of graduate studies. But it should, and let me defend it. Let me call you names for not wanting to discuss institutional racism in fifth grade or transgenderism. Let me pull my hair when you go to board meetings and read aloud from books in the school library that contain adult sexual content.

      But it’s all in your heads, folks.

      Merrick Garland got a regrettable letter and went into overdrive in a way that brought joy to your hearts. We’d had months of burning and looting in cities, but now every hollering parent is a potential domestic terrorist.

      No, actually, these parents don’t even get the credence it takes to be terrorists. They’re dupes and fools and the puppets of all your big bad enemies.

      Anonymouse, don’t you have some blogger that you should be calling a Putin operative for fun and profit?

      Delete
    69. Garland couldn't due anything about the rioters in our cities, because those who caused the riots have "qualified immunity".
      BTW, the best thing to come out of those riots was the Right-wing's response to BLM, that "All Lives Matter", which I remind them of when we discuss the refugees at our border. "What about it being a misdemeanor, do you not understand?"

      Delete
    70. Garland went into overdrive, Cecelia? Careful, your paranoid victim fantasies are showing again.

      He sent a memo to FBI field offices instructing them to meet with state and local law enforcement.

      To address the rising problem, Garland said the FBI would work with U.S. attorneys and federal, state, local, territorial and tribal authorities in each district to develop strategies against the threats.

      “While spirited debate about policy matters is protected under our Constitution, that protection does not extend to threats of violence or efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views,” he said.


      It's just useless to discuss anything with you, Cecelia.

      Delete
  10. Trump is “disordered.”
    It is impossible to have sufficient
    contempt for an MSNBC talking
    head.
    Bob is a weirdo.

    ReplyDelete
  11. God designed David’s reproductive organ.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And trans kids in His own image and likeness.

      Delete
    2. Why was my comment about this deleted?

      Delete
    3. Some of my comments are arbitrarily deleted, too. Try rephrasing it.

      Delete
    4. I had one of mine just deleted also.

      Delete
    5. Anonymouse 8:39am, I’m sure D in C appreciates that endorsement.

      Delete
  12. And miles to go before I sleep...

    I think Somerby keeps repeating Frost's poem because he is older than Methusaleh and has a lot of words to get off his chest before he dies, much the way Frost did. I won't say he has actual ideas to express since so much of what he writes is either bile or nostalgic remembrance. This is, after all, a vanity blog. Someone else will have to awaken the sleeper agents. The left is already woke.

    ReplyDelete
  13. IMO the dumbest aspect was firing the Principal. Maybe it was wrong to show the statue without parental consent, but it's ridiculous that it was a firing offense.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Congratulations and a standing ovation to those three for getting that bitch fired over the 1500 year old monument to grooming by that Italian pervert. I would say this is a Rosa Parks moment but that would be referencing some race indeterminate chick in a Florida textbook for far less an accomplishment compared with this historical miracle. Sit down for Chrissake and quit belly aching about a bus seat. This new move is ultimately about protecting faculty. Show that statue to a bunch of 6th grade school girls who may or may not be menstruating and chances are they'll try to gang bang their homo art teacher before the bell rings for lunch. It just goes to show you that progress can be made In the never ending war with the libs and their agendas. Should've happened in the 20th century or maybe even sometime before the North declared war on the South for economic reasons, but there wasn't a whole lot of clarity back then about the important issues. It's one win at a time from this point on.

    ReplyDelete
  15. The biggest problem these days is women.

    ReplyDelete