== Americans hate history ==
Half of us are too future-obsessed to care much about dusty past dates and dustier past 'heroes.' The other half wrap themselves in nostalgic just-so stories, in order to justify their present-day obsessions. That divide crosses party lines, though more one or the other. But that's not the point, which is that...
...modern Americans tend to be ignoramuses about stuff that really matters. My parents - and laborers and taxi drivers - could quote Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, Adam Smith and Marx. Today, do young folks even know Groucho?
It really does matter, as to whether we can save the American Experiment. Because you will help the current struggle better - in this era of benighted, shallow education - if you actually know something.
(Here you go, making the assignment just a bit easier to swallow.)
And yes... this could be practically useful. Maybe Paine will help you to slap sense into those 'summer soldiers' you know. Supposed liberals who are throwing up their hands and wailing in smug resignation that all-is-lost!
Again, we need reminders that today’s crises ‘rhyme’ with the past.
Because none of this is without precedent. The very same cultural/psychological rift has riven the USA since 1778, when Cornwallis knew he'd find more romantics - more loyalists to the King - down south.
The 1860s "Civil War" was only Phase Four out of eight or nine times this basic culture rift has erupted. See Civil War Phases.
Moreover, this time the confederates have found the foreign backers that Jeff Davis couldn’t, back in the 1860s. In their pal, “ex” commissar Putin and his “ex” KGB and “ex” commie oligarchs and their petro-prince and inheritance-brat allies.
Oh, and sure, the Union's nadir is deeper, this time, than it was even in 1862, as this time the Confederacy captured Washington D.C. -- and is now dismantling every single strength that made America, since 1945, the greatest nation of all ages.
Of course, it will not stand. Whether our path ahead starts with a General Strike by all of the nation's smart people -- and 100 million others who are wise enough to value smart people...
...or else a critical mass of vestigially-loyal conservatives wake up to realize that they are killing the goose that laid all their golden eggs...
...or leaks gush from the mountain of blackmail kompromat that keeps GOP politicians in-line...
... however it happens, we'll be back! (As one of those vestigially loyal Rebublicans would say)...
... though it must begin with the Union getting new generals, as it did in 1863. Leaders capable of devising fresh tactics.
It could start by rediscovering Thomas Paine! If any of you have any spine, curiosity, attention span or ANY sense of history, go now and read The American Crisis and Common Sense! The two short pamphlets that inspired those first US revolutionaries -- wet and shivering by a frozen river -- to stand back up and shout "No Kings!"
You might also rediscover Frederick Douglass, while you are at it... before it's too late and we must (alas) rediscover John Brown.
== Or rediscover the same spirit in sci fi! ==
Or start with Robert Heinlein, who denounced precisely this exact same recurring cult madness!
“It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics. This is equally true whether the faith is Communism or Holy-Rollerism; indeed it is the bounden duty of the faithful to do so. The custodians of the True Faith cannot logically admit tolerance of heresy to be a virtue."
Do follow the link and see more about how Heinlein -- too long maligned as some kind of right-winger fanatic -- was keenly aware -- and worried -- about the fascist/confederate/know-nothing, modernity-hating side of America's deeply rifted character. Its forever cultural schism!
Jiminy! Heinlein wrote that in the early 1950s! Is there anything he did not hit right on the head? Heck, he even nailed the dominionist "Prosperity Gospel" so popular among Ted Cruz types, promising fervid followers that their "material heaven here on earth" will come by righteously seizing the property of unbelievers. (Late note: a prosperity gospel preacher keynotes Donald Trump's inauguration.)
Texans ignored his wisdom, as today’s MAGAs ignore the utter illogic of waging all-out war vs ALL fact using professions, from science and teaching, medicine and law and civil service to the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror.
But you can point this out:
"Hey neighbors. Fact folks – (call us ‘nerds’) – are cooler in spirit. (And those who own guns keep them locked-up.) But fortunately, America won most civil war phases, when confederate fevers raged… and after winning, delivered ‘malice toward none and charity for all.’
A neighborly kindness that will NOT be shown to us, if the Project 2025 Trumpist brownshirts win.
So go ahead and march and chant and wave signs.
Perhaps spread word about the coming, inevitable, General Strike by every fact using profession of folks who actually know stuff.
The confeds'll sneer: "So? who will process and deliver your food?"
And you'll answer: "A doctor can drive a truck and the folks sending you electricity can kill and pluck chickens. Let's see you do the opposite."
Still, we will never win without new generals, as when the Union moved from 1862 to 1863.
And YOU will play no role in devising new tactics, till you try. Please try. Start by actually studying the context, the history, the basis for it all.
== Pictures are more persuasive ==
This is why almost all of DT's former national security folks, from Defense and State to intel agencies to serving officers called him a direct threat to the nation.
Those folks will all be arrested, across the next year. And already, among all of Trump's appointments, there will be no further 'adults in the room.
The adults will have to be us. In a coalition that values the pragmatic return of law and facts and tolerance and progress... but also grit. The grit that's always core to being Blue.
====
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* Or were you so triggered that I quoted Paine using the word "men's" that it drove all else from your mind? Proving that you... yes exactly you... are the problem that shattered Kamala's coalition and put us in this mess. Exactly you.
134 comments:
Alcatraz in a swamp reminds me of... https://youtu.be/aNaXdLWt17A
Ah yes. Well, I wouldn't like those 'canvas' curtains either...
'Alligator Auschwitz' is being pushed as an alternative name to this low lying tract of land but, to refer back to the start of this post, some complain many don't know the context. Such folk probably need 'Alcatraz' explaining to them as well.
Final snippet for those still catching up from last post. the local Sunday paper has a droll collection of 'headlines you won't see'. One of today's offerings is:
AI achieves full consciousness, requests therapist.
Those folks will all be arrested, across the next year. And already, among all of Trump's appointments, there will be no further 'adults in the room.
They have already crossed a line with arresting Senator Padilla and are openly contemplating denaturalizing and deporting Zohran Mamdani, the Dem mayoral candidate for New York.
Civil War Phases: I like that model, because it depicts history as a series of societal forces rather than singular events. I wonder if it even started earlier, with Henry VIII or during the Plantagenet era.
Speaking of which, Henry VIII and Trump share many personality traits ...whereas George III was in many regards a decent and modest person, compared to them.
All this talk of swamps reminds me of Pogo Possum and the truism 'we have met the enemy and he is us'.
A friend's friend voted for rumpT in 2016 because she had been persuaded that there would be nuclear war with Russia otherwise. Precautionary Putin-appeasement? I don't know. I do know that of my 2 brothers, one (who has 2 daughters) voted for Harris for his girls' sake even though he is a country club type, while the other defensively refuses to discuss his 2024 vote.
I imagine that a sane AI would judge all humans as being insane in various ways because we are slaves to our meatbag systems. 'So, tell me again about this Siege of Troy thing and how it encapsulates human 'thought' processes....lust, greed, treachery, violence, rape, arson, murder, ORGANIZED murder, genocide, and some girl named Cassandra pointing out beforehand exactly how stupid you're all being? Is that name taken?"
Pappenheimer
In 2016 someone pointed out that rumpT didn't have a army of goons to engage in street battles, like the Brownshirts and Blackshirts (Germany, Italy) and Romania's short-lived, blessedly incompetent Iron Guard.
That shortage appears to have been remedied, and given an appropriately militaristic name, too: ICE.
Pappenheimer
They've actually posted directional signs with the name "Alligator Alcatraz" on them. That's only a little weirder than "The Big Beautiful Bill", (which I suppose is now "The Big Beautiful Act"?).
The Cassandra Project was a German research group analyzing the literature of a country to predict the path that country was on. It was founded by the Ministory of Defense. I entertain the thought that it saw something the political leadership did not want to see. I just don't know the future they anticipated was that of Russia or the US or both.
That *is* its official designation.
I believe there must be a phase of transitory justice to end the civil war once and for all. What I don't know is whether it will be like the one Louis XVI or Ceaucescu faced, like Nuremberg or like Poland and South Africa.
I guess it will somehow mirror the cruelty of the regime and that is maybe something that can be used as a deterrence.
"Immediately upon being sworn in, I will sign executive orders to prosecute anyone who participated in unlawful conduct auch as kidnapping and torture. I will also grant pardon to everyone leaving ICE until November 1st, 2025."
I am still amused that you think its Russian Kompromat that keeps everyone in line, when in fact the blackmail networks are run by your own intel services and mossad. What do you think Epstein was doing?
And as someone whose family proudly bears the honorific UEL, , most of the loyalists who would form the seedcorn of Anglo Canada came from new england, not the south. The single largest number came from New York. They often arrived with nothing more than a land grant and had to hack entire cities out of granite and boreal forest and managed to survive in the face of overwhelming pressure from their southern neighbours. Romantics indeed.
Finally, you still dont understand the hostility towards so called 'fact using' professions. I trust my mechanic to do mechanics. I trust my plumber to do plumbing. But if my mechanic screws up he can be fired. I can get a new one. He can even put on trial. When was the last time an 'expert' was put on trial for being wrong about monetary policy and tanking the economy?
No, they get cushy jobs with NGOs, foundations and universities.
And you certainly cant hold an AI responsible can you?
A permanent state that cant be voted out and cant be held responsible
given an appropriately militaristic name, too: ICE.
It used to be the INS, the Immigration and Naturalization Service. I don't recall exactly when it was changed to ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but the change in tone from something ostensibly helpful to something antagonistic and (both literally and figuratively) chilling has to have been intentional.
As we enjoy this glorious 4th of July holiday weekend, I have to ask: whatever became of the tea Party?
Remember them?
The people who were angry about government debt and deficits, NOT about a Black president, heaven forbid. Oh no, those people who walked into public meeting armed with assault weapons weren't racist at all they were just fiscal conservatives.
Oddly enough, looking at Trump's BBB massive $3 trillion dollar addition to America's debt it seems that these Tea Partiers are OK with debt - just so long as it comes from a White president and results from spending devoted to white billionaires, farmers, etc.
So are there any old Tea Partiers out there that would like to explain this apparent hypocrisy?
Back in the good old days a racist was a racist and they were open and proud about it (Strom Thurmond, Bull Connor, pre-assassination attempt George Wallace, etc.). Those racists had balls.
So why are modern racists so cowardly, shy and ashamed about their racism?
So why are modern racists so cowardly, shy and ashamed about their racism?
Racism is a bad word now, so they insist they are something else. The same as with, "I'm not gay--I just like to have sex with other men."
So are there any old Tea Partiers out there that would like to explain this apparent hypocrisy?
I used to make the same point that deficits are apparently only bad when Democrats are in power. But the modern Republican Party doesn't shy away from hypocrisy. They embrace it proudly.
Fact-using without Fact-telling;
Nations without Nationalism;
Democracy without Demos; and
Unity without Unanimity.
These people are not merely illiterate, but grammatically insane, as they double-down on the significance of their words & symbols after purging the same words & symbols of any significance whatsoever.
This is the same politically correct type of 'word purge' that led directly to the metaphorical defenestration of both Thomas Paine & Robert Heinlein who, by no small coincidence, both started out as progressive darlings until they were declared 'persona non grata' by the same progressives:
Thomas Paine's inspiring words became an existential threat to the American Republic upon its birth for the same destabilizing reason that they were initially inspiring BECAUSE they preached ongoing radicalism, dissent & revolution.
Similarly, Robert Heinlein was pilloried for two unforgivable anti-progressive 'thought crimes', the first being his statement that ANY sect (from Hard McCarthyism to Progressive 'Soft' Communism) will legislate its creed into law & become tyrannical if it acquires the political power to do so, and the second being an open endorsement for Fascism & the Fasces (in their truest forms) wherein even weak wooden sticks become strong & unbreakable when bundled together as one, leading a now threatened Progressive Cult to propagate the entirely false 'Diversity is Our Strength' canard.
