The Director's voice vibrated with an indignation that had now become wholly righteous and impersonal - "If ever I hear again of any lapse from a proper standard of infantile decorum, I shall ask for your transfer to a Sub-Centre- preferably to Iceland."
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
I USE THAT spelling of "antisemite" because it was recommended by the fine historian of antisemitism, Deborah Lipstadt. I'd used variant spellings of it in the past but figured I'd go on her authority even though we have serious differences on just what it is and what it isn't. As to the rest of that, see the comment I broke my Lenten resolution to post yesterday.
I write for public posting despite the fact that I have vision difficulties and have a very hard time reading what I write without great magnification, sometimes I can't get complete passages on the screen as I'm editing so I can see it all at once, it's not unusual for parts of sentences to get cut out and not put back during editing.
The spelling, I'm indifferent to the standard spelling of English, I said before if they'd make it even more approximately phonetic so as to cut out the absurdities of the standard spelling I might care enough to conform to it but the snobs with the knack for visual memory and the majority of those who cravenly pretend to, have control of academia and the media so nothing so rational and humane is going to happen, not within my lifetime, at least. So screw it.
The spelling of names is so variable that anyone who was a grownup would get over someone misspelling their name, anyone who is offended by that should be advised to grow up. I find it amusing when someone calls me "Andrew" or even funnier "Andy."
Let's see, what else have people been whining about?
I make no apology for saying the forbidden, what makes the lazy, college-credentialed middle and upper-middle class and above furious. The name on the masthead indicates you can expect that if you come here. In my case the forbidden isn't the safe, conventional, bourgeois, pseudo-transgressive and thrilling (for the stupid and lazy) stuff that is pretended to be forbidden but which never has been forbidden. I mean things like telling the truth about scientific and other racism, bigotry, the encouragement to selfish, stupid, indulgent, childish bad behavior, it's what's really a thought crime in late 20th, early 21st century English speaking and "Western" "civilization" advocating equality, democracy, the truth and noting that if we don't suppress lies and unprivilege corporations and level the ultra-rich to levels where they are not a clear and present danger to us all, we are doomed.
The college-credentialed class are as apt to kick down as the rest of cowardly humanity, they're afraid to take on the rich and so powerful. That's why they were such suckers for the "anti-political-correctness" bullshit when that started in the 1970s. And when they're not doing that they're doing the lazy slacker version of Don Quixote, tilting at pretend windmills that they don't even have to risk getting on a horse to go at. Christianity is their safest target for that kiddie's game. You want something that'll get you in trouble, try going after the Warren and later courts' "free speech-press" rulings that have been such a boon for the fascists and neo-Nazis and Republican-fascists that they're the biggest fattest fans of those these days. Play-lefties are the biggest suckers on the planet.
Update: When I cited Luke Timothy Johnson a few days back I didn't intend to harp on what he said, but I did and then I went back and re-read his book The Real Jesus and he's on my mind now.
He made an interesting statement once, that he'd rather have lunch with the heretic Anglican Bishop John Spong with whom he had enormous differences on issues important to him about religion than he would some televangelist who professed to believe many of the things that Johnson believed in, as I recall he mentioned the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, etc. That's because for many an orthodox Catholic who believes in those will, from reading the Gospel, Paul, the Prophets, etc. will find themselves to be far more of a political radical for equality and justice on the basis that they believe those are stated to be the will of God as taught by Jesus, Paul and the Prophets of the Jewish Bible. I have never been more of a radical than I am today and I was considered a flaming radical for more than a half a century, even when I professed to be an agnostic. Though I'd just as soon not have had lunch either with Spong or the televangelists. I really wouldn't have wanted to have lunch with any of the EWTN crew, especially that nasty nun who started it.
"Liberal" "conservative" the conventional meanings of those don't work. I'm a lot more interested in if someone really believes in equality and the common good, those are the real radical positions. I am a workers-own-the-means-of-production socialist, I am, in almost every case, opposed to the government owning, as I am shareholders owning those. I think when shareholders control wealth egalitarian democracy is endangered if not doomed. Capitalism is unillegalized theft, state capitalism is just the capitalists getting direct control of the government as well as the wealth. That's what "socialism" devolved into meaning, which is why the word is useless for anything productive, now.
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