god damn the pusher

everybody has a wine club...

martha wants to send my "personalized selections" straight to my door...

the ever opportunistic macy's wants a piece of that...

the wall street journal not only wants to send fine wine to my door...

they want it out on the patio or deck as well...shouldn't limit outselves...think outside the wine box...

and they have utilized their journalisitic competitors subscription list to send me vouchers in the folds of the sunday edition...they are serious...so is the times...

they have a wine club too...why not? it's a media corporation after all and they need to diversify like everyone else...money is money...get it where you can..that's what the consequentialism says...

and lately thsy have taken to using their wine critic's column to begin equating wine with relief...encouraging readers to embrace the numb and find solace in imported bottles for less than twenty bucks a pop...a deal for peace of mind that isn't a prescribed substance ( except by the times ) from big pharma...

and they are prepared to offer you choices...be aware that you are the one making them...alcohol is a pharmakon...it can, i suppose, be beneficial in small quantities to some people...for others it becomes poisonous in very real terms and at twenty bucks a bottle the necessary dosages would be financially ruinous for most ( but not the times )...been down that road...came back...not going that way again...martha, macy's, the wall stret journal, the new york times...all begin to resemble pushers to me...fuck these people.

gloat?

Biden’s 100 day to-do list. N y times 24 January 2021` Frank Augugarlio Deputy design director in times opinion Day 1. Do a little dance Day 2. Cancel the Keystone XL pipeline permit Day 3. Deep-clean the bed Day 4. Enforce that mask mandate on federal property Day 5. Gloat Day 6. Extend nationwide restrictions on home evictions and foreclosures Day 7. Hump day! Day 8. Launch “Real Joe Biden” Twitter account Day 9. Tweet once. Forget how you logged in. Day 10. Make an elaborate egg sandwich. Send a pic to Barack. Day 11. Dry January ends Day 12. Go for a run like Bill used to Day 13. Do the thing with the groundhog Day 14. Pledge to vaccinate every American Day 15. Change White House Wi-Fi password to BigJoesHouse Day 16. Bake the “perfect muffin” Day 17. Rewatch “The West Wing” Day 18. Rewatch “The West Wing” Day 19. Rewatch “The West Wing” Day 20. Rewatch “The West Wing” Day 21. Consider Time-Life “Soul of America” box set Day 22. Join World Health Organization Gold Star Club Day 23. Organize the medicine cabinet Day 24. Get the most diverse cabinet in American history confirmed Day 25. Push to pass the Equality Act, a bill to add protections for L.G.B.T.Q. Americans Day 26. See what ol’ Dr. Jill is up to Day 27. Call Barack to see if he liked the muffins Day 28. Email Twitter about the login issue Day 29. Leg day with Doug Day 30. Sign executive order to conserve 30 percent of America’s lands and waters by 2030 Day 31. Let it rip Days 32-33: Take Jill on a staycation Day 34: Watch supercut of all “Rocky” training sequences Day 35. Pledge to shake hands with every American Day 36. Go for a nice walk Day 37. Call Barack again to see if he liked the muffins Day 38. Hygge Day 39. Sign executive order to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 Day 40. Take a nap Day 41. See what’s happening in the Middle East Day 42. Cancel Peloton subscription Day 43. Watch “Bridgerton” Day 44. Watch “Bridgerton” Day 45. Watch “Bridgerton” Day 46. Hey, that’s me! Day 47. See if Doug wants to have a catch Day 48. Listen. Really listen. Day 49. Sign something and hold it up for the cameras Day 50. Call into “Hannity.” Yell “bababooey.” Day 51. Write the Great American Novel Day 52. Are unpardons a thing? Day 53. Get into birding Day 54. Ride the train to Scranton just for funsies Day 55. Walk around asking the Secret Service if they need to use the can Day 56. Start a puzzle Day 57. REALLY let it rip Day 58. Ask Kamala if she wants to take over for a few weeks Day 59. Zoom lunch with the Paris climate signatories Day 60. Show Jill the sourdough starter Day 61. Call Lady Gaga about duet album Day 62. Legalize it Day 63. Do 1-min. plank Day 64. Reverse Trump’s immigration policies Day 65. Plot “The King’s Gambit” Day 66. Call Barack again to see if he liked the muffins Day 67. Give the people what they want Day 68. Do 100 push-ups. Make Ted watch. Day 69. Pledge to make direct eye contact with every American Day 70. Install beer fridge in garage Day 71. Get to Inbox Zero Day 72. Allow openly transgender troops to serve in the military again Day 73. Kiss some babies Day 74. Ask around if four-year term is mandatory Day 75. Start a dream journal Day 76. Bake a galette Day 77. Trust falls with the Squad Day 78. Buy the perfect denim jacket Day 79. Prank call “Ask the Mayor” Day 80. Do 2-min. plank Day 81. Feel blessed Day 82. Buy a harmonica Day 83. Take a nap Day 84. Jam session with Doug Day 85. Fight for partial repeal of the 2017 tax cuts Day 86. Pledge to tell every American they look nice today Day 87. Teach Chuck how to throw a tight spiral Day 88. Face masks with Jilly Day 89. Turn it up to 11 Day 90. Continue to defer student loan payments Day 91. Buy doggy sweaters for Major and Champ Day 92. Game night with Nancy Day 93. Call Barack. Leave “Hey, this sucks. Call me back” voice mail. Day 94. Have an inside day Day 95. Hang collection of Shepard Fairey posters Day 96. Ask Congress to close gun loopholes Day 97. Sign another thing and hold it up for the cameras Day 98. Crack open “A Promised Land” Day 99. Pardon Hunter Day 100. Ensure peaceful transition of power to Kamala

