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2:00PM Water Cooler 2/20/2025

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By Lambert Strether.

Bird Song of the Day

Brown Thrasher, Wannagan Creek Cabin area, Billings, North Dakota, United States. Wannagan Creek Cabins, East River Road, Little Missouri Grasslands. Grasslands and drainage on top of the bluff behind the cabins. Trees and bushes along the draw of an ephemeral stream in the grassland on the plateau above the main river valley. Also grassy and rocky area uphill from the draw.”

* * *

In Case You Might Miss…

  1. The goddamned Democrats.
  2. Mask ban in MD.
  3. Why is grayscale taking over?

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 Administration

I suppose some people find this amusing:

DOGE

“Judge homes in on DOGE staffer duties in privacy lawsuit” [The Hill]. “A federal judge on Wednesday looked to pinpoint the exact duties of Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) staffers during a hearing over whether to cut off their unfettered access to troves of sensitive personal data. U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman questioned the Justice Department over the specific “purposes or tasks” assigned to DOGE workers, attempting to determine whether their far-reaching access is warranted. … The inquiry into DOGE’s staffers came as Boardman weighed whether to temporarily bar DOGE from accessing sensitive personal data across numerous federal agencies. Six Americans and a handful of union organizations sued the Department of Treasury, Department of Education and United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) over personally identifiable information in the systems to which DOGE has gained access. The challengers claim DOGE’s actions violate the Privacy Act of 1974, which was passed in response to the Watergate scandal and provides safeguards against privacy violations. In court filings, they accused the agencies of ‘abandoning their duties as guardians and gatekeepers’ of millions of Americans’ sensitive information.” And: “DOGE’s work and the staffers carrying it out have remained largely obscure, though court proceedings have peeled back the curtains on certain efforts. Several DOGE deputies were previously affiliated with Musk’s companies, and some staffers are fresh out of high school or college, raising alarm about their infiltration of the government. The judge zeroed in on three DOGE staffers in leadership positions — Tom Krause, Adam Ramada and Greg Hogan — who described their work in court filings.” • That is, this lawsuit is directed at the “old heads” DOGEbags, not at the feral/incels.

Democrats en déshabillé

I feel my allotment of posts is winding down, and I’d like to reserve them for current events, so this here is probably the best I’ll be able to do on the goddamn Democrats. Let’s start with this tweet, triggered by the news coverage of government workers axed by DOGE:

(We saw the exact same dynamic during the East Palestine trainwreck, where Trump showed up immediately, and molasses-brained Joe Biden only showed up like a year later.) I don’t much like that account’s politics, but I would never delegitimate the rage, which seemed to overflow in election 2024 (or, more precisely, drove the base, MAGA reaction, to which Trump added slices of the previously invincible Democrat “coalition of the ascendant”).

From the 30,000 foot-level — i.e., beyond “Who lost Pennsylvania?” — I believe the 2024 majority comprehensively rejected governance as practiced by our professional managerial class (PMC). That was the “tide in the affairs of men” in the election just past. By “governance” I don’t mean actions only performed by the State, but situations outside the workplace where a supplicant citizen sits on one side of a desk, and a credentialed functionary sits on the other, and is the gatekeeper to some sort of reward or punishment. You can see this is broad: It covers everything from health care to children’s schooling (“they/them” “not you”) to insurance to human resources to law enforcement to student loans. (Note that all these “across the desk” issues are kitchen table issues, bills; the price of eggs, I would speculate, is a concern at the margin, people having been pushed to the edge by a person behind a desk, then over the edge at the grocery store.) The price of eggs is also visible and understandable; an absurd medical bill is accepted as one of life’s inevitable burdens.)

And it’s hard to disagree with that rejection; from my class traitor armchair, there’s not one PMC-managed system I’d trust, though I give special attention to the PMC’s catastropic management of our ongoing Covid pandemic (unless you consider installing another tranche of lethality on top of deaths of despair a success). Since the PMC is the base of the Democrat Party, to reject PMC governance is to reject the Democrat Party. The 2024 majority also comprehensively rejected PMC policy, going all the way back to NAFTA, for which the Democrats finally paid the price, as they fully deserved, but also including today’s war in Ukraine, and foreign policy establishment that produced it. (I view the DOGE and MAGA as completely distinct; rather, DOGE is leveraging/exploiting MAGA rage for its own purposes, which have more to do with a power surge by Silicon Valley fraudsters and schemers capitalists than they do with the fate of the rust belt. That MAGA got beaten into the ground by DOGE on one of their main issues, H1B, is something to think about.)

It’s unfortunate that all the revolutionary energy is on the right, but not unexpected, given that the PMC didn’t “abandon” the working class, as the usual framing goes, but actively assaulted them, the last time in 2023 when Biden rolled back all the provisioning put in place for the pandemic, replacing it with nothing. So instead of “solidarity forever,” we get a cornucopia of right wing tropes, starting with “big gummint” and moving through a mental landscape seemingly populated exclusively by the Marlboro Man and blondes with weaponry, rugged individualists par excellence). Tropes accepted by the liberals, I might add, if we’re lucky with some of the virulence attenuated. But we’re not always so lucky. The shift from solidarity to neoliberal “risk tolerance” across the political spectrum in early 2022 is a fine example of this (from an excellent timeline of normalization propaganda by Julia Doubleday).

Of course, the main function of the modern Democrat Party has been to prevent the possibility of a politics or a party driven by the working class; at this they have succeeded admirably, NGO-funded identity politics in its various permutations (race, national origin, gender, etc.) having been the ideological driver, and mercenary though ill-paid “organizers” replacing precinct captains, keeping solidarity far away from the party apparatus. (Hence the Republican assault on NGOs, on both ideological and institutional fronts. Personally, I feel that if the Republicans scrape the DEI excresences away, they’ll be doing the Democrats a big favor; ditto identity politics generally. This is a fine example of Republicans confusing liberals with the left.)

The Democrat reaction to the comprehensive rejection of PMC governance in 2024 has been, well, diverse. Some Democrats are doubling down, becoming more like themselves than they already are.

Let’s start with the DNC:

I read it so you don’t have to; Martin’s “framework” is all “Orange man bad.” There is literally nothing there but talking points to repeat.

Here is the apparent best the leadership can do. Hakeem Jeffries (1):

(Trump and “chaos” has been a Democrat talking point since 2016. How’s that been working out?)

Hakeem Jeffries (2):

(Honestly, who cares?) Some Democrats are trying to make pink pussy hats look weak:

Other Democrats are openly cashing in:

(A shame that brilliant and reproducible campaign tactics elected such a man, even if Oz would have been even worse.)

Or even more openly:

Maybe Biden can play the body a magician saws in half. Kamala too!

And some Democrats are trying the jettison the policies that triggered hatred:

That, however, will be hard to do, since it will take a few election cycles for voters to feel that Democrats have been adequately punished, and the Republicans will wave the bloody flag at every opportunity. More centrally, “Sure, DEI is terrible, but what do you replace it with?” Not solidarity, since that’s not a PMC value.

And other Democrats are butchering an anti-oligarch message:

But wait:

I can’t figure out if Sanders has Putin Derangment Syndrome himself, or whether he has to cynically appeal to the Democrat base, which surely does. I don’t know which is worse.

* * *

I wish I had the time to write this up as a post, and to make the analysis stronger. But I thought I’d better put it all out there, imperfect though it is. If anybody has spotted a Democrat capable of taking a national leadership position, no matter the level of government, please leave the name in comments. I certainly haven’t seen one [bangs head on desk]. Goddamned Democrats.

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, thump, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).

Stay safe out there!

Maskstravaganza

Mask ban attempt in MD:

By Democrats. Of course. (On mask bans, see NC here and here).

Immune Dysregulation

“Everyone’s sick this winter. What’s up with flu, norovirus, RSV and COVID?” [USA Today]. “The severity of this year’s flu season is driven by a combination of factors, experts suggested. Daniel Griffin, an infectious disease specialist at Columbia University, said the uptick could be a result of people socializing more this year than they did in the immediate years after the pandemic. Vaccination rates might also be playing a role, Brull said. ‘Any family physician would tell you it is not too late to get your flu shot or your COVID booster this year,” Brull said. “Flu and COVID exist all year-round.'” • Not a word about Covid weakening “everyone’s” immune system. Naturally.

Sequelae: Covid

“Differences in Long COVID severity by duration of illness, symptom evolution, and vaccination: a longitudinal cohort study from the INSPIRE group” [The Lancet]. From the Abstract: “Of 3663 participants, 2604 (71.1%) never had Long COVID, 994 (27.1%) reported current Long COVID, and 65 (1.8%) reported resolved Long COVID…. Among participants followed up to 3 years after initial infection, those with current Long COVID had worse physical and mental health outcomes. The majority of those with Long COVID did not resolve, with less than 2% having resolved Long COVID. The resolved Long COVID cohort had moderately worse physical and mental health compared with those never-having-Long COVID. COVID-19 vaccination was associated with better outcomes.” Of course, to a eugenicist, like those at Stanford, that’s not a bug. It’s a feature. And from the Limitations: “Long COVID status was based on self-report, rather than objective testing or specific symptom criteria, and may include conditions not caused by Long COVID. However, this is consistent with the recent approach to defining Long COVID, which emphasizes the myriad symptoms and importance of patient involvement in defining Long COVID.” • “The recent approach” means the CDC approach.

