Showing posts with label fascism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fascism. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 22, 2020

Tomorrow Doesn't Matter

 I have been seeing a lot of stories in the last couple days claiming that the republican party is doomed if they ram through a 30 something fascist to steal RBG's seat on the Supreme Court. Dueling editorials in the USA Today typify the latest portent of destruction:

It’s not an exaggeration to say that how her seat gets filled could be as consequential for the continued political health of the republic as the election itself... The issue here isn’t fairness or consistency. It’s consequences. Filling that seat would be the most disastrous thing Republicans could do, not just to the country but to themselves.

 The Great Supreme Court Betrayal would infuriate Republicans and make the fight over Obamacare seem like a pre-pandemic day at the beach. But that’s the nature of these things. Every new [republican] outrage is justified by the previous one and the cycle never ends.

 There is simply no way congressional Democrats are going to smile ruefully at their Republican colleagues and let bygones be bygones. There will be retribution, and that retribution will be expressly calculated to teach Republicans the meaning of powerlessness. It won’t be pretty to watch. It won’t be good for the country. But it will happen, nonetheless.

These words were written by the spokesperson for another electoral rounding error called "republicans for the rule of law" for whom the good old days were when his party was going berserk over the Black Man overwhelmingly elected to the White House. He seems confused about the disaster unleashed by giving republicans any power, as though what has happened to the country as a direct result of republicans having power has been "good". He runs through some scenarios detailed by the "liberal" opposing view editorial that would indeed begin to correct the asymmetrical polarization in America today as "retribution" namely structures that allow for minority rule and minority obstruction in our politics.  Some points from the other side in USA Today include:

 But the fact of minority rule — and the fiction of one person, one vote — can’t last forever.  

Conservatives lost the country long ago. Yet they already have a Supreme Court majority, and now it looks like they could have one for generations. But they lost the country long ago. 

And liberals helped give it away. 

Where was the Democratic money, where was the Democratic president, where was MSNBC and “Merrick Garland Held Hostage, Night 237” when Mitch McConnell’s Senate refused to consider his nomination throughout the final 10 months of President Barack Obama’s term? Where were the Democratic strategists who could and would play hardball at the same level as McConnell? 

She then states some basic reforms that would help overcome minority rule and force the republicans to adapt or die such as; finally addressing the Constitutional absurdity that accords so much power to stop progress in each senator and the apportionment of senate seats which gives the same power to Wyoming as California. The need to finally get rid of the filibuster and enact anti-corruption laws to replace all of the norms that doughfacedonny has brazenly broken. And whether a President Biden will realize "this asymmetry is not healthy? That it’s destructive to the American political system to have one party that’s passive and rule abiding, and another that’s cold blooded, power hungry and fine with ghastly hypocrisy?" And rightly worries that no outrage will empower and embolden Democratic leadership to finally do something to make republicans pay for what they have done.

Why I titled this post "tomorrow doesn't matter" is that for republicans, it really doesn't. What price did republicans pay for lying the country into war? Or the Great Recession? Or unprecedented obstruction during the Obama administration? Or now with the daily outrages of doughfacedonny and $7 trillion in new national debt and 200,000 and counting dead from a pandemic that could have been prevented?

Exactly. Nothing. I don't even know what punishment could possibly balance the scales of justice for a party that began as anti-slavery and has now fully transformed into the slave power. Electoral defeats do less than nothing when mainstream media never asks republicans uncomfortable questions and instead hold Democrats to an impossibly high standard. Watergate sank Nixon, four years after his term would have ended began Reaganomics. When turn of the millennium pundits declared that demographic shifts meant that the republican party would never again hold the presidency, Bush ratfcked Gore hard enough to let his daddy's supreme court simply install him as president. The incredible energy and work that went into retaking the House in 2006 was undone 4 years later, along with 100s of state legislative seats. And so on. 

The point is that republicans don't give a shit about rules, have no fear of punishment, have no respect for an opposition that never holds them to account. Tomorrow is tomorrow's problem, today we take what we want and shit all over democracy and the rule of law. If they finally steal the supreme court for a generation by ramming through that 30 something fascist, it won't matter how many republicans lose their seats in the election. That is the final prize. 

Tuesday, January 8, 2019

Is it easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission?

