By now, we've all seen the photos and videos of this disgusting bullshit, and there's not a whole lot to add. Res ipsa loquitur, as the kids are wont to say in the 'hood.
On the one hand, maybe it's harsh to pick on children; on the other hand, these "children" are awful. No one put a gun to their heads to force those fucking lids on them. Would you care to meet their parents? There's no guessing as to how this happens. It would be a failure of imagination -- and, therefore, given the perilous state of what passes for our free and independent media ecosystem, entirely predictable -- to pass this off as yet another example of racism.
Certainly racism is a driving element, but it's really a matter of asserting upper-middle-class white privilege, on a second-class group. The only way it could be any better if is these losers try to excuse their behavior by saying that they thought Nathan Phillips was Mexican, and hence wanted to build a wall to keep him out, per Dear Leader's impassioned plaints. Build that wall! Lock her up! Derp derp derp! Dee- fence! Unh-unh! Dee-fence!
Christ. What a bunch of morons -- but worse than that, what a bunch of truly useless humans. The world would not miss them, had they never come along, really. Gunny from Full Metal Jacket had it right -- the best part of these doughy losers ran down the back of their mommas' legs, ending up as brown stains on mattresses all over the greater Cincinnati area.
Look at the lead kid in the photo, the one directly harassing Phillips. The group around him clearly are the sort of chumps who will spend the rest of their lives disappointing their parents and inadvertently appearing on Dr. Phil episodes, but it's the lead instigator that's most interesting, most telling of the overall dynamic. Look closely. Who might he remind you of, this fine young cannibal?
I see our newest SCOTUS turd, ol' Rapebro McGambledrunk his own bad self. Not that the kid resembles Kavanaugh physically so much, but he has the same knowing smirk, the smug look on every privileged cocksucker's face that no matter where he goes, no matter what he does, he will never be held accountable for his shit. Never.
He'll get handsy with every girl he meets, once he gets out of Buttsex Academy, until he gets to college, where he'll move up the predator ladder from banging passed-out sorority girls to date-raping indie coeds to straight-up raping a grad student. His one skill in life is spotting people who are too beaten down by the world, too intimidated to ever fight back or tell someone. He also knows that when someone forgets their place and does fight or talk back, daddy has people to handle that shit.
Then he'll "settle down" by engaging and marrying the first girl he takes home to meet the 'rents. They'll like her, because they know what a worthless piece of shit Junior really is, and they'll be relieved that he's managed to find someone with opposable thumbs who's willing to put up with his utter lack of character and intellect.
(The parents put on a brave face for their party friends and bidness associates, but they know goddamned well -- they'll admit it only to themselves in a 4:00 AM fugue or after that third tumbler of Johnnie Black, but they know -- that without that precious money, Junior would be living in a cardboard box, carefully situated in a cinderblock dumpster alcove in a semi-abandoned mall parking lot so as not to be easily seen by passersby. Instead, they're content to raise a serial predator, and a lazy parasite at that.)
Anyhoo, from there he takes his Miami of Ohio catskin and settles into whatever office dad has cleared for him at the construction management outfit, lead procurement assistant to start, but whatever "boss" is unlucky enough to be above him knows from day one that he might as well start looking, because Dad has Junior's back in so many ways. Dad's accountant from way back really runs things at the bidness, so when Dad retires and Junior takes over, all Junior has to do with his days is find some young thing willing to put up with his constant sexual harassment, maybe suck his cock every other Friday just to keep him at bay and not get fired.
It's maybe the most on-the-nose thing this year so far: a group of teenagers, setting out to harass wimmins for their legal reproductive rights, gets distracted by an elderly Native American and decides to chant build the wall to him for some weird reason. The scriptwriters for this reality show aren't even trying any more.
But again, it's not racial, even though race plays a part it in it all. It's about the desire to bully, to inflict suffering on the other or the lesser, even in adulthood. Out of all the many wonders life has to offer, that is what brings joy to these sorts of people -- not just the privilege to own, but the privilege of reminding the owned just who owns them. This includes not only the women and gays and people of color that they bully, but the faceless dogsbodies who barter their quiet dignity for a few more shekels in serving monsters. This world turns just as much on their effort.
