Category: Abuse

Transphobia and Right-Wing Paranoia Are a Dangerous Mix

https://www.readtpa.com/p/transphobia-and-right-wing-paranoia

Thanks to Ali for the link to this article.   As the article mentions, the trans scare is simply because some people are not manly enough or feminine enough to fit in with other random people’s ideas of what men or women should look like.   As I have posted that leads to cis women being accused of being trans and assaulted trying to use the bathroom.    Hugs.

 

The Barbie movie was fun, but the right-wing reaction to it shows that we’re living in a scary time for anyone who doesn’t fit neatly into a box.

PARKER MOLLOY

JUL 31, 2023

Hello readers. Parker here.

I finally saw the Barbie movie over the weekend. I liked it! Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie are both fantastic, and it was good fun all around.

But today, I want to talk about something tangentially related to the movie (I promise that this will be my last post about Barbie or Oppenheimer… probably, at least). So, if you’ve seen the movie, you’ll probably recognize this actress as Doctor Barbie.

Hari Nef attends the World Premiere of “Barbie” at Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall on July 09, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/WireImage)

That’s Hari Nef. She’s transgender. This doesn’t come up at all in the movie. Still, Fox News went so far as to claim that Barbie was pushing a “trans agenda” by… uh… allowing a trans woman to have a job. “They gave Barbie the Bud Light treatment,” said a Fox guest, who was both upset that a trans woman was in the movie and upset that the movie’s marketing didn’t involve mentions that Nef is trans (though, I’m sure if the movie had included that in the marketing, she’d have complained about this being shoved “in her face;” the truth is that these ghouls just don’t want trans people to exist in society at all).

And this was kind of an ongoing thing on the right… though it created a few funny situations. For instance:

“Last I checked the Barbie movie is promoting biological women,” wrote Dom Lucre (a.k.a. Dominick McGee) on Twitter X. “I can’t disagree with little girls being influenced to remain a girl.” Attached to the tweet post was a photo of six of the film’s Barbies, including Nef (2nd from the right, wearing the sailor hat).

Here’s a clearer picture:

People were quick to note that a.) you have to be truly deranged to see a movie and immediately try to shoehorn it into your obsession with trans people1, and b.) that there is literally a trans woman in this very photo. Har har, he he, etc. Very funny stuff.

But I wasn’t interested in his post so much as I was interested in the specific genre of unhinged responses from his supporters.

Lots of his followers correctly deduced that there was a trans woman in the movie. What they didn’t do was accurately identify which character was being played by a trans woman. Let’s look at some examples (click the images to expand them).

As you can see, you’ve got a mix of people convinced that the actress playing the character on the left in the green dress, Ana Cruz Kayne, is trans. Others are convinced that Margot Robbie, herself, is transgender. And then, just for good measure, there were people insisting that not only is Robbie secretly a trans woman, but that Ryan Gosling, who has been on TV since he was 13 years old, is secretly a trans man.

None of those people are trans. It wouldn’t be a big deal if they were, but they’re not. This is awkward, yet instructive.

Are you familiar with “transvestigators?”

If not, buckle up, because it’s going to be a ride.

You may see the certainty of the people in the above screenshots calling Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling secretly trans and think, “Oh wow, what strange one-off claims!” And it’d be nice if that were true. Unfortunately, there’s a whole bunch of people on the internet who are absolutely convinced that pretty much every person in Hollywood is trans.

Here’s a video by Jamie Raines, a trans man, about the “transvestigator” conspiracy theory:

And here’s a longer video, by trans woman Mia Mulder, that contains even more examples and gets at the core beliefs of the conspiracy theorists:

And as Mia and Jamie both highlight in their videos, the targets of these sorts of “transvestigations” are often some of the world’s most attractive people. Like, oh, Brad Pitt was born female? And Angelina Jolie is male? Gisele Bündchen and Tom Brady, both trans? Sure! Why not?

Here’s the kind of stuff “transvestigators” will post online as evidence of someone’s transness. It’s pretty bizarre stuff. In an effort to out secret trans people, they begin seeing trans people everywhere they look. When all you have is a hammer…

A collection of “transvestigation” screenshots from Mia’s YouTube video (above)

But setting aside how weird and creepy it is for people to be staring at photos of complete strangers like, “Oh yeah, as you can see from the shoulder-to-hip ratio, that person is clearly…,” you may be wondering why this matters. After all, the “transvestigator” conspiracy theorists are a very small group of people. They’re not representative of your typical person who is opposed to trans rights, and they’re certainly not representative of society. That’s true. Still, this all ties together.

“We can always tell” … except for when they can’t.

The seemingly common belief that one can “always tell” who is and isn’t transgender is not only flawed but dangerous when combined with rising anti-trans sentiment and policies. And it’s not just harmful to trans individuals, but to anyone who doesn’t look “man-enough” or “woman-enough” to be a “real” man or woman — something that is itself a moving target that’s changed throughout history.

