IMO, if they had done that back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and never let it go, never abandoned the “working class,” with no adjective in front of it, just the working class, period, we never would have suffered through Nixon, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush and now Trump . . . and if Obama had run and won, he would have governed from a totally different baseline.

The Dems made a fateful decision back then: Abandon the working class in favor of the professional class — as Thomas Frank talks about. Talk the talk when it comes to minorities and women, hoping they, too, could see a route into the professional, managerial and academic classes. But it was always a false choice. They never had to abandon the working class, as if that meant only “whites.” Create radical policy to improve the lives of the working class, period, and you also improve the lives of minorities and women. It’s a twofer. The two go hand in hand. But the same can not be said if the goal is to “diversify” the richest 10% . . . or, more generously, the richest 20%.

That does nothing about the hierarchies themselves, which are the root of all inequality to begin with. That does nothing to help the bottom 80 – 90% of the population. They’re still stuck.

A fateful decision, nearly 50 years ago. It never had to be this way.

(Of course, while you deal with economic inequality, you still have to radically change the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties status quo ante, and make it illegal to discriminate. Period. Both/and. But by ignoring the economic side, the engine needed to maintain discrimination and worse remains. The mechanism for it. The distribution of power itself, etc.)

Latest CNN poll has roughly 2/3rds of Americans against the Trump policy of ripping babies out of the arms of their mothers. That number would be much higher if not for the majority support among Republicans. Yes, close to 60% of Republicans support kidnapping children from their families, all of whom are already traumatized from 2000 mile journeys, escaping horrific violence at home and along the way.

Some other things to note: The images we see on TV — at least most of them — are selected/sanitized by the Trump government. Journalists are not allowed into the vast majority of these concentration camps. The images are also less than subtle, in that they focus almost exclusively on teen boys, an attempt to make the connection with MS-13, no doubt.

Sorry, but I find all of this straight out of the Nazi playbook, just as I saw Trump’s initial campaign. Same attempt to create a “volk,” and whip them up into a frenzy of fear and hatred toward “the Other,” and the enemies on Hitler’s list are nearly identical to Trump’s. I know that breaks the Godwin rule, but I don’t give a shit. It needs to be said in public. My saying it here is virtually meaningless, of course. It needs to be said so millions of Americans understand what is actually happening in this country, and what has been happening ever since Trump came down the escalator three years ago, spewing Nazi-propaganda about immigrants . . . moving on to a “total ban of Muslims,” etc. Just substitute “Jews” for that last one and you get the early stages of Nazism.

This is a huge test for us, for US, and I am not sanguine our future. Trump has made it far more difficult for us to muster the requisite outrage for individual tragedies like this, because he’s overwhelmed us with so many other outrages of the day, even the hour. I think Americans are burnt out, and that’s part of the plan. Of course, that aspect, in general, didn’t start with Trump, but no one prior to him has concentrated so much of this into so short a period of time.

zn wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

I would have thought you’d plumb the depths of the Silent Era for that

Well 2 things. One is, I always see silent era acting as theatrical and stagey. I just prefer the more naturalistic imagery of the golden era of talkies. And, it has to be Jimmy Stewart. To me, JS is the representative classical american movie guy (for many others it’s John Wayne, for me it’s JS). Plus I admire him. While most other actors were getting out of active duty in WW 2, Stewart was insisting on flying bombing missions over Nazi occupied Europe. From the wiki:

Tried to do some quick duckduckgo on actors who served, but it’s not easy to get a definitive or even helpful list. Main reason? They typically don’t tell you if they actually fought overseas, with some exceptions. Stewart is one of them. Some actors signed up but stayed here. But without access to individual biography, it’s tough to know if they did their best to get overseas but couldn’t, or if they avoided it at all costs.

Anyway . . . yeah, on the silent films: Too many actors did chew the scenery a bit in that era, especially with their eyes. But some of the films are just amazing to me. Dreyer’s (1928) “The Passion of Joan of Arc,” especially. It has amazing music too, and the great French poet, Antonin Artaud.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by Billy_T.

zn wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

What is the Marvel origin story for that?

