Gonna talk movies, this time - especially those with dire, chilling warnings about this very moment in time. But first...
...I believe - without any solid basis - that we will someday thank brave and diligent public servants for this relatively peaceful late-April weekend. Thank you, our diligent protectors.*
Meanwhile, we just held here an event honoring one of humanity's greatest visionary minds, the epically creative (and legendarily-nice) master of science fiction (much 'grander' than most recipients of that encomium) Vernor Vinge. We'll post pictures and some video from the event, soon. But here is my earlier tribute to my friend... who beat me out of several past Hugo Awards, with his wondrously good stuff!
And now back to politics in this fraught year... with a list of very disturbing and prophetic movies you ought to rent and watch, if you want to understand the depths of the danger we are in. While some of them suggest under-appreciated, possible outs.
== Films that show how and why it will end in Long Knives ==
I have long recommended certain movies for their plausible relevance to our present day crises. For example, you must watch Costa-Graves’s highly-lauded and super-tense 60s flick about the 1960s Greek military coup, called “Z” – especially for its chilling last 5 minutes. And lately I’ve pushed folks to re-watch the terrific film Network!
Sure, I poke at the whole “I’m as mad as Hell!” riff and the harm it does in stoking masturbatory and unreasoning indignation, at a time when we need calm negotiation. Still, it is one of the greatest of all flicks. And the last 10 minutes of Network is especially pertinent today, as Donald Trump veers from being oligarchy’s greatest asset to embodying their greatest fear.
Trump = the greatest fear of oligarchy? The ones who inflicted this malediction upon us fear his return to power? I see signs that the smartest of their caste are awakening to the danger they are in. Dig it. They lose if he loses… and they lose bigger if he wins!
Say what? Why? What do the struldbrugs have to fear from a looming victory for their raving shill and tool? Well, in order to answer that question, watch the last 10 minutes of another great flick - Cabaret! When Michael York asks a Prussian aristocrat in 1932: "So you still think you can control them?"
Trump is openly declaring that any Trump-II administration will be utterly different than Trump-I, which he filled with Bushite/Republican establishment appointees... most of whom (e.g. his Secretary of State, his Atty General, his Chief of Staff and at least three dozen other folks he called 'great guys!'*** ... later betrayed him, vociferously and even scatalogically.
No, those hundred or two appointment positions at the top tier will be stuffed next time with loyalist fanatics from brownshirt central casting - followed by tens of thousands more, when he cancels (as he intends to do, by fiat) the Civil Service Act. This is all according to the Heritage Foundation's 'Project 2025.' All of which is to say that nothing will "control" him. Not oligarch lucre IOUs, not 'conservatism,' nor the Constitution, nor even Putin's puppet strings of blackmail kompromat. (Keep this in mind, when we get to The Manchurian Candidate!)
Okay now, back to Cabaret and Network. Now combine them! And imagine how a ‘Howard Beale martyrdom’ might solve all of the oligarchs’ problems, by eliminating their no-longer-reliable asset in the 'best' way possible, sweeping into office their chosen next-Bush,**** while also sparking ten thousand McVeighs, leading to the collapse scenario at the end of the 2023 film Leave The World Behind! Or else the newly released film Civil War - by Alex Garland
It won’t come to that of course; they underestimate our professional castes -- those I thanked at the beginning of this missive -- and they always will. Hence, I do not give those nightmares top probability.
But offer me ODDS? Like whether Donald Trump will actually make it to the July GOP Convention? Or to October? (One sign will be if he chooses, as running mate, someone from the Bush-Cheney-Romney wing. Ostensibly as a 'unifying gesture.' I expect he's still smart enough (amid his obvious decay) to realize that doing so almost ensures a Howard Beale exit. Give me odds whether he'll instead pick someone the oligarchs fear, even more than they fear him. It's good life insurance.)
Anyway, God bless the FBI and especially the U.S. Secret Service! Do good work, guys & gals.
== Films that get even-creepier on-target? ==
Now, Trump of course has been just such a Kremlin asset, though more zealous, if perhaps blackmailed. Zealous? Just look at the grins of triumph when he invited Lavrov & Kisliak as his first guests to the Oval Office – long before any ally - in January 2017. Blow up the image and really look at the faces!
Such ecstatic glee! After which he proceeded to smooch and 'fall in love' with Kim Jong Un, held unvetted private meetings with Putin, repeated countless Kremlin talking points verbatim, and started disassembling NATO.
Sure, he was a Manchurian Candidate & president. And Putin is right now desperately eager for Trump Administration II. Only… maybe Vlad shouldn’t be!
In The Manchurian Candidate movie, Lansbury tells her semi-conscious son that she’ll go along with the plot, in order to take power… whereupon she intends to rain fire on all the commie bastards who used her son in this way! Once she no longer needs them, she will escape their control and make them pay. By setting fire to the world.
Sound a little like Cabaret, now? Only with a double-chilling twist.
What does the ending of The Manchurian Candidate have to do with Donald Trump? Well, he’s already making it clear! As already stated, Trump intends - from Day One - to seize all power. To arrest opponents. To end civil service protections and fill all slots in DC with only fervid loyalists, whatever their qualifications. All of that is already openly declared intent, with backing from Project 2025 of the Heritage Foundation.
And when that’s done? While we fret, thinking it’s only about power, Trump will likely tell Putin:
“I no longer care about your blackmail files. They can no longer harm me. And now you and your prissy world princes and aristocrats are going to pay for looking down your noses on me, for threatening and controlling me.”
== It's not just in movies that these things happen ==
Other than the end of The Manchurian Candidate, the closest parallel would be Germany in 1934. Look up The Night of the Long Knives -- depicted with horrifying gruesomeness in another flick: The Damned. That's when Hitler (whose birthday stoners stupidly celebrate, every 4/20) purged and killed his rivals for power, both the real National Socialists and any Prussian aristos who still "thought they could control me."
Are these just made-up, concocted fantasies, stringing together Hollywood schlock? Well, the movies I've just listed are among the most serious and soberly thought-provoking films ever made, offering up potential parallels that Americans - especially - really ought to ponder, right about now! And especially those aforementioned heroic civil servants. (Chime into comments with your own suggestions!)
Anyway projecting possibilities (not prediction!) is what I am paid for. (Even as Vernor's passing leaves me the last "Killer B" standing, sigh.)
Plausible-seeming scenarios. Though yeah, sure… again, the ‘evidence’ I’ve offered today – beyond a myriad headlines – consists of a dozen lurid motion pictures. (In all cases, the final 10 minutes!) I talk about maybe fifty others and the influence they had, in Vivid Tomorrows: Science Fiction and Hollywood.
And yet…
… If DT-II does get re-elected and commences with his openly-declared intentions in January 2025 - prescribed by Project 2025's traitor authors - what is to stop him?
Well, we will, of course. And not only all those civil servants. But also tens of millions of skilled folks and most citizens. This is NOT Germany in 1933!
But suppose that we don’t… or can’t?
In that case, I have to wonder (As I write this on the fell date of 4/20) if Putin & co have actually thought things through.
Hey, Vlad! Did you and your fellow anti-enlightenment oligarchs ever hear the story about the marionette with a sharp knife? First it slays the pupeteer's enemies, sure.
135 comments:
The Parallax View is another good one.
Meh. Putin is not the least bit afraid of Trump. its not like he isgoing to oppose him sacrificing Ukraine and then the Balkans. Trump is a moral and physical coward. An isolationist USA is Putin's most fervent wish , just as it was Hitler's.
coolstar, among many scenarios, when DT faces death in any of many ways, do you honestly think he won't be relishing thoughts of spasmodically taking others with him? And in other circumstances too. Especially if (and it won't happen) he actually did fill the top five tiers of US governance with brownshirts. The 'preppers' will be egging him to 'simplify the world' - telling him the bunkers will hold beautifully!
At the end of this piece, it quotes general Budakov as being an admirer of Trump; or perhaps he is hedging his bets for next year:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/04/17/kyrylo-budanov-ukraine-general-russia-war-attacks/
Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" is a horrible thing to watch. I recommend it.
Re: Putin: he must have some mixed feelings about destroying the US. Sure, it would warm the ichor of his pumping mechanism to see the United become Disunited and Internally Squabbling, but most of his secret stash is probably US cash which would become worthless...
Pappenheimer
P.S. didn't someone on this list enthusiastically praise Project 2025? I read a bit of the wiki summary and it reads like Ru$h Limb@ugh's dying wet dream...