Elite Maleficence

“How Influencer Leftists Failed On Covid” [Nate Bear, Do Not Panic]. “I read popular leftist media, listen to popular leftist podcasts, and in nearly five years none of them have ever articulated a covid story for their followers that positions the backlash to covid policies as a coordinated attack by the capitalist ruling class against broadly redistributive policies. Worse than that, some of them push reactionary lines about covid, that it was exclusively an attack on civil liberties, that it was a period of tyrannical rule we must never fall for again. Fake fool leftists like Jimmy Dore are the worst, full covid reactionaries who sprinkle on antivax shite to boot. It’s not just him. Most leftists with a big platform show a total inability, unwillingness, I don’t know what, to apply critical theory about class and capital to the biggest global crisis of our lifetimes…. Much of what we’re seeing now in the US and more broadly in the west is because the liberal centre and the left, together, ceded the ground to right wing reactionaries in the critical period during early covid when the story was not yet written, when the future was still up for grabs. And in that critical period, whether they were openly spouting reactionary sentiment like Dore, dribbling covid out of their mouths only in reference to how bad stay-at-home was for the kids, or staying silent as the brief expansion of the social safety net was unwound, influencer leftists and liberals largely conspired with the billionaire class to agree on a cultural story about covid which led us to where we are.” For example:

Here’s some of the objectively very good things that happened during early covid, things in many cases without precedent.

Direct cash transfers to citizens.

Evictions banned in the US, UK, EU.

Debt collection banned.

Homeless people provided shelter. (The UK ended homelessness).

Child poverty halved to record lows.

Food poverty eradicated. The US government was giving out free food boxes for fucks sake.

Plummeting suicide rates, adult and child.

Wildlife without the boot of industrial capitalism on its neck flourished.

Remote work was normalised.

These policies happened broadly across the west, regardless of the government type. From the right in the UK to the centre in Canada to the left in Spain. The US did redistribution and social protection under Trump and then Biden and at the state level, red and blue.

The crisis provoked a pro-social response independent of government ideology.

There was also a true sense of the collective, a true understanding that we lived in a society for the first time in my life. From mutual aid efforts to clapping for workers to wearing masks in healthcare as a basic courtesy to disabled and vulnerable people.

Of course, Biden rolled all of this back as fast as he could, one reason the Democrats lost. Anyhow, you can be sure our elites will want none of this will happen if Bird Flu ever jumps to humans. They have the same reaction to all this that they had to the New Deal: Never again.

* * *

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

Wastewater
This week[1] CDC February 10 Last week[2] CDC (until next week):

Variants [3] CDC February 15 Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC February 8

Hospitalization
New York[5] New York State, data February 18: National [6] CDC February 13:

Positivity
National[7] Walgreens February 17: Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic February 8:

Travelers Data
Positivity[9] CDC January 27: Variants[10] CDC January 27

Deaths
Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11] CDC January 25: Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12] CDC January 25:

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) Down, nothing new at major hubs.

[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.

[3] (CDC Variants) XEC takes over. That WHO label, “Ommicron,” has done a great job normalizing successive waves of infection.

[4] (ED) A little uptick.

[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Definitely jumped, but no exponential growth either, Odd.

[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). Leveling out.

[7] (Walgreens) Leveling out.

[8] (Cleveland) Continued upward trend since, well, Thanksgiving.

[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Leveling out.

[10] (Travelers: Variants). Positivity is new, but variants have not yet been released.

[11] Deaths low, positivity leveling out.

[12] Deaths low, ED leveling out.

Stats Watch

Employment Situation: “United States Initial Jobless Claims” [Trading Economics]. “Initial jobless claims in the US rose by 5,000 from the previous week to 219,000 on the period ending February 15th, ahead of market expectations of 215,000. In the meantime, recurring claims were at 1,869,000 after the first week of February, loosely in line with market expectations of 1,870,000.”

Manufacturing: “United States Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index” [Trading Economics]. “The Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing Index in the US decreased to 18.1 in February 2025 from 44.3 in January which was the highest since April 2021, and below forecasts of 20.”

* * *

Manufacturing: “Trump says he’s considering buying used planes to serve as Air Force One amid Boeing delays” [Associated Press]. “Speaking to reporters aboard one of the two nearly 35-year-old Boeing 747-200 aircraft in current use, Trump said, ‘We’re looking at alternatives, because it’s taking Boeing too long.’ ‘We may go and buy a plane,’ Trump said, adding that he could then ‘convert it.’ He later clarified that he was ruling out purchasing aircraft of Airbus, the European company that is the only other global supplier on large wide-body aircraft, but would consider a second-hand Boeing plane. ‘I would not consider Airbus. I could buy one from another country perhaps or get one from another country.'”

Manufacturing: “Boeing CEO says Musk ‘helping in a big way’ on timing of Air Force One planes” [Reuters]. “Ortberg told the Barclays Industrial Select Conference that Boeing is making progress with the help of Trump’s cost-cutting ally Musk in improving the delivery time, which will eliminate the risk of continued cost overruns. ‘Elon Musk is actually helping us a lot in working through the requirements …so that we can move faster and get the president those airplanes delivered,’ Ortberg said. ‘And you know he’s a brilliant guy so he’s able to pretty quickly ascertain the difference between technical requirements and things that we can move out of the way and he’s helping us in a big way.'” • Well, that’s what Ortberg would have to say, no? If he knew what was good for him.

Manufacturing: “Airbus CEO says China’s Comac could become a serious rival and disrupt the duopoly with Boeing” [Business Insider]. “[Guillaume Faury] was asked about Comac’s plans to increase production of its C919 jet — a single-aisle aircraft similar to the best-selling Airbus A320 family and Boeing’s 737 Max. ‘Other aircraft manufacturers have tried to enter into this very competitive space in the past from other countries, not necessarily successfully, but I believe Comac is more likely to succeed,’ Faury said. He pointed to its ‘privileged access’ to the Chinese market, which he said accounted for a fifth of global aircraft demand. Faury added that this will also ‘probably give them the room’ to export to other countries ‘when the product is mature.’ ‘They have to do a certain ramp-up first — in the current supply environment, ramp-up is not an easy task — but we take them seriously,’ the Airbus CEO said.” • Then too if Comac management looted the company like Boeing’s did, they’d probably be shot. Concentrates the mind.

Tech: Search was bad. AI is making it worse:

it’s like “Let’s get stupid!” is our culture’s motto!

* * *

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 49 Fear (previous close: 48 Neutral) [CNN]. One week ago: 42 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Feb 19 at 3:03:28 PM ET.

Gallery

I don’t much like this account, but this time they really get it right:

Why?

News of the Wired

“The hardest working font in Manhattan” [Marcin Wichary, Aresluna]. “Hours of looking at close-ups of keys made me sensitive to the peculiar shapes of some of its letters. No other font had a Q, a 9, or a C that looked like this. One day, I saw what felt like Gorton on a ferry traversing the waters Bay Area. A few weeks later, I spotted it on a sign in a national park. Then on an intercom. On a street lighting access cover. In an elevator. At my dentist’s office. In an alley…. These had one thing in common. All of the letters were carved into the respective base material – metal, plastic, wood. The removed shapes were often filled in with a different color, but sometimes left alone. At one point someone explained to me Gorton must have been a routing font, meant to be carved out by a milling machine rather than painted on top or impressed with an inked press.Some searches quickly led me to George Gorton Machine Co., a Wisconsin-based company which produced various engraving machines. The original model 1 led to model 1A and then 3U and then, half a decade later, P1-2. They were all pantograph engravers: They allowed you to install one or more letter templates and then trace their shape by hand. A matching rotating cutter would mimic your movements, and the specially configured arms would enlarge or reduce the output to the size you wanted…. A lot of typography has roots in calligraphy – someone holding a brush in their hand and making natural but delicate movements that result in nuanced curves filled with thoughtful interchanges between thin and thick. Most of the fonts you ever saw follow those rules; even the most ‘mechanical’ fonts have surprising humanistic touches if you inspect them close enough. But not Gorton. Every stroke of Gorton is exactly the same thickness (typographers would call such fonts ‘monoline’). Every one of its endings is exactly the same rounded point. The italic is merely an oblique, slanted without any extra consideration, and while the condensed version has some changes compared to the regular width, those changes feel almost perfunctory. Monoline fonts are not respected highly, because every type designer will tell you: This is not how you design a font.” • Neat! Not on the Nostromo, sadly, though this font does sound like it would have been a Weyland-Yutani favorite.

* * *

Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From IM:

IM writes: “A gully by Lake Huron, after a storm.”

* * *

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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155 comments

  1. Desert Dog

    I just looked it up and the price of gold is up over a thousand dollars from a year ago. I sold a couple last year for $1800 each and now I would have gotten two thousand dollars more or them . Yuck.

