Did The KKK Endorse Donald Trump?
In the last days of the 2016 election, people began to say that Donald Trump was endorsed by the KKK. @DefiantLionUK Don’t forget President-elect Donald #Trump is a hate-filled, #KKK endorsed, #racist & that simply can’t be tolerated #TrumpProtest. @Eti_Verde Vote! American democracy in action! Stop Trump & his white nationalist KKKlan!
The consensus was that DJT was endorsed by the KKK, and that DJT is a racist. Therefore, if you support DJT, you support the KKK, and you are a racist. There is a name for this type of logical fallacy. The net result is the election of DJT.
It is tough to say how much impact this KKK talk had on the election. By November 8, America had been hit over the head with political talk for two years. The various factions tend to live in echo chambers, where they only hear information that reinforces what they already think. People say what sounds good to them. If someone does not agree, then they are a racist. People seem to assume that their neighbor will agree with them, if only you insult them enough.
Google “kkk endorses donald trump.” The top result is in the Washington Post, KKK’s official newspaper supports Donald Trump for president. “It is called the Crusader — and it is one of the most prominent newspapers of the Ku Klux Klan. Under the banner “Make America Great Again,” the entire front page of the paper’s current issue is devoted to a lengthy defense of Trump’s message — an embrace some have labeled a de facto endorsement.”
There is no link to the endorsement. If you google the Crusader, you find this. The Crusader is a tacky little newspaper, headquartered in Harrison, Arkansas. It is “The official Newspaper of The Knights Party.” You get “4 Big Quarterly Issues” for $20. “The Charge on your Credit Card Statement will show up as Christian Books and Things”
The truth is that the Ku Klux Klan is an obsolete movement. There are a few dozen chapters, who often do not get along. The hand wringing by “liberals” empowers the Klan. If people would ignore the Klan, they would go away.
“The KKK is split into many smaller subdivisions, explained Ancona, and often times, banished members of a larger branch will attempt to start their own. Ancona believes this is the case with Murray, who is not even known to the Traditionalist American Knights. “He basically made up his own name,” Ancona said, explaining that Murray may not even be on his birth certificate…. Half of them don’t have the rituals for our ceremonies.”
Despite it’s fierce reputation as a “racist terrorist” organization, the KKK is in bad shape. It has less credibility than the Westboro Baptist Church. The custom of wearing bedsheets makes them the easy target for jokes. The Anti-Defamation League and Southern Poverty Law Center say the membership of the KKK is dwindling.
A good argument could be made that anonymous publicity is helping the KKK. It makes bedsheets look dangerous. While the three digital stooges of anonymous/facebook/twitter are focused on bedsheets, more dangerous white (and other color) hate groups are operating in darkness. With people fascinated with who is under the bedsheets, people that can do damage are buying ammunition, and buying elections.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. These men were Union soldiers, in the War Between the States. They did not post on facebook.
Election Day
This election day started like many others. The four year elections, with the olympics, and a presidential race, are different from the two year governor election. This one is going to be boring. Georgia is going to vote for Mr. Trump. Any vote you make is a protest vote. It would be fun if he got below fifty percent, and we had a runoff.
Down ballot voting is uninspiring today. The US senate, and sixth district house, are runaways. This does not stop the incumbents from collecting bribes, or campaign contributions, for those who want to influence them. It is a racket.
If you look at the electoral votes, there is almost no way Mrs. Clinton can lose. Most of the states are glowing red, or bitch blue. The only states in play are Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio. Even if Mr. Trump gets all three of those, Mrs. Clinton will still win. There is no need to worry about it. Blonde rinse will win over orange disaster.
It is now time to walk to the school, and vote. For about ten steps, I consider a protest opportunity. If I vote for the orange idiot, people will say I am a racist. Again. While this is tempting, there will be many other opportunities to offend the social justice militia.
Walking into the school, I notice the smell. The building smells the same, fifty six years after first grade. There are signs, encouraging parents to let children walk to class by themselves. The cafetorium has new tables, with the seats built in.
There is nobody in line. While filling out the form, my cell phone rings. It is a cheerful lady, selling home security services. When I returned to the check in table, the man asked me to put the phone on vibrate. There was a sign. The use of cell phones is forbidden. The text message from central control, telling me how to vote, will be ignored.
The process of voting was simple. Many of the races were unopposed incumbents, or Republicans with token opposition. The congressional Democrat is named Rodney Stooksbury. This is not satire.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The men are union soldiers, during the War Between the States. There were four original images, broken into smaller groups. These images: Drum Corps, 93rd N.Y. Infantry, Bealeton, Va., 22d New York State Militia near Harper’s Ferry, Va., 1862, Company G, 22d New York State Militia near Harpers Ferry, Va., 1862, and Company D, 22d New York State Militia near Harpers Ferry, Va. 1862.
