All true. But Trump’s appeal to the American psyche is “bad boy.” He breaks the rules, he discards and discredits authority, he’s a rebel without a cause, he’s Tom Sawyer. He’s Hans Solo and his play is Grease. He’s Rooster Cogburn. But, of course, without any redeeming morality. The “bad boy” is the central archetype of American identity. Also, as a fiction, it fails miserably when confronted with reality. But half the nation is still willing to paint Tom’s fence.
Trump is a version of a “Bad boy” Tom Sawyer; many of his most strident supporters will tell you Trump is a bad boy but his heart is with “Make America Great (White)Again” for all of his fans...
Many times he called CNN fake news then to read this all planned to get people like me to start watching CNN. If tRump hated them I had to love them, right? But then reading this me understand it all $$$ always follow that I still trust BBC more than CNN and MSNBC more than CNN but again Olear you blew my mind out in a very good way...
Only disagree with the comparison of Trump to Eliza. She at least worked with Higgins; Trump just shows up, and barely that. Question ~ assuming big media is complicit and given Casler's admitted peccadilloes, how/why have they failed to "National Enquirer" him and allowed him to continue wicked tweeting? Obvious and unexplained ????
I meant why haven't Pecker/AMI done a Ted "my dad was part of the JFK assassination" Cruz on Casler? You gotta explain how he's teflon Noel...just telling the truth protects you from libel, but not a knee-capping.
Spectacular post. Thanks for keeping us informed and helping us focus on the important parts. there are so many fires burning at once it can get distracting.
When trump was elected, I remember what Michael Moore said, “We need to blame Gwen Stefani. That’s right. Trump heard how much she was paid for being on The Voice, by NBC, AND GOT PISSED.” He then made the famous escalator video, running for president. And, this is before he ran. He made the video to submit to NBC, as leverage to negotiate a new contract. And the rest is just a five year shitshow! Before any other awful descriptions, trump is first, a criminal. And, the line I use from Apocalypse Now....”prosecute with extreme prejudice.”
It's Thanksgiving. I am reflecting on gratitude and on giving thanks.
Haven't read the story yet about Zucker and Burnett, just commenting about, among other things, the post-presidency (including lame duck period) of Donald Mini-Hitler Shit-for-Brains Trump. (you'll have to excuse me for slacking, but I am a truck driver in the food industry, this is food season, it's all-hands-on-deck, we have been working our tushies off, I am only having my 2nd full day off in 2 weeks, and I am decompressing and getting a small amt. of well-deserved rest before I go back to my 12-hr overnight work shifts, so I haven't been keeping up on my reading).
Isn't it wonderful to watch the Trump family drifting into obscurity? You can just feel the slow but inexorable disappearance of this nasty disgusting mess as it fades away, like a grisly alternate Twilight Zone version of the Cheshire Cat which instead appears as a sewer full of nasty items, and the very last thing you see after everything else has disappeared, is a dead rat floating in the water.
Speaking of rats, the fair-weather friends are all jumping ship. Fox News has already spurned him. That didn't take long.
Speaking of rats, in other news, the last scum remnant of the Koch dynasty said something disingenuous to ingratiate himself with the new Administration. In similar news, some excrement executive at GM made a similarly disingenuous statement designed to burnish their miserable image as a known opponent to environmental improvement and moral responsibility.
I know I won't get any likes for this post, but I don't care. This is where I get to say exactly what I think, and what I think about the Trump Administration and the corporate CEOs whose only job is to try to put lipstick on a pig is not generally pretty, because the subject matter is innately hideous.
Back to gratitude. November has been an amazing month.
I am so grateful for the end of fire season in California, it has been an especially nasty one this year. We got our first serious turn of cold weather during Election Week, on precisely the weekend the election was being called for Biden-Harris, and then our first soaking rainfall Nov. 17. That is super late for us. We (California) had the first Sept. and Oct. on record which ever combined for zero rainfall. Very unfortunate having that exceptional run of hot dry weather coincide with the worst-ever fire season. Yech. But now it's over, thank all that is good.
I am so grateful for the end of this Administration. Oh My God. Oh My Goodness. I have never in my life followed the details so closely of the end of one administration and the lead-up to the next. I know more about the U.S. electoral process than I ever wanted to know.
I was apoplectic about the Dick Cheney Administration that gave us secret black torture sites and a new way of misusing and abusing Guantanamo, not to mention extrajudicial CIA kidnappings all over the world.
You know what they said about Dick Cheney when he was VP.
If Dick Cheney dies, what happens?
