The Liberal Politics & Current Events Book Club discussion
Reality-Based Chat. Speak!
When Allison Grimes refused to say for whom she voted, she lost the election. She basically was admitting that McConnell was right about Obama. So why should anyone vote for her? Democrats must focus on the economy. They may have to run against the Trans-Pacific Partnership that Obama supports. If half of what has been rumored turns out to be true, this is going to be a huge scandal if it gets approved without any review.
Robert Reich has a great 2-minute video showing what a monstrosity TPP is. See it at http://robertreich.org/post/109593544790
Darlene wrote: "UGH! Here we go again……..http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elect..."
Possibly Rand Paul has taken an undue number of vaccines. It would explain a lot, presuming that he's right about vaccines. Of course, if he's right about vaccines, then he's saner than he appears to be, so there'd be nothing to explain. It's a bit of a conundrum. :) (None of which is to suggest that I don't profoundly distrust pharmaceutical companies, or that I don't think them engaged in knowingly purveying lethal products. In fact, adverting to the matter of books, I strongly recommend Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients.)
Mary wrote: "I hope our candidates whoever they are will this time remind the voters ..."You're absolutely right, Mary, and it's insanely consternating. Consistently, the voters cast ballots for the candidates who can be guaranteed to seek to destroy all the things they say they really want to keep: Medicare, Social Security, the ACA, unions, public education, and so forth. And rabidly to oppose with the virulence of hyenas, all the things they'd really like to have: a livable wage, the stoppage of outsourcing, decent education (including free college education), the availability of jobs that would allow educated people (and everyone else) to be employed, clean air and water, an FDA not owned by Big Pharma and other corporate interests, and a cessation of vicious attacks on their health and survival, just in general. Part of it is the "electoral nullification" I incessantly decry -- so that people who wouldn't cast ballots for people determined to destroy them are prevented from voting -- but part of it is just ignorance and stupidity, reinforced by 24/7 ambient brainwashing, and the Republicans' access to effectively unlimited (and anonymous) funding for toxic and mendacious political ads, thanks to those wonderful folks who brought you Citizens United -- The Federalist Society sock puppets who control SCOTUS. Billions for deprivation of liberty, but not one penny for rescue of lives!
I still want a copy of your stamp, by the way. When are we going to order those? :)
Oh, and Democrats absolutely need to "demonize"... the demons!
We who are political junkies sometimes forget that average Americans devote about as much time to political thinking and analysis as they do preparing to compete in the Olympics. About none. I love polls. I've studied them and followed them all my life. They don't mean much of anything most of the time because Americans change their minds in instants. Not everyone. There seem to be about 25% on both sides of any issue who never can be moved. But, at any given time, Americans are likely to be strongly in favor of something, and then, before long, strongly opposed, or vice versa.
I think the Republicans, being considerably more cynical than Democrats, understand this. Their messages always are simple and they focus on the hot buttons, and those feelings of many of their base that they can appeal to with dog whistles.
Then they repeat their main messages over and over. It is the Big Lie technique. They have perfected it. They also have Fox to help them.
Democrats are more likely to try to reason with people. Watch Rachel Maddow. She is almost pure reason. Sometimes it takes her 15 minutes to get to her point. But it usually is a good one. The problem is, the people who need to be reasoned with, aren't watching her.
It is totally unreasonable for someone on Social Security disability in West Virginia to vote Republican, but they do. So, why can't they be talked out of that? There are other things that viscerally mean more to them, and they don't really believe anyone would ever take away their Social Security. They also just don't give it much thought. It is very hard to get any message through to them.
Successful revolutions usually start at the bottom. That's what has to happen now. Progressives have got to start going after local offices, and building a base of support. That is what happened with the first progressive movement. It takes time and its needs some very focused leadership. But it can be done.
I am old enough to remember the enormous relief that the Salk polio vaccine brought. I remember the children's hospitals and the kids with crutches and braces. There are few things that get me more angry than people who refuse to vaccinate their children. I think it is child abuse and it should not be allowed for any reason. Billions of people have taken vaccines. If they were dangerous there would be an enormous body of evidence. There isn't.
And even if there was some risk - and there might be from such things as odd allergies, or something wrong with a batch - those risks are so low they do not outweigh the enormous benefits.
And it is a public health issue. No one has a right to purposely expose others to harmful diseases. Under our social contract we have a right to expect people to conform to reasonable restrictions on their freedom so that we all are free.
Dan wrote: "We who are political junkies sometimes forget that average Americans devote about as much time to political thinking and analysis as they do preparing to compete in the Olympics. About none. I lo..."
I hope you're right, Dan, that revolutions of that nature can still be effected. The powers ready and willing to crush any such incipient manifestation are so much better equipped now... with an armamentarium of brainwashing techniques, and no effective restraint of any kind from the government on their practice of voter suppression and the potential deployment of corporate-owned covert ops groups, and universal 24/7 surveillance of the citizenry... that I really wonder if it's feasible, but we live in hope.
As regards vaccines, by the way, my condemnation of Big Pharma was in no way intended to encourage refusal to vaccinate, which I likewise find highly problematical (absent evidence that a particular vaccine is harmful, though I would like to see very much stricter enforced regulation). But I don't think pharmaceutical companies have much incentive* to purvey harmful vaccines, since that's not wherein their major profits lie, and they tend even to resist the development of new vaccines. It is not wholly implausible to think that certain government agencies might want to use one as a vector to perform some kind of experiment, since they've documentably done that sort of thing before (as with their release of a "harmless" pathogen in the New York subway system, to track its spread, about which there was actually a feature on 60 minutes, long ago). But on balance, I think pharmaceutical companies are interested in profit and indifferent to human lives, but not actively interested in releasing harmful vaccines, absent some financial incentive. So, also on balance, it seems prudent to provide protection to children through such well-tested means as may be available.
* On the other hand, the case of Perry's paradoxically seemingly beneficent mandate that children be vaccinated against HPV (though he characteristically confined the order to girls), which turned out initially to have been motivated by his financial dealings with the manufacturer, but on which he later reversed himself, having aroused too much conservative anger... is particularly vexing. I'm afraid this is the sort of thing that gives Paul credibility, probably to everyone's detriment.
Does anyone think plagiarizing, thin-skinned Rand Paul has a chance to win the GOP nomination? I'll never forget how he stopped eating and basically ran away from a question some journalist was asking him last year. He's definitely trying to run for President, and the media was giving him some love last year, but he's too goofy. Right now Wisconsin governor Walker is ahead in some poll that they were discussing on MSNBC yesterday. But he's at 16%, so he's no Hillary.Yes, it was Vilsack, Darlene. I also remember that Evan Bayh did a brief listening tour or whatever he called his pre-announcement campaign, and then I guess he saw he had no chance so endorsed Hillary. There was just much more activity on the Democratic side by this time in 2007, but maybe that's because their party wasn't in the White House.
Dan, I agree with you that the Republicans are much better at messaging. I liked our "Forward" message in 2012 because it was such a good retort to "take our country back." But I don't think "middle-class economics," which is what Obama seemed to be pushing in his speech, has the same power. We need to say something about democracy versus plutocracy. We need a good ad that says that the only time we are equal is in the voting booth, and we need to make it clear that the Republicans want to make us distrust government and believe that it won't help us so that we won't vote. We can show the less politically active folks how much voting matters by contrasting what happened during the Clinton and Obama eras and what happened when GW Bush was running the world. We might also remind them that Bush lost the popular vote and "won" Florida by a few hundred votes.
There was an article on the Hillary campaign in USA Today. It discussed the Clinton fatigue, suggesting that the diplomatic interlude may have lessened it and pointing out that no one under 38 has voted for Clinton. Yeah, but they all know who he is and who she is. One thing that I think is interesting about Hillary is that she's more popular when she's seen as weaker, like when she almost cried in New Hampshire, when Bill cheated on her, and when she was working for a man (Obama). Her approval rating was at 60% in 2011. Now it's 46%, and she's not even the President (or the Democratic nominee) yet.