    Reply ↓
    1. steppenwolf fetchit

      Ahh . . . but what if you had held them long enough for the price of gold to crash again? Shouldn’t you be happy you sold them for more than you paid for them? ( Unless one believes that gold is the sacred Urine of God and can never go down in price).

      Reply ↓
    2. judy2shoes

      Speaking of gold prices, I watched an interesting interview with Richard Wolff and Michael Hudson on Nima’s show this morning. It starts with a discussion of how the price of gold has been manipulated to keep it in check despite supply/demand dynamics. The interview then goes on to the discussion of DOGE/Trump/Musk antics, with a somewhat surprising take, to me, by Michael Hudson. Richard Wolff counterbalances Michael.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHbTFWnn3PI

      Reply ↓
      2. The Rev Kev

        Did you say gold manipulation?

        ‘We looked into the abyss if the gold price rose further. A further rise would have taken down one or several trading houses, which might have taken down all the rest in their wake. Therefore at any price, at any cost, the central banks had to quell the gold price, manage it. It was very difficult to get the gold price under control but we have now succeeded. The US Fed was very active in getting the gold price down. So was the U.K.’

        Edward ‘Steady Eddie’ George, Governor Bank of England 1993-2003, from Reg Howe v. BIS, JPM et al.

        Reply ↓
        2. amfortas the hippie

          thre was a group that said things that loosely comported with my ideology, back in early internet days, called GATA, or something…and manipulation of gold prices were their big thing.
          made sense to me at the time(before i self educated seriously re econ)
          these days, of course, i regard all “stores of wealth” with the same suspicion: they are only “valuable” inasmuch as a sufficient number of marks regard them as of value…much like the bread and wine in church.
          turned into flesh and blood by some mumbled incantation, and especially by the belief of a sufficient number of people.

          Reply ↓
        3. earthling

          Anyone else recall Louis Rukeyser laughing and scoffing at the foolishness of ‘gold bugs’? I imagine he was part of the plan.

          Reply ↓
  2. VTDigger

    Re: ‘Historical AI Images’

    Hold onto your books printed before 2015 folks, that’s stuff’s going to be solid gold in the web 4.0 world!

    Reply ↓
    1. flora

      Yep, especially reference books. If you find a library having a book sale check it out for reference books: dictionaries, encyclopedias, history books, science books, etc.

      Reply ↓
      1. timotheus

        I am still plenty sore about having donated a complete OED (10 volumes) to my hometown library dedicated to my late parents who were great readers and lifelong patrons and supporters. Some years later I dropped in to see them and was told that “books not used often are culled and sold at auction.” They didn’t even notice the dedication stickers and ask me if I wanted them back. Had to make room for computer terminals I suppose.

        Reply ↓
        1. albrt

          Honestly, I would not donate anything to a library nowadays unless your intent is to support homeless shelter operations or teaching kids to make tiktok videos. Libraries have no relationship to what they were when I was growing up. They are more about eliminating paper books than preserving them or making them available.

          Reply ↓
          1. steppenwolf fetchit

            Its been that way for several decades now. Waves of digigoths and cyberbarians took over the Librarian Profession and took over many libraries and devoted themselves to burning and pulping as many books as possible, and all bound collections of periodicals if possible; to forcibly transition the backwards analog masses to the new digital world.

            Reply ↓
            1. MFB

              I like “digigoths”. But as far as I know, although they dress mostly in black, they wear fairly colourful eyeliner, so they can’t be responsible for the relentless rise of greyness.

              In South Africa, grey is the favourite colour for supermarkets and upscale housing. What ever happened to the primary colours that Greek temples were apparently painted in?

              Reply ↓
            2. Patrick Lynch

              I worked for a public library for 28 years. It started in the late 80’s as “the business model of libraries” dreamed up by failed Harvard Business School types, got much worse in the 2010’s as the “retail model of libraries” complete with deskilling, mass pulping of books done by people with zero content knowledge, being a specialist in anything was considered a sin, obsessed with dashboard metrics and circulation statistics at the expense of everything else. The ageism waged against older workers was incredible. Having seen what happens from the inside, I’d NEVER donate a book to the library I used to work for. I retired in 2014, over that time I’d hear from people still there about how much worse things got without ever getting better.

              If you want to see the PMC at its worst, a mid to large size public library system who drank too much of the American Library Association retail kool-aid is where you can find it.

              Reply ↓
  3. Tom67

    Really appreciate you Lambert. Don´t know much about US politics but your take on PMC vs Doge seems right on the mark. Hope sanity returns to the USofA. Had a lot of US clients in my outdoors business and remember 2016 how the Dems shafted Sanders. One very impressive guy a small but conscientious business man from Minnesota went right from Sanders to Trump. They had it coming. Now madness reigns…

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    2. amfortas the hippie

      aye, Lambert.
      i saw my mom in everything you said about those people…which makes me again think that theres some boomer generational thing going on, there.
      Lasch’ narcissism of the elites…and, in mom’s case…those aspiring to such levels….or larping,lol.
      i understand why thats not a kosher/halal thing around here.
      it is widespread in that age-cohort of my family, at least.
      and now, i see the same larpish behavior in their kids….pretending to bougiedom…looking down on us’n’s that make their lives possible, etc.

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    3. Hank Linderman

      Lambert – not sure how you would have improved your rant about the GDDemz. More please…

      The funny thing is I often introduce myself as “… a damn Democrat.” This usually gets a laugh, occasionally I get an “Well I’m a damn Republican” in return.

      Best…H

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  4. matt

    Re: greyscale
    I read an essay on how influencers want more neutral colors in their homes because it makes it easier to film themselves.
    And the increase in greyscale in movies has been tied to the increase in cgi- apparently it’s easier to hide cgi if there’s dim lighting. I’ve also heard an argument that movies are now made to be watched on a very high brightness in theaters, and the way we view screencaptures on our phones makes it seem dimmer than the director intended.
    But I do think there is an overall homogenization of design caused by the internet – less small groups of designers, more trying to appeal to everyone.

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    1. cfraenkel

      Same effect going on in exterior house colors around here. 15 years ago, you would never see any black or dark grey. 10 years ago, black trim got your attention for being different from the rest of the street. Now you don’t see much of anything else.

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        1. flora

          That’s what the salesmen say. What else would they say? I think it’s depressing… and airless, constricted. Shiny, top coated, primer-grey cars? sheesh. I’m sure it’s cheaper to only offer a few colors. “Any color the customer wants, as long as it’s black.” Henry Ford. / ;)

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          2. Bsn

            For quite a few years, when I see a car, they look like a tennis shoe. We need some good ol’ Italian design. They can design a pen that looks sexy! Of course growing up with Michaelangelo on the ceiling is a good early lesson.

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      2. FlyoverBoy

        I think the gray pergo floors and gray kitchens are especially horrendous. They put me in a dinnertime mood to die.

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      3. amfortas the hippie

        in part due to my nature, and in part due to me forseeing this, i paint all my various stuff…raised beds, posts and lintels,rafters, etc…in the primary van goh color schema.
        in this lil greenhouse…attached to main house…which it helped heat today!…im looking at essntially random forest green, deep sky blue, and a deep purple.
        with swatches of crimson and that yellow orangy color that vincent used for sunflowers.
        it should be noted that wearing, habitually, rather gray, brown, black and otherwise dunn colors is an habitual thing with people who are depressed, and/or socially anxious, etc.
        trying to fade into background and such.
        i should know.

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        1. Peter Steckel

          Ha! I go for mid-30s Mexican hipster artist threw up paint everywhere as my scheme. Orange-yellow kitchen, office between sky blue and turquoise, lime green hallway (filled with family pics like a good Southerner). I hate hate hate the taupe/ivory/grey scheme I see everywhere. It seems soul less to me, though I admit in matters of taste, the customer is always right…

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        2. Vicky Cookies

          Your color scheme has fit into Frank Lloyd Wright’s idea that we ought to imitate or take our lead from nature in our artistic choices. He had much else to say (I’m reading him now), but that which wasn’t contradictory doesn’t seem to me particularly enlightening.

          Interesting, your observation about color choices and mood. I wear my blues often, because of something I read years ago stating that it makes people feel comfortable and safe.

          It would make sense that the feelings we get from color, and the attitudes towards the things so colored, would be reflective of their natural sources in things like prairies and oceans and other natural phenomena. I’ll be over here in my calm blue oceanic garb -that is, until I can convince those around me to accept a Tolstoy-style white robe, for the purpose of comfort.

          Amfortas, I’m very glad to be seeing your comments here again. We all benefit from them!

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    2. Turtle

      I found an article at Vox with various theories about why movies and TV lost their colors: https://www.vox.com/culture/22840526/colors-movies-tv-gray-digital-color-sludge

      One of the theories (#4 we’re obsessed with the end of the world) is close to my own instinct about this. I think at least when it comes to arts, it’s a cultural reflection of the state of our world and the feeling of impending doom.

