A plague on both their charities

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

*Two Quick Updates before your Whacky Post Of The Day TM:  First Crawling Between Heaven And Earth, my first collection, of stories that were, you know, the first I got published (almost my juvenalia!) is up for 99c for two days, and then slowly going up to its normal price.  I know many of you got it when it was free at baen books.  It now has a shifter short story and such, but anyway, if you’d echo the link in whatever social media you use, much appreciated.

Second: Baen books, who as we all know is an evil publishing house, decided to up its psychological warfare on me personally by interviewing my husband (and other Baen Spouses) on what it’s like to be married to a highly splodey writer.  I understand Dan had a lot of fun with it, and also that Madames Correia and Weber were in this also.  So.  Baen Spouse Podcast here.*

I confess I’m not much of a joiner, and that I view joining an organization as a liability. You join, say an organization for Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers and soon enough, early enough, you find you’re a member of an organization that wants to ban the word “Lady” and would love to run all men out of the craft.

And then you pause and wonder “What have I got myself into?”

Yesterday, in the diner on facebook (if those of you are getting the idea that if you want to fight you should go there, don’t. I try to keep it as politics and friction – but I repeat myself – free as I can) a semi argument developed on whether or not the Black Panther and the KKK were similar in nature.

I stomped on it, because I didn’t want to get ugly in the diner, that’s what I have a blog for.

The fact that the black panthers at least used to be a charitable organization, with literacy programs and pancake breakfasts and that this makes it intrinsically different from the KKK who were, after all, just the night riders who lynched people and stuff.

GROAN.

I come not to defend the KKK. No, seriously, I come not to defend the KKK who would object to me on at least two genetic points and one of choice and whom I object to in principle. And this post is about something far more important/different from these two rather icky organizations.

The black panthers MIGHT have started as a charitable/uplift organization. Or at least their members believed that, early on. But it has gone a long way down the rabbit hole of a pretend black supremacy theory that in fact keeps Americans of African descent stuck in a loop of resentment and self-sabotage. Oh, and also they bar people’s access to polls and parade around a lot armed for purposes of intimidation. Whatever they started out as, they’re a race-based association that tries to intimidate all those not eligible to join and to control those who are eligible.

And the KKK might have started as a revenge organization (did it? It’s a part of history I don’t know very well, right after the civil war) but it d*mn skippy was also a charitable organization.

It is a little known fact that the state of CO somewhere in the late nineteenth early twentieth century was more or less controlled by the KKK. At my son’s college graduation a letter was read from the first president of the university. You see, he’d received a letter from the governor who was in the pocket of the KKK, telling him to kick out all Jews and Catholics or be left without state funding. So, he answered not only no but h*ll no, and the school barely survived. The letter they read was his speech at the graduation of the following class. (And I’m so glad they did that instead of having a guest speaker.) It was a moving letter and the incident was an example of the KKK flexing wrong-muscles.

However, the elementary school my sons’ attended was built by the KKK. The corner stone is still there in a rather hippy-dippy and mixed community, something for which I applaud them: not erasing the past because it’s gross.

What this means is not that KKK was a “mixed” organization or that we should feel any sympathy towards it (I don’t) but that they too clearly did some laudable and charitable things – which still does not excuse them from being evil bastages and icky and stomach-turning.

Does the fact they had pancake breakfasts and literacy drives and such excuse the Black Panthers for the evil they do and the amazingly ignorant stuff they spout on history and racial theory? Don’t know. Don’t care. Supposing my kids were dark enough to join or white enough to join the KKK, my answer would be the same to both, “Don’t do it. Yeah, they might, maybe, do some good stuff, perhaps, but organizations based solely on race tend to go wrong to justify their own existence.” They start out as “us against them” and sooner or later you need “incidents” by the them – real or (these days) largely imagined – to justify the being “against” and next thing you know your whole cause of existence is not to uplift your race, ethnicity or cultural group but to “stick it to” whoever is perceived as the enemy.

Exempt from this – to an extent – are certain cultural associations, like, say the Scottish Heritage association or the Italian History league. To an extent. It’s important to realize that if the last two meetings have been about “How city council is discriminating against us because they don’t like kilts” you might be going down a dangerous path. (Or the city council might be *sses, of course. Still, it’s best to step back and see it with fresh eyes.)

Look, the characteristic of humans is that we are tribal critters. We not only like to tribe up, we like to define us against them. Nothing makes you feel so cozy in your in group as knowing other people are out. (Whether the other people want in or not.) And once we tribe up, argument and fighting are a step away.

You can see it in any group of kids released to the wild of a playground for a considerable period of time. Once, long ago, it was “No gurls allowed” and maybe “No darkies allowed” (Or whities.) but at least in most middle class areas, kids wouldn’t do that openly now. They know the adults would descend on them then. So, instead, they have “No trailer park kids allowed” or “No boys allowed” or “no people who live on that hill as opposed to this hill allowed.”

And if you let the groups (particularly if there’s two) go on long enough, sooner or later there will be fights.

I’m not saying this is a bad thing. I remember glorious afternoons of chasing each other with bamboo sticks while playing at Robin Hood (and his men) vs the Sheriff (and his men) or The musketeers vs. the Guards of Richelieu, or even world war too (when the bamboo sticks became guns) even though we were all girls. Because it was ritualized and rather like a massive LARPG very few nose bleeds, bruises and skinned knees ensued, and at any rate, Dona Albertina of blessed memory (“Honestly. I’ve never taught a class of such rambunctious girls before. I’ve taught boys who were tamer.”) stood ready with bandages and hydrogen peroxide.

I’m saying it’s a human thing. And you don’t leave it behind just because you grew up. Humans like to join up with others that are like them and keep others at bay.

Which is why it is very very important to make sure the charter of whatever you’re joining is not evil. No, seriously, it starts there. You want to start an organization to take care of the under-privileged children of left handed yodeling laplanders? That’s great. WHO CAN JOIN? Because if it’s just a benevolent organization, then anyone should be able to join.

On the other hand, organizations based on ethnicity that go to the bad – and we might include the Mafia, which regardless of purpose, sort of started in its earliest origins as mutual protection (before the US) and yep, through the depression did a lot of good, supporting whole families. But to be a member of the organization you had to be Italian.

Look, no humans band up then sit in their clubhouse twirling their moustaches and saying “now we’re going to be evil.” But human organizations often become evil. Partly this is because the people willing to do the donkey work of running a voluntary organization are often – not to say always – the type of mind that seeks power over others. If the charter of the organization allows them to achieve that power by dividing (as it were) the world in two and playing us against them, they will, and they will drive the association down an ever more paranoid path. At the end of which there’s always evil and attack on the “the other.”

On the other hand, if the charter of an organization is to achieve something, it’s harder to subvert. Not impossible, mind.