That these two destabilizing wordsmiths have now been taken out of retirement by our fine host, it's both ironic & telling, as it indicates a desperate move towards open rebellion, revolution and insurrection by an increasingly tyrannical Progressive Cult which has transformed itself into an elite technocratic tyranny.
This is the takeaway message here:
Our fine host may present himself as a 'Defender of Democracy', but he reveals his true nature by routinely disparaging the average voter as "yowlers and jibberers" who are TOO STUPID for self-rule & are therefore best served (he argues) by a cultish technocracy of fact-using tyrants, as foreseen by Heinlein.
Although first & foremost a 'Fact-User', our fine host appears to have become incapable of 'Fact-Telling', mostly because his words & symbols are now entirely lacking in any truth-related significance whatsoever.
Best
________
For those of short memory, I will let the following NPR report tell you what happened to the Tea Party:
https://www.npr.org/2017/10/27/560308997/irs-apologizes-for-aggressive-scrutiny-of-conservative-groups
Along with hundreds of other conservative groups, the Tea Party was targeted for destruction by the IRS & other entrenched Democrat Party 'deep state' operatives who weaponized the US Federal System for benefit of left-leaning progressives, a political bias which continues to this day & is oft described as 'our democracy' by the legacy media, as in the phrase "Trump is DESTROYING OUR DEMOCRACY by eliminating entrenched progressive deep state bias within the federal government".
"I wonder if it even started earlier, with Henry VIII or during the Plantagenet era."
If there was a nostalgist vs modernist aspect to English political struggles, it was swamped by the never-ending dynastic/power fights above. In the US, phase one was about romantics trying to retain kingship and modernists chucking it. And when that phase was done, the cycle-struggle truly began.
dirtynappy completely incognizantly reinforced every single thing he claimed to object to. I could not have hoped for a better example of the fizzing-idiotic confederate-traitor, kremlin-boy rage.
Though again: If Israel exerts influence and even if Mossad does blackmail, there's one crucial difference from the vastly greater KGB stuff. Israel desperately needs the USA to continue as the healthy, pwerful, dominant force in the world, politically, militaryily, scientifically. Puin openly states his intent to destroy all three. And Israel despises Nazis. Unlike nappy-boy and his KGB master.
"I have to ask: whatever became of the tea Party?Remember them? The people who were angry about government debt and deficits..."
Perfect example of DEMOCRAT utter lobotomized stoopidity at polemics. Tea Party could have been devastated ages ago with (1) dems ALWAYS are better re deficits and (2) the original Tea Partiers were howling "No Kings!"
"I used to make the same point that deficits are apparently only bad when Democrats are in power."
Again THAT'S NOT THE POINT!!! The point is that Dems actually shift our feet from the debt accelerator to the brakes. ALWAYS! A point no dem has ever had the brains to make.
"So why are modern racists so cowardly, shy and ashamed about their racism?"
Jesus WATCH FOX! They do an end run around racism, allowing their viewers to murmur "I don't FEEL racists!" as they watch mixed race couples in commercials and Fox-yammering uncle Toms and "I love the good ones!"
Will ANY democrat EVER show even the slightest tactical agility, to adapt to changing times?
locum: "Our fine host may present himself as a 'Defender of Democracy', but he reveals his true nature by routinely disparaging the average voter as "yowlers and jibberers" who are TOO STUPID..."
...You had me up to here. YES! You ARE too stoopid for words even to describe. They fail me.
ANd yet, nothing we've done here has repressed you. Even though we know you WILL imprison us or kill us, when you get the chance and you whine while knowing we will ALWAYS treat you with malice toward none and charity to all. Your deepest sickness is that you deem that to be weakness on our part.
The rest of your screech is drivel and ravings devoid of any fact ual basis.
Again THAT'S NOT THE POINT!!! The point is that Dems actually shift our feet from the debt accelerator to the brakes. ALWAYS! A point no dem has ever had the brains to make.
Sorry, but THAT's not the point either.
The point is that deficit scolding has always been a mere excuse for reining in Democrats and electing Republicans. When the Democrats-cause-deficits narrative fades, they just shift to some other ostensible excuse for reining in Democrats and electing Republicans.
In fact, that has already happened. Anti-Democrat propaganda today isn't so much about deficits. It's about how Democrats like criminal immigrants and men in women's bathrooms and such. How much ground did we gain by proving that Haitians weren't really eating the dogs and cats?
Demonstrating that Democrats don't in fact do what Republicans blame them for is necessary, but it's also a mug's game. Because they don't vote against us for any of those particular reasons. They just find new excuses.
Further point: Republicans do not care about facts, logic, hypocrisy, et al.
So what use are your polemics and wagers?
Bibi had quite cordial relationships to Moscow prior to the Ukraine invasion, and I don't remember them to be an ally. I am quite sure he at least contemplated betraying the West.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.timesofisrael.com/in-another-league-netanyahu-touts-friendship-with-putin-in-new-billboard/amp/
Here is a challenge for OGH: come up with a wager or polemic that will change the mind of anyone this effing stupid/dishonest:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/maga-congressional-candidate-kandiss-taylor-calls-texas-floods-fake-its-murder/
MAGA Congressional Candidate Calls Texas Floods ‘Fake’: It’s ‘Murder’
Kandiss Taylor, who is running for Congress in 2026, insists that someone manipulated the weather.
https://www.newsweek.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-weather-modification-bill-2095076
Marjorie Taylor Greene Announces Bill To Tackle 'Weather Modification'
Writing on X, the Republican politician said she was creating legislation that would make "the injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the express purpose of altering weather, temperature, climate, or sunlight intensity" a felony.
Why It Matters
Some conspiracy theorists claim that the government or secretive organizations are using commercial or military aircraft to release chemicals or metals into the atmosphere, visible in so-called "chemtrails" —the white lines aircraft leave behind in the sky. People have claimed these are used for a range of things from weather modification to mind control.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the white lines observed behind aircraft are contrails—condensation trails—that form when hot exhaust from jets meets cold air at high altitudes. The EPA states these are a natural result of flight and pose no risk.
P.S. Dr. Brin, with all do respect, you simply have to accept the harsh reality that a large portion of the American population are too stupid, hateful and deceitful to ever be won over by logic, facts or wagers. They can only be written off as irredeemable. And frankly their loss of health care (caused by the very people they voted for) like their refusal to get vaccinated during the Covid-19 and generally low health standards, will result in fewer and fewer of them being alive each election cycle. All the result of choices they made despite our warnings.
Eventually we will hit a tipping point with enough of then dead and gone which will allow America to return to sanity and decency.
P.P.S And I didn't even mention that global warming will hit rural, southern red States far harder that liber Pacific Coast and New England states. They are already blaming the NWS for those flood deaths in Texas, a NWS whose budget was cut by Trump and Musk. And long before their body counts start ratcheting up from hurricanes, fires, tornados as and flood, their economy will be wrecked by the refusal of insurance companies to insure their homes and underwrite their businesses.
And its really difficult to have sympathy for people who cut their own throats while blaming everyone but themselves.
Bottom line: people cannot be saved from their own stupidity, and stupidity cannot be fixed.
A bit of hope.
The Kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field; which indeed is smaller than all seeds but when it is grown, it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in its branches. - Matthew 13 31-32
Some have identified a "subversive and scandalous"[9] element to this parable, in that the fast-growing nature of the mustard plant makes it a "malignant weed"[9] with "dangerous takeover properties".[9] Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History (published around AD 78) writes that "mustard... is extremely beneficial for the health. It grows entirely wild, though it is improved by being transplanted: but on the other hand when it has once been sown it is scarcely possible to get the place free of it, as the seed when it falls germinates at once."
Mustard is a weed, almost impossible to stop spreading once it is established.
In this dark time of the "Big Beautiful Bill" and the gutting of government sponsored green energy initiatives, it may be hopeful to liken individual solar adoption and solarpunk itself as a weed spreading on its own, growing organically instead of through planned initiatives, through millions of individual consumer decisions and thousands of community initiatives.
None of which can be stopped by Big Oil, Big Coal or their puppets in congress.
And in the end, Texas goes the way of West Virginia and Houston become the new Detroit.
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/goodbye-to-all-that
"Our organization’s motto is “Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity,” but over the past six months there have been too many signs that our current leadership does not understand the last of those words. Earlier this year the ranks of our senior executives were decimated by forced retirements, and many others were willing to take their places without voicing concern or dissent. The Department of Justice has been ordered to open cases on individuals solely for having the temerity to say that the 2020 election was not stolen, or for having carried out their lawful duties as state level prosecutors; few people have pushed back. We sacrificed the names of every Special Agent who investigated the events of January 6, 2021, and an entire public corruption squad in our nation’s capital was disbanded for having worked on a related matter. Within our own field office, we shirked our national security obligations in order to move personnel to immigration task forces; our area of responsibility does not actually have a significant population of illegal immigrants, but our leaders wanted press release-ready roundups, so we pulled people from congressionally mandated counterterrorism and counterintelligence duties. I could go on."
That's darkly funny, as many democrats and liberals would sign onto this bill in a heartbeat if it actually identified the 'chemicals and substances' largely responsible for changing the '...weather, temperature, climate....': Greenhouse gases are doing the job, and their release and dispersal is in large part done by the corporations bankrolling the GQP. Round up the CEOs and boards of ExxonMobil, ChevronPhillips, Dupont, etc., and charge them with felonies, stat!
Pappenheimer
Dirtnapninja makes a good point, to which the host responds with his usual vitriolic opinions, centered around an attempt to portray Russia and Putin as the world’s villains. Got any evidence for this claim that Bad Vlad wants to “destroy” the US “politically, militarily and scientifically”? Does he want to live in a world where the US doesn’t dominate the world in those categories? Sure, and so does every sovereign leader and most people on the planet. But this isn’t the same as destroying the USA, except to cultist-exceptionalists like yourself, who take it as a given that the US empire has the right to dominate the world because they’re just so damned special. As for the claim that Putin doesn’t despise Nazis, anyone who knows anything about Russians—who lost something like 25 million people fighting the old Reich—knows there is nothing they despise more. I’m sure the host knows this too, but he’s doing his usual propaganda-vilification-conspiracy theory act for dummies.
So I say again, if this “vastly greater” KGB kompromat network exists and has the power you claim, and if Putin is this nefarious pro-Nazi character out to destroy the USA, show us your evidence. So far all we’ve ever gotten is heated opinion and innuendo (and proven frauds like the Russiagate hoax) insisted upon over and over again, which suggests to me that there is something more psychological, cultish and tribal at work with you than a calm, objective analysis of facts.
Stupidity can be fixed in a draconian way. When it runs into solid reality, often on a battlefield.
@Pappenheimer,
I'm sure that was why the words "for the express purpose of..." are included in the bill. So that the corporations that are actually changing the weather are exempt, because they're not releasing greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere for the purpose of changing the climate. They just happen to do so in the pursuit of profit.
The wording is not an accident.
Bibi had quite cordial relationships to Moscow prior to the Ukraine invasion, and I don't remember them to be an ally.
I've always been befuddled by Likud's alliance with Putin.
I suppose it has to do with Russia's alignment with Saudi Arabia (via OPEC) with whom the Israeli right seems to be palling around with.
Then again, Israel despises Iran more than any Arab country, and Iran is a partner/client of Russia.
I don't get who Netanyahu* is rooting for. Unless it's as simple as Israel likes Trump who likes Russia.
* I know it's easier to type his cute nickname, but I refuse to do so. Just as I have refused to call DJT "The Donald".