I've commented several times on the uncanny parallels between the Tripod series and what happened in 2016, when the Trippy Show (aka Facebook aka Cambridge Analytica) nudged millions to don maga caps, vote for Brexit, and hail the Trumpod.
But I think the message we're going for here is 'be careful what you wish for'. For that, I would also mention:
- The Forbin Project (the world's nuclear arsenals, kept safe from the immature lash-outs of humanity by AIs of loving grace. What could go wrong?)
- Stark (Let the 'lepers' bring it all crashing down for preppers to rule over! Makes you wonder what other vessels those yachted billionaires have been building.)
- The Chrysalids (at the end, when the telepath from New Zealand defends the slaughter by giving a eugenics speech justifying the sweeping away of the old by the new. A horrifying moment that turns to black humour as you realise just who it is they've come all that way to rescue!)
- more recently, The Three Body Problem (That odd little joke Ye Wenjie shares with Saul when they meet for the last time? 'Never play with God'. The Trisolarians didn't like it. They're going to like it even less when they work out what it means!)
I still find it amusing that you think its Russia that is blackmailing everyone and not your own three letter agencies.
Your mind is still stuck in the early 20th century. The face of authoritarianism isnt a blowhard autocrat. Its a faceless distributed authoritarianism that regulates every aspect of your life to a far greater degree than any dictator from the 1930's could have ever dreamed.
Whereas the autocrats of the past stuck a bayonet in back and told you to walk the line, the new improved model fences off the field and informs you that you are free to walk where you like. At least in the old model, we had the dignity of knowing we had to walk the line.
The old model autocracy was modeled on the army or the factory where everyone was put into their place. The new model is based in the dot com that collects information on you in order to assign you to a category that will determine how it will automatically manipulate you.
This isnt a cyberpunk dystopia full of hardened hacker rebels living in the fringes fighting the power of the megacorps and their brutalist neon jungle.
Nope, this is a Burgerpunk dystopia, where the hacker rebel works for googles trust and safety department amidst a sea of rainbow flags and alegria art, making sure to get your accounts cancelled because you tweeted that men have penises.
As Alexis De Tocqueville said in Democracy in America: "What sort of despotism democratic nations have to fear":
"After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp, and fashioned them at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a net-work of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided: men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting: such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd."
Ohhhh, gotta love the snark.
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Items/Apr22-4.html
...
If [Marjorie Taylor] Greene finally pulls the trigger and the motion [to remove Speaker Mike Johnson] fails due to Democrats bailing Johnson out, the Freedom Caucus will have been neutered. They will, in a manner of speaking, cut off a different Johnson than the one they intended.
...
De Toqueville's description of Americans as obedient sheep does not conform with my experience of American culture and politics. On the other hand, I'm an American sheep.
Also, I have heard it said that tyrannies don't need propaganda, for force suffices for their needs; but elites in democracies do need propaganda, to ensure that the masses want what the elites want them to want. On the other hand, I heard this said by he-of-no-detectable-wisdom.
So decide for yourself.
Baa-aa-aah humbug!
If we’re such wusses, we’ll wind up eventually (the war will continue for years) sending Alegria Rainbow BurgerPink army boots to Ukraine. Soldiers will desert to coffee shops—
if there’re any left.
While it's true that correlation doesn't equal causation, I am very doubtful that "tyrannies don't need propaganda" is accurate. Perhaps in an idealized model that has no correspondence with reality, like the "Philosophical Zombie" model. But in real life the correlation between tyrants and control of information is very strong and there are very plausible reasons why it is of great benefit to tyrants.
Darell E: point taken, so I too have my doubts about he-of-no-detectable-wisdom. But perhaps you can say that tyrannies don't need propaganda as much as democracies do, and the propaganda they need is of a different sort. Tyrannical propaganda threatens and demands; democratic propaganda deludes and seduces. Maybe.
Brave New World, Dorian Gray, Lord of the Flies, and even the true story of Pitcairn Island are the most disturbing to me. Not just scary times, but hearts of darkness. If man is inherently evil/weak/fluked*, then all is lost. In a recent interview, Michael Douglas (currently appearing as and producing "Franklin"), describes his hope for and embrace of stoicism.
* in the Daniel Dennett sense of brain-wormed zombification
Our dear Ninja Comrade’s message can be summed up in four words:
Better Red than Dead.
I highly recommend HBO's "years and Years"
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=hbo+years+and+years
scidata:
Sure there's darkness in our hearts, and light too. Both are easy enough to call up.
We've made it this far. I'm with Terry Pratchett, who said that people are inherently good or inherently bad; people are inherently people.
Expect maximum complexity. Our far distant descendants will be superhuman in their intelligence, intuition, compassion, resilience, and many other traits. That's the good news. The bad news is that they'll need all of those superhuman traits to survive long enough to reproduce.
Oops, I misquoted TP. That should be people are not inherently good or inherently bad; people are inherently people.
Paradoctor:
perhaps you can say that tyrannies don't need propaganda as much as democracies do, and the propaganda they need is of a different sort. Tyrannical propaganda threatens and demands; democratic propaganda deludes and seduces. Maybe.
I'm not sure I'm on board with that. Certainly, tyrannies have more arrows in their quiver than propaganda, but there does seem to be some need for it to keep the masses feeling that the tyranny is justified or necessary for security.
Look no further than Putin's war propaganda. And wasn't the very concept of "propaganda" invented by, or at least perfected by, Nazi Germany?
The thing is, force and violence work, but they're expensive. Most of the rank and file have an upper bound on how much they're willing to engage in. Tyrannies do hold force and violence in reserve to use when necessary, but propaganda works to minimize the times when it is necessary.
Alan Brooks:
Better Red than Dead.
I'd characterize it more like, "Better dead than in a war."
The MTGs of the Republican Party are arguing that by keeping Ukraine from being overrun, we're keeping the war going, which is a bad thing. If we'd just let Russia do whatever they want, there'd be no more war, which is a good thing. It's a strategy of "Let the wookiee win."
Dirtnapper is hilarious… or would be, if the masturbatory-insanity weren’t so widely shared in his cult. And the latest and most dangerous Confederate treason since 1861. There are zero aspects of his screech that aren’t wretched-ingrate-incel treason. Starting with the fact that de Tocqueville never said any such thing.
Yes! Our ‘3-letter agencies’ are now volcanically hated by his cult.
The stunningly bizarre notion that the FBI, CIA, DIA and all the others – amid their rivalries – would somehow coalesce into a unified plot that involves hundreds – maybe thousands – of brilliant and free civil servants from varied walks of life… ALL of them raised as Americans with SoA reflexes…
…And NONE of them getting outraged and running off to collect the huge whistle-blower rewards and protections offered by Rupert Murdoch and Putin and other oligarchs… who have never, ever, ever had anyone plausibly step forth, despite offering millions. But the renamed KGB? After 200 years of Russian secret services using blackmail masterfully, they now stop? (STEP UP coward with wager stakes over that, or ANY of this.)
No, the ‘3letter agency’ crap is never worked out as an actual scenario, just a cult, circle-jerk chant as his cult wages all-out war vs ALL fact using professions, from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror.
DIG THAT. His enemies list is exactly the same as the enemies list of “ex” commissar Vlad and his 1000 fellow “ex” KGB agents. Putin, who called the fall of the USSR “history’s greatest tragedy.”
SHOW US a difference between the MAGA enemies list and Putin’s.
HEY DIRTNAPPER! Doesn’t that make you the commie here? Despite the change in surface symbols? Commie.
As for blackmail, When Cruz+Graham plus 50 other top GOPpers keep saying “I am done with Trump’s insanity”… then run to kiss his *** in Florida… please name one other scenario that can do that, other than blackmail. In contrast, name ONE such behavior on the Dem side.
As for freedom, EVERY pro-freedom measure of the last 40 years came from the Dem side. Like easing out of the Damned NancyReagan Drug War. Allowing more personal autonomy. Transparency laws. Ending the ICC and CAB and breaking up AT&T to allow comms competition… resisting the skyrocketing wealth disparities that are making YOUR stoopid lords ripe for tumbrel-rides.
BTW, I am not actually saying anything to that hopeless Kremlin-agent crumbag. These are rants too amuse – and maybe arm – the rest of you.
Forty yrs ago, protesters did in fact say better Red than Dead. How is it different today? The inference is: let Russia have a big slice of Ukraine—and maybe real estate further west—because otherwise one nuclear bomb might give you a bad hair day. And a tsar can make the trains run on time. (At least to arctic camps.)
