I've been distracted by local vexations. But truly, it's time to weigh back into this era in America, that Robert Heinlein accurately forecast as The Crazy Years.
This is a long one. But here are things you ought to know, that you've not seen in the news. Starting with...
== The Tariff War ==
* Ninety-five years ago a Republican Congress passed the biggest tariff hike til Trump. Which even Republican economists now call the dumbest policy move ever. The thing that swerved a mere stock market downturn into the Great Depression.
Want it explained in a way that's painfully funny? But sure. Some of you already knew that.
* Only have you considered how Trump's tariffs on China give Xi and the Beijing Politburo exactly what they want?
Always look at who benefits! So far it sure looks like Putin and Xi.
* Oh, and this... Want the biggest reason China's economy was already in decline? No one in media is touting that the USA was already experiencing a renaissance of manufacturing.
HOW is that not a major part of the story? As a direct result of the 2021 Pelosi bills, investment in U.S. domestic factories skyrocketed!** Shortening supply chains, reducing use of toxic ocean freighters and dependence on China. Only now, if it continues, Trump will claim "My tariffs did it!"
Because Democrats have the polemical skills of a tardigrade.
(Oh, and the USA has been energy independent and a net exporter of oil etc. since Obama. Care to bet? "Drill baby drill?" The Saudis are already scared. They won't allow it.)
== Want another aspect you hadn't considered? ==
* This nutty Tariff War will end the status of the US dollar as the world reserve currency.
It is fast underway, as we speak. Long a fond goal of the Chinese politburo, along with Putin and the Saudis. All of them our close friends. Though even our actual allies won't trust the dollar anymore.
Take a look at what's happening with the dollar... and be proud. So proud.
== Might a Tariff Gambit have been done better?
* By effectively banning Chinese imports to the U.S., Trump is sending commerce into chaos and prices skyward. Still, while it's totally dumb and risky, I suppose that a carefully selective tarrif tiff might have worked.
If the aim was to replace China as our top supplier, it could have been done tactically, by favoring friendlier cheap-labor nations like Vietnam and Malaysia. First, that would keep supply chains going. It would also help to solidify those nations as allies in opposing Beijing ambitions southward. And give US businesses a way to transition more gently.
Better yet... Mexico.
While our southern neighbor has been fast transforming into a middle class nation - largely thanks to trade with the U.S. - it's still pretty cheap labor. Only with many added bonuses. First, as Mexicans become more prosperous, they buy a lot of stuff from the USA. Three dollars out of every ten that we spend on Mexican value-added goods - say in maquiladora parts-assembly plants - comes right back.
Second, U.S. manufacturers will tell you they invest more in US factories when they can partner with Mexican ones. (Shall we wager over that assertion?)
(*Elsewhere I explain why turning Mexico middle class has been one of America's greatest accomplishments! I can prove it. For example, during all of the Right's ravings about illegal immigration, do you hear that it's Mexicans flooding the border? No you don't. The fraction of border-crashers who are Mexican citizens has been in steep decline for a decade. Increasingly, it's refugees from Central American right-wing caudillo regimes and so on. Because most Mexicans can now find decent work at home. Try actually tracking such things for yourself.)
Want another selective tariff that could have advanced U.S. interests?
How about we use tariffs to pressure countries to stop buying Russian oil, till Putin withdraws from Ukraine? And punish countries like Panama and Gabon and all the other 'flags of convenience' till they stop shilling for Russian tankers that are evading sanctions and rusting into ecological time bombs? More generally, notice that Trump made no actual demands!
Instead? Notice that Russia was left out of any mention on Trumps list of a zillion super-tariffed nations. Why would that be?
Because while Don howls words occasionally toward Putin -- purely for show -- he never ever ever ever does any actual acts that negatively affect his Kremlin master.
Ever.
== The distilled frothy essence atop the poop pile ==
I could go on about the Trump Tariff War. But of course it boils down to two things that should be plain to anyone.
First: it's primarily the USA and our friends who will get harmed, but never our enemies...
... and second: it's all jibbering lunacy! Perp'd by a clown car of capering idiots.
Dig it: during Trump v.1.0 (#45) he at least appointed a veneer of adults to top positions... then got pissed off when ALL of those adults (Tillerson, McMaster, Barr etc.) turned on him, denouncing him as a raving moron and Kremlin agent.
The one absolute fact about Trump v 2.0 (#47) is the total absence of any adults in the room.
None. Anywhere. Not one appointee who is actually suited or qualified for the job. Just toadies. Lickspittle and (my personal theory) blackmailed to ensure utter loyalty. See the pattern. Because no one in media - not even a single liberal pundit - is tracking the obvious.
== A few more things to notice ==
I was gonna do all the tariff stuff as 'blips' but there was no way to condense those complicated aspects. So, here are a few items that may qualify as 'blips':
SIGNAL GATE. Remember the Signal Idiocy?
("Oh, Brin, that was so 'last week.'" Yeah yeah. Libs never notice that a core KGB/MAGA tactic is to distract from one scandal by moving on to the next one!)
Sure, liberal and moderate media did an okay job blaring at some aspects of the insipidly dumb "Signalgate" Scandal, wherein a dozen top Trumpian cabinet officials illegally used an non-secure, unvetted chat system to giggle-blather top secret information about a looming US military action against the Yemeni Houthi rebel enclave... while one member of the chat was even in a notoriously non-secure Moscow hotel, at that very moment!
And of course, everyone in media shouted that our National Security Adviser invited a top-level critic/reporter into the chat without vetting nor any participant (not even the Director of National 'Intelligence') even noticing.
Still and alas, as always, no one in either moderate or liberal media commented that:
1. Not a single military officer was part of the conversation about a major military operation. Sure, it's consistent with the all-out Republican campaign against the entire senior officer corps. The men and women who have been most dedicated to service and fact-centered responsibility. And competence!
No, no, we can't have anyone like that in a conversation about a military operation. Some common sense might leak in and pollute the purity of blithering idiocy.
2. Um... but... WHY attack the Houthis? I am sure someone in media must have asked that, but I never saw it. Indeed, the dumbitude aspects of "Signalgate" perfectly distracted from that bigger question.
Think about it. The Houthis are at war with the Saudis. And every Republican administration, without exception, does the bidding of the Saudi Royal House instantly and without question. Bush Sr., Bush Jr. and Trump. Good doggies.
But are WE served by enraging potential new bin Ladens into swearing revenge on America?
Sure, the Houthis are Shiite friends of Iran... and Iran is best buds with Putin. But then so are the Saudis... and so is Trump. Confused yet? Then look for the common thread.
What they ALL want - and seek from Trump - is the fall of American liberal democracy. And any sign of a world governed by a transparent Rule of Law.
Distilled in its essence, the Houthis are the least culpable party in any of this. All they want is to be left alone. Oh, their current leadership is likely a pack of radical jerks. But if a fair referendum were held, 90%+ of the population of North Yemen would vote for independence and peace and membership in the family of nations.
Above all, do we really need more enemies, right now?
== And WHY the DOGE mass firings? ==
Ay Carumba! I've seen NO ONE in media or politics even try to penetrate this question!
If they wanted that, they could have done it the way that Al Gore did with his massively effective efficiency campaign in the 90s.
No. All the slashed civil servants I just mentioned, and thousands more were attacked and their services to citizens cauterized for one reason. The same old reason that liberal and moderate pundits always fall-for. Distraction from the real targets.
1. I mentioned the United States senior military officer corps. The smart and savvy and dedicated generals and admirals must be brought to heel!
2. The FBI and all related law professionals. Um duh? But above all...
3. The Internal Revenue Service. The greatest accomplishment of the 2021 Pelosi bills was to fully fund the IRS, which had been starved by GOP Congresses into using 1970s computers and crippled for lack of personnel from auditing the super-rich tax cheaters...
...cheaters who were left terrified by that legislation! And I assert that the topmost reason they pushed hard for Donald Trump was to get this opportunity to re-gut the IRS.
And failure to even note or mention that aspect only proves my point about the moderate and liberal and Democrat political and punditry caste. Oh, many of them are decent people, with far lower rates of every turpitude than their corrupt, perverted and blackmailed GOP counterparts...
...but smart?
Tardigrades. Tardigrades all the way down.
== There's so much more... ==
...but no time or room for any more this weekend.
Oh I am sure that some of the items I cite above were mistaken or cockeyed. But suffice it to say that those in media who failed to note any of them are proving to be almost as incompetent and blind as the fools who ran the Harris campaign and put us into this mess.
But YOU don't have to be blind!
You can spread word about some of these things. Get others to see what has NOT been spoon-fed to them by simplistic media. And if you get any of the complicit dopes to put up wager stakes, I'll happily provide ways and means to take their money.
Heinlein had it right. The way to ultimately emerge from The Crazy Years is to spread sanity.
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**The idiocy of Kamala Harris's advisers, for not emphasizing the return of U.S. manufacturing instead of just shouting "Abortion!" ten million times - disqualifies them from any future role in Democratic politics. Kamala herself was fine. Her political mavens should have no future role.
175 comments:
About the wager tactic:
Many on these threads warn that the wager tactic won't work, or will backfire. I favor it for its entertainment value; for entertainment is a large part of politics, now and always.
Which means that you don't have to put the wager tactic to effect in reality! It would suffice to produce a media product that illustrates the wager tactic! Give the tale sufficient accuracy and drama, and it will have the desired political effect.
And that is exactly what you, Dr. Brin, are qualified to produce! So I modestly propose that you write up that story. Title: "Ya Wanna BET?!" Our hero challenges a smug demagogue with a wager; he sets up the vetting that you recommend, and when the target runs away, our hero taunts him: "Run away, run away, you chicken! BRAWWK buk-buk-buk BUCKAWW!"
You've thought about this, so you could write the story quickly. Make it fun to read, post it, and it will sway minds. Maybe someone will act on it.
It might work at a public event. I think it would backfire in private conversations. And I think it would fail online. Which of these situations is it intended for? And even at a public event I can think of ways it could be turned against you.
Yes, do it in public, televised, recorded. I recommend doing it first as fiction, as thought-experiment.
What can go wrong, as fiction or in reality? The tone police will tut-tut you. But who cares about the tone police? Not most voters.
The reason that the US is attacking the Houthis is pretty damn obvious: the Houthis have been attacking commercial shipping that passes through the Strait of Hormuz for over a year now, and the most recent attack isn't signficantly different from ones ordered by President Biden.
The US has been using its military to fight for freedom of the seas ever since Thomas Jefferson was President, when the US went to war with the Barbary Coast pirates. Similar maritime offenses were also the stated cause of the War of 1812 against England, and the use of unrestricted submarine warfare by Germany during World War 1, including the infamous sinking of the Lusitania, was a large part of the buildup to the United States eventually entering World War I against Germany. There aren't that many things that will get the US Navy sent after you, but attacking commercial shipping is one of them, and it has been for over two hundred years.
The even more obvious master that Trump serves, who wage massive, non-stop influence campaigns to swing elections, lobby leaders, cancel protestors and start wars, is of course Israel. Why attack the Houthis? Maybe because they are taking a strong pro-Palestinian stance and backing it up with missiles? Could it be that old lady Adelman, Israel-firster and Trump’s #1 backer, demands it? Why are pro-Palestinian protestors being cracked down on? The dastardly Russkies again? This constant hyper-ventilating about the Kremlin and the Saudis, without mentioning the tyrannosaurus in the room that openly subverts the American government is so telling, and so boomer. Everybody under 40 or 50 seems to get it; boomers like you—hopeless.
