Mykolas Lukosevicius wasted no time commenting on Macron’s victory in yesterday’s French elections, the caption reading, “So, happy?”
Liberty looks anything but, and little wonder after the campaign she’s just endured. She chose the lesser of two evils, and Mykolas offers a bit of a visual joke in that, while her bare breast is taken from Delacroix’s classic painting, Macron’s is taken from an odd photograph that popped up in the past week.
Watching from a distance, you get the impression that, if Macron had been running against anyone but a racist, fascist Putin admirer, he’d have lost. It diminishes his victory, certainly, but should raise France in the eyes of decent Americans, since we’re not so sure our own fellow citizens would be so clear-eyed in their choices.
Not, mind you, that we’re paying much attention. I saw one relatively major paper this morning that posted a cartoon about the upcoming French election as if it hadn’t been over by the time they were laying out the page. I can just picture them feeling proud to be so international in their scope.
Not surprising, I suppose, considering how little heed we pay even to our own history and current events.
Juxtaposition of the Day
The white, three-fingered gloves are off in the battle between Florida and Disney, and I had a bit of an epiphany and flashback when I saw this pair of cartoons.
The question they raise is “What has Disney done that is so evil?” and the answer is that they have come out in favor of equal treatment for people of differing sexual orientations. Varvel claims that this tolerance is immoral, while Gorrell mocks the acronym listing people he feels we should not treat decently.
Of course, the accusation of “grooming” is nonsense. As Ed Wexler notes, the Republican fearmongers see groomers under their beds as surely as the Birchers once saw Commies hiding there.
Meanwhile, George Takei pointed out the absolute moonbat idiocy of assuming you can direct people’s sexuality by means of what you let them see.
And then, as I was thinking that you no more choose to be gay or straight than you choose to be black or white, it hit me:
“Groomer” is the new term for “N*****-Lover.”
No exaggeration, at least for those of us who remember when advocating Civil Rights made you a n*****-lover and going south for voter registration drives meant risking being jailed on trumped-up charges, being beaten on the street and sometimes being murdered.
Viola Liuzzo groomed black folks to think they had a right to vote. So did Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner.
I’m old enough to remember when entire busloads of groomers toured the South.
You say it hasn’t been that bad and we older folks say, “Stay tuned.”
As Marc Murphy notes, the real groomers — the hatemongers — aren’t at Disney World. They’re in your living room, if you invite them in.
And on your editorial page, depending on what papers you read.
Old joke from the history drawer:
Did you hear? Ross Barnett had a heart attack!
What happened?
He ordered a new limo and they sent over a black demonstrator.
When my uncle was in college, he and his buddies sent ol’ Ross a gift subscription to Ebony.
Maybe we should give Ron De Santis a subscription to Out.
Juxtaposition of the Day #2
Speaking of the actual groomers, the gun lobby has done a marvelous job of convincing people they need guns because of all the bad people out there who have guns. We’re just one big, happy well-regulated anarchic militia.
Civilized countries do not have the level of gun-related killings we have, and note that I didn’t say “Other civilized countries.”
We’ve turned our nation into a shooting gallery, and there’s a link to the previous topic, because, back when “groomers” were called “n*****-lovers,” the cruel brutality of their opponents stirred America into corrective action.
Today, we sit in our Barcaloungers like the fellow in the Stahler cartoon, letting mass murder after mass murder flow over us as if it were the weather report for a distant city and would never affect us.
You don’t have to be old enough to remember the Civil Rights Movement for this: Over at the Nib, Andy Warner reprises his painstaking reconstruction of the Columbine shootings, first done for the 20th anniversary, now the 22nd.
It brings back the events, the impact and the coverage from that day, and, goddammitall, if you’re over 30, you shouldn’t have to rack your brain to relive the moment. If you’re under 30, you need to go there and learn.
He’s right: It was all over the news and we were shocked and schools began locking their doors and we talked about gun reform.
But the moment passed, just as Sandy Hook, too, would have faded from view, if Alex Jones hadn’t turned it into screwball propaganda and if the bereaved parents hadn’t stood up to the profiteering liar.
That’s how quickly we forget, even when it happens in white, middleclass neighborhoods.
When it happens to Those Other People, it’s barely a ripple.
Quite a contrast with New Zealand, where a mass shooting that killed 50 resulted in immediate, unanimous changes in their gun laws.
But that’s an unfair comparison.
New Zealand is a civilized nation.
Now more history, inspired by DD Degg’s coverage of the death of James Bama, who drew the covers for the Doc Savage paperback revival in the late 60s.
I’d bought a set of the books in 1967 as a Christmas present for my little brother, but then caught the Hong Kong flu and, despite my gibbering fever, had the presence of mind to bring them with me to the campus infirmary, where I became a fan while under treatment.
I recovered in a week or so, but not everyone was so lucky.
Out at the University of Colorado, my future wife was consoling her roommate, whose mother had just died of it.
Think covid is no worse than flu? Get a booster. Wear your mask.
You’re not made of iron. Or even bronze.
Now this, from my favorite n*****-loving groomer:
“N*****-lover” and “Groomer” are manifestly not the same thing. This is really, really important to understand. “N*****-lover” may be an ugly slur, but essentially it is something that is true about all decent people, and so decent people demonstrated their maturity by ignoring it.
“Groomer” is just a more aggressive take on “pedophile”. It is something that is manifestly not true of decent people, and to Hollywood and tabloid-educated people means you deserve violence at the hands of vigilantes.
It is blood-libel. Not _like_ blood-libel, but straightforward blood-libel. That is its purpose: the people we oppose threaten “Christian” children and they must be killed.
I was 15 when Viola Liuzzo was murdered for being a n*****-lover. Maybe not mature enough to ignore that level of hate. Or I wasn’t decent enough to turn my head.
Anyway, I’m just writing about what I remember. Sure seemed hateful at the time.
Gawain: the definition of each is not what’s being compared, but rather the manner in which they’re being used by a certain group of people. Certainly, ‘groomer’ has had the connotative meaning you describe, but lately it has been co-opted by conservative talking heads to get their mindless slaves to new levels of hate, for basically the same purpose as the other term.
I would say this will end in death, but it’s been continuing in death for decades.
Heck, it’s not even in the past. My cousin in Ohio (NOT! Mississippi) was called a “n-word lover” for holding a store door open for a black woman (who was in a US Air Force uniform too!) But then, she’s been insulted for wearing a mask during the pandemic there too.
Oh Mark B – the stories we in Ohio have to put up with. Shake your cousin’s hand for me.