if it isn't claer that i find politicans loathesome by now you haven't been paying attention...and i am no fan of the media either...from fox to msnbc...from usa today ( the voelkischer beobachter of the new age ) to the new york times ( mouthpiece of the elite ) they are distortionist corporate entities providing a product for a branded viership/readership...and the above op-ed piece from yesterdays n y times is another example...after calling donny a cheapjack liar and criminal every day for four years and jumping on the joe biden express frank from design has produced this snide and belligerent ( disguised, one supposes, as humor ) screed...the innuendo in various points is not very understated...9, 28, and 40 infer superannuation, 17 through 20 the need for "presidential lessons"...16,23,36,43,44,45,53,70, and most of the rest point to a president puttering around the oval office with nothing much on his mind and little clear direction...however the salient point of this whole middenheap is contained in 58 and 100...old joe should step aside and let the prosecutor take the reins in whoretown to the benefit of her handlers in big tech...hypocrisy is a common weapon of power and the clerisy at the times are nothing if not fickle and opportunistic..all these people bear watching.

belaboring the obvious

seems as though the n y times feels i am both malleable and stupid at once...

that the misplaced rage over the elction is not going to vanish tomorrow is so clearly obvious that this borders on an insulting elite explanation of events to the herd ( or faithful readers if you like )...that divisiveness abounds is clear...what is muddled in the media is the cause which is class/economic in esence and all the media propagandizing is aimed at widening/exploting all the rifts branding/identity creates in the polity...

they will work at telling us we cannot agree because they do not want us to come to the conclusion that the elites are the problem, not each other...the times is nothing if not an elite mouthpiece/agitptop org...legitimate cultural differences do exist among the polity but in themselves do not pose an impediment to mutual understanding...yeah, we're different, but talk to the "other" and you'll find human universals as well...you'll recognize facets of yourself...commonalities...

one of the salient features of that engineered divisiveness is there's money in it...trump, biden,congress, fox, the n y times, msnbc...they're all poart of the problem...start talking to each other...no it won't be easy...try to listen too.

could ed be more arrogant?

perusing the business section of the new york times is always an education and today's is no less enlightening...on the front page of the section i found this lede and the start of an article...