It’s built on a narrative that has led to women being accosted in restrooms, harassed on the streets, and physically assaulted. It’s a narrative that has seen little girls playing sports falsely accused of being “boys.”

Transphobia affects anyone who doesn’t look enough like complete strangers’ ideas of what a man or woman should look like, and that’s why we all should care about just how intense the anti-trans sentiment is getting right now in society.

Transphobia is a belief that is being used to police bodies, scrutinize appearances, and justify discrimination and violence — all in the name of “safety” or faux concern for “the children.” This is all by design, since the current anti-trans movement has never actually been just about trans people. It’s all part of a larger effort to roll back rights for the broader LGBTQ community, women, people of color, the disabled community, and more.

Just look at this June 2015 “Issue Analysis” for “Understanding and Responding to the Transgender Movement,” put out by the anti-LGBTQ Family Research Council. Right from the start, it calls feminism, the gay rights movement, and the trans rights movement part of the same “assault on the sexes.”

Far-Right Figures Are Behind Florida’s Slavery Lessons

Far-Right Figures Are Behind Florida’s Slavery Lessons

You don’t say?  What a surprise?  People who say slavery was not all bad are on the far right?  Just what we already knew.   Hugs

Mother Jones reports:

Florida education officials William Allen and Frances Presley Rice, members of the group that crafted the standards, released a statement in response to the backlash. “The intent of this particular benchmark clarification is to show that some slaves developed highly specialized trades from which they benefitted. This is factual and well documented,” the pair wrote. “Any attempt to reduce slaves to just victims of oppression fails to recognize their strength, courage and resiliency during a difficult time in American history.”

The statement includes several examples of such historic figures, including blacksmiths, shoemakers, fishing and shipping industry workers, tailors, and ironically enough, teachers. But, it appears these Florida educators didn’t do their homework.

As critics were quick to note, many of the “examples” listed in the statement were never slaves, or they launched their respective professions only after gaining their freedom. The Tampa Bay Times pointed out several examples, including Booker T. Washington, listed in the statement as a teacher. “Washington was enslaved but did not gain his skills until after being freed at age 9,” the paper notes.

Kyle Mantyla reports at Right Wing Watch: 

Right Wing Watch had written about Rice years ago when she was chairman of the National Black Republican Association, an organization that once ran radio ads and erected billboards falsely claiming that civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. “was a Republican.”

In 2008, the NBRA produced a series of radio ads declaring that “the Democratic Party is a racist party” and attacking then-Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama for being “an arrogant elitist who turned his back on poor blacks and his own country.”

In the wake of Obama’s election, the NBRA took it upon itself to issue a “White Guilt Emancipation Declaration” in which the organization unilaterally declared that all “white American citizens are now, henceforth and forever more free of White Guilt” because the nation had elected “a socialist who does not share the values of average Americans and will use the office of the presidency to turn America into a failed socialist nation.”

 

 

JustDucky8 days ago
Thumbnail
Houndentenor  Marc8 days ago

Holocaust denial is rampant on the right. This is just a repackaging of their tactics.

 

Editorial | On slavery and race, DeSantis shows his true colors

Editorial | On slavery and race, DeSantis shows his true colors
Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during the Family Leadership Summit, July 14, 2023, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)

Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during the Family Leadership Summit, July 14, 2023, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)

By ORLANDO SENTINEL AND SOUTH FLORIDA SUN SENTINEL EDITORIAL BOARDS | insight@orlandosentinel.com |

PUBLISHED: July 26, 2023 at 1:25 p.m. | UPDATED: July 28, 2023 at 4:43 a.m.

Long before Moms for Liberty, there were the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

Their passion and influence kept generations of Southern children ignorant of how slavery had caused the Civil War and how cruel it had been. The “war between the states” was rather over “states’ rights” and tariffs. Confederate soldiers were the heroes of a “Lost Cause.” Kindly masters had been considerate to contented slaves.

Reconstruction was bad. The Ku Klux Klan was a benevolent civic organization.

The Daughters didn’t have to pull the truth from shelves. Its influence with state boards kept offending books from ever being printed or bought. When a University of Florida professor wrote that the South had been more in the wrong in the Civil War, the Daughters of the Confederacy got him fired.

In Florida, more than a century later, Southern revisionism is at it again.

Slaves with skills

To nationwide scorn and well-deserved derision, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Board of Education has approved a required Black history curriculum with “clarifications” that trivialize slavery and distort the record on racial violence.

Here’s one of them: “Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”

Another is worse: “Instruction includes acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans but is not limited to (the) 1906 Atlanta Race Riot, 1919 Washington, D.C., Race Riot, 1920 Ocoee Massacre, 1921 Tulsa Massacre and the 1923 Rosewood Massacre” (emphasis added).

