Thoughts On The Dead

Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To

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Trumps! Through! Historyyyyyyyy!

August 14, 2017 / / 0 Comments

December 8th, 1941

“My fellow Americans, and also the losers and haters and blacks. Yesterday, December 7th, was a very, very bad day. Not good at all. Was it Wilkie’s fault? Maybe. Maybe. Who knows? I heard on the radio that it was, but it might have been the fake radio.

“Many sides were responsible for the tragedy in Hawaii. Parking a lot of ships like that is a real provocation. We’re not angels.

“Okay, great, war, great. Look up the Japs, though.”

September 11th, 2001

“Violence is not okay. I’m gonna say that again, but real slow. Not. Oh. Kay. Whether it’s the violence done by people flying planes into buildings, or the violence that buildings do to planes.

“It’s just sad all around.”

June 26th, 1963

“Ich bin ein Berliner. But also a Communist. There are two sides to this story. Zwei sides, you understand that? Zwei.

“This is a beautiful wall.”

I Say We Hear Him Out

August 14, 2017 / / 0 Comments

I’m trying, Enthusiasts, I truly am. I’m trying to imagine who could be the other side in a dispute with Nazis where I’d be stymied to pick a side. Almost all of them are fictional. Let’s see…

The Khmer Rouge On one hand, I’m Jewish; on the other, I wear glasses. No matter who wins this one, I’m getting executed. This one’s a tie.

Soviets We did this already, and I think backing Uncle Joe was the way to go.

Zombies Trick question: you pretend to partner with the Nazis to kill all the zombies, then shoot all the Nazis. Zombies are morally superior to Nazis because they have no choice in the matter: zombies are driven by voodoo or magic or a virus or whatever; Nazis chose to be assholes. Also, there are no racist zombies. Zombie’ll eat anyone’s brains. (Would a Nazi zombie refuse to eat Jew brains? And if you dropped him in Tel Aviv, he’d starve to death?)

Werewolfs C’mon. Werewolfs are dangerous three nights out of the month. Nazis are always Nazis. Unless, of course, we’re talking about the elusive werenazi.

The Galactic Empire Listen, if you were anyone but an Alderaanian, you loved the Empire. Peace and order, plus a strong Imperial Credit. Going with the Empire.

Multiple Garbage Bags Full of Herpes Garbage bags stay in one place, but Nazis invade Poland. Winner: Garbage Bags Full of Herpes.

Mongol Horde People get the Mongol Horde wrong. They just wanted money and land. If you cooperated with them, your village would get their protection and you could keep your language and gods. The Nazis did not have that arrangement. Again, I must side against the Nazis.

Draculas Draculas can only harm you on average 12 hours a day; not so with Nazis. Point: Draculas.

Giant Spiders With Dicks For Fangs Fine, I would choose the Nazis over the dick-spiders. You got me.

In Which Both Sides Can Be Argued

August 14, 2017 / / 4 Comments

Sorry if I haven’t been very funny the past few days.

Or ever.

Shut up, you. I go to write a little make-em-up, and then I remember: oh, right, Nazis. Gentiles do not know this, but all Jews are born with Spidey-Sense for the tenets of National Socialism. The hairs on our arms go up.

Could you call them goosestep-bumps?

You could, yes. But let’s try to focus on something entirely inconsequential and get our minds off the world. We shall now have an incredibly shallow debate: hear, hear OR here, here? (Thanks to Murray in the Comment Section for inspiring this distraction.)

On one hand, this is not even a question: the Oxford English Dictionary says that the phrase is “hear, hear” and it’s been in common usage since the 1600’s. On the other hand, the OED is an English dictionary, and I speak American.

Hear, hear is easily explainable. In agreeing with a speaker or a specific point made, one might yell “I hear that” or “I hear you” and just as “God be with you” got shortened to “goodbye” over the years, so did “hear, hear.”

But I always liked “here, here.” I always picture a coffee shop in Boston before the Revolution. Samuel Adams is giving a speech and Ethan Allen stands up and says, “This motherfucker here? This motherfucker here is my motherfucker here.” (Ethan Allen was notoriously foul-mouthed.) And then everyone poured out some hard cider for Crispus Attucks.

Are you getting to a point?

No. Not at all. Just trying to avoid thinking about Nazis.

This motherfucker here.

What I’m talking about.

Charlottesville: An FAQ

August 13, 2017 / / 7 Comments

What the fuck just happened?

Nazis started a riot in Virginia.

That sounds like a simplistic interpretation.

Necessarily so. Truth is so often obscured by detail. Many people have been obsessing about this detail and that today as a way of not mentioning the truth, which is that Nazis started a riot in Virginia.

