The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

The Theocratic Mantra Of Our Age

Article by Stirling Newberry

It is difficult reaching the impossible to critique the theocratic mantra of an age. This is true because the raison d’être for engaging in a debate must be that the joint assumptions of the political spectrum are true.

This is not, then, a political argument about two differing sides but about the ur-narrative. Certain assumptions cannot be questioned, those questions which are part of the theocratic mantra of the age. But this means that on any given issue, most members of the elite, whether intellectual, sociopolitical, economic, or literary, will not be able to oppose certain actions because they will not be able to articulate a reason why.

This was the case in 2001 when the bombing of the Twin Towers and assorted other targets was juggled into a war against Iraq. The Iraqi leader the time, Saddam Hussein he had escaped certain destruction in the previous war because the then-president counted in the costs and made a reasonable decision that, on balance, it was not worth the cost for the extraction of one leader, given what had to be the outcome in Iraq of chaos, which was then then the opinion of a great number of experts in the middle east. When in 2001 the chance of erasing the failure to eradicate a dictator was brought up again a very different president was in office, and a different equation was laid for the American public.

Remove Saddam Hussein, and set up a democracy.

This narrative had to be looked at as reasonable even though the premise was completely absurd. Several people left because they could not enunciate the fundamental absurdity of a democratic Iraq. There was no democratic Iraq on the table, nor was there a Democratic Libya—nor a Democratic Egypt.

Once one looked into the mouth of the dragon one would see that for a very long period the choices were an absolute dictator or some version of breakdown into madness. The only possible road was to create the preconditions for a dissolution of the Iraq state into more congenial regions. The results of the war to unseat a dictator was exactly this: since there was no dismantling of parts then the result was a controlled dissolution. The word ISIS had not been invented but it is concept was already staring back at anyone who looked at the map and who read the relevant papers.

In other words, the entire idea of removing a dictator and setting up a democratically elected alternative was simply not possible in any realistic sense. And as a result, the questions which had to be answered were never even asked. One could gloss over an op-ed but the real question was simply not to be considered in any believable way. The longest war in American history was spent avoid thinking the real question.

When I say the theocratic mantra, I mean that quite literally. We believe in a neoliberal neoconservative economic system which has as its roots a neoclassical vision of a mass of humanity making logical economic decisions. This vision is absurd and the vision must be taken on a force of logic to an unparalleled Truth. This does not mean that all other forms are rational: many of them are equally irrational in different ways. One can look at numerous Marxian ideas. They have a different irrefutable logic which is also wrong but to argue from 1st principles as to why it is wrong would take a dissertation.

What happens then is the realistic numbers of society drop away one after another when some specific rule that they know must be true and yet cannot be admitted has to be broken for the sake of the bedrock rules that govern debate. You must be Civil and reasonable within the context of an uncivil and unreasonable system. The men and women who can do this can write several articles a week or do a paper per semester or some other measure of output per unit input. However, the end comes when the substructure of debate is proven to be false. This has happened with the Great Recession over 10 years ago, but the system which runs debate has continued and only become more ornate and Byzantine as it has done so. There are enormous numbers of people who believe in a dead system because they want something which that system allows. Oftentimes that belief is not possible under the rules of scientific or practical elucidation.

When you have at least 40% of the population wanting to believe irrational things, and another 40% which wants a logic which is not functional, there is a great deal of logically valid and scientifically correct data which will not be allowed as a given.

In short, we argue over things that have already been proven to be true. I do not need to listen to President Trump to know that he simply lies. However, his overt lies are a result of the fact that there has been for 40 years a gradually building consensus for a covert set of lies.The system which created the confluence of events which led to him taking the oath of office is in no way related to any system of reality worthy of attention.

An example is the data that oil is producing negative value every single day.

The reason it does so is also well known: a few benefit tremendously while the vast majority pays a small consequence which when summed is far greater than the benefits to the few. On the scale of a global population, there is no other answer than to wind down most of the fossil fuel. But there is a large population of elites who own their tranche by holding some bottleneck in the fossil fuel economy, even though it may be several steps removed. The reason Americans are fat is that it is much cheaper to import vast quantities of calories than to do other things to make us happy. It is a gourmand oriented system rather than a gourmet oriented system.

This means that what qualifies as our society’s argument is anything but, instead it is trying to avoid the fundamental questions so that the argument can go on. This does not mean removing fundamental tensions and maladaptations will make everything harmonious or arguable. Europe has a great deal of tension in its debate and has a number of glaring errors in basic areas: health science, transportation, and locality in specific.

People who live in a particular area to not want to see their livelihood vanish in a puff of smoke, even though on the net they are actually producing devaluation. The reason they live where they do is that otherwise everyone would live in a few cities to the point where it would be a Metropolitan conglomerate separated by rural hinterlands. It is better to allow them to produce nonfunctional products and live outside the Metropolitan areas than to force them to agglomerate themselves into the hive, or at least a slow process is better than rapid progress.

