Category Archives: historical crap

caedite eos

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It’s been reported by both the Washington Post and CNN that Whiskey Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense (not War) has committed either war crime or murder. Well, they didn’t come right out and say that, but they’re reporting he gave orders to “kill everybody” (‘everybody’ in this case refers to the 11 people aboard a civilian vessel allegedly carrying drugs).

Whether it was murder or a war crime depends on whether you 1) buy into the Trump administration’s bullshit argument that the folks on that boat were involved in a “non-international armed conflict” or 2) believe those 11 people were ordinary run-of-the-mill drug smugglers. If you go for Door Number 2, then killing them with a couple of rockets is plain old mass murder. You can’t just execute people you suspect are drug smugglers; you have to go through that whole ‘due process’ business guaranteed by the US Constitution. (Also? Eleven people? On a smuggling run? Them’s some really inefficient smugglers.)

If you buy Door Number 1, then it’s a war crime. It becomes a war crime because the initial rocket attack didn’t kill everybody. Two people survived the first explosion and were clinging to the wreckage when Hegseth (allegedly) ordered a second strike to kill them. The Geneva Conventions clearly state that people who are not capable of engaging in combat due to “sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause” have to be “treated humanely.” Blowing up people clinging to the wreckage of a boat is pretty fucking far from humane.

Either way–murder or war crime–Pete Hegseth ought to be removed from office and…I don’t know, made to cling to some wreckage in the Caribbean.

Mr. P. Hegseth, Secretary of WTF

Hegseth, it seems, sees himself as some sort of modern-day crusader. He has a Jerusalem cross (also known as the crusader cross) tattooed on his chest and the words Deus Vult (God wants it) tattooed on his bicep. Both of that phrase and that symbol can be found on the coat of arms of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem–a militant group of Christian warriors founded in 1099 during the First Crusade to protect Christians and Christian property.

It’s maybe instructive to remember (or learn for the first time) that not all of those famous crusades took place in what are called the holy lands. Nor were they all directed against Muslims. But they were all really really really fucking brutal. For example, the Albigensian Crusade (1209 to 1229) took place in southern France and northern Italy and its purpose was to eliminate the Cathars, a Christian sect considered by the Church (there was only the one recognized Christian church back then) to be heretics.

It was a popular crusade among the ruling classes of the early 13th century because 1) it was a LOT less fuss and expense to go kill people in Europe than to travel all the way to the Middle East, where they spoke different languages and ate strange food, 2) unlike the Muslims, the Cathars were pacifists, so killing them was less dangerous, and 3) you still got cred from the Church for being a Good Christian.

There was a big Cathar community in a town called Béziers on the Mediterranean coast. A crusader army under the command of Arnaud Amalric was sent to deal with them. There was an attempt to get the local Cathars to surrender themselves, but it failed. During the negotiations, a small skirmish got out of hand. Amalric was told that it was impossible to differentiate between the ‘good’ Christians and the Cathars, so he gave the order, “Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius,” which is translated as “Slay them. The Lord knows those that are His.” In other words, kill them all and let God sort it out.

Amalric reported it to the Pope, writing “Our men spared no one, irrespective of rank, sex or age, and put to the sword almost 20,000 people. After this great slaughter the whole city was despoiled and burnt.”

Assuming the reporting is accurate (and given all we know about him, it certainly could be), Hegseth’s order to “Kill everyone” can be seen as a smaller, more modern version of the crusader order, “Caedite eos,” Slay them. If they’re not guilty, God will deal with it. So long as you’re doing God’s work, it’s okay. You can’t make an omelet, and all that.

Three years after the massacre at, Arnaud Amalric was made the archbishop of Narbonne. Three months after sinking that particular boat, Pete Hegseth is facing a Congressional investigation. With Comrade Trump as president, we may soon see Hegseth become an archbishop.

trans-nuremburg

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This is how it begins. Germany in April of 1935. The Reichstag–the national parliament of Nazi Germany–passed the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. This was done to cull specific groups from certain professions. ‘Non-Aryans’ could no longer hold positions in the legal profession, could not be employed within the civil service, could not teach in secondary schools and universities, could not provide medical care, could not work as tax consultants or notaries.

