Of course I've been paying attention to events, but there's such a level of chaos on so many fronts it's hard to know what's worth the time to explore more and what's just "entertainment."
1) Propaganda. We are immersed in propaganda, sales pitches, and false narratives from the media, politicians, commercial interests and others all the time. We know this, don't we? As a rule, the truth of things beyond our immediate reference point is rarely knowable to most of us. Yes, even science and scholarly research can produce false and misleading information.
Thus, it is always wise to be skeptical about what we are told by authority or somebody trying to sell us something. Not all of it is false, but much of everything we're told is framed to make us believe certain things in certain ways that may not have anything to do with reality.
The Russia Thing has been all about propaganda and the effective use of propaganda for political objectives. There's been an effort to blame-cast Russian propaganda for electing Trump -- which to me has always been simply stupid. Incomprehensibly stupid.
There was Russian propaganda at play, but there was lots and lots of other propaganda coming from many, many sources during the election campaign and afterwards. We used to joke about the Macedonian teenagers spreading false stories about Hillary on Facebook and Twitter and various websites. Yes? So? Apparently there were whole troll farms running internet propaganda campaigns from many locations in and out of the USofA, a good deal of it automated, and yes, they were effective among those particularly vulnerable to what they see, read, and hear on the internet.
I think far too much has been made of anti-Hillary, pro-Trump propaganda, however.Trump won the presidency not because the American people elected him -- far from it -- but because the Electoral College elected him based on 70,000-80,000 unverifiable votes in three states. The voters chose Hillary by more than 3,000,000 votes overall, so it's simply false to say that a majority of the American People elected Trump. They didn't.
The propaganda of the campaign was effective in disparaging Hillary mostly among those already so inclined. There was no comprehensive or comparable propaganda effort to disparage Trump. That may seem strange given how over the top some of the denunciations of Trump have been since the election, but consider this:
Media gave him and still gives him nearly limitless coverage for anything he says or does or for pretty much anything anyone else says about him. The circus sells. So, they cover it obsessively. The internet has come to set the standard narrative about things such as Trump, and media falls into line. If Trump is trending, which he always is, the media covers him and everyone -- pretty much -- around him. It's a goon show and they love it. Can't get enough of it. It doesn't really matter what kind of coverage he gets, positive or negative, so long as he gets coverage. If that ever stopped, on the other hand...
There has never been any comparable level of coverage for Hillary or Democrats in general, something that once was noted regularly.
What this means is that Rs and now Trump are able to sell their product almost without impediment whereas in so many cases, Ds can't even come up with a product to sell. But even if they did, their sales technique, indeed, their product itself, wouldn't differ much from that of the Rs. The propaganda and the lies would be nearly indistinguishable. What foreign interests and internet meme generators, fake news purveyors, and what have you do or don't do don't really matter all that much -- they are all part of the game being played. Our rulers lie to us. All. The. Time. Some do it more subtly that others, but they all do it.
That Russian and other foreign and domestic interests exploited these characteristics of American politics to sow discord and "influence the election" should be taken for granted. That one or another campaign was entangled with these interests and activities should be seen as the way the game is played.
What should be clear by now, though, is that Americans are way too vulnerable to these tactics and too many of them lack the tools and skill to sort through the garbage. They believe what they believe and whoever/whatever confirms it. Thus, propaganda is more effective than it should be.
2) Gunz. The nightmare continues. I was impressed by the size of the crowds at Saturday's marches for Our Lives. Sadly, however, we know that marches per se, no matter their size, are routinely ignored by Our Rulers, simply because they can and they want to stick it to the Rabble one more time.
On top of the issue of school massacres, there is obviously still a problem with police executions and murders, street mayhem and murder in various cities, and the ridiculous and deadly insanity of the gun lobby's constant demands for more gunz no matter what.
The thing of it is, despite the absolute number of gunz in private hands, fewer and fewer Americans own them. Ponder: something like half the gunz are in the hands of 3% or so of the population. Only 30% or so of households have a gun, and the number is declining. The rest -- apparently -- are in private arsenals like the one maintained by the Las Vegas mass murderer, or... well, something is going on with those arsenals.
