Originally a comment by Your Name’s not Bruce? on A means to exclood.

once he ‘transitioned’, he did his landscaping in hot pants and spike heels. That just proves he isn’t a woman; no woman of any sense at all would mow a lawn dressed like that. [quoting iknklast]

It’s a vicious circle. Performance and appearance are all that TiMs have; any time they’re not in “woman-coded” clothes and accessories = not being a woman, so even in situations where safety, comfort, and mobility compel women to dispense with “woman-coded” wardrobes, TiMs have to keep up the pretense, because doing otherwise results in even smaller chances of “passing”. Their use of stereotyipcal, exaggerated “female” clothing and mannerisms are the equivalent of holding up a sign that says “I AM A WOMAN” (“It’s MA’AM!” if you will). In their minds they can never put the sign down, because the sign is all they’ve got. They want us to believe that sign is their sex. The hyperfeminine dress and comportment is large, boldface type, for those with poor eyesight who might accidentally see them as men. It’s closed captioning for those who don’t understand what they’re trying to say. It’s a demand to surrender our reading of reality to their delusion. Ultimately, it’s a warning, to women particularly: “Give me what I want. Or Else.”

Females don’t have to do any of this and can dress as they like without risk of changing sex. Men-who-claim-to-be-women are always on stage, always in costume, always performing. By doing so they’re claiming to change sex. Butlerian reasoning would have us believe that this is enough to make them women, that in fact performance is all anybody has, or anybody is. Nice try, Judith, but it doesn’t work that way. As if we can so easily shed the inescapable journey of birth, old age, sickness, and death that is the lot of material beings, philosopher or no. We are not beings of pure thought and energy, who can slip into and out of whatever roles we set our minds to, reifying them through sheer force of will. We are tied to this Earth, and the sustenance it provides. We are our bodies. We are matter, we are mammals, we are male and female. Oh, to slip the surly bonds of biology!

It seems the NHS is allowing lunatics to tell NHS midwives that men can breastfeed infants.

NHS midwives have been trained by a trans workshop that promotes male breastfeeding, The Telegraph can reveal.

The Queer Birth Club runs “LGBTQ+” competency and lactation classes, using the tag line “birthing people ain’t all women”.

People who think men can get pregnant ain’t right in the head.

The group has provided training sessions for NHS England and a number of trusts across the UK, and its founder has given talks at the Royal College of Midwives (RCM).

One nurse who raised concerns about the training is now facing disciplinary action.

Oh come on. Seriously?

The Queer Birth Club has said that it has also provided training in universities and its courses are embedded in some midwifery and doula training programs. It promotes breastfeeding by trans women and claims that it is “transmisogyny” to say that the milk produced by biological men is “less”.

This is despite concerns over the safety of the milk, which is produced after taking a series of medications to induce lactation. Domperidone, the drug commonly used to stimulate lactation, was not intended for this purpose, but is prescribed off-label by doctors. Janssen, which manufactures the drug, has recommended against it because of possible side effects to a baby’s heart.

And these fucks promote it anyway. It’s pure evil.

AJ Silver, the founder of The Queer Birth Club who identifies as non-binary, has also appeared as a speaker at conferences led by the Royal College of Midwives and says they have trained more than “600 birth professionals”.

Where are the god damn adults???

Huh. The Scottish government is still trying to get away with it.

Earlier this month, officials told For Women Scotland (FWS) that the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) had advised ministers to wait for the Commission’s final Code of Practice before making changes and to “not do anything in advance of that”.

The comments earned a stinging rebuke from Baroness Kishwer Falkner, the Chair of the EHRC, who said the Commission had made it “clear” to civil servants that public bodies should not wait for updated guidance before acting on the judgment.

“Comments” is not the right word there. It should be claims or assertions or orders. We’re not talking casual remarks over a beer, we’re talking officials telling FWS lies about what ministers are allowed to do. Saying “comments” minimizes the perfidy. Journalists should stop doing that.

