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Billy_TParticipantTutu Atwell worked out with Teddy Bridgewater and got in throwing sessions with him in Miami this offseason.
Was happy the Rams took a flier on such a freakish athlete. But, damn, he’s skinny. He and Tutu need to take a crash course on eating massive quantities of cheesecake and pizza, or something.
Well, actually, it should be really healthy food, but mega-calories in total, along with continued weight-training, etc. etc.
I’m guessing most of us here know how hard it is to lose weight. Gaining it should be easy, and kinda fun.
Kids these days!!
;>)
Billy_TParticipantThanks for the Gabriel stuff.
I might be on an island here, but I still put him at the top of the heap of Rams’ QBs, all-time.
Billy_TParticipantCurrently reading a really good book by William Clare Roberts, Marx’s Inferno: The Political Theory of Capital (2016).
Loose thematic frame is Marx’s use of Dante’s Inferno as loose thematic framework for his Magnum Opus.
Getting a ton out of it. Like:
There is a fundamental conflict between the commitment of the laborers to pursue the means of enjoyment and the commitment of capitalists to pursue the endless accumulation of wealth.
It’s useful to remember that people once understood this, saw the change, remembered earlier, highly localized and dispersed economic systems that focused on entirely different things. As in, people tended to work enough to fulfill their needs. That’s it. Then, capitalist hegemony, mechanics, laws of motion changed all of that. People work harder, for longer hours today, because they work for something well beyond what they, personally, ever needed. They work to make it possible for the few to increase their wealth via surplus value that doesn’t really mean a damn thing to individual workers, and doesn’t help them, either.
I’d bet very few Americans ever stop to think what they’re doing when they work at all — why they work, and for whom.
Billy_TParticipantCal,
Have wanted to read Berry in book form for some time. From the little I have read by him, he strikes me as thoughtful, big-hearted, and deeply connected to the land.
It’s always saddened me that most Americans don’t get that the biggest obstacle in their path, when it comes to receiving the just fruits of their labor, is the capitalist system itself. It’s set up in a way that mandates radical underpayment for work done, if you’re an employee, and radical overpayment for work done, if you’re the boss.
It’s not government taxes or “intrusion” that present this obstacle. It’s the system of for-profit, privately owned, autocratic, M-C-M plus exchange value commerce. It’s economic apartheid (capitalism).
America (until after the Civil War) was predominantly non-capitalist, and farmers were a great example of that.
Neither major party is willing to even question the system that enslaves us and is killing the planet. The GOP aggressively defends it, seeks its expansion, and fights against all democratic offsets. The Dems also support it but are more willing to offer those offsets. Both agendas are deadly, in my view.
IMO, it can’t be tweaked, or reformed, or offset enough to solve our crises. We need to replace it entirely with a truly democratic, sustainable, steady-state economy, from the ground up.
Billy_TParticipantI think this calls for some real innovation. Use six O-linemen, and include a second-string D-lineman in the backfield — Copeland or Hoecht, perhaps — as blocker or carrier. Put Tutu back there now and then. Though, as Tom Hanks said in A League of the Rhone, “There is no Tutu in football!” So he’s gonna have to find another name.
Again, I think Henderson has a lot of talent, so it’s just a matter of staying on the field and away from the training room for him. Beyond that, I’d go with Funk before Jones. The name speaks for itself.
I’d actually love to see Gurley back in horns. Or Peterson. Don’t break the bank to do it. But they could help with 5-10 carries a game, if they’re willing.
Billy_TParticipantEdit:
Scarborough was hired by a different head honcho, long before the current regime.
Billy_TParticipantImportant qualifications for the above.
1. There is a huge difference (of course) between Op Ed pieces and “regular news,” in both print and electronic media. But even there, CNN and MSNBC have long made room for partisan Republicans, including ex-Trump officials, and the major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) typically bring in more Republicans than Dems for their political talk shows. And the Dems they do bring in tend to be centrists to center-right.
The NYT and the WaPO give Op Ed slots to a host of conservatives. There is no corresponding openness on Fox and its right-wing brethren. Right off the bat, the right has advantages when it comes to media partisanship, and they’re huge.
2. MSNBC is owned by a very conservative corporation, and it hired a conservative program chief. He hired all kinds of deeply conservative hosts, like Joe Scarborough (three hours in the morning) and Nicolle Wallace (two hours in the afternoon), and they tend to have on all kinds of deeply conservative guests. It’s not “carrying Dems’ water” when Republicans there tell the truth about Trump and decry the changes in their party. They still try to push pro-GOP narratives when they can, but those usually center on some golden past that never was, when Reagan balanced the budget, defeated the Soviet Union single-handedly, refused to lie about the Cherry Tree, etc. etc. . . . If MSNBC really were just an arm of the Democratic Party, why would it give so much time to Republicans, including its former chair, Michael Steele — among dozens and dozens of others?
Signed, Billy_T, heretic leftist.
Billy_TParticipantSomething else to consider here, with regard to the media and right-wing response to that media:
1. Do they actually tune into the MSM? If so, how often? Or do they get their media almost exclusively from Fox and other sources in the right-wing bubble? If that’s the case, and I think it is, how do they recognize the supposed lies being told to them by media outlets they don’t watch or read?