There are always so many gunz available in the black market. There are always so many gunz available on the legal market too. Dude in Florida could walk in to his neighborhood gun shop and buy anything he wanted as long as he had the bucks -- which he did somehow -- and could pass the so called "background check" which didn't pick up any of his sketchier behavior and threats. No problem. It's a puzzlement that all of the reports and calls and tips and so on about him were apparently ignored by layers of authorities who were informed and chose to do nothing. If he were Muslim or black or some other disfavored minority, who knows, he might have been tortured on the rack and thrown in the hole for the rest of his life, but apparently, he was a favored minority.
There is some dispute over whether he is an ethnic Hispanic. He was apparently adopted by a Hispanic family and was given a Hispanic name, but that he is not ethnically Hispanic. Most reports say he's "white." Beyond that, it's a muddle.
But despite being a double orphan, he had plenty of money to buy gunz and he did. This happens with some frequency among the mass murder contingent.
I think we can admit that gunz are far easier to get than they need to be, and that the failure of Our Rulers to do anything about it -- except make it easier -- represents policy. A policy of bloodshed as a corrective for the Rabble, keeping them in fear and thus relatively tame. It's not pleasant, but it works.
Thus the kids must fail in their crusade, and they must be seen to fail. We'll see. Even if/when they manage to expel the electeds who insist on the policy of practically unlimited gun access and periodic mass murder, there is more than a little suspicion that the policy won't change much. Because it is effective in keeping the Rabble in its place, fearful, powerless and under control.
We'll see.
3) Another bimbo eruption. Oh dear. The Storm(y) has hit. Of course no one is shocked -- least of all I imagine Melania. But trying to take out Trump over this sort of thing -- no matter how many women come forth (up to 27 at last count) -- seems somewhat silly. I think Clinton showed that you don't get rid of a president because of his sex life. You just don't. It's ridiculous. But here we are, going through nearly the same thing with Trump as with Clinton, and it's deja vu all over again.
Please.
The entertainment value is high, of course, other people's sex lives being endlessly entertaining, but that's about all it is. (Personally, it all makes me kind of ill; I really don't want to know and don't much care.)
But entertainment in these cases always has a purpose. The purpose is to keep you 'n' me distracted while something else, much more important to Our Rulers, is taking place.
What's important to Our Rulers are the policies being enacted: tax cuts, regulatory relief, theft of public resources and wealth, wars and aggression against designated and ever changing enemies, that kind of thing.
That's going on at an accelerated pace no matter the dazzling show.
There's much more of course.
-----------------------------------------------------
I've started a whole bunch of seeds, and have more to start during the next week or so. My health is better but not fully up to par. Will probably be starting physical therapy soon. Ms Ché is getting her BFA in Creative Writing in May and then starting the MFA program in August. She will not be the oldest graduate, but close to it. And she's having the time of her life!
In the midst of all the hoo-hah, there's always something else again.
I may take another long break over the next several months.
We'll see how things settle out.
Showing posts with label random notes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label random notes. Show all posts
Monday, March 26, 2018
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
Random Notes
I've been on a surprisingly long hiatus -- partly due to health issues, partly because of the surrealness of the passing scene. Sometimes I wonder if we have all tumbled down a rabbit hole from which there is no turning back.
Health: My condition (rheumatoid arthritis) is stable, I guess. But word came yesterday that the rheumatologist suspects I have another complicating condition that needs treatment as well -- but she won't say what she suspects, just wants me to see another specialist. Sigh. What I can say is that there have been periods recently when I've felt... strange. Almost out of body. I attribute it to medication, but I'm not sure. At any rate, just remembering to take all the medications I've been prescribed is something of a challenge. They seem to work well enough, but there are so many, it's sometimes more than I can manage to remember them all and remember to take them in the right sequence.
Costs are starting to climb as well. So far, the cost is not crippling, but it's surprising just how much of my treatment and prescriptions are not covered by the Medicare Advantage plan I signed up to or are covered at such a low percentage of cost that I pay almost full price.
Brexit: Jeebus. What a clusterfuck. Watching the utter meltdown of Our Betters following the vote was/is entertaining, I suppose, but there is something curious about all the sturm und drang and garment rending that strikes me as completely phony. Things are not what they seem. There is a strong element of Show Business, in other words, that leads me to believe that in the end, Britain will not leave the EU, and the voters will learn that their vote really doesn't matter. These things are not to be decided by plebiscite. Very little is to be decided by the Rabble in the end.