It's tempting to say something cheap and nasty, along the lines of Gee, it'd be a real shame if their bus slid into a deep ravine on a remote stretch of road, and by the time the rescue team reaches the crash site a month later, the only one remaining has eaten all the others to survive, but no.
May they all live the too-long and predictably tedious lives of privileged failsons the world over: binge drinking turning into early alcoholism in a futile attempt to cloud the knowledge that no one respects or listens to them, except insofar as they can be relied on as a conduit for daddy's ill-gotten pelf; a smattering of failed bidness ventures, interesting only in how different they all are, and yet how similar they are; pregnancy and lawsuit scares with his various female subordinates, resulting in an increased level of drinking in order to try to "conceal" his actions from his hapless wife/accomplice, who knows but pretends not to know, if you know what I mean; liver explodes from chronic abuse at age fifty-six, leaving debt and penury for the aforementioned accomplice and the two-point-five failchildren of their own. The cycle continues on, eternally.
In the meantime, one can only hope that some individual out there gets the opportunity to give these little shits the beatdown they sorely need and deserve. And these are your future political enemies, so take heed. There is no debating them, no convincing them, no winning them over. There is only recognizing them for what they really are, to the marrow, and treating them as such. Fuck them.
[Update 1/20/19 4:30 PM PST: As if on cue, RodFlanders Dreher puts down his Benedict Option rosary for a second to add some context to the fray. Supposedly the protesting Native Americans approached the MAGA kids, and supposedly there were a few "Black Hebrew" militants spouting some homophobic Farrakhan-style insults. (You can be sure that no teenaged boy attending a conservative all-male Catholic school has ever bullied another kid by calling him a faggot.)
There is certainly some room for nuance, if what Dreher says is true. Phillips apparently has a bit of a history as a provocateur of sorts. But, uh, you can't really lean on the they're just kids! excuse for this one. They put on the MAGA drag and decided it'd be a lark to head to the nation's capital and join in on protesting something they know nothing about. They're punks, straight up, bred and groomed as such.
Indoctrinating children and teenagers into political thought is a tricky thing -- unless your real goal is not to provide them a balanced view of how the world works in all its complexities, but to indoctrinate them fully. Doing so regarding an issue such as abortion, with teenagers who are (one presumes) virgins, is irresponsible.
It's easy to be adamant about a "principle" predicated on things you know nothing about. For a kid who hasn't had sex or even a meaningful relationship, and therefore no concept of how those things change one's perspective on the complexities of life, it is merely an exercise in showing them how to harden their ignorance. And make no mistake, it is not accidental. This is the most effective way to keep them in the ranks, and ensure that junior assholes grow up to follow in their parents' hoof-steps.
And you can bet that when Junior gets to college and knocks up some sorority dingbat, or his sister gets knocked up by a faithful conservatard just like himself (or better yet, by one of those people) Junior or his mom will take a short break from their sidewalk protests to indulge in the clinic's services. Happens all the time.
But again, these poor innocent impressionable children chose to get in the game. Turns out it's a contact sport. It's interesting how some kids get the default presumption of innocence, while others don't, innit? Funny how that works.
Race and political protesting and the "debate" over a legally established reproductive right are all factors in this. But Abigail Nussbaum at LGM hits it directly on the head as to what this is really all about:
Again, you want to know where Brett Kavanaugh comes from, there's your answer. If they hadn't been caught on camera, they'd already be back home laughing about the whole thing. They learn nothing, because they don't have to. They'll always have schmucks like Rod Dreher to jump to their defense, for no goddamned reason at all, except to be witnessed as a principled contrarian.
People don't really think much about the dynamics of privilege in this (or any) society, because the people who don't have it don't know about the kinds of rewards and assumptions it entails and confers, and the people who do have it don't advertise those advantages. Indeed, many of the next-generation scions of privilege probably have only the fuzziest of ideas of what the differences are -- they just know that they have it, and the people who don't have it don't deserve it. Again, this is learned and socially reinforced behavior.
Does that mean we write these kids off forever and ever, amen, for the light social crime of being caught on film being a dick? No, of course not. But it is incumbent upon them now to correct their behavior, to prove their detractors wrong. If even one of these sweet little darlings ever goes on to a career that involves helping someone other than themselves, I'll apologize.
But I don't think anyone is holding their breath.]
