The Mason Missile, December 29, 2022

Season’s greetings, Americans! Yes, it’s that wonderful time of the year—where religiously-based haters and zealots while about how THEIR own religion is not the only one in America, that there are hundreds of faith traditions in this country. The whine about the “War on Christmas” has been heard throughout the years. Religiously-based haters have used THEIR religion as an excuse to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people; one case in point is the recent case before the US Supreme Court, 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, whereby a web-design company refused to create a wedding website for same-sex couples. (https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-new-faith-based-discrimination/?utm_source=Boston+Review+Email+Subscribers&utm_campaign=2fb3d76592-newsletter_12_14_22&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_2cb428c5ad-2fb3d76592-40728217&mc_cid=2fb3d76592&mc_eid=a96ac50b25) There have also been cases where, in certain states, LGBTQ+ people could be discriminated against in medical care, on a “religious” excuse. (https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-health-and-wellness/1-8-lgbtq-people-live-states-doctors-can-refuse-treat-rcna39161) The US Department of Health and Human Services, under “President” Donald whatshisface, issued a “refusal to care” rule, wherein health care providers receiving federal funds may refuse to provide medical care, insurance, or information, due to THEIR religious or moral beliefs—so, if an EMT or doctor could refuse care to a person due to their sexual orientation or their need for an abortion. (https://www.aclu.org/news/religious-liberty/patients-needs-not-personal-beliefs-come-first-in-health-care) (https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/04/medical-religious-exemptions-doctors-therapists-mississippi-tennessee/478797/) All of this is to support one specific religious system, the evangelical Christian worldview which condemns same-sex marriage and affection, women’s reproductive rights, or scientifically-based sex education. The religious-right political movement, supplied with vast amounts of campaign money, remains powerful enough to push such laws through state legislatures, no matter how they affect people in real life. However, the pushback against these laws remains strong; voters in Kansas, a conservative state, voted in a referendum against an amendment that would have denied abortion as a right in that state. (https://www.npr.org/sections/2022-live-primary-election-race-results/2022/08/02/1115317596/kansas-voters-abortion-legal-reject-constitutional-amendment) Have these anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ+ activists EVER considered that THEIRS is NOT the ONLY religious tradition, that OTHER religious groups have different ideas about same-sex love and when a fetus becomes a person? Of course not; it’s the act of a dominant religious body kicking against any challenge to their dominance. It’s the same with other areas of society, social, economic, what have you; corporations utilize their hired politicians and press against workers organizing unions, racists terrorizing racial and ethnic minorities daring to campaign for their civil and human rights. And, as part of the campaign against these usurpers, the dominant group cobbles together some noble philosophy or theory to justify their dominance and repression of the insurgent groups; one such is the “objectivism” exposed by Ayn Rand, and the “religious exemption” excuse to justify anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination. And, of course, these once-dominant groups wish the groups they have oppressed—people of color, women, workers, LGBTQ+s, etc.—would either be quiet and acquiesce, or disappear; and we can pretend this, situation of corporate-theocratic dominance is the best of all possible worlds. The aforementioned groups are showing NO interest in rolling over and playing dead, but are continuing their fights for their rights and very existence. A now-common phrase has been “stochastic terrorism,” which means “the public demonization of a person or group resulting in a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose statistics cannot be predicted.” (https://www.dictionary.com/e/what-is-stochastic-terrorism/) The phrase is new, but the idea isn’t; the media and public officials have long known how to direct verbal abuse towards their enemies, hoping some deranged person would attack them, since THEY don’t have the guts to do the violence themselves; the Red Scares after the World Wars, after which progressive and reform movements—Socialist Party, the IWW, the CIO, activists for African-American Civil Rights—were slandered, imprisoned, lost their jobs, and were assaulted. We have the same phenomenon with the rightist media and activists slandering election officials doing their jobs accurately; schools and libraries daring to have books discussing Gay and African-American issues; school kids questioning their sexuality and their gender identity; and drag performers acting out a venerable art. I’m always pleased, however, when there is resistance to all this verbal and physical abuse. Trust me, verbal abuse is as bad to a person’s psyches as physical abuse is to their bodies; we can’t have any of this “sticks and stone” thinking, and damn sure no more “turn the other cheek.” As we enter the New Year—after recovering from our New Year’s Day parties—let us remember what we have accomplished is the far and recent past, recognize the struggles ahead of us, and remember that we can defeat them, as we have done more often than not in the past year. Stay safe, stay strong, and stay together! Slava Ukraini! America will be free! Happy New Year!

The Mason Moment with John Oliver Mason, December 19, 2022

I speak about the Holiday Season, and of the need to resist the neo-fascists of today.

The Mason Moment with John Oliver Mason, December 12, 2022

I speak about the recent Philadelphia CLUW awarads reception; trump's dinner with Kanye West and Nick Fuentes; and Krysten Sinema's becoming an "independent."

The Mason Moment with John Oliver Mason, December 5, 2022

I speak of the need to suport railroad workers, and of trump's demand to suspend the Constitution.

