Ben Shapiro's Brain Trust: Replacement Theory True, So That Can't Have Caused Mass Shooting
Also, what about those lockdowns? They probably did it.
Rightwing pundits got busy Monday on the very important project of distancing themselves and their racist panic over immigration from the ideas espoused — and put into action Saturday — by the 18-year-old white supremacist who shot 13 people in a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, killing 10 of them. In what's become a mandatory feature of racist mass shootings, the shooter posted an online manifesto explaining why he had to kill innocent shoppers to save white culture, complete with racist memes and nonsense shitposting, like claiming he loves the environment and considers his political orientation as "authoritarian left wing," which righties have dutifully cited as proof that the massacre was clearly caused by Elizabeth Warren or possibly Antifa, as if there's a difference.
Read More:
Racist Kills Ten People In Hopes Of Convincing Nation To Not ‘Replace’ Him
Elise Stefanik Can’t Outrun Her Racist Great Replacement Rants
New Zealand Shooter's Manifesto: Sh*tposting For The Whites
Who Is Mass-Murdering Everyone All The Time? 'Diversity.'
And just like the other racist mass murderers, the Buffalo murderer said he was acting to stop the "great replacement" of white people by immigrants and minorities, a racist conspiracy theory that's just the latest variation on the centuries-old white anxiety that white supremacy is doomed, and must be preserved at any cost. In the most far-Right versions, it's a devious Jewish plot, because what good is a devious plot that's not driven by the Jews? The goal of these nefarious plotters is to "import" brown immigrants, and also to make white people eventually go extinct by having to share their America with people who aren't white.
In its slightly more genteel versions, pushed by more mainstream rightwing sources like Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and others, the explicitly antisemitic language may be reduced to dogwhistles so the plot is blamed on "elites," "globalists," or "George Soros," or it may be left out altogether to blame Democrats (the distinction almost doesn't matter, since Dems are of course tools of the elites, the globalists and George Soros).
Naturally, folks on the right who've been pushing "Great Replacement" drivel are furiously distancing themselves from the shooter, some by positing alternative theories (It was furries caused the shooting!) or by insisting that their own Great Replacement rhetoric is totally not to blame for the shooting, because they didn't turn up in the manifesto's Works Cited list.
You know we've reached a whole new level of hair splitting when people pushing racist conspiracy theories say their hands are clean because while they and the shooter are both spouting the same toxic crap, the shooter never personally referenced them. And while it's true that there's no evidence the shooter ever watched Carlson, that's hardly a defense of pushing the very same rhetoric that motivated the shooter. Hooray, Tucker isn't responsible for this horrific shooting. Maybe he's working to incite the next one.
Matt Walsh: But My Paranoia Is REAL!
For example, take Matt Walsh (please!), one of the second-tier pundits at Daily Wire, AKA Ben Shapiro's Internet Whine-A-Torium. Last summer, Walsh indignantly insisted that the "Great Replacement" IS TOO a thing that is real and is a deliberate Democratic plot, and how dare anyone say it's a creation of far-right racists! The he talked loudly and volubly about how you're not allowed to talk about that, and while no one stopped him, a lot of people said he was defending a racist trope, and that's totally the same as censorship.
Naturally enough, Walsh reacted to accurate media reports that the "Great Replacement" is a racist conspiracy theory by indignantly insisting all over again that it IS TOO a thing that is real and is a deliberate Democratic plot, and how dare anyone say it's a creation of far-right racists! And also time is a flat circle. Video and transcript via Media Matters:
[This] — I was going to call him a kid but he's 18 years-old — this man's ideology is a mess — he's, again, a lunatic — all over the place, he does mention the so-called great replacement theory. And this is what they're trying to hang around the neck of Tucker Carlson, Fox News, really any conservative, myself included. Because Tucker Carlson and other conservatives have in the past pointed out that the Democrats have been very open about the fact that, you know, they want to minimize what they call whiteness in America. And they want to bring in voters, you know, from other countries.
That is actually a lie, but do go on.
They don't want voter ID laws, you know, they want to be able to bring in the voters and have them vote because they know they're going to be voting Democrat. So, they want to replace, especially white male voters, with voters who they think are going to be beholden to them.
