It's like watching the film over and over again

I have even begun to forget where I came in. Depending on how old you are this might make sense to you. When I was a kid they ran movies over and over and you could come in at any point in the film. It was a long time until we evolved into the present mode.

So that means that people my age can identify with the news and political theater in a different way than those too young to have experienced this.

Another way of seeing what I am getting at is to remove the names and just leave the news stories. So and so has threatened so and so and congress has threatened to pass a bill doing such and such.

Someone gave a speech and someone else called them a liar. Someone announced that they will not run for office and someone else announced that they will.

There are (fires, storms, earthquakes, volcanos,....) in this place or that.

Plenty there to distract all of us from any clues about why we are where we are today. The clues were there when I was born over 81 years ago and they are still mainly unnoticed.

There were small groups of people who tried to wake the others up but you know how that went. It went pretty much like it is going now.

I'll be gone soon enough and won't get to see if my perception of this world is as accurate as it seems. It is just as well because nothing I can say or do will influence the way it unfolds.

My own life has been one reflection of our human condition. I have been curious and seeking answers since I can remember. My satisfaction with any answers I learned was far from complete so I dug deeper. I tried and eventually rejected religion. I didn't just try religion but I went after science, art, etc. Probably the last hold out of all this searching was a deep seated belief that his thing called "rationality" is real. It is supposed to distinguish us from the other animals. What a swindle! We even were honest enough to come up with the notion of rationalization. That is when we go back and put our actions and the thoughts behind them into a framework after the fact so we could go on claiming to be "rational".

So here we sit watching a film over and over again and giving the players new names and finding new pretenses for claiming we are rational.

I really don't want to play this game any more. I don't want to vote again and I don't want to be informed about my choices. The game is rigged and the outcome is already set up. Here in Virginia we have a Statewide election in November. The good guys champion voted for George Bush twice. Come on folks, that is not the kind of person we need but is there such a person?

So I am going to ignore the film and enjoy the trees and flowers in the woods behind the house. I can be grateful I have this since so few do.

Meanwhile, if you struggled reading this far comment about how you "rationalize" all of this. I am still trying to learn.

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Trees and flowers are life we need to soak in. They are real life and part of the cycle on which we depend and which we are part of.

Perhaps you can't influence the unfolding of some events, but you and your essays are a damn good influence here.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

mimi's picture

I used to joke about people, who pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a piece of land "with a view" on a hill to the shiny sea, saying you can't eat a view.
I don't joke anymore. There is some healing in having that view.
Enjoy your trees and flowers. It's healing too. All the best to you.

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snoopydawg's picture

Not with the number of ways that Russia has to interfere with the elections in the future. They will keep finding ways to keep us from electing any person except the ones that they want in power.

We've heard how Russian bots were on every website telling us not to vote for Hillary.
Then we found out that Russia bought $100,000 worth of ads on Facebook about the BLM protests because they wanted to start a race war between (?) other nefarious groups. Im not sure what they meant to accomplish, but I'm sure that Brennan will tell us someday.
Next, both Google and Twitter were hit by Russian bots that did something. Not sure what they did, but they did it. And it cost Hillary the election because they wanted Trump to be president and maybe he helped them let him win.

And now it appears that they used Pokémon Go to interfere with the election. Yep. Is nothing sacred? Pokémon Go is the fun game that got people up off their duffs to go for walks and find something. Now people won't be able to do that anymore because Russia took all the fun out of it.

I'm sure that you think I'm kidding about this. I wish to gawd that I was.

Russian-linked campaign used Pokémon Go to meddle in election

The mobile game app Pokémon Go was reportedly used by a Russian-linked campaign to meddle in U.S. politics.

CNN reported that a Russian-linked campaign called "Don't Shoot Us," likely run by Moscow-linked "troll farm" Internet Research Agency (IRA), used Pokémon Go — among several other mediums including Facebook and Twitter — and posed as a part of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The Moscow-linked actors appear to be the source of the campaign that had a goal to raise racial tensions by bringing up incidents of police brutality.

The campaign posted on its Tumblr page to urge users to play Pokémon Go as part of a contest. It encouraged users to find Pokémon in places where police brutality had happened and then to rename their Pokémon after the victims.

Im not sure how this means that Russia interfered with the election, but shirley a statement by the makers of Pokémon Go will let us know.

"It's clear from the images shared with us by CNN that our game assets were appropriated and misused in promotions by third parties without our permission," Niantic, the makers of Pokémon Go, said in a statement provided to CNN.