Take the charter of SFWA which was to negotiate with publishers and look after the interests of SFWA writers. The problem is that it couldn’t (I don’t know if from the beginning, I know it tried at least in the beginning. I know by the time I joined, it couldn’t) do anything in a business model that as an oligopsony and where anyone who fought any of the controlling publishers was blacklisted. This made it an organization with a requirement of membership and no chart, so it went in search of stuff to do. Hence, where we got to. (And no, it’s not as bad as the KKK. It’s just annoying and might hurt us professionally by making our field sound like a collection of whackballs.)

OTOH look at feminism, which isn’t even a formal organization so much as a “club” that you join by saying you are one, and a few loudmouth “leaders” who purport to speak for everyone with a vagina. Holy mother of whack! How did we get from equal pay for equal work to “I want to kill 90% of men and studfarm the rest”? Well, because when you assume that all women are equally oppressed and all women are interchangeable you’re already on the path to insanity. From there to “look for a mission” is one small step.

And the mission groups find in these circumstances is always between insane and “ew” because it starts by EXCLUDING.

So, if you’re thinking of starting a group (and who isn’t, after all) make sure the membership is open to all who might have an interest in the cause and are aligned with you. (A non-Marxist group shouldn’t have to accept Marxists, for instance.) And then make sure your mission makes sense and is something that can be accomplished and that you have a provision to disband when it is. Making sure your mission is not outright evil, like, say, killing all left handed Laplanders, might be a good idea too. Because if you start evil, you’ll only get more evil.

And if you’re considering an organization to join, look for the same things.

Me? I’m not much of a joiner. I’m odd. And odds don’t band well, even with other odds. So I’ll stay on the outside and blow raspberries and fondly wish a plague on both their houses.

And now all you left hand Laplanders shut up. I have books to write about your iniquities.*

*No, not really.

 

 

 

224 thoughts on “A plague on both their charities”

  1. Darn, I missed a fight in the Diner. [Evil Grin]

    Seriously, don’t blame you for “stomping on it”.

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      1. I was looking forward to reading your exposition on the iniquities of south-paw laplanders. Especially since I aren’t one…at least, I don’t think I am.

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      3. Hmph! What about left handed Finns?

        Laplander is, btw, sometimes considered un-PC – so it’s anybody who lives in Lapland, but in Finnish there have been two slightly different variations, lappalainen and lappilainen, and the first one was used of the Sami people specifically and is now pretty un-PC (or was the last time I checked) – you are supposed to use their own name for themselves, not the name given by us southern oppressors – while lappilainen was just anybody who lived there permanently, but since they are so close the taint has spread a bit, all the way to the foreign language versions. Don’t you just love these word games?

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        1. I cannot help but notice the similar construction of lappalainen and pohjalainen. Coincidence or does there lie a deeper tale?

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          1. It’s the generic ending for a person from some region. My father’s family comes originally from an area called Pohjanmaa. People living there can be called pohjalainen. And that name is connected with a certain attitude and behavior. Swagger, eager fighters, take offense easily and use any excuse to start a fight etc. Usually I’m anything but so taking that as a handle amused me. :)

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        2. I told my husband, “I’m not sure if Pohjalainen lives in lapland or is left handed.” He said “Yeah, but if she does, she has a great sense of humor and will just join the fun.” ;)

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  3. IIRC, someone asked if one would seriously put the Black Panthers and the KKK in the same box.

    My thought was “Yes. And shut the lid. Let them fight it out among themselves, and leave the rest of us alone.”

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      1. That fight wouldn’t last very long.
        There are not enough to actual KKK members left in the country to fill a large auditorium. Maybe if you threw in Christian Identity and Aryan Nation, too?

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    2. Sounds kinda like an idea that got suggested to a prosecutor by a cop one time: round up all the gang bangers, take them out to one of the gravel pits, put all the weapons from the evidence room in the middle and turn them loose. Last one standing wins…and gets arrested and prosecuted. Gang problem solved…for a while. And yes, the suggestion was only half serious.

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      2. I’ve heard that suggested for the Balkans, with the addition of having the IRA and Provos as referees, then let the Europeans try any survivors for war crimes.

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      3. That’s been my plan for the Sahara desert. Rent it out like a paintball range to various warring cliques. The various countries can finally earn revenue off of useless sand, and all the “we love death” types can get exactly what they want, good and hard.

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        1. And possibly destroy all that delicate nature? Not to mention the rock art and who knows what still might be hidden somewhere there, unknown and undiscovered… No go, no way. Nature reserve. That’s the only possibility. o:)

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          1. delicate? Delicate? DELICATE? Have you ever experienced nature? There ain’t nuthin’ delicate ’bout it!

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      5. Actually, that’s sort of how shore patrol and MP’s used to handle large scale fights overseas. Except anyone who could walk away at the end was allowed to. It’s easier to haul in the unconscious.

        The assumption also was anyone walking away uninjured must have been hiding and wasn’t part of the melee.

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    3. Can we add the various militant wings of the “religion of peace” to the box before we nail the lid shut?

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    4. Box? I was thinking more like a giant garbage bin. There’s a few other groups we could probably toss in there too to join them, modern radfems included…

      And when we’re done, shut the lid and make sure it stays firmly down while the fight happens. Don’t want them to roll out and drag the rest of the world in – oh wait.

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      1. Radfems and talibans, deserted island… what do you think would be the end result? Lots of unhappy slaves? Or new ‘white widows’?

        Sometimes you may not want to push these groups together. They might figure out a common cause, and join forces.

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  4. *shrug* I saw where it was going. I also saw that they’d ignored 2 warnings already to back off a bit. It’s why I jumped in and told them all , in general and 3 in particular to shut up, calm down and walk away.
    .

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    1. Sean, I had already “shut up and walked away” When you started. For what it is worth I technically said nothing wrong. The only people who could have taken my equivocation between the KKK and the Black Panthers badly would be racists of either stripe being offended at being told they were no better than their opposite numbers

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  5. Query: “the diner” I’ve seen this mentioned a couple of times. Can I ask what it is and if it is an open group?

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    2. It’s not open, but if you’re on face book, look for Sarah’s Diner, then knock and you shall be let in. Might be a good idea to PM me on fb and tell me your real name though. We’ve had a plague of SJWs trying to join, so we’re being careful.

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        2. Nope, one must use the Evil League of Evil super secret knock for entry.
          Or shave and a haircut works too.
          Trick isn’t in the knock, it’s in knowing where to knock.

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          2. Hmm, I do know two coded knocks. Either would tell you something about me, if you recognized one or both of them, but I seriously doubt either works here. -eg-

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      3. But I thought diners were always open? At least most of the good ones – some only stay open 18 hours a day, the slackers. There’s only a few things I really miss about New Jersey: family, pizza, the Shore, and diners. Alas, while decent pizza can now be found in a few places in Greater Cincinnati, we lack any real diners. Waffle House, IHOP, and Steak and Shake don’t really do it.