Anyone who's watched what's happened to Greece, among other places, should have learned that by now. The People are to have as little say in matters of state and importance as is possible. Going forward, they should not expect to have any say, or if they have one, they should expect their decision to be ignored -- if it contradicts the decisions of Their Betters.
We'll see, but I'm not convinced -- at all -- that The People will have their way in Britain any more than they have had their way most anywhere else lately.
Clinton v Sanders v Trump: OK. It's always more important for neoliberal Democrats to attack and if possible destroy their left flank. The Left is considered an existential threat to the neolibcon program and must be crushed. Consequently much more energy is devoted to suppression of the so-called Sanders "Political Revolution" than has gone into "fighting" Republicans.
More and more it appears that Trump will not be the Republican nominee, assuming the Republicans want a contest for the White House (not entirely clear). The Rs seem to be happy enough with Clinton, almost as if they would have nominated her if Sanders had become the Democratic nominee.
The important thing for both Clinton and Trump is to keep the Sanders Wing from any kind of power no matter what else happens. The spectacle is typical but largely uninteresting.
That's just me, though...
Houses: On a completely different note, while pondering the world my parents grew up in -- so different from our own -- I've thought a bit about the houses where they lived. Those houses, I think, had a shaping influence on them, just as the houses I grew up in have shaped who I am.
My father was born in Iowa in 1901, the second son of a prominent Irish-American attorney and his German-American wife. The family lived in a series of Victorian houses on one street, actually one block of one street. These houses were not that big, they certainly weren't fancy, and even the biggest of them and the fanciest was relatively modest compared to the mansions of the town's wealthy just a couple of blocks away.
As the family grew, their houses got bigger. There were eventually eleven children, nine of whom lived to adulthood. They did not have electricity, however, until about 1913. They had servants -- a cook/nanny/housekeeper and a man to take care of the yard and drive the car. Ultimately, my father inherited one of his father's houses on that block and he lived there the rest of his life.
It was an old and very small house, though it was two stories. I remember it well, even from a very early age. The earliest memories I have of it are of the smell of the coal furnace in the basement and the rough feel of the wool rugs against my skin. There was nothing fancy about this house. Parts of it dated back to the 1840s or 50s, very rough and simple. Additions were made in the 1870s and 1890s, and my father remodeled some of it in the 1940s and 50s. But even though it grew, the rooms were small, some of them were actually tiny. The house still stands. It's been remodeled and expanded again, but I imagine it's still small and plain.
My mother was born in Indiana in 1911 and lived the first five years of her life with her mother, grandmother and aunts in a house that no longer stands. It was replaced in about 1915 with a fire station. The family moved next door into a house that still stands, a simple Victorian place that is deceptively large. In 1917, however, my mother, her mother, and her step father moved to California where lived in a pretty typical California bungalow that still stands, though it has been heavily remodeled over the years. The bungalow was something like this. In fact, I think it was a lot like that. I think that house had a strong influence on my mother when she was growing up.
In Sacramento, we lived in a neighborhood that was filled with Arts and Crafts bungalows, and I became familiar with some of them. What struck me about so many of them is that they were dark, dark as caves, and nothing at all would brighten them up. I think it was because they were so dark that owners painted the woodwork white. Arts and Crafts aficionados, of course, are passionate about stripping the paint from bungalow woodwork, and then they wind up with a dark house once again. But I guess they like it.
Bungalows were considered progressive compared to their Victorian predecessors. It's a rather strict style, floorplans tend to be standardized, and for the most part, bungalows are compact. There are exceptions (like the Gamble House in Pasadena) but the house my mother grew up in was small, tight, dark (I'm assuming) and she probably felt confined.
How that influenced who she became is a topic for another post...
Health: My condition (rheumatoid arthritis) is stable, I guess. But word came yesterday that the rheumatologist suspects I have another complicating condition that needs treatment as well -- but she won't say what she suspects, just wants me to see another specialist. Sigh. What I can say is that there have been periods recently when I've felt... strange. Almost out of body. I attribute it to medication, but I'm not sure. At any rate, just remembering to take all the medications I've been prescribed is something of a challenge. They seem to work well enough, but there are so many, it's sometimes more than I can manage to remember them all and remember to take them in the right sequence.