Mary wrote: "Does anyone think plagiarizing, thin-skinned Rand Paul has a chance to win the GOP nomination? I'll never forget how he stopped eating and basically ran away from a question some journalist was as..."Concerning Paul, Mary, I don't at all think he has the proverbial snowflake's chance in perdition. What I meant by "lending him credibility" was that at least this one instance of pharmaceutical malfeasance in the matter of purveying vaccines unhelpfully lent "credibility" to his overall claims about vaccines, which might be unfortunate. I do not think he is a viable candidate.
So... for a slogan (regrettably, I think this is too long -- but I am trying to push the same buttons Republicans push, though in this instance, speaking the flat truth):
Stop Corporations Stealing... Your Money and Your Jobs
Now, many idiot voters have utterly absorbed the meme that their wallets are under attack (which they are, but not from the people they think), and they can't be moved from that knee-jerk fear: so why not use it? Appropriate the meme from the Republicans. At the very least, they won't be able to use it anymore, and people are well aware that they're losing jobs and having their money stolen. They know it every time they go to the grocery store, and every time they see their bank statements. They don't like corporations: they just don't want to blame the Republicans, because they've absorbed the memes, and they worship Limbaugh. But this slogan undermines all that. What do you think?
I don't think a campaign against Republicans should be directed against corporations. First of all, corporations employ an enormous number of people. People don't want to bite the hand that feeds them, even if they can't eat as well as they used to.Second, you have to beat the Republicans. You have to get people to do one of two things - vote for Democrats, or vote against Republicans. The worst thing to be is unfocused, which is what the Democrats are now. There is nothing to vote for - at least from the point of view of the average voter. Many Democratic candidates are not very interesting, not bold and not charismatic. Republicans tend to be at least two of those.
I worked in the corporate world and it was thrilling for a period of time. I loved UPI and journalism and I still dream about it, but I did some very spectacular and bold things in the corporate world and I had a blast doing them. There is nothing inherently wrong in corporations. The problem comes when they get too big and when they become so focused on quarter-to-quarter profits that they lose sight of everything else, including their own long-term well-being.
I have a chapter on reforming corporations in my book, which I may post in a couple of days. I will put the links here.
Dan wrote: "I don't think a campaign against Republicans should be directed against corporations. First of all, corporations employ an enormous number of people. People don't want to bite the hand that feeds t..."What is inherently wrong with corporations is that the utility function that is maximized is that of profit (often for the CEO and top executives, even to the exclusion of the stockholders). There is no element of benefit to humanity or even prevention of the utter economic, physical and spiritual devastation of the citizens of the country that even feeds into the equation. The coefficient for those considerations is always zero (or perhaps negative, to serve the concurrent maximization of Schadenfreude-gratification, or some combination of the two, with weightings determined by which is more valued by the plutocrats). In any case, this mechanism of mindless, inhuman, algorithmic optimization of the economic advantage of predatory monsters -- wholly irrespective of its consequences for humanity or individual human beings -- is what drives corporations, and utility maximization is what is taught in microeconomics and "quantitative methods" in every graduate management school in the country, along with the toxic crap ethos of predation and "justification by narcissistic personality disorder," in general.
I cannot more profoundly disagree with you, though I have consulted for major corporations, myself (and mea *very* maxima culpa!). I am wholly and completely anti-capitalist, I think corporations are iniquitous, predatory, mechanistic devices whereby all wealth is channeled into the bloated coffers of the few, and I am utterly revulsed by the entire system, beyond my capacity to express it.
I do think that people dislike corporations, and perhaps especially those employees they haven't (yet) let go, because nothing renders Wall Street more orgasmic than a massive layoff.
Dan, I am sorry -- I personally like you -- but we cannot agree on everything, and we will have to part company here and agree to disagree about corporations, while continuing the conversation. I am not ignorant of microeconomics, I understand utility functions and constraint satisfaction -- I understand how to write programs to implement the optimization of utility functions. And I think it's sick. It may not always have been thus. There used to be a residual social compact, that somewhat mitigated this effect, and also the lack of the universal use of computers to maximize profit to the exclusion of all else. Perhaps this was true when you were working for UPI, or when I was consulting for corporations which (because of the nature of this screed) I will refrain from mentioning. But my college was also a corporation. We have no choice because there is no other game in town. But that doesn't make it any less evil.
From a strictly pragmatic standpoint, if you think that a frontal attack on corporations would have an adverse effect (which I really don't), then I would be amenable to changing the word "corporations" in my slogan to "corporate Republicans," but I still think corporations (at least, in their current manifestation) are the problem and the cancer.
You win campaigns by being for things, not against them. Democrats lost in 2014 partly because they thought they could just rail against the GOP "war on women," but never put together why voters should actually support them, so their core constituents just stayed home. Fear of "the other guy" works sometimes, but it has to be within the context of what you will provide.So I don't object to a campaign that focuses on ending the stranglehold of Big Money, but it needs to be in the framework of a campaign that focuses on how Democrats will make life better for the 99 percent.
Paul wrote: "You win campaigns by being for things, not against them. Democrats lost in 2014 partly because they thought they could just rail against the GOP "war on women," but never put together why voters sh..."I think you're right, Paul, that it needs to be within that context in the overall campaign, but I was seeking some first approximation of an effective slogan, and it would have been hard to fit all that onto a bumper sticker. Seriously, what I was trying to do was just to pull the Republican's meme out from under them by pushing the same amygdala-wired button that has seem to work so well for them, while simultaneously trying to exploit simmering latent voter resentment of corporations. Whether voters actually do have a simmering resentment of corporations that might profitably be exploited seems to be a matter of dispute, here -- probably, they have no resentment that compares to mine, but that's an altogether separate issue -- yet I still harbor the conviction there's resentment to be ploughed. I guess the question might be empirically testable -- by means of the interrogation (absent "enhanced methods") of a focus group, perhaps. Just looking for footholds, and I'm not especially particular. As Dan might say (which is consequently the first part of the title of his book), "let's do whatever works" (and, in this case, call it a "Democratic slogan").
I think we can be both for and against in our campaign slogan, folks. We can be like Obama, both black and white. We can be for the people and against corporations (or whatever we call them). Since Mitt is out, we can't use his "corporations are people, my friend" line against him. But we certainly need to show that we are on the side of Main Street, not Wall Street. The Republicans know that the capitalism, ownership thing that Bush pushed is not going to work as well now because of what happened in 2008, which is why they are pretending to care about the income gap. Maybe we can just say we are for the hard-working poor and not the lazy rich. I saw a news story yesterday about a black man who walked 21 miles, 13 miles one way, 8 miles the other, back and forth to work (in a factory) because his car had broken in 2005, and bus service had been cut. I love that story because it goes against Gingrich's lazy poor folks lie. I think we need to demonize the rich while celebrating the poor because the Republicans have definitely demonized the poor. They have turned the middle class against the poor while the rich folks have run off with the goodies.One of the things that I noticed when I was an Edwards supporter (which shows that I'm not always right, especially since I liked his wife, who was later revealed to be insane and fame-hungry, more than I did him) is how the trial lawyer, who fought for victims of corporations, was demonized while corporate lawyers were not. One reason the real Edwards story has not been told by the press (I followed the trial closely, so I know that the insane wife and the disloyal aide "did it") is because he scared the crap out of them and the people they represent. That son-of-a-millworker, graduate of state schools, fought the corporate lawyers and won big. Then he financed his own Senate campaign, complained about the lobbyists when he was a Senator, and in his second campaign (which was really her campaign) was a populist. That's why the media folks went nuts when he made that "God is not finished with me" speech after his trial. They were scared of him because they figured if he could be that successful with an insane, castrating wife on his back, what would he do without her. If they had really believed that she was his brain, they would have let the jurors' post-trial verdict--he wasn't a bad man; he just did a bad thing--stand. But they went nuts, acting as if he was the worst person in the world. CNN and ABC were particularly active in taking him down right after the trial. I even saw the usually sensible Soledad O'Brien tell his gold digger mistress Rielle Hunter that people hated Edwards. I don't know anyone who hates Edwards. And those who don't like him mostly don't like him because the media tells them he's a bad man. The similarly named former Republican Senator John Ensign, on the other hand, was called out only by Rachel Maddow.
