Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue

I'm taking a break from Outside the Asylum this week, but it'll be back next week with an essay on what currently stops us from creating a new politics. It's good to figure out what's in your way before you drive through it:

Something/Someone Old
222old.jpg

I was looking for a comment from Joe McCarthy on how we needed to be protected from evil ideas. I didn't find one, but while I was looking I became aware that an effort had been made, over years, to repair McCarthy's reputation and assert that he was right.

So, since Uncle Joe is getting a makeover, along with his inheritors George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Scooter Libby and so many others, I thought my Something Old today could be this:

We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we...remember that we are not descended from fearful men. Not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.

The following quotation is not in the video. But I've been looking for it for ages, and had almost given it up as a figment of my imagination. The values underlying this statement lie also at the foundation of my own ethics:


I believed 20 years ago and I believe today that mature Americans can engage in conversation and controversy, the clash of ideas, with Communists anywhere in the world without becoming contaminated or converted. I believe that our faith, our conviction, our determination are stronger than theirs, and that we can compete -- and successfully, not only in the area of bombs but in the area of ideas.

I no longer believe that Americans have a philosophy in which we can have faith, for which we can muster conviction; our culture no longer exists sufficiently for me to be able to assert that we can compete in the clash of ideas. The powerful in this land, comprising every different political affiliation and none, have succeeded in their demolition of our founding ideas: ideas to which we never lived up, ideas which were always in conflict with the rank opportunism, clannish insularity, authoritarian schemes, and outright violence which also existed as a fundamental part of America from the beginning, but ideas whose value remains undiminished by the actions of hypocrites and sociopaths over the years, just as the ideas of Marx remain undiminished by the actions of Stalin and Mao. Agree or disagree with an idea as you please; you cannot, however, diminish an idea by showing me that humans clumsily or mendaciously fail to put it into practice.

What matters to me in this Murrow quotation is his dismissal of the notion of intellectual or moral contamination, the idea that if we are exposed to bad thoughts or bad words, our minds will fall like Troy: if we let the big horse in, we will be conquered by hidden enemies. Therefore we must protect ourselves from bad thoughts and bad words and bad opinions and create an intellectual and moral quarantine to protect our apparently feeble minds.

I wonder sometimes if Russiagate proponents even notice that they are passionately endorsing a quarantine.

There's a Murrow quotation that reminded me of C99:

The Senator charged that Professor Harold Laski, a British scholar and politician, dedicated the book to me. That's true. He is dead. He was a socialist -- I am not. He was one of those civilized individuals who did not insist upon agreement with his political principles as a pre-condition for conversation or friendship.

Something New
Try_Something_New_for_30_Days.jpg

We are going to have another Trek series with Picard.

Like many, I am more than a bit scared.

I have been afraid to watch Star Trek: Discovery; the trailer looked warded as hell:

Some Bridge Officer: "The Federation doesn't shoot first!"
Obviously Main Character, Of Course Black and Female: "This time we have to!"

Yay, they're making Star Trek into a shoot-and-cry!

For those of you who don't know what that is, here's an excerpt from an excellent article on the Deep State and its media meddlings:

As I’ve outlined in previous blog posts, and in greater depth for my upcoming book, the shoot-and-cry, cloaked in faux “moral ambiguity,” is the dominant narrative framework for middle- and high-brow films dealing with the military and the homeland today. It’s necessary to specify that these are films about “the military and the homeland,” rather than just “war,” since these films engage in a conscious blurring of the lines between wartime and peace. This new kind of American film is the result of an endless war, prosecuted by someone liberals like, who has both escalated it overseas and made countering an enemy within a cornerstone of his policies. Sicario in particular is a new escalation, reflecting the state’s creation of homeland security as a nebulous category of militarized, lawless, endless force.