Costs are starting to climb as well. So far, the cost is not crippling, but it's surprising just how much of my treatment and prescriptions are not covered by the Medicare Advantage plan I signed up to or are covered at such a low percentage of cost that I pay almost full price.
Brexit: Jeebus. What a clusterfuck. Watching the utter meltdown of Our Betters following the vote was/is entertaining, I suppose, but there is something curious about all the sturm und drang and garment rending that strikes me as completely phony. Things are not what they seem. There is a strong element of Show Business, in other words, that leads me to believe that in the end, Britain will not leave the EU, and the voters will learn that their vote really doesn't matter. These things are not to be decided by plebiscite. Very little is to be decided by the Rabble in the end.
Anyone who's watched what's happened to Greece, among other places, should have learned that by now. The People are to have as little say in matters of state and importance as is possible. Going forward, they should not expect to have any say, or if they have one, they should expect their decision to be ignored -- if it contradicts the decisions of Their Betters.
We'll see, but I'm not convinced -- at all -- that The People will have their way in Britain any more than they have had their way most anywhere else lately.
Clinton v Sanders v Trump: OK. It's always more important for neoliberal Democrats to attack and if possible destroy their left flank. The Left is considered an existential threat to the neolibcon program and must be crushed. Consequently much more energy is devoted to suppression of the so-called Sanders "Political Revolution" than has gone into "fighting" Republicans.
More and more it appears that Trump will not be the Republican nominee, assuming the Republicans want a contest for the White House (not entirely clear). The Rs seem to be happy enough with Clinton, almost as if they would have nominated her if Sanders had become the Democratic nominee.
The important thing for both Clinton and Trump is to keep the Sanders Wing from any kind of power no matter what else happens. The spectacle is typical but largely uninteresting.
That's just me, though...
Houses: On a completely different note, while pondering the world my parents grew up in -- so different from our own -- I've thought a bit about the houses where they lived. Those houses, I think, had a shaping influence on them, just as the houses I grew up in have shaped who I am.
My father was born in Iowa in 1901, the second son of a prominent Irish-American attorney and his German-American wife. The family lived in a series of Victorian houses on one street, actually one block of one street. These houses were not that big, they certainly weren't fancy, and even the biggest of them and the fanciest was relatively modest compared to the mansions of the town's wealthy just a couple of blocks away.
As the family grew, their houses got bigger. There were eventually eleven children, nine of whom lived to adulthood. They did not have electricity, however, until about 1913. They had servants -- a cook/nanny/housekeeper and a man to take care of the yard and drive the car. Ultimately, my father inherited one of his father's houses on that block and he lived there the rest of his life.
It was an old and very small house, though it was two stories. I remember it well, even from a very early age. The earliest memories I have of it are of the smell of the coal furnace in the basement and the rough feel of the wool rugs against my skin. There was nothing fancy about this house. Parts of it dated back to the 1840s or 50s, very rough and simple. Additions were made in the 1870s and 1890s, and my father remodeled some of it in the 1940s and 50s. But even though it grew, the rooms were small, some of them were actually tiny. The house still stands. It's been remodeled and expanded again, but I imagine it's still small and plain.
My mother was born in Indiana in 1911 and lived the first five years of her life with her mother, grandmother and aunts in a house that no longer stands. It was replaced in about 1915 with a fire station. The family moved next door into a house that still stands, a simple Victorian place that is deceptively large. In 1917, however, my mother, her mother, and her step father moved to California where lived in a pretty typical California bungalow that still stands, though it has been heavily remodeled over the years. The bungalow was something like this. In fact, I think it was a lot like that. I think that house had a strong influence on my mother when she was growing up.
In Sacramento, we lived in a neighborhood that was filled with Arts and Crafts bungalows, and I became familiar with some of them. What struck me about so many of them is that they were dark, dark as caves, and nothing at all would brighten them up. I think it was because they were so dark that owners painted the woodwork white. Arts and Crafts aficionados, of course, are passionate about stripping the paint from bungalow woodwork, and then they wind up with a dark house once again. But I guess they like it.
Bungalows were considered progressive compared to their Victorian predecessors. It's a rather strict style, floorplans tend to be standardized, and for the most part, bungalows are compact. There are exceptions (like the Gamble House in Pasadena) but the house my mother grew up in was small, tight, dark (I'm assuming) and she probably felt confined.
