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BevoAbyss

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Posts posted by BevoAbyss

  1. 4 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

    There is no grand line connecting Bush 1 and Perot and Bush 2 in some sort of malevolent crypto-fascist conspiracy

    With all due respect, this is incorrect. 

    1. First, I never said it was a "conspiracy." It has happened right before our eyes. The media has covered it all. 

    -- Just because a bunch of Republicans and Libertarians had their eyes closed and heard what they wanted to hear, it does follow that it was a conspiracy. 

    2. There is a grand line. Not a straight line, but a clear highway with some curves, detours, zig zags and gravel roads, and then back on the Reagan-Falwell interstate. But the highway clearly begins with Reagan/Bush (though some might say Nixon) in the 1980s and goes to Trump and beyond.

    3. Reagan and Falwell energized the Religious Right/Moral Majority (RR/MM) to go full-on GOP.

    -- The RR/MM were anti-abortion and openly wanted Roe overturned, they harassed family planning locations for decades, and so on. There is the seed for Dobbs and the end of Roe and attacks on women's reproductive rights we see all over Texas and in other red states. 

    -- They wanted religion back in the schools, were anti-LGBTQ, etc. Reagan explicitly said at a 1984 campaign rally in Austin he wanted God back in the schools. GOP has been working on that for years, now in a full-on war with public (secular) schools. The whole "school choice" is largely a smoke screen for Bible schooling at home. 

    4. Bush 1: You mean the President who ushered in Alt-Fact culture on the campaign trail with his line: "I'll never apologize for America, I don't care what the facts are..."  Elected in a landslide over Dukakis, while using the racist Willie Horton ad, too. 

    5. Perot: I never said Perot was a crypto fascist. I said he was a prototype for Trump. Billionaire, tough talking badass, cult of personality, etc. 

    Whatever Ross Perot said in his book is not everything I saw with my own eyes at the United We Stand conference at the Dallas Convention Center.

    -- We pulled into the parking lot and what's the first thing we noticed? The striking lack of BMWs, Mercedes, Jaguars or super-luxe Euro cars. This was not the Highland Park old school Republicans.

    -- The predominant cars were Cadillacs, Buicks, Fords, Trucks, Minivans, etc. Mostly Team USA cars. These people were most likely from the Burbs and areas north, west, and east of Highland Park and Dallas. Plus, small towns.

    -- Inside, the energy was MASSIVE. As in electric. These people were 150% fired up and ready to change America. This was not old school Republicans quietly discussing tax benefits, corporate empires, or the commies.

    -- All throughout the concourse, there were tables with people passionately championing various issues with pamphlets, xerox manifestos, etc. It was 30 years ago, so I do not recall all the tables. But I clearly recall at least two tables wanting a wall on the border, with rabid anti-immigration (racist) pamphlets. Ramped up Drug War stuff, too, blaming immigrants. Tables for "freedoms": gun rights, home-schooling (Bible learnin'), patriotism, something about religious freedom, owning gold/silver, etc. Libertarians had their tables, too, with tax issues, budget issues, free markets, etc. Might have been a table on anti-flag burning laws and hating the media/conspiracies.

    -- I am not saying everyone at the United We Stand convention was a proto-fascist. What I am saying is the fascist seeds were there. Perot struck a nerve, just like Trump.

    -- My artsy female friend and I walked out, headed to Chuys and downed a few margs and some fajitas. We both agreed. If United We Stand people got full power, there could be big trouble in America.

    6. Add on two decades of Alt-Fact Fox News and you have the propagandized GQP fascist consciousness we see today that Trump mines on a daily basis.

    7. The line continues from Tea Party to MAGA to Trump. That's self-evident for anyone with their eyes open.

    TLDR: It begins with Reagan-Falwell and leads directly to MAGA-GQP-Trump. Surly Republicans, just own it. 

     

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  2. On 12/10/2023 at 11:27 PM, RomaVicta said:

    They are boldly taking this country in broad daylight.

    I wish they were spineless and aimless, but they're not.

