Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Association Fallacy

All men with gold ties are exactly like this guy!
After Trump and Roof, I've noticed a disturbing logical fallacy being perpetrated by the white nationalist followers of Donald Trump and Fox News.

Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, a criminal, murdered a woman in cold blood in San Francisco.   Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez is an illegal alien, in the United States illegally.  Fox News has been pressing this story very hard because, since Lopez-Sanchez is an illegal alien, Trump must be right.  

The logical fallacy is called Association Fallacy.  Its where you say all members of a group are alike to one example because of some characteristic.

Bob has black hair.  Bob is a plumber.  Therefore, all men with black hair are plumbers.

My dog has four legs.  My cat has four legs.  Therefore my dog is a cat.

Lopez-Sanchez is a murderer.  Lopez-Sanchez is a Latino.  Therefore Trump is right and all "mexicans" are evil.  

Bernie Madoff is a Jew.  Bernie Madoff committed a financial crime.  Therefore the Nazis were right and all Jews are money grubbing swindlers.

See where we're going with this?

The scary thing is that white nationalists and Fox News are trying to use this story and this fallacy to further drum up anti-Latino feeling in the United States.  This one crime, and it is a heinous crime, is not proof that all Latinos are drug users and rapists.  However, it seems that a great section of the far right is trying to get people to come to that very incorrect conclusion.

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Advice for the Fictional Character

How'd the grey haired one survive so long?

I’ve noticed something, especially in Science Fiction shows.  If you’re a fictional character, possibly in a red shirt, and something is described as a “routine patrol”, run away quickly.  All hell’s about to break loose!

Monday, July 13, 2015

Mr. Trump, you're going to need a bigger army...

Be careful whose feelings you hurt!

Oh dear, the escaped Mexican Drug Lord, El Chapo, is gunning for Donald Trump.  I'm sure anyone who even remotely knows about Latino people know that its a really really bad plan to piss them off.  Especially when said Latino person is the biggest Drug Lord in Mexico.

So, El Chapo seems to be thinking of having a little tete-a-tete chat with The Donald regarding some cultural misinterpretations, possibly over some coffee cake or cheesecake.    Fearing this, El Trumpo has gone running to the FBI. 

The Donald better read up on how the U.S. Federal Government stopped Pancho Villa.  Oh wait... they never did.  Pancho Villa was never caught although he did end up being killed by a political rival.   But no Federales, General Pershing or the FBI, never got him.

Oh, and El Chapo won't forget either.  He might not get Trump tomorrow or in a week, but he's not going to give up.  Trump's 70 years old so maybe he'll die before El Chapo's men get him. 

Seriously, just to get racist for a moment, The Donald can never let a Latino person within pistol shot range of himself from now on.  Neither employees on his golf courses nor anyone working in his casinos, because one of these days, one of those "boys" he barks an order at is going to look up and deliver a message from El Chapo.  It will basically translate "You're Fired!"


Normal people?

I was just walking by a TV with Fox News on and a Fox presenter said 

"You don't raise minimum wage because it makes food more expensive for normal people!"

Normal people?  I guess Fox News does not consider people who work and earn minimum wage to be "normal."  Now, I've been lucky.  Most jobs that I've ever had, I've earned much more than minimum wage.  However, there are lots of people that have to live on minimum wage, its all they can get.  I don't think these people are not "normal."

I suppose Fox News only considers you "normal" if you earn more than six digits a year.   By their definition, I'll never be normal!


Friday, July 10, 2015

World War 2 Discussion Podcast

Hello everyone out there!  I thought I'd try my hand at another audio podcast type thingy.  One of my interests is history, in particular, World War 2 history about which I've read quite a number of books over the years.  I'm definitely an "armchair historian" of the period, or, to use a purloined Japanese term, I'm a WW2 Otaku!

The way I did it is I found some study questions about World War 2 online to guide my discussion and picked three of them to talk about today:

*  What did Hitler achieve in his first two years in office?
*  What is the definition of fascism?  Why do you think Hitler was able to amass so much power so quickly?
*  What was the role of technology during World War II?  Did it fundamentally affect the outcome of the war?

The podcast starts off a little slow in the first couple of minutes as I warm up.  I don't do a lot of talking to myself, at least, not into a microphone but I get better as it goes on!  Its just over 28 minutes long.  The podcast is stored on Chirbits and you can listen to it at the link below:

World War 2 Discussion Podcast

Hope you find it interesting.  I'd like to do more discussions like this since I recently got a fancy new microphone.  Thanks for listening if you did!

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Brownface vs. Brownshirts

One issue that often comes up in matters of cultural and "racial" relationships is the issue of insult and taking offense.  People who've been reading my blog probably think I'm a hair-trigger Latino Nationalist who takes offense if a leaf blows the wrong way.  Now, I do have a temper at times but, seriously, I do realize that sometimes, to quote Sigmund Freud, "a cigar is just a cigar."

Take for instance this following pic:


Again, a clanger from Paula Deen.  Her son is supposed to be Desi Arnaz and has had his eyebrows made up and dark make-up applied to his face to make him look darker (although Desi Arnaz was a rather pale skinned Cuban and I don't think he was as dark as this fellow here).

