Linkee-poo, when winter calls with chilling breath for fireside and good cheer

The "mystery" of the Deadly Double ads. Sometimes coincidence is just that. (Grokked from John)

In a mixed back of news, anti-ISIS forces in Libya have captured the last stronghold held by ISIS in Sirte (their main base of operations. Not that they captured everyone, and there is a chance of them popping up elsewhere in the country. And in Tripoli the various factions vying for control continue to fight amongst themselves. So as the country continues to lack a stable central government, groups like ISIS can continue to take advantage of that.

A Chuck Wendig tweet storm about the times we live in. "The news cycle is like being covered in fire ants." So have all the feels for this.

A The Atlantic article from 2014, but it dissects a conservative method of attack very well. "In other words, Rove didn’t say Hillary Clinton has brain damage. He hinted it, thus giving himself deniability while ensuring that the slur lingers in the public mind. Which is what he’s been doing his entire career." (Grokked from Ferrett Steinmetz)

Fiona Apple sings a Trumpmas Carol. Probably NSFW, use headphones. Rolling Stone's story on the song with lyrics. (Grokked from John)

"Secretary of state candidate Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., said in an interview Wednesday that the United States cooperating with Russia is a good thing and that China is not America’s friend." I really have no words (that are sharable). Not only is this fucktard sycophant Putin puppet a potential Secretary of State, but is a sitting congressman who thinks Reagan would support his views of Putin. It must be awfully hard to suck ass from a continent away, so kudos for that ability Congressman Rohrabacher. And it's not like we can't oppose both China and Russia at the same time. (Grokked from Kathryn Cramer)

"But here is the troubling reality for civically minded liberals looking to justify their preferred strategies: Hillary Clinton talked about the working class, middle class jobs, and the dignity of work constantly. And she still lost… She detailed plans to help coal miners and steel workers. She had decades of ideas to help parents… She had plans to help young men who were getting out of prison and old men who were getting into new careers. She talked about the dignity of manufacturing jobs, the promise of clean-energy jobs, and the Obama administration’s record of creating private-sector jobs for a record-breaking number of consecutive months. She said the word 'job' more in the Democratic National Convention speech than Trump did in the RNC acceptance speech; she mentioned the word 'jobs' more during the first presidential debate than Trump did. She offered the most comprehensively progressive economic platform of any presidential candidate in history—one specifically tailored to an economy powered by an educated workforce." (Grokked from Laura J. Mixon)

And an NPR story on anti-globalization in both the Brexit vote and the Trump victory. Hopefully they'll have a transcript up soon, but worth the listen. Basically, white people (read: Anglo-Saxon, because fuck those Polish plumbers) feel they're no longer privileged and all these "other people" are getting a better deal.

So, yeah, while people continue to search for some narrative that can explain the election (both Brexit and Trump) that doesn't involve racism, everything is pointing towards racism (whether overt or support for the institutionalization of racists policies). It's because we don't want to be "those people", the bad people, the racists. Because we all (well, the general population) now accept that racism is bad. But we don't like to confront our racist views, preconceptions, and the loss our privileged stations. While most people wouldn't be overly racists, they're willing to support racist policies like redlining, ending affirmative action, "enforce immigration laws" (which is mostly against brown people, even though we have more immigration issues with Asians and Europeans than we like to admit), and making people sit in the back of the bus (figuratively and literally). Or, as John Scalzi put it, the Cinemax Theory of Racism (I don't believe I linked to that before). And in this scenario, let's be honest, most people would watch Cinemax if something they wanted to see was playing, even though they only wanted HBO.

Tweet of my heart: @lgbookworm @ChuckWendig It (sort of) helps me to remember that they're *creating* that FEELING to demoralize us and make us feel helpless.