CSotD: Clan Rivalry
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Marty Two-Bulls sets our theme today, reposting a playful bit of mockery it would be uncool for someone else to suggest.
The timing is good because I just discovered that the Crow are not the only Northern Plains people among whom clans are named by their rivals, though his Oglala are apparently not among them.
But — at least a century or so ago — the Crow had clan names like “They Eat Their Own Snot,” “Greasy Mouths” and “Bad War Honors,” the latter being the butts of many jokes, like the one about the fellow who saw a fellow Crow whose wife had made him a pair of leggings with red fringe.
He asked him how to get that effect and was told to boil his leggings in bear grease, which, of course, ruined them.
Point being that we should adopt the practice of letting rivals name political parties, because letting Al Franken and PJ O’Rourke pick the names of their opposing parties would sure liven things up.
Can’t expect the political cartoonists to carry the whole load, after all.
Though I suppose the major parties are the equivalent of bands, and that they then have clans within them.
And, as Mike Luckovich (AMS) suggests, they already give them insulting names, like “RINO.”
The Small Noser clan, led by Liz Cheney, are a very small part of the GOP band, consisting mostly of her and Mitt Romney.
And, like the Bad War Honors clan, they are the constant targets of mockery, as Dave Granlund points out, the difference being that, among the Crow, the joking, if sharp-edged, is all in good fun and part of a tradition of jokes and bantering.
Contrarywise, Kevin Siers points out, among Republicans, the Small Nosers are genuinely hated.
Which leads to the question of why they stay, since this isn’t ethnic but simply a case of ticking off a box when you register to vote, and so is just as easily reversed.
I suppose both Cheney and Romney have such family ties to the party that they stay in the abusive relationship, hoping the pendulum will swing and they will one day be loved and accepted.
Which brings us into a metaphor in which sarcasm and humor are exchanged for pity, and hopes that they will eventually accept their need to exchange futility for self-preservation.
As Mike Smith (KFS) points out, the outrageous things Republicans claim to believe aren’t funny, either, given that the GOP is in the position not only to make policy but to shape it by persuading others to accept their distorted reality.
Tom Tomorrow demonstrates how these partisan, paranoid falsehoods are spread, not simply by the Republicans themselves but through a system of surrogates consisting of gullible loonies and intentional liars.
For example, Rupert Murdoch got the Covid vaccine himself, but continues to employ Tucker Carlson to lie about its properties and to persuade Fox viewers to refuse the opportunity to be vaccinated, though his American tabloid, the NY Post, appears to have suddenly reversed gears on the topic.
Not simply hypocritical but disturbingly inconsistent.
Repeat after me, Rupert: “Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV.”
Even with a GOP minority stake in the House and a deadlocked Senate, the lies — however they are spread — have serious impact, demonstrated here by Bill Bramhall.
If people want to believe Elvis is alive or that the Moon landing was faked or that emergency rooms are busier during full moons, it’s harmless enough.
But refusing to be vaccinated plus refusing to wear masks endangers others.
It’s like insisting on your right to drink and drive, which was always a public danger but is now being intensified as such by gullible screwballs on the other side of the aisle who seriously propose not letting police stop anyone on the highway, but simply having traffic cameras send out tickets the next day.
This being a distortion of what serious people are seriously proposing.
It’s not helpful to have people promoting slogans like “Defund the Police” that invite misinterpretation even by potential allies.
By contrast, NY Atty General Letitia James has released a report that is far reaching but avoids incendiary rhetoric.
For example:
The question being whether such proposals can get a fair reading from either the people who want everything transformed right now or the people who want nothing changed ever.
As Adam Zyglis (Cagle) points out, the GOP’s well-promoted war on “Cancel Culture” is based on a consistent policy of “Four Legs Good, Two Legs Better,” in which nothing they cling to should ever be up for debate, while nothing they oppose should be discussed, either.
It’s one thing to analyze, discuss and criticize the NYTimes’ 1619 Project, which was well done but had shortcomings, some of which have been addressed, some of which have been staunchly defended.
That’s how scholarship works.
But for Mitch McConnell to declare that the introduction of slavery does not mark an important point in our history is not just “ignorant” but jaw-dropping, yet he dismisses as minor the source of 15% of the US population, and the “peculiar institution” that roiled our Constitutional Convention, led to a war that caused 820,000-some deaths and boiled over into a century of Jim Crow injustice and a nation-shaking Civil Rights Movement.
“We’ve been working for 200-and-some-odd years to get past (racial discrimination),” he blandly concedes.
Thank you, Mister Charlie.
But my goo’ness gracious, he insists, we don’t want to teach that stuff in school.
The kids will get the wrong idea about our nation’s history.
Yo, Mitch: “Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.”
Mike Smith makes a second visit now, pointing out that the GOP is all in favor of change and improvements, as long as they don’t require change and the improvements are low-cost and simply cosmetic.
It’s not that they’re unwilling to change.
But, please, enough of the accusations and all the shouting and name-calling!
They just want to be asked nicely.
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