The Rhetoric of Atrocity

 So this happened:

It's not anything new. In Europe, starting about 300 AD, everyone "knew" that Jews killed Christian babies and small children and ate their bodies, or used the blood to make matzos.

In the 17th century, when Oliver Cromwell was invading Ireland, everyone in England "knew" that the Irish rebels were cutting open pregnant women, pulling out their unborn babies, and beating the fetuses to death on rocks.

In the 18th century, Benjamin Franklin made up stories about the American Indians slaughtering women and children which are still believed today.

During WWI, stories circulated in England and America about German soldiers crucifying people and cutting the hands off babies and the breasts off nuns.

And of course, during the run-up to our attack on Iraq, stories were invented about Iraqi soldiers pulling babies from incubators and committing other hideous acts (torturing children, cutting off people's ears, and so on).

None of this was true. Often -- as with the Iraqi solders -- it was propaganda deliberately created to appall and anger people, in order to increase support for violent and genuinely atrocity-ridden attacks on the "enemy." (See the behavior of Cromwell's forces in Ireland, or of US soldiers against American Indian communities.)

So when "Pro-life" people circulate stories about how "liberals" murder babies, or kidnap children and rape them, or even eat them (stories that have been circulating among MAGA Americans for some time now), that's probably something that should worry us.

When the president of our country repeats this atrocity propaganda, that's definitely something that should concern us.

This isn't just whackiness from those loons on the Right. This is an attempt to demonize their enemy. You demonize the enemy so that you can justify your own vicious and violent attacks on that enemy.

That's what conservatives are doing now. That's what they've been doing for the past decade. 

Don't be confused about where this is leading.

See also: Constant propaganda about how trans people are "recruiting" children, or "corrupting" the morals of the country, or destroying the universities, or "chopping the penises" off of "babies" or

About Those Milkshakes...

So "Conservatives" have been playing this milkshake lie for all it's worth.

The conspiracy theory is evolving. Someone is absolutely going to be killed for holding a milkshake pic.twitter.com/OaNtSWSk0E

— Theynessee Pete (@Tennessee_Pete) July 2, 2019

(See more here:

https://twitter.com/Tennessee_Pete/status/1146028991121375232)

In case you aren't in the loop, what happened was Andy Ngo. that font of propaganda, pretended he'd been hit with a milkshake -- which as we know is the worst thing that can happen to a fascist these days -- and then someone else, probably another MAGA American, claimed Antifa members (you can't actually be a "member" of antifa, but never mind) were mixing cement into the milkshakes.

Then it became "quick-drying" cement.

Now it's quick-drying cement and battery acid.

None of this is true (see this article, but you have to go waaay down to find the paragraph where they admit it never happened), but as we are learning, if you're a "conservative" these days, you don't care what's true. You don't care if what you're telling people is not just a lie, but a silly lie.

You only care whether or not what you're saying justifies your bigotry, your hatred, and your ignorance.

See this thread for more: Thread starts here

(Scare quotes around conservative throughout because -- of course -- these aren't actually conservatives. They're reactionary fascists. Not to mention vile heaps of trash.)