I try to balance responding to wingnut idiocy at this site along with showing “people power” stuff particularly when it comes to protests and organizing (or, at least, if I show wingnut BS, I try to present the sane, rational alternative side of the argument), though it’s true (as I’ve said in the past) that I’ve also spent a lot of time responding to idiot pundits on the other side, but I don’t have the bandwidth to do that like I used so (pointing out that people like Andrew Malcolm, Victor Davis Hanson, Rod Dreher, etc. are nothing but paid propagandists).
Why am I giving you that admittedly boring preamble? Because some stupidity from the other side is just too rank to ignore IMO.
Which brings me to Dennis Prager saying something along the lines of “Can you imagine if gays and IV drug users had been made pariahs during the AIDS epidemic as the anti-vaxxers are now during the COVID pandemic?” (or something close to that).
And my answer (as John I. points out in his excellent clip) is an emphatic YEAH, I SURE AS HELL CAN IMAGINE, BECAUSE THEY WERE VILIFIED THAT WAY! And the links above (referencing the pic of washed-up singer and orange juice salesperson Anita Bryant, one of the most notorious figures on the right in the late ‘70s-‘80s) provide more information in that regard.
So here is the great Damage Report clip on this subject...
...and also, in the matter of responding to wingnut idiocy, David Doel points out why Repug U.S. Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri is completely and totally full of crap, alleging an attack on manhood from “the liberal left” or something...as usual, the “party of Lincoln” offers performative BS and absolutely nothing else to help the vast majority of the people of this country...
...oh, and by the way, former Bushco Labor Secretary and Trump Transportation Secretary Mrs. Mitch McConnell (apparently, she just LOVES to be referred to that way) recently said that it’s the patriotic duty of American workers to go back to their jobs, or something (here)...Rachel Maddow reminds us just how awful Elaine Chao was as transportation secretary under Trump in this 2019 clip (and you can read about a lot of her antics during the Bush years from here...the stuff on Chao starts at about 7:10, and Maddow speaks with former Obama Administration deputy labor secretary Chris Lu)...
...and I now give you the latest installment of “This Day In Doomsy History” from 11/10/11...the next time you hear the “party of No” yapping about how the Biden Administration is supposedly “anti-business”...or “anti-Christmas” at a minimum I guess (here), get a load of what they said 10 years ago concerning the LAST Democratic president...
...and RIP actor Dean Stockwell, who had a long and diverse career in film and TV...
...and returning to Rachel Maddow...she showed a clip during her show last night (here) of an advocacy group apparently trying to garner support for the John Lewis Voting Rights Act (I guess that’s what it’s still called) in the Senate by making some kind of a cutesy video about “electile dysfunction,” or something like that.
And yeah, I briefly chuckled very slightly to myself. But then I stopped to think for a second. And I found myself getting pretty pissed off, actually.
To begin, Mark Ruffalo appears in the video, and to be fair, he has participated in a lot more protests than I have, particularly regarding the climate, so I really don’t have the right to sit in judgment of him in particular for this.
However, I couldn’t help but come up with one conclusion about this overall, and it is this; this ad will persuade APPROXIMATELY NO ONE who isn’t predisposed to support expanding voting rights anyway!
How about an ad instead that reminds everyone of what people had to suffer in this country to win the right to vote that was enshrined by the original Voting Rights Act of 1965? How about showing African Americans facing attack dogs and firehoses, and George Wallace, Bull Connor and the like (to say nothing of how Native Americans have been disenfranchised, partly for the apparently unforgivable crime of using P.O. boxes for mailing addresses instead of numbered roadways)?
How about reminding people of how Republicans have done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING BUT TRY TO GUT VOTING RIGHTS AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY? And how about showing that video of conservative godfather Paul Weyrich from 1980 saying how conservatives shouldn’t support expanding voting rights for everyone?
How about showing a little fire on this issue for a change?
And hey, if you’re stuck for imagery, you can probably use some of what’s in this video.
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