And by?

In each of those massacres, Black residents were not the instigators. It is a fraud on history and a libel on them to imply that they were. There were cases where residents of African American communities took up arms to defend their homes, their families and themselves. But they were guarding against armed mobs, seething with racism, bent on arson and murder.

Feeding a fiction

From Donald Trump on down, contemporary Americans playing on race for political advantage have been trying to denigrate the Black Lives Matter movement by accusing it of responsibility for violence. The “and by” phrase, unnecessary and gratuitous and now officially part of the Florida social studies curriculum, feeds that fiction.

William Maxwell, a Vietnam-era Army veteran and an African-American resident of Ocoee for two decades, kneels at the gravesite of July Perry in Greenwood Cemetery. Perry, who encouraged blacks to register to vote, was lynched by a white mob after the Election Day Massacre.
Stephen Hudak/Orlando SentinelWilliam Maxwell, a Vietnam-era veteran and resident of Ocoee for two decades, kneels at the gravesite of July Perry in Greenwood Cemetery. Perry, who encouraged Blacks to register to vote, was lynched by a white mob after the Ocoee Massacre in 1920.

The mob that ravaged Ocoee in Orange County, where 25 homes burned and at least eight people died, was incited by two Black men attempting to vote. The massacre at Rosewood, which erased the settlement, was set off by a married white woman’s claim that a Black man had attacked her. The official state history cites Black survivors, who said the assailant was a white lover. (For a link to the Sentinel’s 100th-anniversary coverage of the Ocoee Massacre and images of our 1920s coverage, please visit our web site at orlandosentinel.com/opinion. We’re making that historic coverage, along with other fascinating local history, free for everyone this week.)

For Black history, Florida’s previous standards were extensive and objective, unlike Southern propaganda of the 1900s.

  • The Orlando Sentinel's coverage the week of the Ocoee massacre barely acknowledged the terror and destruction wreaked on the Black residents of the town after one prominent African American leader attempted to vote on Nov. 2, 1920.
  • The Orlando Sentinel's coverage the week of the Ocoee massacre barely acknowledged the terror and destruction wreaked on the Black residents of the town after one prominent African American leader attempted to vote on Nov. 2, 1920.
  • The Orlando Sentinel's coverage the week of the Ocoee massacre barely acknowledged the terror and destruction wreaked on the Black residents of the town after one prominent African American leader attempted to vote on Nov. 2, 1920.
  • The Orlando Sentinel's coverage the week of the Ocoee massacre barely acknowledged the terror and destruction wreaked on the Black residents of the town after one prominent African American leader attempted to vote on Nov. 2, 1920.
  • The Orlando Sentinel's coverage the week of the Ocoee massacre barely acknowledged the terror and destruction wreaked on the Black residents of the town after one prominent African American leader attempted to vote on Nov. 2, 1920.
  • The Orlando Sentinel's coverage the week of the Ocoee massacre barely acknowledged the terror and destruction wreaked on the Black residents of the town after one prominent African American leader attempted to vote on Nov. 2, 1920.
  • The Orlando Sentinel's coverage the week of the Ocoee massacre barely acknowledged the terror and destruction wreaked on the Black residents of the town after one prominent African American leader attempted to vote on Nov. 2, 1920.
  • The Orlando Sentinel's coverage the week of the Ocoee massacre barely acknowledged the terror and destruction wreaked on the Black residents of the town after one prominent African American leader attempted to vote on Nov. 2, 1920.
  • The Orlando Sentinel's coverage the week of the Ocoee massacre barely acknowledged the terror and destruction wreaked on the Black residents of the town after one prominent African American leader attempted to vote on Nov. 2, 1920.
  • The Orlando Sentinel's coverage the week of the Ocoee massacre barely acknowledged the terror and destruction wreaked on the Black residents of the town after one prominent African American leader attempted to vote on Nov. 2, 1920.
  • The Orlando Sentinel's coverage the week of the Ocoee massacre barely acknowledged the terror and destruction wreaked on the Black residents of the town after one prominent African American leader attempted to vote on Nov. 2, 1920.

1 of 5

These images reflect the contemporary coverage of the Ocoee massacre by the Orlando Sentinel.

But one rotten apple can spoil a barrel, and this one has two. There was nothing beneficial about slavery, except to the masters. When slaves learned a trade, such as blacksmithing, carpentry, or caulking wooden ships, as Frederick Douglass did, it was not for their benefit but for the convenience and profit of their masters. And many of them arrived on these shores with those skills already mastered.

Vice President Kamala Harris accurately described slavery in her speech at Jacksonville, which was aimed at DeSantis without mentioning him.