You really shouldn’t go throwing that word around.

Virginia?

Nazis.

Nazis!? Where!?

Stop that.

They were either Nazis, or they all had the same cramp in their right arm. And, you know, the Nazi flags and tattoos and uniforms. Oh, and people wound up dead, which is very Nazi-like.

But they weren’t all Nazis.

Dude, did you just pull a #NOTALLNAZIS with me?

What I’m asking is: do they call themselves Nazis?

Who gives a fuck what they call themselves? NAMBLA called themselves “boy-lovers,” but the rest of us didn’t have to go along with them. Best to call a spade a spade, especially when that spade’s a Nazi. We must be as adamant in our language as they are slippery in theirs. All of this alt-right/white nationalist/ethnostatist/whatever the fuck is just there to obfuscate. This is an “if the jackboot fits” situation.

Okay, fine. Why were they in Charlottesville?

I told you: to start a riot. Same reason they get their speakers booked on ultra-liberal college campuses. They went there to cause trouble.

But they didn’t say that. What was the stated reason?

Ah. To defend a statue of Robert E. Lee.

What’s happening to the statue?

Being taken down.

Why?

The treason.

Again: glib. The Civil War was an important event in our history, and you can’t just throw away history.

Agreed. But you don’t have to erect a giant statue of a traitorous slaver in a public park. And again: Lee committed treason. There aren’t any statues of Quisling in fucking Oslo, are there? Besides, these guys aren’t real history buffs. They don’t care about the Civil War so much as the bit before it when it was okay to own black people.

So the Nazis came to defend a statue.

No. I can’t keep repeating myself. They came to start a riot.

Fine, but isn’t the best thing to do to take the high road? Maybe we should just ignore them.

We tried that last time. For, like, all of the 30’s.

How’d it work?

It didn’t. Turns out we should have strangled the baby in the cradle. Hitler even said so.

He did?

Sure. And, you know: you can trust Hitler.

Can we get back to Charlottesville?

I don’t want to go there. Place is full of Nazis.

Can’t some of the blame be put on the counter-protestors?

Sure. Same way the gunshot wound in the burglar can be blamed on the homeowner. These Nazi fucks went to someone else’s home and paraded around with their guns strapped to them while chanting about killing Jews.

And so the antifa have the right to resort to violence?

By “antifa,” do you mean “people opposed to Nazis?”

I suppose.

Okay.

No one should be assaulted for their beliefs.

No one was. They were assaulted because of their actions. They stood up with a group whose tenet is destruction and murder along racial lines. That’s an action.

But what about the First–

THE FIRST AMENDMENT APPLIES TO THE FUCKING GOVERNMENT!

…

You don’t have to yell.

Don’t be stupid and I won’t yell. The First Amendment was actually upheld in this debacle, as the Nazis were given a permit to march on public streets.

Why are they doing this?

The Nazis?

Yeah.

Because they’re human, so they’re monsters.

What about the people who went to protest them?

They went because they’re human, too.

Three people died.

They did.

Are more going to?

They will.

Why is this happening?

Donald Trump.

That’s a simplistic interpretation.

Truth is so often obscured by detail.

The Greatest Antifascists

August 13, 2017 / / 12 Comments

Assholes create their own enemies. The hateful and combative will always find someone to blame and punish, and then–much like Ben Franklin’s frying fish–come up with reasons afterwards. Assholes are always forced into action by the people they set out to hurt; it’s a recurring theme. Anti-fascists were invented by fascists. Not just fascists, but Fascists. The first use of the word was by Mussolini’s band of bumblers: the Italian secret police were called the Organizzazione per la Vigilanza e la Repressione dell’Antifascismo. (For those of you who don’t speak Italian, then just look at the phrase again. Not that tough to figure out.)

Anti-fascist organizations became popular, and often brutally crushed, throughout Europe in the years between the Wars. Some took to the hills to fight guerilla battles against the government forces, harrying supply lines and sabotaging power and transport. The anti-fascists took up arms in Spain against Franco. The bells tolled in Catalonia. Hitler tried out a new idea in a city called Guernica.

America did not have much of an organized anti-fascism movement before the Second World War. There were the Bunds, and the American Nazi Party, and the Jewish street kids and mobsters would fight them.

But then the War started, and we learned quickly.

This is what an anti-fascist looks like:

That’s Rudy Tokiwa from K Company of the 442nd Regimental Combat Force. This picture was taken on July 15, 1944. The 442nd had just taken the Castelina Marittima.

