(1) SPIDERY MARKS. Kameron Hurley’s contribution to sanity today is this excerpt from the epilogue to The Geek Feminist Revolution.
…I have no children, and no legacy but my work— and you.
I have the power to reach back to you long after I am dead, through these spidery marks on paper or pixels, and remind you that you have a voice, you have agency, and your voice is stronger and more powerful than you could ever imagine, and long after I am gone, you can pick up this beer beside me and carry on the work we are doing now, the work we have always been doing, the work we will always do, until the world looks the way we imagine it can be.
I am a grim optimist, and this is my hope for you: that you will be louder than me, and stronger than me, and more powerful than me, and that you will look back at me as a relic, a dinosaur, as the minor villain in your own story, the rock you pushed against in your own flight to fame, to notoriety, to revolution.
That is my wish for you.
(2) SCIENCE FICTION IS A POSITIVE FORCE. Patrick Nielsen Hayden talks about “The Prospect Before Us”.
This morning, at 9:30, saw a long-planned major meeting at Tor, not quite all hands but definitely the majority of our staff plus various Macmillan-level sales and marketing managers.
It could have been better timed, obviously.
I took the opportunity to make some remarks. Here’s what I said:
Last night, I found myself very grateful that I work in science fiction.
Science fiction came into being in response to a new thing in human history: the understanding that not only was the world changing, but also that the rate of change was speeding up. That in a normal lifetime, you could expect to experience multiple episodes of rapid, disorienting change. Science fiction at its best has always been about examining and inhabiting those experiences when the world passes through a one-way door.
Modern science fiction grew up in the Great Depression and flourished in World War II. It thrived in the strangeness of the 1950s and the different strangeness of the 1960s. It has continued to be an essential set of tools for engaging with our careening world.
I don’t want to argue that reading science fiction makes us smarter or morally better. (I personally believe that, but I don’t want to argue it.) But I do believe that good storytelling is a positive force in the world. And I really do believe that science fiction and fantasy storytelling makes us, in some fundamental way, a bit more practiced in the ways of a world caught up in wrenching change—and more open to imagining better worlds that might be possible.
Bottom line: I’ve never been more convinced of the need for more good science fiction and fantasy, and I’ve never been more fired up to find it and publish it, hopefully with the help of everyone in this room. Thank you.
(3) EXPERIENCED VOICE. Here’s what George Takei has to say:
The unthinkable happened before, to my family in WWII. We got thru it. We held each other close. We kept our dignity and held to our ideals.
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) November 9, 2016
(4) 124C41+. John Scalzi didn’t predict the election, but he now predicts this outcome: “Early Morning Thoughts on the Day After”.
- It will be no surprise to anyone I’m unhappy with the result of this election. Donald Trump was manifestly the worst presidential candidate in living memory, an ignorant, sex-assaulting vindictive bigot, enamored of strongmen and contemptuous of the law, consorting with white nationalists and hucksters — and now he’s president-elect, which is appalling and very sad for the nation. I don’t see much good coming out of this, either in the immediate or long-term, not in the least because if he does any of the things he promises to do, his impact will be ruinous to the nation. Add to the fact that he’s the GOP candidate, and the GOP now will have the White House, Congress and will appoint the next Supreme Court justice, and, well. There aren’t any grownups in the GOP anymore, and we’re going to find out what that means for all of us.
Here are some of the things it could mean: A conservative Supreme Court for decades, backtracking on climate change, the repeal of Roe v. Wade, curtailment of free speech, loss of medical insurance to millions, tax policy that advantages the wealthy and adds trillions to the national debt, punitive racial policies, the return of torture as a part of the military toolbox, and a president who uses the apparatus of the US to go after his personal enemies. And these are only the things Trump has said he’s ready to do — we don’t know what else he will do when he’s literally the most powerful man on the planet, with a compliant legislature and judiciary.
(5) WHICH CANCER WOULD YOU LIKE? Larry Correia says he predicted cancer would win and that his prediction was correct.
As somebody who didn’t really have a horse in this race, who had to come to terms with not getting what I wanted months ago, I’ve got some comments for the rest of you. (for the record my primary vote was for Ham Sandwich, only All-You-Can-Eat-Shrimp/Colon Cancer supporters declared that was actually Canadian Bacon because they didn’t understand how the Naturalization Acts work, and his dad killed JFK)
I’m not happy Trump won, but I’m ecstatic that Hillary lost.
