And now... some intellectual stuff, if that's what you are holding-out for!
And yes, for those of you who blithely use the terms 'left' and 'right' in politics, without actually knowing what they mean, here's one of maybe ten things you likely never knew, that you really, really ought to.
== How the left and right differently view the future's 'ordained' path.
...And why actual liberals think both 'teleologies' suck.
In fact, progressively improving, end-result teleology is a very recent epiphenomenon of Enlightenment Civilization – and almost entirely Western. Until these last 3 centuries, the pervasive historical teleologies were:
1. Successive, gradual decline, as in the Greek notions of golden, silver and iron ages.
2. More rapid, steep decline to hellish end times, followed by divine intervention, as in Christian doctrines.
3. Cyclical history – everything cycles back around, as in Hindu and Nordic lore – as well as Nazi and Confederate incantations. And now, a noxius recent mysticism called the Cult of the Fourth Turning.
All three of these ancient visions have deep roots in human psyche. All three were pushed hard by the powerful, from kings and lords to priests. And all three have long been core to what we’d now call ‘conservatism’, as they all preach at peasants: ‘Accept your place: don’t strive or even hope to improve the world.’
One exception – ironically clutched by 2000 years of persecuted Jews – was a notion that the world is improvable and that the Creator needs our assertive help to save it. Indeed, this usually-forlorn dream seems to have been what manifested in several grandsons-of-rabbis, like Sigmund Freud and especially Karl Marx.
And later – yes – in Isaac Asimov’s notions of ‘psychohistory,’ which inspired nerds across a very wide spectrum, ranging from Paul Krugman all the way to Shoko Asahara and Osama bin Laden.
Overall, it was a whole lot of grouchy-gloom to quench any glimmers of hope, during grouchy-gloomy times.
But things eventually changed, rousing a new, competing view of the time-flow of history. Inspired by the palpable progress coming out of industrial factories and modern medical science, we began to see a new kind of teleology. That of egalitarian ‘progress.’ Manifesting in either of two modes:
1. ...in moderate, incremental stages, as in the U.S. Revolution, and every American generation that followed…
2. …or else impatient transcendentalism – demanding immediate leaps to remaking humanity - as we saw in the French and then Russian and Chinese Revolutions.
Either way, this linear and ever-upward notion of historical directionality was a clear threat to the beneficiaries of older teleologies… ruling classes, who needed justification for continued obligate power. And especially excuses to repress potential rivals to their sons’ inheritance of power.
Thus it is no accident that all three of the more ancient motifs and views of ‘history’ - downward or cyclical - are being pushed, hard, by our current attempted worldwide oligarchic putsch. Each of them tuned to a different conservative constituency!
Will someone do up a nice meme on Caligula's horse, laughing at us?
* Another suggested meme about the dismal insipidity of the masks worn by ICE agents in these brownshirt-stle immigration raids.
1. ...in moderate, incremental stages, as in the U.S. Revolution, and every American generation that followed…
2. …or else impatient transcendentalism – demanding immediate leaps to remaking humanity - as we saw in the French and then Russian and Chinese Revolutions.
Either way, this linear and ever-upward notion of historical directionality was a clear threat to the beneficiaries of older teleologies… ruling classes, who needed justification for continued obligate power. And especially excuses to repress potential rivals to their sons’ inheritance of power.
Thus it is no accident that all three of the more ancient motifs and views of ‘history’ - downward or cyclical - are being pushed, hard, by our current attempted worldwide oligarchic putsch. Each of them tuned to a different conservative constituency!
For example: the Fourth Turning cult is especially rife among those Republicans who desperately cling to chants like: “I AM in favor of freedom & progress! I am!” Even though they are among the very ones causing the completely unnececessary 'crisis' that will then require rescue by a 'hero generation.'
(Side note: Are the impatient transcendentalists on "our side" of the current struggle - shouting for instant transformation(!!) - deeply harmful to their own cause, the way Robspierre and Mao were, to theirs? Absolutely. Angrily impatient with incrementalism, sanctimony junkies of the far-left were partly responsible for Trump v.2, by shattering the liberal coalition with verbal purity tests that drove away (temporarily, we hope) two millions Blacks, Hispanics and lower middle class whites.)
Why do I raise this point about teleologies of left and right yet again, even though I never get any traction with it, never ever prompting others to step back and look at such patterns?
Perhaps because new pattern aficionados are on the horizon! Indeed, there is always a hope that our new AI children will see what their cave-folk parents could not. And explain it to them.
== Some political notes ==
* Russian corvettes escort quasi-illegal Shadow tankers thru the English Channel while NATO navies daily thwart attempts to sabotage subsea pipes & data cables. Might Ukraine say: "Iran, NKorea & Gabon have openly Joined the RF waging war on us. Under the 300 year Rules of War, we may seize or sink enemy ships on the high seas. We've bought, equipped, flagged, manned and sent to the Atlantic Ukrainian navy ships to do that."
* Those shrugging-off the appointment of 22-year old Thomas Fugate as the top US counter-terrorism czar will have some 'splaining to do, when these moves - replacing competent professionals with Foxite shills - come home to roost. But I've already pointed out the glaring historical parallel: when the mad tyrant Caligula tested the Roman Senate by appointing - as Consul - his horse. No Senator stood up to that, or to C's sadist orgies or public snatch-strangulations.
Today it would take just 2 GOP Senators and 2 Reps, stepping up, to curb the insanity by half or more. Threats & rampant blackmail (check the male relatives of Collins & Murkowski) don't suffice to explain or excuse such craven betrayal across the GOP, since the first few to step up would be reckoned heroes, no matter what kompromat the KGB has on you.
Will someone do up a nice meme on Caligula's horse, laughing at us?
* Another suggested meme about the dismal insipidity of the masks worn by ICE agents in these brownshirt-stle immigration raids.
"Hey ICE masked-rangers, You think a mask suffices in 2025? When cameras can zoom into your iris? Bone structure and gait? (Keep a pebble in your shoe!) Anyway, that comrade (and fellow KGB puppet) next to you is recording every raid for his Squealer File. For plea bargaining when this all goes down."
What? You think "He'd never do that to me!"?
In poker, everyone knows who the patsy is. If you don't know, then it's you.
What? You think "He'd never do that to me!"?
In poker, everyone knows who the patsy is. If you don't know, then it's you.
== Finally, glorious Grand Dames of Sci Fi! ==
A pair of terrific speeches about science fiction. Newly- (and way-deservedly!)- installed Grand Master Nicola Griffith relates how SF encouraged her to believe that ancient injustices can be overcome, if first writers help readers believe it possible. The young MC of the event, Erin Roberts, was truly amazing, taking perspectives that were variously passionate, amusing and deeply insightful. Persuasive and yet not polemically fixated, she's the real deal that's needed now, more than ever.
164 comments:
"One exception – ironically clutched by 2000 years of persecuted Jews – was a notion that the world is improvable and that the Creator needs our assertive help to save it. Indeed, this usually-forlorn dream seems to have been what manifested in several grandsons-of-rabbis, like Sigmund Freud and especially Karl Marx. "
The notion that there is progress in history, and we (people) have the responsibility to work to build a better world has been bubbling around in Jewish thought for quite a while ... not just the last century or so.
e.g. from one of the oldest post-biblical Jewish codes - "[Rabbi Tarfon - 1st cetury Rabbi] used to say: It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it;"
One daily prayer that focuses on this notion "Let the time not be distant, O God, when all shall turn to You in love, when all the brokenness in our world is repaired by the work of our hands and our hearts," was from the 3rd century or earlier, but became popularized when it was used a martyr's song in the 12th century, by a group being burnt at the stake in France.
Will someone do up a nice meme on Caligula's horse, laughing at us?
Hmm, there might be something to be done with the old Devon folk song 'Widecombe Fair', which starts with:
Tom Pearce, Tom Pearce, lend me your grey mare...
The mare is needed to take a large assemblage of people to Widecombe Fair, including the iconic 'Uncle Tom Cobbley'. Over several verses, we hear that the old grey mare isn't quite up to the task, and sadly expires along the way, to be become a ghostly apparition on the moors...
Tom Fugent, Tom Fugent....
One revolution rather than gradual reform was Napoleons Code Civil, introducted as areplacement of Roman Law and precendence decisions. It was introduced into the occupied territories in Europe and kept after the liberation. Most of European, South American and even Japanese Law is still running unser those principles, albeit with national variations.
Speaking of liberations, 1945 was surely not a gradual end of the Nazi system, though the cultural transition away from authoritarianism took one or two generations in the Western half.
So, I believe that sometimes, a system cannot be changed from within, and change needs external forces to occur, and sometimes even then changes take a generation to be anchored into the general society (for better or worse).
In other news: The social democrats voted with 100% to start the process to ban the AfD. First step among many. The process might take years and not be successful.
It looks like Trump's big beautiful bill is going to pass the Senate.
So we will pay for billionaire tax cuts by gutting Medicaid.
Good.
I will enjoy watching those racist MAGAs in Red State rural America lose their health care and dental as a result of voting for a vulgar dishonest corrupt racist rapist instead of a competent black woman.
It's what they deserve.
Its karma with a capital K.
Since most of us originally came to this blog over the years for a spot of optimism, thought you might like this one:
PV installations over time vs predictions
World electricity usage is almost 30,000 terawatt hours.
Coal generates approximately 35% of this or 10,500 twh, or 1.2 tw
According to your chart, PV accounts for about 650 gw or 0.65 tw, with last years growth being about 300 gw.
Given that install PV, no matter what is rated, varies wildly with latitude, climate, daylight etc. it would be great if we could compare PV twh with coal twh
And her is a bit of pessimism:
https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fdsxw88f5dh9f1.png
Faster than expected is running a meme in this sub, but there's evidence to back this meme as we are measuring faster rise in heat, CO2, ice melt. Currently on track at .27 degrees temp rise per decade and becoming higher and faster as seen from the chart. In March, a NASA analysis found that sea levels had risen faster than expected in 2024, in part because of a combination of melting glaciers and heat penetrating deeper into oceans, causing them to expand thermodynamically. Sea surface temperatures are rising faster than previously predicted, too, according to a study published in April by researchers at the National Center for Earth Observation in Britain. In May, a paper analyzing data from a NASA satellite found that this imbalance had grown faster than expected, more than doubling in the past two decades and becoming nearly twice as large as it was previously predicted to be. Buckle up! Exponential curvature in effect
Non paywall NYT article: https://archive.is/jknBm
Many won't care. Because that would mean taking responsibility for their actions, and authoritarians are Bad at that. They will simply find a new scapegoat.
