Saturday, January 14, 2017

Bill Thorpe has a dream...

Giant, planet-devoting space robot Unicron
is, in many ways, just misunderstood.
...that we'll all stop talking about how racist we are. So I get that nobody is the villain of their own story. Like, Magneto was just looking out for mutants, Catwoman was only robbing the Gotham Museum to fund her many pro-cat charities and Darth Vader thought he was bringing order to a chaotic galaxy. But how, how do these people think they're the good guys? Which people? Yeah, don't even. You'd know if you clicked on the link. I put up a link, you pretend you clicked on it, I pretend to be on to you and then I just go ahead and explain anyway, it's a little dance we do. Round and round we go.

"We have the mandate of the people! Sure,
not a majority of them, but that's why we're
grabbing what we can while we can..."
Anyway, lawmakers in Arizona have-hang on, Republican lawmakers in Arizona (this is where you feign surprise) have introduced a bill that would, among other things, prevent schools from teaching classes about social justice. Because now that Vladimir Putin has installed noted Home Alone 2 guest star Donald Trump into office, everything is on the table. Repeal the ACA, legalize discrimination against the LGBTQ community and crucially, make sure kids in Arizona don't hear about how fucked up everything is.

They're the big tent party in that they
once rented a tent. A tent you can't
hang out in, unless you're white.
Holy shit, you say, there's got to be more to this. Arizona Republicans can't possibly be the unrepentant monsters I'm making them out to be, right? Well sure. The bill, HB2120-531R, was introduced by Representative Bill Thorpe and is an extension of an existing ethnic studies ban. And like that 2011 bill, it's supposed to promote inclusion and equality by prohibiting schools from pointing out all the exclusion and inequality students who aren't cic-gendered, straight white males can look forward to.

"In many ways, I see myself as the next
MLK Jr, except, you know, white and
working for the exact opposite goals."

-Bill Thorpe
Uh-huh, because if there's one thing the party that wants to ban Muslims is all about about it's inclusion. According to the bill itself:

"It is the intent of the legislature that Arizona shall not educate nor judge an individual based upon their religion, political affiliation, social class, gender, ethnicity, race or by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

-Representative Bill Thorpe, completely
unaware of the concept of irony 

Above: Some guy waving.
(source: Arizona history textbook)
Wait, what? Sound familiar? That's right, Thorpe's bill is quoting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. which is kind of amazing for two reasons. First, Arizona's Republican governor once abolished King's holiday back in 1987 and only reinstated it after losing the chance to host the Super Bowl. Secondly wouldn't the bill would seem to ban teaching anything about the civil rights movement? So the plan is to promote equality by not talking about the people who struggled for it, their accomplishments or what still needs to change because everything's fine.

Look, I know the GOP isn't really a pack of super-villains out to ruin everything for the rest of us, but recently that seems to be exactly what they're after. Even more baffling is that these are people famous for going from zero to rabid-foam crazy if you try and limit their ability to buy armor piercing bullets so how is it they can't ever seem to hear the quasi-fascist, Orwellian Newspeak coming out of their word holes?
"We're going to build the border fence and Eurasia
is going to pay for it. Let's make Oceania great again!"
(source: subtle commentary)

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