From what I heard this morning (haven’t looked to confirm yet, and woke up late) Trump got fewer votes than Romney, but Hillary got WAY less votes than Obama. So people decided they wanted colon cancer instead of brain cancer, but I don’t think very many of us were super enthusiastic about either. They just wanted the other crappy one to lose.
This election turned into “My authoritarian New Yorker is better than yours!” And shockingly enough, a authoritarian New Yorker won. Yay! Go cancer! I did not see a Trump victory coming (apparently, neither did any of the professional pollsters). It is a testament to the sheer, banal, corrupt, unlikable nature of Hillary that she couldn’t beat the guy they picked as the most beatable.
(6) PREDICTION FAILURES. Vox Day has written a series of triumphalist posts about Trump’s win. This one is a roundup about inaccurate polling, which people on both sides are pondering — “The hoax media”.
This is why you simply cannot believe anything they say. The final polls and estimates prior to the election.
The New York Times: 80 percent chance of Clinton victory
Huffington Post: 98.1 percent chance of Clinton victory
Nate Silver/538: 72 percent chance of Clinton victory (323 electoral votes)
Bing.com: 89.7 percent chance of Clinton victory
NBC/SM: Clinton +6
IPSOS: Clinton +4
Fox News: Clinton +4
NBC/WSJ: Clinton +4
ABC/WashPost: Clinton +4
Herald: Clinton +4
Bloomberg: Clinton +3
But this is what demonstrates how SHAMELESSLY dishonest they are: Donald Trump has been elected president of the United States. In an extremely narrow sense, I’m not that surprised by the outcome, since polling — to a greater extent than the conventional wisdom acknowledged — had shown a fairly competitive race with critical weaknesses for Clinton in the Electoral College. It’s possible, perhaps even likely, that Clinton will eventually win the popular vote as more votes come in from California. – Nate Silver Oh, shut up, Nate. You were wrong. You were wrong from the start. You were wrong about the primaries. You were wrong about the election. No one should put any faith in your erroneous models ever again. Keep in mind that Silver not only called a 72 percent chance of a Clinton victory, but actually INCREASED it from 65 percent on the day of the election. This isn’t “statistical science”; it’s not even “statistical analysis”. It is nothing more than postmortem media CYA.
(7) DON’T BOTHER, THEY’RE HERE. George R. R. Martin is not in a mood to unify the country today: “President Pussygrabber”.
Over the next four years, our problems are going to get much, much worse.
Winter is coming. I told you so.
(8) SEEING WHAT THEY EXPECT. Nancy Kress broke her usual silence on things political:
Many people will see this election through whatever lens they interpret the world. Those most concerned with misogyny will say that Clinton lost because she’s a woman. Those focusing on race will say Trump won because he’s a racist. Those for whom guns are a major concern will view Trump as their champion, Clinton as their enemy. Etc. These things may or may not be true, but I think it’s important to see Trump’s win as the complex thing it is. Even if he is misogynist, racist, vulgar, insensitive, and pro-gun (and please don’t give me your impassioned arguments on either side–I’ve heard them already), not all of those who voted for him are those things. Over half the country chose this man for president, and many are fundamentally decent people who don’t want to deport undocumented immigrants, ban Muslims, or even repeal Roe v. Wade. We on the left lost this election because something important is going on out there in the heartland, something involving feelings of exclusion and lost jobs and profound distrust of Washington, and we on the left did not realize how deep that feeling went. We were not paying sufficient attention, which is why the commentators all looked so stunned last night when the results came in. I am not moving to Canada, or Ireland, or anywhere else. This is my country. But it is Trump-supporters’ country, too, and we all need to find some way to work together. No, this is not a “can’t-we-just-get-along’ sentimental plea. It’s a statement that we had better all figure out how to not only get along, but get done the things that need doing, and without scapegoating–not Trump voters, not Muslims, not undocumented immigrants. If we don’t, then the next four years will be hell.
(9) HARI HARI. I guess you could think of it that way…
https://twitter.com/erikledrew/status/796424645461217280
(10) DOOM. Charles Stross has this and a lot more to say in his own post carrying that popular title “The Day After”.