Geo. Bush becomes President.
But next to Trump, the Cheney-Bush Administration looks like nothing of consequence. I guess it shows us just how incredibly lucky and blessed we are, how lucky and blessed the entire world is, to have the United States system of democracy and fair elections.
I will never take any of this for granted. Ever again.
So I am ever-so-grateful and ever-so-thankful for the end of November 2020. This month I am taking my first deep breaths of relief in a long time.
I will not be joining the rest of you in feasting, at least not with the foods this culture has adopted over the years. Most of the American food scene is illness-producing, it makes you sick.
Re-emergence out of the primordial soup of U.S. cultural conditioning is a long process. We may think, each of us, that we have nothing in common with the Brainwashed and Deluded who voted for Shit-for-Brains, but that's not necessarily so. Americans have lost touch with real food, food that is actually good for you, because the food brainwashing has been extensive.
So I am celebrating my Thanksgiving in the best way I know how: giving thanks. I give thanks for the extent to which I have been able to remove myself from immersion in cultural brainwashing. I give thanks for my intelligence, my ability to see and discern the truth in all matters. I give thanks for a clean heart, a clean mind, a clean soul. I give thanks for my beautiful wife Julia, my best and most-trusted friend in the world, an ally in every possible way. I give thanks for an "essential" job that I enjoy and that keeps us secure. I give thanks for a lovely secure and warm home. I give thanks for Greg (and the loved ones who support him) and for you fine people, because this site gives me access to a community of kindred souls who also have intelligence and sight and discernment. I give thanks that I have siblings who see things the way I see them, because I would have disowned them (distanced myself from them) if they were on my dad's side.
I still cannot believe it, that we are finally seeing the demise and disappearance of this pile of shit. I know it's crass, I know it's repulsive and hideous for me to use imagery like that, but how else do you describe the filthy corrupt sewer that is this man's life and inner world?
Just be grateful that you, too, have the intelligence and sight to see him as he is. My father cannot. Truck drivers I work with cannot. They see this shiny package, this rosy and successful image like Steve Jobs or Tom Steyer or Bill Cosby (before the fall) or yes, I'm going to say it, Barack Obama. The way we see Barack (and Michelle) Obama, the DJT voters see their idol.
Some day, walk a bit in their moccasins. Once you do, you are never likely again to complain about any aspect of your life. Just imagine that, instead of seeing what you see now, that DJT appears to you as a wonderful successful businessman/executive/public servant à la Steve Jobs or Jim Mattis or FDR.
You don't think they vote for him because they see Putin's greasy mafia stooge, do you?
Be grateful that you are not one of the brainwashed: the Republicans.
Before this year, I would scoff at the term "the American democratic experiment." "What experiment," I would think, "this is not an experiment. This is tradition. This is forever."
Ha!! What naive stupidity and foolishness.
The American democratic experiment is a blessing to the world, and a much more fragile one than I thought. And yet, a much more durable one than I thought.
What I learned in 2020: the German monarchy, the German govt. based on royalty, did not end until after WWI. Holy shit, that's my grandparents generation!! They were alive when Germany was not a democracy!!
I knew about the American Revolution, a bit about Bastille Day, the vaguest notion of the Russian Revolution. Monarchy and Dictatorship is the way of the world. Democracy is the aberration, the fly-in-the-ointment, the new kid on the block, the Child to the Parent that is royal monarchies. 74,000,000 people voted this month for monarchy. In our supposed democracy.
If you want a Thanksgiving that is exclusively warm sweet and loving, do not read this post and do not click on this link.
Lava Toad is an extremely obscure Seattle-based group, and a greater disservice to humanity has never been seen. Their songs are hysterical. They came to us in the year 2000, one thing led to another, and this very informal concert was probably their only concert ever, I believe in Walnut Creek or the East Bay.
Sample from start of song: “Each Thanksgiving I remember, how the pilgrims came to spread, disease and intolerance, to the natives proud and red.” Search for lyrics to “Large Dead Bird” by Lava Toad.
It’s an irreverent ode to Thanksgiving, as you can see, created in the 1990s but ideal for today.
All true. But Trump’s appeal to the American psyche is “bad boy.” He breaks the rules, he discards and discredits authority, he’s a rebel without a cause, he’s Tom Sawyer. He’s Hans Solo and his play is Grease. He’s Rooster Cogburn. But, of course, without any redeeming morality. The “bad boy” is the central archetype of American identity. Also, as a fiction, it fails miserably when confronted with reality. But half the nation is still willing to paint Tom’s fence.