Two years later, September of 1935, two more laws were enacted. The Reich Citizenship Law defined who was allowed to be a citizen of Germany (and more importantly, who was NOT allowed to be a citizen). The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor established who could marry in Germany (and, again, who could NOT).

The purpose of these laws was to designate specific groups of people for exclusion from society, to de-legitimize them as fellow humans. We’re seeing similar efforts from the Trump administration, specifically targeting trans people.

Yesterday Trump issued an executive order called “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” It’s directed at trans youth and the educators who teach them. It essentially forbids teachers from supporting trans youth and promises to punish them (and their school districts) for refusing to obey by withholding federal funding. The entire order is based on lies Trump told his followers during the election.

Trump has also issued an executive order called Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness, which targets trans people serving in the US military. Trump’s order suggests trans troops are somehow unfit to serve. It categorically states:

[A]doption of a gender identity inconsistent with an individual’s sex conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.  A man’s assertion that he is a woman, and his requirement that others honor this falsehood, is not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member. 

This is blatant nonsense in an astonishing number of ways. Here are just a couple. First (and I have to admit I’m not relying on data here, just my impression) I suspect the majority of trans troops are trans men, not trans women–and most certainly NOT ‘a man asserting he is a woman.’ Second, Trump’s executive order claims “shifting pronoun usage or use of pronouns that inaccurately reflect an individual’s sex” hampers troop readiness and effectiveness. That’s blatant bullshit. One of the things the military instills in troops is that the uniform covers all other extraneous individual designations; religion, race, ethnicity, and gender are subsumed by the uniform. Putting on the uniform means abandoning a certain degree of individuality. Troops are troops.

Troops are troops.

Only about 15,000 of the two million military personnel serving on active duty and in the reserves are transgender. But that’s 15,000 people who have voluntarily chosen to serve their nation in the armed forces–which, it must be said, is a duty Donald Trump avoided by claiming he suffered from bone spurs. It’s 15,000 people who aren’t easily replaced. This order will actively disrupt military readiness and harm the very institution Trump claims to be defending.

Beyond that, the ugly fact is that many of the executive orders issued by Trump in his first ten days as POTUS are reminiscent of the laws passed by the Nazis in the 1930s. They’re designed to divide the nation, to direct hostility and hatred at a specific group of people, to blame them for any number of social problems. While these actions target trans people specifically, as with the Nuremburg laws, we can expect them to be expanded to cover all LGBTQ people.

We’re all familiar with Martin Niemöller’s famous quote–the one that begins, “First they came for the communists…” We’re less familiar with Niemöller’s transition from Nazi sympathizer to Nazi opponent. Although he originally supported Hitler (he voted for Nazis in 1924, 1928, and 1933) and was openly antisemitic, Niemöller objected to the inclusion of the ‘Aryan Paragraph’ (a clause added to most civil organizations that excluded ‘non-Aryans’ from participating) in the bylaws of the German Protestant church. That moral and ethical refusal to exclude others caused Niemöller to be interned in various concentration camps from 1938 to 1945.

My point (if you can call it that) is that we need to remember. This is how it begins. First they came for trans people… We need to remember and we need to stand up for the people under assault. Not just because those motherfuckers WILL eventually come for us (which they will), but simply because it’s the right thing to do.

trump and his nazgûl advisors want to take us back to 1798

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Shit’s getting way beyond weird now. We’re moving into deeply scary fascist lunacy. Yesterday Trump posted this:

I will invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to target and dismantle every migrant criminal network operating on American soil.

Okay, we can be confident Trump himself is completely ignorant of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. But some of his Nazgûl advisors are as clever as they are hateful, and they’ve latched onto an ugly 226-year-old chunk of legislation. The Act in question was one of a set of four laws dealing with immigration and speech enacted in response to an undeclared war with the French First Republic (after the fledgling United States decided to stiff France for loans they’d accepted during the American Revolution).

