synopsis ( which would indicate a lack of some detail )

that i consider politicians of any stripe to be thieving whores with the serendipitous ability to metamorphose their activities into some semblance of legality through the magic of legislation should be patently obvious by now...and the events of the past week will not put a stick in the spokes of the bicycle of state...it will embolden some...quiet none...and the wolves in the congress who feel themselves more capable of leadership than der furhair will be howling for the next twenty months or so...and virtually none of it will be to the benefit of the polity...in the wake of the "great exoneration" there is already a movement afoot ( probably spearheaded by the ever slimy mcconnell...why am i reminded of everet dirksen when old mitch is in the news? perhaps the oleaginous sycophancy is the common denominator here ) to repeal the affordable ( ha!) health care act and they will not stop there...what seriously has to be considered is the distinct possibility of a second term for trumpy if the unfortunate democratic party self destructs between now and election day ( to discount this possibility is delusional magical thinking...something the dithering left in this country seems adept at )...if that is the case they will go after medicaid, medicare, and social security with a ruthless efficiency that they are clearly capable of ...the question is why kill longstanding social programs and the answer i keep coming up with is debt...the only way to make "new" money is through interest charged on debt...the more debt the more money wealth rakes in and these people are inherently greed driven...their basic policy near as i can tell is to reduce the population at large to a sate of debt penury...they want it all...including your firstborn...and the first step in taking them is to kill anything that might prevent, forestall, or mitigate crippling debt..avarice is the prime mover...they have been making private liability into public debt for some time now...the levers of political control allow a lot of ethical latitude...trying to take it all would be the next logical step...the ghost of jay gould ( and, perhaps, charles tyson yerkes ) has returned to haunt a new age of economic disparity and gilded mansions...and the democrats...well..pelosi is wealth so she will, with a show of public reluctance, countenance this...and profit...the unfortunate few who lay to the left of her have no cogent plan ( the "green new deal" is stillborn and if there were any other "plan" it might have been able to be instituted when the shit hit the fan in 2008...there was none...one should be developed for the next time the economic equilibrium is punctuated by a greed based crisis ) all they have is an intellectual superiority complex that informs them the polity at large is far too stupid to grasp what is good for it and has to be led to it and have it rammed down its throat...which, incidentally, has a lot to do with why trump was elected in the first place...in the end all i can muster is a fair amount of disgust for the sham of "representative government" ( which has been a sham since 1789...the constitution is the counter revolution )...repulsive displays of political hypocrisy...even the buddha is trying not to puke.

privacy would seem to be relative to power

timing looms large in human events and mine seems totally fucked today...i wandered off to campus to have a shufti at the garden and, perhaps, pay a social call...it seems it is spring break because the normally packed lot was pretty much empty...

the garden is, as you would expect in the second week of march, bare as could be...there is some activity and i was going to blog about that but events vaporized that mood...

the state would seem to be funneling more money into a regional campus and the third floor of the library is closed...and, by extension, so is the archives...social call laid to rest...okay...i accept responsibility for not calling ahead...my responsibility for my mood...so far...what set me off completely was the campus flatfoot that decided i was a suspicious character and followed my progress around the campus up to and including into a rest room...it is a "community garden"...a public space..and there were times when parker and i were the garden and i resent this behavior and begin to see credence in the concept of liberal authoritarianism...had i left a trail of assaulted individuals in my wake i could countenance being followed but this clown's behavior was a bit much...knowing that google and amazon and facebook track my behaviors and profile my habits and knowing as well that in most public spaces i am on camera and that the state of indiana has scanned my image into a facial recognition data base through the aegis of their fucking "new, you can't fly without it get it by january i, 2020 license" is one thing...i can exert some control over some of that...telling the campus cop to go clock speeders on broadway probably wouldn't fly...so i walked out of the crapper and left campus and may...excepting the public space of the community garden...set foot on the fucking place again...fuck these people...there is a strain of elitist, vanguardist "i know better than you" condescension in the liberal world and that is what drives the bulk of the population to the center ...or to trump...get a grip...

if google has no time for privacy it would seem there is an "official" reaction going on...i stopped by city hall to pay the water bill ( a utility the municipality desperately wants to privatize ) and...after wondering if the parking lot is actually supposed to be turning from concrete to gravel...i went in and encountered this sign prominently displayed...

does that include lawyers? one would think something that is allegedly part of the public record should accommodate the public if they are so inclined...one presumes this prohibition includes the press...and the whole thing reeks of obfuscation...or...perhaps...when the criminal ex-mayor was working the kickbacks from the construction of this carnival ride ( drive past it at night sometime ) the courtroom took the biggest graft hit...either way, even stalin went out of the way to make his trials as public as possible so the lesson would be an overt one...sometimes power loses it s way.