Here in America, the basic problem with the system is the capitalization of non-capitalizable functions, such as public health and a basic living standard for individuals. There is a reason why the rest of the developed world realizes that only at the very low end of the spectrum is their profit to be made from such activities. The reason we do so is that there needs to be one military power to enforce stability. This is again a cost-benefits analysis subject: there are 3 methods.

A great powers systems rely on many factors and each one can secure, and this means by force, a coterie of followers who rely on a secured benefit. Then there is the duopoly most recently seen in the Cold War, where slightly over half of humanity is better precisely because the other half runs affairs in a different way. Then there is the superpower system where one country supplies the military stability. It is no accident that the British Imperial system has been duplicated in the American Empire – they are both superpower systems.

What this means is that the supreme military system actually lives worse outside of the various centers. This become especially true when the fundamental axioms of its argument are proved wrong but must still be abided by. This happened with World War I in the British Imperial system, and it happened with the Great Recession in ours. But as the saying goes “just because a problem goes away does not mean the people tasked with solving the problem go away as well.” Thus we have capitalizion of non-capitalizable assets as the road to financialization profits, even though it does not work. (A friend has written Goliath on just such a topic.)

The system itself will fall not because of its components, but by the nature of its assumptions. The assumptions are not just wrong but wrong-headed. And the way to keep one’s place in the melange of discourse is to bury one’s head in the sand to clear objections. One must also leave in place the substrata of the world economy and its intellectual basis, which are not wrong but they are assumptions, not facts.

Thus the world is changing from a single superpower to a duopoly even as we speak, it will be a long time before it makes the transition, but the time is a great deal shorter than it was in 2001.

 

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41 Comments

  1. bruce wilder

    When you have at least 40% of the population wanting to believe irrational things, and another 40% which wants a logic which is not functional, there is a great deal of logically valid and scientifically correct data which will not be allowed as a given.

    In the mechanical age, there were always many would-be mechanics eager to understand how the new machines worked and to invent new ones. Now that we live in an information age, obfuscation rules the day. College administration is notorious for its kudzu-like growth. I had to read this today: http://www.imsglobal.org/basic-overview-how-lti-works I submit that it serves as its own parody.

  2. curbstompneolibs

    More like 80% of the population wanting to believe irrational things. You think Dem voters are any more rational than Trumpers? LOL. They\’re rehabilitating GWB because he shared a lozenge with Michelle Obama. They were telling people to go to Chinatown at the beginning of the pandemic and downplaying the efficacy of wearing masks. GTFOH, Stirling.

  3. Hugh

    I sort of feel that climate change and overpopulation will cause the world to fall apart before the bipolar competition can assume Cold War proportions.

    “One must also leave in place the substrata of the world economy and its intellectual basis, which are not wrong but they are assumptions, not facts.”

    I do not understand this. Billions live under the oppression of those assumptions. For them, they are facts, they are wrong, and they are getting killed by them.

  4. Stirling S Newberry

    >College administration is notorious for its kudzu-like growth.

    It is what is killing universities.

  5. Stirling Newberry

    > You think Dem voters are any more rational than Trumpers?

    Your taxonomy is muddled.

  6. Synpotocon

    The system of reality may not be worthy of attention, but the system of unreality – in which this discourse is firmly embedded, to the point of largely creating it’s current manifestation – emphatically is.

  7. Plague Species

    What we have, when it comes to politics at least and most everything else for that matter with the advent of social media, is a herd mentality which leads to herd immunity. Immunity from what? Not COVFEFE-19, that’s for sure. No, what we have instead, much to my chagrin, is immunity from sanity, that’s what. Hence, people protesting against masks. Hence a failure by those losing the war to see civilization as it’s now constituted and maybe it always was this way, as a class war. They’ve been herded. We’ve been herded. It’s not difficult to see how McCarthy’s The Road is a realistic and quite probable apocalyptic scenario. Trump could easily erase the taboo of cannibalism and his supporters would follow him. Trump has proven how easy it is to devolve into tribal anything, tribal cannibalism included. We’re almost there. The cities, the country, the planet, are already beginning to burn. The Constitution was burned long ago. States are losing their grip on power. Civilization, not just America, is collapsing. It’s already gnarly and nasty for the dispossessed but it promises to absolutely nightmarish compared to what we see now. It will be Rwanda writ large without end until no one, or hardly anyone, is left. Good to the last drop.

  8. I ran with “flees agitating the hide of a far greater organism” for a long time, Plague, though it seems to fly at about seven feet. Of late I’ve been working “planet lice, cosmic crotch crabs” in where I can but it too appears to be a little too lofty for the average basement dweller. I salute you.