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            1. depends on your definition of good. The food is typical greasy spoon and the decor is horrible but the mood id relaxed and if you want to drink coffee and BS with friends half the night they are fine with it

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          2. Dayton .. .. (redacted) Spent 20 years in that black hole. I miss two things about it. A good friend, who is in the Columbus area, and a Celtic group called Father, Son & Friends. (If you like traditional celtic, I highly recommend looking them up). The rest I was glad to see the back of.

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        2. You might have figured this out already, but look for corner places near the rivers. The kind of place with a generic Coke sign over the door, said door being solid, painted wood, with a diamond or round window at speakeasy height. It’s been (mumblety) years since I drove a cab in this town, and I know they always move around, so the ones I know — Harold’s, The Bank Cafe, Snyder’s, the Du Drop Inn, The Edge Inn, and so-forth are all long gone, but the kind … they’re still out there if you look. Cincinnati doesn’t run to diners, but prefers saloons. Taverns. Neighborhood mom & pops. Bar food. Shots and draft.

          M

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      4. Thank you. :-)

        Soon as I have time to nose around on FB again, I’ll swing over. (I’m kinda quiet there)

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    3. Sarah’s Dinner actually has two separate yet associated locations.
      First is a Facebook page of that name.
      Second is her cubbyhole on Baen’s Bar, also with that name.
      Both require a simple registration to join IIRC, and are moderated.
      Long as one behaves oneself one does not get one’s ass handed to one.
      Usually.

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  6. The origins of the KKK are somewhat understandable. Immediately after the ACW there was an influx of what were lovingly referred to as Damnyankee carpetbaggers into the South looking to not only profit from Reconstruction, but in many cases to inflict punishment on the losing side. It was after all perhaps our most damaging war ever in terms of lives lost and property destroyed. So the Ku Klux Klan was formed in self defense as a grass roots collection of like minded folk attempting to address the most aggregious abuses being inflicted on the southern peoples. Unfortunately, since race was always the driving issue behind the war and the aftermath it took over the Klan, and any good intentions were quickly overwhelmed by racism and bigotry.
    Think of it as something like Common Core, understandable original intentions, but extremely damaging and perhaps evil implementation.

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    1. I disagree that race was THE driving issue. It was a major issue, but contrary to what a lot of liberals claim, states rights was a major one as well. I’ll grant that the major element of states rights had to do with who owned whom, where. But it was an issue separate from slavery.
      Most southerners did not own slaves; but they did want to be left alone. Which was why the South fought a mainly defensive war.
      Doomed from the start. Defense never wins a game; at most it can only prevent the other side from winning – which is not the same as winning for your side.

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      1. Well, no. The thing about defensive wars is that you don’t have to win them. You just have to refrain from losing them.

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        1. In this case, the South was outnumbered and outproduced heavily enough that it wasn’t going to be able to avoid “not losing” the war. Attrition, and the blockade, would eventually have spelled the end of the Confederacy, even if it took another five years. Antietam and Gettysburg were Lee’s attempts to resolve that problem.

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          1. Only if the North kept up the war for another five years. Lincoln, for instance, knew he had to win re-election or win the war before the Democrat was inaugurated.

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            1. And Lincoln did win his re-election. Not everyone in the North was in favor of the war, obviously. But a majority appear to have supported it, and Lincoln.

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              1. OTOH, just before the election, the armies and the navy had a rash of victories. Prior to that, the election was considered in serious doubt.

                Jefferson Davis may have doomed the Confederacy when he replaced Joe Johnston, who had carefully avoided giving Sherman the smashing victory that would be a rousing Republican campaign speech. On the other hand, Farragut and Sheridan also had smashing victories then, so it may have been moot.

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          2. Sharpsburg (Antietam) was not a battle launched by Lee.
            It was launched by the Union after they got hold of the Confederacy’s plan for overwintering their troops.
            It was a battle the South won on the ground, if only by the skin of their teeth and rail transit. But they got trashed in the propaganda war.

            Gettysburg was launched by Lee. Kind of. Had he stayed dug in at Cashtown, or made the grand sweep to the North to threaten Philadelphia and New York City in a fork, he could likely have forced a peace.
            (Which wouldn’t have been honored. But he could have gotten the piece of paper.)

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            1. When you foray into enemy territory, you launch any ensuing battle.

              As for victory, he retreated. Just as Grant’s victories against him were the consequences of Grant’s advancing after them — Grant not doing much better against Lee than any other Union general — so too does causing a retreat mean the North won.

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              1. The South met all of their objectives in the battle of Sharpsburg.
                The Union met none of their objectives in the battle.
                It may have been a Pyrrhic victory for the Confederacy, but it was a victory.

                If we’re going to argue counterfactuals, why don’t we speculate about Beauregard taking charge of the Western theatre instead of Bragg? It’s a much more interesting one. (Granted, it would necessarily have involved Jeff Davis becoming incapacitated.)
                Had the Union Army chosen to pursue Lee after Sharpsburg, they’d have been quickly cut off from their supply lines and trapped in some pretty darned unfriendly geography. The Confederate dream of winning the war by destroying the Army of the Potomac would have been realized. (Except for the part about actually winning the war by doing so.)

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                1. Guys? The guys who fought this are clay in the clay. yes, there’s still wounds, and oh, look at the time, we’re rushing into something much like it again.
                  Maybe it’s the price of being free, but let’s DO try not to fight it again in my comments, between people who, other than this, largely agree with each other.

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            2. If Jackson had been allowed to pursue the fleeing Union army after first Manassas the war would have been over a week after the shooting started.
              Lee and Davis were trying to fight an honest defensive war against a dishonest enemy whose stated goals were their complete destruction. Remember it was Sheridan and Sherman who gave us the term “The Final Solution.”

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                1. Are you intimating that you support Sherman’s wholesale murder of civilians and torture of blacks to find where loot might have been cached? If you are, then sir you are a poltroon. A coward if you don’t face me on the field. A Yankee and a Democrat you are. This is personal. That was MY family being killed wantonly by that bastard and IF you support such war crimes I’ll have your heart’s blood.

                  If not, then never mind.

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                    1. Our hostess has asked that we retreat from this line of debate.
                      I do as she so graciously requested

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                    1. My apologies Sarah for responding to him before I saw your call for a cease-fire.

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      2. The thing about the states rights argument is that if the people who ran the antibellum South had meant it, they wouln’t have pushed the fugitive slave act. If your property wanders into a state when it is contraband, it is going to be confiscated. And if, once it has been confiscated, that state chooses to release said property on its own recognizance, then that may be weird, but it ain’t your business anymore.

        The states rights argument was made by a clique of wealthy and politically powerful Planters, to persuade the poor whites they needed to fight and die for them.

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          1. The Civil War wasn’t primarily over slavery, though slavery was a symptom. The Civil War was about a self-nominated would-be Aristocracy that had used its influence to control the direction of the country since its founding. The North was growing ever more politically powerful, and was sick and tired of being pushed around. The South – or thise that ran it – didn’t lile the dea that soon they might have to give up their pretensions. Slavery was the issue that brought it to a head, but the war was about giving the Planters the kicking they had been asking for for decades.