"big business" and the republican party have been the same thing since at least old smilin' cal cooledge was in the oval office...and the inset quotes desreve some attention...

first off the word "sedition" is cropping up in corpospeak these days and i have pointed out the political use made of the "alien and sedition act" of 1798 and have pondered neitzschian recurrance with that in relation to the coming months, if not years...there will be a reaction...it is how people are...proactive does not exist...it is the name "activists" give to reacting to a possibility...we like to delude ourselves...some other salient points...1.) if you fuck with the cash flow these people will call in the pinkertons ...2.) ken is a donny fan from a ways back and it seems clear he is in the proces of turning...donny may have a base but the real wealth seems to have had enough and votes will only get you so far if you have big money united against you...the stench is driving them away...3.) could ken be more arrogant? or is that just an index of the top-down, authoritarian corporate ceo worldview? and let's not forget that that is where donny hails from...neither he or any of these bozos loves working people...they love cash...lucre...moolah...and if you start to upend "the system" to the point that you interfere with their unbridled extraction they will kill you...economically or literally...either way they get what they want.

orwellian

one presumes that partisan media will soon be calling the idea that qanon leaning representatives and , perhaps, their staffs conspired to help “insurrectionists” case out the capital prior to the riotous takeover ( for which leftists in the 60s and 70s were arrested as well might I say..except that was mostly university offices and buildings, not the national capitol ) “orwellian conspiracy theories” much as “sober minded” media have dismissed qanon as crack-brained bullshit…

“orwellian” has become a new epithet for those who are not “woke” to reality as whichever side perceives it ( or ,more over, wants you to perceive it )…what no one seems to be pointing out ( mostly, one presumes, they’ve never actually bothered to move past 1984 and read some of orwell’s more serious essays ) is that orwell…

consistently pointed out that both ends of the political spectrum would happily distort fact beyond recognition if it suited their short-term political needs and that human cognition so limits political memory that they usually got away with it because groupthink renders people stupid…in that respect conspiracy theories are “orwellian” because they distract the herd from what is going on in reality…and the manipulative “powers-that-be” laugh at the “proles”…between their sneers.

paradigm change?

elaine chao bailed on the cabinet...ostensibly because of donny's pre riot rhetoric and a desire not to be associated with it...

that was before the theocrat pence torpedoed the 25th amendment approach ( because he had already incurred the wrath of donny and his base by refusing to decertify sleepy joe's election and enough was enough ) and i am inclined to think she had quit so as not to be involved in that on even a theoretical basis...

in something of an unexpected ( for me ) turn, her bitter half is now said to "privately" ( he has a job to look out for too ) favor booting donny...if mitch is on board with "dump trump" i am going to have to rethink my contention that the senate would not convict...it may just be that congress has been frightened into acting in an unprecidented fashion...too close to the edge for even their ganesmanship and bluster...we'll see how the next week goes...or old mitch is sending a message to donny saying, in effect...

"before" might be a stretch...but mitch has an out of work wife and a job to look after so he needs to make a point about keeping things cool on the twentieth...a conviction is an iffy proposition.

powers that be

i have little use for extremists from either side of the political spectrum...there are a lot of similarities between them including the fact that 1.) they think they know what's gpoing on when their cognition isn't any better than yours or mine 2.)they are suckers for conspiracy theories and 3.) they are pathalogically incapable of listening to anything but their own voices...i have less use for a racist...we are all humans and we all came from africa...get your dna sequenced...the capitalist oligarchy ( to which old donny trump belongs people...he is not on your side, he is on his ) isn't any more palatable...they are single minded in their extraction of wealth from the rest of us and they are the ones in control...

just a sample from today's n y times ( a mouthpiece for the oligarchs it is true...however in their arrogance the suppose they are not tranparent...they are infomative in ways they would not be especially pleased with ) illustrating where the real power is centered...sporadic violence may help keep the proles killing one another and distracted from the extraction ( plus there's always a splke in gun sales...remington thanks you )...civil war might do serious damage to the economy which would impact cash flow and have an adverse effect on their wealth...they are not having that...they will, if necessary, trot out the military and they have F 16s...the extremists do not...mind your p's and q's. you have been told.

