Doing the wrong thing seems to be the way of our governing class, and that includes Trump. That he continues to be lauded and supported at all is interesting, "clarifying" you might say, because it shows up his prime supporters for who they are: nihilists, racists, reactionaries and would-be revolutionaries if they only had some courage. But they don't. They're cowards looking to lord it over someone, somehow, preferably by divine right. IE: delegation by the God Emperor.
That's what they are supporting him for. They are hoping that he will assume the Purple and finally Rule once and for all as he should, from the Throne, brooking no opposition, giving no quarter to his enemies, enforcing obedience with whatever violence the situation requires.
Doing the wrong thing, indeed.
Except that's what his supporters and defenders want.
Enough of the business of politics. Enough with listening to the losers. Enough with mollycoddling the snowflakes. Enough with the Clintonites.
Time to put a final nail in the coffin of the Democrat (sic) Party.
Destroy! Destroy! Destroy!
They revel in every wrong move from On High.
Withdrawing from the Paris Accords (which apparently is a symbolic thing, but I'll get to that eventually) thrilled them. Of course it's been pointed out that the United States is now the only nation on earth that doesn't support the aims and goals of the Accords to deal with climate change as a common cause among peoples and nations. The two other nations that have not agreed to the Accords, Nicaragua and Syria, have their reasons -- Nicaragua because they didn't go far enough and Syria because the Assad regime was not allowed to represent the nation at the negotiations and thus no one was empowered to agree to the Accords for Syria.
The reason for Trump's withdrawal: Selfish, pissy, "nyah, nyah" to the rest of the world. That's about all. And that's what thrills his supporters and defenders. "Sticking it" to whomever is their prime objective. Sticking it, essentially, to anyone and everyone who disputes or disagrees with their chosen Ultra-Alpha.
Many have claimed that Trump intends to destroy the ruling neoLibCon paradigm, freeing us and the world from its horrors. No, I think not, and I have argued that instead, Trump intends to consolidate it and impose it far more thoroughly and harshly than it has been heretofore (the example of Greece under the neoLibCon thumb is instructive). We see every indication of it in his budgets, statements, and actions, but his supposedly "progressive" supporters especially let them pass as if they were angel's wings, nothing to be alarmed at. Nothing at all.
It's more of doing the wrong thing. Sometimes in hopes that eventually the Right Thing will emerge and whatever horrors arise in the interim --oh well. Christian Martyrs, you know. Can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs. Eggs are losers. Too bad so sad.
In addition to doing away with politics, they seem to want to do away with the bulk of human population, disposing of practically everyone who is... well, let's be honest.. not white enough.
"Overpopulation" is a constant theme with them. The answer is disposal. They celebrate climate change because it will eliminate a shit ton of brown people. Whoo-hoo!
So of course Trump's withdrawal from Paris would be seen in a positive light.
The problem is that our less radical neoLibCon rulers are intent on doing the wrong thing too. Only less short term destructively. It's amazing.
There is really no one at all among the elites of governing, business, or finance who sees doing the right thing for the masses and the rabble as important or necessary. No one.
We cannot rely on them to do what should be and needs to be done.
There is only one way to solve a governing crisis of this magnitude. The upcoming elections in Britain may give a clue, but I suspect the results will be disappointing given the recent attacks in London and Manchester. We'll see.
At some point, the People, the Masses, the Rabble have to put the fear in the governing classes, particularly those in the Trump camp, but not solely them. So far, the Rabble has not been able to do it, not consistently and effectively at any rate, and it is partially because the Rabble are divided, almost atomized, and do not see a common interest with one another --unless of course it is to "stick it" to some other element of the Lower Orders.
There is no agreement about what Doing the Right Thing entails.
And so it goes.
The devolution will continue.
Showing posts with label End of Loser Liberalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label End of Loser Liberalism. Show all posts
Sunday, June 4, 2017
Saturday, February 4, 2017
Antifa -- Is the Vanguard Ready?
The Incident at Berkeley has caused much hand wringing and hair pulling, "pearl clutching" in a word, throughout the law'n'order/"non-violence" -- except by the state -- crowd.
Ohnoes!!! Broken windows! "Molotov cocktails!" Disruption! Black clad anarchist!!!
This attitude toward disruption, inconvenience and broken glass (black clothing too) is one of the reason why we're in the pickle we're in. The fear of actually doing something that might-could get someone in trouble, change the narrative, prove disruptive, inconvenient, or break a window has been so ingrained in the American subconscious that when it happens -- as at Berkeley, but many times before -- there is a reflexive recoil. "Ohnoes!"
Well, stop.
While I don't find the Black Bloc to be a particularly effective tactic -- never was -- it exists, it happens, it's going to continue, get over it.
Yes, really. Get the fuck over it. I think I said much the same during Occupy, whenever the Pearl Clutchers went into their periodic -- and idiotic -- hysterics over someone breaking something somewhere or burning trash in the street. Come on, it's a tiny thing when compared to the outrages of the ruling class. If it gets attention paid to some of those outrages, great. If not, it's not the end of the world.
Welp, here we are now, and Antifa is a rising thing as people start to recognize that Fascism has evolved and the Trump regime is its New Model avatar. If we really don't want fascists to rule us, we'll have to accept a bit of vanguardism from the Antifa.
Don't worry about it so much.
If you don't want to participate, don't. Is that so hard?
Of course I've heard plenty of reports that there are provocateurs sent by the state in every Black Bloc action we know of. Could be. I did encounter provocateurs during Occupy, but to my knowledge they were not included in any Black Bloc action I had personal knowledge of -- which wasn't all of them, by any means.
Any movement is going to be infiltrated. That's just the way it is, and it's another thing to get over and get used to. Infiltration will happen and authorities will attempt to decapitate any nascent movement -- at least any nascent movement on the Left -- before resorting to naked force. It's Iron Law.
We've seen, however, up at Standing Rock in particular, a remarkable level of resilience and continued resistance, despite the efforts of the authorities not just to decapitate but to violently confront and kneecap defiance.
Defiance, in fact, seems to be what puts the militarized police into an absolute frenzy. Hello. Clue stick. This is how you bring the system of rule to a halt and eventually bring it down.
Surprise: it's not a straight path to victory, and the Resistance makes many strange bedfellows along the way.
A key understanding is so far missing from the Resistance: this is Class War, and it is necessary to place Trump in the Ruling Class category and let it be known that the class he represents is in most ways just like he is.
In order to reach victory the entire 1% must feel the effects the defiance of the masses.
Their rule can be brought to a halt by making it impossible for them to govern.
The Antifa vanguard is already taking the risks, though it doesn't look coordinated -- yet. Interestingly, the RevCom agitators are right out front. Communists and Anarchists ordinarily don't get along -- and I'll leave to another time speculation on just who and what RevCom is -- but perhaps the danger is so great now that tired old animosities must be set to the side.
The Antifa vanguard is active but so far it is uncoordinated. Perhaps that will change with the next ukase from the Winter Palace. We'll see.
But for now, I am surprised -- and impressed -- at the number of Antifa activists at the Disrupt J20 inauguration events.
Meanwhile in Berkeley:
And then there's this from WSWS:
So there ya go. Chaos ensues...
Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind...
(Note: the Trotsky-ites at WSWS are great at analysis, but they tend not to get involved in anyone else's uprising. They field political candidates though, so there is that...)
Ohnoes!!! Broken windows! "Molotov cocktails!" Disruption! Black clad anarchist!!!
This attitude toward disruption, inconvenience and broken glass (black clothing too) is one of the reason why we're in the pickle we're in. The fear of actually doing something that might-could get someone in trouble, change the narrative, prove disruptive, inconvenient, or break a window has been so ingrained in the American subconscious that when it happens -- as at Berkeley, but many times before -- there is a reflexive recoil. "Ohnoes!"
Well, stop.
While I don't find the Black Bloc to be a particularly effective tactic -- never was -- it exists, it happens, it's going to continue, get over it.
Yes, really. Get the fuck over it. I think I said much the same during Occupy, whenever the Pearl Clutchers went into their periodic -- and idiotic -- hysterics over someone breaking something somewhere or burning trash in the street. Come on, it's a tiny thing when compared to the outrages of the ruling class. If it gets attention paid to some of those outrages, great. If not, it's not the end of the world.
Welp, here we are now, and Antifa is a rising thing as people start to recognize that Fascism has evolved and the Trump regime is its New Model avatar. If we really don't want fascists to rule us, we'll have to accept a bit of vanguardism from the Antifa.
Don't worry about it so much.
If you don't want to participate, don't. Is that so hard?
Of course I've heard plenty of reports that there are provocateurs sent by the state in every Black Bloc action we know of. Could be. I did encounter provocateurs during Occupy, but to my knowledge they were not included in any Black Bloc action I had personal knowledge of -- which wasn't all of them, by any means.
Any movement is going to be infiltrated. That's just the way it is, and it's another thing to get over and get used to. Infiltration will happen and authorities will attempt to decapitate any nascent movement -- at least any nascent movement on the Left -- before resorting to naked force. It's Iron Law.
We've seen, however, up at Standing Rock in particular, a remarkable level of resilience and continued resistance, despite the efforts of the authorities not just to decapitate but to violently confront and kneecap defiance.