So I think the Democrats need to run against the corporate media as well. And we all need to recognize that perception is reality. People believed that Bush was a strong leader right after 9/11 because that's what the media said, but it was b.s. And now they've been trying to portray Obama, who actually sent the Seals in to get Osama, as weak. That's also b.s. The media helped keep the Monica Lewinsky mess going during the Clinton years, and they clearly pick and choose what sexual scandals they reveal, which is why we didn't know about Barbara Walters' affair with black Senator Brooke until she told us when we no longer cared, which is exactly what will happen with Condi and George W.
I even think the media has undermined Joe Biden. I remember that they were trying to say in the months leading up to the 2012 election that Obama would, or maybe should, drop Joe as his Vice President and let Hillary have the job. Joe is another working-class man who maybe isn't Ivy League or pro-Wall Street enough for the media.
I agree with Mary… I think we can and SHOULD do both!! And I think President Obama's campaigns illustrate perfectly that it can be very effective!! President Obama's campaigns (and especially his first campaign) was incredibly uplifting… yes, I even shed a tear when listening to some of his speeches!!:) But he also pointed out all the ways in which the status quo has not worked for average people… and most especially after the financial collapse in September of 2008. I think people appreciate the acknowledgement of what they are facing in their lives.. it's how politicians can connect with people they may not ordinarily connect with.I also was a John Edwards supporter, Mary. I actually felt quite badly for all the people involved. I felt embarrassed for all of them and felt as if I shouldn't be listening to what was so personal and painful to them. I believe that nobody ever knows.. REALLY knows.. about a couple's marital relationship.. It's complicated… there are emotions, history and dynamics that no one can possibly know about. I suppose this will sound foolish and ridiculously romanticized but at the time, I felt that I could understand how John Edwards perhaps had been feeling. His wife had cancer and although I don't know from experience how that feels, I can imagine that you are overwhelmed with feelings… fear, sadness and perhaps even loneliness and isolation. I certainly couldn't blame him for seeking some comfort. I'm sure my feelings will be very unpopular but I could empathize with how he must have been feeling. Mostly though, I felt as if all of it was none of my business. I felt the same way over the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky affair. It just seemed like such a painful , personal and humiliating experience for all involved. I think that part of the problem is that we expect our politicians to be super human… and they just can't be… and then we are disappointed and disillusioned.I think I agree with Mary when she stated that it would be great if the media could go back to NOT reporting about ANY sex scandal… just as they did during the JFK days. I think it serves no purpose…. just my thoughts on the subject...
The only purpose the sex scandals serve, Darlene, is to give the media a way to selectively demonize some candidates. Edwards' disloyal aide Andrew Young exaggerated when he said in an interview that everyone in Washington was cheating, but I know that there are many more politicians and media folks cheating than have been exposed. I assume that most liberals are over the so-called Edwards scandal, so I'll try to give you my theories on it, including how that story is symbolic of America, in a separate communication (I'm not good at navigating social media, so if you don't hear from me, the attempt failed).I'm posting early today, everybody, because I think I've found the 2016 slogan: "The left is right; the right is wrong." For low-information voters, we can add parentheses after left and right, identifying them as Democrats and Republicans. Then we can list all of the ways that the Republicans have been wrong, including trickle-down economics, Putin, women's right to choose, etc. I saw an article in the paper today that said Putin suffers from Asperger's. I also saw an article that said the Republicans are discussing the income gap because a poll showed that 80% of the people think we need to redistribute income. The Republicans are going to have to be Democrat-lite during this election, which is a change since we have been Republican-lite (hawkish, against taxes) in the past. We can show video of them pushing trickle-down economics, arguing against raising the minimum wage, and we can even show their last Presidential candidate talking about the 47% and saying that corporations are people. Since we are on the right side of the issues, and they are on the wrong side, we just need to make the voters recognize that, and we win.
For once I agree with Rand Paul. I also don't think Loretta Lynch should be Attorney General.I just posted on four different sites a piece in which I argue Loretta Lynch should not be confirmed.
Here are the links:
http://www.danriker.blogspot.com
http://www.progressiveamericanthought...
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/...
Mary wrote: "The only purpose the sex scandals serve, Darlene, is to give the media a way to selectively demonize some candidates. Edwards' disloyal aide Andrew Young exaggerated when he said in an interview t..."Yes! That is precisely the purpose it serves, and anathematizing people is probably the most effective (and utterly nefarious and despicable) tool the corporate media use to influence political outcomes. Truthfully, it enrages me. And I profoundly admire what Edwards did to build his fortune and establish his political career -- there are far easier ways, and complicity in evil is the usual one.
And as regards your proposed slogan and accompanying litany of talking points, it's pitch perfect, and I'd like to adopt it immediately. I especially like your idea of using embarrassing and damning video snippets unrelentingly, and I've suggested before that Democrats ought to be opportunistic about acquiring more of them. :)
ETA:
I apologize about weird aberrations (e.g., "ought" = "are not old") in a previous version of this post. My eyes hurt, and I was using google voice-to-text to dictate. Will not do that again. :)
Dan wrote: "For once I agree with Rand Paul. I also don't think Loretta Lynch should be Attorney General.I just posted on four different sites a piece in which I argue Loretta Lynch should not be confirmed.
..."
You had me with her support of the death penalty, and further compelling arguments would have been supererogatory, but her opposition to ending welfare for criminal cartels and insane privatized prison systems, implicit in her opposition to decriminalization... is just absolutely revulsive and demented. And of course, it means she also implicitly supports The New Jim Crow of massive gratuitous incarceration of young black males. It is absolutely incomprehensible to me that she would have been nominated.
Now, to be fair (not that I ever experience that compulsion), I haven't read extensively of her positions on these issues, so there may be some incredibly twisted, perverse justification for her position on decriminalization that makes sense to her (though I can't imagine what it would be), but I also can't imagine that you could possibly have misinterpreted her stated position on the death penalty, and I'm an absolutist pacifist: for me, that one position would suffice to disqualify her.
Anyway, yes, oppose her confirmation as strenuously as you like: I will not even begin to argue with you. (And under the circumstances, I think you can be absolved of any culpability for agreeing with Rand Paul; he's not infallible, so he can't manage to be wrong all the time. :)) By the powers vested in me (none whatsoever) by goodreads in virtue of my position as moderator of this group, ego te absolvo. :)
I am not dictating this one. (Please see my "ETA" in message #418.)NYT: Job and Wage Gains as Americans Rejoin the Work Force
This is a little difficult to credit, unless the "Job" to which the New York Times is referring is the Biblical one subjected to an unceasing onslaught of afflictions, with whom many Americans may feel a certain commonality. On the discernible visual evidence, I have to presume that those jobs involve advanced burger-flipping skills, and that McDonald's has instituted a .01% hike in their hourly wages. I note, also, that the Times cites the ostensible "wage increase" over the last 12 months as "2.2%." Well, I suppose if (as is to be expected) corporate CEOs and high-level executives have seen a 400 percent increase, and everybody else has remained immobile or seen a 5 percent decline, then that might well be true. And this is represented as exceeding the "rate of inflation!" Uh-huh. Does anyone at the Times shop at supermarkets? My general impression -- and I do take note of these things, and tend mentally to compute the percentage increases on the fly -- is that the price increase in most of the items I typically purchase at the local supermarket chain has, over the past year, ranged from 20% (tuna fish) to 37% (frozen dinners) -- notwithstanding a decline in the cost to that chain of shipping food that must have been at least 50 percent, based on the stupendously drastic cut in the price of oil. My last rent increase was 6%, and my winter electric bill (also in marked contrast to the halved price of oil) has been 60% higher than last year. Perhaps the presumption is that people have been eating solidified gasoline and keeping their thermostats at 12 degrees. In what universe is the Times living, would somebody tell me?