The peer said she was “very concerned that our conversations with officials appear to have been misrepresented”.

And, of course, misrepresented in the direction of telling FWS to shut up and wait as opposed to the direction of yes you get to have your rights back now. Not, I suggest, a random error.

FWS told The Herald they were stunned by the claims from officials: “At what point does this stop being ignorant incompetence and tip into wilful malpractice?”

What I’m saying. It looks a hell of a lot like calculated stalling, does it not.

In April, the UK’s highest court ruled unanimously that a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) does not alter a person’s sex for the purposes of the Equality Act. The judgment clarified that the terms ‘man’ and ‘woman’ in the legislation refer to biological sex, not acquired gender.

The EHRC then issued interim guidance in May related to trans people’s use of facilities including including changing rooms and toilets, and participation in sports. It also launched a consultation on changes to parts of its code of practice for services, public functions and associations, which is due to conclude on June 30. The watchdog is due to publish the updated code later this year.

While First Minister John Swinney initially welcomed the “clarity” provided by the ruling, the Scottish Government has repeatedly said it is waiting for this further guidance before issuing new guidance of its own to Scotland’s public bodies.

However, the EHRC has repeatedly said that the ruling applies now and that “those with duties under the Equality Act 2010 should be following the law and looking at what changes, if any, need to be made to their policies and practices”.

So we’ve got a standoff. Scottish gov repeatedly says it’s waiting, EHRC repeatedly says no don’t wait, make any necessary changes now. Tick tick tick, meanwhile women’s rights continue to be violated.

Earlier this week, FWS wrote to the Scottish Government’s Permanent Secretary Joe Griffin calling for a full investigation, saying it was “extremely concerning that statements made by a senior government official to a third party about EHRC advice have been directly contested by the regulatory body itself”.

Yeah it is. It kind of signals that the government is stalling stalling stalling despite the regulatory body’s telling it to STOP STALLING.

In a letter to the campaigners on Friday, seen by The Herald, Mr Griffin did not challenge FWS’s account of the meeting, and said his team would “revert in due course” with a fuller response.

Why not now? Why “in due course”? How long is that exactly? A week? A year? Ten years? What happened to now?

He said the Government accepted the Supreme Court’s judgment and “acknowledges the EHRC statement that duty-bearers should not wait for our statutory Code of Practice for Services, Public Functions and Associations to be in place to review their policies to ensure they are complying with the law as now settled by the Supreme Court”.

Then why is the Government stalling stalling stalling?

This, he added, “aligns with the approach the Scottish Government has taken since the judgment was issued in April”.

No it doesn’t. That’s the very thing it doesn’t do. That’s the whole point.

In Holyrood on Wednesday, Mr Griffin was pressed by SNP MSP Michelle Thomson to name any concrete action the Government had taken since the ruling. Mr Griffin said only that the “short life working group” had been established to prepare for implementation. He could not identify any specific changes made to guidance or policy.

Ya because first it has to establish, which takes anywhere from a day to a century, and then it has to prepare for implementation, which takes considerably longer. All very Sir Humphrey Appleby.

Susan Smith from FWS told The Herald: “After the rambling performance of the Permanent Secretary at committee, it was clear that the Scottish Government has done nothing to comply with the Supreme Court ruling.

“To justify this, the civil service has materially misrepresented the advice given by the EHRC. There is no justification for Ministers or civil servants to ignore the law, and these highly paid public servants and politicians should not sit on their haunches while grassroots women’s groups with little power or funding explain to them the basic principles of law and professional standards. Scotland deserves better.

“To say we are shocked is an understatement. At what point does this stop being ignorant incompetence and tip into wilful malpractice?”

I think that tipping has been a good deal more swift than the Scottish government’s establishment of the preparations for implementation.

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “The Scottish Government has been clear that we accept the Supreme Court judgment and that public bodies have a duty to comply with the law.