2. This may be a heretical take now on the left, but it wasn’t before Trump: the MSM aren’t pro-Dem. Calling out Trump’s evils isn’t being pro-Dem. It’s just doing their job. We leftists shouldn’t confuse telling the truth about Trump with “carrying Democrats’ water.” My take is that the MSM goes out of its way to go easy on the GOP and the right, relative to their actual lies and misdeeds. Their bosses have a vested interest in keeping the two-party system in place, so they work hard to find “balance.” That attempt at balance necessarily means grading the GOP and the right on a steep curve, because if they used the same standards for the left, center, and the right, the right would look like total shit 99% of the time . . . and that would damage the desired equilibrium between the two parties.
3. The original wave of progressive bloggers used to do forensic takes on the above, showing how centrist to conservative the MSM really is. Digby, Greg Sargent, Ezra Klein and company, posting under cybernyms, would demonstrate daily how slanted the MSM was — to the benefit of the GOP. It’s really only been since Trump that some on the left have suggested the MSM is slanted toward the Dems, and they’re wrong. Again, telling the truth, by definition, isn’t slanted.
Billy_TParticipantI think it’s important to pin down the lies they think they recognize. What exactly do they think they’ve been told that isn’t true? Are they the same lies we see? .
=================
Its a duopoly, right? Two corporate-capitalist parties.
The Rightwingers see the Lies from the Duplicats (CNN, MSNBC, NPR etc)
Do you think only half of the duopoly is doing the lying?
w
vWV, I guess I worded all of that poorly.
I’m saying that the right doesn’t see what we see as a lie. They see the truth as lies, and lies as truth. So I don’t think it’s productive in the slightest to assume they agree with us on the subject of establishment mendacity, because from my vantage point, they don’t. Not in the slightest. They never have, and they never will.
Again, what lies, specifically, do they recognize? That’s essential, at least for me.
NPR, CNN, MSNBC the NYT, the WaPo, etc. etc. . . aren’t lying to them at all about their guy, their team, climate change, Covid, etc. They’re lying, usually via omission, about things that the right believes in passionately anyway, and doesn’t recognize as a lie, or an ocean of lies . . . Capitalism, empire, corporate America, America’s eternal innocence and greatness, the carceral state, the necessity of war after war after war, black ops, etc. The right sees all negative reporting about Trump, the GOP, plus coverage of Covid and Climate Change as a lie, but it’s not. The MSM supports their reporting with video, audio, direct quotes, transcripts, science, and so on. It’s easily corroborated, and withstands serious scrutiny, with rare exceptions, IMO.
Right-wingers, with less than rare exceptions, don’t recognize establishment jingoism or Go America Go as based on lies. In fact, they think there’s a leftist conspiracy to tear this country down via even the slightest reassessment or doubt cast upon our perfection and perfect innocence. As mentioned earlier, they don’t have an issue with the security state, at all — except to the extent they think it’s after Trump. They couldn’t care less about its impact on Muslims, leftists, people of color — historically or today.
In sum, I don’t see a single instance of the right recognizing a lie as a lie, or a truth as a truth. Not one. Their critique of this society is a critique of a phantom, not reality, and who do they blame the most for all of its (and their) ills?
Migrants, immigrants, the “undeserving poor,” people of color, feminists, with we leftists supposedly pulling all the strings.
I’m just not seeing any evidence that they’ve recognized a single actual lie, WV. I’ve tried, but can’t.
Billy_TParticipantHuge loss.
But I think Henderson has a lot of talent too, if healthy, and Jake Funk will surprise people.
This is really bad news, but I think the Rams’ O will still be excellent. Might force McVay to become a Martzist, from that famous sub-branch of Frankfurt, the Los Angeles School.
Wouldn’t surprise me, however, if they make a splash trade. It’s not as if they’re out of draft picks, or anything.
Oh, wait . . .
Which leaves them with . . . ???
Le’Veon Bell
Todd Gurley
Adrian PetersonBilly_TParticipantI;m not providing much in the way of analysis. Just blunt “IMO” reactions. But it really is my feeling that the desire to find some kind of underground affinity between the left and magas is not very compelling. Something similar happened before Trump’s election. I detected a bit of “how bad could he be” sentiment, and frankly I found it disturbing. My line at the time was that he is even worse than you can imagine. My point of reference is that in Maine, the governor was a pre-Trump Trump-like type (LePage). He was freaking gawdawful and was very damaging. That’s what we get with these people.
That’s how I see it anyway. That’s just my own little vote.
…
I had a similar take, pre-election, though without the Maine-angle. Even back then, I was stunned that some thought Trump would be less of a warmonger than the Clinton Dems, given Trump’s bellicose rhetoric, his Nazi-like call to “shut down” all Muslims, his call for even greater military spending, and a much tougher “law and order” regime, etc. His extremist anti-immigration platform necessarily meant more wars, covert, and overt, a stepped up security-state involvement, a far more aggressive ICE, and so on. And he actually wondered out loud why the US couldn’t use nukes, even on Europe.
I just couldn’t find a single issue — and I tried — where Trump would be even slightly less destructive than Clinton and the Dems, or where the GOP itself was.