Even in public " I don't care what you think." is likely to be an effective reply.
This constant hyper-ventilating about the Kremlin and the Saudis, without mentioning the tyrannosaurus in the room...
These days, I can't keep the players straight. Netanyahu's Israel aligns with Putin's Russia and Saudi Arabia, even though Russia is aligned with Iran who is an enemy to both Israel and the Saudis. Even "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," doesn't explain the situation any more.
Dr Brin in the main post:
As a direct result of the 2021 Pelosi bills, investment in U.S. domestic factories skyrocketed!** Shortening supply chains, reducing use of toxic ocean freighters and dependence on China. Only now, if it continues, Trump will claim "My tariffs did it!"
Because Democrats have the polemical skills of a tardigrade.
Liberals like me have been pushing the merits of the Biden economy and foreign policy through the entire renaissance of his presidency. The sad fact is that it doesn't matter. The overwhelming majority of Americans now get their sense of what's going on from right-wing tv, right-wing talk radio, and right-wing-dominant social media. And they live in a completely separate reality in which it is common knowledge and revealed truth that:
+ Unemployment under Biden was the worst in 50 years
+ Inflation was caused by out-of-control Democratic spending (never mind the rest of the world)
+ Hunter's laptop and Biden's classified documents were much worse than anything Trump did, and Trump was within his rights anyway
+ The phrase "Russia, Russia, Russia" is the final word on Trump's innocence in that matter
+ "Immigrant" equates to rapist and murderer
Any attempt to argue those (and many other) points with facts are dismissed out of hand the way you or I would dismiss anyone seriously trying to argue that the Earth is flat. They already know the truth, so any allegations of fact which contradict that truth are "fake news" off the bat.
They believe that everything under Biden was bad, and that even the same things (or worse) are now magically glorious because the occupant of the White House has changed. And while there are more of us then there are of them, they hold the reins of power in more states, and therefore in the federal government.
For all your Maher-like obsession with Abortion!, that issue was a political winner for Democrats whenever there was a separate vote on it, even in deeply red states. But voters seemed uninterested in protecting democracy or in the actual state of the economy.
So, how do Democrats fight against this alternate universe? Short of inventing a working time machine and starting an anti-FOX network 40 years ago, the only way I see it is for that alternate reality to run into hard reality on a metaphorical battlefield.
Thought takes effort. Laziness and civilization are incompatible.
"It is one thing to be democratic, quite another to be inconvenienced."
- Isaac Asimov, Forward the Foundation
It does seem Trump is running a real time experiment in how much dirt he can get his cult to eat. It’s easier to pretend things are bad when they’re actually okay than to pretend things are good when you’re reduced to squalor.
Stonekettle loves Chicago.
https://www.threads.net/@stonekettle
Every time I've been to Chicago, down in the street in the crowd, literally EVERYONE is awesome. Happy, friendly, proud of their city. Full of life. The food is fucking GREAT, you pick any place at random and have an excellent meal. The street music. is amazing. I've never felt in danger or at risk. And again, literally everyone you meet is cool. Everyone.
Little time today. But Treebeard is always an idiot. Even Fantasy Mossad could not gather the ocean of kompromat that the KGB clearly has on almost every Republican office holder. And the master-doggie relationship between the Saudis and EVERY GOP president is blatant. Fool.
Bu only a couple of you seem to 'get' even slightly what the wager challenge is about, though I have explained it over and over and over...
IT IS TO PREVENT CHANGING THE SUBJECT! The fave MAGA tactic when confronted by facts. "I am being cornered so... LOOK over there!!!"
Nailing a false narrative and pounding it with a clear outcome is how you end that. And wagers are one way, the simplest and most macho-effective. And none of you get it and I will have to explain that again and again and again...
I'm sorry Dr Brin, but nothing keeps MAGA from changing the subjects.
Yeah the KGB "clear has an ocean of kompromat"-- in your head. How about some actual evidence for these claim? The subversion I'm talking about happens out in the open, via groups like AIPAC, on a massive scale, to the tune of millions of dollars given to elected representatives and aggressive campaigns to cancel and defeat anyone Israel disapproves of. You want to see the GOP behave like doggies for a foreign leader, check out their grovelling when Netanyahu comes into town, or their attempts to make protesting Israel illegal. This is all clear and evident to everyone, not conspiracy theories of obvious Russophobes like yourself. But like I said, boomers like you are hopeless. Talk to anyone under 40, they get it immediately.
Celt have you tried? What stunning bull. Sure, they'll change the subject - or try - after you make an explicit wager demand. And you can say "That's the FIFTH assertikon that you've made that I have offered to clearly refute with cash on thje line. And here are all five. And if ANY of my assertions are proved, then yours is a mad, blathering cult. And YOU are a raving, fox-teat-suckling coward."
ill that change the fool's mind? Well, it has in three cases with me. But mostly what a wager demand does is give cred to YOUR assertions. And it proves THAT they always flee from facts by changing the subject.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyMyyenz4gg
It's been less than 30 years since US Representative Nancy Pelosi demanded the imposition of substantial TARIFFS ON CHINA due to unfair trade practices (linked above), the reason being that the US Democrat Party once supported Trump-style trade barriers, border protections & immigration restrictions for its own Pro-Labour, Pro-Union & 'Buy American' political platform about which they sang songs:
Look for the union label
when you are buying that coat, dress or blouse.
Remember somewhere our union's sewing,
our wages going to feed the kids, and run the house.
We work hard, but who's complaining?
Thanks to the I.L.G. we're paying our way!
So always look for the union label,
it says we're able to make it in the U.S.A.!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt-JPCXHQFg
Then, sometime over the last +20 years, a gender-confused US Democrat Party abandoned its blue collar working class voters and transitioned into the political party for Effete White Collar Marxist-Globalists, which is the main reason so many US Democrat voters now support an ever objectionable Donald Trump, as he appears to be the last man standing for old school US Democrat Party values.
At least according to the pre-alcoholic Nancy Pelosi, linked above.
Best
______
"Biden Becomes Fourth U.S. President to Bomb Yemen" (January 12, 2024)
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/12/yemen_strikes_houthis_red_sea_gaza
Anent the DOGE mass firings, and whether the targets reveal a purpose:
Political scientist Adam Bonica gathered some data on this subject, and I replicated his analysis (with slighlty different methods; details at link below). By looking at department size, budget, and left/right political rating by other government managers, one can tell what they're ACTUALLY going after (as opposed ot what they SAY they're going after).
If they go after big head counts, they're trying to reduce size.
If they go after big budgets, they're trying to save money.
If they go after ideological score, they're trying a political witch hunt.
I did a Fisher Exact Test, a biclustered heat map, logistic regression, and a Bayesian posterior Beta distribution. The conclusions are the same in each method, with very clear statistically significance and a large effect size.
They are NOT going after headcount or budget; they are on an ideological arson binge, burning down whatever they don't like.
https://www.someweekendreading.blog/trump-polit-targets/
I'll skip my usual Star Trek and WJCC-FORTH pontifications, and just note that the current nostalgia for the Rise of Western Civilization is rampant.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/apr/12/epic-win-why-the-odyssey-is-having-a-moment
Weekend thanks interesting ...and obvious. Yet, it ignore the other factors, like which blue constituencies can be hurt, like closing NASA Goddard in blue DC suburbs... AND the one that I give... maximizing distraction from the real targets, the IRS and FBI etc.
That is a version of the big category missed. Which clade of fired people were about to be very inconvenient to the masters? In other words, while that article stabs at an explanation, it is actually pretty lame. Just a star.
The Russia thing has been proved a thousand ways. Like seeking even once that Trump ever actually hurt any Putin interests (as opposed to potemkin blather).
Only dig it. You are a coward, Ent, well established, or you'd wager and take my money. All you are is a raving commie/Nazi (the same thing, now.) eserving only of zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....
Celt,
Not true… and very defeatist of you.
For example, try being a whimpering lib in front of them and they won’t change subjects.
Tony Fisk (from last thread)
Yah. I saw the details after I posted about NASA budget cuts. My point still remains.
I’ll add that this is also part of the typical SLS defense. They offer other sacrifices knowing groups like Planetary Society will step up to defend.
SLS also gets defense but looks MUCH more like corporate welfare when the defenders all look like defense contractors.
When it comes to “Why the Houthi’s” it is useful to know they are doing more than shooting at commercial shipping. They are also shooting at the USN. They aren’t using pea shooters or demonstrating a lack of training either.
There is a proxy war underway.
"Facts don't care about what you don't care about."
SLS will be defended by it's prime competitor, SpaceX, at least to get first 3 Artemis missions launched, by which point the 'starship' will be proved out and supposedly take over.. So, exactly 3 SLS is what Elon wants to happen and so it goes.
Dr. Brin.....
I actually agree with you about his tariff plan
Now I am hardly a globalist, and I am not a fan of Biden, but Biden's chips plan was an actual industrial plan that was beginning to bear fruit.
Trump should be making strategic partnerships with chosen friendly nations to favor specific categories of products while tariffing those products from china to create a competitive advantage. In return those countries will agree to open markets to certain trading goods, but more important to buy large amounts of long term treasuries that can be applied to provide development and subsidies for strategic industries like machinery, shipbuilding and microchips
Instead we get a plan right out Southpark, a real Underpants Gnomes level of strategy
The plan:
Step1: Tariffs.
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Jobs.
No plans for infrastructure, education, tax subsidies or partnerships to create a reliable supply chain.
I would also like to add what this has done to your northern neighbour. Canadians know exactly what his 25% tariffs are meant do..poach their auto industry (which builds 1.5 million vehicles a year has been in existence since 1904) and economically strangle it, while making deals with individual provinces in the hopes of breaking the country up.
Bizarre times. Der Oger goes hyper nasty and nasty-dirtynappieturns toward reasoning with an open mind. Did I inhale too much smoke in our house fire? But the end and locum stay focused, so...
Impressive. I only looked at it briefly, but it looks like you were using sound cautious approaches. I'd have used similar but probably not identical methods. Using multiple valid methods usually gives you similar results. Everything points towards your being right.
Wagers are to show that one means Business.
How are you gonna wager about the KGB blackmailing Republicans when there’s no direct evidence available? Just repeating it over and over, insisting that it’s "been proved a thousand ways" isn’t that convincing. That’s the problem with your wager tactic: most political disagreements aren’t about matters of fact that can be proven, but about preference, prejudice, fear, speculation, etc. Even if facts could be proven, interpretations of those facts will be different. So I don’t see how it’s a practical way to settle political debates. In fact it’s just more politics, as you make clear by emphasizing its tactical use for partisan purposes.
Who among those fired were going to be inconvenient might well be a better predictor of firing than those looked at. But there needs to be a quantitative or categorical measure of inconvenience before it can be used in a statistical analysis. I don't think anyone has created one yet. And such a measure has to be objective and not just an expression of its creators' preconceptions. Thus it would be a fair bit of work to create and justify it. The analysis used information that was immediately available. What you suggest is worth doing but couldn't be done immediately.
Treebeard is a pain - but in this he is correct - you cannot convince people who will NOT agree with your facts - and the MAGA lot will simply ignore anything that does not fit their worldview
Think of them as flat earthers - no matter what you do they won't change
I don't think the goal is to change their world view. It's simply to expose them as weenies.
...to expose them as weenies.