“Adults know what slavery really involved,” Harris said. “It involved rape. It involved torture. It involved taking a baby from their mother. It involved some of the worst examples of depriving people of humanity … It involved subjecting to people the requirement that they would think of themselves and be thought as less than human… How is it that anyone could suggest that in the midst of these atrocities … that there was some benefit?”

A defense from DeSantis

After DeSantis first said he “wasn’t involved” in writing the standards, he is now defending them.

This would be a good time for him to begin admitting he was wrong. His critics are feasting on this one.

DeSantis owns this horrific mistake, even if he didn’t personally write the standards. It is his education department, run by his appointees.

Cues are obvious in the dog whistles he’s sent. He banned critical race theory in schools (where it wasn’t even being taught.) He signed a law meant to banish all talk of the relevance of past or present racism from Florida schools and workplaces. He’s made it easier to purge school library shelves of innocuous books some people found to be objectionable because they reflected other cultures or talked about the history of civil rights.

The Department of Education’s attempt to document the “personal benefit” issue backfired. Of the 16 historic Black people it cited, as many as half had never been enslaved, according to the Tampa Bay Times. Others, notably the educator Booker T. Washington, acquired their skills after they were freed.

Douglass’ master kept most of the money he earned caulking ships in the Baltimore yards. Fearful of being sold South, Douglass made his escape to become an eloquent, world-famous advocate for the millions in chains.

His memoir recalled how the master, Hugh Auld, rebuked his wife for teaching him the alphabet when he was 11.

Literacy would “forever unfit him for the duties of slave,” Auld said. He should “know nothing but the will of his master and learn to obey it.” This harsh reality, which viewed high-quality education for African Americans as a threat to Caucasian control of society, echoed for decades as Black students were forced into segregated schools. Even now, some schools in high-poverty areas with large minority populations can lack access to options such as advance placement or International Baccalaureate programs.

This is the hideous legacy DeSantis is trying to revive. And no matter how much he squirms and dodges, he can’t erase the stain his actions are leaving on Florida’s reputation.

Coming later this week

DeSantis’ attempts to weaponize racism are turning Florida into a laughingstock and, at long last, turning fellow Republicans and donors against him. Why did it take so long?

The Orlando Sentinel Editorial Board includes Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson, Opinion Editor Krys Fluker and Viewpoints Editor Jay Reddick. The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney and Anderson. Send letters to insight@orlandosentinel.com.

Dear White Women

This has great CC for the hearing impaired. Hugs

So many of the horrible things happening in America right now, like teaching our children slaves were lucky to learn skills, or allowing women to bleed out in hospital parking lots, or pushing migrants into rivers to drown, could be stopped by the women who look exactly like me.

Michigan bans use of conversion therapy on LGBTQ youth under measure signed by governor

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/michigan-bans-conversion-therapy-lgbtq-youth-measure-signed-101680267

Being gay, lesbian, trans, or any other thing non-cis straight is not a sickness that needs to be cured.  There is so much evidence, medical science, peer reviewed studies that show that being LGBTQ+ is normal and that conversion therapy is extremely harmful.   Dismissing all that evidence and data simply based on a belief in a book written over a century 2,500 years ago by people who did not even know about germ therapy and whose prophet preached it was not needed to wash your hands doesn’t make any sense.  How does that make any rational sense to ignore all the medical  / scientific advancements over this time span.  These people that wrote those scriptures only knew what was understood at the time.  Hell they thought the color of reeds seen by breeding livestock would determine the color of the offspring .  There is no way in the modern age we should allow those ideas to harm the children of today, or use those writings to harm whole segments of society.  This is 2023 and we know how damaging it is to try to convert a person’s inborn attributes.  If you are straight, imagine going through a program to make you attracted to the same sex.  What would it take for you to accept you were wrong and you now love the body parts that are the same as yours?  I wish all states took this approach and actually cared about the kids instead of the hate rage. Hugs

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed legislation Wednesday that prohibits mental health professionals from using so-called conversion therapy on LGBTQ minors

ByJOEY CAPPELLETTI Associated Press
July 26, 2023, 3:45 PM
 
 
Michigan Conversion Therapy
FILE – Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer speaks at the SelectUSA Investment Summit, May 4, 2023, in Oxon Hill, Md. The scientifically discredited practice of so-called conversion therapy, which aims to “convert” LGBTQ+ people to h…Show more
The Associated Press

LANSING, Mich. — The scientifically discredited practice of so-called conversion therapy, which aims to “convert” LGBTQ+ people to heterosexuality or traditional gender expectations, is now banned for minors in Michigan under legislation signed Wednesday by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Michigan becomes the 22nd state to outlaw conversion therapy, which state lawmakers defined as any practice or treatment by a mental health professional that seeks to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity. That does not include counseling that provides assistance to people undergoing a gender transition.