Turn the other cheek is what Gandhi said re the Axis. He thought passive resistance might succeed in WWII, as it did later in India.
Larry Hart:
Point taken. Propaganda is talk, which is cheap. But someone on this site said that tyrannical propaganda isn't supposed to convince, but to humiliate and compromise the people who read it and must repeat it.
On the other hand, even the most liberal of democracies must on occasion pick up the sword of Justice in self-defense. As Trump is finding out, and complaining about.
By the way, the word 'propaganda' was invented by the Roman Catholic Church. It meant the propagation of the faith.
Alan Brooks:
Forty yrs ago, protesters did in fact say better Red than Dead. How is it different today?
I remember just the opposite. "Better Dead than Red." And it was a slogan of the right wing, meant to assert that it's better to die fighting (commie) tyranny than to submit to it.
You’re correct..yet there were BRTD protests, as well; at least in Europe.
https://wordhistories.net/2018/01/26/better-red-than-dead/
Paradoctor: there's darkness in our hearts, and light too
You're right, and perhaps they're even both necessary or indispensable. I've made that very point before using examples such as the good/bad Kirk episode of TOS. I was just channeling Pollyanna this time.
Also,
"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so" - Hamlet
Which is a first principle in both FRANKENSTEIN and transistor theory.
You’re correct..yet there were BRTD protests, as well; at least in Europe.
Yes. There also were large protests during the Nato Double-Track decisions in 1979. The peace movement and the environmental protests group formed the Ur-soup of the Green party.
History's irony would have it that today, the Greens are pressuring the chancellor to deliver arms into Ukraine and press rearmament, and the Social Democrats stall and suggest peace talks and diplomatic negotiations.
Surrender, not peace talks.
The irony is that the 'better dead than red' folk these days predominantly reside in states of that colour.
"Dirtnapper is hilarious… or would be, if the masturbatory-insanity weren’t so widely shared in his cult. And the latest and most dangerous Confederate treason since 1861. There are zero aspects of his screech that aren’t wretched-ingrate-incel treason"
What cult are you referring to? Incel? Im married lol.
Do tell, point out my 'treason' (aside from the fact I am not even an American citizen).
"Starting with the fact that de Tocqueville never said any such thing."
That quote? its right here Dr. Brin
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/816/816-h/816-h.htm#link2HCH0073
"Yes! Our ‘3-letter agencies’ are now volcanically hated by his cult."
Its funny how the 3 letter agencies are now heroic figures to the managerial class and their partisans. No one sane trusts or likes spooks and spies. They are at best, a necessary evil, at worst the most dire threat to a countries institutions.
"The stunningly bizarre notion that the FBI, CIA, DIA and all the others – amid their rivalries – would somehow coalesce into a unified plot that involves hundreds – maybe thousands – of brilliant and free civil servants from varied walks of life… ALL of them raised as Americans with SoA reflexes…"
What do you think Epstein was all about? Why was he protected? I'll tell you why. Epstein ran part of the blackmail network founded by the mob, then taken over by the CIA and FBI after the war. It was run by a certain Les Wexner and was handed off to Epstein in return for allowing him to pretend he was a billionaire. They are blackmailing the politicians and the wealthy, they are blackmailing each other. Blackmail is the currency of power Dr. Brin. Thats why Schumer boasted that the Intel networks have 6 ways from sunday for screwing with you.
"… But the renamed KGB? After 200 years of Russian secret services using blackmail masterfully, they now stop? (STEP UP coward with wager stakes over that, or ANY of this.)"
What wager stakes? for what? I never denied the Russians run blackmail networks. My assertion is that US politicians are far more frightened of their own intelligence services than they are of the Russians.
"... just a cult, circle-jerk chant as his cult wages all-out war vs ALL fact using professions, from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror."
Can you honestly look at midwits like Anthony Blinken or Jake Sullivan and tell me they are the best and the brightest?
The same people who *lost* the so called war on terror and destroyed the economies of the west. Wrecked Libya, Destroyed Syria. Are destroying Ukraine. The people who are incapable of diplomacy, incompetent at fighting wars, and day by day are erecting a new police state based on omnipresent surveillance with AI.
They couldnt even defeat some goat herders in Yemen lobbing ancient rockets at your ships.
Yeah.
My mechanic deals with facts. I trust him. The gasfitter I hired to set up my natural gas BBQ deals in facts. I trust him. My doctor deals in facts. I trust him. I dont trust people who see the world as a spreadsheet to be optimised and the rest of us as fungible parts of the supply chain.
"SHOW US a difference between the MAGA enemies list and Putin’s."
And your current politics are no different from William Kristol
"As for freedom, EVERY pro-freedom measure of the last 40 years came from the Dem side. Like easing out of the Damned NancyReagan Drug War. Allowing more personal autonomy. Transparency laws. Ending the ICC and CAB and breaking up AT&T to allow comms competition… resisting the skyrocketing wealth disparities that are making YOUR stoopid lords ripe for tumbrel-rides."
The people erecting the digital police state and emerging social credit system are overwhelmingly Democrat, and are building it under the assumption that their current domination of the managerial class will be permanent.
But nothing is permanent.
This from someone whose
handle means death warrior?
Oy, I’ll not waste much time with this slime, who lickspittle serves the world oligarchy of casino mafiosi, “ex” commissars, hedge lords, inheritance brats, carbon kings, drug barons, murder sheiks and Cayman cheats – ALL of whom back the traitor GOP …
… the same way that his cultural ancestors served the King in the 1770s, enslavers in the 1830s and 1860s, klansmen who murdered a cousin of mine, Nazis who murdered several dozen cousins… and cultists who now are united to serve the latest wave of rapist lords, sending wealth disparities skyrocketing back to feudalism…
…while he and fellow cultists wage all-out war vs ALL fact using professions, from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror.
AND YET he poses as a heroic ANTI_AUTHORITARIAN with masturbatory incantations like “managerial class.” Yeah, right. Hundreds of thousands of meritocratic smart people, competing with each other and blowing whistles… THEY are the “authoritarians” while your cult serves every enemy of freedom on the planet.
BET NOW! Have your atty contact me to verify escrowed wager stakes over anything I just said. Like whether 90% of casino mafiosi are GOP backers. You… don’t … dare, even though it’s what a man would do. And yeah, your poor wife.
I read the de Tocqueville passage. As Inigo Montoya said: “It does not mean what you claim that it means.”
Epstein? EPSTEIN??? Bet now, you coward over which party has TWENTY TIMES as many indicted and or convicted child molesting perverts! NOW, YOU LIAR COWARD! Right now, escrow those stakes! And we’ll start with Dennis “friend to boys” Hastert, who ended all pretense at governance when he ousted the partisan but negotiating Newt Gingrich and established rules for the GOP that put them at war against every functioning aspect of our republic. Read up on Hastert, then STEP UP with stakes over the disparity in perversion…
…Or the pure fact that every turpitude averages higher in red-run states, except Utah, than in Blue ones (except maybe Illinois.). Former sins like Gambling, divorce etc are now embraced. (Rates VASTLY higher in red states and among GOPper pols!)
Grand juries across America and mostly in red states – consisting mostly of white retirees – have indicted and other juries convicted GOPper office holders at a rate now approaching ONE HUNDRED TIMES that of democrats! That’s nearing 100X. Yes, I mean double digits approaching triple. To explain that you need either the most consistent, leakproof, and utterly vast conspiracy in human history, with never a single credible person accepting Rupert Murdoch’s lavish ‘whistle blower’ rewards… or else (simpler hypothesis) yours is a vastly corrupt, perverted and STUPID cult worshipping a KGB master murderer and a pussy-grabbing monster, whose list of public lies has now passed 150,000. (BET NOW! We can choose randomly ten lies from the grand list. Randomly. Got guts?)
(Seen the pictures of Trump with Putin? With Epstein? Imb ecile.)
I won’t answer the rest, which is a series of subjective assertions that – while insane – are not subject to objective refutation, like most of the above. Suffice it to say that I’ll take a ‘managerial class’ of several million reciprocally competitive middle class smart folks – watched daily by critical observers under fierce transparency rules and tempted always by Murdoch ‘whistle’ prizes…
….over your cult cabal of all the cheater lords on Earth, secretively plotting to restore 6000 years of feudal misery while betraying the one experimental system that ever offered humanity hope.
You… are… the… damned… commies, now.
---
And no, until I get notified he's escrowed major wager stakes, I'll not answer this traitor again.
Nothing is permanent, he writes at the end. Who at CB wrote that there is?