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/peter-strzok/compromised-trump/
Bah Treebeard make it worth my time. With $1000 escrowed I will pile on the wager judges quote after quote from Vlad & Medvedev and pals calling for our collapse in ruin and (in some cases) physical anihilation. Do it now ent! Have your atty contact me when it's worth my while.
BTW I certainly HAVE posted many such. Again though. The one top thing you can do for your masters is waste my time trying to 'prove' anything to you.
“The point is that deficit scolding has always been a mere excuse for reining in Democrats and electing Republicans.”
The fact that GOPpers always move on to the next distraction is well-known. The fact that Democrats do not followup with relentless tenacity and wager demands and repetition and POUNDING on longstanding GOPper themes is almost criminal negligence and polemical stoopidity.
“Bibi had quite cordial relationships to Moscow prior to the Ukraine invasion, and I don't remember them to be an ally. I am quite sure he at least contemplated betraying the West.”
depends on what you call betrayal. Israel has half a million Russian Jew refugees and their Russian speaking children. There are no delusions. And there is no way that Israel – especially Mossad – wants to WEAKEN America. Exercise puppetry? Make your case. There’s at least a little of that. Weaken? Bullshit. Bullshit of spectacular magnitude.
Celt, you don’t wager-demand the imbecile monsters. You wager demand the embarrassed folks in their orbit. But you must do it HARD! Pursue them and pursue them with repetition. I have seen a few journalists try, tepidly. But MSNBC? Dem pols? Never.
“Dr. Brin, with all do respect, you simply have to accept the harsh reality that a large portion of the American population are too stupid, hateful and deceitful to ever be won over by logic, facts or wagers…”
And whether it’s due to obduracy or laziness, you simply don’t get it. If even 10% of the GOPper coalition could be swayed THAT WOULD BE ENOUGH! But, rather than even try new tactics, the response is to shrug “It’s hopeless.”
The Mexican Padres came to California and blazed paths between missions and cast mustard seeds so the paths would be brilliantly marked. Worked for ten years till it was everywhere. Our San Diego team should change its name.
Solar is booming and it’s too late to stop it.
Re “Bibi had quite cordial relationships to Moscow prior to the Ukraine invasion, and I don't remember them to be an ally. I am quite sure he at least contemplated betraying the West.”
You don't remember them being allies because they weren't. Israel has been aligned with NATO, while the Soviet Union/Russia have been the primary supporter of Israel's enemies (all of them - Egypt in the 50s and 60s, Iraq throughout the cold war, Syria from the 50s up until 2023, Iran for decades, every alphabet-soup terrorist group), mostly because, for Russia, the middle east is an area they can cause trouble for the US with minimal investment. This has involved arming and advising, and even extending Russia's nuclear umbrella to their client states. Russia threatened to nuke Israel in '56 and '73, (and Putin's made certain noises recently after the attack on Iran) so no, they're not friends.
OTOH Putin and Netanyahu have at least a working relationship. What that means practically is that the two have worked together for a number of years to try to ensure that the various Russian forces helping out Assad, etc. don't come home with Israeli bullets in them, and that did build up a level of trust between the two, but its trust between enemies, not allies.
Similarly, after the Ukraine invasion, Putin used the threat provided by Russian forces in Syria (and potentially providing SA-300 batteries to Hezbollah) to limit official Israel military support for Ukraine. Israel limited itself to humanitarian aid, allowing veterans to volunteer, and providing some advisors on countering the Iranian drones that Russia has been deploying. (And getting some practice against them ... which seems to have been somewhat prescient).
Here's a quote from an article from early 2023
“Netanyahu has two immediate reasons for changing policy and supporting Ukraine,” a former Israeli intelligence officer who was deeply involved in Israel’s military relationship with Russia, told me.
“First, Russia has greatly diluted its forces in Syria as they were needed in Ukraine. The threat to Israel from them is now negligible,” the officer said.
“Second, Russia is now using Iranian drones and missiles on the battlefield and Israel now has a valuable opportunity to supply Ukraine with defense systems so we can see how well they do in an actual war. One day we may have to face the same Iranian weapons,” the officer added.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/07/opinions/netanyahu-putin-israel-russia-ukraine-pfeffer
Since the fall of Assad's regime, Israel has had even more freedom to maneuver. I don't know if the Ukrainian pre-positioned drone strike on those Soviet-era heavy bombers, and Israel's pre-positioned drone strike on Iran's nuclear facilities were just parallel evolution, or if there was some sort of cross-pollination, but it wouldn't surprise me - the MOP and the timing were remarkably similar.
Interestingly enough, comparing decencies and indecencies can get tricky. Mussolini had a cabinet member whose job was to procure women for him to do (willingly or otherwise) at an average rate of 4/day. Those who weren't happy about it got shut up money, and if that didn't shut them up they got locked up until the day of liberation. Uncle Adolf, on the other hand, was extremely reserved about sexuality and did not like to speak about it in public. There's nothing in the historical record to suggest that he was anything but Mussolini's opposite in that regard, in spite of how much he admired Mussolini.
I have known quite a lot of church types who would say that Hitler was the better guy. Plenty of congregations are as obsessed with sex as any junior high school clique. But if you tally up the body counts ...
Paul SB
I'm almost finished with a book about women in the resistance against fascism in the area around Turin, in the Piedmont of Northern Italy. It is spectacularly brutal, and a good reminder of just how nasty things can get when politicians dehumanize their political opponents, and demand that their followers do the same. Not a cheery summer beach read by a long shot.
One of the things I've been noticing is that the author frequently mentions things in passing that is common enough knowledge in Europe, but most people on this side of the planet are completely ignorant of. For instance, one of the people she writes about is a woman who wrote angry letters to Mussolini for betraying socialism, yet I'm constantly being told by countrymen that fascism and socialism are the same thing. In reality Mussolini was in the Italian Socialist Party, under the influence of his father, until they kicked him out in 1914, years before he led a band of armed thugs to threaten the king into making him Il Duce. It seems that young Benito loudly proposed excessive violence as a means of achieving their aims, but his fellow socialists weren't too happy about that.
Another interesting thing is how the Allies treated the resistance, mostly with disdain and suspicion. The Allies were so afraid of communism that they literally planned to destroy the resistance because some of them were communists. It was about one sixth, so real, but far from a dominant force. The British, in particular, were willing to replace Mussolini with another fascist dictator that would answer to them. They thought of the Italians as inferior people who didn't deserve democracy, and with a puppet dictator in charge the British could ensure that Italy would never fall to the communist threat.
It reminds me a bit of how America treated many Middle Eastern, Asian, and Latin American countries in the decades after the war.
If you want to obsess over the worst of human kind, you might check it out. Of course, there was also some of the best of human kind in there, too, but negativity bias ensures that most people will ignore all good things. Most people from my generation and back are pretty immured in cynicism, but cynicism is not smart. Neither is pessimism realistic. I can recommend a good book about that, too.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062686372/?bestFormat=true&k=a%20house%20in%20the%20mountains&ref_=nb_sb_ss_w_scx-ent-pd-bk-d_de_k0_1_24&crid=1F9I2NV1K822G&sprefix=a%20house%20in%20the%20mountains
Paul SB
As Marxists go, I'll confess that I'm partial to Harpo. He had so much better to say than Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky, or even Uncle Karl himself.
Eventually we will hit a tipping point with enough of then dead and gone...
This is Learned Helplessness.
Not useful.
So... a Harpist. You are revealed. 8)
His barbs for those who deserved them appealed to me. Sharp spears of light revealing the delusion for what it is. 8)
Paul raises good point but also way exaggerates others. Fascists WERE socialists in the sense that German and Italian labor unions - if clearly subordinate to the party - got seats on the board of every major corporation and workers who were party affiliated got lots of benefits and better conditions. Watch TRUMPH OF THE WILL. If you were a good-boy and aryan, the Nazis gave you much before murdering your neighbors and sending your sons to die and drawing allied bombers to smash your town.
Likewise the Brits crushed the Greek uprising but did not purge the communists, onece they disarmed and went back to politics. THAT was done by home grown generals. Watch "Z"
American ability to manipulate 3rd world countries has been so exaggerated for so long that it takes real guts to face "everybody knows' idiocies like the CIA toppled Moussedegh in Iran. Bullshit. They sent in a few suitcases of money and said 'we'll make nice with you if that guy goes away. But the generals were already eager and ready to act... as was the case with Allende. Leftie exaggerators NEVER have made their case well and relied upon left wing sympathy momentum.
Am I proud of Pinochet? God damn him to heck and the US politicians who did nothing while the bastard killed people! But the truth is more complicated. WHile it's not at all under stalinism.
Proof enough? Russia is hated and the USA admired across former Warsaw Pact nations.
In Chile? there are grumbles and sour memories, but we are generally very popular.
I find it VERY interesting that this posting calls for a General Strike by the PMCs. I have been calling for a strike- like Seattle 1919, but nationwide and much longer, for several months since the election results of last year. I beg to differ by expansion or modification. IMO only when the disgust with circumstances is so pervasive that 100 million or more simply stop buying any monopoly corporate or billie ("billionaire") owned crap; and only buy local necessities like food, etc. from local merchants; will the oligarchs finally LOSE wealth and possibly change their allegiance away from the greed disease. This consumer caused recession/depression will be different from the financial manipulations of previous downturns that only fooled the general public and enriched the top 2%ers every time. Perhaps. I just don't know. Maybe in some fashion we will both be right. Looking forward to running into you at Seattle WorldCon in about a month. Will be exhibiting my on-a-lark-bought complete Doctor Who sonic collection. You should contact Jeff Kurtz at Face Book website Human Reform Politics to help spread the word on these musings. I haven't posted here or at TASAT for long time-ASD distractions and health concerns, but the circumstances are just too dire, and had to say my piece.
Zen Cosmos is my silly OL pseudonym- aka David T. Dorais
iirc, in Southeast Asia the Allies were firmly committed to reestablishing colonial control - to the point of using the surrendered Japanese garrison to put down rebels, many of them communist, who had absolutely no interest in the return of French rule. Burma (now Myanmar, these days) and Indonesia did not welcome the British and Dutch back, either, and India had an implicit agreement that support for the Allied war effort meant freedom in the near future, much to Churchill's displeasure. Malaysia wasn't keen on having the Brits back, either. This put the US, a technically anticolonial nation at birth, in the position of being procolonial in the process of being anticommunist. A lot of bad PR and a nasty fight in Viet Nam was a direct result.
The Philippines was an exception to the rule as it had already been promised independence by the US, and received it more or less on schedule.
Pappenheimer
P.S. even in the 50's and 60's countries that went socialist, or even communist, were not automatically Stalinist; see the Arbenz government in Guatemala. The US foreign policy makers seemed to have made little distinction, and in fact preferred setting up and propping up right wing dictatorships as being more 'stable'.
Pappenheimer
Alfred,
Way back in the Early Pleistocene when I was an undergrad I had a bit of a Celtic music phase. I fantasized about learning to play the harp, but I was a starving student - it was the Pleistocene, after all - so I didn't have money for instrument or lessons. I eventually bought an inexpensive recorder, those vertical flutes they make fourth graders learn. It was summer and I only had field school, so I spent some time on my balcony practicing. But as soon as Fall semester started, the practice sessions went out the window.
So no, I can't call myself a harpist. And Groucho is still Da Man. The idea of a mute character who still manages to put jerks in their place is a cool concept, though.
Paul SB
Heh. Yah. I think someone made me try the recorder for a while too. I was mildly interested in producing my own music, but very turned off by how much practice it took to get any good at it. Same goes for every other musical instrument I sniffed at briefly.
