I also wonder sometimes at what strikes me as greater leftist anger toward the Dems than the GOP. I understand a good bit of this, but not all. It’s likely the sense that the Dems should be championing at least some of the thing we leftists want, but most often don’t. We know the GOP won’t, so, subconsciously, perhaps, we let them off the hook. We feel betrayed by the Dems. We just take it for granted that the GOP does what it does. So leftist anger is often more focused on the Dems, etc.

Kinda sorta almost like this:

The Rams draft DE Smith in Round One. He never plays up to his draft-spot or his hype, but he’s a decent starter, and relatively productive overall.

The Rams draft DE Jones in Round Six. He outplays his draft-spot but he’s not as productive as Smith — in any phase of the game. All too many fans bash Smith endlessly, and call for him to be cut and replaced by Jones. They aren’t critical of Jones at all, really, even though Smith has outplayed him consistently. Smith just hasn’t lived up to his spot or hype.

Oh, and a shout out and special thanks to all those in the Healing professions, including Rescue, First Responders, etc. You guys are true heroes.

A thousand thanks!!

Looks like most of us here are at risk, in one way or another, and/or have family and friends in rough straits. I wish you and yours great health, safety and longevity. Be well and wash your hands!!

Not saying anything new here, of course, but difficult times can bring out the best in us, and I think it does for most people. Not all. But most. I’ve noticed for a long time now, for instance, that cancer patients routinely try to make desk personnel and nursing staff laugh, as we make light of our own conditions. I tend to do what some now call “Dad jokes,” because I’ve never been good at repeating better known comedy stuff. Bad puns, more often than not. Since we basically have captive audiences, they don’t throw tomatoes at us, though they might, if they had them on hand.

In the end, there are no good answers, I think I believe. Only love and laughter, which bring us hope. Am reading a good bio of Montaigne right now, by Sarah Bakewell, that has me pondering these things even more than usual:

Books

How to Live. (I loved her At the Existentialist Cafe, so grabbed this one when I saw it on the E-book list in Libby. Makes me want to read his complete essays, which I have on my bookshelf, but have never tackled in full.)

He was greatly influenced by the Ancients, especially the Stoics, Skeptics and Epicureans. Eudaimonia was their goal, and they sought Ataraxia to get there.

A quote I found on the Internet. It’s really not as maudlin or morbid as it may sound initially:

If you don’t know how to die, don’t worry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you; don’t bother your head about it.

Zooey wrote:

Additional thought…what with the new push for people to go back to work….

THAT’S why they wanted the stimulus to be low. So they can say they did it, but when the “offer” to let people “decide” if they want to go back to work…there is really no choice.

They want everybody going back to fucking work while they hang out in their vacation homes.

And that’s always been the essence of capitalism. Michael Perelman’s The Invention of Capitalism is filled to the brim with direct quotes from political economists back in the day, especially Smith and company in the 18th and 19th centuries, plus a philosophe or two or three. It’s amazing how often they tried to work-shame “the peasants” into the factories, resorting to the bible constantly. Or that work-shaming would come directly from the pulpit, with the urging of the rising capitalist class.

And they’d attack it from the other side, too, saying if someone didn’t “improve” their land — make a profit from it — they really didn’t have any “right” to keep it. Locke was especially monstrous on that count. This gave cover to the mass theft of indigenous people’s lands all over the world, and the further “enclosure” of the Commons in the so-called civilized world.

“Not making profits off your lands? You can’t claim that it’s yours then. Sorry, but we own it now, cuz we’re virtuous, hard-working Christians and we will ‘improve’ it unlike you heathens.”

wv wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

If this doesn’t wake up Americans, nothing will…

The veil has been lifted permanently. Will Americans even see this?

==================

No, the Veil has not been lifted. Leftists already knew all this.

w
v

Well, WV, I don’t want to get into a virtual argument with you, that might lead to virtual fisticuffs, cuz right now I definitely can’t take a punch.

;>)

Had a second round of eye (retinal tear) surgeries this week (Wednesday and today), and when I awoke from a nap this afternoon, took off the bandage, the eye looked like I had lost a fight with Deacon Jones.

Anyway . . . you and I are saying close to the same thing. I’m saying external reality is X, that there’s no excuse now for anyone to still believe it’s not X, and then asked if the rest of America will finally see X, cuz the veil on that reality has clearly been lifted once and for all. I didn’t say they necessarily see the lifting of the veil, etc.

And I know leftists already know X, being a leftist meself. I know that the capitalist system has engaged in ever-successful gaslighting, which gets more and more pernicious by the minute.

But this latest pandemic and response are different. This makes it abundantly clear that trillions of dollars can be made to magically appear yet again to “save the economy,” but money wasn’t available before when people were (and still are) starving, homeless, without medical care, etc. etc.

Anyway, the latest polling, apparently, has Trump over 50% for the first time in his presidency. Which tells us No, they won’t see the lifting of the veil. And, it tells me, more than half of this nation has lost its mind.

Zooey wrote:

GEEEZ. Whadda buncha #@)#$&.

So…$2.2 trillion, and the consensus on the thing is just…not even debatable. The only two points that held it up was the TRIVIAL amount of money given to people who ARE UNEMPLOYED, and the amount of oversight on the corporate slush fund. Those are the only things they argued about. Complete agreement on everything else, including the $500 billion slush fund.

Republicans are worried that a few people might get a couple hundred bucks more than they ordinarily would.

