By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Bird Song of the Day
Northern Mockingbird, Edith G. Read Wildlife Sanctuary, Westchester, New York, United States. “Amazing repertoire of other species’ songs woven into this song.”
In Case You Might Miss…
- New Covid charts: No bad news.
- Adolph Reed makes another call.
- Blame Cannons: The Democrat’s “leftward” turn.
- Boeing puts a finance guy on the board, layoffs.
Politics
“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
Trump Transition
“Trump’s ‘Epic’ Deregulation Must Preserve Financial Stability” [Editorial Board, Bloomberg]. The deck: “The president-elect and Elon Musk want to blow up the federal rule book. Good luck, but please exercise some caution.” More: “A big reduction in regulation would indeed be welcome. Unfortunately, it’s a complicated task that requires prudence, diligence and sustained attention to detail, virtues that were not in evidence during Trump’s previous stint in office. Where the financial system is concerned, deregulation may be especially fraught. Last time around, Trump scaled back several major rules adopted after the global financial crisis, an effort that may have contributed to last year’s spate of bank failures. Weakening requirements further, without due discretion, could create needless risk. Whoever ends up leading this mission, they should keep four principles in mind. First, banks must be strong enough to weather turmoil…. Next, focus on transparency and accountability. Disclosures should be clear and fraud should be punished. … Third, size is not in itself the enemy. Allowing mergers between financial companies doesn’t automatically reduce competition and can in fact increase it.” lol. More: “Finally, regulation that defies common sense breeds cynicism. As one example among many, the Securities and Exchange Commission routinely extracts fines from financial companies for allowing their employees to converse on nonofficial channels, a practice that is all but unavoidable in the mobile communications era.” • Yes, what could possibly wrong with financial professionals conversing on secret channels…. Nevertheless, a warning shot for Trump
“Trump says Dimon won’t be part of administration” [The Hill]. • Dang. Though I suppose it could always be worse!
* * * “Woman testified to House Ethics Committee that Gaetz had sex with her when she was 17: Sources” [ABC]. “The woman who was at the center of a yearslong Justice Department investigation into sex trafficking allegations surrounding Rep. Matt Gaetz testified to the House Ethics Committee that the now-former Florida congressman had sex with her when she was 17 years old, sources familiar with the investigation told ABC News….. ‘Your correspondence of September 4 asks whether I have engaged in sexual activity with any individual under 18. The answer to this question is unequivocally NO. You can apply this response to every version of this question, in every forum,’ Gaetz said in a statement posted to his social media account. ‘The Committee’s star witness, Joel Greenberg, is a felonious liar who involves others in his lies … Greenberg was initially indicted for attempting to falsely smear a teacher at a local high school as a pedophile,’ Gaetz added regarding former Seminole County tax collector Joel Greenberg, who pleaded guilty to falsely accusing a teacher, who was running for office against him, of a sex crime. The woman’s allegation regarding Gaetz became part of the investigation following claims by Greenberg, a former friend of Gaetz…” • Poor choice of friends. That said, I am so, so tired of Democrats ginning up sex scandals when they have no moral standing to do so. Revered and witty Democrat Barney Frank’s boyfriend ran a brothel out of the House they shared on Capitol Hill. Revered Democrat elder Bill Clinton was, at the very least, guilty of workplace abuse (and never apologized to her personally). Biden has a “skeevy” penchant for sniffing women’s hair, and kept swimming nude in front of female Secret Service agents after they protested. Then there’s Democrat First Gentleman Doug Emhoff. The Democrats are the party of grundyism, if Mrs. Grundy were, herself, a madame. Can’t we give it a rest?
“Trump’s Defense Secretary Pick Pete Hegseth Said to Face Previous Sexual Misconduct Allegation” [Vanity Fair]. “Donald Trump’s transition team scrambled Thursday after Trump’s incoming chief of staff Susie Wiles was presented with an allegation that former Fox & Friends cohost Pete Hegseth, Trump’s nominee to be Defense Secretary, had engaged in sexual misconduct. According to two sources, Wiles was briefed Wednesday night about an allegation that Hegseth had acted inappropriately with a woman. One of the sources said the alleged incident took place in Monterey, California in 2017. According to the transition source, the allegation is serious enough that Wiles and Trump’s lawyers spoke to Hegseth about it on Thursday. A source with knowledge of the meeting said that Hegseth said the allegation stemmed from a consensual encounter and characterized the episode as he-said, she-said. On Thursday evening, Hegseth’s lawyer Timothy Parlatore said: “This allegation was already investigated by the Monterey police department and they found no evidence for it.” • Genocide, no problemo. Pandemic? What pandemic? But “allegations” of “sexual misconduct”? Oh my goodness!
“Trump’s team skips FBI background checks for some Cabinet picks” [CNN]. “President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is bypassing traditional FBI background checks for at least some of his Cabinet picks while using private companies to conduct vetting of potential candidates for administration jobs, people close to the transition planning say. Trump and his allies believe the FBI system is slow and plagued with issues that could stymie the president-elect’s plan to quickly begin the work of implementing his agenda, people briefed on the plans said. Critics say the intrusive background checks sometimes turn up embarrassing information used to inflict political damage. The discussions come as Trump has floated several controversial choices for high-level positions in the US government – including Matt Gaetz for attorney general and Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence. Ultimately, the president has the final authority on who he nominates and decides to share intelligence with, regardless of the established protocol set in the wake of World War II to make sure those selections don’t have unknown foreign ties or other issues that could raise national security concerns. But circumventing background checks would be bucking a long-established norm in Washington. It also reflects Trump’s deep mistrust of the national security establishment, which he derides as the Deep State. Sources say he has privately questioned the need for law enforcement background checks.” • I don’t understand this. Surely the organs of state security are completely apolitical?
* * * “The Left should welcome Matt Gaetz as attorney general” [Unherd]. “His record speaks for itself. From his perch on the House Judiciary Committee, Gaetz has promoted a surprisingly consumer-friendly agenda, routinely breaking with his GOP colleagues on crucial votes. He previously supported legislative measures to break up Silicon Valley monopolies, sharply regulate the online data broker industry, ban noncompete employment contracts, and an end to the practice of forced arbitration, among other corporate accountability votes. He has also taken maverick positions on reducing FBI surveillance powers, cutting certain arms supplies to Saudi Arabia and legalising marijuana. In addition, Gaetz has staked a position at times to the Left of some establishment Democrats. In the fight over the Ending Platform Monopolies Act — a bill designed to curb anticompetitive practices by Amazon and Google — Gaetz ended up supporting the legislation, while California Democrats close to the tech industry, such as Zoe Lofgren and Eric Swalwell, voted against it. In an era of severe political polarisation, the Florida representative has found opportunities to support actions of the Biden administration. In August, Gaetz wrote a letter to Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai, urging him to “adhere fully” to the antitrust ruling against the company secured by the current Department of Justice.” • I believe the meme “Khanservatives” originated with Gaetz.
“Matt Gaetz, Trump’s uniquely unqualified pick for attorney general, explained” [Vox]. “As New York Times columnist Ezra Klein writes, Trump’s decision to nominate Gaetz should be read as an effort to gauge whether Republican senators will permit him to take absurd and dangerous actions. “These aren’t just appointments,” Klein writes of Gaetz and Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, ‘They’re loyalty tests. The absurdity is the point.'” • But see above on anti-trust, which goes unmentioned at Vox, the avatar of “clear-eyed journalism,” as they say themselves.
* * * “Trump Is About to Face the Choice That Dooms Many Presidencies” [Oren Cass, New York Times]. “[Trump] is an iconoclastic leader with a uniquely unfiltered relationship to the American people and a disdain for the chattering class of consultants. He is also the first president since Grover Cleveland to get a second shot at a first term…. In the early hours of Wednesday morning, he made a promise to “every citizen” that he would “fight for you, for your family and your future” and that “this will truly be the golden age of America.” Achieving that will require focusing on the challenges and respecting the values broadly shared by not only his voters, but also many others who might come to support him…. Focus on making it easier to speculate in cryptocurrency or on providing non-college pathways to building a decent life? Focus on whatever harebrained scheme Robert Kennedy Jr. or Vivek Ramaswamy might mention over lunch or on creating a more generous benefit for working families raising kids, as JD Vance and others have proposed? Any president finds himself surrounded by advisers pushing their personal and ideological agendas. There is a reason most lose sight of what matters to the people outside that bubble. But Mr. Trump has built his political career on taking the road less traveled. Returning to office, he has a last best first chance to get it right.”