Trump will have to be painfully educated that the office of POTUS is not a CEO’s desk where he can rule by decree, but the head of a 400-person executive team who interact with other agencies and negotiate to get results. The hairpiece that walks like a man won’t like that. In fact, he’ll sulk, and probably retire to his golf course and leave running the USA to Vice President Pence, a man who seems to think that The Handmaid’s Tale was a road map rather than a dystopia, and the likes of Rudy Giuliani (about whom the less said, the better). It’ll be four years of the ugly old white male phobes running the federal government, and only the huge inertia built into the system of checks and balances will prevent it from being a total fright-fest as opposed to a major throwback fright-fest. In the mid-terms of 2018 the Democrats will pick up votes and hopefully re-take the Senate, which will put a brake on Trump … and in 2020, who knows?
But this may not happen, because the airliner of reality which we all ride in has flown straight into a flock of migrating black swans, both engines have flamed out, and that’s not the Hudson River down below. (Also? We now have Donald Trump at the controls.)
I’m calling it for the next global financial crisis to hit before the 2018 mid-terms. Neither Trump nor Pence are far-sighted enough to realize that the USA is not a corporation and can’t be run like one, and that on the macro scale economics is difficult and different from anything they have any experience of. They will, to put it bluntly, screw the pooch—aided by the gibbering chorus of Brexiteers across the pond, who are desperately trying to ensure that the British economy and banking sector commit seppuku in the name of limiting immigration. We’ve already seen Sterling crash, and continue to crash; what happens when the Dollar joins it? Quantitative easing can only stretch so far before we break out in hyperinflation due to basic commodities getting scarce (as witness the 5-20% food price inflation working its way through the UK’s supply chain in defiance of the structural deflationary regime enforced by the supermarkets for the past two decades).
(11) A VOTE AGAINST. David Gerrold has posted a double-handful of responses to the election at Facebook; here’s one.
I feel betrayed.
I used to believe in the good sense and collective wisdom of the American people.
I can’t do that anymore.
A majority of American voters have just declared that they do not care about the rights of Muslims, immigrants, Latinos, LGBT people, women, seniors, the disabled, and so many others. A majority of Americans voted against common human kindness.
I feel betrayed — but if there is a betrayal, it has to be my own, for believing that we were a nation of compassionate and thoughtful people. Apparently, we are not.
… If we truly believe in this thing called “The United States of America” — if we truly believe in the essential strength of our Constitutional processes, then we have no choice but to get to work.
I don’t know what we have to do or how we will have to do it. I do know that we will be facing dire political circumstances. Ahead of us is a decade of frustrating hard work. …
(12) STAY AND FIGHT. Gardner Dozois isn’t leaving the country—but then, who is, really?
Let me make one thing clear, though. I see a lot of my Friends on Facebook talking seriously, more seriously than the half-joking way this is usually mentioned, of moving to Canada. I’m not moving to Canada. This is my country, and I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to stay here and fight, and do anything that I possibly can, even if it’s only to encourage others, to stay right here and work as hard as possible to make things as much better as we can.
For those of you who supported Hillary, or at least DIDN’T support Trump–which, after all, included very nearly half of the people in the country–don’t give into despair. Don’t give up. The fight is far from over, and there are many things on all levels that can still be done. One possibility is that, in one of the great historical ironies, the Democrats and the Republicans may end up switching roles, with the Democrats becoming the “obstructionists” in Congress and trying to keep the Republicans from undoing as much as possible of the gains set in place for the last eight years;…
(13) COMEDY TONIGHT. Meanwhile, back at the bookstore… Gary K. Wolfe reviews Connie Willis’s new novel Crosstalk for Locus Online.
So while the characters and their relationships follow a familiar rom-com pattern, there’s also a fair amount of acerbic commentary on a society already overwired and overconnected, but which seems to want to get even more overwired and overconnected. The two SF elements crucial to this commentary, and in fact the only real SF elements in the book, are a new minor brain procedure called EED, which purportedly allows a couple already emotionally bonded to become super-empathetic with each other – and telepathy.
(14) WIL BADEN OBIT. Condolences to Chaz Boston Baden on the loss of his father, Wil Baden (1928-2016) who died today. Chaz wrote a long post about his life:
This is the man who, as a boy, lived in Hollywood and was an extra in a crowd scene in an “Our Gang” episode about a birthday party.
This is the man whose father took him to the World Science Fiction Convention, in 1939.