"It is important to note that Pokémon GO, as a platform, was not and cannot be used to share information between users in the app so our platform was in no way being used. This 'contest' required people to take screen shots from their phone and share over other social networks, not within our game. Niantic will consider our response as we learn more," the company said.

This certainly clears things up, right? Yeah, I'm not seeing the connection either.

Fortunately Caitlyn is on this shocking news and she will clear things up for us.
Take it away, Caty......

Russiagate Has Jumped The Bulbasaur

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

don mikulecky's picture

@snoopydawg From where I sit the elections have always been irrelevant anyway. Making their game like nature overt is helpful. I have likened them to theater over the years.

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An idea is not responsible for who happens to be carrying it at the time. It stands or it falls on its own merits.

snoopydawg's picture

IMG_1302.PNG

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Hillbilly Dem's picture

@snoopydawg "In America, you hunt for Pokeman. In Russia, Pokeman hunt for you! Whatta country!"

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"Just call me Hillbilly Dem(exit)."
-H/T to Wavey Davey

snoopydawg's picture

Exclusive: Even Pokémon Go used by extensive Russian-linked meddling effort

Russian efforts to meddle in American politics did not end at Facebook and Twitter. A CNN investigation of a Russian-linked account shows its tentacles extended to YouTube, Tumblr and even Pokémon Go.

The headline says meddling, but then the next part says this:

One Russian-linked campaign posing as part of the Black Lives Matter movement used Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Tumblr and Pokémon Go and even contacted some reporters in an effort to exploit racial tensions and sow discord among Americans, CNN has learned.

The campaign, titled "Don't Shoot Us," offers new insights into how Russian agents created a broad online ecosystem where divisive political messages were reinforced across multiple platforms, amplifying a campaign that appears to have been run from one source -- the shadowy, Kremlin-linked troll farm known as the Internet Research Agency.

I don't see how posting about BLM has any connection to interference with the election. But wouldn't it be a good thing for someone or some country to talk about how our justice system doesn't treat people equally? If the media won't talk about this, then what's the harm in bringing this to people's attention?

Remember how Hillary's bots refuse to admit that she and the DNC rigged the primary against Bernie? They accused of spreading conspiracy theories about why Bernie lost to Hillary by 4 million votes. This could be explained if millions of people were kicked off the voting rolls and had their party affiliation changed. But no...

I’m sure that all those people who claim to hate conspiracy theories (especially the rigged primary) will eat this Pokemon Go shit up like it was ice cream.

Heh Smile

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@snoopydawg

...I don't see how posting about BLM has any connection to interference with the election. ...

Hillary was (among multiple other incidences) quoted as saying that a certain mayor who actively concealed known evidence of police murder - and who was useful to Her - was fit to retain his job.

Her didn't see police murder of identifiable groups of American citizens as being a problem, having contributed considerably to their suffering and premature death Herself.

So criticizing the murder of People of Colour is criticizing those who support this, therefore affecting the Coronation of one who is, at best, OK with it, tacitly supporting those who enable direct routine police murders of citizens and cover them over to the point of withholding, if I recall correctly, video evidence of one such murder being demanded for about a year before being forced to finally hand it over.

It is unFlag-worthy to criticize the police state for their murder of any of the Disposables forming the population and everyone should simply shut up and wait their own turn in a patriotic manner. Or else. You are obviously 'with the terrorists Russians' and are subject to potentially being arrested or simply disappeared.

America is The World's Greatest Democracy, and if you don't pin that to your flag-pin in some prominent area and stop thinking at once! they'll know who's One Of The Enemies in The War On The World.

How can you tell that Cheney 's advising the Trump Admin. and that the Bush League Neocons are riding high again, like The Old Man of the Sea*?

This makes me Bern...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Man_of_the_Sea

...Sinbad the Sailor encountered the monstrous Old Man of the Sea on his fifth voyage. The Old Man of the Sea in the Sinbad tales was said to trick a traveler into letting him ride on his shoulders while the traveler transported him across a stream. However, the Old Man would then not release his grip, forcing his victim to transport him wherever he pleased and allowing his victim little rest. The Old Man's victims all eventually died of this miserable treatment, but Sinbad, after having got the Old Man drunk with wine, was able to shake him off and kill him. ...