But again, expose them how? If their entire FOX-brainwashed community takes for granted that, say, the Biden economy was the worst in 50 years, what are you going to bet on? Any facts presented which argue otherwise will be dismissed, not just by the one person but by those looking over his shoulder, as "fake news". And any authority who rules in your favor on the bet would be dismissed as biased.
I'm reminded of a scene from The West Wing in which President Bartlett is admiring a historical map of the Middle East from the 17-aught-aughts. Toby Ziegler tells him he can't display that map in the Oval Office because it doesn't recognize Israel. Bartlett says of course it doesn't, because the state of Israel didn't exist in the 1700s. Toby acknowledges that, but says he still can't display the map. Bartlett asks why. "Because it doesn't recognize Israel."
It would be the same with the MAGAts. You can't win a bet against Biden's economy being terrible. But his unemployment numbers were the best in 50 years. "Fake statistics cooked up by Biden's government." How do you know that? "Because it doesn't recognize that Biden's economy was terrible."
NASA’s science budget will be cut in half. Total NASA budget will be slashed by 20%. Especially pounded are climate, atmospheric and marine mammal science. Not yet mentioned is any cut in the lavishly wasteful SLS…. A mixed bag for Elon. Laying off 10,000 people at NASA Goddard sabotages every astrophysics mission while giving the GOP a double bennie by hurting blue voting counties near DC.
The Bushites were less blatant, sabotaging climate science satellites, for example. This? This is exactly the opening chapters of the Three Body Problem. A malignant force wants to prevent human advancement so alien takeover will be easier.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHIgJAoSzTk
Ent's question is real. Blackmail is obvious by circumstantial evidence a mountain high, but can't be proved - by me. Though I offered Biden a way to nail it down. But the Russia thing in general? Name ONE time when a major Kremlin or Saudi interest was thwarted by a Republican action.
Private and citizen science might be able to take up a lot of the slack, provided they can procure cheap launch services. Musk is on record as being pro-science.
And as payback for the National Archives firing the opening salvo against Trump's march to the sea, he is gutting the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) for having the temerity to encourage people to think. The Smithsonian Institute is preparing for siege warfare from the administration. The ALA is doing what they can, but who listens to a bunch of egghead shushing librarians?
https://www.ala.org/advocacy/show-up-for-our-libraries
Spies would have been fired long ago if they hadn’t gotten compromising material.
Partisan purposes? The Constitution is as much about encouraging factions as it is about almost anything else.
We’re not In a small nation such as Switzerland
https://bsky.app/profile/kyledcheney.bsky.social/post/3lmnh77vzd72w
Trump administation attests that Kilmar Abrego Garcia is alive and secure but is under the "sovereign, domestic authority of El Salvador."
He's in the custody of El Salvador because we send him there and El Salvador is willing to hold our prisoners for money. It's not like they have the guy in custody for their own reasons. So what's the problem with saying, "We'll still pay you for your trouble, but we'd like that guy back, please"?
As usual, the explanations the Trumpers give don't make sense.
* * *
https://bsky.app/profile/reichlinmelnick.bsky.social/post/3lmljpkrdj22h
Hours ago, @politico.com revealed that DOGE is working with DHS on automating mass deportation efforts — likely explaining why many US citizens, green card holders, and even a Canadian (in Canada) got threatening emails last night terminating “your parole” and telling them to leave the US in 7 days.
At this point, e-mailed instructions from DOGE, or from the Trump administration in general, seems like one of those SPAM texts telling you that the IRS is coming to arrest you unless you buy gift cards and send the codes to cash them in to this link.
Consider this: your citizenship status can be adjusted by the tweak of a database record by anyone with access who is so inclined. So any criticism of Trump, his policies, or the Gaza genocide might find you suddenly turning enemy alien.
A batshit crazy notion? Certainly (no need to cite log records, and access rights to me).
That's why I'm putting it out there now, so you remember when it was batshit crazy. After all, green cards alone are no longer protection from people who have access and who are so inclined.
In my case, it would take a bit more than tweaking one record. I'm in too many databases and files for it to be that easy.
What COULD be done is create a bit of confusion and then lawyers would have to be paid. There are laws involving PII, though, so someone would be setting up a payday lawsuit for me.
Did you consider using a Generalized Additive Model with non-linear smoothers in the independent variables? There is after all no reason to expect the effects to be linear.
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2025/Items/Apr14-2.html
The headline is:
Some Democrats Think Trump May Have Manipulated the Stock Market
As if anyone who suspects foul play by the Trump administration is necessarily a political opponent, and with the implication that some (other) Democrats and all independents and Republicans don't think so.
A better headline would be Trump Seems To Have Manipulated The Stock Market: Some Republicans Are Ok With That"
Just a quick shout-out to the stunning & brave women of the Blue Origin cargo cult who have demonstrated that the female gender identity now trumps the outdated patriarchal notions of intellect, effort, merit & deservingness, setting the stage for the pending Artemis Mission, as sponsored by Only Fans.
As in StarTrek & the Internet, Space Flight is FOR PORN!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTJvdGcb7Fs
Best
Thanks for the grins. Deservingness not seen since Alan Shepard.
Lloyd Flack said...
Did you consider using a Generalized Additive Model with non-linear smoothers in the independent variables? There is after all no reason to expect the effects to be linear.
Taking a chance guess that you might be talking to me about predicting economic variable changes based on House/Senate/Presidency partisanship:
(1) Generalized additive model: I used logistic regression, which is already a GAM. The link function is, of course, the logistic function. It predicts the log odds ratio for the dependent variable being "better" vs "worse". This is pretty much the method of choice for discrete, especially binary, dependent variables.
(2) The dependent variables are also discrete, i.e., R vs D control for each of the House/Senate/Presidency. They change abruptly at elections, so smoothing isn't really relevant.
What would be relevant would be a time lag, since sometimes effects take a while to show up after a policy is imposed. On the other hand, the minimum time interval here is a Congressional election, so we're already looking only at 2 year periods. With sparse data like this, introducing a lag variable is begging for over-fitting, which I'm almost doing already.
I don't think it is possible to defend "Musk says bad things but does good things," any longer.
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2025/Items/Apr14-6.html
The Social Security Administration maintains a database called the Social Security Death Index. It keeps a list of dead people who had Social Security numbers. The nominal reason is that in order to avoid making or continuing to make payments to people who are dead, it needs a database of who is dead. Over time, the database has acquired other uses. For example, the genealogy Website ancestry.com has it online. Entering the name of a dead ancestor turns up his or her birth date, death date, and the date and location the number was issued, providing clues for subsequent searches for birth certificates, death certificates, and other useful documents.
But Elon Musk has found an entirely new use for it: punishing immigrants. Musk is now sending information about immigrants to the SSA, claiming they are dead when they are in fact very much alive. Not only does it prevent them from receiving any benefits to which they might be otherwise entitled, but it has other (often disastrous) effects. For example, if an immigrant, legal or otherwise, shows up at a bank with a valid Social Security number and wants to open a bank account, the bank might check the death index, discover that the owner of the number was "dead," and thus the person standing there must be using a stolen number. Good idea to call the cops, no? Employers might also check. Signing up for Medicaid would probably also not work.
In short, being officially dead might make life so difficult for even legal immigrants that they have to self deport because "living" in the U.S. when you are officially dead is so difficult as to be nearly impossible.
My take on Elon is more nuanced. Evil can be defeated/turned Vader style.
His evil is of a different origin. It comes from a combination of egotism and fanaticism. The fanaticism is from a lack of sense of proportion about the good that he intends. How do you get someone in his position to question his sense of his own importance.?
I was thinking of using smoothing functions in budget, size and political inclination indicator as predictors. For example you could use smoothing splines or lowess smoothers.
The fanaticism is from a lack of sense of proportion about the good that he intends.
Thanos also thought he was doing good, and that he alone had the courage and the will to make the hard choices.
It's The Onion, but it might as well be truthful reporting:
https://theonion.com/salvadoran-president-claims-he-lacks-humanity-to-return-wrongly-deported-man/
Salvadoran President Claims He Lacks Humanity To Return Wrongly Deported Man
WASHINGTON—During a visit with President Donald Trump at the White House, El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele claimed Monday that he “lacks the humanity” to return wrongly deported legal U.S. resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia back to America. “How can I return an innocent man to the United States when I don’t have the ability to feel empathy or compassion?” said Bukele, explaining that he’s consulted with his top advisors about the 29-year-old Maryland father being held in a Salvadoran prison, but none of them could find it in their hearts to care at all about the man’s situation. “Do you hear how ridiculous it sounds to expect that I could see myself reflected in another human being’s experience? Even if I wanted to, there’s no way I could acknowledge the plight of someone who is suffering because I am completely numb to the pain of others. My hands are tied because I’m totally dead inside.” At press time, President Trump had publicly thanked Bukele for his use of cruelty to project a facade of strength.
I posted my batshit crazy notion about the pending deportation of US citizens to see how long it remained batshit crazy (Sarah Kendzior, knowing exactly how totalitarians operate, recommended doing something similar in 2016).
Twenty four hours later, it seems the answer lies in how long it takes Bukele to build more receiving facilities (and what more does one need than a sturdy boundary fence and a few tents?)
Alfred may feel secure in the knowledge that his status resides in more than one database, but ICE, being the banal followers of the Process* that they are, are likely to just act on the one they look at. The 'pay day' may be difficult to achieve from abroad.
Alfred *is* probably OK, for now. My point is that nobody should consider themselves safe from the 'Poroshenko treatment' any more. Maybe they find themselves declared dead. Maybe they're just unlucky enough to be 'the wrong one.'
* The Due one: what's that?
Musk would say these lines with a straight face.
(Have to confess, I was thinking more in terms of 24 weeks than hours!)
Hate to tell you, Biden's economy WAS terrible FOR SOME PEOPLE. If you recall, food banks were seeing the highest levels of food insecurity in 40 years.
In that situation, the headline numbers don't matter. What they indicate is that Biden's economy was polarized. Food inflation plus a glut of labor at the bottom of the economy mse for a lot of hungry people---and u will never convince hungry people that its a good economy.
John Viril I assert that your assertions are likely dubious or even false. I am not so sure of that as to demand a wager. But they sound utterly cockeyed and made up.
Biden's economy was terrible for *most* Americans. Wage / inflation ratio far out of balance. Blue collar and white collar both getting screwed. Only the top 2-3% were doing well.
Trump's economy, both times through the wringer, is much, much worse for those same Americans.
The fact that this does not get mentioned is not because Democratic leaders do not mention it. They do, most of them. A lot.
It is because the US media, old, new, and podcast, do not mention how much worse Trump was for the nation than Biden ever was.
Our legacy media were the *first* thing that the techbros took over. Look at the timeline of purchases of the big legacy media rooms. Don't forget the NPR news / editorial rooms, lest you think those were exempt.
There are independent media sources in the US that try to fill the gap, but it takes a lot of time and knowledge to find them since they are buried on search engine results until multiple pages into a search. Why? Because the owners of the search engines *want* the media that they own at the top.
Silicon Valley has a lot to answer for. Social media and purchased legacy media are more responsible for the advent of American fascism than SCOTUS, and SCOTUS have been working to end the rule of law in America for years. Nothing in US history has prepared our citizenry for the wave of disinformation that Silicon Valley billionaires are pushing, ranking, and monetizing.
There are no good billionaires, and the sooner everyone realizes it the better the world will be.
