— Theater of SciFi (@theaterofscifi) November 11, 2016
Nov 27, 2016
Nov 26, 2016
What We're Up Against
(keep in mind what happens to a segment of any population when it's been isolated for a long enough period of time)
Single-Thread explanations are not very useful when you're trying to figure out "what went wrong".
That said, there's something very compelling about this from AlterNet:
Single-Thread explanations are not very useful when you're trying to figure out "what went wrong".
That said, there's something very compelling about this from AlterNet:
As the aftermath of the election of Donald Trump is being sorted out, a common theme keeps cropping up from all sides: "Democrats failed to understand white, working-class, fly-over America.”
Trump supporters are saying this. Progressive pundits are saying this. Talking heads across all forms of the media are saying this. Even some Democratic leaders are saying this. It doesn’t matter how many people say it, it is complete bullshit. It is an intellectual/linguistic sleight of hand meant to throw attention away from the real problem. The real problem isn’t east coast elites who don’t understand or care about rural America. The real problem is rural America doesn’t understand the causes of their own situations and fears and they have shown no interest in finding out. They don’t want to know why they feel the way they do or why they are struggling because they don’t want to admit it is in large part because of choices they’ve made and horrible things they’ve allowed themselves to believe.--and--
At some point during the discussion, “That’s your education talking,” will be said, derogatorily, as a general dismissal of everything I said. They truly believe this is a legitimate response because to them education is not to be trusted. Education is the enemy of fundamentalism because fundamentalism, by its very nature, is not built on facts.--the kicker:
Everyone who isn’t just like them has been sold to them as a threat and they’ve bought it hook, line, and grifting sinker. Since there are no self-regulating mechanisms in their belief systems, these threats only grow over time. Since facts and reality don’t matter, nothing you say to them will alter their beliefs. "President Obama was born in Kenya, is a secret member of the Muslim Brotherhood who hates white Americans and is going to take away their guns." I feel ridiculous even writing this, it is so absurd, but it is gospel across large swaths of rural America. Are rural, Christian, white Americans scared? You’re damn right they are. Are their fears rational and justified? Hell no. The problem isn’t understanding their fears. The problem is how to assuage fears based on lies in closed-off fundamentalist belief systems that don’t have the necessary tools for properly evaluating the fears.So if you just gotta have something simple to hang onto, here it is:
You can say the system is broken all you want, but it's worse than that - the voter is broken.
So you can make all the noise you wanna make about how "Hillary didn't make the case" and "Hillary didn't connect with the voters she needed to connect with" and and and - but what that all boils down to is a complaint that she shoulda spent more time and energy catering to a giant load of Middle-Class Middle-Aged White Christian Men who are listening to absolutely nothing you, or I, or "your Libtard FemiNazi candidate" has to say about anything.
Just Make Shit Up
Now that Trump is playing the other side of his Unpredictability Game, the apologists have been widely deployed to explain that everything Mr Un-PC-I-Tell-It-Like-It-Is said during the Scampaign® was really just election-year rhetoric and metaphorical language - he didn't really mean any of it to be taken literally. C'mon.
Nov 25, 2016
New Music (updated)
"listening to that song cuz it hurts just right" (Never Mind Your Bleeding Heart)
Regina Spektor:
Regina Spektor:
A little artsy and the poetry is a tad obvious sometimes, but musicianship counts for an awful lot, plus I can hear Jennifer Warnes and Sara Bareilles, and that ain't bad at all - so I just want her to stay with it and keep gettin' better.
Nov 24, 2016
What We're Up Against
The frame has been in place for a long time - everything's better with Tax Cuts. So, of course, we can expect the same ol' shit.
Professional Left Podcast
And don't forget you can "donate" to the podcast just by doing some shopping thru the Amazon link on the Professional Left website.
(aka: using the Evil Empire's own money to defeat them - tilt head back; laugh maniacally)
On That NYT Chat With Trump
Here's the whole banana in case the pay wall at NYT jumps up in front of you.
It was good to hear Donald Trump “disavow and condemn” the white nationalism of some of his supporters, in a meeting Tuesday at The New York Times.
It was good to hear him acknowledge that climate change is linked to human activity, and that maybe waterboarding isn’t such a great idea after all. And speaking for the home team, it was good to hear him even call The New York Times a “great, great American jewel.”
It was, of course, hard to square all these statements with his record of spreading the birther lie about President Obama, calling climate change a “hoax,” promising he’d “bring back waterboarding” and describing The New York Times as “failing.”