Edit to add that the ludicrous Pokemon Go claim, evidently sponsored by someone indulging in the produce of exotic CIA-profiting Afghan fields, was probably plunked out there because their claims of what appear to be click-bait ads (many of these that I see all over the internet seemingly using random photos often entirely unrelated to the topic introduced, making me wonder why anyone would ever click on them for anything other than a giggle and some computer viruses) being 'a Commie conspiracy' are not holding their own water and are peeing desperation all over the universe.

http://theduran.com/new-york-times-admits-that-those-facebook-russia-ads...

New York Times admits that those Facebook “Russia Ads” were made in the USA
NYT reveals that most “Russia Ads” were made by Americans.
by Alex Christoforou Alex Christoforou October 11, 2017, 19:06

Russian trolls influencing the US election on a budget of $100,000 on Facebook.

Actually the New York Times is now admitting (though they probably do not realize it) that those Russian trolls were really American trolls, as NYT admits that almost all of the content promoted by the Russia-backed Facebook groups was created by Americans, much of it by conservative news websites like the Conservative Tribune.

Via the New York Times…

“A New York Times examination of hundreds of those posts shows that one of the most powerful weapons that Russian agents used to reshape American politics was the anger, passion and misinformation that real Americans were broadcasting across social media platforms. ...

...“This is cultural hacking,” said Jonathan Albright, research director at Columbia University’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism. “They are using systems that were already set up by these platforms to increase engagement. They’re feeding outrage – and it’s easy to do, because outrage and emotion is how people share.”

As has been widely reported, groups that have been identified by Facebook as being clandestinely created by Russians reflected a range of political views. For example, pages that carried pro-Black Lives Matter messages, or content highlighting discrimination against the US’s Muslim population. ...

So what they want to do is to solidify the pretence that all documented fact belying their propaganda, all dissent and objection to the police state which is made by the American people - represented most prominently in Federal politics by Bernie Sanders, who The Psychopaths and Parasites That Be on the Dem wing of the Two-Faced Trade-off Corporate Party hate needing as 'their' human face, as he shows the public how hazardous, pathologically greedy and callous they are by contrast - is 'misinformation' and that the American people are siding with 'The Enemy', formed of the free/non-psychopathic world of people, by objecting to being repressed, drained and casually/expediently murdered by The Psychopaths That Be.

And they are not going to convince the very large segment of the American public, who are being labelled as 'The Enemy' because they want their democracy and basic human/Constitutional rights back from TPTB stealing them, that they are wrong about this and purportedly rightfully labeled as 'The Enemy' or 'misinformed' about not wanting a murderous police state imposed upon them by hostile and lunatic self-interests stealing their rights, power, wealth, country and future for TPTB's planned hostile global corporate/military - fascist - takeover.

Re-edited to add an explanatory bit to the quote (and a word to my commentary, to avoid confusion in a sentence), to clarify the point. They are 'justifying' censorship, discrimination against and murder of identifiable groups (needing no Yellow Star enforced) fascism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_badge

...
Yellow badges (or yellow patches), also referred to as Jewish badges (German: Judenstern, lit. Jews' star), are badges that Jews and Christians[1] were ordered to sew on their outer garments to mark them as Jews and Christian in public at certain times in certain countries, serving as a badge of shame.[2] ...

...Nazi Europe
Yellow badge made mandatory by the Nazis in France

After the German invasion of Poland in 1939 there were initially different local decrees requiring Jews to wear a distinctive sign under the General Government. The sign was a white armband with a blue Star of David on it; in the Warthegau a yellow badge in the form of a Star of David on the left side of the breast and on the back.[20] The requirement to wear the Star of David with the word Jude (German for Jew) inscribed in faux-Hebrew letters was then extended to all Jews over the age of six in the Reich and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (by a decree issued on September 1, 1941, signed by Reinhard Heydrich[21][22]) and was gradually introduced in other German-occupied areas, where local words were used (e.g., Juif in French, Jood in Dutch).

Thus, contrary to a widespread belief, Jews within Germany were not required to wear distinctive signs for most of the Third Reich period. One observer reported that the star sparked hat tipping from non-Nazi Germans toward German Jews, most likely as a gesture of support. In Czechoslovakia, the government had to ban hat tipping toward Jews, as well as other gestures that became popular as protests against the German occupation. A whispering campaign that claimed that the action was in response to the United States government requiring German Americans to wear swastikas was unsuccessful.[23] ...

(Psychopaths always seem to accuse others of what they do themselves... although I hadn't realized that this sort of identifying feature was not imposed on German Jews anywhere near the extent I'd thought.)

