On Demanding Dignity
In 1968, when Richard Nixon called for Law and Order, a term used by Goldwater in 1964 and Reagan in 1966, he was appealing to working-class voters who would normally be expected to vote Democratic but were becoming more and more uneasy about a perceived increase in crime and frequent stories of protests in the streets. In 1968, the real domestic issue was the economy, but that was far too complicated for American political discourse, and, besides, this group might have found Nixon’s and the Republican Party’s real thoughts on economic policy unsettling. While Johnson had waged a War on Poverty to end a very real poverty in America, Nixon would wage a War on Crime to stoke fear and paranoia. Though economics, poverty, and crime are inextricably linked; that wasn’t a connection he was going to be making publicly lest he affront one of his Party’s most sacred cows. Catchy phrases and slogans can win elections; the under the hood stuff like economic policy might turn off voters; is best left for think tanks, universities, and board rooms. Richard Nixon was not above appealing to baser instincts; both the Law and Order and War on Crime phrases intentionally connoted racial overtones. Besides, there was the specter of George Wallace. Wallace an overt racist, nominally a Democrat, was in reality a Dixiecrat, aka Southern Democrat; one of those Dixiecrats who did not switch over to being a Republican after the Civil Rights Acts of 1964. Getting the vote of those yet and former Dixiecrats was all a part of Nixon’s and the Republican Party’s Southern Strategy. As a consequence of the success of these strategies, we would see more and more of this fine art of appealing to baser instincts being practiced by Republican candidates in the coming years. No more of that aspirational stuff for the once GOP, thank you. The once GOP was soon to become a Republican Party controlled by southern white Republicans, née Dixiecrats, who brought along with them their attitudes toward democracy. In the 1968 presidential contest, George Wallace carried Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. Thanks mostly to his friendship with Billy Graham, Nixon got 69% of the national Evangelical Christian vote. — Evangelicals felt that Nixon would protect the nation against Catholicism. Became gatekeepers to nomination.
When Reagan gave his ‘Birth of a Nation’ speech in Philadelphia Mississippi in 1980; he was telling white segregationist Mississippians, some yet Southern Democrats/Dixiecrats and some recent converts to the Republican Party, that it was OK to think about race the way they thought about race. In doing so, he validated their racism, and abetted their mendacity; accorded dignity to their odious opinions. By pandering to their racism and bigotry, he had, to their minds, legitimized their racism and bigotry. Reagan stooped for, welcomed, their votes.
While, in 1968, Nixon had appealed to northern blue-collar workers with Goldwater and Reagan’s ‘Law and Order’; in 1980 Reagan added other socially conservative appeals. He would appeal to their unease with the changes in the economy, and the pace of social change. As noted in ‘Now’ – http://angrybearblog.com/2020/08/now.html – the nation was floundering in trying to figure out what was going on with the economy. Rather than try to figure it out and lead the nation forward, Reagan’s solution was to take the nation back to a better time some time in the past; to the 1950s. As far back as1964, Reagan, in his ‘A Time For Choosing’ speech, had denigrated the intellectual elite in efforts to ingratiate himself with ordinary working Americans. As candidate and as Governor, he had made his political chops waging war on the University of California at Berkeley, it’s President, and it’s Student Body. At a time of great change, rather than call on our great universities for research and advice, Reagan was implicitly telling blue-collar workers that their opinions on science and economics were every bit as valid as those of university professors and students, that the answers to the future lay in the past; he was pandering to ignorance. Reagan was bestowing an illegitimate blessing on, according undeserved dignity to ill-informed opinions; encouraging the working class to feel good about those opinions, in hopes of getting their votes. Whether due to these policy positions or to his on-camera skills, he did get a lot of their votes. While there is nothing wrong with ignorance per se, there is plenty wrong with politicians pandering to ignorance for votes. In 1980, the big issue for the Christian Right was the 1973 Roe vs Wade decision – abortion. When Reagan said that he opposed abortion, they believed that they had found a soul mate. The Moral Majority, a ‘Southern-oriented Christian Right’, founded by Jerry Falwell Sr. in 1979; worked closely with the Republican Party and the Reagan Campaign to elect Ronald Reagan President in 1980.
