Rebecca Solnit has a new essay about the false-fairness strategy of trying to meet bigoted, science-denying, narrow, and Trump-won-the-election fantasy halfway. “On Not Meeting Nazis Halfway: Why Is It So Hard for Democrats to Act Like They Actually Won?” Patience and kindness are one thing; pretending that we can find reasonable compromise with a dangerous minority, maybe not so much. Especially since only the left—the majority that won the White House—even tries.
There is no reasonable halfway between truth and bogus claims. We should stop pretending that there is such a place. Sometimes, however much some people want believe it, a lie is just a lie.
(I used to think that accusations of “Nazi” were overblown and unfair. Then I paid more attention to the signs, actions, and words of Proud Boys and other white supremacist groups. Are cries of “Nazi” unreasonable? No, they aren’t.)
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito just complained that “you can’t say that marriage is a union between one man and one woman. Now it’s considered bigotry.” This is a standard complaint of the right: the real victim is the racist who has been called a racist, not the victim of his racism, the real oppression is to be impeded in your freedom to oppress. And of course Alito is disingenuous; you can say that stuff against marriage equality (and he did). Then other people can call you a bigot, because they get to have opinions too, but in his scheme such dissent is intolerable, which is fun coming from a member of the party whose devotees wore “fuck your feelings” shirts at its rallies and popularized the term “snowflake.”
Nevertheless, we get this hopelessly naïve version of centrism, of the idea that if we’re nicer to the other side there will be no other side, just one big happy family. This inanity is also applied to the questions of belief and fact and principle, with some muddled cocktail of moral relativism and therapists’ “everyone’s feelings are valid” applied to everything. But the truth is not some compromise halfway between the truth and the lie, the fact and the delusion, the scientists and the propagandists. And the ethical is not halfway between white supremacists and human rights activists, rapists and feminists, synagogue massacrists and Jews, xenophobes and immigrants, delusional transphobes and trans people. Who the hell wants unity with Nazis until and unless they stop being Nazis?
—Rebecca Solnit
It is worse to be racist than to be called a racist. It is worse to be a misogynist than to be called out for sexism. It is worse to experience bigotry than to point a finger at the persons doing the oppressing. And climate change is happening whether we want to admit it or not. Truth is truth; fact is fact.
It’s a simple concept.
In the mean time, the State of Oregon has forbidden meetings of more than six people and two households and forbidden unnecessary travel, particularly out of state. There are five cars with out-of-state plates and more than ten people in the rental north of us. The last time I contacted the owners directly, they called me an f—ing b—. (Except that it was said many times without euphemism. Even after I tried to be “nice.”) The last time I went directly to the people offending (big beach fire during a high fire-danger burn ban) I got chewed out over the phone for that too. (From my point of view it was their job to apologize to me for failing to run their business according to law regarding short term rentals in my residential neighborhood.) I’ll get in trouble for complaining to the source.
But should I do as I was told: “shut up and go in your house” and pretend that this is okay? That they have a reasonable position that I should try to understand? Unless I want to be threatened, I should be quiet because their money trumps my community? I should pretend that laws apply only to other people rather than to them and only when those laws are convenient, because since they are Americans and do not consider themselves criminals, they get to do whatever they like?
Is that any way to live? Or is it just another lie of convenience and elitism over fact?
But I am not alone in my confusion.
“We [historians] pride ourselves in saying, ‘Don’t worry, this has happened before,’ or, ‘Worry, this has happened before,’ ” said Jeffrey A. Engel, the founding director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University. “Right now, if all your historians can say is, ‘We are in entirely uncharted waters,’ I don’t even know how the rest of that sentence ends.”
—The Washington Post
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IMPERFECT PATIENCE 
Good on you Jan for standing up for the law. I recently got peeved at a NPR reporter talking to a 45 supporter who was expressing non factual opinion and replied to them that is how you feel! Upstart crow? Is that a development stage?