PS. Our host makes his money from those same techbros. And the three-letter agencies that *really* want to watch every move you make. He has not lived off of SciFi for many, many years, by his own admission. Judge David Brin by his friends and by whose ass he kisses, no matter what.
David's economic interest lies in convincing his audience to forget these facts.
The Declaration of Independence, 1776.
"He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
"For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
"For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
"For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
"For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences...
The US Revolution was a rebellion against 10,000 years of feudal rule by moronic-greedy-cruel inheritance brat lords in order to try something new. And now the would be kings and lords have riled the lumpen proletariate into venomous hate toward every caste - mostly fact professions - who stand in the way of feudalism's return.
JV - calling your food bank insecurity and raise you a: during the last half of the same time period private equity firms buying up mom and pop trailer parks and b: take a glance at a map of church attendance by region and then cross reference that with homelessness after you correct for under the table "greyhound therapy." c: contemplate the fact that my favorite state, Iowa imports 95% of its food while receiving $24,552,000,000 in USDA crop subsidies (since 1995.)
Dr. B - the would be kings might hate a few groups of people worse than they hate the fact professions Not saying they don't hate the fact professions.
https://www.salon.com/2024/09/05/hunger-in-america-is-getting-worse-not-better-according-to-an-explosive-new-usda-report/
Thats one link about food insecurity, from a super-liberal site (salon).
Here's a local story from Portland saying hunger is the worst it's been in a century
https://lagrandeobserver.com/2021/02/03/oregon-food-bank-ceo-says-hunger-rate-is-at-worst-point-in-a-century/
Here's a link from USA Today https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/11/17/food-banks-see-worst-rate-of-hunger/71505220007/
JV- RE Food Insecurity fun. According to google, "approximately 20% of SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) payments are spent on unhealthy items like soda, candy, desserts, and other junk food, according to various reports. Specifically, one study found that 23% of SNAP purchases by households were categorized as sugary drinks, desserts, salty snacks, candy, and sugar." Once we get rid of all that pesky regulation with RFK, the guys he hates "wink wink" at the big food corporations will able to finally sell you organic produce full of pesticides garnished with fecal material accidentally imported by our deported legal residents now working for free.
I would also like to see numbers on percentage of households experiencing food insecurity who consume their propaganda newsfomerricalas on mobile cellular devices and or big screen televisions. Now thanks to our hands off government that information is up for sale, too.
Even with education and above average parenting it is difficult for many individuals of our species to self-select dietary choices that promote health and well being.
As I near retirement I can I look forward to earning supplemental food chits leading poverty tours of my suburban neighborhood for well-healed international travelers willing to risk accidentally landing in the gulag.
I must confess, the "polarized" economy was a conclusion I drew to explain high levels of food insecurity despite headline numbers you wanted Democrats to brag about. Also, attributing part of the problem to a glut of labor at the bottom of the economy wasn't in the stories about food insecurity, but something that seemed to me to follow from high levels of undocumented workers and many service jobs struggling in the aftermath of the pandemic.
However, there were multiple reports about high levels of food insecurity and food banks in crisis since mid 2022. Many came from.mainstream media and official government reports.
Germans thought that the Gestapo was only for the Jews.
So they were OK with it.
Turns out that the Gestapo was for everyone.
By the time Germans realized that, it was too late.
MAGA thought that ICE was just for illegals.
So they were OK with it.
Turns out that ICE is for everyone.
By the time MAGA realizes that, it will be too late.
As you watch democracy die in America just remember that democracy is the last thing oligarchs and MAGA racists want.
White people will be a minority in America by 2040, demographically that is already bake in and there is no stopping it. It's as certain as the sun coming up tomorrow morning.
With them about to lose majority status, the no longer want democracy.
There's a great beautiful "Welcome to Canada" interview you can listen to here:
On CBC
Timothy Snyder - author of "On Tyranny" - has just accepted a posting at University of Toronto - he's a great speaker, and the interviewer gets the best out of him.
"Well, coming from that, the people who are in charge in the U.S. now, Musk and Trump, are heroes of negative freedom. They are people who tell you that freedom is about being against things. And it starts by being against the government. And this is a trap, of course, because if you think freedom is being you against the government, then you help make the government smaller, and then the government becomes so tiny it's dysfunctional. and then the government can't do the basic things it needs to do to allow you to have a free life."
Really worth the listen!
There wasn't a real legal process around Kilmar's deportation. He never went before a judge and was asked to prove he did or didn't have a legal right to be in the USA. He was deported, and then the legal process kicked in ... and the government said
"tee hee hee ... oops. Well he's not in the US anymore, so nothing I can do about it. Have a nice day."
If the government arrested and deported Alfred (or Bernie Sanders) without trial, threw him into a Salvadoran prison, how would the situation be any different?
"Thats one link about food insecurity, from a super-liberal site (salon)." Um duh? The super liberals lie almost as much as ALL conservatives. The Super liberals put us in this mess by smashing our coalition with such bullshit.
Nobody votes for Trump for economic reasons.
The reasons we have a Trump presidency and the MAGA movement are:
A black president.
Gay marriage.
And Whites being a minority by 2040.
Trump's support is all cultural and racial.
So as inflation and recession ravage the economy, look for MAGA folks to come up with ever more creative reasons why it is not Trump's fault.
For example, the price of eggs was supposedly a main reason to vote for Trump.
The price of eggs is still rising and has never been higher.
And yet no Trump supporter now complains about the price of eggs.
Because it was never about the price of eggs.
That was just a convenient excuse that MAGA voters could give so they would not have to openly admit that they were never going to vote for a black woman.
Because it was never about the price of eggs.
Remember all of the stickers on gas pumps with Biden saying "I did that!" when gas was $6 + after Russia invaded Ukraine? No one seemed to care about the price of gas when right before election day I could find stations where it was less than $2.50.
I so wanted to plaster my grocery stores with Trump "I did that!" stickers next to the eggs. But that's the kind of thing that only Republicans can do without getting into trouble.
Um duh? The super liberals lie almost as much as ALL conservatives.
I agree wholeheartedly with our fine host.
In both the US & EU, our multi-faced politicians have been lying to us since time immemorial, the modern difference being that we now possess an unforgiving internet which remembers everything & provides ready proof of their constant politically-motivated machinations, flip-flopping & lies.
That 'an independent media exists' is likewise a lie, as any 'independence' was long ago subsumed into an official state-funded narrative in accordance with Edward Bernays (Propaganda), Norm Chomsky (Manufacturing Consent) & the recent USAID scandal which documents federal funding in excess of +500 Million USD per annum to Politico, the NYT, the BBC & thousands of other 'independent' news outlets to maintain the official narrative.
Finally, let's put to rest the narrow-minded hypocrisies of our Brit, EU & other foreign friends who condemn the US for it's relative shortcomings in regard to free speech, civil rights & democracy even when they themselves do not endorse these concepts, as shown by their collective decision to outlaw 'free speech ', embrace an openly racist/unjust/unequal legal systems and engage in tyranny through the imprisonment of their political opponents.
Like Poor Der_Oger, many have been driven mad by an official German narrative which argues that Germany's most popular political party (the AFD) is such a 'real & present danger' to democracy that the current ruling party must first destroy democracy in order to save democracy from democracy.
Best
_______
It now appears that Poor Celt has already succumbed to Der_Oger's type of insanity, as he accuses Trump supporters of 'illegal & criminal democracy' for daring to vote for their own perceived self-interests, even when Celt most likely does NOT feel the same way about the minority and LBGT+ agenda.
Will he also accuse these groups of being 'nazi racist monsters' for daring to vote for their own minority & LBGT+ self-interests? Or, is he yet another lying liar hypocrite who thinks that bigotry, racism & self-interest are just fine when his side does it?
I wager big money that Celt would never think of voting against the self-interests of his own identity group.
Those events have to be resisted as illegal arrests. Since I'm an actually-born-here-to-citizens kinda citizen, any attempt to deport me would be utterly illegal. I'd be within my rights to defend myself with physical force. Someone would wind up in the hospital... likely me. 8)
This argument doesn't quite work for people here on visas or other less-than-naturalized documents. I'm just pointing out that for the rest of us, resisting and putting people in the hospital is actually legal... and expected.
Seeing a lot of 'astro-bunnies' quips on social media.
yah. I saw that. No one gasped.
We are heading for one of those 'watering the tree of Liberty' events.
"Let it go. It's not wise to upset a Republican."
"But, sir, no one worries about upsetting a Democrat."
"That's because Democrats don't pull people's arms out of their sockets when they lose. Republicans are known to do that."
"I see your point, sir. I suggest a new strategy, R2. Let the Republican win."
Too late to do much good, some on the right are realizing that we were correct all along.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/14/opinion/dissident-right-trump.html
...
For [ podcaster Alex] Kaschuta, who lives in Romania, the promise of a more authentic, organic society, freed from the hypocrisies of the existing order, was apparently inviting. “There’s always been something tantalizing about the idea that the world is not how it is presented to you,” she wrote on her blog. “A frontier opens up.”
But over the last couple of years, that frontier started seeming to her more like a dead end. Recently, she abandoned the movement. “The vibe is shifting yet again,” Kaschuta wrote on X last week. “The cumulative IQ of the right is looking worse than the market.”
Kaschuta is not alone; several people who once appeared to find transgressive right-wing ideas scintillating are having second thoughts as they watch Donald Trump’s administration put those ideas into practice. The writer Richard Hanania once said that he hated bespoke pronouns “more than genocide,” and his 2023 book, “The Origins of Woke: Civil Rights Law, Corporate America, and the Triumph of Identity Politics,” provided a blueprint for the White House’s war on D.E.I. But less than three months into Trump’s new term, he regrets his vote, telling me, “The resistance libs were mostly right about him.”
...
continuing from the same link. FA is meeting FO on a battlefield.
...
When liberalism was firmly entrenched, its discontents could treat authoritarian ideas as interesting avant-garde provocations. Authoritarianism in power, however, was always going to be crude and stupid.
Trump’s tariffs have pushed some to the breaking point because they reveal the immediate material cost of that stupidity. The decadent cynics of the new right could dismiss Trump’s lies about the 2020 election as mere hyperbole. It’s harder to be sanguine about a collapse in one’s own net worth and economic prospects. “It kind of made the consequences seem real,” Hanania said of the trade war. [Me: Ya think?]
...
The mother of young children, Kaschuta described internalizing tradwife ideas about women’s primacy in the home. When she tried to take on all the domestic labor in her own family, it nearly broke her. She started to realize that while the new right’s racism and misogyny were often delivered with an ironic smirk, it was no joke. As a woman, she said, “you’d have to lean back and just accept that people will belittle you.”
For all her mounting disgust, however, the tariffs seemed to push her over the edge. When she looks back on the milieu she was once a part of, she said, she sees no solid ideas for a post-liberal society — it was all just aesthetics, resentments and vibes. “And now the vibes have knocked into reality,” she said. “And it is so jarring to see that none of the vibes stand up to scrutiny. None of the vibes actually fit onto the 21st century. None of the vibes, if implemented, would lead to anything but immiseration and war.”
Irving Kristol famously said that neoconservatives were liberals who’d been “mugged by reality.” Maybe soon we’ll need a similar word for the right wingers who can’t stand to live in the world they helped build.
Uh, there's also the USDA report.
Reading on this issue did suggest part of the problem with food pantry shortages is that big grocers are better at efficient inventory systems...hence less excess stock, hence less donations of overflow vs decades ago. So you could have shortages that are worse than what economic performance would indicate.
