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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 7, 2023

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Two different topics I am not qualified to talk about but am interested in hearing your opinions on:

  1. Apparently there is now a crime in Britain called a 'homophobic public offense.' Committing this crime will get you arrested. This has come to the wider world's attention because of a video of an autistic teenaged girl being dragged out of her home for telling one of the police officers she looked like her lesbian nana. I will speak plainly that I read the same evil on the face of the lesbian-nana-cop that sent the kulaks to the gulags and now have the impression Britain is pretty well not a free country. But it's a big country, anyone can cherrypick one terrible story out of millions (or billions, in the new case of that little girl in india who had been gangraped and then gangraped again in the hospital by the doctors), and I am not British so I can't speak to the probative value. Throwing it out there though https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12396427/Lesbian-nana-arrest-police-autistic-exclusive.html

NB This was a few days ago and the cops have since dropped the charges after public backlash. This time.

  1. A new audio sensation is sweeping the nation, a previously-nobody named Oliver Anthony has come out with an actually-good red tribe anthem called 'Rich Men North of Richmond.' Over the last week or so it's become ubiquitous in 'the RW blogosphere' - too many big names to list have independently drawn attention to it and Anthony is going to need some serious professional help to manage all of the invitations to appear on, well, everything. Give it a listen and see if it does anything for you: https://youtube.com/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro

I'm not from the south, but I and most of the rest of non-southern righties decided a long time ago we would just appropriate it. Confederate flags in rural Michigan, etc. To me it has a kind of universality to it. Don't miss the line 'if you're 5 foot 3 and 300 pounds, tax dollars shouldn't pay for your bags of fudge rounds." Interested to hear your thoughts

Give it a listen and see if it does anything for you: https://youtube.com/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro

Honestly not much, but it wasn't written for me. Unlike the wonderful sound, the lyrics resonate like a laundry-list of complaints. It's too prosaic to be subversive. Plus I think it misidentifies the problem as rich men north of Richmond, and not the local power brokers enthusiastically elected and re-elected. But the song is overwhelmingly well-liked, so I'm glad for the artist.

Someone below linked the Antifascist Blues. While I found that song more catchy and clever, I have some of the same criticisms.