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. once wrote, as he was wont to do, about presidential history in times of crisis. In particular he cited Abraham Lincoln and the extraordinary measures he took during the opening months of the Civil War. That was a real state of emergency, the slave states organized with incredible speed and moved quickly to steal Federal buildings and property. Slave power propagandists in the border states printed wildly seditious stories about the North and the newly elected president. It was not a time for careful deliberation and the slow wheels of government to take action. Schlesinger wrote that it was easier for Lincoln to do what needed to be done and explain his actions later.

Other presidents have taken questionable actions in times of crisis as well, Andrew Jackson's bank war and Indian removal, John Adams' Alien and Sedition Acts, Wilson's roundups and deportations of revolutionary aliens, and so on. In each case, it appeared to much of the public to be a real crisis. Okay, maybe not with Jackson because he was just an asshole, but most of the time action was at least perceived to be necessary. The constitution was bypassed, the crisis resolved and officials took responsibility for their actions, most of the time anyway. It was easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission. This idea isn't limited to presidents, military commanders, police chiefs, businessmen, and even parents who need to take their children to the doctor all occasionally take action and answer for it later. This has also been a core tenet of all the torture porn films and television shows, "do we torture the shit out of the guy with the location of the bomb now and take our chances on punishment later?"

I'm no leader and I hate these kind of hypotheticals but we are rapidly approaching a turning point in American democracy. Another republican president is about to declare an emergency to get some awful thing they want, as has happened at least informally, for the last half century. Let's think about a few. Nixon's operatives went on their merry way bugging opponents, blackmailing and intimidating activists, planting provocateurs in anti-war groups and others, and generally acting above the law until they finally got caught. And even then,they would have walked away laughing had it not been for the courage of democracy's defenders holding their feet to the fire. Reagan's basement conspiracy in Iran-Contra likewise just ran their clandestine operation to sell arms to one enemy so they could supply an army of terrorists in Nicaragua. A few of them got caught and did their time as just the cost of doing business. Most just laughed all the way to the bank though, including the doddering old man himself. The list of authoritarian monstrosities of George W. Bush's administration is incredibly long and would make for many posts and book fodder. Sure, there was a real attack on America, although in hindsight it is fairly clear that it could have been foiled if that band of republican hacks had tried. But the cynical opportunism of denouncing opponents as traitors, and blasting out terror warnings that most likely were exaggerated in the extreme to fearmonger and drown out news of their myriad failures certainly fits this pattern.

Doughfacedonny is widely expected to declare a state of national emergency as outlined in an Act passed by Congress after Watergate that was and is supposed to stop the pattern of doing this very thing during his TV time tonight. Why the networks are still falling for his shit is a mystery we will never fully know the answer to. No one in their right mind would give this orange disgrace permission to do anything, or forgive him afterwards. Not that he would care. He already stole the presidency with the help of monsters at home and abroad. He stole two supreme court seats now and blew up the deficit with his corporate welfare tax giveaway. Has he asked for forgiveness for any of those things? No, of course not. He and Mitch McConnell have not asked permission to reopen the damn government that they run and aren't exactly trying very hard to be forgiven for the latest mess they caused.

It has made the rounds, in liberal commentary circles anyway, the idea of a Reichstag Fire moment coming from this crowd of traitors and imbeciles. And as the meme so often points out, "it's no longer whether trump has any decency, but whether we do." Are the networks, "the enemy of the people" as doughfacedonny so often calls them, really going to go along with this? Maybe he will just go out and feebly rant and lie about immigration and walls and other such nonsense. Nothing will come of it and we can all go back to our regularly scheduled resistance. There certainly is a national emergency but it's not on the border with Mexico. It isn't a legitimacy crisis, all the evidence of Russian meddling has rendered the occupant of the Oval Office illegitimate. It isn't an economic crisis either, the stock market is tanking because of the real crisis though. It is that one major political party in the United States is a death cult of human suffering and that about 40% of the electorate supports that cult.

There may come a time when the American people are finally pushed so hard that they must collectively ask whether it is easier to ask forgiveness for destroying the death cult after the fact, or whether we sit back and civilly wait for permission from the Democrats to defeat them. If doughfacedonny does indeed declare a national emergency and fumble around stealing enough money to build the stupid wall, it won't stop there. I suck at predicting the future, I really expected death squads on day one, but this time might prove more dangerous. Donny's back is against the wall, it is no longer a whisper that he should resign and bolt while he still can. The previous crises of Republican malice gave the criminal-in-chief a path out of danger, therefore they left when their time came but will donny? You can almost trace a line in the escalation of authoritarianism in republican governance since the late 1960s, pushing but never quite closing the door on democracy. Tonight the trap might spring shut. Stay tuned.

