Strange phenomena surrounding the rock group Big Green.
Week that was (5.0).
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It has been another one of those weeks, packed to the gills with
news, mostly bad. Of course, this is not a bug but merely a feature of
the times we live in, so I will make my usual lame effort at grappling
with a small subset of what has been assailing us over the past few days
in the final full week of the third year of Our Lord Trump, king of the
chimps.
Debate #7. Not at all sure I see the point of these
corporate exercises in superficial political sparring. The CNN
questioners were clearly excited to dig in to their “breaking news”
story about what Bernie said to Elizabeth a couple of years ago in a
private conversation. The moderator who queried Sanders on this when
straight to Warren with a question that assumed he was lying in his
response. I am disappointed in Warren, frankly, for perpetuating this
line of attack. It plays on the odious claim the Sanders and his
followers were misogynistic in their race against Clinton in 2016 –
something Clinton alumni cling to as one of the rationales for their
loss. This is toxic, and I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to suggest that
it could ultimately blow the election. WTF, people … time to put the
movement above your personal fortunes. Knock. it. off.
Impeachment. A historic week in terms of the
delivery of articles of impeachment to the Senate for only the third
time in American history, with respect to presidents, at least. It seems
like a forgone conclusion that Trump will walk away from this, but not
unscathed – impeachment without removal is a kind of accountability. If
there is history after this presidency, this action will be indelibly
recorded next to his grisly name. As for the trial, well … I expect a
relative circus as compared to the already ridiculous Clinton
impeachment. The G.O.P. has decayed considerably over the past 20 years,
such that there’s some question as to whether all of them will keep
their pants on for the entire proceeding. We shall see.
War lies. Bernie had it right Tuesday night: our two
biggest foreign policy disasters in recent decades were spawned by lies
– Vietnam and Iraq. Though with Vietnam, I’m pretty sure he’s talking
about the Gulf of Tonkin incident that never happened, with the U.S.S.
Maddox and Turner Joy. (There were a lot of lies that preceded that with
regard to Indochina.) Of course Trump is lying about Iran … that’s the
same as saying he’s speaking about Iran. We are in a similar
boat with Iran as we were with Iraq back in 2001-03; elements within the
the administration want to have a war for whatever reason, perhaps
ideological, perhaps mercantile, likely some mixture of both. It appears
that the general population is more against the idea than it was in the
case of Iraq 2003, and that that opposition is broad-based enough to
make Trump somewhat cautious. Ironic that this heightened tension is
taking place in the immediate wake of the release of the Afghan papers,
the DOD internal history of the Iraq conflict, and the big Intercept / NY Times scoop on the activities of Iran’s intelligence services in Iraq. (Of course, these were all one or two-day stories at best.)
Natural Disasters. Heartbreaking climate-fueled
fires in Australia, earthquakes in Puerto Rico, volcanic eruptions in
the Philippines. Jesus H. Christ, what next?
Well, anyway... why do we have to do the same thing every time? I mean, I know safety is important, but frankly we can't afford a spaceship at this point. Can't we just hitchhike to Neptune? Good god, man. Whatever happened to the spirit of adventure? We never used to be so risk averse. We used to bear to the left and take chances. Now look at us. (You can use a smoked glass lens, if you prefer.) We're worried about lack of gravity, lack of oxygen, exposure to radiation - what a bunch of wimps! The only one who's really not intimidated by any of this is the mansized tuber. (At least he hasn't said anything about it to me.) Fact is, we have to do these tours on the cheap, what with a recession on and all that. Money's tight, and our corporate label is even tighter. They don't even want to budget for us , let alone a ship to carry us in. Looks like we'll be relying on comped meals again. Ever try to get a free lunch on Uranus? Hah. Take it from me - it...
Instead of making you read through my usual rantings and ravings, I wanted to share a few items I saw on the Web that I thought were particularly good, eye-opening, useful, etc. Let's see if you agree. Thinking About the Election Michael Albert and Stephen R. Shalom Z Magazine , September 2016 https://zcomm.org/zmagazine/thinking-about-the-elections/ This is one of the best-written, most thoughtful arguments in favor of strategic voting in the 2016 elections from a distinctly radical-left perspective. As someone who considered his support for Bernie Sanders a rightward compromise, I think this piece provides some really valuable answers to the Bernie-or-Bust obsession, as understandable as that sentiment may be. No one can accuse Z Magazine of watery liberalism or crypto-Clintonism. This article demonstrates that they have looked seriously at the current political moment and understand the full potential costs of a Trump presidency. It made me proud to be a longtime Z sub...
The Israeli war machine is cranking at nearly full bore now, with something approaching 100 Palestinians killed in several days of air strikes, a ground invasion and re-occupation of Gaza threatened, and I'm sure quite a bit else that doesn't rise to the level of mainstream reportage here in the United States. This is being characterized as a "war", albeit an "asymmetric" one, but I don't know how you call something a war when only one side has an actual military ... that is, the fourth or fifth most powerful military in the world. The other side has very primitive rockets that they obviously can't hit the broad side of a barn with. I'll be clear, for what it's worth: firing rockets into southern and central Israel is not only wrong, it's strategically idiotic. But this nearly uncontrolled act of violence is a response to the ongoing assault against Palestinians, from the massive crackdown in the West Bank on the pretext of the 3 Israel...
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