You are here to make the pageantry look good

Aldous Pennyfarthing of the Daily Kos community discussed the new book ban in Iowa and the growing fallout from it. As for some of the books banned Pennyfarthing quoted what I think is a press release from the Iowa legislature:

This week, the Iowa City Community School District released a list of 68 books that it removed from schools to comply with the law. Among the titles: “Ulysses” by James Joyce, “Nineteen Minutes” by Jodi Picoult, “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood and “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison. ... Beyond Iowa City, the Des Moines Register reports that school districts across the state have removed hundreds of books from their school libraries, also in response to that law. Among these titles: “1984” by George Orwell, “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley, “Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut and “Forrest Gump” by Winston Groom.

Pennyfarthing wonders why the Bible hasn’t been banned for sex acts. I guess I wasn’t aware how steamy that book can get. This post includes the text of Ezekiel 23:16-21 and ... I’ll let you read it for yourself. Pennyfarthing reminds us that 70% of parents oppose book banning, but the remainder tend to be really loud, so school districts might “err on the side of caution.” Pennyfarthing concludes:

Of course, this movement is likely far less about preventing kids from discovering the existence of sex than keeping them from thinking for themselves—and challenging a Christian dominionist worldview. After all, if you read “The Handmaid’s Tale” and are more focused on the “sex scenes” than the message, you really are a pervert.

Tom Gauld tweeted a cartoon he titled, “The shocking truth of what is going on in our public libraries!” There are four scenes with captions:

A friend recommends a book. “Teens prescribed mind-altering experiences!” An adult reads to children. “Children indoctrinated from an early age!” A youth checks out some books. “Free samples distributed to promote addiction!” A sign for a book club meeting. “Groups gather by night to study arcane texts!”

I had lunch with my friend and debate partner today. At one point in our discussions we had to think to tally all the trials the nasty guy is facing. We got into that topic because Sidney Powell, sometimes known as the kraken and was quite active in spreading election conspiracy theories after the 2020 election, has, in the words of Mark Sumner of Kos, been “harpooned.” Meaning she plead guilty and took a deal of probation to escape her own trial. In return she will be a witness against many of her co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case. That includes the nasty guy. This is quite good news! The other person who asked for a speedy trial is Kenneth Chesebro. His trial begins Monday. Though he played a small part in the whole scheme my friend said the prosecutors have to lay out the entire case, so the trial could take five months. Oh, wait! About the time my friend and I sat down to lunch an Associated Press article was posted on Kos that reports Chesebro also plead guilty. He will also assist the prosecution. So that five month trial is avoided, saving all the evidence for a future five month trial for the nasty guy and the other 16 remaining defendants. It also keeps the prosecution’s trial strategy secret for a while longer. Between now and when the big trial starts hopefully more of those defendants will decide to flip. Sumner provides more detail of Chesebro’s plea deal. Sumner asked why Chesebro seemed to get so little punishment. The answer is, as it is in many cases like this, he is a very valuable witness for the prosecution. He’s more valuable that Powell because there are a lot of videos out there of her saying some mighty weird stuff. Defense could easily say that stuff is so weird one can’t trust anything she says. My friend and I also talked about the situation in the House. Joan McCarter of Kos did a liveblog of what happened. There was another vote on whether Jim Jordan should be Speaker. He lost 25 Republican votes, more than the previous two votes. So Republicans went into a closed-door session and held a secret ballot on whether Jordan should continue his quest or drop out. That vote – remember, it was secret – Jordan lost 86-112, significantly more voted against him than in the public vote. So Jordan is no longer the candidate for Speaker. And other candidates are announcing themselves. One of them is Jack Bergman, whose district covers Michigan’s Upper Peninsula and a good chunk of the north end of the Lower. And Michigan Radio says he took part in some aspect of 2020 election denialism. So Republicans will take the weekend for these new candidates to do their thing with a caucus meeting sometime Monday or Tuesday and a floor vote shortly after that. Rivers posted a cartoon of an old man sitting on a porch with his hand on his dog. He says, “It’s OK Rex... after all the weirdness of this year – the weather, the fires, UAPs, threats of nuclear war and a massive internet attack – I’ve been sort of expecting a portal to another dimension to open up in front of our house...” Back on September 1st Laura Clawson of Kos posted a story about 15 year old Quinn Mitchell of New Hampshire asking a question to candidate Ron DeathSantis. The candidate stumbled over the answer. And then campaign staff and security intimidated Mitchell. The candidate’s wife also got involved and told the boy’s mother, trying to speak mom to mom, the lad had been lying to her about what happened. On October 16th, and I’m puzzled by the six week delay, Hunter of Kos took up the story, this time from Mitchell’s side. The lad has a political podcast and has been asking smart questions of politicians for four years. Politicians respond because they know the value of engaging a teenager. Hunter wrote:

There are a whole host of important life lessons here for Mitchell, but the most pertinent one is that asking "hard questions" of Republican political leaders will immediately get you accused of being an enemy—a Democrat. You are not here to ask hard questions. You are here to make the pageantry for America's Next Dear Leader look good, and by God if you make one of the party's more powerful figures look bad even once you will be labeled, as Donald Trump so often puts it, an "enemy of the state."

About that “hard” question...

The question that caused DeSantis to fall flat on his authoritarian ass, for example, was: “Do you believe that Trump violated the peaceful transfer of power, a key principle of American democracy that we must uphold?” The obviously correct answer is "yes." Politically expedient lies would either be "yes, but" or "no." It's not this kid's fault that DeSantis descended into paranoid gibberish, whining, "I wasn't anywhere near Washington that day" or "I have nothing to do with what happened that day," as if Mitchell was trying to Columbo him into a criminal confession. Nobody could have expected that the petty Florida tyrant would crumble so completely.

With the intimidation Mitchell got he has a dilemma. Play nice (as in lobbing only softball questions) with Republican candidates or be banned from Republican events. An AP article posted on Kos on October 7 discusses the growing number of young people identifying as nones – those that check “none” with asked “What’s your religion?” A recent survey puts them at 30% of US adults.

While the nones’ diversity splinters them into myriad subgroups, most of them have this in common: They. Really. Don’t. Like. Organized. Religion. Nor its leaders. Nor its politics and social stances. That’s according to a large majority of nones in the AP-NORC survey. But they’re not just a statistic. They're real people with unique relationships to belief and nonbelief, and the meaning of life.

The article then features a wide variety of young adults who claim the “none” designation. Some stories are about their bad encounters with organized religion. Others are about their alternate methods of expressing spirituality or finding community. One comment I heard last weekend at my church conference (notes still being typed) was that as our youth walk out the door we should ask them why they’re leaving. Then we should listen to their answers. They can tell us what we need to do to fix our churches.