Defiance, in fact, seems to be what puts the militarized police into an absolute frenzy. Hello. Clue stick. This is how you bring the system of rule to a halt and eventually bring it down.
Surprise: it's not a straight path to victory, and the Resistance makes many strange bedfellows along the way.
A key understanding is so far missing from the Resistance: this is Class War, and it is necessary to place Trump in the Ruling Class category and let it be known that the class he represents is in most ways just like he is.
In order to reach victory the entire 1% must feel the effects the defiance of the masses.
Their rule can be brought to a halt by making it impossible for them to govern.
The Antifa vanguard is already taking the risks, though it doesn't look coordinated -- yet. Interestingly, the RevCom agitators are right out front. Communists and Anarchists ordinarily don't get along -- and I'll leave to another time speculation on just who and what RevCom is -- but perhaps the danger is so great now that tired old animosities must be set to the side.
The Antifa vanguard is active but so far it is uncoordinated. Perhaps that will change with the next ukase from the Winter Palace. We'll see.
But for now, I am surprised -- and impressed -- at the number of Antifa activists at the Disrupt J20 inauguration events.
Meanwhile in Berkeley:
And then there's this from WSWS:
Why is the New York Times promoting the “black bloc”?
By Bill Van Auken
4 February 2017The New York Times, the semi-official voice of the Democratic Party establishment, published an extraordinary article in its Friday edition headlined “Anarchists Vow to Halt Far Right’s Rise, With Violence if Needed.”The piece, which ran across four columns of the newspaper’s front page under a huge photo of a black-masked individual preparing to break an office building window with an iron bar during Wednesday night’s protests at the University of California, Berkeley, amounted to free publicity and promotion of the violent protests organized by elements identifying themselves as the “black bloc,” anti-fascists and anarchists.
So there ya go. Chaos ensues...
Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind...
(Note: the Trotsky-ites at WSWS are great at analysis, but they tend not to get involved in anyone else's uprising. They field political candidates though, so there is that...)
Saturday, January 28, 2017
Bourboons!
Back when I was a student -- don't ask how long ago -- the French Revolution was one of my chief interests, perhaps in part because my mother claimed some kind of relationship with Napoleon and with Marie Antoinette. I haven't found any French connection at all, so I can only believe that she came up with this silly notion for reasons of her own, reasons I never knew.
My interest in the French Revolution derived from the simple question, "Why?" I asked the same question about the American Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and so on. Why? Why go to all that bother, why deliberately induce chaos, when alternatives exist? What's so important that makes a Revolution necessary?
What it often seems to boil down to is the bovine indifference to the plaints of the Rabble by an out of touch ruling class; the Bourbons, if you will. Hanovers in the case of Britain. Romanovs in Russia.
It happens over and over again. The reigning monarchs and their families and the aristocrats who serve them have so little in common with the rough and dirty Lesser People, they barely consider them human. On the other hand -- and this is what generally triggers revolution in the end -- it's not the Rabble rising up that brings down the Old Order and sends the Bourbons to the guillotine. No, it's the excluded faction of the bourgeoisie, the lesser aristos, who actually do the deed.
In other words, piss off the wrong people at or close enough to the top of the heap, and you're done, especially if the Rabble have unaddressed grievances too.
Yes, well. It doesn't happen often in the grand scheme, but it happens often enough that one has to wonder just how bone stupid Our Rulers must be to let these sorts of things happen over and over again. How greedy. How indifferent to the plight of others. How desperately unaware.
And too, Revolutions tend to be anti- rather than pro- "progress" (whatever that may mean at any given time). In other words, they tend to be conservative at the outset. The targeted Bourbons are too progressive in some ways, and they think of their authority and power in terms of what God tells them is good for their people. So they do things that they think are positive and productive for their subjects -- or that they think will be in the long term, no matter the suffering in the interim -- and they can't understand why anyone would object to these forward movements toward the Future.
In the 18th and 19th centuries that might have meant power plays of surpassing stupidity, but for the most part, the rulers were able to get away with them because no one seemed to know what to do about it. The example of Britain's overthrow and execution of King Charles I somehow didn't sink in.
Charles was a "progressive" in his own time and the context of Britain. As was Louis XVI, George III, and to a lesser degree (well, maybe not at all) Nicolas I.
They tried to jigger things enough to enable a better future for themselves and (some of) their subjects, but not everyone in their inner and outer circles saw it that way. They didn't because it meant changed power relationships among the upper crust; some of the aristos would lose power and influence, others would gain. If all of this wasn't worked out well in advance and agreed to by the right people, chaos would most certainly ensue.
And so it did.
The proximate cause of the overthrow of the Bourbons in France was the Crown's inability to further finance the operations of the government without adjusting the relationship between the taxed and the tax collectors, ie: the Rabble and the rulers. The Crown needed more money, and the only way to get it was to squeeze more out of the lower orders, and the only 'legal' way to do that was with their agreement. The Rabble would ultimately be forced to pay, but they weren't asked. Only their Betters were called to assemble at the Estates General to give their assent to changing the ineffective taxation system then in place.
Well, all hell shortly broke loose.
This was partly driven by long held and unaddressed resentments of Paris, the non-capital of France. The poor people of Paris were on starvation rations, if that, because they didn't have enough money -- and couldn't get enough money -- to buy bread, if bread was even available. The economy of France, never all that robust, had broken down, and scarcity had become the rule. This was blamed on the King and his adventurism abroad, ironically including heavy support for the American Revolution to stick it to the British out of revenge. I won't go into that, but yes, the pettiness of the ruling classes is often a matter of well-deserved mockery.
The Estates General was called to begin dealing with some of these delicate matters, and wound up blowing the whole Ancien Regime to bits.
The Bourbons played dumb -- they were dumb -- through the whole episode, much as the Romanovs would do and be a century or so later.
They couldn't imagine that they weren't beloved by their own people, especially not by members of their own aristocracy. It just didn't occur to them.
Heh.
Well here we are once again. Our own Bourbons are once again facing an uprising-revolt of the Common People -- including parts of their own selected worthies -- but it doesn't/can't occur to them that they've done anything wrong or that they can't still persuade the masses to return to the fold.
They see that a charlatan named Trump is leading them directly over the cliff, and they're torn about whether to try to stop it or just let it happen. After all, from a strategic perspective, letting Trump fail, as he must and will, is perfectly fine. The Bourbons can then pick up the shattered pieces and reign on as the rightful chosen rulers of La Belle France, aussi L'Amerique Perdue. Cf. Louis XVIII, Charles X, etc.
Well, no.
What happens is that once Chaos is injected into the System, there's no going back, no restoration is possible. Nothing will ever be as it was again.
Chaos is our fate at the moment. The Trumpists are flailing wildly and many of their initial efforts at rule are turning against them. Resistance and opposition is growing, not shrinking, and elements of the government they are trying to subdue are openly defiant.
Those defiant elements appear to have broad-based support among the public, including a significant faction of the upper classes.
The Trumpists are pretend Revolutionaries. They are in fact a dissatisfied coalition of the gentry who are determined to rule directly rather than through their bought and paid for agents who stood between them and the ravening Rabble.
Their personal wealth and the power it confers shall be the simplified Ruling Paradigm in place of the ever more complicated neoLibCon structure of power and rule that was the operating system of the previous generation of autocrats, technocrats, bureaucrats, and kleptocrats.
It doesn't actually do away with the tenets of the neoLibCon paradigm -- tenets that have vastly enhanced the wealth and power of the very people and interests that now (sort of) denounce them. What it does is simplify it. Instead of obscure and complex and justified by ever-more ridiculous arguments about lifting all boats, and responsibility and other sorts of bullshit, just make it plain: play along and you'll get along. There ain't no free lunch.
And most of all: There is no alternative.
This is not -- at all -- Revolutionary. It's merely a change in the language and in who among the ruling clique wields the whip against whom.
Trump's personal popularity, never high, is cratering. The congress, itself a loathed institution, with the controlling Republicans even more loathed, is paralyzed with fear of the consequences of achieving their long - sought objectives.
The consequences are stark and are staring them in the face. "You do this, and it's to the tumbrels with you!" The Revolution is Nigh.
Meanwhile, Trump issues a flurry of diktats and ukases from The Oval, then retreats to his Winter Palace or wherever, and his #2, Mr. Pence, steps in to perform the rituals of rule... while elements of the government are in open revolt, and the streets are filling with masses of people appalled at the spectacle.
No, this can't go on. The situation is unstable, chaotic.
The more the Trumpists try to bully their way and abuse their power, the more open and widespread the defiance. The People appear to understand the weakness of the current ruling clique, ironically given their constant threat displays.
On the other hand, the Bourbons, the former ruling clique, are essentially sitting back and watching events unfold. They are convinced they will be restored.
Well, no. I don't think so.
As I've said, once Chaos is injected into the system, there's no going back. That's where we are now.
What comes next? A real revolution? Perhaps. Or something else?
We'll see.
My interest in the French Revolution derived from the simple question, "Why?" I asked the same question about the American Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and so on. Why? Why go to all that bother, why deliberately induce chaos, when alternatives exist? What's so important that makes a Revolution necessary?
What it often seems to boil down to is the bovine indifference to the plaints of the Rabble by an out of touch ruling class; the Bourbons, if you will. Hanovers in the case of Britain. Romanovs in Russia.
