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First Thursday GNR: They Don't Know What's Hitting Them [1]
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Date: 2023-03-02
Welcome to My Conspiracy!
For several years now, I have been posting about my personal mega-Conspiracy Theory on Quora and elsewhere.
We of the conspiracy have a deep, dark, hidden plan to do everybody every kind of good available, whether they like it or not. And I can tell you, THEY don’t like it one tiny little bit. It goes completely against their Starve the Beast Dog Whistle plan for busting the budget with tax cuts to force cuts to social programs for everybody in sight, even themselves. Part of the price of their privilege, of being more equal than the riff-raff, is cutting off everything that government can do for anyone but the ultra-rich. Education, jobs, health, voting and other basic human rights, whatever. Compare the Red and Blue states on crime, too, and covid deaths. Or go county by county. Same story.
There is just one problem with their plan for winning elections. That doesn’t work either. It was fine when racists were the vast majority, but no longer. And the same for every other form of fear, rage, and hate, over every other form of privilege.
Never set your heart on a jelly bread sandwich before you find out if you have any jelly.
Linus, in Peanuts
My idea is similar to the 1948 science fiction short story “Narapoia”, by Alan Nelson. It describes a disorder that is the opposite of Paranoia.
Well, I keep having this strange feeling that people are plotting to do me good. That they're trying to be benevolent and kind toward me. I don't know exactly who they are, or why they wish me all this kindness, but...it's all very fantastic, isn't it?
That’s the effect we want to have.
I submitted the correct date and link for the story to the Urban Dictionary for inclusion in their entry for “Narapoia”. I just love giving back.
Our conspiracy works by taking advantage of loopholes in the Constitution that say we can take over the Federal government simply by voting our candidates in. Well, by doing voter registration and GOTV and opposition research and messaging and…Well, you know. Everything that the opposition is trying desperately to outlaw, because it is so evil in their minds. Now we hear that there is a bill being introduced in Florida to declare the entire Democratic Party illegal there.
Then we take advantage of further loopholes that would allow our majorities to pass hundreds of bills that Pelosi’s House passed in recent years, but this time through the Senate as well, after we do something about the Sacred Filibuster. And then there is the loophole that would allow President Biden to sign them all, and the Administration to go around putting them into effect, even including investing taxpayer(!!) money in all of those goodies, which have a greater return on investment than any legitimate private business. The returns would then go to The People, not to the entitled, More Equal, rich and powerful who have grabbed up most of them for ages.
Can’t have that. Why, even Those People (You know who you are) would start to get a share.
Everything for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.
Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
Because, Smith was at pains to explain, it isn’t national wealth unless the whole nation has a proper share in it. Living wages and all that. Shocking, I know.
Now, I admit that I didn’t invent all of this. Much of it goes back thousands of years, but we don’t talk about that. In fact, we don’t talk about any of this where those others can find out about it.
Except that it turns out that they can’t find out about it, even when we tell them. As I said to start with, they can’t believe that such conspirators as we even exist.
That’s the best part.
The bad part is that they assume we are only doing any of this to put one over on the poor, the same as they do, so that we can keep them dependent and force them to go on voting for us.
Previous Conspirators
If we had more real Christians like Jimmy Carter, the following wouldn’t be Good News. As it is, though…
Twitter! Musk Ox! What do you mean sensitive content!? Hater fee-fees getting hurt by facts?
x Gen X is the last generation where the plurality of Americans are Christian. Maybe turning churches into right wing hate factories isn’t good for business. #Christianity #HateSpeech pic.twitter.com/EpCb2UhFWJ — Apple’s Hardcore Yo (@Appleshardcore) March 1, 2023
Anyway, when you click through, this shows Protestants losing 0.7% of the US population each year on average, and Catholics 0.3%, for a total of 1.0% annually, about the historical average for major political shifts, going from 0% to 50% on new ideas in 50 years. The Republican Party is losing more than just those Christians abandoning their churches. There are many staying with a church, but leaving the Gross Old Paskudnyaks.
Good News Thursday: The Fifty-Year Rule in Politics
They are thoroughly bent out of shape about it. I have the receipts, and I have shown them on occasion, but that is not where we are going today.
And speaking of Twitter, a viral, fake Eli Lilly tweet said that its insulin would henceforth be free, and the company is defending itself in part by agreeing to provide some versions at $35/month. Go, Dark Brandon!
