Wednesday, June 30, 2021

Under The Hoax Dome


Hoax enough for ya? In Seattle, workers watered roads that were buckling in the hoax. Because their cables were over-hoaxing, Portland’s trolleys were shut down. Olympic trials in Eugene paused as athletes succumbed to hoax-stroke. For those of us fortunate enough to have air-conditioning, going outside was like walking into a solid wall of hoax.

If it was hoaxer than Hell around here, there’s some good news on another front: The hoaxcines have been hugely effective against the coronahoax. Numbers of new cases in our state have dropped dramatically. Here and across America, 99% of people now dying from the hoaxus are unhoaxinated. And, because so many of us have understood the need and the science, those who still refuse the hoaxine because of Hox “news” are increasingly unlikely to fall ill. “See?” they’ll say. “Told you so.”

Also, we’ve learned the January 6 hoaxurrection wasn’t orchestrated by Antifa or BLM or AOC after all. It was the FBI. Ask Trump’s rally-goers.  

Seriously, foax: why are Republican leaders so committed to making and keeping their voters stupid? That they’re doing so and are surpassingly good at it is uncontroversial. And whereas it’s not hard to understand why they do it, what’s shocking is how easy it’s been. To wit: Critical Race Theory. Letters to the editor bemoaning the “fact” that it’s taught in our schools. That’s high-class, low-information, full-frontal Hoaxification.

The question answers itself. Republican leaders need stupid voters in order to regain and retain power. Smart people wouldn’t let them. Why? Because that party has become devoid of ideas, other than tax cuts to keep their bankrollers wealthy, even as it means ignoring America’s most dire needs. Because only stupid people stand by while, in order to win elections in the absence of helpful policy, Republicans surgically neuter democracy in states it controls. Only stupid people continue to believe, undeterred by overwhelming contrary evidence, that such measures are justified, because the last election was “stolen.”

It’s not smart people who’ve put #ucker Carlson at the top of cable “news” and kept him there, even after he called the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff “stupid” and a “pig” for saying well-informed troops are more effective. Ante-upper Laura Ingraham, #ucker’s ovarian equivalent, called for defunding the military, while Matt Gaetz did the same for the FBI. Makes “defund the police” – admittedly the most stupid and self-destructive meme up with which the liberal fringe has ever come – seem almost charming, doesn’t it?

But let’s leave calling people “stupid” to #ucker. Henceforth, we’ll substitute “uneducated” and “misinformed.” The point is that educated, well-informed people understand the deathly danger of climate change. They see that ignoring it any longer is beyond irresponsible. And Republican leaders understand dealing with it would mean they couldn’t sustain the unbalanced tax structure that keeps their donors happy. They understand that most of their voters, fed the right propaganda, can be made resentful enough of changing demographics to vote their way no matter what else is at stake – even when it’s life itself. Education, then, is their gravest enemy, to be attacked unrelentingly.

So they dredged up “Critical Race Theory,” a fifty-year-old legal/academic concept, taught mainly in law schools, proposing that race is a social construct, and that America’s justice system doesn’t deal fairly with racial issues. Ask a generic Trumpist, they’ll say it’s taught in grade schools, to make all kids hate America and white ones hate themselves. How stu… sorry … misinformed

Should children know American history? Does it include racism? Can we learn from it? Might that make America better? Only st… oops … uneducated people would argue otherwise.

Trumpists conflate CRT with teaching children to be empathetic and to recognize unfairness where it exists; which, unlike CRT, is taught, and should be. Except in Texas, Florida, and, soon, all red states. PACs have even been created to get Trumpists on school boards, to keep teachers from discussing racism. Perhaps they’ll explain why they shouldn’t. And why banning it isn’t the “cancel culture” they’re encouraged to rage about.

Having supported an actual hoax while in office, the former one-term president’s Attorney General now confirms he and other advisers knew Trump’s election claims were bullstuff. He said Mitch McConnell asked him to call it out, because he, Mitch, couldn’t. Because to win Georgia they needed to keep voters st… dang! … misinformed. McConnell corroborated Barr’s statement. 

Which ought, finally, to help Trumpists recognize what’s being done to them, and why; and, for their own self-respect and our country’s future, to work to become better informed, rather than staying, well … stupid.


10 comments:

  1. Hoaxification has invaded our lives like "reality television" attracts viewers. To intelligent people the hoax is obvious and often humorous and entertaining, but not based on reality or truth.