      For cars, I think there’s a more practical explanation: I’ve been reading for many years (at least 20?) that silver and white were the most ‘desirable’ car colors, and thus the easiest to resell. It seems that this led to a snowball effect or vicious cycle.

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      1. The Rev Kev

        Gets pretty bad when watching some films and TV shows that you have to squint hard trying to see what is going on in the gloom even though it is showing a daytime scene. They may as well go back to making black& white films. Who asked for this? Who actually wanted it?

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        1. flora

          The switch from filming on analogye celluloid film and analogue sound capture recording to digital camera video and sound recording was so much cheaper in digital, but came with a great loss in range and detail in both color, light, and sound. Compare, for example, the original BBC film production of “Tinker,Taylor,Soldier,Spy” starring Alec Guinness to the later digital production of the same movie. This comparison is easily done online. I’m not comparing script or acting or continuity here. Just compare the visuals and sound qualities. Digital has still not achieved the older analogue film abilities. The result is a diminishment (a perfect description in this case) of both the video and audio range of digital productions compared to the older analogue productions, though the digital keeps improving.

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        2. Pat

          Digital black and white, I would agree with you. But the film black and white classic films and even a lot of the regular not so classic output from the studios have so much more depth and variety and yes clarity than what you see today. (Watching TCM or Cinevault then going to a channel with more current repertoire can be disconcerting and distressing sometimes even on a digital lcd screen) If it were done on film, I would happily see them do more and more black and white.

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          1. flora

            It was call ‘the silver screen’ for a reason back in the day.

            Going on too long: in analogue filming there was the camera and sound recording directly capturing the image in frames-per-second and sound as it happened. And that was it.

            In digital there is the digital image taking capturing an image, multiple “frames per second” which is modulated through a calculus of mediation of digital imagery appearing previous and following, and then presented as a continuity. aka, it is stripped of outlier data and correlated to a continuity. aka, it is ‘dimmed’.imo. Fine for short smart phone clips. For cinema? Not so much.

            Much shorter, imo, where analogue was a 1 to slightly less than 1 correspondence of representation, the digital is a 1 to more than 10 (digital calculation modulation), or is it 1 to -10 representation. Digital “smooths out the life”, as one might say. / my 2 cents.

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            1. Pat

              They also do digital color correction. I know it isn’t quite as bad as colorization, but it is a manipulation of both the overall color tone but outright color changes. Not as technical as what you are pointing out, but it really is one of the last processes film and tv go through, and is all about massaging the color.

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      2. IM Doc

        It is not just the color scheme.

        I have real trouble on the few occasions when I take the kids to the theater for something they just HAVE to see there.

        Since film is no longer being projected – just digital – the light is so washed out and most of the time there is actual pixelating or at least kaleidoscopic dots all through the screen. It is very distracting and makes me long for the days when my mom and dad actually took me to see movies projected with film and in bright full color.

        We have a mid range set up in the house and the picture quality is 100 times better and is not as distracting. And this problem has been true in whatever cinema we find ourselves all over the country.

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      3. Pat

        I’ve been hearing for even longer that cars outside what I think of as the top four – silver, gray, tan and black, are too noticeable and make you a target for the police, particularly red.
        Not sure if it is true, but if you have a lead foot… The same is said about having a funny or memorable license plate.

        Or maybe I have just spent years among bad drivers sharing their wisdom. ;)

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    3. Geof

      Noticing the grey trend in home interiors, my intuition was that these are the colours of purity in a cultural obsessed with moral rightness. White and light grey are the colours of purity, Heaven, and purgatory. (Whereas Hell is colourful.)

      There is precedent. The protestant capitalist Dutch elites wore black. The Puritan colonists were famous for their drab clothing (even to this day). But it is grey and white, not earth tones, that strike me today.

      The X thread suggests this has to do with the idea that colour is not rational. This fits with Iain McGilchrist’s ideas about the dominance of rational left hemisphere of the brain, and how it sees the world as dead matter, in contrast to the right hemisphere, which sees life everywhere. Black, white and grey are colours of death.

      It seems to me that when we are focused on morality and judgment, when the world is polarized into questions of right and wrong, the sensual experience of the world is lost. (Scents and perfumes are also out of fashion today.) That is what I see in white and grey interiors.

      The film Fanny and Alexander illustrates this, with the contrast between the rich colours and fabrics of the mansion and its lively inhabitants with the cold grey stone of the severe moralizing bishop.

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    1. Martin Oline

      I have to chime in that I enjoyed the background on the Gorton pantograph. I used several of them over the years to engrave on injection mold surfaces and they were well made machines. The only complaint I would have is there was no shock absorber or dampener between the cutting tool and the stylus which was guided by hand. The vibrations could be fatiguing or even damaging to the hand if it was a long job. Gorton also made excellent heavy-duty milling machines that are probably extinct today.

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      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        > I have to chime in that I enjoyed the background on the Gorton pantograph. I used several of them over the years to engrave on injection mold surfaces and they were well made machines

        Truly the NC commentariat is the best commentariat.

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        1. amfortas the hippie

          indeed.

          when i worked in my grandad’s sheet metal(etc) shop when i was 18-19, i think i remember the name “Gorton” on a couple of the ancien machinery in there.
          specifically, a big, 1 ton drill press, that i was made to use to drill holes in random bits of metal for hours and days.
          theres a peculiar smell associated with that kinda machine..the lubricating oil burnin off with the cutting…that one never forgets.
          and the color…was green…a green ive not seen since.
          all those machines were that weird shade of green.

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    2. William Beyer

      As a veteran of Press-type and Leroi, the Gorton post was a mind-blower – what a thorough history of a typeface.

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    3. cfraenkel

      In addition to the requirements for use with a router, once upon a time keyboards used to be made to last decades, long past when any fancy shmancy printed keycap would have been rubbed off into oblivion. Quality keycaps were made with double shot injection molding. The bulk of the key would get shot with the main color plastic with a negative of the character left in the mold, then the key would be injected a second time with the contrasting character color filling in the negative hole for the character. Fancy fonts have similar limitations for molding as in routers – lots of tiny features that wouldn’t get filled in, different line thicknesses would also not flow as cleanly. Of course, this is hideously expensive as it requires a separate mold for every character, but the key would *never* wear off. (Not to mention having to run each key one at a time through the injection machines and then having to maintain an inventory of individual keys, as opposed to printing the entire keyboard in one go, the way it’s done today). Things really were different back then.

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      1. Turtle

        If those qualities on keyboards interest you, please note that it’s still possible to buy new keyboards today with new double shot keycaps and mechanical switches that will last a long, long time. From several brands too. They’re not exorbitant either, a little over $100 for a quality keyboard with those features. There is a whole movement of people who are into these better keyboards and it gets pretty wild, custom made keycaps, a variety of different types of switches on offer, enthusiast forums, etc. Look into mechanical keyboards.

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        1. JBird4049

          After having my third Apple keyboard just die on me in two years, I bought one of those fancy mechanical keyboards with feedback closer to the old typewriter. It’s been several years and no problems. It seemed expensive at close to a hundred dollars, but it has been worth it and cheaper eventually because I don’t have to keep buying replacements.

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    4. B24S

      Allow me to add to the praise of the utility and ubiquity of Gorton pantographs. They can engrave just about anything you can imagine, not just lettering, on just about anything you can clamp to the table. I have a WWII era 3U (has a “War Production Board” plaque) I picked up long ago to replicate engraved bicycle parts, quite the rage in the ’70s and 80’s, another hopeless attempt at a part time income at the dawn of CNC. I was obsolete before I started.

      As MO says above, it can be rather uncomfortable work, hunched over with magnifiers on the whole time, as you coordinate both cramping hands to both follow the pattern and raise and lower the cutter as you go. The man who taught me had worked for the man who’d engraved The Lords’ Prayer on the “head of a pin” (the pin was a 1/4″ diameter dowel, and the cutter needed to be sharpened three times per letter).

      CNC (computer numerical control) has put it all out to pasture. More skills being lost. Anyone want an engraving machine, cheap?

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      1. Martin Oline

        Gotta Deckel tool & cutter grinder?? Jest kidding, I’m retired.
        They still make two and three shot parts for those valuable things in life that people touch and rub a lot. Not what you’re thinking, it’s casino chips! They have a nickel slug in the middle to give them the weight that the sucker winner expects but all of the ‘value’ is in the decal. That covers the slug on both sides and is what is scanned or counted for the value of the chip.

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  6. Carolinian

    We are sad about the “winding down.” It’s been a long road.

    And re the Dems–with Reagan so dominant in the 80s there was a notion that the Dems might never hold the presidency again. When Clinton took over with less than an absolute majority some Repubs felt that he wasn’t even legitimate and how dare he presume. The capitulation and triangulation soon followed as a way to defuse the rancor (didn’t work). Oh and he managed to lose the House.

    It’s been all downhill since then although some always said the hill wasn’t that big.

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    1. steppenwolf fetchit

      The triangulation was a cover for Clinton’s long-standing Personal Prime Directive to destroy the New Deal, including to destroy Social Security ( which only the Lewinski Affair prevented him from doing) and destroy the Unions by destroying Unionised industry through bringing America under the International Free Trade Conspiracy.