    This is 100% spot on. No, 100,000%.

    MAGA-GQP has been building for decades. Reagan/Bush >>> Perot/United We Stand >>> Bush 2 >>> Tea Party >>> MAGA >>> Trump.

    Right before our eyes!

    This ain't no mere grift by spineless con artists.

    Reagan/Bush: Merged the GOP with Jerry Falwell's Religious Right and the (alleged) Moral Majority, which was openly anti-abortion, Creationist, Fundamentalist, Evangelical. They stated they wanted a Bible-ruled America, God back in schools. They have been openly targeting abortion and women since the 1980s. Clear anti-science, theocratic agenda was being tested. Bush 1 puts Thomas on Supreme Court. 

    Perot: Trial run for Trump. Billionaire businessman = political genius = strongman, tough guy, badass, cult of personality. Perot's "United We Stand" was prototype for Tea Party and MAGA. United We Stand was advocating for huge border walls in the mid-1990s, among many other "far right" policies. I saw it with my own eyes.

    -- Out of curiosity, I and female friend (no pics) went to one of the United We Stand conferences at the Dallas Convention Center. We were passing through Dallas and thought, what the hell, let's check it out. CNN and news outlets were there. We were staggered by what we saw. A weird conglomeration of "libertarian" rhetoric (cut taxes, my "freedoms") and nakedly authoritarian/religious policy proposals. Build the wall, stop immigration, home-schooling (re: Christian), God back in schools, anti-abortion (pro-life), etc. Early stage unorganized fascism.

    -- Later rebranded as "Reform Party." 

    -- Fox News launched in 1996-7 to tap into the political audience revealed by Perot and United We Stand.

    Bush 2: Open embrace and installment of "faith-based" policies championed by United We Stand, war crimes galore, authorized torture regimes. Roberts and Alito on Supreme Court, theocracy now becomes clearly possible. 

    Tea Party: The Tea Party used "tax policies" and "less government spending" as a smokescreen for their various neo-fascist agendas building on United We Stand. 

    MAGA: Clear fascism and theocracy, anti-science, etc. Moral Majority & United We Stand on steroids. Megachurches and small town churches are radicalized. 

    Trump: And here we are. Perot on steroids and paranoid ego-mania. A political strongman, badass tough guy, cult of personality, with backing of fascist-theocratic populace, now bent upon taking total power. No mask, no vaxx, science-denying in the middle of global pandemic costs hundreds of thousands of lives. Total of 1.2 million Americans dead. 

    -- Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Barrett on Supreme Court. Theocracy is now rooted on the High Court. Dobbs ends Roe and more horrors to come. Falwell's Dream come true.

    The GOP and Religious Right had a long-term plan. It is working. The goal is a fascist theocracy. Believe them. They have a spine.  

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  3. 8 minutes ago, YGIFS said:

    they have been unusually agnostic the last year or so on some serious shit.

    There you go. You got it. They are agnostic on most everything that is happening in Texas.

    -- The most horrendous of laws and actions taken by Abbott, Paxton, etc. are treated in the Tribune in a banal mundane summary of what is presented "facts" and "events" ... treated "objectively." It's all a smokescreen to keep the funding and not offend the power brokers and dominant ideologues in Texas. They will never identify anyone or any group with  F Bomb: "fascist" 

     

  4. 2 hours ago, YGIFS said:

    Texas Tribune and Statesman are reporting it like it's an interesting holiday recipe

    Spot on.

    The Texas Tribune is an intellectual fraud, pretending to be some high-brow journalistic endeavor. Like all the TV stations and newspapers in Texas (and 99% of America), the Texas Tribune has long been normalizing fascism and theocracy, bit by bit, under the cowardly position of being "objective" and fair to "both sides." Hell, I'll go further. They are enabling fascism/theocracy in their sheer intellectual bankruptcy and cowardice.

  5. 10 hours ago, sheeeit said:

    tell the world they don't understand the law.  Shame does not work when people aren't ashamed of what they are doing.