Yes, blackface and "brownface" is not very complimentary.  It all goes back to the long history of "blackface" such as the Black and White Minstrels and the fact that non-whites used to not be allowed to appear in motion pictures.  Charlie Chan happened because it was impossible at the time to consider casting an Asian for the part.  

However, say compared to Donald Trump's latest racist admission, the above, to me, is just stupid.  It makes me roll my eyes.  Yes, its kinda insulting to a Latino but its more along the lines of "gimmie a break" sort of irritation.  Its clearly done because someone wanted to be a goof and had a major brain fart.  A watermelon joke about African-Americans would be worse than this.   Flying off into a rage of insult and wanting rebellion for this picture would be a major overreaction.

On the other hand, Donald Trump's comment is a good example of when to take offense.  Categorizing all Mexicans, and by extension, all non-whites of Latin and South America as druggies and rapists, is beyond the line.  Trump's comment was obviously motivated by racism and stated with a wish to instill racism into the general white population.  My own amateur and ham-fisted analysis of the Trump comment hardly begins to scratch the surface of just why Trump's comment is "fighting words."

Paula Deen and her son in this picture are just idiots who don't think.  Trump is a racist.  I wish I was astute enough to be able to paraphrase for you the difference in some snappy and pithy statement.  I'll just leave you with my comments though for you to cogitate on.  One took a picture thinking it was going to be cute and its not.  The other comment from a Presidential candidate wants to whip up hatred and loathing against a group seen as inferior and non-human.   Paula Deen's use of the N-word qualifies as over the line as well for similar reasons.  The usage is meant to whip up hatreds and violence against a target group.

My anger is reserved for Trump.  My head, banging on the desk in a groan of annoyance, is reserved for Paula Deen and her son.  Take off the make-up, dude, you look like an idiot.

Friday, June 26, 2015

Will Donald Duck? Trump's Sexual Fear.


With satanic joy in his face, the black-haired Jewish youth lurks in wait for the unsuspecting girl whom he defiles with his blood, thus stealing her from her own people.
-Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler


Donald Trump, the racist megalomaniac, recently dropped a clanger when he said:

"They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists," he said, adding, "and some, I assume, are good people." 

Now, its obvious that Mr. Trump is a racist, certainly against Latinos and probably other non-white groups as well.  That goes without question.  But what I find the most interesting about his quote is the inclusion of rapist.  Sound familiar?  The psycho shooter Dylann Roof recently used similar language during his attack on a African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina.  Screaming that you rape our women! he opened fire and killed nine people.

This is not a new charge from racists that members of the out-group, be it African-Americans, Jews, or even Hispanics, are rapists.  The belief is that these non-white peoples are literally hunting for white women to rape.  

Nazis and White Nationalists have often admitted that there is one area in which they are not superior to all other people on the planet, sexual prowess.  They have stated from the days of Ostara in 1920s Germany that the White man, the Aryan, had better things to do than go around having sex.   There was and is no way that the white nationalist feels he can compete with the bestial sexuality of the 'lesser' races that he hates.  

The response is, of course, to add this to the long list of reasons to hate these non-white groups.  They are beasts.  They are subhuman.  Their sexual appetites prove that they are not sentient, not members of homo sapiens.  So-called Aryans have seen this as a true challenge because the lower bestial races are seen as more potent than their superior betters.

Along with this view is a particularly ancient and patriarchal view of women.  The white women, in these views, is not a person who will demand her rights nor assert herself sexually.  The white woman is seen as an ideal of purity, of motherhood, of the keeper of house and home.  The white woman is not intelligent and does not comprehend the threat to superior White genes that the non-white brings.  She is very susceptible to the money of the Jews, the large penises of the Blacks, and the overall animal-like virility of the non-white.

When Trump says that Mexicans are all out to rape [white] women or Dylann Roof murders innocent African Americans because they rape our women, part of the mentality is that they are defending their women.  Women who need defending.  They are defending precious White genes from corruption by non-white blood.   The lower races must not pollute, through interbreeding, the rich blood of the higher races (D. Skylar, 1977)

Some white nationalists, and the German Nazis, believed that even sexual intercourse with non-whites was enough to soil, permanently, any white or aryan woman.  Christian Identity believers to this day believe that the worst crime a white woman can commit is to just have sex with a non-white, let alone marry or have children from them.  It all stems from an idea that the immortal soul of the white person is bound up in their blood and body.  Soiling the body with non-white contact can literally soil the soul and make it unworthy.

The sexual fear of non-whites using rape is also portrayed in films made for propaganda.  The most heinous example is the Nazi film Jud Suss, in which a German woman is raped by an Jewish man mainly just for the evilz.  And it is a sexual fear.  This propaganda, used by Dylann Roof and continued with Donald Trump, is to be used to dehumanize the "enemy," i.e. non-white people in general and Latinos and African-Americans in particular.  

Donald Trump wants white people to feel okay about the need for machine-gun turrets and huge walls, with forced deportation, internment, and murder.  After all, these "people" are here to rape our women, aren't they?  It would be okay to treat them badly.  That's what Trump's propaganda is all about.  Whipping up the sexual fear of a mass of white people who already feel threatened by and inferior to the rapacious sexual appetites of the non-white subhuman.    Trump, as president, wants a country where only the white person is human.  The others are beasts of the field to be controlled, kept out, and killed.