People watching Sicario, and there’ll be plenty of them, will be sold “a gritty, dystopian glance at the horrors of the drug trade,” but it’s obviously more than that. As far as dystopias go, the film is almost a fever-dream for the ruling class’s ideal order: one where spooks, commandos, and cops all blend together, with the rest of us too shocked, broken, and resigned to terror to do anything about it. It is, like the rest of the American shoot-and-cry genre, the sort of thing that could only exist today, not only post-9/11 but post-Bush. In the 1990s, as the liberal interventionists of the Clinton administration created an age of “humanitarian interventions,” a new, sensitive military hero evolved from the Reagan-era hard-body. Today, as President Obama expands foreign killing and domestic policing and reactionary forces are ascendant worldwide, heroes are as anguished as the liberals who support him. Sicario is fixated on the enemy within, and the focus on the “insider threat” has been one of Obama’s key national security initiatives. In a way, what Kate goes through is the experience of any liberal paying attention to American foreign and policing policy. She’s a stand-in for anyone who’s anguished by the news they hear about the US drone-bombing a wedding here, or cops shooting a black teen there. What Kate does is model the desired response. For someone with a more irenic worldview, the last 6 years have involved a lot of this sort of thing: that closet peacenik I voted for is sending more troops to Afghanistan? Now the president’s going to drone American citizens? Wait, now we’re allied with al Qaeda, what happened to the freedom-loving rebels? Kate’s brief journey into the dark world of homeland security black operations reconciles the audience to the ugliness of what the US police state does.

Given the target audience, it doesn’t do this through a flag-waving celebration, but by leaving the audience stunned, disoriented, and with a feeling of dread and resignation. It takes very little for reactionaries to applaud state murder—the only exceptions are when the victims are undoubtedly creatures of the right. Liberals respond to an entirely different vocabulary, reliant on moral suasion and flattery of their sophisticated self-conceptions. The reality of keeping you safe is ugly, the film says, and it may even look immoral. But the alternative is too horrible to comprehend. And Alejandro is ultimately right: in the end, Kate has witnessed horrible, criminal things, but she finally understands why. What these films are trying to do is get everyone else to understand, too.

(This is from an excellent blog called Popaganda; I heartily recommend it, particularly the article I just quoted.)

https://lorenzoae.wordpress.com/2015/10/16/sicario-americas-dark-new-fro...

Anyway, I hope they don't turn Star Trek into a shoot-and-cry, and if they do, I may finally sever ties with mainstream film and tv for good. To turn Roddenberry's vision into an apology for a metastasized police state would be too much for me. I really, really hope that this new project remains true to Roddenberry's original vision, which is not authoritarian and stands firmly in opposition to such police-state nonsense, as well as standing against the jingoistic fear of foreigners and foreign thoughts that generally forms the excuse for war.

When describing his decision to play Picard again after twenty years, Stewart cites a fan, a police sergeant, who wrote to him "There are days when I go home, that what I have seen, what I have experienced, the cruelty, the barbarity, the viciousness, the nastiness of what I have experienced, makes me despair for the future of our society and the world. But when I feel like that, I go to my video shelf, and I take down Star Trek: The Next Generation, and I know that we're gonna have a future!" Stewart said that that lies at the very center of his determination to play Picard once more.

This could mean all sorts of things. I could take it at its best and believe that the things the policeman is horrified to have seen include things done by the police. I could believe that his despair comes not simply from demonization of the other--the criminal, the immigrant, the poor--but from an honest assessment of where our institutions and customs now reside: immediately over an abyss. I could take Stewart's words as a brave and defiant refusal to simply collapse before a wave of authoritarian darkness, a desire to push back, or even punch back, at the organized demoralization and despair that threatens to swamp us all.

I hope this is what it means. It could, instead, mean making Star Trek a prop for the police state, including humanizing the police as an institution (rather than simply acknowledging the humanity of individual policemen), and asserting a bright future because, after all, don't we currently live in the best of all possible worlds? C'mon, audience--all that darkness you see in your life can be blamed on the other: bigots, criminals, immigrants, deplorables, depending on your political leanings. There are scapegoats enough for everyone, as long as you don't turn your gaze on those who actually have power to determine the conditions of our lives. Meanwhile, Star Trek will assure you that everything will be fine.