Woe be the Nation when our politicians, instead of seeking to eradicate ignorance, sing its praises; leading us backward instead of onward and upward. Pandering to ignorance is not taking the high road up. Pandering to ignorance is taking the low road to the bottom. Going backward for 8 years, for 8 years, cost the nation at least 16 years, probably more. If Reagan had fully succeeded in taking the Nation back to the 1950s it would have cost us at least 38 years of progress.
In the period from 1965 to 1980, the nation went from a nation having legislators who knew how to govern to one being dominated by the likes of Newt Gingrich, Tom Delay, Dick Army, Phil Gramm, Bob Barr, Bob Livingston, . . . , who couldn’t; most of whom didn’t even believe in government. In 1980, Reagan carried all those states that George Wallace had carried in 1968 excepting Georgia.
By the 2000 election, ‘Law and Order’, paeanage to the Christian Right and anti-abortion judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade, were now permanent planks in the Republican Party Platform. Marching as to war; more than ever, denigration of the opponent and character assassination, spécialité de la famille Bush, were the weapons of choice. The now Charter Member Christian Right would be on the Platform Committee. George W. Bush’s style of pandering to the working class was brought forth from, then extended beyond, those tactics employed by Nixon and Reagan. Borrowing from Huey Long, Bush would pretend to be one of them. The purchase for purpose ranch in Crawford, set for this farce, itself was a page from stories told in ye olde Universities over the centuries about aristocracy and scholars conning ignorant peasants. Would anyone be interested in a slightly used chainsaw? It worked like a charm. George W. Bush, born to wealth, reborn a common man, was selected and reelected by pandering to the working class by pretending to be one of them. He had walked among them. Shame on him. Shame on them. The Party’s aristocracy, now, acceptably socially inbred southern, knew that blue blood only comes from good breeding. The Nation regressed, paid dearly. In 2000, George W. Bush handily carried Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. States George Wallace had carried in 1968; the Southern Strategy at maturation. Majorities from the Christian Right/White Evangelicals carried Bush to victory both times.
To be clear; none more deserving of dignity than the working people of America; they keep the nation running; they are America’s better angels; and, they deserve to be better paid. They also deserve better than to be pandered to with phony validation of their ‘dignity’ from a validated phony. Things like ignorance, racism and bigotry, simply cannot be dignified. Some working-class, some upper class, . . . Americans are bigots and racists; this is but a call to the Nation of the need to better educate, to better ourselves. But pandering to such racism and bigotry slows progress, brings the nation down; should be a crime. Surely, sleaze bag politicians pandering out dignity to bigotry and racism is criminal. There is no dignity in letting ourselves be used.
When Donald Trump promised to bring back king coal in West Virginia, he was speaking not to coal miners but to the grandsons and granddaughters of coal miners nostalgic for halcyon (Matewan, Harlan County) days that never were while thinking about the price of coal, preservation of wealth, and campaign donations from the mine owners. Truth be, he wanted their vote; didn’t care about the environment; was far too lazy to think it through; couldn’t have cared less about the miners ‘long lost’ jobs. Long lost, indeed. In 2016, coal mines employed 50K miners, about the same as in 1970 – 50 years earlier. During that period, production was up almost 300%. The 50K employed was down from an all-time peak of 863K in 1923. In the period from 1923 to 1970, production was up about 25%. Automation happened. The jobs were gone and they ain’t coming back (Thanks, Hazel Dickens). Today, coal mining in West Virginia provides less than 5% of the State’s jobs. In 2016, Trump carried the State by a 40% margin. By the bye, Trump who purloined ‘Make America Great Again’ from Reagan, and ‘Law and Order’ from Nixon; won all the Ex-Confederate States except Virginia and, no doubt, all the votes of any surviving George Wallace supporters. Trump out Wallaced Wallace. Brought it all forward, he did, and added Reality TV and Professional Wrestling for the Con of it. Sought and received help from Russia for good measure. A platform to build a dream on. An estimated 83% of white Evangelicals voted for Trump in 2016. 51 years after the Civil Rights Legislation was passed, the Republican Party had found its bottom. Trump!
