For context:
Meet the new Klan pic.twitter.com/OYMRVDfQVX
— David Alan Grier (@davidalangrier) July 3, 2022
Category: America
I’m wishing everyone a happy and safe Fourth of July, and sharing this excerpt from issue #1 of the 2021 comic book The United States of Captain America:
This is the white picket fence fallacy that, if we’re not careful, becomes nationalism. Jingoism.
That dream isn’t real. It never was.
Because that dream doesn’t get along nicely with reality. Other cultures. Immigrants. The poor. The suffering. People easily come to be seen as “different” or “unamerican.”
The white picket fence becomes a gate to keep others out.
A good dream is shared.
Shared radically. Shared with everyone.
When something isn’t shared, it can become the American Lie.
The Lie is a real problem. Because it comes in the form of an empty promise.
A while back, we told the world they could come here for a better life. But too often we turn our backs on them.
Instead of a dream, they get handed a raw deal.
Then there is the second dream.
This one’s real.
But we don’t hold it. Or own it. Heck, we can’t even touch it.
We reach for it.
We work. We toil. We struggle. We fight. Together.
We may never reach it, but we never stop trying.
That’s my dream.
Here’s to the dream. Have a great holiday, everyone!
Also worth checking out: Happy Independence Day, superhero-style!
Zen Pencils — “Cartoon quotes from inspirational folks” — take some of the best quotes and statements out there and present them in comic form. They just updated their rendition of Sophie Scholl’s “I choose my own way to burn” statement to fit the current times. It’s worth reading:
“The real damage is done by those millions who want to ‘survive.’ The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes.”
“Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves—or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honour, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small.”
“It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you.”
“But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death…” 
“…narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does.”
“I choose my own way to burn.”
Sophie Scholl was a resistance fighter against the Nazis in Germany in the early 1940s. She was a key member of Weiße Rose — German for “White Rose” — a resistance group run by students at the University of Munich. Weiße Rose distributed leaflets, painted graffiti, and took part in actions to call out the Nazis and inspired resistance against fascism.
The Nazis executed her at the age of 21 for treason on February 22, 1943.
Chad Baker posted this bit of advice on Facebook back in 2018, and I became aware of it yesterday thanks to Tim Tate:
Apparently this tribal knowledge has not been passed down.
If someone at school is bullying you, go to any pawn shop (there’s one in every town) DO NOT GO TO THE RIFLE WALL, TURN AROUND and go to the OTHER wall, and buy one of these:
Or, if your preference is towards keyboards, something like this:
You can purchase one at any age. There is no background check. They are cheap. There is no waiting period. You can open carry them anywhere.
Take it home. Practice. Talk to other dorks that wear the same shirts you do. Start a band. Get loud. Scream about how rotten it is that everyone is against you and no one will sleep with you. Get it all out.
DO NOT KILL ANYONE.
Now don’t get me wrong: guns are cool and fun to fire (my great-uncle’s company is the Philippines’ biggest Winchester importer), but too many people in the U.S. have either made it the god they worship, or at least a core part of their identity. And as a result, the guns come out whenever they feel threatened, or even just slighted — as a response to bullying, the bogus “Great Replacement,” or even when a fellow movie-goer throws popcorn at them.
The old canard that hardcore misinterpreters of the Second Amendment like to pull out after every shooting is “We don’t have a gun problem, we have a mental health problem” (and while mental health does play a role, science — and Science — point out that the issue actually is an over-proliferation of guns).
But let’s assume that it’s just a mental health issue. Want a fix? Get more people to pick up musical instruments instead of guns. We have lots of research and evidence showing the cognitive and emotional benefits of listening and playing music, and lots of research on the deleterious effects of guns and “gun thinking.”
Pick up an instrument. Master a skill that will pay off in so many ways, from dexterity to improved brain function to confidence discipline and time management to creativity to making friends.
Before you buy into yesterday’s statement by Eric Trump — the dumbest of Donald Trump’s sons (and he’s up against some stiff competition) — that Putin’s KGB training allowed him to see that Trump was a strong person…
Eric Trump: Putin was in with the KGB. He can read people and he could tell that Donald Trump was a very strong person pic.twitter.com/1BqhstcUMP
— Acyn (@Acyn) March 15, 2022
…consider for a moment these recent headlines of Trump’s inability to criticize Putin in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine:
- Rolling Stone — Trump Refuses to Condemn Putin Despite Sean Hannity Practically Begging Him To
- Washington Post — Sean Hannity’s remarkable, failed attempts to get Trump to call Putin ‘evil’
- The Guardian — Trump ‘admired’ Putin’s ability to ‘kill whoever’, says Stephanie Grisham
- Vanity Fair — Despite Hannity’s Best Efforts, Trump’s Mouth Is Incapable of Forming the Words “Vladimir Putin Is Evil”
- Politico — ‘I got along’: Trump avoids criticizing Putin
- The Atlantic — Congressional Republicans Have Found Their Red Line
- The Wall Street Journal — Putin’s Groupies Walk Back Their Praise
- New York Magazine — How Trump and Putin Have Been Allies Against Ukraine
- The Independent — Trump dodges opportunity call Putin ‘evil’ in Hannity interview
- CNN — Trump has been on Putin’s side in Ukraine’s long struggle against Russian aggression
- The Daily Beast — Even Hannity Can’t Get Trump to Admit Putin Is ‘Evil’
- Business Insider — Stephanie Grisham says Trump greatly admired Putin and ‘wanted to be able to kill whoever spoke out against him’
- Business Insider — Ex-Trump national security advisor John Bolton says ‘Putin Saw Trump doing a lot of his work for him,’ so he chose not to invade Ukraine
- MSNBC — Trump demurs when encouraged by an ally to criticize Putin
Eric Trump is right, but not in the way he thinks. Putin did read Trump correctly, but Putin’s assessment wasn’t that Trump was a string person, but quite manifestly the opposite. Putin knew he was dealing with someone who was half-man, half-marshmallow.
Just look at the differences in their body language at the 2018 summit in Helsinki, where he chose to listen to Putin over the FBI about Russian election interference:
Trump has said far worse things about allies than he has about dictators. He admires dictators, in that way that weak people admire brutality, in the hope that maybe one day, they’ll get to be the oppressor. That’s not strength at all.
Also worth reading: A whole lot of links on Trump, Putin, Russia, and Ukraine