As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.
On the day we honor Martin Luther King, Jr.'s message of hope and nonviolence, gun humpers and neo- Nazis will be in Richmond, VA, to start something:
The convoys and militias are coming, if social media posts are to be believed, headed to Virginia's capital to take a stand for gun rights — or, in the words of some, to fan the flames of a civil war.
“I’ll be rolling into town early. I can’t give you my exact time for security reasons,” said Christian Yingling, head of the Pennsylvania Light Foot Militia and a leader at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville in 2017.
“I organized a convoy, places we can meet up and drive up together. I’ll be leading it,” said Tammy Lee, a militia activist in Oklahoma.
Both Lee and Yingling were members of groups that signed consent decrees never to return to Charlottesville while armed, part of a lawsuit settlement over the violence there. But there is no restriction against coming to Richmond.
Thousands will join them, they say, for a rally Monday on Capitol Square to protest plans by the new Democratic majority in the General Assembly to pass gun-control laws. State and federal officials were preparing for a volatile mix of weapons, passions and anti-government fervor. Central Richmond was braced for road closures and extensive police presence.
That was before President Trump decided to weigh in Friday afternoon on Twitter.
Leave it to the divisive, lying, malicious moron to try to gain political advantage regardless of the danger involved. But these are his "very fine people," and he's prepping them for ... something.“Your 2nd Amendment is under very serious attack in the Great Commonwealth of Virginia,” Trump tweeted. “That’s what happens when you vote for Democrats, they will take your guns away. Republicans will win Virginia in 2020. Thank you Dems!” (our emphasis)
Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein lay to rest several myths about "bipartisanship." That both parties are equally to blame for hyper- partisanship is one:
... The bipartisanship that was common in the House through the mid-1970s began to fray as racial and cultural differences came to define the increasingly polarized and competitive parties. Partisan polarization began with these shifts in the coalitional bases of the parties, but Republicans, because of their increasingly homogeneous positions on race, religious traditionalism and other cultural issues, had more incentive to move right than Democrats had to move left. In the 1990s, Newt Gingrich and his allies fomented tribalism, using the House ethics process as a political weapon and uniting the GOP into a parliamentary-style opposition party. They had important and vocal allies in partisan media, starting with Rush Limbaugh and talk radio. Much the same happened a bit later in the Senate, where McConnell turned the filibuster into a weapon of mass obstruction and got his party to unite against every Obama initiative.
Today, Republicans are one of the most extreme (even radical) conservative parties in the democratic world, with no members in the House and arguably barely one in the Senate who would qualify as moderates or traditional conservatives, while Democrats look like a traditional center-left party...Megan Marz reviews a book of essays that captures the experiences of younger Americans fleeing "toxic Christianity":
In “Empty the Pews: Stories of Leaving the Church,” mostly Gen X and millennial writers describe their disillusionment with the faith of their youth and their departure from their religious communities. In a foreword, Frank Schaeffer, who in 2007 published a memoir of leaving evangelicalism, calls the thinning of the ranks “a generational exodus from toxic Christianity.” The essayists in the book — who include Carmen Maria Machado, (“Her Body and Other Parties,” “In the Dream House”), Garrard Conley (“Boy Erased”) and Linda Tirado (“Hand to Mouth”) — come from a variety of Christian backgrounds: Mormon, Catholic, mainline Protestant and evangelical. All grew up in schools, social circles, families or churches where religion took a conservative, if not an authoritarian, form. Some faced rejection because of their sexual orientation; some were abused; at least one was taught that black people and white people belonged to different species, and that the Earth was 6,000 years old. [snip]
A pattern emerges in the narrative arcs of the essays: Childhood faith falters and then dissolves in the face of corruption, hypocrisy, rejection, abuse or beliefs that do not align with reality. While many of the essayists testify to having felt isolated, this collection makes clear that — to paraphrase editor Lauren O’Neal — they were part of a community they did not know existed. Each time I read a piece in which the writer had no one to talk to about their dissipating faith, or the abuse they were enduring, I wished they could reach through the pages and into another essay, where they might find relief or solidarity... (our emphasis)Capt. "Sully" Sullenberger, hero of the "miracle on the Hudson," has a few words for yet another contemptible Trump:
As a small boy in Denison, Texas, I remember vividly the anguish of being called on in grade school, knowing that I was going to have a hard time getting the words out; that my words could not keep up with my mind, and they would often come out jumbled. My neck and face would quickly begin to flush a bright red, the searing heat rising all the way to the top of my head; every eye in the room on me; the intense and painful humiliation, and bullying that would follow, all because of my inability to get the words out.
The entire essay is really worth the read, as he later pivots to speak to children who are stutterers.Those feelings came rushing back, when I heard Lara Trump mocking former Vice President Joe Biden at a Trump campaign event, with the very words that caused my childhood agony. “Joe, can you get it out?” Ms. Trump was seen saying onstage, as a few giggles are heard from an otherwise silent audience. “Let’s get the words out, Joe.”
Among many other topics, Infidel 753 highlights a number of other posts and essays about religious toxicity in his latest link round- up (as well as in his own essays). Regardless, you're bound to find lots of gold there that he's mined in his weekly internet search.
4 comments:
Thanks for calling my attention to Empty the Pews. Frank Schaeffer is a gifted writer and the son of theologian Francis Schaeffer, one of the founders of the Christian Right. I reviewed his memoir of his father, Crazy for God; he's been one of the most honest voices alerting the country to how dangerous fundamentalism is to freedom and democracy. It will be interesting to see the stories of those who discovered that corruption, hypocrisy, and abuse for themselves -- as millions of younger people have been doing.
I'll be watching for news from Richmond today. These right-wing rallies tend to be smaller than advertised -- the 500 or so they got at Charlottesville were the largest, as far as I know. So far, today's crowd doesn't look too impressive.
Infidel -- He has enormous credibility, having grown up on the inside of the right-wing fundamentalist / American Taliban movement. He speaks with knowledge and passion about the extreme danger they pose to our Constitution's separation of church and state, and to everyday freedoms.
Hopefully the cold weather will keep the rally short, and without violence. There will be many there that are spoiling for a fight and worse.
Here in Dayton, Ohio last year there was a gathering scheduled by the city to allow a KKK group based in Indiana (I know, so why Dayton?) to come and speak their minds, or lack thereof, at the Square downtown. Our mayor and councilpeople decided not to suppress their right to free speech, but also granted local peace groups to schedule counter-protests. The counter-protesters actually organized four separate gatherings away from Downtown and they focused on music, family activities, and food as a way of showing what peaceful people do in light of those who hate. The city spent $750,000 on police protection and surveillance, mounted police for foot traffic, and honestly, it was worth every penny.
Fewer than fifty KKK members showed up, well outnumbered by the peace crowd. They were given a two hour time slot for their speeches and they didn't even stay that long. Most of them slunk off and disappeared.
I hope the Virginia event goes the same way. Of course, it's a much larger crowd and my example won't apply, but the point is that the peaceful folks outnumber the haters. If we can offset their message without violence, we win.
I've seen a few videos from Richmond. It looks cold and windy. There's been no violence so far, nor have any of the Cheeto-fattened basement Aryans in attendance fumbled their guns and blown their own nuts off. The crowd is estimated at around five thousand; organizers had called for fifty thousand. Hopefully it will just fade away without any impact (except that they all catch colds).
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