Whitmer, who is the mother of a member of the LGBTQ community, said in a statement that banning the “horrific practice,” of conversion therapy was necessary to making Michigan a place “where you can be who you are.” She signed an executive directive in 2021 prohibiting the use of state and federal funds for conversion therapy on minors.

An estimated 15% of LGBTQ minors in Michigan have reported that they have been threatened with or subjected to conversion therapy as of 2022, according to the advocacy group The Trevor Project.

LGBTQ rights advocates have decried the practice for years, citing research suggesting the practice can increase the risk of suicide and depression.

The ban was approved by the Michigan Senate last month in a 21-15 vote — with one Republican siding with Democrats — after previously being passed by the state House. Republicans in opposition said the legislation could interfere with the work of mental health professionals.

Protecting the rights of Michigan’s LGBTQ community has been a priority for Democrats since they took control of the state government earlier this year. In March, lawmakers amended the state’s civil rights act to codify LGBTQ+ protections and permanently outlaw discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity in the state.

Lawmakers in Minnesota, where Democrats also seized control earlier this year, passed a similar ban on conversion therapy in April. In Arizona, Gov. Katie Hobbs issued an executive order last month that prohibits state agencies from using funds to promote or facilitate conversion therapy.

The Human Rights Campaign declared a state of emergency for the LGBTQ+ community in May in response to what it called an “unprecedented and dangerous” spike in discriminatory legislation sweeping statehouses this year. The emergency declaration is the first in the 43-year history of the HRC.

 

Marjorie Taylor Greene says it’s OK to show naked Hunter Biden pics because of LGBTQ+ people

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/07/marjorie-taylor-greene-says-its-ok-to-show-naked-hunter-biden-pics-because-of-lgbtq-people/

How does this make any sense?  What is the causal effect between gay people existing and showing revenge nudes in public of someone without their consent.   She asks why people are upset over her pushing them on her supporters and displaying them in a committee hearing but not upset Hunter put them on the internet.   Because Marge, they are his pictures or him / his genitals so he has the right to do that, you don’t have that right without his permission.   Plus the Federal House of Representatives is not the place for such disrespect and disregard for decorum.   This is again an internet troll trying to justify doing something that hurts others for her own gratification.  Hugs

It’s OK for Greene to send a link to a pornographic video to her followers because some schools have a book about a penguin with two dads.

By Alex Bollinger Tuesday, July 25, 2023

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R) laughs when asked if she feels any responsibility for the deaths caused by her vaccine misinformation.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R) laughs when asked if she feels any responsibility for the deaths caused by her vaccine misinformation.Photo: Screenshot

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) continues to face blowback for her decision to show naked pictures of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden at a House Oversight Committee hearing last week, and now she’s arguing that it was OK to show the pictures in Congress because LGBTQ+ kids exist.

“The same people offended by this,” she wrote, sharing a screenshot of the pictures with some parts blacked out, “support genital mutilation of children, sexualizing kids with LGBTQ agenda books in school, support men dressed in drag showing their genitals to kids at parades and drag shows and would give anything to have this kind of proof to use against” Donald Trump’s elder sons Eric and Donald Jr.

RELATED STORIES

Marjorie Taylor Greene accuses Barack Obama of supporting adult content in schools

He said he opposed book bans, and she responded by sharing out-of-context pictures from sex education books.

———————————————————————————————————-

“But they aren’t offended at Hunter Biden for making sex videos with prostitutes and uploading his sex tapes onto porn sites himself.”

Last week, the Republican House Oversight Committee held a hearing that was ostensibly about two IRS whistleblowers who claimed that the Department of Justice slow-walked prosecution of the president’s son over a tax matter because he was receiving preferential treatment.

House Republicans convened the hearing despite the fact that Hunter Biden agreed to plea guilty to two charges of failing to pay federal income taxes and one charge related to gun possession in an agreement with federal prosecutors this past June. He does not work in the White House, and he holds no public office.

The hearing devolved when Greene claimed to have pictures of Hunter Biden allegedly having sex with sex workers, screenshots from a video he uploaded to a website, and she showed the pictures at the Oversight hearing. Democrats were quick to point out that the pictures didn’t prove wrongdoing and that they’re a form of the “pornographic content” that Greene herself has built a reputation of opposing, even referring to sex education books as pornography and saying that they “groom” children.

“Today’s hearing is like most of the majority’s investigations and hearings: a lot of allegations, zero proof, no receipts, but apparently some d**k pics,” out Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) said at the hearing.

Greene then sent a fundraising email to her supporters that included a link to a video with the nude pictures of Hunter Biden, sharing the pornographic images with a large audience of unknown ages, leading to accusations of possibly distributing pornography to minors.

