Monday, January 30, 2017
Saturday, January 28, 2017
Sunday, January 22, 2017
Some Powerful Photos from the Women's March (Global)
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| Berlin |
There are too many striking images from yesterday's march-gone-global to post them all so I'm choosing some of my personal favorites to highlight for a variety of reasons. (All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.)
Artistry: Whichever photographer landed this shot managed to walk away with a visually striking and symbolically powerful piece. The beautiful German woman s/he photographed looks exactly like the poster directly behind her 😊
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| Paris |
Humor: You'll definitely want to click this pic from Paris to see one of the funniest signs ever!!
I probably looked at this photo half a dozen times before I saw the LOL moment. I'll make it easier for you by dropping a hint:
- Focus on the sign that has four pieces of yellow tape on it.
- See it?
- 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
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| Chicago |
P Is For Vendetta: The next photograph is humorous as well, but it adds a little ass-kicking oomph to the comedy category.
This Chi Town woman ain't playin'! But judging by the expression on her male companion's face, he's probably grateful for that fact 😉
Chicago: it's not just known for its deep-dish pizza anymore.
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| Washington D.C. |
Poignancy: The next picture imbues the very point of political photography—it forces the viewer to stop and think.
This young man exposes Trump and the GOP for the heartless, money-wasting vultures that they are. Comrade Trump wants to build a damn wall, while Comrade Ryan is scrambling to gut medicaid, medicare, social security, welfare, and a myriad of other social programs that serve to assist the poor, the elderly, the disabled, and veterans.
FUCK THE WALL.
Pay more attention to the young man in the picture who NEEDS ramps and less (or zero) attention to the racist snowflakes who apparently get a case of the vapors just from thinking about a Mexican crossing the border. What comes after the wall, comrade? Are we going to start flinging virgins over it as sacrificial appeasements to El Chapo? (Hint: this ain't Skull Island and El Chapo ain't King Kong 😒)
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| Washington D.C. |
Triple Hitter: This photo wins for three YUGE reasons.
1) The lighting is gorgeous and makes for a beautiful backdrop.
2) That's one of my best friends holding up her signage all loud and proud. (Go Amy go!)
3) Click on the photo for an enlarged view and check out what those fallopian tubes are up to 😂 🙌
I was supposed to be in D.C. with her, but I was too ill to go. It is literally the only life event I'll look back on with the coulda-shoulda-wouldas.
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| Washington D.C. |
Snarkaliciousness: This photo—damn! It needs no explanation. All I'll say is: You go girl!
Actually I will say one more thing. Namely, Comrade Ass makes this entire damn nation look like a huuge, bigly loser. Some people take pride in classless vulgarity—they refer to it as not bowing to political correctness!—but the majority of us prefer human decency to sleaze.
One thing I have found to be true about the most vocal proponents of the First Amendment on Twitter is they tend to be less concerned with protecting free speech for its constitutionally intended applications than they are concerned with their right to use free speech to degrade and humiliate others. If you see the words 1a/2a in a Twitter profile, save yourself a headache and block them. All 1a/2a means is "I'm an obnoxious racist and misogynist troll who gets off on demeaning others. Oh and I love guns. Yeehaw."
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| Washington D.C. |
Hell Hath No Fury Like A Girl Scout Scorned: It might be time to reevaluate your life and morals (or lack thereof) when even the Girl Scouts hate you. Or at least that's what a normal person would do. But the Man-Baby-In-Chief?
It won't happen. On the contrary, I doubt any of us will be surprised if he goes on a Twitter rampage against Thin Mints, Samoas, and the little girls who sell them. "The Girl Scouts are huge losers. Their cookie-selling business is going under. Sad." [insert long-suffering sigh]
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| New York City |
Irony: Yes, Trumpel Thinskin, even the introverts hate you enough to protest your funky ass. They might have a hard time saying it, but they can write it out in signage like nobody's business. Which brings me to yet another point...
