The Fall of Roe v Wade: US Politics, June 2022

Ha all the newsers saying “now the GOP position reversal after about Jan 15 is INDEFENSIBLE!”

sisters, brothers puhleeze. bubbas and bowheads are nowabouts gonna get asking everyone “hold my beer.”

Finally watching

Nixon got his pardon, but all the other Watergate criminals spent time in prison. The nation survived.

Man, this judge.

He felt every word and wanted us to.

And a Poppy appointee

The money does not care, they have been overthrowing governments all around the world for decades. This crap has been building since Reagan, corporations just want to make money and they don't care who is in charge as long as they lower their taxes and let them do what they want to do. The entire American legal system is just de-evolving into a giant mess. Why believe in the US dollar at this point?

In the end, I think it would have been better if Trumps coup would have gotten further and bloodier, as that shit would have been hammered down and then some real change might have happened. Right now, it is still oh well 'boys will be boys'.

There should be a V wing of B-52s napalming Mar A Lago into the stone age.

yeah well fuck you.

A bloodier coup would've killed people like me

I'll never understand the idea that we need things to get WORSE so that they will finally get BETTER. That literally never works. Just try to make them better now.

Not clear if you could convict him of attempted murder of the Vice President but not clear you couldn't. This has to be the darkest moment in Presidential history.

— Harry Litman (@harrylitman) June 16, 2022

https://frinkiac.com/video/S05E14/koXj-rV4ax_0o5_ZQlgJMtlk2HI=.gif

I'll never understand the idea that we need things to get WORSE so that they will finally get BETTER

I recall that being Susan Sarandon's reasoning in why she would never vote for Hillary Clinton over Trump

I lost several friends in 2016 because they thought we needed -- this word came up a lot -- "a reckoning."

you got nothing to lose, you don't lose when you lose fake friends! fake friends!

- joan jett

definitely not pro-reckoning but seems like Clinton camp was m/l jumping at the chance to run against Trump, at least initially. one more reason DLC third way types weren’t/ aren’t suited for the moment

I'll never understand the idea that we need things to get WORSE so that they will finally get BETTER. That literally never works. Just try to make them better now.

The many things obstructions to "making things better now" that we all point to day after day - the entire line of anti-democratic institutions that ultimately control American politics from the Senate to the Federal Reserve Board to the Supreme Court to the Electoral College - are insurmountable without some kind of breakdown of the state as constituted.

The question is whether the pain of the breakdown is worth it in the long run (and how that compares to the long, slow immiseration we're getting as it is) - I, for one, don't think so because what comes after is unlikely to be better and climate catastrophe is rendering the entire question moot anyway but I don't know if you can say that "that literally never works" - and non-revolutionary examples of making things better without the pain are also lacking.

Things don’t just … STOP getting worse, is the thing. Once the die is cast, it’s sealed.

In other words, Morbs was right all along

For perspective, we as a society likely peaked when this was committed to vinyl:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zE4KowTk0C4

that refers to Dick Nixon

Things don’t just … STOP getting worse, is the thing. Once the die is cast, it’s sealed.

In other words, Morbs was right all along

― Eggs Benedick (Eric H.), Thursday, June 16, 2022

There are very few moments in life as good as this. Let's remember ithere are very few moments in life as good as this. Let's remember ithere are very few moments in life as good as this. Let's remember it

The question is whether the pain of the breakdown is worth it in the long run

Any kind of breakdown (including the slow grinding one we're probably in the middle of) always hurts the most vulnerable people most, and almost always empowers the worst people with the most guns and money. The "state as constituted" at least has some levers that are somewhat accessible to people without a lot of guns and money and inherited power. They are inadequate and rigged in a lot of ways, but they have afforded space for some real societal changes. The track of violent revolution in improving life for most people is terrible. "Burn it all down" is fun to say but bad to do. I don't think there's any reason to believe that serious societal/political breakdown in the United States will be anything but bad.

Track record, I mean.

Like I said, I'm team "the juice is not worth the squeeze" myself (because I'm a pessimist) but I'm not sure it's any less realistic (or humane) than 'making things better now.' The most semi-realistic left-wing viewpoint in American politics is to gently slow national decline and deepening misery while kicking the can of climate change down the road a few more years. Absent technological deus ex machina solving that problem, it's going to be out of our hands in ways we can't really imagine anyway.