            The Confederate Battle Flag should be a mark of shame, worn by the descendents of the poor whites the Planters expected to fight and die to protect the Plantation system. It isn’t shamefull because they fought to preserve slavery – they mostly didn’t. It’s shameful because they were duped into bleeding to protect the privileges of their so-called betters.

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          2. One of the great ironies of the State’s Right debate is that Dred Scott was an anti-state’s right decision. If the Supreme Court ruled the other way the Civil War would not have happened.

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        2. “The states rights argument was made by a clique of wealthy and politically powerful Planters, to persuade the poor whites they needed to fight and die for them.”

          Possible, but if true then those ‘poor whites’ who did the fighting and dying (incidentally most of the Northern soldiers who fought and died were also ‘poor whites’ since that description has described the vast majority of American soldiers throughout our history) were indeed fighting for states rights; since that is what they had been persuaded to fight for.

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          1. Sorry Sarah, hit comment in middle of argument without reading that argument was closed; will shut up now.

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    2. Actually, first it was a mutual aid collection as you suggest. Then some of them turned violent, and between Northerners suppressing it by force, and Southerns, including its own members, turning on it — Forrest not only quit but took out a newspaper ad calling on all other members to do so — it didn’t last long.

      Later, the Progressives, like Woodrow Wilson, let it arise again. That was its dangerous incarnation.

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    3. Yeah, we could argue about the original Klan forever. Bottom line is that within a year or two of their founding as an innocuous private social club they became an active vigilante/terrorist group.

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    4. My understanding was that Nathan Bedford Forest wanted to continue guerilla warfare, even after the peace, and gathered as many followers as he could to carry out that mission.

      M

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      1. Look at how some of the famous wild west outlaws were confederate veterans who thought of themselves as continuing the mission.

        As for the KKK, and the Black Panthers, Democrats will be Democrats. They are in the deepest and purest traditions of the Democratic Party.

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        1. Ah, very few actually thought of themselves as ‘continuing the mission.’ They may have claimed so but unless they were part of Quantrill’s Raiders (as an amazingly large number of rather famous outlaws were) their ‘mission’ during the war had very little resemblance to their ‘mission’ after the war.

          It was just a handy excuse to excuse their criminal actions

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  7. With all of the…troubles with SFWA that have been discussed in recent months, is there a place or a need for a SFWA replacement?

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    1. Some people are suggesting the SASS (Society for the Advancement of Speculative Fiction), but others have expressed some doubts. I’ve not really looked into the group. *shrug* To me, SASS will always be the Single Action Shooting Society.

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      1. Wouldn’t be Society for the Advancement of Speculative Fiction be SASF? Although SASS could be used for Society for the Advancement of Speculative Stuff, or Society for the Advancement of Speculative Stories, or Society for the Advancement of Speculative Silliness, or …..

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      2. Well, SASS is the parent organization, the Society for the Advancement of Speculative Societies, which is itself a subsidiary of the Society for Redundant Societies Societies…

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    2. First we need to discuss what it can do.

      Let’s see. SFWA still runs the Emergency Medical Fund, which definitely has its good points. Also Writer Beware, which includes warnings for scams for self-published authors.

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      1. There should be no need for the EMF because by early next year every everyone will either have private health insurance, subsidized insurance through an exchange, or be on their companies HI, right? I mean with PPACA/O-Care every legal American citizen is covered at a reasonable cost.

        Right?

        Right?

        STOP LAUGHING.

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        1. Not laughing, really isn’t all that funny.
          As anyone with a lick of sense knows the ACA guarantees that everyone gets health insurance whether they want it or not. I see no need to point out, but will anyway, that O-care has sweet FA to do with affordable health care. It’s all about appearance and distraction while our gubmint again picks our pockets to transfer our wealth into yet another grand glorious and completely unworkable scheme. Who really benefits? Why all those government employees necessary to administrate and manage this Washingtonian Fuster Cluck of a program.

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        2. Actually, since we still have deductibles, it would still fulfill what it mostly does: let people cover deductibles on the spot.

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  8. My understanding is the original KKK was very much like the various Iraqi sectarian militias conducting campaigns again the US forces during the occupation of their country while secretly cooperating with their tribal politicians who also wanted to kick out the US military gov’t and return to home rule ASAP but had to deny stooping to violence. It was disbanded after its goal was achieved by the compromise over the election of Pres… Harding I believe… it’s been a long time since I studied Reconstruction in Jr. high. I’m sure some other Hun recalls. I have no real knowledge of the reconstituted KKK that came after Gen. Forrest disbanded the original.

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    1. Kind of, sort of, in a way.
      If you’re going to look at the origins and original demise of the organization, I think the best place to look is “Bloody” Bill Brownlow.

      Nutshell version:
      Brownlow was a newspaper publisher who was a very strong Unionist in Knoxville. After the Union retook his portion of Tennessee, he published the names and addresses of Confederate soldiers, publicly calling for their deaths, and the deaths of their families. Once the ACW ended, he was appointed the Governor of Tennessee for Reconstruction. This was a bad idea. One of his earlier acts in office was to seize a Confederate POW from the Union Army, and hang him. This was quickly followed by his agents confiscating property and dispossessing Confederate sympathizers . The state Legislature refused to ratify these acts, so he had them rounded up at gunpoint at midnight. He demanded they ratify his acts and authority. They defiantly refused. He gave the order to open fire.
      It didn’t take many shots for the Legislature to see the wisdom of ratifying his authority, and things went downhill from there…

      But back to the original point, the original KKK disbanded shortly after Brownlow challenged them to open battle, and most of its members decided not to show. It’s quite likely the two events were related.

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    2. Also, minor point as I understand it. After the war, the Union returned the White soldiers to the North; the Black soldiers were kept as part of Martial Law. Race comes in that the investigating soldiers determine if it was a crime. Or the Reconstruction carpetbaggers pack the bench. Sometimes justice comes with a rope and a tree; especially if the stories of ‘Pack N’s’ on raiding parties sweeping through rural areas were true. Not having access to the source of this, it’s only speculation in my case. I do understand that when Martial Law ended, the Union then used the Buffalo Soldiers in the Indian Wars which might give some substance. It would work to keep the Blacks out of the North too.

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  9. IIRC (from an article in American Heritage Magazine which I found much more easily than I thought) there was a huge resurgence for KKK recruiting in the 1920s – and far, far outside the South, where the original KKK had been recruited and then disbanded immediately after the Civil War.
    http://www.americanheritage.com/content/when-white-hoods-were-flower?nid=57528
    One of the reasons that the 1920s KKK eventually crumbled was that that it was against everyone who wasn’t an ethnically northern European Protestant. Which put them against practically everyone in larger cities…

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    1. The resurgence was probably touched off by the mass immigration and concurrent Wilson Depression from 1918-21, when wages fell and people were out of work.