There was no group of people NOT represented in yesterday's historic, global march. Despite the disadvantage they would have been at had the demonstrations turned riotous, wheelchair-bound and blind citizens protested. Our fellow deaf Americans were so numerous that interpreters were on podiums at every speech.
All races, genders, sexual orientations, religions, ages, and political identities were accounted for. It was the definition of democracy and beauty.
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| heh heh |
Karma: There are so many other photos that should be included here, but I have to end with the one that irritates Comrade Trump most of all: the side-by-side comparisons of Obama's first inauguration to his.
Trump's propagandist #ScarySpicer had the nerve to flatly lie during his first post-inaugural press conference ever by stating that Trump's inauguration was the most heavily attended in history. (Obama's first inauguration actually holds that honor.) When pressed about this lie today on Meet The Press, Kellyanne Conway told Chuck Todd that Spicer hadn't lied, but had provided "alternative facts" 😒
Hold on to your alternative Xanax, peeps. It's gonna be a long, anxiety-ridden four years.
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Thursday, January 19, 2017
Russians Make "In Trump We Trust" Coins
Imagine the screams of "Anti-Christ!" we'd have heard if any nation on earth had minted In Obama We Trust coins. So far I've yet to hear a single conservative call out this newly minted Russian coin as the blasphemy it is. Replacing God with Trump is just... NOT okay!
If this was the only "for instance" out there of Trump being likened to God then it would be easier to chalk it up to a one off, if offensively melodramatic, occurrence. But it's not the first time and will undoubtedly not be the last time either.
God, save us.
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The Anti-Christ & Trump: All Our Research (In Chronological Order)
- The Anti-Christ, Donald Trump & The Media
- Republicans, Blasphemy & The Anti-Christ: This Is Getting Weird
- Hard-right Israeli Politician: Trump Is Messiah
- The Whore of Babylon, The Anti-Christ & Ivanka Trump
- Blasphemy: The Deification of Trump & Putin
- Russians Make "In Trump We Trust" Coins
- "President" 45 Has History Of Comparing Himself To God
Sunday, January 15, 2017
Blasphemy: The Deification of Trump & Putin
Unfortunately, online proclamations such as this one are not uncommon:
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| click to enlarge |
Not to be outdone, Putin has his own worshippers:
The man who ordered the murder of 400,000 Russians is the Defender of Christianity?
Orthodox Russians have elevated Putin to the same god-emperor status that Evangelicals have deified Donald Trump. If that doesn't frighten you, especially given both of their unrepentant perversions of morality, it should.
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The Anti-Christ & Trump: All Our Research (In Chronological Order)
- The Anti-Christ, Donald Trump & The Media
- Republicans, Blasphemy & The Anti-Christ: This Is Getting Weird
- Hard-right Israeli Politician: Trump Is Messiah
- The Whore of Babylon, The Anti-Christ & Ivanka Trump
- Blasphemy: The Deification of Trump & Putin
- Russians Make "In Trump We Trust" Coins
- "President" 45 Has History Of Comparing Himself To God
Saturday, January 14, 2017
Global Humiliation
Just in case you thought Trump was only a national embarrassment, here's the headliner for a Swiss paper a couple days ago 😮
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Wednesday, January 11, 2017
White Americans, Social Media & Accountability
This is a piece I wrote on September 15, 2016. Bear that in mind if it feels dated. Also bear in mind how pathetic it is that America is spiraling downward fast enough for 4 months to even feel "dated"...
The San Bernardino shooting. The Dallas police massacre. The cold, calculated executions of gay men at Orlando's Pulse nightclub...
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All three of those horrific killing sprees were committed by American citizens against other American citizens. While that fact in and of itself isn't as shocking as it should be, the common denominator that sets these specific mass murderers apart from the rest is rather noteworthy. To put a fine if blunt point on it, none of the assailants were white males.
In the United States, mass murders and serial killings have almost exclusively been carried out by members of the most privileged group of Americans amongst us. In terms of domestic terrorists alone, white males kill innocent victims at a rate double that of all Black, Latino, Asian, and Native American men combined. For the first time in... well, EVER... the United States is experiencing a new wave of domestic terrorism perpetrated by males from marginalized groups. Yet few if any are asking why.
