Thoughts on the Election

Commons
21

Loving the discussion here. I’d like to contribute with this Letter to the Editor published in my school paper, at SUNY Buffalo, titled “Understanding the Election”:

My aim is to explain how Donald Trump won the presidency, how anyone can feel happy about this election, and strategies going forth to hold the most powerful man in the world accountable.

So, first off, Trump did not win – Hillary lost. Hillary Clinton received six million less votes than Barack Obama did in 2012. Her voter turnout was abysmal, and Trump received less votes than Mitt Romney in 2012 and John McCain in 2008.

Donald Trump won the election because of three states – Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Rust-belt populism, the kind of populism that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic establishment alienated beyond repair, came out and voted for a man they did not trust or understand.

Only 1 in 3 voters said that Trump was trustworthy. Only 4 in 10 had a favorable opinion of him. What does that say?

Americans opted to hit the EXIT button with reckless abandon. Earlier this year, after the similarly populist Brexit, the elites lectured the working class about how they ‘voted wrong’. After Trump, the elites, no doubt, will also lecture the working class, and particularly white voters, for their sins. But this tactic of condescension, a tacit belief that American oligarchy is perfectly acceptable, is one of the least effective political pitches on Earth.

The entire liberal press tried to drive voter turnout by lecturing voters on their privilege and demanding them to act in favor of evil, the technocratic corrupt war-mongering Wall Street-funded campaign of Hillary Clinton. The entire liberal press, dead wrong and discredited, drove voters away, not toward them. They drove voters toward Trump because, as Thomas Frank brilliantly puts it, “they wanted to bring a sledgehammer to the machine”.

This election was a resounding rejection of the political class and its false pretense of innocence, its sham respectability, its eternal tone-deaf insistence that the mediocre continuation of the norm was worth voting for. It was not. This was the year to break the stranglehold of entrenched political dynasties on the electoral system. The Bush/Clinton enterprise was soundly rejected. The Democrats, who rigged their own democratic primary to undermine Bernie Sanders, made this bed and they lay in it. Only the worst political candidate of modern times could possibly lose to Donald Trump. And she failed spectacularly.

It is vital, absolutely vital, that the left learns its lessons from this election. Hating the white working class, and equating Trump supporters to Nazis, is a doomed strategy that will prevent the possibility of any future progressive movement. How many anti-establishment rust belt voters would have picked Bernie Sanders’ ideas, a modern New Deal, over the Trumpism they barely trust? The answer to this question is the answer to midterm elections in 2018 and the resurgence to come in 2020.

Right now, protesting the very existence of Donald Trump accomplishes nothing. We need to protest specific policies and ensure that the constitution and the rights of the marginalized are protected. We need to push him on his campaign promises, to make sure he rejects the Trans-Pacific Partnership, rejects wars in the Middle East, rejects a new Cold War with Russia, and make sure he knows that policies like the Muslim ban, mass deportation, and punishing women for abortions would destroy his legacy and make him a villain to the entire world.

We need to push him on specific issues while simultaneously gearing up for a populist movement in 2020 that will sweep the white working class out from under him and unify those disenchanted voters with the diverse coalition of black, Hispanic, gay and Muslim Americans who traditionally support Democrats. That synthesis of two Americas will be the return of the Republic we yearn for.

It’s time to stop taking politics for granted. It will take organization, precise goals, and a positive philosophy of taking back the country from corporate power. The good news is that Trump has proven how ready Americans are for substantial change. Let’s create something worth fighting for.

(For anyone interested, I also run a podcast here, “The Trumpland Podcast”: https://soundcloud.com/user-302994535/alex-blum-podcast-1-trump-is-now-the-establishment)

My angle is that of a young leftist trying to point out political realities, failures in the left, and how the left can fix its messaging and stop losing elections.

