2016 archive
All That Was Old Is New Again 0
Thom and Richard Eskow discusses similarities between Donald Trump’s cabinet of deplorables and Republican cabinets of the 1920s.
Jen Sorenson has more. Here’s a snippet (emphasis added):
Trump’s version of a political and financial establishment, just forming, will be bound together by certain behavioral patterns born of relationships among those of similar status, background, social position, legacy connections, and an assumed allegiance to a dogma of self-aggrandizement that overshadows everything else. In the realm of politico-financial power and in Trump’s experience and ideology, the one with the most toys always wins. So it’s hardly a surprise that his money- and power-centric cabinet won’t be focused on public service or patriotism or civic duty, but on the consolidation of corporate and private gain at the expense of the citizenry.
Welcome to the kelptocracy.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Per the NRA gun marketing association, more guns means more politeness. For example:
“All of a sudden they were trading blows,” the third male said of Mapp and the accused, Steven Bruce Brown Jr., 31.
The fight lasted only a few minutes, the third male said, and ended when Brown drew a gun “he always carried.”
Brown and Mapp were wrestling over the weapon when a single round was fired, the third male said.
Marvel at how much politeness there could have been if all three had been packing. Why, there might have been a hail of politeness enveloping them all!
That Pesky Dialectic of Materialism, It Just Won’t Go Away 0
At the Boston Review, Alex De Waal remembers Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation, which was written in 1944 and analyzed the events leading from the Napoleonic Wars to the World Wars from a social and economic perspective. De Waal applies that same analysis to the events since 1945. His conclusions do not give reason for optimism.
The article is long and densely reasoned and so depressing that it’s taken me three days to wade through it. I urge you to read the whole thing, even if it takes you three days . . . .
Here’s just a bit to either whet your appetite or scare you away (emphasis added).
(snip)
So now—a winning minority of the electorate having lodged its protest and voted for its own gravedigger—the logic of today’s political economy is laid bare. What then can we take from The Great Transformation to deepen our understanding of our predicament? Polanyi’s central conclusion is that unregulated capitalism promised a “stark Utopia” of great wealth but destroyed the social and material basis of a humane society. Just over a hundred years ago, nineteenth-century Western liberal civilization reached its apogee, which was also the moment at which it could no longer contain the forces of disorder that it had unleashed. The massive destruction of the world wars, the communist revolution, fascist imperialism, and the Great Depression followed. Capitalism was reprieved by the political dispensation that followed World War II. John Maynard Keynes provided the intellectual capital for managing the market, and the victors of the war recognized that full employment, social welfare, and a good measure of equality were necessary to save civilization. But capitalism’s dangerous tendencies remained and, once freed from the challenge of socialism, its utopian dogma was again ascendant. The inevitable crisis is now here.
No Place To Hide 0
The snaring economy wants to shadow you like a cheap detective.
Ryan’s Derp, If You Do Get Sick, Die Quickly Dept. 0
TPM tries to figure out how many persons will lose health coverage under Paul Ryan’s plan to repeal the ACA. It’s not pretty.
The Republican Party: The Party of Mean for the Sake of Mean.
Reindeer Games 0
Rekha Basu takes a fresh look at the tale of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
In fairness, they probably never met another a reindeer that looked different. Maybe their parents raised them to fear differences, and so they tried to compensate by heckling the different one and never got corrected.
QOTD 0
Raymond Chandler:
The flood of print has turned reading into a process of gulping rather than savoring.
Afterthought:
I wonder what he would say about twits and the Zuckerborg.
Break Time 0
Off to drink liberally.
Stolen Identity 2
John Cole skewers the hypocrites who are bleating about Democrats’ having to “end identity politics.” Here’s a teaser; follow the link for a magnificent, blistering rant (language).