Making Friends
Display of a link in this forum does not indicate approval of content ~ Making friends with “cunt” ~ my rejected vignette on writing assessment and social justice for College English ~ I see a lot of *facebook friends* are checking in at Cannon Ball, ND. This is supposed to confuse the authorities. At this time, Snopes says “research in progress.” My gut feeling is that the Sheriff in Morton County is going to catch on very quickly to this. I suspect it is not having any effect by this time. ~ The Andy Griffith Show ~ Neal Boortz ~ Pharoah Sanders ~ Thomas Jefferson to William Hamilton, 22 April 1800 ~ Big O ~ STUDS TERKEL WITH DOROTHY PARKER/BOB NEWHART – CHICAGO 1959/1960 ~ DP “I can’t call myself a critic. Honestly. I can only put down what I think and pray there isn’t a libel suit.” ST A good poet can be a good short story writer, but unless he is a poet he cannot be a short story writer DP “I’m not a poet, you know, I just write verse” “The beat boys aren’t saying anything except look at us aren’t we great” “I don’t think the beat generation is much worth worrying about. Very soon, in the very near future, they will be as forgotten as mah jongg.” “I wish the beat boys would go some place else, I don’t know where. If I didn’t have hope as might as well be dead.” ST did she really say all those things that she was quoted as saying DP … no, no, and it was a curse on me, it was simply awful the things that were attributed to me. I wouldn’t have minded if they had been good. I was, in effect, the shaggy dog of my time, all the stories ~ Tommy Said ~ Dorothy Parker ~ Our Generation Needs to Stop Being Offended by Everything and Learn How to Take a Joke ~ Blogalicious ~ Are My Attitudes About Race Any Of Your Business? ~ Woody Allen: his 40 best one-liners ~ A Big Bach Download: All of Bach’s Organ Works for Free ~ read this later ~ Louise ~ Why Does MTV Decoded Hate White People?!? ~ why your server hates you- black people ~ Throwback: When Justin Vivian Bond Met John Cameron Mitchell ~ Playing Dead ~ Hunter S. Thompson ~ In An Election Defined By Race, How Do We Define Race? ~ Report: Aides block Trump from Twitter ~ Tayveon Thomas ~ Cedric Clark ~ Deadliest weekend in Chicago this year: 17 killed, 42 more wounded ~ What about “pardon the pun”? Will we be pardoning the Trump someday? ~ i never considered a difference of opinion ~ Maybe the snake should have bitten Eve ~ @nihilist_arbys Last night, several lifelong Cubs fans died during the game, missing the culmination of their pointless existences by mere seconds Eat Arbys ~ #Blogalicious8 is three miles, $349-$998, and a gender reassignment away I don’t think I will attend ~ alice jacobs, pro life commiitte, dedicated to saving unborn babies, called. are you pro life, pro choice, or in between? in between ~ I understand, thank you for your time ~that is more fun than eniltleb regork ~ I live, and vote, in Georgia. Our electoral votes will probably go for Mr. Trump. My individual vote is meaningless. ~ Come sit back, relax, Sound like something you’d like? Hit me up. ~ The US Senate, and US House of Representatives, are hopeless. There are state constitutional amendments to consider, and a couple of local races. Besides, I just like the ritual of voting. My polling place is the cafetorium of the grammar school I attended. I have held my nose there many times. ~ maybe that is ill eagle He looks like a sick bird ~ @thedeadauthor So Slavoj Žižek supports Trump. And I thought the only things he had in common with Melania were that he’s from Slovenia and a plagiarist. @SlavojTweezek I am not a “plagiarist”; When you write as much as I do you are bound to reproduce others’ words by chance – like monkeys typing Shakespeare ~ photographs today are from The Library of Congress. These nineteen thirty eight photographs were taken in California by Dorthea Lange ~ selah 
The “Desiderata” Story
There was a poem , of unknown origin, found in a Baltimore church in 1692. It was revived by a Lawyer, who lived in Terre Haute, IN. He liked to read it his friends, and his lips were moving. The attorney , Max Ehrmann, copyrighted this poem in 1927. Another persistent rumor has it that the manuscript was in an ambulance Mr. Ehrmann was following. How the accident victim came to possess this document is a mystery.
Mr. Ehrmann ( the poet laureate of Terre Haute ) wrote in his diary “I should like, if I could, to leave a humble gift — a bit of chaste prose that had caught up some noble moods”. The poem is “Desiderata”, and is a favorite of gift shops the world over.
In 1956, Rev. Frederick Kates became the rector of Old St. Paul’s Church in Baltimore, MD. He had found a copy of “Desiderata”, without the copyright notice. He printed a handout for his congregation on church stationary. At the top of the page was the notation “Old St. Paul’s Church, Baltimore A.C. 1692”. As the sixties devolved, the poem became famous.