2024 Post Mortem
“Trump broke the Democrats’ thermostat” [John Burn-Murdoch, Financial Times]. “[T]he data shows Democrats taking a sharp turn leftward on social issues over the past decade. This has distanced them from the median voter, just as Wright’s cartoon depicted. We see this not only in Democratic voters’ self-reported ideology, but in their views on issues including immigration and whether or not minorities need extra help to succeed in society. Notably, the shift began in 2016.” I think the chart shows the change began in 2008, and accelerated in 2015. More: “This suggests that Trump’s election radicalised the left, not the right. Some counter that this is simply what progressive politics is, but the evidence suggests otherwise. America’s decades-long progress towards racial and sexual tolerance and equality has been a gradual shift, led by progressives with the centre and right quickly following. The pivots of the past decade, by contrast, have been abrupt and are leaving the majority behind. They are better characterised not as moves towards greater tolerance and equality but as shifts in rhetoric or proposed solutions for addressing disparities, where there is plenty of room for disagreement without bigotry. Many of these pivots originated with the activists and non-profit staffers that surround the Democratic party. In an invaluable piece of research carried out in 2021, political scientists Alexander Furnas and Timothy LaPira at the think-tank Data for Progress found that these “political elites” or tastemakers hold views often well to the left of the average voter — and even the average Democratic voter — on cultural issues.” • Handy chart:
One reason the 2020 Sanders campaign messaging changed to idpol. (Of course, “leftward,” as is usual in mainstream discourse, is a misnomer:; identity politics is just another flavor of liberalism. Leftism means putting the working class first; no serious Democrat believes in that, though of course lip service is occasionally paid.
Campaign Finance
“Clashes, confusion and secrecy consume the Harris campaign’s finances” [NBC]. “If Kamala Harris’ campaign was known for anything, it was its blockbuster fundraising. In just a matter of months, it crossed the $1 billion mark, in a stunning and record-breaking pace. Now, less than a week since the vice president conceded the contest, it not only has run out of money, it’s still asking for more. The campaign emails and texts, known for their ubiquity throughout the election, aren’t expected to stop anytime soon…. The overarching challenge at this point for what is left of Harris’ campaign is that the financial picture is shrouded in mystery — even for those within the organization. No one can — or will — spell out a clear status of its finances… Five sources with direct knowledge of the campaign’s internal finances confirmed to NBC News that it has indeed accrued debt. But none could point to a specific amount; several people threw out possibilities, with the lowest beginning at $6 million…. It isn’t unusual for a campaign to close out a contest carrying some debt. What is unusual is the pace of the expenditures after record-breaking fundraising, some senior officials said. What is even more unusual are the explosive clashes taking place in and around the Harris campaign universe. Interviews with more than a dozen campaign officials and allies reveal a deep distrust of leadership, questions over payments to consultants and celebrities, as well as anger over what they say was a pervasive lack of transparency over finances and analytics. The sources were granted anonymity to speak about internal campaign dynamics.” And then this: “Some aides expressed frustration in interviews, saying they had crafted language for ongoing requests for money but that they were intended for a prolonged counting effort post election night. ‘We had some emails pre-scripted for a long fight,’ a senior campaign official close to the strategy said.” • Hmm…..
Realignment and Legitimacy
“A Triumph for Trump’s Republicans” [Peggy Noonan]. “It is worth being moved that in our huge, restive, cynical and yearning nation we peacefully, and with complete public acceptance of the outcome, made a dramatic national judgment this week. Just about every adult citizen took part and took it seriously. All together they produced something we needed: a clear outcome, one delivered without charges of large-scale chicanery or even small-scale so far as we know. There will be a peaceful transfer of power. A lot of people had to do a lot of things right to make this happen.” Allow me to note that I (paraphrasing) always qualified “the Democrats cannot allow Trump to take office” with “if they believe what they say” (about “fascism”, “our democracy”, etc. As happens so often, no matter how hard I try, I’m never cynical enough; that Kamala’s 2024 Democrats would be as cynical about deploying “fascism” as Obama’s 2008 “Democrats”… .Well, doggone it. Back to Nooners, who concludes: “I like what Liz Cheney tweeted Wednesday: ‘Our nation’s democratic system functioned last night and we have a new President-elect. All Americans are bound, whether we like the outcome or not, to accept the results.’ We also have a responsibility as members of ‘the greatest nation on earth’ to ‘support and defend our Constitution, preserve the rule of law, and ensure that our institutions hold over these coming four years.’ She singled out the courts, the press, ‘and those serving in our federal, state and local governments’ to be ‘the guardrails of democracy.'” • That “guardrails” metaphor shows lazy thinking and lazy writing (the metaphor presumes we’re on the right road, there’s gas in the tank, there’s gas at the next gas station, as opposed to feral mobs with torches, etc.). I’m surprised to find it in Nooners’ peroration. Yet another sign of civilizational collapse; Nooners creates clichés for other people; she doesn’t retail them.
“Going Forward from the Edge of the Abyss” [Adolph Reed, Nonsite]. Must-read. “Trump has no new coalition; he can’t because those “groups” aren’t real as groups, and people identify with them largely around thin identities more like consumer taste “communities” or partisan fans of sports teams. (Recall that some people got cues for what they should believe or how to line up on current issue positions from watching Archie Bunker.) That’s why so much of this politics reduces to “you say potAYto; I say potAHto.” This is not to say that the reified categories couldn’t become constituencies on the same principle as the Heisenberg effect; part of the beauty of interest-group politics is that tossing some resources around will produce constituencies—or at least people who claim to speak for them. And it’s not just the right; that’s also how the Democrats have been reinventing every four years under differing labels that magical constituency of “reasonable” upper-status, suburban, moderate Republican (white) women, which hasn’t materialized in thirty years or more, or their happy-face version of Passing of the Great Race in the simple-minded contention that changing racial demographics would provide yet another way to win without confronting capitalism’s contradictions. Indeed, constructing those taxonomies of identity configurations and reifying them into bodies of shared political interests is, ironically within a so self-consciously and performatively antiracist ‘left,’ quintessentially racist. Of course, those won’t be the takeaways.” No, they won’t. Crucially: “We have to face up to the fact—finally—that all we can expect from Dem success is kicking the can of confrontation with fascism down the road for four years. But for that approach to make sense someone, and only the labor-left can lead it or maybe even do it, has to spend another four years between elections organizing a real constituency for a different way of talking and thinking about and doing politics. To put it bluntly, we won’t be able to face up to the fascist juggernaut without working to build an actual popular constituency for a different, openly working-class-based politics. I’m not alone in noting that Trump/ism is not an anomaly; it’s now the point of the lance of what’s clearly a fascist international…. [W]e may be facing the equivalent of a T-intersection at which there are only two possible, totally opposite directions to take.” • If Reed is willing to make the call… Well, I’m gonna have to examine my priors by returning to Paxton; as readers know, Reed has an excellent track record, having called his shot on Obama in 1996. It would be so like the Democrats to so pollute the discourse on fascism that nobody could take it seriously (and certainly I veer in that direction, because I process so much of their output). My immediate reaction is that people should be thinking of that general strike on May Day, 2028, and not the next Presidential cycle, let alone the midterms…..
“Should the Democratic Party be listening to John Fetterman? [Politico]. “What did you make of Harris’ decision to call Trump a fascist? [FETTERMAN:] II love people that are absolutely going to vote for Trump. They’re not fascists. They’re not those things. I think if you go to the tickle switch, use those kinds of terms, then it’s kind of hard to walk back on those things. That’s kind of a word that really isn’t part of the vernacular for voters. Scolding harder or clutching the pearls harder, that’s never going to work for Democrats.” • It’s like everything with Democrats is “the tickle switch”….