22

That’s beautiful how you ended that, Johnny. Afterall, “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”. Thanks too, Brad, for more elucidation. I kind of get it now. It seems to understand your take on ‘open to learn; closed to protect", one must see from a great distance, contemplating in the mind’s eye high above and scanning the landscape, seeing occurrences on planet earth in terms of years, centuries, whereas Johnny took it down for hypothetical testing and questioning in the personal realm. Funny, or not so funny, when I was half into reading your comment for the first time, seeing the word “globalization”, as you wrote “freshly criticized for all the right reasons”, I envisioned the planet earth in dark space, suddenly popping like a balloon. Perhaps how Marco put it is the bridge in the understanding: "Perhaps ‘open to learn; closed to protect’ could be a social meditation of sorts. A heuristic koan, sublingual, suggesting common ground for how boundary-level decisions are arrived at.”

Something to think about. Really I think “open to learn; closed to protect” is as natural as breathing in and out, or closing one’s hand into a fist to strike someone or opening it to pat or rub someone on the back, or picking up a tool to either destroy or create something. It’s something already practiced, whether one is aware of it or not. To reach your understanding of it, Brad, maybe it’s only a matter of increasing awareness. Wedding what already naturally occurs to awareness, and then while increasing awareness, expanding it to embrace the cosmos, directing activity in this awareness. It’s a way of saying, “No more blind leading the blind. Let us see.”

That pipeline which snakes its way through the earth and has come to a halt for the standoff at Standing Rock I see as a varicose vein.

————

I posted that Goebbels quote above, and reading around after I posted it, I discovered that it’s a misquote or wrongly attributed to Goebbels. It floats around in popular consciousness and has even found its way into academia. So there I was, a sucker too, posting it without first checking to see if it’s valid. Anyway, I still think the thought in the quote, wherever it originally came from, is rather true. The Big Lie if one doesn’t crack and holds to it with a poker face will in time gather its own dark force and cause many to submit to it and begin repeating it.

————

Just yesterday a new article by Chris Hedges was posted at Truthdig, entitled “Waiting for the Barbarians.” I feel deeply moved and called by the last paragraph:

"There will be rebels. They will live in the shadows. They will be the renegade painters, sculptors, poets, writers, journalists, musicians, actors, dancers, organizers, activists, mystics, intellectuals and other outcasts who are willing to accept personal sacrifice. They will not surrender their integrity, creativity, independence and finally their souls. They will speak the truth. The state will have little tolerance of them. They will be poor. The wider society will be conditioned by mass propaganda to write them off as parasites or traitors. They will keep alive what is left of dignity and freedom. Perhaps one day they will rise up and triumph. But one does not live in poverty and on the margins of society because of the certainty of success. One lives like that because to collaborate with radical evil is to betray all that is good and beautiful. It is to become a captive. It is to give up the moral autonomy that makes us human. The rebels will be our hope.”

1 Like
23

What’s up, Alex Blum. You’re a young fella, no? I’m 47 but still young in spirit, though I have my gravitas, and increasing aches and pains. But not so bad yet. Stray hairs too, in the unlikeliest places. Occasionally some rebel eyebrow hairs declare independence from the others, a couple going crazy; or I find a hair jutting long and simple out of the lobe or rim of one of my ears, all by its lonesome there, staking its claim as if the first man on the moon. I can’t stand such insolence: I fetch the tweezers. Indulge me and allow me to imagine you as younger than you probably are, in your early twenties, or even younger, and imagine me as older than I actually am, gray hair and wrinkles. (For fun imagine me with a southern drawl, with a pot belly, wearing blue jean overalls, a big straw hat, and picking my teeth with a toothpick between every few sentences.) Really glad for your contribution here. I heartily agree with the words you posted here. I hope what’s happening now scares the bejesus out of migratory Dems, flyin’ half-hearted and drowsily, wings grown so heavy, and sends 'em spiraling back down to the grassroots. The focus should be on plain economics and issues which revolve around making lives better (living wage, affordable housing, medical coverage, a clean and healthy environment) regardless of race, sexual orientation, religion. That shit always distracts attention from the real issues which most everyone experiences and cares about in their concrete everyday lives.

