Category: Bigotry
ICE’s Homan Spews Nonstop Lies And Baseless Accusations
Responding to Josh Howerton on DEI
Mahatma Gandhi, Baltic Hands, in Peace & Justice History for 8/23
| August 23, 1933 Mahatma Gandhi, weighing only 90 pounds, was released unconditionally from Sassoon Hospital in Poona because, after 5 days of his latest “fast unto death,” the doctors feared that his body could no longer stand the strain of fasting. He had been taken to the hospital from Yeravda jail, which he had described as his “permanent address,” when he started his fast. He was protesting official refusal to allow him to continue his work with the Untouchables (he had called them harijan, or “children of God”) while in prison.  Gandhi leaving hospital, 1933 He had deliberately courted arrest, rejecting an order permitting him to reside only within the limits of Poona, and had been sentenced to a year’s imprisonment. Gandhi and his fasts |
| August 23, 1945 In a letter to his friend Anne Marie Petersen shortly before the end of British colonial rule in India, Mahatma Gandhi wrote, “When there is independence, why should you fear the majority? If you have God with you and the majority have not, should you still fear? And if both have God between them who should fear whom? Is there then any question of majority and minority? Let us pray. Love. Bapu” |
| August 23, 1989 Over one million joined hands across the three Baltic republics (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) in a 400-mile-long chain of resistance against control by the U.S.S.R. (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). It was the 60th anniversary of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact, also known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact after the foreign ministers of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany who had negotiated it. Generally called the Hitler-Stalin Pact, it secretly agreed to Soviet control of Latvia and Estonia, and German influence over Poland and Lithuania. Germany, again secretly, later ceded control over Lithuania to the Soviets for 7.5 million dollars in gold ($115 in 2008 dollars).  Baltic hands The Baltic Way (with pictures of the action) |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryaugust.htm#august23
Fannie Lou Hamer, Rhodesia’s Olympics Team, Karen Silkwood, & More, In Peace & Justice History for 8/22
| August 22, 1958 President Dwight Eisenhower announced a voluntary moratorium on nuclear weapons testing. A report outlining a system for monitoring and verifying compliance of a complete ban on such testing had been released just the day before. The Conference of Experts, as it was known, had been meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, to work out the details on detection of violations of such a treaty. The U.S. delegation was led by Nobel physics laureate Ernest Lawrence from the University of California (the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is named after him). Eisenhower predicated his moratorium on U.S.S.R. and U.K. agreement to the same limitations. All three countries agreed to the one-year halt in testing and to begin negotiations on a complete test ban at the end of October; all three performed last-minute (atmospheric) tests before the opening of talks. |
August 22, 1964 Singing at a boardwalk demonstration: Hamer (with microphone), Stokely Carmichael, (in hat), Eleanor Holmes Norton, Ella Baker. Fannie Lou Hamer, leader of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), testified in front of the Credentials Committee at the Democratic National Convention. She was challenging the all-white delegation that the segregated regular Mississippi Democrats had sent to the presidential nominating convention.  Mississippi’s Democratic Party excluded African Americans from participation. The MFDP, on the other hand, sought to create a racially inclusive new party, signing up 60,000 members. The hearing was televised live and many heard Hamer’s impassioned plea for inclusion of all Democrats from her state.The hearing was televised live and many heard Hamer’s impassioned plea for inclusion of all Democrats from her state. In her testimony she spoke about black Mississippians not only being denied the right to register to vote, but being harassed, beaten, shot at, and arrested for trying. Concerned about the political reaction to her statement, President Lyndon Johnson suddenly called an impromptu press conference, thereby interrupting television broadcast of the hearing. Hear her testimony Link to photo gallery |
August 22, 1971 The FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) arrested twenty in Camden, New Jersey, and five in Buffalo, New York, for conspiracy to steal and destroy draft records. Eventually known as the Camden 28, most were Roman Catholic activists, including four priests, and a Lutheran minister.“We are not here because of a crime committed in Camden but because of a war committed in Indochina….” Cookie Ridolfi The Camden 28 |
| August 22, 1972 Rhodesia’s team was banned from competing in the Olympic Games with just four days to go before the opening ceremony in Munich, Germany. The National Olympic Committees of Africa had threatened to pull out of the games unless Rhodesia was barred from competing. Though the Rhodesian team included both whites and blacks, the government was an illegal one, controlled by whites though they represented just 5% of the country’s population. It had broken away from the British Commonwealth over demands from Commonwealth member nations that power be yielded to the majority. Read more |
August 22, 1986 The Kerr-McGee Corporation agreed to pay the estate of the late Karen Silkwood $1.38 million ($2.68 in 2008), settling a 10-year-old nuclear contamination lawsuit. She had been active in the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers union, specifically looking into radiation exposure of workers, and spills and leaks of plutonium. The story of Karen Silkwood |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryaugust.htm#august22
But There Have Always Been
male cheerleaders. Way, way back, all cheerleaders were male. Geedub and more U.S. presidents were cheerleaders.