(I do know that the figures they cite have undoubtedly been confected empirically -- through some phenomenally contorted and distorted statistical means misrepresenting everything possible, including the known speed of light -- rather than having been fabricated out of whole cloth, but it is literally impossible for any average person who is aware of reality and not solipsistically encased in a bubble, to believe any of these figures -- or at least to believe what they are purported to represent.)
Dan and Mark, I have a different view of the unfortunately named Loretta Lynch. She might initially look like Obama's version of Clarence Thomas, and I see what you're saying, Mark, about the absurd drug laws leading to the New Jim Crow. But I think Obama is pulling a sly political maneuver here. The Republicans were brutal toward Holder, and they pretended that it was because of his policies, not his race, so Obama gives them Loretta, another historical candidate, but this time a woman. What can they do? Her policies on drug enforcement may or may not trickle down to the states; we'll see. But I'm more concerned at this point about how she feels about the attack on our right to vote. In addition to the black "felons" who are denied the right to vote in some states (which, Dan, bothers me more than seizing property since I'm not aware of that being more of a problem than people losing their property through foreclosure or being forced to sell through eminent domain laws), many citizens who haven't broken any laws, even stupid drug laws, are now finding their right to vote challenged. The article I read on the more conservative-than-Holder Lynch claimed that she would continue his fight against voter suppression. That's good enough for me. But, according to Rachel Maddow, it doesn't really matter what we think, Lynch has enough Republican votes to be confirmed, and folks like Paul and Cruz are just posturing because they are running for President.
Mary wrote: "Dan and Mark, I have a different view of the unfortunately named Loretta Lynch. She might initially look like Obama's version of Clarence Thomas, and I see what you're saying, Mark, about the absu..."I hadn't known about her declared commitment to fight voter suppression, Mary -- which, for me, would trump practically anything else, though I still worry about the New Jim Crow and have an impossible personal moral dilemma regarding the death penalty issue -- but if Rachel Maddow is right, then I suppose, fortunately for me, I won't have to wrestle with it. It's regrettable he couldn't find anyone not enamoured of the death penalty and opposed to decriminalization who would have cornered the Republicans, but I don't doubt she was the "best worst option" his own political calculus coughed up, and he is very clever about these manoeuvers (luckily for us). I suppose we'll just have to hope for the best, but it does feel like a huge sacrifice in regard to continuing mass incarceration of young black males. On the other hand, the system is such that, even lacking the drug laws, they'd find some other frivolous pretext.
When I wrote my piece, I knew that there was no chance she would not be confirmed. I had an exchange on DailyKos.com with someone who spotted it for what it really was - an effort to bring pressure on her as AG from the progressive side. Republicans have figured out how to keep power when a majority of the people will not vote for them. You can see it in almost every state they control. They gerrymander the congressional districts to maximize the number of districts they can win. They take action against the unions, especially the government unions. They are major sources of funding for the Democrats. They enact all kinds of atrocious anti-abortion legislation. They loosen restrictions on guns and they pass stand your ground laws to increase the violence.
So, they have two groups completely on their side whatever else they want to do. They have the antiabortion fanatics who don't think about anything else, just like the gun nuts. I used to have a friend who was a gun fanatic. He actually was a very good-hearted, generous person, but when it came to guns he was insane - is insane. There is no issue in his life more important.
They also have gotten the racists and the sexists. They have the white men whose egos are so fragile that they have to feel superior to someone - their wife, black people, someone. The white aristocracy in the South has exploited this since before the Civil War. But it exists elsewhere as well. Those are the Reagan Democrats.
So they have put together a coalition of the haters, the paranoid and the bigots, who fear the Democrats and what they represent more. They don't want everyone to be free. They don't believe in equality. They really believe we are coming to get their guns.
But they are not the majority. They win elections because they vote in higher percentages than many in the Democratic base. And they are determined to keep it that. Thus, when they have power they will enact laws to restrict voting - even if it means their 85-year old grandmothers can't vote. They oppose immigration reform because they don't want the Democrats to get several million more votes.
The Republican leaders do know what they are doing.
It took me a while to get to the point that I agree the voting rights issue the most important one. We can't get anything done without the votes.
Mark, see this Jared Bernstein graph. He isn't fooled.I have assembled several different bits of data about wages, employment, etc. and was going to do a piece today that downplayed the jobs growth. However, I wound up babysitting my two-year grandson, and now I'm beat.
I'll do it over the weekend.
Dan wrote: "When I wrote my piece, I knew that there was no chance she would not be confirmed. I had an exchange on DailyKos.com with someone who spotted it for what it really was - an effort to bring pressure..."Dan, I think you have described the Republican algorithm for plutocratic takeover and nullfication of democracy to perfection, in every particular. And it's worked. We now live in a plutocracy. (To quote Hermann Goering, albeit in a slightly different context, "it works the same in any country." You induce people to go to war -- Goering's specific reference -- or to vote in a way that is suicidal, by harnessing their amygdalae, engaging their hatreds and their other "vile forms of dementia"*: gun-nuttiness, anti-abortion lunacy, deranged patriotic fervor.) Of course, the Republicans know what they're doing: they're consummately evil and their candidates are frequently stupid on an intellectual level, but they're peerless strategists, they're utterly ruthless and devoid of boundaries, and they've perfected their algorithm, so they don't actually even need to think any longer. They're as inexorable as the Borg and (as Mary has, I think, observed) less attractive. :) Someone really needs to disrupt their hive mind. Too bad there isn't a virus that would inhibit the propagation of Republican memes -- and perhaps reduce the receptivity of the hive workers to their absorption.
I would like to think that "resistance is [not] futile." But we do need more "counter-memes." I like Mary's slogan. (I would also like "We are not Borg," but Americans are, regrettably, not so geeky as your moderator. :) :) )
* Credit to Mary for this phrase, as well
I saw a two-part interview by Bill Moyers of David Simon, the writer responsible for Homicide, The Wire and Treme, and he truly is our kind of guy. Very smart and very progressive. Very critical of what is going on in the country. I took one of his quotes and put it at the beginning of my Conclusion to my book "Do What Works and Call it Capitalism.""What I took from Camus was the idea that to commit to an unlikely cause, or a cause that seems almost certain of defeat, seems absurd. But to not commit is also absurd, given the situation. And only one choice of those two offers even the remote chance at dignity."
- David Simon, Interview with Bill Moyers, Bill Moyers & Company, Jan. 31, 2014.
Dan wrote: (citing David Simon, citing a suicidal existentialist): "What I took from Camus was the idea that to commit to an unlikely cause, or a cause that seems almost certain of defeat, seems absurd. But to not commit is also absurd, given the situation. And only one choice of those two offers even the remote chance at dignity." of..."I think it's very apposite, considering the straits in which we find ourselves, and I think that Camus actually later felt that suicide was a form of commitment, when no other tolerable commitment seemed possible, and that there was dignity in that. But I certainly hope we will commit (as determinedly as Camus, but to the "unlikely cause" of defeating immitigably evil, ruthless predators of illimitable means, instead), because suicide may be a legitimate choice for an individual, but for 300 million people, it is not an option.