@Celt - As the title says, that chart shows NEW GW installed by year, not total production.
wikipedia claims about 7% of total production from Solar in 2024 (a bit behind wind, but catching up fast). Referencing this site
Teleology and symbolism are linked in romanticism. A powerful motivator, justifier, and aspiration-token in the human mind that explains a lot of history. An example of this link in a 'good' sense might be FDR's favourite little piece of Canada, Campobello Island.
Glad I decided to shrug off Oger's occasional spasms, because he is historically erudite. (Well, he's not a history-ignoramus American.) And he raises an interesting point about Napoleon. He inherited the chaos of a fully-fevered transcendentalist revolution and hence was in a position to pick and choose which elements were sane increments to keep and which mad excesses to brutally quash. And many elements of what became the Napoleonic Code had already been debated and legislated by earlier revolutionary assemblies.
(To be clear, I prefer the Anglo legal tradition of the Judge being quasi neutral, overseeing adversarial competition between lawyers, instead of relying on the judge to be master interogator.)
N truly was a child of Revolution and considered himself to be savior of the Revolution. Alas, he became surrounded by flatterers with resulting poisons of the mind. His two great mistakes - betraying Spain for the sake of his brother and invading RUssia - were unnecessary, unforced errors. He could have offered the Czar Crimea and Constantinople in exchange for Polish and Finnish freedom and ending serfdom, then sent French troops to Athens in warm weather, and there'd be nothing Britain could do about it.
We'd all be speaking French right now.
I have spoken elsewhere of how romanticism is one of humanity's greates gifts... and most terrible curses.
I've read my Suetonius but apparently he was hyperbolating here, and Incitatus may never have achieved consular rank - worthy horse though he was. Caligula is definitely quoted by many as saying the steed would make a better senator than some who already held that rank, and lavished attention on his favorite quadruped.
In other equestrian parahistory, Julius Caesar MAY have purchased a horse with toes rather than hooves on its forefeet because a soothsayer proclaimed that the horse's rider would conquer the world, and Alexander MAY have led a minor campaign during his conquests to recover his horse Bucephalus.
A lot of later historians assumed that Suetonius was drawing the long bow about the habits of the weirder Julio-Claudians (Tiberius, Nero, Caligula, and to some extent Claudius) but I'm starting to wonder if future historians (if future historians there will be) are going to deem the activities and appointments of Trump, Musk, and his stranger cronies as also too lurid to be believed. -I- still have trouble believing Hegseth is SecDef.
I do wish Heinlein hadn't been so right about the Crazy Years - when are they supposed to be over again?
Pappenheimer
P.S. In my opinion, Napoleon would never have stopped - he had the conqueror's curse: "Just a little bit more." Some guys - and they appear to be almost always guys - find their meaning in war. I've got a trace of that myself, but I satisfy it with a deep interest in military history. Rather not hurt anyone.
P.P.S. Brin's novel Kiln People offered an outlet for such folk, and he's not the only SF author with similar suggestions.
I have the best comment community online, even accounting for the (few) fanatics. Who are nevertheless possessed of generally good elocution.
Pappenheimer: without doubt Napoleon shows how even a brilliant and progress-oriented leader can devolve into delusion, when surrounded by flatterers. Still, the Constantinople + Athens gambit, with all European serfs free along with Poland etc, would have solidified him in command of Eurasia. A VERY big meal to govern & digest.
Alas, Heinlein's Crazy Years were followed by the fanatical "Gilead"* of Nehemia Scudder.
*Atwood really shoulda credited Heinlein
I personally think your two options model - Blood-drinking revolutions vs. gradual consensual reforms - is too simplifying and lacks parameters. I see it more of a spectrum, and has different scales - like, the time needed, the people lost, actual lasting change achieved, and so on. For example, one could make a point that the Russian revolution of 1917 actually started with the Decembrist revolt in 1825 and various other incidents in between.
"A successful revolution has three enemies: A despotic tyrant who creates the will to depose him, hatefilled Jacobins who want to burn it all down, and the scheming and waiting Bonapartists who plan for the day the fire of rage has cooled, and they can step in as the saviors of the people. Unfortunately, you also need these enemies to start and maintain a revolution."- Some wisecracking character, just don't know when I will use it.
I saw letters of pro (Heinlein) and contra (Atwood) sci fi writers arguing for or against the American intervention in Vietnam, along with many other authors of that time. I can't find it now, but maybe they were in many other matters in opposite political camps.
Ogre,
Heinlein's politics were, er, unique and iconoclastic. He was never the straight-up fascist some people saw in 'Starship Troopers', nor the far-out hippie others found in 'Stranger in a Strange Land'. Spider Robinson calls him (I think correctly) a militarist and the Old Man definitely took a hard right turn at the start of the Cold War. 'Glory Road' used the point of view of a black Viet Nam vet to attack what Heinlein perceived as a loss of US patriotism in the 60's to explain why the war was unpopular.
I'm rather on the side of Joe Haldeman, who served in Viet Nam and wrote an anti-'Starship Troopers' book (the Forever War) as part of getting his head back together after his draft time was up*.
Re: Heinlein's future history, having us go from chaos to theofascist order was a good guess - though it seems like technofeudalism is getting a shot today. I can't imagine even a full generation of Americans putting up with that sh*t, though. If your core constituency is billionaires, you've limited your popularity in the long term; wrapping everything in God is a more durable look.
*Haldeman pointed out than in his book, the generals directed the ground war from orbit, while Heinlein's generals were in the first capsules to hit atmosphere. I'll let you guess which option I consider more likely.
Pappenheimer
...the fanatical "Gilead"* of Nehemia Scudder.
*Atwood really shoulda credited Heinlein
Aha. Back when I read The Handmaid's Tale, I wondered what the name Gilead was a reference to. Whenever I'd look it up, I'd just get links about Atwood's book itself.
Napoleon's original plan was to stop at Smolensk and reestablish the medieval kingdom of Poland-Lithuania extending to the Dvina Dneipor rivers. The goal was to isolate Russia from the west and establish a large loyal buffer state guarding the eastern frontier of the French empire.
But Kutuzov stayed just out of reach and Napoleon wanted a decisive battle. So Napoleon's pride took him to Moscow and destruction.
The Poles, not just his mistress countess Walewska, loved Napoleon as their savior and liberator. There is a great scene in War and Peace when Napoleon crosses the Neiman river and invades Russia. He is meeting with Russian emissaries demanding he return home and claiming he has no allies. Napoleon says he needs no allies because he has the Poles, 500,000 strong and they all "fight like lions".
To underscore the point a regiment of polish cavalry asks for permission to make the river crossing while Napoleon watched on horseback without using the bridge constructed by French engineers. They lose a dozen men in the crossing but cheer Napoleon when they reach the opposite bank.
LH look up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_Is_a_Balm_in_Gilead
I deemed STARHIP TROOPERS to be a fasination ARGUMENT between RAH and the director. Almost all the owrds spoken by the actors are Heinleins. All the symbols are the director's unsubtle allusions to fascism.
Again, to understand Heinlein better, see http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2017/03/looking-back-at-heinleins-future.html
Also, Gilead is a mountain in todays Jordan, and an ancient state mentioned in the Old Testament at the same place and a bunch of persons.
The "Sons of Jacob" mentioned in the Handmaidens Tale are also connected
to the biblical narration.
my local news - just across the ID border from Spokane, where I live. BBC News reports 2 firefighters killed, others wounded:
"Two people were fatally shot in a mountain community in Idaho, located in the north-western US, while responding to a brush fire, say officials.
Kootenai County Sheriff's Office Robert Norris said at least one suspect was firing at law enforcement with a high-powered rifle near the city of Coeur d'Alene."
Locals suspect the brush fire was lit to create an ambush site, and a firefight with local police is still ongoing. Helicopters with IR gear are unable to spot the shooter(s) due to smoke, ground heat and rough terrain. Hikers and bikers in the area are still in danger.
At this point I'd suggesting a Predator drone with a Hellfire missile for Uncle Joad and his putative Holnist buddies, but visibility conditions probably preclude deployment. The 2A enthusiasts/survivalists at this end of WA state and on into ID need a 1 way ticket to Heinlein's Coventry, or the Special Hell*. Their choice.
*you know the one I mean.
Pappenheimer
Amusingly, there is a converse chart showing the projected global demand for nuclear power, v the actual
It's not really good news in the sense that the graph(s) show that too many people continue to make predictions based on their desires rather than their observations.
This I'm afraid is a consequence of the Libertarian meme gone crazy. Libertarians to me, far too often only seem to care about protecting the freedom to be an arsehole. Maybe they care a bit more about freedom from arseholes.
The Idaho ambush story was on my local news in Chicago too. While I still don't know any more details about the shooters and their motive, I would probably not go poor betting on "MAGA fanatic".
reason:
protecting the freedom to be an arsehole.
I've described it as "freedom to bully" vs "freedom from bullies", but the concept is the same. You can only be for one of the two as they are mutually exclusive. You can't just be "for freedom" full stop.
(To be clear, I prefer the Anglo legal tradition of the Judge being quasi neutral, overseeing adversarial competition between lawyers, instead of relying on the judge to be master interogator.)
Oh, I don't know much about the judiciary in other EU states, but from what I have heard, successful revision or appeal of a verdict can be a career ender for both prosecutors and judges.They are career civil servants, not elected, and tend to make their decisions revision-proof. And there is certainly an adversarial element to it. Prosecutors make their careers on convictions.
What I don't like is that fines are capped at a point, so wealthier people are usually less affected by those - it becomes a permit fee, not a penalty.
The ambush story was on my local news in Toronto too. Perhaps the media is slowly waking from its slumber. We getting more ICEraid vids too. Question: why are they all 40ish pudgy white cosplayers? Aren't there any 'regulars'?
So would someone please explain to me why I should feel any sympathy for Trump voters?
https://newrepublic.com/article/197396/mind-boggling-trump-voters-shocked-badly-he-screwing
“Mind-Boggling”: Trump Voters Shocked at How Badly He’s Screwing Them
As evidence mounts that voters in Trump country are getting hammered by his biggest initiatives, an economist paints a dark picture of just how bad the sum total of these policies will be for working people.
It’s becoming clearer that many of President Trump’s supporters are realizing how badly they’re getting shafted by his big budget bill and other leading initiatives. Senator Mitch McConnell just privately admitted that many Republicans are getting major blowback from their “people back home” about the bill’s deep Medicaid cuts, adding that “they’ll get over it.” A stunning Fox News poll just found that a majority of white men without a college degree oppose the bill. Crucially, these voters make up “the heart of Trump’s base.” Even Trump’s own pollster just bluntly suggested that Trump voters are feeling betrayed. On top of all that, Trump supporters again and again have been horrified to learn that his deportations are victimizing immigrants they like. And the tariffs are already hurting Trump country. So how badly are his working-class voters getting hit? To find out, we talked to economist Jared Bernstein, who paints a dark picture of the impact they’re feeling from all these policies taken together. Add it all up, Bernstein concludes, and the Trump-GOP lack of concern as their voters learn they’re taking it on the chin is “mind-boggling.” Listen to this episode here. A transcript is here.