“The Democrats’ problematic attitude toward voters of color hits a wall” [MSNBC], “Trump’s victory is shattering a common slogan and guiding principle in Democratic circles that ‘demographics is destiny.’ There has long been a belief in the party that Democrats were destined to hold a long-term majority in the country as the nation became more diverse. That belief was predicated on the idea that the party won ethnic minorities because it presented itself as the multicultural and socially inclusive party, and because it treated minorities as interest groups to cater to based on priorities specific to their ethnicity. That belief has always been problematic, and now it is collapsing. Trump’s playbook has thrown a grenade into the Democratic worldview, and the fallout among the left hasn’t been pretty.” dAs I keep saying, “demographics is destiny” has nothing to do with “the left” (except insofar as it was designed to destroy it). And: ‘But many liberals forget that those groups are never a monolith, and their members also have other identities that shape how they view the world, including class [dread word], gender, age and the countless subcultures they choose to associate with. ” • It’s not really useful to think of class as an idenity, or at least not an identity first. One does not, after all, “identify as” a wage worker. One is a wage worker.
Syndemics
“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison
Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).
Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!
Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (wastewater); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).
Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).
Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, KidDoc, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
| Wastewater | |
| ★ This week[1] CDC November 11 | Last Week[2] CDC (until next week): |
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| Variants [3] CDC November 9 | ★ Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC November 9 |
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| Hospitalization | |
| ★ New York[5] New York State, data November 14: | ★ National [6] CDC November 14: |
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| Positivity | |
| National[7] Walgreens November 11: | Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic November 9: |
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| Travelers Data | |
| ★ Positivity[9] CDC October 28: | ★ Variants[10] CDC October 28: |
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| Deaths | |
| Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11] CDC November 2: | Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12] CDC November 2: |
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LEGEND
1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.
2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”
NOTES
[1] (CDC) Good news!
[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.
[3] (CDC Variants) KP.* still popular. XEC has entered the chat. That WHO label, “Ommicron,” has done a great job normalizing successive waves of infection.
[4] (ED) Down.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Steadily down.
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). Actually improved; it’s now one of the few charts to show the entire course of the pandemic to the present day.
[7] (Walgreens) Down.
[8] (Cleveland) Down.
[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Down.
[10] (Travelers: Variants). Now XEC.
[11] Deaths low, positivity down.
[12] Deaths low, ED down.
Stats Watch
Manufacturing: “United States NY Empire State Manufacturing Index” [Trading Economics]. “The NY Empire State Manufacturing Index climbed to 31.2 in November 2024, up from -11.9 in October and surprising analysts who expected it at -0.7. It was the best reading since December 2021.”
Manufacturing: “United States Industrial Production” [Trading Economics]. “Industrial Production in the United States decreased 0.3% year-on-year in October 2024, following a downwardly revised 0.7% fall in September.”
Manufacturing: “Boeing appoints former Vanguard CEO Tim Buckley as new board member” [Reuters]. “Boeing board has elected former Vanguard Group CEO Tim Buckley as its newest member, effective Jan. 1, the U.S. planemaker said on Friday. Buckley, 55, will be Boeing’s tenth director since 2019, the company said, adding that he will serve on the board’s Finance and Governance & Public Policy committees. Prior to becoming Vanguard’s CEO, Buckley held multiple roles during his over three-decade career at the top U.S. asset manager, including chief investment officer and chief information officer.” • A finance guy? Really?
Manufacturing: “Hundreds of SPEEA employees included in Boeing layoffs, union confirms” [KING5]. “Hundreds of SPEEA employees are included in Boeing’s sweeping job cuts, the union confirmed to KING 5 on Thursday night. SPEEA, the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, represents more than 17,000 engineers, technical workers, pilots and other aerospace industry professionals. The union confirmed that 438 of their Boeing employees will be laid off, including 218 members of their professional unit and 220 technical employees… Boeing itself has been tight-lipped about who exactly is getting laid off, saying that they will not be sharing that level of detail about the job cuts. The company did say both union and non-union employees and managers, and executives are included. In October, Boeing said striking machinists with the IAM District 751 would not be impacted by the job cuts.”
Manufacturing: “Boeing spending millions to save major supplier” [SAN]. “Boeing is making a big financial move to save one of its key suppliers. The jet maker this week confirmed it’ll advance $350 million to Spirit AeroSystems. Spirit makes the fuselage for Boeing planes. Boeing is doling out money to keep Spirit afloat. This comes as the supplier is experiencing high levels of inventory and financial problems. Spirit is the largest employer in Wichita, Kansas. The company has announced it might not be able to keep operating due to billions of dollars in losses over the last four years.”
Manufacturing: “Boeing Stock Sale Was Supposed to Mark the Bottom. Shares Just Keep Dropping.” [Barron’s]. “The biggest factor in the recent decline in shares just might be the election. President-elect Trump has promised tariffs on China. A trade war with China would hit Boeing more than just about any other company. China is a big buyer of planes and has accounted for roughly 20% of Boeing’s total deliveries before recent turmoil. How the trade relationship with China will develop under Trump is anyone’s guess.”
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 49 Neutral (previous close: 60 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 62 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Nov 15 at 1:41:16 PM ET.
Gallery
Lion Resting #artbots #rembrandt pic.twitter.com/EhrSfhKTZw
— Rembrandt (@artistrembrandt) November 1, 2024
“Virality in cartography: What makes a map go viral?” [GeoAwecome]. “While researching viral cartography, Penn State geographer Anthony Robinson found that the above map had spawned a series of copycat maps, many of which also went viral. These included both the serious (what ‘if only people of color voted’) and the silly (‘If only goats voted’). Robinson found more than 500 such unique maps on the internet. And in the context of our battle with fake news, this is a very dangerous thing. When a map conveys more validity than it deserves, it becomes very easy to fabricate the truth; we all know how convincing auto-generated videos called ‘deep fakes’ seem. As Robinson says, ‘It’s cool that anybody can make a map now. They can take election data and do something creative with it, and it can be very helpful. But it’s also easy to make something that looks like it’s authoritative and use it as a weapon.'” • Some would urge that maps are always used as weapons; the original Red/Blue distinction was amplified by a map (I don’t think we had a concept of virality back then). Anyhow, here is the “above” map:
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112 comments
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And this is why Boeing stock will continue to take the “Big Dirt Nap.”
They really are this rotten. A guy with zero aviation or engineering background.
All that’s missing is a Blackrock dude.
Someone can attempt to write satire of their situation that appears worse…but it is getting weird and weirder still at Boeing. Boeing needs to get back their true knitting as it were, punching out those proverbial widgets er, planes I mean.
Heck can it be worse really, by comparison those clowns at Silicon Valley bank had some Black rock advisory help and their (SVB) demise arrived swiftly….
I do not think that the goal of Boeing’s management is to save the company as a going concern, but to it alive for the parasitization by investors as long as possible.
It’s the cash flow, not the product that matters. / heh
But for cash flow, they really do need to make airplanes!
That might be actual news to a dude who’s used to making money by moving bits of paper around.
Hear me out, maybe just maybe, Boeing actually is a finance company now and the planes and broken spacecraft are just the exposed portion of their overall investment capital business? Maybe they’ll do a coin soon.
I think Boeing is To Big To Fail. No matter how badly managed, they will be propped up, national security concerns and all that…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing#:~:text=Boeing is among the largest,, on July 15, 1916
They may be ‘Too Big to Fail,’ but, as demonstrated recently, not too big to fall out of the sky.
I had a former contact, way back in the pre-GFC era,who had a perfect phrase* for any organization or say an investment department facing the reality of their current or developing crisis.
He called it the “come to Jesus” moment*, finally seeing in the light of day how stark the reality of the situation is…I sense that Boeing is still not quite there just yet. Alternate scenarios applicable as well, not a requirement to be a Biblical themed analogy.
That’s the private equity play.
What better person to get them out of their financial mess than a finance guy? Even though it was the finance guys that got them into this mess in the first place.
re fascism–here’s suggesting the whole thing was a 20th century one off. Didn’t Mussolini invent the term? And the place where it really took root was the already authoritarian Germany.