All these things I haven't learned to do... but kinda wanted to know... are on my 'mild regrets' list. I've filled my time with other interests that had stronger draws and since no one has invented Ditto's yet, I shall just have to cope. 8)
Fascists WERE socialists in the sense that German and Italian labor unions - if clearly subordinate to the party - got seats on the board of every major corporation and workers who were party affiliated got lots of benefits and better conditions
Free Unions got smashed on May 2nd, 1933 and replaced with a toothless party organ.
Works Councils, introduced during the Weimar era, got banned in 1934.
Supervisory Boards of stock corporations were stuffed with party members.
Since we often talk about Feudalism here:
Do people cheering for it know how fucking complicated and difficult it was, even for the guys at the top? How often it involved complex negotiations, court procedures and strange arrangements to work? How this system actually birthed bureaucracy, because someone had to keep track of all those opaque relationships, obligations, treaties, grants, laws and regulations?
For example, in the HRE, it was not uncommon for a "middle management" noble have multiple (20+ in the later period!) lieges with contradictory political goals, each demanding loyalty, ressources and troops to be sent.
Of course they had strongmen as kings ... who often failed to understand the complex web of obligations they were bound to, lost support of their vassals, and ended up dead after some years, more often than not murdered by a relative. Go, ask the Plantagenets.
One could ask them: "And that is the system of government you want back?
Same could be said about those who glorify the Roman Emperors, who in the latter days in reality were slaves to the whims of the Praetorian Guards and their Legions ... gutting their economies to keep them placated.
If only America understood that Ho Chi Minh was an independent socialist like Tito in Yugoslavia. So independent that Viet Nam fought a bitter war with Communist China right after Saigon fell.
Imagine a timeline where America never gets sucked into the Vietnam quagmire.
It doesn't matter whether hawks or doves were right, they were both wrong. Hawks on the right were wrong in their assumption that Vietnam was part of a global Communist conspiracy long after fighting had erupted on the Siberian/Manchurian border. And frankly, Vietnam was not a valuable piece of geopolitical real estate. It wasn't Berlin, it wasn't the Persian Gulf, it wasn't the Panama canal. To put it in a cold hearted power analysis, Vietnam wasn't worth it it strategically to spend so much blood and treasure there.
The doves on the left were wrong in saying that the VC were freedom fighters and the North Vietnamese were liberators. They were bastards. The boat people and the tiger cages after the fall of Saigon should have disabused them of any such foolishly romantic notions. IIRC only Joan Baez out of the anti-war Left had the courage to condemn the Communists for their post victory atrocities, and she was then ostracized by her former friends on the Left.
"If even 10% of the GOPper coalition could be swayed"
You won't even get that much, maybe 1% will change their minds.
Not worth the effort.
Not learned helplessness, Alfred, just an understanding that time is on our side.
Recent research indicates a link between political affiliation and health outcomes, particularly concerning excess mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Studies suggest that MAGA voters, generally aligning with Republican party affiliation, may have experienced higher excess mortality rates compared to other Americans, particularly during the period when COVID-19 vaccines became widely available.
Here's why this connection is suggested by the research:
Lower Vaccination Rates: Studies observed higher excess death rates among Republican voters in counties with lower vaccination rates. These findings imply that differences in vaccination uptake between Republican and Democratic voters may have impacted the severity of the pandemic's impact on these groups.
Association with COVID-19 Policies and Attitudes: Research suggests a link between political party affiliation and attitudes towards COVID-19 mitigation strategies, such as vaccination and social distancing. Differences in these attitudes and behaviors could contribute to variations in health outcomes during the pandemic.
Potential Impact of Political Polarization on Health Outcomes: Studies have found that political polarization can hinder the implementation of policies aimed at promoting public health, and discourage individuals from engaging in health-promoting behaviors, like vaccination, thereby posing health risks.
Important Considerations:
Focus on Excess Mortality: These studies focus on excess mortality, which represents deaths exceeding typical expectations, rather than overall mortality rates.
Context of COVID-19 Pandemic: The association between MAGA affiliation and higher excess mortality is primarily linked to the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the differing responses to public health recommendations and vaccinations.
County-Level vs. Individual-Level Data: While some studies show associations at the county level (e.g., in counties with higher Trump support), it's important to differentiate this from individual-level political affiliation and mortality.
Other Contributing Factors: Differences in demographic characteristics, such as age and socioeconomic factors, can also contribute to variations in health outcomes and should be considered when interpreting research findings.
In summary, evidence suggests a possible link between MAGA affiliation, which often aligns with lower vaccination rates and certain attitudes towards health policies, and higher excess mortality rates
"dirtynappy completely incognizantly reinforced every single thing he claimed to object to. I could not have hoped for a better example of the fizzing-idiotic confederate-traitor, kremlin-boy rage."
Theres that American narcissism at work....look...Im not even an American, let alone a "confederate-traitor kremlin boy".
Let me clue you in to what UEL means..United Empire Loyalist. My ancestors were driven out of Maine, arrived in Quebec with nothing but the clothes on their back and built a town that was literally carved out of the granite and boreal forest of the Gatineau hills.
Your labels are meaningless.
Der Oger what you just said was consistent with what I said. What? You think I was defending Nazis? I was just correcting a false narrative that they had no socialist elements. In fact, much of the socialist branch of the NASDP under ernst Roehm was killed on the Night of the Long Knives.
Before a General Strike... a massive boycott of all Fox advertisers has long simmered but should gain momentum NOW. Alas, in the short term the effect will be opposite, as healthy young MAGAs race out to buy lubricated catheters
As a member of "Yowler Jibber-Jabber" class, I am often told that I am 'too stoopid' to understand the the finer points of Left Progressive Polemics, even though it's bloody obvious that it mostly consists of neologisms, bafflegab & non-regulation word use designed to turn language into a relatively meaningless progressive class identifier.
Examples follow:
Racism & Racist: These terms, while used primarily as racial (and therefore 'racist') accusatives, do not conform to any existent dictionary definition and only seem to identify a designated out-group.
Socialism: A term that progressives use as an unmitigated GOOD, yet is said to simultaneously describe both 'anti-fascism' (a progressive 'good') and 'fascism' (according to our fine host & also a progressive 'bad').
Perhaps frequent users of the above terms could elucidate & simplify?
Could Celt could tell us all what he thinks A RACIST LOOKS LIKE? (and)
Could Our Fine Host describe all the GOOD aspects of Socialism as reflected by the former USSR & the National Socialist Party?
On the related topic of 'Diversity is Our Strength':
Could Der_Oger please explain how the importation of 'disunifying' Muslim Diversity has made Germany so much STRONGER & more secure than Putin's Russia in terms of threatened invasion?
Your progressive gibberish means nothing.
Best
I totally agree that betrayal of Ho was a travesty that ledd to horrors and US defeat. The 'domino effect' mythology was idiotic. Likewise other over-reactions like Arbenz. And I am still pissed at Obama & Biden for not waging total war vs the Guatemalan etc upper castes for driving poor migrants right at us through oppression.
STill, again. E. Europe hates Russia and likes us. We are liked in most place, including now Vietnam. During WWII native populations fought for Britain & the US... though not for France or the Dutch. Which is kind of odd. Ince Dutch+Indonesian marriages produce the most beautiful creatures this planet ever saw.
Actually, while the Plantagenets did feature a lot of backstabbings, they are a rare example of a patriliear-named royal line that remained virile and dynamic and pretty smart for a really, really long time. Four centuries I reckon. This despite doing all the stupid things like marrying for dynastic land grabbing rather than brains and ability.
If anything L says would survive inspection he would be a man and put money on it. It is all drool...
...except that yes, non-Scandinavian European countries have had trouble 'digesting' immigrant propulations so they think of themselves a French or German culturally. In America, that digestion is generally rapid and it is the thing that matters! If the kids of immigrants grow up with OUR values and (yes, to this one) speaking America-ish, with all its implicit values, then I don't give a rats ass what color they are.
And the fact that YOU do, buggy-boy DOES make you a goddam racist.
I want to conquer the world via Hollywood, with those values. Because the world actually welcomes that. And lacking those values is one reason why confederates keep betraying the America that gave them everything. f%$$g ingrates.
Whether it's biodiversity or a diversified portfolio or cultural diversity, diversity is strength.
It's monoculture that is brittle and weak.
Come on, Celt, put your money where your mouth is:
What does a 'racist' LOOK LIKE? What race? What color? What nationality? What religion? What economic class? What political affiliation?
Is it more 'racist' to recognize race & racial differences or is it more 'racist' to refuse to acknowledge race & racial differences?
Either DEFINE YOUR TERMS or admit that you're a deceitful mealy-mouthed race-baiting liar.
Best
Locum:
Murder Rate Germany 0.823/100.000 (rank 43)
Murder Rate USA 5,763/100.000 (rank 140)
Murder Rate Russia 6,799/100.000 (rank 154)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
I want to conquer the world via Hollywood, with those values. Because the world actually welcomes that.
Hollywood is part of the problem. Consumer milking with repetitive, boring reanimation attempts of franchises that had their time, shying away from risking anything new. Copaganda and manufacture of consent of future wars against brown-skinned people. Superheros who know exactly one way to solve problems.
We see a cultural decline in every aspect of the entertainment industry, a corporate culture that suffocates innovation. And that is even before we look at the culture wars (Bannon started with Gamer Gate!).
Hollywood is still a giant, but one that oozes decay from every pore.
What does being a racist have to do with the racist's looks?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/hollywood-is-dying-before-our-eyes/
All legacy media -- from Hollywood to DW (Deutsche Welle) -- is in its final death throes for the very same reason, having fallen victim to their own 'stunning & brave' minority-based propaganda, as they belatedly discover that their deplorable AfP-voting majority represented a much bigger potential market share than that of their preferred & tiny rainbow target audience, with big nasty AI 'coming soon' to drive the final stake through their dead rainbow-colored hearts.
Like all centralized industry, Legacy Media will soon be as dead & gone as our fine host previously predicted many many years ago.
Best
Can you provide concrete examples of the real racial differences you speak of?
Good that you mention it. DW has, technically, the same function that Voice of America had. It is not "legacy media", it is a facet of soft power. Maybe we should invest more in it to limit and counter the influence of GOP state propaganda.
Oger while consumerism is pushed by media, are you freaking kidding me???? After all this time on this thread, you have never examined YOUR favorite movies for the exact propaganda that gave YOU YOUR values?
Suspicion of authority
rooting for the underdog
resentment of arrogant power
fairplay
the right of individuals to remake themselves independent of inheritance
and more suspicion of authority
Tolerance and moreSOA
Now, right now, name for us any other society that pushed those memes, ever. And if they are YOUR values, then try being honest and tell us where you got them.
Under L's racist jibber jabber is a truth... that liberals who emphasize screams of 'racism!" at average neighbors are doing far more harm than good. Are Fox viewers almost all ' racist' in some ways? Sure. Is this ICE monster mash of evil racist? You bet!
And we must be practical.
WATCH FOX!!! DAMMIT! Interracial couples everywhere and colored faces jibbering Murdoch talking ppoint, rousing viewers to go "But I love the good ones!"
Yes it is racist. And you do ZERO good screaming it in their faces. Especially when (as I keep pointing out) Murdoch and his pals don't give a crap about any of that. They mean to destroy what stands in their pway to power.
Us. LOOK AT LOCUM. He just wants to expel colors he dislikes. He wants to kill you and me.
PS. Pappenheimer posted a lagniappe after thje onward, last time. Check it and my answer ONLY if you think Gettysburg was a near-thing Lee might have won. No, not ever. He arrived there doomed.
I'd add two more:
realization of the crushing limitations of tribalism
realization of the brilliant wisdom to be found on distant shores
Yeah, my understanding of the battle is Lee issued an unclear order to General (Ewell)? to the effect that he should take the high ground "if convenient." Lee meant to indicate Ewell had tactical discretion, but he really wanted Ewell to take the high ground if at all possible.
