Wishing a very happy and blessed Fourth of July to my American readers:
Branford Marsalis, playing one of my favourite renditions of the U.S. national anthem.
America
The Cognitive Dissonance Of Charles Krauthammer
The unapologetic, unrelenting neo-conservative darling Charles Krauthammer yesterday decided to hold forth on the topic of Egypt, and (of course) use the situation to bash President Obama’s foreign policy. So far, so unsurprising. And indeed, he kicks off with the usual neo-con boilerplate nonsense that we have come to expect, painting a narrative where Obama is ditherer-in-chief at best, or staunchly pro-Islamist at worst:
Obama is a bystander, again. Here are the Egyptians in the millions out on the street, trying to bring down an Islamist government, increasingly dictatorial, increasingly intolerant, arresting journalists and judges, trying to Islamicize the military and the people are saying no, and what does the president of the United States do? He takes a position of studied neutrality, says he is not supporting either side. And yet, as you point out in the Mubarak revolution, he obviously strongly took the side of the people. He demanded that Mubarak had to go, he was not neutral.
But just feast your eyes on this closing sentence from Krauthammer:
That was a shameful episode. But there’s also idea of national interest. Mubarak was pro-American, he was an ally of ours, he helped us in all kinds of ways. Obama worked against him. Morsi represents a movement which is essentially deeply anti-American, and deeply anti-democratic, yet he is neutral on this.This is a shocking position for a president to take.
Did you see it? That is Charles Krauthammer twisting himself into a pretzel to argue that Morsi (autocratic and unpleasant but democratically elected) is somehow more anti-democratic than the dictator Hosni Mubarak (for whom, of course, all sins are forgiven because he was a US “ally”).
Whether President Obama’s position is “shocking” is a matter for debate. But what is not up for debate is the fact that unlike Charles Krauthammer, Obama is at least able to articulate his position without resorting to logical contradictions that make my head explode.
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“Patriot” Watch, Ctd. 6 – On DOMA
I have been giving Alex Jones a break lately because amidst the more sensationalist, over-hyped, alarmist warnings about the New World Order that he broadcasts on his daily show, he actually did a very good job exposing the rotten corruption of our political and financial system during the recent Bilderberg 2013 conference in Watford, England, in the face of ridicule from a cowed, smirking, servile British mainstream media.
But all good things must come to an end, and now the quotation marks are firmly back around the word “patriot” in this latest report from the Patriot Watch, because on a recent show, Alex Jones decided to open his mouth and offer to the world his thoughts about the US Supreme Court’s recent ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). I would say that viewer discretion is advised, but by now you should really know what to expect – you are duly warned.
So here we have it. According to our intrepid Alex Jones, being straight is now a crime.
This is a social engineering programme to break down society. On record. On record. To tell five-year-olds that Heather has two mommies or, y’know, that Bobby has two daddies. I mean, this is, this is pedophile behaviour. Uhhh… forcing down the throat of children, specifically. Sexualising them when they are supposed to be innocent.
I will note once again how amusing it is that anti-gay equality activists continually use charged and suggestive rhetoric in their arguments, complaining about things being “forced down their throats”, etc.
And it hardly needs to be said that there is a world of difference between explaining different family arrangements to children as a legitimate attempt to help children understand that being different is okay and that there is no shame in being raised by parents who are both of the same gender, and working deviously to “sexualise” them. No one serious is proposing that the mechanics of gay (or straight) sex be taught to children at the age of five. But when your argument against gay equality is being so comprehensively rejected by the population and legal minds of the country, there is little left to fall back on other than misleading straw-man arguments.
The argument also dovetails nicely with conspiracy theories that proponents of gay marriage are using propaganda aimed at children as well as “chemicals in the food supply” and other measures (just watch the video) to make people gay in order to massively depopulate the world.
But my favourite part by far is when Alex Jones – in full, majestic “rant” mode – sarcastically proposes human sacrifices of children to gay people:
And I’m supposed to go “Hey, take peoples’ kids”? I mean, it’s liberal. Maybe we should sacrifice our kids to a big homosexual altar, maybe have a pyramid. And you go up and the gay priests are there, and y’know, like, they chop your kid up with a meat cleaver, y’know, to prove you’re not racist or homophobic. I mean, every society has done this since Sodom and Gomorrah. Whether you believe the Bible or not, the men come to the door and say “Give us those men! Come out, we’re going to have sex with you”.