It happens over and over again. The reigning monarchs and their families and the aristocrats who serve them have so little in common with the rough and dirty Lesser People, they barely consider them human. On the other hand -- and this is what generally triggers revolution in the end -- it's not the Rabble rising up that brings down the Old Order and sends the Bourbons to the guillotine. No, it's the excluded faction of the bourgeoisie, the lesser aristos, who actually do the deed.
In other words, piss off the wrong people at or close enough to the top of the heap, and you're done, especially if the Rabble have unaddressed grievances too.
Yes, well. It doesn't happen often in the grand scheme, but it happens often enough that one has to wonder just how bone stupid Our Rulers must be to let these sorts of things happen over and over again. How greedy. How indifferent to the plight of others. How desperately unaware.
And too, Revolutions tend to be anti- rather than pro- "progress" (whatever that may mean at any given time). In other words, they tend to be conservative at the outset. The targeted Bourbons are too progressive in some ways, and they think of their authority and power in terms of what God tells them is good for their people. So they do things that they think are positive and productive for their subjects -- or that they think will be in the long term, no matter the suffering in the interim -- and they can't understand why anyone would object to these forward movements toward the Future.
In the 18th and 19th centuries that might have meant power plays of surpassing stupidity, but for the most part, the rulers were able to get away with them because no one seemed to know what to do about it. The example of Britain's overthrow and execution of King Charles I somehow didn't sink in.
Charles was a "progressive" in his own time and the context of Britain. As was Louis XVI, George III, and to a lesser degree (well, maybe not at all) Nicolas I.
They tried to jigger things enough to enable a better future for themselves and (some of) their subjects, but not everyone in their inner and outer circles saw it that way. They didn't because it meant changed power relationships among the upper crust; some of the aristos would lose power and influence, others would gain. If all of this wasn't worked out well in advance and agreed to by the right people, chaos would most certainly ensue.
And so it did.
The proximate cause of the overthrow of the Bourbons in France was the Crown's inability to further finance the operations of the government without adjusting the relationship between the taxed and the tax collectors, ie: the Rabble and the rulers. The Crown needed more money, and the only way to get it was to squeeze more out of the lower orders, and the only 'legal' way to do that was with their agreement. The Rabble would ultimately be forced to pay, but they weren't asked. Only their Betters were called to assemble at the Estates General to give their assent to changing the ineffective taxation system then in place.
Well, all hell shortly broke loose.
This was partly driven by long held and unaddressed resentments of Paris, the non-capital of France. The poor people of Paris were on starvation rations, if that, because they didn't have enough money -- and couldn't get enough money -- to buy bread, if bread was even available. The economy of France, never all that robust, had broken down, and scarcity had become the rule. This was blamed on the King and his adventurism abroad, ironically including heavy support for the American Revolution to stick it to the British out of revenge. I won't go into that, but yes, the pettiness of the ruling classes is often a matter of well-deserved mockery.
The Estates General was called to begin dealing with some of these delicate matters, and wound up blowing the whole Ancien Regime to bits.
The Bourbons played dumb -- they were dumb -- through the whole episode, much as the Romanovs would do and be a century or so later.
They couldn't imagine that they weren't beloved by their own people, especially not by members of their own aristocracy. It just didn't occur to them.
Heh.
Well here we are once again. Our own Bourbons are once again facing an uprising-revolt of the Common People -- including parts of their own selected worthies -- but it doesn't/can't occur to them that they've done anything wrong or that they can't still persuade the masses to return to the fold.
They see that a charlatan named Trump is leading them directly over the cliff, and they're torn about whether to try to stop it or just let it happen. After all, from a strategic perspective, letting Trump fail, as he must and will, is perfectly fine. The Bourbons can then pick up the shattered pieces and reign on as the rightful chosen rulers of La Belle France, aussi L'Amerique Perdue. Cf. Louis XVIII, Charles X, etc.
Well, no.
What happens is that once Chaos is injected into the System, there's no going back, no restoration is possible. Nothing will ever be as it was again.
Chaos is our fate at the moment. The Trumpists are flailing wildly and many of their initial efforts at rule are turning against them. Resistance and opposition is growing, not shrinking, and elements of the government they are trying to subdue are openly defiant.
Those defiant elements appear to have broad-based support among the public, including a significant faction of the upper classes.
The Trumpists are pretend Revolutionaries. They are in fact a dissatisfied coalition of the gentry who are determined to rule directly rather than through their bought and paid for agents who stood between them and the ravening Rabble.
Their personal wealth and the power it confers shall be the simplified Ruling Paradigm in place of the ever more complicated neoLibCon structure of power and rule that was the operating system of the previous generation of autocrats, technocrats, bureaucrats, and kleptocrats.
It doesn't actually do away with the tenets of the neoLibCon paradigm -- tenets that have vastly enhanced the wealth and power of the very people and interests that now (sort of) denounce them. What it does is simplify it. Instead of obscure and complex and justified by ever-more ridiculous arguments about lifting all boats, and responsibility and other sorts of bullshit, just make it plain: play along and you'll get along. There ain't no free lunch.
And most of all: There is no alternative.
This is not -- at all -- Revolutionary. It's merely a change in the language and in who among the ruling clique wields the whip against whom.
Trump's personal popularity, never high, is cratering. The congress, itself a loathed institution, with the controlling Republicans even more loathed, is paralyzed with fear of the consequences of achieving their long - sought objectives.
The consequences are stark and are staring them in the face. "You do this, and it's to the tumbrels with you!" The Revolution is Nigh.
Meanwhile, Trump issues a flurry of diktats and ukases from The Oval, then retreats to his Winter Palace or wherever, and his #2, Mr. Pence, steps in to perform the rituals of rule... while elements of the government are in open revolt, and the streets are filling with masses of people appalled at the spectacle.
No, this can't go on. The situation is unstable, chaotic.
The more the Trumpists try to bully their way and abuse their power, the more open and widespread the defiance. The People appear to understand the weakness of the current ruling clique, ironically given their constant threat displays.
On the other hand, the Bourbons, the former ruling clique, are essentially sitting back and watching events unfold. They are convinced they will be restored.
Well, no. I don't think so.
As I've said, once Chaos is injected into the system, there's no going back. That's where we are now.
What comes next? A real revolution? Perhaps. Or something else?
We'll see.
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
On Losers
A constant theme among Trump cultists and loyalists is the idea that "losers" need to sit down and shut up, be gone, disappear, or be disappeared.
The Women's Marches threw a spanner in that notion, at least temporarily, due to their unprecedented and unexpected size and extent. If these marchers, women, men and children together, are all "losers", the Trump regime is off to a very bad start indeed.
I notice with interest that the Women's Marches are being hailed by the Democratic Party operatives still standing -- despite the obvious lack of Democratic Party loyalists among the speakers in DC -- and are either denounced (by Trump among others) or ignored by those who can't fathom what happened.
Their alternate reality insists that there can't be such a level of opposition to their Gold-Plated God-Emperor. It can't happen, so it didn't. Or if it did, it doesn't matter.
There's always the chance that the opportunity for a mass movement will be thrown away. That seems built in. The follow-on events, to the extent there are any, seem weak and uninteresting. That could be the consequence of Democratic Party operatives' co-optation, but knowing some of the women involved or learning of them during the festivities, I have my doubts that co-optation can succeed.
The success of the Marches can be turned into a loss easily enough. But it can also evolve into something much greater.
There is a pretense of reinventing the wheel, but that's hardly necessary. The way to work this sort of spontaneous uprising for particular goals has long since been figured out. See Gene Sharp's directions for Color Revolutionaries as an example.
There was paranoia among some of the Trump believers immediately after the election that "Soros" was trying to foment a Color Revolution when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to oppose Trump. Comes the Women's March and millions take to the streets and rally in hundreds of cities all over the country and the world, many sporting pink pussy hats, thus inaugurating the "color" aspect of the Revolution. Many speakers used hot headed revolutionary rhetoric without apology. They were not polite. They were deliberately nasty.
They used Trump's own words against him. They demanded their time in the sun. They refuse to be "Losers."
Trump's response was to change the subject to his inauguration and pick a fight with the media over the attendance -- or audience -- there at. Well, isn't that special.
As if it mattered. It didn't, but it was a successful feint and diversion from the Women's Marches at least temporarily.
Trump is deeply unpopular and despised. The reasons why are based both on personality and on policy or likely policies. There is also a class element -- though it's often obscured.
He's riding a tiger, and it's liable to bite him in the throat, but it hasn't quite done so yet.
He sowed the wind, and he's reaping the whirlwind. I think he likes it, though those around him appear not to.
Governance has been thrown into chaos. The permanent government hates chaos. But they're "losers" too, right?
The "loser" trope encompasses the entire country beyond his believers and loyalists. Everyone who doesn't submit is a "loser" -- or even a Clintonite -- according to his metric.
While a dominant minority can rule in this country, it has never been able to do so by rejecting/insulting/denigrating the majority.
The strategy of minority neoLibCon rule has been to rhetorically include everyone, and to provide social if not economic benefits to particular groups on a case-by-case basis. This raises their feeling of status while generally not providing economic security. Clever trick.