But, hey, if President-elect Trump moderates his views, and then crystallizes those views in policies that, as he put it, “save our country,” we will commend him on growth in office. “I am awed by the job,” he said.
The problem is, as pleasant as it was to hear those remarks, it was alarming to confront how thinly thought through many of the president-elect’s stances actually are. Consider climate change. Mr. Trump said that he valued clean air and water, but that he hadn’t decided if combating climate change was worth the expense. “I have a totally open mind,” he said, making a virtue of not knowing the issue.
Or take torture. In the campaign, he stoutly defended waterboarding, which is contrary to American values and illegal under international law. Yet one conversation, with Gen. James Mattis, a candidate for defense secretary, may have changed his mind. General Mattis told Mr. Trump what experts have been saying for years: Torture doesn’t work. Mr. Trump said he was “impressed and surprised” by General Mattis’s assurance that, “Give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers and I’ll do better.”
We would applaud any sensible change of position, however arrived at. Mr. Trump’s apparent flexibility, combined with his lack of depth on policy, might be grounds to hope he will steer a wiser course than the one plotted by his campaign. But so far he is surrounding himself with officials eager to enact only the most extreme positions. His flexibility would be their springboard.President Obama, who also spoke of bringing the country together, invited Republicans to join his administration. We have not yet seen Mr. Trump make any such effort to reach across party lines.
And in one area, Mr. Trump remained quite inflexible: He made clear he has no intention of selling his businesses and stepping decisively away from corrupting his presidency with an exponentially enhanced version of the self-dealing he accused Hillary Clinton of engaging in.
Ronald Reagan used to say that in dealing with the Soviet Union, the right approach was to “trust, but verify.” For now, that’s also the right approach to take with Mr. Trump. Except, regrettably, for the trust part.I'm sure Trump likes to believe he's setting up a Team Of Rivals, and that'll be great because he's letting the scorpions in the bottle slug it out and he'll go with whatever idea the survivor can articulate. And that's perfect for Trump because he possesses a depth of understanding comparable to that of any randomly chosen 8th grader.
Thankful For Keith
The dirty secret of the 25th Amendment: VP and cabinet can declare Trump "unfit" and 3 weeks later he could be out pic.twitter.com/0k0DQ6Z1zX— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) November 24, 2016
Nov 23, 2016
Don't Mean One Damn Thang
Yeah Trumpians, you're not getting jobs, a wall, infrastructure, HRC ain't going to jail, all you're losing is your benefits! Thanks alot! pic.twitter.com/qOzg8wVSZQ— philip harris (@pharris830) November 23, 2016
Trump recently indicated he has no plans to go after Hillary - although, "I don't wanna hurt her" is easily taken as a warning and as a veiled threat to hurt her a lot.
I've seen plenty of tweets and various other posts saying it's just Trump showing us he never had any intention of going after her, and whoa mama, won't the Trumpsters be upset when he starts breaking all those promises.
To which I will retort - so fuckin' what? Not that it won't make some of the more radicalized Trumpsters a little crazy(er), but it plays for most of them as Trump The Merciful: "See? I told ya he was OK; would a really bad guy let a crook like Hillary off the hook like that?"
(And don't get on me about how silly and contradictory the end of that last bit was - it doesn't have to make sense on any but the shallowest possible level for these knuckleheads. These are workin' guys who just elected the one guy in all of USAmerica Inc with an absolutely unimpeachable reputation for fucking over the workin' guy. They're not the least bit interested in "thinking things thru", remember?)
Anyway, Trump has no intention of going after Hillary - for now. He'll keep it in his pocket, and he'll tease it whenever he thinks it's useful for him to do so. ie: if the rubes get a little unruly or when the Dems get a little too critical of what he's doing.
It's part of that "I wanna be unpredictable - keep you in suspense" thing he loves to do.
So it's a big one - and valuable - The Dual-Purpose Political Device. It gets the rubes to calm down at the same time it riles up libruls (works in reverse too - very valuable indeed). The point being to maintain a Divide-n-Conquer split in order to provide cover for whatever shenanigans he's up to at that moment to steal the good silverware.
Today's Tweet
(I have no confirmation on this)
These fascist posters are appearing at US universities. This is chilling considered alongside the prof. watchlist. Please spread the word. pic.twitter.com/hBKjFmpdvs— Christopher Stroop (@C_Stroop) November 22, 2016
Nov 22, 2016
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)