Also a lie: we don't like voter ID when it's used to exclude otherwise qualified people from voting, and there's no "voter fraud" crisis to start with. We want people to vote legally. That's it! As for "bringing in voters," again, no, that would be bullshit. We want to help people escape war, oppression, gangs, and people trying to kill them, because we're just monsters that way, shame on us. We actually understand that people are individuals and may not automatically vote one way or another. Also, as a white male, I can say with certainty that my vote will never go to a Republican. Walsh went on lying:
Now, this isn't a conspiracy theory. There's nothing wild or speculative about it. It's just a fact. And one of the ways you know that it's a fact is the left and the media -- The New York Times, CNN -- they've been very open about it, many times.
Walsh continued in that vein, complaining that discussions about the dangers of white supremacy equal a plot to eliminate white people, and so on, and then I fwowed up at all the lies.
Also, Lockdowns Were The Real Shooter
Walsh tweeted that maybe we need to investigate how it was really the pandemic lockdowns that are to blame, because the shooter wrote that he found 4chan racism while he was bored and out of school. This is a great theory, since no teens ever go online when in-person school is in session.
If we're reading this lunatic's "manifesto" and taking it seriously then what about the part where he says he was radicalized from spending all his time online during the COVID lockdowns? I guess we're just glossing over that part. Not the conversation the media wants to have.— Matt Walsh (@Matt Walsh) 1652650614
Teen murders 10 people, rants extensively about how the Jews are replacing him with Black people and immigrants, so let's look far more closely at the single line about the lockdown. By that logic, we should lock up Candace Owens for the New Zealand massacre. (We should instead ignore her because she's A IDIOT.)
In conclusion, Matt Walsh wants you to know his hands are clean and he sleeps fine at night, because he has definitely not personally incited any racist mass shootings, the end.
[Media Matters / NBC News / Joe. My. God.]
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This Day in Labor History: The Anthracite Coal Strike, May 12, 1902
What happened when a US president gave labor a fair shake.
Update/Correction: This article is by historian Erik Loomis, not Doktor Zoom, but our silly publishing platform is glitching when we try to change the author name. It really is Dr. Loomis, though!
On May 12, 1902, coal miners in Pennsylvania’s anthracite fields went on strike. There were many strikes in the coal fields during the Gilded Age, but this one has special significance because the refusal of the industry to negotiate pushed the strike into the fall and placed urban Americans’ heating supplies in grave danger. That convinced President Theodore Roosevelt to intervene in the strike, but unlike his predecessors Rutherford Hayes and Grover Cleveland, he acted as a neutral arbitrator rather than use the U.S. military to crush the strike. This marked the first time in American history a president had involved himself in a labor dispute in any capacity other than strikebreaker.
Mineworker organizing had more than its shares of highs and lows in the period before 1935's National Labor Relations Act. When the United Mineworkers of America achieved a victory, membership skyrocketed, but those victories were often met with great bitterness from industry and a determination to push labor relations back into the dark ages.
Read More: Yesterday In Labor History: The Goddamn Pinkertons
Life for coal miners was indeed nasty, brutal, and short. Coal companies ruled their territory like medieval fiefdoms. Unsafe coal mines meant frequent explosions and massive deaths, high-priced company stores were often the only option for workers to buy anything, anti-union thugs were deployed to murder or beat anyone who seemed like a union organizer, etc. If you did live long enough, a slow painful death from black lung disease was a likely future.
On September 6, 1869, 110 workers died in a fire at the Avondale Mine in Plymouth, Pennsylvania. On January 27, 1891, 109 workers died at the Mammoth Mine in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania. On June 28, 1896, 58 miners died at the Twin Mine in Pittston, Pennsylvania.
Entrance to the Mammoth Mine, now blocked. Photo: 'BuzzWeiser196,' Creative Commons license 4.0
The United Mine Workers of America won a big victory in the bituminous mines of the Midwest in 1897, leading to improved wages and working conditions, as well as shorter hours. The union, led by its president John Mitchell, determined to build on that by organizing Pennsylvania and West Virginia. The success meant growth from 10,000 to 150,000 members and thus a much larger treasury to use to expand their gains. A small strike led to a victory in 1899. In 1900, another strike led Republican operative Mark Hanna to convince the mine owners to settle and pay a 10 percent wage increase in order to not hurt William McKinley’s chances in the election. With increased confidence but facing operators furious at concessions already granted, the UMWA increased its demands. It wanted union recognition, a pay raise, and shorter hours.