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      1. Martin Oline

        Well, it probably wasn’t personal. According to the book Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA* by Terry Reed, he was a creature of William Barr & Co. Company being THE Company. They probably didn’t turn him loose without a How-To manual.
        *Not to be confused with the book Compromised by the weasel Peter Strzok.

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        1. steppenwolf fetchit

          I myself think at least some of it had to be personal. I read somewhere that a young campaign worker Clinton was “heartbroken” when much of Organized Labor voted for Nixon against McGovern.

          I think he never forgave those industrial and heavy-service ( bus driving, construction and such) workers for that. He loathed and hated them and wanted to destroy their lives in revenge. And when he became President he saw his chance and took it . . . to destroy the lives of millions of unionized workers by using Forcey-FreeTrade Agreements to destroy their industries. So it wasn’t just business, it was personal for Clinton.

          But I do remember reading that book Compromised: Clinton, Bush and the CIA. One little thing I remember from it is where Mr. Reed said that in meetings with the Senior Bush / Reagan Iranamok-Contragate perpetrators, that he met someone who seemed like an important little “Operative” working for the high guys, named ” John Cathey”. Years later he realized that “John Cathey” was Oliver North. It is probably years-too-late to perform the following interesting experiment: It would have been neat if someone had asked Mr. Reed how “John Cathey” was pronounced and then showed up at one of Oliver North’s public appearances and from the side or just barely behind shouted: ” Hey John! John Cathey!” And if North whipped around, photoed him or videoed him or something and then said ” Gotcha! Busted!:” and then run out before he got shot by a whole bunch of “rogue cops” or “lone gunmen” or something.

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    2. amfortas the hippie

      Carolinan, clinton just finished what reagan started.
      i watched it happen, in real time, back then.
      and ive never forgiven them of that ilk.

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  7. Emma

    The anger against the DC PMC is understandable but let’s see how they feel in 18 months when their social security has been privatized, they’re taxed via 50 percent tariffs for everything they buy (since that comes from China or Latin America), and now they have to click through 5 ads to see their crapified weather forecast.

    Still, maybe it’s all for the best in the long run. Being an accelerationist (to the revolution!) is probably the sanest mental state to be in right now. Hopefully the in-fighting between various branches of our over class will lead to their destruction and the liberation of the rest of the world from American imperialism.

    I tell myself that. But maybe I should also horde physical gold in another country.

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    1. Lupana

      I agree. It’s also important to remember that the people being fired are not the people who set policy or hold power. Also, making someone else’s life worse does not make yours better. We really need to stop letting those who do hold power pit us against each other.

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    2. Lee

      In a similar vein, just now listening on KPFA radio to Anatole Lieven drawing comparisons between our possible near future and Russia in the ’90s when the oligarchs took control of the state, and made a complete mess of it until the state under Putin forcefully reined them in. Interesting times.

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      1. IM Doc

        I am not sure this is the same personality you are referring to above – Anatol Lieven

        https://harpers.org/archive/2025/03/the-mask-of-imperialism-anatol-lieven/

        That was the Easy Chair column in my Harper’s Magazine this week. Easily one of the better discussions of the disastrous neocons in our foreign policy and the utter mystery of why they have been embraced by the Dems.

        It was one thing to have the Cheneys endorse Kamala. It was an entirely new universe when Kamala actually embraced them and then, horror, started to campaign with them. At that moment, I knew the Democratic Party and myself were headed for some serious issues.

        This embrace of the neocons by the entire Dem apparatus is clearly one of the largest political blunders in my lifetime.

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        1. Carolinian

          Were they ever not neocons? Most Dems were enthusiastic Cold Warriors and backers of Israel, the two defining neocon characteristics. There was a time when the two were related but the first faded and the latter didn’t.

          But it’s certainly true that most Americans don’t care about foreign policy at all unless 60k of us die in rice paddies. Still the embrace of the MIC may have been the true post war poison arrow for New Deal America and Yves has talked about how 1960s guns and butter damaged the 70s.

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          1. IM Doc

            This is true – there was absolutely a re-embracement by the Dems – and re-migration back to the Dems by the Neocons. The Dems are their ancestral home.

            That was what was so concerning to me – after the Democratic Party was so anti-neo-con during some of the most politically formative years of my life – 2000-2010 – while the neo-cons were in the GOP – and then to re-embrace them after the disaster they have made of our foreign policy – it was just a bit too much for me to stomach.

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            1. Hepativore

              The Democratic Party isn’t really a political party anymore. They are more akin to a fundraising organization that serves as an investment vehicle and wealth management firm for an inner circle of high-ranking nomenklatura as it funnels wealthy donor money into various personal enrichment projects for said nomenklaturates.

              This is why it is basically a zombie political party who’s rotting corpse is being puppeted around by the neoliberal parasites that killed it in the first place. It cannot be “saved” as it is already “dead” and has been dead for decades.

              This is also why voters cannot hope to “punish” the party from an electoral standpoint as the leadership of the DNC really does not care if their organization is politically doomed as Democratic Party’s only real goal is to farm money from their corporate donors and obediently stay silent or do nothing as the FIRE sector and MIC runs amok.

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        2. Lee

          Thanks for the linked article. I’d not heard of Lieven before catching him on KPFA radio today and now the article. It reinforces my initially positive response to his thinking.

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      2. Emma

        As Dimitri Orlov has been saying for two decades, the American collapse will be far far worse than what the Russians went through. Those post-Soviet Russians typically had a free place to live, no debt, and low costs for essentials like utilities, public transportation, and healthcare.

        We’re all up to our eyeballs in debt and have a systemically high cost structure. If we don’t have money, we lose our homes and ability to move ourselves. We also not only have a lot of guns but a lot of people who think guns can solve their problems when the times get bad.

        I’ve been following a YouTube channel called Cheap RV Living (https://m.youtube.com/@CheapRVliving) though in many cases it is elderly people living out of their ten year old cars and minivans. They put a bright side to it by talking about the freedom it gives them and friends they make, but these are the mobile homeless with a comfortable mattress trying to convince themselves that they’re living the new American dream. I see a lot more folks following down their path.

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        1. Lambert Strether Post author

          > Those post-Soviet Russians typically had a free place to live, no debt, and low costs for essentials like utilities, public transportation, and healthcare.

          They also had refrigerators that lasted for thirty years. With no chips in them.

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        2. Lee

          “As Dimitri Orlov has been saying for two decades, the American collapse will be far far worse than what the Russians went through. ”

          I surely hope not. In ’93 we had a Russian exchange student living with us here in the SF bay area. It was supposed to be a one year thing. But when the year was up her mother asked us if we could keep her because back in Russia back then they couldn’t afford to support both her and her younger sister, even though the mother was an industrial chemist and the father was an I.T. specialist for a bank. The exchange student is now a citizen of the U.S. and doing well. Her Russian father drank himself to death but her mother soldiered on finishing her career as a professor of chemistry. The daughter who stayed at home is a marine biologist.

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          1. Emma

            Russia is the most obvious example but America has literally done this to dozens of countries. Think of a respectable Iraqi engineer or doctor in 1988. Or a Libyan bureaucrat with a nice car and home in Tripoli in 2010. Or anybody in Yugoslavia or the Levant for decades. So many countries that most Americans can’t even point to on a map. We exported our chaos for generations and we think we’re the normal ones.

            Whatever is coming for us, we can’t say we don’t deserve it.

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          2. Emma

            The other thing. Russia in 1994 had industrial infrastructure for basically everything it needed. Sure the predatory oligarchs ended up getting most of it for pennies of self dealing loans on the dollar and wrecking a lot of it, but it was there along with the technical expertise to work those productions. After 2014, a lot of Russian return to domestic production happened quickly because the expertise and systems were still available to be reactivated.

            We can’t build a lot of things that we absolutely need in this country. People who knew how to build them have retired and died of old age. We think this is normal right now when we can make the counterparty take our dollars and then have our marketing department (increasingly replaced by AI) slap a neutral color logo on it and sell it for 10x the cost. What happened when any of that breaks down?

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    3. Lambert Strether Post author

      > I tell myself that. But maybe I should also horde physical gold in another country.

      I keep saying: get your passport now (before those lunatics don’t allow you to leave the country).

      I am not, I am really not, an accelerationist. I think worse is worse. (Outliers like me also forget, and I think this is a huge problem on the genuine albeit tiny left, that taking care of any children one has brought into the world is an absolute moral duty, and a revolutionary has to take that into account. Or the situation has to be very, very bad, such that the only way forward to a better world for one’s children demands putting those same children at risk; as in Czarist Russia or China).

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      1. Emma

        If America can implode on it’s internal contradictions without starting a global nuclear war, I call that a win, even for Americans. I also don’t see much hope in the neofeudal path that the uniparty is pushing Americans down on. So if we get there sooner, maybe everybody gets to move into to something else sooner.

        I’m more optimistic than I used to be about the future. I used to think that America was truly the best of the world and if we can’t solve problems like wealth redistribution and climate change, for reasons, then humanity was doomed. China showed me that maybe I was very wrong about my assumptions and there is a chance after all.