Another point I would like to mention is that our culture's viewpoints on the function of the judiciary vary wildly, especially in the criminal justice system. I invite you to look at results and numbers and which outcome would be preferable. (That is not to say I find our system perfect - white collar crimes are quiet easy to get away with. I envy the French for having the balls in the Sarkozy and Le Pen trials.)
Maybe not sympathy, but empathy while maintaining your positions?
As in "I understand your feelings, but what would you want do differently next time? You don't know? How do you find out? What do you need to make changes? Knowledge? Confidence?"
So would someone please explain to me why I should feel any sympathy for Trump voters?
That's easy. You should not.
Senator Mitch McConnell just privately admitted that many Republicans are getting major blowback from their “people back home” about the bill’s deep Medicaid cuts, adding that “they’ll get over it.”
They will get over it. Not that they won't be upset about the reality, but they won't blame Trump and they'll still consider Trump to be fighting for them against the evil socialist Demoncrats. Because they're a cult.
Add it all up, Bernstein concludes, and the Trump-GOP lack of concern as their voters learn they’re taking it on the chin is “mind-boggling.”
One possibility is that they don't expect future elections to happen, or that voter suppression will ensure the reich lasts 1000 years.
But even absent that dystopian projection, Republican politicians probably figure that no matter how disappointed they are on policy, their voters will eventually fall in line because "What else are they going to do? Vote Democratic? Taking their voters for granted like that doesn't work for Democrats, but it does for the other side.
More specifically, Gilead would have been interesting to religious fanatics with too much bible on their hands as it was the area on the opposite bank of the Jordan from the "holy land" - where the Israelites, after 40 years in the desert, on the way from Egypt to Israel, first conquered territory, established the rule of God, and used that as a jumping off point to begin the conquest of the holy land itself.
Heinlein never gets the credit he deserves because most sci-fi and creative fiction types are progressives, and Heinlein has strong libertarian and militaristic streaks in his fiction.
A.I. deregulation in the BBB: Release the SHOGGOTH!
Was the protagonist of Glory Road a black Vietnam vet? If he was, I totally missed that when I read it. I do remember liking Starship Troopers because you find out at the end that Juan Rico was, in fact, Filipino (even though his parents lived in Buenos Aires).
As much as wokists annoy me with their check the box representation crap, I suppose I must admit it did gratify teenage me to discover a Filipino protagonist portrayed in American fiction (which I had never seen before).
Dr Brin:
I deemed STARHIP TROOPERS to be a fasination ARGUMENT between RAH and the director. Almost all the owrds spoken by the actors are Heinleins. All the symbols are the director's unsubtle allusions to fascism.
I never saw the movie. I read the book fairly recently after it was talked up a bit here.
You know my political sensibilities, and yet I didn't see the book as advocating fascism. I saw it as a story about a man adrift who found a home in the military.
Yeah Larry, I also saw Starship Troopers as portraying two incompatible speces locked in the Darwinian battle because they need the same resources. Peace wasn't really a possibility.
Thus, humanity might have to face a kill-or-be-killed Darwinian contest as they explore our galaxy.
Oh, Starship Troopers was morally problematic in a number of ways. But where the author andf director did overlap was in one crucial observation. That humans are capable of expanding their horizons of inclusion -- what I call the Great American Project.... that has progressed WAY too slowly but inexorably (till now). And in both novel and film we see humans totally at ease over race, gender etc... WITHIN the circle... but nasty sumbitches to those not yet inside.
we see humans totally at ease over race, gender etc... WITHIN the circle... but nasty sumbitches to those not yet inside.
Again, I'm as liberal as we come, at least around these parts. But I'm not for widening the circle to include (for example) COVID viruses. And if I come across an active hornets' nest in my house, I'm not trying to sign a peace treaty with them or recognize their right to due process.
The circle ever widens, but some applications would just be too ridiculous.
Having said the above, I'm not a fascist or a Republican (pardon the repetition) looking for an "other" to be mean to for the pleasure of doing so. Any intelligence capable and willing to engage with us peaceably for our mutual benefit is welcome within the inclusion circle. It's just that some entities simply don't meet that standard.
LH see my story "Stines of Significance."
oops that's "Stones"...;-)
Larry, what your describe is the tolerance paradoxon, most notably mentioned.by Popper.
Sorry it took a while to get back. Time does what it does, and I've yet to find a way to undo it.
When I sent you the thing on the moral circle, I was hoping you would find it useful, rather than just rehashing the usual. Seriously, the problem of extreme lefty sanctimony junkies is orders of magnitude less of an issue than the textbook fascist coup happening right before our eyes.
Something useful, like examining the differences between the two sides of Figure 5 and imagining how you can actually use that information. The most obvious thing, that lefties have much wider horizons of inclusion than right wingers, is not the only thing you could have taken from that. For one, you know why the right wingers have so much more constrained horizons. You brought in the overstressed amygdala malfunction in their brains caused by generations of believing every fear-mongering lie their leaders told them - a conclusion confirmed by multiple labs and explained in detail by multiple scientists who know their stuff. I brought up the research about the basic temperament types and why certain ones (the serotonin) are so easily manipulated with scare tactics (mainly my the testosterone types).
But better still, how can this be used to repair our frogged up species? If you look at the graphic for conservatives, you see that they cluster mostly in the first few rings (self, kin, nation), but there are data points all the way out. Likewise the liberals cluster more in the outer rings (all life), but they are certainly not ignoring the first three. So you have a little bit of overlap - common ground. That common ground can be an opportunity to get people together and acknowledge each other's humanity. Sure, the fascists don't have a monopoly on dehumanizing their opponents, but Republicans do it so much more consistently and with so much more fervor than Democrats, those are the ones who need the most attention. Dehumanizing (like calling the lefties Demorats, Democraps, Demonrats, and Demoncrap, or just vermin like Trump and Hitler) is a big step on the road to genocide.
One approach, of course, is education, if you can convince fascists that education is real and not "fake news." I've had some success getting some pretty rabid ones to at least shut up and stop trying to prove me wrong when I go into detail about the history and nature of fascism. Without the most evil of them constantly stirring up their fellows amygdalae, then there's a chance to reason with the rest.
to be cont.
cont.
Shutting up the worst of them is only a start, though. Think about the level of ecological systems, way out there in the last circle. A fair number of younger farmers and ranchers these days go to college to learn agronomy, and that includes some genetic science and basic ecology. Farmers want their crops to grow, but with climate change jacking up the life support systems that allow them to ply their trade, you might be able to reach them there, and get fascists and liberals talking in that context. And if you moderate that sort of discussion well, you can show both sides where they are right and both sides where they are wrong, so you let a little air out of all their egos while hopefully not making them feel like they are being attacked. Efforts to get fascists and lefties together to actually talk to each other, though rare, are reported to have reduced hostility and raised respect between the parties. Hopefully that means that at least some of the fascists will return to more sane conservatism. And if that can work, then it's a matter of scaling up.
Here's another thing I came across that I thought you (collectively) could find useful. Have you heard of DARVO? It's how every man who abuses women, every parent and preacher who abuses children, every conman and crooked salesman and every insurance executive tries to wiggle out of responsibility, and it's a key tactic used by the Republican Party. Perhaps we can connect to some of the less insane by showing them how the leaders they have placed their trust in are manipulating and using them.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39235106/
Paul SB
Is history progressive or cyclic? My hybrid answer is: history is helical. It's linear in some dimensions, circular in other dimensions. But which is which?
And even that is simplistic. In addition, history is fractal, chaotic, and subject to Seldon's Paradox.
"All I want is my neighbor's land."
Der Oger, tolerance is not a principle but a negotiation, subject to accident and reciprocation.
Paul SB:
I've had some success getting some pretty rabid ones to at least shut up and stop trying to prove me wrong when I go into detail about the history and nature of fascism.
That can work with the ones who don't actually like fascism. If you can show them that Trumpism walks like a duck, they might start to see the light. The trick at that point is not to push them into defensiveness, but let them come to their own realizations.
OTOH, there are the basket of deplorables who actually prefer a fascist government, and only understand that it sounds bad to say that, so they pretend that what they're talking about isn't "fascism".*
Those, you'll never win over, because their motivation is entirely different.
* Same goes for "racism", 'sexism", and others of that ilk.
Der Oger:
the tolerance paradoxon, ...
The simplest way I can put it is to misquote someone else I don't remember who:
Tolerance is not a suicide pact.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/06/30/musk-warns-republicans-voting-for-trump-mega-bill/84422289007/
WASHINGTON ― Elon Musk escalated his criticism of President Donald Trump's tax and budget mega-bill as the Senate took up the legislation, warning that he would boost primary challenges to defeat Republican lawmakers who vote for the legislation.
...
I don't know who to root for. :)
Basically correct, but Miller & replacement theory weirdos believe that migration in of itself is suicide.
I'd rather would use Asimovs laws:
3) Foster the common wealth except If the second and first laws are in danger
2) Protect the state except. when the first law is in danger
1) Protect human dignity
https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2025/06/conservatives-on-supreme-court-try-to.html
...
How ridiculous is this? Here’s Alito: “In making this argument, the dissent seems to confuse our country with those in which laws enacted by a parliament or another legislative body cannot be challenged in court. In this country, that is not so. Here, the Bill of Rights and the doctrine of judicial review protect individuals who cannot obtain legislative change.” And this was on the same day they said that courts should not be allowed to do national injunctions.
There is no actual legal theory at work here, no consistency, no real beliefs in anything but letting conservatives get everything they've wanted.
In other news, the sun rose this morning, and water is wet.
Think you're referencing "The constitution is not a Suicide Pact" - (Robert Jackson's dissent in Terminiello v.. City of Chicago).
In that case, the supreme court majority threw out several precedents, and conveniently ignored the facts of the case, to quash a fine that Chicago imposed on Terminiello for a race-baiting speech.
A coalition of parents from a variety of religious backgrounds — Muslim, Ukrainian Orthodox and Catholic — protested the curriculum updates, and three couples and the organization Kids First sued the district.
I'd have thoughts that in the age of ICE and Trump being fine with Israels policies they would have learned something. But obviously they hate LGBT+ people more than they fear deportation camps.
That said, I would get creative and solution-oriented. For example, make parents and students hate and fear the replacement education even more. Or develop a certain code for "Student had fanatic parents" and put iit nto the final papers.
(And as someone who actually had religion as a school subject, I can say that there is space for much malicious compliance and subversive teaching, with topics like: "Church and the Third Reich", "The Life and Death of Thomas Becket/Morus", "Blessed be the poor", "Meaning of Guilt and Mercy" and so on.)