“Desiderata” was the text of a recording made by Les Crane, who found the poem on a poster. He thought the text was in the public domain, when in fact it is copyrighted. Mr. Crane was taken to court, and forced to pay the owners of the copyright . The matter has been in court on other occasions. It seems that Mr. Ehrmann used “Desiderata” in a Christmas greeting, without citing the copyright. Later,during World War II, Ehrmann allowed a friend – Army psychiatrist Dr. Merrill Moore – to hand out more than 1,000 copies of the poem to his soldier-patients, without the copyright.
PG admits to confusion on this issue. Don’t copyrights expire, get renewed, and then expire again? If a work was written in 1927, doesn’t it go into the public domain 83 years later. The wikipedia article about copyrights is long and confusing. Remember, we are dealing with a legal concep,t as it relates to a poem, written by a lawyer.
A site called fleurdelis says the matter depends on your point of view and place of residence. ( Shcredo says flatly that “Desiderata” is public domain. The link is no longer available. The url advises “Beware your Beliefs – They could bring Great Happiness”) (Robinsweb tells of being forced to remove “Desiderata” from her site because of a complaint by the copyright owner.) If you want to be inspired, click on the videos embedded in this post.
In 1972, the National Lampoon produced a new translation, Deteriorata. This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. These are Union Soldiers, from the War Between the States.
Are My Attitudes About Race Any Of Your Business?
PG was living his life when see saw something on facebook: “And another thing: if you are going to claim NOT to be racist, I feel like you should familiarize yourself with some contemporary writings and definitions of racism, not just what Mirriam Webster says.” The first reaction was to ignore this. If you reply to a comment about racism on facebook, you are asking for trouble. Life is too short to be wasting time on such unpleasantness.
But the thought engine had been kickstarted, and continued to idle in the background. When PG pulled into the Kroger parking lot, the idea hit full force. Maybe whether you are, or are not, a racist, is no one else’s business.
Some people say that a PWOC is not affected by racism. If this is the case, then why should the racial attitudes of a PWOC affect another PWOC? If a person treats you fairly, do you really need to know this person’s attitudes about race?
The fbf ex-fbf does not say what the context of this claim is. Did anyone ask you whether or not you were a racist? If not, are you assuming that they are interested? Maybe someone assumed the listener was interested. Maybe the proper response to look bored, and say TMI.
PG was filling out a profile once, and was using some questioned borrowed from another blog profile. One of the questions was, are you a racist? “It depends on who is doing the judging”.
The comment mentioned “contemporary writings and definitions of racism”. Who are the people who set themselves up as arbiters about what we should think about race? What are the qualifications? Who asked them what they thought? How do we know that these people are dependable?.
Maybe the answer is to show compassion and kindness to your neighbor, and don’t judge them about their racial attitudes. If you are proud of your racial attitudes, please refrain from boasting. Not everyone is interested. This is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Dorothy Parker and Thomas Jefferson
BigO is a site with mp3 downloads. Most of them are concerts. PG found one exception. It was a 1960 interview, STUDS TERKEL WITH DOROTHY PARKER/BOB NEWHART – CHICAGO 1959/1960. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
Dorothy Parker is somewhat of a legend. There were the funny sayings, a few poems and stories, and her life. Mrs. Parker was well known as a witty person during the twenties. She drank, a lot, and talked often of suicide. It was surprising to find a 1960 interview.
In fact, Dorothy Parker died in 1967, at the age of 73. By 1960, she was in decline, living at the Manhattan’s Volney Hotel. “Edmund Wilson … paid occasional painful visits to her at the Volney. (“She lives with a small and nervous bad-smelling poodle bitch, drinks a lot, and does not care to go out.”) … She was still revered, a legend, but she had also become a pathetic relic. Yes, “you might as well live,” but for what? And on what? Not only was she running out of old friends, she was running out of money, though uncashed checks, some quite large, were strewn around her apartment (along with the empty bottles), not helping with unpaid bills.”
There were some zesty quotes in the interview with Mr. Terkel. “I can’t call myself a critic. Honestly. I can only put down what I think and pray there isn’t a libel suit.” “I’m not a poet, you know, I just write verse” “The beat boys aren’t saying anything except look at us aren’t we great … I don’t think the beat generation is much worth worrying about. Very soon, in the very near future, they will be as forgotten as mah jongg.”
Towards the end of the interview, Mr. Terkel said “i know some people would want me to ask, did she really say all those things that she was quoted as saying” “… no, no, and it was a curse on me, it was simply awful the things that were attributed to me. I wouldn’t have minded if they had been good. I was, in effect, the shaggy dog of my time.”
Another quote magnet for the meme generation is Thomas Jefferson. PG saw yet another inspiring quote on facebook today. Mr. Google was consulted. It turns out the quote is real.
Thomas Jefferson to William Hamilton, 22 April 1800 is the source. Vice President Jefferson was going to be elected President later that year. It is not known what effect that had on the quote in the meme. “I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.” It is not known whether a twenty first century Jefferson would unfriends anyone who says anything unappealing.
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