The History of Right-Wing Hate (And Denial)

Matt Ford on the American denial of right-wing terrorism throughout history:

"Elaine Frantz Parsons, a historian who studied the organization, noted in her 2015 book, Ku-Klux: The Birth of the Klan During Reconstruction, that Klan denialism shaped public perceptions of the group as well as the responses to it. While journalists and federal officials went to great lengths to document the group’s atrocities, 'the national debate over the Klan failed to move beyond the simple question of the Klan’s existence,' she wrote. 'Skepticism about the Ku-Klux even in the fact of abundant proof of the Ku-Klux’s existence endured and thrived, perhaps because people on all sides of the era’s partisan conflicts at times found ambiguity about the Ku-Klux desirable and productive,' Parsons wrote.

There was overwhelming evidence to refute the denialists’ claims. Klansmen routinely engaged in murder, rape, and other forms of violence that left behind scars, corpses, and witnesses. Larger cells carried out massacres and skirmished with local militias and federal troops. The Justice Department, which was founded in 1870 to enforce federal anti-Klan laws, prosecuted and convicted hundreds of its members in public trials."

"Good people on both sides," of course.

This Is America

White Nationalists are going on murder sprees and it's all just a bit too surreal looking at my home country from the relative comfort of South Korea.

I checked in with the Washington State voting board (online, very convenient) and found that my snail-mail ballot had reached the state.

So, I voted.  In a relatively Blue State.

And that doesn't mean much but it's all we've got to fight against literal fascism and racial cleansing, isn't it?

"escape the corset"

South Korea is having its #MeToo moment:

"Cha is part of a growing movement in South Korea fighting against unrealistic beauty standards that call for women to spend hours applying makeup and perform skincare regimes that involve 10 steps or more at each end of the day. Among their complaints is that women must wake up two hours before work to ensure perfect makeup, meticulously removing dead skin with peeling gel and steam towels before beginning their regimen.

Women sick of the laborious routine have started to post videos on social media of destroyed piles of cosmetics with the catch-cry 'escape the corset', likening makeup to the garments that were part of daily women’s garments for years and worked to constrain bodies into a uniform shape.

The trend is part of a larger push against the country’s patriarchal society that has seen record numbers of women take to the streets to demand greater equality and fight against issues such as illegal filming and sexual assault."

The illegal filming of women in bathrooms is definitely a disturbing trend here.

In much less serious news, in a country where people wears masks when they have a cold, I've had a number of female college students admit that they'll also wear one when they don't feel like putting on makeup.

I'm Tired Of Living In Interesting Times

It'll be good times when a Trump supporter straps on a suicide vest and blows up a bunch of people and the @NYT reminds us that Sarah Sanders once couldn't eat artisanal fried chicken because BOTH SIDES DO IT.

— Register To Vote, Then Vote. (@wetcasements) October 25, 2018

If You Believe

I thought First Man was amazing, a perfect blend of tense action inside rickety metal tubes being flung into space at ungodly speeds and, even better, a family drama involving an American Hero who's too shaken by the deaths of friends and colleagues to function fully as a human being and father until his wife snaps him out of it.

Granted, I'll watch anything with Ryan Gosling but this really was superb.  And now, I'll have to watch anything with Claire Foy as well.

(Does that mean I have to go watch La La Land now?  Normally I don't do musicals.  And yes, that includes Hamilton.)

Who Could Have Known?

Tim Heidecker, "Richard Spencer"

Neo-Nazi also turns out to be neo-wife and child abuser:

"During their marriage, the white nationalist leader sometimes told her to use her own savings to pay for groceries, saying that his money was 'for the cause', she alleged. He also regularly failed to pay water, internet, electricity and cellphone bills and failed to make healthcare payments, causing their health insurance to lapse three times, including once shortly before the birth of their second child.

In 2014, when she was pregnant with their first child, he held her down with his body weight and grabbed her by the neck and the jaw, leaving bruises, she alleged. In 2017, when she was nine months pregnant, he attempted to punch her in the face, she claimed."

Trump's rise to power was really about economic anxiety and had nothing to do with white racial resentment.

Korean Music That Isn't K-pop!

Say Sue Me, "Old Town"

These guys are from Busan, and I think they're really great.  Buy their new album here.

I get some Yo La Tengo vibes, with maybe some Galaxie 500 and Feelies too.

Weeding Out

South Korean national identity isn't the easiest thing for a foreigner to understand.  To wit, with Canada legalizing marijuana South Korea has announced that Korean nationals who smoke weed abroad will be prosecuted to the fullest extent:

"Weed smokers will be punished according to the Korean law, even if they did so in countries where smoking marijuana is legal. There won’t be an exception,' said Yoon Se-jin, head of the narcotics crime investigation division at Gyeonggi Nambu provincial police agency, according to the Korea Times.

South Korean law is based on the concept that laws made in Seoul still apply to citizens anywhere in the world, and violations, even while abroad, can technically lead to punishment when they return home. Those who smoke weed could face up to five years in prison.

South Korea strictly enforces drugs laws even for small amounts, and celebrities caught smoking weed are often paraded in front of media for apology tours. Officials work to project an image of a “drug-free nation” and only about 12,000 drug arrests were made in 2015 in a country of more than 50 million people."

As the article states, it's hard to see how this can be enforced.  But the declaration of a virtuous ethnic identity that reaches across all borders is more likely the practical intention.

9.3

I'm not sure why Pitchfork has always gotten so much hate.  On the one hand in the internet age, nobody has the time to listen to every new band out there.  On the other, like everything in the universe when it's good it's good and when it's bad it's bad.

So what?

Anyhow, this is good Pitchfork, reviewing supposed wunderkinder band Greta Van Fleet:

"Greta Van Fleet sound like they did weed exactly once, called the cops, and tried to record a Led Zeppelin album before they arrested themselves."

It helps that the description is completely accurate.

World Series

I can't exactly hate the Red Sox, since they beat up on the Yankees and that is doing God's work.  Then again, they're kind of character-less without Manny Ramirez or David Ortiz.

So normally I'd root for any non-Yankees American League team in the World Series, but over the past five years the Dodgers and Cubs have emerged as teams I semi-regularly follow.

Add Manny Machado into the mix, along with South Korean starter Ryu Hyun-jin, and I've got to cheer for L.A. to win it in six.

Also, Puig.  I guess as I get older, I grow fonder of the guys who are willing to tell the "Unwritten Rules Of The Game" to go fuck themselves.

2018

Republicans are officially the party of "just a little murder by live dismemberment"

— Register To Vote, Then Vote. (@wetcasements) October 18, 2018