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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
@Julian: I suspect if you looked outside America, you would find similar "mesianic strains" in many other places. You seem to ascribe a lot of things to failings of American culture which I would call common human foibles or at least European ones. The passage you quoted about the woman in coal country reminded me of a description in Discworld (Terry Pratchett is British) of the denizens of Ankh-Morpork's slums: "too poor to paint, too proud to whitewash", militant in their pride, unwilling to look like they were in need of any sort of help.
You cited Superman and Captain America at one point. But Superman played a key role in defeating the KKK
and Captian America rose from his propaganda roots and began to ask the questions about what it was about America that needed a champion (Depending on the Writer). Our literary heroes have the power to instruct and inspire in positive ways. If they are sometimes taken in less positive ways, well the writer can't always control that.
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Just because Hitler wouldn't personally accept a bribe or that he wouldn't necessary grab or grope women doesn't mean he has any virtues. That's Wants a Prize for Basic Decency. Hitler was part of a very violent organization, I mean guys who would grab sticks and stones and beat up people in broad daylight and violently intimidate and antagonize people. He either ordered that outright, and he had to have done it (man was quite careful about not directly giving say-so on these things) but he definitely enabled it. And he sure as hell didn't care how corrupt some of his own subordinates were. So Hitler was more into promoting personal probity but didn't care a jot about who his underlings were and what they did.
What he and Trump share is the management style, the mass media appeal, the narcissism, the laziness, the lack of experience and qualification, and the whole "Charismatic authority" thing that is to say, someone who vouches for a personal approach to dealings and policies rather than working or creating institutions and pre-established traditions. If you read Kershaw's book you will find that Hitler as a young man was quite spoiled and pampered by his family and relatives. He was someone who ironically didn't embody the German Efficiency trope, even if his administration gave the darkest and most extreme version of that.
If you want someone who had real virtues and took that to a dark place, you need to look at Maximilien Robespierre...personally he was generous, a good person in his personal life, and he was genuinely courageous and incorruptible. Politically the man was a moral giant against the Founding Fathers in terms of anti-racism and abolishing slavery, and more or less defining modern democracy as we live and know it today. Yet this same guy got on board with mass executions so long as it served the greater good of defending his nation from "enemies", was incredibly paranoid and when confronted with corruption and opposition from his friends, didn't hesitate sending them to the guillotine. He embodies that sentiment, "There's nothing more terrifying than a truly just man".
edited 14th Dec '16 6:33:04 PM by JulianLapostat
Putin is Zemo.
A statement from the Director of National Intelligence.
Does this spell "some shit's about to go down" to anybody else?
"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."Well I don't know enough about other cultures to make that kind of grand claim. I know a lot about American history and culture, and I know a bit about France, Germany and Russia, and also a few other nations but that itself doesn't mean I know about all cultures, all countries and so on. Messianism in a broad sense means different things in different contexts, and it's quite different in many countries than it is in America.
Among Western nations, America is far more religious and a country where religion plays a much bigger role than in other European nations. And in a country where a religious sensibility is so strong and powerful, and so actively influential in policy, a lot of that influence crosses and affects other boundaries. Like Trump's rhetoric and campaign speeches and so on is not different from televangelists. You even see this on the Left, Obama some times talks like a preacher. Scientology and other ideas are kinds of alternate religions and even American fandom is kind of quasi-religious, with celebrity worship. Conspiracy Theory and Who Shot JFK? smacks of that, it's a kind of religious pattern...Kennedy is Christ, Oswald is Judas, LBJ is Pilate, the Zapruder Film is the Gospel, the Warren Commission is Saint Paul and the Church and you have many theories which is more or less like early Christianity where each conspiracy theory advocates their views as the one true theory and fight each other like so many squabbling sects.
Well in the British context, that means something different than in America. In America, the people I mentioned in that Vox article in Kentucky is not a slumdweller by any means. She's a middle-class woman who when facing the setbacks expresses hatred to the poor...whereas the Pratchett passage you mention is kind of Little Englander Cockney Pride. And you know Pratchett like many British writers and leftists (even Alan Moore is not off the hook) is kind of weak on that because he is unwilling or unable to deal with colonialism, and the English Working Class' complicity in that enterprise.