I agree, and I am the least suicidal person you probably ever will know.I once was fairly fluent in French to read it, but not so much to speak because I have a terrible ear. I cannot mimic, and consequently I have a terrible time with speaking a foreign language. I read several books in French, including one on winemaking when I was flying back from France, and, at the time, was an amateur winemaker. I read The Stranger in French, but I couldn't do it today. Unfortunately languages are not like bike-riding. But Camus had a great influence on me, more or less making me into an existentialist. I certainly have lived my life mostly as one.
I'm neither an existentialist nor fluent in French although that was the language I studied. I read Le Petit Prince and some other book that I can't remember and managed to earn my PhD in English without having to pretend to know another language because I was in a program (no longer in existence at USC) called Rhetoric, Linguistics, Literature. But the reference to the French reminds me of what happened during Obama's prayer breakfast speech. I had to read the speech to see what all of the fuss was about. He just made an obvious point, which is that we shouldn't get on our high horse condemning the Muslims because Christians have done some pretty despicable things in the past. Oh, no, he didn't! Even Bill Maher seems to think he was wrong, but that's because Bill is committed now to convincing everyone that the Muslims are more savage than any other religious people so that he won't be seen as "racist" (as Ben Affleck incorrectly called him) or intolerant as I called him "to his face" because I sent him a copy of my book, where I called him out for being an atheist missionary, and I know he read my book because he had Ralph Reed on a couple of weeks after I sent it to him and asked Reed some questions about the Bible that make Christians look foolish if they take the Bible literally, and then he used the phrase "critical thinking," which is a phrase I used in the book but had never heard him use. I find it funny now that other people are calling him intolerant, and he's so thin-skinned and pissed about it. The reason I was so interested in Obama's speech is one day before he made those mild comments, I was engaged in a fun google+ debate with a conservative named Zeta. She had attacked me for saying that there was no common sense on Fox. When listing ways that they had been wrong (including about Putin and about Romney winning in 2012), I mentioned how the French (I told you the French were involved) were upset with them for some lies a so-called expert told about Muslim domination in France and other European countries. She didn't say anything for a few days but then came back with all kinds of links to articles about Muslim activity in Paris and maybe also Europe (I didn't read the articles). She then reminded me what those "monsters" did, taking people hostage and killing them. In response, I let her know that I wasn't as concerned about what was happening in Paris as I was about the rise of racism in America. I also said that we all condemned what the terrorists did in Paris but pointed out that Muslims did not have a monopoly on savagery. I suggested that if she wanted to do some more research during Black History Month, she might look for some pictures of whites, many of them Christians, watching black people burn and cutting off their body parts. I said that these whites often burned the cross, a symbol of Christianity, when they were committing these savage and horrific acts on blacks. I pointed out that some of the savagery happened during our lifetimes because she's older than I am. I mentioned fourteen-year-old Emmett Till and the four young girls, at least two of them my age, who were killed in 1963 while they were attending Sunday School when their church was bombed. I even mentioned the guy who was dragged behind a truck in Texas at the end of the 20th Century, although I'm fairly certain those Texas "monsters" weren't Christians. Just before I wrapped up my response, I remembered a passage from one of my favorite novels to teach, James Weldon Johnson's AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN EX-COLOURED MAN. It was the perfect passage to hit Zeta with because Johnson's hero, a black man who could pass for white, said that when he was living in Paris with his white benefactor he was embarrassed to be an American only once and that was when a man asked him if it was true that they had burned a man alive in America. The ex-coloured man said that he didn't remember how he responded, but he wished he could say that it was only one. I haven't heard from Zeta. But I think the President was too easy on the Christians.
I also think it's interesting that black writers and artists like Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Josephine Baker used to go to Paris to get away from the racism here. I wonder if there is more racism there now. I guess I'll have to ask Kanye West. Was Oprah in Paris when she had the problem getting into an expensive store?
The French are far more egalitarian that we are. Even though they have some of the same maldistribuion of wealth and income, it is not nearly as bad. They also have inexpensive, or free, education (with some requirements), and national health insurance and pensions. They have had a large number of Muslims for many years because they had colonies in Muslim countries, Algeria being the primary one. The times I was in Paris, in the 1970s and 80s, their presence was quite noticeable.
The French have had a tradition of taking in political refugees. Anyone, anywhere, could flee to France to escape oppression and the French would accept them. However, the rule was, do whatever you want, or have to do, wherever you came from, but don't do it here. Thus, the Iranian dissident Shi'ite clerics lived in Paris for years before the 1979 revolution. They didn't blow things up in France, like the Muslim radicals are doing now, and what occasionally was done in the past. But the level of violence today of the Muslim radicals goes against the French historical and cultural tradition, and, as a result, has antagonized a large portion of the population.
And like us, the French also have their dark side. It just isn't as large, at least not now. They had a large number of Nazi sympathizers and today they have a neo-Nazi party that gets about 13 percent of the vote.
I haven't been there in many years, but I suspect there is no more racism among the average Frenchmen than before all this started, but there definitely is anger and resentment. And it is justified.
Mary, I am curious about how you managed to get a book to Bill Maher? I tried to do so several years ago, and I couldn't find a way to do it directly. I sent it to his publicist, but I have no idea if it ever reached him.I think Obama meant well, but it came over to many as false equivalency. Evil is evil regardless of the time and place, and always should be condemned.
The French burned Hugenots at the stake, and they did some incredibly horrible things during their Revolution, which we did not do during ours. We have people in our country today who are getting away with killing black people because of nascent racism in our society and institutions.
Because almost every culture at one point or another has engaged in inhuman treatment of other humans does not mean that we should not be horrified by what ISIS is doing, and not put a stop to it. Unfortunately, much of the world really doesn't care and they may well continue to get away with it.
I agree with Dan. My students don't know how many people are on the Supreme Court or who their senators are. They're intelligent, but civics has never been taught and they just don't run into it.Up to all of us to initiate those discussions.
Shelley
http://dustbowlstory.wordpress.com
Mary and Dan,I've been a bit under the weather (still am), so sorry to be a bit dilatory making an attempt to catch up, and there are a plethora of topics here -- so I may do this a tad piecemeal, but here goes:
I am very fluent in French and have (embarrassing disclosure) an undergraduate degree in French literature (along with math), so I have at least some excuse that withstands superficial inspection for extensive familiarity with existentialist philosophy (as Mallarmé says, lamentably, "j'ai lu tous les livres"), but I would in no way characterize myself as an "existentialist," partly because, whereas it is vacuously true that there is no intrinsic meaning in the world (inasmuch as "meaning" is a human construct, and you can't have semantic representations absent someplace to put them*, which is wet neural tissue, though you could certainly also resort -- and I have -- to representation in artificially intelligent machines constructed by humans), what motivates existentialists' preoccupation with the "absurdity" of the world is not revulsion at the prospect of chaos or indeterminacy of outcomes or the lack of an a priori semantic framework independent of human existence, but distress at the world's cruelty. Camus insisted in The Myth of Sisyphus that "le seul problème philosophique sérieux" (only serious philosophical question) was that of suicide, and indeed, he committed it. Now, I do think the world is ubiquitously depthlessly and unspeakably cruel, but I think it's confusing, if not obfuscatory, to conflate that with inherent meaninglessness, unless, by "meaning," one means to invoke the notion that there is a benign intelligence or deity at work that governs outcomes and that will make our lives happy or even endurable, and of course, existentialists do reject that, as would anybody not utterly delusional who had lived on this planet. (Problems of "theodicy" make everyone crazy.) But I think cruelty (and I typically invoke the word, "Schadenfreude," because I think it's more explanatory) is not an artifact of "meaninglessness," but rather of the predictable dynamic of human atavistic impulses, which guarantees that power will always endue to predatory sociopaths who literally enjoy inflicting harm (there's an evolutionary advantage in that, so it can be explained sociobiologically, though it will ultimately result in the extinction of the species). In the meantime, most of us suffer and endure boundless cruelty because of the nearly universal regnancy of psychopaths. In artificial life simulations (I taught a course in it, but I'll refrain from inflicting the damage of the theoretical underpinnings and algorithmic practice here, because probably, already, everyone is narcoleptic), you can see that it is always the most pathogenic or predatory simulated self-replicating life form that will proliferate like kudzu and expand to fill the simulated ecosphere (in this case, just the available RAM). And so it is with humans. This isn't meaningless or inexplicable; it's just painful, hateful and insufferable. Kierkegård was an existentialist, and you could see why: it's really hard to accept that "meaning" is compatible with unspeakably malignant outcomes. And so many theologians want "meaning" to mean the benignity of potential divine intervention, an inherent safety net of limitless potential deus ex machina intercessions built into the fabric of the universe: it's not provable that they aren't, but then, neither is it provable that there aren't invisible, inherently undetectable rhinoceroses on a planet orbiting alpha centauri (also undetectable, lest anyone object that there are no such planets). But it's not helpful, and that's not what "meaning" means to a model-theoretic logician or a semanticist, but if I start begging the question of the "meaning of meaning," then I get into a type-theoretical tangle that will invoke the wrath of the ghost of Bertrand Russell, so I'm just going to say: likewise, "existentialism" can have many meanings, and the word has been used to represent diverse (and often contradictory) philosophical perspectives.