He took the bus to visit John W. Campbell Jr. at Astounding Science Fiction magazine’s offices. While at Princeton University, he had tea with Albert Einstein. (Which wasn’t unusual at the time, all the incoming freshmen did.)
He was always good with languages. One day, a man from the government asked the head of the languages department if he could be introduced to the students who were especially good with the following languages? Which is how he ended up spending a summer translating Russian mathematics papers.
(15) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY
- Born November 9, 1951 — Lou Ferrigno (TV’s Incredible Hulk).
(16) PRO TIPS. SFWA’s Nebula Suggested Reading List is growing as the year winds down.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kip W.]
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@airboy
“hopefully everything can mostly go back to focusing on SF stuff soon.”
What an excellent suggestion. You start.
SF Stuff:
–Just wrapping up a re-read of Jo Clayton’s Duel of Sorcery trilogy. Clayton is such a great writer (reminiscent of Leigh Brackett or C.L. Moore but more modern) that I wonder why her profile isn’t higher. As for this trilogy, it’s not my favorite; I prefer Wild Magic or the Drinker of Souls trilogies myself. But it’s still really good.
–Just started Walter Jon Williams’ “Impersonations: A Novel of the Praxis” and, like the other books in the series, are perfect Retief-meets-Grimes fodder for times like these. To me, the Praxis series is Baen SF for people who don’t like Baen SF.
Dems removed the filibuster (they invoked the “nuclear option”) for judges below Supreme Court in 2013, and Reid has been setting in motion a plan for an anticipated Democratic Senate to do so for Supreme Court justices in 2017.
@Jayn I subscribed to the New York Times – the First Amendment being as important as the second.
Then why not subscribe to a paper that supports both amendments?
@Rob
After reading Impersonations I went back and read the original trilogy to great enjoyment.
@Greg Hullender: Do the e-issues usually come out that far in advance of the printed ones? The on-sale date for the December Asimov’s is 11/15. That the Asimov’s website is still displaying the October/November issue is completely normal, in my experience – it’s often unchanged until two or three days after the official on-sale date.
Reading: After watching the Amazon TV series, I’m just about done reading Man in the High Castle; after that, I’m not sure, although the Jo Clayton is tempting now that it’s on my Kindle.
What I really want is the new Alliance/Union book that C.J. Cherryh is working on; but that’ll be a while yet. And it sounds like Diane Duane might be getting ready to take another crack at The Door Into Starlight …
I recently finished the original anthology Drowned Worlds edited by Strahan, a good, varied set of stories only a couple of which didn’t work for me at all. The stories weren’t generally speaking downers, as the theme of the book might lead you to expect. I think my favourite was Elves of Antarctica by Paul McAuley.
I currently have The Drowned World, Ninefox Gambit, and The Nightmare Stacks borrowed from the library and expect to read them in the next couple of weeks.
@StephenfromOttawa
I totally agree, Drowned Worlds was a good anthology. There were a few that I felt were more a vignette of a future than a full story, but it was still a good strike rate.
Elves of Antarctica was definitely a highlight. I liked Brownsville Station and The New Venusians for playing with the concept in really interesting ways, along with Destroyed by the Waters by Rachel Swirsky for being very affecting. The Future is Blue by Cat Valente might have been my favourite over the McAuley by a nose.
A great story from Daily SF: For The Things We Never Said by Cassandra Khaw. Warning, contains all the feels.
@Greg Hullender: Glancing at my Nook, I see the December Asimov’s on it (the December Analog is probably there also–I’m several months behind on reading both magazines).
So the electronic versions have come through the B&N conduit, at least.
There are a series of FX2 pinball games with Marvel Superhero or Star Wars themes that are excellent. These total to 20+ games. Almost all of the games are excellent. The games can be played as mobile apps, on PC or on dedicated electronic pinball hardware.
I’ve played all of them excepting the latest two which have been released very recently. The latest two boards have a female Marvel Superheroine theme. You can find these at:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/529350/
airboy —
On the night of President Obama’s inaugaration in January, 2008, the top Republican leadership met and made a pact to obstruct EVERYTHING he would propose, EVERYTHING. They made an agreement to delay, vote down, obstruct, delay and defeat any proposal that he brought to the table. Mitch McConnell swore to make him a one term president.