On the other hand, the strategy of the Trumpists is to advance the interests of a shrinking minority and no one else. This is classic abuser behavior. Their fantasy is that this strategy is actually benefiting the majority -- that's them -- and anyone who doesn't benefit doesn't deserve to.
They deserve only to be punished or ignored. They're "losers."
As the opposition grows, the Trumpists lose more and more authority; ultimately, like many abusers, they become irrelevant.
We shall see...
The Women's Marches threw a spanner in that notion, at least temporarily, due to their unprecedented and unexpected size and extent. If these marchers, women, men and children together, are all "losers", the Trump regime is off to a very bad start indeed.
I notice with interest that the Women's Marches are being hailed by the Democratic Party operatives still standing -- despite the obvious lack of Democratic Party loyalists among the speakers in DC -- and are either denounced (by Trump among others) or ignored by those who can't fathom what happened.
Their alternate reality insists that there can't be such a level of opposition to their Gold-Plated God-Emperor. It can't happen, so it didn't. Or if it did, it doesn't matter.
There's always the chance that the opportunity for a mass movement will be thrown away. That seems built in. The follow-on events, to the extent there are any, seem weak and uninteresting. That could be the consequence of Democratic Party operatives' co-optation, but knowing some of the women involved or learning of them during the festivities, I have my doubts that co-optation can succeed.
The success of the Marches can be turned into a loss easily enough. But it can also evolve into something much greater.
There is a pretense of reinventing the wheel, but that's hardly necessary. The way to work this sort of spontaneous uprising for particular goals has long since been figured out. See Gene Sharp's directions for Color Revolutionaries as an example.
There was paranoia among some of the Trump believers immediately after the election that "Soros" was trying to foment a Color Revolution when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to oppose Trump. Comes the Women's March and millions take to the streets and rally in hundreds of cities all over the country and the world, many sporting pink pussy hats, thus inaugurating the "color" aspect of the Revolution. Many speakers used hot headed revolutionary rhetoric without apology. They were not polite. They were deliberately nasty.
They used Trump's own words against him. They demanded their time in the sun. They refuse to be "Losers."
Trump's response was to change the subject to his inauguration and pick a fight with the media over the attendance -- or audience -- there at. Well, isn't that special.
As if it mattered. It didn't, but it was a successful feint and diversion from the Women's Marches at least temporarily.
Trump is deeply unpopular and despised. The reasons why are based both on personality and on policy or likely policies. There is also a class element -- though it's often obscured.
He's riding a tiger, and it's liable to bite him in the throat, but it hasn't quite done so yet.
He sowed the wind, and he's reaping the whirlwind. I think he likes it, though those around him appear not to.
Governance has been thrown into chaos. The permanent government hates chaos. But they're "losers" too, right?
The "loser" trope encompasses the entire country beyond his believers and loyalists. Everyone who doesn't submit is a "loser" -- or even a Clintonite -- according to his metric.
While a dominant minority can rule in this country, it has never been able to do so by rejecting/insulting/denigrating the majority.
The strategy of minority neoLibCon rule has been to rhetorically include everyone, and to provide social if not economic benefits to particular groups on a case-by-case basis. This raises their feeling of status while generally not providing economic security. Clever trick.
On the other hand, the strategy of the Trumpists is to advance the interests of a shrinking minority and no one else. This is classic abuser behavior. Their fantasy is that this strategy is actually benefiting the majority -- that's them -- and anyone who doesn't benefit doesn't deserve to.
They deserve only to be punished or ignored. They're "losers."
As the opposition grows, the Trumpists lose more and more authority; ultimately, like many abusers, they become irrelevant.
We shall see...
Sunday, January 22, 2017
Yesterday was Terrific -- Himself's First Full Day on the Throne Was A Disaster of Epic Proportions
Game on, eh?
I watched bits and pieces of the Women's March in DC on C-Span's livestream yesterday -- as it wasn't being covered live on any of the local broadcast stations. Odd I thought, but there you are. There were a lot of people there, obviously, but it was impossible to tell from the camera angle how many. Then I found a long-shot from the Washington Monument, and it was clear the crowd was huge, but still hard to tell how huge. Bigger, obviously, than the inaugural, but the people were arranged differently, facing away from the Capitol rather than towards it, and many, many more were in the streets beside the Mall than was the case during the inauguration.
A lot of people, yes, and they were certainly in a good mood, enjoying most of the speakers and entertainers -- it was certainly an energetic line up -- and even more important, enjoying one another's company. This was like a community get-together on a massive scale. They couldn't march -- there were too many people, and they'd already filled up a good deal of the march route -- so they had a rally instead, and it was good.
While the local stations didn't cover it live, they also didn't cover Trump's rambling, incoherent and self-referential remarks at the CIA live, and they didn't cover Sean Spicer's little tirade at the White House press corps live either.
So I'm still doing catch up on what was going on yesterday, the first full day in office for the new boss. Or whatever he is.
Not sure at this point just how "in charge" he is. But we'll know soon enough.
The masses of people in the streets yesterday, in DC and all over the country, was astonishing. In my condition, I can't do these things any more, and it kind of drives me nuts. I don't want to be sitting at home with oxygen tanks and tubes and doG knows what-all, remembering to take my meds and trying to remember which ones I forgot this time, yadda yadda. But that's the reality I live with, and it means no more marching in protest or hanging out much with various opponents of the status quo...
I have to get news as it comes and I can find it, and the news is often shaped and shaded for a particular purpose in support of a particular agenda. Treading carefully and critically is necessary.
As I cruised around the Internet for news on the marches, my astonishment at the outpouring of community feeling, good fellowship and determined opposition to Trump and all his cronies and minions all over the country and the world only grew. I had no idea -- I don't think anybody did -- that the Women's Marches would be so well-attended.
750,000 in Los Angeles??? Is that even conceivable? Estimates now range to 650,000 in DC. 100,000 in Denver. 120,000 in Seattle. 10,000 or 20,000 in Albuquerque --- Albuquerque!! 20,000 in Sacramento. 100,000 in Boston. 400,000 to 500,000 in NYC.
And it goes on and on and on, In many places, the largest demonstrations ever seen. Unprecedented. And everywhere, consistent reports of good feeling, community, and determined opposition to Trump and all his bullshit.
I've noted some of the critics of yesterday's demonstrations have taken the tack that the women were incoherent, had no specific goals or items they were protesting, their rage was impotent, their presence in the streets irrelevant. Yadda yadda, the usual anti-protest garbage.
But here's the deal, during this nascent popular uprising -- that's what it is -- the White House and the would be God-Emperor were trying to take control of the narrative, to dominate the coverage, and to make all this Female Business go away.
As I say, neither their efforts nor the marches themselves were covered live on my teevee, and I didn't see that much of what was going on elsewhere when I checked the Internet. But when I did see things...
Trump went to the CIA and yapped for too long about himself, whined about the coverage of the inauguration and denounced the "lies" about attendance. What? WTF, dude. Get over it. Put on your big boy pants and suck it up. Nope. Not him. Whine, whine, whine, whine. Nonstop. That's his style. It's an identity thing. But showing it off at the CIA headquarters may not have been wise. Or maybe it was just what they needed to see to convince them -- if they had any doubt -- that this man cannot be allowed to be "in charge" of anything but a pedal car.
The infantile nature he displayed at the CIA would have been shocking if we hadn't seen it many times before. What was new was his open display of childish tantrum throwing at the headquarters of one of the agencies he's been insulting and denigrating. Yet his audience seemed to love it.
That gave me the sense that the ruling clique's factional contest is more complicated than I thought. These were supposed to be rank-and-file CIA workers in attendance at the Trump appearance yesterday. I don't know if they were or not. But if they were, their reaction was a sign that the agency is split -- as is most of the permanent government -- over whether Mr. Trump is to be obeyed or thwarted. That may be the reason he has not been thwarted... yet. Perhaps it's why there has been no intervention of consequence, despite the many opportunities presented.
If there is such a split in the agencies, then it's likely the split runs throughout the permanent government, and a resolution may not be possible. I will keep that in mind as things devolve.
Later in the day, Sean Spicer, the Presidential Spokesmouth, made remarks at the White House regarding the issues brought up at the CIA by the President. The important issues. Ie: crowd size at the inauguration vs the Women's March, and whether or not a bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. was removed from the Oval Office as reported in Time magazine.
He yelled, he threatened, he blustered, he read from a prepared text and stumbled all over his words. He took no questions. The press corps was dumbfounded.
Spicer lied on behalf of his boss. He declared war on the media. Again.
OK then.
What to do about it?
The problem here is that the Media -- as in the big ticket propaganda organs -- has a shitty reputation in part because it is so unreliable and so focused on info-tainment. Many of us simply ignore it or pick and choose very carefully what to watch and listen to and critically assess what to believe.
We won't have cable teevee in our house, in part to make sure that cable "news" never darkens our viewscreens.
To the extent we watch any news on the teevee, it's mostly Amy Goodman -- who I frequently criticize -- and PBS NewsHour, which I also criticize. Network news is rarely seen or heard here.
So when Spicer or Trump criticize the media, they will get little argument from me -- except when they demand, as Spicer did, and Trump has often done, that the media report the lies of the regime as Truth.
The correct answer is No.
But that's hard for the media to do. The threat is that if they don't fall in line, they will be shut out of access, and Trump will go around them, which I guess gives them major heartburn.