Of course, if you're dependent on food pantries, you'd perceive stress on food pantries as a "bad economy" bc you're not eating.
Imagine what could have been if those 'resistance libs' had offered coffee and friendly conversation instead of derision.
Imagine what could have been if those 'resistance libs' had offered coffee and friendly conversation instead of derision.
Sorry, nice a thought as that is, I don't see that it would have worked that way.
The "transgressive right-wing" folks always knew that they were right and that any argument against their views were wrong. As long as their ideas were never put into practice, they could dream of the utopia that would arise when they were finally proven right.
The only thing that could dissuade them from the cultist thinking is watching it run into hard reality on a battlefield.
* * *
Think I'm too harsh or too partisan? What would have been the outcome in 1930s Germany if Jews had just been nicer instead of derisive toward their Nazi oppressors?
Or if that's too inflammatory, here's a nicer example. If the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Evangelical preachers of my campus days showed up at your door, and instead of mocking them or slamming the door on them, you invited them in for tea and a nice chat. You might find the situation more pleasant than expected, but in the end, would either you or the JWs walk away with a different attitude toward God and religion than the one you started with?
From the article linked above:
The decadent cynics of the new right could dismiss Trump’s lies about the 2020 election as mere hyperbole. It’s harder to be sanguine about a collapse in one’s own net worth and economic prospects.
That's because it's a mistake to think that we could prove to them via evidence and court rulings that the 2020 election was fair. Because "The election was stolen" is a Shibboleth. It's like when a reporter or interviewer asks a religious person whether he believes in evolution. He's not going to answer the question based on scientific evidence or philosophical reasoning. Because he's not really answering the question being asked. He's answering, "Can I trick you into betraying God?"
And it's the same thing with MAGA assertions about the 2020 election or for that matter about the horrific Biden economy. They won't be swayed by evidence or proof or even bets. Because again, they're not making a statement of fact. They're pledging allegiance to Trump.
It's important to at least try to separate the victims from the monsters. Otherwise, it's a zombie apocalypse, and those don't end well. Victims aren't blameless, but some are possibly reachable.
"Trump's support is all cultural and racial...."
Half right. It's all cultural and almost none ot it is racial.
What staggering sanctimony preening silliness. All it proves is that guys like you never, ever get to know your republican neighbors, many of whom have multiracial sons-in-law or have adoted diversely, and suckle memes from Fox but those memes include commercial after commercial with muti-racial marriage couples selling lubricated catheters and viagra.
Are they still racist? Well, sure. But it's not grampa's racism and screeching "RACIST!" at them helped to drive them into cultural fury. Driving them into the arms of REAL racists like Trump and Locum and our own ent.
Dig it. Racism is a surface excrusion of deeper cultural rifts that go back to 1778 and even earlier. A hatred of modernity in general, in whatever form it happens to take this year. In the 1860s and 1960s sure, race was central. Today it is fierce wrath against smartypants professionals who understand a fast-changing world that leaves today's confederates baffled.
Jesus, really? You are unable to see WHO is getting the shaft right now? Screwing the civil service and Harvard and Cornell (but not Yale) and NASA and you can't see it? Yep. And that's why we lost.
Glimpsed locum's "vote their own self-interest" and had to admit, the twit still can make me choke and spit. You are the peasants who bled and died cheerfully for the czar and boyars who raped you all your life.
scidata:
It's important to at least try to separate the victims from the monsters.
...
Victims aren't blameless, but some are possibly reachable.
I can tell you an inspiring story from my life....well, my dad's life actually.
He was Jewish, but grew up in the 1930s in a heavily German-American part of Chicago. This was while Hitler was in power, but before the US was in the war. My dad told me of one kid at school who was ranting about how Hitler would soon be coming over here to deal with the Jews. Dad, bless him, mentioned that he himself was Jewish, and asked if he was an example of what the other kid meant.
The other kid had a revelation. It had not occurred to him that anyone he knew personally at school was one of "the Jews". Instead of doubling down or lashing out, he apologized to my dad, and the two of them remained the best of friends. So much so that my whole family drove to Charlottesville, Virginia in 1983 to visit the same guy and his family. They had kept in touch for 50 years.
So yes, it can happen. But dang, does that seem like the exception that proves the rule.
Beautiful story.
As said in GATTACA, "There is no gene for the human spirit"
Some Democrats (and Dem-leaning independents) do get it.
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2025/Items/Apr16-3.html
...
In any event, it's certainly possible that AOC will use that money in a challenge to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). If so, then that makes life harder for one particular incumbent. Alternatively, she might use it to help fund young, progressive challengers across the nation. Certainly that is what Sanders is going to do; he's not up again until 2030. Add to that the fact that DNC vice chair and progressive activist David Hogg announced yesterday that the PAC he founded and leads, Leaders We Deserve, will spend $20 million to try to elect younger officeholders.
Note, incidentally, that while Republicans look likely to get down and dirty in places where the eventual winner could face a tough general election, Hogg has stated outright, and the other two have implied, that they are going to target safe districts and states. In other words, they want to do what AOC did, and swap out an old Democrat in a deep-blue district for a young Democrat in a deep-blue district. They do not want to do anything that might reduce the Party's odds of retaking the House (and maybe the Senate).
My own governor, JB Pritzger, might be the next president of the United States. Even the normally conservative (though not Trumpist) Chicago Tribune had to give him some applause for an appearance on FOX:
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/04/16/pritzker-fox-news-tariffs-cable-pritzker/
...
Illinois’ governor. JB Pritzker, who appeared for the first time on Fox News this past Sunday, came across as reasonable and laser-focused on the economy, repeatedly emphasizing the needs of working families and focusing on the cost of living. He refused to be distracted by divisive culture war topics.
When “Fox News Sunday’s” Shannon Bream tried to steer the governor toward discussing transgender athletes and the issue of gender more broadly (against polling statistics showing the majority of voters support the president’s positions on these issues), Pritzker pivoted to economic policy, saying Americans are more interested in their standard of living.
...
Speaking of tariffs, the back and forth between Pritzker and Bream on this topic was cordial and professional, without a hint of animosity. Even when Pritzker pushed back, he was calm and measured. Both conducted themselves in an exemplary way, with the end result that Fox News viewers who don’t often hear directly from the likes of Pritzker were exposed to an alternative point of view without interruptions or vitriol.
“(Trump) thinks with tariffs, if he closes the borders for any goods, that now we’re gonna have onshoring of operations,” Pritzker said. “Maybe, but it’s gonna take years, and we’re gonna lose a lot of jobs and have a big recession in between. I think there’s a better way to do that. Let’s be careful about the way we’re putting tariffs in if we do any, and importantly, U.S. businesses and jobs ought to be the number one thought of the Trump administration, and not this idea that we’re punishing people.”
We imagine that many network listeners were likely scratching their heads, wondering how they ended up agreeing with a blue-state governor on tariffs after voting for Trump. Fellow Democrats ought to take heed of Pritzker’s clear message as well. Too many of them seem afraid to straightforwardly criticize protectionism for fear of alienating union backers.
...
Pritzker hit just the right notes for the part of the Fox News audience seeking a little common sense in the midst of chaos, and the collegiality from both sides was refreshing — almost distressingly so, since that ought to be the norm in TV interviews.
...
At the end of the day, Fox News is still conservative cable TV and Pritzker is still a progressive Democrat. But this appearance demonstrated that light — rather than heat — is what’s needed when those on opposite sides of the political spectrum hash out the issues of the day. We encourage more of that everywhere. Nice work, governor, and keep it up, Fox News. Let’s see more of the same from MSNBC and CNN as well.
Civilization (incl. the game), A.I., SciFi, God, and a terrifying take on Muskrats:
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/elon-musks-artificial-god/
Oh,wow. Stonekettle captures the moment. Also, why he hasn't posted long form essays in a while.
https://www.threads.net/@stonekettle/post/DIe9r1bx8se
...
Now, to the third point and the question:
You ask me for solace. Direction. What should we do, those of us who are frozen in fear, who (perhaps) regret that protest vote.
I can offer you no solace.
If it makes you feel better, I can find none for myself. We're ALL going to hell together, sinners and saints alike. That's what you voted for. Screaming all the way down and in the end history will remember us all the same.
Let me tell you a story:
That poem, you know the one
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak for me
Martin Niemöller, Lutheran paster, Nazi Germany. The good guy. Like you, admirable principles, right?
First they came. Powerful words. Regret. Hindsight. Principles. That Paster Niemöller, the famous peace activist. What a guy.
Except
...
continuing for length...
continuing Stonekettle...
...
Except he left a few things out of that poem.
See, he didn't speak out, not because he wasn't a communist, or a trade unionist, or a Jew. No he didn't speak out because he literally voted FOR the Nazis to come for the unions, socialists, and most especially the Jews -- given that he was a raging antisemite.
That's right, he voted FOR the Nazis, at first.
He also hated the communists (those are the trade unionists in the story) and the intellectuals and the educated, because as a Christian Conservative he felt they were leading Germans away from Christianity and into atheism and liberalism.
He literally voted for Hitler because he thought Hitler would restore German Christianity and German conservatism and get rid of the liberals -- who he despised.
Also, Hitler was good for the economy.
As to the Jews, he saw Nazis persecution as the perfect opportunity to expand his flock. And he set about converting them to Christianity, Lutheranism to be exact.
But then the Nazis came for those converted Jews too.
Marty eventually spoke out, when the Nazis issued the Aryan Decree and it directly impacted those former Jews he'd converted into his church.
That's when the Nazis did come for him, and no one spoke out because he was an asshole. What happened to him, that knock on the door in the middle of the night, he'd voted for that to happen to everyone else. It wasn't that there wasn't anyone left to speak for him, it's that he deserved what he got. Karma.
No one gave a shit about Marty Niemoller. He was just another victim at that point, and one who had it coming.
Least you think I'm being too hard on the guy, the Nazis put him a concentration camp with the very people he'd wished there.
To get out, he VOLUNTEERED to serve Hitler as a U-boat commander (he'd been a German sub captain in WWI before he turned to God, LOL). That's right, he didn't speak out THEN, either.
He volunteered to be a Nazi instead.
The Nazis refused and left him to die.
He survived, and it was only after his liberation by the allies at the end of the war that he had his come to Jesus moment and became the famous peace crusader everyone remembers.
Now, that doesn't make the poem any less powerful. But the part he left out changes things.
Martin Niemoller didn't speak out, BECAUSE HE WAS ONE OF THEM.
And he was one of them right up until THEY decided he wasn't.
You understand where I'm going with this?
You voted for Trump and you regret it now? You threw away your vote, knowing it would help Trump, and you regret it now? You stayed home, knowing that was a vote for Trump and you regret it now?
Welcome, I guess.
Niemoller eventually became one of the world's great peace crusaders, respected, adored, his poem moves people to this very day. Powerful words.
Maybe that's your future.
That part is up to you.
But if you've come to me for solace, I'm fresh out.
Same with advice. I wrote something in the neighborhood a bit north of four million words over the last 15 years. Long form. My own site. Hard work. Painful. Soul draining. Endless advice.
You didn't listen to single word. Not one.
It killed me.
I haven't written an essay since. I don't have it in me any more, thanks to you.
I don't blame you personally.
And I haven't given up.
But, if this is The Resistance, then I'm Saw Gerrera and you're on your own.