The democrats had a filibuster-proof majority for only 14 months, I believe, due to the recount on Senator Al Franken. They used it to pass the Affordable Care Act. Legislation that mimicked RomneyCare as implemented in Massachusetts. Legislation that had key points designed by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation. That did not include a single payer option because of violent opposition of the health insurance industry.
Once the Dems lost their 60 senator majority, the filibusters began, and almost every appointment that President Obama made was filibustered. That’s why Harry Reid changed the rules on filibustering appointees to executive branch jobs and federal court judgeships.
Your grasp of history is sadly lacking. President Obama tried to compromise, but the other side had no intention to do anything other than a scorched earth campaign.
Jack Chick is probably spinning in his fresh grave over this. (He really hated those toy barns.)
@Darren Garrison
Nononoo, it’s those satanic swing seats he got really riled up about
—–
The BBC have just (re)released The Power of the Daleks, a “lost” Troughton story, as a brand new animation supported by the surviving audio track (spoilerific Guardian review here). I haven’t seen it yet although I’m rather excited to, but I’m already pondering this tricky question: do 2016 visuals and 1966 sound make for a 2016 dramatic presentation?
I really loved The Drinker of Souls. It is one of my comfort rereads.
When you think about how a substantial change will permit a text sf story to become eligible again (versions of Dune; “Flowers for Algernon”, etc.), the transformation of a soundtrack into an animated feature should qualify as a new work.
I find Nancy Kress’ response inspirational.
@Joe H
If you are still without something good to read, I’ve read a few things that are worth your time and consideration.
Regards,
Dann
dang…
c4c
best advice yet
I’d like to do likewise
@Techgrrl1972
Please name one bi-partisan piece of major legislation that Obama was the co-author of in the Illinois Legislature?
Please name one bi-partisan piece of major legislation that Obama was the co-author of while a US Senator?
Please name one major bi-partisan piece of major legislation that Obama got through Congress while President?
Liberals in their bubble-world always like to believe that Obama was so cooperative but was stymied from the beginning. But this is fiction. Yes, some republicans vowed to oppose him. But he never attempted major compromise, ever. Remember “we won.” Perhaps “they can join us but have to ride in the back?” Do you remember “elections have consequences?” Perhaps the temper tantrum he threw when the expiring Bush tax cuts had to be reauthorized and he was a major jerk about it and promised “never again.” Or perhaps you remember the news stories of when Republicans took control of Congress and Obama lacked the numbers to directly contact the new leadership that he had studiously ignored?
Every other President in my lifetime had at least one major piece of bi-partisan legislation. Most had many. This includes Kennedy; Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush 1 & 2. Obama – zip.
Hillary for all of her faults, could work in a bipartisan fashion in the Senate and pass bills.
If Obama had any bipartisan tendencies it would have been picked up over his political career. Instead, he was an ideologue.
After losing Congress in 2010 Obama could have compromised but instead decided to rely on raw executive power. Remember his “I have a pen and a phone and intend to use them?”
After losing one or more houses of Congress Bill Clinton, Reagan and W all compromised and major bipartisan legislation was passed. There was not total gridlock after the executive lost Congress. But Obama decided to rely on executive power. Most of his legacy can be easily removed since it was not based on legislation.
Every other President in my lifetime could compromise with Congress and pass major legislation. But not Obama.
The trailer for Luc Besson’s Valerian is out. It is looking rather beautiful; and utterly BD.
@Rob Thornton, I agree that Jo Clayton is a great writer. I enjoy the worlds and characters she came up with.
I started the first Praxis book but never got back to it but if it is as you say “Retief-meets-Grimes” then I will give it another try.
@Joe H, when I heard that Cherryh was working on a new A/U book I put down Ninefox Gambit and re-read Merchanter’s Luck. I gotta finish Ninefox before I pick up another Cherryh, or Clayton, or the Praxis series, or a Retief, or a Grimes….damn, I said it before and I’ll say it again, I love this place
@Mark @Mike I have been wondering something similar, though in my case around the recently made Thunderbirds episodes, which used a modern retake on Supermarionation using three LP audio-only episodes as the soundtrack.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1558089494/thunderbirds-1965-new-episodes-from-1960s-recordin
(The Kickstarter says 2015, the DVDs actually shipped in Spring 2016)
@Simon Bisson — Oh my heavens, that looks stunning (and now I’m thinking I need to order that Jupiter Ascending 4K disc).