So what do they do? They don't know. Not yet. Some are standing up to the abuse, but others are yielding in order to maintain their access to the King. It's a mish-mash.
In the meantime, what these mooks in office are saying is... crazy. Not just crazy but dangerous. Divisive. Destructive.
Personally, I'd rather not see it reported as anything but lies, division, and danger.
But that's not up to me.
Meanwhile I'd like to see the spirit of resistance that was shown in the marches and rallies yesterday be sustained, and I'm not sure at this point it will be (of course, since I can't be there, I don't know what's going on internally.) The massive attendance is probably not repeatable, but it doesn't need to be. What's needed is sustained and focused opposition, and that's very hard to accomplish in this society.
Stranger things have happened. Stay tuned.
I watched bits and pieces of the Women's March in DC on C-Span's livestream yesterday -- as it wasn't being covered live on any of the local broadcast stations. Odd I thought, but there you are. There were a lot of people there, obviously, but it was impossible to tell from the camera angle how many. Then I found a long-shot from the Washington Monument, and it was clear the crowd was huge, but still hard to tell how huge. Bigger, obviously, than the inaugural, but the people were arranged differently, facing away from the Capitol rather than towards it, and many, many more were in the streets beside the Mall than was the case during the inauguration.
A lot of people, yes, and they were certainly in a good mood, enjoying most of the speakers and entertainers -- it was certainly an energetic line up -- and even more important, enjoying one another's company. This was like a community get-together on a massive scale. They couldn't march -- there were too many people, and they'd already filled up a good deal of the march route -- so they had a rally instead, and it was good.
While the local stations didn't cover it live, they also didn't cover Trump's rambling, incoherent and self-referential remarks at the CIA live, and they didn't cover Sean Spicer's little tirade at the White House press corps live either.
So I'm still doing catch up on what was going on yesterday, the first full day in office for the new boss. Or whatever he is.
Not sure at this point just how "in charge" he is. But we'll know soon enough.
The masses of people in the streets yesterday, in DC and all over the country, was astonishing. In my condition, I can't do these things any more, and it kind of drives me nuts. I don't want to be sitting at home with oxygen tanks and tubes and doG knows what-all, remembering to take my meds and trying to remember which ones I forgot this time, yadda yadda. But that's the reality I live with, and it means no more marching in protest or hanging out much with various opponents of the status quo...
I have to get news as it comes and I can find it, and the news is often shaped and shaded for a particular purpose in support of a particular agenda. Treading carefully and critically is necessary.
As I cruised around the Internet for news on the marches, my astonishment at the outpouring of community feeling, good fellowship and determined opposition to Trump and all his cronies and minions all over the country and the world only grew. I had no idea -- I don't think anybody did -- that the Women's Marches would be so well-attended.
750,000 in Los Angeles??? Is that even conceivable? Estimates now range to 650,000 in DC. 100,000 in Denver. 120,000 in Seattle. 10,000 or 20,000 in Albuquerque --- Albuquerque!! 20,000 in Sacramento. 100,000 in Boston. 400,000 to 500,000 in NYC.
And it goes on and on and on, In many places, the largest demonstrations ever seen. Unprecedented. And everywhere, consistent reports of good feeling, community, and determined opposition to Trump and all his bullshit.
I've noted some of the critics of yesterday's demonstrations have taken the tack that the women were incoherent, had no specific goals or items they were protesting, their rage was impotent, their presence in the streets irrelevant. Yadda yadda, the usual anti-protest garbage.
But here's the deal, during this nascent popular uprising -- that's what it is -- the White House and the would be God-Emperor were trying to take control of the narrative, to dominate the coverage, and to make all this Female Business go away.
As I say, neither their efforts nor the marches themselves were covered live on my teevee, and I didn't see that much of what was going on elsewhere when I checked the Internet. But when I did see things...
Trump went to the CIA and yapped for too long about himself, whined about the coverage of the inauguration and denounced the "lies" about attendance. What? WTF, dude. Get over it. Put on your big boy pants and suck it up. Nope. Not him. Whine, whine, whine, whine. Nonstop. That's his style. It's an identity thing. But showing it off at the CIA headquarters may not have been wise. Or maybe it was just what they needed to see to convince them -- if they had any doubt -- that this man cannot be allowed to be "in charge" of anything but a pedal car.
The infantile nature he displayed at the CIA would have been shocking if we hadn't seen it many times before. What was new was his open display of childish tantrum throwing at the headquarters of one of the agencies he's been insulting and denigrating. Yet his audience seemed to love it.
That gave me the sense that the ruling clique's factional contest is more complicated than I thought. These were supposed to be rank-and-file CIA workers in attendance at the Trump appearance yesterday. I don't know if they were or not. But if they were, their reaction was a sign that the agency is split -- as is most of the permanent government -- over whether Mr. Trump is to be obeyed or thwarted. That may be the reason he has not been thwarted... yet. Perhaps it's why there has been no intervention of consequence, despite the many opportunities presented.
If there is such a split in the agencies, then it's likely the split runs throughout the permanent government, and a resolution may not be possible. I will keep that in mind as things devolve.
Later in the day, Sean Spicer, the Presidential Spokesmouth, made remarks at the White House regarding the issues brought up at the CIA by the President. The important issues. Ie: crowd size at the inauguration vs the Women's March, and whether or not a bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. was removed from the Oval Office as reported in Time magazine.
He yelled, he threatened, he blustered, he read from a prepared text and stumbled all over his words. He took no questions. The press corps was dumbfounded.
Spicer lied on behalf of his boss. He declared war on the media. Again.
OK then.
What to do about it?
The problem here is that the Media -- as in the big ticket propaganda organs -- has a shitty reputation in part because it is so unreliable and so focused on info-tainment. Many of us simply ignore it or pick and choose very carefully what to watch and listen to and critically assess what to believe.
We won't have cable teevee in our house, in part to make sure that cable "news" never darkens our viewscreens.
To the extent we watch any news on the teevee, it's mostly Amy Goodman -- who I frequently criticize -- and PBS NewsHour, which I also criticize. Network news is rarely seen or heard here.
So when Spicer or Trump criticize the media, they will get little argument from me -- except when they demand, as Spicer did, and Trump has often done, that the media report the lies of the regime as Truth.
The correct answer is No.
But that's hard for the media to do. The threat is that if they don't fall in line, they will be shut out of access, and Trump will go around them, which I guess gives them major heartburn.
So what do they do? They don't know. Not yet. Some are standing up to the abuse, but others are yielding in order to maintain their access to the King. It's a mish-mash.
In the meantime, what these mooks in office are saying is... crazy. Not just crazy but dangerous. Divisive. Destructive.
Personally, I'd rather not see it reported as anything but lies, division, and danger.
But that's not up to me.
Meanwhile I'd like to see the spirit of resistance that was shown in the marches and rallies yesterday be sustained, and I'm not sure at this point it will be (of course, since I can't be there, I don't know what's going on internally.) The massive attendance is probably not repeatable, but it doesn't need to be. What's needed is sustained and focused opposition, and that's very hard to accomplish in this society.
Stranger things have happened. Stay tuned.
Saturday, December 10, 2016
Reality Bites -- Nomi Prins Tells It Straight
Funny.
Jeebus.
Fore!
Trump’s Bait and Switch
How to Swamp Washington and Double-cross Your Supporters Big Time
By Nomi Prins
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176219/tomgram%3A_nomi_prins%2C_the_march_of_the_billionaires/#more
I'll excerpt a few pertinent graphs from it, but please read the whole thing.
First of all, Nomi Prins is a well known and respected writer on matters of politics and economics. She has the requisite Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs background to know the real deal about the finance sector. She is somewhat of the leftish persuasion, but in our political realm, that's not really leftist at all. There is no left to speak of in US politics or economics, it's all rightist and it is more and more reactionary all the time.
Prins is telling the truth here, and the truth is kryptonite to Trump and his followers.
They can't stand it.
So what is the truth here? Let's go through some of her points, one by one.
His attacks on working people via his appointments and his Twitter machine should have been a wake-up call to his working class followers, but in the Trumpiverse, every attack is deserved. The people, institutions and companies he goes after deserve it because they are disloyal or disobedient or both. For them, no quarter. Regardless of anything else.
Of course for disaster capitalists, an "abyss of inequality and instability" is perfect. Let's not forget that, either.
There follow details of the Harding-esque nature of the coming Trump Regime a detailed examination of the important players in the New America being set up.
Finally, wrapping up, Prins notes that
For some of his followers, it was. And they hope to profit on their insight and loyalty. Others may not have seen the thieves picking their pockets as they joyously shouted "Lock her up!" or whatever, and don't see them now. Little or nothing can persuade them that they've been conned and will be fleeced of what little remains of their pelf.
They're not the only victims, of course. Everyone who can be will be relieved of everything the grubbing con artists can get their hands on. That's baked in. Anyone who tries to protect and preserve any shred of their former lives will easily become a target. That's how these things work.
Some of Trump's loyalists are eager for that outcome, looking forward to how they might profit from the ascension of His Gold Plated Self. The opportunities are immense. The victims deserve their fate.