I think many people, scared, confused and desperate, when in such a state, are easily stirred up by demagogic personalities and manipulated by them, falling prey to their self-serving schemes and empty promises. I feel both terrified for our country and very sad. There’s this saying, never trust someone over 30. Now that I’m up at my age, I kinda understand what that means. Many up in years turn into crusty old fuckers, miserly and mean. No wonder here because everything is so ass-backwards. In America there’s a culture of perpetual youth, the reality of death, in the mainstream anyway, kept out of the public eye, and not much reverence for old age.

I sincerely hope and even have confidence in the freshness, natural curiosity and daring of youth, in youth’s hearty goodwill and ability still to imagine for the common good. I also have this deep longing for the emergence and embodiment of the wise old man, and wise old woman archetype. I wish I saw and felt more of it in our leaders.

Barack Obama is 55 years old. Hillary Clinton is 69 years old. Bernie Sanders is 75 years old. Donald Trump is 70 years old. This has turned into a little contemplation on age and the virtues and vices of each stage of life.

It brings to mind Francis Bacon’s marvelous short essay (I love these essays and how they’re written. When I was younger I used to carry a copy around with me in my deep coat pocket):

XLII. Of Youth and Age. Essays, Civil and Moral. (d.1597)

A MAN that is young in years may be old in hours, if he have lost no time. But that happeneth rarely. Generally, youth is like the first cogitations, not so wise as the second. For there is a youth in thoughts, as well as in ages. And yet the invention of young men is more lively than that of old; and imaginations stream into their minds better, and as it were more divinely. Natures that have much heat and great and violent desires and perturbations are not ripe for action till they have passed the meridian of their years; as it was with Julius Cæsar and Septimius Severus. Of the latter of whom it is said, Juventutem egit erroribus, imo furoribus, plenam [He passed a youth full of errors, yea of madnesses]. And yet he was the ablest emperor, almost, of all the list. But reposed natures may do well in youth. As it is seen in Augustus Cæsar, Cosmus Duke of Florence, Gaston de Foix, and others. On the other side, heat and vivacity in age is an excellent composition for business. Young men are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and fitter for new projects than for settled business. For the experience of age, in things that fall within the compass of it, directeth them; but in new things, abuseth them. The errors of young men are the ruin of business; but the errors of aged men amount but to this, that more might have been done, or sooner. Young men, in the conduct and manage of actions, embrace more than they can hold; stir more than they can quiet; fly to the end, without consideration of the means and degrees; pursue some few principles which they have chanced upon absurdly; care not to innovate, which draws unknown inconveniences; use extreme remedies at first; and that which doubleth all errors will not acknowledge or retract them; like an unready horse, that will neither stop nor turn. Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success. Certainly it is good to compound employments of both; for that will be good for the present, because the virtues of either age may correct the defects of both; and good for succession, that young men may be learners, while men in age are actors; and, lastly, good for extern accidents, because authority followeth old men, and favor and popularity youth. But for the moral part, perhaps youth will have the pre-eminence, as age hath for the politic. A certain rabbin, upon the text, Your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams, inferreth that young men are admitted nearer to God than old, because vision is a clearer revelation than a dream. And certainly, the more a man drinketh of the world, the more it intoxicateth; and age doth profit rather in the powers of understanding, than in the virtues of the will and affections. There be some have an over-early ripeness in their years, which fadeth betimes. These are, first, such as have brittle wits, the edge whereof is soon turned; such as was Hermogenes the rhetorician, whose books are exceeding subtle; who afterwards waxed stupid. A second sort is of those that have some natural dispositions which have better grace in youth than in age; such as is a fluent and luxuriant speech; which becomes youth well, but not age: so Tully saith of Hortensius, Idem manebat, neque idem decebat [He continued the same, when the same was not becoming]. The third is of such as take too high a strain at the first, and are magnanimous more than tract of years can uphold. As was Scipio Africanus, of whom Livy saith in effect, Ultima primis cedebant [His last actions were not equal to his first].