Male Cheerleaders Are the Right’s Latest Absurd Distraction by Charlotte Clymer
Don’t fall for it. Read on Substack
The excellent Minnesota Vikings cheer squad. Image credit: David Berding // Getty Images)
The American economy has become sluggish, Trump’s foreign policy has been abysmal, and we still don’t have the Epstein files that likely implicate Trump’s role in a massive sex operation that targeted children.
Thus, the distractions keep on comin’, and the latest culture war fiasco being trial-ballooned by rightwing media is… male cheerleaders in the NFL.
If you’ve spent any time on social media over the past few weeks, you’ve probably seen the predictable, manufactured outrage over the Minnesota Vikings adding two men to their cheer squad this season.
Fox News, conservative influencers, and even Republican elected officials are getting in the mix, desperate to find any damn distraction they can to keep folks from paying attention to the massive failures and glaring scandals of the Trump administration and Republican Party across-the-board this year.
But this ain’t a new thing. There have been male cheerleaders in the NFL since 2018, when the Los Angeles Rams and New Orleans Saints became the first franchises to add men to their cheer squads.
Since then, the Carolina Panthers, Seattle Seahawks, Philadelphia Eagles, San Francisco 49ers, New England Patriots, Kansas City Chiefs, Indianapolis Colts, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tennessee Titans and Baltimore Ravens have selected male cheerleaders.
This season, a full third of NFL teams have men on their cheerleading squads, but what I find truly hilarious is that the past eight winners of the Super Bowl have male cheerleaders.
In fact, the past eight Super Bowls have only featured teams with male cheerleaders.
Yesterday, Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama—a former college coach—weakly attempted to fear-monger over the issue with one of the more bizarre claims he’s made in a while:
But if you’re going to be woke and you’re gonna try to take the men out of men’s sports, which is what you’re doing. They’re trying to take gender and say, ‘OK, we’re going to make it more about gender than we are about masculinity.’ Then, you’re going to have a huge problem. It’s coming.
I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about, either. I caught the oblique reference to trans women in women’s sports, but good lord, what an awkward way of framing the argument.
This is all the more amusing when you consider the long history of Republican politicians who were male cheerleaders.
That includes four Republican presidents in their college years: both George W. Bush and his father George H. W. Bush at Yale, Ronald Reagan at Eureka, and Dwight D. Eisenhower at West Point.
Former Texas Governor Rick Perry was a cheerleader at Texas A&M. So was Senator Trent Lott at Ole Miss. So was Mitt Romney at Stanford.
The Republican Party has a long and proud history of producing the nation’s finest male cheerleaders. In the past 50 years, more Republican presidents have been male cheerleaders than seen combat.
So, what’s the play here? We all know it’s a distraction, but why are Republicans and conservative media hoping this’ll stick?
Some rightwing men are angry over male cheerleaders because male cheerleaders distract from their open lusting toward women cheerleaders.
They see male cheerleaders as a distraction because they might “accidentally” objectify a male cheerleader amidst all the pretty ladies and that puts them on edge.
Yet they’re openly lusting for women cheerleaders at a public venue in front of kids.