Trouble is, they don't recognize that even the strongest loyalists can wind up in the victim basket. Or if they do recognize it, they think they will escape. Maybe it's a lack of knowledge and understanding of history, maybe it's contrariness and pigheaded self absorption, I don't know. But their illusion of safety under the circumstances is false.
Jeebus.
Fore!
Trump’s Bait and Switch
How to Swamp Washington and Double-cross Your Supporters Big Time
By Nomi Prins
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176219/tomgram%3A_nomi_prins%2C_the_march_of_the_billionaires/#more
I'll excerpt a few pertinent graphs from it, but please read the whole thing.
First of all, Nomi Prins is a well known and respected writer on matters of politics and economics. She has the requisite Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs background to know the real deal about the finance sector. She is somewhat of the leftish persuasion, but in our political realm, that's not really leftist at all. There is no left to speak of in US politics or economics, it's all rightist and it is more and more reactionary all the time.
Prins is telling the truth here, and the truth is kryptonite to Trump and his followers.
They can't stand it.
So what is the truth here? Let's go through some of her points, one by one.
Trump’s version of a political and financial establishment, just forming, will be bound together by certain behavioral patterns born of relationships among those of similar status, background, social position, legacy connections, and an assumed allegiance to a dogma of self-aggrandizement that overshadows everything else. In the realm of politico-financial power and in Trump’s experience and ideology, the one with the most toys always wins. So it’s hardly a surprise that his money- and power-centric cabinet won’t be focused on public service or patriotism or civic duty, but on the consolidation of corporate and private gain at the expense of the citizenry.The signs have been plain since the campaign, of course, but as the Gold Plated Great Man fills his cabinet and appoints loyalists and cronies to other positions of import in the coming Regime, literally daring anyone to do anything about it, there is no sign of public service or public interest in the choices and their life's work at all, any more than there is any sign of patriotism or civic duty in Trump's background. It just doesn't exist. There is every sign of consolidation of (favored) corporate and private gain at the total expense of the citizenry.
It’s already obvious that, to Trump, “draining the swamp” means filling it with new layers of golden sludge...Gee, ya think?
The rarified world of his cabinet choices is certainly a universe away from the struggling working class folks he bamboozled with promises of bringing back American “greatness.”Let's call a con a con and be done with it.
His attacks on working people via his appointments and his Twitter machine should have been a wake-up call to his working class followers, but in the Trumpiverse, every attack is deserved. The people, institutions and companies he goes after deserve it because they are disloyal or disobedient or both. For them, no quarter. Regardless of anything else.
what is guaranteed to be an abyss of inequality and instability.Precisely. This is what some of us have been warning of. Strangely, now that these warnings are being listened to, known of, and worried over outside the Cassandra Class, the opportunities for action become more and more limited. It doesn't mean that nothing can be done, just that what can be done about it is shrinking.
Of course for disaster capitalists, an "abyss of inequality and instability" is perfect. Let's not forget that, either.
There follow details of the Harding-esque nature of the coming Trump Regime a detailed examination of the important players in the New America being set up.
Finally, wrapping up, Prins notes that
His new incarnation of the old establishment largely consists of billionaires and multimillionaires with less than appetizing nicknames from their previous predatory careers. They favor government support for their private gain as well as deregulation, several of them having already specialized in making money off the collateral damage from such policies....
Trump is now surrounding himself with a crew of crony capitalists who understand boardroom speak, but have nothing in common with most Americans. So give him credit: his administration is already one of the great political bait-and-switch productions in our history and it hasn’t even begun. Count on one thing: in his presidency he’ll only double down on that “promise.”Well, yes. Wasn't it obvious?
For some of his followers, it was. And they hope to profit on their insight and loyalty. Others may not have seen the thieves picking their pockets as they joyously shouted "Lock her up!" or whatever, and don't see them now. Little or nothing can persuade them that they've been conned and will be fleeced of what little remains of their pelf.
They're not the only victims, of course. Everyone who can be will be relieved of everything the grubbing con artists can get their hands on. That's baked in. Anyone who tries to protect and preserve any shred of their former lives will easily become a target. That's how these things work.
Some of Trump's loyalists are eager for that outcome, looking forward to how they might profit from the ascension of His Gold Plated Self. The opportunities are immense. The victims deserve their fate.
Trouble is, they don't recognize that even the strongest loyalists can wind up in the victim basket. Or if they do recognize it, they think they will escape. Maybe it's a lack of knowledge and understanding of history, maybe it's contrariness and pigheaded self absorption, I don't know. But their illusion of safety under the circumstances is false.
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Examples to Learn From
The Power Structure of this country appears to be doing everything it can to prop up the unfortunate "election" of Donald Trump to the Presidency. It's quite a remarkable scene when you think about it.
Not only is he unsuited to the office, he's totally unprepared and obviously at sea as the reality of what he's in for engulfs him. I'd be laughing if it weren't such a dangerous situation for so many Americans and people around the world.
Truly, I don't think he expected to win the office and he was quite prepared to hector Hillary from the sidelines, probably from his own TeeVee show and network set up and run by his compadre Roger Ailes. That's what I believe they were going for and expected to do. It would make them lots of money and serve as a brake on a Hillary White House.
In other words, they expected to play the Opposition Game the way it's been played by the Right for decades -- and to profit from it handsomely.
Had that happened, there would be grumpiness and grumbling from Trump loyalists to be sure, but he would have been able to give them a whole alternate universe in which to lick their wounds and do virtual battle against The Hag -- until she was either driven from office or so tied up in knots her regime would be declared a failure. Blah blah blah. It seems to me the groundwork was already done for this enterprise, and all they needed was a Hillary victory to launch. Stars and dollar signs were in their eyes.
And then... the unthinkable happened. They were given the Presidency instead. Now there will be no launch. No dollar signs. No alt.universe for their Loyalists to play in. This is as real as it gets.
Jeebus dancing on a Ritz. Whose idea was this? Well, it is what it is, and I imagine I'll be exploring it for some time to come. I had little interest in the campaign and the candidates while that shit-show was going on, but we're here now, and my interest in what to do about it is pretty intense.
He was given the keys to the Kingdom, and he's obviously as stunned as everyone else is. The Caucasian Id has been unleashed -- to what object I don't know, but there it is. White folks running wild doing what they want to whoever they decide to Other. It's ugly now and getting uglier. The worst of it is falling on the children, the brown, the black, the differently abled, the suspected queer, the suspected Muslim, or anyone at all who doesn't fit the New Model (White) Conformity.
That id has largely been kept in check for generations, and now it's let loose again to prey at will on the different and the vulnerable. Whose idea is this? What is the freaking purpose?
The United States has long since ceased to be a 'White' country, unlike some of the revanchist nations of Europe which have been reclaiming their 'Whiteness' in the face of the brown hordes of refugees driven from their homes (by EuroAmerican Imperialist destruction) in the Middle East and North Africa.
Until 'this' happened, Americans seemed quite content not to be 'White' any more, and the election of Barack Obama (twice) was supposed to be redemptive proof. He's still a very popular president. The efforts to turn him into a caricature and to "Nigger-ize" him never worked. At least not that I ever saw, but then, I'm not keyed in to the alt.White universe. I don't know how those people think. I don't know what they believe. I don't even know who they are or where they are.
It's just alien to me.
At least from my point of view these people are simply fringe, free to believe whatever they want, but not free -- until now -- to act on it.
Now they feel they've been liberated, and their Champion is going into the White House.
America will be White and Right again! Yay!
Why would Our Betters want this to happen? Why would they allow it to happen? Why are they trying so hard to prop it up? What's the deal here?
Obama himself is part of this process of propping up the inconceivable. He's been going out of his way to be kind and generous and welcoming and helpful to the Incoming Inconceivable, extending his hand and opening his heart, yadda yadda, which is not only eye-popping, but is also deeply disturbing. WTF, Dude?
Whoa. Something's going on we don't know anything about. Things are not what they appear. But maybe we got a hint of it when Michelle Obama so warmly embraced War Criminal George W. Bush at the opening of the Museum of African American Culture a few months ago. That was really shocking to a lot of people who sincerely believe that man should be in the dock at The Hague. Until he is, he should be shunned. But no. The Obamas and the Bushes and the Clintons -- and the Trumps? -- are all very good friends. Well, maybe the Trumps will be brought into the Circle if they ever get their act together enough to warrant inclusion. They haven't done so yet, but they're being given every opportunity. Why?
And what do we do about it?
Always we're being told just to calm down, accept the inevitable, don't fight it, everything will be fine, "he's not as bad as you think," yadda yadda, and I'm sorry, no, we're not going to just roll over for Trump, not this time...
I'm so old that I've heard this same litany about rightists installed in office -- going back to Reagan's gubernatorial victory in California in 1966. Every time, the same litany has been repeated: "Just calm down, accept it, 'he's not as bad as you think', everything will be fine." And every time it gets worse.
Every fucking time.
Reagan's election in 1966 was considered catastrophic at the time. Many innocents would be hurt. And guess what? It was and they were. Almost exactly as predicted. And so it's gone with every subsequent reiteration of Rightist Rule, over and over and over again.
And now this.
No, not again. Not when it is so obvious that something is dreadfully wrong with our electoral process, and not when he himself has no inkling of what to do now or even, seemingly, how he got this prize.
WTF?