It could be that changes in access to technology mean only soft totalitarianism will work now. Of course genocide is still around as we know…..
m own personal opinion,
to me understanding what fascism is really boils down to two basic tenets, all other results are simply by products of fascism, those by products are many, and take all sorts of forms that befuddle those who try to pin down what fascism is.
the first one, the elevation of capital over labor. this is a act of violence. and it can take many forms. under woodrew wilsons fascism, that elevation was police goons and national guardsmen busting unions, and throwing union organizers in jail. a form of violence.
bill clinton found a way around that, simply by pass the violent acts of elevating capital over labor, by allowing capital to simply pick up and move, leaving behind vast areas of america, to rot into ghettos, a form of violence.
the second one, the elevation of capital over sovereignty, democratic control and civil society. this is a massive act of violence that allows capital free reign over a entire nation, or nations.
the by product is, if the capitalists decides they want a entire nation, or nations, they use economic intimidation, coercion, and domination via free trade agreements.
if the target nation, or nations rebel, the economic acts of violence are replaced with actual physical acts of violence, such as terrorism and war. again, all by products of fascism.
if certain people, or peoples stand in the way of capital, first comes economic violence, if that does not work, then genocide, actual physical violence. again, a by product of fascism.
i am certain we could find many other by products. these are the most obvious ones.
so its not really hard to understand what fascism is, nor identify who are and who are not fascists.
so its the elevation of capital over everything, and the violence in many forms are the by product used to attain that goal.
most people who are fascists, do not even know they are fascists.
So everyone who owns stocks or runs a business or hires a gardener or home health aide is a fascist? Seriously?
I didn’t read that in spud’s post
> I didn’t read that in spud’s post
Then you’re not reading closely, because that’s exactly what it implies.
Perhaps spud meant focused masses of capital above a certain size and power threshhold? Like the owners and their managers of major freight railroads but not the owner-manager of a several-employee small family restaurant?
(If that is what spud meant to mean, this would be a fine place for spud to say so).
>”I didn’t read that in spud’s post”
Neither did I.
On a lighter (and of old-fashioned taste) note –
Anyone remember these exchanges from Lubitsch´s “Ninotcha” (1939):
(Among old-style German Marxists it was always a liked comedy while pointing out, “sigh, it´s an anticommunist movie.” Which technically is true and leads to one of its artistic flaws.)
“Leon and his butler have a political discussion.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boZFiTkCGf0
“Ninotchka meets Leon´s butler”
entire movie see for the dialogue
TC 31:20 – 31:57
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rE0teakdjk
Isn’t that just a description of liberalism? Fascism seems to require the identification of an enemy against whom unrestrained violence is justifiable by the state. To overcome individual objections, perhaps that enemy has to become the ‘enemy within’, i.e. the individual is personally threatened by an act of betrayal.
Bankers are often identified as such, which does draw capitalism into controversy, but maybe there’s an arbitrary criterion of immunity – at the level of ‘our kind of banker’, or corporate level (‘blame the player, not the game’), or shareholder level (‘if only the king knew’).
> re fascism–here’s suggesting the whole thing was a 20th century one off.
If in wildly generic and anodyne terms, we regard fascism as a set of social relations between classes, then as long as those classes exist, it’s possible for fascism to exist.
There were certainly other fascist regimes than Germany: Italy under Mussolini, Spain under Franco, Chile under Pinochet, probably readers can suggest others. In addition, there have been and are fascist parties that have not taken State power (the Azovs, for example).
Some scholarship suggests that fascism originates with far-right French entities as a mixture of supremacist aristocratic tradition à la de Maistre, anti-semitic surge early 20th century and the first demise of labour with Social Democracy unable /unwilling to prevent WWI (squandering the relative happiness of the Belle Epoque). The Dreyfus Affaire being an initiating event.
Eventually one cause attributed to the failure of fascism in France unlike the other cases in Europe was the understanding of the French elites to cozy up with French peasants. Which is why their interests were always well guarded by French ruling class.
It is not unjustified to predate fascism before Mussolini since he made a big turn away from Socialism first and that was possible only based on a set of thought already existing and already accepted by then by Italian elites who who were buddying up with him and his circle. In Germany its similiar as the cadres of the high bureaucracy and state institutions and industrial centres before 1914 and after 1918 had in essence not changed. And their disdain for democracy was natural to their design as ruling class since the 18th century.
The next republican presidential nominee will most likely be one of Trump’s cabinet picks
I’m betting the 2028 Repub nominee will be JD Vance, w/ Liz Cheney as VP. It’s likely Vance will find a way to do enough high profile things that he’s the obvious choice for the next election (something Harris did not do).
Liz Cheney’s political career is over. She switched parties and joined the losing side. No one wants to be seen with a traitor and a loser.
> The next republican presidential nominee will most likely be one of Trump’s cabinet picks
It’s amazing how young so many of them are (though not Trump, and not Suzie Wiles). We are looking at the next thirty years of Republican leadership., (Contrast what happened to the poor “Squad” under the Democrats. The gerontocracy ate all of them up, and spat two (?) of them out).
Adding, it’s also interesting that Trump made space in his nominations for people who ran against him: Rubio, Burgrum, Kennedy (thouh not Haley).
The Republicans – The New Generation (TNG)
On the bright side, Nancy Pelosi will be standing for re-election in 2026 when she will be only 86 years old.
RE: Trump broke the Democrats’ thermostat
So it was the leftward idpol shift that turned off more conservative voters, was it, and not the Democrats’ lurch to the right with the warmongering and coddling of wealthy donors while doing [family blog]-all for labor? That apparently had nothing to do with it according to the FT.
There was most definitely a leftward shift on social issues, but FT is reading that wrong too. Anecdotal to be sure, but I was sitting at dinner with a Stonewall generation gay relative and his part time trans niece a couple years ago, both “blue no matter who” Democrats. She was talking about how great it was that 10 year olds could pick their genders now and he was telling her in no uncertain terms that that’s not how it works. So it’s not just the right side of the political spectrum rejecting the newer social issues being pushed by Democrats.
Maybe it’s time for some of these analysts to realize that a growing plurality of US voters do not identify with either of the main political parties and they’d do better to frame things in class terms rather than using left/right idpol concepts. Not too many people fit into these rather arbitrarily created categories, as Adolph Reed notes above, but it’s not too hard to peg someone’s exact income.
> There was most definitely a leftward shift on social issues
HAMMERING ON THE SIGN
left = putting the working class first on policy (and for permanent gains must mean the working class taking control of capital (i.e., putting capital under democratic control; imagine Beoing as a co-op. Could matters be worse).
It doesn’t matter that idiomatically the conservatives characterize the liberals as “left” (or even Marxist, forsooth) or that the liberals accept (“identify as”) that characterization. The net effect of the false dichotomy is to erase the very concept of a working class that rules from the dicourse. How convenient! In addition, we have the entire idpol-driven NGO Industrial Complex siloing the working class, making their (self-)identification as left not merely wrong, but actively destructive of any form of working class unity (at a higher level than unions). Again, very convenient. Drives me nuts.
It’s as if we have two goldfish in a goldfish bowl. Sometimes they swim left, other times they swim right. The point is to smash the goldfish bowl entirely.
I agree with Adolph Reed that there are disturbing right wing tendencies in the United States. Then again, I don’t really adhere to Paxton’s over complicated and tortured definition of fascism. Rather, to me fascism is simpler and follows from Marxist theory: terror government of a bourgeoisie that’s decided to abandon liberal “rule of law” because it can no longer discipline the exploited classes effectively enough.
Is there a bourgeois faction in the US advocating for doing away with rule of law in favor of brute and arbitrary force? No. I don’t see too much of this, though there’s a corner of twitter–usually people with Greek/Roman statue avatars–who advocate against democracy and seem nostalgic for tyranny (their poster boy is El Salvador’s Bukele).
Are the petit bourgeois facing proletarianization? I don’t know. I do see some of this happening among American doctors, but I’m unsure about the petit bourgeois professionals (who own their homes and have large investments in stock/bonds) in general.
Is red radicalism rampant among labor? No.
So, I conclude there’s a low chance of fascism under Trump. However, the indicators are trending in a disturbing direction.
One thing I’ll add about Reed: He rightly chides the overuse of “Middle Class,” though he invokes an equally problematic “Working Class.” I don’t know what the working class is. Marx refers to the “proletarian” class, but I don’t think “working class” means the same thing. If “working class” encompasses anyone in the US who lives off a wage, then it includes a huge population that have significant and appreciating capital investments–for example, owning their homes/land.
These people are closer to petit bourgeois.
Moreover, everyone in the United States–even those you might rightly call “proletarian”–benefits from super profits extracted via unequal exchange made possible by imperialism. This makes American proletarians very different from the proletarians of, say, India or the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Lenin would call these American proletarians “labor aristocracy” and by way of imperialism explained their odd reactionary politics.