Trump is a genius con-man and his tariff policy is like everything else he does- a vehicle for pure grift. His back and forth pronouncements on tariff policy that create stock market volatility also create the perfect opportunity for insider trading.
I've been patiently trying to explain to my conservative friends that nothing Trump is doing will bring back US manufacturing. Captial does not follow chaos. Nobody is going to move factories based on executive orders, which can and are being changed on one man's whim. If he were at all serious he'd develop an industrial policy and pass a package of selective tariffs, incentives, and import quotas through congress.
Meanwhile - Dr. Brin is absolutely right about the dollar being in danger of losing its status as the world's reserve currency. The Euro is the obvious alternative if the EU can coordinate monetary and fiscal policies and do a good job of promoting themselves. Really good opportunities for Europe all around. World leadership is theirs for the taking. Could be the start of the "European century".
The effects of the dollar losing its status as the world's reserve category will be severe. Higher interest rates including higher mortgage rates, lower stock market p/e, and less future government flexibility as the service costs on our national debt balloons. We are seeing wealth destroyed on a massive scale to benefit Trump and his cronies.
Stonekettle had his uses and virtues. And just like solace, he seems to be fresh-out, alas. He was never one for practical ideas or potentially useful new or refreshed tactics... (that left-hated T-word)... but at least he was entertaining in expressing contempt for these 9th Wave Confederate traitors.
But now he's just a morose grump. Send me folks who are willing to re-assess practical tactics. I offered a mazillion of them in Polemical Judo and EVEN HERE no one was even remotely interested. Even those passionate to defend the enlightenment stare at fresh ideas and blink and see nothing.
We are indeed under an alien stoopid ray.
Send me folks who are willing to re-assess practical tactics.
AOC, Bernie Sanders, and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzger
I've taken a few of your suggestions - I'm now a trained member of our Community Emergency Response Team and registered as a Republican so I can vote in my states closed primaries for the least nuts conservative candidates, and complain and maybe get listened to. I also volunteer at our local parkrun (great organization btw) and have started going back to church. Small steps and not all are political, but useful and an antidote to despair. Keep the faith!
Glimpsed locum's "vote their own self-interest" (even though) you are the peasants who bled and died cheerfully for the czar and boyars who raped you all your life.
Our fine host wonders why the conservative classes often cling to those duplicitous allies who eventually betray them, even though an always tactful Scidata has already solved this non-conundrum with an 'imagine if those resistance libs had offered support & friendship instead of derision' thought exercise.
Time after time, this is where our self-appointed 'resistance liberators' always fail, as they engage in an incessant marxist class war (first) by expressing their undying enmity for the rich, (second) by declaring their hatred & antipathy for the bourgeoisie, (third) by hating on the common worker for their apparent complacencies and (fourth) by returning full-circle to their initial enmities.
CS Lewis expressed the common worker's dilemma thusly:
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
These reformers, marxists, progressives & liberators ...
"They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals."
Because the enemy of our enemy is our friend.
Best
Locum began with a paragraph with some validity... including "Time after time, this is where our self-appointed 'resistance liberators' always fail, as they engage in an incessant ..." Then he resumes utter drooling. DOpe: most liberal endeavors are aimed at increasing the NUMBER of 'the rich' while your cult is dedicated to reifying the classic Marxist scenario of an ever narrower clade of super uber duper elite lordly rich who re institute 9000 years of rule by inheritance brats.
...leading to violent revolution instead of incremental joy. You are thje ones summoningh tumbrels. Dope.
Locum's thesis: "CS Lewis expressed the common worker's dilemma thusly:"
Is substantiated by a quote pulled from an essay called the Humanitarian Theory of Punishment."
Maybe he really did write that, but still:
It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.
better to live...?
Sounds about like the right-winger mentioned above:
The writer Richard Hanania once said that he hated bespoke pronouns “more than genocide,” ...
Pronouns are worse than genocide?
Sorry, but the hyperbole becomes self-parody. Might as well be Kent Brockman from "The Simpsons" commenting on a riot at Kamp Krusty: "I've been to Korea, Nam, and Iraq, and I can say without hyperbole that this is a million times worse than all of them put together."
Most liberal endeavors are aimed at increasing the NUMBER of 'the rich' while your cult is dedicated to reifying the classic Marxist scenario of an ever narrower clade of super uber duper elite lordly rich...
David remains ever the idealist and I believe that he only has the best & most sincere intentions, but he does not speak for all the matthews, celts and zealous fantasists out there who define half the nation as 'deplorables', pray for the death of every conservative/luddite/anti-vaxxer and imagine nazis lurking behind the windscreen of every Tesla.
Our good host neither speaks for nor controls these zealots and it is they who now summon the tumbrels & something much worse, most likely with the very best of intentions, too, because life is not a fairytale or comic book and good outcomes do not necessarily follow from good intentions.
Best
Yay WhilliamG! If you've done all that, then you are a vigorous citizen!
locum appears to be on vitamins today. His latest is withing spitting range of actually sane. And yes, I do not sway or 'control' the 'matthews' who have - for reasons of sanctimony highs and righteousness masturbation - wrought such harm to the liberal coalition.
But they are NOT a majority of the liberal coalition or even anything but a noisy and noisome wing of utter fools who havbe harmed everything they claim to believe in.
Dig it again:
Yes, the FAR left CONTAINS fact-allergic, troglodyte-screeching dogmatists who wage war on science and hate the American tradition of steady, pragmatic reform, and who would impose their prescribed morality on you.
But today’s mad ENTIRE right CONSISTS of fact-allergic, troglodyte-screeching dogmatists who wage war on science and hate the American tradition of steady, pragmatic reform, and who would impose their prescribed morality on you.
There is all the world’s difference between FAR and ENTIRE. As there is between CONTAINS and CONSISTS.
Better c-words neither cult can utter = COMPETITION and CONSENSUS. If it were possible to bridge the ideological divide and negotiate, even a little, there are some incremental things we could agree to do. Alas, one party has a 'Hastert Rule' against ever negotiating. Ever.
I repeat. Marxism was defeated by the Rooseveltean social compact to invite the working classes into a thriving middle class whose educated children EACH had a chance to become moderately 'rich.' Vastly expanding that clade has been the liberal agenda and demolishing it is the core aim (NOT 'racism) of the Mad Right in their eagerness to re-create the very feudalism that Marx rubbed his hands for, propelling revolution.
LH - if anyone bothers reading the quote in its intended context (Humanitarian Theory of Punishment) CS Lewis is making an argument about removing the concept of just desert from capital punishment. So the subject "living" in the quote isn't Locum's "common worker" but rather a convicted criminal facing hypothetical conflicting systems of state punishment. I'm sure CS Lewis would love seeing scraps of his undigested IP used to package libertarian happy meals. The essay IS an interesting read in light of the ongoing constitutional crisis between the executive and judicial branches.
The radically-wrong radical right has an Inner Party and an Outer Party, like in Orwell's '1984'. The Inner Party is all about oligarchic tyranny. They use racism and culture wars to control the Outer Party.
Send me folks who are willing to re-assess practical tactics.
OK. I'll send you George Monbiot and Peter Mathews to chew on. They've recently published 'The Invisible Doctrine: the Secret History of Neoliberalism'. (I have the book, and the documentary version may be available online via a library near you .)
I'll refer to the documentary, as I've just finished it, and it's fresher in my mind.
Having narrated the history and consequences of Capitalism and Neoliberalism, Monbiot contemplates what might come next.
He notes that Keynes' theories were present and ready for FDR to apply to his 'New Deal'. Similarly, Hayek's theories were also primed and ready to roll with Thatcher and Reagan when Keynesianism hit limits in the late seventies. However, when Neoliberalism's failings became apparent during the GFC... the Left had nothing but a rehash of eighty year old ideas. Without effective competition, Neoliberalism continued to metastasize unchecked: so we are now seeing Ungoliant levels of self-devouring 'disaster capitalism'.
Monbiot finishes up trying to imagine what sort of things are needed to supplant Neoliberalism. He starts by emphasising the need for a powerful, inspirational narrative for the 'solution' to capture people's imagination, as both Keynesianism and Neoliberalism did. The solutions he proposes, a form of 'inclusive politics' and 'social commons', are admittedly wooly (Monbiot is smart, but his skillset is more in environmental sciences than economics). However, they're a start. Inclusive politics is now being actively pursued, in Australian politics at least, by the 'Voices' movement: independent candidates who ground their support in community concerns rather than persuading the community to support the Party platform. (I don't see how this approach could work in the polarised FPTP duopoly currently seen in the US. On the other hand, what do I know? The UK seems to be having a little success with tackling the FPTP issue with 'strategic voting', which also derives from community movements.)
As for the latter (the social commons), I'll point you at the 'Doughnut Economics' proposed by Kate Raworth.
Hope that's enough for now. Am about to take daughter to driving exam.
I may be some time...
Dr. Brin, the reason few want to use your metaphorical judo tactics is that you need what Sun Tzu called "self-knowlege" to use them effectively.
(People like Celt and matthew bave been "won" by vilification tactics, and are thus the useful idiot brownshirts)
To wit, the anti-oligarchs of both left and right need to accept that their "side" includes power-hungry authoritarians. And, as u state in polemical judo you need to recognize this even if you "like" said oligarch (or oligarch/owned tool).
For the left, that would be the DEI/systemic racism ideologues who use social bullying tactics to impose conformity to their dictates. Of course, that ideology is merely a tool to keep the plebs at each other's throats, while not noticing that the oligarchs are grabbing more gold. So the DEI/CRT "intelligentsia" are "outer party" tools of the left wing "inner party" authoritarian.
The reason big left power brokers don't want to adopt many of your polemical judo moves is that they would undermine left wing authoritarianism rather than distract the plebs.
I disagree with you about the primary motivation of the DEI ideologues. I think what they want is a feeling of moral superiority. They want to get it by being champions of the oppressed and this gives them an insatiable need to frame issues in terms of oppression. And yes, there is a genuine desire to oppose the remaining genuine oppression but I think this is secondary.
Tariffing an almost entirely Metric world could mean the end of Imperial measurement outside the US. Also, bringing factories back home is an expensive mistake if Americans don't want to work in them.
It might be beneficial to see some political consensus building judo in practice in this forum. For instance, could a group of a dozen or so regulars including our Host agree on a living person worthy to be their hypothetical elected leader / commander and chief? Could they even come up with a deceased person?
Tony, I'm definitely a fan of both Raworth and Monbiot. I'll look up Monbiot's new book. I like to think we have to (as Raworth does), that the current economic system, is chasing the wrong target. We need new metrics that reflect that. And models built on those metrics. The old idea that arising tide, floats all boats ( in a sea of sewerage?) has been shown over a 40 plus year experiment not to work. Rising GDP as our only target is simply wrong.
Perhaps the slogan should be MEAGA (Make Exo-America Great Again).
Lloyd, when I talk about Dei/CRT as tools to keep the plebs at each other's throats while distracting them from lefty oligarchs carrying off the gold, I'm talking about how lefty authorritarians view them.
Many of the DEI/CRT "true believers" are as you describe. One reason why DEI undermined the Dems in the last election is how many workers felt threatened by DEI mandates.
Basically, unless you kowtowed to DEI mantras in your private life, you could lose your job. Wide use of social media preserves evidence of non-conformity, and thus the ideological oppression becomes overwhelming.