    Herd mentality: bare-footed barely literate rubes sprawled drooling Pavlovianly across a “couch” the back seat out of a ninety sixty-nine Chevy Suburban glued to the tube drunk as a skunk ‘n stone to the bone on the Ambien, Prozac, Viagra and bimbo bottle-blonde crotchshots on Fox News Kool-Aid, blindly following a charismatic “leader” to suicide.

    Dragging the rest of us with ’em.

  9. Plague Species

    How far we’ve come. And yet we were always here, we just didn’t know it. Or most of didn’t.

    Guess who said it and when and about what? No cheating.

    We need honest, reasoned debate not fear mongering. To those who pit Americans against immigrants and citizens against noncitizens, to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America’s enemies, and pause to America’s friends. They encourage people of goodwill to remain silent in the face of evil.

    The irony is so stark, it may as well be Kevlar versus pea soup.

  10. anon y'mouse

    yes, it is precisely the people on the bottom with almost zero power that are to blame.

    if we just kill them off, then we will have bliss.

    /sarc

  11. Hugh

    anon y’mouse, I agree. For the top 20%, the rest of us are superfluous trash.

  12. Hugh

    Seems like if Trump isn’t having a psychotic (i.e. theocratic) break one of his goofs is. Barr compared stay at home orders to slavery. And said that Black Lives Matter was using black people killed by the police as props for their “wider agenda.” Of course if police stopped killing African-Americans for no reason, this would undercut his fictitious reasoning but this is way too advanced a concept for Herr Barr.

  13. Frank

    Just because you don\’t like the logic doesn\’t mean it\’s not there. If the 1% can get 27% to kill the rest of the 99%, it makes the oil based American lifestyle last longer for them. The 27% really want to kill the rest of us anyway. The just want an excuse.

  14. Plague Species

    It was John Ashcroft, the then Attorney General, per his Congressional testimony in December of 2001 in the wake of 9/11. He has described Odonald bin Trump perfectly. What Ashcroft decried, a dubious source for this message all things considered, the current POTUS is and some. Ashcroft’s admonition is part of the theocratic creed, but as we know, it’s pure bologna. It’s what they have to say even though they don’t mean it and they don’t abide by it. Trump has thrown the bologna away and is serving shit straight away. There’s no longer any need for pretense.

    Hey Fat Billy Barr. What do you say and think about John Ashcroft’s theocratic creed? Let them eat cornpone and hogjaw? Fat Billy, riddle me this. Considering Trump is an adherent of herd mentality as it relates to the pandemic, it means he is ready, willing and able to sacrifice 6.5 million American lives in the process if herd mentality is even possible with this virus considering Bannon has claimed it is lab made in China versus lab made in America. Is it any wonder Noor bin Laden is a huge supporter of your boy in the Oval Office and considers it imperative that he’s elected again for a second term? He is doing what her cloistered feckless uncle could not do — bring the mighty America, the Great Satan, to its knees. And you’re helping him, Fat Billy. Gleefully. Arrogantly. Take note, blood cult cannibals. Fat Billy has substantial marbling. He’ll be quite a tender, succulent feast.

  15. bruce wilder

    any kind of thesis concerning “the age we live in” invites an inquiry into what is different and what is the same. humans are the story-telling animal and I suppose our species has always been credulous to some large extent: we love a good story and we love a “true” story as long as the “truth” of the story is meaningful and magical. “The truth will set you free” is an invitation to unquestioned faith, after all.

    as I ponder the inability of our elites to articulate a critical thought or, as Stirling says, to “oppose certain actions because they will not be able to articulate a reason why” it does seem to me a key to what is different this time.

    the vehemence of arguments between two “different sides” is less remarkable than the inability of either to engage with the other about whatever issue concerns them. their shared assumptions leave so little to dispute that they dispute nothing, beating each other with sticks that have no point.

    is it because they sense the world (aka political construction of a shared reality) around them will crumble if they touch it to see if it is “really there”?

  16. S Brennan

    Stirling Newberry officiously commented on this thread, “Your taxonomy is muddled.” when somebody had the temerity to suggest “You think Dem voters are any more rational than Trumpers” ?

    Well there you have it, Stirling Newberry is the final [and scientific] judge as to what constitutes what. If Stirling says it’s not in the same classification, that’s science speaking, that’s the final word, sorta like imperial rule, but scientific you know? To suggest otherwise is defy scientific doctrine…never mind, there are no doctrines in science…get with the program, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Hillary never lied on anything of consequence, only Trump did. Now get that dammed dog away from the curtain Dorthy!

    Nope, those like Stirling are the scientific Dr. Strangeloves of out time.