His presidency didn’t just confirm my fears. He went well beyond them.
What is even more frightening, however, is that with his departure, the right has gotten even worse, more aggressive, more determined than ever before to make America a truly One Party State . . . and not in the old lefty formulation of the “Money Party” with two wings. Literally one party at the helm for as far as the eyes can see. And it seems obvious to me that the number one rationale for Trump’s attempted coup, and continued pushing of election lies is this:
He thinks the only way he stays out of jail is if he has control of the DoJ and the courts. He desperately needs to get back in the White House, by any means necessary, to make that happen. And if he makes the impossible happen again, he won’t leave until he dies.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 4 months ago by
Billy_T.
Billy_TParticipantI don’t think that there is an affinity between the left and maga, or that we are in any way “allied at heart.” My use of the term “common ground” was a poor choice.
I am interested in how they put together their pieces of the puzzle, but I am not moved to applaud them. They do see that the system is corrupt, and that they are outsiders, but as Billy said, they completely lack awareness of the fact that they hold allegiance to the worst part of the system, and participate in it themselves.
I didn’t think you were using any of those expressions, Zooey. I took the “common ground” plea from others — leftists with audiences, in my own poor phrasing, not any posters here.
Key for me, especially in recent years, reading histories that bust up American myths:
The right is adamantly opposed to them. All of them. Sometimes viciously so. As in, sending death threats to teachers, storming school board meetings, etc. . . . with lotsa backup in Republican controlled state legislatures, as you no doubt know first hand. Trump did several executive orders to try to crush any kind of honest reassessment of our history, or any attempt to tell the truth about where we’ve been as a nation, and how that impacts the present. The right is all on board with all of that. That presents an insurmountable gulf between left and right from the getgo.
So any kind of acknowledgement of systematic corruption isn’t going to sync up with our view of that, and given their near universal belief that Trump cleaned up, or tried to clean up “the swamp,” it’s pretty clear they don’t understand the word itself.
I think it’s safe to say that Trump was the most personally corrupt president in American history, and while the effects of his personal corruption may not rate as the worst, he no doubt planned to be Number One. IMO, a few isolated holdouts from his own party prevented the horrifically awful from being massively deadly and permanent, even beyond the 600K Covid deaths at his feet.
Again, I’m glad you posted the article. It is important to know how Americans of all stripes see the world.
Billy_TParticipantIOW:
Could it be that some lefty pundits are projecting their own “discoveries” onto others? Wishful thinking on steroids?
In my view, that’s at least in part what is happening. There isn’t an actual awakening on the right about anything, and they’ve never wanted the same kind of society we want. They don’t want equality, alternatives to capitalism, or even modest restrictions on capitalism to save the planet.
I’m reading an excellent study of William Faulkner right now, focusing on the Civil War and race as it relates to his life and works. The Saddest Words, by Michael Gorra. Getting so much out of it, but this one section just seems to typify the right-wing mindset to a T. I doubt it was Gorra’s intention to spark my reaction, but it did.
Summing up a section in Absalom, Absalom!
One day young Sutpen was sent to the Big House with a message and went up to the front door, curious about what the place looked like inside. But a black butler blocked his path before he could say his piece, and told the boy never again to approach that way; people like him needed to go around back to the servant’s entrance, the slave’s entrance. The incident enraged him. “Sprung from a people whose houses didn’t have back doors,” he had never before encountered a social barrier between one white man and another, and for a moment he thought about shooting the planter who maintained it or beating the butler’s “balloon face.” Then he realized that what he really wanted was to be on the other side of that division, a man with a hammock of his own. For that he would need money and slaves, land and a house, children and “incidentally of course, a wife”; and so he went to the West Indies, where he had heard that poor boys might grow rich.
Billy_TParticipantAnd one of those other notions
is reflected in that article — a dawning-recognition by rightoids
that Hillary/Obama/Biden/MSNBC/NPR/PBS/CNN/CBS/ABC/NBC/CIA — LIE
to them constantly. They recognize it. They are being lied to.
They figured it out. And they vote accordingly.Now, of course they FAILED to figure out that things are actually
MUCH worse than even they know. Because they failed to figure
out that FOX and Talk Radio, etc is lying to them too.That makes them batshit-fascist-dangerous. 70 million of em.
w
vI think it’s important to pin down the lies they think they recognize. What exactly do they think they’ve been told that isn’t true? Are they the same lies we see? IMO, no. Not in the slightest. Not even in the same universe.
The MSM outlets you mention haven’t lied about Trump, his deeds, the election, Jan 6th, Covid, or the GOP in general. They’ve actually been remarkably good, relatively speaking, about telling the truth in those cases and can back it up, corroborate it, etc.
Are they good at adding context and history? No. We’ve talked about all of that many times before. Do they omit a host of existentially important things about empire, war, the environment, capitalist exploitation and the like? Of course. But, the thing is, the right doesn’t complain about those omissions, even if they realize their absence. In fact, as is all too clear from the war against CRT, BLM, NFL players taking a knee and so on . . . they don’t want the flag, Mom, Apple Pie and the like besmirched, and they’re actually in favor of empire, capitalist exploitation, war, especially against Muslims and “communists,” etc.