The people who are incapable of diplomacy, incompetent at fighting wars, and day by day are erecting a new police state based on omnipresent surveillance with AI.
China?
I do notice that when the Russians or Republicans (pardon the redundancy) are about to suffer a significant defeat, the trolls are suddenly desperate to convince us to succumb to despair over predictions that will be proven one way or another in a matter of weeks if not days or hours.
"Oy, I’ll not waste much time with this slime, who lickspittle serves the world oligarchy of casino mafiosi, “ex” commissars, hedge lords, inheritance brats, carbon kings, drug barons, murder sheiks and Cayman cheats – ALL of whom back the traitor GOP …
As I have repeatedly stated, Im not even American nor do I live in the United States lol.
"…while he and fellow cultists wage all-out war vs ALL fact using professions, from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror.
AND YET he poses as a heroic ANTI_AUTHORITARIAN with masturbatory incantations like “managerial class.” Yeah, right. Hundreds of thousands of meritocratic smart people, competing with each other and blowing whistles… THEY are the “authoritarians” while your cult serves every enemy of freedom on the planet."
What is a "fact using profession?" Because it seems to me a fact is whatever the elite consensus decides it is. It was a Fact that masks were bad when Trump wanted you to use one, then it became a Fact that multiple masks were needed when Biden decided you need one. It was a Fact that covid was highly contagious and we should avoid large crowds, then it became a Fact that it wasnt contagious if one was participating in a BLM riot.
And "meritocratic smart people". Oh my sides. We dont live in a so-called meritocracy. If we did, the makeup of your universities would look very different. The Ivy league are now nothing more than hedge funds with schools attached. They exist as mechanisms to sort and gatekeep the elite.
The Harvard MBA and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
Imagine belonging to a class of people that dominates the economy and the institutions while claiming the real oppressors are disgruntled truck drivers or unemployed coal miners who voted for Trump.
Go into a region
Hoover its youth and burden them with unsustainable debts
Outsource its industries and buy up its housing stock
Destroy its local economy with chain stores
Then take the profits extracted, invest them in the big financial centres
Mock the growing poverty and social collapse of the region and blame the locals for it.
Tell them to learn to code, while importing cheap H1B tech labour to undercut labour costs
Wonder why they increasingly resent you.
Claim to be the real victims here.
And no I’m not going to take any weird bets on tedious statistical nonsense I have no desire or ability to research. I don’t care who mafiosi vote for. They don’t hold the real power. Finance, tech and the intel agencies hold the power, and their foot soldiers are the managerial class.
You are still stuck in some binary lightswitch brain of GOP/Dems, when the real issue here is based on class. Your real hatred is not for Trump, or the GOP its towards the deplorables, and the threat of class contamination and status anxiety they pose towards elites and bourgeois strivers who comprise the managerial class.
I despise the GOP as much as I despise Democrats. The only difference is that the Dems control the institutions while the moronic GOP plays washington generals.The Dems at least give their supporters the loot. The GOP just takes the money and runs.
Try listening to what Dr. Brin says:
(1) Watch 'Network' if only to remind yourself of the murderous legacy of leftwing pro-socialist terrorism -- Antifa, Black September, PLO, SLO, NWLF, GRAPO, Action Directe, Shining Path, 19th of April Movement, May 19th Communist Coalition, Red Dawn, Red Army Factions & Weather Underground -- many of whom who are now thought to be part of our current 'legitimate establishment'.
(2) Watch 'Cabaret!' if only to remember that the NAZI 'national socialists' gained power by promising collectivism, gun control & national healthcare, established an authoritarian scientific technocracy run by 'smart people' and targeted their political opposition for persecution & destruction.
And, as you watch our prestigious universities explode with pro-Palestinian antisemitism, our unelected & unchecked 'deep state' national intelligence agencies run roughshod over our constitutions and our legal system target GOP & rightwing "office holders at a rate now approaching ONE HUNDRED TIMES that of democrats", ask Dr. Brin that same question:
"So you still think you can control them?"
Best
Sergei:
Your real hatred is not for Trump, or the GOP its towards the deplorables, and the threat of class contamination and status anxiety they pose towards elites and bourgeois strivers who comprise the managerial class.
No, it is for the deplorables. The Brownshirts actually. And the MTGs who just want the country to fail rather than engage in routine business.
I despise the GOP as much as I despise Democrats.
Yes, of course you do. It was predictable you'd say something like that. But why do you only despise the GQP when you're complaining about Democrats? Where was your hatred for Mitch McConnell during the Obama years, or for the Republican trifecta of 2017 and 2018?
The only difference is that the Dems control the institutions while the moronic GOP plays washington generals.
Seriously? The Republicans control the supreme court and much of the judiciary, a branch that isn't even supposed to be partisan, but is now obviously so. Democrats control one branch of Congress--the branch that can be filibustered. Republicans control the House, and their crazy wing controls them, although that might just have changed. Republicans control so many state legislatures that they almost have enough to demand a new Constitutional Convention.
Oh, and for good measure, Republicans control the mainstream news media, especially AM radio. No matter how they scream "liberal bias", the choices on tv and radio are right-wing or corporate-owned. But we have NPR and WCPT in Chicago? Exception that proves the rule.
I get that lefties/progressives control college administrations. Big whup in comparison.
Because it seems to me a fact is whatever the elite consensus decides it is.
Ha ha!
Oh woe is me. Reality doesn't like me.
Now I must blame the elites.
----
While the de Tocqueville quote looks correct, there is an obvious failure to grok it. We are supposed to be aware of the danger... not assume it has already arrived. SoA overdose has happened.
----
Pointing out the dangers of the three letter agencies now kinda reminds me of British Parliament members during the Napoleonic era fretting about Jacobites.
Why did the agitation begin in earnest c. 2016, and intensify Jan. ‘17?
Why did the 2020 riots occur during Trump’s watch, in the third year of his administration?
Which of the organization you reference in the first paragraph are ‘social-fascist’? Fascistic, with a veneer of ‘socialism’.
Who is it you do not despise?
I’m also worried that you are a foreign agent.
Alan Brooks:
Why did the 2020 riots occur during Trump’s watch, in the third year of his administration?
Fourth year, but who's counting?
What should be counted are the number of agents involved in current protests. If 100k protest on a given day, one or two percent being agents would be substantial.
People say don’t worry, however there’s a time when the panic button should be pressed. And it’s also said that “things will work out.”
When Kingdom Comes?
It was a Fact that masks were bad when Trump wanted you to use one, then it became a Fact that multiple masks were needed when Biden decided you need one. It was a Fact that covid was highly contagious and we should avoid large crowds, then it became a Fact that it wasnt contagious if one was participating in a BLM riot.
The fact that you cannot get the facts and the timelines right shows that you either don't care about the facts or you are too ignorant of the facts here to have useful opinions.
Since I was here, I know the above quote isn't true. You can't get obvious facts like that correct, how can you ever know things that aren't obvious? ;)
feeding time at der Trollberg...
Pappenheimer
Check out Allen Drury's "Advise and Consent" series. Chilling parallels.
Holy Moley! Dirtnaptwerp said a buncha true things! Like that Ivy League towers do help the top castes network and stay on top. (Above all,the tower of Yale, where the top lords send their scions. And Trump's Wharton.). Where he jibbers insanity is claiming that it's the scholarship kids from middle and working class families, who get into those colleges (and 5000 other univiersities) through merit who are the dangerous 'top classes.'
Geez seriously? Dirty zeroes in on CLASS WAR, which this is! The Roosevelteans and Greatest Generation and unions and fair taxation and the GI Bill almost eliminated class as the crucial factor in life (for white males, but increasingly others) thus making Karl Marx's fantasies moot. But since 1981, THE central GOP program has been to funnel "Supply Side" $trillions back into the gaping maws of aristocracy, resulting in skyrocketing wealth disparities, now surging past French Revolution levels. A flood that only (somewhat) abated with the 2021 Pelosi bills... And the coming modernization of the IRS, that terrifies top cheaters.
(Name ONE other GOP agenda item that actually gets frantic legislative - not polemical - attention. Tax cuts for the 0.01% and slashing the IRS. There... are... no... others.)
Dirt's stunning rave shows what mania controls the higher IQ confederates. Desperate denial of 6000 years of brutally stoopid rule by owner lords and inheritance brats, HE BLAMES CIVIL SERVANTS and scientists and the 99.99% of college graduates who AREN'T inheritance brats, who aren't Yale frat kings, who aren't casino mafiosi, hedge lords, carbon mogul planet wreckers and "ex" commissars.