3 Likes
24

Hi John, I totally agree, the idea of being 70+ years old and running for a position of ultimate power strikes me as quite odd! Depending on Bernie Sanders just wasn’t enough, and now my generation is going to have to find itself, in the annals of art, journalism, philosophy, commentary, and even running for political office. Hopefully locally. I think local office is the only realistic place to change the Democrats from within, to make them responsive, to give them a wake-up call! Chris Hedges is one of my favorite journalists and certainly a defining spiritual influence. I love his take on morality and Christianity, as the true Christian is the outcast who takes an unpopular moral stance and reaps the consequences from the powers that be. Perhaps its a victim complex at its worst, but at its best, its a power that no authoritarian system can crush. The hope now is that the youth will keep its fire, and stay serious and unwilling to conform well into adulthood. I feel like there’s a good chance there, only problem is that the climate clock and the nuclear clock are both ticking…

3 Likes
25

The following two live readings of poems by Amiri Baraka have in them the energy of what I feel in my raw core. I’m not sure where I should post this, here or at the posting at this site of “Agonistic Cooperation as Mind Jazz”, introduced by Brian George.

One thinks when this begins, “This is kinda funny. Like playin’ with a baby to make it smile, mimicking first words, Oo, Oo. Climbin’ out of primordial sludge, makin’ jungle sounds, the primal ‘Om’, turning monkey into man, skirtin’ the racist stereotype, but tappin’ into the fact, Jack. Is it going to be standup comedy, a joke?” Then when Amiri Baraka begins speaking one thinks, “Oh no, here comes slam poetry, the worst that it has to offer, self-indulgent and self-righteous sounding off without substance”, but instead what comes jazzes and blacks and blues you, one might say reverse hustlin’, street preachin’ which reaches down deep and lifts up the heart, performing exorcism. This is some good shit, man, prime Dope not shot up but purged out of the system.

I can’t get enough of this, ah-Wow. I’m totally feelin’ the rage, the roaring sarcasm, the volcanic disgust, the middle finger comin’ like the smokestack of a freight train, ah-Wow, Wow. It must be the Devil.

Bah Dee dah

26

I haven’t read (yet) all the replies, but I wanted to put 2cents in @ the request of Marco, immediately, as I’m 90k words into a book I’m writing about this event. So briefly: Trump won because that’s what he does-win. He has a philosophy and a worldview, an ethos, that was perfectly suited for the times. One could say, “Everything happens for a reason, and if it didn’t happen (Bernie or Hillary winning); it wasn’t meant to be.” The elites, to include the main stream media, did not, and do not, understand Trump - they decided early on he was a joke. They were wrong. He is anything but a joke. He’s a very serious man who has fun. He laid out his philosophy in his 1987 memoir, “the Art of the Deal.” apparently, no one read it, or if they did, they didn’t get it. It’s all there. That’s what he did, what he’s doing, and what he will do. “They” fed you a false narrative from the beginning and then doubled & tripled down because they’ve been humiliated. “They” are the experts and he proved them “stupid”; and they can’t stand that.

Trump is none of the things “they” defined him as. So, in short, don’t worry - it’ll be fine - great in fact. If, big if, you all will get behind him and let “Trump be Trump.” He understands people better than all the experts. He understands that at “our” core - we all want the same thing - to be loved and love. To be respected and valued. (except for a rare few sickos.) Everything “they”'ve told you about him is untrue. “They” hate him, but you don’t have to. Don’t let others lead you down the path of bitterness and despair. It’s the Law of Attraction, folks. Trump gets it.