According credence to such bogus science as Intelligent Design was another way of appealing to the under-educated and ill-informed; saying to them that their opinions were just as good as those of our best scientists, that belief equated reason, facts and science. Pretending that Intelligent Design was legitimate was not a way forward. It was a way of pandering for votes from Evangelical Christians. It was not the way to lift the nation. It would have adverse long term consequences.
. . . In the 1950s, in Paris, a night when Albert, Simone, and Jean Paul talked philosophy the night long . . . Left them at dawn, began extending from where Camus had left off as I walked home: The Korean War went on until it became apparent to all that it was absurd. The War in Vietnam started out absurd and was fought to apparency (Apparentism – um, the philosophy of . . . ?). The Cold War was bitterly fought right up to the very last absurd day. Home and back to the future; just yesterday Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton was a rising star in the Republican party until he got caught out in the bright sunlight of his very own NYT op-ed. Poof, like a Flashbulb in the dark, the light made his absurdity visible to all. Up until then, it was all the honest truth as taught at grandmothers’ knees, and in Arkansas public schools’ history books for 150 years. How in the hell did he get by with that for 4 years in the US Army? Seventh generation farmer, Wiki says. Antebellum, might say.
Far from philosophy; mendacious means given to or characterized by deception or falsehood or divergence from absolute truth. From mendacious, mendacity means that they just made that stuff up; a fairy tale. Denial is the refusal to admit to the truth or reality. One could be mendacious and in denial at the same time. Some are. Mendacity is what Tom Cotton, Mitch McConnell, and Lindsey Graham have in quantity, in common; is their birthright. Trump doesn’t know from denial.
The once quite tolerable GOP has, in the span of a mere 52 years, become the bigoted, racist, venal, morally bankrupt Republican Party presently headed by Vainglorious Bastard Donald Trump. Donald Trump as President is the culmination of the party’s Southern Strategy. Trump is the sound of the Republican Party hitting bottom. Yet, there were other consequences of the Republican Party’s Southern Strategy?
All things being possible, it is possible that Nixon and Reagan had hopes of changing the minds of white southerners by bringing them into the tent; converting them. Possible, but, as Goldwater said, they went looking for ducks. In doing so, they made a pact with the devil. Rather the Grand Old Party Republican Party changing the white Southern Newly Republicans, the white Southern Newly Republicans changed the Republican Party. Instead of the Nation bringing them up, they brought the Nation down. From 1968 on, the Republican Party became more and more like the old Southern Democrat/Dixie party. Politics was war, Democrats were the enemy, and elections were no holds barred battlegrounds. Badmouthing, aka denigrating your opponent, character assassination, . . . became de rigueur; compromise, strengt verboten. Votes in congress were meant to exact a pound of flesh; secure bags of lucre. Liberal, once a term applied with respect to members of both parties was now a term spatted at anyone who didn’t agree with right-wing politics. Clinton’s impeachment, the Benghazi hearings showed what was to be done to interlopers. Gingrich, Barr, DeLay, Hutchinson, Lott, Gowdy, Collins, both Pauls, Gohmert with a Louie,… no bottom of the barrel here; were modern-day versions of those 1877 ex-Confederate Officers deciding who could and who could not hold office. Any government largesse had to go through their hands, as it had, and still does, in the ex-Confederate States. If you own the land they live on, control their livelihood, they will soon learn to kowtow and know better than to vote against you. That was how to control the populace. All so 17th Century. Now that they have recreated the federal government in the image of ex-Confederate State governments; they and only they were entitled to run the country.