Trump is a version of a “Bad boy” Tom Sawyer; many of his most strident supporters will tell you Trump is a bad boy but his heart is with “Make America Great (White)Again” for all of his fans...
So, what we’re their motives, beyond profits from the tv show? Destroying American justice?
My guess is just profits, and whatever else they thought about would take care of itself, as long as they still had their toys.
Many times he called CNN fake news then to read this all planned to get people like me to start watching CNN. If tRump hated them I had to love them, right? But then reading this me understand it all $$$ always follow that I still trust BBC more than CNN and MSNBC more than CNN but again Olear you blew my mind out in a very good way...
Ok, what is going on with Chris Hedges and Matt Taibbi? Thanks in advance!
Only disagree with the comparison of Trump to Eliza. She at least worked with Higgins; Trump just shows up, and barely that. Question ~ assuming big media is complicit and given Casler's admitted peccadilloes, how/why have they failed to "National Enquirer" him and allowed him to continue wicked tweeting? Obvious and unexplained ????
Well, I mean, Pecker an AMI is a supporter, so...
I meant why haven't Pecker/AMI done a Ted "my dad was part of the JFK assassination" Cruz on Casler? You gotta explain how he's teflon Noel...just telling the truth protects you from libel, but not a knee-capping.
Oh, right, duh. Streisand Effect, maybe?
Spectacular post. Thanks for keeping us informed and helping us focus on the important parts. there are so many fires burning at once it can get distracting.
Ivanka got some coverage in the past week or so too, and it's.... delicious. It turns out that Ivanka is just EXACTLY who you thought she was: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/11/ivanka-trump-was-my-best-friend-now-shes-maga-royalty
When trump was elected, I remember what Michael Moore said, “We need to blame Gwen Stefani. That’s right. Trump heard how much she was paid for being on The Voice, by NBC, AND GOT PISSED.” He then made the famous escalator video, running for president. And, this is before he ran. He made the video to submit to NBC, as leverage to negotiate a new contract. And the rest is just a five year shitshow! Before any other awful descriptions, trump is first, a criminal. And, the line I use from Apocalypse Now....”prosecute with extreme prejudice.”
It's Thanksgiving. I am reflecting on gratitude and on giving thanks.
Haven't read the story yet about Zucker and Burnett, just commenting about, among other things, the post-presidency (including lame duck period) of Donald Mini-Hitler Shit-for-Brains Trump. (you'll have to excuse me for slacking, but I am a truck driver in the food industry, this is food season, it's all-hands-on-deck, we have been working our tushies off, I am only having my 2nd full day off in 2 weeks, and I am decompressing and getting a small amt. of well-deserved rest before I go back to my 12-hr overnight work shifts, so I haven't been keeping up on my reading).
Isn't it wonderful to watch the Trump family drifting into obscurity? You can just feel the slow but inexorable disappearance of this nasty disgusting mess as it fades away, like a grisly alternate Twilight Zone version of the Cheshire Cat which instead appears as a sewer full of nasty items, and the very last thing you see after everything else has disappeared, is a dead rat floating in the water.
Speaking of rats, the fair-weather friends are all jumping ship. Fox News has already spurned him. That didn't take long.
Speaking of rats, in other news, the last scum remnant of the Koch dynasty said something disingenuous to ingratiate himself with the new Administration. In similar news, some excrement executive at GM made a similarly disingenuous statement designed to burnish their miserable image as a known opponent to environmental improvement and moral responsibility.
I know I won't get any likes for this post, but I don't care. This is where I get to say exactly what I think, and what I think about the Trump Administration and the corporate CEOs whose only job is to try to put lipstick on a pig is not generally pretty, because the subject matter is innately hideous.
Back to gratitude. November has been an amazing month.
I am so grateful for the end of fire season in California, it has been an especially nasty one this year. We got our first serious turn of cold weather during Election Week, on precisely the weekend the election was being called for Biden-Harris, and then our first soaking rainfall Nov. 17. That is super late for us. We (California) had the first Sept. and Oct. on record which ever combined for zero rainfall. Very unfortunate having that exceptional run of hot dry weather coincide with the worst-ever fire season. Yech. But now it's over, thank all that is good.
I am so grateful for the end of this Administration. Oh My God. Oh My Goodness. I have never in my life followed the details so closely of the end of one administration and the lead-up to the next. I know more about the U.S. electoral process than I ever wanted to know.