Where did they get this idea of a gang of men coming and saying “we’re going to rape you”? Because in every society, once this starts – the Romans, it was outlawed, folks. Cause they had seen what happened to other cultures. Rome rose, was stoic, got into this, and pretty soon it was Caligula dressed up like a werewolf raping and killing children. And I bring this up because this is what all elites end up doing. Raping and killing children dressed up like a werewolf. You don’t know about that? Look it up [..]
So they would go and do all this, and by the end it was just ripping childrens’ heads off, stabbing them, bleeeeurgh, chewing their throats out, blood spraying all over the walls. And I mean, so that’s where this goes, so just understand that that’s where this goes, that’s what’s going to happen. That’s where it ends.
That is some masterful dot-connecting from Alex Jones here. The Defense of Marriage Act is repealed on day one, and by day seven we are all having bacchanalian feasts where we gorge ourselves on the blood and flesh of children. Damn Justice Kennedy, what was he thinking?!
If you can grit your teeth and make it to the end of this short InfoWars / Alex Jones video, you will be treated to a nice segment where he tries to sell you “survival seeds”. Enjoy.
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Supreme Court Strikes Down DOMA
A good, concise analysis of the US Supreme Court’s rulings on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California’s Proposition 8, from Jonathan Turley, whose blog is well worth following.
As many of us predicted, Justice Anthony Kennedy supplied the fifth vote today to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). I just returned from offering legal analysis in front of the Supreme Court (and roasting in the DC summer weather with CNN). I will be discussing the case tonight with BBC. The surprise was not in the outcome or the split but the scope of the decision. Kennedy could have rendered the same decision on a narrower basis but chose to render a more expansive endorsement of the constitutional protections for gay couples. These are marriages, plain and simple, and cannot be simply discharged by Congress. Kennedy wrote: “DOMA singles out a class of persons deemed by a State entitled to recognition and protection to enhance their own liberty.”
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On Table Etiquette
I have never understood the American method of eating using cutlery, that long, drawn-out, fastidious process of holding the fork in the left hand while cutting the food, then putting down the knife and transferring the fork to the right hand to bring the food to the mouth. So affected, so inefficient.
Turns out (surprise, surprise) that it was a European custom, imported from France at some point during the 18th century, and unquestioningly adopted by Americans as a sign of great sophistication.
Slate magazine explains:
The cut-and-switch—like imperial units of measurement—counts among those European castaways that became Americanisms only when Europe itself changed. Today, the cut-and-switch is the equivalent of a mouthful of glittering white teeth, a calf-ful of glittering white sock, or a request for half-and-half—an absolute clincher that you stand in the company of a fellow lover of freedom. Jeanette Martin, the co-author of Global Business Etiquette, couldn’t think of another major country that fork-swaps. Even among Canadians, some zig-zag, but “Continental predominates.”
Well. We’ve had our fun. And now it’s time to stop. Americans prize efficiency—especially when it comes to food. Sure, a cut-and-switch partisan might argue that Americans already eat fast enough—whether we’re talking about actual fast food, practically predigested squeezable pouches and energy bars, or our enthusiastic and all but unique embrace of eating while walking and driving; you could argue that the cut-and-switch is just the kind of gastronomic speed bump we need more of. But what if we spend so little time at the table because we find fork-swapping so tedious?
Indeed. Although Britons are hardly in a position to talk, with their ludicrously inefficient use of the fork, tines pointing down:
Many Europeans stubbornly deploy their forks tines down—either as a spear, or, if the food isn’t stab-able, as a surface on which to awkwardly pile or smoosh food (awkward piling is particularly English—“How many peas can dance on the back of a fork?” asks Kate Fox, in Watching the English). But the pragmatic Americans who’ve abandoned the cut-and-switch almost always use the fork tines-up—i.e., as an efficient shovel—whenever it’s convenient to do so.
A shovel, there you go. Much more efficient.
More observations on British-American differences from Semi-Partisan Sam can be found here.
Semi-Partisan Politics 