Sheesh.

I need to reread before I post.

I did one of those “your my favorite teacher” thingies above. Likely several times.

Should be “at least formally.”

Anyway, getting back to surroundings. If I could choose where to live, I’d choose a castle. It would have to be a castle. And the castle would be on a mountain side, overlooking an inlet, with mountains on both sides, sloping down to the sea, and I could see the sea from my castle too, and write my elegies, but someone already has dibs on Duino, so that’s a no go.

I don’t know where such a place is in the world, but that’s where and what I’d pick. I want the ocean and mountains as close as possible to me, which is something the USA lacks pretty much. I saw it in Europe, but I don’t think it’s here. And the other key over there is undeveloped land down to the ocean or sea . . . which is apparently against the law here. It’s well known, of course, that in America, we have to overbuild anywhere that takes your breath away, aesthetically. It’s against the law to have beautiful, unimpeded views of things, so that’s a big strike against us.

The Ring of Kerry in Ireland might be the place. Or the south of France. Not sure. But, again, I need that castle. Maybe Jagger will sell me one of his.

I understand the desire to leave. I would have long ago, if not for poor finances. Despite those poor finances, I retired early because I could no longer stand having a boss, of any kind, at least formerly — and there are the health issues. Of course, whether we work or not, we have them. They surround us and we can’t escape them — bosses. As Norman Mailer said in the pages of Dissent, back in the 1950s, capitalism follows us everywhere.

But at least in that very small way, I’ve “escaped” partially, though I’m still here and struggling. In my own head, I’ve escaped, though not geographically.

Which brings me to another aspect of the desire to leave. It’s complicated, of course.

Is the main rationale for leaving the belief in how much horrible shit we’ve done to the rest of the world, and to ourselves? Or is it to find a better place to be, in and of itself? If it’s the latter, there are ways to be internal exiles, in beautiful settings, and find degrees of happiness here and there. Because, when we really think about it, there are no countries. There are no nation-states. Which is why there is no such thing as a “deep state.” There is One World Government . . . but not in the tin-foil hat, lame-azz, conspiracy sense. In the sense that the capitalist system has made countries obsolete, and it “governs” across all borders, without any serious concern for them, just profits.

So does it really matter where we live? We don’t even escape from the shit we’ve done to ourselves and the rest of the world by going to other countries. It follows us there, too, again, because there are no more boundaries — at least none for the Republic of Profits — or climate change. Human beings, of course, are subject to all kinds of terrors, based on the accident of their birth country, and won’t be admitted if they don’t “look the part.” But there is no national place of innocence. No innocent nation. Less guilty, definitely.

But wherever we Americans go, we bring our “sins” with us.

The WaPo published a surprisingly extensive report on this today:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/

A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.

I watched the first half in a reverse WTF stupor at times. As in, I couldn’t believe how well the Rams played. Over and over again, I was thinking, where has this team been all year?

They played like a Super Bowl team in the first half, and not just that. They played like a Super Bowl winning team, and I thought it was Goff’s best half (perhaps) evah.

For some very odd reason, however, their second half, at least on offense, was much more in keeping with the way they’ve played this year. I have no idea why they seemed to lose what they had built in the first half. They weren’t a Super Bowl offense in half two, though their defense was from the first quarter on. Their defense played Super Bowl caliber football for 60 minutes.

If a team can muster a first half like that against Seattle, they can do so for a full game. Now, they just need a lot of help, primarily from the Vikings. If they get it, I have a feeling other teams don’t want to see the Rams in the playoffs. If they get in, that means they’re peaking at just the right time.

Also, like others, was happy to see Higbee do so well. I’ve been thinking for three years now he’s been woefully underused. He’s nearly 6’6″, strong and has excellent speed for his size, and he’s tough. Getting his chance to shine now will be very important for the Rams going forward.

nittany ram wrote:

The people who turn to Infowars and Breitbart for their news distrust the MSM for different reasons than you.

They distrust the MSM because they believe it to be part of the liberal/socialist agenda.

I don’t want to speak for you, but I believe you distrust the media because of its corporate association and it’s use to further the capitalist agenda.

There’s a giant chasm between those two viewpoints.

Infowars and Breitbart make up stories that cater to the prejudices of their followers. They try to inflame those prejudices. The MSM will sometimes flat out lie, but their failures more often relate to their stories lacking context and thoroughness. You only get part of the story, or you only get one perspective of the story – generally the perspective that favors the powers that be.

But leftists have little in common with the people who turned to Infowars other than a mistrust of MSM.

Lotsa good points, Nittany.

In general, the political right has a very long history of seriously paranoid media, think-tanks and so on. Their lies are, more often than not, acts of commission and relentless. IMO, the MSM fails primarily via omission. It narrow-casts, and tries hard to stay in the “center,” as its overlords view it, and as its reporters tend to fall into.