How that influenced who she became is a topic for another post...
Friday, October 23, 2015
Random Notes
A lot of the commentary over the remarkable statements by Israeli PM Netanyahu that suggested that Hitler got the idea for the Final Solution from "a Palestinian" -- ie: the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem -- focused on the idea that "he's delusional," and/or "he's insane."
To the contrary, I think he knows exactly what he is doing, and it's not delusional or insane at all. He's making a spectacle of himself in order to draw attention away from the disaster of his rule on the one hand -- the rash of stabbings by Palestinians in Israel has apparently deeply unnerved the population, and the response by Israeli civilians and security forces is way over the to as demonstrated by numerous viral videos of Israelis committing acts of summary execution in the streets, sometimes of "their own people."
It's yet another domestic catastrophe brought on by a man who apparently lacks any conscience whatever. This is not insanity. This is not delusion. It is pathological in my view, but it isn't an "illness." It is character. Or lack thereof.
It's pathological because a lack of conscience is destructive in the character of anyone who is in a position to wield power over others or to utilize the power of a nation state to accomplish political objectives.
We see this in the political class all the time, this utter lack of conscience, empathy, or even interest in the well-being of anyone outside their own circle, or even beyond themselves. It's not limited to politics, either. We see it in business and finance (especially finance), in the administrative realm generally, in policing theory and practice, and on and on, and I wonder...
Do people in these and so many other fields learn these traits or are they born that way? Is there some kind of eugenic experiment under way that is breeding out the genes for compassion, conscience, and empathy? Truly, I wouldn't be surprised.
In Netanyahu's case, it's been clear for decades that the man sees himself as a Warrior-King on a mission. That mission will not be thwarted by lowly Palestinians (I doubt he considers them to be human) or by anyone else -- who he also seems to doubt are truly human. His mission appears to be the reconstitution of Eretz Israel or its modern equivalent for his own Power and Glory.
If anyone gets crushed in his pursuit of this project, it's their own fault.
And Israelis love him for it.
It's not insanity or delusion. It's purpose and will -- ultimately antithetical to humanity.
It is commonplace in the his realm. While it seems to make no sense to those on the outside, most of those on the inside share his perspective more or less fully. It's dangerous and destructive and deeply immoral,
One of the aspects of its immorality in the Israeli case is that their argument regarding the Nazis seems to accept everything they did -- up to the Final Solution itself. Israelis can therefore justify what they have long been doing to the Palestinians -- which is very closely patterned on Nazi practice toward Jews and other minorities in Germany. That means that the camps were OK, the roundups, deportations, the ghettoization, the prohibitions on actions, employment, travel, etc., the restrictions and/or elimination of civil rights, the confiscations and demolitions, the summary executions, the lynchings, the lootings, the general destruction levied against Jews and other minorities were all perhaps unpleasant, but they were not the Final Solution and therefore were "OK."
Well, no. They weren't "OK." Or justified. Nor has Israel any right to impose similar conditions on Palestinians. But they do it just the same.
They criticize the Nazis for the mass executions, the gas chambers, and the ovens. Not really for anything else. All the rest of it up to that point was... OK.
Jeeze.
Netanyahu is flailing for attention, and he's getting it.
-----------------------------------------
The Clinton Drama continues, and if Hillary is elected, we'll have no end of drama in the nation's capital. What did I see the other day? The radicals will be offering articles of impeachment the day she's sworn in to the presidency? Well, yes. Of course they will. It's what they do. And she'll happily do battle against them. And the attempts to impeach her will be a spectacle to feed the ravenous maw of the media -- which will love it -- for (probably) her entire term in office.
Meanwhile, of course, the nefarious and conscience-free policies of Our Betters will have free rein.
Isn't that the point, after all? Positioning Paul Ryan in the #3 slot -- ie: Speaker of the House -- is a kind of preparatory master-stroke, on the thought that however the drama plays out (she could be assassinated, after all...) there will be a dynamic conscience-free back up at the ready.
Jeebus, no matter how cynical you become, it's really impossible to keep up these days.
--------------------------
Sanders has yet to impress me. He seems to be a sacrificial shepherd leading his devoted flock into a cul-de-sac. No, he will not be allowed to become the president, not on a bet, and if somehow he manages to become the Democratic Party nominee (he won't) he will be left to flounder and fade away. With him go the remnants of a "progressive" Democratic Party. That seems to be the point in any case.
