Neo-Nazi Karma

Karma often is taken to mean punishment, or at least discipline.  It's not really either.  Perhaps the best way to explain karma is to compare it to the idea that you reap what you sow.  Or to the thought that while the wheels of the Universe grind slow, they grind exceeding small.

Here's my kind of karma.  The neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer has, in the past few months, been hit with several million dollars in fines resulting from civil lawsuits.  The site's "publisher", (I put that in quotes out of respect for real journalists) Andrew Anglin, reportedly has fled the country in order to avoid paying up.

Someone should tell Anglin that, wherever he resides,he and his poisonous site are still liable for beaucoup bucks.  Someone should tell him that we all realize that he's an abject coward.  Someone should tell the FBI that one of Anglin's stated goals is to indoctrinate and radicalize (white, Gentile) children as young as 10.

And finally, we should all note the similarity between the language in this recent post of Anglin's, and the words of Donald Trump.

Abandonment

One of my earliest memories is of being, as I thought at the time, abandoned.

At the age of 3, I was in Kennywood, a western Pennsylvania amusement park.  I recall it as a pleasant early summer day.  The park was crowded; people swirled all around me.

Then I realized my parents were nowhere to be seen.  From my perch on a wooden park bench, I looked everywhere.  But neither Mom (Betty) nor Dad (the Munch) were in sight.  After a few minutes, I became anxious.  After a few more, I burst into tears.  Then, again after a few moments, my parents retrieved me.  They gave me some of what they'd left for - popcorn and "pop" ("soda" to those of you unlucky enough never to have spent time in Allegheny County).

Sadly, undocumented workers arrested in Mississippi Wednesday by ICE weren't able to retrieve their kids, let alone comfort them.

And Mr. Trump views such insensitivity as a useful deterrent to immigration.

Not Your Average Flintlock

When our Constitution and the Second Amendment to it were written, the most widely-used form of armament was the single-ball flintlock musket.  Even the most practiced marksmen of the time could get off only a few rounds per minute.  That's because the weapon had to be manually loaded, one gunpowder cartridge at a time,  one ball at a time, then aimed, then fired, then reloaded ... you get the idea.

One can, therefore, easily make a case that the Second Amendment could not have conceived of, let alone supported, weapons like a Kalashnikov.  A well-regulated militia, and the rights of citizens to keep and bear arms, doesn't mandate a gun that can spit out 41 bullets in 31 seconds, or one that can support  100-round magazine.

Or any magazine at all, for that matter.

Unconscionable

It's  been reported  that, when Donald Trump visited the Del Sol Medical Center in El Paso yesterday, none of those still being treated wanted to meet him.

So, in order to satisfy the Reality Show Host in Chief, two folks who were being released, and an infant still being cared for, were brought into the room.

Then, just to round out his day, Donald Trump bashed Beto O'Rourke.

Dorian Pence

In Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, the title character appears unchanged, while his portrait ages dramatically. One could consider the Wilde novel as a metaphor for the relationship between Donald Trump (portrait) and Mike Pence (Dorian) ...

Did you ever wonder why we so often see Mike Pence hovering a few feet behind Mr. Trump?  Here's my  mother of all conspiracy theories; Pence stands poised in order to:

1. add the appearance of gravitas to whatever bland platitudes Mr. Trump might be uttering
2. be ready to act as dialogue coach, should Trump lose the (frayed) thread of his thoughts
3. be ready to trigger the 25th Amendment if Mr. Trump loses everything else, especially if he does so on live TV

Don't Go There

This site contains the kind of hideous, hatred-laden material beloved by people like the El Paso gunman.  I suspect he plagiarized at least some of his so-called manifesto from it.

I looked at it.  If you choose to do the sane, be forewarned - it's incredibly ugly.

Garbage of this magnitude does not deserve to be protected by the First Amendment.

Hospodi Pomilui - a Neo-Nazi Book Club

Lord have mercy indeed.  The Neo-Nazis have their own book club.

Fits right in with a screed circulated just before Charlottesville in 2017, by the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi, white supremacist, and Holocaust denial website  Quoting in part:

You have been slated to be the last generation of white men.  They believed that we were down. They were throwing the last handfuls of dirt on our grave. But we have stood up. We have climbed up out of the grave and now when you stand here today, united as brothers, united as one, ready to tear down the system that was designed to destroy us all. A day is quickly coming. When it is we who will be digging graves.

Don't brush it off.  They mean it, right down to the "digging graves" part.  Remember the film Mississippis Burning?  Here's the inside story ...

258 In 216

Near midnight on Saturday, August 3, I planned a post.  It relied on the fact that the 3rd was the 215th day in 2019, and the day on which the United States suffered its 249th mass shooting of the year.

Fast-forward by about two hours.  That's how long it took to go from El Paso and murder #249. to Dayton and murder #258.