I'd start with posting the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount right next to the Ten Commandments.
I fixed the US Constitution for you:
A President can only appoint ONE justice to SCOTUS per term.
You're welcome.
That would have helped before Trump's three appointments. Now, it would just make things harder to fix.
One man to live in pleasure and wealth, whiles all other weap and smart for it, that is the part not of a king, but of a jailor.- Thomas More
Neither. Elon's version of fascism is just as bad.
When sifting through the Thomas More quotes, I found this one which OGH and others here might like:
“The Utopians fail to understand why anyone should be so fascinated by the dull gleam of a tiny bit of stone, when he has all the stars in the sky to look at.
One man to live in pleasure and wealth, whiles all other weap and smart for it, ...
Probably a decade ago now, radio host Thom Hartmann had a wealthy German businessman on the show, explaining why he supported Germany's extensive social safety net.
"I don't want to be a rich man in a poor country."
There's a downside to being surrounded by hungry, cold, desperate people who think they could solve their problems by taking your stuff.
Maybe this Amendment would -only- be possible while the wreckage it could prevent is still fresh in our minds.
“the problem of extreme lefty sanctimony junkies is orders of magnitude less of an issue than the textbook fascist coup happening right before our eyes…”
This is a false dichotomy aimed at excusing the sanctimony junkies from re=-evaluation of their counter-productive, masturbatory tactics. Oh, I agree that they are both fewer and VASTLYT less horrible than the MAGA-oligarch-Kremlin-Mordoch traitors. I even agree with many of their aims & goals and will happily negotiate furthering the miracle Pelosi bills of 2021…after cancelling out the confederate treason-rape of the American Experiment. But let’s be clear. Kamala would be president, right now, if the SJs had not viciously attacked all their allies and called flawed but decent voters racist demons for not hewing to ridiculous litmus ‘pronouns’ and other bullshits, giving foxheads thing to gleefully yammer and exaggerate every evening…
..helping to drive TWO MILLION Blacksd/Hispanics and working whites out of the coalition.
Sure sure. Much less bad… except is the horrific harm they did to us all.
As for horizons. Liberals and lefties share fealty to the American incremental progressive project of inclusion. The diff is that the latter are zero sum personalities who see their loyalty to the inclusion project cancelling all previous loyalties. While liberals see no reason they should abandon love of flawed but progressive America, just because trans people need some help. In fact, the two go together.
PARADOC there ARE repeating patterns in history. Feudalism is the biggest. If it returns in force, your helix will stop moving forward or upward.
A fine example of individual incrementalism is John Newton. Over a few decades he went from thinking slave ship captain was a honorable profession to being one of the driving forces behind the British abolition of the slave trade.
Yes, the far-left is small in numbers but, for instance, even very small Communist cadres have been able to have an outsized effect.
Much of the far left is less impactive though, such as this anarcho-syndicalist character in the ‘Holy Grail’::
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_EMZ1u__LUc&pp=0gcJCdgAo7VqN5tD
Btw one can communicate with the religious if the topics of discussion are religion and philosophy, sports, the weather, antiques & old coins. Not politics.
William Gibson has announced that NEUROMANCER is in production (AppleTV+).
I have an alternative suggestion, there is no President and the non-existent President cannot make judicial appointments. They are recommended by a body representing the legal profession and approved (or not) by Congress.
I am looking forward to it. Rumors have been around longer, though.
"..helping to drive TWO MILLION Blacksd/Hispanics and working whites out of the coalition."
Having a WOMAN presidential candidate drove 2 million Black/Hispanic MALES out of our coalition.
Even those Black/Hispanic males that regret voting for Trump would still vote for him instead of Harris.
I'm afraid you underestimate the misogyny/sexism that is prevalent in the Black/Hispanic community.
Those same voters refused to vote for Hillary, then voted for Biden and then refused to vote for Harris.
Sanctimony had nothing to do with it.
It was all about refusal to vote for a woman.
That and anti trans/anti-LGBTQ preaching from black pulpits along with anti-abortion preaching in Catholic homilies.
Surely if Kamala were a.conservative Catholic, she’d have received more Hispanic votes.
Some rightist Catholics voted for JFK in ‘60 merely because he was Catholic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigidity_(psychology)
Alan Brooks:
Surely if Kamala were a.conservative Catholic,...
Well, she'd still have talked about abortion, but not in the same way.
Some rightist Catholics voted for JFK in ‘60 merely because he was Catholic.
Others felt that his Catholicism disqualified him, as his allegiance would be to a foreign power--the Pope. It's all weird to me that within my lifetime, Jews and Catholics were refused entry to the clubs and neighborhoods of the rich, powerful WASPs, and now their political handmaids are six conservative Catholics on the supreme court. They've come a long way, baby.
Oh, and how rude of me to forget until now.
Happy, Canada Day.
Celt left me in a quandary. His assertion? That two million defectors from what should have been an easy victory was due to misogyny instead of execrable leftist tactice emphasizing symbolism bullying instead of pragmatic incrementalism. And there's no wat to prove either way.
...because MY demand to actually ASK the defectors can be answered with "They won't tell the truth and admit it was misogyny." Huh. Well, it's possible, I suppose. But --
-- 1. isn't that incredibly smug and patronizing? And isn't smug patronization exactly what *I* blame SJs (sanct. junkies) for?
- 2 actually actually WATCH FOX some time! There is some racism - telegraphed with images of immigrant gng bangers. But explicit? Almost never. WHat you see is an endless array of female and minority faces onscreen repeating Murdochian talking point between commercials showing interracial couple buying each other catheters and pillows.
Whether they admit to their misogyny is irrelevant. We have polling data showing that those same voters refused to vote for Hillary, then voted for Biden and then refused to vote for Harris.
It's not as if nonwhite people are free of prejudice.
The harsh truth is that America is still widely racist, sexist and homophobic and Democrats have to nominate a white male (like Biden or like Newsome) to have a hope of winning.
And this is how it will be until old white boomers out.
re-posted to fix formatting...
because MY demand to actually ASK the defectors...
... can be answered with "Ask who? ALL of them?" Because different individuals will have different reasons.
actually actually WATCH FOX some time! There is some racism - telegraphed with images of immigrant gng bangers. But explicit? Almost never.
But it doesn't have to be explicit. Plenty of Trump voters say it's because of the economy, or because Biden was old, or because of Gaza. And again, for individuals, those might be the real reasons. But those also sound like excuses because they don't want to admit--maybe even to themselves--that if it wasn't that particular reason, they'd find some other excuse why they just can't vote for Kamala Harris.
My sister-in-law is one of those conservative Catholics mentioned above. When my wife and I were married by a female pastor, sis made it known to us that, while what we did was our business, she herself would only feel comfortable being married by a male official. She doesn't hate women--but she does have some old-fashioned notions about gender roles.
We have polling data showing that those same voters refused to vote for Hillary, then voted for Biden and then refused to vote for Harris.
The real telling point was the Dearborn Michigan Arabs For Trump who perversely blamed Biden for the atrocities in Gaza, and proclaimed that there was nothing he could do--even cutting Israel loose at that point--that would stop them from abandoning Biden. So then the Democrats themselves abandoned Biden. And somehow, all of a sudden, Kamala Harris was just as much to blame for Gaza.
It reminds me of Dave Sim who in his secular humanist days blamed women for coercing their men to go to church and such, but when he became religious, the women were to blame for distracting men from worshipping God.
It's not as if nonwhite people are free of prejudice
Vivek Ramaswamy called himself a non-white nationalist.
I said of my wife's sister:
She doesn't hate women--but she does have some old-fashioned notions about gender roles.
I meant to expand on that a bit more. Racism doesn't necessarily imply hatred of blacks or of other minorities. Just a belief in a hierarchy of roles based upon characteristics like race, gender, sexuality, and the like. A white supremacist racist can be fine with those blacks and Hispanics and women who "know their place" and keep to it. In fact, those minorities help the racist reinforce the belief that there's nothing wrong with his racism--that it is backed up by nature and science.
They only hate the minorities who are so uppity as to assert equality with their betters.
The racists who vote Republican don't have to hate anyone. They simply believe that a role such as President of the United States belongs to white Christian men, and that others are disqualified prima facie.
Damn! On top of Trump's shuttering of climate information sources, MethaneSAT has broken down. Chances of recovery are minimal. Wonderful timing.
----
I think the reasons behind Trump's win will turn out to be as varied and subtle as the factors leading to Spain's recent blackout (no, it wasn't over-reliance on renewables)
Discrimination doesn't show its face openly these days. I suspect you're seeing an uptick in it now (in certain empowered politicians, for example).
I don't really buy the 'transphobia sunk Harris' argument, either. There were several trans candidates who won handily in November. I do suspect that the 'glass ceiling' has not yet been raised to the heights of the Oval Office. Maybe Trump's lowering of that position will make a difference? (although it didn't last time)
... and something the man of the hour, Zohran Mamdani , mentioned in this video explicitly looking at the voting turnaround in NY: it's not enough to vote against something. You need to give people something to vote *for*, as well.
I think Harris was doing that, but mainstream media was not helping get the message out.
Larry, thanks for the Happy Canada Day.
Take heart, as long as there's a Canada, there will be hope.
And there will always be a Canada.
"They only hate the minorities who are so uppity as to assert equality with their betters."
Bah! It is FAR more complicated. Adoring Clarence & Ginny Thomas, for example. They profess to "LOVE the good ones!" Is that still racist? Yep. But it protects them and armors them vs being accused of racism. It is polemical agility- a trait that liberals show very little...
...and leftists none at all.
Simply proclaiming "Hillary lost, Biden won, QED" Is simplistic claptrap. Hillary was not the right candidate and already deeply hated. Biden won in reaction to Trump v1 and covid. And Kamala was a great candidate betreayed by upper class female advisors who based the campaign almost ENTIRELY on THEIR interests and priorities.
Jeepers, YOU GUYS are the hated enemy. Educated elites who know stuff. I've proved that over and over and over again. And it never sinks in. The MAGA lumpen prols hate us for cultural reasons and the Oligarchs MUST destroy us, because we are the only clade blocking their total power.
An important thing to keep in mind about Starship Troopers is that is was written at the height of the McCarthy Era. Heinlein was smart enough to know he would have been blacklisted if any of his novels gave even the faintest appearance of not being in lockstep with the Party. It takes a little reading between the lines, but I think a major factor was the extent of the dehumanizing propaganda of the time. Russians aren't bugs.