    Oh, we know what "the law" is. It's the Bible. Everything else is just legislative details for the MAGA-GQP legislators and judges to impose on the rest of society.

    Rather than feel ashamed, they feel holy and virtuous because they believe their God/prophets have ordained them to rule America and purge society of the sinners -- with as much pain and humiliation as possible. The goal is a Bible-ruled theocracy. They have said so. Believe them.

    And they're just getting started... more purges and pain coming. 

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  6. 1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

    Texas is just shit.  Arrested 37 times as a pro-lifer, on the Texas Supreme Court.

    Texas is worse than shit. It is fast becoming a fascist theocracy, a literal Handmaid's Tale right before our eyes. All sanctioned by that pasty-faced Texas Supreme Court Justice, Paxton, Abbott and the rest of their alpha dogs of Gilead. 

    The MAGA-GQP Christians are shoving their Bible down the throats of Texas women and inside their bodies, while saying to the rest of Texas: "Fuck you! Try and stop us." 

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  7. 2 hours ago, Snake Diggity said:

    My guess is 20-35% of the users on this site will vote for Trump in 2024.

    I'd bet 45-60% considering how many on the football boards deep throat the SEC! SEC! SEC! 

    -- Make no mistake, joining the SEC was a total MAGA move, made well above CDC/Hartzell. By Abbott, BOR, and BIG Money Donors (et al) in the wake of BLM, Jan 6, etc. The foundational goal was to align the great UT Austin with the heavily fascist-racist, election-denying, Trump-loving MAGA South. Making $$$ and "big boy" football was the smoke screen. Of course, 99% of UT football fans bought it hook, line, and sinker. 

    The SEC! SEC! SEC! move is a big "Fuck You!" to the liberalism of Austin and any Left Coast sensibilities. (I clearly recall in the 1980s-1990s when Austin was thought of as the Third Coast.)

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  8. Debate tactics never change among the theists, regardless of which team.

    1. Cherry picking ("peace and love," "Jesus said..." ) from the sacred text, while ignoring all the horrors, violence, idiocy, fact-free fables, atrocities, etc. 

    2. Never having any evidence for their deity. No proof of Genesis 1:1. None. Nope. Never. 

    3. Deploying all kinds of logical fallacies, equivocations, and doublethink.

    4. Remain in denial of the past 400 years of astronomy and astrophysics, plus evolutionary biology/sciences.

    5. Thus, the last resort is name-calling atheists or irrelevant charges: "Bigots." "Cynics." "Freshman level atheist." "Not a serious thinker." etc. Or the newest: "Crossfit." Lulz. 

    Sometimes i wonder if some of the people posting in Surly were running the creationist/evangelical/fundamentalist table in the Free Speech area on the West Mall in the late 1980s, early 1990s at UT. Same exact arguments and claims and denialism. Nothing changes.

     

     

  9. 5 hours ago, Irish Wrist Watch said:

    Bradley went on the become a damn good defensive back

    After losing the starting QB job to Street, Bradley converted to DB and had perhaps the greatest game ever for a UT defensive back:

    4 INTs ... in a single game against ... you guessed it .... Aggy! 

    That feat deserves some love on this site. 

    -- My dad said it was such an epic performance -- man among boys -- that if it happened with today's media coverage, it would be utterly legendary in Longhorn lore. Yes, Bradley went on to become All-Pro with the Eagles and was a helluva punter. My dad (RIP) said Bradley was one of the best DBs he ever saw at Texas.

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  10. 9 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

    because your reasoning sucks.

    Lulz.

    I can't speak for all atheists, but:

    -- Team Christianity abandons ALL reason, logic, facts at Genesis 1:1. The entire edifice is built on an evidence-free myth from the very beginning, as are all theisms.

    -- Any ZERO evidence belief system inherently does cognitive violence to reason, logic, and evidence ... and will eventually do actual violence to other people. 

  11. 1 hour ago, jimmyjazz said:

    Ethnic cleansing in any form is horrific.  So are plenty of other crimes throughout history committed by Christians or in the name of Christianity. 