This all too often means that the MSM will give equal time to fact-based and factless advocates of this or that issue. It shouldn’t. The earth isn’t flat. Advocates for that view shouldn’t be validated with MSM platforms, etc.

Fans of Breitbart, Fox and so on see the MSM’s center-right POV as center-left to “far left.” I think this is primarily because the MSM tends not to validate the right’s view of itself as perpetually oppressed and persecuted. And the “itself” in question means white, male and Christian, overwhelmingly. There are a great number of small “c” conservative people of color who do not see themselves in the rantings of Breitbart, Infowars, et al.

Among the powers that be who shape the right-wing mediaverse, I’d be very surprised if there are many true believers in the endless “outrages of the day.” They just know which buttons to push, and how to play the refs. Lacking actual reality to support them, they have to browbeat those refs into giving them close to equal time, and it’s been all too successful.

The left has never been good at this. Right-wingers are masters — like Coach K, and Peyton Manning in his time.

Cal wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

The problem with tax cuts is, as mentioned, they have to be paid back. The federal government has to borrow money to make up for the revenue losses while it maintains the same levels of goods and services — or increases them. And because it’s deficit spending, an interest payment is tacked on too. It’s also pure economic illiteracy on Trump’s part to cut taxes while the economy is doing okay. Keynes was right. Stimulate the economy in down times; pay off the debt in relatively good times.

The deficit problem created by the tax cut is part of the republican evil genius. You know who is voting against this enormous federal deficit? Republican representatives and senators all around the country.

The gov’t couldn’t continue to function and increase the deficit without Nancy Pelosi and the democrats continuing to choose to run the gov’t this way.

Republican representatives and senators get to have it both ways: the economy is great AND we are working to oppose those dumb democrats who are always spending money they don’t have.

Trump, of course, should have a more difficult argument to make. But the democrats seem like they don’t want to hammer the stupid economic predicament Trump has created. Or maybe they do and I missed it.

At the start I was excited about the possibility of a strong rebuke of Trump from the Democrats during the debates, but I’ve pretty much tuned out the Democratic primary nonsense at this stage.

Good points, Cal.

The Dems should also remind people about the major flip-flops by the GOP on deficits and debt. They screamed bloody murder when Obama ran them, and he ran them when they were actually needed. During a recession, that’s what you do. You run deficits to dig your way out of that recession. We’ve always done that.

But as soon as Trump took power — and he inherited a recovery, unlike Obama — they turned on a dime and signed off on massive deficits and new debt.

The pattern’s pretty clear throughout recent times. When a Republican is in the White House, they don’t care about deficits. Reagan tripled the debt; Dubya doubled it. When a Dem is there, however, Republicans suddenly remember to be “fiscally conservative” again.

The Dems dropped the ball on that hypocrisy and so much else too.

zn wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

ZN,

That’s twice now. Did a post, hit submit, and couldn’t see the result until later.

The software must be trying to teach us patience.

;>)

Edit: And I just now see this one, which I did after posting a response to Cal, which hasn’t shown up yet.

It’s being marked as spam. From my end it means I go into the inner board only mods see, and find a post that is “pending.” I then “approve” it.

This happens sometimes. Don’t know if there is anything we can do about it, but as I said the worse alternative is to NOT have a spam filter (as I’ve learned the hard way).

I appreciate your patience.

No worries. I see the post now.

And the spam filter is a must. Without it, what’s to stop WV from spamming the board with his diehard Vikings propaganda?

Cal wrote:

Ha! Pakman is talking about uneducated voters supporting Trump and Pakman doesn’t even have an educated opinion about Trump’s tax cut.

Trump and the republicans did a good job of targeting white working class voters without a college education with their tax cut. Part of the tax cut included doubling the child tax credit which reduces the taxes for anyone with kids.

I would guess most of those voters have children they can claim and saw a big reduction in their tax bill after the tax cuts.

Pakman’s explanation doesn’t even come close to explaining the savings that millions of tax payers realized with the tax cut.

Pakman’s solution of using education by teaching critical thinking earlier in schools is so perfect as it represents the mainstream Democratic solutions.

Instead of more education, how about giving these people more time off work, higher wages, and standing up to a system that tries to extract an extra dime from working class people at every opportunity.

The problem with tax cuts is, as mentioned, they have to be paid back. The federal government has to borrow money to make up for the revenue losses while it maintains the same levels of goods and services — or increases them. And because it’s deficit spending, an interest payment is tacked on too. It’s also pure economic illiteracy on Trump’s part to cut taxes while the economy is doing okay. Keynes was right. Stimulate the economy in down times; pay off the debt in relatively good times.