To boil this down: what they see as a lie told by the MSM is actually the truth. What they see as truths told by Trump, their pastors, their media, their reps, are lies.
I don’t think they’ve figured out anything. They’re just as wrong about the world, our politics, the media, etc. as they’ve always been.
Billy_TParticipantThey see that the establishment is working to thwart their ambitions, and destabilize their livelihoods. But they don’t accurately understand what forces are at work in that reality, what their objectives are, and how and why they do what they are doing.
I know you know this, Zooey, but even their idea of “the Establishment” is all wrong. All too many Trump supporters don’t even include their own party/media as being a part of that establishment, unless it’s openly opposed Trump, then it/they go on the list. They’ll never accept the fact that liberals hold little power in America, or that leftists hold less than nothing. And they’ll never accept the fact that the Powers that Be, regardless of party, have pretty much always been center-right in America.
I’m struck also by the desire by some lefty civil libertarians to forge closer ties. Just because a Rand Paul or Ted Cruz or Jim Jordan raises holy hell about alleged snooping on Carter Page or Tucker Carlson doesn’t mean they have the slightest concern about anyone else. When was the last time right-wingers ever condemned security-state abuses directed at Muslims, or against leftist dissidents, for instance?
Trump actually called on the military to shoot protestors. Did any Trump supporter condemn that?
And, to raise the hypocrisy meter ten-fold, Paul, Cruz and company pitched a fit about Carter Page and FISA the same day they voted to reauthorize its post-9/11 powers.
In my view, right-wingers are hard-wired to think about themselves first, last, always, which obviously makes societal critique a bit difficult. That’s pretty much a pre-condition for choosing the political right in the first place, though there’s that chicken and egg dilemma. They see inequality as perfectly natural, and capitalism as synonymous with their god, apple pie, Mom and the flag. “Real Americans”? Well, they don’t include people of color or we leftists.
The Dems piss me off endlessly for playing Charlie Brown, Lucy, and the football so often. I don’t think there’s much difference when leftist pundits, real or faux, try to force some (futile, insane) compact with the far-right.
Billy_TParticipantI don’t agree with this idea that the Trump world sees the corruption and systemic problems we see and objects to them.
I think they are racists who believe the establishment sold them out for “PC values.”
In fact I think the entire “they see the real issues too” take on things is completely off track. They don’t see it at all.
…
It does seem overly generous to attribute to them some overlap in societal critique . . . especially given their publicly stated hatred for “the left.” I think all too many lefty pundits are rather tone deaf on this.
Trump, a host of Republican reps, right-wing media, and the Trump supporters who tried to make Trump king on January 6th, blame “communism,” “socialism,” “cultural Marxism,” antifa, BLM, etc. for their ills. Immigration, migrants, and people of color are huge on their list, obviously, but they see “the left” as pulling the strings, trying to “indoctrinate” Americans, even funding immigration, blah blah blah.
They vocally, publicly, hate everything we stand for. I see no common ground. None. And why would we even want to work with them? To what purpose?
Right now, to me, it seems that America has lost its mind. I don’t exclude those lefty pundits who keep pushing for coalition-building with the hard-right.
Billy_TParticipantIn D&D terms, Trump is Chaotic Evil. Biden is Lawful Evil. From a business point of view, Lawful Evil is better. So I think that’s just true.
Thanks for the original article, and your response, Zooey. Glad you posted them.
I like the formulation above. Trump was seen, before 2016, as chaotic, almost cartoonishly corrupt and vulgar, and a second-rate grifter. The establishment is more stable in its corruption and bad intentions, and prefers that kind of “leader,” typically. It also tries its best to hide what it does, and wants those in charge to do the same. And while Trump did a hell of a lot of horrible things behind the scenes (too) that we’re just now finding out, he broke all the norms by being an asshole in public, continuously. The establishment greatly prefers those who limit their assholery to closed door sessions.
That said, I think where some pundits go wrong is to assume that the establishment went after Trump with falsehoods and trumped-up charges. To me, that’s a bad assumption to make, and it’s not logical. They didn’t need to lie. Trump gave them all the ammo in the world, going back decades, and throughout his presidency. There was never any reason for the establishment to make shit up to try to take him down. And, of course, given the fact that he escaped time and time again, and had nearly universal backing from the GOP establishment and right-wing media — as in, establishment insiders . . . Well, it was never really a case of David versus Goliath. Contrary to what the right wants to paint this as, he was never persecuted, and was surrounded by billionaires and Republican insiders defending his evil from 2016 on, at least.
(More in a bit)
Billy_TParticipantWell, we could all go down that article line by line, paragraph by paragraph
and tear apart the statements.But I’m not up for that, myself.
Leaving aside all the garbage in the piece, I think there are some
basic truths he’s getting at. I take his main point to be, simply,
that many Rightoids are completely disillusioned by the Government
and the Dem-Media. They have finally figured out that there is a
WHOLE LOT OF LYING goin on. They no longer live in their fantasy
Norman Rockwell America.They have figured out ‘just enough’ about America
to be batshit-dangerous.And none of it matters.