The Democratic Party isn't the same as the Tories of Anglo politics, but it is in many respects the rightful conservative party of the United States. It has always been conservative whereas the Republicans are rightist radicals.
There is no political left in this country with any pretense to power -- perhaps there never has been one. (FDR was not an exception). Without a functioning "left" in this country, it's impossible to move the governing apparatus away from or beyond its nearly exclusive devotion to the interests and demands of the Oligarchy.
The answer is withdrawal of presence and attention and consent. It happens organically, but it takes a long-long time to come to fruition. It doesn't happen in the political realm, it happens in the social realm, and eventually, the established political elements become irrelevant. "All of that" happens almost in another universe, affecting "real life" less and less, until nobody cares.
It's been happening in this country, this withdrawal, for several decades, but it's been fairly marginal in most respects. "Hippies" and such have been doing it since the 1960s, but there are many-many more elements than merely the unreconstructed hippies in the current withdrawals. "Alternatives" are everywhere, and those who pursue them find it's quite possible -- and sometimes a great deal more rewarding -- to simply let go of the necessity to serve the system as it is.
Thus I can't get too excited about the current political hoo-hah.
------------------------------
Police whining has reached a crescendo. The recent incident of road rage in Albuquerque leading to the death of a 4 year old girl seems to have triggered a reaction in the media. That reaction is apparently focused on a restoration of the status quo ante -- prior to the consent decree and all the police reforms that went with it, including a steep reduction in police killings of civilians. The local media seems to want to restore previous police practices -- and the death rates that went with them -- as a means of curbing the "current crime wave."
Well, I call bullshit. There is no "current crime wave." Crime in general, and violent crime in particular, is at or below previous levels, prior to the consent decree and police "reforms." Restoration merely means adding more violence to the mix, not curbing it at all. But Warrior Cops can't help themselves, can they? They want to mix it up, they have to, it's an identity thing. If they aren't out there killing and brutalizing with impunity, what it the point of having police, right?
So they whine and whine and whine, like dogs chained up in the back yard, wanting to kill, kill, and kill some more, to be who they are.
And the media in Albuquerque is clamoring to unchain them. To root out all those criminals running wild.
Bleah.
-------------------
Enough.
To the contrary, I think he knows exactly what he is doing, and it's not delusional or insane at all. He's making a spectacle of himself in order to draw attention away from the disaster of his rule on the one hand -- the rash of stabbings by Palestinians in Israel has apparently deeply unnerved the population, and the response by Israeli civilians and security forces is way over the to as demonstrated by numerous viral videos of Israelis committing acts of summary execution in the streets, sometimes of "their own people."
It's yet another domestic catastrophe brought on by a man who apparently lacks any conscience whatever. This is not insanity. This is not delusion. It is pathological in my view, but it isn't an "illness." It is character. Or lack thereof.
It's pathological because a lack of conscience is destructive in the character of anyone who is in a position to wield power over others or to utilize the power of a nation state to accomplish political objectives.
We see this in the political class all the time, this utter lack of conscience, empathy, or even interest in the well-being of anyone outside their own circle, or even beyond themselves. It's not limited to politics, either. We see it in business and finance (especially finance), in the administrative realm generally, in policing theory and practice, and on and on, and I wonder...
Do people in these and so many other fields learn these traits or are they born that way? Is there some kind of eugenic experiment under way that is breeding out the genes for compassion, conscience, and empathy? Truly, I wouldn't be surprised.
In Netanyahu's case, it's been clear for decades that the man sees himself as a Warrior-King on a mission. That mission will not be thwarted by lowly Palestinians (I doubt he considers them to be human) or by anyone else -- who he also seems to doubt are truly human. His mission appears to be the reconstitution of Eretz Israel or its modern equivalent for his own Power and Glory.
If anyone gets crushed in his pursuit of this project, it's their own fault.
And Israelis love him for it.
It's not insanity or delusion. It's purpose and will -- ultimately antithetical to humanity.
