Ash Sarkar dissects the latest right-wing moral panic over something that doesn’t really exist — i.e., kids who identify as animals. It’s especially hilarious when “journalists” start offering to pay for accounts by supposedly exasperated parents of such children. It’s such a real thing, that so truly exists, that they have to pay for stories of it!
And when they’re not busy offering payment for anonymous parent accounts (and getting trolled by respondents who’ve clearly read their Kafka), they’re going on the air in cat ears and makeup themselves, and presenting this as An Actual Thing That Actually Happens. They’re becoming exactly what they’re supposedly denouncing.
The right is all about free speech, as we all know. And freedom of expression, too, provided that said speech and expression are sexist, racist, imperialist, pro-capitalist, anti-queer, anti-poor, or anti-anything and anyone that isn’t exactly like themselves. They will fight to the death (yours) for their right to call you a slur, and tooth and nail to oppose your right to object. And when you keep fighting back, and winning, they’ll retreat to their little corner, mewling and whimpering about how No One Has Any Respect Anymore.
Well, hard cheese. No one owes respect to people who seriously believe that public schools are now being forced to provide litterboxes in every classroom for those kids who identify as cats, or who can’t tell a transgender kid (which IS a real thing) from a kid who thinks they’re a cat to the extent that they actually communicate only in meows and eat only kibble. People who think that you shouldn’t teach school-age kids what LGBT+ people are without immediately assuring them that “that’s not normal, those people are sick and need help”, don’t deserve any more respect than a meow down the phone, or a prank e-mail about their son who now thinks he’s a giant cockroach. Because, unlike people who identify as cats, LGBT+ people are real, they are normal, and they don’t need any help other than the kind that comes from actual societal acceptance. LGBT+ people are the ones who are owed respect here, and they’re still having to fight to get it.
And when they put up a fight, and that fight seems to be going in their favor, what does the free-speech right wing do? Why, just what any respectable fighter for Freeze Peach does: They make shit up. Because made-up shit has always trumped reality in the right-wing world. How else would anyone believe that empires are good, that people who make their bundle off the backs of everyone else are the best and brightest, or that racism, sexism, and all the phobias and bigotries are normal?
Now, out here in the real world, there ARE classrooms where buckets of kitty litter are kept in the closet. But it’s not for kids who think they are kitties. It’s for when there’s an active shooter on the loose, and schools are in lockdown, so no one can get to a bathroom for hours on end. That is a real and pressing problem. But of course, the right won’t talk about that, and will even shame you for “politicizing a tragedy” if you try to bring it up — because among all the other made-up shit they believe in, they also think that guns are the solution to all problems, and never an actual problem unto themselves, nosirree!
And of course, the same right-wingers who think guns solve all problems, also think that guns would be the best answer to the existence of anyone who contradicts their smug, cozy, all-about-me narratives. LGBT+ kids? If you can’t talk them out of that, shoot them like you would a rabid dog. Same goes for blacks, Jews, Asians, indigenous peoples, you name it. Anyone who’s out of line, bang-bang.
Yes, it’s been tried before, and yes, a whole world war was fought (and lost) by those defending just such ideas. And empires and bigotries have been crumbling slowly ever since. But remember, kids, it’s Antifa who’s the real baddie here!
Most of all, you must never ask what Antifa is or why it’s so bad, because then, you’d have to talk about fascism. And that’s a swearword to those on the Freeze Peach right. You can tell by how much they whine when anyone calls them, quite rightly, a fascist. Hell, Elon Fucking Musk will even ban you from Twitter if you dare to denounce them as such, or try to block their hateful tweets. No, better just to believe some 4chan hoax than to point out that the emperor is nekkid as a jaybird, and nowhere near as pretty. Because it’s all about your freedom to believe in the dumbest shit, don’t you know?
PS: If you believe anything you see on GBN, here’s some news for you. Enjoy!