That we're a hegemonic (nuclear-powered) liberal democracy is different from successful examples of rapid change (revolution is absolutely not batting .000, I mean we only have the framework we have because of violent struggle), of course, but in and of itself that uniqueness means that we don't have a track record to point to to definitely say what won't work in improving the situation or what will absolutely be worse. I think most of us would agree that we're barely hanging on to the liberal democracy part already - does everyone have to still keep working inside the system after a successful putsch (would things be any different if they hadn't kept working inside the system after 2000)? The same kind of arguments about how a failure at that point would only make things worse apply.

I agree with most of that, I’m just very wary of the urge to break things. So much of what IS available in terms of ameliorating the worst effects of our assorted deep-rooted inequities depends on functional civic infrastructure — such as it is — that anything that further weakens or erodes that infrastructure seems really dangerous. And also, that infrastructure takes a long time to build or rebuild, even if one were reasonably confident it would be replaced with something better. (Which I’m not at all.)

Also if anyone is successful at not-working-within-the-system in our current circumstances, it’s clearly going to be the neo-Confederate right, not any manifestation of the left. (By successful I mean, destroying it and seizing power.)

dropping this teen vogue interview with ruth wilson gilmore here, it's a nice thing to read, somehow positive and realistic at the same time

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/ruth-wilson-gilmore-qa

Her new book is out, haven’t cracked it yet but looks fucking awesome

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/17/us/politics/jan-6-committee-transcripts.html

(revolution is absolutely not batting .000, I mean we only have the framework we have because of violent struggle)

otm. the present day difficulty in the USA is that the forces of reaction are more numerous, better armed, and better trained for violent struggle than those who seek revolution. afaics, the masses are not prepared and are about as likely to side with the reactionaries as to join the revolution.

John Cornyn getting booed for agreeing to the most pointless, watered down gun control bill possible is almost as funny as Gary Johnson getting booed for supporting drivers' licenses.

https://i.imgur.com/iIcBjjP.png

what's especially weird is that, in this story (?) about how colbert's staff did a segment in the capitol and had problems with security, Carlson repeatedly calls it "an insurrection", then admits that he's joking, and then argues that his staff should be held without charge for a year and a half, since the charge of "insurrection" is the same as the charges against the jan 6 people.

i am sorry. i am sorry it had to be this way

I’m out of articles (if it’s in today’s paper I’ll look for a physical edition later today) but this seems like it might be an important piece of reporting.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/18/us/firearm-gun-sales.html

Good morning!

In 2009, a marketing firm hired by Remington to push its Bushmaster AR-15s settled on an ad campaign targeting civilians who “aspired” to be part of law enforcement. The first draft of the new pitch, later obtained by lawyers representing parents of children killed at Sandy Hook, exhorted buyers to use their new rifles to “Clear the Crack House,” “Ice the Perp” and “Save the Hostage.”

The company toned down the language but embraced the idea of trafficking in fears of urban crime and mass shootings, the documents showed

“Would anybody like me to run for president?” Trump asked, as the crowd whistled, cheered and some began chanting “U.S.A.”

But he was hardly the only one testing the waters. Sen. Tim Scott (S.C.) who addressed the crowd on Friday morning, walked back and forth across the ballroom stage and predicted that Republicans will win majorities in the House and the Senate in November, and then, holding his hands up he added: “And then in two years — I have a dream,” a reference to the Rev. Martin Luther King.
He paused for applause, and then described the dream of GOP control in Washington. “We will show America how you recover after a gut punch,” Scott said.

Bushmaster AR-15s settled on an ad campaign targeting civilians

Still, hunting accounted for a majority of advertisements in Guns magazine from the 1960s to the late 1990s, according to a survey by Palgrave Communications, an online academic journal. The study found that “the core emphasis” shifted in the 2000s to “armed self-defense,” and that the percentage of hunting-related ads had dropped to about 10 percent by 2019.

Sorry I guess italics code doesn’t persist across paragraph breaks

You want to see how this shit is marketed, pick up one of several survival/prepper mags at your local Bass Pro/CVS.

https://thesurvivaljournal.com/survival-magazines/

https://thesurvivaljournal.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/ballistic-magazine.jpg

This magazine is the premier firearms and survival magazine. Well built reputation and high-quality information.
It’s a must-read for all firearms and survival enthusiasts. It’s packed full of guns, bigger guns, survival tips, and even beer.