On the one hand, maybe it's harsh to pick on children; on the other hand, these "children" are awful. No one put a gun to their heads to force those fucking lids on them. Would you care to meet their parents? There's no guessing as to how this happens. It would be a failure of imagination -- and, therefore, given the perilous state of what passes for our free and independent media ecosystem, entirely predictable -- to pass this off as yet another example of racism.
Certainly racism is a driving element, but it's really a matter of asserting upper-middle-class white privilege, on a second-class group. The only way it could be any better if is these losers try to excuse their behavior by saying that they thought Nathan Phillips was Mexican, and hence wanted to build a wall to keep him out, per Dear Leader's impassioned plaints. Build that wall! Lock her up! Derp derp derp! Dee- fence! Unh-unh! Dee-fence!
Christ. What a bunch of morons -- but worse than that, what a bunch of truly useless humans. The world would not miss them, had they never come along, really. Gunny from Full Metal Jacket had it right -- the best part of these doughy losers ran down the back of their mommas' legs, ending up as brown stains on mattresses all over the greater Cincinnati area.
Look at the lead kid in the photo, the one directly harassing Phillips. The group around him clearly are the sort of chumps who will spend the rest of their lives disappointing their parents and inadvertently appearing on Dr. Phil episodes, but it's the lead instigator that's most interesting, most telling of the overall dynamic. Look closely. Who might he remind you of, this fine young cannibal?
I see our newest SCOTUS turd, ol' Rapebro McGambledrunk his own bad self. Not that the kid resembles Kavanaugh physically so much, but he has the same knowing smirk, the smug look on every privileged cocksucker's face that no matter where he goes, no matter what he does, he will never be held accountable for his shit. Never.
He'll get handsy with every girl he meets, once he gets out of Buttsex Academy, until he gets to college, where he'll move up the predator ladder from banging passed-out sorority girls to date-raping indie coeds to straight-up raping a grad student. His one skill in life is spotting people who are too beaten down by the world, too intimidated to ever fight back or tell someone. He also knows that when someone forgets their place and does fight or talk back, daddy has people to handle that shit.
Then he'll "settle down" by engaging and marrying the first girl he takes home to meet the 'rents. They'll like her, because they know what a worthless piece of shit Junior really is, and they'll be relieved that he's managed to find someone with opposable thumbs who's willing to put up with his utter lack of character and intellect.
(The parents put on a brave face for their party friends and bidness associates, but they know goddamned well -- they'll admit it only to themselves in a 4:00 AM fugue or after that third tumbler of Johnnie Black, but they know -- that without that precious money, Junior would be living in a cardboard box, carefully situated in a cinderblock dumpster alcove in a semi-abandoned mall parking lot so as not to be easily seen by passersby. Instead, they're content to raise a serial predator, and a lazy parasite at that.)
Anyhoo, from there he takes his Miami of Ohio catskin and settles into whatever office dad has cleared for him at the construction management outfit, lead procurement assistant to start, but whatever "boss" is unlucky enough to be above him knows from day one that he might as well start looking, because Dad has Junior's back in so many ways. Dad's accountant from way back really runs things at the bidness, so when Dad retires and Junior takes over, all Junior has to do with his days is find some young thing willing to put up with his constant sexual harassment, maybe suck his cock every other Friday just to keep him at bay and not get fired.
It's maybe the most on-the-nose thing this year so far: a group of teenagers, setting out to harass wimmins for their legal reproductive rights, gets distracted by an elderly Native American and decides to chant build the wall to him for some weird reason. The scriptwriters for this reality show aren't even trying any more.
But again, it's not racial, even though race plays a part it in it all. It's about the desire to bully, to inflict suffering on the other or the lesser, even in adulthood. Out of all the many wonders life has to offer, that is what brings joy to these sorts of people -- not just the privilege to own, but the privilege of reminding the owned just who owns them. This includes not only the women and gays and people of color that they bully, but the faceless dogsbodies who barter their quiet dignity for a few more shekels in serving monsters. This world turns just as much on their effort.
It's tempting to say something cheap and nasty, along the lines of Gee, it'd be a real shame if their bus slid into a deep ravine on a remote stretch of road, and by the time the rescue team reaches the crash site a month later, the only one remaining has eaten all the others to survive, but no.