        It was clear from even 20 years ago that there’s not much of an upside to having kids. Best case scenario I will sacrifice my financial autonomy for most of my working life and they grow up to be good and ethical people (in spite of everything) who gets to watch the world die further and spend far too much of their life working meaningless jobs to pay their bills. I suspect that lots of young people in my acquaintance will need help in the future and hopefully I will be able to lend a helping hand.

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      2. Daniil Adamov

        “as in Czarist Russia”

        If you’re saying that a revolution with all the risks and collateral damage that inevitably involved was the only way to go here, then as a Russian with interest in both my country’s and my family’s history I must respectfully but firmly disagree. Although when it comes to my ancestors, I know that some of them agreed with your judgement and some emphatically did not. I think the latter were completely vindicated by events; the former were at best used up and disillusioned, at worst killed by their own side.

        The Russian Empire had many serious problems, but:
        1) From what I’ve been seeing whenever I look into this, it is increasingly accepted in Russian historiography that life was, overall, getting better over the last few decades of its existence, if much more slowly and haphazardly than one might have preferred. I don’t have the stats to hand, but life expectancy, while still awful, improved tremendously after the Great Reforms. The archreactionary Alexander III was actually better than contemporary democracies on factory worker rights; though his son let a lot of that lapse, after 1905 he was spooked into gradual improvements, only for them to be derailed again by the beginning of World War One. So it is simply incorrect to say that collapsing was the only way life could improve in our dark kingdom, even if one thinks it was more efficient or a surer thing that way (and was it, really?);

        2) It was always in the ideological and political interest of liberals, leftists and many types of Western authors to heavily exaggerate those problems in classic Black Legend style, which remains very influential to this day. For one thing, if it is made to look as bad as possible, then any number of otherwise questionable actions begin to appear more justifiable and reasonable;

        3) The revolution introduced a great deal of additional problems, both through specific Bolshevik policies and through the sheer chaos it unleashed. To name just one thing beyond all the dead people, it all but completely killed both working class politics and democratic leftism in this country for the foreseeable future, and despite my critical attitude I don’t think those are completely useless things. It wasn’t exactly clement to a lot of minority groups (ethnic or sexual) either; they didn’t get a better future, they got a very likely worse one. Some others did win, though; surviving members of my family mostly did, as did the families of future oligarchs.

        I suspect that some here would not agree with the above. That is fine, though I would ask them to consider this perspective seriously, especially since it applies to more than just Russia. I agree in the abstract that sometimes a revolution is nevertheless the lesser evil. If there is any way it can be avoided, though – as opposed to simply delayed – experience suggests to me it should be, precisely because I also think that worse is worse, and taking the axe to an even slightly functional and mildly pro-social government system is a great way to make things worse very quickly. Maybe the only way it can be justified is if there is a certainty that a collapse would happen anyway and it would be worse if it happened later or through the hands of others (some Marxists did advance this exact line of thinking, I believe). That may sometimes check out but it’s never something to choose lightly.

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      3. You're soaking in it!

        An interesting anecdotal side note to this (and actually the total converse!) I am frequently in the post office to mail things here in the borderlands, and the last 3 weeks I have been in back of families getting their teenagers’ passports 4 times where I haven’t seen that once in the past year. All Hispanic families, all first time passports. I’m pretty sure everyone isn’t gearing up for Easter travel, my guess is it is hopeful protection when ICE comes calling, though I haven’t had the casual opportunity to ask.

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      4. Felix

        >Outliers like me also forget, and I think this is a huge problem on the genuine albeit tiny left, that taking care of any children one has brought into the world is an absolute moral duty, and a revolutionary has to take that into account<

        Lambert/Emma I think that is an absolutely crucial aspect, stated superbly. In my observation Annie Mae Aquash saw that choice, felt that duty and had the incredible courage to choose the revolution, from love of the people.

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      5. urdsama

        Not that I disagree with your recommendation, but I think for many Americans there is nowhere to go. How many countries do you think will let the average US citizen emigrate to their country? Most nations are fairly restrictive and unless you have certain skills or money (and in some cases both), good luck getting in.

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            1. Expat2uruguay

              Very stable, very peaceful. It’s a good place, and it’s easy to gain citizenship. The more difficult part is learning Spanish! I did my research using the CIA world Factbook, wikipedia, and best 10 places to retire articles.

              I’ve been here almost 10 yea
              rs now

              The original comment was that there weren’t very many places that it’s easy to immigrate, and this is true. But Uruguay is a place that’s easy to immigrate to. And it’s easy to gain citizenship, to own property and to become part of the community. It’s also not what you would expect, it’s very much like Buenos Aires and that it has a very European feel. The population is 85% Caucasian descent. Mostly italian, Spanish and french, with some German and other South American immigrants more recently

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              1. Lee

                Thanks. I’m of advanced age and pretty well rooted. However, the kids are restless. Expatriation is certainly within the realm of possibilities for them.

                Reply ↓
                1. Expat2uruguay

                  Okay, I thought you were asking for a retired person. Uruguay is great if you have a pension or if you’re a digital nomad and are able to work your job remotely. Finding a job locally is difficult and the pay scale is much lower for jobs here such as engineering compared to the US.

                  Reply ↓
        2. Emma

          Digital nomad visas are fairly easy to come by for Spain and Portugal, and I think you can apply for citizenship after 5 years residence and passing language requirements. Ireland has an easy path to citizenship if you have one Irish born grandparent or a parent with the foresight to get their citizenship papers done in the 1980s. Moving to France and Italy is possible if you have some financial resources and is willing to deal with the frustrations along the way. The Netherlands has a Dutch American friendship agreement that allows Americans to move there on fairly easy terms.

          Moving to Canada, Australia, or New Zealand is hard if you’re post 30 and require in demand skills or a lot of money post 40. I believe Canada may have loosened its admission standards for the next few years because the current regime is still very pro high immigration even though that’s negatively impacting cost of living for the native born population. If you want to move to any of these countries, make the move ASAP.

          I think Russia is fairly encouraging of immigration, especially for anyone with Russian/USSR ancestry. I think Gilbert Doctorow said his white Russian derived in-laws in Belgium were able to get their Russian passports. You obviously need to learn Russian.

          China is probably the hardest one to get into. At best of you can establish yourself there through long enough residency and legal employment, you’d be looking at a permanent residency permit. For young people, the Chinese government has a lot of scholarships for undergraduate and graduate education, many of the programs in English. Daniel Dumbrill and Ben Norton talked about their experiences with the Chinese education system recently and it sounds like a good option for young people who are interested in getting their foot in the door or just want a free high quality education.

          Otherwise the back door would be Hong Kong residency but HK is a very expensive city to get into without a very well paying job. I guess the other backdoor could be Taiwan which is fairly easy to naturalize into and then hope for “peaceful reunification”.

          I’m looking at SE Asia, mostly Taiwan or Malaysia, as having decent infrastructure and economy but still affordable for Americans without great means. Southern Europe is an option if Europe escapes NATO/EU and shift into a new political paradigm in the next 10 years. LatAm is great and there are viable residency options here and there, but it is “America’s backyard” and therefore risky.

          It’s all speculative for me. My spouse has a pretty lucrative job in the States and the vast majority of our family is here, so it’s tempting to stay for a few more years to build our savings further and see how things shake out, but I am afraid of the door suddenly shutting so that’s always the risk. The impulse shifts daily between hyperventilating “I need to get out of here NOW” and coolly calculating how much better our financial footing could be with 5 more years of everything stays on track.

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          1. Yves Smith

            Malaysia is out unless you have a very high income, >$100,000 a year. They had a very permissive 10 year visa that allowed holders also to buy properties (above a certain price level so as to limit competition with citizens). You had to meet a certain income level but Americans with a decent level of Social Security would qualify. They did a rug pull in late 2022, drastically increasing the income requirements AND not even grandfathering current visa holders!

            Reply ↓
            1. Emma

              Thanks for the heads up! Our due diligence on Malaysia is definitely out of date and we’ll have to take another look. We might be able to retire in a few years with about $100K in annuity in a few years (we might be able to do it now but tend to be very conservative with our financial planning) but I recognize that’s not realistic for a lot of folks and apologize misleading anyone who would have looked into Malaysia due to what I said.

              My preference would be Taiwan anyways because the Taiwanese food culture is exceptional (only comparable in my opinion is Italy, you have to work at getting a bad meal there) and the somewhat cooler weather.

              I’m investigating whether I can work my contacts in China into a retirement job there or take advantage of a Chinese scholarship to pursue a second graduate degree, and then try to parlay it into a permanent residency permit. Kunming or a smaller city in the Yunnan plateau has very pleasant year around weather like Mexico City and a cuisine that we have long enjoyed. The low CoL relative to the high quality infrastructure and high level of public safety is also very appealing.

