But being able to reflect on our deeds is what make us worthy. For we are thru a glass darkly and in dangerous times. Thanxs

for being willing to admit you were wrong. I hope that you and Marilyn can regain whatever trust was lost between the two of you. It is easy for any one of us to make an emotional error in judgment in these very tough and uncertain times. It takes a big person to publicly own up to one's own errors.

I have read Marilyn's comments for years at The Evening Blues and appreciate her thoughtful insights.

Steven D has done excellent work

What is the nature of political speech?

Is it a circle rather than a straight line of information transfer? Is it incredibly essential, but hated and derided by everyone? Is it the ultimate example of lying and corruption? Is it the means for the powerful to continue to run the game??

On a personal level, along with my inattentiveness and the election, I have had major problems with my wife of almost 50 years. So I sympathize with the flap between Steven and Marilyn.

Just this morning I was reading more of Bruno Latour's thoughts about politics, issues that I have been struggling with for 50 years, but I didn't bring them up to my wife. I was excited but until I fulfill another obligation, I am banned from bringing up his name. And the other obligations that she is holding me to are legitimate -- I did drop the ball.

Keep me in your concerns today.

The election has been traumatic. Friends of hers, reasonable people, fear nuclear war.

So here I was reading Bruno Latour and finally getting a handle on politics at a new level.

He as accomplished for me, the impossible. How to make sense of politics. But he has done it in the context of 15 Modes of Existence. These include some that have institutional support like Science, Religion, Politics, and Law, and the bastard child The Economy, but others that allow insights into the modern frame that we have been in for the last 300 to 400 years.

I always have to apologize to give a taste and not provide a well thought out introduction to his work here. I am trying to figure out paths to his work -- art, religion, politics, law, science...

I got into him through the young philosopher Graham Harman. Graham thinks that Bruno's 1991 book, "We Have Never been Modern" is the most important philosophy book since WWII. Bruno's early work was in Science Studies and one of the founders of the social theory of Actor Network Theory. In secret for 25 years he developed an different philosophy which Graham Harman has noted is the only philosopher in history to simultaneously develop two philosophical positions. My education was in math and I taught and worked in technology so this whole enterprise is a real stretch for me. Bruno's new book is An Inquiry Into The Modes of Existence.

Here is a 2002 paper before he announced his second philophy but Politics is one of the 15 modes in that.

This is an An Abstract.

Political enunciation remains an enigma as long as it is considered from the
standpoint of information transfer. It remains as unintelligible as religious talk. The
paper explores the specificty of this regime and especially the strange link it has
with the canonical definition of enunciation in linguistics and semiotics. The
‘political circle’ is reconstituted and thus also the reasons why a ‘transparent’ or
‘rational’political speech act destroys the very conditions of group formation.

Here are the first 2 paragraphs

Complaints about a loss of interest in politics are heard all over.1 But what if
the famous ‘crisis of representation’ stems simply from a new misunderstanding
of the exact nature of this type of representation? As if, in recent years, we
had begun to expect it to provide a form of fidelity, exactitude or truth that is
totally impossible. As if talking politics were becoming a foreign language
gradually depriving us of the ability to express ourselves. Could it be possible
to forget politics? Far from being a universal competency of the ‘political
animal’, might it not be a form of life so fragile that we could document its
progressive appearance and disappearance? This is the hypothesis that I would
like to explore in this paper.

The idea can be formulated simply: by attempting to explain politics in terms
of something else, we might have lost its specificity and have consequently
forgotten to maintain its own dynamics, letting it fall into disuse. To retrieve
the invaluable effectiveness of political talk, we need to start with the idea that,
as Margaret Thatcher so forcefully put it, ‘society doesn’t exist’. If it does not
exist, we have to make it exist, but in order to do so we need the means to do so.
Politics is one of those means

What if we Talked Politics a Little?What if we Talked Politics a Little?

Right now as I write this an extreme family emergency involving my adult children has come up. I have to get ready to face whatever happens and it might be really bad.

I accept your apology. Your posts didn't upset me, they surprised me. I made one comment that didn't quite fit in the general narrative of the site or your way of thinking and got an overwhelming reaction from you. It was what you inspired with your posts that was hard to take, the comment from Pluto for example. It was a creepy comment that was voted up by quite a few people here. The whole idea of a pile-on is not in the C-99 culture. I hope it won't happen to anyone else.

As for the Front Page, JtC can promote anyone's essays to the Front Page as he often did in the past with my Green diaries. The Front Page privilege is not as exclusive as you make out. I agree that it shouldn't be used to call-out people. Why do we need to call out people, when we can contact them privately?