"survival enthusiasts"

Nice use of Fraktur there.

damn, look at that sweet oz gun. i can't wait to get one and survive

You'll need at least two to survive all the people that only have one.

oh, i keep at least three on me whatever i do. what if i see a spot on the ground and want to dig a hole there? you think i'm using my hands? ok, caveman. i use glock to make a divot and then i use the handle of my oz to dig out some more hole, and then i find gold in the hole and sell it for profit

and if anyone doesn't like that, i'll go back to my backyard and shoot a bunch of targets with my political enemies on there, then make the spiciest chili you've ever heard of and then pump iron, just to deal with the pain of the criticism

Funny — I was at Walgreen's yesterday and they had an issue of that right by the cash register. I didn't look too closely, but based on the cover art I thought it was a video game magazine.

I went to their website just now looking for the cover I saw, but the site doesn't even advertise the magazine. They did have this story, though, which I thought was hilarious:

VIDEO: Youtube Mega-Celeb Jeffree Star Owns a Custom Pink Beretta

File this story into the old saying: “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” Most folks in the 2A community wouldn’t presume YouTube personality and fashion mogul Jeffree Star to have much in common with them. Actually, most die-hard 2A folks probably don’t even know who Star is. But Star apparently shares much more in common with gun folks than some might give him credit. And the recent Jeffree Star Custom Beretta helps tell that story.

Some of out there will likely say “Who cares?,” or “Why does this matter?” Well, in an age where celebrities take the stage seemingly daily to push anti-gun agendas, finding common ground with major stars of any genre remains important. Pro-gun and anti-gun camps are obviously pretty entrenched. But wars on wedge issues take place somewhere in the middle. And Jeffree Star commands a massive audience, one that arguably pushes way left of center. His YouTube page generates 16 million followers. His Beretta video already pushed up to nearly 1 million views to date. Influencers matter these days, and Star looms large in that space.

“… Today we’re going to the Beretta factory; if you don’t what Beretta is baby, it’s one of the most iconic manufacturers of firearms in the world, and today we’re going to their factory because there is a one-of-one Jeffree Star Cosmetics pistol,” Star said on his channel. “Yes, Beretta and Jeffree Star has made a collaboration, a one-of one gun, and today we few all the way here to see it for the very first time!”

OK, big points here for Star right out of the gate. He clearly knows Beretta’s place in the gun world, showing reverence as one the titans of gunmaking. Better still, he put his name and brand all over the messaging. A star of the more contemporary, pop-culture and often left-leaning world, Star instead leans into gun ownership here in a big way.

The next point of common ground for many gun lovers centers on family. So many stories of gun ownership and love of shooting begin with a family member passing down some sort of passion about firearms or shooting. Star’s backstory proves familiar.

“… It’s an honor to be here, let’s start there,” Star said. “Today is just really special because my dad, rest in peace, loved Beretta. he loved firearms so much, so I really wish that he could be here to share this special moment with me today. I know he’s looking down at me like ‘Damn, son you really did that!’ So, they’ve made me a gun, and this is so cool, wild, and I can’t wait to see what they come up with.”

Honestly, the best part of this entire presentation comes from Star’s reaction. Like a kid on Christmas morning, Star acted completely overwhelmed with the finished project. “Oh my God!,” Star aid. “Holy shit … I literally am shook. It’s the perfect pink, it’s so cool. … I can’t breathe … And we get to shoot it today, that’s the best part.”

The custom pistol comes as a 92FSx, built in Beretta’s Italy factory. It features styling pulled straight from the unique branding of Jeffree Stat Cosmetics. The build includes deep pink finishing, a customized, hand-engraved slide and side grips, along with a highly polished barrel and surfaces with gold inlays. The Star logo and customized serial number round out this truly one-of-a-kind pistol build.

“The insane level of detail of this special handgun is matched by a tailor handmade leather gun case, created by our in-house Atelier,” Beretta stated in a Facebook post.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofnLRk6rsys

https://i.imgur.com/sm1bo0Z.jpg

Some of out there will likely say “Who cares?,” or “Why does this matter?” Well, in an age where celebrities take the stage seemingly daily to push anti-gun agendas, finding common ground with major stars of any genre remains important.

this is extremely well-argued

i think one of the reasons i've felt so lonely over the past 39 years is because i haven't really made an effort to find common ground with major stars of any genre. really, i think i was being selfish. it was all about me, when it should have been about me and major stars.

Wouldn't it be great if some members of "the 2A community" could find themselves on common ground with Jeffree Star on this issue and once that was established, maybe...gradually...over time...realize that they have...other interests in common? Interests they haven't necessarily felt comfortable sharing with their shootin' buddies?