Mitchell offered to arbitrate the differences, but owners representative George Baer, J.P. Morgan’s chosen point person on the strike, president of the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad and a man who truly hated unions, refused. On May 12, 100,000 miners walked off the job, about 80 percent of the workforce.
As the strike dragged on, Americans in the east began to worry about supplies of coal to heat their homes in the winter. This soon got the attention of President Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt first looked into intervening in early June, but Attorney General Philander Knox told him he had no authority to do so. Roosevelt wasn’t so concerned with that and as the summer dragged into fall, his concern grew. The owners however didn’t care about the strike. They had produced too much coal early in 1902 and so had large supplies. Finally, Roosevelt acted as the nation’s population grew colder with each passing night, inviting UMWA president John Mitchell and the coal operators to the White House on October 3 to talk and settle the strike, making him the first president to mediate a labor conflict.
Mitchell agreed to call off the strike if the owners agreed to full presidential mediation and a small wage increase to show good faith. George Baer however refused to even think about bargaining with mere workers. He famously said, the “rights and interests of the laboring man will be protected and cared for—not by the labor agitators, but by the Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given the control of the property interests of the country.” The coal operators refused Roosevelt’s entreaties, even refusing to talk directly to Mitchell at the meeting. They walked out without a deal.
I have my problems with Theodore Roosevelt. He was a blowhard who used his advanced understanding of the media to promote himself throughout his life and slander his opponents, often unfairly. But if there’s one thing you don’t want to do to a man of that size of ego, it’s blow him off. Roosevelt was incensed with the coal operators. His response to the coal operators was a threat to nationalize the industry, sending in the U.S. military and taking the profits of the coal for the government. Mitchell wholeheartedly agreed with this, knowing that it meant the president had come down decisively on the side of the workers, if not the union.
Roosevelt’s threat finally forced J.P. Morgan and his coal operator stooges to the bargaining table after Secretary of War Elihu Root met personally with Morgan to inform him of the president’s plan. Agreeing to the presidential mediation, the two sides both sent representatives to testify before a commission. Representing the workers was Clarence Darrow, at the height of his career representing the nation’s poor and oppressed against corporate power. George Baer led the team for the mine operators. In his closing arguments, Baer summed up the plutocrat view toward the poor, saying, “”These men don’t suffer. Why, hell, half of them don’t even speak English.”
Illustration: Harper's Weekly, October 25, 1902. Public domain.
On October 23, the UMWA ended the strike. It did not win everything. The commission did not grant the union exclusive bargaining rights. Roosevelt was not going to intervene directly to help a union. It did however grant a 10 percent wage increase and a reduction in hours worked per day from 10 to 9. They also received a mediating bargaining board in lieu of union recognition, which Mitchell declared close enough. It was one of the greatest victories in the history of the United Mineworkers in the pre-NLRB era.
Read More: Wonkette Book Club: America's Strikingly Bloody Labor History
When I wrote my book A History of America in Ten Strikes, I chose this strike as one to highlight. The reason is that one of the major themes in American labor history is that this nation has long had a corporate-employer alliance. It is very, very difficult for workers to win a strike if they can’t neutralize that and turn the government into something of a mediator, if not a supporter. There are very, very few victories for workers in the Gilded Age. When we usually tell these histories, it’s one of death and tragedy. But this is the exception. The reason is that the government decided to play neutral party instead of calling out the military. Note that Roosevelt only did this because he respected the conservatism of the UMWA’s leadership. When the IWW struck in Goldfield, Nevada in 1907, Roosevelt had no problem with using the Army to get rid of those radicals. Today though, we need to remember the critical role of the state in determining the potential success of a strike.
FOR FURTHER READING (Wonkette gets a cut of sales, nifty!)
Erik Loomis, A History of America in Ten Strikes
Perry K. Blatz, Democratic Miners: Work and Labor Relations in the Anthracite Coal Industry, 1875-1925
Andrew Arnold, Fueling the Gilded Age: Railroads, Miners, and Disasters in Pennsylvania Coal Country
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Grandpa, Tell Us About The Division Of Labor In The Hippie Commune Times
Because Grandma's still busy in the kitchen.
Editrix's note: Sorry, as usual, for skipping Loomis yesterday. We had a lot on our minds.