    How could any observer of the January 6th insurrection not connect the words and actions of Drumpf that ignited the internal-terrorist coup on our precious democracy? The action of the republican leadership in congress to stop an investigation of that traitorous attack on our legitimate government is cowardly and shameful. These un-American zealots once conducted at least a dozen congressional hearings to try and indict Hillary Clinton for inaction to prevent Benghazi. They don't know a HOAX from MAGA beanie.

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  2. I'm posting this even though it's last weeks column. I didn't think anyone would see it so I post this here...

    It's a brand new 2021 documentary called "Civil War". This is a movie about how we teach the Civil War and slavery. It's an amazing documentary.

    I'll post later on this weeks arty.

    https://www.peacocktv.com/watch/playback/vod/GMO_00000000393775_01/ada45072-9ac1-386c-8d2d-b9fd05034ccb

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    Replies
    1. Oh, I'm gonna check out that documentary. Is it part of the free Peacock offerings? I have so many subscriptions already, I don't think I can squeeze in another.

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    2. Yes it is...I get it free with my Comcast subby.

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  3. Sid, this is a hoaxtastic column. The hoaxagandists seem to have no limit to their depths of hoaxocity. They disgust me.

    On another note, I was waiting impatiently for, and watched last evening the new documentary by Questlove, "Summer of Soul". Ignored film footage from 1969 Harlem concerts of some of the stars of R & B/ Soul music. It is interspersed with recollections of some artists who played those concerts--Billy Davis and Marilyn McCoo Davis of the 5th Dimension, Gladys Knight, Stevie Wonder--and septuagenarians who actually attended. Notable performances by Mahalia Jackson, The Staple Singers, B.B. King, and Sly & the Family Stone. It just fed every single corner of my Soul Music Lovin' White girl heart! On Hulu, but also in theaters. I heard it's at the Crest in Shoreline--a venerable old gem where I once saw The Black Stallion with my Mom and horse-loving sister.

    I'm also currently reading an interesting book called "Dying of Whiteness: How the politics of racial resentment is killing the Heartland" by Jonathan Metzl, MD. He did extensive interviews and research in Missouri, Kansas, and Tennessee. I've just started so I can't give much detail yet.

    Anyway, it's impossible to improve on Sid's column this week so my meager ramblings are all I have!

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  4. My high school US history class (Monroe, WA circa 1966) taught that slavery was NOT the primary casus belli for the Civil War (an oxymoron if ever there was one), barely mentioned Reconstruction, and lacked any reference to the Jim Crow South, the KKK or lynchings. Rather serious omissions, no? If we do not understand the present because we do not comprehend the past, there is no hope we can change course in the future.

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    1. Addendum: Many white people simply refuse to believe there is still a race problem in this country, don't even want to think about it, and are resentful that POC don't "just get over it". Maybe if we actually taught a broader version of history...

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    2. You've got to be taught
      To hate and fear,
      You've got to be taught
      From year to year,
      It's got to be drummed
      In your dear little ear
      You've got to be carefully taught.

      You've got to be taught to be afraid
      Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
      And people whose skin is a different shade,
      You've got to be carefully taught.
      You've got to be taught before it's too late,
      Before you are six or seven or eight,
      To hate all the people your relatives hate,
      You've got to be carefully taught!

      From "South Pacific" by Rodgers and Hammerstein

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  5. Hey Sky~ I heard the Roberts Supreme Clown Court and his whiny little bitches, have been attacking the voting rights act. I also heard also that there is a POC that “gets it” who has voted with Roberts to gut the act. Can you imagine that? I might add that George Carlin has been quoted as saying that America is a country of dumb fucks. I might have a tendency to believe him. Alan West is running for Governor of Texas. I imagine Clarence Thomas takes that as a sign from doG, a confirmation his judgement of folks “rights” is gospel. Can someone tell me why the SCCOTUS doesn’t have any ethics rules, like every other court in the US? I’ve Roberts to ask why but he hasn’t responded. Can you imagine that?

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    Replies
    1. You ever call the White House?

      I think everyone should try it once in their life. I did during the BP oil spill. I talked with the switchboard operator for over 20 minutes. It was a blast. I gave him the plan to stop the oil from flowing and to tell the POTUS. Then I just tried to start a conversation. Make him laugh a few times. Just really tried to make it enjoyable for the poor sucker at the switchboard. It was a great time.

      Ask them for an opinion and you might get it!...lol

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