Not to mention a very hopeful candidate to cure pancreatic cancer, among others. But the worm tells him “vaccine bad! Very very bad!”
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When he said, “they let you do anything” he was saying because they ‘let’ him, it was consentual, I guess?
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Just imagine having the resources, the manpower, the money and the power to make the world a better place to live and turning your back on all of that because you’re stupid and think you’re morally superior because you’re an imbecile.
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… amongst the total cess pit of the trump administration, these acts of RFKjr just… it’s like… he’s an actual incarnation of moronic evil. in terms of longest lasting damage to the entirety of society: destroying education, appointing bastards to the supreme court, or this… this for me, is a person staring out of (some metaphoric) satan’s buttcrack and grinning [long string of furious obscenities… insert furious meme that i’m too furious to find]
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But mRNA vaccines also murdered millions and millions of children.
Or something like that said that idiot from Georgia.
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Speaking of Marge, she’s not having a good week and getting mad at everyone.
But at least she’s looking out for all women, no, wait…
“I think there’s other women in our party that are really sick and tired of the way men treat Republican women,”
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Something fascinating there is that apparently “younger voters” now means ages up to 40-50. I assume in a few more decades, we will see Republicans talking about how young people are starting to die of old age.
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I take it the carjackers are white?
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That is just fucking unbelievable. They are going to just edit out parts of the Constitution that provide for rights they don’t like? Anybody checked the Bill of Rights lately? Still 10, right? And the 14th is still there, maybe?
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Man oh man that pot of water is definitely feeling super warmish…
“Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt” delves into the core characteristics of fascism. Eco outlines fourteen key elements or traits, which he refers to as “ways,” that commonly appear in fascist movements. While not all these traits are present in every fascist movement, together they create a recognizable pattern. The essay is structured around these fourteen ways, providing an in-depth exploration of fascism as a multifaceted and adaptable ideology.[1] He argues that it is not possible to organise these into a coherent system, but that “it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.” He uses the term “ur-fascism” as a generic description of different historical forms of fascism. The fourteen properties are as follows:
- “The cult of tradition,” characterized by cultural syncretism, even at the risk of internal contradiction. When all truth has already been revealed by tradition, no new learning can occur, only further interpretation and refinement.
- “The rejection of modernism,” which views the rationalistic development of Western culture since the Enlightenment as a descent into depravity. Eco distinguishes this from a rejection of superficial technological advancement, as many fascist regimes cite their industrial potency as proof of the vitality of their system.
- “The cult of action for action’s sake,” which dictates that action is of value in itself and should be taken without intellectual reflection. This, says Eco, is connected with anti-intellectualism and irrationalism, and often manifests in attacks on modern culture and science.
- “Disagreement is treason” – fascism devalues intellectual discourse and critical reasoning as barriers to action, as well as out of fear that such analysis will expose the contradictions embodied in a syncretistic faith.
- “Fear of difference,” which fascism seeks to exploit and exacerbate, often in the form of racism or an appeal against foreigners and immigrants.
- “Appeal to a frustrated middle class,” fearing economic pressure from the demands and aspirations of lower social groups.
- “Obsession with a plot” and the hyping-up of an enemy threat. This often combines an appeal to xenophobia with a fear of disloyalty and sabotage from marginalized groups living within the society. Eco also cites Pat Robertson’s book The New World Order as a prominent example of a plot obsession.
- Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as “at the same time too strong and too weak.” On the one hand, fascists play up the power of certain disfavored elites to encourage in their followers a sense of grievance and humiliation. On the other hand, fascist leaders point to the decadence of those elites as proof of their ultimate feebleness in the face of an overwhelming popular will.
- “Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy” because “life is permanent warfare” – there must always be an enemy to fight. Both fascist Germany under Hitler and Italy under Mussolini worked first to organize and clean up their respective countries and then build the war machines that they later intended to and did use, despite Germany being under restrictions of the Versailles treaty to not build a military force. This principle leads to a fundamental contradiction within fascism: the incompatibility of ultimate triumph with perpetual war.
- “Contempt for the weak,” which is uncomfortably married to a chauvinistic popular elitism, in which every member of society is superior to outsiders by virtue of belonging to the in-group. Eco sees in these attitudes the root of a deep tension in the fundamentally hierarchical structure of fascist polities, as they encourage leaders to despise their underlings, up to the ultimate leader, who holds the whole country in contempt for having allowed him to overtake it by force.
- “Everybody is educated to become a hero,” which leads to the embrace of a cult of death. As Eco observes, “[t]he Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death.”
- “Machismo,” which sublimates the difficult work of permanent war and heroism into the sexual sphere. Fascists thus hold “both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality.”
- “Selective populism” – the people, conceived monolithically, have a common will, distinct from and superior to the viewpoint of any individual. As no mass of people can ever be truly unanimous, the leader holds himself out as the interpreter of the popular will (though truly he alone dictates it). Fascists use this concept to delegitimize democratic institutions they accuse of “no longer represent[ing] the voice of the people”.
- “Newspeak” – fascism employs and promotes an impoverished vocabulary in order to limit critical reasoning.
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I am going to be a massive humorless asshole about woo-woo shit, no matter how seemingly harmless, for the rest of my life due to this. astrology, homeopathic medicine, etc etc it’s all bullshit and it’s not fucking harmless. there are people who will die due to this who would have otherwise lived.
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Ohfergoodnessakes I can’t make this up… I swear I did not put that gif of Clippy into that post after I read this, just now:
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What a terrible shame it would be if a Microsoft employee with morals and a conscience and no regard for job security were to accidentally delete all that data.
(I can fantasise, can’t I?)
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That only works with brainless frogs.
Oh, wait…
[looks at Trump’s voters, looks at Trump’s cabinet]
Never mind.
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