She has faced criticism since last week for her actions. Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Abbe David Lowell, filed a complaint with the House Ethics Committee, saying that Greene “lowered herself, and by extension the entire House of Representatives, to a new level of abhorrent behavior that blatantly violates House Ethics rules and standards of official conduct.”

“Rather than evaluate the credibility of the IRS agents’ testimony or review our tax laws, Ms. Greene sought to use the power of her office to generate some clicks online, fundraise, and provide sensationalist clips for Fox News at the expense of harassing and embarrassing Mr. Biden, a private citizen,” Lowell wrote. “This political stunt by Ms. Greene will go down as a historic event unbecoming of any member of Congress and beneath the dignity of the House of Representatives.”

In her tweet, Greene claimed that “the corrupt DOJ has not prosecuted Hunter Biden” even though he was charged by federal prosecutors last month and agreed to a plea deal with the DOJ.

The bad samaritans: How a lack of empathy among Republicans is a threat to us all

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/07/the-bad-samaritans-how-a-lack-of-empathy-among-republicans-is-a-threat-to-us-all/

Empathy is the life force of our humanity, and ultimately it is the key to our recovery during the current crisis in our country.
Commentary by  
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD - MARCH 6, 2014: Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
NATIONAL HARBOR, MD – MARCH 6, 2014: Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).Photo: Shutterstock

“Under the Hitler regime…the most important thing that I learned…was that bigotry and hatred are not the most urgent problems. The most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful, and the most tragic problem is silence.” -Joachim Prinz, Rabbi of Berlin, exiled in 1937 to the United States, from his speech August 28, 1963 in Washington, DC

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” –Voltaire

 

RELATED STORIES

 

Who will fight for those left behind? Why these LGBTQ+ activists won’t leave Florida  

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/07/who-will-fight-for-those-left-behind-why-these-lgbtq-activists-wont-leave-florida/

“If Escobar couldn’t kill me, neither will Ron Desantis.”

Shortly following their high school graduation in Southern California, two 18-year-old young men, best friends since childhood, drove to a casino just across the Nevada state line where they intended to play video games before returning home the next day.

After engaging in the games for a while, one of the friends, Jeremy Strohmeyer, walked toward the restrooms. Seeing that he entered the women’s room, the other young man, David Cash, walked in to see what Jeremy was doing. He noticed that Jeremy was playfully throwing wadded paper towels at a young black girl, who seemed at first to have enjoyed the attention.

But then the scene turned violent. Strohmeyer grabbed 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson, placed his hand over her mouth, and spirited her into a toilet stall as Cash watched by the sinks. He entered an adjacent stall and mounted the toilet edge allowing him to peer down as he saw Jeremy continuing to muffle the girl’s screams and warning Sherrice to keep quiet or he would kill her.

Not wanting to get involved, Cash returned to playing video games. He did not attempt to stop his friend from attacking the young girl. He did not seek help or call law enforcement officials. He calmly played games and waited the 20 minutes it took for Jeremy to return. David asked Jeremy what had happened.

“I killed her,” Jeremy asserted with a certain serenity in his tone on that summer evening in 1997. Soon thereafter, the two friends coolly entered nearby casinos where they enjoyed mechanical rides and continued to play video games until it was time for them to return home.

With the assistance of the video security system implanted at the casino, Strohmeyer was eventually caught, tried, and convicted to life imprisonment for rape and murder. Cash, on the other hand, was never indicted because inaction was not a crime in Nevada at the time.

In reaction to the case and the lack of charges against Cash, Richard Perkins, Speaker of the Nevada Assembly, sponsored the Sherrice Iverson bill requiring Nevadans to notify law enforcement if they witness violent acts committed against a child. The law took effect in 1999, and a similar measure passed in California one year later.

Asked on a 1999 CBS 60 Minutes segment, The Bad Samaritan, whether if given a chance, he would do things differently, Cash said, “I don’t feel there is much I could have done differently.” Asked a similar question during an interview on a Los Angeles radio station, Cash gave a similar reply and added: “How much am I supposed to sit down and cry about this?” he asked. “The simple fact remains that I did not know this little girl. I do not know starving children in Panama. I do not know people dying of disease in Egypt.”

The Long Beach Press-Telegram quoted Cash as saying that he wanted to sell his story to the media. One movie company offered him $21,000. He added. “I’m no idiot,” he declared. “I’ll (expletive) get my money out of this.”

In not taking action to intervene on behalf of Sherrice Iverson, David Cash colluded in her death. “Enabler” is the term given to those who fail to act to help abusers. “Passive bystander” or “bad Samaritan” is the name for people who are conscious of bad actions developing around them but fail to intervene.

Though I have studied the Holocaust and other genocides, until I discovered this case, I always had the gnawing and seemingly unanswerable question pulling at me, “How could these incidents have taken place throughout the ages”?

David Cash taught me that mass murders happen on the macro level when people on the individual and collective levels let them happen, when witnesses– so-called “bystanders” – do little or nothing to intervene. When people either allow their fear or reluctance to “get involved” and supersede their empathy.

David Cash refused to see, hear, and stand up to do the right thing in the face of evil around him.

For the past eight years, the not see Republican Party has continually refused to see, hear, and stand up to the would-be authoritarian dictator, Donald J. Trump. By burying their heads in the political sand, they have permitted Trump to grab, assault, and ravage our governmental institutions physically and figuratively.

I now fully understand the process in the rise and takeover of the Nazi Party in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s.

Staying silent

Empathy, that special and majestic human quality, has always been a vital life force of our humanity. As we understand in psychology, unless there is developmental delay, infants demonstrate the rudimentary beginnings of empathy whenever they recognize that another is upset and then show signs of being upset themselves. Very early in their lives, infants develop the capacity to crawl in the diapers of others even though their own diapers don’t need changing.

Though empathy is a part of the human condition, through the process of socialization, others often teach us to inhibit our empathetic natures with messages like “Don’t cry,” “You’re too sensitive,” “Mind your own business,” “It’s not your concern.” We learn the stereotypes of the individuals and groups our society has “minoritized” and “othered.” We learn who to scapegoat for the problems within our neighborhoods, states, nations, and world.

Through it all, that precious life-affirming flame of empathy can wither and flicker. For some, it dies entirely. And as the blaze recedes, the bullies, the demagogues, and the tyrants take over by filling the void where our humanity once prevailed. And then we have lost something very precious.

David Cash represents the termination of empathy on the individual micro level, resulting not only in the possibly preventable rape and murder of a young girl, but the death of his own soul. And when the demise of empathy comes to people who are around powerful leaders and their willing subjects, the consequences, on the macro level, become exponentially deeper, more toxic, and more tragic.

Jeremy Strohmeyer and Donald Trump were cast from the same mold with their narcissistic, sociopathic personalities. Cash comes from the same mold as many current members of the Republican Party in that they lack sufficient empathy, which overrides their actions.

For example, Trump knew early of the deadly potential of the Coronavirus, but he decided to lie to the public while failing to mobilize any discernible national policies and actions due to concerns for stock markets over the health and safety of the people. Many Republican leaders failed to speak up.

Trump has referred to our military personnel as “suckers” and “losers” for joining the military, for being captured, for dying, and for receiving meager financial compensation. Many Republican leaders failed to speak up.

Earlier, he carelessly blamed the mayor of London for being incompetent after a terrorist attack on his city. Many Republican leaders failed to speak up.

He accused the mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico of playing politics and being ungrateful, and the Puerto Rican people of being lazy and expecting everything to be done for them on their “bankrupt” island after a “500-year” storm virtually shut them down and people clung desperately to life. Many Republican leaders failed to speak up.

He referred to white nationalist neo-Nazi terrorists in Charlottesville, Virginia, who showed up for a so-called “Unite the Right” rally, as well as the counter-demonstrators, as “Good people, on both sides.” Regarding his reference to the white nationalists, many Republican leaders failed to speak up.

He mocked a disabled reporter, took away the rights of trans students to use bathrooms most closely aligning with their gender identities, demonized Latinx people, Muslims, and women, ridiculed Gold Star parents who sacrificed so much while Donald Trump sat on his gold-plated toilet and attempted to take away affordable health insurance from an estimated 20 million low-income people. Many Republican leaders failed to speak up.

And he behaved as if the series of package bombs sent through the mail to leading Democratic politicians and activists was nothing more than an inconvenience during the closing days of the midterm election season. Many Republican leaders failed to speak up.

Trump separated young children from their refugee parents and placed them in cages as if they were feral animals. Many Republican leaders failed to speak up.

And he risked the very lives of members of Congress and his own Vice President on January 6, 2021, after he lost over 60 court cases in his attempts to circumvent the results of a fair election. While some Republican leaders harshly criticized Trump at the time, they ultimately reversed themselves and got on their knees to kiss his ring.

Empathy can save the world

Quite frankly, I find few differences between the attitudes and actions of Jeremy Strohmeyer on the micro level and Donald J. Trump on the macro level.  

I find few differences between the attitudes and inactions of David Cash and the majority of the current Republican Party in their refusal to stand up and act in the best interests of a young girl, in Cash’s case, and in service to the fragile democratic experiment we know as the United States of America in the case of the Republican Party.

Though the Cashes and Republicans are more numerous than we can even imagine, empathy has always been an antidote to the poison of inaction, prejudice, discrimination, stereotyping, and scapegoating, and to bullies and demagogues who take power and control.

Empathy is the life force of our humanness, and ultimately it is the key to our recovery during the current crisis in our country.

