In dark the darkest deeds are done, and villians all flee the rising sun.
Truer words were never spoken. Which is why it never ceases to amaze me when the GOP keeps trying to pull their lame ass hit in the searchlight of a police helicopter. But hell, dog’s gotta howl, even stupid ones.
All you need to know about this latest lame ass scheme is that it’s another classic brain fart from Two Shirts Bannon. It was simple, if not particularly well thought out or elegant. Get large numbers of QAnon bedwetters, and Loud Toys knuckle draggers to start running for local, low level office. Things like library boards, local school boards, and city and county councils. Learn the basics of politics, and form a farm team for recruitment to run for higher offices.
But it had to be expedited. Because after Biden’s inauguration, and a half a dozen failed QAnon reinstatement dates, Trump’s base was seriously bummed. The GOP needed a new dog whistle to excite the base. And they came up with the totally ridiculous Critical Race Theory. An advanced course only taught in graduate level law classes, not 10 GOP incumbents could even explain it. Which is fine, since none of their base could comprehend it anyway. So they could make up what they wanted. Which was that Teachers are teaching kids that every bad thing that ever happened to blacks are all white people’s fault, ensuring them a life in group therapy.
It worked out too well, as it turns out. Think back a few months ago. School board and library board meetings devolved into semi violent screaming bouts from foaming rabid dogs, spewing nonsense. It reached the point where the boards had to ask for police protection to run the meetings, and get safely to their cars afterward. And while it got some news coverage, those of us who can tie our own shoes, and remember to zip up in the morning, didn’t worry much, since the screaming seldom changed an outcome.
The GOP has a mantra. If it works, abuse the living shit out of it! So the GOP started piling on. Candidates and even incumbents started circulating potential books to be banned for giving the white snowflakes da sadz. Books bluntly depicting or discussing racism, anti-Semitism, The Holocaust, the Klan, the Civil war, all are subject to banning and removal from school and library shelves for making the snowflakes hands quiver. And they’re trying to change curriculums to control what teachers can actually teach in their classes. Newly minted GOP Trumptard Governor Lumpkin over in Virginia is actually setting up a toll free tip line for parents to use to rat out teachers and libraries.
But something went wrong on the way to the GOP’s Fahrenheit 451 Trumptopia. Teachers are going public and screaming bloody murder, and so are administrators and board members. And it turns out that the GOP bit off more than they can chew. I guess lots of parents actually like it when their kids education has some actual reality and education in it. A few days ago, the Tennessee school board met to basically empty the library shelves of everything but Dr Suess and Winnie the Pooh. It was a total debacle. For once it was the Trumptards that were loudly shouted down by royally pissed off parents. MSNBC and CNN both carried clips of the mayhem, taking the story national.
The media needs to stay on this. I don’t know how many times I can say this. The 2022 House won’t be decided by red or blue gerrymandered seats. It will be decided by 50-70 competitive or highly competitive swing districts. And those are swing districts because they tend to have a hole shit load of what we all love to call, White suburban soccer moms! You know, like the ones who were standing at that Tennessee school board meeting, telling them exactly what they can do with their 1984 bullshit?
The scab is off now, and it was the GOP that ripped it off by getting stupidly greedy. Now it’s up to local media to get reporters out to those meetings, and then report on them fairly and dispassionately. Turns out that most parents don’t really want their children’s schools to be turned into Hitler Youth Camps. Remain vigilant, and report. As the X-Files says, The truth is out there.
Teachers usually value truth, facts, & critical thinking. The fact that their classrooms are full of kids being raised by racist morons, makes education even more important to produce citizens WHO CAN TOLERATE TRUTH & THINK FOR THEMSELVES. The alternative is doom.
Those racist morons think the world will end soon-any day now in fact (I lived in the south for some years and observed this less than sane behavior). Their children having the ability to think for themselves and recognize truth, and tolerate it, would show the parents in a very bad light. They cannot endure such a thing so they attempt to deny their children the very things that will get them out of the shit-holes where they live. I’m sure there is a control thing at work as well.
As a resident of that TN county where they did the banning (among them the excellent graphic novel Maus, an Animal Farm style depiction of the Holocaust and why this popped up on my radar), I would like to apologize to the nation on behalf of all similarly sane residents (we’re outnumbered but trust me, we’re there).
Algebra class always made me cringe. Problems that took a whole page gave me nightmares. I’m white so I shouldn’t have had to endure that. Can we ban algebra?
Time was when reading books like “Catcher in the Rye”, etc. were not only on many required reading lists but parents did not say shit about it because they knew the books were part of a solid education that allowed for intelligent discussion to develop critical thinking skills–something absolutely vital to have when taking college entrance exams. Parents realized that their kids would be caught up in, not the occasional naughty word, but the story of a child their kids’ ages coming of age.
Of course this was back in the days when parents wanted their children to do better than they did by doing radical shit like going to college. I’m starting to wonder if perhaps today’s parents are so fucking selfish they do not want their children to have more opportunities and do better as adults. Their actions certainly point to that.
” I’ve seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness.” Ginsberg’s HOWL
This book of poetry was banned but later won. I’m proud a fellow UNC-CH grad, Lawrence Ferringetti, published it in San Francisco. Rest in peace u guys. Shining lights in a land of darkness.
I hate it when I am right. Some folks are just too fucking stupid to live and they are all Republicans and bible thumpers.