@arendt ...yes I do. He was, to put it in horribly mild terms, strange and complex, whereas your judgment is too simplistic by orders of magnitude.

The first time I read about him, it was indeed from a source that characterized him much as you do - but it wasn't really a very solid source, either (a "weird facts" book that was light-to-nil in the bibliography department). Nonetheless, I believed that about him for years. Gradually, however, the more I've otherwise learned about him, the more compelling he actually seems.

I wouldn't trust anybody who would be willing and content to characterize him in such an illiterate-minded manner as "Ayn Rand for goths." He was a provocateur who the tabloids of the time loved to demonize, and trouble is that he actively encouraged them, so the conspicuously and incontrovertibly awful stuff has to be taken with numerous grains of salt. It wasn't that he didn't care what others thought of him, he wanted to be thought of as "The Wickedest Man In The World" - the sickening irony being that that's not something any true sociopath would want. In some respects, he may have been a visionary.

As for his opiate addiction, it was originally inflicted on him by doctors, and by the end of his life, he said being unable to overcome it was his one regret (which would implicitly extend to whatever he might have done to afford it).

I'm not here to write a dissertation on the guy or defense of why I admire him; judge not, lest ye be judged.

#2.1.1.3.1

Aleister Crowley was a first class piece of shit. The fact that you posted about him in a positive way makes me ill. You called him "the only good Crowley". I posted about Barbara Bush as veiled criticism of praising the man.

Aleister Crowley was a mountain climber, author, occultist, intelligence agent, sexual libertine, drug addict and sometimes cult leader who spent a good deal of time terrorizing respectable British society in the first half of the twentieth century. Born into wealth, he burnt through his inheritance by self-publishing a tremendous number of books, ranging from pornographic poetry to manuals on consciousness raising through drugs, sex, and occult rituals. He started the religion of Thelema, which took sexuality as its central sacrament and urged its adherents to strive to discover their True Wills, their reason for being, by delving into black magic. It's all a bit like Ayn Rand for goths.

Crowley was not a particularly nice man. Despite being a genius, he was also kind of a sociopath, and treated the people in his life quite poorly in-between bouts of obsessive sex and cocaine, heroin and ether abuse. He was always broke, and constantly sponging off his students for heroin money. He once tried to get one of his followers to have sex with a goat. He wasn't, you know, the kind of guy that would be a promising candidate in a job interview.

- Jason Louv, Was Barbara Bush Really Aleister Crowley's Daughter?

Please tell me you do not think this man contributed anything positive to the world, that you praise him and quote him merely for shock value.

Bottom line: My comment was about Crowley, not really about the Barbara Bush. I did that for shock value.

@thanatokephaloides and the number of recs, particularly considering the many discussions on this blog regarding silence about imperialism. Now you're going to excuse it? It appears to be a popular sentiment so whatever. That's the democratic party.
And relative to your question regarding whether I would address imperialism if I ran for office. My answer is fucking A hell yes! I'm sorry, but I've heard that bullshit before, particularly with Bernie and people saying he can't say this or that because of politics.
I'm not into that, man. Of course, I wouldn't run with the dem party if my life depended on it, but a primary reason I would run would be because of imperialism and you think I wouldn't address it? I think it's chickenshit not to.
That's the fucking problem, man.
No guts, no glory.

#7.3.1.1.1

Big Al, I realize we disagree here; but do please remember that this is not indicative of any ill feeling or disrespect on my part for you as none such exists. I respect and support your anti-imperialist stance, even if we may disagree at times as to how to get it implemented. (The Devil's always been in that particular detail!)

With that said and (hopefully) settled, please allow me to discuss this:

"Mere silence won't meet the need" With that, I strongly disagree.

You may disagree with it, but it's still fact. To accuse someone of supporting our current foreign policy clusterfuck, one needs affirmative direct evidence of the person actually supporting it: votes, speech, documents the person has authored, etc.

Allow me to elaborate somewhat as to why this is.

I trust you will agree with me that the accusation that someone supports our imperialistic foreign policy is a serious one indeed. That's why "mere silence won't meet the need". I didn't just mention that to be a pain; when one is, in essence, accusing someone else of being a war criminal (even a potential one), the extraordinary evidence requirements are likewise serious indeed. This is Aristotle (innocent unless and until evidenced guilty) and Carl Sagan (extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence) at work. I must therefore beg you to please not shoot the messenger, which is all I am here.