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    2. Yup. Kansas had an especially strong KKK presence, which led to some legislative chicanery, including following Robert’s Rules of Order to the precise degree in order to stall some odious legislation until the anti-Klan politicos found rush back to Topeka. And then there was Ma Ferguson’s calls to the women of TX to oppose the Klan,”Put the pillowcases back in the cupboard and the bedsheets back on the bed.”

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    3. I know when my grandfather– who was either half or a quarter Indian (the picture isn’t THAT clear and she didn’t find it bragworthy), and whose father was kicked out of at least two countries– went to enough of their “recruiting picnics” as a youth to be able to vouch for them putting out a heck of a spread. His dad was a Protestant preacher of some sort, maybe overcame the rest, who knows.

      Or, as my dad opines, they were dumb as a box of rocks to be recruiting where they were.

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      1. I knew a white-looking black young guy who followed a Catholic young guy — his best friend — into the KKK. They didn’t kick him out. I’m going with the box of rocks thing.

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        1. Reminds me of a Dave Chapelle skit that revolves around a blind black guy who thinks he’s white (because he’s blind), and becomes a well-respected member of the KKK (because no one’s seen him under his hood).

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        2. It may be that these Klaverns are secretly just an excuse for guys to get out of the house, drink, and play cards while sounding like they are doing something ‘productive’.

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        3. I remember hearing a story from my father than one group in the 1960s ended up consisting of two undercover FBI agents, two undercover state troopers, two undercover newspaper reporters and the recruiter. The unrelated undercover guys were not initially unaware of the each other.

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    4. Part of the 1920s KKK push just to the south of Kansas (north central / north east Oklahoma) include Klansmen acting against abusers when The Law would not or could not, as the SPCA drives & legislation were still some years in the future. Family oral history: man who was witnessed beating overburdened mule team had a visitation involving horsewhips and axe handles; when learned that his children were being similarly abused, there were extra-legal “adoptions” while the fellow was recuperating from a cracked skull.

      But, then, the Tulsa riots occurred shortly thereafter and the Klan lost (most) any claim on respectability…

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  10. (A non-Marxist group shouldn’t have to accept Marxists, for instance.)
    —————–

    That just goes to show you how deluded and gullible you are!

    /rolleyes

    There was an incident a few years ago involving a Christian organization on a University. I can’t remember the details off the top of my head, but it involved a judge, at least one non-Christian, and membership (and also possibly a leadership position).

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    1. There’s currently a lawsuit going on where, IIRC, a sexually active homosexual atheist wants to join the club for observant Catholics in a leadership position, with the argument being that because they allowed him to be in then he should be allowed to be a leader. (Catholic groups often don’t require that folks be observant to JOIN– we had an agnostic in my youth group. It’s a matter of if you represent the group, they want you to be in agreement.)

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      1. Yeah, kind of the whole recruit converts thing means you are going to get people coming to your group who aren’t observant Catholic/Christian. Doesn’t mean they should be allowed in the leadership.

        And yes I have heard of (not looking it up right now, but recall several documented instances) of Christian groups being sued by individuals and Universities for restricting access to avowed non-Christians. Funny thing, I’ve never heard of such a lawsuit being brought against a Muslim or Atheist group; both of which are well-known for excluding any non-believers (or believers, in the Atheist’s case).

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    2. The cases I’ve heard about were Campus Christian Groups being told that they had to have sexually active gays in leadership positions. [Frown]

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  11. Yea– I didn’t want to step into that pool– It gets deep too quickly. Besides I had the opportunity to meet one of the original Black Panther organizers. From what he said, they did start with good intentions at first… but you know what Hell is paved with– and then you end up in Russia running from one of the letter organizations.

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  12. The KKK was started as a joke by college students, which is why it has such a bizarre name. Subsequently it became a key fighter against Reconstruction and Yankee carpetbaggers. Then it turned into an anti-nonwhites, anti-immigrant, etc. organization. Now it is a joke again…

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    1. Got to disagree. While the founders may have educated, they weren’t students but Confederate Army veterans and it wasn’t meant to be a joke. The “Ku Klux” part of the name comes from Greek for circle.

      The Klan was founded in 1865 almost immediately after the Civil War ended.

      It was a terrorist organization and ultimately a successful one as it eventually drove out the federal troops that were protecting the newly freed blacks ushering in 90 years of misery for southern blacks and 90 years of backwardness for southern whites.

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        1. I don’t think the post Civil War Klan ever collapsed but enjoyed steady growth from its founding until it became dominant. I’m happy to be corrected if wrong.

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          1. You’re wrong. It didn’t last long in the Reconstruction. It was restarted from scratch about the time of Birth of a Nation.

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            1. Mary you are very wrong. It became very powerful during Reconstruction. It and its offshots is what arguably caused Reconstruction to end. What do you think Birth of a Nation was about?

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              1. A glamorized history of a small period is not evidence of their continuing power. As for your claims, they are contradicted by every history of the Klan I have ever read.

                “Offshots” needs evidence that such groups were in fact connected with the Klan.

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                1. The Klan started at the end of 1865, let’s say 1866 to make it easy. At the start of 1870, bills were introduced in Congress to deal with it. The bills became law on May 31. It wasn’t enough. The next year a bill known as the Ku Klux Klan Act was passed. Do you really believe it “quickly collapsed” and that “It didn’t last long in the Reconstruction” even assuming the 1871 Act actually broke the organization and didn’t merely push it into other forms?

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                  1. There have been three iterations of the Klan: The first shortly after the Civil War, The second starting in 1915 and going into the late 1920s, The third was put together after WWII to oppose the civil rights movement. Interestingly enough, while the second iteration was just as racist as the others (they called it “nativism”), the primary emphasis was strict morality and better enforcement of prohibition.

                    My extended family had “dealings” with the Klan when I was ten years old. It had nothing to do with race. Just a crazy neighbor of my grandparents suing every family whose land bordered his and going bankrupt because of it. Nutjob contacted the Klan and offered to let them do a rally (On land they disputed with my grandparents!) if the Klan would raise money to get them out of bankruptcy. It turned into an incredible farce.

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              2. It became powerful during Reconstruction, but it had been formally disbanded before Reconstruction ended, and did not play a significant part in it ending.

                Of course, the hardcore members started it right back up again after it was formally disbanded. This time their primary aim was not to protect Confederate veterans and their families. And with freed blacks streaming into Union states and depressing the labor market, their racist bile spread quickly.

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      2. Do you believe that the federal troops occupying the reconstruction-era South were primarily concerned or tasked with with protecting the newly freed blacks?

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          1. Try Lou F. Williams “The Great Klu Klux Klan Trials of South Carolina.” It’s a history of the Reconstruction period and a legal history of the Klan Trials (which ended up playing a role in Constitutional law.)

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          2. Then you would be wrong. Occupation troops were in place for the same reason occupation troops are ever in place, to execute the edicts of their government. In this particular case to completely crush whatever spirit remained in the south and destroy the economy and sow the ground with salt. They were so effective in this that the effects are still being felt to this day.
            Just for the record, these occupation troops also brought a yankee passenger with them. His name was Jim Crow.