Both Superman and Captain America are characters owned by corporations that began as a front for gangsters during Prohibition and the Depression, as per Gerard Jones' Men of Tomorrow. These characters became famous over the unpaid labour and unrewarded creativity of their creators and are more or less consumerist packaged youth fantasies that ultimately made old white men very rich. That's what they began as, and that is what they remain today. That they bore good fruit by accident is not to be denied, that some comics are good is not to be denied...but fundamentally it's just absurd and ironic if you take the reality into account.
edited 14th Dec '16 6:57:00 PM by JulianLapostat
No, it really isn't. Little Englander pride and Cockney Pride are not the same thing to start with, and what Pratchett is talking about is neither, and is much more widespread across the UK than either.
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.I doubt Trump will go down to the hacking, he's a larger then life celebrity, he'll go down the way celebrities do. My guess, a sex tape of him and his daughter might well be what does him in.
Speaking fo the hacking, the international left are finding the entire thing rather funny on a level, it's weird to see the CIA objecting to a forign installed right wing puppet.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Putin's like "You put a fascist-backed government in Ukraine, a country on my borders, and put sanctions on me when me and many of my people lose our minds with traumatic flashbacks to the last time fascists showed up on our doorstep...well I'll put one in the White House, Who's Laughing Now?." It's your classic Create Your Own Villain scenario which is why as Mad Skillz says, Putin is like Zemo. Putin would not have hacked America's elections or backed Trump if Obama and his administrators had not decided to push NATO to Ukraine...or encouraged Western Ukraine to more or less secede over the objections of Eastern Ukrainians.
Ariel Dorfman also pointed out this irony vis-a-vis Chile (http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/29/opinions/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-illegal-electoral-interference-ariel-dorfman/)
.
There's a certain tragedy in the sense that failure to promote Democracy abroad (and often reversing and destroying it) ultimately weakens Democracy at home. Empowering the coalition in Ukraine and the Euromaidan, several of whom were fascists and Bandera-fanboys, led to Putin to back the Alt-Right and Neo-Nazis and send them to the mainstream in America. And Putin in Syria is being denounced for war crimes and the like, and he will say that he's fixing ISIS which is Dubya's fault, absolutely. And now he and Assad in Aleppo are gonna crush and massacre a whole lot of people and America has no moral foundation, influence, and little power and will, to help them.
There's certainly a fair bit of schadenfreude for America's critics to see this development...but unfortunately the spectacle of comeuppance will not happen, and the innocent will still suffer for the crimes of the guilty (who will still get away scott-free). Obama is gonna pay for Bush's crimes which despite his best efforts and sincere intentions to halt and prevent is gonna be placed on him, America's African-American, Latino and other communities are going to suffer for the actions of the oligarch Dick Cheney.
edited 14th Dec '16 7:48:48 PM by JulianLapostat
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no! Not even a tape will do; his supporters will only claim that it was clearly two body doubles with manipulated sound recordings!
What we really need is for him to openly gun down some of his own audience members at a rally for whatever reason. He saw one of them look at him funny, so he exercised his right to stand his ground. The Donald don't need any secret service - he packs his own security on himself.
edited 14th Dec '16 7:49:09 PM by FluffyMcChicken
Here's the ending part of that speech that Jerry Brown gave.
In an unplanned visit, Governor Brown at the last minute decided to make an appearance at the so-called largest gathering of climate scientists in the world, and the first large meeting of climate scientists since the election. His speech which can only be described as a call to arms requested that the group in front of him continue to pursue their careers, continue to do science and to get prepared over these next four years to fight for their lives and their work. Here are some of his most impassioned comments from this morning’s speech:
“California has over $2.2 trillion in gross national product, we are the 5th or 6th largest economy in the world, we have a lot of firepower, we have the scientists we have the universities, we have the national labs, no doubt we will fight and we will persevere!”
“We (California) have the goal of reaching 50% renewable energy and we are at 28% right now. We’ll set the stage, we'll set the example, and whatever Washington thinks, we will change the future.”
