Pirate Wires built the file in October, turned it into a marriage panic in December, and watched X reopen it after Dr. Richardson named the historical impulse behind the Michelle Obama/UFC spectacle.
Thank you again. I had no idea Pirate Wires even existed. I know there are a lot of men out there who are, like their dear leader, intimidated by anyone who is smarter, more accomplished, better liked or has a more compassionate world view. It’s no wonder women with sense won’t date or marry them. I understand racism theoretically, but never personally.
Your writing has taught me a lot of history, but also the depth of racism and creepyness that is still going strong in its own holes and out in the open way too much.
Logical people will never win arguments with ideologues because ideologues are forever sharpening familiar tools: taking quotations out of context, constructing ad hominem attacks, deploying non sequiturs, misrepresentations, and outright falsehoods.
Of course UFC fighting is not lynching. The differences are numerous and obvious. Richardson never said otherwise, and reasonably assumed her readers would be intelligent enough to understand that.
What the two phenomena do share is their appeal to a part of human nature that is attracted to violence as spectacle.
UFC is a legal activity that requires remarkable training, athleticism, discipline, and skill. It is not something I personally enjoy watching, but clearly many people do, as evidenced by the large audiences it attracts. The same basic attraction to violent spectacle has existed throughout history. Respectable Roman citizens flocked to the Coliseum to watch events that were perfectly legal in their time. Crowds gathered to witness public hangings. Today, many people enjoy violent films and television dramas.
I am not immune myself. I enjoyed films such as A Clockwork Orange, Pulp Fiction, and No Country for Old Men. They are fictional, of course, but they still trade, at least in part, on our fascination with violence. At the same time, I know many people who would happily pass on such films altogether.
People differ in their tastes.
Likewise, someone attended lynchings. It is safe to assume that those who chose to witness such horrors were not individuals repelled by violence. They were people willing, even eager, to watch it. That was Richardson's point. Not that UFC spectators are equivalent to lynch mobs, but that public spectacles of violence have long appealed to certain aspects of human nature.
One can disagree with that observation, but misrepresenting it is not a rebuttal. But don’t expect everyone to understand that, or want to.
Listen, the whole laundering trick depends on pretending analogy means identity. Richardson did not say UFC is lynching. She said there is a shared impulse underneath certain public spectacles: the appetite for domination, humiliation, and violence made communal.
That is the part they had to flatten.
Because once they reduce it to “historian says cage fight equals lynching,” nobody has to deal with the actual scene: the White House as backdrop, presidential power as atmosphere, civic symbols turned into props, and Michelle Obama degraded in public while the show kept moving.
One can disagree with Richardson’s comparison. Fine. Argue it honestly. But clipping the quote into a cartoon and then calling the cartoon ridiculous is not rebuttal. It is laundering.
And yes, plenty of people understand the difference.
These attacks on Richardson testify to her effectiveness. Trump is not forever, but his legacy could be for a very long time if the electoral process is sufficiently compromised, and that could lead to horrors similar in kind to what have happened before -- in the U.S.A., but also in dictatorships generally. For now effective commentators only have to endure these distorted lies that travel better, as you say. The enemy's list of content creators that has named Brian Tyler Cohen and David Packman (and others?) is worrying, but only that. Of greater concern are the firings of comedians...impositions on careers...but so far there has not yet been the jackboots in the night coming after people with sufficiently high profiles. and prominent people are protected from the state, but not from people doing the state's wet work, and it can get worse, much worse, very fast. We have the disappearances, reminding me of Argentina and Chile, or the recent history of both. I was in the former when people learned a lot that had been hidden from them...even joined a protest march or two...and so I am worried. So far not so good, but not as bad as it could quickly become.
I agree, there is an appetite for violence in many humans, and it’s nothing new. We all have our shadow side that holds our darkest impulses. A healthy society recognizes this and fosters greater communication and non violent conflict resolution. Laws are meant to protect us from those impulses. Morality is our inner restraint.
But, when violent spectacle is fostered by those in power, it has a darker meaning. It becomes, diversion, distraction, and an outlet for growing rage. Video games have desensitized young people, especially men, to violence while addicting them to the rush. When violence is monetized in a capitalist society, bet on in online poly markets. and given front stage on the south lawn of the White House, I fear where we’re heading.
The danger is not that people like fights. The danger is when people in power turn violence into civic theater.
Put a cage fight on the White House lawn, wrap it in patriotism, let a Black woman be degraded, and suddenly the message gets bigger than sports.
That is what Richardson was naming: not “UFC is lynching,” but what happens when power feeds the old appetite for humiliation instead of restraining it.
X: I hope you took a loooooooooong, hot, SOAPY shower after researching/writing this. And I hope you didn't get any on you. The shit they spew, disguised as a hundred innocuous statements still reeks to high heaven, and the smarmy, sarcastic EMPTY and hackneyed accusations are only lapped up by they, themselves, after a thorough brainwashing by Fox and the other hate-spewers. It's ONLY your talent in presenting it that keeps me reading.
We've made so much progress to only have denigrated and stomped on. The fight for permanent change continues. I celebrated yesterday, now time to laced up my boots and get back out there.
When that old, tired lie about Mrs. Obama was trotted out for the thousandth time, I did an eye roll and almost laughed. Beating that story down is like playing whack-a-mole. You turned on the garden hose and blew the moles right out of the ground. You put your finger on the reasons that story and attitude rankles me and identified the mechanisms of the attack. Thank you.