    “You see” as Peter Sellers playing Dr. Strangelove would say “the Russians must of helped Trump because he is a RUSSIAN SPY !!! Ah..hah…yes..yes..that’s it, that explains it all..my loss of precious bodily fluids…my love of everything Obama..yes..yes..mein Führer!” The scene fades to black as we hear Hillary laughing in the background…first we see high altitude aerial dogfights over Syria then we watch as one H-bomb after another explodes on the screen..we hear marshal drums and Hillary repeatedly cackling to the beat “We came. We saw. He Died”.

    Yes Stirling, anybody who questions your argument* certainly has their “taxonomy muddled”.

    *Only Trump, certainly not Clinton, certainly not Bush [the 2nd], certainly not Obama, certainly not Hillary, only Trump..yes..yes, there will be no muddling of taxonomy here…move along folks, move along.

  17. Willy

    Pharaohs used to ride around on luxurious gold trimmed couches with poles sticking out, which their humble servants solemnly carried all over the place. I probably would’ve been that guy who upon seeing the gilded-god-pharaoh picking his nose, woulda said: “I dunno… looks to me like just another guy.” And of course I probably would’ve been stoned to death.

    I guess there’s always been people around who think they’re better than everybody because they believe they’re a god. I’ve known a few. But what’s up with the need for so many regular folks to want to believe them that too?

    I remember when Trump was just another yahoo candidate and Jerry Falwell Jr. changed the game by throwing his full support behind him and all the evangelicals followed. Recently it’s been suggested by Trumps own fixer Cohen, that Trump wanted Falwell’s recommendation in exchange for having Cohen do coverup duties for Falwell being a sex pervert. So now we see the maskless supplicants at Trump rallies, actively rejecting realities, just to be willing to die for their God-king.

    It seems like a match made in heaven, that is, if you believe that God made Satan just a bit too powerful and now Satan has locked God up in some kind of metaphysical box somewhere and Satan is posing as God, thereby explaining all the batshit crazy. While regular guy leaders want to lead regular guys on quests of rational greatness, these god-kings would rather lead crazy people on quests of pure folly.

    I know that even those “elites” aren’t entirely incompetent. They just want to get their power jollies, like that time the dictator of San Marcos made everybody wear their underwear on the outside. As for the supplicants, I really wish they’d just cut their nuts off and enter heavens gate already.

  18. Stirling Newberry

    “Stirling Newberry officiously commented on this thread,”

    It is called logic. No, I did not define it.

  19. Willy

    Maybe this taxonomy of which we speak depends on the Trump supporter? I know a few of his who wanted him to burn it all down. Not entirely crazy after Obama hopey changed little of anything. But is this the way they wanted it burned down?

    I’m open to the possibility that Trump is actually a covert genius, and his advanced intellect has calculated that the way he’s going, is the only way to properly burn things down. And then the phoenix shall rise from the ashes. But it sure looks like his staunchest supporters want to virtue signal themselves, and America, to death. What’s up with that?

    I hand the mic to S. Brennan to carefully explain what I obviously cannot.

  20. Trinity

    key to what is different this time

    Dream on that it’s different this time. People who think this also think they are special (which is why it’s different this time. It has to be, because they are special.)

    It’s not different. Hundreds of years have been wasted telling the Western Europeans that their model of culture, society, and economics cannot be sustained. Here in the US, indigenous peoples told them the same thing. Did they listen? Clearly, they did not. It did inform their decision whether to murder or merely enslave (and convert) the native peoples, though.

    I don’t know about you, but one fact apparent to me from my 50-odd years on this rock is that the vast majority of humans must learn things “the hard way”. I’ll bet most of you have a story to tell along those lines. That’s what we are seeing: some idiots with a lot of power learning things the hard way (because they have a better safety net than the rest of us) and dragging the rest of us with them. Pretty much what the relatives of the majority who died on the Titanic (mostly poor, steerage) would describe about that little clusterfact: poor planning, poor management, poor decision making, lots of hubris, lifeboats for the rich, this should all sound very familiar. The scale is much bigger now, of course, if you MUST have something that makes this “different this time.”

    You can lament what is lost (an increasingly insane higher education system, the worst possible culture possible, rule by insane narcissists and sociopaths, etc.) or celebrate the end of an era that needs to end, your choice. Because what I’m seeing is that the wheel is turning, the old saw “what goes around, comes around”, also known as just plain old karma. The laws of the universe dictate a cyclical nature embedded in everything, from stars, to planets, to trees, to atoms, and everything in between. What goes up, must eventually come down.

    As far as stupid people? The narrative changes over time, like fashion, but it’s goals are always the same, from the “Christians” insisting you will burn in hell if you don’t give them money (but knowing they themselves will not) to fake dreams of four hour work weeks, flying cars, endless leisure, and a chicken in every pot. More recently, the narrative has been only one thing: create fear, then offer a scapegoat. What to fear and which scapegoat is on offer changes (if you INSIST that it’s different this time).