“Years ago when John F. Kennedy was in LA, he said that California was the new frontier, and we still are! We're pioneering space, honest science, and a political climate that’s committed to equality, and inclusivity. That’s our commitment and we're going to keep it up!”
“You know this isn’t about Breitbart and those other clowns, this is not about the proliferation of news bits—this is real life.”
“You're here to seek truth, and to disseminate the truth. In politics we have another game and it's not about truth, I don’t know what it's about, we try to make it about truth but it just ends up being politics.”
“We will unite with Canada and other countries and states. We will pursue a path of collaboration and bold political advancement and eventually the truth will prevail.”
“You know some people say that they're going to turn off the satellites that are monitoring the climate and the Earth, well I remember in 1978 I proposed a Landsat for California and they called me governor ‘moon beam’ because of it, and you know I didn’t get that moniker for nothing. If they turn off the satellites then California will just launch their own damn satellites! Private companies are already launching satellites in California. If they start messing with Lawrence Berkeley Labs and Lawrence Livermore Labs, then you can be sure I will tell them to keep their hands off! As long as the University of California manages those labs we will have honest independent science.”
“I have proposed to knock down oil consumption in California. This is a long term slog into the future, you are there the foot soldiers of change and scientific collaboration.”
“To Rick Perry: I’ve got some news for you, California is growing a hell of a lot more than Texas, and we have more sun than you have oil!”
“We're not yet at the point of absurdity, but when we get there we’ll be ready to ride the back of sustainability and proof. Scientists of this world unite! You have nothing to lose but your grants and your tenure. It’s risk-taking, but most of all truth telling, truth seeking, truth telling is profoundly more impactful than rhetoric,—rhetoric comes and goes, truth stays.”
“I promise you everything I do in California will be to bring common sense to the people of America. I promise for California and any other states that want to join, and hopefully Washington will combat climate change into the future.”
“We're a state where foreign leaders come to California, they come to Silicon Valley, they come to drink the water like a pilgrimage. California is a pivot point so that we can leverage what we are with others and wherever you are you can contribute to that. Don’t lose faith or get isolated. If anyone in Washington starts picking on researchers you can be sure you have a friend in California.”
“This is about working boldly and working together and understanding the power of who you are and what you can do."
There was a grizzly bear roaring the entire time I read this.
Push NATO to Ukraine? What are you talking about? Ukraine was triggered by the EU not realising that Russia would not accept Ukraine choosing to side with the EU, it was much more a European mistake than an American one, likewise the idea that the CIA installed the new government in false, the CIA don't actually have the ability to make masses of protesters appear from thin air.
This wasn't about Ukraine, this was about Putin being an opportunist, he's good at grabbing what he can from an opportunity and turning situations his way.
Likewise the global reaction isn't based on Ukraine, it's based on a much greater history than the last few years, it's based on decades of American backed dictators in Latin America, the Middle East and elsewhere.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran![]()
That does read like a "Republic In the West" moment.
An American politician paraphrasing Karl Marx, this guy must be secure in office. Though "grants and tenure" is a poor substitute for "your chains".
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Victoria Nuland encouraged the new government taking over and she was an American apparatchik and America and its media misrepresented the conflict and passed sanctions. And one of the fears Russia had was that this protest would lead to NATO membership...and encouraging nationalism and anti-Russian sentiment in Ukraine as anyone with any awareness of history knows inevitably brings the neo-nazis to the table as Lev Golinkin notes here
.
edited 14th Dec '16 8:01:25 PM by JulianLapostat

Hitler also genuinely had a soft spot for enlisted war veterans, given that he literally survived being shot in the stomach by a British sniper. A major role in his popularity was that the World War I generation felt that an enlisted veteran represented their interest far better than an officer. It's also why Erwin Rommel came to be one of Hitler's most trusted aides, as the former was not born into a Prussian military family as most of the other Wehrmacht top brass was. Rommel's eventual role in aiding the Valkyrie conspirators is generally agreed to be one of the tipping points that sent Hitler way over the edge towards the end of the war.