Three of those laws–the Naturalization Act (dealing with the requirements for citizenship), the Alien Friends Act (allowing the imprisonment and deportation of non-citizens), and the Sedition Act (criminalizing false and malicious statements about the government)–are no longer in effect. They were either repealed or allowed to lapse. But the Alien Enemies Act is still, weirdly, in effect. It’s now Chapter 3 under Title 50 of the U.S. Code. It states:

[A]ll natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being of the age of fourteen years and upward, who shall be within the United States and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies.

It was used against the French in that undeclared war in 1798, against the British in the War of 1812, and against Japanese-Americans after the attack on Pearl Harbor at the beginning of World War 2 (and to a much lesser extent, against Germans and Italians after the US entered the war). Don’t ever forget that 82 years ago the US forcibly rounded up approximately 120,000 men, women, and children of Japanese descent, and detained them without trial for around three years.

This hateful fuck will try to end representative democracy in the US.

Could it happen again? Yep. If Trump should win/steal the election and invoke the Alien Enemies Act, it absolutely could happen again. Obviously, the act would be appealed to SCOTUS. Although none of the Acts of 1798 were subjected to judicial review (Marbury v. Madison, which confirmed the concept of judicial review, wasn’t decided until 1803), the few SCOTUS references to the Alien and Sedition Acts have suggested the Court would consider them unconstitutional. But that was before the current Trump Court, which is so far up Trump’s ass that they granted him wide immunity for ‘official’ actions. It’s very possible this Court would allow it.

Remember this: the Act refers to people “not actually naturalized.” To be eligible to begin the naturalization process, you have to have been a permanent resident in the US for at least five years (three years if you are married to a U.S. citizen). Once the process has begun, it still takes around another six months or so to become a citizen. That means people who’ve been living legally in the US for five and a half years could still be detained, confined without trial, and deported by Trump.

This is fucking terrifying on so many levels. Trump back in power, with a cooperative SCOTUS and aides who are dedicated fascists, will do unimaginable damage, not just to the US and representative democracy, but to the entire world.

fairness

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Try to imagine this. A nation in which entities licensed to broadcast news or entertainment to the public were obligated to set aside a certain amount of their broadcast schedule to discuss controversial matters of public concern–and to do so in a way that included different perspectives.

Let’s say there was a television network called Really Good TV. To keep its broadcast license, RGTV created a regularly scheduled program called Really Important Stuff. And let’s also say there was a public controversy involving…I don’t know, maybe the overpopulation of parrots. RGTV’s Really Important Stuff show might do a segment in which people would discuss whether overpopulation of parrots was a critical issue, and if it was, how it might be handled. They’d include folks who very much enjoyed all the parrots and didn’t think it was a problem, and folks who totally fucking hated parrots and felt they should be poisoned at government expense, and folks who felt the best solution to parrot overpopulation was to allow them to be hunted for sport, and folks who felt parrots should be captured and neutered and released back into the city. Every main point of view would be included in the discussion, and viewers would be allowed to evaluate those positions and make up their own minds.

Reader, we actually used to live in that nation. We really did.

In 1927, Congress decided the agency that regulated federal communications (back then it was the Federal Radio Commission) should only issue broadcast licenses when doing so serves the public interest. Not private interests, not corporate interests, not the interests of the rich, not the interests of a particular political party. The public interest. In 1949, the Federal Communications Commission (which expanded the FRC to include television) created a policy that required the holders of broadcast licenses to 1) present controversial issues of public importance AND 2) to do so in a manner that fairly reflected differing viewpoints. It was called, appropriately, the Fairness Doctrine.

And hey, it worked. Television and radio stations were allowed to decide for themselves HOW to implement the doctrine; they could do it through news segments, or public affairs shows, or through editorials. Nor were the stations required to provide equal time for the various opposing views. But they had to devote some time to important public issues and they had to present contrasting viewpoints.

