This news is a couple of days old but it's still making me angry, so...

[giandujakiss]

Just in case anyone missed it -

Here are the "top 10" most disturbing charges in the DOJ lawsuit against Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona, who purportedly has been terrorizing Latinos for years. And the thing that kills me aren't that these things happened, but that this guy has been in power for so damn long. It's like something out of the 1950s Dixie South. You keep expecting Gene Hackman or maybe Ned Beatty to show up in some capacity.

Meanwhile, Catholic bishops are investigating the Girl Scouts over their affiliations with the Sierra Club, Doctors Without Borders, and Oxfam. There is no word in that sentence that does not leave me speechless. Or at least, that does not leave me without speech except for words that would be inappropriate for a family blog.

Comments

[sapote]

Except that Arpaio has a reality show and has been on Colbert. I have written furious letters etc. over that man but he is in that category where I just feel so helpless that I have extended fantasies of driving to Arizona and punching him in the face.

[sapote]

(which I have notably not acted on partially because it would be hugely impractical, partially because I would probably just get shot, and partially because we went and invented all this due process so that people wouldn't just physically assault people they hate oh WAIT that's the core of the grievance here)

[giandujakiss]

Oh no - we invented all this due process so that government actors couldn't just physically assault people they hate. You're a private citizen, you can punch people all day long without violating their due process rights.

[sapote]

... TRUE.

I honestly have to wonder if this is even commensurate to the Dixie South, honestly. I am going to look into this more: I don't know if during the immediate pre-Civil Rights era the stated goal was ever actual removal of an ethnic group from a state (I'm not asserting that that's true; like I said, I'll look into this). I know in Arizona the fact that Latino people are leaving in droves is actually held up by a lot of people as proof that these kinds of actions are successful.

[jadelennox]

I would be your getaway driver if I could drive. I hate him so much I can't parse my own rage.

[akamarykate]

At this point--and I say this as a semi-practicing Catholic--I'm convinced the church hierarchy is messing around with the motes in other groups' eyes to keep them from seeing that big honking beam lodged in the eyes of the bishops, cardinals, and popes.

The Girl Scouts? The Sierra Club? Seriously?

There are GS troops in every. single. Catholic school. in this city. And this city (Omaha) has a LOT of Catholic schools.

I just...don't see this ending well. They're going to push every remotely thoughtful, moderate, open-minded Catholic away, and that seems to be what they want--but I shudder to think what will be left in the pews on Sunday mornings if the bishops and the Vatican get their way.

[niqaeli]

I despair of ever getting that fucker out of office, at this point. It's like a nightmare, but my state has never woken up from it.

I have been hoping since I moved here, the better part of a decade ago, that he will choke to death on a tortilla chip. (He doesn't deserve any more dignified an end than that.)

[mikeneko]

Ridiculous. I was in the Girl Scouts continuously right up through Campus Scouts, and the reason I parted ways with them was because they were no longer those crazed socio-eco-warriors of my girlhood. In the 1970s, even in the Midwest, GS was pleasantly liberal. Now? No.

[maat_seshat]

Catholic bishops are also attacking social justice groups run by nuns, "for focusing its work too much on poverty and economic injustice, while keeping 'silent' on abortion and same-sex marriage." Because the first people we need to attack over doctrinal issues are women, and particularly women trying to do good work, since all good works must be accompanied by irrelevant judgmentalism. The current papacy...seems to have its priorities in a very strange place.

(Also, here via Dreamwidth's search engine. Hi!)

[giandujakiss]

Hi, back! And yes, I know, I saw that one too - it's really extraordinary and all I can do is hope neither group buckles.