I often wonder how Trump’s Republican bad Samaritan enablers can sleep at night and get back up in the morning still willing to degrade and prostrate themselves by attacking our democratic institutions and seriously dismantling our country’s standing in the world.

A recent poll taken by The Hill found that 80% of registered Republicans believe that if elected as the next President of the United States in 2024, Trump should be able to serve even if he is convicted of multiple felony charges, including in the case of willingly and unconstitutionally holding onto classified documents. Even in the case of the documents, many Republican leaders either failed to speak up or they are speaking up in his defense.

Each time anyone enables an abusive action or actor, they keep perpetrators and themselves further from the truth and from help, and they diminish themselves and their integrity more than just a bit.

I have been stuck time and time again on the post-factual campaign, transition, presidency, and now post-presidency of Donald J. Trump. I get stuck on the lies, the verifiable lies, big and small that he spreads and on his direct attacks on our democratic institutions, like the entire judicial system, the House of Representatives, the Senate, the State Department, state legislatures and secretaries of state who would not overturn President Joe Biden’s victory.

Even more troubling, however, are Trump’s enablers who spin the facts by turning themselves into virtual pretzels in defense of Trump’s attempts – to paraphrase Voltaire – to make us believe his absurdities he uses to give himself permission to commit possible atrocities.

His sustained and vicious attacks on what he refers to as the “dishonest and corrupt” media imperil our very freedom of the press as guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Fortunately, many of the outlets within the Fourth Estate, while making some mistakes, fact-check themselves and our politicians, including Trump, and by so doing, exposes his lies for what they are.

A short round up as I start a new post to catch the Friday to Sunday bunch.

Thumbnail

the Republican infrastructure plan !!

Thumbnail
WTF. These people are not coming to hurt anyone, they are not coming to destroy the US, but to share the dream of a wonderful country. Abbott is proving to be the destroyer and despicable person, as is anyone who would follow these orders. Hey think how we look at the guards at concentration camps, Texas will be thought of in the same way. Scottie
Drag performances in Ohio could be banned from public parks, parades and other places children might be if a bill introduced by House Republicans becomes law.
House Bill 245 expands the definition of adult cabaret performers from strippers and topless dancers to include “entertainers who exhibit a gender identity that is different from the performer’s or entertainer’s gender assigned at birth.”
House GOP Seeks To Defund FAA Diversity Initiatives
Diversity or diversity and inclusion programs are just words for let others than white males have a seat at the table. Seriously, this is what the republicans and MG are fighting. Why would they want to block others than whites / at one time only white males, from having a chance to be included? Racism and misogyny.

Biden got a Target Letter, too!

Thumbnail
The pro-life party! Right! Tell me another one.

‘There were no benefits to being a slave’: Florida St. Sen. slams Florida’s new slavery curriculum

Florida’s new slavery curriculum sparks outrage as the state’s war on accurate Black history ramps up with a plan to teach that there were benefits to slavery for enslaved descendants of Africans in America. Florida St. Sen. Shevrin Jones joins Joy Reid to discuss saying, “I want to make it clear to everyone… there were no benefits to being a slave… All of this is disingenuous.”

Soome Sam Seder clips I thought were important.

https://www.youtube.com/@TheMajorityReport/videos

The MR crew looks at horrifying reports coming out of Texas that show Republican governor Greg Abbott ordered border agents to begin drowning and dehydrating migrant children.
A woman who is undergoing hormone treatments calls in to dispel the myths that transgendered individuals are dominating women’s sports and then gives a powerful story of her own transition.
Jeff Sharlet, professor of English at Dartmouth College, joins to discuss his recent book The Undertow: Scenes From a Slow Civil War.
Ben Shapiro reacts to a piece in the New York Times about a recent fashion trend that is seeing men wearing crop tops. Shapiro says: “Just as a fashion matter, no one wants to see the midriff of another man. Just as a general-i’m not going to speak for gay men. women, i don’t think, are interested. Neither are straight men.”
Charlie Kirk responds to reporting from MSNBC that far Right-Wing extremists have used at-home workout trends to expand their reach into mixed martial arts spaces. Kirk says that reporting like this shows that liberals only want men to be weak, depressed, and have low testosterone.
CNN’S Kaitlan Collins asks Senator Tommy Tuberville about the comments he made regarding White Nationalists serving in the military. Collins asks if he’d want to clarify that he wouldn’t want racists to be serving in the military. Tuberville reiterates his belief that he doesn’t see White Nationalists as necessarily racist, and that it’s people’s opinions that they’re racist. He says, however, that if there are White Nationalists who are racist, he wouldn’t support them serving in the military.

Later Tuberville was asked by reporters on Capitol Hill About why he continued to double down on his stance on White Nationalists. Tuberville attempted to amend his response: “I’m totally against racism. If the Democrats want to say that White Nationalists are racists, i’m totally against that, too.”