objectivity vs. human nature

one of donald brown’s human universals is “ overestimation of objective thought”…that stood out as i perused the list today relative to all the political contentiousness of late…doubtlessly we all think ourselves more detached and cooler observers ( no matter how much we may like and admire them ) than our neighbors…there is ample room for doubt in this…all the current argumentation is neither cool nor detached…it is first person and emotionally rooted...if there is one thing that renders humans completely subjective it is emotion…no one in an emotionally elevated state thinks much about consequences…they just act…then rationalize…with more emotion until anything that approaches ( i do not think humans can actually obtain it ) objectivity is utterly lost…a positive feedback loop of emotion-action-emotion that precludes any detached analysis…news sources seem embedded in this loop as they flog their news product to those faithful to their editorial line…rutger bregman, in his book “humankind”, counsels turning off the news…i have been advocating not media avoidance, they speak in parables and you need to know what they think you should think, but a healthy dose of media skepticism…they feed emotion to their fiscal benefit…politicians play the same game…selling fear as political truth…no wonder we find ourselves at odds with one another…branded and balkanized by what we drink…eat…drive…wear…vote…buckle up, this is a long way from over_________________________in my last post i suggested that the reaction from the newly elected to the trump adminstration would probably not be all sweetness and light...and some of the legislative proposals i have read will do little to ease current tensions...the plus side is they have a legislative proces to go though which may take some of the edge off, if not scrap, contentious legislation...in the meantime the true powers that be have spoken as google and apple flex their strength...net neutarlity is dead and you had better toe the google-line.

reaction

“the new york commercial advertiser declared that anyone who inveighed against the sedition act ‘deserves to be suspected’ themselves of sedition. The salem gazette explained that the ‘safety of our nation depends’ on the sedition act, while willam cobbert dutifully complied a list of seditious newspapers for the benefit of government prosecutors, singling out, among others, the baltimore intelligencer, ‘ a sink of abuse, scurrility, and democracy,’ edited by ‘an imp of democracy as wicked & depraved as his master the devil.’ “____the partisan press: a history of media bias in America. si sheppard pp.40-1_______________________________

part of the alien and sedition act of 1798 was ostensibly aimed at foreign nationals who could be deported as threats to national security “in time of war”…”time of war” has always had a fairly loose definition in the minds of politicians and the limits were elastic at best…then and now…the sedition part was more to the point…it was aimed at speech critical of the united states government and was used by john adams ( read the federalist party of which the above cited cobbert was a leading advocate, mouthpiece, and agent ) to prosecute and jail newspaper editors ( mostly of jeffersonian papers ) who criticized his administration ( one wonders what he thought of bill maclay who said of adams, “i cannot help but think of a monkey just put into breeches when i saw him betray such evident marks of self-conceit.” narcissism seems rampant in the political trade...so does the arrogance of power) i have never been a donny fan…a lying grifter if ever there was one…venal…corrupt…arrogant…self-absorbed…good riddance is a fair assessment…the issue is we are left with a range of whores easily as narcissistic as john adams and in the full flush of righteous anger…what shape is the reaction going to take? no one knows at the moment…i certainly do not…however, now that the figurative shoe is on the other foot and high dudgeon is the flavor of the day, are we going to go after dissent from the new order in an organized, legislative fashion a la federalists? judging by posts i have seen on social media there is a vengeful element out there from the mainstream media...

on down through the op-ed food chain ( yes, this is as much opinion as any of them…again, i am not innocent )…i never trust a politician...the whores are fickle and subscribe to dewey’s “goals in view”…situational ethics and a blind eye to those they fuck over…time to be careful…shumer is no better than mcconnell and kammy was ( and mentally still is ) a prosecutor...and there are those of an authoritarian bent on both sides of the aisle...by all means go after those who merit it by their criminal acts ( if i had stormed the capitol durning, say a viet nam war protes, they would have collared me immediately...we could surmise that law enforcement, if not in open collusion with , was sympathetic to the stormers )...don't get carried away...democrats can easily be as intolerant.

peel the veneer

“…consider that republicanism might largely be a cloak, as it often is to this day, worn grudgingly by the elites as long as it proved serviceable to their interests.”

The constitution is the counter-revolution…an aristocratic document aimed to limit the ”numerous democracy” of the declaration of independence…jay, madison, and that ”damned ass hamilton” were never fond of the lesser kind and they couldn’t help but have that bleed through in ”the federalist papers” or in the raft of federal legislation that followed…say the alien and sedition acts of 1798…used effectively by john adams against political foes and those members of the third estate who rankled him ( say james calendar for one )…donny is nothing if not an oligarch ( masquerading a s a populist as he fleeces any and everyone he possibly can while inciting a lot of noise to distract and confuse the hoi polloi…he has allies in this…notably the whore from tejas and the qanon senators from the fringes…they are trying to protect their phony jobs by pandering to the voters...the voters vote…the donors are the true constituents ) in that republicanism charade noted above…the one who worries me is the theocrat pence…what if ( i know, supposition…but biden is not president just yet and we are dealing with possibilities, not probabilities ) he refuses to certify the results? to the best of my knowledge that has never happened and i find no “plan b” for a remedy…there is still a lot that could go wrong ( or right depending on your viewpoint here ) before the twentieth…