Paul SB
The Lancet estimates Elon Musk's cuts to USAID will cause 14 million deaths by 2030.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)01186-9/fulltext
I think the most important thing isn the fact that virtually none of them have the faintest clue what fascism actually is. It has only been since people started pointing out how fascist Trump is that the right wangers started to claim that fascism is the same thing as communism and/or socialism (most of them don't even know those are completely different things. My hope is that by shoving the actual facts down their throats, some of the people on the sidelines will start to realize that they have been duped all their lives. Adding in the DARVO stuff makes it much more clear, though the one I usually link to when I'm on anti-social media comes from a self-help site called Verywellmind.com. That explains the tactics from the perspective of defending yourself from being manipulated.
https://www.verywellmind.com/protecting-yourself-from-darvo-abusive-behavior-7562730
Paul SB
Dr. Brin,
"... aimed at excusing the sanctimony junkies ..."
You have a real penchant for attributing motives to people whose actual motives are exactly the opposite. As to why Kamal Harris isn't president right now, there are multiple reasons for that. Probably voter suppression and gerrymandering have more to do with it than anything else, though after 14 years of teaching in neighborhoods were the only Caucasians were the teachers, I can attest to the fact that huge numbers of black and hispanic Americans are pretty flaming misogynists, and are highly motivated by homoscapegoating - as are a huge percentage of church-going Caucasoids. Neither party is likely to get a female candidate into the White House any time soon. Look at how the fascist right responded to a black president. They loudly proclaim that they aren't bigots, but half those people hadn't bothered going to the poles in years until the evil communist Dems committed that horrific sin against white America. They're out in force, and to them electing a black guy was horrible enough, a woman president would mean the end of "manly" America.
Paul SB
Guys, let me explain the problem as simply as I can: white liberals are weirdos. The people who gave us this teleology of progress, being almost exclusively from the West over the past three centuries, are not normal, not representative of humanity as a whole. They’re like a big new cult of people who dress like clowns, trying to figure out why the whole world doesn’t want to be just like them. Conditioned from birth to believe they’re the world’s good guys and saviors, that in the future everyone will become clowns, it’s a real puzzler for them. It must be that everyone else is ignorant, bigoted, or evil, or misled by ignorant, bigoted or evil people. What else could it be? Because they’re weirdos who dress like clowns? Don’t be ridiculous; that’s exactly what an anti-clown bigot would say. And clearly the world before the coming of the clown cult was one long dark age where no one wore red noses and giant shoes. Now back to clown world media for some more analysis of clownophobia and how to resist it…
@Larry:
There's a downside to being surrounded by hungry, cold, desperate people who think they could solve their problems by taking your stuff.
Not only that, but you also have to devote more and more ressources to fight crime, which transforms into a vicious circle of it's own, especially with a solely punitive law enforcement system.
I have come to the conclusion, that the least worried about, and most powerful problem we have, is the prevalence in our institutions of perverse incentives. Quotas for law enforcement and for profit medicine, science and prisons are the most obvious ones. It needs to be talked about more. How to align private incentives to better reflect the interests of society is not a trivial problem, but should be much more talked about.
P S. By quotas, I meant arrest quotas. Obviously having a police force more aligned to the diversity of the population they are policing is a positive thing.
Well, I reallly don't think it was about blacks and hispanics not wanting to vote for a woman.
That's a satisfying explanation for lefties, because they can blame the electorate for being bigots instead of taking a hard look at themselves and their shortcomings.
For one, I disagree about Kamala being a great candidate. Perhaps she'd be good at the job, but I don't think she's very good at WINNING the job. She's terrible in interviews and debates. She simply can't think on her feet and instead resorts to empty word-salad when asked anything remotely challenging.
This lack of quick answers doesn't mean she's stupid like Ben Shapiro insists. She reminds me of a law school classmate who couldn't answer questions in class to save her life, but performed brilliantly on exams when she could prepare.
Instead, I think a lot of black and hispanics didn't like the progressive social agenda which was mostly the creation of college professors. Remember, a lot of minorities still lag behind whites in getting degrees (aside from Asians) and likely resent the condescending attitudes of the campus elite when confronted with people who don't agree with their values.
I suspect a lot of blacks and hispanics might have more in common with rural americans when it comes to many aspects of "woke" ideology than they do with the left wing intelligentsia.
The obvious solution would be to resocialize privatized institutions.
Another point I think is underappreciated: how much of the last eight years do you recall? You might have a vague recollection of a bug or something. Something that shut down society for nearly two years. A stressful time. Very stressful. This is not good for memory retention.
... so, before Biden and all that stress and bad times, there was that other guy...oh! Is that him again?
Yes, I am well aware that Trump was President for the first year of Covid, and that he pulled back the response once it was pointed out Democrat population centres were being more heavily hit. Otoh more people died under Biden, because movement restrictions were lifted before vaccines provided effective herd immunity.
Q: What do people recall more clearly?
So what exactly is this progressive social agenda you speak of? Can you provide details?
What kind of person thinks liberalism is a bad thing?
For one, I disagree about Kamala being a great candidate. Perhaps she'd be good at the job, but I don't think she's very good at WINNING the job. She's terrible in interviews and debates.
Oh, the hysteric-black-woman-argument.
She simply can't think on her feet and instead resorts to empty word-salad when asked anything remotely challenging.
Hu? Trump produces nothing but word salad.
What kind of person thinks liberalism is a bad thing?
Holnists*, for one.
* since I'm in the middle of re-reading "The Postman"
Otoh more people died under Biden, because movement restrictions were lifted before vaccines provided effective herd immunity.
Republicans fought Biden and Democratic governors at every turn over vaccines and social restrictions, and then they blame Biden for the disastrous outcome. Sounds like the typical Republican playbook.
Hu? Trump produces nothing but word salad.
It's been obvious for years that Trump is held to a much lower standard than any other politician. The complaints against Biden's dementia or Kamala's deportment are mere excuses to support Trump instead, because Trump exhibits much worse versions of all of those things and his voters don't care. Just like Trump is much worse for Palestinians than Biden ever was, but they don't see fit to protest against Trump.
It works for certain other Republicans as well. Remember how they lambasted Zelenskyy for his mode of dress in the Oval Office, while speaking nary a peep about Elon Musk.
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2025/Items/Jul02-1.html
51-50: Officially speaking, the vote was very close, with J.D. Vance's tiebreaker needed to get the legislation over the hump. All the Democrats and independents voted against it, as did Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME), Rand Paul (R-KY) and Thom Tillis (R-NC). Magically, Collins once again managed to "rebel" against her party without actually casting a decisive vote. Funny how it often it works out like that.
At least it's becoming obvious even to the most obtuse how this always works.
They are hypocrites because they are racist
Not arguing about "they are racist", but I don't think that's the whole story.
I'd put it that they are hypocrites because they are bullies.
New interstellar object detected, coming pretty close to Earth. Klaatu?
https://bsky.app/profile/asteroiddave.bsky.social/post/3lsyjmrllqk2v
Is there anyone who is surprised that a fascist thinks that being weird is the most horrible thing in the universe? One of the most fundamental tenets of fascism is sameness. Everyone must conform or they are the enemy.
Damn weird and damn proud of it! That's what America is about.
Paul SB
Not a lot of info so far. Certainly not enough to activate the intergalactic thumb yet.
Re: Napoleon,
"He could have offered the Czar Crimea and Constantinople in exchange for Polish and Finnish freedom and ending serfdom,"
Entirely disregarding whether any Russian Czar would have offered Polish and Finnish independence without losing a war or three, I very much doubt the Royal Navy would have stood by while Russia and/or France tried to take the Crimea* and Istanbul. Keeping both locations requires naval superiority - or as is now the case, denying it to the enemy.
*I know it's just Crimea now.
Pappenheimer
P.S. Watching the GQP blunder their way to approving their Huge Horrible Bill, it's as if they are strapping on golf cleats before stepping on their own genitalia. Unfortunately, only a Great Depression-sized calamity will visit upon them the political retribution they deserve, which would immiserate all non-billionaire Americans and much of the world. I'm not rooting for that.
I love Romanticism — in music. Frank is at the top of my Liszt. Fred Chopin, Felix the Mendelssohn, Fran’s Sherbet, Robert of cobbler fame — all great stuff
They are hypocrites because they are classists, first and foremost. In America we have worked hard to conflate classism with racism, so we can maintain the myth of the Land of Golden Opportunity, where if you aren’t a billionaire it’s your own damn fault and you must be dumb and lazy.
That wouldn't solve the problem of arrest (and conviction) quotas. That is not privatized. The problem is people thinking you need the same sort of management for the public service as for business. It won't work, because it incentivizes the wrong sort of behaviour.
Considering that one of the meanings of the word "stine" is an alternative spelling of "stein," a beer mug, "The Stines of Significance" might be a story worth writing... :D
Paul SB is laying things out harsh but with useful pertinence, alas: “ after 14 years of teaching in neighborhoods were the only Caucasians were the teachers, I can attest to the fact that huge numbers of black and hispanic Americans are pretty flaming misogynists, and are highly motivated by homoscapegoating - as are a huge percentage of church-going Caucasoids. Neither party is likely to get a female candidate into the White House any time soon…”
While I appreciate Paul’s openness and honesty, I do believe his patronizing contempt for those clades illustrates why they left. Hispanics, especially have a very different kind of Macho than the pathological versions in muslim or sAsian lands. Hispanics are macho… but they LOVE their women! They adore them. And when one demands respect, they give her a chance. The President of Mexico is a woman, sir.
Sorry, ALL evidence says they didn’t hat Kamala for being female. But enough of them hated snooty-superior white elites of intellect for them to abandon the coalition. And the FOxites don’t hate women.
They hate you.
---
Actually, Treebeard was supplying – in his ‘clowns’ tirade – a pretty good summary of the visceral hatred that pours from zero-summers at positive summers. From flatlanders at those who see a dimension called ‘up.’ From past-nostalgists toward those who believe the future can be anything other than a realm of terrifying horrors.
In my profession, we try to inhabit other kinds of minds, in order to write plausible characters: e.g. the “Holnists’ in The Postman who were frighteningly NONcartoonish villains, but who had rationalizations and reasons. Likewise, I can squint and inhabit Treebeard and feel a semblance of his hatred toward all of those things. His desperate need to portray as oppressors and oversimplifiers those who seek to end oppression and open a future of vast (if accountable) complexity.
It is a sad place, in there. Worse, he CAN point – anecdotally – at cartoonish/garish ‘clowns’ on our side who DO behave and believe as he describes. The small minority of leftist idiots who gave Fox grist for every evening’s “ALL libs are like THAT!!!”
The saddest thing is that he actually thinks those cartoons bear any relation at all to the liberal enlightenment that has created the freedom and science and opportunities and generous indulgences that he has utterly relied upon, for all his life. And THAT is the character trait that’s simply unforgivable. Being a nasty, snarling ingrate.