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            1. And the edicts of the federal government relating to the South were what?

              <i.Just for the record, these occupation troops also brought a yankee passenger with them. His name was Jim Crow

              Certainly explains all those black senators and other officials during Reconstruction /s.

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              1. Considering that southerners were prohibited from electing their own government during reconstruction, your facetious sarcastic argument is invalid.
                I suppose that the black colonel of the 6th Louisiana Native Guard will be handwaved away as well as Forrest’s 120,000 free black troops (in integrated units). Those fictional men sure did a number on the blue bellies at the bloody Angle.

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                1. Blaming Jim Crow on Yankees is something pretty deserving of sarcasm, and pointing out that the Yankees made blacks high ranking officials is a rather decisive rebuttal to the claim.

                  And saying Nathan Bedford Forrest had 120,000 black troops under his command is beyond ridiculous. He never even had 120,000 white troops in his command. It is estimated that there were less than 5,000 black troops under arms in the ENTIRE Confederate Army.

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              2. I wrote about Bloody Bill above, because he’s at the center of the KKK story.
                But he was by no means the only Reconstruction governor who was out for blood.

                If you recall, the first Impeachment of an American President was largely about his efforts to rein them in.

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                1. If the KKK didn’t have legitimate grievances to tie the rest of its wagon to, it never would have achieved any of its objectives.

                  You can say the same about the Nazies or the Communist or Hama or the IRA as well, though.

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                2. Or because he was a highly placed traitor, brought to power by an assassination, who was sabotaging any hope of a lasting peace.

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            2. Just for the record, these occupation troops also brought a yankee passenger with them. His name was Jim Crow.

              Per Thomas Sowell in _Black Rednecks and White Liberals_, a lot of those laws were produced by the sudden influx of hundreds of thousands for illiterate, violent, and many times criminal, former slaves into the North.

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  13. What this means is not that KKK was a “mixed” organization or that we should feel any sympathy towards it (I don’t) but that they too clearly did some laudable and charitable things – which still does not excuse them from being evil bastages and icky and stomach-turning.

    Pratchett’s torturers with with “World’s Best Dad” mugs, or the shots of (some Nazi doctor’s lab crew) at a picnic, or that episode of Star Trek where the guy torturing Picard taking time out to be a daddy at the office.

    Someone being evil doesn’t mean that everything they did, let alone everything they were involved in, was evil. It’s even more complicated for stuff that’s just wrong, instead of flatly evil.

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    1. iirc, the term is Banality of Evil. It means that evil frequently doesn’t involve great dastardly deeds of infamy. It’s the “I’m just doing my job” attitude.

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        1. Most of the larger jihadist organizations do. It helps build PR out in the more isolated communities, and works to counter similar PR activities by the US.

          And there’s the minor detail that some of the donations to the charitable arm can be funneled to buying weapons for the militant arm. Further, if the leadership has a life expectancy that can be measured beyond “months”, then it’s also probable that some of the donation funds are ending up in the personal bank accounts of the leadership.

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    3. Some (possibly) relevant quotes:

      “If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”
      ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956

      “Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains … an unuprooted small corner of evil.
      Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world: They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person.”
      ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956

      Three Problems With President Obama’s Statement On ISIS
      August 20, 2014 By Mollie Hemingway

      See, there are conflicting ways of looking at man’s nature – the distinguishing characteristics we all have. The Founding Fathers of this country were part of a long line of people who acknowledged that, well, evil exists and that men are tempted toward it. This is an important part of understanding why they set up a government of checks and balances. Progressives, as their self-given label suggests, believe that human nature can change, if we can speak of nature at all. And not just change but be perfected. They frequently see government as the means to such transformation into a perfect society.

      That’s why they say 3) unbelievably inane things such as, “you’re on the wrong side of history.” Or “The future is always won by those who build, not destroy.” That is literally Mickey Mouse philosophy. And I don’t mean that in a good way.

      President Obama’s utopian fantasy of “the future” “always” being “won by those who build, not destroy” is just obviously and resoundingly false, for better or worse. I mean, define “future.” And define “winning” and “building vs. destroying.” Tamerlane had tremendous success destroying and slaughtering his enemies – for most of a century. And World War II didn’t end by building up Nagasaki. There are good winners and bad winners littered throughout history.

      What’s more, this “wrong side of history” nonsense is nothing more than a religious belief in supernatural causality. It implies that history isn’t shaped by men but, instead, by outside inevitable forces that can always be counted on. If this were so, we wouldn’t need to work so hard to raise up good children and fight the evils all around us.

      Man has a nature, obviously, but man’s nature doesn’t have a history. That’s the whole point. We must always be on guard against tyranny, be it the kind we see in ISIS or the kind we see in our own hearts. That line from Alexander Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago, a book about the horrors of the Soviet forced labor camp system, comes in handy.

      http://thefederalist.com/2014/08/20/three-problems-with-president-obamas-statement-on-isis/

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  15. Didn’t Birth of a Nation have something to do with the new Klans? Like a more serious version of real people claiming Jedi as a religion?

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  16. I tried to join SFWA once, a friend of mine suggested I join. But they wouldn’t let me because I only write ebooks and self-publish them. It didn’t matter how many I sold either, I didn’t work with a publisher, therefore I was not allowed in.
    I’ve heard they’re apparently changing that rule, but now that I’ve seen what they’ve become, and that they really don’t seem to be worth the money they charge (because they don’t provide any services that I can see) I no longer have any desire to join them.
    If I was a more organized and outgoing person, I would start a trade union for SF&F writers. It would provide the things that trade unions provide, and I would bar it from all political discourse and not allow it to comment on writers stories, or their infighting over politics. But I’m too lazy and need to write more :-)

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    1. It would provide the things that trade unions provide,

      Donations to liberal causes and Democrat politicians, and the forcible extraction of union dues from non-members’ paychecks?

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  17. Exempt from this – to an extent – are certain cultural associations, like, say the Scottish Heritage association or the Italian History league. To an extent.

    My uncle’s Irish Heritage Association does weddings for members, and keep pictures from the events.
    First one the groom was a member; both bride and groom are coffee-with-a-splash-of-cream after spending all winter inside.

    I don’t think they ever got around to making it a requirement to have any sort of expectation of genetically possessing the heritage to CELEBRATE it……

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    1. Ahh, but heritage is a tricky thing, particularly in the US these days.

      My surname is Irish, so my daughters sometimes consider themselves Irish. But the family has been on the continent since 1690, so in reality we’re Heinz 57’s. Or mutts if you will.

      We have some Nez Perce in our background, my grandmother’s mother. However my brother and sister are both blonde and blue eyed. Mine was more dishwater with green eyes. None of us shows much trace of the Native American {though my second daughter gave me hell for not “joining the tribe” so she could get an easy scholarship}.