Like a lot of other fans, I'm also a bit wary when Patrick Stewart says that Picard may not exactly be the guy as we last saw him. It sounds reasonable, but I can't help but remember what was recently done to Luke Skywalker:

It's one thing to invent a new Star Trek series that is a shoot-and-cry; that's a horrible offense to Roddenberry and everyone who's loved Star Trek over the years, but Trek can survive an awful chapter of its story. It's already done so more than once. It's quite something else to take a beloved lead character from a series that was always firmly against authoritarianism, jingoism, and bigotry--as well as strongly preferring peace to war--and remake him to serve our current propaganda needs. May it not be so.

Something Borrowed
student_handing_book_2.JPG

Dear god, the word "pundit" comes from the mid-17th-century Sanskrit word pandit and means priest, or learned man.

Well, that word has fallen a long way. Phew.

From this:

Guru_Nanak_with_His_teacher_Shri_Gopal_Pandit.jpg

To this:

putin.png

Something Blue
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Apparently, Georgia O'Keefe did some non-representation monochromatic paintings in blue before she moved to Texas and started doing her more famous paintings of flowers.

I've been pretty hard on non-representational art in this thread, but I like O'Keefe's work better than the fairly flat squares of color I was talking about before.

Some people think this series is about music--O'Keefe trying to show in color what playing music felt like. She was playing violin at the time, and you could interpret the scroll-like shape in this series as part of a violin.

Brooklyn_Museum_-_Blue_1_-_Georgia_O'Keeffe.jpg

Brooklyn_Museum_-_Blue_2_-_Georgia_O'Keeffe.jpg

Brooklyn_Museum_-_Blue_3_-_Georgia_O'Keeffe.jpg

Brooklyn_Museum_-_Blue_4_-_Georgia_O'Keeffe.jpg

I didn't know O'Keefe did a blue series. Still not my favorite kind of art, but I feel I wouldn't mind spending some time in the presence of the whole series to see how I felt when viewing it in person (which always seems different than seeing things on a screen).

How are you all today?

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Thanks Can't Stop for presenting ideas which do not grow old. This concept that the state has to protect our thinking presumes we can not achieve this on our own, individually or collectively. Pish posh poo. If the propagandists are so concerned with our beautiful minds, perhaps we can be trusted to discern our own mentally healthy ideations without interference.

Cheers

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@QMS You're welcome!

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

The Aspie Corner's picture

Eyes Left Podcast Debut Episode

I introduced this one last night in the Evening Blues thread and thought I'd do so here as well. Definitely worth a listen.

As for what's going on with Star Trek/Wars and pretty much all other media coming out of Hollywood these days, I don't really mind people of color or women getting lead roles, it's the pro-imperialist/capitalist propaganda that bugs the crap out of me. It all comes out totally generic, yet idiots insist on calling each other cuck or racist whether or not they liked the latest billion dollar flick that genuflects to capitalist imperialism.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1RnGX9Cmk8]

Hell, George Lucas even admitted Soviet directors had more freedom. And why wouldn't they have? They weren't tied down to what's profitable for media conglomorates.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtujD-AdQGo]

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

ggersh's picture

@The Aspie Corner https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-08-04/heres-410-movies-made-under-di...

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

TheOtherMaven's picture

@ggersh

Including the notorious War Department interference with The Blue Dahlia, which forced Raymond Chandler to go incommunicado with a stash of booze until he could come up with an alternative c/u/l/p/r/i/t/ fall guy.

Chandler's original plan, which can still be glimpsed in outline here and there in the finished film, was to have the brain-damaged Buzz commit the murder during a mental blackout, but the War Department wasn't yet ready to admit that some veterans could have come home that damaged. (William Bendix made sure the audience understood that Buzz could have done it, with his bare hands.)

That's what all the malarkey with the gun was about, to get it into the hands of the barely-seen character who finally snaps and admits that yes, he dunnit because he was Fed Up with being pushed around.

The film still works, yes, but it's a little too close to The Butler Did It.