    Ordinary people have to decide what to believe, while dealing with lack of money, lack of jobs, lack of affordable housing, lack of food, or all of the above. Organized religion is a con, neoliberalism is a con, but poor people believing what they are told by con artists are the same people with almost zero time for reflection (let alone self reflection), an almost useless education (enough to sign the loan papers, but not enough to read them, let alone understand them). These people are absolutely no different than someone believing things are “different this time.”

    Those of you choosing to blame the people who control absolutely nothing? Shame on you. You’ve bought just another con, and are no different than they.

    Fear, and scapegoats. That’s it. That’s what they want you to feel, and what they want you to do. They want you to turn on each other. Well done.

  21. S Brennan

    Willy;

    About 30% of Trump’s 2016 voters, much more so in swing states, voted for Obama 2008. Riddle me that Joker?

    A vote FOR Trump might just be a vote AGAINST the DNCers as they now exist…yes?

    A vote FOR Trump may be a vote AGAINST allowing the DLC’s DNC to continue ramming their dicks up FDR’s legacy…no?

    Too complicated for some to understand and maybe for you Willy? So be it.

    With Trump gone in four years the FDRists will have a chance again, particularly since, by then most of the clueless Bernie voters will realize they have been made fools of twice. But if Biden wins it will be 12 years before FDRists have a chance again. If Biden leaves office after the mid-terms we’ll have 10 years of Kamala to choose against a generic R…or…more bluntly, two shit sandwiches. Plus a few more neocolonial wars.

    Oh, look over there, a shiny new AOC…yeah..yeah..she’s the new Bernie !!! Bernie’s my hero, I’m going to vote for AOC…you know she and Nancy Pelosi get along really well !!! Yeah..Yeah..AOC !!!

    Or, maybe not, maybe the “left” in America is just a bunch of fools looking for shiny objects in the middle of the road.
    ================
    And because many “vote blue…no matter who” here are studiously obtuse about my well published views, Tulsi Gabbard was my choice this year, as always, I will not be voting for my choice, I will be voting against the evil of two lessors.

    Yes..yes..the Bernie Sanders camp had Tulsi pegged..she’s a Russian Spy…she’s a Hindu nationalist…she wants to help Assad gas people but…now that she supports Biden alongside Bernie, we take it all back..just kidding..ha..ha!

  22. different clue

    @Trinity,

    ” The Mills of God grind slowly,
    but they grind exceeding small.
    They neither rush nor tarry,
    but exactly grind They all.”

  23. Hugh

    Things are different this time in the sense that climate change and overpopulation are already having catastrophic effects and these are only beginning. It doesn’t matter how much anyone denies climate change or overpopulation. Most of what’s coming is already baked in because too many people think it isn’t different. That it is the same old same old.

  24. Willy

    Thanks S. Brennan. (taking back the mic) S. Brennan, everybody!

    Damn, there’s spittle all over this thing. Anybody got a rag?

    A vote FOR Trump may be a vote AGAINST allowing the DLC’s DNC to continue ramming their dicks up FDR’s legacy…no?

    Trump just said that ‘left-wing indoctrination’ in schools is responsible for our nation’s current chaos. He said that he’ll create a national commission to push more ‘pro-American’ history, whatever the hell that means. I’m guessing Trumpism. Trump is no friend of the worker.
    Trump is no friend of anything outside of his mindless zombie army. In fact, at the end of the day not even them. So you’re hoping that he’ll burn it all down and the DNC will learn a lesson.
    You may well get your wish. Just be sure to have your guns loaded.

    Write in Tulsi if you have to. Hell, write in Reagan. But anybody actively voting Trump is a fool.

    Progressives should forget the presidency and focus on the congressional, state and local levels, with the hope that they can form a strong enough unified front which will makes things increasingly uncomfortable for the DNC elites. Learning how to educate/deprogram your partisan friends may be useful. Be sure to report your success or failure stories here.

  25. different clue

    The manmade global warming denialists can shout their denial as loud as they like. No matter how loud they shout, the drowning polar bears gurgle louder.

  26. Ché Pasa

    Trumpism survives because it makes his fans feel good. I have this straight from fervent Trump supporters in my extended family. They felt awful under Obama, not that great under Bush 2, awful under Clinton, and GREAT under Trump.

    He makes them feel good. It really is that simple. As for those who don’t? Enh, they should get over it.

    All our intricate analysis and Deep Thought about politics and its various attributes and personalities doesn’t matter much in the end. It may not matter at all.