It didn’t always work smoothly, but it worked. In 1969, for example, the FCC yanked the broadcast license from WLBT television in Mississippi (an NBC affiliate station) because the station’s overtly segregationist politics shaped their decision to refuse to broadcast NBC’s coverage of the civil rights movement.

News media ‘free speech’ includes misleading information & lying.

Think about that for a moment. A local NBC news station refused to show news coverage of the civil rights movement created by NBC–coverage of a nationally important topic–because the owners/staff of that local station opposed civil rights. That local station didn’t have to agree with the coverage (and clearly, they didn’t; WLBT broadcast the Citizens’ Council Forum, a syndicated series of fifteen-minute interviews with segregationists). But they needed to present the issue fairly to their audience, about half of which was Black. When the station refused, the FCC punished them by taking away their broadcast license.

It was a powerful statement by the government that important public issues broadcast on public airwaves needed to be addressed fairly, and that meant including differing perspectives held by the public.

What happened to the Fairness Doctrine? One of the two dominant political parties felt oppressed by having to present opposing points of view. Care to guess which one?

President Ronald Reagan, in the mid-1980s, appointed three new commissioners to the FCC (the fourth had been appointed by Richard Nixon). They issued a report stating the Fairness Doctrine actually harmed the public interest by violating the 1st Amendment protection of free speech. Seriously. The FCC commissioners argued the free speech rights of political entities were diminished by requiring opposing views to be presented to the public. They voted unanimously to abandon the Fairness Doctrine.

Congress, believe it or not, disagreed with the FCC decision. It’s difficult to imagine now, given the current level of hyper-partisanship, but back then both houses of Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, voted to enact the Fairness Doctrine into law (previously it had only been an FCC policy).

Not surprisingly, Reagan (who, again, engineered the destruction of the Fairness Doctrine) vetoed the legislation. Congress failed to overturn the veto. The FCC decision was implemented. By the summer of 1987, the Fairness Doctrine was dead. Dead as the Wicked Witch of the East–not only merely dead, but really most sincerely dead.

About a year later, in the summer of 1988, radio broadcaster Rush Limbaugh began his new radio show at WABC-AM in New York. In 1991, Democrats attempted to revive legislation to make the Fairness Doctrine law. That failed when President George H.W. Bush announced he would veto the law. In 1996, Rupert Murdoch and former Republican Party political strategist Roger Ailes launched Fox News.

Do the math.

surrendered

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Confederates: Okay, okay, you “won” the war. We give up.
Union: About time.
C: So basically you’re saying we can’t own black people anymore.
U: You can’t own ANY people.
C: What about Indians?
U: No, you can’t own native people.
C: Mexic…
U: No.
C: …
U: …


C: How about if we just keep them poor?
U: Why would you do that?
C: Somebody has to do all the shit jobs, right?
U: Well…
C: And we can provide them with alcohol and drugs.
U: Again, why would you…
C: For their own good. Look, they’re going to be doing shit jobs all day for little or no money. You don’t want to give them a little something to ease their pain?
U: Well, when you put it…
C: C’mon, it’ll give them something to sing about.
U: I dunno. I guess it would…
C: Good. We’re agreed.
U: If it’ll stop all the fighting, sure.
C: We’re not going to let those fuckers vote, though.
U: sigh

yes, i have a thing for bollards

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I don’t know when it started, this thing for bollards. Out of curiosity, I did a quick search through my digital photographs and found a photograph of a bollard from 2007. I know I’ve shot photos of bollards with film cameras, including instant film cameras. I’ve photographed them in color and in black-and-white, in several formats (square, 3:2, 4:3), in all sorts of environments, in all manner of weather, using whatever camera I happened to have at hand. So yeah, my bollard fascination has been active for at least a couple of decades.

Why bollards? No idea. I mean, sure, I can come up with lots of justifications for why I photograph them. They’re an interesting compositional form. They’re often present in uniform groups, so there can be a nice repetitive element to them. They’re frequently painted in bright colors—and when they’re not, when they’re old and battered with weathered paint, they can add a sort of wabi-sabi aura to an image.