It is commonplace in the his realm. While it seems to make no sense to those on the outside, most of those on the inside share his perspective more or less fully. It's dangerous and destructive and deeply immoral,
One of the aspects of its immorality in the Israeli case is that their argument regarding the Nazis seems to accept everything they did -- up to the Final Solution itself. Israelis can therefore justify what they have long been doing to the Palestinians -- which is very closely patterned on Nazi practice toward Jews and other minorities in Germany. That means that the camps were OK, the roundups, deportations, the ghettoization, the prohibitions on actions, employment, travel, etc., the restrictions and/or elimination of civil rights, the confiscations and demolitions, the summary executions, the lynchings, the lootings, the general destruction levied against Jews and other minorities were all perhaps unpleasant, but they were not the Final Solution and therefore were "OK."
Well, no. They weren't "OK." Or justified. Nor has Israel any right to impose similar conditions on Palestinians. But they do it just the same.
They criticize the Nazis for the mass executions, the gas chambers, and the ovens. Not really for anything else. All the rest of it up to that point was... OK.
Jeeze.
Netanyahu is flailing for attention, and he's getting it.
-----------------------------------------
The Clinton Drama continues, and if Hillary is elected, we'll have no end of drama in the nation's capital. What did I see the other day? The radicals will be offering articles of impeachment the day she's sworn in to the presidency? Well, yes. Of course they will. It's what they do. And she'll happily do battle against them. And the attempts to impeach her will be a spectacle to feed the ravenous maw of the media -- which will love it -- for (probably) her entire term in office.
Meanwhile, of course, the nefarious and conscience-free policies of Our Betters will have free rein.
Isn't that the point, after all? Positioning Paul Ryan in the #3 slot -- ie: Speaker of the House -- is a kind of preparatory master-stroke, on the thought that however the drama plays out (she could be assassinated, after all...) there will be a dynamic conscience-free back up at the ready.
Jeebus, no matter how cynical you become, it's really impossible to keep up these days.
--------------------------
Sanders has yet to impress me. He seems to be a sacrificial shepherd leading his devoted flock into a cul-de-sac. No, he will not be allowed to become the president, not on a bet, and if somehow he manages to become the Democratic Party nominee (he won't) he will be left to flounder and fade away. With him go the remnants of a "progressive" Democratic Party. That seems to be the point in any case.
The Democratic Party isn't the same as the Tories of Anglo politics, but it is in many respects the rightful conservative party of the United States. It has always been conservative whereas the Republicans are rightist radicals.
There is no political left in this country with any pretense to power -- perhaps there never has been one. (FDR was not an exception). Without a functioning "left" in this country, it's impossible to move the governing apparatus away from or beyond its nearly exclusive devotion to the interests and demands of the Oligarchy.
The answer is withdrawal of presence and attention and consent. It happens organically, but it takes a long-long time to come to fruition. It doesn't happen in the political realm, it happens in the social realm, and eventually, the established political elements become irrelevant. "All of that" happens almost in another universe, affecting "real life" less and less, until nobody cares.
It's been happening in this country, this withdrawal, for several decades, but it's been fairly marginal in most respects. "Hippies" and such have been doing it since the 1960s, but there are many-many more elements than merely the unreconstructed hippies in the current withdrawals. "Alternatives" are everywhere, and those who pursue them find it's quite possible -- and sometimes a great deal more rewarding -- to simply let go of the necessity to serve the system as it is.
Thus I can't get too excited about the current political hoo-hah.
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Police whining has reached a crescendo. The recent incident of road rage in Albuquerque leading to the death of a 4 year old girl seems to have triggered a reaction in the media. That reaction is apparently focused on a restoration of the status quo ante -- prior to the consent decree and all the police reforms that went with it, including a steep reduction in police killings of civilians. The local media seems to want to restore previous police practices -- and the death rates that went with them -- as a means of curbing the "current crime wave."
Well, I call bullshit. There is no "current crime wave." Crime in general, and violent crime in particular, is at or below previous levels, prior to the consent decree and police "reforms." Restoration merely means adding more violence to the mix, not curbing it at all. But Warrior Cops can't help themselves, can they? They want to mix it up, they have to, it's an identity thing. If they aren't out there killing and brutalizing with impunity, what it the point of having police, right?
So they whine and whine and whine, like dogs chained up in the back yard, wanting to kill, kill, and kill some more, to be who they are.
And the media in Albuquerque is clamoring to unchain them. To root out all those criminals running wild.
Bleah.
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Enough.
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