      My favorite waitress these days has a real pale complexion. But her one grandmother is black, and the other Filipino.

      A friend of mine belongs to one of the Scot heritage organizations. His daughters look more like their Vietnamese mother, but they have a lot of fun with the dressup days when they run around with the kilts and beret.

      The point being is in today’s world you can have the heritage without stereotypically looking like it.

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      2. THE WORLD is like that. Europe just lies about it more. Portugal was invaded by everyone and their brothers, then the French crusaders came in to kick out the moors, then there was slavery, then the napoleonic wars.
        We know one of our sons has a problem of people with A LOT of amerindian blood. The joke? Dan (who has rumors of it on two lines) says “It’s probably yours.” Because, you know what Larry Correia said. Portuguese men sailed the world and brought home the cutest women they could find ;)

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        1. Thanks to those wonderful folks at Ellis Island, my main ethnicity is generally unguessable. I’m not even 100 percent sure. Somebody once said I was Jewish due to some matrilineal reckoning relating to my grandma.

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      3. Eh, considering how long my ancestors have been on this continent — we can trace thirteen generations — it’s odd that there are just a few women up the Acadian branch that, as far as the records go, appeared by spontaneous generation on their wedding days.

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        1. It would have REALLY helped me in high school if I’d known that was an option. I would have spent even MORE time at the library instead of spending some time trying to develop a social life (I spent so much time there as it was that I was grounded from the library until I brought my grades up).

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        2. That’s not limited to the USA or women. One of my great-great-grandfathers appears entirely undocumented (or at least unproveably documented) for anything except his early death. The widow claimed most of the other documentation went down with the ship along with him but, as a result, there’s no proof of anything.

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          1. one of the hilarious claims of the Shakespeare fantasists is that he’s not well documented. Children, we know more about Will from Stafford on Avon than a LOT of noblemen.

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            1. Most “Shakespeare didn’t write Shakespeare” theories are awfully elitist at their core. “No way a son of a bricklayer could have written that.” You know, there are a lot of blue-collar workers I’ve talked with who use their physical labor time to think. Funny how that works.

              Oh, and seeing the First Folio dedication page from people who were Will’s contemporaries sounds an awful lot like, Hey, this is the guy who wrote these. To me, at least.

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              1. That’s always been one of my huger issues with that particular conspiracy theory. Grasping at all of the straws in order to prove that NO, there’s no way that someone like THAT could make anything enduring…

                Just, screw you. Y’know? :-P

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                1. The really funny thing? He was considered a hack playwright at the time, who wrote dreck for the unwashed masses.

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                  1. My own thoughts on Mr. Shakespeare as the writer, posted some time ago – “Any number of candidates, better suited in the eyes of these experts to have written the works attributed to Wm. Shakespeare of Stratford are advanced, with any number of imaginative stratagems to account for it all, but every one of them I have read, leaves out the power of imagination itself. Imagination, which takes us out of ourselves, and into someone else — the common thing all these great experts disregard, as if it were something already cast into disrepute, something useless, of no regard, but it is the major part of the actors – craft and entirely the part of the writers – that part that is not given up to intelligent research. All those great experts seemed to be saying, when they credit other than Shakespeare, the actor and bourgeois householder of Stratford and London – is that imagination is worthless, null, of no account or aid. It is impossible for a writer to imagine himself, or herself into anything other than what he or she is. One cannot imagine oneself convincingly into another time or place, gender or role in life. Imagination is dead and you are stuck with writing about what you are. How sterile, and how horrible. How pointless and boring — but that is what the highly-educated would have of us. We must not, under pain of what the academicians judge, imagine what it would be like that it is to be whatever we were born to be.”

                    http://www.celiahayes.com/archives/970

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          2. I think it was Auden — but at any rate, one 20th century British writer could, from one great-great-grandparent, go back to the time of William the Conqueror. Another one — a great-great-grandmother — had been a widow when she married his great-great-grandfather, and he had been completely unable to find her maiden name.

            On the Italian branch, that’s where my family tree ends, too: we have the parents of the great-grandfather who immigrated. French Canadian I’ve already mentioned — Acadian branch merged there, because one deported Acadian vanished from New England to reappear in Quebec — Irish we go back to the boat, which is to say 19th century. One ancestor had a brother killed and another crippled in the Civil War. Fun fact: 19th century Connecticut marriage licenses had a place for groom’s father’s place of birth, groom’s mother’s place of birth, bride’s father’s place of birth, bride’s mother’s place of birth — but NOT their names. We knew in what generation everyone got off the boat before we knew who they were.

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            1. Strange question — any of them from Norwalk? Husband’s family stayed there from the “boat after the mayflower” up to 1964 when FIL moved away with his family.

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      4. Had a discussion once on another forum, where I joked that the Italians ought to claim Charles de Gaulle as one of their own. You see, de Gaulle was born in a small town that was just within the furthest limits of the Roman Empire…

        :P

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        1. Eh, I can claim to be Hispanic. Through my French-Canadian ancestry. One of the earliest settlers had an ancestor by name of Juan of Aragon.

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        2. When I feel like insulting the French (I heard you in the back “When doesn’t SPQR feel like insulting the French?” ) …

          I just point out that their greatest military successes came under the leadership of an Italian named Buonoparte.

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          1. Practically all of the respect any “French” military has ever earned has been earned by foreigners. I mean what does it really say when your most respected branch of armed service in the last couple centuries, is a legion of criminals, mercenaries, and foreigners?

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            1. Just imagine if Germany treated victories over the French like the Mexicans do. The country would get no work done.

              In fairness, it was a strong showing by the French military that brought the USA into existence. There were more French troops at Yorktown than Continentals.

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              1. I was going to point out that Germany doesn’t work as it is, but compared to the rest of Europe they are workaholics.

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      5. We need to end ethnonormative discrimination, recognizing that what is truly defining is how you feel. If you feel like a left-handed Lapland yodeler, then it doesn’t matter if you present as a right-handed Scots-Irish caber tosser.

        All of you Phenotype Phascists need to get over you discrimnatory ways and accept that genotype is not destiny. Transethnicty Activists such as Elizabeth Warren are leading the way to a bright new Civil Rights revolution in which every entity’s self-actualization is assured.

        An end must be made to rigid adherence to objective “facts” which are used to bind people into oppressive states, denying their rights of subjective existence. Facts Are Fungible! must be our watchword.

        If you Wife decides to be your husband, if your dog wants to be a cat, if your brother-in-law wants to be a horse’s patoot your refusal to recognize their right to be what they feel like is rankest Etnicism and cannot be permitted.

        It should be obvious that this new order requires that all licensing agencies cease immediately their discriminatory imposition of rigid and arbitrary standards. If a person feels he is a doctor what right have the state licensing boards to deny her right to present as she/he/it feels him/her/itself to be? Similarly state Bar, CPA and Engineering associations must no longer be allowed to discriminate in favour of some people merely because they have undergone advanced professional training or have extensive experiential practice? Such privilege MUST end! What difference does it make whether your doctor can tell your elbow from your arse so long as s/h/it feels physiciany?

