Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

Yeah, what about making sure that Minnesotans are well represented, Sebastian? Oh that's right, you don't give a fuck about Minnesotans or about making sure qualified politicians are in office. You just care about yourself and proportionality of offense and punishment. Selfish fuck.

Quick question, did you vote for Jesse Ventura, or the simple fuck too simple to beat him?

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Quick question, did you vote for Jesse Ventura, or the simple fuck too simple to beat him?

It was a three way race between Norm "I wanna be governor so bad I'm going to switch parties so I won't have any primary competition" Coleman and Skip "did you see my last name?" Humphrey. I voted for Humphrey, although I backed a different Dem in the primary.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I think we really need to talk up Anita Hill for Supreme Court. Making Clarence face her every. single. day. would be well deserved.

Obviously, little memo to next Prez.

Doesn't sound fun for her.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

What is the opposite of "diplomacy"? And what do these clowns think they are doing? Oh, wait:

A senior western diplomat, described it as “poor tactics” at the United Nations “but pretty good for Haley 2020 or Haley 2024”, referring to speculation that Haley might run for higher office.

“She’s not going to win any votes in the general assembly or the security council, but she is going to win some votes in the US population,” the western diplomat said.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Interesting discussions of the contradictions in Trump's national-security speech and policy.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Can't recall if I posted this when it first came out, but since I'm K-racing myself to the holiday:

The most significant development in the past 30 years of liberal self-conception was the replacement of politics understood as an ideological conflict with politics understood as a struggle against idiots unwilling to recognize liberalism’s monopoly on empirical reason. The trouble with liberalism’s enemies was no longer that they were evil, although they might be that too. The problem, reinforced by Daily Kos essays in your Facebook feed and retweeted Daily Show clips, was that liberalism’s enemies were factually wrong about the world. Just take a look at this chart …

* * * * *

I am not qualified to make, nor do I want to make, any claims about the psychological character of any particular American liberal. And I am not at all convinced that Freudian psychoanalysis constitutes the most useful way to do so, in any case. But the superego as a metaphor for the collective operation of the liberal world order throws a great deal of much-needed light on what we are observing in the wake of the 2016 election. When history is meant to be over and a single political faction begins to conceive of itself as the permanent manager of a static world, then that faction ceases to be political in the ordinary sense. Politics, in its classic incarnation, is the art of deriving an is from an ought; the point, as Marx famously said, is not to describe the world but to change it. But if the world is as it ought to be already and the essential task is to maintain it — that is, to police the circumscribed boundaries of permissible behavior and ideas — then those tasked with that maintenance must conceive of themselves as acting above politics itself. They become a superego, beyond the libidinal whims of any faction and dedicated not to some alternative vision of the world but to resisting all impulse toward alternatives. Possibility goes in, correction comes out. The End of History suggests a perfectly healthy mind; thus, any attempt to alter this situation is dangerous. But the trouble with superegos is that, once they have taken on this role, they cannot cease to perform it. When the id can be kept in control, all is well. But when it can’t, then the result is not the superego’s surrender — it is repetitious, manic dysfunction. It becomes the blathering superego at the end of history.

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/...d-of-history/#!

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Can't recall if I posted this when it first came out, but since I'm K-racing myself to the holiday:



https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/...d-of-history/#!

I think you did.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Can't recall if I posted this when it first came out, but since I'm K-racing myself to the holiday:

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/...d-of-history/#!

There's one more void left at the end of that (which was great, btw): Liberalism's failure, or refusal, to play the nihilst's game.

A logical extension of that piece is:

Has the GOP's scorched earth tactics, culminating in Trump, led to a point where power is the only rule?

That's always been the case, but liberals tend to think govt stands in opposition to power, or somehow levels the playing field. It looks to me, if one examines yesterday's tax bill alone, that power will do as it likes, and can only be blunted with competing power. There are no more appeals to logic, to decency, or to reason. There are games to be played to acquire power, upon the acquisition of which, your party may govern for the betterment of all. ...Or just govern for its own interests.

I'm not sure the Democratic Party can ever play in the mud, as the GOP and Trump seem willing to do, while retaining its soul. Once you accept the notion its all a game of power, the rules become mere risk calculations. You slide into pure rationalizing, where there are few good arguments against acting entirely in self interest.

That author offers great insight. Nobody is going to finger wag, insult, or shame this country back from the precipice of Trumpistan.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

There's one more void left at the end of that (which was great, btw): Liberalism's failure, or refusal, to play the nihilst's game.