And Democrats fight for the pretense of oversight like they had for TARP which was next to useless.

And the Republicans…I mean…long gone is any pretense that they care about how much money the government spends. The emperor has no clothes on that, even if they cynically play that song come election season. They don’t care about the deficit. Not in real life. That’s obvious.

So…what does that SAY about their quibbling over a hundred bucks? They aren’t motivated by fiscal restraint. So…what actually motivates them to fight over this paltry sum of money?

They. Have. CONTEMPT. For. Poor. People.

Abject contempt. They WANT them to suffer. Even if that isn’t in their conscious thought – and I’m sure they would deny it. But you tell me…play devil’s advocate for me…tell me what other motive could possibly fill in the blank for why they fought over that number. Because it wasn’t about the cost to the government.

They WANT people to go back to work even though they know it’s life-threatening for people to do that, and will overwhelm our health care professionals. They don’t care. They need the engines to keep stimulating their wealth. That is their highest priority.

And Graham! Attacking nurses – NURSES! – during a pandemic!

This is the Great USA. This is Our Country.

And everybody here knows them. I’m screaming at all my friends who already know this. Fuck these people, man.

If this doesn’t wake up Americans, nothing will.

They found a way to come up with trillions — with more to come — to bail out corporate America, again. But for generations, we were told there was nothing we could do about mass poverty, hunger, homelessness, medical bankruptcies, permanent barriers to higher ed for the poor, permanent barriers to housing, living wages, etc. etc. We apparently can’t do anything about the environment, dead zones in our oceans, etc. etc. No money. None. Supposedly.

Obviously, if we can find this money now — and money has always been a fiction, an arbitrarily defined, artificially created, totally fictitious representation of “value” — we could have found it to end poverty and all the things mentioned above.

And, just to be clear: I don’t mean tagging money to gold. I see that as basing one fictitious value on another fictitious value. I’m saying We the People need to take control of all of our fictions and make them work for us in reality.

The veil has been lifted permanently. Will Americans even see this?

Glad ya like it, WV.

:>)

It is really well done, and the “politics,” as you noted, is seamlessly integrated. Works within the context of the show. So it’s not a “pamphlet.” It’s not trying to hit us over the head with this. It’s actually “art,” at least relative to other TV shows.

Looking forward to working my way through all the seasons.

wv wrote:

zn wrote:

wv wrote:

…is what the Fox News folks and rightwing-propaganda will focus on. Donald Trump valiantly tried to lead the nation, but the big-gubmunt-bureaucracy failed us….

That won’t fly. A president is in a position to streamline all that and get it running to face a crisis.

As it stands he’s still insisting that states buy their own supplies even while the Feds bid against them.

==================

Well it wont fly with people living in a reality-based-world.

How many people is that?

w
v

As Hamlet said,

ay, there’s the rub!

zn wrote:

wv wrote:

…is what the Fox News folks and rightwing-propaganda will focus on. Donald Trump valiantly tried to lead the nation, but the big-gubmunt-bureaucracy failed us….

That won’t fly. A president is in a position to streamline all that and get it running to face a crisis.

As it stands he’s still insisting that states buy their own supplies even while the Feds bid against them.

I don’t know, ZN. I think he’s gonna get away with this, at least with his diehard base.

He spent more than three years setting them up to believe that he was at the mercy of the deep state, that it was out to get him, that he was its victim. I think it’s baked into the cake now that Trump will be seen as deserving credit for all “wins,” despite the gubmint’s supposed efforts to take him down, and bears no responsibility for any “bad stuff.”

In some major league mind-jujitsu, he’s somehow convinced his base that, in a sense, he’s not actually the head of the Executive, with all the attendant powers, that he remains a powerless outsider, who “succeeds” on sheer strength of will and fortitude. Or, cuz, he’s been sent by god.

Best. Gaslighting. Evah.

zn wrote:

I’m calling on the Federal Government to nationalize the medical supply chain.

The Federal Government should immediately use the Defense Production Act to order companies to make gowns, masks and gloves.

Currently, states are competing against other states for supplies.

— Andrew Cuomo

The capitalist system is obviously useless in a crisis like this. It’s set up to “compete” with everyone for resources, money, etc. etc. Instead of all hands on deck, its guiding ethos and everyone row against each other, in different directions.

Singing to the choir, I know. But it really, really pizzes me off.

It can’t make money in prevention. It actually loses money when we prevent catastrophes which it exploits. It can’t make money building up “rainy day” resources/stockpiles. It has to sell, sell, sell!! It can’t make money, cooperatively, working for the common good, which almost always means leaving stuff in the Commons, for public use, instead of private gain.

It created this crisis and it doesn’t even want to resolve it. No percentage in it, as that parallel world gangster once said on Star Trek.

My parents are gone. In 1999 and 2005, respectively. Very few relatives from the previous generation are still around, and I miss them more than I can express. Have siblings, and they have families. Like the rest of youze guys, I worry about all of them.

I’m in my 60s now, with chemo treatments, off and on, since 2003. Mostly on. Currently on “maintenance chemo” every other month. Last full-on flareup was in 2018. Hope it stays that way . . . knock on wood, etc.

Recently, have had multiple surgeries for both eyes. This happened prior to the pandemic, and my last chemo treatment was last month. I don’t know much things will change in the future, medically . . . but I’m guessing those changes will accelerate. Whole new world likely, along those lines.

Stay safe, everyone.