The Mason Missile, November 28, 2002

Greetings, Americans! This past election, November 8, I served on my division’s election board, helping people work with the voting machines, so that they could elect the candidates of their choice. It was a long day of getting up early and staying up late, but it was well worth it. Ever since the end of the 2020 election, election officials, from election board workers to county-level officials, had faced terroristic threats to their lives, simply because they did their jobs honorably, and the neo-fascist right (particularly the trumpst MAGA wing) hated the reality of losing. Their interest isn’t in democracy, but taking and holding power over the rest of us. That’s been how fascist movements have operated over the decades; they utilize the democratic process as far as they can go, but undermine it when finally attaining state power. They have also played the victim, complaining about being oppressed and discriminated against when they’re challenged, but their agenda is to oppress their opponents. Don’t be fooled when they whine about “losing their Second Amendment rights.” I’m proud to have done my part to elect Josh Shapiro as our next Governor of Pennsylvania, and John Fetterman as our next US Senator. The Republican Party, still under the trumpist grip, selected Doug Mastriano for Governor—a white Christian Nationalist who worked with Andrew Torba, who heads the far-right social-media platform Gab, is and a notorious anti-Semite (https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/28/politics/doug-mastriano-gab-pennsylvania-republican/index.html); the Mastriano campaign paid Gab $5,000 for “campaign consulting,” utilizing the site for advertising (https://forward.com/fast-forward/514364/josh-shapiro-doug-mastriano-gab-antisemitism/). While a professor at the Army War College in Carlisle, Mastriano posed in a group photo with other faculty members—wearing a Confederate Army uniform, the same Confederate Army that sought to destroy the Union for the sake of its precious slave system! (https://www.reuters.com/world/us/exclusive-pennsylvania-candidate-mastriano-posed-confederate-uniform-army-war-2022-08-26/) For the Senate, under the trump influence, the Republicans selected Doctor Mehmet Oz. Once a respected cardiothoracic surgeon, then a TV health-and-fitness host, Oz ruined his reputation by selling dietary supplements on his show, supplements that supposedly could burn away fat, but cuaed serious health problems. (https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/scaachikoul/dr-oz-senate-campaign-tv-show) (https://apnews.com/article/dr-mehmet-oz-political-career-2022-midterm-f6ecd9ac9f0e95cda41193adc13c8437). Along with that, Oz only just recently established a home in the Philadelphia suburb of Bryn Athyn, while his real residence is in New Jersey, along with owning 10 other residences around the world. (https://www.inquirer.com/news/mehmet-oz-new-jersey-cliffside-heights-pennsylvania-senate-20221031.html) (https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/crudits-snooki-john-fetterman-voters-remember-dr-ozs/story?id=87765213). The Fetterman campaign had fun—as did I—with the video of Oz grocery shopping at “Wegner’s” (a mashup of the Wegman’s and Redner’s grocery chains) for “crudités,” otherwise known as a “veggie tray,” showing Oz as an out-of-touch rich guy playing plain folks—as did Donald whatshisface. This is what the Republican Party has sunk to; but it’s been sinking this way since the Goldwater campaign. Can it sink any further? The results of the election were not the “Red Wave” that the news media hyped all year. Why did they talk so much about the alleged “Red Wave?” An attempt to raise the number of viewers and therefore advertising dollars? A way to discourage people from voting, saying “Your guy’s not going to win, so don’t bother voting”? That I call irresponsible. Along with the aforementioned victories in Pennsylvania, the Democrats managed to hang on to the Senate, but the Republicans held a tiny majority in the House, with the help of gerrymandering of congressional districts—supposedly, the opposition party attains several dozen new seats in a midterm election. Kevin McCarthy, now the House Minority Leader, is supposed to become speaker, his dream job—but he has to work with the trump-loving element in the party, and he has restored Marjorie Taylor-Greene of Georgia to her committee assignments, while trying to remove Democrats from their own committee positions. (https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/kevin-mccarthy-2658736247/) McCarthy, like I said, has to deal with the pro-trump “Freedom Caucus” in the House, We can expect nothing but a freak-show from the House, as it ignores such real issues as the economy, Russia warring on Ukraine, health insurance, jobs and job safety, and fatal gun violence, and get hysterical about their favorite scapegoat, President Biden’s son Hunter and his laptop. What more needs to be said about it? (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/kevin-mccarthy-face-floor-fight-speaker-hasnt-happened-century-rcna58391?link_id=13&can_id=c6b214524e142a4cda41a3e4163755a6&source=email-trump-team-panics-over-fcking-nightmare-meeting-2&email_referrer=email_1750175&email_subject=trump-in-freefall-after-antisemitism-summit) The Republican “leadership”—McCarthy, Mitch McConnell, all of them—could have done the statesman thing and denounce trump, with his coddling of domestic terrorists, neo-Nazis and white supremacists, along with his misogynistic behavior of women—as evidenced by the Charlottesville neo-Nazi rally (“very fine people on both sides”), his embrace of the Q-Anon cult because “they like me,” his encouraging his followers to riot in the Capitol on January 6 and threaten the lives of elected officials in both parties (“Hang Mike Pence!”), his refusal to take seriously the dangers of COVID-19, his wining and dining of two notorious anti-Semites at Mar-A-Largo, and his “grab ‘em by the pussy” talk in the Access Hollywood tape—that’s just scratching the surface. Instead, for the sake of the tax breaks for billionaires and corporations that don’t need them, and for the sake of the votes trump’s disciples have, the GOP elite tolerated it all, even after their lives were threatened. Behold the gutless, brainless, characterless specimens leading the Republican Party! For this, they don’t deserve to be anywhere near office! Now, as we enter the December holiday season, let us enjoy our rest and our times with our loved ones, and celebrates or wins; then, let’s get back to the business of standing up for our rights and the rights of others. That’s what a true American does. Stay safe, stay strong, and stay together! Slava Ukraini! America will be free! Bye!

The Mason Moment with John Oliver Mason, November 14, 2022

I speak about the election results, the possible fading of trump's power, the corruption of the evangelical political movement, and the downslide into racism of the Republican Party.

The Mason Moment with John Oliver Mason, November 7, 2022