On the Politics and Ethics of Empowerment
27

“actual concrete individualism” Marco, that is Trump. Think about what he did, what he has done, and then maybe, what he might be able to do - bring peace to the planet. He’s a mutant.

28

It’s like a game of checkers. The black squares of the board are “he” and the red squares are “them”. Leap frog the most pieces wins the game, Trumps the opponent. Rakes in all the casino chips. And everything goes in reverse: Poof! That’s just what he does: The Prince turns into a frog, because that’s just what does, he understands 'em, warts and all. But what is not seen, eyes glowing in the dark, is the hungry cat waiting in the wings. Before you can blink: frog legs twitching under whiskers.

29

So true - open v. closed, which is part of the personality construct OCEAN; but only a part. I’m finding out that the hypocrisy of the Left is equal to that of the Right. I’m finding out that the Left is every much as closed-minded as the Right. Trump, on the other hand, is Open (minded.) Yes, he’s a narcissist. And yet, he admits as much - openly.

30

That’s untrue. The purpose of communication is to be understood, or to create doubt in the least; but always to communicate that one’s desire is worth consideration and that there are consequences if one’s desire is not considered. The other side of one’s desire is submission to the Other’s desire, which sometimes brings relief and gratitude.

31

Aren’t you glad you invited me in, Marco? I’ll take you all on. BUT, it should be in a face-to-face - wherein REAL communication takes place. Housewarming in my new digs - ya’ll are invited. (sometime in February/March 2017.)

32

Ha! Well, @Mark_Jabbour. Every ointment needs its fly; every card deck needs its Trump; and every checkerboard amphibian needs its Cheshire Cat. (Yum.)

Yeah, sure, I’ll come to your housewarming. Make it an inauguration party? Maybe you can make that salsa again. It was damn good! I’ll bring some beer and we can open up your green medicine cabinet, too.

The real wild card here, it seems to me, is the possibility (likelihood?) of some kind of game-changing Event—e.g., a dirty nuke attack or climate-related catastrophe or accidental military confrontation w/ China…something where events spin out of control and Trump is forced to respond to a crisis, which I expect will be with disproportionate force, which provokes a wave of reactions and protests, which turn violent, followed by counter-measures (an alpha ‘strongman’ needs to demonstrate his strength), which all spirals out control, and then we really learn the consquences of allowing a police state infrastructure to build up, almost literally under our noses, over the past couple decades.

This is the WW3 scenario I can see precipitating.

On the other hand, we might just get the logical continuation of capitalism. Lots of deals, a temporary economic boom, which eventually (sooner rather than later, I’d wager) overshoots planetary limits once and for all: we hit the tipping point and actually, undeniably even by FOX News, start seeing rapid sea-level rise, superstorms, etc., in real time. Yum, indeed!

Standing Rock will be Trump’s first major test, imo. Energy Transfer Partners wants Trump to force the Army CoE to push the project through. If this happens—which can only happen violently—the opposition movement will explode and things will get ugly fast. If, on the other hand, Trump is able to strike a deal that makes both sides happy, then we’re in business, and your more optimistic scenario gains some credibility. However, I’m not betting on it at this point…