The whole Nation was held back. No more campaigning on policy. Rather than working on solving our problems, the national discourse was limited to beliefs and opinions, simple arsed answers, and conspiracy theories. Discourse only when beliefs and opinions were given more weight than facts; than scientific expertise. In consequence of politicians bestowing their blessing on those beliefs and opinions in exchange for the holders’ votes; we are, to date, incapable of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Though in great part due to a lack of leadership, itself a consequence of the Southern Strategy, this is in great part also to do with large portions of the citizenry who do not believe in science, in the facts. Control of the COVID-19 pandemic is not possible as long as individual states refuse to follow the advice of scientific experts. How in the hell could any Governor of a State in the United States of America in the 21st Century go against the best scientific advice? What did they expect would happen? This is a consequence of Republican politicians making all those pilgrimages to Liberty University, Bob Jones University, Oral Roberts University, …; giving credence to anti-scientific, anti-intellectual beliefs; pandering to, according power to, right-wing Evangelical Christian sects in order to win their votes. We should have become more enlightened in these 50+ years that have passed by since Republicans initiated their Southern Strategy. Instead, we have been held back by southern Republican Politicians and Christian Right/Evangelical Christians. In tandem with the Republican Party, they have taken the Nation backward. I think that was William and Clarence that I just saw walking toward that old courthouse.
Today, we are in grave danger of losing our democracy forever. Nixon did kind of believe in Democracy, even if you had to bus it in. Reagan, didn’t. If he didn’t agree with a government policy that was the law of the land, he, operating through his cabinet members and/or his candy store operator, Ed Meese, simply wouldn’t provide sufficient funds (Anne Gorsuch, Neil’s Mom, nearly went to prison for carrying this out). Mitch McConnell wouldn’t cooperate in efforts to thwart Russian interference in the 2016 election; in 2020 election. Over and over, McConnell has used his powerful position as Senate Majority Leader to thwart the will of the people in favor of a very powerful few. White southern Republicans, née Dixiecrats, didn’t believe in Democracy before 1965, still don’t. They have brought the nation to its knees, and they aren’t finished with us yet.
As an adolescent observing Bull Connors turn the dogs and firehoses on the civil rights marchers, as a teenager watching the police riots at the Democratic convention in Chicago, as a college student packing in auditorium in Wisconsin so none of George Wallace’s supporters could get in, to an adult voting for John Anderson in 1980 because for all his humanity, Jimmy Carter was an abject failure as a president and people sobbing when it was clear—very early that Reagan had won, I never anticipated that 40 years later the United States of America’s would be in as much crisis as it was in 1860. Thank you for your analysis of the politics of this country during my life. I find no obvious errors and the shorter description is that politics has taken on the aura of a college football game or as Buffalo Springfield put “ mostly saying hooray for our side” and Hillary’s very accurate description of Trump’s supporters as “ half being deplorables “. I had hoped in 2016 that the country was not as racist as it turned out to be. My hope in 2020 is that despite racism and sticking it to the elites that people want to survive. The moron in chief’s utter lack of competence must be known by even the dullest of his supporters and it remains to be seen how badly they want to just burn it all down.
“While Johnson had waged a War on Poverty to end a very real poverty in America, Nixon would wage a War on Crime to stoke fear and paranoia. ”
—
Both of them carpet bombing rice farmers for a side gig. Pick better examples, neither had an ounce of dignity.
Well crime was surging, likely due to lead poisoning. The 3 main ethnonationalities all saw a surge in crime and single female births in the 70’s. Blacks it was just nuts. The %%%%% Of black male to white female sexual assaults was bad by 1980. The silent generation asked the Democrats what are going to do about it……Democrats just stared. Thus the silent generation was gone.
It sounds very pessimistic: “Today, we are in grave danger of losing our democracy forever.”
Albert:
The checks and balances have been greatly diminished of much can be laid at the feet of one man in the Senate.
BS,
Just shut up.
Ken,
Simply great. And beyond scary in its truth.
Great discussion as it is the one we need to have. Props to Terry for his cogent focus on reality.
Ron,
And why talking about political parties before the Civil Rights Act passed is a waste of time.
Everything changed.
Ken, excellent post. This is the sort of writing that keeps AB at the top of my list of sites to visit each day.
EMike,
“And why talking about political parties before the Civil Rights Act passed is a waste of time.
Everything changed.”
[On this we disagree. Substantively, nothing was changed by the Civil Rights Act. The racism gambit was augmented, but that hardly qualifies as a change to the system. Government is left to select classes of elites, primarily economically connected and secondarily ideologically appropriate. Our constitutional republicanism is as it was. Democracy is still a myth. The wealthy inherited the power to rule long before 1964. They have long used racism, sexism, and xenophobia to control the under-educated masses, who have remained content to leave the solving of problems in the public sphere to those that could care less about the problems of ordinary people.]