On May 3, 1965, Gene Bernofsky, JoAnn Bernofsky, Richard Kallweit, and Clark Richart bought a seven-acre piece of land north of Trinidad, Colorado. This would become known as Drop City, among the first and most important of the countercultural communes that dotted the American landscape during the late 1960s and 1970s and continuing, in a much diminished form, to the present. While itself not a particularly important day in American labor history per se, we can use this date to serve as a window into how work was organized in the counterculture, which is quite important to understanding this key part of American history.
Both then and now, there is a stereotype that hippies avoided work. The reality was far more complicated. Sure, many in the counterculture relied heavily on the welfare state to supplement their income. But most, including many of those who qualified for state benefits, valued hard work very highly. What the counterculture by and large rejected was work within the system of corporate capitalism. They weren’t going to be The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, for instance. They didn’t want to work for wages, be union members, go into middle management. But there are many forms of work. Many in the counterculture wanted to labor for themselves, often in the beautiful nature of the American West, either regenerating both the natural world or themselves (or both) through labor. One chapter in my book Empire of Timber details the Hoedads, a group of countercultural reforestation workers in the 1970s. These people took up some of the hardest work imaginable – planting trees on the steep slopes of the Pacific Northwest. Both men and women engaged in this work that was often back-breaking. They felt they were contributing to a more just and sustainable natural world by planting trees while working for themselves outside of capitalism. This work did not make them very much money, usually less than minimum wage, and it was extremely strenuous. But it was work nonetheless.
In the communes, the work was often quite different but was still work. People such as Stewart Brand promoted countercultural work norms through the Whole Earth Catalog, focusing on self-sustaining economic and environmental projects that promoted people working for themselves. In 1971, the Whole Earth Catalog sold over 1 million copies. Believing that rural spaces were unspoiled, unlike the polluted corporate cities, many young people sought to establish themselves in the country, working on the land. The problem with this is that this work was tremendously hard and most were not ready for it. Disasters struck frequently. Communes would save money and buy a piece of relatively expensive farm equipment and then ruin it because they didn’t know how to use it. They would build unstable structures that would collapse. That they eschewed many western farming methods and instead sought authentic Native American practices, often attempting to contact Native Americans to show them the way, did not help their material conditions much. Poverty was often the result. But being in touch with the earth through planting seeds by hand, harvesting farm animals, weaving, or planting trees was work well worth the effort for thousands of people during the years, despite the economic hardships they often faced.
But for all the potentially world-changing implications of countercultural work norms, one thing that is striking is how gender- traditional it all was. The counterculture broadly speaking, and certainly many if not most of the communes, internalized traditional gendered work norms. In the communes, men did most of the outdoor labor of constructing buildings, killing hogs, or plowing fields, while women both planted seeds in those fields and worked inside the buildings, cleaning, cooking, and taking care of the children. Women who tried to lay bricks with men reported being ignored and facing huge social pressure to return to the house. Over time, this did begin to fade in some communes, with men being forced to take on some childcare and women doing more physical farmworking tasks.
But this depended on the commune. On The Farm, in Tennessee, founder Stephen Gaskin — considered a guru by many of his followers — set up a traditional gendered world. Because Gaskin believed in the sacred power of women’s reproductive yin and men’s creative yang, he created a sexual division of labor that largely replicated an idealized past of what was considered 19th century rural gender roles. Quickly realizing that they were in over their heads in terms of the physical creation of community and self-sustainability, 12 to 14 hour work days with highly specialized roles became common. When they couldn’t make enough money, men hired themselves to local farmers for cash. Women on the other hand created collectivized childcare and worked in cottage industries, financing the enterprises, cooking, farming, teaching in the commune’s schools, and other tasks deemed feminine because they were seen as reproductive. In particular, the commune valued midwives as the highest form of female labor and they often played important social and political roles in these groups. Gaskin’s teachings reinforced these ideas, calling men “knights” that needed to protect and provide for women. There was an attempt to reject an unproductive animalistic masculinity in exchange for what he called the creation of the New Age sensitive man, but the gendered norms remained powerful and deeply connected to labor.
By the late 1970s, the commune movement was fading fast for a variety of reasons. Hippies were becoming old people and out of touch with the youth, or at least that’s how both the hippies themselves and young people saw it. Continued hardship and poverty were not appealing to a lot of men and women who were highly educated, and even if they had taken a decade off from the rat race, they still had Vassar or Columbia degrees and a lot of racial and cultural capital they could turn into future careers as lawyers or other professions. The revolutionary work ideas of the commune movement would largely go untapped, but their influence can be seen today in the organic farming and DIY work movements, both of which remain vital.