May they all live the too-long and predictably tedious lives of privileged failsons the world over: binge drinking turning into early alcoholism in a futile attempt to cloud the knowledge that no one respects or listens to them, except insofar as they can be relied on as a conduit for daddy's ill-gotten pelf; a smattering of failed bidness ventures, interesting only in how different they all are, and yet how similar they are; pregnancy and lawsuit scares with his various female subordinates, resulting in an increased level of drinking in order to try to "conceal" his actions from his hapless wife/accomplice, who knows but pretends not to know, if you know what I mean; liver explodes from chronic abuse at age fifty-six, leaving debt and penury for the aforementioned accomplice and the two-point-five failchildren of their own. The cycle continues on, eternally.
In the meantime, one can only hope that some individual out there gets the opportunity to give these little shits the beatdown they sorely need and deserve. And these are your future political enemies, so take heed. There is no debating them, no convincing them, no winning them over. There is only recognizing them for what they really are, to the marrow, and treating them as such. Fuck them.
[Update 1/20/19 4:30 PM PST: As if on cue, Rod
There is certainly some room for nuance, if what Dreher says is true. Phillips apparently has a bit of a history as a provocateur of sorts. But, uh, you can't really lean on the they're just kids! excuse for this one. They put on the MAGA drag and decided it'd be a lark to head to the nation's capital and join in on protesting something they know nothing about. They're punks, straight up, bred and groomed as such.
Indoctrinating children and teenagers into political thought is a tricky thing -- unless your real goal is not to provide them a balanced view of how the world works in all its complexities, but to indoctrinate them fully. Doing so regarding an issue such as abortion, with teenagers who are (one presumes) virgins, is irresponsible.
It's easy to be adamant about a "principle" predicated on things you know nothing about. For a kid who hasn't had sex or even a meaningful relationship, and therefore no concept of how those things change one's perspective on the complexities of life, it is merely an exercise in showing them how to harden their ignorance. And make no mistake, it is not accidental. This is the most effective way to keep them in the ranks, and ensure that junior assholes grow up to follow in their parents' hoof-steps.
And you can bet that when Junior gets to college and knocks up some sorority dingbat, or his sister gets knocked up by a faithful conservatard just like himself (or better yet, by one of those people) Junior or his mom will take a short break from their sidewalk protests to indulge in the clinic's services. Happens all the time.
But again, these poor innocent impressionable children chose to get in the game. Turns out it's a contact sport. It's interesting how some kids get the default presumption of innocence, while others don't, innit? Funny how that works.
Race and political protesting and the "debate" over a legally established reproductive right are all factors in this. But Abigail Nussbaum at LGM hits it directly on the head as to what this is really all about:
For the most part, people don’t get better because they want to be better. They get better because being bad has negative consequences. And when it comes to white men of a certain class, those consequences simply don’t exist.Exactly. That's why Dreher is cordially welcomed to stuff his pieties into a burlap sack and shove them up his cornhole. The parents of these "kids" pay ten grand a year for this shit; this is learned behavior, between the parents, the school, and peer reinforcement. Your babe-in-the-woods act fools no one, Rod. We all went to school, we all read Lord of the Flies, and we all know how teenaged boys really are. Especially when they come from privilege, which is really the privilege to never be held accountable.
Again, you want to know where Brett Kavanaugh comes from, there's your answer. If they hadn't been caught on camera, they'd already be back home laughing about the whole thing. They learn nothing, because they don't have to. They'll always have schmucks like Rod Dreher to jump to their defense, for no goddamned reason at all, except to be witnessed as a principled contrarian.
People don't really think much about the dynamics of privilege in this (or any) society, because the people who don't have it don't know about the kinds of rewards and assumptions it entails and confers, and the people who do have it don't advertise those advantages. Indeed, many of the next-generation scions of privilege probably have only the fuzziest of ideas of what the differences are -- they just know that they have it, and the people who don't have it don't deserve it. Again, this is learned and socially reinforced behavior.
Does that mean we write these kids off forever and ever, amen, for the light social crime of being caught on film being a dick? No, of course not. But it is incumbent upon them now to correct their behavior, to prove their detractors wrong. If even one of these sweet little darlings ever goes on to a career that involves helping someone other than themselves, I'll apologize.
But I don't think anyone is holding their breath.]
1 comment:
Yes x100. Nice rant.
Post a Comment