JHB
JHB's Journal2021 Ukrainian 24 Hour Field Ration Review Pork Tushonka & Kasha MRE Meal Ready to Eat Tasting Test
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I'm just going to suggest: Oath Breakers
There's a lot of nicknames for that group which riff on the similarity between "Oath" and "Oaf", but I'd like to promote using a phrase that says exactly what they are (and which highlights how their reality is the precise opposite of what they claim to be):
Oath Breakers.
Once again, the discussion of Democratic "messaging" problems avoids the elephant in the room...
The fact that the Right has poured billions into creating their own overlapping, complimentary media systems and the center-Liberal-Left has not. Local wingnuts can take an activist slogan (like, say, "defund the police" ) and pass it around and up the chain that has a specific mission to bash Democrats. Within days, that slogan is touted nationwide as being the Democratic Party's central organizing principle, and Mainstream Media will take its cue from the Right
What do we have our our side? Where to our opinions get repeated and amplified? Beyond forums like this?
Right wing outlets often have sugar-daddies supplying seed money, keeping them going for years before they turn a profit, if ever. The Washington Times lost between 1 and 2 billion dollars (~$100 million/year) before it had a profitable year decades after it was founded. It spent that time circulating right-wing talking points to congresspeople and Washington media, so it was worth the investment. Meanwhile, on our side, "Air America was a disaster" because a good idea was organized by a grifter, and then a couple of amateurs tried to salvage it and failed. So despite people who'd been on it becoming more prominent in political analysis and commentary (Rachel Maddow, Al Franken), the take-away for people who can fund things was that dedicated liberal media is a doomed venture.
People like to bash RT, and have damn good reasons for doing so, but how many as why it was a thing on the left in the first place? Why was there no channel that could be home for liberal-lefty voices? So when the Vlad Channel popped up in the 2000s, it was a place where people could talk about domestic injustices and cover the Bush administration the way it deserved. After all, Vlad's fine with criticizing America, and the subject matter was something that needed criticizing. The obvious editorial choice was more and more criticism.
And since editorial policy rested ultimately in Vladimir Putin's hands (else you fall out a window), ramping up criticism, amplifying every bullshit claim about the Obama administration was only encouraged. Would the same have been true if it had been a domestic channel? Or, better to say, one of many domestic channels?
So yes, while we need to work on our megaphone skills, we need more than that in the face of the Right's F5 Tornado of Fantasy And Horseshit.
The Cornfield Resistance Ep 619: Arrest Trump
'Cancel Culture' Is About the Past, Not the Future
From 2009: Learn to Speak Tea Bag
Insist Republicans speak English Only. Real English, not that weird conservative dialect they have with Calvinball rules for definitions.
Joe Biden Is Right - The Professional Left with Driftglass & Blue Gal
Podcast. 57 min. You can probably skip to the ~14:40 mark.
Rubin (WaPo): Biden should defend local officials against tyrannical GOP governors
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/10/biden-should-defend-local-officials-against-tyrannical-gop-governors/No longer. Today, Republicans are on a binge of micromanaging local actors and punishing those who do not knuckle under. Now it’s up to the Biden administration to protect local leaders from their overreach.
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Local officials resisting their governors’ edicts in Texas and Florida underscore the wisdom of the “go local” philosophy that used to animate the GOP. Voters in these communities are siding with their local leaders, asking for mask and vaccine mandates. If only bullying Republican governors still believed in their own principles.
The Biden administration and Democrats more generally should ride to the rescue of local actors battling intrusion by reckless, hyperpartisan governors. The feds can intervene in cases to defend local officials and protect them from fines and punishment. The administration can stand shoulder to shoulder with local school officials trying to save lives and those trying to protect democracy. Democrats might even remind their political opponents that the government closest to the people often knows best.
TOON Bonus 2 - Hobbes And Bacon
Since I posted The Compleat Bloom'n Hobbes earlier, I thought I'd add another loving continuation/tribute to Calvin And Hobbes.
These appeared in an online comic strip by Dan and Tom Heyerman called Pants are Overrated in 2011. Between May and October 2011, four of the Pants are Overrated strips were tributes to Calvin and Hobbes taking place about 26 years after the end of the original. Calvin is in his early 30s, he's married Suzy Derkins, and they have a little girl named Bacon who's about the same age they were in the original.
The original site no longer has the content, though a posting from February says it's under construction to get it back up and running.
In the meantime I've saved copies to the Imgur account I use for when I want to post an image that I can't directly link to.
So here they are, with a bonus treat: Guess who was nightmare fodder in 2011!:
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Gender: Do not displayCurrent location: Somewhere in the NYC metropolitan statistical area
Member since: 2001
Number of posts: 37,158