Pappenheimer: Crimea and Constantinople were the czarist dreams since eternity. If Napoleon came down to Athens via Belgrade and Russia via Sofia, the Turks could never resist and the Brits couldn’t stop it. Nor could General Winter. The Czar would give up his serfs and Poles. And we’d be speaking French/
Celt,
In the US it is even weirder. Many of our Conservatives are conserving some old-school liberal ideas but don't know them by that label.
Reactionaries are the real issue here.
Most everyone in the US has one of those clown noses, but we disagree on make-up styles.
The Czar could have afforded to give up Poland, Finland, and eliminated serfdom as long as no one else (major power) owned Poland, Finland, or organized the serfs into an opponent. A warm water, protected port like Constantinople would have made EVERYTHING worth it. That port would have been the ONE defensible anchor they had. Crimea counts, but it isn't the warm commercial port Constantinople was.
Dr. Brin,
Why is it that the first thing you did after I pointed out your penchant for reading into people’s words things that you know aren’t there, you immediately responded by doing the same thing? You know I have never given a rodent’s equid about anyone’s “race.” You know damn well the concept was made up to serve the financial interests of New World plantation lords and their European shareholders. I have no contempt for anyone unless they do contemptible things. Black, white, green, whatever.
Yes, many Hispanic men loves their wives, daughters, mothers and so on. I think you will find that true pretty much everywhere on Earth. Once I was looking for interesting articles about genetics for my bio students and came across one about police departments in Thailand that were getting their best drug- and bomb-sniffing dogs cloned. Apparently that only about a third of dogs that are trained to sniff professionally pass the training, but with the cloned dogs two thirds pass. For some reason the article put me on a page about how Thai police handle discipline, and it pointed to one disciplinary procedure for lesser infractions. Officers are required to wear Hello Kitty armbands while on the job. Obviously Latin America does not have a monopoly on caveman gender roles.
You will also find men who beat their wives and treat women as inferiors, pretty much everywhere on Earth. As a teacher I saw the scars and bruises, I had students who were excused from school to go to funerals of mothers and sisters. Back in the ‘90s a team of researchers spent a few years digging through the Human Relations Area Files to codify data for entry into computer databases. One of the important findings that came out of that is that around the world cultures that emphasize differences between the sexes have much higher rates of violence of all kinds (against men, against women, against animals, inter-group, intra-group and so on) than cultures that emphasize similarities. There aren’t a whole lot of state-level cultures that fit in that latter group.
I also knew plenty of people, of every ethnicity I’ve ever met, who would never. Culture is one very powerful determinant of human behavior, but it’s far from the only one. So in cultures that emphasize differences, you can expect more violence, but it would be ridiculous (and bigoted) to claim that everyone is violent in any particular group. As usual, stereotypes fail to account for human individuality.
Of course the fascist denigration of smart people gets into everywhere. Ill-treated minorities have good reasons to mistrust the majority, and many on both sides of the Mindless Fence blithely ignore the reality of individuality. There have been a whole hell of a lot of Caucasian professors and academics that fought for decades to get African American Studies, Latin American Studies, Native American and Women’s Studies programs in our universities. Not all members of minority communities are aware of this, or are willing to accept it as fact. I once had an African American who got mad when I explained how Martin Luther King Jr. got his name (he wasn’t born Martin, he was born Michael, but changed his name in seminary because he wanted to be associated with Martin Luther) and refused to believe it. And it was no surprise that she wasn’t interested in looking it up. But other African American people I told that story to were not offended and acknowledged it.
As usual, people are people. I do doubt, though, that there are a whole lot of people out there who actually appreciate being treated as a straw man.
Saw a German public broadcasting Podcast yesterday by the main correspondents they have in the US. In their view, the main reason for voting for Trump was the fear of immigrants by them competing for low-paying jobs. The Cookie Cartoon applies.
Jesus friggin chripes, Paul. You actually thought I was talking about YOU? Jeepers man. Take a stress pill and read it again. Carumba what a triggered delusion.
One way to get a woman President is to elect her as VP for an old white man on a year ending with a zero, and then wait for Tecumseh's curse to work. Biden/Harris was an attempt at this. But ever since Reagan, Tecumseh's curse just hasn't had the oomph.
Really? These are your words:
"While I appreciate Paul’s openness and honesty, I do believe his patronizing contempt for those clades illustrates why they left."
Weirdos who dress like clowns? You mean the 60's hippies? First of all, the Hippies and the Liberals were distinct groups, albeit with some overlap and crossover and mutual sympathies. Second, you are 60 years out of date. Third, most establishment liberals, like establishment 'conservatives', dress like businessmen - though I do grant that business attire is indeed clownish.
Oh, and if you want me to play the role of annoying academic, former Cal-Tech professor, those aren't clades. Clades are groups of related species. Clines are regional variations within a species.
As for right wing hypocrisy: it isn't a glitch, nor even a feature; it is the operating system. The hypocrisy is in part for racism, in part for misogyny, in part for bigotry, in part for classism; in general it is because those agendas are unjust and illogical and irrational, so they hate justice and logic and reason as such. Thus the anti-intellectualism and the anti-thought, which require hypocrisy. Once they achieve up-is-down, then they have nowhere to go but up, or in other words down.
I uploaded a slightly different version of this during the "infinite thread" as part of a belated retrospective on the election. It was off-topic and passed without comment, if I recall correctly. However, now that the topic has shifted back to the reason Harris lost, I thought I'd re-post this portion as a somewhat different take...
_____________________________________
I think there were two major missed opportunities in the election.
First:
I agree that people in power resent/fear experts that they perceive as threatening that power. But, in my experience, the average person doesn't resent experts "because they know stuff." Rather, they resent having to avail themselves of experts in order to function in modern society. And, this dependence on experts for such things as filing taxes or purchasing a home erodes their sense of agency/their sense of control over their lives. When people become overwhelmed by complexity/bureaucracy/legalism, they turn to god and demagogues for relief. They become vulnerable to manipulation by agenda-driven leaders offering simple answers/an illusion of agency. And, this "flight from complexity" is often the driving force behind right wing and other populist movements.
In the election, Harris offered an agenda for "making people's lives better" but mostly through government action. And, that invoked a cliche: the bright, smiling government worker knocks on the door and says "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you" while the homeowner looks on with a horrified expression. Government intervention often makes peoples lives more complicated/less free (at least in their perception). And, when they are already feeling overwhelmed/helpless, it's seldom welcome. Instead, Harris should have emphasized plans to reduce regulations/simplify the tax code/generally make it easier for people to conduct everyday affairs on their own. She should have expressed the goal of insuring that individuals face less regulatory constraint than organizations; the poor less regulatory constraint than the rich; small business less regulatory constraint than big business. She should have explicitly embraced such generalizations as: "democrats see the government as acting properly when it protects the poor and binds the rich" while "republicans see the government as acting properly when it binds the poor and protects the rich" /"government generally acts properly when it attempts to protect people from others but improperly when it attempts to protect people from themselves"/ "government generally acts properly when it constrains the ability of powerful private sector actors to restrict the rights of others but improperly when it enables them." A much greater emphasis on these themes might have made a difference and it should be a major part of the democrat's rhetoric going forward.
Second:
Trump is a malignant narcissist. He lives in an imaginary world of his own creation--a "bubble reality" in which he is the one indispensable man, the hero of every story, always right/never wrong, always the victim/never the victimizer. In his mind, all that is good flows from him "by definition" and all that is bad flows from his opponents "by definition." He grew up under the influence of Peale's "Power of Positive Thinking" ministry in New York (taking the idea to a pathological level), then switched to Prosperity Gospel with its veneration of wealth. He considers himself a good Christian but embraces only those aspects of Christianity that reinforce his own ego. Consistent with this, he's embraced Manifest Destiny ideology (he actually used the phrase in a speech...) and, most likely, actually believes he has a divine mandate. He does not feel that he should be honored to serve the public. Rather, he feels that the public should feel honored to serve him/that the money he skims from the system is just "due compensation" for gracing us with his august presence.
However, he really believes that whatever he says is true. So, if "lying" is defined as "saying something you know to be false," he generally doesn't lie. He will lie "in the moment" to avoid embarrassment or accountability but, then, he rapidly edits his reality bubble to include the new version so that, by the next speech, he actually believes it. His niece once said that "Donald is the only person she knows who can gaslight himself." And, since he believes it, he doesn't give off the subtle cues of posture/expression/intonation that people learn to subconsciously associate with deception. Therefore, his supporters don't perceive him as lying and that makes it easy for them to write off criticisms as "fake news" (particularly when his critics overemphasize out of context statements and gaffs in an obvious manner). That's why he's often described as a "straight talker" by his supporters (in contrast to the conscious prevarication of typical politicians...).
Instead of endlessly attacking him as a liar/conman, he should have been consistently portrayed as delusional/cognitively impaired. Harris should have presented herself more strongly as "the sane candidate" rather than "the progressive candidate." She did a pretty good job of that during the debate (which is why he ducked all other head to head encounters) but it should have been a much greater focus, not just of her campaign, but of outside commentators. And, she should have emphasized the question: "Do you really believe that someone so disconnected from reality can protect you from the real threats?"
Unfortunately, it's much more difficult to deal with a "true believer," going forward, than a conman...
It was an analogy dude. I guess it went over your head.
CP
"... the average person doesn't resent experts "because they know stuff." Rather, they resent having to avail themselves of experts in order to function in modern society. And, this dependence on experts for such things as filing taxes or purchasing a home erodes their sense of agency/their sense of control over their lives. When people become overwhelmed by complexity/bureaucracy/legalism, they turn to god and demagogues for relief. They become vulnerable to manipulation by agenda-driven leaders offering simple answers/an illusion of agency. And, this "flight from complexity" is often the driving force behind right wing and other populist movements."
This is very good, and useful, thinking here. It's not a kind of thinking I'm especially good at, since I tend to accept my limitations if I don't see any realistic way of changing them, so I'm probably not as bothered by knowing there are limits on my sense of agency. I'd guess that if I didn't have Seasonal I'd be different, but this is probably TMI. The point is, I like your analysis here. People really don't like to feel helpless, so their unconscious minds tend to make up a whole lot of twisted logic to assuage their egos. (It might be worth noting that ego is mostly a product of testosterone, and that likely has a whole lot more to do with the patriarchy than brute strength. Even in the most miserable societies majorities don't like bullies.) Ego is hugely motivating, even for people who score very low on self-esteem. That explains why the Sunk Cost Effect is so prolific. People who have spent years making a scene about being angry about something only to be told it's a lie are highly motivated - unconsciously certainly, if not consciously - to deny the proof. Given the extent to which Republican leaders have lied since the end of WW2, that's literally generations of unreality millions of egos are invested in keeping. While I like your strategy of pointing to Trump's pathologies, when fact checkers began to tally his lies and found that he was spitting them out at an average rate of 20.7/day, the right wangers simply built a border wall of denial. If Trump said that the sky is yellow, they would say we all had the Blue Delusion or some shit like that. Obviously, since there's a bell curve for everything, there are likely to be some who can be peeled away with facts and logic, but a majority are going to need benzodiazepines and years of therapy.