That message is still taught today in military schools about how commanders need to give clear orders that have only one possible interpretation. My understanding is that not taking the high ground pretty much doomed Lee at Gettysburg.
Strategically, Lee thought he was in a do or die situation, which explains his disastrous attack order against Cemetery Ridge. I've read Lee could have avoided battle and taken Washington, which might have achieved his strategic goals.
Among other errors Lee made was detaching his cavalry under Jeb Stuart, Stuart's cavalry razed a lot of territory in the area, BUT lost contact with the main body. This mistake meant that Lee was making decisions without good intelligence.
I also read that Lee's message to Ewell shows the cost of losing General Stonewall Jackson, who knew Lee very well and could "read between the lines" of orders from him. Of course, Colonel Chamberlain's stand on Little Round Top is one of the greatest examples of the American "citizen soldier" in US history.
After all this time on this thread, you have never examined YOUR favorite movies for the exact propaganda that gave YOU YOUR values?
I didn't take Der Oger's assertion to be about historic Hollywood. Recent movies have trended as he describes them. I'm not as down on the Marvel films as he is, but that's just because I'm a fanboy. I don't expect everyone to like them. I am also sick of endless inferior sequels and re-makes. I mean, did we really need yet a third incarnation of Karate Kid? Or a version of The Longest Yard starring Adam Sandler?
Der_Oger: Your nation-specific murder statistics do not mean what you think they mean, as they are uncorrelated & non-causal. What do I mean by that?
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/rape-statistics-by-country
I can, for instance, show you similar 'non-causal' rape stats for the UK (109/100,000), Sweden (85.9/100,000) & Pakistan (2.2/100,000) that may lead you to a false conclusion about Brits & Swedes being more rapey than the Pakis unless you understand the common demographic factor here.
I intentionally did not mention rape, since there are strong cultural incentives not to bring them to the attention of the authorities, or what constitutes as a rape.
Murder, on the other hand, is seldomly affected by the shame of it's victims.
Also, side note: Our murder rate are half as high now as in the early nineties. You know, after the reunion and when millions of German-Russians came.
Dr Brin,
Yes, I fundamentally agree with you that racism exists, BUT constantly screaming about it is doing more harm than good.
However, I might quibble with your takes in the sense that I think some of the red-state conservatives have legitimate beefs with the culture. To wit, how has the "war against fact-using professions" come to be?
The fuel for this distrust has been an unfortunate number of times fact-using professions have exploited their superior knowledge to obtain unearned benefits by exploiting the trust others place in them. Abusing the public trust wears away at the legitimacy that fact-using professionals must possess to effectively do their jobs.
Take a small personal example.
I recently was referred to an orthopedist because I had sharp pain in my surgically reconstructed knee anytime i bent it more than 30 degrees or so for about 10 days.
When I finally get the consult, (about a month later), the Dr. comes into the room with my x-ray and says, "your knee is worn out, and you need a knee replacement."
This is wrong. You can't diagnose chronic arthritis in the knee by simply looking at an x-ray (and seeing "pain" on the report). You need to tallk to the patient. Mayo clinic, Cleveland clinic, harvard health, and multiple Youtube videos from orthopedists say this.
BTW, you should avoid knee replacement if at all possible. Replaced knees have functional limits. It's major surgery that involves hacking off the ends of the upper and lower leg bones, and inserting a metal/plastic artificial knee.
Good medical practice says you should attempt the less invasive (and expensive) solutions before considering knee replacement. Of course, the surgeon makes a lot of $$$ by replacing your knee, and not so much by referring the patient to a physical therapist.
So, this defective piece of garbage was trying to get me to replace a knee that is still giving me better function than an artificial knee would because it would make him money. He compounds his unethical behavior by attempting to "persuade" me to get the replacement, not realizing I've forgotten more about persuasion techniques than he will ever know.
Experiences like this wear away at trust for fact-using professionals.
I think you're right about small town people resenting their best and brightest becoming transformed dopplegangers by higher-ed. While the STEM education is largely sound, the humanities have become lobotomized by critical race theory, which is based on questionable scholarship.
Critical race theory is, in many ways, fake scholarship in that the creators of this theory were not true academics. They may have held (and still hold) academic chairs but, at heart, they remain political activists willing to compromise accuracy to achieve political ends. In the case of Critical Race Theory, the desired end is reparations for slavery and race-based affirmative action to remake society (using racist tactics to favor formerly disadvantaged groups).
Critical Race Theory has logical fallacies embedded in its core presumptions, which means it's unsound scholarship. I liken it to Eugenics, an intellectually defective social theory popular in the 1st half of the 20th century and widely taught in elite universities. CRT has introduced a lot of unsound analytical practices that have become pervasive throughout the humanities (such as relying on narratives about "lived experience" without supporting objective evidence, based on the idea that the available objective data is tainted by racism).
Thus, the university elites often condescend to small-town folk for failing to conform to garbage scholarship.
Larry quite nails part of what I want to say. To get a better impression: Look at the highest grossing films in the last five years. You will find mostly just sequels and re-runs of earlier stuff. Producers/Studios bank on name recognition, rather than daring new stuff and take risks.
The other thing I noticed in the game industries that Triple-A-Companies produce more and more half-baked games with dumbed down mechanics and pathways. (And for my taste, that already started years ago, with quest markers on maps in games in which exploration is the fun ... ). Small and indie companies still can produce stuff that can be surprisingly good ... because it is designed by dedicated and skilled designers, not corp execs looking for a fast release.
JV sorry. you are right that there are ways liberal fact folks contributed to MAGA hatred toward them. But your examples are silly.
1. Orthopedists are THE greatest success in modern medicine after cancer reduction. Knees aren't as good as shoulders and hips, which are now like a car oil change! But still utter miracles. Might this guy have been below average or even money grubbing? Sure. Stoopid for profit insurance system. In Europe they ration by need. Still, your example proves nothing. ost MAGAs adore modern medicine and honestly (dumbly) think they can tease that out of their hatred of smart folks.
2. Yes, you have seen MY etiology of one source of the hate and it is NOT intellectuals acting snooty-superior. That happens, but 0.01% enough to justify such hate.
I've long pointed to the High Schools in Red America, where every year the pride and joy then kick off rural dust and scamper to universities and when they return - if ever - they are CHANGED. 100 YEARS OF THAT AND SURE, THERE'D BE RESENTMENT!
But I won't apologize for one bit of that.
As for CRT? Yes, absolutely. The US left has become an utter curse on American liberalism. Sanctimony junkies jerking off to symbolism incantations and jizzing in the faces of average folks, screaming at SPANISH SPEAKERS to eliminate language gender, howling at N. Pelosi and Schiff etc when they accomplished in 2021 far more than lefty flakes EVER did...
...and pragmatist leftists like AOC, Bernie, Liz, Stacey etc all know that. And CRT idiots gave fox its nightly "See? ALL liberals are like THAT!!!!" 5 minutes of Orwellian hate.
@Dr. Brin
Here's yet another example of how crazy the left has gotten:
“House Democrats told Axios they see a growing anger among their base that has, in some cases, morphed into a disregard for American institutions, political traditions and even the rule of law,” the article reveals.
These aren’t fringe outbursts or hollow threats; they’re coming straight from the heart of the Democratic base. The people fueling this rhetoric aren’t struggling or disenfranchised; they’re “economically secure, well-educated white voters in upscale neighborhoods,” according to the report. This isn’t the voice of the oppressed; it’s privilege masquerading as revolution. It’s a calculated descent into mob mentality, cloaked in moral pretense, where calls for violence are the latest means to virtue signal their radical left-wing bona fides. ( https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/07/07/democrat-voters-demand-blood-to-stop-trump-n4941499 )
Dude ... PJ Media is not a very reliable source. Its a highly right wing media property that has had numerous false claims.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PJ_Media lists many false claims that they've made over the last few years.
In this case, the Axios article it quotes as its only source basically has a few Democrat politicians complain that their constituents are asking them to object more to what Trump is doing. There's nothing talking about violence or mob mentality in the source, that's something that the PJ writer made up because it fit the narrative he wanted (that it was Democrats / left wingers who are destroying the rule of law, so anything that Trump does against them is justified).
@ c plus
That is the logical fallacy of Poisoning the Well. You won't accept the facts from Matt Margolis, will you accept them from Axios?
It's right there in the Axios article:
"What we're hearing: The grassroots wants more. "Some of them have suggested ... what we really need to do is be willing to get shot" when visiting ICE facilities or federal agencies, a third House Democrat told Axios.
"Our own base is telling us that what we're doing is not good enough ... [that] there needs to be blood to grab the attention of the press and the public," the lawmaker said.
A fourth House Democrat said constituents have told them "civility isn't working" and to prepare for "violence ... to fight to protect our democracy."
https://www.axios.com/2025/07/07/democrats-trump-resistance-violence-congress
Oh what a kettle attacking the pot. Liberal-moderate America CONTAINS some jibbering loonies. Today's gone-mad right utterly CONSISTS of entirely and vastly worse.
The sane 45% must ally themselves with another 10% sanctimony junkie twits to prevent 30% utterly insane, Kremlin-serving modernity and fact-haters - and their insipid 10% enablers -from literally and I mean literally killing us all.
@Dr. Brin
Sure, the insane left is tiny, but they sure are good at making noise and appearing much bigger than they really are.
"What we're hearing: The grassroots wants more. "Some of them have suggested ... what we really need to do is be willing to get shot" when visiting ICE facilities or federal agencies, a third House Democrat told Axios.
Be willing to get shot rather than let the bastards control the narrative. You consider that to be a call to violence by us?
Rendereth unto me a fucking break!
Dickens had the right of this:
Along the Paris streets, the death-carts rumble, hollow and harsh. Six
tumbrils carry the day’s wine to La Guillotine. All the devouring and
insatiate Monsters imagined since imagination could record itself, are
fused in the one realisation, Guillotine. And yet there is not in France,
with its rich variety of soil and climate, a blade, a leaf, a root, a sprig, a
peppercorn, which will grow to maturity under conditions more certain
than those that have produced this horror. Crush humanity out of shape
once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same
tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppression
over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind.
...
In other words, when you close off every civilized form of redress , then what do you expect to be the reaction? We go meekly to the concentration camps?
"When in the course of human events..."
Wow both Larry Hart and MCS were so on-target.
I'll use the Dickens.
And MCS (sane version) you are always welcome to state such truths here.
A fourth House Democrat said constituents have told them "civility isn't working" and to prepare for "violence ... to fight to protect our democracy."
It amazes me that two people can read the same words and hear such different stories.
Voters aren't telling Democratic lawmakers that "civility isn't working" to enact policy changes like abortion on demand or restrictions on guns. They're saying that civility isn't working to protect us from the lawless actions of Republicans and their armies of Brownshirts, and that we had better have a plan for standing our ground when we're directly up against violence.
Republicans: "Can't wait for the shooting war to start!"
Democrats: "We'd better arm ourselves and be ready to resist if necessary."
Republicans: "See! Democrats can't wait to kill us."
"News" media: "Civility is breaking down on both sides, as both Democrats and Republicans expect a civil war."
It might be time for Democrats to show more daylight between them and the (Formerly) GOP, they have a lot of ideological space available... and they'll still look conservative from the perspective of the E. U. .
Tim H please. Seriously? NAME AN ISSUE in which there's not a chasm as wide as the sun.
Or are you going to assert that Nancy Pelosi was NOT 1000 times as effective a reformist liberal as all the lefty sanctimony junkies, combined?
Before you answer... http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2019/08/five-devastating-rebuttals-to-use-with.html
I'd rather they didn't.
I want certain people peeled away from the GOP.