Cause Environmental Collapse and Fascism
is on its way.Have a nice day.
w
vI agree with all of that, WV.
It’s a tragedy, however, that they’ve chosen to listen to and believe sources that are even more mendacious than the so-called MSM. From bad to much, much worse, etc.
For instance, I’d bet that most of the people the alt-right Cooper is talking about are into Q. Overall, a third of all Republicans accept its central tenets. Like, that the government is controlled by satanic cannibal pedophiles. Ten years ago, I would have laughed at such a view. Today, we’ve seen far too much not to be appalled and deeply worried about its spread. It’s not a joke any longer. People have acted on those beliefs to deadly effect, and they’re tied into all kinds of other dangerous pathologies . . . including a renewal of the Lost Cause narrative/hope/end goal.
Environmental collapse: 121 degrees in Canada! An entire town in the midst of that literally burned up. Siberia topped 100 degrees. Massive floods in Europe. A pandemic that refuses to go away. We humans have truly ruined paradise, and we seem to be getting dumber all the time.
Hang in there, WV.
Billy_TParticipantGood thoughts Billy. I couldn’t make it through the section of the article where Cooper talked about how Trumpies cared deeply about Russia-gate, followed it closely, and knew the facts of the case better than most. I had to stop there.
At their best, the Right deals in half-truths & at their worst they work with complete fiction–Like the idea that Trump and company were really interested in helping regular Americans.
As soon as Biden and the dems started a real program where families like mine got a little extra, the Right and Fox News howl endlessly about inflation. (I’m guessing Fox is amplifying and spreading this message).
I am sometimes curious and sympathetic about the Right’s anti-establishment stance. I think the Right does have a sense that the world has changed for the worse, but you’re right that sentiment is often tangled up with their racism and failure to help dig minorities out of a hole created by years of racism.
Good post, Cal.
It’s 2021. To me, I honestly can’t believe that Trump and his movement have any support beyond the fringe whatsoever, given his and their attempted fascist coup, and all the hate-filled, sadistic, illegal things he did before it. No sane nation would ignore the mountains and mountains of video, audio, written transcripts, public legislative records, etc. etc. showing Trump’s record-shattering lies, cruelty, calls for violence, calls for assassinations of peaceful protestors, calls to drink bleach to “cure” Covid, etc. etc.
His love of Hitler, his syncing up so closely with Hitler’s enemies list, his moronic and dangerous attacks against reporters, the handicapped, NFL players who protested police brutality, his sadistic separation of families at the border, his earth-killing rollback of environmental laws and the privatization of public lands . . . the list is too long to fit into a hundred threads. But still we Americans are supposed to believe his followers and find common ground with them? We’re still supposed to join with them and fight against . . . . against whom?
Sheesh. A third of all Republicans accept the main tenets of QAnon right now. More than 2/3rds believe Trump really won the election.
There’s no reaching these people through any form of rational discourse, and Greenwald should be ashamed of himself, IMO, for elevatng an alt-right podcastor this way. Cooper peddles lie after lie, just like Trump, and tries to claim special knowledge about things he turns upside-down.
I seriously don’t get it. Trump should have been arrested on January 7th, and we just learned today that his own legal council thought he would be after the Capitol riot. General Milley made contingency plans in case Trump ordered a military takeoever!
Has America ever had anyone escape justice as often as Trump? Have we ever seen ignorance, lies, and abject cruelty win so often after so much slam-dunk evidence against them?
Billy_TParticipantTrying to sum up.
IMO, we leftists just don’t have to take sides here, nor do we have to find any “common cause” with Trump or his followers. Ever. It’s not necessary, nor is it wise.
He and his followers endlessly, ferociously demonize us and the entire left. They actually seem more unhinged about “socialism,” “communism,” antifa, et al than they do about people of color, and they tend to view “the left” as pulling their strings, anyway. They see CRT as “Marxist,” etc.
Consciously or unconsciously, they understand that it’s the left that has long supported the vision of a multi-racial society, and the right hates that vision with a passion. The original nazis and fascists despised the left for that reason too, and more, of course. The left’s anticapitalism drove them crazy, and this animates the American right still.
To make a long story shorter, we just don’t have any common ground. It doesn’t exist. And, again, in my view, we don’t have to side with them in any of their fake disputes with the establishment. The right has never been anti-establishment in any meaningful way, in the sense that they want to flatten pyramids, reduce inequality, reduce concentrations of wealth and power, reduce hierarchies. They’re only anti-establishment to the degree that small parts of it prevent them from doing what they want to do, which is to dominate the less powerful. They want to pull all the strings.
Unlike the left, they have no intention of reducing wealth and power in the ruling class, much less ending the class system entirely (my own vision). They just want to sit on top of the throne(s).
Billy_TParticipantJust out yesterday. It’s related to the Cooper article for obvious reasons, and for some that folks may not think about. No president has ever provoked so many people who worked for him, with him, to trash him as much as Trump. Rather than believe the absurd claims from Trump and his followers that everyone was out to get him, it’s far more logical to deduce that Trump earned this criticism with his (reprehensible, despicable) actions.
As in, the level of conspiratorial coordination among his supposed persecutors would have required unprecedented worldwide orchestration.
