Why is everyone so mean?? US Politics: September 2022

Dems have to be like +20 kn the generic ballot to actually gain a seat though

and you cannot shame them into recognizing this.

i believe this, now, and didn't always, before. i used to think that shame was potentially a language they could understand and be persuaded by, because it's so pervasive throughout the bible

this may have been a mistake

please don't fuck this up biden

most evangelicals would be utterly repelled by Christ were He to return, Him being a jewish socialist, pacifist hippie hanging out with a crew of other wandering hippies

i honestly think you could just pick a rando person to make this argument, and there would be >50% chance of it being more effective than Biden. the u.s. is fully in the postmodern post-reality zone now -- it is more effective to have a normal person say something real, fuckups and all, than it is to have a designated voice of authority deliver a mediocre message. advertisers know this

I love how they try to explain away the collectivism of the early church depicted in the book of Acts.

xp the article is quite good because it makes that very obvious point in a very eloquent way -- the hypocrisy and ignorance of evangelicals, but it also takes the time to suggest that it is also possible that they could read the fucking book they persecute others with, and that it would change the country in a positive way

This is fine re speech. It's not intended for me -- it's for candidates and donors.

It's not after Labor Day, yet, so it's a low risk opportunity to nudge public awareness about bills that passed during the summer when not many voters are paying attention. It'll be OK unless he face plants so badly it gets memified and lasts for weeks.

The Bible's fine, often boring and fun in equal measures, until the letter to the Romans. Cut the rest out between it and Revelations imo.

xp by "for candidates", you mean that it opens up the topic (the whole 35% of the country is openly trying to end democracy thing) for them to campaign on as well? i didn't think of that, and yes, it would be nice to hear other people make this argument

https://songbook1.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/eden-ahbez_feeding-pigeons_life_1948.jpg

'what's up, my fellow christians? shall we breaketh bread with these poor doves?'

Yeah, the Epistles really take the whole narrative down the wrong road.

i like fightin joe. he needed to do this.

the article makes the unsurprising but still very disappointing observation that white evangelicals, more than any other group/category/split in the U.S., are opposed to accepting refugees, and how strange and hypocritical that is.

if even a small amount of them could figure their shit out, or at least stop trying to hurt people all of the time, it would make an enormous difference

This backdrop looks sinister lol pic.twitter.com/RRf5lJfECs

— rt if you think that sounds true! (@lib_crusher) September 2, 2022

Command & Conquer cutscene

KM, you don't remember that part from the Sermon on the Mount?

"And do not open your door to the undocumented, for they need too many handouts; rather, let them be cast into the outer darkness, where there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth."

yeah, there are also lots of sirens and protesters in the background too. as usual, with these kinds of things, everyone will see this in the same way that they already did. i don't see this changing much. i don't know anything about donors and what they think or why they do what they do. they have a ton of money -- they probably fucking suck. i do think it's good to open up this topic to other people who can make this argument more persuasively and also not use a command and conquer background

xpost Christianity only works when you pull all the jesus/forgiveness/tolerance bullshit out.. it's all about leviticus and smiting the sinners

Biden’s doing pretty well up there!

I only caught the last few seconds, but that was lit like a scene from The Purge.

Biden: “i know it’s been hard…”
pres camacho interrupts: “and erverybody’s shit is _eeMOtional_.”

I was like hoping he’d do fireside-y vershes of this in march-april, but better late than “whatever?” i guess. Feel like we had a lot of whatever.

Yeah, it was fine. He had COVID cough. But we're not the target audience -- it's made for replay in independent markets. Obama or FDR himself couldn't convince Republicans in 2022 they're sick motherfuckers who should die.

🐦[This backdrop looks sinister lol pic.twitter.com/RRf5lJfECs🕸
— rt if you think that sounds true! (@lib_crusher) September 2, 2022🕸]🐦

Command & Conquer cutscene

democracy

— President Biden (@POTUS) September 2, 2022

Can't believe the Biden people hired the Gravel Teens

awww that's cute

Onion Biden woulda tweeted "Chinese Democracy"...

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

Too long, too complicated, why is Biden taking my money, you have no response because he is a communist thief.

But we could have built a bomb with that interest

Dropkick Murphys guy making some solid points at a festival in Pennsylvania:

Ken Casey of the Dropkick Murphys goes on an epic rant against MAGA grifters with no lies detected and the Boston accent is the chefs kiss pic.twitter.com/jrFUFu3K67

— Wu-Tang Is For The Children (@WUTangKids) September 3, 2022

Didn't he go into the crowd a few years back to kick some MAGA dude's ass? Or am thinking of Mike Ness?