A logical extension of that piece is:

Has the GOP's scorched earth tactics, culminating in Trump, led to a point where power is the only rule?

That's always been the case, but liberals tend to think govt stands in opposition to power, or somehow levels the playing field. It looks to me, if one examines yesterday's tax bill alone, that power will do as it likes, and can only be blunted with competing power. There are no more appeals to logic, to decency, or to reason. There are games to be played to acquire power, upon the acquisition of which, your party may govern for the betterment of all. ...Or just govern for its own interests.

I'm not sure the Democratic Party can ever play in the mud, as the GOP and Trump seem willing to do, while retaining its soul. Once you accept the notion its all a game of power, the rules become mere risk calculations. You slide into pure rationalizing, where there are few good arguments against acting entirely in self interest.

That author offers great insight. Nobody is going to finger wag, insult, or shame this country back from the precipice of Trumpistan.

For Dems, the Obama years are our Wiemar. Hopefully we will remember the Trump years as England remembers WWII. And when it is done, people will not want the mud, and we will remember the years of mud with horror.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

For Dems, the Obama years are our Wiemar. Hopefully we will remember the Trump years as England remembers WWII. And when it is done, people will not want the mud, and we will remember the years of mud with horror.

England remembers WW2 as Churchill dealing with the shit storm Chamberlain grew. They love the effort and victory. You should really start running these posts past someone.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

England remembers WW2 as Churchill dealing with the shit storm Chamberlain grew. They love the effort and victory. You should really start running these posts past someone.

I see some analogues, but who's playing the modern day Hitler? Taking out Kim Jong Un would be Churchill invading Liechtenstein.

ETA: Churchill's corpse just turned in its casket. Revere him or think him overrated, he had a brilliant drunken wit. Comparing him to our current word salad artist in chief is the highest form of disrespect.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

England remembers WW2 as Churchill dealing with the shit storm Chamberlain grew. They love the effort and victory. You should really start running these posts past someone.

I don't that's entirely accurate (as a question of how England recalls the war) or fair to Neville Chamberlain. It's not like Chamberlain created Hitler, or the UK was ready to go to war to stop the Anschluss or save Czechoslovakia.

Chamberlain has more complicated legacy. I recommend a book called Five Days In London, by John Lukacs, who grew up in pre-war Budapest and just passed away outside Philadelphia. It's about the crucial period in May 1940 when there was serious support in the British government, from Lord Halifax and many others, for negotiating to end the war, which would have left Germany in command of Western and Central Europe. Churchill was the prime minister, but he wasn't a king, and he needed support. Churchill's key support in the War Cabinet was Chamberlain.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

For Dems, the Obama years are our Wiemar. Hopefully we will remember the Trump years as England remembers WWII. And when it is done, people will not want the mud, and we will remember the years of mud with horror.

The Weimar thing's a bit Freudian, economically speaking.

You're right. People do not want the mud. They want solutions to complex problems which our politicians cannot provide, and which moneyed interests that own our politicians do not want them to attempt to provide.

I've read that tax bill's highlights a dozen times now. I'm still struggling to wrap my head around the pass through stuff, but one thing is absolutely certain. That bill was written to provide a very select group of people (in terms of geography, industry, and income) with tools by which to legally game the code for windfalls. It's not blunt redistribution upward in the traditional sense. It's much more sinister than that. These people have crafted a bill that benefits the affluent who are assumed to be Trump voters, or possible future Trump voters (passive r/e investors, developers, manufacturers, etc.), while excluding the more educated professional classes who were likely Hillary voters (docs, lawyers, accountants).

That guy you knew in high school who inherited his grandfather's and then dad's asphalt plant? He just got a break. The one who studied hard and became an orthopedic surgeon? Not so lucky.

I guess the defense of this is, the goods and manufacturing sectors need a hand, while the service industries do not? As pretexts go, that's weak sauce. Worldwide, the economy is shifting toward services. You can't fight that with the tax code. And Trump's people know that. This leaves one inescapable conclusion: the GOP just raided the Treasury on behalf of its friends, while punishing its enemies. The former's expected. The latter is a new low.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Churchill's key support in the War Cabinet was Chamberlain.

Kevin Spacey might lead sexual harassment training as part of his plea bargain. Doesn't mean he wasn't wrong in the first place.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

England remembers WW2 as Churchill dealing with the shit storm Chamberlain grew. They love the effort and victory. You should really start running these posts past someone.

Hank, just a thought, I don't want to go suggesting books like other folks, since, I mean, I know that's not your thing, but have you considered occasionally tuning in to the History Channel?