Thursday, November 29, 2018

The Kraken tries arguing on Twitter

I'm not exactly a proficient Twitter user. Something something tentacles getting in the way of the character limit etc. So I only rarely get on that platform, and even more rarely interact with people. But, occasionally I get a random shard of coral stuck in one of my arms and need to engage. Who are the most obnoxious [real] people on Twitter? My vote, as insignificant as it is, goes to the gun nuts. They are like pit bulls that just lock jaws on an argument and just never let go. I happened to see David Hogg's tweet about taxing gun sales to fund research on gun violence. Kind of like alcohol and tobacco taxes are supposed to fund health care (I don't know what those actually do except impoverish smokers). Anyway, I immediately thought of Chris Rock's famous stand up routine about making bullets cost $5000 each. And here's the result, I wasn't angry until Glen chimed in. It's only when the reprogrammable meatbags who have done a great job on internalizing gun lobby propaganda that sound like strong pillars to them but are actually made of smoke start shooting their mouths off that I go full Lakoff.






Yes, there is a tax on firearms and cartridges already existing. It did not dissuade the Las Vegas shooter from spraying thousands of bullets into a crowd. If the idea is that making something more expensive will lead to lower consumption of that product has any merit, then a surtax on ammunition should be productive. Perhaps, if you are discussing things in good faith and your aim is actually to decrease gun violence, then this would be a conversation worth having. But:



This is an individual that wouldn't understand how arguments work if one walked up and slapped him in the face with a rifle. So I abandoned good faith and simply rejected the premise of his NRA talking points. Talking points that have obviously never been challenged by anyone after they have escaped his pie hole.







It seems that the art of arguing with gun nuts seems to be expending as little effort as possible for each line while rejecting the premise of each of their assertions. The NRA and gun propagandists have presumable spent a lot of money and time crafting these "criminals don't care" frames and injecting them into the minds of followers. If you have spent your entire life with the intellectual crutch of merely accepting these talking points and never having them challenged or even spending a moment of critical thought on them, then it makes sense that they sound like "common sense." As much as "the sun rises in the east" but never asking why it does so. Telling them that the sun isn't actually moving and it is actually the Earth rotating into view of the sun fries circuits.

No expert here, but I'm pretty sure when you claim to have won the argument you have really just given up. I could keep challenging him on who these criminals are, are they completely monolithic and sharing every attribute? Or is this simply a lazy, unfounded, and sweeping generalization without meaning? Most stories of gun massacres I read specifically state that the weapons and ammunition were bought legally, so I don't know what on Earth he is talking about. He sure got touchy after I deduced that he supports gun violence from his words didn't he? But I guess I will give him points for not calling me a libtard or communist.

After Glen stopped liking every reply from Fat Cat and nobody else stepped in to support the cat, his enthusiasm for making me cry started to wane. Just for future reference here is a chart of logical fallacies, it is one of many. Should we play bingo on it?

The fundamental components of argument are that the party making an assertion has to defend it. The other party has no need to prove the assertion is incorrect. To "win" your assertion must be supported with facts and evidence. Making assertions "all criminals obtain their guns illegally" without proof is called conjecture and is as hollow as regurgitating talking points without any understanding of what they mean.

Now for some obligatory book references:

Lakoff, because to negate a frame is to activate a frame (criminals don't obey laws).

Altemeyer, because gun nuts are almost by definition scared little rabbits who surrendered the ability to think critically and assess new information to fear a long time ago.

Charles, because the gun debate should have some actual facts and history.

Neiwert, because gun nuts really do inhabit a different, much more violent reality from the rest of us

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Sunday, November 11, 2018

Adios, Keinweidersehen, Don't Let the Door Hit You on the Way Out Scotty

I was hasty in my last post, Scott Walker has dropped out of the race and conceded. Just like he dropped out of college because higher education expects you to think of others and not be selfish AF. The man who claimed being an Eagle Scout prepared him for being Commander in Chief of a military he never served in, Scotty seems to have never internalized the values of service that the Boy Scouts stress. Public service to Scotty was always an avenue to self-aggrandizement, that is why he titled his garbage book unintimidated [no link because fuck the bastard]. That is why he once claimed after hiding in the Capitol basement that "taking on" 100,000 protestors qualified him to rule the country and the world. The little weasel with the lazy eye and bald spot has been removed from office, he has only the lame duck season to inflict more harm on the state of Wisconsin.

You might ask, "but Mr. Kraken, you don't even live in Wisconsin anymore. Why aren't you more jubilant that Bruce Rauner is going home?" Good question gentle reader, I guess I'm over relying on the liberal superpower of memory as Driftglass likes to say. I was one of many casualties of Scotty's war on workers. I will probably never have a career because though I excelled in school, unlike Mr. 2.59 GPA. Maybe I should have signed up for the right wing grift machine? It was always personal, Scotty set himself up as an outsider even though he was a career politician and the rubes bought it. The subtle fascist overtones of "us against them" was always present in his communications. Scotty didn't even have to dog whistle, he ran against President Obama as though he was in the same league as the constitutional law professor. It didn't matter, the white working class of Wisconsin presaged doughfacedonny's base in their overt displays of racism and ignorance of how anything in the United States actually worked. You couldn't go to any restaurant or bar without overhearing "serious" conversations between old and not so old white people who probably never travelled 50 miles from the place of their birth holding court on "Milwaukee people" and their invasion of small towns, how state workers were pampered at the "regular folks" expense, and especially about the eggheads in Madison.