He does this for one reason. Those tens of millions of skilled fact-users are the one clade standing in the way of a return to 6000 years of rule by dirtnapper's masters - the gangsters and their worthless inheritance brats who made 6000 years of feudalism hell. Till the real anti authoritarians rebelled.
Off with you now. Back on your knees before your masters.
Oh, about those 6000 yuars, when depressed - realize just one thousand years your chances of being killed by another human was approximately 3 in 10, 30% or so.
We're now at less than 12 in 100,000, so 0.0012%. Let's prevent return to rule by capricious owner-lords.
There's no such thing as facts! That's the essence of their cry.
Okay, let's wager our houses on Ocean Acidification, which - (once the stakes are escrowed) - we can measure for ourselves and put it before a panel of retired senior military officers. But, oh year. Today's mad right hates them, too! Their enemies list is identical to Putin's
Dr Brin:
Off with you now. Back on your knees before your masters.
Better said decades ago:
"Out! We need no urging to hate Humans. But for the present, only a fool fights in a burning house. Out!"
@Larry Hart
That TOS episode was the only time I ever saw bronzer way over-applied. Until...
scidata
...bronzer way over-applied.
I'm so old that I first saw that episode in black and white.
David, when Trump first became a candidate, you thought he would move towards the center after gaining the nomination. You admitted that you made that mistake because you underestimated how much he craved the adulation he got from his rallies. I think you are making a similar mistake in attributing his subservience to Putin to blackmail. His vulnerability through manipulation by flattery and his fawning over what he sees as displays of strength by the likes of Putin and Kim are out in the open and are quite sufficient to explain why he does what they want.
An anecdote about color tv and Star Trek...
My family first got color tv in 1974. Before that happened, the Animated Star Trek premiered on Saturday mornings the previous September. So I saw the first several episodes in B&W.
One weekend of that fall happened to be my Bar Mitzvah, so I was unable to watch any Saturday morning tv that day. The episode of ST:TAS that ran that week, I would not see until it was re-run, at which point we already had color. That episode happened to be "The Magiks of Megas-Tu". For any of y'all familiar with the animated series, that episode more than any others really needed to be seen in color.
"How much longer can I go on being an atheist?"
Lloyd Flack:
His vulnerability through manipulation by flattery and his fawning over what he sees as displays of strength by the likes of Putin and Kim are out in the open and are quite sufficient to explain why he does what they want.
IIRC, Dr Brin was talking about subservience to Trump by the likes of Ted (Raphael Eduardo) Cruz and Lindsey Graham. In the latter case especially, nothing but blackmail explains his complete turnaround from Trump critic to Trump toady. Well, blackmail or Mule powers.
LF: I am well-aware of the power of flattery. The Lords understand it and used it to lure Elon M into their camp, when lefty idiots on a sanctimony high had the bright idea of screaming into the face of an Aspergers guy. Thanks for the free gift. The way the Left is always the very best friend of the Mad Far Right.
Sure, Trump is a flattery junkie. So? Many blackmail victims go all Stockholm syndrome to love their flattering blackmailers. That does not change the simple fact that blackmail has for 200 years been THE central tool of Russian secret services. And blackmail was the principal excuse in the US establishment for rejecting homosexuals from service.
Criminy! Seriously? WHY is there this almost psycho mass reaction to talk of what is blatantly THE core noose around the necks of scores - hundreds! - of public people, especially Republican pols, whose BEHAVIOR can be explained in no other way? The reflex to run away from this realization crosses all party lines and generally borders on frantic.
Larry Hart: my Bar Mitzvah
Thanks for triggering a warm memory from many years ago. The woman next door brought her son to our door on the morning of his Confirmation (Catholic sacrament at age 13). Her husband had left a couple of years before, and she needed someone to tie his tie. What an honour.
Lloyd Flack,
...attributing his subservience...
I think the mistake is to attribute anything to just one of his flaws. That guy shows several of the issues they tell us to watch out for in our co-workers who must have clearances for their jobs. Several.
Blackmail, however, is a fantastic one the Russians have been using for ages. Played properly by a clever handler, it is the fist in the velvet glove.
I suspect the way it went involved a need for cash at a critical time coupled with some bureaucrat's power to green-light one of his projects. He probably thought he was pretty clever when he closed a particular deal, but the FIA's knew WHY the deal was dangled in the first place. The initial blackmail would have started as "We can prove you aren't that clever" and then escalated into all the other things he did to double down. Proper handling would have involved an escalating ladder of events that would turn embarrassment into actual financial collapse.
For anyone else, I'd say it would start with a sex tape, but I don't see him caring much about that. For him I think it started with 'clever' deals that embroiled him in their mafia. There IS a reason Nevada would not issue him a gaming license long ago.
David, I am perfectly willing to entertain the possibility of blackmail but in Trump's case I see it as unnecessary. The desire for adulation is in plain sight and provides a means of control will less chance of backfire than blackmail. I think the Russians are quite capable of adapting their methods to what works best against a given target. And Trump's egotism is the obvious weakness in his case.
Much of the Republican Party is afraid of violence from Trump's supporters. And probably more important, they are afraid of being primaried. But how much of their actions comes from being compromised is an open question. Graham is a lickspittle and seems to want to attach himself to someone he can fawn over. Cruz seems to be acting out of expediency and is trying to be in an advantageous position when Trump falls. I think there is a range of motivations for Republicans who should know better to support Trump. Blackmail is likely to be one in some cases, but for many, I suspect most, it explains nothing that known other factors do not explain as well.
For Musk, what you said sound like a plausible of some of his recent beviour.
Apropos of very little, aside from adding to Our Gracious Host's continual pointing out of the problems with rent-seeking behaviors, Cory Doctorow released an essay on capitalism vs. rentiers...
https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/post/748094057208823808/podcasting-capitalists-hate-capitalism
They claim to admire the WWII era Greatest Generation - yet never note that generation's favorite living human was Franklin Roosevelt. Or that the GG's fiercely contained wealth parasitism. Until Reagan began "Supply Side" gusher gifts of trillions to aristocrats, US wealth disparities were lower than any historical era. Oh, and know who was the NEXT fellah to reach those levels of popularity? His name was Jonas Salk. The man who saved summer... and millions of lives... with vaccines.
Face it. The enemies list of MAGA is exactly the same as the enemies of Vlad Putin, now including all-out war vs ALL fact using professions, from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror.
MAGA is no longer just a version of recurring confederatism. It is Kremlin commies.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/04/new-hampshire-republicans-polio-mmr-measles-vaccine-antivax-bill/
A quality of FDR's administration that impressed me, he was willing to try nearly anything to save the United States, as if he meant it when he swore his oath of office.
scidata:
the morning of his Confirmation (Catholic sacrament at age 13)
I married a Catholic. No need to explain the terminology.
As did I, but it's a diverse commentariat, some of them might not have known.
Tim H:
some of them might not have known.
True enough.
Because of television, I used to think all Americans were familiar with Jewish words as common as "kosher" or "Bar Mitzvah". Until I met my first college girlfriend's roommate, who hailed from rural Iowa. I was literally her first Jew, and she knew nothing of those words.
Last night, the Senate passed the bill the House sent them authorizing aid for Ukraine along with Israel and Taiwan and other stuff. Just in case there was any doubt President Biden would sign the bill, it passed both houses with enough votes to override a veto. Which makes it additionally shameful that a minority of the House members were able to prevent it from a vote for so many months.
I think it was Churchill who said America always does the right thing after exhausting all other options.
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Items/Apr24-5.html
The $95 billion in funding for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan that passed the House over the weekend made it through the Senate last night with ease, with 79 senators (46 D, 31 R, 2 I) voting "yea," 18 senators (2 D, 15 R, 1 I) voting "nay," and 3 senators (3 R) not voting. The Republicans nay votes came from the hard-right types, like Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Josh Hawley (R-MO), many of whom think they can get Donald Trump's blessing to succeed him as Dear Leader if they just kiss his posterior frequently and firmly enough. The Democratic and independent nay votes came from the progressives, Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Peter Welch (D-VT) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT). The three members who did not show up to vote were Rand Paul (R-KY), Tim Scott (R-SC) and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL). Maybe they were all at one of those special parties that Madison Cawthorn used to enjoy so very much.
I read something in the news about the Voyager probes. Don't tell me that Voyager 6 just fell into a black hole...we all know what that leads to.
