Happy New Year! If the people lead, our leaders will follow.

What's to say? We've made it through one year of our elected autocrat's destruction. Three years more to go and then ... what will we make of it?

The higher tranches of American society -- corporate law firms, academic institutions, most politicians -- rolled over and played dead before the Trump onslaught.

The middle and lower classes didn't roll over. We are more and more gaining confidence that we don't have to succumb to the Mad King and his MAGA hordes. 

They are not who we are. They can hurt us, both as a society and as individuals. Many will be hurt beyond recovery. But this is not who we are and, more and more, we aren't going to take it.

I'll be back here on January 2. In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy watching football. 

Don't forget the girls!

Today's admonition comes from the great Kareem Abdul Jabbar. He reports a study by Lisa Hinkelman, Ph.D., a nationally recognized researcher, speaker and author who has spent nearly 20 years researching girls and educating adults.

SUMMARY: My most recent research study, which included more than 17,000 fifth-grade through 12th-grade girls in The Girls’ Index, reveals a troubling trend: 67% of the participants reported that they don’t say what they’re thinking or disagree with others because they want to be liked. Let that sink in for a moment. Two-thirds of girls are silencing themselves to be accepted. ... 

I remember that yearning to be conventionally popular as an adolescent girl. You either gave in to it, successfully or awkwardly, or you were part of the third of girls who said, metaphorically, "screw that!" That was a long time ago, but the pressures remain the same. 

Knowing this makes Kareem sad and a little angry. And he wishes the boys could do better.

MY TAKE: A lot has been written this past year about the challenges faced by boys and young men in America. It’s all true: young males are facing so much insecurity in their lives, let alone about their future. Yes, our culture does convey privileges on males that females don’t get. 

The problem they face at such a young age happens when they realize they are favored in our society, yet it doesn’t feel like it to them. Then they either have to deny they are favored, or they have to justify their privilege as deserved. That manifests itself in anti-DEI rhetoric: claiming superiority through religious or faux-biological posturing. 

Look at the sad role models of manhood that are out there in the news every day: flexing, bullying, openly insulting women, accused and convicted sexual predators doing everything they can to cancel women’s rights, silence their voices, and reduce their power. No wonder our boys struggle to grow up with moral values that reflect the principles in our Constitution.

There is a third option that some men embrace: Acknowledge their preferred status, but fight against it to create an even playing field. That would be my idea of Real Men.

Nothing in this massive study surprises me. And that in itself is sad. Our society is not structured to support women but to punish them. Don’t bother pointing to the statistics about the increasing numbers of women attending college or having corporate jobs or who are in politics. That’s important, sure, but it always comes with a societal gut-punch.

As long as women are judged first on their appearance and “sexiness,” they will always be considered inferior. As long as women continue to get Botox or plastic surgery to appear younger or more voluptuous, they will be treated as inferior because, in part, these things are an admission that appearance in a woman is more important than it is in a man. High heels to appear taller and flex the legs, low-cut tops, false eyelashes, hair extensions and wigs all tell men that women are vain and frivolous. 

Yes, you can say it’s fun to dress up and do things to “enhance” your looks, but you haven’t been paying attention to the cost to your power and dignity this cultural brainwashing brings. There are plenty of excuses to embrace this status quo, especially if you’re young and attractive by society’s narrow standards. It feels like you’re getting more than you’re giving up. But that’s not true. You’ve sold young girls—and your older self—down the river.

Look at the results of the study and ask yourself how we’re still here. During the Women’s Liberation Movement of the sixties, I envisioned a future of women having equal opportunities with men, of the insane beauty standards being something we all laughed at, like girdles or foot-binding. 

But then, I thought the same thing about the Civil Rights Movement. And here we are. It’s not good enough. Not for any girl or woman. We can’t just shrug it off anymore and make excuses. 

Or, as other elders would admonish us: Freedom is a constant struggle.

Truth tellers: from embattled Ukraine

There remain among us people who insist on telling the truth -- the truth of Donald Trump et al.'s depredations and the truth of who some American people aspire to be. 