When people are not oriented to understand system thinking then the use of reverse racism in response to racism and the use reverse sexism in response to sexism seem entirely just and appropriate despite their ineffectiveness. No amount of holding victims blameless nor abusers in contempt will lessen the pain of victims nor the continuance of abuse. We are not socially programmed to look for real answers because we are socially programmed to protect the status quo in social matters just as much as we do with economic matters.
Rather [than] the Grand Old Party Republican Party changing the white Southern Newly Republicans, the white Southern Newly Republicans changed the Republican Party
This is something I’ve been trying to get across to people for a long time. It may have started out with the Republican leadership just using racism, gay-bashing, and religious fundamentalism to lure the stupid one-third into voting for their real agenda of tax cuts and financial goodies for the wealthy — but as the stupid one-third became the party’s base, they changed the party, became the party. The racism and gay-bashing and religious fundamentalism is no longer just pandering in the service of another agenda. It is the agenda.
To say that we are only pawns in their game gives us way too much credit. Pawns have some chance to make it to the king’s row.
Racism may be the agenda for a lot of Republican voters, but voters are pawns. The game is still the same, the game of thrones and money talks. There is still a sucker born every minute and maybe an honest man could not be cheated, if one can be found. Trump epitomizes all of the worst aspects of the ancient game of kings.
We are too stupid to be lead, but we still can be ruled.
Just because they are not all the same, then it still does not mean that they all do not seek to objectify anything that threatens their own self-esteem.
The pillow fight on poverty combined with the rising cost of war gave us a privatized Fannie Mae, a big step towards the growth of the unbridled growth of the FIRE sector. Systemically self-perpetuating solutions guaranteed a big future for welfare economics, until the backlash took hold of the reins.
“In 1968, the real domestic issue was the economy, but that was far too complicated for American political discourse, and, besides, this group might have found Nixon’s and the Republican Party’s real thoughts on economic policy unsettling. ”
The problem with simplified explanations is that eventually THE most significant factors are eliminated completely. The sentence above is a GREAT example.
The implication is that the civil disturbances on college campuses across the country which began by late 1965 and continued in more severe forms in 1966, 1967 and 1968 were not a significant domestic issue in the 1968 Presidential elections. (The intensity got worse with time.)
Of course President Lyndon Johnson only decided not to run in 1968 because of the civil disturbances or protests or riots, whatever you want to call them. His decision caused a stampede of potential Democratic party candidates each claiming to be purer than Lot’s wife. (At least where the Vietnam War and the draft were concerned.)
The result was that those Democratic party candidates came off looking like foolish hypocrites.
And candidate Richard Nixon’s “Secret Plan” to get out of Vietnam was judged as more acceptable to the voters.
I had left the military by about mid 1967 and I do not remember anyone in my large working class extended family complaining about the economy.
College kids who dropped out or graduated were immediately eligible for the draft. The draft was the most important domestic issue.
Those college kids did not care if young working class men went off to war. They just did not want to be among them.
Hey:
Vietnam was the major issue and the resulting draft resulting from it. On the side lines was the spending to support the war which boosted inflation. King killed in April sent many cities up in flames and Kennedy dying from a gun shot in June added to the sorrow many of us felt. It was a rough year for all of us.
At 19, I enlisted in 68 and left for San Diego in April and by June I was gone. The only reason, I did not stay after the hard core push up to a colonel was a pretty woman in NYC. If I stayed I would not have married her and would probably not be here either. She more than likely saved my life. I still think about my lost friends.
Ron,
We couldn’t disagree more.
Ken:
Really a great read, thank you for taking the time to write it.
Ken,
[Although your article was entirely appealing, there were a few points worth contradicting, but, moreover, some that you contradicted yourself, probably unintentionally. Be careful which chakra that you are drawing your perceptions from. For example:]
“…While there is nothing wrong with ignorance per se, there is plenty wrong with politicians pandering to ignorance for votes…”
[But here you brush up more closely against reality.]