Some TV Goodies
Worth repeating from yesterday (Repetition is Good, amirite?):
I am going to recommend to all that didn’t see it last night, go look up Chris Hayes’ A Block from Tuesday’s show. It was a clear and concise excoriation of Fox “News” and all of the DOCUMENTED times they lied to their viewers. Pure FIRE!
jillsinmo
Alex Wagner told Chris how glad she was that he is back from vacation, although they both agreed that his replacements last week did stellar jobs, like Ali Velshi reporting live from Ukraine, including asking Zelenskyy a question at a live news conference.
Wagner particularly thanked Hayes for the rant above.
And Hooray! for Democrats like Mayor/Secretary Pete and Rep. Jamie Raskin giving Wrong-Wingers what for on live TV. They walk right into it.
We should call them Banananananananaz Republicans, because they simply don’t have any idea when to stop.
And hooray for CPAC falling apart, because many of them don’t want to be associated with pervert Matt Schlapp any more. I won’t link to the paywalled NYT article, but:
Under cloud, CPAC becomes a tale of who’s showing up — and who’s not
No Ron DeSantis. No Mike Pence. No Speaker Kevin McCarthy. No Mitch McConnell. No RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel. Now Donald Trump will be there (speaking on Saturday afternoon). So will Nikki Haley (Friday). As will former Brazil President Jair Bolsinaro, Steve Bannon, Devin Nunes and MyPillow’s Mike Lindell, as well as Sens. Ted Cruz, Tim Scott, JD Vance, Marsha Blackburn and Tommy Tuberville.
As I was saying, those are the real Banananananananaz ones who don’t have any idea when to stop.
No, I’m not, and you can’t make me.
Jen Psaki’s new show on MSNBC, Inside with Jen Psaki, starts on Sunday, 3/19. Wrong-Wingers are already whining about it.
Ukraine
Putin doesn’t know what is hitting him either.
An Inside Look at Ukrainian Troops Training to Use Western Tanks
Ukrainian forces are training to maneuver, load ammunition and maintain Western-style tanks in the U.K. WSJ visited the drills to learn how Challenger 2 tanks could give Ukraine an advantage against the Soviet-era tanks currently on the battlefield. Ukrainian forces are training on fast and well-armed Leopard tanks in Spain, prime minister says Ukraine's defense minister pushes for fighter jets, even as training begins on tanks Various officials, military and civilian, continue to push for sending fighter jets to Ukraine, both old MiGs and modern F-16s, and maybe A-10 Warthog tank killers. US DoD and President Biden still say no, as they did on previous rounds of weapons, including tanks and longer-range rockets, until they said yes.
Good News Sources
I am not mining all of these today, because I had plenty of other material, but you can feel free to add more items in the comments.
From the list in the queued draft Emergency Potluck Diary:
Good News Network
29 Species Have Recovered Enough in Australia to be Taken Off Endangered List–a Milestone for Celebration
Today: Good News
A Google search recommends
Feeling Down? The Top 5 Good News Websites to Cheer You Up
Here are the five best positive news websites. Positive News
Good News Network
The Optimist Daily
r/UpliftingNews
The Happy News
and some others recommended by Gnusie arhpdx.
and one from lynnekz
Upworthy Positive stories on many different topics; daily newsletter
Science! Animals! Weirdness!
JWST on Quora
Funny or Cry
DK Comics
Cartoon: Freedom liberry
Video I don’t know how to embed.
The movement to ban certain books is gaining traction in Florida and around the country. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is riding the book ban bandwagon to national fame (after first riding Covid misinformation bandwagon) as he prepares to run for president. Organized groups have popped up over the past two years to work with right wing politicians to enact book bans and push back on diversity and, um, history, in school and library books. Politicians, legislatures and conservative leaders are helping push the clock back to when we had good ol’ fashioned ‘Merican history and book learnin’ — before education was complicated with things like inclusion, gender issues and a reckoning of our nation’s racism.
Cartoon: How to get people to vote for you even after you show complete disregard for their lives
Cartoon: Where we're going
Dog: Um, where are we headed in this handbasket? Sparky: Take a wild guess.
Twitter
x This cartoon is about one of the best I have seen on a key reason for our political schism! pic.twitter.com/F9FR7qa7EZ — Wyona M Freysteinson, PhD, MN, RN, FAAN (she/her) (@wyonaf) February 17, 2023
x Christopher Weyant, The Boston Globe @ChristophWeyant pic.twitter.com/TXfm1mepAo — Editorial & Political Cartoons (@EandPCartoons) March 1, 2023
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