I despise what he did during the campaign, boosting White Supremacy, inciting violence, and conning so many people into believing his bullshit. That all has violent and destructive repercussions on the innocent playing out right now. What he did was release the Caucasian Id from any restraint, sowing the wind. He will reap the whirlwind, but in the meantime a lot of people who shouldn't be hurt will be.
That's happening right now.
He told his followers to "Stop it!" as one would tell a dog, but they're not stopping. Why should they? In their mind, their victims deserve it. They lost! Oh, jeebus.
So what do we do?
Among the examples to learn from are the Water Protectors now and for months facing down Authority run amok in North Dakota. Other examples include the rebels in Ireland who ultimately defeated the British. The independence movement in India which eventually led to the exit of the British Empire. Anti-colonialists everywhere, including our own 18th Century revolution. The Zapatistas. And on and on.
Examples not to follow include SYRIZA in Greece, bless their hearts. It appears the Socialists everywhere are simply exhausted and out of steam. They have nothing much to offer any more, and they are obviously too willing to concede to their opponents almost before the struggle is engaged. Does that sound like the Democratic Party as well? Of course it does.
But make no mistake, the Democrats are just as much captive to the neoLibeCon, aristocratic ruling clique as are the Republicans, as are nearly all ruling parties throughout the West and much of the rest of the world.
The struggle we must engage in now is ultimately against that entire ruling ideology. Though we have to take it one step at a time.
I cite the examples I do because each of them based their struggle on simple principles: sovereignty, self-worth and spiritual renewal. If you think about it, that's what many of the White Rightists after too, only they want what they want in order to harm others, not to lift them up.
In other words, while the struggle we must engage in may be similar to that of the White Right, the objectives are quite different.
Strategies and tactics of where we go from here are actually very well worked out long since, the rule book of how to do it is already written. We don't have to reinvent the wheel, but we have to resist efforts to divide us (Shut up, Democratic "helpers" -- you're not helping!) and we must be aware of and remain focused on the end game -- why we fight, in other words.
We will win, though probably not in my lifetime.
You never know, though. As we've seen, things can change in a twinkling.
Not only is he unsuited to the office, he's totally unprepared and obviously at sea as the reality of what he's in for engulfs him. I'd be laughing if it weren't such a dangerous situation for so many Americans and people around the world.
Truly, I don't think he expected to win the office and he was quite prepared to hector Hillary from the sidelines, probably from his own TeeVee show and network set up and run by his compadre Roger Ailes. That's what I believe they were going for and expected to do. It would make them lots of money and serve as a brake on a Hillary White House.
In other words, they expected to play the Opposition Game the way it's been played by the Right for decades -- and to profit from it handsomely.
Had that happened, there would be grumpiness and grumbling from Trump loyalists to be sure, but he would have been able to give them a whole alternate universe in which to lick their wounds and do virtual battle against The Hag -- until she was either driven from office or so tied up in knots her regime would be declared a failure. Blah blah blah. It seems to me the groundwork was already done for this enterprise, and all they needed was a Hillary victory to launch. Stars and dollar signs were in their eyes.
And then... the unthinkable happened. They were given the Presidency instead. Now there will be no launch. No dollar signs. No alt.universe for their Loyalists to play in. This is as real as it gets.
Jeebus dancing on a Ritz. Whose idea was this? Well, it is what it is, and I imagine I'll be exploring it for some time to come. I had little interest in the campaign and the candidates while that shit-show was going on, but we're here now, and my interest in what to do about it is pretty intense.
He was given the keys to the Kingdom, and he's obviously as stunned as everyone else is. The Caucasian Id has been unleashed -- to what object I don't know, but there it is. White folks running wild doing what they want to whoever they decide to Other. It's ugly now and getting uglier. The worst of it is falling on the children, the brown, the black, the differently abled, the suspected queer, the suspected Muslim, or anyone at all who doesn't fit the New Model (White) Conformity.
That id has largely been kept in check for generations, and now it's let loose again to prey at will on the different and the vulnerable. Whose idea is this? What is the freaking purpose?
The United States has long since ceased to be a 'White' country, unlike some of the revanchist nations of Europe which have been reclaiming their 'Whiteness' in the face of the brown hordes of refugees driven from their homes (by EuroAmerican Imperialist destruction) in the Middle East and North Africa.
Until 'this' happened, Americans seemed quite content not to be 'White' any more, and the election of Barack Obama (twice) was supposed to be redemptive proof. He's still a very popular president. The efforts to turn him into a caricature and to "Nigger-ize" him never worked. At least not that I ever saw, but then, I'm not keyed in to the alt.White universe. I don't know how those people think. I don't know what they believe. I don't even know who they are or where they are.
It's just alien to me.
At least from my point of view these people are simply fringe, free to believe whatever they want, but not free -- until now -- to act on it.
Now they feel they've been liberated, and their Champion is going into the White House.
America will be White and Right again! Yay!
Why would Our Betters want this to happen? Why would they allow it to happen? Why are they trying so hard to prop it up? What's the deal here?
Obama himself is part of this process of propping up the inconceivable. He's been going out of his way to be kind and generous and welcoming and helpful to the Incoming Inconceivable, extending his hand and opening his heart, yadda yadda, which is not only eye-popping, but is also deeply disturbing. WTF, Dude?
Whoa. Something's going on we don't know anything about. Things are not what they appear. But maybe we got a hint of it when Michelle Obama so warmly embraced War Criminal George W. Bush at the opening of the Museum of African American Culture a few months ago. That was really shocking to a lot of people who sincerely believe that man should be in the dock at The Hague. Until he is, he should be shunned. But no. The Obamas and the Bushes and the Clintons -- and the Trumps? -- are all very good friends. Well, maybe the Trumps will be brought into the Circle if they ever get their act together enough to warrant inclusion. They haven't done so yet, but they're being given every opportunity. Why?
And what do we do about it?
Always we're being told just to calm down, accept the inevitable, don't fight it, everything will be fine, "he's not as bad as you think," yadda yadda, and I'm sorry, no, we're not going to just roll over for Trump, not this time...
I'm so old that I've heard this same litany about rightists installed in office -- going back to Reagan's gubernatorial victory in California in 1966. Every time, the same litany has been repeated: "Just calm down, accept it, 'he's not as bad as you think', everything will be fine." And every time it gets worse.
Every fucking time.
Reagan's election in 1966 was considered catastrophic at the time. Many innocents would be hurt. And guess what? It was and they were. Almost exactly as predicted. And so it's gone with every subsequent reiteration of Rightist Rule, over and over and over again.
And now this.
No, not again. Not when it is so obvious that something is dreadfully wrong with our electoral process, and not when he himself has no inkling of what to do now or even, seemingly, how he got this prize.
WTF?
I despise what he did during the campaign, boosting White Supremacy, inciting violence, and conning so many people into believing his bullshit. That all has violent and destructive repercussions on the innocent playing out right now. What he did was release the Caucasian Id from any restraint, sowing the wind. He will reap the whirlwind, but in the meantime a lot of people who shouldn't be hurt will be.
That's happening right now.
He told his followers to "Stop it!" as one would tell a dog, but they're not stopping. Why should they? In their mind, their victims deserve it. They lost! Oh, jeebus.
So what do we do?
Among the examples to learn from are the Water Protectors now and for months facing down Authority run amok in North Dakota. Other examples include the rebels in Ireland who ultimately defeated the British. The independence movement in India which eventually led to the exit of the British Empire. Anti-colonialists everywhere, including our own 18th Century revolution. The Zapatistas. And on and on.
Examples not to follow include SYRIZA in Greece, bless their hearts. It appears the Socialists everywhere are simply exhausted and out of steam. They have nothing much to offer any more, and they are obviously too willing to concede to their opponents almost before the struggle is engaged. Does that sound like the Democratic Party as well? Of course it does.
But make no mistake, the Democrats are just as much captive to the neoLibeCon, aristocratic ruling clique as are the Republicans, as are nearly all ruling parties throughout the West and much of the rest of the world.
The struggle we must engage in now is ultimately against that entire ruling ideology. Though we have to take it one step at a time.
I cite the examples I do because each of them based their struggle on simple principles: sovereignty, self-worth and spiritual renewal. If you think about it, that's what many of the White Rightists after too, only they want what they want in order to harm others, not to lift them up.
In other words, while the struggle we must engage in may be similar to that of the White Right, the objectives are quite different.
Strategies and tactics of where we go from here are actually very well worked out long since, the rule book of how to do it is already written. We don't have to reinvent the wheel, but we have to resist efforts to divide us (Shut up, Democratic "helpers" -- you're not helping!) and we must be aware of and remain focused on the end game -- why we fight, in other words.
We will win, though probably not in my lifetime.
You never know, though. As we've seen, things can change in a twinkling.
Thursday, May 19, 2016
Political History
The attacks on Sanders over the Nevada State Democratic Convention debacle are only going to intensify. We can expect redoubling of these attacks if the Sanders campaign doesn't collapse before the California and other primaries on June 7.
The point is to de-legitimize the Sanders campaign and Sanders himself so as to remove any possibility of them having influence and/or power over the Democratic Party, its chosen and anointed candidate, and ultimately any influence over the People.