Consider, for example, Tim Mak. Based in Kiev, Ukraine, and ensuring through The Counteroffensive substack that Ukrainian writers can describe the war as they live it, Mak has carved out his own definition of the job of a war correspondent. 

Tim’s breakout in journalism doesn’t follow a known model. Born in Canada, he moved from academic institutions there to the forefront of American politics and cut his teeth reporting on the Obama administration and key political movements, including the rise of the Tea Party and two elections. But the intensity of the 2016 campaign season forced him into an unexpected detour, where he joined the U.S. Army as a combat medic, a role he believed at the time would strengthen his resilience to enrich his later journalism.  

Mak is an American citizen by choice; he could have just remained a Canadian observer of his big neighbor's follies. But he chose to come inside our bedraggled tent. He's also an observer of wars' horrors by choice; his talents could have won him other berths. But he persists because something about Ukraine's stubborn resistance to Russian imperialism reminds him of what he values. He views Trump's turn to enabling Russian conquests as betrayal of his adopted country as well as of Ukrainians.

... One of the reasons I wanted to become an American is that it meant something more than just citizenship in a country. Americans, even when the country failed to live up to its ideals, at least tried to uphold values of freedom and human rights.

America did not need to made “great again” because it was already good — or at least *tried* to be. America exemplified a place where immigrants could make it, fellow allied democracies were boosted, and bad actors were confronted.

... [Trump's new "National Security strategy] throws away any pretense of American exceptionalism or idealism.

It’s a Neanderthalish view of interacting with the world. We are great because we are powerful. We are powerful because we can kill or coerce, or otherwise manipulate you due to the threat of both. ...

Tim Mak thinks we can do better. Sometimes we have done better; sometimes we still do. 

White Christian Nationalists and an American soldier

Yesterday a young man wonderfully named Godspower Nwawuihe scored two touchdowns for the US Military Academy team in a rout of the University of Connecticut in the Fenway Bowl in Boston. The internet is not very forthcoming about his ancestry, but hints that his parents came from Lagos, Nigeria, before settling in Garland, Texas. 

The day before yesterday, Donald Trump ordered the US military to lob missiles at northwestern Nigeria. CNN reports that people on the ground in the target area were mystified. 

Abuja, Nigeria  — A day after part of a missile fired by the United States hit their village, landing just meters from its only medical facility, the people of Jabo in northwestern Nigeria are in a state of shock and confusion.

... Kagara did not realize it at the time, but what he was witnessing was part of a US strike that President Donald Trump would later refer to as a “Christmas present” for terrorists.

Not long after the impact in Jabo, Trump declared on Thursday that the US had carried out a “powerful and deadly strike” against ISIS militants in the region, who he accused of “targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even centuries!” 

According to US Africa Command, the operation neutralized multiple ISIS militants. 

But Trump’s explanation has left Kagara and his fellow villagers scratching their heads. 

While parts of Sokoto face challenges with banditry, kidnappings and attacks by armed groups including Lakurawa – which Nigeria classifies as a terrorist organization due to suspected affiliations with Islamic State – villagers say Jabo is not known for terrorist activity and that local Christians coexist peacefully with the Muslim majority.  

“In Jabo, we see Christians as our brothers. We don’t have religious conflicts, so we weren’t expecting this,” he said.

When local violence does break out in northwestern Nigeria, it seems often to involve conflicts between herders who are Muslims and settled farmers who are Christian. Such conflicts are thought to have been part of human history all over the world.

Should Mr. Nwawuihe complete his time at West Point and be commissioned as an Army officer, will he be sent to kill Nigerians? 

Mr. Trump seems to treat random strikes in Nigeria as a gift to white US Christians who probably couldn't find Nigeria on a map. These strikes are just one more crime against hard won civilization from our clownish grifter ...

• • •

The contemporary Republican base of white evangelicals is a morass of white Christian nationalism. They think God gave them this country and they have a right to rule us all -- and the world too.