Serendipity. Initially I just used any famous old stars pics to convey any number of ideas, just for fun. Then I discovered something I guess we all kind of know unconsciously—that there is not a single emotion or facial expression you can name that Stewart does NOT represent in some kind of quintessential way. You can find a pic of Stewart embodying virtually any mood, feeling, or attitude. He just had an endlessly elastic ability that way. So it just became this signature thing. Like, search: jimmy stewart quietly thinking. (And I never thought of that one till just now so the pic I come up with will be one I have never used.)

That makes sense. Agree about his emotive abilities. But I would have thought you’d plumb the depths of the Silent Era for that. They couldn’t give voice to their thoughts, moods, emotions, etc. etc. So they had to use their faces.

Too obscure?

Then, of course, there’s this picture. Which says it all if the topic is the awesome power of The Secret:

The game has changed so much. It’s tough to keep up with the terminology, or the prototypes.

Remember when “the Hogs” were considered massive and an aberration because of their size?

Their center, Jeff Bostic, was 250 pounds, and if memory serves, Joe Jacoby was their biggest guy, at roughly 295.

On defense, Deacon Jones played most of his career at 250, as a 4/3 end. He’d be a prototypical 3/4 edge rusher today, most likely — solving the Rams’ loss of Fox. Jack Youngblood played at 250 as well, in a slightly later era. But I don’t think he would have been as effective having to cover receivers as Jones, but probably could have handled TEs just fine.

Merlin was considered a monster at 275. Where would he play? 3/4 run-setting end?

Aaron Donald is a throwback at 280, of course — if that’s his actual weight, which it’s likely not. I can see why he slid a bit in the draft. Too short, too light, but he’s perhaps the best defensive player in the league, and can do things no other linemen can do, via the craziest combo of strength and quickness in the game. I doubt that any computer programmer, shooting for the perfect defensive lineman, would give us an Aaron Donald before he had actually played an NFL down.

PFF’s discussion of the old-school nose makes me think of Wolfork of the Pats. I can’t think of a guy more difficult to move. Perhaps Ngata at his peak?

zn wrote:

I’ve often thought — and sometimes said out loud — it would be amazingly honest if our reps wore NASCAR hats, with stickers from their corporate owners. And, that when called upon in the halls of Congress, that they should be addressed in this way:

“The Senator from Exxon now has the floor.”

The obvious stick in that mind is that too many of them have the same corporate sponsors, and too many of them, so it could be rather unwieldy to fit that all on a hat, or as an intro.

That said, who really represents a “state” anymore? Or a nation?

I think the Dems are both. Timid and corrupt. Timidity can lead to corruption. Corruption can lead to timidity. And, of course, since all parties are made up of individuals, you can have timidity without corruption, and corruption without timidity, blah blah blah.

You can also have some individuals who aren’t hacks, even though the system and the party it serves make that difficult to avoid.

On the Russia thing: My own observations of the MSM and the actions of the various participants are still at odds with pundits here and there. As in, I don’t see the Dems going on and on about this. I don’t see them clinging to this** as a way of excusing their losses in 2016 — with rare exceptions. Quite the opposite. I see them purposely avoiding the subject unless they have no other choice. It’s the Republican Never-Trumpers who have been consistently pounding the table about Trump, collusion and Russia for almost two years now. Jennifer Rubin, Nicole Wallace, Steve Schmidt, Rick Wilson, David Frum, etc. etc.

Which tells me this: It’s really, really okay for people to pursue the truth on this matter. It doesn’t mean they support the Clintons or the Dems. It doesn’t mean they support our intel agencies. It doesn’t mean they ignore our own history of international interference and worse. Much worse. It just means that Russia did X, and did that in many other countries, too, and it’s a good thing to prevent that from happening again if possible. No vindication for the Clintons or the Dems, and no acceptance of our own imperial ventures is required.

Just the pursuit of truth.

Can’t find it yet online, but Maher really went after both companies last night on his show. It’s rare to see that. No holds barred.

I knew how evil Monsanto was, but didn’t know Bayer is right up with them too. A merger of despicables.

My ideal of great journalism is the no holds barred exposure of corporate/capitalist horrors, not just government. It needs to be both/and. Mostly we just get the low hanging fruit of government corruption, and that’s not in any way, shape or form deep enough. But we rarely hear about the capitalist side of things . . .

Is that the influence of right-libertarianism and its influence on “conservatism” more generally?