Sunday, January 8, 2017

Donald Doughface






This year has seen the return of open racism and misogyny to American politics. It has come about because of one man, a vulgar talking yam who rode the vicious populist wave, voter suppression, and Russian intervention all the way to the highest office in the republic. While this has huge contemporary repercussions, it has also opened a clear view of the fact that for many people the Civil War never ended. Prior to that conflict there was a term for a Northern man with Southern sympathies, doughface, and it is time to reintroduce that name to a man who fits the definition so well, Donald J. Trump. The true battle line of the Civil War that preceded and succeeded the military campaigns of 1861-65 was between the democratic vision of America and the aristocratic one. Doughface donny lied his way into the presidency by appealing to the worst aspects of aristocratic America, not by promising the republican working class voters a better life but by promising to stomp on nonwhite and liberal America and all that it stands for without any restraint.

Two days before election day a little article was posted on the History News Network by the Presidential Distinguished Professor and Chair of the History Department at Weber State University, Susan J. Matt that flew under the radar during that chaotic time. Titled This is What Liberals are missing about Trump's appeal Professor Matt presents a very detailed and in depth look at the pre-industrial concept of personal honor and shame that dominated Southern life even after the Civil War. Now that the industrial way of life has receded in so much of the United States this primitive lifestyle has experienced a revival unnoticed by all of us "elitists" in the city. What this looks like is described as:
Southern white men worried incessantly about how others perceived them. Any insult to their reputations needed to be quickly parried lest they lose face. Historian Keith Thomas noted that among English elites, the concern with honor “generated extreme touchiness, and hypersensitivity to any form of slight. As a result, honour was invoked as justification for almost any kind of self-aggrandizement.”
Some of that aggrandizement could be based on sexual prowess. Men could boast of their sexual exploits, for lust signaled virility and strength. Reputation also depended on outward carriage, for Brown writes, “honor was a state of grace linking mind, body, blood, hand, voice, head, eyes, and even genitalia.” Consequently, southerners were concerned with their own bodies as well as their ancestors’, for bloodlines and racial purity affected the ability to embody honor.
Those who believed in honor engaged in physical, sometimes violent displays of power to defend it. Historian Elliott Gorn found that to display honor, poor men had vicious brawls, gouging out each others’ eyes, as well as biting off ears and windpipes, while elites relied on duels as a more genteel way to defend reputation. To be honorable required men to take risks, display bravery.
Men were also supposed to risk their pocketbooks, for gambling too was a display of nerve. If men ran up debts, they must repay them, for those they gambled with were presumably honorable gentlemen; however, they need not pay back people below them on the social scale. William Grayson of South Carolina noted, “A gambling debt is a debt of honour, but a debt due a tradesman is not.”
Southern whites who subscribed to this cult of honor lived publicly, and when possible grandly, boasted about their sexual prowess and bravery, focused on outward appearances and reputation, and took forceful, even violent action when that reputation was assailed.
- See more at: http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/164299#sthash.t9Y7fcRD.dpuf
This barbaric way of life persists in nearly any American community that is unencumbered by Enlightenment principles or even the industrial installation of bureaucracy or professionalism. The brutes may not be "biting off ears and windpipes" anymore but scratch the surface in any military base or impoverished small town and you will discover hypersensitive man-children endlessly bragging about their sexual conquests, the many slights suffered and punishments or humiliations dealt out, and the intricate web of hierarchy and domination forever being challenged and enforced. This system of honor has jumped the regional boundaries of the old Confederacy in much the same way that the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan after WWI found strength in states such as Indiana and Oklahoma. It has even jumped color lines as African-American gang members on the South Side of Chicago worry endlessly about their "rep" and answer slights from others posted online with physical confrontation and often bullets. The link between this system of honor and white supremacy, however, is the focus of discussing Donald Doughface.

Thus far I have only found one other blog linking trump with the term "doughface" and although poignant it does not go deep enough to understand the causal factors, the driving force that gives so much energy to the republicans who voted against every democratic impulse to make this doughface president. The right wing in America is driven by a primitive honor system, while it may have started in the South before the republic was even founded, today this plague has spread to all points on the American map. Anywhere ruin has been visited on the American proletariat, anywhere average people have been stripped of a decent living by plutocrats in corporate America and Wall Street, the vengeful honor system has flooded in to encourage vulgarity, racism, misogyny, and hypersensitive aggression.

