Don’t You Understand? They’re Victims!

“The Devil made me do it!”

Flip Wilson

You have to understand something about the people who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6.  They’re not entirely responsible for their actions.  They had merely responded to the words of their newly-formed deity, Donald Trump.  In the hours leading up to the siege, Trump had infused them with idea that he had been wronged by the voting process; that the 2020 elections had been manipulated by covert gangs of leftist forces determined to enforce abortions and gun confiscations upon helpless, red-blooded, bible-carrying Christian American citizens to ensure his loss.  He was a victim, Trump maintained, and vicariously so were his minions.

CHARGE!!!!!!!!!

Thus, the Trumpians had been victimized by the same queer-loving renegades and they were justified in storming the Capitol, tearing through offices, screaming like children told to come in for dinner, threatening others because they got their feelings hurt – all while dressed like ghosts of the Civil War and refugees from a Comic-Con conference gone wrong.

Please!

The Capitol Hill warriors are no more victims of enraged rhetoric than porn stars are of poor script-writing.  For years conservatives have proclaimed the tenets of individual freedom and personal responsibility.  They declared such values in reactive angst to a welfare society and relentless victimhood proclamations.

They loathed when non-White people bemoaned centuries of Euro-colonial oppression and systemic racism.  They rolled their eyes at the thought of women hollering about sexual harassment in the workplace and on college campuses.  They snickered at queer folks complaining of innate homophobia on the job and in school.

Then the U.S. Congress met on January 6, 2021 to certify Joe Biden as the winner of last year’s presidential contest, and – as Dante Alighieri once wrote – all hell broke loose.

The Trumpian crowd became maddened by the process and felt they had no other recourse but to subvert that constitutional mechanism in the most violent manner possible.  Their voices and votes had been ignored and they had to stop the madness.

So, in the name of Ronald Reagan, where the hell was all that talk of personal responsibility?  Where were the people to take ownership of themselves and their actions?  In other words, why do the Capitol Hill rioters suddenly see themselves as victims of…well, anything?!

They all sound like a bunch of – oh, God!  A bunch of minorities, women and queers!  Pass the rifle and heaven forbid!  Now these “victims” have placed themselves in the same category as tree-loving, pot-smoking, Muslim-loving liberals!

What’s going to happen next?  The magnetic poles will switch sides – like communist traitors – and life as we know will extinguish itself?

Again – please!

I personally don’t care to hear the anguished state of mind of these mentally- challenged pencil-dick and cavern-cunt imps.  What happened with last year’s presidential elections is something known as democracy.  It’s the sustenance upon which civilized societies survive.  We cannot exist without it.  The goons who stormed the Capitol three weeks ago didn’t fall victim to the verbiage of Donald Trump; they were victims of their own damned stupidity.  If they truly were swayed by Trumpian oratory, they are as gullible as a child believing in Santa Claus.  They roared into that building because what was left of their brain cells had perished in the swamp of their own hysteria.

It’s just so incredibly interesting that these right-wing extremists who wrap themselves in the American flag and cry freedom – while waving the loser traitorous Confederate flag – are suddenly helpless and violated.  They couldn’t help themselves.  Their faux president told them to do it.

The reality is quite simple: they’re violent and they’re stupid.  But they aren’t victims.

Flip Wilson on “The Ed Sullivan Show” January 11, 1970

Leave a comment

Filed under Essays

First Photograph of a U.S. Presidential Inauguration

The first photograph of a U.S. presidential inauguration was taken by John Wood on March 4, 1857, when James Buchanan assumed the presidency.  Wood was the first presidential photographer who also documented the construction of the U.S. Capitol from 1856 to 1861.

Wood used the newly-discovered wet-plate collodion method invented by British photographer Frederick Scott Archer.  The process involved coating a glass plate with a mixture of a soluble iodide and a collodion solution.  Although complex and requiring a portable darkroom, the collodion method produced sharper images without lengthy exposure times that also could be more easily duplicated than the then well-used daguerreotype technique.

Leave a comment

Filed under Classics

Amanda Gorman

Amanda Gorman is a 22-year-old Los Angeles native who was named the first National Youth Poet Laureate in 2017.  At the presidential inauguration, she recited her poem, “The Hill We Climb”.

5 Comments

Filed under Art Working

Retro Quote – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Just as nonviolence exposed the ugliness of racial injustice, so must the infection and sickness of poverty be exposed and healed.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Leave a comment

Filed under History

Word of the Week – January 23, 2021

Epistemology

Noun

Greek, 19th century

The theory of knowledge, especially with regard to its methods, validity, and scope.  Epistemology is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.

Example: My epistemology of American politics made me realize how insane it all is.

Leave a comment

Filed under News

Video of the Week – January 23, 2021

Former First Lady Melania Trump released a farewell video earlier this week, trying in vain to tout her “accomplishments” during her brief and unremarkable reign.

Leave a comment

Filed under News

Tweets of the Week – January 23, 2021

Bernice King

Bruce A. Heyman

Leave a comment

Filed under News

Photo of the Week – January 23, 2021

Capitol Hill police officer Eugene Goodman escorts Vice-President Kamala Harris during Wednesday’s inauguration.  Goodman is the officer who was captured on video singlehandedly leading the mob of right-wing extremists that invaded the building on January 6 away from lawmakers.  The consensus now is that Goodman’s actions inadvertently prevented the rioters from entering the Senate chamber long enough for lawmakers to escape and find shelter.

Leave a comment

Filed under News

Most Pathetic Quotes of the Week – January 23, 2021

“Boy, were we all stupid to believe he actually stood for Equal Justice?  His corrupt friends all come first.”

Joe Maldonado-Passage (a.k.a. Joe Exotic), in response to not receiving a pardon from Donald Trump

Maldonado-Passage is serving a 22-year prison sentence for plotting to kill animal rights activist Carole Baskin, among other charges.

“I just got off the phone with Bed Bath & Beyond. They’re dropping MyPillow.  Just got off the phone not five minutes ago. Kohl’s, all these different places.”

Mike Lindell, founder of MyPillow, about major retail stores deciding not to stock his products anymore

Lindell, a strong Trump supporter, helped to pay a $2 million bond for Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old accused of killing 2 men and wounding a third in Wisconsin in August 2020.

Leave a comment

Filed under News

Strangest Quote of the Week – January 23, 2021

“The mob was fed lies.  They were provoked by the president and other powerful people.”

Sen. Mitch McConnell, about the mob of Donald Trump supporters who invaded the U.S. Capitol on January 6

Leave a comment

Filed under News