@Dann — Thanks! Definitely some good stuff there, and Abercrombie is somewhere in my top 5 “Why haven’t I gotten around to reading this yet?” list.
Mostly, when I finish High Castle, it’ll be a question of scanning around to see what catches my attention. And that’s one way in which Kindle reading is inferior to physical reading — back in the day, I’d finish a book, then immediately (yes, always immediately) get out of my chair and spend 5 or 10 or 15 or 30 minutes walking back and forth in front of my shelves, waiting to see what was going to sing to me. Flipping through the collections on my Kindle really isn’t nearly as satisfying.
@Airboy … well you got what you wanted. You can now impose whatever you like on the other half of Amerika. I look forward to seeing Amerika being made great again by rolling back social progress and putting guys like Guiliani and Gingrich in charge. And despite all the “it’ll be ok” and “it’s really all Obama’s fault that nothing got done” I fully expect that some of the first moves will be efforts to ensure that republicans never ever lose power again.
And while I understand that a large part of the Trump-voters aren’t really racist and misogynist … a large part of them ARE. And we’ve just validated and encouraged that thinking and culture.
airboy — the simple plain facts are that the 8 years of Obama’s administration were fundamentally different that what used to be. Political scientists have been charting the rise of tribalism for a while now. And, no, “both sides don’t do it”.
But, hey, we’ll all get to see how this works out.
@Rob. My take on the Praxis books is that WJW realised that Drake Majestraal was too optimistic, and decided to explore that scenario in a more realistic mode.
(And if you’ve not read WJW’s Majestraal novels, you’re in for a treat).
IMO, much of WJW is criminally underread, and much worth reading. I’ve got a copy of that new Praxis novella I need to find time to get in. Currently tackling WALL OF STORMS by Ken Liu.
I’d like to see the people who condemned those tactics show they meant it by not adopting them now.
@Paul @Rob. WJW is one of my favourite writers. From Ambassador of Progress on, not a duff book anywhere. Even his disaster novel The Rift is excellent (and a delightful critique of the individualist survivalism of Niven and Pournelle).
Mr. Glyer:
“I’d like to see the people who condemned those tactics show they meant it by not adopting them now.”
I sincerely hope you are right. I hope that we have the rule of law. I hope that Congress gets stronger and takes much of the power away from the imperial Presidency. I hope that when President Trump is an idiot that Congress will rebuke him using the power of the purse.
@Simon / Mike
I think entirely new visuals ought to be sufficiently transformative, so I hope you’re right.
In what is either an oddity or a stroke of genius, they are releasing it in Black and White first, and then a colour version later.
WJW, slowly catching up with his back catalogue. One of the names I’d always check for in bookshops but rarely saw in the UK outside specialist SFF shops. Read Hardwired and Voice of the Whirlwind from the library back in the day with great enjoyment.
Currently have to finish the original Praxis trilogy, read the first after stumbling on it in Waterstones but never finished the series. Also working through This Is Not a Game, interesting to read that having recently read Gibson’s Blue Ant trilogy.
Which tactics are you speaking of, Mike? On tumblr, I see a lot of people talking about donating to Planned Parenthood and the ACLU, of joining organizations dedicated to getting out the vote for Progressive values and candidates, of doing the hard work necessary to elect a Democratic majority in the Senate and House in 2018 and 2020.
If you’re speaking of using the filibuster, the reason it is there is to prevent the ‘tyranny of the majority’ I seem to recall. Game theory has proven that the winning strategy is “Cooperation combined with Tit for Tat”. Meaning, cooperate with your opponent in good faith. If they break faith, you do the same until they cooperate again.
Trump did not win the popular vote. He did not win 50% of the vote. I need to do some research, but I will bet that the total votes cast for Democrats in ALL House races and ALL Senate races were higher than those cast for Republicans.
So, I’m hoping you weren’t suggesting that the Dems simply roll over and watch quietly while the GOP destroys 50 years of racial equality, voter rights, and protection of minorities. Please tell me you weren’t.
If you were suggesting that protesting is fine but violent protests are not, I’m with you 100%.
It has begun.
(Cliché, I know, but…) An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.
I don’t think the Democrats should roll over and meekly accept anything put in front of them, but they should stick to honourable methods of resistance wherever possible. Governing is what they’re there for.
@Meredith – and so should Republicans “stick to honorable methods of resistance wherever possible. Governing is what they are there for.” Far, far past time for them to remember that and start acting like it. Bunch of miserable snakes that they are.