“Work is proceeding at pace to implement the ruling across Government. We have established a Short Life Working Group to ensure support and consistency in this.”

Oh gawd. It’s almost funny. It’s not, because it’s enraging, but it almost is. “We have established a working group; what more do you want??? You can’t possibly expect it to do any working.”

Sigh.

CNN:

President Donald Trump stepped up attacks on his handpicked Federal Reserve chairman on Wednesday, claiming Jerome Powell has “low IQ” and suggested that he has narrowed down the list of potential replacements to three or four people.

“He’s an average mentally person…Low IQ for what he does,” Trump said of Powell during remarks at a press conference at the NATO summit in the Netherlands Wednesday. “I think he’s a very stupid person, actually.”

Well which is it? Average or very stupid?

Tell you what: only a very stupid person starts with “average” and then pivots to “very stupid” and tries to get away with it by adding “actually.”

But really. Trump is horrifyingly successful, obviously, but not because he’s intelligent. He’s successful in part because he’s stupid – because people feel boosted by his success: if a fool like him can do it then anyone can.

It turns out that intelligence, thought, study, knowledge, understanding don’t succeed the way determined greed and rage and envy do.

Oh did he now.

Men won’t comply with laws or rules or norms that tell them to stay out of women’s toilets and changing rooms. Man MP says hooray, taller man visitor smirks.

Nancy Armour, a sports columnist at USA Today, rounds up the usual suspects.

The days of transgender athletes being able to compete at the Olympics are numbered.

The International Olympic Committee will no doubt dispute that, arguing that new president Kirsty Coventry’s announcement Thursday was only for a working group to examine how to “protect the female category.” But from her loaded language to the dearth of transgender athletes at the Games, it’s obvious this is intended as a means to exclude, not include.

Let’s start with her lede. Is there some moral law that says transgender athletes should be able to compete at the Olympics? I mean, one could also write a sob story about how crappy athletes are not allowed to compete at the Olympics. Newsflash: very very very few people are allowed to compete at the Olympics. The Olympics are decidedly not “inclusive.”

Moving on, I wonder, as I always wonder, how she manages to be so eager to replace women at the Olympics with men who call themselves women. Why is she full of sympathy for men who pretend to be women and indifferent to the women those men would displace? She’s a woman herself after all, so wtf? You have to “exclude” men from women’s sports if women are to have any sports at all. She knows that, of course, so wtf?

“A lot of members shared with us their own experiences from their own countries that had nothing to do with Paris or any other specific sporting event. Just their cultural experiences they were sharing with us and culturally what was expected from us as an Olympic movement,” Coventry said. “That made it very clear that we had to do something, and this was what everyone agreed was the way forward.”

Make no mistake: That “way forward” will take the IOC backward. And do so in contradiction of its own research and at great harm to an already vulnerable community.

BUT WHAT ABOUT WOMEN?? What about women you horrible credulous fool? What about the harm to them? What about their vulnerability? What are you even babbling about?

Most of us don’t know anyone who is transgender, let alone a transgender athlete. Which ought to tell you how big a “threat” they are. But J.K. Rowling, Riley Gaines and the U.S. Republican Party have managed to convince even people who should know better that transgender women have both a competitive advantage and are a marauding horde about to overwhelm women’s sports.

Why should people “know better” than “men have a competitive advantage”? Men do have an advantage, of course, so why and how should we know better than that?

The marauding horde about to overwhelm is just stupid. It’s beside the point. Men in women’s sports is unfair, end of story. I don’t suppose Nancy Armour would be happy if a couple of drunk teenagers broke into her house and smashed up the place, even though two teenagers are not a marauding horde.

The people howling for “fairness” will accept nothing less than the complete exclusion of transgender women, from sports and in society. 

Liar. Excluding men from women’s sports is not excluding them from society. It’s not even close.