Here are more anti-fascists:

These are the men of the Red Ball Express; they drove the deuce-and-a-half trucks that supplied and fed the American forces.

Here’s an anti-fascist named Norwood:

That man was born in North Carolina in 1918 and given the name Norwood Dorman. The statue behind him is a tribute to the Italian soldiers of World War One. Norwood’s pose is a comment on the cyclical nature of human bullshit.

For years, this photo was dated to December 7th. It was actually taken at a training exercise a few weeks prior. No matter: they’re aiming their hoses at fascism.

Did you know an anti-fascist was the last man to bat .400?

That’s Ted Williams, and he hated fascism so much that he learned to fly a plane so he could shoot at it from above. A few years later, Ted would reenlist so he could get back in a plane at shoot at Communism.

Some anti-fascists were hunky:

That nose is doing it for me.

And here are some more anti-fascists:

So when you hear “anti-fascist” used as an attempted pejorative, think of these men and women.

 

PS I didn’t want to be goofy, but I can’t help it:

“General Eisenhower?”

“What, General Jenkins?”

“Why does Patton get to wear whatever he wants?”

“Not this again.”

“It’s just not fair.”

“You’re absolutely right, Jenkins.”

“I am?”

“Yes. Go tell him to change.”

…

“Nuh-uh.”

“I thought so.”

A Note From A Village By A Lake

August 12, 2017 / / 1 Comment

Why don’t you go back where you came from?

Toothy little fucks, the lot of you. Slums of Hackney got too full and you waltzed in here like you belonged. Like you could ever belong, as if you wouldn’t be spotted in a crowd every time. They told me in school the first of you came looking to practice your “religion,” but schools are just buildings full of lies. That “religion” of yours? Incompatible with civilized folks. Just look at your history and fuck off and take the Scots with you, Limey.

And the Irish. Seems like they’re everywhere nowadays, shoving their culture down your throat. “Wah, there’s no food. Wah, there’s no jobs.” Why don’t you stand up and fight for your country? Why is America responsible for your suffering? We can’t be the world’s babysitter.

The Germans, Jesus. Don’t get me started on the Germans. They infest neighborhoods and then there’s pretzels everywhere. And that fucking language of theirs that they insist on speaking in public where my children can hear it. Dutch, too. Dutch, German, who can tell the difference? Foreign is foreign.

The Swedes bring diseases, and the Finns have too many children. The Flemish steal.

So, why don’t you go back where you came from?

Who the fuck invited you, anyway?

Many Sides

August 12, 2017 / / 0 Comments

One side: There is a wage gap in between men and women in this country.
Other side: Depends on how you look at the numbers.
Not a side: Women shouldn’t have the vote.

One side: Local de-industrialization and global economic trends have left vast swathes of the country underemployed.
Other side: The residents of those areas have, without fail, voted for their own problems.
Not a side: I’d like to stand in a park and yell “nigger” as loud as I can.

One side: Israel is under mortal threat from the countries surrounding it.
Other side: Israel is a human-rights nightmare that causes just as much chaos as anyone.
Not a side: The Holocaust didn’t happen, but I wish it did.

One side: Migrant workers should be legalized and given a pathway to citizenship if they so choose.
Other side: American jobs should be for Americans.
Not a side: Driving a car into a crowd.

Another Set Of Lists, One Noticeably Longer Than The Other

August 12, 2017 / / 3 Comments

Who Has Basketball Head Talked Shit About?

  • Mexico.
  • Canada.
  • Australia.
  • Germany.
  • Great Britain.
  • NATO.
  • Disabled reporters.
  • Muslims.
  • Blacks.
  • Transgendered troops.
  • American POW’s.
  • Morning teevee anchors.
  • The press.
  • The leaders of his own political party.
  • His staff.
  • The FBI.
  • The CIA.
  • The state of New Hampshire.
  • Numerous comediennes.
  • The White House itself.

Who Has Basketball Head Not Talked Shit About?

  • Vladimir Putin.
  • Fucking Nazis.

A Medium-Sized List And Then A Very Short One

August 12, 2017 / / 1 Comment

Things You May Be Neutral On

  • Sporting events.
  • Musical rivalries, i.e. Dead/Phish, Beatles/Stones, etc.
  • Best roller coaster.
  • Chinese food. (Some folks like spicy Szechuan, and others like savory Cantonese; equally acceptable positions.)
  • Prescriptivism v. Descriptivism.
  • Ending production and use of the penny.
  • Father John Misty.
  • Coffee or tea, even though the answer is coffee.

Things You May Not Be Neutral On

  • Fucking Nazis.
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