Thos stinkin’ grammar books were first to hit the flames. An hippy had an horrible experience at an hospital when an hysterectomy was carried out. The trouble was she was an he. How wrong is that?
1 Like
Oh, come on. There is always the odd one out.
1 Like
I’m warming the house* with copies of Mein Kampf right now; my review is, “A good thick book that will smolder for hours; not like those crappy Turner Diaries which go up like a roman candle. 10/10. Would burn again.”
*Well, my Living Space at least.
6 Likes
Yes, there’d be a lot of people very “confused” that black people were allowed to talk.
The census didn’t create the concept of racism, or privilege in general. They are perennial concepts.
The social power dynamics have changed for many groups now called white, but someone from 1910, after looking around a little, would be able to recognize who had advantages and who didn’t. (Unless they were committed to being a racist, of course).
8 Likes
The photo you’ve chosen is actually the Opernplatz burnings of the library of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, which was largely about persecuting queer people.
10 Likes
I’m not sure she is. RCP to Brexit Party seems pretty authoritarian to me, and ayn-caps are not known for their love of freedom when their ability to gain profit is restricted by it.
5 Likes
Hey, my hygiene’s not that bad 
4 Likes
You’ve probably seen this, but for other bbers, the monument they built to remember the book burning is quite moving:
You look down to see these sterile, empty bookshelves.
14 Likes
The only problem I have with that monument is that it’s actually what they wanted to achieve.
It reminds people that it happened, and that’s great, but it needs the viewer to already have a sense that empty shelves are bad. It’s not a monument that will make a neo-Nazi uncomfortable. It’s arguably identical to the kind of monument that book-burners would build to celebrate a book-burning.
I guess they made it vandal-proof because it doesn’t emotionally affect would-be vandals or bigots? They can read it as a kind of “Mission Accomplished” banner.
5 Likes
And the memorial includes this prescient line from Heine:
“Das war ein Vorspiel nur, dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.” (“That was but a prelude; where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people as well.”)
15 Likes
All religious materials are classified as non-fiction, including religious materials that are explicitly designed as fiction (Flying Spaghetti Monster, etc.)
7 Likes
Praise Bob!
6 Likes
That’s exactly the point it is trying to make, although they couch it in an image that is sarcastically humorous. Political Correctness is a mild version of fascism, although a psychological fascism. I have no doubt some on the left in an place and time in history could be just as bad as the right is in the US currently.
Power inflames the ego and warps the mind. The best intentioned can become a monster.
No. It’s not. If you think it’s “oppression” because as a white person you can’t throw around the n-word when you feel like it or because women can now speak up against sexual harassment that impact their employment and lives, you really need a refresher on what “oppression” actually means. Treating people with respect is common courtesy, rarely (meaning NEVER) backed up by jail time, bullying, or public lynchings, which is some of the tactics used to oppress people. Might you lose your job by making the work place HOSTILE to your fellow human beings? You bet, but only if it’s a case that’s well documented, and sometimes, not even then.
17 Likes
I wouldn’t define PC oppression, but there is a point where it appears to cross over into thought control. George Carlin once used shell shock vs post traumatic stress disorder.
I suspect we’ll agree to disagree, and maybe not even that, but I wonder if you would be willing to hear what he’s saying here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9n8Xp8DWf8
And what particular context would you consider “PC” to be oppression? Not being able to discriminate against members of the LBGQT+ community? Not being allowed to kick out non-whites from a restaurant? Ignoring the personal space of women in the work place or constantly passing them over for promotion?
I don’t think Carlin, whose work I know rather well, thanks, having grown up with it, would support using hurtful language that punched down. If ever there was a comedian who punched up, it was him. He never used the power of the mic to demean others, which is what made him so very brilliant.
14 Likes
Being polite in public is fascism?
Don’t tell your mom…
13 Likes
This. White male Libertarians and brocialists love using Carlin to defend their “right” to say bigoted things without consequence, but anyone truly familiar with his work knows that he loathed those smug and privileged gits most of all. Carlin, from at least his first arrest alongside Lenny Bruce, understood the consequences of free speech in a society run by conservative corporate lackeys and bullies.
Only for people who think Jonah Goldberg and Ben Shapiro are serious intellectuals.
[ETA: those two kapos, as Carlin discusses in @KathyPartdeux’s clip below in re: Andrew “Dice” Clay, are playing a very dangerous game]
18 Likes
15 Likes