One more observation vis-a-vis fascistic trends in the United States:
Are the bourgeois having difficulty controlling the oppressed classes with rule of law? Yes. I think it’s slipping a bit, as a huge number of Americans rejected the January 6th prosecutions as illegitimate. In 2020, protestors burned down the Minneapolis police station with impunity.
I think that demonstrates some chinks in the efficacy of the “rule of law” as the principal disciplining force among the lower classes. I’m sure there are bourgeois factions that are nervous about this, which explains the suddenly high profile of the organs of state security and policing.
> I don’t know what the working class is.
Some experts:
Rockefellers: Depressions are how we harvest the wealth accumulated by the lower classes.
Pandit et al: The model predicts that the bottom class has a near flat, low payoff and always comprises at least half the society. The upper class may subdivide into one or more middle class(es), resulting in improved payoff for the topmost members (elite).
T. Tlusty: You’re either living off your investments or your labor.
The enormous confounder is debt; do people Own their house, or ‘owe on’ their house.
This point is an under appreciated dynamic in discussing the internal politics of nations whose citizens benefit from the unequal exchange between nations as quantified in an article previously linked here at NC, Unequal exchange of labour in the world economy from Nature Communications.
For me this poses quite a conundrum as to just what, on an international scale, might constitute progressivism for citizens of a hegemon if all one seeks is a larger slice of stolen pie.
This explains why most Americans are supportive of imperialism, the military and law enforcement, as well as the forever wars. The middle class may complain about inflation, the high cost of housing, the high cost of health care and other matters, they are fearful of making any big changes that might imperil what they already have which is more than most people on the planet.
I do not see a resurrected Atlácatl Battalion coming here, but I do not think that the American working class is benefiting from the American Empire and globalization. Prices always rise faster than wages and have for over forty years especially as the well paying jobs went away with the factories shipped overseas and the unions were destroyed. It is true that the worse American poverty, maybe aside from worst areas of places like the Mississippi Delta, parts of Appalachia, and cities like Camden, NJ or Skid Row in Los Angeles are nowhere near as poor as the worse of the India, Mexico, or the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but so what? Being hungry and/or homeless while often being worked into an early grave is being hungry and/or homeless often while being worked into an early grave.
“terror government of a bourgeoisie that’s decided to abandon liberal “rule of law” because it can no longer discipline the exploited classes effectively enough.”
I’d say a “terror bourgeoisie that’s decided to abandon any policy that no longer disciplines the exploited classes effectively enough.”
Sheldon Wolin
I agree this fascism thing is getting a bit tedious. Fascism was the product of a particular historical moment, with a new urban working class, the beginning of mass political parties and the confusion and violence that followed the end of WW1. Insofar as Fascism had an ideology at all, which was not very much since it was all about action, it can be summarised as “life is a struggle.” At all levels, from the workplace or political party to the nation (or “race”) the strongest would survive and the weakest would perish. They had nothing but contempt for bourgeois democracy, which they saw as outmoded. They saw Communism as a deadly threat since it countered their discourse of race with a discourse of class, thus dividing the “race” against itself. Fascism was a radical right-wing populist phenomenon, often led by marginal figures, drawing its strength as much as anything from disgust with and antipathy to the traditional monarchical and bourgeois power structures which had brought about the war and ruined the peace, and which needed to be replaced by a modern, technocratic state built on “modern” racial ideas and able to ensure the survival of the “race.” I find it hard to see what relevance these ideas have today.
Paxton’s problem, and it’s a common one, is that he’s trying to infer theory from practice, and not distinguishing between what political movements believe and how they behave under the pressures of power. You might as well argue that “democracy” is all about repression of dissent, foreign wars and looting of the public sector, because that has happened in some democracies. All fascist movements were militaristic and welcomed war, and the Nazis, in particular, incorporated private industry into a total war-making system because they needed it.
The idea of Fascism as some kind of production of the bourgeoisie was the official Communist Party explanation in. the 1920s and 30s, and was one reason why the KPD was not allowed to join the Socialists to prevent the Nazis taking power. It was a disastrous misunderstanding, that continued after 1945 and was the official East German interpretation, and influential among Marxists as well, demonstrating perhaps that when all you have is an ideological hammer and sickle, ever problem looks like an ideological nail. Ian Kershaw has a good chapter on this in his book on the historiography of Nazism.
“… technocratic state built on “modern” racial ideas and able to ensure the survival of the “race.” I find it hard to see what relevance these ideas have today…”
Tell that to Peter Thiel…
The whole saga of various humanoid species intermingling makes people like Thiel et al perspectives ludicrous … but in this neoliberal money makes the mind reality … wellie just look at X and Elon … https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1857420350516056102
Where were all these freedom and free speech sorts during the 14 City Occupy crackdown … oh yeah … cheering on the militarized police force, some private security sorts, and 3 letter agencies beating down so called socialists and commies but … yeah freedom of speech … ugh …
The old Marxist position on fascism looks better than it once did, based on recent historical archival discoveries. This paper, for example, is a blockbuster on the issue.
Fascism in Germany had major bourgeois backing.
The abstract:
“Ever since the publication of Henry Turner’s German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler, most historians in both Germany and the United States have dismissed the idea that support from German major industry played a key role in bringing Hitler to power. This consensus is wrong, as I have shown in a series of works that began with my doctoral dissertation at the Free University of Berlin and now extends to more than ten different works, including two books. These works rely extensively on archival resources that were either inaccessible or only selectively open to earlier researchers.
This paper analyzes in detail one of the most crucial episodes in Hitler’s rise to power – one that previous historians, particularly Turner, have profoundly misjudged thanks in part at least to the shortcomings in the documentary sources available to them. This is the history of the political relations between Hitler, the NSDAP leadership, and the German ‘coal industrialists”’in the period from 1926 to 1933 and the key role these firms played in supporting and financing the eventual Nazi triumph.”
> This is the history of the political relations between Hitler, the NSDAP leadership, and the German ‘coal industrialists”’in the period from 1926 to 1933 and the key role these firms played in supporting and financing the eventual Nazi triumph.”
Indeed. See The Atlantic, “Hitler’s Willing Business Partners” (2001):
Ka-ching….
I would not underestimate the understanding of the German problem by KPD.
It had become evident with the 1919+ uprisings and clashes and the pro-elite posture SPD-President Ebert had taken that the “hunt” against labour was on from early on soon after the War had ended.
Whenever the Weimar government had had the choice to either coalesce with labour or submit them to police and army violence they chose latter. With that state violence projected via the Reichswehr was the permanent bludgeon in the background. The Communists were the only protection against that. They eventually lost out when elite Reichswehr structures were supported by SA with SA clean-sweeping the public arena and streets spreading fear among the average populace. The Nazis´ main “argument” was their new level of violence to determine political “discourse” exerted through their private army of thugs who cost the NSDAP millions which the German high industry paid for.
And I believe KPD and USPD could have done little to change that except to submit themselves which they did not do. But the German rhyme slogan “Wer hat uns verraten – Sozialdemokraten” (“who did betray us – Socialdemocrats did”) originated with a deep understanding of this huge – ahem – fascist alliance which SPD enabled too long and opposed too late.
Thanks for the hint re: Kershaw.
Always one of the most illuminating comments, thank you.
> Paxton’s over complicated and tortured definition of fascism
A couple points. Paxton is a historian, so his description evolved. My preference:
First, this is not “tortured.” It’s a synthesis based on historical events (and not to be measured against some ideal and arbitrary defnition of “complicated.’ Complicated compared to what? Dick and Jane?).
Second, because it is historically-based, you can look at contemporary history to see if it’s illuminating. “Obsessive preoccupation with community decline?” Check (see the “A” in MAGA). “mass-based party of committed nationalist militants”? No check, fortunately, at least not yet. Fascism also assumes certain forms within the discourse, also important to recognize. And so forth.
Third, you write:
“Follows from Marxist theory” is pretty vague (assuming that Marxism is a “theory” from which claims “follow.” a whole discussion in itself). Whose theory exactly and where situated? Further, how do we know fascism is happening now? The only answer is to look around us. Only a historical approach — as opposed to a catchphrase — can enable us to so that, because only that approach allows us to compare and contrast the present to known events in the past. Finally, “abandon liberal ‘rule of law’ because it can no longer discipline the exploited classes effectively enough” is not testable (what is “enough”) and overgeneralized. In fact, the bourgeoisie abandons the rule of law whenever it wants (if classes can be said to want things). For example, the Peterloo Massacre meets your definition. Was the British government of 1819 fascist? As Einstein is said to have said: “As simple as possible, and no simpler.”