opinion...take it or leave it

lots of political news out there...articles on the new leftist bent in the party nudging more conservative democrats to "the center" ( whatever that is )...the rise of "democratic socialism" and the reaction of a president suborning political violence...all part of american politics...past and present...it is clearly possible to run a successful election campaign calling yourself a "democratic socialist" on a local level...mayor, councilman, district representative to congress...like-minded people tend to congregate...human tribalism is probably genetic...so it isn't surprising to find some wandering in whoretown...succeeding in say a statewide campaign might be more difficult...many more congregations to convince...sanders is the only one i can name off the top of my head with much in the way of ability in this...and, as much as he is loved, his moment may have passed as the democrats do as much as they can to split their party as badly as it has been since humphrey's days...a national campaign as a "democratic socialist" may be challenging if not political suicide...2020 will mark a century since the last attempt by a self-proclaimed socialist to gain the presidency...eugene v. debs ran that year...against the likes of warren harding and james cox..he received 3.4% of the vote...913,693 people voted for him ( women voted in that presidential election for the first time incidentally...i haven't clue about the impact that had on debs' chances ) which stands as a record number of votes garnered by a "socialist" to this day...a cautionary tale there somewhere...he received no electoral votes...nor did he in 1900, 1904, 1908, or 1912...a symbolic candidacy at the best of times...the past is not the future...the future is indeterminate and the farther out you extend your event horizon the more variables that you cannot hope to see become involved in events...there could be a "democratic socialist" president...we could all just stop driving our automobiles too...it is a matter of probability...and the probability of a second term for trumpy is not zero...to think so is foolish and pretty much self-defeating...it has always been a very conservative country with pockets of left leaning people ( coincidentally many of those areas are located where there was a strong union presence..a possible motive for the hegemonic culture to want to snuff them out )...radical turns in politics...beyond the roosevelt years ( and that was more capital saving itself )... have generally been rightward...the next election is along way off...no one has the inside scoop and trump will not go quietly...neither will his yahoo base.

in the news

i have been perusing the n y times the past few days to see what the elite thinks of the rest of us and finding pretty much what i expected...

advertisers have always targeted children ( since i have been around anyway ...i know, i was one )...an effective way to get to parental purses and wallets...( and we will get back to some of the intricacies of parenting in a little bit here...i am one of those too )...new found concern over the impact isn't all that new...manipulation has a long history...

a billionaire bought a statue for millions that might only be worth thousands and donated it as a cultural artifact to a hawaiian museum...red faces ( and hands ) all round...

a financial advisor/guru decided "the old fashioned way " wasn't nearly fast enough...there's a surprise...good to know consequentialism is alive and well here...everybody wants money...a lot of it..and right fucking now...and while we're on the subject of wanting a lot of money...

here's yesterday's realty section winner...a whole floor in boston for $45 million...the buyers must be lining up..best bet is they are all chinese...or maybe saudis looking to diversify locations for extra-judicial killings...either way locals are pretty much priced out of the market...

and finally ( final because the cognitive dissonance the paper was engendering was creating a massive headache and i was forced to put it down ) rutger bergman, one of the cadre of "young activists" like ocassio-cortez..has been haranguing financial elites and pissing tucker carlson off ( who is that by the by...i don't watch television...the names are foreign )..the article says he comes from a generation that grew up after the fall of the berlin wall when ( per the ever irrelevant and ultimately ever so wrong francis fukyama ) all ideological struggles had been settled and is finding that pronouncement untrue and is setting about to reform the globe that has lapsed into ideological doldrums...well...speaking as someone who came of age in ideologically charged times and was on of tricky dicks's "vocal minority" ( mom was aghast at my "impeach nixon" button ) a cautionary word or two...the war in vietnam ended...nixon resigned...civil rights were enshrined in the "law of the land"...and things didn't essentially change which is why the new cadre are "activists"...it is entirely possible that mr. bergman may spend his life involved in radical assessments of hegemonic culture ( he has written four books..i have ordered one for an assessment...there may be more electrons spilled over this soon )..or he may settle down as a tenured superstar professor ( think maybe steven pinker ) at some august european university and inspire youth in the classroom while continuing to churn out books and articles and living comfortably...ocassio-cortez? give the state of the amazon debate and the open letters ( also in yesterday's times ) from the hegemony's heavy hitters in ny asking for another chance, it could be she will find herself out of office in 2020...or she will settle in for a ten term run, be turned, and become the next peolosi...surely the green new deal is stillborn ( on terms of whoretown and legislation anyway ) and too little too late..we will see what she says when the book comes out ( i will be reading a synopsis..i doubt i will have the patience for both bregmnan's book and hers...youth is a time of illusion...disillusion comes later )..a final word to both...under no circumstances become parents...that act will radically alter your thinking...in ways so gradual you will not notice..and in ways that will knock you out of your chair. addendum:i read bregman's book and found it not only accessible, but cogent as well...can't judge a book by its cover or an author by something in the times...my apologies and recommendation...i was mistaken...i get to be human too.