Then there are the disingenuous folks who already have and will continue to use a white, heteronormative notion of what a woman is to remove anyone who falls outside it. A female athlete who is masculine presenting and has short hair? She’d better be ready to prove her womanhood.

Oh honestly. Is she six? Can just anybody be a journalist these days?

Hmmm.

President Donald Trump stepped up attacks on his handpicked Federal Reserve chairman on Wednesday, claiming Jerome Powell has “low IQ” and suggested that he has narrowed down the list of potential replacements to three or four people.

“He’s an average mentally person…Low IQ for what he does,” Trump said of Powell during remarks at a press conference at the NATO summit in the Netherlands Wednesday. “I think he’s a very stupid person, actually.”

But…sir…you…you yourself are…

Oh never mind.

What’s this what’s this?

EHRC commissioner calls for ‘period of correction’ on trans rights after legal ruling

Transgender people must acknowledge a “period of correction” of rights after the supreme court decision on gender because they “have been lied to over many years” about what their rights actually were, one of the commissioners drawing up the official post-ruling guidance has said.

Speaking at a debate about the repercussions of April’s ruling that “woman” in the Equality Act refers only to a biological woman, Akua Reindorf said trans people had been misled about their rights and there “has to be a period of correction, because other people have rights”.

Sums it up, doesn’t it. All these magical “rights” to be endorsed and validated and embraced as the sex you are not – they turn out to be 100% bullshit.

We did warn them.

Reindorf, a barrister who is one of eight commissioners at the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), who was speaking in a personal capacity, said she believes the fault lay with trans lobbyists.

However, the human rights campaign groups Liberty and Amnesty called on the EHRC to make sure the rights of trans people were properly considered when it draws up guidance for public bodies on how to implement the changed legal landscape.

Back to square one. What rights? Trans people have the human rights all humans have; they don’t have new special magical rights that cancel the rights of, for instance, women.

A director of the trans campaign group TransActual said Reindorf’s remarks were profoundly unhelpful.

No you are.

Asked by an audience member about worries the ruling could reduce the rights of trans people, another panellist, the barrister Naomi Cunningham, said trans people “will have to give way”, adding: “It can’t be helped, I’m afraid.”

Reindorf, speaking next, agreed: “Unfortunately, young people and trans people have been lied to over many years about what their rights are. It’s like Naomi said – I just can’t say it in a more diplomatic way than that. They have been lied to, and there has to be a period of correction, because other people have rights.”

Real rights, as opposed to the pretend kind.

Chiara Capraro, head of gender justice at Amnesty International UK, said: “The EHRC has the duty to uphold the rights of everyone, including all with protected characteristics. We are concerned that it is failing to do so and is unhelpfully pitting the rights of women and trans people against each other.”

Oh shut up. You’re the ones who are doing that. You’re the ones who insist that men are women if they say they are, and are thus free to grab everything that belongs to women.

Occupy Democrats on Facebook:

Senator Jon Ossoff streamrolls Donald Trump’s slimy OMB Director Russell Vought after he tries to shift blame to Joe Biden during a hearing: “I don’t want to hear about the Biden administration! You’re here on behalf of the Trump administration.”

Finally, someone shut down the MAGA blame game…

“You guys are making mistakes and I want to focus on the mistakes that you’re making at the CDC. Have you visited the CDC Mr. Vought by chance?” asked Ossoff.

“I have not,” admitted Vought, who was testifying on behalf of the Office of Management and Budget about Donald Trump’s disastrous proposed cuts to federal funding.

“It is the flagship epidemiological and public health agency for the country and is indeed for the world, as you know,” said the senator.

“That even the Biden administration felt the need to reform,” interjected Vought, eager to hit his talking points for Trump.

“You have now fired or tried to fire nearly a quarter of their workforce, correct?” asked Ossoff.

“Senator are you suggesting the CDC performed well in the last pandemic?” asked Vought.