That was Ness. DMs wrote the letter to Scott Walker about how they ‘literally hate you’ when he tried to use one of their songs in 2012 or 2016.

I think it was DMs, too! 2013:

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

Near the end of its March 13 show at Terminal 5 in Midtown Manhattan, the veteran Celtic punk band invited fans onstage — as per tradition — to participate in an encore rendition of “Kiss Me I’m Shitfaced.” Fans continued to pour onto the stage as the group transitioned to another classic, the anti-white supremecist ditty “Skinhead on the MBTA,” then a cover of AC/DC’s “TNT.”

That’s when things got a little ugly.

According to several blogs — and caught on video from the scene — a large man with a shaved head began to flash the Nazi salute, with a bent arm shooting straight out from the chest. Founding bassist-singer Ken Casey moved toward the guy, shoved him aside and began a pile-on that ended half a minute later with a torn shirt and one less skinhead onstage.

He took back the microphone and screamed, “Nazis are not f—ing welcome at a Dropkick Murphys show!” and the crowd went wild.

OK, yeah, I was close. Back this past March some neo-Nazi group started using some DM song, and after the cease and desist the DM guy outright gave them a time and place to meet so he could kick their ass:

I’ll be down M Street park on Saturday at 12:30 walking my dogs if you’ll are looking to discuss

— Dropkick Murphys (@DropkickMurphys) March 24, 2022

What causes a man to start fires?

All I know is, don't blame this guy

https://www.antiwarsongs.org/img/upl/billy_joel.0.jpg

I can't take it anymore!

an old friend took me to see DMs and Rancid last summer— we had some fun, but the DMs fans looked about the same as Blue Lives Matter scumbags, judging from their shirts and the cars they drove. Shit, a Suburban full of already drunk assholes parked next to me during the tailgating time, and it was covered in Trump and cop-humping shit

Ken otmfm

"The water in Capital City isn't safe to drink, and there's been a mysterious menacing plane circling overhead for hours" is either a pretty good opening scene for a dystopian novel or just life in Mississippi right now

— Joshua Benton (@jbenton) September 3, 2022

xpost to table, if anything that's what makes it more notable. As someone asked on one of the DM twitter threads, what does it say when your music attracts these sorts of people? But of course the band can't help it if knuckleheads latch on, and there's not much they can do to stop it besides break up. What they can do is call them on their bullshit, or (sometimes literally) punch back. Most bands are preaching to the converted. Some generally leftier acts like Springsteen (who attracts his share of GOP assholes, from cops to name politicians) or Pearl Jam might say something broad or relatively diplomatic. But the Dropkick dude actually challenges these assholes to fights. Beyond that ... man, I'd hate to hate my fans.

I've seen the Murphys several times. The demographic is overwhelmingly young, white, male and drunk. At least in Atlanta (and Chattanooga), I've not seen many/any skinheads or other obvious right-wing types.

Mid-Atlantic big Irish Catholic energy has a lot of fashy energy I guess— Philly show felt like an Irish cop convention, and they all left before Rancid took the stage

A bunch of mooks at a show with two bands heavily indebted to Oi! does not surprise me. SHARPs and Nazis were fighting throughout the Rancid show I saw in 1997/8.

Maybe this is overblown, maybe not

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/senator-discusses-hushed-efforts-change-us-constitution/story?id=89048487

I would not say "overblown". Realistically it's hard to pull off, but the two-thirds threshold for simple amendment of the constitution has been met many times and this provision sets the very same threshold for writing a wholly new constitution from scratch. Everything would be up for grabs.

The efforts of billionaires like the Kochs to solidify state legislatures into instruments for pursuing a hard-right extreme agenda have been very successful on the whole. With organizing in depth and in secret, the far right could pull this off and *poof* there goes any semblance of the last 250 years of agonizingly won expansion of rights.

Special Master granted, can't tell if this matters or not though

Well, the DOJ saw everything already. And it will be appealed, so drags out the clock. But I saw this bit of potential context:

Apparently, Trump is concerned that truth about his taxes and health gets out. Weighing in favor of the special master is that:

"the seized materials include medical documents, correspondence related to taxes, and accounting information"

— Michael McDonald (@ElectProject) September 5, 2022

I bet they offered him a really really nice salary, too.

US Politics: October 2022 "...they've already started the killings!"