33

Mark Jabbour, you’re a trip, man. The other day in the business section of the city, high rise buildings all around, I talked with a man, maybe in his early thirties, street filth clinging to him, dressed in rags. I came upon him and he was talking to himself, loudly, and making unusual gestures. It was hard to ignore him. The kind of guy I’d like to see cleaned up, dressed in a tuxedo, and take to a party of uptight snobs, setting him loose, to witness REAL conversations. (Ah, that felt good. I like putting everything in caps. It makes it feel more REAL.) I stepped right up to this guy and sort of broke into what he already had going, easing my way in, interjecting some soft questions, sort of feeding logs to the fire, just to get a sense of his trip, man. He pointed all around and said, “I own all this.” At one point he went into how he has suffered for us all, was not too long ago changed into a dog the size of a skyscraper. That came out of nowhere, but it was oceanic, man. I shuddered at the vision of him lifting his hind leg. Duck and cover. There’s another planet he comes from, he told me, and he’s God in the body I found him in. “I own all this,” he said again. He started talking about awful things which happen to children, molestation, and I listened to him. What he said became weirder and weirder, self-involved and convoluted, so to snap him out of it, and to redirect the flow of words, like clapping my hands, I interjected, “Hey, I have an anus and private parts. What can I do? I’m looking at you and you don’t appear so different than I. Arms and legs, a torso and head, and an anus and private parts too I assume.” He let out a laugh like a kid who just heard a dirty joke for the first time, looking around as if we had just stolen some cookies out of the cookie jar. I went on, “If you are God, of all forms it is possible to take, why did you come down to earth and take this human form?” He didn’t answer my question but slid back into the pattern of words and phrases and narrative he was spinning when I first came across him, repeating himself louder and louder, wildly gesticulating and hypnotizing himself back into believing he’s God. Maybe he is God. Maybe Trump is one of his apostles, and you are a priest come to spread the word.

I want I want.jpg499×700 99.9 KB

1 Like
34

I’m glad you brought up Standing Rock - the world in a grain of sand. The resolution is simple and yet the passions are high enough to bring forth war. First, Trump sold his stock in the company. Second, respect for the rights of individuals and tribes … There is NO NEED FOR CONFLICT.
Trump understands this. Let’s make a deal, where everyone gets something of what they want, but maybe not everything. We all can have clean water & air (life); and also people can make money. Here’s the solution: Create a paid position of watcher-of-the-water [a paid position for say, $50k a year, times 3, with access to the wheels (see below) and decision making power]; and also create shut-off values on the pipeline. i.e. if oil leaks/spills (which it is bound to sometime); there is a a big wheel (two) where one can shut off the flow of oil. So, there’s a temporary interruption to the status-quo but it’s remedied quickly. There’s no need for all this drama and hysteria - except for people’s pride and … whatever (errg. People suck.) Trump gets all of this. He’s a problem solver. Give him his due, his recognition, i.e. let Trump be trump and we’ll all be the better for it. Watch him, challenge him, but be respectful, and we might just emerge on the other side. He wants what you want - love, respect, recognition … and solutions to problems. He gets it.

35

Mark Jabbour, these words of yours are a little more sensible to me. Very glad for ‘em. After reading this, you seem like a decent dude, not just trolling but sharing your sincere thinking and beliefs. I’d hang out with you, and like to try that salsa Marco mentioned. Your quirky originality is definitely welcome to me. Only I still don’t get your thing for Trump. I kinda understand your angle. Since he’s the President-Elect, it is what it is, and one must work with it. A certain way of handling this would only work the thorn in deeper, causing more, not less, pain and agony, possibly leading to infection. But Trump has quite a record and history. A leopard cannot change its spots, and a tiger cannot change its stripes. A wolf is a wolf, even if it comes disguised as a sheep. I don’t expect when I see a hippopotamus, that it will suddenly leap up on its hind legs and begin dancing like Baryshnikov. That only happens in Disneyland, or in Trumpland. It’s not going to happen in reality. One must choose between Trumpland and reality, and I emphatically choose reality.