              My spouse is against any move to mainland China because they can’t speak Chinese and is fearful of “The Great Firewall”. I’m hoping we can do some traveling to assuage these concerns – vpn usage is extremely easy and wide spread there, translation software is getting very good, and everybody under 40 has to take years of English in school. It may get sticky if China gets into direct conflict with the US but I definitely don’t feel safe living as a US citizen in America either.

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      6. judy2shoes

        “I keep saying: get your passport now (before those lunatics don’t allow you to leave the country).”

        I got mine in Oct. 2022, and I fully planned to be out of the country by now. Alas, a family member’s terminal illness has stopped me.

        Reply ↓
        1. Lee

          Some years ago I intended to move far away from where I am. Then family concerns rooted me to where I am, and therefore I am more than there. Regrets, may those vaporous ghosts of what might have been be not hindrance to my enjoyment of paths not taken but spice to them.

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      7. Henry Moon Pie

        Any concern about the young and future generations must take into account the rapidly worsening Overshoot situation. Three degrees looks more and more like the most likely outcome the longer Business As Usual continues. Collapse of the West might help avoid that.

        Remember when we had to reduce carbon emissions by 5% per year for 10 years to have a 50% chance of staying under 1.5 degrees C? We actually made it in 2020. Now we need 7% per year reductions to stay under 2 degrees C.

        The IPCC’s path to stay well below 2 degrees Celsius of warming requires 7 percent emissions cuts annually worldwide, starting now, he said, which would be an even bigger drop than occurred during COVID lockdowns.

        Business as Usual must end ASAP. It would be great if there were a political system in the USA that could accomplish that, even better if an international organization could get us there, but that’s just not going to happen.

        Reply ↓
      8. SocalJimObjects

        Get a passport from a different country if you can. Even if they allow you to leave the country, opening a bank account in another country is a huge hassle for Americans, and there’s all sorts of reporting requirements that allow Uncle Sam to track where you are, and worst come to worst, the powers that be won’t allow any sort of monetary transfer from the US, so sure you are out of the US but you’ll be a beggar.

        And try to learn the language of the country you are going to.

        Reply ↓
    4. Carolinian

      If your unlikely scenario comes to pass it will be the fault of the Dem PMC–not necessarily in DC–who were so lame and untrustworthy that a real estate developer became president–twice. There is an alternate scenario being posed by some that we will no longer have thousands being killed in Europe and less threat of nuclear war even as Trump sticks it to his political enemies. This is a confusing time and IMHO we need to carefully pay attention to everything that is happening and not just some of it.

      Reply ↓
      2. Emma

        We shall see. But how many bunker buster bombs did Trump immediately ship to Israel? Why did DOGE focus its illegal firings in land management, VA, the National Weather, social security, watchdog organizations, the IRS, etc.? Why is he trying to funnel billions and billions in federal dollars and assets to select oligarchs who donated a lot of money to his campaign?

        Maybe Trump is a deep cover agent who really wants to reset the American Empire into something more survivable and make peace with most of the world, but I’m not holding my breath based on his track record so far.

        Reply ↓
        1. judy2shoes

          “Why is he trying to funnel billions and billions in federal dollars and assets to select oligarchs who donated a lot of money to his campaign?”

          My addled brain is having a hard time with things moving so fast; I can’t keep track of it all. Would you please explain this part of your comment and provide a link?

          Reply ↓
          1. Emma

            It’s all written into Project 2025, which you can Google for yourself or read blow by blows of at https://www.reddit.com/r/fednews/ They want to kill NOAA and sell off the National Weather Service. They’ve been pushing GSA (which acts as landlord for most federal agency offices) to break mortgage leases and sell federally owned buildings, even though the existing building spaces cannot accommodate the “return to office” order.

            The obvious conclusion is that private equity will pick up these office buildings and useful pieces of the federal government cheaply, then charge huge mark ups to lease the office space back to the federal government or the public that’s in need of the services like hurricane and tornado warnings. Ditto efforts to privatize federal pensions and social security.

            I think if they carry this through, we will be in a depression that will bigly exceed the one 95 years ago, but Musk will get some more opaque government contracts and maybe Trump will make his memecoin the new fiat currency for the land. 🤷

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            1. JBird4049

              Our elites and many others seem to have forgotten or just never learned that FDR’s New Deal was the successful attempt to prevent communism, fascism, or just a full on dictatorship in the United States of America. FDR was able to push through the program with the help of some conservatives both in Congress and in business because they feared the results of civil war more than the loss of some wealth, power, and privileges. Some of the elites then were able to think of the long term even if they loathed the masses and many did despised the poor.

              What makes me despair is how obviously suicidal the actions of our “leadership” are. It takes no special intelligence, wisdom, or knowledge. It just takes seeing, but the silly fools refuse to, which means war, a war which they are likely to lose, and everyone will regret, and the fools will die surprised.

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              1. rowlf

                Didn’t the elites approach FDR to keep them from being lynched like during past depressions? In the past bankers got hanged when people lost their savings.

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                1. JBird4049

                  Those elites were a mixed bag. Some of the elites thought FDR was a savior to his class while many thought him a traitor.

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              2. rowlf

                I’d like to add that my admiration for FDR was how he stole the flags from several movements. A very clever/savvy politician.

                (and jeez, I’ve met some Birchers.)

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            3. ForFawkesSakes

              This is a link to a subreddit. It doesn’t support your assertion about funneling money. Do you have a source that you can cite?

              Reply ↓
              1. Emma

                You can read Project 2025 and search for news about instructions to GSA to sell government buildings and break lease. We’re a month in, so obviously the funneling hasn’t been completed yet, but it’s a reasonable statement to make by connecting the dots of actions so far back to Project 2025. Thiel, Musk, and others associated with DOGE have all expressed interest in “making government efficient”.

                I already made my thoughts very clear in my response to judy2shoes, so you nitpicking on the lack of specific links, which I already addressed in my post, is not the gotcha that you think you have.

                If you have alternative arguments about why DOGE ordered GSA to sell buildings when there are not sufficient buildings to handle the full time “return to office” order, please make them.

                Reply ↓
        2. Felix

          agree with your reservations on Trump, Emma. Here is an individual who has done the impossible (lose $ on a casino) at least twice. The Duran and other Europeans join some americans in assuming he has a coherent, well thought out plan. I believe the reality is he’s a useful idiot with zero intellectual curiosity. A Biden with showmanship who can’t even pick good advisors.

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    5. amfortas the hippie

      Emma, im with you in rockland!
      hoard black pepper and salt and bic lighters, instead.

      we’re gon need folks like you for after

      Reply ↓
    6. steppenwolf fetchit

      The revolution is happening now. It is a Right Wing revolution and the Lenins are all from that side.
      What comes next for the tattered remnants of the left is an Argentinian Dirty War and Operation Mop-Up.

      Reply ↓
      1. Emma

        There is no left in America. Everytime one perculates up, it gets murdered and cointelpro into nothingness. The guys at the ACP are trying again, bless their hearts. But I don’t think we’ll have a shot at freeing ourselves until the American empire completely breaks down and our elites no longer have the resources to control us like they have done so for the past 100 years.

        Me. I never handled a gun in my life. I’m PMC to my core and I don’t have any camouflage. I fully expect to be lynched when the right wing “revolution” comes, like what they’re doing to Alawites in Syria.

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    1. griffen

      Not familiar with the above reference or the show, necessarily….Now I’m thinking about one specific episode of Seinfeld around a NYC commercial…where an actor that Elaine is dating portrays “The Wiz”, for a location selling electronics….

      “I’m the Wiz and nobody beats me”….the actor in that episode was Toby Huss, whom I liked very much as a senior executive of sales in the fictional PC company depicted in “Halt and Catch Fire”…that was a wild series about how crazy the PC computer* business was.

      Reverse engineering of the original IBM PC just seemed, in the series portrayal as a young nerd’s greatest wish from circa 1982 or so. Different era for sure.

      Reply ↓
    2. Stephanie

      So… maybe if we kidnap The Donald and bury him up to the neck in mud he might start very slowly to become the kind of absolute ruler you’d let babysit your kid?

      Reply ↓
  10. philonius

    While your point on not de-legitimizing rage re: the East Palestine train derailment is a good one, and Democrat leaders at the national level were all but absent at the time, Sherrod Brown did visit the area early on. (Link) and was there before Trump. (Link) Although Brown didn’t hand out burgers at McDonalds, he has been to the area multiple times since the derailment.

    Reply ↓
    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      Thank you. I will delete the reference. In my own defense I was watching out for Brown, and must have missed it.

      Love the headline, over Brown’s byline: “Senator Sherrod Brown: Fighting for East Palestine” [bangs head on desk].

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    2. IM Doc

      And don’t forget Mayor Pete and East Palestine and his lack of care thereof.

      That is when I realized that he was the very definition of an empty suit.

      I did get a chuckle out of his latest video going around –

      https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/1892341641962570113

      It is not enough that the entire population has been forced to attend these ridiculous struggle sessions for the past 5-10 years. Where was he when as a leading Democratic politico, he could have done something about this?

      But now that we are running for Senate – now he tells us – oh yeah – that shit was like a scene out of Portlandia.