Donald Trump, who will never be normalized on this page nor accorded with the title he and his confederates have stolen for him, is the epitome of of this (dis)honor system. A Northern man with Southern principles, ever ready to strike down anyone who opposes or slights him, ever ready to take anything he wants and react with self-righteous fury anyone or anything that resists, Trump is the violation of everything we Americans are taught in school about what we supposedly value. And yet, his awful values are long-standing, everything that is wrong with America from racism and white supremacy, to misogyny and sexual conquest of women, this is the Civil War that eternally haunts our nation. It is a war that can only end in the complete destruction of those primitive honor-related values. Democratic America has had several chances to deal a death blow to aristocratic America, the military Civil War and the Civil Rights era to name two opportunities, but we can never bring ourselves to strike fully to excise the cancer.

And now that cancer has consumed us. The third strike has finally dealt us a permanent ascendancy of aristocracy. We, the democratic nation of America, are an occupied people. To be continued...

Friday, June 17, 2016

Manifesto For the Feeble-minded

Yes, who are these ignorant bigots that support the vulgar talking yam? And why shouldn't we be surprised that their identity can fit in a meme? Who actually made this thing? I don't want to say where I found this but let's say it is not your typical rally goer. I don't know if that makes him a simpleton but is Quisling out really the best way to protect your masculinity and guns? When the Trumptergreifung  occurs do you really think "I'm on your side" is going to protect you from the Klan members or keep you out of a concentration camp? The lack of spelling errors or glaring grammatical mistakes makes me think this was a professional job but despite many different queries to the Google I could not trace this meme's progression.

Makes one think that there is some order to the flag encrusted bullet points if it was actually designed and not slap-assed together. Let's see: "hate", "repealed", "sick of", "fed-up with", "tired of", and a lot of "wants"; this is the whiniest document I've seen in some time. First off, you fascist pricks don't "hate liberal ideology" you hate liberals, your fellow Americans, and you want them disappeared. You couldn't define liberalism if you wanted to, beyond what Fox News and Rush Limbaugh have programmed you to recite on command, which bears no resemblance to real world liberalism. No, you hate liberals, which you define as anyone who disagrees with you. I'm surprised that hating Black Lives Matter didn't make this list, or would that have been too obvious?

Second, Obamacare repeal. Why? So you can go back to being at the mercy of insurance companies? The Affordable Care Act was based on a Republican proposal from the Heritage Foundation. Which part do you want back so badly, the one where your kids are kicked off at 18 or where the insurance company drops you or refuses to cover you because you might get sick? Or are you mad because poor people got some help paying their premiums? Just a good ole' punch down. But then you want "our vets taken care of", yes I do too, but who created all those vets who need care and then turned around and cut their benefits and funding VA hospitals? Yes that was George W. Bush, but he never existed in 'wingerdom so never mind that.

Hillary for prison? Yeah, I've seen that T-Shirt. Someone sure is raking in the dough from that one. Couldn't impeach President Obama for anything so it's time to up the ante some more. Please, by all means, hold your breath and stomp up and down, I'm sure eventually you can wish her to jail. From the looks of the Trump U case I'd say the vulgar talking yam ending up in prison is the more likely scenario. Corruption? Sure, I'm with you there but it takes a special kind of stupid to believe sending one of the most corrupt businessmen in America to the White House will do anything but ramp up corruption to Jupiter and back. Same with bringing jobs back, I'd love that too but again, Trump has outsourced so much of his own schemes is he really the one you trust to "renegotiate" trade deals?

Self-funded, now there is the ultimate exercise in self-delusion. First of all Trump loaned money to his campaign and expects to make it back with interest from all of you gullible idiots. Second, the first thing he did after securing the presumptive nomination was to declare that he was going to raise a billion dollars from all those special interests. The same ultra-wealthy owners of corporations that outsource jobs and hire illegal immigrants to push down your wages and standard of living. But hang on to that dream kiddies.


Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Donald Trump and The Ku Klux Klan

Ever since Donald Trump declared his candidacy for the president of these United States, I have been researching the obvious question of why in the hell anyone would support him. And then this happened:


David Duke: Voting against Trump is 'treason to your heritage'

Regardless of the timeline of events, first he didn't then he did disavow the KKK and white supremacists. And the minor dust-up about credentialing a white nationalist radio show host for one of his mass rallies. And the fawning, gushing love for the Donald over at new-nazi website the daily stormer (I'm not linking to it but if you're brave, go have a look). We have the this blast from the past. As JAMES PONIEWOZIK put it in the New York Times, "until this week, the K.K.K.’s loathsomeness had seemed to be a settled issue." 