Of course, the real reason for these tax cuts is too obvious: Make rich people richer. This is one place where serious math education would really help:

Give someone a 10% tax cut who makes 30K a year and they’ll pocket an extra few hundred a year. Give that same percentage to someone who makes 10 million and they’ll pocket many hundreds of thousands of dollars more. If they have good tax lawyers, more than that.

Percentages. This means every time we include rich people in with any tax cut, the government is radically increasing income and wealth inequality. It’s doing “social engineering” for rich people.

Why this doesn’t piss off the poor, the working class and the middle class is baffling. It’s one more of those blind spots I mention above.

Oh, and Trump gave himself and his family a massive tax cut in the bargain — corporate and personal.

I was bothered a lot by the “uneducated” thing. Once was too much, but he kept saying it.

Even the polls he showed had enough common sense to use college or non-college, or something to that effect.

Ironically, Trump said he “loves the poorly educated!” so he has a bit of the same problem via college or non-college.

Also, Pakman, when he discussed the tax cut issue, forgot to mention that it has to be paid back, and with interest. Media forget to mention that too. They should always bring that up when people say how happy they are to get a tax cut. That they’ll be paying it back plus interest . . . and, of course, how the rich make out exponentially better whenever those tax cuts occur. Percentages. Math, etc.

Oh, well . . .

Goff also doesn’t have sharp enough mechanics to get away with throwing in a hurry — his motion takes too long to come around, and he does not have the raw arm strength to overcome that.

I’ve been saying this for some time, and it’s always bugged me. I really don’t like the “way” he throws the ball. It can work if he has extra time, or doesn’t hear footsteps, or when play-action to Gurley gives him extra time . . . but that hasn’t been the case recently.

Watch most QBs in the league. Watch Lamar Jackson, for instance. He gets the ball out, fast, and most of that is mechanics. No real windup. He just sets up and fires. No wet towel process. Football up near his ear, fire!!

(It’s much better for ball security too.)

I’d bet a billion virtual dollars that Goff could shave off a significant amount of time on each passing play if he could just do that. No more windup. Just set up and fire. And this would obviously have secondary advantages with the secondary. Far less time for them to adjust on the ball. Less time for them to see what’s he’s about to do, etc.

This off-season, he needs some serious redoing of his mechanics. It’s probably not a good idea to try it in the middle of a season.

Falling off my “let it be” wagon for a moment . . . :>)

I understand the anger regarding coverage of Sanders. If folks want to boycott MSNBC because of that, more power to them. But then they’d have to boycott pretty much every news channel, cause none of them give him a fair shake. They never have.

To me, it’s not that some people on MSNBC “hate” Sanders. It’s that they ignore him. They only mention his name when the polls include him, or when they rip into M4A or “socialism” more generally. And even then, if it’s possible, they won’t mention his name.

The real issue with MSNBC is its takeover by Republicans. In that clip the host showed, you have Jennifer Rubin, Susan Del Persio (sp?) and Nicolle Wallace — all Republicans. Wallace has her own show at 4pm. Bill Kristol, the second-gen Neocon, was in one clip — he’s a frequent guest during the day — plus Michael Steele, the former Republican Party chairman. On Morning Joe (Scarborough), which runs 3 hours, the host, a staunch conservative, has Republicans on all the time.

The ticket for being a guest or a host on MSNBC isn’t being a Dem, and certainly not “liberal”; it’s a willingness to criticize Trump.

As I mentioned before, it will be interesting what the network does once Trump leaves office. Will it continue to welcome literally dozens of Republicans throughout the day, or will it go back to hiding its normal center-right agenda via Democrats alone?

Yeah, last time I checked, it wasn’t showing up in the forum update sections.

And I have noticed it slowing down lately, especially on mobile.

Hope all is well, ZN.

This was like finding the Rosetta Stone for me. It just made so many things click, fall into place. Yuval Harari’s eye-opening TED talk (and book) on Homo Sapiens.

Boiled down, the thing that got us over the hump was our belief in (shared) fictions. This allowed Home Sapiens to go beyond the barriers of kinship cooperation and the outer limits of our “natural” sense of extended empathy, even unity. Some scientists place this at about 150 people, max.

Belief in fictions like religion, nation-states, capitalism, money, etc.

Obviously, for good and ill. It’s complicated, as the kids used to say.

So aside from capitalism itself being a fiction, there are all kinds of smaller fictions in day to day operation of a business, and we “cooperate” together because of that. Unfortunately, under capitalism, this is primarily in the service on one person’s dream, one person’s accumulation of wealth — or, at most, several. One of those fictions as that we’re all in this together, to our own benefit too.

If we’re going to have a unifying fiction, shouldn’t it be cooperation that benefits all of us, in a relatively equal way, instead? A bi-product of that fiction would be actual, real, tangible benefits for all.