 Historian of religion Jemar Tisby provides a succinct definition of the affliction. 

White Christian nationalism is an ethnocultural ideology that uses Christianity as a permission structure for the acquisition of political power and social control. 

It is characterized by beliefs such as a conviction that Christians have a mandate to exercise dominion over all segments of society, the notion that the United States was founded as an explicitly Christian nation, and the sense that they are under attack by anti-American and anti-Christian forces. ...

Jennifer Rubin at The Contrarian catalogues the fixations and crimes of the nationalist-deluded. 

... White Christian nationalists generally do not seem interested in good works, helping the most vulnerable, or personal character. This is a movement seeking power, not redemption. Its adherents are motivated to remake America into a white, Christian dominated nation. 

Lacking the votes to bring their goals about through democracy, they are all too willing to suppress voting and rely on other anti-democratic measures. Blowing up people on the high seas, separating children from parents, brutalizing Hispanics, and taking away SNAP benefits are features, not bugs for people lacking empathy who seek racial and religious dominance.

These people are a lot of us. Sociologist Robert P. Jones attempted last March to measure carefully the prevalence of this dangerous fantasy.

... three in ten Americans qualified as Christian nationalism Adherents (10%) or Sympathizers (20%), compared with two-thirds who qualify as Skeptics (37%) or Rejecters (29%). These percentages have remained stable since PRRI first asked these questions in late 2022. In other words, Christian nationalism supporters, while a sizable minority, are outnumbered by a margin of two to one among the general public.

... A majority of Republicans today qualify as either Christian nationalism Adherents (20%) or Sympathizers (33%), compared to less than one quarter of independents (6% Adherents and 16% Sympathizers) and less than one fifth of Democrats (5% Adherents and 11% Sympathizers). These views are reinforced by TV media outlets consumed disproportionately by Republicans, such as Fox News or far right TV news outlets such as OAN and Newsmax.

... As the US has become more racially and religiously diverse over the past few decades, our two major political parties have responded in dramatically different ways to these shifts. Today, only 41% of Americans identify as white and Christian. But today’s Republican Party is 70% white and Christian, a stark contrast from the Democratic Party, which is 25% white and Christian.

... We see the connection between Christian nationalism and support for political violence clearly in the data. Nearly four in ten Christian nationalism Adherents (38%) and nearly three in ten Sympathizers (28%) agree that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country,” compared with only 15% of Skeptics and 7% of Rejecters.

If these folks get their way, Mr. Nwawuihe may indeed find himself dispatched to attack people in the land of his ancestors. What a dangerous, ignorant world we are making ... 

Seasonal reminder

Can't have refugees wandering about unmolested ... via Naked Pastor

We could use some truth telling

 

It seems a waste of pixels to post this (from the Guardian UK) but I'm feeling intolerant of foolishness and will not resist. This headline is false, absurd, and based on lies. Why do otherwise semi-sane media continue to play along with the game?

 

There is NO evidence that any party to the war being fought by Ukraine against Russian aggression wants "peace."

• Putin wants to erase Ukraine from the map; it's all Russia in his fantasy.

• Trump wants Russian minerals and whatever additional payoff Putin is offering. Oh yeah -- and a peace prize.

• Ukrainians want Russia to get the hell out of their country and must wander through whatever convoluted byways are required to keep that hope alive. While suffering.

• Europeans wish the whole thing would stop impinging on them; though on alternate Tuesdays they understand Russia threatens them all.

Ukraine is the Spanish Civil War of our era, a messy contest between more-or-less democracy and fascism in which the unfortunate Ukrainians provide a plaground for big bullies.

This time as deadly farce ... 

Merry Christmas

 

Hark! the planet continues its round and we've arrived here. Hark, indeed!

A few words for the occasion from Diana Butler Bass' A Beautiful Year:  

... Christianity is that sort of faith. A messy one where the mystery of God's glory runs smack into the muck of human bodies. At its heart is the most shocking idea: The Divine One became flesh from the same dust and spittle that made us all. Mary's body brought forth the tiny body of God; her water breaking and the bloody birth made possible the water and blood of the cross some thirty years later.