“…To be clear; none more deserving of dignity than the working people of America; they keep the nation running; they are America’s better angels; and, they deserve to be better paid. They also deserve better than to be pandered to with phony validation of their ‘dignity’ from a validated phony. Things like ignorance, racism and bigotry, simply cannot be dignified. Some working-class, some upper class, . . . Americans are bigots and racists; this is but a call to the Nation of the need to better educate, to better ourselves. But pandering to such racism and bigotry slows progress, brings the nation down; should be a crime. Surely, sleaze bag politicians pandering out dignity to bigotry and racism is criminal. There is no dignity in letting ourselves be used…”
[Reality is always more complicated than we might wish it to be. It is also uglier. Our sentiments betray us. We want to be nice in a cold, cruel world.
First, just to discuss whether “there is nothing wrong with ignorance per se,” then we need to understand what is meant by ignorance. We understand what knowledge is, knowing facts. There is also understanding and logic, which are needed to make knowledge useful. The absence of any of those things makes one no less ignorant than the absence of any other of those things, at least that is my definition of ignorance.
There is also means, motive, and opportunity, which is to say we can have smart crooks and ignorant crooks. Smart people set to good purpose is what we need more of. All ignorance is a problem, whether from an ignorant racist, an ignorant politician, or an ignorant college professor. Ignorant intellectuals are not only possible, but they are legion despite having cleaner fingernails than a smart brick layer.
Perhaps dignity is not deserved by any of us, but just provided as a fig leaf to cover our weakness and fearfulness. Elites covet dignity, which should be a warning sign to the rest of us. My wife’s family is almost all Republicans and even she is borderline, something that I learned too late perhaps, but it gives me purpose this late in life. She has it way too good with me to kick back much despite being very protective of the pride and dignity of her family members. Yep, Trump voters obsess about pride and dignity. Who knew?]
Well Ron;
False pride and dignity, one level up from the bottom allows a person to have a place in the social order and be able to look beneath them.
” Yep, Trump voters obsess about pride and dignity. Who knew?]”
Everyone knew. Standard self esteem issue. “I support an evil man, but I’m not evil. And if you say I am evil, you are being evil to me.”
As Robert DeNiro says, “Fuck ’em”.
“He doesn’t give a shit about the uninformed, bigoted television viewers who get offended by his completely valid criticisms of our president–and I’m finally ready to accept that, beneath my cheery, agreeable exterior, there’s a red-hot furnace that is almost constantly boiling over with rage. And while anger alone isn’t going to kill COVID-19 and bring an end to an administration so careless, so greedy, that truth itself has become suffocated by politicization, acknowledging your rage is the first step to taking action.
So, let it flow through you. Breathe in, breathe out. Now say it with me. Fuck ‘em.”
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a33667476/robert-deniro-fuck-em-fox-news-trump-mantra/
Run,
Yes, “look beneath them” and endorse the separation of families at the border; putting children in cages at the border; raping women at the border and then deporting them all to keep us “safe”.
Endorsing 180,000 deaths since no one could have done any better.
Endorsing the rape of our environment; the pillaging of our educational system: politicizing the CDC; arming the DOJ to protect criminals; disarming the CFPB and OSHA cause regulation.
They all deserve partial credit for all of the above, and more. And somehow people need to treat them as not subhuman.
“Fuck ’em”.
EM:
Have to get to the instigators who endorse this level and its behavior towards others less fortunate. They are willing to hurt themselves if it takes away from others. There will also be a total of 200,000 deaths about mid-September and another 50,000 potentially by election if the behavior pattern, which trump endorses, does not change. Freedom to do as you please without taking precaution has a cost to it which endangers not just them but us too. I for one will not endorse the freedom of their poor behavior on their part if it takes from my freedom of living in a safe environment.
rabbling here and being interrupted.
Run,
Pride and dignity are always false in some way or other. The need for validation is in itself a weakness of character despite its role in social cohesion. The race to the top can easily become the race to the bottom as the same instincts dominate each way. We have systemic ignorance, not just systemic racism. What good is the validation of fools? The elite establishment chooses which way that society will be trained to go. Openness and free-thinking are anathema to elite establishment, akin to chaos and anarchy.