Joint Chiefs chairman feared potential ‘Reichstag moment’ aimed at keeping Trump in power
By
Reis Thebault
July 14, 2021|Updated today at 8:33 a.m. EDTIn the waning weeks of Donald Trump’s term, the country’s top military leader repeatedly worried about what the president might do to maintain power after losing reelection, comparing his rhetoric to Adolf Hitler’s during the rise of Nazi Germany and asking confidants whether a coup was forthcoming, according to a new book by two Washington Post reporters.
As Trump ceaselessly pushed false claims about the 2020 presidential election, Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, grew more and more nervous, telling aides he feared that the president and his acolytes might attempt to use the military to stay in office, Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker report in “I Alone Can Fix It: Donald J. Trump’s Catastrophic Final Year.”
Milley described “a stomach-churning” feeling as he listened to Trump’s untrue complaints of election fraud, drawing a comparison to the 1933 attack on Germany’s parliament building that Hitler used as a pretext to establish a Nazi dictatorship.
“This is a Reichstag moment,” Milley told aides, according to the book. “The gospel of the Führer.”
A spokesman for Milley declined to comment.
Portions of the book related to Milley — first reported Wednesday night by CNN ahead of the book’s July 20 release — offer a remarkable window into the thinking of America’s highest-ranking military officer, who saw himself as one of the last empowered defenders of democracy during some of the darkest days in the country’s recent history.
The episodes in the book are based on interviews with more than 140 people, including senior Trump administration officials, friends and advisers, Leonnig and Rucker write in an author’s note. Most agreed to speak candidly only on the condition of anonymity, and the scenes reported were reconstructed based on firsthand accounts and multiple other sources whenever possible.
Milley — who was widely criticized last year for appearing alongside Trump in Lafayette Square after protesters were forcibly cleared from the area — had pledged to use his office to ensure a free and fair election with no military involvement. But he became increasingly concerned in the days following the November contest, making multiple references to the onset of 20th-century fascism.
AdvertisementAfter attending a Nov. 10 security briefing about the “Million MAGA March,” a pro-Trump rally protesting the election, Milley said he feared an American equivalent of “brownshirts in the streets,” alluding to the paramilitary forces that protected Nazi rallies and enabled Hitler’s ascent.
Late that same evening, according to the book, an old friend called Milley to express concerns that those close to Trump were attempting to “overturn the government.”
“You are one of the few guys who are standing between us and some really bad stuff,” the friend told Milley, according to an account relayed to his aides. Milley was shaken, Leonnig and Rucker write, and he called former national security adviser H.R. McMaster to ask whether a coup was actually imminent.
“What the f— am I dealing with?” Milley asked him.
AdvertisementThe conversations put Milley on edge, and he began informally planning with other military leaders, strategizing how they would block Trump’s order to use the military in a way they deemed dangerous or illegal.
If someone wanted to seize control, Milley thought, they would need to gain sway over the FBI, the CIA and the Defense Department, where Trump had already installed staunch allies. “They may try, but they’re not going to f—ing succeed,” he told some of his closest deputies, the book says.
In the weeks that followed, Milley played reassuring soothsayer to a string of concerned members of Congress and administration officials who shared his worries about Trump attempting to use the military to stay in office.
“Everything’s going to be okay,” he told them, according to the book. “We’re going to have a peaceful transfer of power. We’re going to land this plane safely. This is America. It’s strong. The institutions are bending, but it won’t break.”
AdvertisementIn December, with rumors circulating that the president was preparing to fire then-CIA Director Gina Haspel and replace her with Trump loyalist Kash Patel, Milley sought to intervene, the book says. He confronted White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows at the annual Army-Navy football game, which Trump and other high-profile guests attended.
“What the hell is going on here?” Milley asked Meadows, according to the book’s account. “What are you guys doing?”
When Meadows responded, “Don’t worry about it,” Milley shot him a warning: “Just be careful.”
After the failed insurrection on Jan. 6, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called Milley to ask for his guarantee that Trump would not be able to launch a nuclear strike and start a war.
“This guy’s crazy,” Pelosi said of Trump in what the book reported was mostly a one-way phone call. “He’s dangerous. He’s a maniac.”
AdvertisementOnce again, Milley sought to reassure: “Ma’am, I guarantee you that we have checks and balances in the system,” he told Pelosi.
Less than a week later, as military and law enforcement leaders planned for President Biden’s inauguration, Milley said he was determined to avoid a repeat of the siege on the Capitol.
“Everyone in this room, whether you’re a cop, whether you’re a soldier, we’re going to stop these guys to make sure we have a peaceful transfer of power,” he told them. “We’re going to put a ring of steel around this city and the Nazis aren’t getting in.”
At Biden’s swearing-in on Jan. 20, Milley was seated behind former president Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama, who asked the general how he was feeling.
“No one has a bigger smile today than I do,” Milley replied. “You can’t see it under my mask, but I do.”
Billy_TParticipantThanks, ZN,
Appreciate the openness, etc.