On Sat, Nov 21, 2020 at 9:19 AM IMPERFECT PATIENCE wrote:
> janpriddyoregon posted: ” Gary’s upstart crow who hangs out with the gulls > at the creek is front and center. Behind is a juvenile and a nearly adult > gull. One juvenile gull is still weep-weeping to be fed every morning as we > walk north. Rebecca Solnit has a new essay about the” >
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I am annoyed at all the media articles wingeing about splits in the Democratic party, that Trump is “unlikely” to succeed in his machinations, and “What did Democrats get wrong?” etc. The Democratic party won the Presidential election. This time, our elected President will gain the White House. Trump’s self-indulgent lies can not and will not succeed. It is absurd to suggest there is any chance of that.
Eliminate the Electoral College (no matter how much fun those guys had conventioneering and throwing weight around), reconsider the structure of the Senate (it is un-democratic as the parallel is the British House of Lords, a body composed of elite inheritance), and expand the Supreme Court in order to restore it as an apolitical body.
“Upstart Crow” is a BBC sitcom.
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The crow’s name is Hector, or so she claims, and is smarter than all the coviodiots I know. the Unthanks need to sing about her-—I know I’d listen—you can hear more with ears open and mouth or beak closed—try it and sea.
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Oh, dear, you’re right. My mistake; I forgot her name.
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Agreed. Sorry for your repeated hassling responses, more than a drag.
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The house has been in my family since 1911. We are very fortunate to live where we do, in a community we absolutely cannot afford, but some of our neighbors are very entitled and some do not even live here.
We are fortunate to have people nearby who are good, generous friends. We go out in the early morning and see people we know and wave to on the beach, around the corner are the homes of people with Biden/Harris stickers on their cars, and people who share their sourdough start and homemade jellies.❤
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Glad you can enjoy the family place. Regards.
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You know what the monty don boys say, dontcha—and in the end the love you take will cure your big headache—no that’s wrong—look on the right side of life—morally that is—cause there’s not a moment to lose.
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I didn’t realise that anyone was trying to meet Trump’s delusions (or his supporters) halfway. What a weird situation! People here see 45 as having another extended toddler tantrum, and I can’t understand why any adult would find that acceptable in a leader. The past four years have been a series of “he said what?” exclamations. Biden might be the oldest white man in the job, ever (?), and more of the old school political BS, but it’s functional BS. I welcome functional. What bewilders me most is how the system itself allows for 45’s childish behaviour within the handover period. I keep waiting for someone to send him to the naughty chair without dinner or golf.
Happy to hear you have wonderful friends nearby to mitigate the other BS.
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Thank you so much. (Do have look at Solnit’s essay, it’s brilliant.)
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Thank you for pointing me in that direction. Beautifully written as usual. I can see why it spurred you to write! I liked your points about how racism is worse than being called a racist, etc. In the comments section of a new Midnight Oil song on youtube, someone called the band “divisive”. It fascinates me that someone thinks a call to Reconciliation is divisive. What do they think systemic racism is, then? But I didn’t engage. 🙂
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It is challenging sometimes not to reply; it’s one of the reasons I quit Facebook. Since so many of my “friends” were former students (a thousand?) I felt obliged to engage, and it rarely goes well. 😉
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from today’s WaPo: “Republicans both privately and publicly worry that Trump — who has shown little affinity toward his chosen party and largely appears to act almost exclusively in his self-interest — could be more likely to play a meddling and damaging role than a helpful one.” Note all the qualifiers: little, largely, appears, almost.
He has demonstrated no loyalty to any organization or to any one but his own self-interest.
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Excellent as usual. Tell me why it is Gary’s crow?
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Well, you know he rescued a crow once long ago. “Elvis” lived with us until it could fly away. That’s a long story.
Hector is “Gary’s crow” because he insists it’s always the same one at the =creek with the gulls, and they tease one another.
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