But like I said, those are justifications for including them in a photo. The fact is, I’ve no idea when or why bollards as a concept attached themselves to my brain like some sort of remora. What’s weird—well, one of the many weird things—is that so many other folks are aware of my interest in and affection for bollards. I’ve had friends from all over the globe shoot and photographs of the local bollards they encounter just for my interest. Do I talk about bollards that much? I guess I must.

Maybe my interest in bollards attracted the attention of other folks partly because so many people had no idea that all those banged up ‘posts’ they see everywhere every day actually have a name. Bollard, it comes from the Old Norse term bolr, meaning “the trunk of a tree”, and the suffix -ard, which generally acts as an attributive pejorative intensifier (as in ‘coward’ being one who cowers, or ‘drunkard’ being one who is often drunk, or even ‘bastard’ which originally referred to “someone conceived on a pack-saddle” (French bast), since they were used as makeshift beds).

Originally, bollards were tree trunks used by Vikings to moor their ships and boats. Over time, the term was used to describe the posts on docks used for that same purpose. By the early 1700s, urban bollards began to be used to constrain horse and wagon traffic. Now the term bollard is applied mostly to posts used to protect objects (or people) from being struck by carelessly driven vehicles.

Bollards are everywhere. The fact that they’re ubiquitous makes them almost invisible. Unless, of course, you look for them. Some bollards are decorative—brightly colored or metallic and shiny. Some are sort of disguised; there’s a small, family-owned ice cream joint not too far from where I live that has bollards shaped like ice cream cones. But most bollards are plain, unadorned, simple, practical, utilitarian. They’re not there to please the eye, but to serve a purpose.

In my mind, bollards are sort of heroic. Yes, that’s right…I’ve romanticized bollards. I find a weird, sad, lonely, powerful beauty in them. They may be weather-beaten, banged up, isolated and ignored, damaged, with chipped paint, but they’re still standing there, doing their job. Protecting stuff.

No matter how abused or battered they are, bollards provide the illusion of permanence. They’re fucking solid. But at the same time, the very fact that they’re so often damaged exposes the lie of permanence. Bollards will stand a very long time, but eventually they’ll be removed and replaced. And very likely, nobody will notice when that happens.

I’m also attracted to bollards because they’re excellent examples of the humanness of things. They’re thoughtful, deliberate infrastructure. Somebody deliberately put them where they are. Somebody decided there was something that needed to be protected, and chose a specific type of bollard to be placed in specific patterns to keep that ‘something’ safe. The humanness of things is always there, if you look for it.

So, yeah, bollards. They’re not pretty. They’re common, unrefined, even crude. They don’t need your respect. But they deserve it.

in which I stray somewhat from the topic

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Jeebus fuck a pumpkin, can you believe every single member of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives voted to open a formal ‘impeachment inquiry’ against President Uncle Joe? I mean, yes, of course you can believe it because the GOP is no longer a legitimate political party, and hasn’t been for years…but can you fucking believe it?

Sure, it’s entirely symbolic. Sure, it’s just performative politics. Sure, it doesn’t change a damned thing. Sure, we’re accustomed to this sort of Republican skullduggery. And sure…wait. Hold on a minute.

Okay, here’s a thing I just learned: there’s only one L in skulduggery. Who knew? Skulduggery, of course, is a term used to describe all manner of unscrupulous, underhanded, or dishonest behavior—which makes it appropriate for the GOP. Another thing I just learned: skulduggery has nothing whatsoever to do with skulls, which is both a relief and a wee bit disappointing.

The term apparently comes from an old Scots word, sculdudrie, which referred to a certain laxity in regard to chastity—which, coincidentally, also makes it applicable to the modern GOP. The term has been described as “a euphemism of uncertain origin,” although some etymologists seem to think it may have been used as a legal term of art in the early-to-mid 1800s. And let’s face it, considering how weird Scottish law has been throughout history, that wouldn’t be very surprising.