Some food for thought:
Right-wing politicians, media, and so-called “thought-leaders” have been caught in countless lies. Trump was documented at more than 30,000 during his presidency, and he’s continued that onslaught since that time. Right-wingers constantly lie about Covid, CRT, the 1619 project, BLM, antifa, “socialism,” and the left in general, and their lies literally kill. They’ve been lying about the world and whipping up their “base” into frenzies of fear and hatred for centuries now.
Which leads me to sheer bafflement whenever I see leftists with audiences instantly take their word for anything. As in, anything. Especially when it comes to their belief in their own persecution. Their mention of “the deep state” doesn’t alter that record. When Carlson claims the NSA is spying on him, for instance, he’s still a known liar (and white supremacist). To me, it’s a false choice for leftists to feel they have to side with him against the security state.
Naww. We leftists can oppose both sides in that little fake skirmish.
And this from Cooper’s article:
I encourage people on the Left to recognize the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in front of them. You’re not going to agree with the conservatives on everything. But if in 2004 I had told you that the majority of the GOP voter base would soon be seeing the folly of the Iraq War, becoming skeptical of state surveillance, and beginning to see the need for action to help the poor and working classes, you’d have told me such a thing would transform the country. Take the opportunity. These people are not demons, and they are ready to listen in a way they haven’t in a long, long time.
No. They’re not ready to listen. And, no, their not skeptical of state surveillance, if it’s done to their enemies, which includes all of us lefties, BLM, etc. They’re clearly solely concerned if they think it’s done to them, especially Trump. Since we know Trump used state security to go after his political enemies, including the media, and the right never said a thing about . . . it’s a one-way street. He did absolutely nothing to improve its record of civil liberties abuses. He made them worse.
As for helping the poor and working classes? What? When? Where?, etc. I’ve seen zero indication that they’re ready to tackle poverty, inequality, or anything remotely connected to these things. Their own perceived economic difficulties? Sure. But they don’t see people of color and “the left” as a part of the American story. For the right, it’s always about them, and just them, and their drowning in lies.
Again, hoping others will weigh in.
Billy_TParticipantI had been on my best behavior, refraining from posting about this stuff, and then I fell of the wagon!!
;>)
Anyway, Zooey, what’s your take on the article? How do you view Cooper’s assessment?
(I shoulda asked that before I did my bull in the china shop impression.)
I’m just gonna shut up and read your response, and other leftists here. May comment afterward, but I hope my better angels prevail and I just read, etc.
Hope all is well, everyone.
Billy_TParticipantThe Deacon was the main reason I became a Rams fan. First among greats like Merlin and Gabe.
I wish he had retired a Ram, though. Can’t remember why he didn’t, exactly. But he went on to play for the Chargers and the Skins, and I think he should have just called it a day before that.
Main thing to me on those sack totals is per-game average. He played the fewest games of those in the top ten, if memory serves. No season was longer than 14 games, if I remember correctly.
How many sacks would he have added to the total if he had played as many as White and Smith?
Which reminds me of the abomination of upcoming season. Seventeen games!!
What the hell are they thinking!
I’m more and more in the Get off my lawn camp. Wish they’d go back to 14 games, with no pre-season. But, money money money, blah blah blah. So it’s likely they’ll keep expanding the season over time.
I wish the players had said no. For their own health, at least.
Billy_TParticipantMy personal take:
Greenwald is stunningly gullible with regard to far-right narratives, and whatever Carlson and Trump claim about Russiagate and beyond. He’s a fake “leftist” of the worst kind, IMO; one who actively aids and abets the far-right. Which means, actively aiding and abetting American fascists.
A must-read article on Greenwald, Carlson, and the NSA:
https://newrepublic.com/article/162897/tucker-carlson-glenn-greenwald-nsa-scandal
To try to make a long story short . . . In my view, Greenwald uses obvious double-standards when he talks about “evidence.” He doesn’t require any to instantly believe the Trump camp, just the mention of “deep state,” but requires mountains beyond the mountains we’ve all already seen, proving Trump’s (ongoing) crimes. And, of course, no amount of evidence will ever satisfy him, because he’s already convinced, like the far-right, like this Cooper guy, that’s it’s all been invented anyway.
I used to post on Greenwald’s blog when he worked at Salon, and we butted heads a few times. I found him to be incredibly thin-skinned, and all too eager to support Truthers and Ron Paul’s fanboys there. I’ve never bought into the claim that he’s a “leftist.” I think he’s a right-libertarian on most issues, and seriously mixed up and all too gullible about recent events.
As for Cooper: I can’t find a single truth in his column. It’s just boilerplate conservative whining, moaning, lying, and playing the eternal victim.
It’s bullshit, in short.
Billy_TParticipantMy understanding of the Alamo was that when Eisenhower gave the go ahead to launch the invasion on June 6, it was a decisive event in world history.
I don’t see you crazy revisionists changing people’s understanding of that any time soon.
…
Billy_TParticipantFollow up from the authors, via the Washington Post.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/05/texas-republicans-rush-guard-alamo-facts/
Opinion by Jason Stanford
July 5, 2021 at 4:15 p.m. EDTJason Stanford is the Austin-based writer of the Substack newsletter the Experiment and the co-author, with Bryan Burrough and Chris Tomlinson, of “Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth.”