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@TheOtherMaven Nice to see you, Maven.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@The Aspie Corner In the Age of Obama, the moral credibility of oppressed people, particularly the victims of bigotry, is used to defend the powerful and their status quo from critique. The powerful are borrowing moral credibility from the people they generally oppress the most, because the powerful no longer have any credibility of their own to use. The 2008 crash and the reaction of governments to that crash revealed horribly the fact that merit does not determine success and that wealth and power make the law irrelevant. These revelations disrupt the primary defense of capitalism against socialist, religious, and other critiques. The idea that capitalism is fair and good because the best (hard-working, smart, innovative) individuals prevail is no longer sea-worthy: in fact, it is taking on water at an alarming rate. The idea that capitalism has something to do with democracy has also taken a severe hit. Neither of these notions can easily survive watching the most powerful financiers in the world wreck their industry and the world economy through recklessness, intentional indifference, and greed, only to be left in charge of that industry and showered with money by practically every politician in the western world. Similarly, advancing climate change and the current appetite among the powerful for starting a nuclear war have alerted people to the fact that we're riding coach on the Titanic, and that the rich and powerful are kind of OK with that.

Since the destruction of life on earth cannot be justified, and since the various defenses of capitalism have been shown to be at best false, and at worst deliberate, methodical lies, all the powerful can do is concoct a really first-class deflection of blame and responsibility, and they've come up with a great one. Nearly the entirety of the fights against sexism, racism, homophobia and other sorts of bigotry have been co-opted and used as a deflection device: you can't criticize the powerful and their institutions because there's a black man or a white woman or a homosexual or a trans person at the head of those institutions; you can't criticize the system because the system allowed a black man or a white woman or a homosexual in front of cameras in some capacity. This has become their response to all criticism. It's a very smart move, and one the left seems incapable of defending itself against. Since the left can't defend itself, only the right is left to criticize, and thus politics restructures itself into a choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Those who continue to pay attention to that man behind the curtain have hatchet jobs done on their characters with the greatest of ease: obviously, their problem with the world is that there's a black man, or a black woman, or a white woman, or a trans person, or a homosexual, advanced to high status.

This is why I have a problem with a black female bridge officer telling me that the Federation has to shoot first.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

The Aspie Corner's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal if he knew what was going on re:

This is why I have a problem with a black female bridge officer telling me that the Federation has to shoot first.

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Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.

Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@The Aspie Corner No kidding!

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal This comment is essay worthy.

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Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Dr. John Carpenter Thanks, Dr. John! I was considering turning it into one.

It's a deep and complex subject, though, and sometimes I worry that it's too political for the film buffs/media critics and too much like Film Studies or literary criticism for the politicals.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

WoodsDweller's picture

The smoke is terrible this morning. I can't see from one side of the yard to the other.
There's a mild wind, but it shifts directions constantly. Terrible weather to enlarge a fire, the fire fighters don't know where to deploy.
Looks like a new fire started on Mesa Verde National Park last night, that may be where the smoke is coming from. Always hard to fight fires there with 4300 documented archaeological sites. The archaeologists have to run along with the bulldozers, GPS in hand, and try to steer them to a safe path.
Conditions are bad. It will just be a matter of luck -- good luck if a fire doesn't start, bad luck if it does.
I had a fire here 20 years ago, lost a couple of acres to it. I like to think I've been through my fire and I'll be spared this time, but the world doesn't actually work that way.
Wildfire is terrifying. Shout out to the men and women who fight them. Big damned heroes, every one.

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"The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function." -- Albert Bartlett
"A species that is hurtling toward extinction has no business promoting slow incremental change." -- Caitlin Johnstone

@WoodsDweller I love Mesa Verde. I hope you are spared. Good luck!

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Lookout's picture

@WoodsDweller

She's been talking about a nearby fire, and I have not seen her around the site this week...hope all is well.

So sorry about your fire as well. Last visit to Mesa Verde in 2014? showed a recent burn. All these fires, yet no mention of climate chaos nor the magnifying effect of fossil fuels. Europe's been in a heat wave too with Greece and Sweden on fire.

I wonder how long people's heads will stick in the sand? Till the fire burns their ass or the flood drowns them I guess.

