Chris Hitchens' Marvelous Opening Statement

[Alan V]

Well, yeah, obviously that was a gorse brush.  I have a dozen in my pantry.  The cats love them.  Of course I knew that. Um, and that was the yellow M&M, right?.  And um...  um,,,  

OK... yeah that one confused the hell out of me.

I was in a silly mood.

[Cavebear]

Well, yeah, obviously that was a gorse brush.  I have a dozen in my pantry.  The cats love them.  Of course I knew that. Um, and that was the yellow M&M, right?.  And um...  um,,,  

OK... yeah that one confused the hell out of me.

I was in a silly mood.

So was I. It is good to do that sometimes.

[Minimalist]

I was re-watching Hitchens destruction of those church fucks and this thought crossed my mind.  What would the Wokeys do to him if he dared to attempt such a dissertation about islam?  The muslims, of course, would lose their fucking minds which would prove Hitchens' point.

[Cavebear]

I was re-watching Hitchens destruction of those church fucks and this thought crossed my mind.  What would the Wokeys do to him if he dared to attempt such a dissertation about islam?  The muslims, of course, would lose their fucking minds which would prove Hitchens' point.

I'm unsure what you mean. Did you mean "anti-wokes"?

As far as I understand the term, it means something like "awareness of the effects of discrimination in history". Which is a relatively neutral thought. Everyone has been discriminated at some time. My ancestors (best as I can tell) were castle serfs. In the Roman Empire, people of every other culture were taken as slaves. In the Viking Age, any European was subject to enslavement. In the days of the Moslem advance into N Africa and Spain, and in the invasions into SE Europe, Christians were often enslaved. In South America, enslavement of defeated neighbors was common. I'm sure it was the same in NA, but historical records are weak (I think). Certainly it was the same in ancient Egypt and In Asia. And obviously it applies to African Americans in the US.

Conservative Republican leaders seem to equate "awareness of history" with "denial of patriotism", which is a real apples and oranges thing. But they repeat it often enough that their supporters start repeating "woke" as a bad thing. Which I don't find surprising.

[Minimalist]

Yes, the original term was an African-American reference to people who understood the history of oppression ( as opposed to the republiKKKunts with their rebel flags and bullshit "it's our heritage" arguments.)  That was fine as far as it went.

But it has morphed into something in which humorless people, usually young, use it to pretend that they are fucking perfect and anyone who disagrees with them must be shunned ( old-school religion style) and worse to a historian like myself, that their absurd notions of what is politically correct have to be applied retroactively to people who lived centuries ago.

Now they sit around and look for things to find offensive so they can whine their asses off about how unfair life is.  I will admit to having lost virtually all patience with them.

As far as I concerned they are the left wing equivalent of:

[Thumpalumpacus]