As far as Adoph Reed, you write:
Don’t distort what Reed says. Reed write:
Reed doesnn’t say “right wing juggernaut.”
“Don’t distort what Reed says”
I originally had “fascistic tendencies,” but I couldn’t get my post through NC’s tripwire. I spent awhile changing various aspects, trying to get it through, and in one of them I cut down on mentions of “fascism”–thinking that I’d gone over a limit.
The same goes for the truncated definition: “Rather, to me fascism is simpler and follows from Marxist theory: terror government of a bourgeoisie that’s decided to abandon liberal ‘rule of law’ because it can no longer discipline the exploited classes effectively enough.”
This was, in the original post, seven bullet points laying out a process that would’ve shown that, no, Peterloo alone would not suffice. But I couldn’t get the post through until, as a last ditch effort, I eliminated the bullet points altogether for the truncated definition.
So I can’t be blamed for the curtailed and somewhat censored nature of my comment.
I don’t understand the quibble about “follows from Marxist theory”–I mean that I derived it from my reading of Marxist theory. For example, here’s Trotsky on the issue:
“The fascist movement in Italy was a spontaneous movement of large masses, with new leaders from the rank and file. It is a plebian movement in origin, directed and financed by big capitalist powers. It issued forth from the petty bourgeoisie, the slum proletariat, and even to a certain extent from the proletarian masses; Mussolini, a former socialist, is a ‘self-made’ man arising from this movement.”
“The genuine basis (for fascism) is the petty bourgeoisie.”
“Through the fascist agency, capitalism sets in motion the masses of the crazed petty bourgeoisie and the bands of declassed and demoralized lumpenproletariat – all the countless human beings whom finance capital itself has brought to desperation and frenzy.”
“From fascism the bourgeoisie demands a thorough job; once it has resorted to methods of civil war, it insists on having peace for a period of years. And the fascist agency, by utilizing the petty bourgeoisie as a battering ram, by overwhelming all obstacles in its path, does a thorough job. After fascism is victorious, finance capital directly and immediately gathers into its hands, as in a vise of steel, all the organs and institutions of sovereignty, the executive administrative, and educational powers of the state: the entire state apparatus together with the army, the municipalities, the universities, the schools, the press, the trade unions, and the co-operatives. When a state turns fascist, it does not mean only that the forms and methods of government are changed in accordance the patterns set by Mussolini – the changes in this sphere ultimately play a minor role – but it means first of all for the most part that the workers’ organizations are annihilated; that the proletariat is reduced to an amorphous state; and that a system of administration is created which penetrates deeply into the masses and which serves to frustrate the independent crystallization of the proletariat. Therein precisely is the gist of fascism …”
Stalin also has some interesting points vis-a-vis fascism. For example, he believed that structurally that fascism “was the bourgeoisie’s fighting organization that relies on the active support of Social-Democracy. Social-Democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism.” Stalin theorizes fascism as an informal, fighting organization for the bourgeoisie that acts as the “stick” to social democracy’s “carrot”.
Again, putting fascism’s disciplinary power at its center seems key to the Marxist tradition.
This is a really beautiful definition. Fascism is thus kind of a degenerate case of “normal” capitalism that occurs when the proletariat no longer submit to the elite-controlled rule of law. In other words when the legal system runs out of horsepower, state violence is used to achieve the same goal.
One nice thing about this definition is that there isn’t a bright line between capitalism and fascism. One gradually morphs into the other as conditions in the society change. It’s also an indication that fascism is a sign of panic by elites will see their grasp on society slipping away.
Nima is on fire this week. Michael Hudson and Richard Wolff’s from two days ago, and Col. Wilkerson just now–just wow. Wilkerson on the “pattern of Jewish history” is so eloquent. Time stamped link.
Does Wilkerson’s “pattern of Jewish history” factor in the problem of an arrogant pride-faction taking power from a cautious pragmatic faction partly because the arrogant pride-faction is prepared to use takeover tools like assassination which the cautious pragmatic faction is not morally and behaviorally prepared to counter or even understand and accept the reality of?
For example, it seems to me that Rabin represented a cautious pragmatic faction which thought the cautious pragmatic approach to Palestine and the PLO was to prepare the Israeli public to accept a partial surrender to the PLO with careful steps over time ( the Oslo Accords). Whereas the arrogant pride faction ( Likud and those further right) was prepared to assassinate Rabin and anyone else ( if necessary) to conquer power step by step for its own arrogant pride goals and program. And the cautious pragmatic faction was not prepared to even understand the behavioral and goals nature of the arrogant pride faction.
And so was psychologically and culturally unprepared to use the overwhelming force needed to exterminate the arrogant pride fraction (starting with its leadership) into a state of surrender or extinction in order to delete from operational existence the opponents of cautious pragmatic progress.
It gets back to Pappe’s posited difference between “Israelis” and “Judeans”. The “Judeans” imposed their ethic of arrogance and pride on the whole country by conquering it from within. And it may be that in the decades since that assassination, the “Judeans” have “Judeanized” enough “Israelis” that the small relict population of “Israelis” which still exists can only save itself by emigrating before “Judea” seals the borders to prevent an “Israeli” exodus.
It’s terrifically funny, in a schadenfreude way, to see the pearl clutching GOP neoliberals suddenly jump on the ‘me too’ bandwagon. / ;)
adding, re: “Poor choice of friends. That said, I am so, so tired of Democrats ginning up sex scandals when they have no moral standing to do so.”
I think Al Franken would agree. / ;)
Tucker Carlson was doing an interview several months ago and he was saying that he knew all the political players in Washington and it seemed that only he had what called be called a normal sex life.
I remember that comment. It seems that the blackmail records system that John Edgar Hoover set up over seventy years ago now has many practitioners, and not all of them are domestic operators. It seems as though our pubic serpents are groomed for
successexcess before they can advance to higher office.Ah yes. J. Edgar. Did he blackmail govt Congressmen to hide his own way of life? Back when being gay was not OK. We’ll never know. ( I understand he looked fabulous in a simple black dress wearing a single strand of pearls. Nothing ostentatious. / ;)
He would have been a hit reading books at children’s reading hour.
Just like Bush the Younger during 9/11?
Or filtered out for non-possession of blackmailable excess to begin with.
No doubt. However, everyone in power in the US govt is subjected to various seductions. See the old movie The Seduction of Joe Tynan.
And also, someone claiming their life is normal… I’m not saying it’s not… but what else would they say about themselves? So there’s that.
With the election result and Trump’s various cabinet appointments so far, it appears that numerous industries — food, pharma, tech, MIC, possibly others — will face scrutiny. The single missing industry is oil and gas. So I guess the GOP is shaping up as the party of working people and climate apocalypse?
Climate apocalypse is like genocide, bipartisan.
Trump and RFK…….
The nation’s health is in a drastic decline. It is certainly multifactorial – and the solutions are going to require a cultural wide reorientation. This is going to be a very daunting job, if it can be done at all. The alternative to not getting it done is to hit the brick wall.
I do feel compelled to point out, however, the behavior that got us into this mess. Here I am in my office, daily seeing people with uncontrolled DM-Type 2, loads of 20somethings coming in for the same, massive obesity at a scale I could never have dreamed even 10 years ago, medical conditions left for far too long because patients could not afford their deductibles, all kinds of younger people sick with various things who have no insurance even though we supposedly no longer have that problem because of Obamacare, all kinds of elderly people who because of insane things in their med coverage have “donut holes” where for months they can afford nothing, horrific food, horrific chemical exposure, I can go on and on and on…….
You would think the medical establishment would be literally up in arms about the failed health of the country.
They are not.
This is this week’s lead page in the organ of the medical establishment – BIG MEDICINE – The New England Journal of Medicine –
https://www.nejm.org/toc/nejm/current
As you can see – the focus of the journal that at one time educated all of America’s physicians about acute medical issues and the management of the health of the nation – has its entire front pages all about EQUITY – the knee slapper is the very first one – EQUITY IN PORTRAITURE – as in which portraits are hanging in med schools, etc……equity on medical rounds – we no longer discuss MEDICAL cases – as in kidneys and heart disease, instead, we see every patient through the lens of medical racism and medical grievance and microaggression, equity to provide menstrual products for the homeless ( I am sure this is a valid issue – but this is not something that should rise to the level of this publication)…….and then we get to the new research – it is all about new drugs and procedures costing hundreds of thousands each.