FURTHER READING:
Gretchen Lemke-Santangelo, Daughters of Aquarius: Women of the Sixties Counterculture
Tim Hodgdon, Manhood in the Age of Aquarius: Masculinity in Two Countercultural Communities, 1965-1983
Jeffrey Jacob, The New Pioneers: The Back-to-the-Land Movement and the Search for a Sustainable Future
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Kamala Harris Shouting 'HOW DARE THEY!' Is Exactly What America Needs Right Now
The vice president spoke at Emily's List last night, and good golly it was powerful.
President Joe Biden may not always be the greatest at saying the word "abortion" out loud, but oh boy, Vice President Kamala Harris does not have that issue.
She was already scheduled to speak to Emily's List last night, but in light of this week's news, the address she gave took on added urgency.
If anybody is wondering what maybe the Biden administration ought to be doing when it comes to the midterms, the fight to preserve abortion access, or to help Americans get a true idea of who the vice president is — one that rises above the din of roaring racist bullshit people like Tucker Carlson are injecting into the discourse — we humbly suggest that letting Veep Harris walk on to national stages on a regular basis and shout "How DARE they!" would be a good start.
People's anger has just been activated in a way the country's Christian fascist trash could never have imagined. That needs to be channeled in productive ways, and this speech showed that the vice president is ready to do that.
It started with a laugh, though. Just as Harris had begun to say how Roe v. Wade had protected women's rights, there was some big huge crashing sound. She immediately smirked and said, "Yeah, it's powerful!" like the thundering sound had been made by Roe itself.
But then she got real serious. "If the Court overturns Roe v. Wade, it will be a direct assault on freedom, on the fundamental right of self-determination to which all Americans are entitled." She continued:
Roe protects the right to access abortion. It also protects a woman's right to make decisions about what she does with her own body. [...]
We have been on the front lines of this fight for many years, all of us in this together. And now we enter a new phase. There is nothing hypothetical about this moment.
Speaking directly to the Emily's List audience, she emphasized the importance of electing pro-choice Democrats, and many more of them. (If you want a way to do that, look into the primary race in Texas between incumbent Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar, the only Democrat who voted with Republicans against enshrining Roe into federal law, and Jessica Cisneros, who is pretty sure the time is damn well past for that fuckin' garbage.)
Harris noted that in the event of Roe's demise, in almost half the country people will lose abortion rights entirely or have them severely curtailed, and that in 13 states it will happen immediately. And then she started saying HOW DARE THEY, HOW VERY DARE THEY:
Those Republican leaders that are trying to weaponize the use of the law against women — well we say HOW DARE THEY? HOW DARE THEY tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her own body? HOW DARE THEY! HOW DARE THEY try to stop her from determining her own future? HOW DARE THEY try to deny women their rights and their freedoms?
It was good, it was real good.
Harris got a grin on her face as she remembered being on the Senate Judiciary Committee and asking Mr. Stranger Danger himself, Brett Kavanaugh, if there were any laws that specifically regulated the male body. He was, of course, stumped.
And then she got real specific about what kind of precedent it sets for the Court to suddenly decide, as Alito obviously has, that people don't deserve a right to privacy. “Think about that for a minute," Harris said. "When the right to privacy is attacked, anyone in our country may face a future where the government can interfere in their personal decisions. Not just women; anyone.”
And Harris was very clear about what's at stake here if this troupe of unqualified and unelected liars in robes is allowed to have its sneering decisions about Americans' personal fucking lives stand:
And it has never been more clear which party wants to expand our rights, and which party wants to restrict them. It has never been more clear. It has never been more clear which party wants to lead us forward and which party wants to push us back. You know, some Republican leaders, they want to take us back to a time before Roe v. Wade. Back to a time before Obergefell v. Hodges. Back to a time before Griswold v. Connecticut.
But we are not going back. We are not going back.
Roe is just the beginning. People need to hear that every day between now and the midterms.
So yeah, Harris is the right voice on this, and we hope to see her more. Even Politico Playbook noticed it this morning.
And the American people are with her. Americans love legal abortion. Americans do not love Christian fascists, and the fascists know it. They wouldn't have worked so hard to steal the Court so that vicious religious ideologues like Sam Alito could shit on paper and thereby force the majority of the country to submit if they thought the American people would ever want to be on their side.
So yes, more like this please, as they say on the worldwide web. More like this, please.
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