Hopefully it will be nothing else, but Trump's campaign has certainly proved that this supposed tyranny of political correctness is a toothless tiger. If, on election day Trump secures a paltry minority of votes and his Republican Party is utterly crushed in down-ticket races all over the country, the short-fingered vulgarian and his hate-filled mouth-breathing followers will have shown us all that racism is alive and well, and that the tyranny of political correctness has no idea how to adequately deal with it. And that we are really just one rigged election away from reinstating segregation, white supremacy, and possibly even a return to slavery. Political correctness, at least in the way social conservatives yap endlessly about it, really seems more and more to be a meaningless buzzword that signifies nothing more than "why can't we dominate those non-white people the way we used to?"

Just as the plutocracy and unregulated capitalism were marginalized for a time by the Great Depression, open racism and white supremacy were marginalized by herculean efforts of the Civil Rights Movement and the intervention of the Federal Government. But the will to power and domination represented by these forces are an idea, and just as many commentators pointed out during the "war on terror," you cannot destroy an idea. Thomas Frank discussed this concept in The Wrecking Crew, in regards to the methods and tactics that "conservatives" use to try and destroy liberalism once and for all. Just as plutocracy and "free market" (basically unregulated) capitalism clawed their way back into power by displacing the labor movement and New Deal institutions inch by inch, capitalizing on every crisis to expand and legitimize corporate power, racism and white supremacy has clawed its way back into the discussion by using every shock of modernity to discredit and delegitimize multiculturalism, diversity, equal rights, and tolerance of difference.

By playing footsie with very dangerous people, Trump legitimizes for his followers a belief structure that should have died out a long time ago. The only saving grace is that the majority of authoritarian followers still do not like the label of "racist" and do not want to be associated with words like "KKK" or "Neo-Nazi" however much they hold racial resentments. The next post will describe the KKK of the 1920s and explore similarities with Trump supporters.

Thursday, August 13, 2015

Vietnam, Rick Perlstein, and Ur-Fascism

Searching for truth is a full-time job. A quest that this feeble blog will never complete. The chances of convincing an individual that they are being lied to, manipulated, or played for a fool is approaching statistical insignificance. Nonetheless, many people still commit themselves to learning and trying to pass on their knowledge and wisdom to the larger world. In a classroom this activity is usually met with blank stares and indifference, but in our hyper-polarized political climate it can be downright dangerous.

I have mentioned before that I am a former Army Tanker and a member of a tanker group on Facebook. I am also one of the very few anti-fascists in a sea of wannabe brown shirts. What started as an innocent way to keep in touch with my former brothers in arms has become embarrassing. The only reason I have not unfollowed the group is that it is enlightening to observe right wing memes and comments from some members. In between posting generally nasty memes about liberals or women or Democrats, scantily-clad women or downright terms of service violating nudie pics, or boasting about their guns, or taking pot shots at other branches of the military, there are people posting some outrage or another along with as much personal contact information as they can come up with about the perpetrators  and urging others to "go get 'em." Outrages like standing on the American flag, saying something negative about veterans or guns, generally anyone exercising the freedom of expression that all of these guys claim to defend but when it comes right down to it are hypocrites. So far none of these angry vets have actually attacked any of the targets but every mass shooting that occurs in America further de-stigmatizes the idea of political violence. I feel it is important to try and draw the authoritarian aggression sometimes on display into the open because it is harder to build up the resolve to do something one might regret outside the epistemic self-reinforcing system of closed Facebook groups. The potential for violence is what concerns me. Political or religious violence is the most dangerous road a society can travel.

I don't know anyone who has stood on the flag as an act of protest and find the phenomenon counter-productive, not worthy of comment. Nor do I get ruffled by other idiots flapping their gums about  veterans being dishonorable, or impersonating a soldier. And I could care less about porn put up by anyone. But when the threats start rolling in about someone I do kind of know and respect, it is time to speak up. Rick Perlstein is a fellow historian who has written some great books about the era I study and I have learned a lot from his work. His latest book is The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan and should be considered required reading for everyone interested in contemporary politics and why the reactionary right is as off the spectrum as it is today. But books are for people whose attention spans exceed those of fruit flies.