I just looked into the psychological testing used for LEO candidates and what I read verified that not only are sociopaths and stoics both drawn to law enforce, for reasons of seeking power and the opportunity to serve, respectively; but the psych screening caters to the more superficial characteristics shared by the two such as ability to tolerate stress and courage. Although sociopaths are inveterate liars, they depend upon an ability to fake honesty all the time, clever devils that they are.
https://www.thebalancecareers.com/psychological-exams-and-screening-for-police-officers-974785
EM:
Obesity runs in my wife’s family alongside intelligence that is well above average, even if still well below my own. There are no blue collar workers in her family that I know of. Rather than evil, I see my wife’s family as exquisitely and thoroughly programmed into thinking in terms defined by the status quo. Not fitting in where they associate would be a personal crisis of epic proportion.
You walk to a different drummer than my wife’s family, but neither you nor they ever miss a beat. I have called my own cadence since middle school. I have only ever fit in briefly, mostly in 1968 just as my public world was falling apart. Fortunately, I was raised an only child, so that kind of loneliness that can develop in those raised in large households does not apply.
“Vanity is definitely my favorite sin. Self-love, the all-natural opiate.” John Milton “The Devil’s Advocate”
My comment immediately above was meant for EMike.
edited
Ken,
[Jesus, how could I forget? In addition to knowledge, understanding, and logic necessary to erase ignorance, there is also a requirement for clear semantics. I first wrote the following comment on the Covid-19 dashboard for 8/19 thread.]
“in classical Eastern terms contemporary westerners perceive reality primarily through the Anahata (heart chakra) and the Svadhisthana (ones feelings down there – front and back), but really few westerners perceive reality through the Sahasrara (pure consciousness).”
[The knowledge, understanding, and logic had been with me almost 50 years, but I lost the words, the names of the chakras, from lack of use since my guru died in 2005. So, I had to look them up.]
Run,
My oldest living friend (who has lived in Tucson for about the last 30 years) recently told me that back when we lived in proximity to each other (in the mid-70’s) that I had the worst case of self-loathing of anyone that he had ever known. It caught me off guard. I was not prepared with a witty comeback. If it ever comes up again, then I will be ready.
Self-love may be cheaper than loving a woman, but not likely more rewarding. OTOH, it is best never to hate anyone that one is not prepared to kill. Living enemies are not something that one should collect.
I never loathed or hated myself, but I was never self-obsessed either. I just do what I can for as long as it lasts. One should never take themselves too seriously. There is plenty stuff going on that is more serious than ourselves. We just get to survive it for a limited time and then it is over for us.
Ron:
I am poking at you . . .
So all the obese people just looking to maintain the status quo better hope they don’t end up in a nursing home administered by their boys they voted for.
” ‘According to court documents, Life Care therapists “canvassed the facility looking for residents they could provide therapy to in order to increase billing.” Sometimes, this resulted in old, sick people receiving needless rehab sessions up to seven or eight times in a single day. According to the Justice Department complaint, one resident who could not walk was allegedly carried up and down the hallway so that the nursing home could bill Medicare for walking therapy. A 92-year-old man who was dying of metastatic cancer was allegedly given 48 minutes of physical therapy, 47 minutes of occupational therapy, and 30 minutes of speech therapy two days before he died, despite the fact that “he was spitting out blood.” ‘
Given all this, it probably shouldn’t have surprised us that the president* knuckled the Food and Drug Administration into reversing itself on convalescent plasma, or that part of that campaign was sending one of the administration’s most visible crackpots to the FDA to crack the whip. From Axios:
‘ According to two sources in the Monday meeting, Navarro had aggressively confronted FDA officials, saying, “You are all Deep State and you need to get on Trump Time.”’
Good. A new doomsday clock.”
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a33761647/trump-time-fda-coronavirus-treatment/
Amazing how human beings can keep filling their faces when they share responsibility for such inhumanity.
I think “its’ economy, stupid!” in 2020.
Those are lofty words. But what to do when there is not enough cookies for everybody. That’s when economic ruptures occur (with one form being Minsky moments)
IMHO we need another Keynes now.