      Reply ↓
    3. The Rev Kev

      The Dems had a chance to redeem themselves after Helene hit places like North Carolina but they blew it. They couldn’t help themselves. They were throwing belated breadcrumbs to the people there while at the same exact time were shoveling billions to the Ukraine. The optics were that bad. When it came out that Republican homes there were being passed over for help by directive, that was just the icing on the turd cake.

      Reply ↓
  11. aleph_0

    Re: The AI-generated pseudo-historical pictures. I’ve heard LLM AI called the anti-printing press, and I think that fits. It obscures, twists, and destroys meaning and truth in communication to the masses in prioritizing form over function.

    Reply ↓
  12. Lambert Strether Post author

    I added orts and scraps, including a revised and greatly expanded version of the still highly imperfect “Goddamn Democrats” (I’m mostly focusing on the electeds, when my vision of “the party” also includes spooks, the press, NGOs, donors, and the party apparatus (like consultants). All of them — at least, the hegemonic factions within each — being irremediably corrupt in my view.

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      1. Steve H.

        Both had childhoods in show business, but Jackie’s was more traditional, with pristine martial arts form in his early films. One is a great comedian, one was a philosopher.

        Reply ↓
    2. Red Snapper

      Wheels on Meals. I actually saw that movie back in the day, though I only remember the title, and that it features a fast food van. :)

      Reply ↓
  14. flora

    re: Bernie twtr-X

    “Trump and his oligarch friends want to cut programs that working class people rely on, and give huge tax breaks to the very rich.

    The American people have to stop them.”

    Uh… that’s what we elect you, our Dem representatives to do. You’re gonna throw it back on us ? riiight.

    Reply ↓
  15. amfortas the hippie

    rummaged through the links above to see if it was there.
    its a doozy:
    https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2025/02/americas-national-security-wonderland/

    malcom is one of my favorite political writers out there…sorta millenial(or something) cynical irony, combined with a cynical ironism that would fit really well out here with the thoroughly genx cynicism at the Wilderness Bar.
    ….and he larps on X as the sorta sexy sister of kim jung il,lol.
    this is a long read…but its devastating.

    Reply ↓
  16. Tom Stone

    MAGA and DOGE have very different agendas, the DOGEbags may have won on H1B Visas however that was also the first sign of the rift between the two groups.
    Once the MAGA people admit to themselves that Trump has betrayed them, they will become increasingly vocal and unhappy.
    True believers who have been betrayed by their leaders have a tendency to react very strongly, something that should be taken into account when trying to predict the future.
    And I do wonder what the spooks are thinking about the chaos being caused by Elon’s little Dogies, there are also quite a few Oligarchs who haven’t been invited to ride on the gravy train and who might find a way to express their displeasure.
    It is an extremely volatile situation and I would be surprised if there aren’t some very powerful people considering how to Epstein Elon.

    Reply ↓
    2. jhallc

      So a coalition of disaffected MAGA folks and Dems could be a future 3rd party? That would really blow the PMC/NeoCon Dems minds!

      Reply ↓
    3. Stephanie

      Once the MAGA people admit to themselves that Trump has betrayed them, they will become increasingly vocal and unhappy.

      Maybe? Or they will blame Musk; I do not think it coincidental that Trump has allowed him to be the face of the “clean-up” effort. I recall a story about him during his previous administration using John Bolton as a “bad cop” in a diplomatic situation so he could position himself as the sane “good cop”. If all the DOGE-ing goes terribly wrong Trump can have a few marines escort Musk off the premises and call a press conference to talk about how sad it is that a smart guy like Elon could have succumbed to drugs/mental illness, but now we are going to get back on track!

      And I do wonder what the spooks are thinking about the chaos being caused by Elon’s little Dogies

      As Yves has pointed out several times now, there is very little chance that DOGE will audit the Pentagon or (my opinion) the CIA proper and as long as they don’t cross that line I think they are safe with the exception of possible rogue operators.

      Reply ↓
  17. t

    Let’s not forget how much of his booming economy was people spending themselves into newly possible levels of credit card debt.

    Reply ↓
  18. flora

    re: “Judge homes in on DOGE staffer duties in privacy lawsuit” [The Hill]

    Thanks for the link. This is a welcome development. I’m fine with auditing processes and general payment systems and organizational payments. Just what is USAID paying for? Digging into personally identifiable info of everyone in the US is a step too far. The misuses to which this information could be put without recourse is an enormous problem, best left avoided.

    Reply ↓
  19. Watt4Bob

    About those missing colors.

    https://www.vox.com/culture/22840526/colors-movies-tv-gray-digital-color-sludge

    I have it on good authority that what started as a creative choice in the production of The Matrix, that is, dialing up the Blue/Green tones, was fought for by Directors Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski.

    With the successs of The Matrix, the people funding movies, especially sci-fi, were easier to convince, many tending to advise/insist on following suit.

    Creativity begets fashion.

    Fast forward and the ease of digitally tweaking the tint of your movie being so much more affordable than manipulating film has spawned a situation where each film genre has acquired what might be considered a ‘required‘ tint.

    Sci-Fi is blue/green

    Historical/dramas are dark.

    Comedys are colorful.

    Everything about Mexico and the Cartels is foggy/hazzy.

    This is having an impact on marketing of films and the perception of what genre a film represents by how it looks as opposed to actual content.

    For instance, The Bear, and Cobra Kai are listed as comedies mostly because they’re colorful.

    AI is sure to make all this so much more what ever it is.

    Reply ↓
  20. Tom Stone

    I just recieved an email informing me that my Medicare order has been shipped.
    That’s in the header, I did not click on the email since there is no Medicare order I am aware of.
    Thanks, Elon!

    Reply ↓
  21. Christopher Smith

    “That, however, will be hard to do, since it will take a few election cycles for voters to feel that Democrats have been adequately punished, and the Republicans will wave the bloody flag at every opportunity.”

    This is where I am at. I had the opportunity to enjoy a DEI struggle session from some former colleagues who drank the Kendi/D’Angelo Kool-Aid in 2021, so the Republicans dismantling DEI is one of the few examples of a political party actually giving me what I want.

    I am not fond of DOGE, but I am tired of prefacing criticism with, “I don’t support the Democrats, but …”, so I am disinclined to criticize.

    Reply ↓
  24. flora

    re: “From the 30,000 foot level…”

    Great essay. Please keep writing for NC in some capacity on occasions. (Note: not an assignment. / ;)

    Reply ↓
  25. The Rev Kev

    ‘Bernie Sanders
    @SenSanders
    Trump and his American oligarchs are now openly aligning themselves with Putin and his Russian oligarchs. This Putin-Trump alliance means abandoning our allies, supporting authoritarianism and undermining our democratic traditions.’

    So with everything going on, Bernie has decided that the best thing that he can do is go with Russia!Russia!Russia!

    Reply ↓
  27. Fred1

    As to desks and the relationships they create between the one sitting and the one standing, my dad worked in the coal mines for a few years in the 30s. The miners were paid in scrip. On payday, the miners would go the company store and stand before the paymaster’s desk to receive their pay after what they owed the company store, the company doctor, and rent for the company house had been deducted. The net was never much and oftentimes not enough to cover what they owed. And scrip could only be spent in the company town.

    My dad was able to get out with his health more or less intact and started a small business in the county seat. Some years later the mine he had worked at closed and the contents of the company store were sold. He purchased the paymaster’s desk for his office to be reminded of what he had escaped. He gave it to me in 1978 and I have used it as my desk in my office ever since.

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  28. Pat

    Regarding Sanders and the delusional evil Russian POV: I don’t think he is pandering. I have loved much about the guy, but foreign policy has always been a major weak spot. And he might not confuse socialism and communism, but some part of me does wonder if he faced a pogrom in a past life. He happily accepts that Russia is behind the neocon/liberal most despised foreign events in Europe and even much of the ME, and has done so long before Russia!Russia!Russia! He isn’t great on Africa or Latin America either, but it isn’t quite as knee jerk.

    Reply ↓
    1. Emma

      Michael Parenti pegged Bernie for what he really is over Yugoslavia, in the 1990s. He gets compared to Corbyn but they’re fundamentally very different. Corbyn is an actual leftist albeit a weak one who won’t do what is necessary to wield real power. Bernie was always a phony who will bend his positions whenever they mattered.

      Reply ↓
        1. Emma

          Yes, that’s it. Though Parenti was far kinder to Bernie than I am today. Bernie voted for Rubio and against Gabbard, who actually risked her career to support him in 2016. Bernie is a worm.

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  29. Pat

    Most, if not all of us, aren’t wealthy enough and I am pretty sure it wouldn’t be legal to start a go fund me for my current fondest desire. But I would love some dastardly tech genius to invent a virus to be hidden in the data being scraped by AI that causes a catastrophic cascading meltdown, irreversible damage. And yes I do mean all AI programs.
    And make it something that can be repeated if someone manages to rebuild in a Chinese time frame rather than Silicone Valley’s.

    There might even be a Ukrainian hacker out there, who might consider sticking it to American and European tech a public service.

    Reply ↓

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