So to prove how trampled upon they were, they elected a man who ensured that none of their kids would get a decent education and would leave the state at the earliest possibility. Thus ensuring that stagnation, economic and social, persisted in their communities. But it's cool because there was a black man in their White House to blame. The few Democrats in my area had always been demoralized by the sea of militant ignorance around us. And I was blacklisted against any possibility of employment. So don't fucking tell me not one answer to a thousand resumes and cover letters wasn't personal. And I was now overqualified for blue collar work too, not that any factories were hiring during the great recession.

Eight years later, Wisconsin is basically a shell of it's former self. The state is no longer really a laboratory of democracy, and has almost no residual progressivism that marked public life and made the Badger state such a good place to live. I guess I never really understood or appreciated what a difference the progressive income tax made in smoothing out funding for schools, libraries, and other public services. In Illinois, the rich pay the same low (though the one rate was raised slightly when the new budget) percentage of their income as the working class. Therefore, we have a 10%+ sales tax, out-of-control property taxes, toll roads, red light camera automated traffic tickets, and a million other labor/cost intensive revenue streams all diluted by the corporate interests who get a piece of it when they corrupt the politicians. These interests do not care if it is Democrats or republicans they corrupt and lobby to get their rents, so every time I see a reprogrammable meatbag commenting on the corruption of the "Democrat Party" in Chicago or Springfield I want to mail them dungbombs. That is the road that Scotty put Wisconsin on, cut progressive taxes and jack up user fees. The republicans floated toll roads a while back as a great idea but probably had to abandon it because it would mainly hit their voters commuting into Milwaukee. And Wisconsin probably would have a train running from Milwaukee to Madison by now if Scotty hadn't refused it.

You don't even need to name details. Everything Scotty says was a self-serving lie, everything his pet republican legislature did was to inflict maximum cruelty on their "enemies" in education.

Good riddance. It will take 16 to 24 years of continuous Democratic governance to recover from Scotty and his thugs' destructive 8 years.
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Saturday, November 10, 2018

The Left Finally Makes it to the Starting Line

I don't want to make light of the victory. It was historic in many respects. First off, the many parasites removed from the body politic. I was amazed that Governor hedge fund conceded so early. But he has a posh billionaire's life to go back to and can probably leave the smoking ruin he left in Illinois behind for some sunny clime. Governor bald spot of course hung on and still hasn't conceded at the time of writing. He is a spent force. No nice billionaire or foundation has a chair waiting for him after the many times he failed "conservatism." I don't really care as long as he fucking leaves. Same for the others on this list.

It was a win for women and a win for diversity. The midterm elections really showed that turn out can make a difference. Your vote mattered. Local races matter, volunteering or donating money in them can do a lot. It is high time Democrats figure that out. Not the national party or it's consultants just fighting over a percentage of the ad buys. We, the people, at the community level can get our friends or people we know into local offices all on our own. That really can be the new, hip thing to do; DIY democracy, the way the founders intended. From a big picture and just day to day perspective, the people on the school board or city council have an outsized influence on our public life. Sure, local government has little power to combat climate change or make the filthy rich pay their share in taxes but having control over local governments give you stepping stones to influence at higher levels.

The best thing about contesting and winning local office is denying them to the fascists, fundamentalists, and petty mountebanks who otherwise can sleaze their way in. And then those same people have to "go get real jobs" as they are always telling liberals and young people to do. Some local offices and state legislatures allow representatives to hire staff, more opportunities to get young people involved. Because then you get experience in how government works. In this day of newspapers shuttering it is difficult to get information on how local government works, but if you know a guy or gal on the council you can learn a lot. Maybe young, hip people getting into local government could lead to a renaissance of local media. It isn't difficult or expensive to start a blog, podcast, or even YouTube channel. If this trend becomes a movement these new "news" entrepreneurs could expand into print and even AM radio. All without permission from the national Democratic Party or big media operations.

All of this is to say that this midterm election, against all odds, was a success. Not an unqualified success, each House seat was way too difficult to wrest away from fascist republicans, but one party dictatorship has been broken for now. Right wing authoritarianism is a minority position, that is the first step to that starting line, to realize and finally believe that right wingers are neither omnipotent nor legitimate. This has been something of a through line of my blog, calling right wing nonsense "conservatism" is the big joke, they aren't trying to conserve anything that really exists but using the word dresses up the extremism and irresponsibility of republicans, imbuing them with an air of legitimacy. "Conservative" sounds grown up and responsible, the strict father who's only doing this (to you) because it's for the best. Well, no, the cruelty is for cruelty's sake alone. As is the name-calling, gloating, and condescending faux-paternalism they call on more lucid days "tough love." Reject the premise. Any deference to their delusions will legitimize racism, misogyny, short-sighted nihilism, lying, and mean-spirited ignorance.