Paul SB
For one, I disagree about Kamala being a great candidate. Perhaps she'd be good at the job, but I don't think she's very good at WINNING the job. She's terrible in interviews and debates.
"Oh, the hysteric-black-woman-argument."
Oger, what a cheap attempt to smear my argument with racist/sexist intersectionality crap. This, in effect, operates as an ad hominem because it in no way refutes my point, instead, u hurl a completely unfounded insult at me.
This kind of dishonesty is beneath you.
Just because you disagree with my argument doesn't mean you get to throw a cheap shot at me. For one, there's NOTHING in my text or structure of my argument that suggests I consider Kamala unqualified for office by her race or sex, nor do I say anything that remotely suggests she's "hysterical."
Look, just because our media uses specious vilification tactics ALL OF THE TIME doesn't make them any less of a smear and a lie. It's still a logical fallacy no matter how many times Fox News, Rachel Maddow, or Alex Jones use such bullshit arguments.
I do understand that our garbage public discourse can seep into our everyday thought process, which wears away critical reasoning skills across all of society. Even so, I'm not going to put up with that crap. I'm going to call our such a mean-spirited attack every time and I won't tolerate smears.
Stuff it until you have an actual argument.
She simply can't think on her feet and instead resorts to empty word-salad when asked anything remotely challenging.
"Hu? Trump produces nothing but word salad."
Uh, how are Trump's speaking skills (or lack thereof) AT ALL relelvant to Kamala Harris' propensity to spew word salad? Just because Adolph Hitler is an immeasurably worse dictator than former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, it doesn't make Duterte anything close to good.
Duterte still remains a sadistic head-0f-state, no matter how many orders of magnitude worse Adolph Hiter might be. Similarly, Donald Trump's propensity to spew word salad does NOTHING to affect Kamala Harris' public speaking abilities.
Whether or not Donald Trump lacks public speaking ability in no way affects Kamala Harris' capacity to speak. And, nothing I said implies any kind of comparison between Trump and Harris.
If you want to refute my arguments, u need to at least try to make relevant points instead of relying on meaningless irrational garbage.
Carumba man! How in that world could you take THAT to mean I think you are a fascist??????
I have repeatedly here offered my own take on why confederates -- who are always simmering with the anti-modernity resentments of past nostalgic sides of the American nature ... and have always deemed cities as cesspits of depravity... now fulminate volcanically against the universities that were the Greatest Generation's pride & joy. And that gave us the advances that kept us ahead of all rivals and truly made America Great.
I have spoken of the deepest trauma suffered by small town America, in places where life revolves around the local High School, whose sport stars and prom queens and scholars are the talk of the town. But every summer, the best of those kids kick off the hick dust and scamper off to Emerald City.
And when they return, IF they ever return, they return CHANGED, challenging old accepted thoughts & norms. And the myth of the changeling children stolen by faeries - goes way back, an old, old fear. And we have been doing it to them for a century, every single year.
As Jim Carrey said, in THE MASK: "That's gotta hurt."
And so, yes they hate us. For stealing their children. (And while I sympathize I do NOT apologize! Not while Blue American gave back medicines and waves of tax dollars, and roads and more taxes and farm bureaus and more tax flows, and a world of fun diversions and tsunamis of money.)
Some of them hate us simply for being smart. Some like ent & locum and m despise and fear the spectra we can see... added colors, dimensions, or this thing called positive sum. Or the notion that tomorrow can be more important than old-timey nostalgia.
None of that matters much. If the Union lets this phase of the civil war be won by that madness, now that it is wholly puppetted by a KGB-centered enemy power, then the whole experiment ends. So we gotta win. And win big. Because the 2030s are gonna be rough.
"While I appreciate Paul’s openness and honesty, I do believe his patronizing contempt for those clades illustrates why they left." his patronizing contempt
On July 2 1863 the 20th Maine successfully defended the extreme American left flank on Little Round Top, while just a little north, the rest of Col. Strong Vincent's brigade and the 4 cannon of Battery D, 5th US 2 Artillery stood their ground against repeated attacks and sniper fire. (I have walked that ridgeline and still cannot understand how those cannon were taken up that rocky slope in time to meet the attacks.)
Pappenheimer
P.S. Is McS still making political commentary? Hasn't he gotten his dearest wish, the implementation of Project 2025?
CP,
Rather, they resent having to avail themselves of experts in order to function in modern society. And, this dependence on experts for such things as filing taxes or purchasing a home erodes their sense of agency/their sense of control over their lives. When people become overwhelmed by complexity/bureaucracy/legalism, they turn to god and demagogues for relief. They become vulnerable to manipulation by agenda-driven leaders offering simple answers/an illusion of agency. And, this "flight from complexity" is often the driving force behind right wing and other populist movements.
I’d been thinking along similar lines, that much of the current appeal of the Right is a promise of control over their own destiny. They want to believe that they can deal with the vagaries of chance through their own strength. Their opponents believe that collective action is generally required. The Right is offering a big ego bribe. The problem is how do we get people to loose the taste for this bribe.
The reason you’re not a very good pundit, not very accurate in your diagnoses or predictions, is because you constantly gaslight yourself. The most obvious example, which deserves constant mockery, is this absurd claim that the KGB is running the GOP, Trump, and whatever else you disapprove of. I mean, seriously? Check the political donations coming from Russia, the number of politicians making trips to Moscow for its blessing, the Russian dual-citizens in powerful positions, the genuflecting before Putin in Congress, the open attempts to defeat American politicians critical of Russia, etc., compared to those of, I don’t know, maybe...Israel? That big blue and white elephant in the room that everybody in DC is constantly grovelling before? See it yet? No? Hmm, how strange. But trust me bro, it’s Russia that’s got the GOP by the puppet strings.
That’s the most glaring example of your gaslighting, or tribalism, or whatever it is, that makes you not credible as a political analyst, and more on the order of a propagandist. Another is this line about everyone in red rural America resenting blue urban America, which doesn’t ring true to me. I think the attitude is more: “I’m glad I don’t live in those stressful, crowded places full of arrogant people” than “I’m jealous of those city folks for being so much better than me.”
And why this constant condescending attitude? Is it hiding some kind of insecurity? Or is it the mentality of that small slice of humanity that I compared to a clown cult who think they’ve brought all progress to a benighted world? Until you find a way to recognize the value of everyone instead of ranking people according to an ideology where only a small elite does anything of significance and rest are fated to either serve them or resent them and be viewed as a threat, you will continue to have problems winning them over. That kind of “progressive feudalism” has even less appeal for the lower castes than a feudalism where the elite have a bond of kinship, culture, religion or whatever rather than the very abstract caste system you champion.
I do agree that the 2030’s will be rough, for the simple reason that American empire has reached the phase of overstretch, decadence, decline, hubris and nemesis reached by every empire eventually, and the next decade looks like the time when this will become undeniable (if it isn’t already). The point being that it doesn’t really matter which party is in power; it’s just how the cookie crumbles at this point in the timeline.
Not merely overreach, don't forget the erosion of US soft power, as 47 seeks the adoration of the World. Also forty+ years of "R"s trashing treaties negotiated by Democratic predecessors.
But ever since Reagan, Tecumseh's curse just hasn't had the oomph.
Reagan was shot in his first year, and still survived two terms despite his age. I think the curse was gone by that time. :)
My theory is that the conspiracy really began with Lincoln and ended with Kennedy. William Henry Harrison was just a misleading fluke which happened to fit the perceived pattern.
Yes, Israel also has outsized influence on American politicians, but that's hardly a secret. Russia's influence is more insidious.
And are you asserting that it was Israel who insisted we back off support for Ukraine or threaten to leave NATO or wreck the world economy? "Now, who's naive, Marge?"
Congress itself may not openly genuflect to Putin, but Trump does, and the tv commentators who influence him do. Tucker Carlson doesn't even pretend otherwise.
@John Viril
I was obviously trolling you. Why? Because you delivered me what I'd call a rhetorical penalty kick.Two of them and your third in your answer.
Elfmeter müssen verwandelt werden.
Penalty kicks must be transformed into goals.
I actually saw some of Harris' speeches, did not find her bad; what disturbed me (as a German) were the nationalist undertones and the pathos. But still, it did not annoy me.
But for me, that is unimportant.
I feel Larrys answer in the comment above is the most appropriate - different standards- but again I think it is not important.
The democrats could have stayed with Biden or nominated OGH or Larrys Cat or a Tuna Sandwich.
The point I want to make is: It was your culture that failed. The voters who betrayed democracy, freedom, justice.
Americans voted for fascists, because, as a culture, they are fascist. They loaded guilt upon themselves and are responsible for all the misery the Trumpists will cause and have already caused.
It is estimated that USAID Cuts ALONE will lead directly to 14 Million deaths. That is roughly twice the number of Jews dying in the gas chambers. Millions of Americans will die die to Medicaid Cuts, easily preventable illnesses, suicide and very likely violence.
That is the current scope of that guilt. It will grow, I am sure.
And your whole commentary reminds me of all those excuses people made afterwards.
We did not know nothing.
But they built the Autobahn and ended mass unemployment.
But the communists were far worse!
My family suffered under the Nazis, too!
I had to follow Orders!
They hanged the small ones and freed the big ones!
We hid jews in the basement!
We need to stop talking about that, it is distant history, long ago!
We need a 180 degree change in our remembrance culture!
I am so tired and sick of it.
And here you are, exculpating the voters for the terrible crime they committed against humanity. Clutching your pearls. Using decorum as a shield. Having been misunderstood and misinterpreted.
Another thing that disgusts me, because that's also what they always say.
The USA have fallen to fascism, over a period of at least thirty years; any Dollar, vote and voice for nationalism, religious extremism, suppression and marginalization of minorities, corporate power, suppression of labor power, against basic human rights and the freedom of journalism, for draconian laws, corrupt politicians, surveillance capitalism, fraudulent elections and the Wars on Drugs and Terror have brought you there.
And your discovery is that the Democrats chose the wrong candidate? And your feel offended by someone who points that out?
3:0, I'd say.
Add: Points out that your comment takes away the responsibility from all voters who did not vote for Harris, in spite of what they should have known?
They have loaded guilt upon themselves. And your nation, as a whole.