... God is born. And that would not have happened without the body of a woman, a body that had experienced all sorts of trauma to bring new life to the world. The cattle in that stable may have been lowing, but surely Mary was moaning. And that was the sound of honest, painful relief, exhaustion, and maybe even joy. ...

I'll be back here after the holiday. 

One of my favorite seasons ...

No, not the Solstice. Like many of us in the Northern Hemisphere I'm grateful for the turn toward more light. But I trust that cycle to survive our best efforts to screw things up. The days will get longer, even if humanity doesn't.

And also, grateful for the celebration of the birth of the Christ child, of God in humans made manifest.

Not so excited by the Great American Consumption Holiday. I understand that much of our economy depends on gift-giving excess, but our Christmas season does seem a little gross.

But also, this is the season of Peak Football, the time of dreary and then unexpectedly delightful college bowl games between schools that may also offer education. As well, this is the apex of the professional football season, and what's not to like about that gladiatorial extravaganza?!

I note that, among the TV ads shown along with the games, advertisers are decidedly NOT onboard with MAGA's crusade against diversity, equity and inclusion. The little clips advertising the participating schools always emphasize that their student bodies include lots of young people of color, often studying the mysteries of science and math. The ads for consumer products likewise seem aimed at a decidedly diverse population. Marketers can't afford to ignore half of us and they don't. In addition to people of color as consumers and interracial couples, gay couples turn up frequently. 

Consumer capitalism knows where we're at, even while MAGA resists demographics. 

'Tis the season of enticing customers to change phone service

The Trump regime borrowed a torture prison

MAGA media billioinaires and Bari Weiss, their bought and paid for stooge, tried to prevent you from seeing this 60 Minute segment about El Salvador's torture prison and the men sent there so Donald and Kristi Noem can look butch. Watch it here.

With the turn of the season, perhaps more light ahead

On this winter solstice, Jamelle Bouie, that wise commentator/historian of America, writing in the NYT [gift], thinks we might just be seeing the Trump catastrophe losing momentum. Overreach and sheer incompetence are finding some kind of limit. 

... In their pursuit of power, Trump and his allies have done a lot of damage to the United States, and the world. But as this year comes to an end, I think it’s clear that they’ve reached the limits of what they can accomplish through brute force alone. More important, Trump’s attempt to consolidate authoritarian power has inspired a large and ferocious backlash, from mass protests and organized efforts to stymie his most draconian plans to election results that show a voting public ready for change.

The 2024 presidential election wasn’t a plebiscite in favor of regime change, it was just a vote over the choice of chief magistrate. And when Americans put Trump back in office, they expected him to turn the page back to the prepandemic status quo, not make the country his personal fief. A more able president would recalibrate, take control of his administration and try to salvage what is left of his standing before he loses the trust of everyone but his most devoted followers.

Trump is not an able president.

He interrupted prime time television to yell at the American people this week because he does not know what to do besides yell. He can’t convince and he can’t persuade and so he demands, in the hope that he can browbeat the public into giving him the praise he thinks he deserves.

I think he’ll find that this isn’t going to work.

Of course a failing Trump is likely to escalate. There will likely be more violence from the regime in our future. 

If Bouie is right -- if the Trump turn of the Ameriican people is on a downslope -- we need as much commitment from those who have thwarted Trumpism to repair and to reparations as his collection of thugs and looters have made to destruction ... and then some!

Happy Solstice! 

A message for the Christmas season

Choose Love, Not ICE

 

The Roman Empire that Jesus was born into was as violent and capricious as our own nation states. Maybe more so. But we have more power than those subjugated people under Roman rule. At least we think we do. What are we doing to break the power of violence in this season?

Video from the Interfaith Alliance. 

Friday seasonal critter blogging

Snoopy and Woodstock await the postal van along my walk the other day.