Existentialism can be construed in an uplifting sense to imply that we are not condemned by the indeterminacy or aleatoriness of outcomes (because neither predestination absent divine benignity nor the sense of an utter lack of control is particularly uplifting), but rather, that we are liberated by that indeterminacy and lack of an a priori framework to fashion our own outcomes (which is the sense in which I think Dan embraces it). This usage appeals to people (like Dan, if I can presume that) who like the idea of self-determination, but also (because Nietzsche has been construed as an existentialist ex post facto -- it's the atheist Übermensch thing), it appeals to the very sociopaths who are causing all the pain in the first place, though they'd never call themselves "existentialists," because that would be too... er, well, French.
So, en bref, existentialism of despair: there is no inherent meaning or God or hope (or certitude, or peace, or help for pain), and, oh woe, should I commit suicide? (because that's the only really relevant question)... or existentialism of hope: there is no inherent meaning or God or hope, so I'm altogether free to define myself and really ought to do so... or existentialism of opportunism: there is no inherent meaning or God, and no constraints, so hmm... being the superior being that I am, shouldn't I perhaps try to take over the world?
Now, how all this relates to Camus and our current dilemma will be the subject of Part II of this febrile screed, because... well, tired now, under the weather... and all of that.
* nobody likes semantic representations floating about in the void
Mary and Dan,Part II
So, to resume:
I am not an existentialist because I do not fit into any of the aforementioned categories, and because I believe the universe is "meaningless" only in a strictly vacuous sense. I do believe that life is unimaginably cruel, but I think it's the result of perfectly explicable human atavistic proclivities, and so confronting it does not cause me the sort of distress, cognitive dissonance (or existential crisis, if you will) that motivates existentialists. It just makes me want to fight it. I certainly do not accept the legitimacy of the absence of an a priori moral framework as a pretext for perpetrating evil. I actively loathe Nietzsche and his entire Weltanschauung (which, in his honor, I'll leave in German). My relentless and inveterate rationalism notwithstanding, I do not lack a spiritual side, or fail to recognize that human beings have spiritual needs, and I am not (the thing for which Mary excoriated Bill Maher) "an atheist missionary." I might be accused of being a "pacifist missionary," but that's something else.
Anyway, how all of this relates is essentially encapsulated in what I said earlier about my respect for Camus' personal prerogative to commit suicide, but my irrefragable refusal to countenance that for 300 million people -- even by my omission to object strenuously and incessantly. Ironically, the reason we're on this economic road to perdition is the existence of the third kind of existentialist I mentioned: the sociopathic one, who acknowledges no "artificial, inherently human moral constraint," views the lack of apodictic meaningfulness of the universe as a license to visit violence on others, and is utterly untrammelled in his, her or its* predations.
* By "its," I mean to reference the most profoundly sociopathic form of predator, albeit one not given to philosophical introspection of any sort: the corporation. One might exempt corporations from culpability for having philosophical predispositions, and hence from charges of Nietzschean existentialism, but they do represent the collective disposition of an aggregation of human psychopaths, and no less profound an ontological thinker than Mitt Romney affirms their "existence" as people, so I'm willing to go for it.
Dan, I found Bill's address at HBO on the Internet and sent it directly to him. Sending books to celebrities usually doesn't work well even when you know them. I was friends with the public intellectual bell hooks when she was at USC (and known by her real name, Gloria Watkins), mainly because we were the only two blacks in the Department, and we were surprisingly both from Kentucky (she's from Hopkinsville, which is not far from my hometown, Henderson). After I finished my memoir, I called her, we caught up, and I sent her my book. That was in June, 2013; I haven't heard from her. Despite what she said in a recent New Yorker profile about enjoying reading memoirs, I suspect she hasn't read mine yet because it's over 500 pages.Bill has not acknowledged receiving my book, but I'm sure he read it because I told him in the accompanying letter that he was mentioned in it twice. He obviously didn't like what I said about him in the prologue, but he probably appreciated what I said in my letter about liking him and Louis C.K. because of the way they talk about race. By the way, it helped that the book I sent him was short and humorous. Many people don't want to read long books, even by well-known authors. I love to read, but I keep putting off reading Harry Belafonte's memoir and a book about Obama called THE BRIDGE because they are both long.
Shelley wrote: "I agree with Dan. My students don't know how many people are on the Supreme Court or who their senators are. They're intelligent, but civics has never been taught and they just don't run into it...."
Only in the United States would ignorance of magnitude that colossal be possible. I strongly suspect that, even in France, college students would be able to answer those questions unproblematically, about the United States!
Actually, Dan is altogether right in his characterization of France: which is possibly why the American government so profoundly loathes its example. The French do have: immeasurably better pre-collegiate education, and (with some provisos) free education at the university level; free universal healthcare; and much less egregious maldistribution of wealth. The US Gini Index, as I've noted previously, sits squarely athwart that of Rwanda. (Actually, it did several years ago, but it's got much worse.) I believe Norway is still first-ranked, and France is still comfortably within the top dozen, though I don't remember the actual numerical position.. As of 2013, I believe the Washington Post reported that the US ranked 44th out of 86, one spot below Nigeria, but the figures I've seen from the CIA Handbook and the World Bank data put us considerably lower. It's really a matter of how the ratio is computed, but there is no computation that does not make us look like hell, compared to all the European countries, as well as dozens of others.
Darlene wrote: "Are you referring to Tom Vilsack, Mary? You're right… he DID disappear quickly! I have to admit that I'm a bit baffled as to why Hillary keeps postponing her announcement. Wouldn't she HAVE a messa..."I have this fantasy that Hillary is delaying announcement and Warren is refusing to run because they are in negotiations for Warren to be her pick for Vice. I think Clinton/Warren could be a dream ticket. Just think of the misogynistic orgy that will erupt from the "red team." They may hardly have to do much campaigning for themselves as the republican circus will be doing that for them.
