I have joined the ranks of Americans who take in the news a teaspoonful at a time these days. Thanks for this useful analysis. It would be more pertinent to have answers to questions about defense matters rather than adultery, certainly. Back in the day in DC the received wisdom was that Dems were skirt chasers and Repubs greedy - all awash in alcohol of course. But I never thought I we see such a truly awful bunch of people taking over the administration.
You were in the midst of it... "Dems were skirt chasers and Repubs greedy.." a pithy description... Now the Republicans are a cult, and the Dems are (not all...) wimpy.
Yes, rhetorically, they could have just, occasionally, slipped it in, but pounded on many other things. Heg is a partisan hack and a rather oafish guy. You can tell... maybe all those pushups and bourbon blew a gasket somewhere in his brain.
We're in for a tough time. What worries me seriously, though, is something that was often mentioned looking back at the STASI... had they had Internet, that ruinous government would still be in power. We cannot underestimate the incredible power of instantaneous communication.
PS: My little optimistic streak is this: Trump is lazy. He wants to golf and suck money out of his base.
Robert Reich and others have brought up the dangers of enabling some of these Proud Boy type brown shirts to live out their violent impulses with impunity. Imagine if control of “deportation camps” (not yet a reality, but soon?) were handed over to private contractors recruiting from the MAGA insurrectionists? BYOG Bring your own gun.
We'll see what happens, but "keeping ones powder dry" is good advice. Those who have read history are better prepared for this, and literature, which is full of archetypal visions of this situation (Sinclair Lewis, Ionesco, even Nikolai Gogol, or Brecht whom we discussed)... We have reasons to believe that this is, to use a broadband word, a spiritual disaster battle for democracy. But the American electorate is partly asleep and partly dumbed-down to a level that is unimaginable. Life for them has become Hollywoodized, where teachers are idiots who can't deal with reality and scientists are either old guys with bald heads who can't tie their shoelaces without the help of some "hero," half man, half steroids and with a big gun. Even on what's left of the "left," the anti-intellectualism is palpable, and it is why so many are in a panic. You have to understand how it happened and what is happening first.
Mais ça a toujours été comme ça.
In November 2020, I wrote a piece on Defeated Donald. I wouldn't change a word, except for the number of people who died due to the mismanagement of the pandemic... And it was before Jan 6 2021...
I'll post it on Substack later (I have to get to work now). Here it is:
I have joined the ranks of Americans who take in the news a teaspoonful at a time these days. Thanks for this useful analysis. It would be more pertinent to have answers to questions about defense matters rather than adultery, certainly. Back in the day in DC the received wisdom was that Dems were skirt chasers and Repubs greedy - all awash in alcohol of course. But I never thought I we see such a truly awful bunch of people taking over the administration.
You were in the midst of it... "Dems were skirt chasers and Repubs greedy.." a pithy description... Now the Republicans are a cult, and the Dems are (not all...) wimpy.
Yes, rhetorically, they could have just, occasionally, slipped it in, but pounded on many other things. Heg is a partisan hack and a rather oafish guy. You can tell... maybe all those pushups and bourbon blew a gasket somewhere in his brain.
We're in for a tough time. What worries me seriously, though, is something that was often mentioned looking back at the STASI... had they had Internet, that ruinous government would still be in power. We cannot underestimate the incredible power of instantaneous communication.
PS: My little optimistic streak is this: Trump is lazy. He wants to golf and suck money out of his base.
Robert Reich and others have brought up the dangers of enabling some of these Proud Boy type brown shirts to live out their violent impulses with impunity. Imagine if control of “deportation camps” (not yet a reality, but soon?) were handed over to private contractors recruiting from the MAGA insurrectionists? BYOG Bring your own gun.
We'll see what happens, but "keeping ones powder dry" is good advice. Those who have read history are better prepared for this, and literature, which is full of archetypal visions of this situation (Sinclair Lewis, Ionesco, even Nikolai Gogol, or Brecht whom we discussed)... We have reasons to believe that this is, to use a broadband word, a spiritual disaster battle for democracy. But the American electorate is partly asleep and partly dumbed-down to a level that is unimaginable. Life for them has become Hollywoodized, where teachers are idiots who can't deal with reality and scientists are either old guys with bald heads who can't tie their shoelaces without the help of some "hero," half man, half steroids and with a big gun. Even on what's left of the "left," the anti-intellectualism is palpable, and it is why so many are in a panic. You have to understand how it happened and what is happening first.
Mais ça a toujours été comme ça.
In November 2020, I wrote a piece on Defeated Donald. I wouldn't change a word, except for the number of people who died due to the mismanagement of the pandemic... And it was before Jan 6 2021...
I'll post it on Substack later (I have to get to work now). Here it is:
https://www.journos-blotter.com/2020/11/28/a-cry-from-the-heart/