Thanks for the OT CSTMS. I'm off to bush hog after 4 inches of rain last week (just a 1/4" shower so far this week). Have a good day folks!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Lookout Great to see you, Lookout. We, too, have had no rain this week to speak of. I've had to water for the first time in months.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

enhydra lutris's picture

@Lookout
the fire, when she popped in a couple of times recently, seemingly OK. Per the maps, the Mendocino complex is moderately distant, as such things go, from eyo. In addition, it is to the Northeast of the Hwy 128 & 101 intersection, while eyo is a bit to the SW of said intersection. The prevailing winds in the area of the fire are generally from the west through September. When the wind shifts it will be from the north, and the area immediately south of the western edge of the current fire zone has, iirc, a diminished fuel load, so eyo should stay safe.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@enhydra lutris Good.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@WoodsDweller I wish the best for you and the beautiful land you inhabit. I am so sorry for what is happening.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

ggersh's picture

EDIT: Matt Stoller

Matt Stoller

@matthewstoller
Obama didn't prevent a depression. He prevented a New Deal. https://twitter.com/Atrios/status/1026821170275004416

Atrios
@Atrios
2 great myths of the Great Recession:

1) fixing it was some sort of miraculous work that only geniuses could do
2) they fixed it

8:30 AM - Aug 7, 2018
2,408
722 people are talking about this

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I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

detroitmechworks's picture

Which is always a good thing. Just nice to get the body moving again, and I missed the hell out of it all last week. I get better sleep, think better, and IMHO mentally am better with my PTSD after a good hard sweat and a few trip throws.

So, coming up to the end, Andromache is in the Logos Series today. My first pretty close to explicitly Poly Poem, so forgive me if I let my freak flag fly a little today.

Overall, the world's crazy, but I feel better. I honestly feel that most therapy doesn't work for me. Instead I'll stick with Weed, Writing, and Wrestling.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCOrtJMQmVs]

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@detroitmechworks I want to go back and re-read the whole thing once it's done, but I won't wait on that for reading Andromache. One of my favorite classical plays is Euripides' The Trojan Women. I didn't know he'd written a play about Andromache's later life.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

detroitmechworks's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal which has the first two acts laid out in order. (I should probably link to this every day as well. Smile )

The Logos of Antisthenes

Don't worry about rushing to read it. This story is almost done, and it's really one of those ones that needs to be savored, IMHO.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal read it all in one sitting.

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O.k. When is the next meeting for the revolution?
-FuturePassed on Sunday, November 25, 2018 10:22 p.m.

enhydra lutris's picture

the "power elite", and the haute bourgeoise have been waging psychological war on the populace of this country for my entire life. Not only specific propaganda campaigns, but the attempt to exterminate empathy, caritas, and public spiritedness, to install consumerism, self-centeredness, greed, jealousy and tribalism. Above all reason and logic have been under constant attack, as well as truth and trust. Intelligent discourse was an early victim of this campaign. All is jingles, slogans and pictograms.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@enhydra lutris Oh, I think you're selling it short, e.l. It's not all slogans and jingles.There's also the team spirit component, complete with picking your prom king and queen.

Heathers nation.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

enhydra lutris's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
as regards US v other and free market v other. The "dialogue" on Daily Kos constantly tempted me to post the Beach Boys performing

Be True to Your School

. Still does.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Wink's picture

to support incumbent 'Beltway Elise' (R) and we're all over it like stink on poo poo!
Screenshot 2018-08-08_12-09-37-718.png

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Wink's picture

is about the Only value of FB (and, yes, there are Way more negatives than positives), but it's really the Only way we local yokel progressives have Any ability to communicate, organize.
@Wink

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

Wink's picture

yeah, all those ways
@Wink
work, to some degree. FB just is Way quicker, easier.
I doubt we'd get half the response that we get with FB.
A year ago I was making the hour drive to the 'cuse (Syracuse) for Events that I found on FB (and not likely to have found anywhere else). It took a year (and an election) to drum up interest here, but I now rarely make that drive to the 'cuse. And... having made those 'cuse connections, those 'cuse connections have FB'd me asking for Event details, becuz a bunch of those 'cuse connections want to drive up and help "welcome" the dRumpster with us!
So, yeah, we prolly could do the same via texting. FB just makes it simpler and faster. It took a year (and an election) to get this District in the direction of getting organized (for 2020), but we're finally on our way (thanks to FB). No way we beat 'Beltway Elise' this year, but I expect we will in 2020 with help of a blue wave.