I think we all have some missionary in us, Mark. I am a tolerance and education missionary. I agree with Bill Maher 90% of the time, and I love the way he jokes about race, but his attacks on all religious people annoy me. I end that short book with a list of what I call Bronze Rules. Bill stole one of them for his New Rules (but then I was stealing a bit from him by creating my Bronze Rules): U.S. Streets Are Not Boxing Rings Or Battlefields Rule - "Police officers, stop harassing, attacking, and killing innocent citizens. You are supposed to protect and serve, not assault and murder." Bill put his own spin on that rule, talking about the militarization of the police, something I was not aware of. Ferguson happened after my book was published and Bill stole that rule, so we both look prescient. But the rule that was aimed at Bill and all the religious missionaries was the "If You Believe Rule" - "You can believe whatever you want to believe as long as your beliefs don't make you believe that you are better than other people and as long as you allow other people to believe or not believe whatever they want." Amen.I hope everyone is enjoying their Sunday whatever they believe or don't believe, wherever and whenever they worship or don't.
Dan wrote: "I think Obama meant well, but it came over to many as false equivalency. Evil is evil regardless of the time and place, and always should be condemned."It only came over as false equivalency to those who didn't pay attention to the context of that portion of his speech, which was about wrestling with the questions of religious-based violence and cautioning those whose violence is largely (though not completely, witness Central African Republic) relegated to the past not to succumb to lazy cultural arrogance.
Paul wrote: "Dan wrote: "I think Obama meant well, but it came over to many as false equivalency. Evil is evil regardless of the time and place, and always should be condemned."It only came over as false equi..."
Regrettably, not entirely relegated to the past, as witness:
Dr. David Gunn
Dr. John Britton
James Barrett
Shannon Lowney
Lee Ann Nichols
Robert Sanderson
Dr. Barnett Slepian and
Dr. George Tiller, inter alea (Recquiescat in Pace)
and the ongoing war against women (more of a complete rout, since it's being won, overwhelmingly, at least in the Gilead states).
You did say "largely, though not completely relegated," so I know you were accounting for the murders, and I want to acknowledge that, but the war, itself, continues to be waged, and I do like to seize the opportunity to list those names, periodically. Battle casualties.
Beverly wrote: "I have this fantasy that Hillary is delaying announcement and Warren is refusing to run because they are in negotiations for Warren to be her pick for Vice. I think Clinton/Warren could be a dream ticket. Just think of the misogynistic orgy that will erupt from the "red team." They may hardly have to do much campaigning for themselves as the republican circus will be doing that for them. . Wouldn't ..."We've all been fantasizing desperately, Beverly, in an effort to influence the universe on some quantum level to cause Warren to run for president, despite her insistent asseverations that she categorically won't -- in the hope that this is all a great theatrical fake-out, and that once the Republicans have expended all their ammunition and wasted a year trashing Hillary, Warren will step back in to replace her as the nominee (which we don't really think will happen, but I think I can say that that has been the dream scenario most suggested in these precincts). Your wrinkle, though, is an entirely new one, and very interesting. It is certainly true that it would move the Republicans to hitherto unseen extremes of misogynistic fulmination (although the Republicans normally fulminate misogynistically on any day ending in "y," no matter who the candidate is). It is, of course, impossible in principle for the Republicans to be outrageously insane and clownish enough to satisfy their base, but the question is whether they could be induced to behave with insanity sufficient to alienate moderates. I tend to think they might presume the Democrats had automatically guaranteed their own defeat by nominating two women (women being indistinguishable to Republicans from Martians), and might therefore just step back from the fray and wait for their preferred NPD candidate to win. It's really hard to predict, but it probably is safe to presume that they will do whatever is most virulently insane.
I think your idea is extremely creative, though the obvious objections are that:
1) Warren would never want to be vice president to anyone. She's waiting, perhaps, for 2020 to run at the top of the ticket
2) Hillary wouldn't want her as a running mate, because Warren is much more charismatic, evokes more wild enthusiasm from the base, and would eclipse her.
3) The Democrats, themselves, would probably be a bit leery about advancing a two-woman ticket (though they shouldn't)
4) Many Democrats (including most of the "usual suspects" here) really don't like Hillary's hawkishness (or her trade policies), and would prefer Warren at the top now (and sans Hillary), if she were going to run at all
5) There's been worry that a drawback, even to Warren, is the phenomenal power of the misogynistic engine the Reuplicans would be able to harness, if even one woman were on the Democratic ticket -- hence names like O'Malley and Dannel Malloy have been floated.
and
6) It's hopeless no matter what, and we all need to emigrate to Alpha Centauri.
Of these, I find #6 the most compelling and plausible objection. But it's a nifty idea, in any case! :)
Mary wrote: "'You can believe whatever you want to believe as long as your beliefs don't make you believe that you are better than other people and as long as you allow other people to believe or not believe whatever they want." Amen. .."That is a rule I can believe in! Amen.
There is so much here to which I would like to respond, but I may not right now. I spent the weekend working almost around the clock on my book and my book proposal. In the course of it, I found some books I needed to read at least part of and wound up reading one entirely, and good parts of several others. I realized that the article I was planning to write about the economy needs to be a new chapter in my book. That meant more research, which I still am doing. The title of this new chapter (and also to be an article)is "The Odd Economy of 21st Century America."
Mark, my philosophy of life is my adaptation of existentialism. I don't believe there is any plan for us. I think most things are random, without any inherent meaning. I am responsible for my life to the extent that I can be. I try hard not to fret about those things over which I think I had no control that caused negative outcomes at various times. However, there always is that little voice that says maybe I could have done it differently!
I think there is something in the "spark" of life in all of us that is universal, and I think we have not yet figured out our brains and the powers they have. I love the ancients because they prove to us that while we are divided by time, geography, race, religion and culture, we still basically are all the same. We are all struggling within our own circumstances and psyches and we should not be so hard on one another.
I am not superstitious and, except for my car breaking down at exactly the wrong time, or gong to the dentist, I fear virtually nothing, including death.
I do think the world can be improved. Most of the time, however, change is ephemeral. There are forces of nature, and there is human nature, and they don't change, but given the right incentives humans do adapt.
Concerning Hillary...I sent her an email a couple of days ago suggesting she come out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership deal that Obama and the Republicans are trying to get through Congress without any review of its contents. Basically, I said that if she wanted to appeal to progressives, this was the way to do it, especially if she does it right now when it might mean something. We shall see.
Assuming that Hillary is the nominee, I think her running mate should be Sherrod Brown. She needs Ohio and it is very competitive. Having him on the ticket might win it for her - and that also could mean the election.
Of course the Republicans might pick Gov. Kasich or Sen. Portman to neutralize Brown - but their convention is first, so they won't know who the Democratic VP candidate will be. Still, if I were them, I'd pick one of those two. Both are smart and either one probably would be a stronger presidential candidate than any of the ones currently in the running.
The book I read yesterday is Thom Hartmann's latest, "The Crash of 2016." If you have read any of his books, you know his style - anecdotal, conversational, not heavy with the data, easy to read.His theory, based on the writings of some others, is that major economic calamities come about every 80 years - about the time it takes for the people who experienced the last one to die out, along with memories of it. We now are about 80 years from the Great Depression, and he thinks we're about to have another - but one much worse. He thinks it pretty much will destroy the existing power of what he calls the "economic royalists" and we then can start over afterwards and do it right, at least for another 80 years.
There is plenty of evidence that we may well be on the verge of a market meltdown, a bubble burst and an international monetary crisis. One of principal things that the smart money people do when they think something like this is about to occur is to convert their assets into cash as much as possible. That way when everything goes to hell and isn't worth much, they can buy it up cheap. That happened in the Depression. In addition to bootlegging, that was one of the ways Joe Kennedy got rich. Most of the really rich survive these calamities and some come out ever richer. So the end result may not be exactly as Hartmann predicts.
Right now there are huge stashes of cash in banks around the world. American corporations have nearly $3 trillion in cash from offshore profits that they have kept in banks rather than pay tax on it.