The suggestion that possible shortcomings on the part of the CDC during the coronavirus outbreak justify slashing its funding is absurd. All that such cuts would accomplish is ensuring that the next pandemic is even worse.

“I asked you whether you have fired or tried to fire a quarter of the CDC workforce,” said Ossoff.

“I can’t answer the question because I don’t have the facts in front of me. That’s the CDC Director’s information to give you,” said Vought.

“Well, you have,” said Ossoff. “You have fired or tried to fire nearly a quarter of the CDC workforce and your budget request for FY26 would cut the CDC budget in more than half, correct?”

“The Center for Disease Control was in—”

“No, answer the question!” said Ossoff.

“They were incompetent last pandemic,” said Vought.

“Answer the question Mr. Vought,” pressed the senator. “Does your budget request seek to cut by more than half the CDC budget?”

“We certainly seek to cut and reduce the CDC,” said Vought. “The extent to which—”

“Listen Mr. Vought, you need to come to Georgia and visit the CDC,” said Ossoff.

“Happy to.”

“Good. We’ll make that happen because you are destroying this institution and whatever criticism you have about their past performance, they are essential to public health and epidemiological defense in the United States,” said Ossoff.

“You’re crushing morale. You’re crushing capability,” he continued. “And you’re destroying my constituents’ lives and I am grateful for the commitment you’ve made to come to Georgia and visit the CDC and sit down with those employees. Thank you.”

“The Biden administration proposed reforms—” began Vought.

“I don’t want to hear about the Biden administration!” Ossoff shot back. “You’re here on behalf of the Trump administration.”

To that, Vought had no response.

Spot the problem.

Just one paragraph from the Everyday cancellation article:

A criticism of SEEN in Publishing, a sex equality and equity network for publishing professionals, was that its organisers chose to remain anonymous, but reactions from the industry – including naming it a “vile TERF publishing group” (commissioning editor) and a “nasty, anonymous, hate-filled little network” (editor), and telling its members to “get fucked” (publisher) – show why it has been necessary for them to do so. “I was really scared,” said a representative of SEEN in Publishing of her decision not to reveal her identity. She pointed out that most of the abuse directed online at the network had been sent from social-media accounts that were linked to their employers in the publishing industry. It is striking that calling people disgusting, nasty bigots can be done in full daylight, while joining a network that believes in the material reality of sex requires secrecy to protect those joining it from the perpetrators of this open abuse.

Astonishing, isn’t it? Women who don’t believe in magic gender are forcibly silenced, while people who call those women horrible names are flattered and assisted and welcomed to throw verbal shit at those silenced women.

Sex Matters has a new report on Everyday cancellation in publishing.

This research investigates the working environment for authors, agents and publishing staff who believe that sex is binary and immutable, and that it matters in life and law. It was commissioned to investigate widespread but anecdotal reports that publishing has become a hostile environment for people who hold gender-critical beliefs.

That’s an important thing to investigate. Publishing, like universities, journalism, social media, conversation, is how we learn about things: how we learn truths and also falsehoods. We all rely on these institutions and pastimes to get things right, so that we can get them right ourselves, and not fuck everything up by getting them badly horrifyingly wrong. You see what I mean? We want publishing to aim for accuracy and truth, as opposed to systematically and coercively lying to us.

Abuse of those with gender-critical views in publishing has been relentless. People – usually women – have received death and rape threats. Others in the industry have threatened them with reputational damage and loss of work, have used slurs and insults against them, and conflated their views with transphobia, homophobia, racism and other forms of bigotry. Gender-critical individuals working in publishing have been accused of wanting the deaths of trans-identifying teenagers and working towards genocide. There have been industry calls for those with gender-critical beliefs to be demonised, and they have been labelled as fascists for thinking that there are two sexes.

In 2020, the former children’s author Gillian Philip added the hashtag #IStandWithJKRowling to her Twitter (now X) profile. She was then subjected to an extreme 24-hour social-media pile-on that included death threats. Philip’s contract was immediately terminated by her publisher with the tacit support of her agent.