These are the same dudes who claim any LGBTQ content in any public context is harmful to kids because from the warped and sad perspective of these dudes, merely the presence of LGBTQ visibility is always sexual in nature.
But they’re actually very pleased to ogle sexy women and see no problem doing so in front of kids. Sexual performance is never a problem when it caters to straight men.
As always, this goes back to the male gaze and some straight men being entirely incapable of reconciling their own sexuality and religious hypocrisy and using the “safety of kids” to alleviate their own discomfort.
The problem isn’t the presence of sexy cheerleaders, regardless of gender. It isn’t the presence of children. It isn’t even supposed religious teachings.
The problem, as always, are some straight, conservative men needing the entire world to cater to all their whims and all their discomforts and holding up a Bible to cover for that, which immediately gets set back down the moment there are sexy ladies to ogle.
It’s pathetic, but what would you expect from a political party that’s doing everything it can to distract from its leader, Donald Trump, being connected to a massive sex trafficking operation?
The Republican Party is in desperate need of better crowd chants. Maybe they should ask their own male cheerleaders to help them out.
Clara Luper, Desmond Tutu, & More, in Peace & Justice History for 8/19
(Click through on the Desmond Tutu link, and join me in what I’m pretty sure will be your first thought when you see the page. And enjoy your beverage while reading. -A.)
August 19, 1791 Benjamin Banneker Benjamin Banneker, the first recognized African-American scientist, a son of former slaves, sent a copy of his just-published Almanac to Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, along with an appeal about “the injustice of a state of slavery.” More about Benjamin Banneker, his achievements and his letter to the president ===================================================== August 19, 1953  Prime Minister Dr. Mohammed Mosaddeq Royalist troops surrounded, bombarded and burned the residence of the Mohammed Mosaddeq, the recently dismissed elected Iranian Prime Minister. After having briefly fled his country for Italy due to the rioting over his unconstitutional dismissal of Mosaddeq, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was returned to the Peacock throne with dictatorial power. All this was done with the planning, financing and assistance of the CIA and its British counterpart, MI6. Background on Mosaddeq Stephen Kinzer on the U.S.-Iran relationship in perspective =============================================== August 19, 1958 The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) Youth Council in Oklahoma City, led by Clara Luper, a high school history teacher, began sit-ins to desegregate lunch counters, inspired by success in Wichita, Kansas. [see August 11, 1958].  Clara Luper TV interview with Clara Luper More about Clara ================================================ August 19, 1970 The U.S. deployed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles near Greeley, Colorado. It was the first missile with multiple (then three-170 kiloton) nuclear warheads known as MIRVs (Multiple Independently targetable Re-entry Vehicles).  The MIRV: each cone is a warhead All the details about this fearsome armament ================================================== August 19, 1989  Anglican Bishop and Nobel Peace Prize-winner Desmond Tutu was among hundreds of black demonstrators, members of Mass Democratic Movement who were whipped and blasted with sand stirred up by helicopters as they attempted to picnic on a “whites-only” beach near Cape Town, South Africa. Desmond Mpilo Tutu |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryaugust.htm#august19
Hegseth’s Pastor: “Gay Marriage Doesn’t Exist” [VIDEO]
100% Christian hate. No one loves more than bigot Christians can hate. This would be a non-story except Kegseth is the head of the military with the authority to remove any group from the military he doesn’t like. Think about the idea that woman shouldn’t vote according to his preacher yet females in the military at every level have authority over men … so if they can’t be trusted to vote …? But Kegseth thinks the US military needs to be an all white male thuggish killing machines like the Russian military who are getting their asses kicked by the inclusive Ukrainian military. The Christian bigotry prevents people like him from seeing the truth. The idea of heavily muscled men facing each other on a field of battle is far in the past. Military tech is way more far advanced. It needs twink kids in the basement playing on gaming machines, it needs females who can out think every man around. Kegseth’s idea of manliness and the military makes me suspect him of having a man fetish, an Arnold Schwarzenegger fetish. It idealizes something that is not true and doesn’t exist. This man grew up on far too many he man cartoons and movies. Hugs.
