This was great. Been a long-time PBS supporter but just yesterday for the first time ever I had to turn off the latest American Experience “Mr. Polaroid” doc because it felt so blatantly brand and capitalism pushing. The tone was just creepy. If they edited the Spiegelman doc on my other favorite series there it is such scary obeying in advance bullshit.
Thanks for commenting. You know, even though you didn't watch/listen to the whole thing, it's still a valid subject for Everyone's A Critic. In fact, this rare impulse to turn the thing off makes it more valuable for investigation, I would think, not less.
Good point! Thank you. Lol you referenced my abandoned substack and at first I didn’t even catch that… I will go back and investigate the doc. And thank you also for promoting me to go back to my writing. ❤️
The irony here, I'm conviced, is that the movers and shakers of the Republicant Party, the donor class, those who get the pro quo for their quid, don't give the first flying fuck about trans people one way or another. Their platform consists of two (and only two) planks; shifting the tax burdern away from themselves and onto the backs of the middle and lower classes, and eliminating any regulations that cost them an extra nickel to comply with. That's their entire agenda.
Their problem, of course, is that their agenda would lose in a one-on-one popularity contest with genital herpes.
So their political operatives are compelled to gin up a series of wedge issues that appeal to the prejudices of their base (in every sense of the word) supporters. Gays, trans people, immigrants, women, PoC, et al are only useful to them as a class of people to be "othered" and presented as political punching bags. They would happily send every trans person to the gas chamber, if it meant Proctor & Gamble could report a tiny uptick in quarterly "earnings."
I call it ironic because of the imbalance in concern; to us (ALL of us) they are an existential threat, while to them, we are simply immaterial.
Absolutely 100%, Smibo. Friends and fam look so confused when I mention this (“but wait they really hate us”). To which I say: yes that’s true; these aren’t tidy, non-overlapping Venn-ish circles. But the driver, at the tippy top, is greed. And the targets are borne from expediency and strategy. Still evil. Still immoral. Still ripe for toppling.
This post was so good that I would have subscribed right now to your substack if you were writing one. If you do start putting up essays, let me know. I imagine I'd want to promote at least some of them.
Aloha CD! Hope you are on the mend. Thank you for the latest. Your writing, as always, but especially today is so on point. I could not agree with you more that as long as any segment of our marginalized society is under attack, we are all under attack. For a long time I did not think it was a hard one to figure out. Over the last 10 years it has become obvious that many in our society only see that which affects them and are incapable of connecting the dots. We absolutely need writers such as yourself to help us all with this making the connections. Keep it up! Mahalo!
Thank you, Crip! What do they think is going to happen when everyone is pushed into the underground? There are already very many people very much on edge, and sparks are flying relentlessly towards the fuse of the powder keg.
This is an extremely, extremely good and important article. And I have often wanted to say this to folks too...bigotry hurts more than the target. In the case of transphobia, one of the larger groups of people harmed by it are cis women. Because then your womanhood is based upon the local bigotry of whomever is interrogating you. The Nancy Mace Effect, if you will.
We are ALL FREE, or none of us are free.
As the Wobblies put it, "an injury to one is an injury to all".
This was great. Been a long-time PBS supporter but just yesterday for the first time ever I had to turn off the latest American Experience “Mr. Polaroid” doc because it felt so blatantly brand and capitalism pushing. The tone was just creepy. If they edited the Spiegelman doc on my other favorite series there it is such scary obeying in advance bullshit.
Thanks for commenting. You know, even though you didn't watch/listen to the whole thing, it's still a valid subject for Everyone's A Critic. In fact, this rare impulse to turn the thing off makes it more valuable for investigation, I would think, not less.
Good point! Thank you. Lol you referenced my abandoned substack and at first I didn’t even catch that… I will go back and investigate the doc. And thank you also for promoting me to go back to my writing. ❤️
>> thank you also for promoting me to go back to my writing <<
No problem. We're all in it together.
Damn right! (And merely obvious.)
Goddamn, CD.
I would say you should be ill more often, if this is how you come roaring back....but of course you shouldn't. We missed you. This is brilliant.
>> but of course you shouldn't <<
It's still a good joke. I am happy to take it in the spirit intended.
The irony here, I'm conviced, is that the movers and shakers of the Republicant Party, the donor class, those who get the pro quo for their quid, don't give the first flying fuck about trans people one way or another. Their platform consists of two (and only two) planks; shifting the tax burdern away from themselves and onto the backs of the middle and lower classes, and eliminating any regulations that cost them an extra nickel to comply with. That's their entire agenda.
Their problem, of course, is that their agenda would lose in a one-on-one popularity contest with genital herpes.
So their political operatives are compelled to gin up a series of wedge issues that appeal to the prejudices of their base (in every sense of the word) supporters. Gays, trans people, immigrants, women, PoC, et al are only useful to them as a class of people to be "othered" and presented as political punching bags. They would happily send every trans person to the gas chamber, if it meant Proctor & Gamble could report a tiny uptick in quarterly "earnings."
I call it ironic because of the imbalance in concern; to us (ALL of us) they are an existential threat, while to them, we are simply immaterial.
Absolutely 100%, Smibo. Friends and fam look so confused when I mention this (“but wait they really hate us”). To which I say: yes that’s true; these aren’t tidy, non-overlapping Venn-ish circles. But the driver, at the tippy top, is greed. And the targets are borne from expediency and strategy. Still evil. Still immoral. Still ripe for toppling.
This post was so good that I would have subscribed right now to your substack if you were writing one. If you do start putting up essays, let me know. I imagine I'd want to promote at least some of them.
I'm flattered, Crip; That's high praise indeed, coming from such an eloquent writer as yourself!
Aloha CD! Hope you are on the mend. Thank you for the latest. Your writing, as always, but especially today is so on point. I could not agree with you more that as long as any segment of our marginalized society is under attack, we are all under attack. For a long time I did not think it was a hard one to figure out. Over the last 10 years it has become obvious that many in our society only see that which affects them and are incapable of connecting the dots. We absolutely need writers such as yourself to help us all with this making the connections. Keep it up! Mahalo!
I love every note I get from you. You are always so kind and encouraging. Thank you. From the bottom of my cynicism-shrivelled heart.
Thank you, Crip! What do they think is going to happen when everyone is pushed into the underground? There are already very many people very much on edge, and sparks are flying relentlessly towards the fuse of the powder keg.
This is an extremely, extremely good and important article. And I have often wanted to say this to folks too...bigotry hurts more than the target. In the case of transphobia, one of the larger groups of people harmed by it are cis women. Because then your womanhood is based upon the local bigotry of whomever is interrogating you. The Nancy Mace Effect, if you will.