For the record and to correct the implications made yesterday, I am a Canadian Green, I am NOT a Democrat or Hillary supporter. I would have voted for Bernie if I could though. It's heartbreaking that he was prevented from becoming a candidate. I know that most people here are heart-broken about that.

There is more to life than US politics and this site originally covered a miriad of topics. I hope we can make room here for more diverse topics in the future.

We live in dangerous times so Steven forget yesterday and carry on with your excellent reporting.

Marilyn

This place and all the people here are important to me. I would hate to see anyone take too much to heart reactions and thoughts posted on the internet. We have no way of knowing what someone is experiencing or where their soul is residing when they speak to us. I would hope we would all give each other enough space to speak and misspeak without the ramifications we all so hated at TOP.

are not real. We're stuck in a loop which has been carefully constructed by the psycho's who rule the world. Like Marylin I too wonder why the powers that be are going to install/inaugurate this nasty crazy buffoon. Ask me they are so power mad that they actually prefer the chaos, fear and hatred that keeps humans from banding together in solidarity to take them down.

They are facing opposition and resistance globally from ordinary people. There is no political solution using the established systems humans have developed over centuries. All this wasted effort trying to get some relief using the useless broken vehicle's provided by the global killers and pillagers only empowers there sick deadly NWO. Who destroyed our societies?

"The pump don't work
'Cause the vandals took the handles"

Until we the people open our eyes and see that there is no longer any normal parliamentary or political means to restore basic inalienable human and civil rights we're powerless and spinning our wheels. They have us right where they want us. 'Society does not exist' is the guiding principle that these fuckers use to keep humans powerless in their carefully constructed loop. We all face the destruction of human society on every level, the personal, local, state, national and global.

Of course people are afraid but their misplaced fears have stopped them from doing what's necessary to stop this nightmare. When things fall apart we cling to the established order as chaos and change are scarier then the 'worst evil' the owners of the place fling out there to put the fright on us all. Oh may God, Hitler, Genghis Khan and Vlad the Impaler are riding again. Maybe so but this time around they are disguised as transnational savvy business men, with hoards of special forces, spooks and psycho killer major's and generals to enforce and implement their inevitable world as they want it.

People are dying, people are starving, the planet is burning up and yet we place our trust in this globalized twisted version of politics? We need to quit clinging to the system that means us all harm, it's gone daddy gone. Time to start anew. All the academics and political writers, preachers, mad scientists and experts in the universe cannot put this humpty back together again. Society as we know it is also gone. Maybe in the end that's a good thing as it will make people look to themselves to form community. This beast is too big not to fail. I place my faith in people globally to do what's needed to stop this insanity. Fear is an irrational killer and Trump is a symptom not the cause. There are no leaders, no politics, we can turn to to lead us out of here, it's up to us. Think global act local. Our present society is nothing that should be defended.

"Don't follow leaders
Watch the parking meters'

"Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name, oh yeah
But what's confusing you
Is just the nature of my game, ooh yeah

Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners saints
As heads is tails just call me Lucifer
I'm in need of some restraint

So if you meet me, have some courtesy
Have some sympathy and some taste
Use all your well learned politics
Or I'll lay your soul to waste, mmm yeah "

Or as these same richie rich, knighted troubadours said 'we all need someone to lean on, so if you want it you can lean on me'.

Perhaps in the future we can all keep in mind to call out the essay, the words and rebut them, not call out the person who wrote them?
I left TOP and came here for the civil discussion of issues. I was a bit put off by yesterdays post. Calling out the person gets away from talking about the issue. It becomes uncivil in making the person seem attacked.
It's like having a disagreement with someone you like. You have to point out what it is that you are disagreeing about, not call them names. Because sometimes, you have to agree you disagree in order to remain friends.
So, please- Issues. Not the person.
(Wish this could get applied to the Trump talk too! Ugh. "He's so horrible" is silencing the genuine issues that need attention.)

Yesterday my very best friend called me an a hole and I called her a willfully ignorant propaganda-slurping moron. We will be carpooling to the local Women's March on the 21st. I'll have the slightly spiked thermos of shall we say hot chocolate. She'll have some brownie like energy things. Please, no snowflakes here. Love you always Steven D.

THAT is simply the way an apology is done, Steven D.

I’m sure it is deeply appreciated, and I hope that now your reflections feel warmer and less sober. Cheers.

It's a bit of a stretch to even call them "journalists".