From Keynesianism, Social Conflict and Political Economy
By Massimo De Angelis
Ken,
Looks like the GOP has now hit peak racism. Just the next step in your well documented history.
“How Badly Did They Want to Say the N-Word? RNC, Day 1
Your nightly guide to racism at the Republican National Convention.
Tonight was the “I’m not racist, and my Black friend says so” portion of the RNC, featuring speeches from Tim Scott and Herschel Walker, among others, and a lot of predictable talk about “opportunity zones” and the Democratic “plantation.” For the hard stuff, we turn to the undercard. Here’s Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St. Louis “gun couple” who famously mounted an armed defense of their topiary from Black Lives Matters protesters:
Check out Patricia, sounding a dogwhistle immediately discernible to suburban right-wingers (many of them Democrats in California!):
‘They are not satisfied with spreading the chaos and violence into our communities. They want to abolish the suburbs all together by ending single-family home zoning. This forced rezoning would bring crime, lawlessness, and low-quality apartments into now-thriving suburban neighborhoods. President Trump smartly ended this government overreach, but Joe Biden wants to bring it back.’
And here’s Mark, pronouncing “Marxist” with a hard “r” at the end.
‘The Marxist, liberal activist leading the mob to our neighborhood stood outside our home with a bullhorn screaming, “You can’t stop the revolution.” Just weeks later, that same Marxist activist won the Democrat nomination to hold a seat in the US House of Representatives….That Marxist revolutionary is now going to be the congresswoman from the first district of Missouri.’
(He’s talking about Cori Bush, by the way.)
Tonight’s RNC message: We love Black people so long as they’re nowhere near our front yard.
How badly did they want to say the n-word? On the strength of the McCloskeys’ appearance, we award Monday’s proceedings 10 out of a possible 10 Atwaters. ”
We need another word for them, deplorables is too kind.
Likbez,
We have needed another Keynes since April 21, 1946. He was figuratively a giant among economists as well as literally a giant among men.
Run,
Lay on, Macduff. Sometimes I have time to kill and sometimes I don’t. My time management revolves around the needs of my still working wife, 9 and 1/2 years my junior.
Important psychological distinctions separate self-love, self-obsession, and self-awareness. Combined with Freud’s omnipresent libido and the development of the nursing child’s empathy for the caregiver then most of human behavior can be circumscribed within this triumvirate of inner self motivators.
I would lay good odds that Mahatma Gandhi was a breast fed baby :<)
EMike,
Fortunately for me that I used to be disgusted, but now am just amused.
Nearing age 50 for a few weeks I found myself hooking up with an old girl friend from the late 70’s that was still married and cheating. As alcoholics go she way a good person insofar as being compassionate and kind, but she was not a reliable life partner, a condition that if it had changed in the 20 years that had passed, then it was not for the better. She was likable enough though, a devout Democrat. In any case, she feared that I might be as unreliable as she was and left me to get back with her husband. Until then I had become content to remain a bachelor, to drink or fish or whatever else I wanted to do. But when she left then there was a hole in my life that I sought to fill and not many very good options for someone of my age. Plus that old trick we play on ourselves entered in. My next romance would be with someone that had strong family ties, that was extremely reliable. Little did I know what came with that package since it was unlike my last thirty years of relationships.
“Be careful what you wish for, lest it come true.”
Both sides think so little of themselves that they vote for someone who they think is good enough to rule over them.
@EWM,
“Both sides think so little of themselves that they vote for someone who they think is good enough to rule over them.”
[Well that is part of it, but there are also plenty of ideologues that are getting exactly what they want from those for which they vote without it ever occurring to themselves how wrong that they are about what would work for their interests and concerns and how it must work. Of course those voters think very highly of themselves. To a great extent people are better at understanding what would help themselves than they are at understanding what would help others which places greedy cretins at a powerful advantage within representative republican government. ]
The development of materialism and its red-haired step-child, individualism, eroded the general sense of community that was natural to social animals, particularly most primates that are not orange. In this isolation, then many people find themselves prone to making political decisions based more on their individual sense of desperation than partisan ideology.