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

gulfgal98's picture

I made a comment on another essay on Monday that the government now has private corporations censoring our free speech on its behalf. It is another way around the First Amendment and it has been legally sanctioned and supported by our Congress.

In other words, the Act will i) greenlight the government to crack down with impunity against any media property it deems "propaganda", and ii) provide substantial amounts of money fund an army of "local journalist" counterpropaganda, to make sure the government's own fake news drowns that of the still free "fringes."

Our few remaining freedoms are not only being chipped away by our own government, but also are being out sourced to the private sector, paid by our tax dollars, with absolutely zero safeguards for we the citizens.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Lookout's picture

@gulfgal98

I don't appreciate his message, but I do think he has a right to express it. In the middle of the same night Apple, FB, Youtube, and spotify all dropped his content.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/06/apple-removes-podcast...
If that doesn't sound like corporate censorship I don't know what does....at the behest of government, because they own the gov't.

Jimmy and the gang agree
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_LlMmL6Ylk (22 min)

What first amendment?

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

gulfgal98's picture

@Lookout Here is what I wrote in that other essay in regard to Alex Jones.

I am not conflicted at all.

I find Alex Jones repulsive and annoying.

BUT...and this is a very big but. But, when we have corporations now censoring our ability to speak freely and express differing political ideas, however repulsive we may find them, then we are locked into a totalitarian state run by the oligarchs.

I may despise Alex Jones, but I will defend his right to speak freely. And then I can freely decide to ignore him too. The fact that our rights have been outsourced to private corporations and deregulated by what little is left of our so called representative government is far more frightening to me than any of Alex Jones' unhinged rants.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@gulfgal98 Good for you, gulfgal. Right on.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Wink's picture

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the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.

enhydra lutris's picture

@Wink
organized or communicated before facespace? And what's this here blog thingie, seems like it could work too.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@enhydra lutris You know I agree with you. Those who want to rely on FB can do so, and I understand why; Zuckerberg has managed to achieve a near-monopoly on friendship. When I realized some years ago that that was his aim, I laughed; I didn't believe it was possible. Guess the laugh's on me; Americans ate it up. Now ordinary people enforce FB on other ordinary people because you can either use it or drop out of touch with your friends and family. It's such an extreme state of affairs that I understand why Wink and others would use it.

However, I won't be using it for anything. It's bad enough that the Internet is the spooks' playground for everything from simple surveillance to psy-ops (Zuckerberg has been doing experiments as to how content affects his readers' emotional states, apparently. Nothing creepy about that!) But to channel everything through Zuckworld seems like a remarkably bad idea. It's fairly obvious that he himself is part of the security state.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

enhydra lutris's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

However, I won't be using it for anything. It's bad enough that the Internet is the spooks' playground for everything from simple surveillance to psy-ops (Zuckerberg has been doing experiments as to how content affects his readers' emotional states, apparently. Nothing creepy about that!) But to channel everything through Zuckworld seems like a remarkably bad idea. It's fairly obvious that he himself is part of the security state.

I hold that it is generally good for both the individual and the entire society to eschew monopolies and oligopolies at every opportunity (hence I run Ubuntu). Besides, especially wrt facespace, I get enough spam already. Action Network, fwiw, is responsible for about half of it, though they claim not to share addresses and that their clients provide their own lists. Strange, if true.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

JekyllnHyde's picture

There's a Murrow quotation that reminded me of C99: The Senator charged that Professor Harold Laski, a British scholar and politician, dedicated the book to me.

Harold Laski was a legendary professor of political science at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). As a committed socialist, he often engaged in vigorous debates with Friedrich Hayek, who also taught at the LSE before moving to the University of Chicago a few years after World War II. The school was formed in the mid-1890s by essentially the same group of people (notably George Bernard Shaw and Beatrice Webb) who had started the socialist Fabian Society as well as the British Labour Party. The idea was to study massive changes and dislocation in society brought about by the Industrial Revolution. The LSE became a haven for intellectuals of all kinds as one had to be a member of the Anglican Church to attend Oxford and Cambridge until the early 20th century.

