Category: Politics

Amazon.com: Boycotts Don’t Work, But I’m Doing It Anyway


They’re still advertising on Breitbart.com.

Boycotting Amazon is like boycotting Google. You can’t do it. Or if you do, it’s not going to make a difference. And I don’t know if Amazon can stop Breitbart from linking to books it wants its readers to buy. But frankly, I’ll just feel better buying my books from Powell’s, or whatever it is I need, from elsewhere. (For more carefully laid out strategy, see https://grabyourwallet.org/ )

I have to believe that Breitbart is suffering. Other than clickbait, I don’t see any ads on Breitbart anymore. (Does clickbait even pay well?)

However, it still looks like there are plenty of readers. Each article provokes literally thousands of enraged comments, of which nearly all agree with the editorial point of view. You would think that by the time that there are already over one thousand comments, that the wackos would realize that, at that point, it’s just piling on. But, and this is telling,  they can’t resist. They have to pile on. They love to pile on. In fact, Breitbart exists to give the worst among us a chance to pile on, and in that warm mass of jingoistic sludge, bond with others and feel like the only ones with a firm grasp on the Truth. The comments also reveal that possession of the Truth gives the right to mete out whatever justice–or revenge–is deemed appropriate.  I believe that it comments were eliminated than Breitbart.com would cease to exist. trump jesus

A sample of the folksy wisdom to be found in the comment section:

—Tar and feather the so called judge in the public square. Remove him from office and make an example for the rest of the kool aid drinkers

—-TRANSLATION! The DEEP STATE = THE iLLUMININATI satanist !

GOD has said that satan is the ruler of This world for a short time !

The illuminati or deep state what ever lanquage you choose to call them is satans shadow government that he rukes the earth. by !

Only now at the very end of humanity has people WAKEN IP to this FACT !

GOD has SAID this NOT ME !
-)

—-Liberals are serial lunatics, perpetually angry zealots, profoundly criminal and inveterate liars to boot. They pose a clear and present danger to our land, laws, livelihoods and lives and must be dealt with accordingly.

 

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Avoiding Male-Owned Businesses: Have Some Feminists Taken It Too Far?


Jia Tolentino of the New Yorker wrote this opening paragraph concerning The Women’s Strike of March 8 :

Stolen from the New Yorker: Beata Zawrzel / Corbis via Getty

“Tomorrow is the Women’s Strike, the fourth of ten actions that have been called for by the organizers of the Women’s March on Washington. The strike was planned to coincide with International Women’s Day, and the march organizers, in tandem with a team organizing protests in forty countries around the world, have asked women to take whatever form of action their lives allow for. Take the day off from ‘paid and unpaid labor,’ including housework and child care, if you can, or avoid shopping at corporate or male-owned businesses, or simply wear red in solidarity. There will be rallies in at least fifty cities around the United States.”

OK, boycott the corporate masters for a day.  I love boycotts (against companies I dislike) as much as the next liberal (or conservative, I suppose), but the fact is that they don’t really work. But the smaller the business, the greater chance it has for success. Can someone explain to this liberal male why the organizers would risk marginalizing or outright alienating a small-business owner by including this? (I’ll deal with the anti-Israel part at a later time).

The part about male-owned businesses is not in quotes, so I don’t know whether to attribute it to Ms. Tolentino or the organizers of the strike. Comments are open, folks, but be polite and, if you can, well-reasoned.

 

 

 

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Mass(achusetts) Hypocrisy


I live in the progressive paradise of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. There are great things about living here, like a great educational system, quaint New England villages that get covered with amazing fall foliage, and zero-deductible windshield replacement with your car insurance.

There are some things that are incongruous, though. We just recently got rid of blue laws. Some of the most racist public actions in recent history were the Southie anti-busing protests of 40 years ago. We have low unemployment, but close to the worst income disparity in the nation.

Driving home from taking the younger one to middle to school, I saw this on the car in front of me.

rmv-plate-mother-child

Point 1: Since when is it OK for the state to promote partisan political and religious views on official material?

It’s been around for 7 years already, so I guess the answer is since 2010. Let it be said in favor of the Commonwealth’s residents that I have driven around for this period without encountering this license plate. Either there aren’t a lot of these plates on cars, or I’m too busy texting while I drive.

Point 2: The statement “Choose Life” is being co-opted and misused whenever it refers to abortion.

The phrase “choose life” comes from Deuteronomy 30:19. The Torah here is talking about the consequences of not living a life according to its laws. It reads:

This day, I call upon the heaven and the earth as witnesses [that I have warned] you: I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. You shall choose life, so that you and your offspring will live;

If someone really believed in “choosing life” as specified by the Bible, that person would be keeping the Jewish dietary laws (say ‘goodbye!’ to lobstah and chowdah), observing the Jewish Sabbath, putting mezuzot on the doorways of their houses, and not mixing wool with linen.