Is that Stalinist enough yet?

Journalists on BBC Radio 4’s flagship women’s-affairs programme Woman’s Hour have not interviewed best-selling gender-critical authors about their books, despite the issues they cover being so relevant to women. By contrast male gender-studies academic Grace Lavery has been interviewed, despite selling only 1,723 copies of Please Miss – A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Penis. So has Juno Dawson, a male transactivist who also identifies as a woman. Dawson has depicted womanhood as a submissive sexual identity: “I knew I wanted to be ‘the woman’ when it came to sex… It was a conscious urge to get fucked, be penetrated as a woman would be.” It is surprising that somebody with such a perspective, which arguably undermines the position of women in society, has been platformed on a programme about women instead of authors who argue for women’s rights.

Especially when that programme is not on a commercial channel but rather the BBC.

To be continued

Make America Sick Again.

The new members of US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr’s panel of vaccine advisers will review long-approved immunisation schedules for children and teens. The seven members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (Acip) met for the first time on Wednesday, weeks after Kennedy ousted all 17 of their predecessors.

The Acip recommends who should be vaccinated and when these immunisations should occur to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Ahead of the meeting, public health experts and politicians raised concerns about the qualifications of the new members – several of whom are vaccine critics.

Who the hell wants immunity from dangerous diseases anyway? Getting extremely sick builds character. Dying builds character x 11.

The health secretary sparked uproar when he removed all of Acip’s members on 9 June, and then hand-picked eight new members to serve on the panel – including one who dropped out hours before the first meeting.

You can see why that would stir uproar. The health secretary has no medical education or training. The health secretary is an ignorant conceited meddler who should be nowhere near any medical job of any kind whatsoever. The health secretary is a rank amateur who would be a failing insurance marketer if his name were not Kennedy.

Wednesday’s meeting began with the new chair Dr Martin Kulldorff telling the panel that he was fired from his job as a professor at Harvard University because he refused to get a Covid-19 vaccine.

Dr Kulldorff also announced the panel would launch new working groups to examine child vaccination schedules and vaccines that were approved seven or more years ago.

It’s just so much fun to be all rebellious and contrarian and shit, because you get to put the health of millions of people at risk. Oh boy, Ma, let me at it!

On Thursday, the group is scheduled to hear a presentation on the use of thimerosal in vaccines given by Lyn Redwood, a former leader of Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group Kennedy used to run. Ms Redwood has been hired by the CDC to work in its vaccine safety office, according to the BBC’s US partner CBS News.

The decision for the panel to discuss thimerosal – a mercury-based preservative that has not been used in most vaccines for decades – was perplexing, Prof Hanage said. In the past, he added, Acip’s members had a wide range of vaccine expertise and would scrutinise vaccine recommendations for months. This time, Kennedy chose a panel of “people that are like him – people in the past who have shown an anti-vaccine bias”, said Dr Paul Offit, a former Acip member and director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Cranks and quacks, in short. Way to make Murka great again.

Nailed it.

The opposition.

Oh gee will you look at that.

Kind of conspicuous, isn’t it.

Or as the Telegraph puts it, doctors are revolting.

Doctors who support the Cass Review into children’s trans services are revolting against the British Medical Association (BMA).

Insiders claimed that “ideologues” have infiltrated the union and “silenced” doctors who backed last year’s report by Baroness Cass into the care of children who think they are transgender.

The BMA controversially decided to reject the review during a council meeting, but later backtracked to a “neutral” stance after receiving a barrage of complaints from members.

What, doctors complaining about their union’s belief that men can be women? How hoity-toity of them.

It said it would carry out its own evaluation into the Cass Review’s recommendations by the end of 2024, but has yet to publish anything.

Senior BMA members said the additional review was a “waste of time and money” to try and replicate what Lady Cass had spent more than four years working on with a team of experts.

Yebbut they don’t like what Lady Cass and those experts said.