What bothers me (and I respectfully submit should bother you!) waaaaay more than Ocasio's apparent silence on matters of military and foreign policy is the fact that apparently nobody has bothered to ask her about these things! Where the fuck is the Fourth Estate here? Remember that I tried to find this stuff before asking you for it!

But let me ask my question of you another way, one I hope is somewhat less confrontational in nature. Let us say that you wanted to be elected to Congress, a position where you hope to be able to do something about the imperialistic clusterfuck that is our foreign policy.

Would you talk about foreign policy during your first election attempt?

I'm not sure I would. I think I'd do exactly what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is doing: hammering away at long-neglected domestic priorities, and include some of those (Puerto Rico, immigration) which cannot be addressed unless and until we address our imperialistic foreign policy. Then, once elected, I'd work the system against interventionism, the mechanism by which all modern imperialism (World War I and later) operates.

Of course, you are not me, and so I wouldn't expect you to handle this particular hot potato in the same ways I would. Conversely, however, there is this: being too openly a non-interventionist and anti-imperialist can easily prevent one from getting elected to any position where one could do anything about our imperialist foreign policy. So caution is called for here.

But the simple fact that Ocasio's entire domestic program could be paid for with the net cost of one F-35 will force this issue if she ever actually gets elected to Congress (today's elections were all Primaries).

And sometimes we need to count on such forces -- the ones no politician can choose but all politicians must deal with -- to get us where we know we need to go.

Not the best way to govern a country, though. We'd be better off being able to elect honest folks into power who honestly support our interests.

But in USA Federal politics, honesty of any sort is seldom indeed the best policy!

Which, of course, is the real problem here.

@divineorder

Autocorrect?

Just this morning saw a poster on FB:

"Auto correct can go straight to he'll."

"Grandma Czech past. Knead spill chicken."

#13.1.1.1.1

Just this morning saw a poster on FB:

"Auto correct can go straight to he'll."

@The Voice In the Wilderness

And medicine should be part time. And science and engineering and law and economics.

False -- and false equivalency into the bargain.

My remarks (and eyo's) apply to government and politics, and to them alone. They apply to governance because we have no choice about whether we are to be governed. One can easily choose to see another doctor or lawyer; one can employ other scientists, or even do science oneself as millions of amateur scientists do every day. Much the same can be said about engineers.

It doesn't change the fundamental fact that taxation without representation is tyranny; and that if one is neither a gazillionaire, a lawyer, or a doctor, you are completely unrepresented in Congress as it stands today. There's nobody there who resembles you, Mister and Ms. Hourly Paycheck. But we still expect you to pay all your taxes, obey the rules we make (no matter how unreasonable, see cannabis) and die at our command in battle.

Fuck that.

Your assertion is that any bozo can get a law written and published. Politics is persuasion. It's a profession not a vacation for dilettantes. You term limits would put clueless innocents at the mercy of unelected government workers and lobbyists.

The actual experience with term limits belies this. I dwell in a State and a locality which limits terms on virtually all elected officials. And the results have been anything but what you describe. It appears that at least among Coloradoans, there's a plentiful supply of people who hardly qualify as "clueless innocents" who can and do run to replace officials who have term-limited out of offices.

And with regards to clueless bozos at the mercy of lobbyists in Washington, DC, that's what we have now, n'est-ce pas? We can hardly do worse than what we already have.

We made an annual pitch, up the chain of command with recommendations. I'd hate for our Admiral to have the final say instead of Congress. And I'd hate for that Congress to have an Armed Forces Committee with no idea of what they were voting for, what was done in the past and ramifications for the future other than what some Defense contractor tells them or just examining their own navels.

And that differs from what we have in those places now..... how?

#13.1.2.3.1 And science and engineering and law and economics.

Your assertion is that any bozo can get a law written and published. Politics is persuasion. It's a profession not a vacation for dilettantes. You term limits would put clueless innocents at the mercy of unelected government workers and lobbyists.
I have nothing against government workers. I used to be one. I didn't need detailed oversight by politicians to do my Navy department job and I certainly didn't need political appointees. But I did need Congress and the President to set overall goals and spending. I'd really hate for our Bureau (the Bureau of Ships aka Naval Ship Systems Command aka Naval Sea Systems Command) to be determining our own budget and deciding how many and what kind of ships to build. We made an annual pitch, up the chain of command with recommendations. I'd hate for our Admiral to have the final say instead of Congress. And I'd hate for that Congress to have an Armed Forces Committee with no idea of what they were voting for, what was done in the past and ramifications for the future other than what some Defense contractor tells them or just examining their own navels.