If anti-fuedalists wish to preserve Democracy, it's important to understand why it works. Why has democracy out-performed various kinds of fuedalism?
If we view nation states as populations locked in a Darwinian competition, how do democracies "fight off" dictatorships, oligarchic systems, monarchies, and theocratic societies?
I, of course, have a theory. But, I'm curious how others view this question.
Dr. Brin, have you had a chance to pick up Ezra Klein’s new book, *Abundance*? I was wondering what you thought of it.
Several of the less-frequent posters here have been very cogent like WilliamG. Hellerstein's insight about the 'inner vs outer party' was also spot on.
Tony is also on-target except that Keynes is still utterly relevant. It just has to be HONEST Keynes... which boils down to the old fashioned wisdom of Spend debt on people when times are hard and tax and save a bit in good times. Clintonism.
Which brings us to answering Slim Moldie (are you ALL on vitamins, lately?). Sure, my utter favorite Democrat is my governor Gavin Newsom. He is smarter than any of the others except Buttegieg and AOC... and FAR more generally acceptable except for one handicap...
...his state of origin. California is SO hated by Red America.
One top feature. Newsom has vetoed a LOT of silly ass legislation passed by CA's legislature's frippy-libby wing - gesture bills raving and imposing nonsense that only winds up hurting us all when Fox screeches "All libs are like THAT!!!" The bills that do get past Newsom are generally the smartest and best legislation in America.
And yes, Secession was put on the table by Texans, so let's discuss it.
scidata: "Also, bringing factories back home is an expensive mistake if Americans don't want to work in them..."
It was already happening. And the sweet spot is paire factories. One in Mexico for dreary assembly line work and one in the US that swaps in those parts into grand products. It's a mix that works, that shortens supply chains and omits stinky freighters and builds middle class Mexico and saves upper middle class USA.
Irony. Trump could have got all that! Toooo stoooopid.
JV I've read reviews. I have Peter Diamandis's ABUNDANCE.
Thanks Doc! Seems like most of Polemical Judo starts with engagement. The "silver lining" of Republican actions is lots of people could now use their neighbors' help. Show up, be real, be helpful. Earn respect and people will listen. Simple + actionable beats optimal + intellectual. (also works for losing weight, getting in shape, learning a new language, etc.....)
John Viril:
Basically, unless you kowtowed to DEI mantras in your private life, you could lose your job. Wide use of social media preserves evidence of non-conformity, and thus the ideological oppression becomes overwhelming.
And yet, non-conformity to DEI couldn't get you branded a terrorist and a traitor to be sent to a concentration camp in El Salvador.
Wookiees have been known to do that. Uh...I mean now that it's clear that evidence of non-support for Von Schitzenpantz's agenda is grounds for disappearing and death, I hope those who thought the Democrats were worse understand now that pronouns are not worse than genocide. Because they fucked around, the rest of us are finding out.
It's racism... 100% racism, everything else is just BS to cover the racism...
1964 was the last a Democratic Candidate for the Presidency won the majority of the White vote, I wonder what happened between 64 and 68.
Evidence of ancient carbon cycle on Mars (SCIENCE Apr 18)
https://www.science.org/toc/science/388/6744
If anyone at Caltech or JPL is looking for a FORTH guru...
Less restricted information flow and concomitant improved decision making with more varied input. Holders of this opinion include D MacArthur and myself. Imagine a war - any war where rumpT and a small cadre of MAGAheads were making all the decisions
Pappenheimer
Right now, that outcome only seems to apply to immigrants, though the immortal, "first, they came for the..." is duly noted.
Yet, most RWs are so happy about Trump demolishing DEI that they're not feeling the threat. Also note that the lw tactic of attacking "illegal aliens" as racist terminology and lumping them with legal immigrants into the term "immigrant" has now backfired.
Resentment about Biden's border policy has whipped up negative opinion against "immigrants" such that legal migrants now get caught in the backlash. So when legal immigrants get deported to El Salvador, rwingers shrug.
Part of it is they've become numbed by constant vilification from the loony left DEI knuckle-draggers that they aren't reacting to truly outrageous behavior.
Even Elon Musk realizes how dumb this is.
Btw Dr. Brin, the friendliest cheap labor country in Asia is the Philippines...not Vietnam or Malaysia. Filipinos have the most favorable opinion of the United States of any country in the world.
they've become numbed by constant vilification from the loony left DEI knuckle-draggers that they aren't reacting to truly outrageous behavior.
Because pronouns are worse than genocide?
I think it's more accurate to say that they aren't reacting to truly outrageous behavior because they're in favor of it, and they use "DEI is much worse" as an excuse. You might be able to convince me that their disgust with DEI is what makes them in favor of the outrageous behavior. Which IMHO is only slightly better.
Since we often talk about wagers here, I wonder who would take the other side of a bet that Kilmar Abrego Garcia is already dead. In making that bet, I'd be hoping to trick the universe into keeping him alive in order to make me lose the bet, which would be my preferred outcome.
Still, I think I'd win the bet.
He might be.
Another risk is he's alive and would be able to sway opinion if returned. Imagine what he could say about his experiences and you'll see the risk. Basically, he's a political prisoner who could speak assuming he's still alive.
Trump, the pathological liar, consistently delivers the opposite of what he promises, so I favor MAPA, meaning Make America Poor Again, or Make America Petty Again.
It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.
But if C.S.Lewis wrote that, then that would imply that he preferred Hell to Heaven.
Dear Dr. Brin:
I am duly flattered that you called my inner-party/outer-party comment 'insightful'. Aw gosh shucks, credit Orwell for that. And it implies that a cure for Trumpism should target both underlying cause (oligarchy) and symptom (hate-ism).
We also see eye to eye about the Seldonian Paradox of Marxism. When the owning class takes seriously Marx's predictions of mass immiseration and political upheaval, then they enact semi-socialist reforms to negate Marx's prediction - as Seldon predicts. But when those reforms work, then the owning class ceases to take Marx's predictions seriously, so they defund and repeal the semi-socialist reforms, and Marx's predictions tend to come true. The result is either a long-lived compromise, or a high-amplitude cycle with a period of 2 generations. The former is if there is intelligent life in the owning class, the latter if not.
Since we agree on two things, please consider agreeing with me on a third thing: that you could quickly and efficiently implement the Wager Tactic by writing it up as a fiction story. Technical details of the wager can be handled as SF world-building. There are dramatic moments to explore: our hero debates the proposal with skeptical friends, our hero sounds out reliable judges, our hero challenges a noxious demagogue, the media circus arrives, the scientifically-established facts come forth, the cowardly target flees, our hero mocks his dishonor. What fun!
We are Homo Ludus, Man the Player; we rehearse novelties through pretend. This includes fiction, which you are good at. And along with being useful visualization, such as story would, just by itself, have almost as much political effect as putting it into risky practice.
I think Alfred is probably right. This is to prevent him returning and making what has happened real to people.
The poet William Blake wrote, in his "Proverbs of Hell":
What is now known was once only imagin'd.
Well, this situation does remind me of Duterte in the Philippines. Police grabbed a S. Korean businessman for "drug dealing" then extorted his family in S. Korea for a quarter of a million dollars.
They had the audacity to do this even though the guy was already dead. Things aren't exactly wonderful when US politics starts reminding me of the Philippines
I had sort of adjacent thoughts when I watched OGH's play "The Escape" (Nov 2023). There's a diamond-in-the-rough here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy3qPm74XoE
Stories about chance, bargains, wagers, and David vs Goliath contests are powerful movers. Perhaps adding music or themes from more modern things like "Devil at the Crossroads" (Robert Johnson, Cream). Or Christopher Nolan's take on the ODYSSEY (2026). He did INTERSTELLAR (2014) and OPPENHEIMER (2023) and many other hits before those. The Nolan brothers have been teasing an Asimov-faithful version of FOUNDATION since I was knee high to a grasshopper.
There's also a fairly detailed list of wagers in history at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bets
Well, the "he's already dead" bet would be another kind. Where we're just guessing and hence small stakes. When you are absolutely sure of your facts, demand huge stakes and say "If you think I'm wrong come and take MY money!" The result, always, is that they flee, leaving you on the high ground of the guy of stood his ground confidently.
You never get a dime. But it works.
But yeah. I figure he either dead or would blab about near death.
----
Dang, Hellerstein said it better than I ever did and I plan to steal it: "We also see eye to eye about the Seldonian Paradox of Marxism. When the owning class takes seriously Marx's predictions of mass immiseration and political upheaval, then they enact semi-socialist reforms to negate Marx's prediction - as Seldon predicts. But when those reforms work, then the owning class ceases to take Marx's predictions seriously, so they defund and repeal the semi-socialist reforms, and Marx's predictions tend to come true. The result is either a long-lived compromise, or a high-amplitude cycle with a period of 2 generations. The former is if there is intelligent life in the owning class, the latter if not."
In other words, today's would-be feudal lords, aiming to restore 8000 years of rule by inheritance brats, surround themselves with flatterers telling them how smart they are. I actually have witnessed this happen to FIV I know personally. But thus they prove they are in fact, terminally stoopid people who are summoning eventual uber rides on tumbrels.
In EXISTENCE I portray the other scenario - trillionnaires actually trying to find a way to be lords in a progressive society that won't get fed up and kill them.
Alas, after 70 years when it seemed Marx was in a dustbin, his works are now flying off the shelves all over the globe. And the New Lords will discover, much to their pain, what that means.
It just has to be HONEST Keynes... which boils down to the old fashioned wisdom of Spend debt on people when times are hard and tax and save a bit in good times. Clintonism.
Monbiot considers Clinton (and Obama) to have continued with the Neoliberal policies of Reagan and Bush: encouraging 'self regulation' rather than 'bureaucratic'* regulation, and repealing the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999.
Monbiot cites three 'solid' reasons why a return to Keynes alone isn't enough:
1. it's hard for an eighty year old model to give inspiration to the present day.
2. the problems it encountered in the seventies are still present.
3. it has nothing new to say about environmental issues.
Having said that, I also think Keynes has still got things to offer (the Victorian state government certainly put it to use in getting some 'shovel ready' infrastructure projects rolling during the GFC.). It seems to me that Monbiot's frustration with it arises from the pov of lacking the present day inspiration needed to oust neoliberalism.
* For those catching up: Hayek's original issue was with the individual slavery of 'collectivist' systems, as he'd just witnessed under Hitler and Stalin. He saw the dead hand of bureaucracies as the road leading to such serfdom. Ironic that his answer now appears to be leading us to the same place. Which prompts an exercise: how would you go about enabling a bureaucracy without stifling the innovation provided by creative individuals?
I think the answer to why they won't even pretend to try to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia or let anyone talk to him is even simpler. They're using this to create a precedent that once they deport someone, they can't return them no matter what the judges rule.
I don't think they care if he returns and talks - they're going all in on scaring the public, so do they really fear that? He could be dead already - I just don't think that's the most likely reason they're being as obstinate as they are.
I think golf carts would be an appropriate alternative to tumbrels.
As you're probably already aware, Sen. Van Hollen sought to visit Garcia to see how he was being treated, but was stopped by soldiers acting under orders... 3 kilometers from the prison.
... [update] it appears he was later allowed to meet Garcia.
Tony Monbot is an idiot.
Who is Tony Monbot??
Dunno. Some sort of Ad Homibot?
... not by my reading.
Sorry. Hey Tony, Monbot is an idiot.
Oh and it looks like we shoulda taken that bet on Garcia.