Muslims have been a part of the American fabric since the nation's inception. Black men can claim a longer history in this country than most whites can. Access to guns has always been a fundamental right in this here. In other words, very little has changed in the U.S.
This observation is especially marked when we narrow the scope of change to the past thirty or so odd years. Other than the legalization of same-sex marriage, the advent of the internet and, much more recently, an ever-increasing reliance on social media, time has essentially stood still. So what has changed for the marginalized male and, as we saw in San Bernardino, the marginalized female?
Racism and Otherism have always been more American than a freshly baked apple pie served on a flag during a baseball game. Minorities have had to deal with the reality of discrimination, stereotyping, and victim-blaming since before our country's birth. The only difference between then and now is this is the first time in our checkered history where oppressed peoples have been subjected by their oppressors to an every moment of every day assault on their character, dignity, and basic human value. This continuous bombardment of white volatility mixed with white denial and blame-shifting is as traumatizing as it is radicalizing.
The above screenshots were taken from just one conservative site, on one day, four years ago. Since that time, online hatred and defamation against minorities has become frighteningly commonplace. Here's a quick recap of what is now the new norm:
- Innumerable videos of police officers killing unarmed black men and children are available to view online. Instead of feeling mortified and demanding justice for the deceased, large numbers of white people dismiss, trivialize, and even blame the victims for their own murders. This behavior hit an all-time low with the death of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old Cleveland child who was executed by a police officer while playing with a toy gun. Again, a large number of whites blamed the child for his own death, despite the fact his killer had a history of emotional instability and disciplinary reprimands. Imagine the collective rage if a 12-year-old white child named Tommy Rice had been the victim? There wouldn't have been an excuse good enough to appease white America.
- After a series of fatal incidents involving unarmed black people being murdered by police officers, the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter surfaced on social media. Rather than agreeing and stating that black lives do indeed matter, large numbers of whites responded with #BlueLivesMatter, #WhiteLivesMatter, #AllLivesMatter, and so on. In other words, many whites trivialized and deflected a very real trauma in the black community by making the story about them.
- Hate speech against Muslims has been on the rise for a few years now. This hostile outpouring of vengeance and rage has spilled over into the offline world, culminating in a climate where American Muslims are now being routinely attacked in vicious hate crimes. A few days ago, on the 15th anniversary of 9/11, a Muslim woman was set on fire in the middle of New York City; last week two young Muslim mothers were attacked in the New York City borough of Brooklyn by a rabid Trump supporter who punched one of the women in the face, tried to forcibly remove her hijab, and assaulted her 15-month-old child by attempting to knock over his baby stroller.
- Georgetown University has found a marked correlation between the rise of Donald Trump in this election season and hate crimes toward American Muslims. (An excellent article with summations can be found here.) Update: The Southern Poverty Law Center has found the same correlation since Trump's electoral college "win".
Those four bullet points barely scratch the surface of the new Wild West free-for-all that has become the internet and social media. There is also the wall Trump wants to build along the Mexican border, Trump's campaign promise to end birthright citizenship (aimed at people of color), and on the list goes. Compound these major issues with a seemingly endless supply of demeaning articles, posts, and commentary dehumanizing minorities and what you are left with is a recipe for disaster. Or in this case, a recipe for domestic terrorism.
Anonymity of the internet does not negate the lasting ramifications of the words we write or our culpability in having written them. Choosing to overlook volatile comments rather than calling people out for issuing them makes you equally responsible for any tragedy that results from them. WORDS MATTER. The commenters I've highlighted here might not have technically pulled the triggers in San Bernardino, Dallas, and Orlando, but at the end of the day they are as ethically and morally responsible for all of those American deaths as the gunmen themselves.
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Sunday, January 8, 2017
Wednesday, January 4, 2017
Sunday, January 1, 2017
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