  27. Plague Species

    A necessary and crucial feature of the theocratic mantra is that you DO NOT throw the book at your so-called political opposition, especially and particularly former presidents. Gerald Ford got the ball rolling with this feature by preemptively, as if this is even constitutionally justifiable, pardoning Richard Nixon. Fat Billy Barr is currently at the center of this feature. A number of key personnel are always in place to ensure this feature remains sacrosanct. Mueller is one such Fixer. Fat Billy Barr is another. Barr, for example, neutralized any potential accountability fallout from the crimes of Iran-Contra and now he’s doing the same with Trump’s laundry list of crimes to include Trump’s effective “gassing” of his own people much as Hussein and Assad were accused of doing and their countries were slated for destruction under that premise. Obama effectively pardoned George W. Bush for his crimes against humanity and now Michelle and Shrub are like kindergarten buddies sharing candy and guffawing with one another. Obama then went on to perform his own crimes against humanity and now Trump is doing the same because, in case you didn’t know but should know, that’s job one for any POTUS. They must perform crimes against humanity. It’s per the rules of The Game. The theocratic mantra states as much in the unwritten text.

    Pursuant to this perspective, Biden, once again, because the apparatchiks are combing the internet and have read my scathing critiques and rebukes, stated in his town hall blibber blabber that Trump’s “handling” of the pandemic is “almost” criminal. This is Biden effectively saying that he will honor the theocratic mantra of absolving his predecessor, should he be elected and Trump leaves office, of all crimes, even the crime of Trump “gassing” his own people, a crime which served as the premise for America destroying other countries and throwing them into perpetual chaos with all the attendant suffering and death that goes with that.

    No dice, Joe, I’m not voting for you. You are not the answer to Trump. You and your endemically-corrupt and malevolent ilk gave us Trump and if you’re elected you’ll give us someone ten times Trump after your reign as Mass Murderer In Chief. I will be voting for no one, not even down ticket. This is not a democracy. These candidates are not our choices, they are the choices of the wealthy elite who own the corporations who fund the various candidates we are told to vote for because this is a democracy and we should be happy we have the right to vote for shit sandwiches.

    I look forward to the day the whole lot of them are roasting over spitfires as the blood cults grunt and groan as their decorated cadavers pop and hiss before they’re devoured. Damn you all to hell. May you reap what you have sown in spades.

  28. Plague Species

    Fealty to Israel is also a key feature of the theocratic mantra. The Dems are half-hearted about Trump because they win either way. Trump is making the wealthy wealthier. The Dems , the REAL DEMS or the ones who count, are wealthy. So, if they lose the election, they are made wealthier. If they win, they are still wealthy and getting wealthier. Who loses either way? Us, the unwashed, that’s who. To advocate voting for Trump, let alone Biden, all things considered, is insane.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-deserves-nobel-peace-prize-israel-bahrain-uae-deal-it-ncna1240363

    Shmuel Rosner is a Tel Aviv-based senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times and the political editor of The Jewish Journal. His new book, co-authored with Camil Fuchs, is “#IsraeliJudaism, Portrait of a Cultural Revolution.”

    He’s an opinion writer for The New York Times. More proof that politics is a coin in the pocket of the wealthy elite. They flip it every four years and whatever the result, they win and we lose.

    The Nobel Peace Prize is a weapon at this point in the ongoing class war where the unwashed are getting smashed day in and day out precisely because they fail to see they are in a war. Obama didn’t deserve such an award any more than Trump deserves such an award. The recent Israeli peace deals are, quite literally, about arms sales. Those weapons changing hands will be used in the class war to further smash the unwashed. And for this, this creep Shmuel Rosner wants Trump to be given an award because Obama got one? Get out of my face with this paralyzing regressive nonsense.

  29. KT Chong

    I used to work in the polling industry for awhile. Nowadays the whole polling industry is a big fraud and detached from reality. The industry is dominated by neoliberal technocrats, SJW and woke identitarians, (i.e., those college-educated/brainwashed “analysts”), and those nutjobs are more interested in “building/controlling the narrative” than to actually do their goddamned jobs neutrally and objectively. If they see some poll data or results that they do not like, then they just find/make up some excuses and rationales to dismiss and explain away the undesirable data/results.

    All those SJW and woke identitarians have the ridiculous delusional mindset that, if they can control the narrative, then they can bend the reality to their will. They think we are living in the fucking Matrix. Which is why SJW and woke identitarians are so obsessed with silencing dissidents and cancelling anyone and everyone who disagrees with their worldview: they really think that, if they can control the narrative, then they can bend the reality into what they want it to be.