Thank you again. I had no idea Pirate Wires even existed. I know there are a lot of men out there who are, like their dear leader, intimidated by anyone who is smarter, more accomplished, better liked or has a more compassionate world view. It’s no wonder women with sense won’t date or marry them. I understand racism theoretically, but never personally.
Your writing has taught me a lot of history, but also the depth of racism and creepyness that is still going strong in its own holes and out in the open way too much.
👹Stay Fierce
🙏
Logical people will never win arguments with ideologues because ideologues are forever sharpening familiar tools: taking quotations out of context, constructing ad hominem attacks, deploying non sequiturs, misrepresentations, and outright falsehoods.
Of course UFC fighting is not lynching. The differences are numerous and obvious. Richardson never said otherwise, and reasonably assumed her readers would be intelligent enough to understand that.
What the two phenomena do share is their appeal to a part of human nature that is attracted to violence as spectacle.
UFC is a legal activity that requires remarkable training, athleticism, discipline, and skill. It is not something I personally enjoy watching, but clearly many people do, as evidenced by the large audiences it attracts. The same basic attraction to violent spectacle has existed throughout history. Respectable Roman citizens flocked to the Coliseum to watch events that were perfectly legal in their time. Crowds gathered to witness public hangings. Today, many people enjoy violent films and television dramas.
I am not immune myself. I enjoyed films such as A Clockwork Orange, Pulp Fiction, and No Country for Old Men. They are fictional, of course, but they still trade, at least in part, on our fascination with violence. At the same time, I know many people who would happily pass on such films altogether.
People differ in their tastes.
Likewise, someone attended lynchings. It is safe to assume that those who chose to witness such horrors were not individuals repelled by violence. They were people willing, even eager, to watch it. That was Richardson's point. Not that UFC spectators are equivalent to lynch mobs, but that public spectacles of violence have long appealed to certain aspects of human nature.
One can disagree with that observation, but misrepresenting it is not a rebuttal. But don’t expect everyone to understand that, or want to.
Barry, oh boy, u gave me a long one lol.
Listen, the whole laundering trick depends on pretending analogy means identity. Richardson did not say UFC is lynching. She said there is a shared impulse underneath certain public spectacles: the appetite for domination, humiliation, and violence made communal.
That is the part they had to flatten.
Because once they reduce it to “historian says cage fight equals lynching,” nobody has to deal with the actual scene: the White House as backdrop, presidential power as atmosphere, civic symbols turned into props, and Michelle Obama degraded in public while the show kept moving.
One can disagree with Richardson’s comparison. Fine. Argue it honestly. But clipping the quote into a cartoon and then calling the cartoon ridiculous is not rebuttal. It is laundering.
And yes, plenty of people understand the difference.
They just know the distorted lie travels better.
These attacks on Richardson testify to her effectiveness. Trump is not forever, but his legacy could be for a very long time if the electoral process is sufficiently compromised, and that could lead to horrors similar in kind to what have happened before -- in the U.S.A., but also in dictatorships generally. For now effective commentators only have to endure these distorted lies that travel better, as you say. The enemy's list of content creators that has named Brian Tyler Cohen and David Packman (and others?) is worrying, but only that. Of greater concern are the firings of comedians...impositions on careers...but so far there has not yet been the jackboots in the night coming after people with sufficiently high profiles. and prominent people are protected from the state, but not from people doing the state's wet work, and it can get worse, much worse, very fast. We have the disappearances, reminding me of Argentina and Chile, or the recent history of both. I was in the former when people learned a lot that had been hidden from them...even joined a protest march or two...and so I am worried. So far not so good, but not as bad as it could quickly become.
I agree, there is an appetite for violence in many humans, and it’s nothing new. We all have our shadow side that holds our darkest impulses. A healthy society recognizes this and fosters greater communication and non violent conflict resolution. Laws are meant to protect us from those impulses. Morality is our inner restraint.
But, when violent spectacle is fostered by those in power, it has a darker meaning. It becomes, diversion, distraction, and an outlet for growing rage. Video games have desensitized young people, especially men, to violence while addicting them to the rush. When violence is monetized in a capitalist society, bet on in online poly markets. and given front stage on the south lawn of the White House, I fear where we’re heading.
Diane, lemme add to that .
The danger is not that people like fights. The danger is when people in power turn violence into civic theater.
Put a cage fight on the White House lawn, wrap it in patriotism, let a Black woman be degraded, and suddenly the message gets bigger than sports.
That is what Richardson was naming: not “UFC is lynching,” but what happens when power feeds the old appetite for humiliation instead of restraining it.
OMG, Truth made off with his wife! Another liberation!
Thank you, thank you for all of your careful work on this!!!!!!!
🙏
X: I hope you took a loooooooooong, hot, SOAPY shower after researching/writing this. And I hope you didn't get any on you. The shit they spew, disguised as a hundred innocuous statements still reeks to high heaven, and the smarmy, sarcastic EMPTY and hackneyed accusations are only lapped up by they, themselves, after a thorough brainwashing by Fox and the other hate-spewers. It's ONLY your talent in presenting it that keeps me reading.
We've made so much progress to only have denigrated and stomped on. The fight for permanent change continues. I celebrated yesterday, now time to laced up my boots and get back out there.
When that old, tired lie about Mrs. Obama was trotted out for the thousandth time, I did an eye roll and almost laughed. Beating that story down is like playing whack-a-mole. You turned on the garden hose and blew the moles right out of the ground. You put your finger on the reasons that story and attitude rankles me and identified the mechanisms of the attack. Thank you.