Remember, Scotland—and particularly Edinburgh—was one of the centers of anatomical study back at the time sculdudrie would have been used in law. Dissections of human bodies were often performed in front of an audience (I am NOT making this up) made up of medical students and interested members of the public. Scottish law limited the origin of cadavers used for medical research; they could only come from suicide victims, foundlings, orphans, or inmates who’d died in prison. When legal cadavers became scarce, anatomists began buying corpses from ‘resurrection men.’ Which is a nicer way of saying ‘grave robbers.’ Under Scottish law at the time, it was illegal to disturb a grave. And it was illegal to steal the possessions of the dead. But actually selling a dead body was perfectly legal.

You can see how this might lead to some skulduggery (even though it’s got nothing to do with skulls). In fact, that’s how the case of Burke and Hare got started. William Hare owned a lodging house in Edinburgh. When one of his lodgers died, he and a buddy, William Hare, sold the corpse to famed anatomist Robert Fox. Later, when another lodger became ill with a fever, Burke and Hare decided not to wait for her to die. They smothered her and sold her cadaver. In the end, they apparently supplied a total of sixteen fresh corpses to Dr. Fox.

Burke, Hare, and both their wives (who were at least aware of their crimes) were arrested. Hare agreed to testify against Burke in exchange for immunity from prosecution. And since Scottish law prevented him from testifying against his wife, the case against her was dismissed. Burke was found guilty at trial. The verdict against his common-law wife was ‘not proven’ which is another weird aspect of Scottish law; it’s a verdict that basically says “Yeah, we know you did it, but the State didn’t prove it, so off you go.”

Burke was hanged and his body was given to an anatomist and was dissected in front of an audience. His skeleton is on display (I swear I am NOT making this up) at the Anatomical Museum of the University of Edinburgh Medical School.

Uh…I seem to have gone off on a slight tangent. It wouldn’t be very difficult to find a way to compare the GOP to Burke and Hare or to compare the absurd impeachment ‘inquiry’ to grave robbery. Hell, I could even find a way to compare the public dissection of William Burke to the trial of Donald Trump, since both of those motherfuckers deserve to be flayed in front of an audience. But I think I’ve probably tried your patience long enough.

naw, wasn’t zorro

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According to the patriots on FreeRepublic, history has been destroyed. Again. The first time it was destroyed was in July of 2021, when the statue of…somebody, I can’t quite remember who…was removed from the Market Street Park (I think the park used to be named for a person, but nobody seems to know who that person was) in Charlottesville, North Carolina.

You may (or possibly you’re unable to) remember back in 2017 when that statue was first ordered to be removed. A group of white supremacists, neo-Confederates, neo-fascists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and far-right militias gathered in a Unite the Right rally to protest the removal. A counter-protest ended when one of the white nationalists drove his car into the crowd, killing one and wounding 35.

The statue…I think there was a horse involved, maybe?…was apparently removed (assuming it actually ever existed, who can say?) and put into storage. No reputable museum wanted to take possession of a large bronze statue of…some random guy who was maybe riding a horse. The statue was ordered to be destroyed–melted so the metal could be repurposed to create a new statue of somebody or something else.

There were a number of lawsuits opposed to the destruction of the statue of…whoever it was. Somebody with a horse; I’m certain there was a horse in it. A cowboy, maybe? Possibly a circus performer? Anyway, those lawsuits failed and recently…wait. Pony Express rider! I’m just guessing here, but that’s a real possibility.

Doesn’t matter. The lawsuits failed and just a few days ago, history was re-destroyed when the statue was melted and this person, whoever he…or she, or they (which seems more than likely because really, there’s a BIG push to remove non-binary people from history) was became completely and utterly erased from history. Nobody will ever know who they were, or what war they lost, or which nation they betrayed.

Oooh, Zorro! And his horse Tornado! I bet it was probably…but no. I remember Zorro. Don Diego de la Vega, in his mask and that wonderful sombrero cordobés, fighting valiantly against the corrupt and tyrannical officials of California. So no, not him. Whoever the statue was of, I’m guessing that person wasn’t fighting for justice.