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“We have to overturn Obergefell. Many people will say, ‘That ship’s sailed, man. Gay people are married. We can’t go back.’ Gay marriage does not exist in the world. It can’t, any more than a square triangle can exist. God created marriage. I had premarital counseling today, I opened up the bible to Genesis I and showed them where God created marriage. He made them male and female. He set it.
“You want us to persist in having lies at the fundamental level of our nation? What’s that going to do to our country, other than have it crumble and have judgment be upon it? You have to remember that there’s a God in heaven who has thoughts on these matters.
“Of course, it has to go because it’s non-reality. We have to become sane again as a nation. And because we’ve gotten ourself so deep into this sin, there’s no clean way to do it.” – Pete Hegseth’s pastor Brooks Potteiger, who last appeared here when he called for God to burn down a “demonic” network’s headquarters for featuring a gay couple on a reality show.
Pottigier’s church is part of Pastor Doug Wilson’s Christian nationalist network, which advocates for a full-Gilead theocracy in which women cannot vote and homosexuality is criminalized. Last week Hegseth retweeted a video in which Wilson called for all of those things.
Seen The Epstein Files?
Yeah, me, neither. Also! I am not, and never was, a KISS fan. I always thought they were bubble gum. Needless to say, I enjoy Clay Jones’s commentary re KISS!
MAGA KISS by Clay Jones
MAGA can kiss my arse Read on Substack
I’m a KISS fan, to an extent. When I was in the 4th or 5th grade, a friend introduced me to KISS, and I was hooked. I had posters and albums. I wanted to be Ace Frehley and started playing guitar. I was obsessed with KISS. Other than my guitar obsession (I’m still obsessed), all that was over by the time I hit the 8th grade. With a bit more maturity, I had become more interested in not just the current music of the time, like Van Halen, but another friend had introduced me to The Beatles, and I think I discovered the Rolling Stones on my own. I started paying attention to my mom’s music and got into CCR.
A few years later, I was walking through the music department of K-Mart, and saw the album cover for KISS’s latest album, Lick It Up, and learned that they had a couple of replacement members and had taken the makeup off. This was huge news in KISS world, but I was out of the KISS ARMY (that was the fan club) by that point.
And that’s the thing about KISS. Their audience was mostly little boys, such as myself. While KISS looked like a dangerous rock and roll band, at least at the beginning, they had become more of a marketing product than a rock and roll band. In addition to the posters I had, KISS were marketing lunch boxes, action figures, trading cards, bed sheets, pillows, comic books, and even had made a TV movie, KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park, which might be the worst TV movie ever.
KISS may have been serious about their music, but they weren’t taken seriously, which is difficult to obtain when each member is face-painted like a clown. The Insane Clown Posse is probably more respected. And while there are some gems in their catalog, most of their songs actually sucked. KISS chased trends. They started as a rock band striving to be on Led Zeppelin’s level, but they didn’t have the songwriting chops or musicianship, despite Ace Frehley being a badass (when he was sober enough to play on the albums, and didn’t force the band to use a hidden replacement for his lead guitar playing). KISS went from trying to be the next Beatles to producing a disco track, to chasing hair metal in the 80s, to writing songs with Michael Bolton and Bryan Adams, to making a grunge album. Critics didn’t like them, and they never made the cover of Rolling Stone during their prime (but did make it decades later for an article that was mostly retrospective).
They were more noted for their theatrics, fire-breathing, blood-spitting, and smoke pouring out of Frehley’s guitar than for their music.
Most musicians in respected rock bands are invited to play on other artists’ albums, such as Bob Seger, members of Fleetwood Mac, Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and every member of The Eagles. Even members of Cheap Trick got invites, and even lured Beatles producer George Martin to produce their albums. But I can’t think of a member of KISS who has ever played on another artist’s album. After leaving KISS, Ace Frehley called John Waite (the Missing You guy) to see if he’d like to start a band with him, and never got a return call. And Ace was the most successful solo artist to come out of the band (though his last album was embarrassing). Peter Criss’ albums are unlistenable.