I was apoplectic about the Dick Cheney Administration that gave us secret black torture sites and a new way of misusing and abusing Guantanamo, not to mention extrajudicial CIA kidnappings all over the world.
You know what they said about Dick Cheney when he was VP.
If Dick Cheney dies, what happens?
Geo. Bush becomes President.
But next to Trump, the Cheney-Bush Administration looks like nothing of consequence. I guess it shows us just how incredibly lucky and blessed we are, how lucky and blessed the entire world is, to have the United States system of democracy and fair elections.
I will never take any of this for granted. Ever again.
So I am ever-so-grateful and ever-so-thankful for the end of November 2020. This month I am taking my first deep breaths of relief in a long time.
I will not be joining the rest of you in feasting, at least not with the foods this culture has adopted over the years. Most of the American food scene is illness-producing, it makes you sick.
Re-emergence out of the primordial soup of U.S. cultural conditioning is a long process. We may think, each of us, that we have nothing in common with the Brainwashed and Deluded who voted for Shit-for-Brains, but that's not necessarily so. Americans have lost touch with real food, food that is actually good for you, because the food brainwashing has been extensive.
So I am celebrating my Thanksgiving in the best way I know how: giving thanks. I give thanks for the extent to which I have been able to remove myself from immersion in cultural brainwashing. I give thanks for my intelligence, my ability to see and discern the truth in all matters. I give thanks for a clean heart, a clean mind, a clean soul. I give thanks for my beautiful wife Julia, my best and most-trusted friend in the world, an ally in every possible way. I give thanks for an "essential" job that I enjoy and that keeps us secure. I give thanks for a lovely secure and warm home. I give thanks for Greg (and the loved ones who support him) and for you fine people, because this site gives me access to a community of kindred souls who also have intelligence and sight and discernment. I give thanks that I have siblings who see things the way I see them, because I would have disowned them (distanced myself from them) if they were on my dad's side.
I still cannot believe it, that we are finally seeing the demise and disappearance of this pile of shit. I know it's crass, I know it's repulsive and hideous for me to use imagery like that, but how else do you describe the filthy corrupt sewer that is this man's life and inner world?
Just be grateful that you, too, have the intelligence and sight to see him as he is. My father cannot. Truck drivers I work with cannot. They see this shiny package, this rosy and successful image like Steve Jobs or Tom Steyer or Bill Cosby (before the fall) or yes, I'm going to say it, Barack Obama. The way we see Barack (and Michelle) Obama, the DJT voters see their idol.
Some day, walk a bit in their moccasins. Once you do, you are never likely again to complain about any aspect of your life. Just imagine that, instead of seeing what you see now, that DJT appears to you as a wonderful successful businessman/executive/public servant à la Steve Jobs or Jim Mattis or FDR.
You don't think they vote for him because they see Putin's greasy mafia stooge, do you?
Be grateful that you are not one of the brainwashed: the Republicans.
Before this year, I would scoff at the term "the American democratic experiment." "What experiment," I would think, "this is not an experiment. This is tradition. This is forever."
Ha!! What naive stupidity and foolishness.
The American democratic experiment is a blessing to the world, and a much more fragile one than I thought. And yet, a much more durable one than I thought.
What I learned in 2020: the German monarchy, the German govt. based on royalty, did not end until after WWI. Holy shit, that's my grandparents generation!! They were alive when Germany was not a democracy!!
I knew about the American Revolution, a bit about Bastille Day, the vaguest notion of the Russian Revolution. Monarchy and Dictatorship is the way of the world. Democracy is the aberration, the fly-in-the-ointment, the new kid on the block, the Child to the Parent that is royal monarchies. 74,000,000 people voted this month for monarchy. In our supposed democracy.
It's fucking weird. It's sick as hell.
If you want a Thanksgiving that is exclusively warm sweet and loving, do not read this post and do not click on this link.
Lava Toad is an extremely obscure Seattle-based group, and a greater disservice to humanity has never been seen. Their songs are hysterical. They came to us in the year 2000, one thing led to another, and this very informal concert was probably their only concert ever, I believe in Walnut Creek or the East Bay.
Sample from start of song: “Each Thanksgiving I remember, how the pilgrims came to spread, disease and intolerance, to the natives proud and red.” Search for lyrics to “Large Dead Bird” by Lava Toad.
It’s an irreverent ode to Thanksgiving, as you can see, created in the 1990s but ideal for today.
https://youtu.be/lf7aGBTp9rY
the true story of "Plymouth," actual name Patuxet
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-11-25/pilgrims-thanksgiving-mayflower-pandemic-plymouth