Oh, I get analogies, dude. But yours was weak and misdirected; for clownish weirdness emphatically applies in the other direction. There's plenty of weird-clown cosplaying at every MAGA rally. Or take the January 6 Shaman. His get-up was Ringling Bros. level.
And then there's Donald Trump himself. The failed hairplugs, the burnt-orange makeup, and let's not forget his long, long tie, ask Stormy Daniels why. It is a truth universally acknowledged that Trump is a weird, weird, weird, weird weirdo.
Also: You accused me of insulting you. I did not. Insulting is applying negative attributes to a person, which may or may not cause a lowering of social status.
I did nothing of that.
I scolded your line of argumentation. You took that personally.
Of course, you can. It does not change a iota of that fact.
But vice versa, you slandered Kamala Harris, all people who put hopes in her, fought with her, lost with her and were humiliated with her; who - ultimately- tried to save you from tyranny and the guilt of the genocide that is unfolding. Make of it what you will.
The people who gave us this teleology of progress, being almost exclusively from the West over the past three centuries, are not normal, not representative of humanity as a whole.
Also known by the acronym WEIRD, a vanishing small minority of Westerners (who make up just about 12% of the world's population but are hugely overrepresented in their own pseudoscientific research) have now declared themselves to be the 'new' Human Norm by argumentum ad absurdum, even though they are actually freaks, geeks & statistical outliers.
That a NON-REPRESENTATIVE sample of humanity now considers itself to be 'in charge' of our collective human destiny, this absurd assertion has recently reached its own apotheosis with the declaration that everything 'abnormal' is now normal, as in the case of gender aberrancy & all forms of reality denial.
You are all CLOWNS in the sense that you try to speak for & enforce your will upon the human majority when you represent no one but yourselves.
Best
Der Oger, Dr Brin - various others
I think that you are all talking a wee bit at cross purposes - slightly different cultures responding to slightly different remarks
I'm a Scot - we (Scots) enjoy arguments to the extent that some English friends have mistaken pleasant banter for the final stages before a fist fight
Can you all just chill with each other - and remember that we are all on the same side
Oger: "The point I want to make is: It was your culture that failed. The voters who betrayed democracy, freedom, justice..."
I have explained repeatedly the deep schism in the American psyche - pro vs. anti-modernity - that has split US culture since the very beginning. The last election was very close. Either way it would not have been a screaming 'mandate.' And today's mad right choosing to go all-out at destroying every single institution and tradition and legal precedence and capability that 'made America great' makes this not a choice by "Americans," but a coup.
It will not stand.
But exactly how are you being helpful, here? I am constantly offering new or revised tactics in this fight.
There is one (of several) bright hope. And that is Vlad Putin's growing panic over Ukraine. He knows - and has whined many times - that a repeat of the 1917 Soldier's Revolt could topple him and all that he has striven for... and incidentally maybe release his kompromat on the whole top tiers of the US GOP. Hence, ordering Trump to slash aid to Ukr. Fortunately, the EU and Germany are stepping into the void. And perhaps in time to keep this hope alive.
Which brings us to Treebeard. Who exemplified WHY I put up with articulate fascist dipshits like him. Because his rationalization for treason IS well articulated and it DID make me pause - for about two seconds - and view things from a fresh angle.
DOES Israel wield influence over the US government, and via both political parties? Yes, it does. Mostly through the voting power of US citizens - US Jews who tend liberal and Fundie Christians we lean hard right - but I won't entirely exclude 'mossad' influences via bribery or even blackmail. Though getting caught would have pretty bad consequences. And yes, it can be asserted (falsely) that US policy never goes against Israeli interests.
Blatantly, Putin's Russia exerts powerful influence here. NOT via voters, since Putin etc are deeply unpopular among democrats and a plurality (no longer majority) or un-tuckerized Republicans. But the anecdotal chain of circumstantial evidence of Putinist control over one of our parties is beyond all reckoning.
Here's difference #1. Support for Israel spans both parties, while support for - and slavish devotion to - the Kremlin is exhibited by just one party while the other is utterly hated by Putin to a dregree once reserved for Ronald Reagan.
But the biggest difference? ISRAEL WANTS - AND DESPERATELY NEEDS - THE USA TO CONTINUE AS A STRONG FORCE IN THE WORLD, healthy in its institutions, its universities and science, its confidently professional military and leadership on the world stage. They will do nothing to demolish any of that. Because if America falls, so do they.
in contrast, ABSOLUTE DESTRUCTION OF THE AMERICAN PAX AND ERA IS VLAD PUTIN'S TOP PRIORITY. He has said so, over and over and over again. And right now his utterly controlled GOP is systematically dismantling every strength established by the post WWII Greatest Generation that led to the Democrat-led containment of communist empires and the best era of freedom and progress the world ever saw.
So, sure, fool, you got your conspiracy masturbation theories that enable you to feel so much smarter than those who are in fact so much smarter than you. I just now did what you never do, by giving your assertion serious attention on its own merits.
As for whining over my insulting style toward you? Seriously? I keep seeing this. After viciously attacking my nation, people, civilization and everything our species needs, in order to thrive, including justice and decency - when confronted by devastating factual rebuttal and confronted by their own nastiness, they whine "Why are YOU so MEAN to me?? Whaaaaaa!"
The die is cast. The ptotemkin GOP revolt over the budget is done.
ICE now has a larger budget over the next 4 years than the FBI, ATF, Federal Marshalls, the IG, and the Bureau of Prisons combined.
The US already has 28% of the world's prison population. This is set to rise dramatically this year.
And slavery is not forbidden by our constitution for prisoners.
The ghost of John Brown is seething.
what disturbed me (as a German) were the nationalist undertones
Why even call yourself a German? Isn’t that nationalist by definition? People like you need another name, since it’s apparently not geography, tribe, culture or history that you identify with, but something more abstract. How about WEIRDos?
They have loaded guilt upon themselves. And your nation, as a whole.
Oh no, not the guilt bomb! You’ll find that this doesn’t have to much effect on Americans; certainly not like people who used to be Germans but are now just WEIRDos. Although now that Americans are responsible for at least TWO holocausts, maybe that will change.
Yeah like I said, you’re a clown cult.
I disagree with none of that. I absolutely HATE the fact that you and I must ally vigorously NOT based upon pragmatic political and incremental progressivism, but your loony transcendentalist and execrably undefined leftism. But if that is where the front in this civil war for the fate of humanity takes us, then my hand is out to you.
The latest masturbation incantaions... WEIRD and CLOWN. Go and jack off, dope. You have chosen treason-loyalty to the Kremlin and every enemy of the nation and enlightenment that gave you everything you have. Worse? War against all 100 million Americans who KNOW STUFF.
We're not 12%. We're 40% and another 30% are waking up that they need us more than they need your jerkoff catechisms.
Oh, and we're the ones who know cyber, nano, nuclear, bio and all the rest. You really need to read Heinlein's REVOLT IN 2100. to see where this goes.
Duncan,
Most of us are on the same side. The same two resident fascists who have haunted this place for ages are clearly not. Both are living embodiments of the Sunk Cost Effect, so no matter how many times their "logic" is shown to be specious and their "morals" bankrupt, they keep coming to declare victory over humanity.
While I can understand the resentment of being talked down to, but how the hell can they hate it more than what we now got??
Before calling others clowns, check your own face for greasepaint. I've had to do that myself, particularly when I was a young expat in affluence surrounded by poverty.
Pappenheimer
P.S. Calling oneself German, American or Bhutanese - what's the problem? I'm American but worried about our own nationalist OVERtones*. I'd like to call myself a Citizen of the Galaxy but it's hard to acquire a passport at this point.
*when the president of your country starts making noises about annexing and/or invading its neighbors, it's no longer nationalism. It's fascism.
A.F. Rey:
how the hell can they hate it more than what we now got??
They decide that this one thing is so bad that anything else is preferable. Like the Arabs for Trump who were so unhinged at the guy who just happened to be president (and did what any president would have done) after Oct 7, 2023 that defeating him personally was more important than what would happen if DJT became president again.
...it's no longer nationalism. It's fascism.
It can be two things.
Calling oneself German, American or Bhutanese - what's the problem?
I'm a native Evanstonian. That doesn't imply "Evanston supremacy" or anything of that sort. It's just a statement of fact.
onward
onward
On July 3, 1863, General Longstreet ordered - with great misgivings - three brigades of Pickett's division, supported by whatever was left of Heth's and Rhodes' divisions, to attack the American line at Cemetery Ridge. Longstreet had been so ordered by General Robert E Lee, against Longstreet's protests, apparently because Lee had far too much contempt for northern troops - or believed his own press reviews, which can be just as bad.
It's been called magnificent, and the High Water Mark of the Confederacy.
It was a horrific waste of lives; it was a cluster f*ck of massive proportions; it never stood a chance. The other divisions, badly hurt two days before and led by replacement officers, broke and ran, mostly before crossing the Emmitsburg Pike; Pickett's men alone advanced on into continued enfilading long range artillery fire from both the northeast and southeast, with added musket fire and case shot from the stone wall ahead and flanking fire from brigades swinging out to both right and left. Perhaps a hundred men went beyond the wall. Very few came back. The mobile artillery that was to have accompanied the charge as fire support had been moved and Colonel Alexander, in charge of the initial bombardment, could not deploy or even FIND it in time. There was little to no long range ammunition left in the rebel caissons to support the charge, and the commander of the rebel artillery had not even CHECKED ammo levels before the bombardment started*.
Yes, let's rename US military bases after these guys. Of course, you won't find a Fort Longstreet because he became a union supporter after the war and joined the Republican Party, long before it became infested with Southern Democrats.
Pappenheimer
*and don't even get me started on the rebel habit of mixing batteries so that ammunition for one cannon might be useless in the piece next to it.
I wish you could be trusted, but you have shown a willingness to betray your stated ideals in order to get close to the most dangerous powers of our time.
You offer food for thought, true, but you also attack your "allies" constantly and have shown yourself to be a lickspittle for oligarchs and spies.
Pappenheimer that's very erudite... ands amounts to just more excuse making that "if only" Lee had done this or that.... and I call BS on that whole mythology. The Union's 12th Corps was moving up and would have smashed any mythical Picket breakthrough... which was never remotely possible in the 1st place.
Longstreet's "Let's go around them!" notion was absolutely insane and was even dumber. It would have put Lee between the now organized Army of the Potomac, in open country unlike Lee had ever operated in, before... and the vast forces of reserves and militia Lincoln was having dig in west of Washington. Hammer & anvil, copiously supplied while Lee was running out of everything and his cavalry on the verge of collapse.
By comparison, Pickett's charge was vastly less implausible.
What Lee did accomplish was a huge cattle raid. A vast herd crossed the river and fed the confederate troops for months.
onward
onward
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSZ1h-bydS4
Post a Comment