Gene Simmons was not a good songwriter (sample lyric: “Let me put my log into your fire”), and his bass playing is still mocked today (they often used a hidden replacement, or Paul and Ace would play bass on the songs they wrote). Paul Stanley had an operatic voice (that didn’t have a natural sound), but he tried too hard to show it off, and his guitar playing and songwriting were cheesy. Peter Criss was more of a jazz drummer than a heavy rock guy like John Bonham of Zeppelin, and he had timing issues, but his voice had an amazing sound, especially considering that he was tone deaf. Ace Frehley, who is unfortunately a racist who used to get drunk and bang on his Jewish bandmates’ hotel room doors dressed as a Nazi (really. They used to call him RACE Frehley), inspired millions with his guitar playing, but his skills decreased due to his laziness and addictions. By hiring studio musicians to pretend to be Criss, Frehley, and Simmons on their albums and hiding it from the fans, KISS didn’t even take themselves seriously.
KISS was never a great band. So why are they the first to be honored by Donald Trump since he made himself the head of the Kennedy Center? Because Trump has no culture (ketchup on burnt steaks), and he has the maturity of a 12-year-old boy.
Trump will be hosting the ceremony for these “honors,” which will be interesting. People will probably tune in because folks love a good train wreck.
Each member of KISS expressed how honored and humbled they are for receiving these “honors,” but boys…being “honored” by Donald Trump isn’t really an honor.
That’s another difference between KISS and bands taken seriously. Musicians sue Trump to stop playing their music at his rallies.
And, yes. KISS has a song glorifying pedophilia. Gene Simmons wrote it. I had to adjust the lyrics for space, but those cited in the cartoon say,
“I don’t usually say things like this to girls your age,
But when I saw you coming out of the school that day,
That day I knew, I knew,
I’ve got to have you, I’ve got to have you.”
Even as a kid, I thought it was weird that Gene only saw Christine because he was hanging outside her school. (snip-MORE)
Women Have Had The Right To Vote For 105 Out Of 249 Years & More, in Peace & Justice History for 8/18
| August 18, 1914 In another step in the ethnic intimidation that led ultimately to the Armenian genocide in Turkey, looting was reported in Sivas, Diyarbekir, and other provinces. Under the guise of collecting war contributions (WWI had just begun), stores owned by Armenian and Greek merchants were vandalized. 1,080 shops and stalls owned by Armenians were burned at the Diyarbekir bazaar. Chronology of the Armenian Genocide |
| August 18, 1920 Women throughout the U.S. won the right to vote when the Tennessee legislature approved the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution (the last of 36 states then required to approve it). An amendment for universal suffrage was first introduced in Congress in 1878, and Wyoming had granted suffrage in state law by 1890.  This amendment to enfranchise all American women had been introduced annually for 41 years without passage; it had gotten two-thirds of both houses of Congress to approve it just the year before. “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” In the Tennessee House, 24-year-old Representative Harry Burn surprised observers by casting the deciding vote for ratification. At the time of his vote, Burns had in his pocket a letter he had received from his mother urging him, “Don’t forget to be a good boy” and “vote for suffrage.”  Teaching With Documents: Woman Suffrage and the 19th Amendment (National Archives) (It is still there; I checked.) |
August 18, 1963 James Meredith James Meredith, the first African American to attend the University of Mississippi, became the first to graduate. His enrollment at “Ole Miss” a year earlier had been met with deadly riots, forcing him to attend class escorted by heavily armed guards.  James Meredith being escorted to his classes by U.S. marshals and the military. Who was James Meredith |
| August 18, 1964 South Africa was banned from taking part in the 18th Olympic Games in Tokyo due to the country’s refusal to reform its racially separatist apartheid system. Read more |
| August 18, 1977 Steve Biko, the leader of the Black Consciousness Movement resisting apartheid, was arrested at a roadblock outside King William’s Town. He died while in custody from abuse during the weeks of interrogation that followed.  Steve Biko “So as a prelude whites must be made to realise that they are only human, not superior. Same with Blacks. They must be made to realise that they are also human, not inferior.” “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.” – Biko speech in Cape Town, 1971 More about Biko |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryaugust.htm#august18
Scottie's Playtime 