whomever wrote this op ed in the times deserves to be drummed out of the pundit union…donny was impeached on 18 december 2019 and acquitted on 5 february 2020…forty-nine days…it’s 5 january…fifteen days to the inauguration…there isn’t time and even if they did impeach him again the senate would doubtlessly acquit again…hopeless fantasy…and as an afterthought, who’s keeping an eye on Roberts? lots of weak links in the chain…pay attention tomorrow…the clown from tejas and his cadre of sycophantic minions may not succeed in doing much…but that cloak of republicanism is going to have some reasonably large holes torn in it.

a tainted and obsequious age

“but this was a tainted and meanly obsequious age. the greatest figures had to protect their positions by subserviency…many junior senators competed with each other’s offensively sycophantic proposals. there is a tradition that whenever tiberius left the senate-house he exclaimed in greek, ‘men fit to be slaves.’ “ tacitus, the annals of imperial rome.

so it's what? tweleve or so yahoos against the entire electoral system that has been going on for a couple of hundred years ( even sleepey joe certified donny's win in 2016 )...i an skeptical they will succeed...this is an effort on their part to curry favor with the voters at home...one can hope that the cretious pence's political career is over...one has one's doubts given his home state...these things happen...huey long comes to mind...that didn't end well either...whatever happens these sham sycophants are throroughly disgusting...ted cruz has no shame...none of them do...narcissists to the bone that is why the entire electoral government is shot through with people who are inclined to think themselves smarter than the polity and unafraid to say so...whether in direct language or inference...this is patently untrue..."the people" aren't stupid...mostly disguted...for highly varied reasons but rightly so in the end of things even if they do not agree on the sources of that disgust...so what's wednesday going to look like? the ukranians may have presaged it.

the chinese and russians, among others, are laughing their asses off.

defining the year

we are all lexicographers...we define things all day everyday...mostly to try to make sense of the absurdity and chaos of daily life...today is not an exception...it is the arbitrary start of a "new year" ( new year's day may as well be february nineteeth for all the "naturalness" if january first as a demarcation ) and what do i feel like defining today? anyone who reads this knows i am one of aristoltle's ( even if i find aristotle to be a complete philosophical jerk ) " political animals"...and, while i am no seer, i do have an opinon ( i know, tell you something you don't know ) and it runs pretty much like this: the trumpist cadres in the senate like josh hawley are going to try to subvert this past election to the bitter end because they want an authoritarian government with a subtext of theocracy provided by that cretin pence...why? because then they can take everything they can by enacting legislation that legalizes their rapacity...they are greedfy fucks led by one of the greediest and most solipsitic ones...biden is not president just yet...hold the celebration...and then what will there be to celebrate? BAU i am thinking...sure biden's "adminstration" is "serious about climate change"...quite a bit of cngress is not...there will be dissent...look for the "green new deal" to stay dead and for cosmetic rather than subsatntive action...subsatntive would cost too much in money, powwer, and prestige...humans are habitual...when will you quit driving to work...or the store...or to grandma's? you aren't i am thinking ( me either...i am not innocent )...the pandemic will continue as the virus mutates beyond already somewhat dated vaccines that are really not geting out the public anytime soon anyway...wear a mask...wash your hands...don't hoard...i will continue to go to work...to live much as i have in the past ( although i have adapted to a mask...wearing it has become habitual )...and i will continue to be astounded by all those who hold a high school civics view of this as a governmat by and for "the people" and that the way things are is "not how things are supposed to work"...disenfranchising the "will of the people" is the whole point of the aristocratic and counter-revolutionary "constitution"...admittedly the current adminstration is taking the concept to the extreme limit...it is still what jay, madison, and "that damed ass hamilton" had in mind...they might disapprove of the extremism, but not fo the concept...the election is not over.