Rand Paul typifies this so often. He was asked by a reporter recently if it bothered him what Facebook is doing, giving customer info — and their friends’ info — to who knows what entities. He said he was much more concerned with government invasion of privacy. The corporate form of this doesn’t seem to faze him.

Both/and. Not either/or.

Zooey wrote:

I believe the US government may have been negligent, but not actively involved.

The prime directive of the Bush admin assholes was regime change in Iraq which was supposed to debut a grand Americanization of the Middle East. We know this without doubt.

So…if the US government had a hand in this, the pilots would have been Iraqis. That just would have been very simple to do, and vastly more effective.

They weren’t. They inconveniently were mostly from countries allied with the US.

That’s another key, Zooey. What was it? Fifteen out of nineteen were Saudis?

There were far easier ways to ensure wet dreams for the PNAC crowd.

For me, the pursuit of knowledge, the creation of art, will always tower above the extraction and accumulation of wealth. It’s not even in the same universe, morally, ethically, spiritually, etc. etc.

I find the former a great addition to the world and the latter a subtraction from it (at best).

So if I have to deal with “elitism” from either “camp,” I have that in the back of my mind.

Of course, it would be a thousand times better not to have elitism, period. A truly democratic spirit should permeate the arts and academia as well. Whitman comes to mind, as does Dewey. They weren’t “elitists” inside or outside the Humanities. And it’s just not a working formula for those of us left of center to even have the appearance of intellectual elitism. But it’s not really “dangerous” for a nation. Economic elitism, however, always is. Under the capitalist system, it tends to accelerate the creation of poverty, homelessness, inequality and wars well beyond the normal odious generation of those things.

“Talking down” to people about various intellectual matters? I may be missing something, but I can’t see how that leads to wars, environmental devastation, the surveillance state, the carceral state, mass inequality, etc. etc.

zn wrote:

JackPMiller wrote:

The problem with Trump’s comments to Trudeau is that British troops burned down the White House during the War of 1812. Historians note the British attack on Washington was in retaliation for the American attack on York, Ontario, in territory that eventually became Canada, which was then a British colony.

But, see, the difference was, America was just making the world safe for democracy.

The Canadians, in contrast (though admittedly they didn;t exist yet) were trying to take away our freedoms and impose sharia law.

If every American had a gun back then, none of this would have ever happened. Except of course the burning of Toronto (which at the time was mistakenly called “York”).

I had family in Toronto. They took me to Fort York when I visited. It’s still there now as it was then, for all the good it did.

__

Don’t forget, not just Sharia. But gay Sharia. And gay Marxist Sharia. Well, actually, it was gay, trans-gendered, Marxist Sharia.

For some reason that reminds me of this (my brain works in mysterious ways these days):

• This reply was modified 6 years, 3 months ago by Billy_T.

Have you seen this article, WV?

Here’s your lie factory at work, in the private sector. Amazing that our gubmint lets them get away with this:

Facebook Gave Device Makers Deep Access to Data on Users and Friends The company formed data-sharing partnerships with Apple, Samsung and dozens of other device makers, raising new concerns about its privacy protections. By GABRIEL J.X. DANCE, NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and MICHAEL LaFORGIA JUNE 3, 2018

Interesting video, and it passes the old “smell test.”

I’d love to see a similar study done of trajectories within a musician’s career. I’m betting it would find that most of them tend to start out with greater musical diversity and complexity, and their lyrics were superior in the beginning as well.

Bruce Springsteen comes to mind right off the bat. His first two or three albums had far richer textures, tonal diversity and complexity than his later albums, and he took more chances with his lyrics. Strangely enough, they seemed more “mature” than many of his later offerings — at least to me.

U2 strikes me as having a similar trajectory and loss over time, though they had a pretty good run through the 1980s. Bad Company as well (in the 1970s), though it happened faster with them. Perhaps just one great album, and a descent into pop.

Some artists hung in there longer than others. In my view, Cat Stevens made four great albums before he basically lost it, but the first two on that list — Tea for the Tillerman and Teaser and the Firecat — were richer lyrically, while the last of the four, “Foreigner,” took the most chances musically.

That study might stumble upon a few who never fell. I’d place Van Morrison in that group. He seems never to have lost his innovation, complexity, intelligence, etc. From beginning to end.