A pox on them and their houses.
@Gmarie
I don’t think I implied that the Republicans shouldn’t behave themselves? If so I certainly didn’t intend to.
They’re thinking of naming Joe Arpaio to the Homeland Security position. Arpaio! Who had pregnant women chained up while they were in the hospital and chained to the bed during labor. (Not violent criminals. Undocumented women. You got unchained during your C-section, though. So, y’know, there’s that.) Oh my god, Arpaio. If you ever lived in Maricopa county…oh god. He DID have a proto-concentration camp of his very own, too! He got charged all over the place for it!
I can’t stop laughing. I know that’s an insane response, and it’s not that it’s funny, but it’s like they didn’t even wait to turn into Mecha-Hitler. It’s like–okay, it really is as bad as I think it is, and I don’t have to wait for the axe to fall, because Joe fucking Arpaio is on the short list.
I am just so weirdly relieved that I don’t have to cringe in anticipation. It’s like–what’s that? Flesh-eating bacteria? Okay, well–oh, and an ulcer. Okay. And cancer, you say? And my hair is falling out. But that doesn’t matter because the brain amoeba will get me? At some point it all just shudders over the edge and it’s like “Sure! Let’s get mange and leprosy, too! Collect the set!” I seriously cannot stop laughing at the sheer awfulness of it. It’s America’s in a country song and our wife left and the dog ran away and the truck is busted and they just repossessed the house and also my guitar is in the pawnshop so we’re singing acapella.
Joe Arpaio. Great god in heaven.
@Bill: the NYT supports the 2nd Amendment as written, not as edited by the NRA or Scalito. (Note that it’s the only place in the Constitution with a restrictive preamble.)
@Mike: So the Democrats should just roll over and leave the rest of us to say “Thank you sir, may I please have another”? Why do you want them to bring a knife to a gunfight? So they can die “honorably”?
@RedWombat
Joe Arpaio is the guy who brought back chain gangs for petty criminals and non-violent offenders, because he somehow mistook all those 1930s prison movies for instruction manuals, right?
I cheered when I heard that he’d finally been kicked out of office and now it seems that bastard was kicked up the political ladder instead.
BTW, chain gangs and Magdalene laundries were both things I saw in old movies as a kid/teen and thought, “Okay, now that is clearly made up, cause there’s no way that really happened in the 20th century in democratic countries.” And both turned out to be real and the reality was usually worse than the movie version.
RedWombat: They’re thinking of naming Joe Arpaio to the Homeland Security position.
*speechless*
Okay, recently Cally (Cassy? I can’t keep those damn twins straight. 😉 ) recommended Three Bags Full, and my library had it, and now I’ve got it, and I’m going to go read about sheep trying to solve a murder and being incredibly dumb about it, because that beats the shit out of reading about sheep in America being incredibly dumb about something that has already caused a lot of unnecessary deaths and is no doubt going to cause a lot more.
I’d been managing to hold it together since the election. But reading about what’s happening to minorities and women and LGBTQ people on #TrumpsAmerica today finally made me lose my shit, and I took the afternoon off sick and left work because I couldn’t stop shaking.
I feel as though we’re in one of those lame dystopian novels where I’ve been going “oh, this setup is just so outside the realm of belief, it could never happen, and I’m throwing this book against the wall”.
America, consider yourself thrown against the fucking wall. And don’t bother getting back up unless you’re willing to start behaving like a nation of decent human beings. 🙁
And after finishing Man in the High Castle, I ultimately chose Kate Elliot’s Poisoned Blade (second Court of Fives book) to read next.
@Bill
*sigh* Oh, hi, Bill.
The First Amendment is not absolutely untrammelled, nor should it be; there are all the usual reasonable old caveats about explicit threats, yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded theater, criminal solicitation being actionable, libel and so forth. Yet our president-elect is talking about how he wants to lower the threshold for libel laws and further control those hazardous words.
Meantime the Second Amendment has had over the past few decades undergone an opposite process of having reasonable restrictions rolled back relentlessly. I’m in favor of both Amendments under some moderate and reasonable historicallly appropriate restrictions. Hence, the NYT.
Feel free to quibble. Or pick lint from your navel. Both options seem about as productive to me right now.
In SF: I have been reading Connie Willis’ Crosstalk. The beginning reads well and is amusing.
