The Sorensen Monologues

Titanic Failure

The CEO of OceanGate had brushed off warnings from dozens of experts, accusing them of insulting him personally and trying to shut out a new player in the submersibles business. Since drawing this cartoon, I learned that he was also hoping to eventually market his subs to oil and gas companies for deep sea exploration.

To be clear, I am not opposed to technological solutions to the climate crisis. What I’m referring to here is the faith in future carbon-sucking devices and other dubious ideas that oil execs and their political allies use an excuse to keep drilling.

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Bipartisan Reflections

Every line in the third panel was taken from something that was actually said in response to the Trump indictment. In a now infamous tweet, Louisiana Rep. Clay Higgins ominously stated, “This is a perimeter probe from the oppressors. Hold. rPOTUS has this. Buckle up. 1/50K know your bridges. Rock steady calm. That is all.” The term 1/50k is a reference to military maps, and in this context “know your bridges” seems to be about seizing infrastructure in a civil war-like scenario. 

Also via the same Huffpo article, Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona tweeted ”We have now reached a war phase. Eye for an eye.” Fox host and longtime Trump propagandist Mark Levin stated “It is a war on the Republican Party. And it is a war on the republic…”

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The PGA-LIV Bonesaw Classic

The PGA Tour recently announced that it was merging with its competitor, the LIV Golf tournament. LIV is owned by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. You may recall that the Saudi regime drew international condemnation only a few short years ago for the brutal murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi with a bonesaw. As Human Rights Watch notes, this splashy move into professional golf is an attempt by the Saudi regime to “sportswash” its heinous record of abuses.

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Junk Jargon

Obviously we can’t ignore the creep of fascist ideology, as it leads to real people being threatened and harmed. But we can become aware of these narratives and contextualize them, and understand how they are part of a hateful, abnormal agenda rather than just another point of view. I recently came across a good post on Kottke.org which quoted a Heather Cox Richardson essay on a U.S. Army pamphlet from 1943 on fighting fascism in America. 

It is “vitally important” to learn to spot native fascists, the government said, “even though they adopt names and slogans with popular appeal, drape themselves with the American flag, and attempt to carry out their program in the name of the democracy they are trying to destroy.”

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