As a public intellectual, Professor Laski was unusual in that he was not only a noted academic but also the Chairman of the Labour Party after World War II. He was a critic of then-Prime Minister Clement Attlee, who'd been a lecturer at the LSE in the 1930s, and often clashed with him on policy issues. In the late 1940s, Laski would have become President of Brandeis University were it not for J. Edgar Hoover. As a Jewish socialist with Marxist inclinations, he was considered suspect by Hoover's FBI during the McCarthy Era and it maintained a file several hundred pages long on Laski and others like Paul Robeson who had any kind of association with the Soviet Union. Among many LSE students who'd accompanied Laski on student trips to the USSR in the 1930s was one Joe Kennedy, JFK's older brother who was killed in 1944 while on a bombing mission. JFK would also attend the LSE in the late 1930s although he did not complete his studies at the school.

It is said that two British institutions contributed greatly to the rise of the anti-colonial movement and decline of the British Empire: Sandhurst Military Academy (Britain's West Point) and the LSE. Sandhurst taught discipline and organization to numerous students from Britain's colonies. Under Laski's tutelage, the LSE taught a couple of future generations of colonial leaders about how to structure societies and organize governments. Even to this day whenever the Indian Government Cabinet meets in New Delhi, there is an empty chair in the room to honor the memory of Harold Laski. Such was his impact on those who'd found newly-won freedom from their colonial masters.

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A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma

smiley7's picture

@JekyllnHyde

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@smiley7 You're very welcome. And may I add my thanks to JnH for educating me. Like I said, there are some terrifying gaps in my knowledge of history.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@JekyllnHyde Wow. Holy moly. How is it possible I had never heard of this guy?

I am, for my country, quite well-educated, yet there are terrifying gaps.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

JekyllnHyde's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

... I'd never heard of Professor Harold Laski until I went to London in the 1990s to attend my first grad school. During that period, a biography about Laski was published and since then I've read more about him over the years. Had I never lived in England, I probably wouldn't know anything about him.

Thanks, CSMS.

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A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma

Big Al's picture

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Big Al What the hell!?!

That is Bibi-level insanity. You can't do that in India--or in Pakistan. It would create a bloodbath. Apparently, it already has.

How is Tulsi Gabbard related to this guy?

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Big Al's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal @Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal No offense, but that's the thing. I bet most people on here that are Gabbard fans, and I'm not saying you are, don't know either. But then again, most probably don't care cuz she says some of the right things, some of the time.
I found out about it the first time I heard about her progressive heroe-ness.

Here's a sample. I can't find the other articles I've read, one was on counterpunch. She has a well documented relationship with him and shares political and religious views.

https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/11/tulsi-gabbard-is-not-who-...

FYI - Wendy Davis wrote one about her and MOdi not long ago also.

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Unabashed Liberal's picture

@Big Al

and more.

She was also home schooled (it was inferred due to religious reasons).

Actually, I've mostly stayed out of discussions about her 'liberalism,' except, when I read that she proposed the Bill (she had a local or state level position, at the time) that criminalized homelessness. I no longer have access to the bookmarks (or the computer) that I accumulated about her and her Dad. The info may be in her Wikipedia entry.

Eureka! Here it is--but, it's been reworded to remove the term 'homeless people.'

Tenure

As a councilmember, Gabbard introduced a measure to help food truck vendors by loosening parking restrictions.[28]

She also introduced Bill 54, a measure that authorized city workers to confiscate personal belongings stored on public property.[29][30] After overcoming opposition from the ACLU[31] and Occupy Hawai'i,[32] and a potential conflict with Hawaii's constitutional law, Kānāwai Māmalahoe, which protects "those who sleep by the roadside", Bill 54 passed[32] and became City Ordinance 1129.

At any rate, anyone who's not totally shunned by the corporatist neoliberal Democratic Party Leadership is suspect to me!