It is just embarrassing – even humiliating – to those who took an oath to uphold the health of our communities.
The actual health of the nation is ignored and all this claptrap is what students are reading about and being taught. This is what they put out for the doctors of America to read for their “continuing education.” I remember the days not long ago when these pages were filled with wonder, with how things worked, how things were efficiently treated, what new things to look out for, a pride in our history as a profession ( we can no longer discuss that subject in any way – all of the scum who did that were white penis-havers, don’t you know). It is a tragedy of just immense proportion – no wonder our society is sick unto death……
Again, I do not have the answers. I have been watching this happen over the past 10-20 years knowing the disaster was coming. The arrogance and hubris of these medical leaders is overwhelming – so of course – they are going to act like crybabies when there is even the first hint their world is ending.
Unfortunately, every issue of the NEJM and JAMA is just like this – it gets more clownish each year. Again, it will be a very daunting job for whoever gets it. And I am not sure it is even fixable at this point.
Thank you, IM Doc. I’m not a medico, I’m a CS IT specialist — an applied science technology. In my opinion “equity”, instead of equality, is the club used to beat down anyone focusing on real outcomes for everyone in the real world, anyone who questions the neoliberal “profits over people” orthodoxy. If I could do one thing by the wave of a magic wand I’d eliminate the PREP Act. But that’s just my 2 cents. Thank you for your real world experience comments.
adding: “equity” presumes scarcity in the market; scarcity presumes market driven profits based on supply and demand, and therefore some sort of ‘virtuous’ rationing is required. It’s nuts.
Flora,
Perhaps we should wait until 1/20. If the orange one keeps his promises, the DEI might just DIE.
Might be wishful thinking on my part, but hope springs eternal…
Retired Carpenter
P.S: I am also hoping he will go to his 2nd inauguration in a standard 25 yd. rear loader garbage truck.
I am also hoping he will go to his 2nd inauguration in a standard 25 yd. rear loader garbage truck.
That would be awesome trolling.
Then the more cynical among us could ask; is he coming to “collect the trash,” or is he bringing “fresh garbage” for the DC Swamp Trough?
I was reading a briefing that a colleague prepared for the head of our division on an technical issue having to do with the network and wifi connections in one of our buildings. The division head asked me to define the problem statement. The first two paragraphs in said briefing framed the problem in terms of – I kid you not – diversity and inclusion.
I defined the problem in on sentence and we have moved along.
I am reminded of an old NC discussion on card carrying Libertarian sorts buying up vast swaths of social/msm like TED/History/Discovery Channel et al, and how they were transformed over night. Oops … lest we forget the classic case of FOX going from a very coastal liberal platform too hard right over night [old doco on that].
So … NEJM/JAMA just might like my first example, go from thought provoking programs which inform viewers to classics like War Pron and military weapons being fired by women in bikinis. All justified in the name of profit and increased viewership/marketshare [tm].
Anywho … the changes in how NEJM/JAMA operates was examined long ago on NC e.g. paper mills front run by Universities seeking to churn out papers to buff their image. Prof’ers incentivized to churn out studies in quantity and not quality as a MBA/Marketing tool in reference to the Uni’s status as a leader[????]. Very much like how Ratings Agencies helped set the stage for the GFC due to incentives.
The entire health care industrial complex is trillions of dollars in size. RFK Jr. will be very lucky if he can make even the slightest dent in the overall problem. Even a brutal dictator would be unable to corral this heinous monster. For the foreseeable future things in general will only get worse. This is the trajectory we are on. Prayers and wishful thinking aren’t going to change the trajectory.
At the end of the day its all propped up by the odious Shareholder Value trope … I mean legally … the idea that it would impair so many income streams and via that damage the economy is the monster under the bed these days …
“Equity” can be how mediocrity defends itself but undoubtedly many approach it as a buzzword like fascism and it becomes a way for high status publications like the ones you mentioned to defend themselves from being “cancelled.” They don’t really believe in equality but by giving equal outcomes to some high visibility individuals–yes you Kamala–they seek to divert attention.
MLK said “colorblind” but let us also add gender blind with the caveat that it’s not how you look but what you do. If Hillary had really been the wise and capable FP specialist she pretended to be who among us would have opposed her?
One should also add there are lots of children of privilege in our very affluent society who need to work the refs re their own incompetence. Yes you Jared.
> EQUITY IN PORTRAITURE
I went to NEJM and holy moley, that was at the top of the age. A million dead from a pandemic, another pandemic in the offing (perhaps), tranches of lethality wherever we look, and… portraits.
May I suggest that the only portrait that really matters is the portrait of Franklin?
Doc, my experience with medicine, outside of being a prolific patient of near Evel Knievel levels, was as a USAF rescue/ E.R. medic and clinic tech. I wish your above statement was posted at every clinic and hospital in the country. I don’t know what it would take to reverse this slide, but you remind me of what we had.
Adolph Reed’s observations dovetail with those of Richard Wolff in his recent conversation with Michael Hudson on Dialogue Works. Wolff anticipates a series of one-term presidencies, the electorate Groundhog Day-ing from one phony change candidate to the next to administer the declining empire, until some party mobilizes—and delivers for—the working class. To put it another way, for the Dems identity politics may be necessary, from some debatable ethical or pragmatic perspective, but they are not sufficient. Richard Rorty said as much in the ’90s. Apparently some salaries depend on not understanding it.
re: plantidote.
Another nice picture, Wuk. Is that trail in Mineral King right at tree line or below tree line? (Asking for a friend. / ;)
adding: something about tree line and the air oxygen levels at tree line, above said line and below same, and such. / ;)
Its actually taken along MK road, and the rocks in the back are a popular rock climber area known as ‘Danland’.
Ah. Thanks. That does look like a climbable slab. / ;)
Thanks for the UnHerd link. Very interesting.
Some weird stuff going on in the UK. People continue to be arrested and convicted of being slightly mean on the internet, anything slighty off of whatever the mainstream political terms of the day are seem to be a jailable offense. At the same time they have secretly decriminalized viewing child exploitation material and are only giving probation or suspended sentences. Seems like an old tendency really coming back in force in old blighty
I am astounded at any notion that one should simply overlook Matt Gaetz’s improprities because of Slick Willy’s adventures, Biden’s creepy bs or the fact he happens to support Lina Khan’s seat on the FTC. Jesus murphy screw your head back on if you’re running defense for this guy or pooh poohing the Dems criticisms (christ even a good whack of Republicans are mortified by this). It’s politics dammit, of course they are going to be hypocrites.
I think what’s also missed in all of this is that it sounds like Gaetz has quite the dirt pile and for me it invokes the legacy of Dennis Hastert. There’s always been the subtext that Hastert rose to his position because of the dirt sheet on him, not despite it because he was easier to control. As it stands, I can’t help but feel that there’s a similar theme going on here with Gaetz.
> I am astounded at any notion that one should simply overlook Matt Gaetz’s improprities
Genocide, no problem. “Accusation” of “impropriety”? The usual demands for aghastitude, which do not astound me at all. Grundyism.
As for the dirt sheet… See under “six ways from Sunday.”
Kind of curious about Justice dropping their investigation in Gaetz, assuming they spoke to same woman as the House committee did. Very different outcomes on the same allegation, if that’s the case. Maybe it’s not as cut-and-dried as it is being presented.
> Kind of curious about Justice dropping their investigation in Gaetz
Maybe it happened because — follow me closely, here — that’s because they didn’t have a case.
The fact that Gaetz was already a target gives credence to the idea that if they would have, they could have.
Funny, I look at the entire history of the impropriety charges against Matt Gaetz and come to an entirely different conclusion. But then I remember that it wasn’t the accusations but the cover up that really did Hastert in. Gaetz is by nature uncontrollable. His reaction has been to attack. There is not some secret investigation because Gaetz doesn’t hide from it. And during the entire time he has been being extorted and accused and investigated he has kept up throwing bombs into the status quo. Which has made him popular with those who think we need change, and less popular with those don’t.