Oh, also reminder to be careful in the general area of Adolf's birthday. Tho I expect those guys to stay calm this year.
Dear Dr. Brin: Steal away. Scholarship, the information economy and the Internet are as communistic as the United Federation of Planets. Once an idea is formulated and expressed, it is the common property of all humankind.
For instance, I stole "owning class" from George Carlin. "You have owners. They own you."
(Who is 'Monbot'?? ;-)
Which prompts an exercise: how would you go about enabling a bureaucracy without stifling the innovation provided by creative individuals?
THAT problem is also faced by large companies as well as government bodies!
The solution would be to somehow change who gets "promoted" - so that the people who concentrate on being promoted don't end up in charge
Yes, exactly. Any large command organization will have bureaucracy which is the layer ensuring the directions (or laws) specified from higher in the heirachy are implemented as intended. But private bureaucracies are worse, because they are in motivated by money (or power) and have no moral core (apart from what individuals bring with them). This is why privatization often makes bureaucracy worse, more arbitrary, unaccountable and corrupt, because the motivations are different.
Dr Brin:
Oh and it looks like we shoulda taken that bet on Garcia.
Yeah, I saw that on the news last night. Senator Van Hollen was apparently finally allowed to talk with the guy.
That is a bet I was happy to lose. That's the whole reason I brought it up.
Cari Burstein:
I think the answer to why they won't even pretend to try to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia or let anyone talk to him is even simpler. They're using this to create a precedent that once they deport someone, they can't return them no matter what the judges rule.
The precedent they are setting is that once Trump--for any reason or no reason at all--declares someone a terrorist, that person has no rights, not even the right to challenge the characterization. He can be snatched off the streets or out of his home and disappeared into the nacht und nebel (night and fog).
they're going all in on scaring the public, so do they really fear that?
They don't, but they should. What they're creating is a lawless situation in which our only recourse is to arm ourselves and band together to resist unlawful arrest. It's at the point where even dying in a shootout might be preferable to allowing oneself to be taken. And tomorrow happens to be the 250th anniversary of the "shot heard around the world" at Lexington and Concord.
My thoughts run along the lines of why can't bureaucracies be efficient?
You Americans are so lovely. Your hunches, crossed fingers, and jinxes. I've learned a lot from you. That's why I'm still a Maple Leafs fan, even though I was in grade 3 the last time they won the Stanley Cup.
Visited that bridge as a teen. You could almost hear the shot. Saw a TV ad the other day desperately inviting Canadian tourists to come to New England. But they showed one historical attraction where BLUE JACKETS were loading a cannon! Wrong audience.
Tony, who says they are not? Yes, I'm all for making bureaucracies more efficient, but they also need to be effective and fair. But, remembering people are trying to cheat all the time and that is mostly, or the requirements are difficult to fulfil (stolen or lost documents for instance), and that is what mostly causes inefficiency. 90% of cases are probably handled efficiently, the other 10% slow things down. Just like queues in a bank or post offices.
Monbiot may sometimes be wrong (he often admits it too), but he is definitely not an idiot.
Tony Fisk said...
"Monbiot cites three 'solid' reasons why a return to Keynes alone isn't enough:
1. it's hard for an eighty year old model to give inspiration to the present day.
2. the problems it encountered in the seventies are still present.
3. it has nothing new to say about environmental issues."
First a caveat. I realize the above is a very brief summary and that Monbiot very likely expanded on each of those bullet points at length. But, at first blush what comes to mind is . . .
1) I understand that inspiration can be important but, (A) I am not convinced that inspiration for an older model could not be elicited, and (B) I think that whether or not a model is effective, and how effective, is by far the most important metric and when or where it comes from should not matter.
2) Then the model could be tweaked based on that "new" data. IMO that is the way policies should work. Devise and enact a policy, observe the results, tweak as necessary based on those observations. Policies are analogous to hypotheses in science. They are ideas about how reality works, or will work. Some may be completely wrong, some pretty good but with room for improvement. Delete or tweak based on observed results.
3) This seems like a category error, a non sequitur. Your general socioeconomic policy model isn't the kind of tool that needs to say anything about environmental issues. There are other tools at lower levels to do that. It is a tool that needs to create and maintain a socioeconomic system that is capable of dealing with environmental issues, and issues of all kinds. It's the tool you use to create and maintain a society that is rich enough in money, material resources and people power of many kinds to deal with any issues that come along. Deciding what to use the tool for is also something else, a different process.
Monbiot's points seem sort of wooly.
@scidata,
It's been a long time before I had a spit-take. Thanks, dude.
I meant "since" I had a spit-take.
"But private bureaucracies are worse..." One reason is that they have different purposes. Public bureaucrats have accountability as their primary job. Everyone has someone else checking on them and nearly all of it is public record so that citizens can check, as well. Because state power is dangerous power.
That can make for cloying layers. And that's why efforts like Gore's re-inventing government are needed every few decades and DOGE could have been like that. Instead, it has targeted IRS and especially the Inspectors General, to elim accountability.
scidata name a human society that's not supersitious. At least bets bring the process closer to science.
Carumba! Idiots! The 50501 folks have scheduled their protests for April 19, which far right maniacs call Waco Day or Timothy McVeigh Day. A day when you are best advised to lock the doors. Almost as stoopid as making April 20 (4-20) a day of 'pot freedom.' Hitler's birthday.
note: Paradoctor = Hellerstein, posting from the upstairs laptop.
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... today's would-be feudal lords, aiming to restore 8000 years of rule by inheritance brats, surround themselves with flatterers telling them how smart they are. I actually have witnessed this happen to FIV I know personally. But thus they prove they are in fact, terminally stoopid people who are summoning eventual uber rides on tumbrels.
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FIV? Is that FIVE with typo?
Are those in power crooks or fools? The answer to this dilemma is that it doesn't matter. Everyone lies to crooks, so they become fools; and fools lie to themselves, so they become crooks. Plato warned the wise to be virtuous, lest they lose their wisdom. To this I reply that the virtuous must wise up, to remain virtuous.
Many on my side of the aisle questioned why another protest was scheduled only three weeks after the last one, and on Easter weekend to boot.
The explanation I heard was that April 20 is when a ruling is due as to whether Trump can mobilize the armed forces against protesters.
When discussing the 'Seldonian Paradox of Marxism', both Hellerstein & Dr. Brin seem to argue that this fluctuating 'high amplitude cycle' between oligarchic capitalism & soft marxism is a bug rather than a feature, especially as they both conclude that the very existence of this fluctuating cycle is proof of oligarchic 'stoopidity'.
Instead, I argue that the very existence of this 'Seldonian Paradox' proves the opposite, especially if one assumes that this fluctuating economic cycle is a deliberately imposed feature rather than a bug that (first) incentivizes economic production via the 'intermittent reward' OC variant, (second) increases social stability by allowing for top-down socioeconomic manipulation and (third) virtually guarantees oligarchic profit-taking & continuity in a manner analogous to a stock exchange.
These striking parallels between the Seldonian Paradox & the Stock Exchange cannot be unseen, assuming that one is familiar with the latter, as one only 'wins' in the stock market through a long-term investment strategy that virtually guarantees buying low & selling high.
In short, it's hubristic idiocy to oppose these socioeconomic cycles, as those who do tend to be crushed into grease beneath the wheels, while those who 'go with the flow' are invariably rewarded.
Best
Locumranch has a point: oscillations do help the owning class buy low and sell high. That's how they become the owning class. The managerial and labor classes prefer a predictable environment: thus the center-left alliance. Actually they're both conservative, in the non-Orwellian sense of that word.
The Seldonian paradox applies not only to Marxism, but to any psychohistorical prediction. They too are, to the ruling classes, as true as they are false; so they must either settle into stable mediocrity, or 2-generation high-amplitude cycles. Which one depends on class interests.
Dr Brin (redux) :
When you are absolutely sure of your facts, demand huge stakes and say "If you think I'm wrong come and take MY money!"
I want to expand on this a bit, because my suggested bet about Garcia was for a different reason than your usual thing about wagers.
In this particular case, I certainly did NOT have absolute certainty of the "fact" that Garcia was dead (all the more so now), but I had enough of an Occam's Razor sense that he must be dead to declare that to be the truth. Therefore, anyone arguing the opposite side must show proof of life. The longer they dawdled, the more it proved I must be right.
Ultimately, had anyone taken me up on the bet, I would have lost, but that's ok. I wanted the proof of life, not the cash.
Of course, I'm just a guy typing on an obscure site on the internet, but I would hope that someone in a position of actual influence would essentially do the same thing, which appears to have (finally) happened.
Let me have some perspective here.
The Von Schitzenpantz administration is claiming that what they're doing is deporting dangerous aliens who are in the country illegally.
Usually, when someone is deported, they're sent back to the country they came from. They're not imprisoned in that country (unless they've run afoul of that country's laws). They're just kicked out of ours.
But so-called members of a Venezuelan gang* are not being deported back to Venezuela. They're being sent to a prison--actually a concentration camp--in El Salvador. Might as well be Guantanamo or Abu Garaib. The point isn't the location of the camp. The point is that they're not simply being deported, but imprisoned as well.
Usually, someone sent to prison is under a sentence meted out in court by a judge or jury. Some get life sentences or death sentences, but most have a time set for their release.
The people deported to El Salvador don't have a specific sentence. They're just imprisoned forever on Von Schitzenpantz's say-so that they're "terrible people" for any reason or no reason at all. And no recourse to dispute the accusations (there being no actual charges against them).
Do I have the right of it?
* The situation surrounding Mr. Garcia are driving me nuts with coincidences and discrepancies. MS-13 is supposedly a Venezuelan gang, right? So why is an El Salvadoran national thought to be a member of the gang. And is the fact that he just happens to be from the country where the concentration camp is located a coincidence? Whereas the others who were send there were Venezuelans? I'm awfully confused.
Hellerstein, Marx assumed that every business cycle would result in a narrowing of the owner class until the bourgeoise period would end and be replaced by new-feudalism - with which he was familiar.
Bourgeoise society confused him, even though he called it a 'necessary phase.' to finish the DFormation of Capital. But he foresaw it being finished off by capitalism's contradictions.
What he never imagined and never wrote about or discussed was the possibility that the bourgeoise revolution might be skllfully managed - by a combination of legislation and investments in young new competitors - thus allowing that most-creative phase to evade his fore-ordained scenario, by a populace who - warned by Marx of one path - might deliberately choose another.
The path of limiting the rich to merely being rich and continually expanding the middle class to include ever larger clades of skilled, confident young competitors...
...as Adam Smith prescribed.
That is - in fact - what the Roosevelteans achieved (or set in motion). It's what Reagan assumed was already done. And it's what the Trumpists are absolutely determined to crush... reviving and re-creating exactly Marx's end game scenario while stoopidly and ignorantly unaware they are old Karl's dream come true.
That was Marx's PREDICTION - by no means was it his "Dream"
I am pretty sure that he would have applauded future that we were moving towards before Reagan and Thatcher torpedoed it
Duncan, you my be pretty sure. But I know darn well that he was dismissive and contemptuous toward any thought that sapient planning might extend the bourgeoise era. Especially since it implied that 'capital formation' did not have a final phase of 'completion.'
We now know that the very idea of a final set of factories 'completing' capital is jibbering nonsense. As was every other aspect of his future projections.
Except the scene we have before us. Of a clade of microcephalic plutocrats conspiring to reset feudalism.
onward
onward
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