I’m glad I’m affording you so many apparently badly-needed opportunities to indulge in hyperbole.
Anyway, you and I have never discussed this between ourselves. Maybe when the Republicans had that conference about stonewalling everything Obama tried to do, you said “Well played!” Or lately when the Senate refused to let Obama’s Supreme Court nominee have a sniff of being voted on, you thought, “The boys are just exercising their legal rights.” And anyway, you weren’t among the party spokesmen I saw on TV and read about in the news criticizing these things as unprecedented, awful, and contrary to the will of the people. I should probably be having this discussion with one of them to see if THEY now feel they should be lickety-split adopting these or other gridlocking maneuvers — I know THEY made moral pronouncements about them when they were on the sharp end of the spear.
@Chip The NYT in an editorial of 22 June endorsed “No Fly No Buy”, in which a citizen’s rights to have a gun can be taken away by the whim of a nameless bureaucrat with no due process.
On 13 Dec 2015, they wrote against concealed carry, and on 1 Jan 2016 they did so against open carry. They don’t want a person to “bear arms” under any circumstances at all.
They have consistently argued against “assault weapons”, yet if the amendment is to be read as only protecting a right in a militia context, these are exactly the weapons that citizens would have to be allowed to have (as is done in Switzerland).
Also on 13 Dec 2015, they argued for liability insurance as a condition of having a gun. I’m pretty sure that’s not got anything to do with the amendment as written.
@Jayn — I took your original post as expressing some general level of similarity of the importance of the 1st and 2nd amendments. If that’s not what you meant, so be it.
Bill:
You do know that Switzerland started to regulate their firearm laws because they got a large problem with suicides and crime?
@Mike – typically the worst possible result in an iterated prisoners dilemma is the “Always Cooperate” model, where one party cooperates regardless of the other party’s actions. It results in that party effectively always being disadvantaged, and there being no (dis)incentive for the other party to Not Cooperate.
I’ll grant that there is a qualitative difference between a party in the majority being obstructionist and a minority party, and I’ll grant that the whole Obstruct No Matter What is galling no matter what.
But…I’m familiar with how a shrinking yet entrenched power base keeps it’s hands on the levers of government when they see demographics and opinions lead away from them. I can imagine someone already drafting up plans for a carefully created federal voter ID law, and ever more arcane gerrymandering/ parliamentary seat allocation methodologies. Given how anti-democratic such measures can be, I’m of the view that any party should push back on that completely.
For things like judicial appointments, I have less of a frame of reference. I do think that filibustering for a compromise candidate is acceptable. It shouldn’t even be that hard, given how conservative certain Democrats appear to be.
In a lot of ways, I think that the requirement for a super-majority to pass any laws is now the new normal, and has been so for a few years now. This is not a bad thing, assuming both parties ever actually decide to come up with compromise legislations instead of an all or nothing approach
@Bill – again, the 2nd Amendment is another thing that I’m only aware of at a distance, but can you explain how arguments for specific regulations are (i) a desire to forbid arms under any circumstance at all; (ii) has nothing to do with an amendment that mentions the need for that right to be well-regulated?
Mike, I’m still not sure whose tactics you are criticizing. Are you criticizing the obstructionist tactics used by the GOP for the last 8 years? And then, adding that you hope the Democrats do NOT use the same tactics now? It really isn’t at all clear to me.
I mentioned the game theory of “Cooperate and then tit-for-tat”. The obstructionist tactics WORKED for the GOP. Nothing has happened to them to make them think that those tactics were bad for their purposes. SOMEHOW the Democratic minority must find a way to incent the GOP to respect the norms of governing. Right now, the only tactic they have is to use the filibuster on SCOTUS nominees they find unacceptable. The use of the filibuster is to try to force the majority to present candidates that are middle of the road enough to assure the minority that they are not being run roughshod over. “Tyranny of the majority” was a real concern for the founders.
But I don’t think that will be available to them after the new Senate convenes. One of the first orders of business for Mitch McConnell will be to remove the filibuster completely, giving the minority in the Senate zero influence over any move made by the majority. And there will be exactly nothing that the Democrats will be able to do to stop it. The GOP has demonstrated over and over that the norms of the Senate only matter when they work in the favor of the GOP. With a GOP President, the filibuster for SCOTUS must go so that the Democrats can’t block the nominee.