However, an article Perlstein wrote for the Washington Spectator that attempted to untangle one of the great con jobs of American propaganda in the service of authoritarianism, got the attention of 'wingers all over the place. This is part of a very important and as yet unfolding story of the American "stab in the back" surrounding the Vietnam War. You know the one "if only the damn 'libs had let us nuke Vietnam" and so on. Perlstein's essay is an abridged version of a chapter in his book mentioned above, "a bizarre psychic reversal" as he puts it about the POW-MIA flag and how it has been used to buttress America's victim status and cruelty by the North Vietnamese. And the propaganda symbol value this sympathy provides to American authoritarians. To the right wing authoritarian follower, it is a symbol of solidarity with phantoms that he will never admit do not exist. To the social dominator seeking to lead them, the flag is a cudgel to smear and demonize anyone who does not go along with the mythology. He originally tied this flag to the racist history of the Confederate flag and that is where the trouble started. 

Karoli already wrote up the fauxtrage and pearl clutching on display from Fox and Friends and the reactions from 'wingers. I just wanted to add how violently the so-called defenders of freedom reacted to Perlstein on a personal level. In case anyone actually believes that our brave men and women in uniform "will not obey unconstitutional orders, such as orders to disarm the American people, to conduct warrantless searches, or to detain Americans as “enemy combatants” in violation of their ancient right to jury trial" if ordered to by our tyrannical government. 

From the M1 tankers group [closed] on Facebook:

This is the civilian shit bag that wrote the POW/MIA story. Feel free to contact him and let him know how u feel. .
[Picture of Rick Perlstein's Facebook page]



Angry, well-armed, self-righteous, and ready to attack anyone who disagrees with them. This is not what I was taught in the military, apparently things have changed. Having to issue a lengthy apology for presenting a not patriotically correct historical theory based on actual empirical research is something I doubt Rick Perlstein was taught in graduate school either. Having to then make himself scarce on social media due to threats was probably not something he contemplated when he submitted the article. 

Update:

The author of the post in question found my response. As you can guess it was not well-received. After looking at Tim's page briefly I take back what I implied, he is not a fascist, just a vindictive special snowflake. I do not know why Rick Perlstein's article got him so angry. As you can see from the discussion he wasn't the only one, but there is no criticism of why the flag isn't what Perlstein argues it is, a demagogic propaganda symbol designed to cut off and prevent debate, which is exactly what happens in these exchanges. Juvenile character attacks and random, arbitrary name-calling as proxy for argument. As though simply mentioning keywords should trigger a Pavlovian response of aggression. I wonder if the information was presented in a less-antagonistic manner, would this untold story of the POW-MIA flag get a less rigid, knee-jerk, and aggressive response? I took this post down for a few days to edit it, because it was kind of unfair and was written in haste. After initially publishing I did a google search of responses to the original article for comparison, and whoa my findings make the comments I recorded here look civil by comparison. I am not going to link to anything ranting about "hate-filled kike demons" or "Faggot Jews" but you could probably guess where the real fascists would go with language like that. It plays right into the fantasy land of all-powerful liberals and conservative victim hood constructed by the right-wing where a barely noticed opinion piece from a free lance historian somehow equals all liberals calling for and immediately receiving whatever they wish for. The world does not work that way.

In case you read this Tim, I am not a blue falcon or any of the things you accused me of. I could care less if you or anyone else posts pictures of boobies. I have never reported anything to Facebook, nor do I know anyone who did. Facebook does not share my concern about political violence and I do not share their interest in making social media safe for elementary school kids. I do not care about sexy pics or off-color jokes or even the continuous outrage from certain members of that group. A group of which I am no longer a part of, by the way. After some reflection I realized that everything about it is a waste of my time. When I first joined, there was serious discussion between master gunners, interesting stories about our brothers' experiences in the field or on deployment, and general camaraderie. That is pretty rare to find now, and I'm tired of sifting through the garbage to find anything interesting. So thank you for convincing me to move on. I'm too old to find that Friday night grab-assing at the barracks style amusing anymore. And your since-
removed post with screen grabs of my writing just confirmed that I am correct in my concern over the potential for violence.

I have often felt annoyed that my service, in the opinion of people like you, did not count because we disagree on one thing or another. But by all means keep the crusade going. Being in a perpetual state of outraged and self-righteous victim hood is great for your heart and I hear it can even prevent ulcers.