Bernie has dared to propose an alternative -- a very modest alternative -- to the status-quo, powers-that-be, NeoLibCon paradigm that rules globally throughout the Overlord Class. As the Baroness Thatcher was ever so fond of putting it:
The point is to de-legitimize the Sanders campaign and Sanders himself so as to remove any possibility of them having influence and/or power over the Democratic Party, its chosen and anointed candidate, and ultimately any influence over the People.
Bernie has dared to propose an alternative -- a very modest alternative -- to the status-quo, powers-that-be, NeoLibCon paradigm that rules globally throughout the Overlord Class. As the Baroness Thatcher was ever so fond of putting it:
THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE
You Hippies can get in line, sit down and shut up. Now.
Because you don't matter, you have no power, you will never have any power, nobody cares what you think, nobody ever will.
Yet Bernie keeps winning primaries, and every time he does, he shames Mrs. Clinton and her flacks just a little bit more. So they have their knives out for the kill.
For some reason, known only to the community of ratfuckers who seem to be behind much of the happenings of late, the Nevada Democratic Convention became ground zero for both ratfucking and Swiftboating of Bernie Sanders and his campaign -- probably because it is now or never for Mrs. Clinton. According to the polls (and who can have confidence in them), she's not meeting expectations against Trump, and she could very well lose in the General. This would not be acceptable to TPTB, but as they saw in the R primary, the powers of TPTB and their ability to control events aren't what they used to be.
There are ways, of course, to ensure that Mrs Clinton wins in the Fall, but those ways are not the preferred means of acquiring or holding on to political power. They will be used if necessary, of course, but it would mean triggering a chain of events that could not be controlled.
For some time, I've thought that the Trump campaign was a classic ratfuck of the Rs. It probably started that way, but when Trump found that he touched a chord among disaffected Republicans, one that he didn't expect to find, he ran with it, and now he is sitting on a remarkable power - base and can call the shots.
Their PTB seem to be flummoxed. Trump is one of them, after all -- well, to the extent any billionaire who wants to be among the High and the Mighty can be. There has been no way to "stop" him, not so far. But as I've said, we've been down this path in the past with celebrities taking on the political establishment -- and winning. They may wind up doing the bidding of a faction of the Establishment, but the upshot of their political activity is the disruption and/or dismantlement of established power structures and the substitution of others.
When Ronald Reagan did it, it was called a "Revolution." It's more like a coup or a counter-revolution, but that's for another discussion. The point is that established power structures were disrupted and some of them were dismantled. The Progressive Era came to a final end. We are living with the consequences, for good and for ill.
Trump could do the same thing if got into office, but just what he would do and how is unknown. That's what frightens the PTB. He has no faction backing him within the government (unlike Reagan), and he seems to have no Establishment backing in the public sector either. He's a lone wolf and thus dangerous.
On the other hand, Hillary seems to have all the support in the world, including (apparently) among Republicans, except that she does not have leftist support -- which she and her people seem to be doing everything in their power to alienate.
It would seem odd if it weren't part of the NeoLibCon political playbook: to disable and irrelevate the Left has been a fundamental part of the NeoLibCon program from the get-go. Bernie, therefore, has to be destroyed. It's too late for him to yield. He must be destroyed utterly and his supporters must be dismissed.
So, I see what's going on with a sad sense of deja vu. It doesn't have to be this way. It shouldn't be this way. But there is no alternative is there?
When it happened to Howard Dean, it was literally breathtaking. I'd never seen anything quite like the immediate and coordinated pile-on after the so-called Dean Scream. It was successful, but it didn't help Kerry in the General. Not a bit, not after the Swiftboating he was subjected to.
Meanwhile, Dean recovered quickly and used his electoral infrastructure to become chair of the Democratic National Committee -- something he probably couldn't have done if Kerry had been elected president in 2004.
Dean used that position to get Democrats actually elected (something the PTB was not keen on). He was so successful, he was dismissed the moment Obama was elected to the presidency.
Democratic electoral fortunes have been on a downward spiral ever since -- I believe by design..
Sanders is unlikely to use his political infrastructure in the same way.
But something will come of his candidacy, and it looks like it's got the Establishment scared out of their wits.
They can be nasty when they're frightened.
------------------------------------------------------
A little musical history to lift the mood?
There are ways, of course, to ensure that Mrs Clinton wins in the Fall, but those ways are not the preferred means of acquiring or holding on to political power. They will be used if necessary, of course, but it would mean triggering a chain of events that could not be controlled.
For some time, I've thought that the Trump campaign was a classic ratfuck of the Rs. It probably started that way, but when Trump found that he touched a chord among disaffected Republicans, one that he didn't expect to find, he ran with it, and now he is sitting on a remarkable power - base and can call the shots.
Their PTB seem to be flummoxed. Trump is one of them, after all -- well, to the extent any billionaire who wants to be among the High and the Mighty can be. There has been no way to "stop" him, not so far. But as I've said, we've been down this path in the past with celebrities taking on the political establishment -- and winning. They may wind up doing the bidding of a faction of the Establishment, but the upshot of their political activity is the disruption and/or dismantlement of established power structures and the substitution of others.
When Ronald Reagan did it, it was called a "Revolution." It's more like a coup or a counter-revolution, but that's for another discussion. The point is that established power structures were disrupted and some of them were dismantled. The Progressive Era came to a final end. We are living with the consequences, for good and for ill.
Trump could do the same thing if got into office, but just what he would do and how is unknown. That's what frightens the PTB. He has no faction backing him within the government (unlike Reagan), and he seems to have no Establishment backing in the public sector either. He's a lone wolf and thus dangerous.
On the other hand, Hillary seems to have all the support in the world, including (apparently) among Republicans, except that she does not have leftist support -- which she and her people seem to be doing everything in their power to alienate.
It would seem odd if it weren't part of the NeoLibCon political playbook: to disable and irrelevate the Left has been a fundamental part of the NeoLibCon program from the get-go. Bernie, therefore, has to be destroyed. It's too late for him to yield. He must be destroyed utterly and his supporters must be dismissed.
So, I see what's going on with a sad sense of deja vu. It doesn't have to be this way. It shouldn't be this way. But there is no alternative is there?
When it happened to Howard Dean, it was literally breathtaking. I'd never seen anything quite like the immediate and coordinated pile-on after the so-called Dean Scream. It was successful, but it didn't help Kerry in the General. Not a bit, not after the Swiftboating he was subjected to.
Meanwhile, Dean recovered quickly and used his electoral infrastructure to become chair of the Democratic National Committee -- something he probably couldn't have done if Kerry had been elected president in 2004.
Dean used that position to get Democrats actually elected (something the PTB was not keen on). He was so successful, he was dismissed the moment Obama was elected to the presidency.
Democratic electoral fortunes have been on a downward spiral ever since -- I believe by design..
Sanders is unlikely to use his political infrastructure in the same way.
But something will come of his candidacy, and it looks like it's got the Establishment scared out of their wits.
They can be nasty when they're frightened.
------------------------------------------------------
A little musical history to lift the mood?
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Dean Baker Explains It All For You -- And Tells You What To Do About It, Too
"The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive"
Creative Commons Download (pdf) [Other formats available through link below]
The blurb:
By Dean Baker (2011)
Progressives need a fundamentally new approach to politics. They have been losing not just because conservatives have so much more money and power, but also because they have accepted the conservatives’ framing of political debates. They have accepted a framing where conservatives want market outcomes whereas liberals want the government to intervene to bring about outcomes that they consider fair.
This is not true. Conservatives rely on the government all the time, most importantly in structuring the market in ways that ensure that income flows upwards. The framing that conservatives like the market while liberals like the government puts liberals in the position of seeming to want to tax the winners to help the losers.
This "loser liberalism" is bad policy and horrible politics. Progressives would be better off fighting battles over the structure of markets so that they don't redistribute income upward. This book describes some of the key areas where progressives can focus their efforts in restructuring market so that more income flows to the bulk of the working population rather than just a small elite.
By releasing The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive under a Creative Commons license and as a free download, Baker walks the walk of one of his key arguments -- that copyrights are a form of government intervention in markets that leads to enormous inefficiency, in addition to redistributing income upward. (Hard copies will be available for purchase, at cost, in the near future.) Distributing the book for free not only enables it to reach a wider audience, but Baker hopes to drive home one of the book's main points via his own example. While the e-book is free, donations to the Center for Economic and Policy Research are welcomed.
Read the book (other formats coming soon)
PDF | Kindle (.AZW) | NOOK (.EPUB) | .MOBI
-------------------------------
Professional Economics is dreary -- and mostly false. The fact that "progressive" economists -- even the most mild-mannered of them -- are sidelined and have been for many years while the Chicago Boys have been let loose to run wild is one of the principal shames of my generation (and yes, I do attribute it to the liberationist rhetoric and activism so fundamental to the upheavals of the '60's and what came afterwards). Economic "liberation" leads inevitably to the mess we're mired in now. It should not be.
The answers are simple and straightforward, but as every pundit agrees, "There is no political will to do what is necessary to turn this sucky situation around. None."
Dean Baker, like many who ply his trade, overcomplicates the issue and thesolution, but so what? These days, when only the Chicago School Neo-Liberals have their fingers on the economic trigger for everyone else, even convolution that points in another direction, the right direction, is a worthy exercise.
Read the book. Take action.
October can't come soon enough.
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