Smile

Mollie/Blue Onyx (reverting to former handle)

"Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong."~~W. R. Purche

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Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Big Al @Big Al I'm not a fan of anybody running as a Democrat, ever, unless somebody can prove to me, with hard evidence, that the entire old structure of the Democratic party has been burned to the ground and holy water poured on the ashes, and a new structure entirely dissimilar to the old one has been built and named "The Democratic Party."

After that happens, I'll consider each politician individually, and decide what I think; right now, it's incredibly naive to act like any politician above the local level is going to move this country in any direction other than the one we've been going in for the past 35 years.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Big Al By the way, that's probably why I don't know. I usually don't read articles on politicians. I've read little about Ocasio-Cortez, for instance. I don't really give a shit if she's a great person. I doubt she is, but who cares if she is? She would be, at best, squashed by all the corrupt bastards already there, who outnumber her. That's in a best-case scenario of her actually being what her proponents think she is.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

anymore is for the popcorn & spend time with my adult daughter. I must say though I liked the musical score for Sicarrio. It really gave the whole erie, dread feeling to it.

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O.k. When is the next meeting for the revolution?
-FuturePassed on Sunday, November 25, 2018 10:22 p.m.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@WIProgressive Good to "see" you WIP. Smile

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

Unabashed Liberal's picture

said to BA about espousing some of his opinions over here, and since many of my own are pretty far left (perhaps, marginal), think I'll do the same. I've mostly been a blogging 'night owl,' but, because of Mr M's situation, periodically, I'l be able to catch the 'daytime' OTs for a change.

Wink

Seriously, I also fall into the category of thinking that the Dem Party is far too corrupt to save; albeit, it's not for me to tell anyone else that they must/should feel the same way. "To each, his own," as they say.

Have a good one . . .

Mollie/Blue Onyx (reverting to former handle)

"Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong."~~W. R. Purche

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Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@Unabashed Liberal Really, *really* glad to see you back, Mollie!

I'm always so happy when people poke their heads back up. Still hoping zoebear will come back one of these days.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

CS in AZ's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal

First, I too am hoping for Zoebear to return. She did contact me to say she’s been having some health issues and will be back when she’s able to. Keeping her in my thoughts.

Second, I’m also a Trek fan, from the very beginning, and I’m looking forward to the return of Picard in a new series.

About Discovery — if you’re judging the series based on that one line in the trailer, I think you’re missing out. The setting for that series is 10 years before the original series, and it starts at the very beginning of the war with the Klingons. The black female lead character you refer to, Michael Burnham, was aware of an ambush and that the Klingon leaders were gathering to start a war with the federation.

Plot summary of this early move: Burnham, desperate to prevent a war, attempts to fire on the Klingons first, against the wishes of Captain Philippa Georgiou. Burnham is arrested for mutiny.

In episode two, she is convicted and sentenced to life in prison for her mutiny. And the Klingons, of course, go ahead and launch the war. It goes on to become much, much more complicated, with her being “rescued” from a prison transport ship by a mysterious captain with a mysterious ship, and a supposed mission from Starfleet to do “whatever it takes” to defeat the Klingons, including “recruiting” her by breaking her out of prison. He tells her she was right to do what she did, and he needs her. But, she and we feel there’s something ... not right about him.

It all starts to come together in season 2 - secrets revealed. Not at all expected, where it goes.

Michael Burnham is a complicated character, and the plot is getting very twisty and surprisingly interesting now in season 2. It’s not a pro war show, but given the timeframe — during the Federation/Klingon war, the moral decisions faced by the characters involve some ambiguity at times, and they deal with these well.

Remember that all the other treks also all had times when characters were forced to, or decided to, violate the prime directive or break other of the federation’s “higher moral ground” rules. For reasons they deemed to demand or justify such actions. Burnham’s mutiny in the first episode is one of those moments. And she pays a very high price for it.

Give the show a chance. Stick with it to season 2. Things are not what they seem... Smile

No more spoilers... but I’d just say, don’t judge it by that one line in the trailer. It’s far more complex than that. I think it’s a great show, really enjoying it now.

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