Larry Hart,
You know that saying about how the extremes at either end of the spectrum eventually bend around until they merge together, or something like that? The nay votes in the House and the Senate on that aid bill seem to illustrate that phenomenon.
Darrell E:
the extremes at either end of the spectrum eventually bend around until they merge together
An example of the opposite dynamic--or maybe more accurately, a reaction to it--is the presumed deal that House Democrats have made with Speaker Johnson to save his bacon in the event of a motion to vacate the chair.
Did you see that Trump lost almost 20% of the PA primary vote to Nicki Haley - who dropped out 2 months ago?
PA is a closed primary, so it wasn't democrats voting for Haley.
That's real good news for Haley.
And real bad news for Trump.
How can he expect to win in November when up to 1/3 of his own party hates him?
If Trump is convicted in the hush money trial he can get up to 4 years.
He can run from prison (socialist Eugene V. Debs did so in 1920), but can he serve as president from a jail cell?
Stonekettle on Threads:
https://www.threads.net/@stonekettle
stonekettle
1d
I'm sick and tired of hearing about how Trump's supporters will become violent if Trump is held accountable like everyone else.
Let 'em.
Let these Brown Shirts resort to violence. Then we'll arrest their terrorist asses and put them in the cell next to Trump. Because that's what it is, you know, when you threaten violence in support of some political cause. Terrorism. So, you want to be terrorist, then I see no reason why we shouldn't treat you like a terrorist.
Fuck around, find out.
Larry Hart:
They'll do their worst. Let's do our best.
Dirtnapninja said:
"...it seems to me a fact is whatever the elite consensus decides it is."
So is he a postmodernist? Is Derrida on his bookshelf?
Sokal warned us about the postmodernists. They billed themselves as the leftiest of the lefties, but in obedience to Horseshoe Theory, pomo serves as a tool of oppressive privilege.
Dr. Brin:
I agree that it's amusing to call the Mad Right "commies", but it's not historically accurate. They don't call for the working class's ownership of the means of production. The historically accurate term for the Mad Right is "useful idiots".
As for Putin snaring Trump by flattery or blackmail: why not both? I speculate that they roped him in with flattery, then hogtied him with blackmail. I furthermore speculate that this technique is discussed in chapter 2 of "Dark Arts", by Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale.
One of the several things that lends credence to Putin having kompromat on Trump is that Trump is a contender for the most eminently blackmailable person in the history of blackmail.
And as Paradoctor said, "I speculate that they roped him in with flattery, then hogtied him with blackmail." That is the A-number-1 tactic of Soviet / Russian intelligence agencies and they are very, very good at it by all accounts.
I can't remember where I first read about this, but it has been pointed out by others that Soviet / Russian agents reaching out to offer help to high level US politicians, particularly those that might run for POTUS, has been a normal thing over the past 50-60 years. They always tried. And every time, at first contact, the politician in question, even bitter opponents of the incumbent, readily contacted the appropriate authorities (the FBI I think?) and told them all about it.
Except for 1 person*. Care to guess who that was? Starts with a 'T' and ends with a 'rump.'
* Actually, if we include lower level Reps & Senators I'd guess that several have been compromised to one degree or another by Russia over the past 20 years or so. Traitors, every last one of them.
Paradoc, sure, the Soviets 'called for' working class ownership of the means of production. But the swift alacrity by which the commissars used Cheney money to snap up Soviet assets and become 'oligarchs' showed how little any of them cared about surface religious dogma. (One of several reasons George H W Bush was by far the worst US president of the 20th Century, damn him to hell.)
The USSR was always 75% Russian imperialism. And hence 'commie suits those fellow travellers and 5th collumn quislings in MAGA.
Sure, you lock in a blackmail victim with flattery or vice versa, e.g. by inviting him to parties with a 2-way mirror.
Darrell, that is why the biggest thing Biden could do is my proposed amnesty for blackmail victims who step up courageously and help dismantle the cabals.
Brin, sure, the Soviets were corrupt Communists. In the end they showed that they never believed their dogma. But I wonder: were there any sincere Communists, in other countries?
You call the Maga-ists "quislings". That works fine.
Dr. Brin,
The Breakup of the Soviet Union was always going to be an 'excrement hits the rotating blades' situation, but having the US response handed over to the Young Republicans and the Chicago School of Business was...suboptimal.
I realized why we disagree with your hypothesis that the Russians have kompromat on everybody in the GQP (and probably lots of others, too). You actually have more respect for Republican leadership than I do! I'm of the opinion that Putin doesn't need blackmail to get his wishes; while some GQP members are probably compromised and/or bribed, the majority have rushed to sell their souls for messes of pottage, like Dudley Moore in the old movie who sold his soul for an ice cream cone and then lent the money to the devil to buy the cone.
Pappenheimer
P.S. re: USSR being 75% Russian imperialism - I doubt it started that way, but yes, within a few years the freedom fighters and true believers had all been neutralized (many permanently). Trotsky survived for a while, but only in exile.
Pappenheimer:
some GQP members are probably compromised and/or bribed, the majority have rushed to sell their souls for messes of pottage,
While some of them are cynically using pro-Putin talking points to appeal to their voters--"Putin champions white Christians against the decadent, woke feminists of the west"--I get the sense that for some of them, that's an honest expression of their own values. They really do prefer an iron-gloved authoritarian dictator, as long as he's their dictator.
Dr Brin in the main post:
the “Manchurian Candidate.” (Yeah, the premise of him being the gunman is bizarre;
As I recall the film, all the commies needed for the plot was to hypnotize a US soldier to do the dirty deed. But they intentionally used Angela Lansbury's son as some sort of exertion of power over her.
A trivial detail from that movie, but the actor (Khigh Dhiegh, according to IMDB.com) who plays the communist mastermind of the plot later plays pretty much the exact same character on Hawaii Five-O, the recurring villain Wo Fat.
Another trivial detail--Angela Lansbury is in the bloom of youth in that movie, but there's a scene near the end, a close-up in which she's particularly angry--where her "Jessica Fletcher" face makes itself known.
Larry - Khigh Dhiegh's character Wo Fat's evil genius is on full display here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=supWaeV_F_E
What was great about Wo Fat is that he often defeated McGarret.
Spy shows and cop shows were just so much cooler back in the 60s.
Mission Impossible being a great example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwpXUn2dF5c
And as always if you or any member of your IMF team are killed or captured the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions.
This post will self destruct in 5 seconds.
Good luck Dr. Brin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y9NtHlJvbY
(Without the USSR and the Cold War, spy thrillers just ain't what they used to be.)
Or as the Get Smart version put it.
"If you decide to take this mission, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions.
"If you decide not to take this mission, you're fired.
"This tape will self-destruct in 5 second...(beep)...(beep)...(beep)...(beep)...(beep)...(beep)...(beep)...(beep)...maybe 10...(beep)...(beep)"
They DO. But you can tell them: though they’re white nationalist, that they are Christian is doubtful.
Putin might be considered to be an antiChrist.
You call the Maga-ists "quislings". That works fine.
'Trumplings' works well, too.
For an extra stir, refer to their beloved leader as 'Donny Jay'.
Spagettization?
More satirical than scary, but IDIOCRACY (2006) captures much of the current zeitgeist.
DP:
What was great about Wo Fat is that he often defeated McGarret.
I remember seeing the episode you excerpted, though that would have been in re-runs.
The first Wo Fat episode I saw, probably around 1973 or 74, McGarrett and Wo Fat never even crossed paths. There was an assassination plot, and when it was all over, McGarrett somehow intuited that Wo Fat had been behind it. Even though I had never seen the character before, I could tell from the way the dialogue was presented that he must be a recurring villain.
Alan Brooks:
that they are Christian is doubtful.
Putin is Christian the same way Trump is. Not good examples of Christ's teachings, but good soldiers or maybe watchdogs in service of those voters who consider themselves Christians.
The politicians and voters who prefer an authoritarian dictator as long as he's theirs aren't at all concerned about the teachings of Christ. Their belief is that by claiming the title "Christian" for themselves, they get to be the ones whom the law protects but does not bind.
Alan,
On the Antichrist scale, rumpt beats Putin. Putin's just another corrupt dictator; he fits in well with Russian history. rumpt is sui generis, and I hope he stays that way - though I suspect that when he passes out of history's lineup, he will be but the apprentice to whatever ludicrous horror replaces him on the GQP ballot. That curve hasn't leveled off yet.