    They think if they can manipulate polls into showing Biden will win, then Biden WILL win. They think their manufactured “polls” can bend reality and deliver the election outcome they want. It is the same reason why the 2016 election polls were wrong, and I mean their INDIVIDUAL STATE and ELECTORAL POLLS that showed Hillary would win — because all those delusional nutjobs really believed they could cook up some poll numbers/results and “bend reality” with their fake polls. Turned out they could not, and when reality hits them, they became even more delusional and unhinged. They still have NOT learned; they are still trying to bend reality with their fake polls.

  30. Seattle Resident

    @Hugh

    My concern is that climate change will be a long drawn out Stage 4 cancer process, where we will suffer but not find ourselves annihilated. In the meantime, for the long term, we end up suffering long term right wing governance that severely damages our ability to survive–new generation white nationalist brownshirt violence against progressives and POC with the backing of a (possible republican) administration, the neutralization of electing progressives or democrats for that matter by voter suppression upheld by increasingly right wing courts, degrading or elimination of SS, medicare, maybe even unemployment insurance, and health care policy–the Alan Grayson take on republican/conservative health care. Doom comes a little faster with Trump re-election IMO.

    @Che Pasa
    I take it those extended family members are doing well financially and have not suffered covid-19?

  31. KT Chong

    Henry Kissinger won a Nobel Peace Prize.

    Gandhi did not.

    Let that sink in.

  32. Hugh

    US coronavirus deaths hit 200,643. Virtually all those deaths are on Trump and his can’t-be-bothered-with reality or responsibility followers. It says a lot about how turned upside down, and just plain desperate, some of his supporters are that they invoke FDR. FDR employed socialists. Some of the best things that came out of the New Deal: the WPA, Social Security are socialist. For Trump, socialist is some kind of curse word. Apparently, fighting for ordinary Americans is about the worst thing you can do in his mind.

  33. Ché Pasa

    @Seattle Resident

    Let’s put it this way: they’ve never not been well-off, but they don’t think they are because sadly they’re not Rich according to their metrics. Ironically or no, most of what they have, for generations now, has come directly (through construction and other contracts) or indirectly (through financial policies) via government.

    Covid? What’s that? A myth, right? (Actually, those in the vulnerable age group are terrified of it and rarely go out these days. Praying for a vaccine.)

  34. S Brennan

    Willy,

    I have already commented on your argument so answering your comment just requires me to quote a quote I took from an article that Bruce Wilder posted. I don’t buy into the DNC’s & “left” [who obsequiously follow the DNC’s dictata] “Trump is the MOST EVIL MAN in Human History”..I exaggerate, but only slightly.

    Trump is far from perfect, as I have noted on numerous occasions Trump has numerous bad tax policies and he has allowed Koch Bros into important positions even though the Kochs do/did not support Trump and funneled money to his opposition.

    But when you compare Trump’s ACTIONS as president to the ACTIONS of the three prior Presidents, the monstrous image the DNC/Deep-State & “left” [who obsequiously follow the DNC’s dictata] attempt to portray of Trump becomes laughable, indeed I find any people who breathlessly inform me that “Trump is a Russian spy” or “Trump has murdered 180,000 people” sophists, fools or both. When a purported “leftist” parrots the Deep-State/DNC’s dictata, I have to decide, is this person mentally incompetent or an eff’in liar.

    As I said with Hillary, “run that war-criminal and I will vote for whoever is most likely to defeat her”; I say with Biden “run that draft-dodging, child groping plagiarist who has spent his entire political life helping banks screw over working American and I will vote for whoever is most likely to defeat him”. If that is Trump, so be it.

    If the DNC doesn’t want me to vote against them, it’s simple, run an FDRist. My days of going along with the DLC’s dissolution of the FDR legacy are over. I add, I think it likely Biden will win, the media has been relentlessly biased. The difference is, when “leftist” come here bemoan what the evil President Kamala is doing and how it will take 10 years before another change is possible…it was their votes that made Kamala President.

    Should Trump win, doubtful, I will once again watch for somebody in the wide open primaries trying to steer the country back from the rocks. If the DLC-DNCers are thrown back in 2020, they may be forced to sue for peace with the left but, if they win, I believe the neoliberal deal is sealed…until the country’s dissolution. That is why this election is so important to those who have held power in the Democratic party for the last forty years…2024 would be a watershed year for the DNC if they don’t obtain the Presidency in 2020.

    That said, one good thing about being a “leftist” in the USA, you never have to own what you do. I have yet to meet a “leftist” Obama supporter who has ever owned up to Libya, Syria and Ukraine, indeed, Stirling is the perfect example, he talked about the last 25 years and only mentioned Trump..how stupid does that sound?