If it took a con man with short fingers and ridiculous hair to finally convince millennials and all Democrats to finally dispense with any residual misplaced belief that the elder generation knows what they are doing because they are older, great. Now we need to use that epiphany to pressure the news media to stop treating republicans with undeserved respect and deference that allows their lies and cruelty to go unchallenged. Then, when the inevitable cries of "traitor" and "anti-American" arise from wingnut central command, we can dismiss them as the empty rhetoric they always were.

It's gonna be hard, it's gonna take a long time, but we can get there. Let's have some hope that this time the lesson takes, that all the new voters and participants in Democracy on the Liberal side stick with it. If any of your friends start saying anything akin to "well, I voted, now it's up to the Democrats to do something." Or when the new Democratic officials inevitably compromise liberal ideals and fail to stand up to doughfacedonny with sufficient zeal these friends throw up their hands and say fuck it to remind them that it's up to us, not the people we elected, to keep informed and keep pressure on. It's human nature to get comfortable or complacent, it's also natural for young people to get discouraged relatively easily when things don't go as well as they hoped. We all have to stick together and support each other. We made it to the starting line after getting kneecapped for decades, but we can catch up to the fascists if we just put one foot in front of the other and keep going. 

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Tuesday, November 6, 2018

So What Happens Tomorrow?

Let's game out the possibilities.

Liberals have to be prepared for the worst. It is possible that "our" best isn't good enough. That despite nearly unprecedented energy and motivation from Democrats this time around, voter suppression, gerrymandering, straight up corruption and ballot tampering, foreign interference, and ever present republican ratfucking will fit Lady Liberty for cement shoes and drop American democracy into the drink. The gloating from your republican "friends" will be beyond unbearable. The damage to the country will be unimaginable.

Elections are so tricky. When I was in college, political science classes always claimed that midterm elections were stable and that incumbents had a 90%+ chance of reelection. The conditions that make for a wave are hard to assemble, but an unpopular president and complacent party of enablers in Congress are pretty good pillars to build that wave. But we've never had a "majority" (ho ho!) party so openly and brazenly rig the rules. In the unruly nineteenth century elections were pretty corrupt, but it was equally so in most cases. Except in the post-Reconstruction South, where intimidation and outright murder was often the order of the day by ex-Confederates of African-American officials overseeing elections of storing ballots.

If Democrats take back some governor's mansions and statehouses but fall short of a majority in the House of Representatives then you can probably just write of the Federal Government, from Social Security and Medicare to what's left of federal agencies. Donald Doughface will have succeeded in the lifelong republican dream of completely destroying the one institution that could hold the corporate elite accountable. Any progress the states make under Democratic leadership will be crushed by federal power intrusion and the illegitimate supreme court. Maybe people will remain engaged and motivated to try again in 2020, more likely they will give up and resign themselves to misery and ruin. Then the few of us who remain active may finally admit that this is an occupied nation. No other force would take over a country and strip it of resources, drive it into unprecedented debt, wreck every function, and strive so hard to placate it's supporters. It's as if the mafia took over and is getting ready to burn it down for the insurance money. Oh, duh. That probably will happen soon too.

If many states see state level gains by Democrats, a large percentage of those nearly one thousand legislative seats and governorships lost during the Obama Administration, then a lot of the gerrymandering and voter suppression can be undone. At least the conditions for free and fair elections can be restored. It was strategic state level investments by project REDMAP in 2010 by republicans to capture whatever levers of power to draw the maps they needed to take over a majority of seats with a minority of voters. This is the level of farce we have been living in since at least 1994, an entire generation of minority rule.

A gain of 25 seats in the House of Representatives will mean that committee chairs pass to Democrats, the Speaker's gavel goes to a Democrat. It means that Democrats will set the agenda. It will mean Democrats have subpoena power and can get moving on the investigations needed to uncover the criminal conspiracy of the occupying force. Retaking the Senate is realistically out of reach. THAT WAS WHY ALL OF YOU JACKHOLES SHOULD HAVE VOTED IN 2016 EVEN IF HILLARY DIDN'T "INSPIRE" YOU OR WHATEVER RUSSIAN-INSPIRED NONSENSE YOU BELIEVED AT THE TIME.

*Ahem* Sorry about that digression. I'm just unimpressed that it takes a fascist takeover of our country to get people to finally take notice. That is the most important thing tomorrow. STAY AWAKE! You and I and everyone we know have to stay involved, informed, and ready to vote again. Next time and every time. Evil thrives on apathy and division.

Whatever occurs tonight, don't you dare pretend ever again that politics doesn't affect you. Or that both sides are equally bad, or that you don't want to bother because it's only the lesser of two evils. Democrats have flaws but Republicans are a death cult of human suffering, their evil is on a completely different plane. Tomorrow if Democrats retake the House expect a unified chorus from Doughfacedonny on down the right wing noise machine about fraud and illegitimacy. Expect constant efforts by the lame duck devils to bury the bodies and wreck everything they can before leaving. If they leave.

This election season was a battle. Tomorrow will be a battle. When the new Congress and legislatures are seated will be another battle. Democracy is worth the fight. Fascism needs to be defeated.
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