I’m not expecting a massive rush to buy a second set of dishes by everyone who is anti-choice. It’s bad enough that the quote is a misuse of religion. But, hey, speech is free. Say what you want. The real problem with the license plate is not that it the people using the “Choose Life” phrase are being ignorant (willfully or otherwise); it’s that it just doesn’t belong on a form of vehicle identification that is supplied by the state. It should go.

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The Return of the Chicken Hawks


Did they really ever go away?

Great. Another $54 billion for the military-industrial complex. Not so strangely, no discussion of a draft. I’m sick of hearing how everyone loves the military, yet it seems no one has a problem using them like insensate tools.generalissimo-trump Until everyone has skin in the game, please shut the fuck up with your saber rattling.

 

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Amazon: When are you going to join the other 1,250 companies that pulled their ads from Breitbart?


steve-bannon-breitbart-670x454
The Best Drumpf Could Do.

Like most of us, I’ve bought a fair amount of stuff from them. It’s convenient, right? Should I give up the convenience because Amazon is still advertising on a site that has essentially become an online gathering place for a very nasty and hate-filled mob?

A perusal of Breitbart.com shows that the boycott, whether it’s working or not, has certainly affected the look of the site. The only ads I saw were of the “Try This One Weird Trick to Restore Your Eyesight!” or “She Didn’t Realize That the Camera Was Watching!” type. Useless clickbait. No cars, no washing machines, no guitars, no floor cleaner, toilet paper, airlines, house paint, tires, etc. In short, nothing that I actually use.

This article from the Washington Post provides some flimsy verification that Breitbart is starting to hurt. If employees get laid off, whether because of a lack of revenue or they’ve been discovered endorsing pedophilia, morale is going to drop.

vicks
Yes, this is a real ad from Breitbart.com
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(Social) Media Shabbat


kiddush-cup
Ein simcha ela b’yayin

 

My iPhone gave up the ghost yesterday, which will definitely aid in giving my weary psyche a rest. I bought a replacement plan, but the phone is back-ordered, so I’m phoneless for a few days. I’ll survive.

The kids are with their mother this weekend, and do I miss talking to them. In their teenage distraction, they do NOT miss talking to me. I’m OK with that. I hope that they’re having fun.

The craziness continues.

This weekend the Republican Jewish Coalition is meeting in Las Vegas, at Sheldon Adelson’s (Jews We Wish Were Gentile) Venetian Den of Iniquity and Gambling Hall. Among the assholes that the RJC wishes to honor are Dick Cheney, whose qualifications are  promoter of false intelligence, war profiteer, torture advocate and guilt-free accomplice in the death of over 4,000 American soldiers and marines and who knows how many civilians; Cheney’s evil homophobic spawn; and Mike Pence,champion of turning the United States into a Christian theocracy yet sell-out to perhaps the most un-Christian president in US history. FYI to Jewish Republicans: Christian theocracies have not been good to us. cf. Spanish Inquisition vs. Golden Age of Jewry in Spain.

 

Take a break, everyone. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

 

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No Wonder tRump’s Grumpy–His Wife Won’t Sleep With him, and there’s nothing he can do about it.


Of the restrictions imposed by being the Most Powerful Man in the World, the inability to move the seat of government may be the most torturous of them all.

Avoiding your vulgar, garish boor of a husband is now the easiest thing in the world for Mrs. Drumpf. All she has to do is stay away from the District of Columbia.

Twitler is taking Propecia. Side effects include:

  • impotence, loss of interest in sex, or trouble having an orgasm;
  • abnormal ejaculation;
  • swelling in your hands or feet;
  • swelling or tenderness in your breasts;
  • dizziness, weakness;
  • feeling like you might pass out;
  • headache;
  • runny nose;

Note the first side effect listed. It may be that that is an advantage if you are the president, your wife can’t stand your flesh, and you wish to avoid scandal. However, a man’s view of himself, especially a puffed-up peacock like tRump, is often inextricably intertwined with his dominant and dominating sexuality. A man that can’t even get it from his “young (relatively), and beautiful, piece of ass”, well, what kind of tough hombre is that?

The third side effect, swelling of the hands? That one Drumpf definitely wants.

melania-gun
“Try  doing to me what you did to Ivana and I will shoot your flabby ass. In Slovenian.”
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tRump’s “Condescending Crumbs”


In case you don’t think that Cheetolini has been dog-whistling the white supremacists, you now have proof ,courtesy of Haaretz.com.

The “condescending crumbs” quote comes courtesy of the Anne Frank center.

trumpie-998x657

As for tRump finally saying anti-Semitism is a bad thing:

wow. gee-whiz.  Of course, the real news is that even if you are ultra-Orthodox that you’ve never met anyone that is as anti-Semitic as tRump. Who’da thunk?

To which we say:

Prove it. Fire Bannon.

NB: I’m not writing about Yiannopoulos. This is already too much recognition.

 

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