Pappenheimer
Larry - and Hawaii 5-0 had the only opening sequence as cool as Mission Impossible:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AepyGm9Me6w
Amazing that Jack Lord can stand on top of a skyscraper on a windy day and not as ingle hair moves.
Book 'em Danno!
"like Dudley Moore in the old movie who sold his soul for an ice cream cone and then lent the money to the devil to buy the cone."
All I remember from that movie is Raquel Welch
DP:
Book 'em Danno!
When I was in college in the 1980s, my roommates and I watched a lot of Hawaii Five-O reruns. We noticed that in the first season or two, every episode ended with McGarrett shooting the bad guy dead. Someone must have told them to lighten it up, because only after a few seasons did they switch to arresting the villains alive, and that's when they started using the phrase you quoted above.
My tldr of the SCOTUS immunity hearing:
Is the President an elected King?
Everyone except Alito: no
Alito: yes
scidata:
Is the President an elected King?
...
Alito: yes
I'm curious as to how he reconciles that with the current president. He surely doesn't think a Democrat has Presidential Immunity.
He was bad-mouthing FDR when I stopped listening. Busy.
I am mourning the death of one of my best friends. He was very much a liberal but he had a big heart and was easy to be friends with. He had the office next to mine for 2 and a half years and we would have long talks almost every day about the biggest issues. We disagreed in the nicest way possible. His friendship was a blessing; I am not nearly as good a man as he was. I am glad he was willing to be friends with me; I once mentioned former co-worker and she was the only person I ever heard him disparage.
He was a big sci-fi and gaming fan. I was talking with him one day about cryo-suspension and he mentioned the Larry Niven short story "Rammer" and how it was one of his favorites. He didn't know that Niven used that story as the first part of his novel A WORLD OUT OF TIME.
He was born in Saudi Arabia; his father was an American oil company engineer (who died last year at the age of 100). He had many adventures including working for a year or so on a tug boat on the Mississippi. Then he went to law school and ended up in the Virgin Islands in the prosecutor's office...where I met him in 2015. I curse my bad luck that I did not meet him during my earlier tenure in the islands from 1995 to 1999. We had the same interests and the same friends, but whatever. He has two magnificent children. His son served as enlisted in the USCG and now manages water plans in various countries. His daughter graduated the USCG Academy and competed in the Olympics. We all went to see the movie WORLD OF WARCRAFT together. The only Olympic athlete I have ever met.
I aspire to be as patient and understanding as he was. He was a much better man than I could ever hope to be. Dean L. Barnes, rest in peace.
So sorry to hear about the loss of your friend, GMT. My condolences to you, and to his family.
@GMT,
You certainly know very interesting people.
The Furious Five Justices (possibly including Roberts) must be certain that a democratic president will not have them hauled off and shot, while a GQP prez will have the OTHERS hauled off and shot. Catbird seat justice, but they don't know much history, do they?
GMT - your friend sounds like someone I would have been proud to lose a game to.
Pappenheimer
I hope to listen to the oral arguments as I drive to and from Cincinnati on my one-day in the office tomorrow. The issue under dispute is easily mischaracterized. I wish I could talk with Dean about this...it was exactly the kind of thing we would talk about and find agreement about.
What constitutes an "official act" of a President? Just because a President claims something is an "official act" does not make it one. What is the appropriate procedure when a President gives an unpopular order that is arguably illegal? For instance - ordering a drone strike in a foreign country that kills a US citizen?
GMT:
What constitutes an "official act" of a President? Just because a President claims something is an "official act" does not make it one. What is the appropriate procedure when a President gives an unpopular order that is arguably illegal? For instance - ordering a drone strike in a foreign country that kills a US citizen?
Complete amateur response here, but it seems to me that "ordering a drone strike", regardless of the legality, is something the president does in his role as president. If the order shouldn't have been given, there are options within the system for pushing back--refusing the order, censure, impeachment, and so on. But not something the man would be personally liable for in civilian court. Correct or not, "ordering a drone strike" is a function of the presidency, not of the man* personally.
Whereas interfering with a government function--i.e., the counting of electoral votes--is not something one does in his* role as president.
* Why use the male pronoun? Well, as Rick Blaine said to Major Strasser's subordinate about imagining the Nazis in London, "When you get there, ask me."
GMT such friends are blessings, indeed and he sounds like a real success, as a dad. I hope you find some semblence of such friendship here, if cantankerously argumentative! (Which makes us loyal to the same underlying assumptions oft discussed here.) Even though many here can be called 'blue' in these desperate times. 'Liberal' can be misleading. But the color has been the same for the same side since 1775.)
----re immunity ----
Two domanins.
If an act was IN the expected activities of the presidency, then the recourse is impeachment and conviction-removal.
If outside that domain, it should be okay to seek redress in courts even while in office. Which includes personally shooting senators so you can't be removed!
I've said before: We need Slow Presidential Accountability to replace the cuirrent, obscene ruling of the Office of Legal Counsel. Perhaps a limit that the president should have to turn his attention fully to legal actions at most 10 hours a week as moderated by a neutral master. Without much impinging on the office, nevertheless wheels of justice turn.
I'm not so worried about the slowness of Presidential Accountability. We also elect a VP while the Cabinet gets blessed by the Senate.
Hand off some tasks to the VP and Secretaries... then get busy with your lawyers.
-----
I'm not tempted to codify exactly how Legislative and Executive branches check each other. It's not like those laws would be much more than customs. They ARE co-equal branches of government.
GMT-5,
The example you gave - "ordering a drone strike in a foreign country that kills a US citizen..." is.... OK, during the Horrible Unpleasantness Between the States that Some People Claim Was NOT About Slavery, The US President ordered actions that resulted in the deaths of thousands of people who, since the Confederacy was not recognized as a sovereign state by the US, were US citizens (rebellious ones, but still.) Any legal cases filed by Confederate widows or landowners (murder, arson, etc.) would have been laughed out of court - in fact, Lee tried to get his own estate back, as I recall. It's still Arlington National Cemetery. Neither side declared war, so the situation is analogous. The location of the strike is immaterial.
Now, if a President decides to have, say, his golf caddy capped by the secret service, or shoots a White House aide himself, I think impeachment or the 25th amendment comes into play.
Are you worried that an ex-president could be taken to court for actions taken during their presidency? Why shouldn't they be? I personally think Nixon should have done his later interviews through a barred window...
Pappenheimer
Ha.
GMT-5 suckered you into condemning President Obama for his 2011 premeditated extralegal execution by drone strike of not 1, not 2, but 3 US citizens in Yemen without legal justification, due process or a declaration of war, making it 1st degree premeditated murder punishable by death.
https://www.aclu.org/cases/al-aulaqi-v-panetta-constitutional-challenge-killing-three-us-citizens?redirect=targetedkillings
President Biden then took full credit for a 2022 lethal drone strike against suspected Afghani terrorists, only to discover that he murdered 7 innocent children & 10 civilians total, an action which also represents premeditated 1st degree murder, as the US never formally declared war in Afghanistan either.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/19/us/politics/afghanistan-drone-strike-video.html
What's even more hilarious is that most 'Get Trump' US Democrats still think that stripping the US executive & congressional branches of qualified immunity is a good idea, even though these politicians (if victorious) will soon be swinging from either a lamppost or their own petards for their own crimes.
And, since these self-righteous morons have already stripped the police of their own 'qualified immunity' in the Derek Chauvin case, don't expect these vulnerable police officers to risk imprisonment by assiduously doing their own 'protect & serve' bullshit jobs anytime soon.
Best
The notion is that a president could be harrassed by enemies through relentless legal actions, into inability to do the job. Hence, the 10 hours/week could be triaged by a Special Master, prioritizing those matters that seem most pertinent.
What is unfotgivable is Biden not trashing the OLC 'advice' of NO legal action during presidency.
The extreme example of absurd 'immunity' that I've seen no one make. Prez sees that he will be convicted in the Senate 70 to 30... so he goes and shoots five senators to prevent it. A scenario so abscenely clear that I am amazed I haven't heard it.
I admit is was nice not to have to quick scroll past the sewer spews. But it is what it is.
Pappenheimer:
I personally think Nixon should have done his later interviews through a barred window...
I still think we must distinguish between actions taken by the president, qua president, and crimes committed by the person who happens to be president at the time. The fallacy in Trump's argument is that anything he did between 2017 and 2020 is a presidential duty. I do think we'd invite chaos by claiming that, say, Bill Clinton can be held personally responsible for murder in the deaths at Waco, or President Obama for Osama bin Laden.