With more than 300 RSVPs, the event hosted by the Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin was shaping up to be the highlight of our virtual book tour for “Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth.” But about four hours before showtime last Thursday, my co-authors, Bryan Burrough and Chris Tomlinson, and I received an email from our publisher. The Bullock had backed out, citing “increased pressure on social media.” Apparently, the state history museum was no place to discuss state history.
This isn’t how things are supposed to work, even in Texas, but the truth turned out to be even worse. The state history museum wasn’t bowing to social media pressure but to political pressure from the state’s Republican lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, who claimed credit for the kill the next day.
“As a member of the Preservation Board, I told staff to cancel this event as soon as I found out about it,” tweeted Patrick, adding, “This fact-free rewriting of TX history has no place @BullockMuseum.”
Minor umbrage compels me to defend the book as well as the museum, which currently is hosting a Jim Crow exhibition. As The Post noted in its review of our book, we “challenge the traditional view” of the Alamo saga, one popularized by Disney and John Wayne and cemented by politicians in the Texas school curriculum.
The Heroic Anglo Narrative is that in 1836, about 200 Texians (as White settlers were known, to distinguish them from Tejanos) fought a doomed battle at a Spanish mission in San Antonio against thousands of Mexican troops, buying Gen. Sam Houston enough time to defeat tyranny in the form of Mexican ruler Santa Anna and win freedom for Texas. The myth leaves much out, most notably that Texians opposed Mexican laws that would free the enslaved workers they needed to farm cotton.
Politicians barricading the figurative doors of the Alamo in defense of the myth are nothing new. In 2018, a panel reviewing the state history curriculum suggested not requiring seventh-graders to learn that those who died at the Alamo were “heroic.” Republican state political leaders, including Sen. Ted Cruz and Land Commissioner George P. Bush — the nephew and grandson of presidents and the state officeholder with oversight of the historic site — reacted as if the Alamo were once again besieged.
“Stop political correctness in our schools,” tweeted the state’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott. “Of course Texas schoolchildren should be taught that Alamo defenders were ‘Heroic’!”
In the past few years, the boogeyman for these self-appointed defenders of ersatz history has evolved from a generalized “political correctness” to the New York Times’s 1619 Project and other efforts to center slavery and the role of racism in the American story. More than 20 states have introduced or passed legislation that attempts to prescribe how racial matters can be taught. In Texas last month, Abbott signed into law an act establishing a committee called the 1836 Project (get it?) to “promote patriotic education.”
Texas conservatives continue to appear quite exercised about the possibility of public-school students learning more about slavery and racism. So much so that Abbott has added further discussion about a ban on the teaching of critical race theory to the agenda for an upcoming special legislative session.
This is the political flotsam in which our virtual book event was snagged. A couple of days before the scheduled talk, the head of a right-wing think tank in Austin took to Twitter to attack the Bullock Museum for using public resources to provide a platform for our “trashy non-history book,” taking care to tag the governor, lieutenant governor and house speaker. They sit on the State Preservation Board, which oversees the museum.
On the day of the event, July 1, the think tank posted: “Like the New York Times’s debunked 1619 Project, this is an effort to diminish the great figures of history and place slavery at the center of every story.” As it happens, several of the central figures in the story of the Alamo, including William Barret Travis and Jim Bowie, either enslaved people or had attested to the importance of slavery. A few hours after the think tank’s post, the event was canceled.
I’ll leave it to First Amendment scholars to say whether forbidding a state facility to host a conversation because of the contents of a book constitutes censorship. As a Texan, I’m just embarrassed to be governed by politicians who quaver at the prospect of a single uncomfortable conversation. If Texans were tough enough to fight at the Alamo, they should be tough enough to talk about why.
Billy_TParticipantI wish they’d make a series out of it. HBO, Netflix, etc.
Oh, btw, Billy…
Television adaptation
In February 2021, it was reported that Netflix was developing a television adaptation of the novel. It will be executive-produced by David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, and Hugh Jackman.[7]Thanks, Zooey. That’s great news. Game of Thrones show-runners, plus Wolverine. Interesting!
Billy_TParticipantYour place does look great, ZN.
I planted a bunch of trees around my house as soon as I moved in, but it doesn’t have the same look as an established old grouping. Did the best I could, etc.
(The sub-development was originally farmland, and basically treeless, from what I’ve been told)
As mentioned, I have to travel within an hour’s range to get to the truly dramatic, walkable (and forested) scenery, but I can see the mountains from home, with better views less than a mile away. Just outside my neighborhood is a great walking track with fine views of the mountains and farmland. The latter is all around me, and I hope it stays that way.
Billy_TParticipantYep. The Blue Ridge is heavily forested. One of the best features of that beautiful and varied range. Very different from California mountains near LA — unless I missed those with forests. San Fran, of course, has the Muir Woods nearby, and those are stunning. Could spend days there. But, for me, the mountains need the forests too. They need the green, and then the explosion of colors in the Fall.
The trifecta for me would be forested mountains and the ocean. In another life, I’ll have a castle on a cliff overlooking a range to the left, a range to the right, and the ocean in the middle of that view.
Good for the soul, that walk in the woods. Good for the soul.
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