It reminds me more of Mueller’s case against the Russian hacking group that fell apart when they had lawyers show up to represent them in court and demand he prove his charges with evidence. Mueller had to drop it. Justice had to drop the case against Gaetz. Demanding the charges be proved rather than settling and falling in line just doesn’t say either “dirty but brazen” or “have all the dirt” to me. It says miscalculation by the usual suspects.
Speculation: I wonder whether Trump’s “dictator for a day” thing isn’t a plan. The first candidates might be being chosen to apply shock and awe to the system, by doing unpopular things like trimming the fat, removing the incompetent, the disobedient, and the woke, clerks that obey Trump in all matters. Once that is done, perhaps other people will replace these shock troops.
I added orts and scraps, but forgot to say.
What is an ort, BTW? I must have missed this.
A morsel left at a meal : SCRAP.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ort
> Lion resting
Rembrandt at times reminds me of Chinese & Japanese ink-wash paintings, with the changing thickness and density of line. Regrettably I have been unable to penetrate the interwebs commercial layers to bring you a lion from history. Best I can do is from 1938.
“Trump Is About to Face the Choice That Dooms Many Presidencies” [Oren Cass, New York Times].
“…Focus on whatever harebrained scheme Robert Kennedy Jr. or Vivek Ramaswamy might mention over lunch or on creating a more generous benefit for working families raising kids, as JD Vance and others have proposed?”
It would be great if the administration was focusing on benefits, but knives are out for a lot of benefits that go to WORKING PEOPLE raising kids.
Washington tends to go the route of punishments over policies.
As we possibly enter into a debate/discussion on the nature of fascism it is important to remember that in France in May of 1968 Charles de Gaulle–the man who led the French resistance against the Nazis during World War II and became France’s head of state in 1958– came to exemplify fascism in the eyes of many of the younger New Left in France. There were hundreds of posters accusing the general of “fascist” behavior.
In my opinion, the originality of Paxton’s 2004 study was his largely anti-deterministic methodology. According to Paxton there was nothing inevitable about the arrival of either Hitler of Mussolini in office. However it can also be said that Paxton contradicts himself near the end of his book where he speaks about the nine more essentialist “mobilizing passions” that supposedly lay at the core of a fascist mentality.. He seems convinced, even back in 2004, that such passions
are present in all so-called Western democracies.
> As we possibly enter into a debate/discussion on the nature of fascism
It’s a good discussion to have, in spite of — or perhaps because — the Democrats sh*t the bed so bedly. Atrios (always a good barometer for Democrat-adjacent yet somehow still sane thinking) writes:
No, but just because a Democrat claims “F” and then behaves “not F” does not in fact imply either F or not-F.
Shouldn’t that be, “…claims “D” and then behaves “not “D”.
“Trump Is About to Face the Choice That Dooms Many Presidencies”
Funny when you think about it. MAGA is all about making America great which suggests massive internal reforms and concentrating on the home front. And yet he filled his Cabinet with people whose focus is on instead places like China, Russia and Iran. So does his version of MAGA mean making America a mighty power overseas who intimidates those countries that do not get in line with the empire? Does Trump still think that it is 2016? Because a helluva lot has changed since then. He may, for example, try to order Russia to freeze the conflict in Ukraine – to the west’s advantage – and will be surprised when the Russians tell him ‘Nyet!’
You made a quip yesterday about the Epstien tapes burning in the fire during Biden’s and Trump’s sit down and then proceed to basically insinuate that the Gaetz’s support for Khan was a reason why these what’s being alleged is why he’s been attacked. Poor lil’ fella, he’s only doing substantively the same thing as Jeffy and his retuine of slobs and we all know they were so unfairly persecuted in the media as well.
I’ll absolutely hold being called a prude in this case.
Yes. “In this case.”
> Poor lil’ fella, he’s only doing substantively the same thing as Jeffy and his retuine of slobs and we all know they were so unfairly persecuted in the media as well.
Lol, do you really expect a response to this nonsense?
Since no one in the Commentariat appears to have mentioned it yet, who is going to watch the Tyson v. Paul fight?
Me because its a sign of the times …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FShE0VifCYs&ab_channel=kennylavish/
E.U. (Experience Unlimited) – Da Butt (Video)
:) :0
> the Tyson v. Paul fight?
Soectacle, I think, not fight.
“Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the wallet.”
I think all 4 fights had something to teach you if you’re interested in learning about boxing. But the result of the Paul v. Tyson fight is what my head told me would happen and my heart was afraid of. Tyson is too old to do it anymore. Paul handled him easily by applying simple strategies.
What may be of more interest to the NC crowd were the lessons on betting that were hosted by Draft Kings in the middle of the program. When a correspondent from Draft Kings told the audience what the numbers meant and how they would pay out. The naked encouragement of sports betting on that show was eye opening.
Did not watch it, took a few minutes to find a result and overview of the fight. In summation, going the distance but maybe it just was not up to the level of Ali vs Frazier or Ali vs Foreman…
In spite of themselves ESPN still keeps a few older heads around, guys on PTI late afternoons were writing for the Post I believe in the 80s. They broadly lamented the current state of boxing today. Some of the best films on sport are about boxing. No I don’t mean Rocky necessarily or the many , many sequels.
About maps: the old saying that “the map you want exists or can be made” is very true, imo. / ;)
re: fascism discussion & Chris Hedges & Sheldon Wolin 2014
Hedges´s noteworthy conversation with Sheldon Wolin (died 2015)
Can Capitalism and Democracy Coexist?
(video & transcript)
part 1
https://therealnews.com/hedgessheldon141020pt1
part 2
https://therealnews.com/hedgessheldon141020pt2
part 3
https://therealnews.com/hedgessheldon141020pt3
part 4
https://therealnews.com/hedgessheldon141020pt4
part 5
https://therealnews.com/hedgessheldon141020pt5
part 6
https://therealnews.com/hedgessheldon141020pt6
part 7
https://therealnews.com/hedgessheldon141020pt7
part 8
https://therealnews.com/hedgessheldon141020pt8
re: JACOBIN post-election frustration
Considering how narrow their discourse was conducted until Nov. 4th the many pieces highly critical of the Dems – now – is surprising and a bit irritating. Why not pounding them well before…
However this will be only a limited period.
As much as the so despised Dems will circle back into the usual re-cycling of nothingness JACOBIN will bang their heads against the wall over why AOC is not already supreme leader unleashing direct democracy and bring about universal peace and happiness.
(ok I am being unfair. They do a lot to discuss labour and unions.)
p.s. Sheldon Wolin
translated from German, a text on Wolin´s inverted totalitarianism concept:
“Reverse Totalitarianism” – Sheldon Wolin’s provocative late work
“Does ‘democracy’ really describe our politics and our political system, or is it a cynical gesture designed to disguise a deeply manipulative policy?” This is the key question in Sheldon Wolin’s major analysis of the political-economic system of the USA, which has now been translated into German. The Princeton professor, who died in 2015, made no secret of his answer. Wolin, who was probably the most important political theorist of the past decades alongside Hannah Arendt, denied his country any democratic qualities. He saw a new type of political and social system emerging in the USA: “reverse totalitarianism”.
by ULRICH TEUSCH , April 22, 2022
https://archive.is/RefMs
I saved this a while back, NYMag article[1] linking Huffpo[2] saying:
NYMag: Palmieri’s remarks were met with derision in progressive circles….
So Clinton is to blame for everything.
[1] https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/02/can-democrats-move-left-and-to-the-suburbs.html
[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-protesters-15-hour_us_58a1efe1e4b03df370d8db2b
Biden currently has ultimate classification and security clearance authority. Maybe he should deny Trump clearance forever. I’m sure he could find a good reason, such as the felonies Trump was convicted of. I doubt there is any precedent for this, but it does seem like it might be possible.
I am a simple man. Don’t have a college degree or any government accreditation. A union man for 25 years. Taught myself how to trade stocks on owl shifts (midnights). I am a, do the right thing guy. If you can figure out what that is and there has been times for me I hadn’t a clue. So these labels just confuse something that for me is simple. You have groups of people who work together and acquire power. Call it what you want. Do they care about doing the right thing? They don’t even define it the same as me. So we always have that over and over. We have psychopaths and others that have to be faced by someone. They pretty much have taken over America until now. My hope is these current appointees have the same definition of, do the right thing, that I do. The bad don’t usually walk away. So stand by.