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        1. Coincidentally, my status as an NCO in the Army authorizes me to formally grant ANYBODY’S desire to be recognized as a horse’s patoot, although some recognitions must be made in a more subtle fashion.

          Tell your brother-in-law that I’m accepting applications right now, and the bar for entry is low. I only charge a $5 administrative fee. :D

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        2. A Georgia Supreme Court held that being an Italian immigrant was not proof that you were white (while overturning a miscegenation conviction). That would make me an octoroom.

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    2. I have a black friend who is about 1/8th Scottish and grew up in Kentucky. He went to a Scottish festival and the member’s of his clan weren’t too sure about him until he signed up for the caber toss. He isn’t what you’d call small and anything that help’s the clan’s standing…

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    3. I don’t think they ever got around to making it a requirement to have any sort of expectation of genetically possessing the heritage to CELEBRATE it……

      I have some friends of Scottish ancestry, who quite enjoy dressing up in full Scottish garb (including real swords — they live in a state with sensible weapon laws) when occasion presents. But they are also pretty involved in German heritage despite having no German blood they know about. (Of course, go far enough back in anyone’s family tree and you’ll get some mixing from somewhere.) All three of the kids studied German in school, participate in the state’s German festivals, and do a pretty good Schuhplatter dance. (And probably others, but that’s the one that stuck in my memory since it’s so distinctive.)

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      1. A quick glance at me (or my music collection) says “oh yes, Scots-Irish all the way down.” But if you look in my closet (no, not that one, the other one! Don’t *crash* never mind) you’ll see a half dozen dirndls and dirndl-dresses, plus German-style women’s suits. And German language books all over the place. Although in my case the ancestry’s an English-Dutch-Scots-Irish blend on one side and German Jewish-French-Scots-Irish on the other (I can argue with myself over anything).

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        1. ” (I can argue with myself over anything).”

          This isn’t normal? I’ve found that I can make a better argument when I know what the other side of the argument is thinking.

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        1. A vast, powerful, and fearsome cadre, from context, that apparently helps police the masses both online and at Cons and such.

          It was in the discussion of exploring the spousal role at Cons, are they handlers, enablers, bodyguards, spectators, or see-you-when-you-wander-back-to-the-room-at-3-am–ers.

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            2. We are also subtle and discreet, so we slip under the vast, powerful and fearsome-radar. Subtle and disctreetly vast, powerful and fearsome, we are.

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      1. Well, some of the cadre might technically be cadavers, being undead and all.

        I suppose it depends on what the definition of ‘is’ is.

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      1. You know last night I read that as Cadaver Cola, and found that a perfectly reasonable thing for you to say.

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  20. “And now all you left hand Laplanders shut up. I have books to write about your iniquities.* “

    Iniquities?!? I will have you know that the reindeer was above the age of consent … for Inuit cultures … and besides, she was asking for it, the hussy.

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    1. When the song starts “you know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen…”, I never imagined that it meant “know” in the biblical sense.

      Hopefully everyone will be able to get that image out of their heads before December.

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        1. But as proper capitalist running dog oppressors of the masses, we have to ask if there is a sufficient market for reindeer porn, outside of the undead Imperator community, before we can make a decision to, ahem, enter that market.

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          1. I once told Kent not to google “tentacle porn” … but you know … he thinks he is smarter than me.

            (Well, he is. Just not more cunning. Low animal cunning.)

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          3. I think I’ve mentioned before that a friend of mine had a game: Try to think of the most outrageous thing and type it into a search engine with “porn” after it, and you will almost always get results. I remember the sounds and shudder he gave when he tried it with, “Hello Kitty”.

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  21. A lady is the best of all that surround her. The screeching harpies are a little self-conscious and want to chase all the ladies away by banning any mention of them.

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  23. Since things have gotten a little… heated today, I figured this might be a good time for me to finally follow through on my overdue promise of pictures of Minion #4. So, here you are, with apologies for my shaky hands:

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      1. Vicious clam, forcing me to choose between quips! Well, we’re not having it, you hear?!

        1: Hah! You got NOTHING!

        2: Looks just like you.

        3: >GERMAN ACCENT< I see nuthink, Nuthink!

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  24. Talking about groups… Was at a meeting the other day and while talking about religion mentioned that my wife was Roman Catholic and I wasn’t, and that that was fairly common here, but still not at all common in Europe. The person I was talking to to mentioned he had the same situation in his family as regards Catholics and Orangemen. 58 years old, lived all over the US, have known people from all 57 states, and this was the first time I had ever heard Protestants referred to as Orangemen. I asked about that, Turns out his town was settled largely by Irish Catholic immigrants, and that’s how his grandfather and friends had always referred to Protestants. And I further found that his area of CNY must be the only enclave in CNY that are not fans of the perennial basketball powerhouse SU. I had never wondered, or cared, about where or how SU’s teams were referred to as The Orange. Turns out the name comes directly from William of Orange. Some bits of the old country carry over to here in surprising ways. Where I live now the Catholics are largely Italian. And I know several are big SU fans. Next time I run into one I’ll have to ask if they know the origin of The Orange.

    Or perhaps I should be a troublemaker and write to the local paper and complain about the religiously discrimatory name the SU team has and demand they change it…

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  26. Juvenalia! Are those the satires of Juvenal? Have you added translations from Latin to your repertoire? How soon till we get your interpretation of:

    “Arms, and the man, I sing, who, forc’d by fate
    And haughty Juno’s unrelenting hate”

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  27. Have any of you read Eric Hofer’s “The True Believer”? It’s basically Hofer’s extended stream of conciousness about the nature of mass-movement organizations, especially those of the more violent sort (the examples he kept returning to were Nazi Germany and the Communist party, though he took a few potshots at religions as well) – and the psychology that underlies such things:

    “The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause.”

    Anyway, I thought it was eye-opening.

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    1. Read The True Believer in college, and still have the copy, with notes in the margins. It explained – and still does – a lot of stuff about human behavior. And it’s very plain and readable, as well.

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    2. On the other hand, if the charter of an organization is to achieve something, it’s harder to subvert. Not impossible, mind.

      Hofer also made a strong distinction between practical organizations (which offer people acheivable things for the purposes of self-advancement) and mass movements (which infect their members with unacheivable things, and endless holy causes and the opportunity for self-denial – for the denial of a self that they are unhappy with). The two behave quite differently.

      One of the purposes of a mass movement is to make their member’s life drab, utilitarian, and to emphasize the futulity and inefficacy of their individual ability – to make the present seem miserable and worthless and pointless so that their members will throw their lives away for the cause. (And the cause really has no real purpose other than propagation) These movements tend to attack people who are happy and self-sufficient on their own, and to denigrate individual ability – because the lives of happy/sufficient people are a repudiation of how they need their members to NEED them.

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