At the Habsburg convention in Plano

May 10, 2024 10:19 AM

This conference was only a minor part of the significant and apparently well-resourced campaign to elevate Karl to sainthood.
posted by bq (26 comments total)

The case for the Blessed Karl—called so because he has already passed two of the three steps to sainthood

I'm not sure if I hate this kind of rich devout Catholic or monarchists more.


"This emperor comes along with three lousy miracles. I understand that two of them was card tricks."

-Father Guido Sarducci
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 10:41 AM on May 10 [14 favorites]

I was hoping it was Marx...
posted by Reverend John at 10:54 AM on May 10 [3 favorites]

Karl is already a saint, and a mining legend.

ROCK AND STONE! FOR KARL!
posted by Scattercat at 11:26 AM on May 10 [1 favorite]

Karl, unleashed
posted by chavenet at 11:27 AM on May 10

The neighbor from Aquateen Hunger Force deserves sainthood? makes sense.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:37 AM on May 10 [1 favorite]

I support the sainthood of Carl Carlson. Maybe for Lenny Leonard as well.
posted by NoMich at 11:37 AM on May 10

Can't f**k your cousins for 400 years and expect anything good to come of it.
posted by Pallas Athena at 11:46 AM on May 10 [5 favorites]

"The city’s name is pronounced Plain-o, which is about as complete a travel guide as you need."
posted by heyitsgogi at 11:47 AM on May 10 [5 favorites]

Today I learned there was a Habsburg conference in Plano.

Also hey, Plano is hip now, as my nephew who grew up there tells me. (He is right that the most painfully unhip and super racist people have moved out to Frisco, the next suburb out in the rings of suburbs/exurbs around Dallas. They left because Plano has too many South Asian and East Asian immigrants AFAICT.)
posted by gentlyepigrams at 11:54 AM on May 10 [6 favorites]

You think, after al these years, the Habsburgs would know enough to shut up and stay out of sight, but it's the 21st C, and we can't be that lucky. Reading this made my skin crawl.
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:31 PM on May 10 [6 favorites]

These people are easy poke fun at, but it’s more sobering to realize this strain of Catholic extremism is intrinsically woven into the illiberal axis that is trying and succeeding to rip apart the liberal world order of the last 80 years and replace it with brutal autocracy. Steve Bannon is not far removed from this Habsburg fan club.
posted by qxntpqbbbqxl at 12:42 PM on May 10 [17 favorites]

Yeah, I don't think they are funny or cute at all. The Habsburgs did immeasurable damage to the World, and they want to do it again if they can manage it. Now, it's likely that they will always be on the periphery of much worse people, but they are still malignant.

Also, I'm kind of sick of hearing how "multicultural" the Austro-Hungarian Empire was. I mean, they weren't out and out genocidal to their people, but there's a reason why they spent the last 100 years of their existence being wracked by the agitation of ethnic groups who wanted desperately to get out of the Empire. European nationalism was partially created in an effort to be free of these people and their "big tent," and, while that urge metastasized in awful directions, I can't really blame them.
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:52 PM on May 10 [2 favorites]

I don't often use the term, but these Habsburg goons are the very definition of "Euro-trash." And the fools supporting their movement seem like they are just desperate for a strong-man to worship so they can live out their fantasies of LARPing as sycophantic courtiers in a monarchy.

Side note: what's up with the author throwing shade at Freud (a "cocaine-addled Jewish doctor") and psychoanalysis ("witchcraft")? That was totally unnecessary to story.
posted by Saxon Kane at 1:01 PM on May 10 [6 favorites]

I'm going to pray to Karl and Zita that some day American Confederate lost causism is this marginal and pathetic, and if it happens I will happily pray aloud the entire text of The Man Without Qualities at his tomb.
posted by sy at 2:50 PM on May 10 [5 favorites]

“perhaps the only current candidate for sainthood who has drowned his enemies in chlorine gas”
posted by Hypatia at 4:08 PM on May 10 [7 favorites]

Obligatory quote from Terry Pratchett's Feet of Clay:

It was as if even the most intelligent person had this little blank spot in their heads where someone had written: "Kings. What a good idea." Whoever had created humanity had left in a major design flaw. It was its tendency to bend at the knees.
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 4:09 PM on May 10 [11 favorites]

Karl the fog?
posted by mike3k at 4:36 PM on May 10 [1 favorite]

Imagine being an American, in a country and society that was established as a revolution against monarchy, which created the notion of the people being sovereign, which derives its political identity literally in opposition to absolutist kingship, and being like this. Why? These people are—I don’t say this lightly—freaks.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 7:39 PM on May 10 [5 favorites]

I suspect they very much dislike that the American republic has Protestant origins. They are certainly a particular type of Catholic.
posted by riruro at 8:11 PM on May 10 [1 favorite]

What do you guys think it's like seeing DUNE when you're a Hapsbpburg descendent?
posted by DeepSeaHaggis at 9:29 PM on May 10 [1 favorite]

"no Carlist has ever been able to adequately explain what Carlism is actually about to a normal person."
posted by Sauce Trough at 9:39 PM on May 10 [7 favorites]

> What do you guys think it's like seeing DUNE when you're a Hapsbpburg descendent?

the Bene Gesserits are wise, but one of them must be the stupidest one, and she was probably assigned to manage the breeding of the Hapsburgs.
posted by Sauce Trough at 9:42 PM on May 10 [5 favorites]

They are certainly a particular type of Catholic

America, where even the Catholics are Evangelical
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 10:35 PM on May 10 [5 favorites]

Having read the article and some of the links and had a chance to sit and think about it, wow, I am really bothered to realize that in little more than spitting distance of where I live (Irving) are a bunch of pre-Enlightenment Divine Right authoritarians (the Carlist society mentioned in the article). I say pre-Enlightenment because one of the hallmarks of the Enlightenment is the whole "all men/people are created equal" thing. I read enough of the Carlist documents on their web site to understand they really feel some people are more equal than others.

Of course the kind of men who support movements like Carlism are also the kind of people who presume they'll be on top when the (counter-) revolution comes.

But really, these are guys for whom fascism is too new-fangled, ties to Viktor Orban notwithstanding. Yikes!
posted by gentlyepigrams at 10:57 PM on May 10 [7 favorites]

Plano is just west of the Diocese of Tyler, where the Pope recently removed the bishop for loudly criticizing recent reforms to the church. I wonder if that is just a coincidence.
posted by TedW at 5:13 AM on May 11 [5 favorites]

August 2. A wonderful holiday. The Swiss celebrate it. I call it "Fuck off Hapsburg day".
posted by Goofyy at 4:57 PM on May 11 [1 favorite]