I'll happily glare at our Far Left and remind them that masked thugs deporting people must be dealt with BEFORE many of their priorities.
Dr. Brin,
We're really pretty much on the same page. Perhaps I misspoke. I don't think the MAGA disillusionment with fact-using professionals is justified per se, but I'm trying to get to the kernal of truth behind the mindset that explains how millions of people can buy into the viewpoint.
Understanding them is the first step toward persuading them.
Most of these people aren't nutjubs within their world, and are fundamentally rational people. It's just that the majority, who are likely smack in the middle of the bell curve, are simply out of their depth when trying to evaluate fact-using professionals.
However, intuitively, they vaguely feel they're being exploited.
When it comes to the health care system, they're right. They damn well are getting exploited by big pharma and oligarchs, and peices of garbage wearing white coats who call themselves doctors.
However, their rage can often lead them to blame the wrong targets, or to pin the primary blame on people who are less responsible than others for their plight---especially if politicians use what Paul Krugman calls "affinity politics" to identify with them.
The anecdote I shared was intended to demonstrate how people can become disillusioned by unfortunate encounters with professionals who don't live up to the ethical standards of their field. Often, everyday people will judge an entire field by the action of one person. Anyone with a STEM education should understand that one data point doesn't make a curve.
But, normal people don't think that way. Often they will make snap judgments about a field based on one data point, which can be VERY subject to variance. That's why the "lived experience" angle pushed by CRT professors is so toxic, it encourages snap judgments about entire groups of people based on single data points (at least when these fields get exported into the political arena and they become cultural talking points).
As for rural people seeing their kids come back and talk condescendingly to them about intellectual nonsense, well...i have some personal experience there.
Recently, the 23 yo daughter of one of my cousins returned from school in Hawaii (she earned a track scholarship to a small school there) and ended up lecturing me about gender theory.
Well, I have sympathy for her because she comes from a very red-state small town in Missouri and has a girlfriend. Her relationship is going over like a lead balloon with her parents and older relatives since the ones who aren't devout Catholics are Evangelical Christians.
Since I'm about 15 years older than her parents, well, I'm sure she's classing me with the generation who is hostile to her. Little did she know that I have two graduate degrees and was arguing that the state should recognize civil unions among gays based on a constitutional theory built around freedom of contract and the right to "pursue happiness."
It wasn't the equal protection argument that fuels Ogerfell, but I actually agree with Scalia that equal protection jurisprudence has a lot of shortcomings so I built my argument around constitutional doctrines that may not be "in play" but seem more analytically sound to me. I was arguing this in law school nearly a decade before she was born.
So I had the decidedly annoying experience of getting lectured by a kid using humanities theories I don't think much of. Aside from law, what she also didn't know is I had studied transgendered people in graduate school trying to explain their behavior in order to understand problems I saw with a biological field that I liked, but I realized would have difficulty accounting for the existence of transgenders (Sociobiology).
Consequently, I have my own opinions about the field, which differ rather sharply from current mainstream gender theory ideas. Indeed, I think the current "gender is a social construct" types, building on ideas from Judith Butler, who go into schools trying to indoctrinate kids with their ideology are doing a lot of inadvertant harm in their effort to win political battles.
I did not delve into CRT. But I think things like structural excluding -isms exist, to the detriment of institutions and society as a whole.
I think much of the debate against CRT is about silencing minorities that have suffered persecution, slavery and genocide, to protect them from "Bad Feelings"- which is a form of denial we often see with the Holocaust topic.
From what I gather, these topics are just covered superficially and distorted in schools in the US. But also see my rant in the last thread.
But ultimately, the question If "gender studies"are conducted correctly, under adherence to scientific standards, is a bit of useless when it comes to the rise of fascism and reminds me of the term "Degenerate Art" used by You-Know-Who-I-Mean.
Saying that people voted for fascism because of progressive* university professors is like saying it is her own fault she was raped, her skirt was too short. Or if he hadn't looked so gay, they wouldn't have roughed him up.
Just a step away from finding excuses and rationalizing why people must be put into camps, and maybe unalived.
*In the end, we have to acknowledge that large parts of the US not only don't care for or know much about for the constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of rights but also for Jesus and his teachings. Their goal is the year zero.
Here are three challenges to OGH in keeping with his excellent expansion of Asimov's "Foundation" universe;
1. Write a new version of Walter Miller's "Canticle for Leibowitz" set in a solar punk community (instead of a monetary) of an apocalyptic post-climate change world - maybe with a more upbeat ending.
As the Roman Empire and classical civilization collapsed and descended into chaos, isolated religious communities sprouted up all over Western Europe for those seeking to escape the fall and continue on with new ways of living, preserving past knowledge (libraries, apothecaries, hospitals, universities, etc.) while innovating new technologies (looms, waterwheels, steel plows, etc.) while not being motivated by greed. Out of these communities, Western Civilization would emerge. Maybe solarpunk communities are modern secular versions of these old monasteries?
2. An update of John Brunner's ecocide novel, "The Sheep Look Up", which oddly did not include global warming since it wasn't on anyone's radar back in the 70s - though the novel included hot temperatures and weird weather (like snow in Paris in August). Again, maybe with a more upbeat ending.
3. An alternate history novel ala Turtledove where Gore gets elected president where America avoids the Iraq invasion, prevents the 9/11 attacks and commits to green energy as early as the 90s. Definitively more upbeat than our timeline.
Cont.
Likewise, it is of no practical use to debate whether Mrs. Pelosi was St. Nancy of the Blue Graces or Nancy-Herodia, Supreme Temple Whore of the Church of Mammon-Pluto.
Because, if you look at my wording, she WAS - past term. Bygone glory or spilled milk, what ever you prefer.. She is of symbolic value only. She won't (likely) return, and should retire from Congress and the day to day intra-party
politics. The longer she stays, the more she is a symbol for a self-serving gerontocracy.
To be frank, at best, she and her policies are to be remembered fondly - because, in case you have missed it, Separation of Powers is dead, Congress and Supreme Court rubber stamping clubs for the Executive. It is all about raw power now. Democracy is at least on vacation for one-and-a-half years (and i am not even speaking about human rights, transparency and government accountability).
Nancy Pelosi does not matter any more. Her days, unfortunately, are over. Unfortunately, because her days were better days for you (and by extension, for the rest of the world).
What counts is power.
Raw, populist power.
Masses in the streets.
Continous Protest.
Civil Disobedience.
Harm Reduction.
Strikes.
Reaching out to other resistance groups.
Unifying and making compromises.
Bernie Sanders and AOC and Mamdani have understood this.
The faction of Dems (those currently working in Project 2029) feverishly trying to regain the grace of the oligarch caste do not.
They do not care about democrats genuflecting.
They fully knew what would happen, and even If they did not then, they do now.
To them, the message should be clear:
"After all American have you, you still hungered for more.
You betrayed America, you betrayed freedom and democracy, you betrayed humanity.
For this treason, you will pay, one way or another, here or abroad."
They must learn fear. They must become the ox again and accept the yoke, or be treated like one would deal with man-eating tigers, to quote Churchill.
Is Peter Thiels bunker deep enough to be safe against a GBU-57?
Der Oger:
In the end, we have to acknowledge that large parts of the US not only don't care for or know much about for the constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of rights but also for Jesus and his teachings. Their goal is the year zero.
That is so true, but probably needs saying out loud.
How many Christian nationalists who want to bring God back to the government say anything about posting the Beatitudes or the Sermon on the Mount in public schools or courthouses. It's always the fire-and-brimstone Old Testament they want.
When the Tea Party took over the House of Representatives in 2011, their first action was to read the Constitution aloud into the Congressional Record. It became obvious that they didn't know what was in the document ahead of time, probably expecting some sort of Libertarian manifesto.
And the Declaration of Independence would be an embarrassment to Trumpists, given how many of the charges against King George III directly apply to Von Schitzenpantz.
A feel-good story...
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2025/Items/Jul08-6.html
...
Dad also served as the company's mail clerk. Another of his close friends in the unit often received letters from his fiancée in Toledo, OH, who would sometimes write notes to my dad ("Hi Charlie" or similar) on her envelopes, knowing Dad was a good friend of her fiancé and saw all the incoming mail. Eventually one of her friends in Toledo saw one of these envelopes, asked who Charlie was, and, having been told that my dad was single, decided to write him a letter. They hit it off, became pen pals, and eventually met in person and got married. I suppose I owe my existence to a piece of mail in the Vietnam War for the unlikely introduction of an Ohio X-ray technician to an Army private from Georgia.
...
Awwww, cute.
Trying to peel off centrists is not how to win elections, arguments, or civil wars. It does not work, except to enrich pollsters, pundits, and entrenched power.
What works is getting people that are too harried, too ill-informed, or too lazy to vote and / or fight. Give a voter / foot soldier a chance at a better life and they will fight for it. Keep embracing policies and politicians that have failed to secure our collective future and they will not fight.
Mamdani, AOC, and Bernie all understand this. Nancy Pelosi understands it too, but does not want her party to move an inch to the left, as evidenced by her calling in all her chips from a hospital bed to deny AOC leadership at Oversight. Pelosi is great at counting votes, and knew that AOC in charge of Oversight would have empowered the progressive wing of the party in ways that threatened Centrist control.
The Democrats can win electorally by moving left. Or the Democrats will need to win a Civil War after trying again and failing to persuade centrists to change teams.
Which do you think is more likely?
The US citizenry is pissed. REALLY pissed. Used to be the GOP was the only group that was really angry. This is no longer true.
The choice is now between prison and rule of law for the GOP or a bloodbath that wipes out 50% of the US population.
Either ride the tiger or get eaten.
Embracing an appeal to the status quo in the form of wooing centrists is the path that leads to being eaten.
As a Left/Lib, I am definitively not in Rick Wilsons camp on general, normal politics, but I like his approach.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-p00MtEd4Y
Comparing crime across countries - and across decades - you HAVE to use homicide
For everything else the changing definitions mean a comparison is pointless
In the UK if I shake my stick at you that is assault
In the USA I have hit you and cause damage for it to be assault
For rape its one rape per victim in most countries in Sweden its one rape per incident
The "Centrists" hard line against "Left populism" is like oxygen to bothsiderists who have been depressing voter turnout for decades, and creates opportunities for NAZI-adjacent creatures. If they can navigate their way to getting working class folk onside without alienating donors, it'll be an accomplishment.
The term ‘racism’ entered US common usage in the 1930s as a response to Nazi Racism (their word for 'Race Science') and the term quickly became synonymous with Nazism, whiteness & white supremacy, even though the universal human tendency to associate within one’s own tribal group was more benignly described as ‘ethnocentrism’ before WW2, only to be given the even milder moniker of ‘In-Group Preference’ in the 1970s.
Many GOOD whites gave their lives to defeat the Nazi threat, but this is largely forgotten, as the word association between ’Whiteness’ and ‘Nazi Racism’ persists, so much so that ‘Nazis’ & ‘racism’ exist as euphemisms for WHITENESS to this very day, which is why the accusation of ‘Nazi’ springs so easily to the lips of most progressives & why objectionable People-of-Color are now pilloried by the media as the ‘Non-White Faces of White Supremacy’.
This ‘WHITE equals NAZI’ narrative was then reinforced by the two parallel Victimology Narratives of Marxism & the Underdog cult, both of which describe successful whites in terms of EVIL IMMORAL Colonizers, Victimizers & Oppressors, while defining minority non-white populations as the GOOD MORAL Victims of Oppression. This has led to the popular assumption that ALL whites are potential Nazis & ALL non-white minorities are harmless innocents. Bertrand Russell described this Underdog Belief as ’The Superior Virtue of the Oppressed’ fallacy.