I wouldn't bet against it happening, and I wish I had cash to stash. If I did, however, the chances are I would spend it, or put it into a college fund for my grandson.
Incidentally, not everyone with memories of the Depression is dead. I'm not dead and my childhood was filled with stories from my family about their experiences in the Depression - which were not good. My maternal grandparents lost their farm. My maternal grandfather went to Michigan to work in a Ford plant and was beaten by Ford's goons when he was on the picket line during a strike. He died there of a ruptured ulcer at the age of 47. I heard about Father Coughlin and his extreme rightwing radio show, and Huey Long, and, of course, FDR. Some of my family loved FDR. Some hated him. He was from New York and all my mother's family was as well, and they were all Republicans - sort of Teddy Roosevelt Republicans, but still Republicans. My memories are so vivid, it almost feels like I lived through it. That, of course, is one of the reasons I am so pissed with what has happened since Reagan.
Dan wrote: "I try hard not to fret about those things over which I think I had no control that caused negative outcomes at various times. However, there always is that little voice that says maybe I could have done it differently."I think this is an incredibly cogent and important observation, Dan, that people much too universally fail to understand. And it is what partly accounts for our unproductive propensity to blame ourselves and others, to be blame-oriented and compulsively judgmental in a way that is neither humane nor (for those who would claim to embrace that religious perspective) particularly "Christian." Because I don't think that we ought only to cavil at blaming others for a lack of omniscience and the inherent human inability to foresee all the potential consequences of every single one of our actions, but I think we need also to forgive ourselves. Because, of course, we could have "done it differently." But, what with the implications of chaos theory, who's to say that that alternative choice (as in the case of the flapping of a butterfly's wings that precipitates a tsunami on the other side of the world), might not have resulted in a global cataclysm... or, in any case, something much worse then what did happen? It is a reflection evidently alien to a lot of people, that we really are not perfect computers algorithmically optimizing our performance by taking into account every factor in the universe -- in real time! -- and always making the decision that ineluctably, deterministically, results in the most desired outcome. Because the universe is not deterministic, and we are... well, human.
Dan wrote: "The book I read yesterday is Thom Hartmann's latest, "The Crash of 2016." If you have read any of his books, you know his style - anecdotal, conversational, not heavy with the data, easy to read.H..."
I put Hartmann's book in the most recent poll, Dan, having read some allusions to it, and some of the reviews on Amazon... but it didn't seem to elicit much interest, so I'm glad you read it and were able to provide us with your personal take. I am always suspicious of numerologically specific predictions concerning the periodicity of events not based on the physics of the universe, but rather on the vagaries of human behavior (because, whereas I do tend to endorse Vico's cyclical theory of history in a very general sense, abstractly and without temporal quantifiability, I really need to see a functional basis for the numeric predictions, and -- unlike Isaac Asimov's Harry Seldon -- I don't). Tectonic plates, real and metaphorical, shift, which is the reason for the lack of sustained predictive reliability of neural networks trained with a snapshot (or a set of them) taken at a particular moment in time. So Nostradamus-like predictions of inexplicably specific periodicity, where human events are concerned, put me off, but that's just my own, cranky cavil, and in this instance, I think Hartmann is right that there will be a meltdown, but because of the aforementioned "tectonic shift" (the state of the machine is not what is was), I think you are also right that the überrich will only emerge "überricher," and that there will be no deposition of the "economic royalists," or diminution of the strength of their lethal chokehold on the throat of the world. It'll be a "blip," and ordinary people will suffer heinously ("what tribulation," as the poor of Canterbury would have said, "with which we are not already familiar?"), but the same megalomaniacal, depthlessly avaricious monsters will remain in charge (not that they annoy me).
You should be "pissed" -- we should all be "pissed," beyond the capacity for human expression -- and Hartmann may not be right about the necessity of 80-year intervals, but Vico is right about the cyclicity, and as Eliot put it: "We do not know very much about the future, except that, from generation to generation, the same things happen, again and again... Sever the cord, shed the scale. Only the fool, fixed in his folly, may think he can turn the wheel on which he turns."
Well, folks, get ready to be "turned" again, on the Catherine wheel of economic predation. Maybe it is time, though, we stopped thinking it "foolish" to stick a spoke in the bloody wheel. Maybe the whole bloody apparatus needs to be smashed to the ground, and stomped upon. (I'm a pacifist, mind you, so I wouldn't hurt anyone, but I don't take kindly to torture, and there may be more ways than one to smash the fr***ing wheel.)
Dan, I think it's great that you are writing a book while being very active on social media. After two books, I think I'm done. I like the immediacy of social media. I can comment on everything from Brian Williams' "fog of memory" (surprisingly, given my attitude toward the media, I'm pro-Brian; I created a formula--memory+timextrauma=tall tale) to the White Oscars (I tweeted "Black lives matter; Oscars don't" and wrote a google+ post, comparing this fake controversy to the 1985 Oscar controversy when some black people were upset because a white director named, uh, Steven Spielberg directed The Color Purple and then became upset again when the film didn't win any of its eleven nominations, possibly because of the controversy. I also mentioned in a comment to Al Sharpton that Cuba Gooding has an Oscar, and Richard Burton didn't win one; case closed).For our 2016 ticket, I'm sticking to my belief that we need a white man at the top and a historical candidate as the Vice President, in other words, the reverse of what we have now. So what's wrong with populist Sherrod Brown as the Presidential candidate? Has he cheated on his journalist wife?
I'm a realist, a secular Christian (raised Southern Baptist, so I have Christian values), and agnostic. But I'm an agnostic realist who believes in miracles and magic. I've seen signs, for instance, that I might have some witchlike qualities. Most recently, I turned on Joan Rivers, who made a crude joke about the Obamas and then walked out on a CNN anchor, who appears to be black, just a couple of weeks before she died. Sorry, Joan. I also think that Limbaugh might be right that there is something magical about Obama. Go back and look at what happened to his Republican opponents when he ran for Senate in 2004. In 2008 the bottom fell out of the economy when he was running against a man who admittedly knew nothing about the economy, and in 2012 Hurricane Sandy blew in just in time for Obama to show everyone why we need government and how much better government works when a Democrat is in the White House (he handled Sandy better than Bush handled Katrina). Romney was left loading some unneeded goods on a truck back in Ohio or some other state nowhere near the action. And, according to Rachel Maddow, recently, pipelines were blowing up just as the Republicans and some Democrats were voting for the Keystone Pipeline. I wouldn't mess with Obama if I were a politician.
I think we have to realize that we are not completely in control of our fates. We can control our own actions, do the best we can with what we've got, but there might be something somewhere that has bigger plans, as the Frost poem suggests, a "design."
The Liberal Politics & Current Events Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
A Gift Upon the Shore (other topics)Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces (other topics)
Drift (other topics)
Drift (other topics)
What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815 - 1848 (other topics)
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I had to laugh when I read your comment about Allison Grimes!! :) I felt the same way!!! I could not STAND seeing any clips of her interviews, campaign ads,etc… she couldn't even admit she VOTED for President Obama!!! Seriously? I have NO respect for Mitch McConnell and I would have LOVED to see him lose his Senate seat but she didn't deserve to win! She was a POOR candidate…. I didn't even consider her a Democrat! I know, I know… she is from Kentucky.. but I was really happy to see all those supposed 'Blue Dog Democrats' go!!!
I can't disagree with anything that you said!! And I understand what you mean about being protective of President Obama and I think you're right about young people as well…. or at least, the young people who are MY children!! :) They all LOVE President Obama! And I do too… I respect and admire him… he is definitely more gracious than I would be and he shows a lot of class!!!
Your last comment is what worries me…. we DO seem to have a particular talent for 'snatching defeat from the jaws of victory'!!!