    Anyway, here is the quote that addresses your histrionics on Trump Willy:

    “The wildly histrionic terms in which Trump was depicted by liberal political and media elites—that he was some sort of mad Nazi-empowering tyrant—were more or less echoed by the activist and media Left. In short, these leftists actively aided in creat­ing a popular con­ception of Trump which, if taken seriously by the Democratic primary electorate, would make a transformative left-wing political project almost impossible. You can’t spend four years frantically warning these voters that the country has been overrun by a “literal fascist”—who is both conspiring with the Kremlin and pre­siding over a network of “literal concentration camps”—and then blame them when they evince no appetite for challenging the vested interests of the Democratic Party… [that] thanks to the propaganda on­slaught in which the Left enthusiastically participated…”

  35. Hugh

    With Trump, pretty much all the media has to do is run the latest tape of what he says. The racism, fascism, and lies on lies and lies just flows out of them. And it’s not like his remarks are taken out of context. With Trump, the more he says the worse it gets.

    It is interesting to see what lengths some Trump voters go to rationalize their support, like they don’t want to embrace their inner racist and fascist.

  36. Willy

    S. Brennan, get it through your head. Just as no GOP propaganda machine persuaded me that neoliberalism is rotten, no DNC propaganda machine persuaded me that Trump is rotten. I figured those things out for myself years ago.

    I have limits to my protest vote. I do not vote for obvious sociopaths. And I freely admit that that Biden being a puppet for sociopaths does absolutely complicate things.

    I’m also highly skeptical of commenters who appear to focus all of their energies on trying to convince us that leftists are worse than rightists, while wearing Tulsi and FDR buttons. Not very convincing.

    Why not focus your energies on countering neoliberal/conservative propaganda in whatever form it takes?

  37. S Brennan

    Willy,

    You have it exactly backwards, read up thread to your previous comment, you are trying convince me of something..not the other way around; I’m simply replying to your entreaty with my logic. If you can’t be honest, if you can’t respect a different world view with out resorting immediately to ad hominem what’s the point…hmmm?

    And if you assume everybody who disagrees with your POV [i.e. vote blue…no matter who] is disingenuous who are trying to convince? I do feel 10 years of Kamala will do more harm, however, I am not falling for your version of the DLC’s DNC roach motel…the LESSOR OF TWO EVILS argument, the last time that was true was 2000, Gore vs Bush. And for the record Mr. Willy I voted for Gore even though I supported Bradley in the primary. And guess who is best friends with Bush jr but not Gore? Can you say Obama? So, your endless ad hominems against me are based on speculation that is contradicted by facts. People just don’t fall into your simple categories Willy, yes, it’s easy to construct a world view based on your prejudice, so what?

    And go read your own comments on Trump, all are ad hominem, utterly lacking in substance, the only people you’ll “convince” with that type of argumentation are those that are already going to vote for Joe/Kamala and those few that can be browbeaten into voting for two people who have promised a return to endless war, open borders, gun confiscation and further de-industrialization. And the flip side of browbeating weak individuals with endless Trump ad hominem is that you’ll chase away far more voters than you’ll get…that won’t stop your endless ad hominems of course, I just thought I’d mention it in passing.

  38. Willy

    Projection and gaslighting don’t work on me.

    You revealed yourself with your highly cherry picked arguments about AOC. There are hundreds of videos and recordings where Trump himself tells you exactly what he’s really all about. But you’ll never seek them out, let alone parse them. That’s dishonest enough for me.

  39. S Brennan

    Again Willy, you make argument without facts. And on that point, you’re so lazy and arrogant you demand that I take the time to support your ad hominem argumentation…go fetch me my argument you say. Good luck with that little buddy.

  40. Blissex

    «In other words, the entire idea of removing a dictator and setting up a democratically elected alternative was simply not possible in any realistic sense. And as a result, the questions which had to be answered were never even asked.»

    I think that this underestimates the people who have designed such policies: while they often make mistakes, they also often change course opportunistically and fix them. In this case and others they did not.

    That is, I suspect that wrecking a country was the intended policy, or became the after-the-fact policy, because it works well in two ways: “you annoy us and we wreck you for decades as a punishment”, and “as long as that country is wrecked we have far more power in it”. This applies to Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Lybia, Syria, etc.; of course a wrecked country then also becomes a bit of a problem, and gives opportunities for interference to adversaries too, but that’s life.

  41. Blissex

    In the usual “debates” where there is an abundant display of “Trump derangement syndrome”, there are two big topics that are largely underestimated:

    * While Trump talks weird, his actions as president have been pretty “standard”, most of what he has done could have been done by Hillary too. Except that he is one of the few presidents not to have started a new war, and have tried to some measure of peace-building.

    * A large minority of usians have been doing pretty well out of globalisation, immigration, offshoring, financialisation, war spending, since Reagan. A majority have been shafted, and a within that majority many have been shafted pretty hard, but again a large minority of usians have had booming living standards over the past few decades. What has really been going on it not bad government policies, but policies to redistribute income and wealth upwards.

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