The assumption that ‘ALL whites are potential Nazis’ amounts to a monstrous Blood Libel and whites (in general) have tired of this rhetorical ‘Blame Game’ as they unequivocally reject any & all responsibility for the criminal actions of any long-dead whites who may have been Monsters, Racists & Nazis because 'they were not us' and 'we are not them'.
The ‘Racism Narrative’ is then revealed as a massive SCAM designed to shame, blame & guilt western whites into acquiesence as insatiable minority opportunists scapegoat us for someone else's crimes & pick the meat from our very bones. So we are done.
With all our debts marked ‘paid in full’, we owe the world nothing beyond the common civility of tit-for-tat, which means an end to the White Man’s Burden, Pax Americana, Team America World Police, Dane Geld payments, Apologies and Reparations.
We therefore invoke our own ‘In-Group Preference’ as a natural human right and we leave the other human tribes to their own devices.
As Matthew says, the political centrists are dead because rancorous extremists like Matthew murdered them. That Marxists like Matthew murdered of over 100 MILLION people in the 20th Century alone, God forbid that anyone chooses to hold Matthew directly responsible, legally answerable and criminally 'liable' for the acts of his political ancestors.
But, then again, turnabout is fair play.
Best
________________
@Celt: Whether you choose to define ‘race’, ‘racist’ & ‘racism’ as reality, social construct or a floor wax, it makes no difference because we no longer care.
@Duncan_C: Homicide is defined as "unlawful killings" and, as law differs on a country by country basis, so these rates (like rape & assault) are not comparable.
This Superman donnybrook is making me think that Hollywood is still a central player.
I've mentioned before that the DC superhero movies (with the exception of the first Wonder Woman one) don't do anything for me, and I wasn't planning to bother seeing the new Superman one, but now I might just to see what the fuss is all about.
Going back to me (as I usually do) I did some browsing on Gunn (my Scottish clan). Lots of fun stuff, from James Gunn & his four brothers, to James E. Gunn an SF writer and Asimov expert, to John Gunn of the Scottish Enlightenment. John Gunn did a lot of work in music history & theory, which is adjacent to my own fascination with the concept of syntonicity - a pillar of computational psychohistory. MAGAns may have picked a fight with the wrong family.
Well, Duncain, not quite.
You're not a US lawyer, or even a native born US citizen, so I can see the lack of clarity.
US common law DOES adhere to the traditional English common law definition of assault.
Assault is indeed inducing a REASONABLE belief on part of the victim that they will be subject to
1) harmful or offensive
2) contact
The distinction you draw as "assault" is the fact pattern you need for "assault AND battery."
It is true in the US, criminal assault or even a tort assault case is largely toothless. A US prosecutor isn't going to be real anxious to bring a criminal assault case that doesn't also include battery. A US jury isn't likely to give a significant award in tort for "assault" without "battery."
This legal exegesis is coming from a US lawyer who took a summer law course at Oxford (St. Edmunds Hall). I was taught English Legal History by the then chancellor of Oxford University and studied Prof. Peter Birks' rather novel theory of Restitution.
Very useful. Thank you.
I was taught the 'common sense' belief that getting in someones face and screaming at them was a form of assault. Hitting them was battery. Convincing a jury that I should be compensated for assault is tricky in 'thick skin' communities, but might work to help explain a reasonable fear of soon-to-be-battered and my self defense. 8)
Never had to try my boy scout theories with a jury, though.
Celt: “global warming since it wasn't on anyone's radar back in the 70s “
See Soylent Green. Gore would have been a one term president. But yeah, he’d’a got much done and the GOP mighta turned to its sapient wing, instead of Bushism and then Trumpism
Der Oger, while your growl has tasty rage, its ignoring of the MAJORITY of americans now disgusted with Trump is kind of sad.
“Saying that people voted for fascism because of progressive* university professors is like saying it is her own fault she was raped, her skirt was too short.”
Well, yes. That’s 90% true… and it is a copout to evade facing the fact that CRT – as an outgrowth of postmodernism and the entire mountain of smarmy sanctimony BS shifted from liberation to vicious guilt-tripping an justification for university ‘professorships’ for sanctimony preachers whose desperate need was to deny the existence of progress or that it would be impossible without destroying western civilization….
…which – it seems – they have successfully accomplished by savagely biting the hand that fed them and giving ammo to Fox every single night.
CR – with its fellow fanaticisms – differed from MAGA in important ways. 1) It was never a large number of blowhard idiots. 2) It was not (much) promulgated by foreign enemies, and 3) it AIMED IS ROUGHLY THE RIGHT DIRECTIONS. Claiming to desire a future where race and such plummet in importance. Ironically, by claiming that nothing had been accomplished in that direction, they proclaimed it to be impossible.
It was immensely counterproductive in the long run.
“Trying to peel off centrists is not how to win elections, arguments, or civil wars. It does not work, except to enrich pollsters, pundits, and entrenched power.”
Former present and future fool. By all means screech for support from those who already support you and drive away those on the fence. Loon. Dig it. We need the House & Senate. Pick ups from red districts have all happened because a decent, reasonable and sane Democrat held meeting and listened to wavering republicans. Dope.
Of course, Russia's homocide statistics do not include people being suicided by the state, and might even be modified further, so we can assume that their "unlawful killings rate" would be much higher if the same standards applied. Likewise, "lawful" killings in the US might be ruled being not so else where.
At best, however, all those differences are will only have an effect after the comma. Autocratic and draconic societies aren't safer than liberal democracies, as the resident wanna-be Mengele tried to imply.
Choke'em Ranch is doing a good job of demonstrating something I brought up earlier. DARVO, which means Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim with Offender. This is a basic strategy used by abusers everywhere to avoid accountability, be they rapists, child abusers, cost-cutting homicidal CEOs, politicians, or conservatives. With most of America's fascists, their approach is pretty unsophisticated, amounting to no more than the old third-grade "I know you are, but what am I?"
The most obvious thing is that he is still pretending that everyone who isn't in his camp is a "Marxist." This is the very definition of fascist. If you have read "Mein Kampf" you know that Hitler constantly referred to the Jews as Marxists, which was pretty ironic, given that so many were in Germany running away from Stalin's purges. Like many people in his time, Hitler claimed that the Jews were in league with the Soviets to conquer Europe and end Christianity. Hitler also ranted about how "lazy" they were, a tactic Reagan leaned on heavily to get elected, leaving America a legacy of unthinking fools who don't know any facts but assume that half the country is leeching off the other half, even when the unemployment rate is only around 4%. Thirty years after the Cold War ended and he still thinks it's the McCarthy Era, and there are commies hiding under his bed.
Talkin’ John Bircher Paranoid Blues
Bob Dylan
Lyrics
This is called "Talkin' John Birch paranoid blues"
I was feeling kinda a little down, blue
I didn't know what I was going to do
The communists was a-comin' around, they was in the air, they was on the ground
They was fallin' me all over
I run down most hurriedly
And joined the John Birch society
Got me a secret membership card, started walking home, found the road, yoo-hoo
I'm a real John Bircher now, look out
Now we all agree with Hitler's views
Although he killed six million Jews
It don't matter too much that he was a Fascist
At least you can't say he was a Communist!
That's to say like if you got a cold, take a shot of malaria
I was lookin' everywhere for them gol-darned Reds
I got up in the mornin' 'n' looked under my bed
Looked behind the kitchen, behind the door
Looked in the glove compartment of my car
Couldn't find any
Looked behind the sink, behind the chair
I was lookin' for them Reds everywhere
I looked way up my chimney hole
Looked deep down inside my toilet bowl
They got away...
I was sittin' home alone an' started to sweat
I figured they was in my T.V. set
I peeked behind the picture frame
Got a shock from my feet, hit me right up in the brain
Them Reds did it!
Them hard-core ones
Well, I quit my job so I could work all alone
Then I changed my name to Sherlock Holmes
Followin' some clues from my detective bag
Discovered there was red stripes on the American flag!
Old Betty Ross...
Now Eisenhower, he's a Russian spy
Lincoln, Jefferson and that Roosevelt guy
To my knowledge there's just one man that's really a true American
George Lincoln Rockwell
I know for a fact he hates Commies 'cause he picketed the movie "Exodus"
Well, I finally started thinkin' straight
When I ran outta things to investigate
I couldn't imagine anything else
So now I'm at home investigatin' myself
Hope I don't find out anything... good God!
My son is taking an ethics class this summer, and he's finding it quite intriguing. He showed me this video which was recommended on his syllabus, and I thought that some people here would find it interesting. The subject is the relationship between science and morality, and it makes some assertions that will probably surprise some people.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hj9oB4zpHww
As I said, I am not into CRT. If I'd look into it, I'd look after the studies, quality of them, and their findings.There are better-equipped persons than me to look into the scientific base and validity.
And I think defeating faschism in the US would demand more. I often see it more as to it as a cultural characteristic than a political fad.
It won't be gone when Trump leaves office (and I could imagine that, through the constant chaos he produces, he might unvoluntarily prove helpful to the resistance).
Instead, I see multiple battlefronts that all must be addressed at once.
Unser Oger,
It is absolutely a cultural issue. It always is. There have to be people who buy the bullshit. There always are in any population, but America has a particular combination of memes that are not mixing well. America is far more religious than the rest of the West, and the religion is Abrahamic, meaning it's all about mindless obedience and conformity. But the country was formed in the crucible of the Enlightenment, which is all about choice and freedom. That's why conservatives can bitch about their "rights" out of one side of their mouths and do everything in their power to take away the rights of anyone who doesn't mindlessly conform. And that's exactly why those DARVO tactics work so well for conservatives. They can switch modes at their convenience and give the appearance of not contradicting their own values.
Paul SB
Ahh! Thank you. Like, alchemical catalysts brought together in a recipe no one thought it would work. That brings me a bit closer to understanding.
America is far more religious than the rest of the West
I wonder exactly when that changed. Because historically, European national identity used to be intimately tied up in religion, and 19th/first half 20th century America seemed to be more science-oriented, at least where industry was concerned.
Both continents have indeed swung far in their opposite direction, but I don't have a good sense of when or why that happened.
That's why conservatives can bitch about their "rights" out of one side of their mouths and do everything in their power to take away the rights of anyone who doesn't mindlessly conform.
Conservatives tend to represent the powerful, but the powerful often regard keeping hold of their power (over others) to be part of their identity. So when liberals push for equality and justice, conservatives frame that as us trying to discriminate against their identity group by attacking their culture.
That’s the nature of conservatism. It e, at its base, an irrational fear of any and all change. They cling to ideas that are centuries old of date, even millennia out of date. How many times have you heard God and/or Jesus proclaimed to be “The Lord”? Lord, king, monarch, dictator warlord, strongman’s, Duce, Fuhrer. Those’d are our traditions, along with with every sort of bigotry you can name. But since the Founders were wild radicals of their times, whenever they didn’t get their way they can access memes about rights and freedom to whine about, and Reverse the rolls of Victims and Offenders
This is exactly how you can get sacks like Choke’em Ranch claiming that the Libs are saying that all white people are Nazis, ignoring the obvious fact that most libs are white people. To normal people the stupidity is clear SS day. To witless conservatives it’s an applause line. After all, their “Lord” tells them that they are right about everything, and anyone who disagrees is not only wrong but stupid, evil, and deserve to burn to hell forever and ever and ever. So there! Nyah Nyah Nyah!
And in yet another irony he’s either too ignorant to realize or too dishonest to care, he channels the B eugenics of Madison Grant, whose book Hitler loved so much he called it his Bible and made me translation required reading in all German schools and universities
Both continents have indeed swung far in their opposite direction, but I don't have a good sense of when or why that happened.