Trump yells “I’m a Winner!” over everything, no matter what it is, no matter who challenges him with facts. Facts of course don’t matter to him, only results. The ends justify the means. He yells, “Pathetic! Loser!” over anyone who displeases the spoiled child in him. By a kind of charismatic bullying he convinces many that a rundown jalopy is a Rolls Royce, that a pile of shit is gold (see Trump University), and it’s sad and frightening to me that he actually succeeds in breaking so many down and getting them to submit to him by nothing more than aggressive propaganda and relentless self-promotion. That’s what The Donald does. A sucker is born every minute, and the more suckers who he “pulls one over on”, eyes riveted to the spectacle he creates, the rawer and more irrational the better, deliberately stirring up controversy to keep attention fixed on himself, the more his “occult” power and love for himself grows. That’s where he gets his narcissistic supply. He’s made himself into a brand, stamps his name on as many things as he can, multiplies his image, presenting himself as a Golden Idol. Many indeed worship and fetishize him. When he looks into your eyes, he’s not seeing you, but really looking to see a reflection of himself, so that he can admire himself. Puncture that illusion and make yourself felt too much in your concrete individuality, too different from him, and he immediately sees an enemy to be conquered or suppressed. The sociopathic part is that I do think that’s his nature. He’s not aware that he does this, creature of impulse that he is; he can’t help being as he is, in the same way that a spider can’t help spinning a web, catching flies, and sinking its fangs into them, sucking out their guts. Trump lacks a conscience like someone colorblind can’t see colors, and that’s not his fault. Conscience is just not part of the Donald Trump recipe for “Success.” The kind of well-considered and measured reasoning Marco displays here, sensitive to detail and nuance, open to debate and fair play, with deep feeling and respect for concrete individuality, extending beyond his own to include others in reality - not just abstracted and hoarded into stereotypes - is foreign and even contemptible to Trump. To him conscience is for suckers and weaklings, to be treated rudely and trampled underfoot, and too much reasoning undermines action. In extremis this is true - see Hamlet - but Trump leap-frogs over everything and goes straight for immediate gratification, grabbing first prize without doing the training and actually running the marathon, pandering to the basest instincts, something one could say is a major contributor to the erosion and collapse of civilization in the first place. He cuts out all the middle stuff of work, the difficulties and complexities, the patience required to process matters thoroughly, and always leaps straight to conclusions, asserting success and proclaiming victory no matter what. I myself feel the appeal of this. He taps into a machismo in us, and many of his followers feel galvanized and energized by that, and are acting out on it, beating on their chests and throwing their weight around. Trump really scored the mother-load of narcissistic supply by tapping into all the real frustration and anger in this country, all the people who have been fucked over by policies which have served mostly the rich and well-to-do through the years. It has finally reached a head, no longer able to be contained and endured, and exploded, and now all the parasites feast in an orgy on the carcass of the old body politic, engorged and intoxicated on its blood, and soon there will be a call for more blood, with Trump brandishing his sword and leading the way.

1 Like
36

I think your second scenario is most likely. We’re already seeing the capitalists and foreign markets responding with optimism. All these problems that you speak of are solvable, including the rising seas and super-storms. Our (humans) greatest asset is, after all, our ability to adapt to a changing environment. The major problem is, however, that heretofore we have adapted by moving, or migration. Migration was the cure all, even for person-to-person and tribe-to-tribe conflicts. And but so … we’ve run out of room. There are too many people. “Build that wall!” (And then some sea walls.) We’ve become too successful and nature always finds a way to solve that problem. And, nature doesn’t care. The earth will be fine – go on spinning and wobbling its ways around the sun, for billions of years more. We our our own problem. Trump’s a problem solver. “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s … .” Someone said that, sometime, a few years ago. The hysteria from the Left is a power play. They are playing the fear card, using reverse Darwinism to gain control [as in the O.J. trial, where the defense used jury selection (in nature it is known as sexual selection) to select the uneducated so as they would dismiss the sophisticated (DNA) evidence and nullify the truth—O.J. committed the murders.] Here we have the Left, who have failed to solve the problems when given the chance, now playing the fear factor – the race card, the woman card, the sky-is-falling card – in the hope of not losing, which they did, and in the hope of not being known for who they are—losers.
PS – I’m not moving ‘till after the inauguration. Maybe we can have TWO parties!

