Blackmoor Vituperative

From time to time, I will see a story about the Stonewall riots, or about a person like Ruth Coker Burks, and the story will use a phrase like “drag queen”. And some well-meaning but painfully naive person will wag their finger and comment, “Correction! It’s not ‘drag queen’, it’s ‘trans woman’.”

I don’t (usually) argue with them, because I try to follow the admonition of picking big fights with my enemies, not small fights with my friends. But what I want to say is,

You little snot, you have no fucking clue what DRAG QUEENS did for you. DRAG QUEENS hurled bottles at cops. DRAG QUEENS held fund-raisers for AIDS patients. DRAG QUEENS marched to remind the straights that they existed and would not be erased. You want to sneer at your allies and “correct” them for not using the term-of-the-moment? Be my guest. Today, it’s “trans woman”. In two years, it will be something else. Just know that you can keep “correcting” people on your own side from now until the end of time, and you won’t come close to doing what DRAG QUEENS did for human rights in this country in a single day.

I am contemplating writing a script to generate headlines for the news. Each day, it will randomly choose three of these:

[random number] dead and [random number] injured in mass shooting

Republicans in [random state] propose legislation to prevent off-white people from voting

[movie industry person #1] reveals that [movie industry person #2] was a jerk to them

[random number] dead and [2x random number] injured in mass shooting

Senate Republicans [random traitorous act]

[random country] extends state of emergency due to the pandemic

Republicans in [random state] propose legislation to deprive poor people of what little government support they still get

[music industry person] says something obnoxious and stupid

[2x random number] dead and [random number] injured in mass shooting

Republicans in [random state] stage protest against literally anything that might shorten the pandemic

Warner Brothers releases a new superhero movie, which earns hundreds of millions despite being terrible

Scientists say that the world is warming faster than anyone predicted, but there is still time to do something about it

[random Republican] compares a minor inconvenience to being a Jew in Nazi Germany

Fun fact! Anyone can place a copyright claim on any YouTube video you post. You can, of course, dispute that claim. Who resolves that dispute? The person who made the claim. And when they decide against you, and for themselves, YouTube will then punish you for disputing the claim.

If that seems ridiculous to you, it’s because it is.

On this day in 1945 in Berlin, German Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel signed the second of two unconditional surrenders by Nazi Germany to the Allies, including the United States.

America at its best is Antifa.

Is good news even a thing anymore? Not “making the best of it” news. Not “people staving off doom for one more day” news. Not “here’s some trivia about some stranger’s personal life” news. Not “be thankful things aren’t even worse” news. Actual good news.

That would be nice.

It is bad for people to be obeyed too readily. It is corrosive to good manners and a healthy relationship with those around them. When you resist someone with authority, you are looking out for the well being and sanity of that person.

This is your semiannual reminder that the pointless ritual known as “daylight saving time” does not make you lose or gain anything. You don’t gain or lose time. You don’t gain or lose daylight. The amount of daylight stays precisely the same.

That’s not entirely correct: we do lose something. We lose hundreds of millions of dollars, and thousands of lives.

“Both sides are the same”?

• Only one party has had 120 criminal indictments of Executive Branch officials, 89 criminal convictions, and 34 prison sentences in the last five decades (as of the last time I looked into it — it has gone up since then).
• Only one party is devoted to oppressing women.
• Only one party is pillaging public services for the private gain of billionaires.
• Only one party is deliberately refusing to participate in the government of the USA by sabotaging the legislative process.
• Only one party is obsessed with ridiculous conspiracy theories.
• Only one party’s Presidents have consistently left the USA with much more debt than it had when they started (Clinton left office with a surplus, while Reagan, George W. Bush, and Trump have all run up huge debts).
• Only one party is overtly, blatantly, PROUDLY racist.
• Only one party is aggressively anti-science.
• Only one party calls Nazis “fine people”.
• Only one party places grossly unqualified people in charge of government agencies with the purpose of destroying those agencies.
• Only one party is steadfastly, maniacally devoted to lies, hatred, and death.

I’ll put this as nicely as I can: if you say “both sides are the same”, within the context of political parties in the USA in the 21st century, you are just as responsible for the fall of the United States as the Republicans are.

[red pild]
adjective

To internalize a set of misogynistic far-right beliefs popular with certain corners of the internet; the product of a noxious blend of junk science, conspiracy theory, and a pathological fear of social progress.

Origin and etymology of redpilled

based on the “red pill” philosophy, using a metaphor borrowed from the film The Matrix (1999)

First known use by far-right misogynists: 2012

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, two dozen police officers are under investigation for falsifying evidence, and three (so far) have been charged.