    Agree. Let's add in the 20th Century communists.

    Here is my take, based on reading/viewing tons of stuff on totalitarianism (in all its forms), across four decades. 

    The massive danger arrives when any one group believes: 

    A) They are channeling the thoughts/desires/vision of an Omnipotent Force that created the universe (The Creator and theism in whatever form) and has a blueprint for life on Earth. As detailed in their sacred text. Ex: Bible. 

    B) They are surfing the Tidal Wave of History, as did the communists/socialists in the Soviet Union, China under Mao, and elsewhere. They believed that Marx/Engels (etc.) laid out the blueprint, as detailed in their sacred text Ex: Communist Manifesto or Das Kapital, yeah I read a bunch of both. Yes, resident Leftists, this is a broad brush and there are many details.

    When groups of people (A or B) think they are backed by Omnipotent Force or Tidal Wave of History, they then believe they have a mandate to remake society in the image of their vision/blueprint. 

    -- For A and B, the evolutionary tribal instinct kicks into high gear and overwhelms their reason, humanity, empathy, compassion, etc.

    -- The targets and "enemies" are whoever is designated as: the outsiders, non-belongers, non-conformists, non true believers, etc. Thus, blessed by the Creator or atop the Tidal Wave, both groups believe they can justify in their own mind the necessary coercion and violence to fulfill their utopia on Earth. 

    Sadly, massive bloodshed and horror follows. Utopia becomes dystopia. Rinse and repeat across history.

    I'm criticizing Christianity in Surly because we're in America at this MAGA moment in history.

    -- Permitting religious freedom, and preventing establishment of a State religion (both as mandated in the First Amendment) is one way the Founders sought to prevent religious warfare in the future America they imagined. For the record, I support both freedom of religious belief and freedom of atheist belief, and support the Establishment Clause, the first line in the First Amendment -- which mandates a separation of Church and State. The Establishment Clause is directly under attack in America now.

    Side note: When I got accepted to UT for grad school, my mom was super proud because my dad was an alum. But she was also super afraid I would be become a communist/atheist or ... get this... a punk rocker! The horror! I later found out my cousin told her he saw me in Dallas bar with a girl with a mohawk!  LOL. The 80s, good times!  

  12. 7 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

    No ACTUAL perspective,

    Sure, whatever.

    Try visiting some Native American art and history museums in the Southwest: you might find some books not on the approved reading list for Sunday School or the local megachurch. Heck, even try some libraries, before the unapproved history books are removed by Moms for Liberty. For your convenience, I provided a few. 

    For a book specific to Texas, try The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land.

     

     

     

    Books.jpg

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  13. 8 hours ago, UpperWestside said:

    Maga co-opting their strange version of Christianity

    With all due respect. MAGA is not the strange anomaly amid a religion brimming with peace and charity. Times up for the apologia. Time's up for the unchallenged brainwash.

    MAGA is doing what centuries/millennia of Christians have done. Oppress, maim, torture, burn, and kill the sinners, the non-believers, or anyone who gets in the way of their endless Crusades and holy wars. That strategy worked well to seize South, Central, and North America via a genocide that killed at least 10 million indigenous peoples. Christians told me that it was "God's Will" necessary to found America. If anything, Christianity is brimming with God-ordained violence. No wonder they give the Pentagon whatever it wants. Nukes are God's tools.

    It always comes down to the three Cs -- colonize, conquer, convert. Only then are there a few moments of peace and love and charity for the converted and true believers. Soon enough there will another crusade and holy war.

    No surprise, the current targets are women, doctors, people of color, immigrants, LGBTQIA+, educators, librarians, and the list is growing.

    GTFO with this Christian peace and love BS. History clearly says otherwise. 

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  14. Abbott, Paxton, MAGA, they are all fascists, patriarchs, and theocrats. Pain, humiliation, and violence is their game.

    What Paxton is doing is what a contemporary theocracy-patriarchy does. It unleashes medical violence (presented as following "The Law") upon women and their doctors and any science that verifies a women's right to bodily autonomy, free from the strictures of the Bible and its fact-free fables and unseen God.