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

k9disc's picture

help but wonder and figure out how it's made, or what it means.

The latter part of this piece reminds me George Carlin after he gave up his "dispassionate observer" persona in the 80s and 90s. In the 00s, he changed his tune and was, fairly obviously, quite passionate about things.

I think you've given us a nice literary critique here. You've identified the redundant, hackneyed story line.

Thing is that the rest of us are starting to get wise to the hackneyed narrative. It's going to get exciting; I hope. Not saying it's going to be great or anything, but it ain't gonna be hackneyed.

Your systemic critique of our sociopolitical system is distilling down to it's essence; you're not the only one who's gone there. You might have gone further than most, given the rigorous academic standard you've set for yourself, but you were on the leading edge. Don Mikulecky -- Leading Edge, Professional Indicator™.

I have appreciated your work for over a decade, man. Might not have been as powerful a force for change as you would have liked, I don't think any of us here are going to get that satisfaction, maybe a couple of the youngsters, but you participated and pushed in the right direction, and they will have to deal with the shit that people like you, and I believe all of us here wrought.

Such is the story of history...

I'm curious as to what's going to remain for posterity from the early years of the internet. It certainly could be some AMAZING archeology.

Peace, Don, and thanks a bunch for your thoughts and ideas. They are a part of my understanding, and I'm grateful to have read so much of it.

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“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu

Raggedy Ann's picture

regarding the state we are in and how some are attempting to change things. The comment stated, "it's not enough to play the game, we must change the game." I'm in full agreement with this and hope the young are able to achieve that change. We only have to allow time to pass to find out if this comes to fruition. My fingers are crossed.

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

As a child, we just went to the show. No Disney pictures to entertain the kids, just whatever was playing on the big screen.

I still vacillate between giving a shit and not, voting or not. Then I realize it doesn't matter what I think or do, so I will vacillate until I don't.

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"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon

jobu's picture

THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US

The world is too much with us: late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. -- Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
William Wordsworth

Poetry always helps, always. Thanks Don from a fellow movie-goer.

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Everybody thinks they're the rational ones and people who disagree are being irrational. Since I'm the rational one here in my own head, as everybody else is in theirs, I'll explain it all. We see something happen that shakes our world and we instantly have a gut reaction to it. Since we're so tied to the mass media, were often told what our gut reaction should be by creative editing and other tools of the echo chamber. Any "rationalization" we do, comes after this gut reaction and is completely within the context of this gut reaction. It's almost impossible to see outside of this context.

I think the USSR explosion of their first a-bomb is an example. Everybody had a gut reaction towards that shaped by the hostility of the media towards communism. Suddenly everything was in the context of communism vs. the free world and it was near impossible to see any other factors that might be just as relevant, but did not fit in that box. When the Vietnamese thought that the end of World War II might mean the end of a long period of terribly exploitive colonialism, they looked to the US, as a leading power that had itself fought and beat colonialism, for help. But it was impossible for anybody here in the US to see that rationale because we already had a gut reaction that told us that the "Free World" is at war with the evil communists. Of course, Stalin was evil, but to apply that to the situation in Vietnam was completely irrational. We all know how "rational" everybody acted after that. We're probably barking up the wrong tree here on a lot of things because we think we're all being the rational ones.

I think that is the argument of Nobel Prize winning economist/psychologist Daniel Kahneman, which I learned about while watching a very good online course on Javascript. It seems to apply to learning computer programming as well.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

don mikulecky's picture

@Timmethy2.0 I have many published works relating to this in refereed journals. Here's one: Causality and Complexity: The Myth of Objectivity in Science

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@don mikulecky

Thanks for the link

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Beware the bullshit factories.

moneysmith's picture

than I could. Your essay is so good it actually made me log in again and leave a comment, something I haven't done for months. I've been telling my husband that I don't want know what's going on in politics anymore, but I like the way you said it better.

I really don't want to play this game any more. I don't want to vote again and I don't want to be informed about my choices. The game is rigged and the outcome is already set up.

YES!! That's it exactly. Why bother? Life is just too short to spend more of it pulling out my hair over any of this.I just want to spend my time with outstanding books, with trees and flowers, watch the sun rise and set, look for interesting rocks and take pictures of clouds -- seems like a better use of my time.

I'm almost 70, and like you I've seen this movie already and it wasn't that good the first time. Anyway, thank you for writing this. You made me see that I haven't really given up. I've just reordered my priorities.

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Hell is empty and all the devils are here. William Shakespeare