* * *
Dr Brin:
The extreme example of absurd 'immunity' that I've seen no one make. Prez sees that he will be convicted in the Senate 70 to 30... so he goes and shoots five senators to prevent it. A scenario so abscenely clear that I am amazed I haven't heard it.
The electoral-vote.com site made a similar argument many months ago. As if speaking to the supreme court: "So the president can walk in here and shoot all nine of you dead? As long as his party controls the Senate, he can not only pardon himself, but then appoint nine replacements? You're really ok with that?"
Larry,
I have to agree...the current system must split 'acts of state' from personal peccata. Personally, I's like to see us 'invaded' by the "Law Machines" from the old Buck Godot SF comic, who applied a society's laws to its citizens without regard to their social status...in fact I wrote something like that into my fantasy world - when the city of Collena surrendered peacefully to the expanding Optimate, they were granted a boon and requested a rat-free city. The wizards of the Optimate created a synthetic demon that lived in the city and ate only rats. When the city of Pelri, whose syndics had pretended to surrender and then captured/sacrificed the first occupation force, was finally taken after bitter siege, a different demon was created - one that ate anything that stole from the people. There aren't any rats or thieves in Pelri, but there aren't many people who want to become a syndic, either...
Pappenheimer
Pappenheimer:
the current system must split 'acts of state' from personal peccata
The current system does. That was affirmed by the lower court and the whateverth circuit appellate court. Only the Clarence Thomas supreme court is entertaining the idea that there might be a Trump exception. (They're not seriously considering whether President Biden has total immunity, are they?)
Worth reading the whole (non-paywalled) piece, if you don't mind walking away depressed about the course of our democracy.
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Items/Apr26-1.html
...
Given how long it will take for the Supremes to make a decision, and then how long it will take for the district court to implement that decision, and then the possibility of another appeal, and then the time involved in conducting a trial, it's hard to see how any of Trump's trials, other than the one already underway, and maybe the one in Georgia, can possibly happen in 2024. And if he wins, of course, he's going to pardon himself. That will end up in court, but maybe what he can do is announce that any judge who rules against him will be executed by firing squad. Could be legal for a sitting president to do, by then.
Al Kaporn is visibly decomposing before our eyes - time and tides. All his machinations will be for someone else's benefit.
Reading GMT's words about his friend made me think about what a 'good' person is. I think it's someone who truly accepts their mortality before it's too late, and acts accordingly. I try, but others succeed.
"Al Kaporn is visibly decomposing before our eyes". - Howard Beale.
Yup, I want to see him protected and healthy. I'm much more scared of what he's paving the way for.
scidata:
I want to see him protected and healthy
Bad liberal that I am, I really don't want that. Oh, I don't want something to happen to him that can be blamed on liberals or Democrats. But if God were to take him from us, I would clap and shout until my hands and throat were raw.
One of the things I hate most about the modern right-wing is that they've taught me to hate.
I’d support putting his face on a new three dollar bill if his supporters backed away from electing him President. (Smirk)
Stonekettle on Threads:
https://www.threads.net/@stonekettle
Would like to see Alito ask Trump's lawyer point blank if Joe Biden should be able to order the SEALs to execute Donald Trump because in Biden's official presidential opinion that would be best for national security.
You guys do NOT want anything bad to happen to the Orange Cockwomble - it would be like cutting the head off the hydra - immediately replaced by one just as evil but almost certainly more competent.
America needs Trump to survive - to suck all of the resources out of the GOP and then to lose the election by a massive number taking most of the GOP with him.
Duncan,
...to suck all of the resources out of the GOP...
Well... the last time we had one of our major parties implode like that led to the birth of the original GOP then Lincoln's election. Shortly after that we were all shooting each other.
There is some room to argue for the survival of the GOP while its idiot wing dies having been skewered by all involved so no single group can be blamed. If judicial trials are involved, a firing squad metaphor is probably better.
Alfred,
It'd be lovely for the GOP to divorce itself from the New Know-Nothing Party, but so far it seems that it's been assimilated instead, except for some Never Trumpers who are now the fringe element. Here's hoping...
Comparing the US to India, England, and now Germany among others, it does seem like there is a tide in the affairs of men; even Portugal has temporarily(?) shifted right, and they know from dictators in recent memory. I surprised my wife by mentioning how late in the last century Spain retained a fascist dictator...I really hope we don't have to relearn the lessons of the 20th C. There is no room for a world war on this planet any more*.
Pappenheimer
*though Russian media are apparently barking about how it's inevitable, and they might get their hair mussed but they'd win a nuclear exchange. Apparently these are the common clay of the New East....
duncan cairncross:
it would be like cutting the head off the hydra
I'm not convinced that it wouldn't be more like the death of The Mule. His tyranny survived him for a bit--the modified Captain Han Pritcher lay seige to Terminus for a time--but the Foundation was able to overcome once the mutant was out of the picture. So may America.
Hi Larry
If Trump had been a one off - but he is actually the culmination of a change that has been happening since Reagan and Nixon committed treason in order to win elections.
The GOP has been simply getting more and more blatant with its criminal activities.
The body needs to be killed off and regrown - not just the head!
"... if Joe Biden should be able to order the SEALs to execute Donald Trump because in Biden's official presidential opinion that would be best for national security."
This whole 'order Seal Team 6" thing is dumb. They would not obey. THEY do not have immunity. The reductio ad absurdum thing is if BIDEN were to shoot DT. Both Secret Service teams would leap to separate them. So, would it boil down to a brawl? But JB has huge statutary seniority in SecSerfv loyalty. The fact that we are musing this is proof that John Roberts is a Russian agent.
The wave of GOP House resignations has me fantacizing Liz Cheney and Romney and others have some kind of 'move' planned. And of course it is fantasy. SHE has a little guts. The rest?
Such charming folk who shoot the family dog, then the goat for good measure. VP would stand for 'Very Pathological' in this case (and adds a sinister slant to being referred to as 'the Greatest Of All Time')
Well, you know what to do come November.
Meanwhile, in LEO, other brooms are being tested
duncan cairncross:
The GOP has been simply getting more and more blatant with its criminal activities.
That's true of the politicians themselves, but the fanaticism of their voters and Brownshirts is a cult worshipping one particular man. Mule powers is the most Occam-friendly explanation.
There were a whole bunch of evil Nazis too, but they wouldn't have been what they were without Hitler.
@Tony Fisk,
Astroscale space debris removal (link courtesy of Chris Hadfield). Very cool, EXISTENCE fiction is becoming fact it seems.
Tony Fisk:
being referred to as 'the Greatest Of All Time')
I'm old enough to remember when being "the goat" in sports was the opposite of being the hero. It's very weird to hear figures nowadays described as "the GOAT" as a positive thing.
Dr Brin:
But JB has huge statutary seniority in SecSerfv loyalty.
Assuming that was an autocorrected "statutory".
The sitting president might have de jure priority, but Republicans seem to have de facto preference among the protector class.
Dr Brin:
The fact that we are musing this is proof that John Roberts is a Russian agent.
I have to assume that there is no way the Roberts/Thompson court is going to declare that President Biden can do whatever he wants with no recourse. So there's no way they'll come out with a ruling before the election that affirms complete Presidential Immunity. What they're doing in the service of Trump and Putin is to delay any other rulings that might go against Don Snoreleone before November.
If even 2% of what Kristi Noem wrote about killing pets is true, then DT has found his VP pick.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl7k6SwG-pY
scidata,
Murdering hunting dogs that won't work is pretty standard fare in some parts of this country. They aren't pets. Farm families have always had to set a line between 'pet' and 'product*'. I guess dogs can straddle the line, because they all get names, but some are working animals, eliminated if they don't have value.
Shooting a goat for butting your kids - never heard of that, but it does showcase the kind of violence rumpt fans seem to crave. You may be right, though I suspect the VP slot will go to someone even scummier, if scummier there be.
*"If you're going to eat it, don't name it." Dogs and horses don't generally get eaten in Western cultures, possibly because of old, old (Indo-European) partnership. Of course, "they shoot horses, don't they?" and "when the last dog is hung" are rather old phrases...
Pappenheimer
I grew up on farms and know all about hard work, tough choices, and where meat comes from.
But discarding dead chickens, hating* a puppy, and including the "Where's Cricket?" horror - wow.
* The blasphemy at the core of Moby Dick
Weekend posting starts with wisdom from Penn Jillette, then moves on to a topic I’ve covered for 30+ years… computer-aided fakery.
https://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2024/04/fakery-so-many-kinds-and-possible.html
onward
onward
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