Absolute monster.

The U.S. will no longer contribute funding to Gavi, a global alliance that helps buy vaccines for the world’s poorest children, because it ignores safety, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Wednesday, without providing evidence.

In a video statement seen by Reuters and shown at a Gavi fundraising event in Brussels, Kennedy – a long-time vaccine skeptic – also accused Gavi of making questionable recommendations around COVID-19 vaccines, and raised concerns about the DTPw (diphtheria-tetanus-whole cell pertussis) vaccine.

Gavi said in a statement that safety was key, and that it acts in line with World Health Organization recommendations. It has full confidence in the DTPw vaccine, which has contributed to halving child mortality in the countries it supports since 2000, the statement continued.

Well Kennedy wants it to double.

Kennedy said in the video that he admired much of Gavi’s work, particularly its efforts to make medicines affordable worldwide. “Unfortunately, in its zeal to promote universal vaccination, it has neglected the key issue of vaccine safety,” he added.

No you are.

Several key figures also defended Gavi’s commitment to safety in speeches at the summit, including its board Chair Jose Manuel Barroso and Bill Gates, chair of the Gates Foundation, which is hosting the summit alongside the European Union. “Gavi prioritizes saving lives, and it’s done with incredible scientific rigor,” said Gates. “We’re constantly looking at safety.”

The Trump administration has previously indicated that it planned to cut its funding for Gavi, around $300 million annually, as part of a wider pullback from international aid.

As part of a wider pullback from saving children from death and disability.

Hmmm. Trump on Truth Social:

Stupid AOC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the “dumbest” people in Congress, is now calling for my Impeachment, despite the fact that the Crooked and Corrupt Democrats have already done that twice before. The reason for her “rantings” is all of the Victories that the U.S.A. has had under the Trump Administration. The Democrats aren’t used to WINNING, and she can’t stand the concept of our Country being successful again. When we examine her Test Scores, we will find out that she is NOT qualified for office but, nevertheless, far more qualified than Crockett, who is a seriously Low IQ individual, or Ilhan Omar, who does nothing but complain about our Country, yet the Failed Country that she comes from doesn’t have a Government, is drenched in Crime and Poverty, and is rated one of the WORST in the World, if it’s even rated at all.

Whew! That last sentence is quite the marathon. And what’s with all the random scare quotes? Not to mention the random caPital letTers.

It’s odd to see someone who writes this way, and talks the same way, calling other people stupid.

I’m reading a long Guardian piece about Harvard and slavery and what to do about that whole massive scar on US history. In doing that I find myself doing what I always do, which is wonder how it worked – how people explained it to themselves, lived with it, understood it, all that. It’s a puzzle. If I’d lived then instead of now I would have done the same thing, so naturally I’m curious how it worked.

Part one is that it’s not all that puzzling that bad working conditions were taken for granted, because that was just a given and had been since forever. It’s the ownership part, the permanent capture part, that sticks out. The enslavement.

As the country’s oldest and wealthiest university, Harvard’s history is inextricable from the history of transatlantic slavery. The enslaved labored in campus buildings, university presidents and professors owned people forced into bondage, and the school’s wealth grew through a circle of donors intimately connected to the plantation system in the Caribbean, the American south and the trafficking of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic.

That. University presidents and professors owned people forced into bondage. Not people born to peasants tied to the land, but people forced into bondage. I’m not doing a point and condemn thing; to repeat, I would have done the same had I been in their position; what I’m wondering is what that was like.

There was no long chain of history to lie back on – no “their parents were tied to this estate, as were their parents before them, and so on back to Richard II or William the Conqueror or whatever.” There was only force. Force plus distance. “These people are from Africa, therefore we get to own them.” It’s not a hugely compelling argument.

Maybe it’s the pressure of the normal. “This is normal. It’s been this way for years. Who are we to jump up and change things?”

Samuel Johnson was rude enough to point that out.