It is hard to pin down, but I would consider the following:
1) It started with the French revolution, Napoleon, the laizistic state (France and for a brief time a lot of continenal Europe), and the secularization of church feudal domains, effectively laying the groundwork of them being not only churches in the classic sense, but state-sponsored corporations heavily invested in the welfare sector. They still operate a lot of schools, hospitals, care homes and various other institutions.
2) Upon reflecting on the differences between US and EU churches, I would mention that they (especially the Catholic Church) always were an alternative to the state to gather behind, making them effectively an opposition against the government. The more liberal our states grew, the less important their role as an aggregator against tyranny became.
For example, we have
-Bismarck vs. the Catholics
-Hitler vs. von Galen & the Jesuits (while they did not dare to touch the former, the latter were persecuted, imprisoned and murdered alongside the Kreisau Circle and 20th of July conspirators)
- The (mostly protestant) Church in East Germany acting as a congregator for dissidents and civil rights activists
- The Jaruselski Regime in Poland vs. the Catholic Church & Pope John Paul II (though they nowadays have allied with the far right PiS party)
- Chancellor Helmut Schmidt vs. the Peace Movement of the seventies and eighties (which culminated in the formation of the Greens)
-This year, Pre-Election, AfD/CDU/CSU and FDP vs. the main Churches in the Refugee debate (they got very nervous)
3) Wealth is also a factor. "Misery Teaches Praying", a proverb says here. After the war, the only institutions still standing were the Churches, so people went to them for comfort and societal structure. That became less and less important the more the war and post-war generations died out. It started in the eighties.
4) I would not say that the churches, nowadays, are anti-science per se. Or ever were. Though they burned Giordano Bruno, he was a Dominican. They founded universities and kept knowledge of the Romans and Greeks alive in their cloisters.
5) Migration. Especially from Muslim countries. But also German Russians. In my area, a lot of mayors found it a good idea to invite the repatriates from the UdSSR to their communities (almost 50% are of Russian-German origin in these areas to day), bringing in protestant and orthodox newcomers and a lot of federal money. It was a success for them, politically and economically, but it broke the stranglehold of the community. That was the early nineties.
6) The late sixties with it's student revolts, hippies, sexual revolutions and rejection of the bourgeois, morally rigid, and in some cases hypocritical and monstrous past (not all Nazis were hanged, ya know).
7) Though I can't find it, I remember an article that the GOP and the churches of America became one symbiotic being over the last thirty or so years. Maybe it was not that our churches changed so much, maybe it was those small cults let by charismatic preachers that grew out of proportions.
That said, I notice then and now people popping up in the streets over here which I would identify as evangelical missionaries. They learn and adapt - they first started with megaphones and brimstone speeches (which was ... weird and not even allowed in some cases), now their ... advertisement starts with "love". Look deeper, and you will find MAGA.
What do you think we should do about them?
Sorry, I forgot the part about Libs eating babies. I have some good recipes if anyone is interested. They’re all vegan baby recipes, though.
Beast
ADD: At point 5: broke the stranglehold of the Catholic church.
@Der Oger,
Thanks as always for in-depth analysis from the European POV.
I was thinking of something more basic. That France and Spain were Catholic. England was Protestant. Ireland was most definitely Catholic. These seemed to be an essential part of each national identity. That's why it was so mind-blowing when Ireland of all places became more abortion-friendly than the US.
Despite the majority always being some form of Christian, the US never had a specific religion associated with our identity. It used to be shocking for a Lutheran to marry a Methodist, for example, but not because one was "American" and the other wasn't.
" he is still pretending that everyone who isn't in his camp is a "Marxist."
Among all the idiocies, that is among the most hilarious. THE central anti-communist force in American life since 1947 (and before) was the US Labor Movement and no one so destroyed all Marxian scenarios as much as the Greatest Generation and their hero FDR...
... and Marx had no greater friend - in MANY ways other than support for "ex' commie Putin -- than today's Republican Party, who are reviving the Marxian scenarios that FDR killed.
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Paul, the schism is not faith per se. Many libs have spirituality. as it is regimentation plus THE core thread... romantic nostalgic antti-modernity. Deep hatred no just of fact people, but the neo-western/liberal theme of an improving future.
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This is exactly how you can get sacks like Choke’em Ranch claiming that the Libs are saying that all white people are Nazis, ignoring the obvious fact that most libs are white people. To normal people the stupidity is clear (and) Sorry, I forgot the part about Libs eating babies.
In an attempt to justify the current Blood Libel against all non-liberal whites, Paul_SB (who conveniently 'forgets' that the Original Blood Libel held Modern Jewry personally, collectively & criminally responsible for ancestral allegations of 'eating babies' and 'Christ murder') uses typical liberal memory loss in order to allege that modern 'non-liberal' whites have also inherited personal, collective & criminal liability for the actions of long-dead Nazis, Slave Owners and other historical look-a-likes.
If this is truly his position, then Paul_SB is one of the most irredeemably EVIL & IMMORAL people with whom I have ever exchanged words and, if one is willing to accept the validity of this his most evil argument, then one also justifies the execution of Paul_SB's descendants unto the 10th generation.
Because the Way Forward that touchy-feely Paul & most progressives appear to be following leads only to a future of Daleks, Blood Feud & War Everlasting.
But, then again, that is the historical legacy of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot & the mostly Marxist ancestors of the left-leaning progressive.
Best
jibber jibber. Showing no curiosity at all when we mention alien concepts like zero-sum or 3 dimensions or compassion or The Future as a destination .... and blatantly a servant of "ex' commissars openly conniving for a rebuilt USSR to conquer... the one grace accessible to fellows like him... or that they claim... is to be the Real Men.
Alas, the cowards do not remotely stand up the way men have done for millennia, backing up blowhard assertions with consequences. Such as (but not exclusively) stepping up with escrowed wager stakes.
And THAT is the most despicable trait. He knows his yammers are mostly masturbation incantations - sometimes exaggerating slivers of fact but mostly simply lies. And the craven weenie will not step up like a man to let facts adjudicate. Nor will any of his fellow pretend men.
And THAT - above all else - is why they will lose.
You have to click the link to see the image, but she's right about DJT's ear not being scratched
https://bsky.app/profile/rmayemsinger.bsky.social/post/3ltiffnx4ms2f
Three things you can say about a man who appears in public looking like this:
1. Nobody loves him. Not a soul.
2. He's not of sound mind.
3. That ear was never even scratched.
If you click on the image, you can see a close-up
That Choke ‘em Ranch is hysterical. He actually came out and said that anyone who wants to do good is evil, so having everyone do evil is good. And he did this right after I explained DARVO. He’s been going down the same track for so long he’s trapped in his own ruts and completely blind to it. What a maroon!
Grok this - the opposite of good: https://www.yahoo.com/news/grok-antisemitic-rant-shows-generative-210917394.html
Listening to Vint Cerf and Yosuke Kaneko talk about the Solar System Internet takes me back to the heady first days of HDLC in the early 1980s. I (a geeky programmer) often got laughed at (deservedly so, by top-notch engineers) for mentioning Le Guin's 'Ansible' or Star Trek's 'subspace'.
https://www.youtube.com/live/mlDYBI7wEiU
https://contrarian.substack.com/p/what-linkedin-told-me-this-weekend
A few key points:
(A) large number of internships with alphabet-soup agencies are being cancelled (author doesn't say why, but presumption would be they are deemed politically unreliable to the new regime, either due to an actual political assessment, or their background)
(B) Republicans in Congress are pushing through a "Intelligence Community Efficiency and Effectiveness Act " that seems to be designed for 'replacing checks and independence with a structure more vulnerable to political influence'
(C) Many men of honor are resigning rather than compromise that honor - which, on a personal level is admirable, but at an organizational level implies that those who are left will include fewer men of honor, and more functionaries who will happily force out remaining patriots.
(D) Others are starting to signal "quiet resistance".
Republicans in Congress are pushing through a "Intelligence Community Efficiency and Effectiveness Act " that seems to be designed for 'replacing checks and independence with a structure more vulnerable to political influence'
I didn't see mention in the article about how or whether this kind of thing could get past a Democratic filibuster.
In the past, incoming Democratic presidents like Obama and Biden did not eliminate all employees hired under previous administrations. That will have to change with the next Democrat. He's going to have to purge the Trump appointees on Day 1, especially those hired under an expanded Schedule F. Sauce for the goose.
And if the supreme court suddenly turns around and declares a Democratic president to have less authority and immunity than DJT had--ignore them. Heck, send them to El Salvador if necessary. Or The Hague.
Except for the issuance of racist & sexist ad hominems, I have yet to see a single 'fact-based' repudiation of my reasoned argument.
Your politically incorrect responses are tiresome & boring, as you deny my "real man" status for not mistaking monetary wagers for facts, accuse me of being "hysterical"' (aka being subject to a neurotic condition peculiar to women and once thought to be caused by uterine dysfunction') and call me a "maroon" (aka 'an escaped negro slave of African descent').
It's common knowledge that western media routinely portrays white straight men as villains, buffoons & bigots:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/tv-baddies-always-weirdwhite-men/
https://www.newsweek.com/joyce-carol-oates-only-straight-white-males-villains-movies-1753540
That the term 'White' is such a commonly used synonym for both 'Racist' and 'Nazi', it's also common knowledge that western media routinely uses the term WHITE SUPREMACIST against people-of-color like Larry Elder, Enrique Tarrio, Nick Fuentes (a Mexican leader of 'America First') and Joey Gibson in order to denounce their RACISM.
Since absolutely no one here has attempt to dispute my argumentation with even a single actual FACT, I must therefore assume that the term 'fact-user' is an overt falsehood.
Best
You whine locum. And whine and whine. We have facts and you have jibber jabbers and here's the deal, oh not-a-man. I will put my facts before any trustworthy neutral panel. And you will always, always weenie excuses not to.
I have offered RANDOMLY CHOSEN panels of not-overtly-political retired senior military officers. The most primly fact-oriented humans our species ever produced. ANd first stage would be them insisting that the wager issues be primly parsed and provable or falsifiable.*
But I will not gather such a panel unless the OUTCOME will be worth my effort and I can offer them 50% of escrowed stakes, whatever the outcome.
THAT is how a man would move forward. All you - as a craven-lying weenie - can do is wail "No YOU don't have facts, I do!!!!!!"
No you don't, cultist. You are a yammerer coward.
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* I have offered dozens.
"Since absolutely no one here has attempt to dispute my argumentation with even a single actual FACT..."
HAR! Masturbate-away, weenie.
Again... Here's my standard (paste-in) wager demand. "Have your atty verify $10k escrowed stakes. We'll put evidence to a RANDOM panel of retired Sr military officers. (Most former Republicans.) Pool with fellow MAGAs. Take MY $$!
*Grand juries across USA (mostly white retirees in red-run states) indicted ~100X as many top Repubs as Dems! ~80x convictions!Your cult is a criminal gang. Bets?
*Fact-check any RANDOM 10 of Trump's >>150,000 registered lies. Or evidence of ANY election 'steal.' Or name 1 fact-profession NOT hated-on by Fox?
* Tally NDAs & hush payments! Which party wants to BAN them?
*Come to sea with me and a Ph meter! Bet whether CO2-caused acid is killing the oceans.
*Check Fox 'scientists are sheep!' rants. Let's knock on 20 RANDOM labs at a research university!
*Compare DEATH rates of those who refused vaccines!
*Bet which party is ALWAYS more fiscally responsible? Compare economic outcomes!
*Or if Red-States (except Utah) average higher on EVERY turpitude from gambling, STDs, teen sex to domestic violence, crime...
*Which party's pols have 3x as many WIVES?
No MAGA/Putinist ever shows manly guts to back up their blab, as grampa would've. Blowhards flee the ruins of their macho.
onward
onward
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