1 Like
37

there’s been some mention of Chris Hedges. We met once. I thought his book “War is a force that gives us meaning” was great - told him so. But now, I think he’s gone off the deep end. It really is about power, in the end.

hedges.JPG2305×1860 2.4 MB

38

Thanks, Mark. I’m glad you kept with this and added more words. Certainly in first encounters, first impressions can be deceptive. I resist facile categorizing. (That’s part of the problem in relations in the world too. People tend quickly to brand and label each other. It’s second-nature now, indicating social conditioning.) Something in your currents I agree with and am wryly amused by. I’m not sure about the Left, how you broad-brush that. There’s been a dissolving of the Corporate Democratic Party like the wicked witch in The Wizard of Oz. "I’m melting! I’m melting!” Or you could say its head has been cut off in a ritualistic execution, covered by Fox News, and the body twitches in the dirt; small monsters creepy-crawl out of the blood which streams from its neck, lifting off and flapping around, pathetically grotesque and shrieking. I understand the ridicule and contempt. One feels like reaching for one’s rifle and, like shootin’ skeet, pickin’ off the ugly, shrieking beasts, or swattin’ them like pests. They distract attention. Some new phenomenon is happening, the masks of the old slipping off, and revealing the Oligarchy that for the longest time has been lurking and growing underneath the two party monopolization. Now the melding is complete, the final skin of the serpent has been shed, and sprouting arms and legs rises up like a Colossus. Fee Fie Foe Fum.

I agree with you that Chris Hedges has gone off the deep end. That’s because he’s able to. Most stay splashing around in the shallow end or play in the kiddie pool. You speak of the world as if it’s an amusement park, and planet earth is a spinning, wobbling top. (That’s probably where you hook me too, welcoming your company at this site. We share the satire mentality, though we apply it differently.)

Let’s celebrate Trump by doin’ the salsa, stopping and turning, clicking our heels and throwing him a salute.

027-the-great-dictator-theredlist.jpg1500×1157 192 KB

1 Like
39

I hope you’re right on this, Mark…

But my concern is that a “deal” implies the expectation of fairness (lest it merely be a pretense for theft), which is extremely difficult to achieve with such an asymmetrical distribution of power.

One side has all of the guns and money; the other side has only their bodies, prayers, and potential popular moral appeal. The Native Americans have made many “deals” with the U.S. government, and where has it gotten them?

Your proposed solution, involving monitoring of the pipeline, I would assume is already what’s done (per regulations)…and yet, spills remain a not infrequent occurrence.

But let’s see what happens. Like I said, to me, this situation is a Trump’s first big test. One can easily find reasons to not feel confident about the outcome.

But what do I know?! I’m just another loser. Pass the salsa.

40

I have to admit I haven’t followed this closely, because frankly: Who ya gonna believe? Why did it ever come to this point? If there was a conflict about where the pipeline was being laid it should have been resolved long BEFORE any digging began. Don’t you have to get all the permits and easements approved BEFORE the project begins? Anytime you build anything you have to get it all approved. If not, why is there an EPA? Why are there engineers? Why are there architects? Why are there government agencies and inspectors? Who dropped the ball on this one? Who “played ball”? Obama’s administration. I’ve seen pictures of pipe in an open ditch. And then, I’ve also seen a squiggly line on a map that shows the route of the pipeline, and that it DOES NOT cross into the reservation, but goes above it, where it then crosses the Missouri River. So the tribe really does not have a case. Their case is: What if it leaks into the river - then it pollutes the water supply of the rez. Ok, ya monitor it, closely. At the first sign of leakage, you shut it down, until it’s fixed. Done. Which makes me think it’s all political, i.e. a bunch of horseshit. And another example of outrage that is outrage for the sake of outrage. It’s all bullshit. This IS the swamp that Trump wants to drain–bloated bureaucracies and phony outrage! All so people can score a paycheck or feel better about their sorry-ass selves. I’m so sick of this. ( Another reason why I voted for Trump.) Trump, being an international builder and developer, knows how the bullshit game is played.

Made chili today - hmmm good.