Hollywood and the Inauguration

It's almost here.  January 20, 2017, is the date on which eight years of mediocrity ends and a new administration takes over the country.  Glory, glory Hallelujah.

Of course, that perspective is in the distinct minority, if one listens to the proclamations coming out of Hollywood.  To hear them tell it, the world is ending on January 20.  That's right, the Mayans had it all wrong:  When Donald Trump takes the oath of office, the world is coming to an end.

Anxious to prevent the world from ending, Hollywood is mobilizing because, as we all know, Hollywood is so adept at making the right choices come to life.  It's never wrong, it's beyond reproach.  Because people who play make believe for a living are more qualified than the rest of us to determine what's best for us, what's best for the country and what's best for the world.


As we near January 20, the protests and outcries are ramping up.  Meryl Streep used the Golden Globes as a platform to audition for the remake of Joan of Arc (whenever that's made).  A group of concerned citizens actors recited or sang lines to Gloria Gaynor's I Will Survive as they emoted for the cameras.  Luminaries such as Rosie O'Donnell and Michael Moore are trying to stop the inauguration.  It's all so worrisome that production in Hollywood must have come to a halt considering how many ad hoc PSA's these folks are making.

A week ago Kerry Washington took this hysteria to a different level, averring that I was in the Obama administration and that less than a quarter of the country voted for the President elect.  I had to reread the article a couple of times to make sure I'd read it correctly.  First of all, I wasn't aware that she was ever in the Obama administration.  I know her leanings and her activism on his behalf, but I was unaware that she gave up making a dopey show and became a politician in real life.  I checked her Wiki page but couldn't come up with anything other than her participation on a couple of program's boards.  An online search also proved fruitless for proof that the self-important Ms. Washington was in fact in the Obama administration.

More troubling, from a Common Core perspective, is her assertion that Mr. Trump received less than a quarter of the electorate's vote.  I suppose that's true in a vacuum, but the unspoken assertion is that his opponent, Cankles, received more than a quarter.  And although that may be true, mathematically, she barely received more of the popular vote -- barely over a quarter of the electorate -- with nearly three quarters of the country choosing not to vote for her.  This implied landslide in favor of Cankles just won't wash; moreover, it ignores the Electoral College entirely.  Smoke and mirrors, people, make believe.  That's what these people do.

So as the gnashing of teeth, rending of garments and tearing out of hair builds toward its expected apogee this Friday, remember that the people leading this see themselves as heirs of the Lauren Bacalls, the Charlton Hestons, the Humphrey Bogarts and other actors who defied a real demon, Joe McCarthy.  They think that just because they inhabit Hollywood, they are imbued with knowledge the rest of us can't possess.  Their views are the correct ones; the views of us who support the PEOTUS (I love that acronym!) must either rise up and sing La Marseillaise at a barricade or sit in our homes with the doors and windows shut, truly deplorable. 

Let them have their tragedy.  Let them have their agony.

I'll pop more popcorn and put my feet up.

This will be the first inauguration I'll actually watch.

(c) 2017 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Hate Crimes Revisited

I've touched on this topic before, but we've reached a new level of absurdity.  Last week, four thugs in Chicago kidnapped and tortured a developmentally challenged young man and broadcast their crime on Facebook.  Leaving aside the stupidity of what they did by broadcasting it live on the internet, the crime is about as heinous as it gets:  They beat and cut the man up, using a box cutter to scalp him, in a way, and broadcast their misdeeds live on the internet.  Certainly, by any measure, these four miscreants committed crimes.

But the hang-up centers on whether the four should also be charged with a hate crime.  By virtue of the races involved -- the four criminals are black, the victim white -- there isn't enough to go on.  Yet in the video -- no one ever claimed these were criminal masterminds -- the criminals can be heard yelling, among other things, Fuck white people!  Given that the victim is white and the criminals black, that sure seems like enough with which to charge them with a hate crime.

Yet, the dithering began almost immediately.  The Chicago Police Department spokesman, when asked whether the four would be charged with hate crimes, equivocated.  Worse yet, however, was the reaction of the reliably tolerant -- when whites or police are the victims -- MSM, who bent over backwards in some quarters to explain why this crime wasn't inspired by racial hatred.

Foremost among the naysayers was Don Lemon of CNN, who didn't think what these four criminals did was evil.  No, he insisted, this wasn't evil.  It was, he averred, the product of bad home training.

Yes, you read that right. 

Bad home training.

Almost equally as obtuse was Symone Sanders, late of the failed Bernie Sanders presidential campaign and a CNN contributor.  Apparently, learning how to deflect reality into theory is a class taught at CNN, because Ms. Sanders used twisted logic to declare:  We can’t callously call things hate crime,” Sanders said. “Is this hate for Donald Trump or pure hate of white people? That matters.”

That's right, people, just because someone says Fuck white people doesn't mean there's hatred of white people involved. 

Of course, Ms. Sanders left herself wiggle room by stating that it has to be pure hate of white people, whatever that means (wouldn't it be impure?).  No, this could be tied to hatred of Donald Trump, and using this very convoluted logic, the four would be exempted from hate crime charges if they can tie their crimes to hatred of Donald Trump and not hatred of white people in general.

Isn't this getting just a little bit silly? 

But more importantly, when is it all right to charge a minority with a hate crime?  Would it have made any difference were the victim a fellow minority, say a Latino, and the criminals shouted Fuck Latinos?  Is there ever a scenario in which minorities -- blacks, specifically -- can be charged with hate crimes, or are they exempt somehow?

What certain people fail to realize is that if they want to be considered equals in society -- which, frankly, they are already -- they have to be equal not only with the good things but also with the bad things.  They can't pick and choose equality.  For whatever reason, they seem to want only the good things equality brings.  When things like this case occur, they must be held to the same standard as their white brethren.  The crime was a shameful and hideous example of man's inhumanity to man.

The attempts by these wannabe sociologists and criminologists are shameful and hideous examples of mans stupidity and idiocy toward their fellow man.

(c) 2017 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles