Lately? Well ok, it sure has got a lot worse, hasn’t it.
But 1979 and the Thatcher revolution was the watershed for me and I’ve been noticing it ever since, as we tumbled down the hill, with very occasional level bits (Blair, for a short while), but right now it’s like we’re in freefall - it’s not even a race to the bottom, we’re just falling.
(And in case anyone comes to question what Thatcher’s great social experiment has to do with this case now, it was the clear encouragement of right-wing economic trolls, and their fellow-travellers, nowadays known as ‘disaster capitalists’, that over time enabled the likes of other right-wing fellow-travellers like Farage and the racist dog whistles he blew and today we hear in lower and lower pitch, so that they are now nearly deafening us, that ultimately led to shit like this where someone can perversely think they an take advantage of being a ‘victim’ of it. No doubt the US can create its own similar timeline back to Reagan, leading ultimately to Trump.)
I need some medication to take the edge of this despair. Back later.
At it’s heart, this should just be the story of an ambitious, out-of-touch celebrity from a family of child celebrities doing something incredibly out of touch and harmful. You know, fucking Tuesday. The fact that this is being tallied by some as a “win” for MAGA, and the meta-fact that this makes us focus even more on the fact that racism/anti-racism has become a fucking horse-race makes me want to drink a lake of fucking gin. I’m going back to the shirtless Abraham Lincoln thread.
You may have a point. As I said more seriously earlier, 1979 was a shit year politically. 1979 fashion-wise, though? I was very comfortable at the time. Not fashionable, I hasten to add, but comfortable with the prevailing ethos, though I may still have been a bit hippie-influenced despite being born too late for that. I guess being 15 or so years younger than me certainly would give a person a different view of the late '70s.
Back on topic:
Agreed. In this case, if only it were turtles all the way down. Did HE receive a check, in turn? Tongue firmly in cheek, there, but false flags can have triple and quadruple zig-zags, I guess, in principle, at least. But that’s starting to sound like a rather bad thriller, and this is just a rather bad reality.
When the story first broke I believed it, it seemed accurate to what our world has become, but a day or two later I started to question it and just held my tongue. I can’t remember what sounded weird about his story, but I do remember some people were angry the police were calling it “an alleged hate crime”-- obviously if it was legit then it was a hate crime, but it’s standard operating procedure for the cops to call these things “alleged” until more investigating is done.
Anyway, I don’t have any answers. I don’t want to end up like the conspiracy mongers who immediately shout “false flag”, but it’s hard not to automatically believe cases like this because there are so many documented and proven cases just like it. That’s basically all you can say to conservatives, “yup, this was fake, but can you blame me for believing it when most of the time this shit is 100% real?”
Only one thing gave me pause when it first broke. His face. He seemed to not have a scratch on him. And I figured maybe he had protected his face and was hurt else where on his person.
But that was the thing I thought twice about.
Beyond that. I had no reason to doubt him and every reason to give his story credence. And I do not feel duped or shamed for having done so.
What really drives me crazy is attention-seekers create high-profile events, so all the real hate crimes that happen regularly don’t get the attention that fakers do. Which further drives disbelief in victims by those already disposed to, as a relatively high proportion of the hate crimes they hear about were frauds. Confirmation bias driven by media dynamics.
I was one of those irked by the caution the police showed in approaching this case. In retrospect, I have to wonder if they, having acceess to more info than we do, were already thinking “this doesn’t smell right” from the get go. I do not think there is reason for those of us in the general public to feel bad for believing the “victim” (nor to be crowing about not doing so) but there is grounds for, at least in this case, respecting the police for the work they did.
I don’t feel ashamed for believing him, I’m not sure I feel “duped” exactly, even though I think we technically were duped. It’s sort of the opposite of “the boy who cried wolf”, where wolf attacks are widespread and crying “wolf” is common, and then one day the boy cries wolf just because he wants attention. We’re disappointed in the boy, not in our reaction.
I was confused by the use of alleged hate crime because it made it sound like there was a crime but the word alleged was describing it’s status as a hate crime when, had it actually happened, it categorically would have been a hate crime. I wasn’t irked by the cops saying that so much as the media reporting it as such. In retrospect what they meant was alleged crime.
I propose a Short form approach to this kind of stupid self destruction…along the lines of the 1040 EZ.
Rational for this is simple… This shit never works, always comes out in the end as some pathetic need for love, greed, pity, plunging self esteem or the need for a purgative of some kind.
Instead, take your new form, fill in various horrors visited on your heart, soul, feelings or liver. Embellish with details. Limp, slither, Uber or whatever to busy public location and commence lamentations. Always make sure you incorporate other idiots in to the frenzy of the “who gives a fuckdom”. This way you not only destroy any hope of salvage for your future, you also do grave disservice to actual victims of fuckery who genuinely need help but will now likely never receive aid.
Should the above method fail for whatever reason there is the time honored shooting yourself in ones foot…ass, head or whatever.
Better yet, Just get the fuck over yourself. Sometimes shit is hard, expect it, consider moving to a state where legalized weed binds the ass of conservative everywhere.
I just think that it’s sad.
People jumping up and down saying Smollett’s the worst guy ever… no, he’s not.
This has set civil rights back 20 years… no, it hasn’t.
Really, the right is saying the same stupid stuff that it always has.
The judiciary, while certainly having a closer relationship with public opinion than is necessarily optimal, doesn’t base its decisions on the Twitter.
Also agreed, but what it has done is make the job of anyone who fights for racial equality and justice that much harder, regardless to what haters on the right are saying.