    Make no mistake, the entire theocratic and anti-abortion movement is coming from the Bible thumpers and their idiotic unscientific beliefs. They are ignorant, they are arrogant, they are violent -- which makes them extremely dangerous. 

    They will not stop with women. They will come after everyone who does not obey or conform to their little holy book of BS.

     

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  15. Part of my artsy-bohemian past was spent living in a old warehouse loft one block from Fair Park. 3 years in 1990s.

    -- Cheap rent, daily morning jogs through Fair Park and all that fantastic Art Deco, nearby coffeehouse with the artsy-leftist-intellectualist-bohemian chicks (think "Les Amis" in Austin), a decent cafe, some mostly lame art galleries, and Fletchers corn dogs whenever I want during the Fair, etc. etc etc. Good memories.

    The absolute worst day of the year was the Thursday before the UT-OU game. That's when the Okies arrive in the afternoon and proceed to totally clog the streets (and sidewalks) with their crappy RVs, all decked out in Sooner imagery. Thursday nights and most all day Fridays, streets/sidewalks packed with Okies and relatively few Longhorn fans (until Friday night or Saturday.) You could tell that coming to Big D and Fair Park was for Okies like going to New York City or LA. They were in the BIG TIME!!  By sunset, many were drunk and doing Sooner cheers up and down the streets. Boomer! Lulz.

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  16. 59 minutes ago, slorch said:

    He needs his ass beat in an alley.

    He’s begging for it.

    Spot on. 90% of MAGA leadership are the rich kids, frat boys, spoiled bullies, and pasty Bible thumpers who never got their f*cking ass kicked on a playground or behind the gym. Growing up in Texas, I saw several bullies taken behind the gym by the recipients of their bullying--who proceeded to kick the bully's ass. Bully was bully no more or far less of one.

    Same with Trump. Rich, frat, bully who never had his ass kicked. History might have been changed (slightly) with Trump getting his ass kicked a couple of times, especially with girls watching. Total humiliation. 

    Hell, Biden should have decked him in one of the "debates" when Trump was lying and insulting him and his family. With that fat blob sprawling on the stage floor, Biden would have been elected in an all-time landslide. All-time. 

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  17. On 12/4/2023 at 1:41 PM, Bullneck said:

    That's four by my count.  I probably don't even want to know what they other one is.

    It's obvious. Public executions after show trials. Standard fascist, theocratic playbook. Rome, barbarism, and medievalism for the 21st Century. 

    JerryWorld and other stadia likely to be top sites. Anywhere there are lots of seats, beer, and big screens for the bloodshed.

     

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  18. 45 minutes ago, Nicole44 said:

    like to think of us as being in the SEC but on our own island.

    And no, I will NOT be chanting SEC ever. We are in their conference and I will root as @BevoAbyss posted for Texas only. 

    Nicole has the perfect metaphor: UT exists "on our own island." Let me add: "... island in the middle of a vast swamp, a polluted and insect-infested backwater that is "SEC SEC SEC!"

    Never chant SEC, never care for any teams other than UT. 

    By the way, Nicole, you are one of the very best posters on the site, imho. 

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  19. On 11/28/2023 at 9:01 AM, YGIFS said:

    But Trump harnessed the power of looking backwards.

    Yep. Just like Ronnie Reagan and his "Morning in America," expressed in that TV ad dripping with nostalgia for the "good ole days" ... flag waving, gettin' hitched young people, picket fences, small town Americana .... Going backward into a mythic yesteryear.

    The entire Republican agenda is to get back to the 1950s culturally and the 1500s spiritually, in some dream world of an American capitalist theocracy under God. Before all that 1960s Leftist liberalism ... and hippies and sexual freedom ... and civli rights and gay rights and women's rights ... and taking prayer outta schools ... and ecology and environmentalism and ... NASA showing Earth as a tiny little planet floating in the cosmic void...

    Before all that stuff, America was great. Just Like Ronnie said. 

     

     

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