There is a good deal to say about my trip to Columbia, but
since the talk will be posted on YouTube, that can wait. A great deal more pressing is what is happening
right now with the Trump presidency.
Back when it really did not seem to matter, we had a discussion on this
blog about whether Trump was such a danger to initiate a nuclear war that this
fact took precedence over all the doubts one had about Clinton. I am very, very sorry to say that those of us
who took the pro-Clinton side of that distasteful choice were right. What is going on now is terrifying. There are reports that we are in reality a
good deal closer to war on the Korean Peninsula than public appearances
indicate. Trump is now openly and
universally recognized to be an unstable infantile narcissist who is capable of
initiating military action merely because he is infuriated by what he sees on
television. We are reduced to hoping
that the generals around him are in the room when he reaches for the “nuclear
football” and can wrestle him to the ground in time. It is a bitter irony that the less success he
has in promoting his hideous legislative agenda, the more angry he will become
and hence the more dangerous. There is,
it seems to me, no chance whatsoever that Congress will exercise its constitutional
powers and the Mueller investigation, I fear, will not produce results that absolutely
compel impeachment and removal from office.
And this is not yet ten months!
Our only hope? That
Trump will be distracted by the NFL, about which he seems to care deeply.
One ray, not of hope but rather of pleasure: The statement by the Secretary of State that
Trump is a f#$%ing moron. The endless
repetition of this news snippet is like a cool breeze on a hot summer day. I freely confess that no matter how often I
hear it repeated on television, I get each time a brief frisson of pleasure. Gather
ye rosebuds where ye may, indeed.
6 comments:
I am inclined towards thinking that Trump's thinly veiled racist reaction to the NFL players' expression of their First Amendment rights is calculated to the extent that he knows it will garner huge attention every time he tweets whatever half-baked and hidebound thought courses across his smooth brain. That is, I think that our Dear Leader knows full well that he can manipulate the media cycle by his repeated attacks on black players, and that it has the doubly beneficial effect (for him) of whipping his base into a good lather while successfully diverting attention from far more pressing matters.
To prompt some hopefully happier thoughts, there have been a few articles about Marcuse and the Frankfurt school in general that I thought my be of interest to you and your readers. First, the story of Marcuse being invited to do an interview with playboy; he responded that he would only do it if he could be the centerfold: https://theconversation.com/the-philosopher-who-was-too-hot-for-playboy-85002
On a related, and more substantive, note, here is an article from Stuart Jeffries (whose book on the school came out last year) on the lack of women as well as the relationship between Marcuse and Angela Davis: https://mronline.org/2017/10/05/the-effect-of-the-whip-the-frankfurt-school-and-the-oppression-of-women/
Finally, an interview with the historian Andrew Hartman about the reception of Marx and Capital in the United States (something that seems less talked about than it should be). https://s-usih.org/2017/10/marx-in-the-united-states-an-interview/
Hope this provides theimpulse for some Trump free speculation.
people on psych today knock around whether Trump must be observed in a psychiatric setting to make an official diagnosis- but I'm with you, I think he needs help and is beyond help, and that common sense in his case, makes the best and most elementary diagnosis. He is plainly irrational and is a threat to himself and others
I think Rex Tillerson spoke the two most important words that any high official of this administration has ever spoken.
Someone’s been watching Morning Joe again... I actually saw the same thing, and I’m starting to think it’s almost time to panic. The sings of impending conflict have visible for a while now. A few weeks ago Mattis said the US could strike North Korea without provoking mass retaliation. And a few days ago Lindsey Graham (after reciting one of those shameful North-Korea-like peons to the Dear Leader we’ve become all to used to) trumpeted the fact that T***p won’t allow NK to develop nuclear weapons capable of striking the US mainland. Which can only mean that the US is prepared to strike first, presumably. It makes you wonder: For all his idiocy and gross tackiness, is the current occupant of the White House really that much worse than his Republican enablers?
The last time nuclear weapons were used, it was preceded by the largest military conflict in history. But I always thought that nuclear war, if and when it comes, will happen very quickly. We’ll be left reeling by how little build-up there was, how things turned suddenly from relatively normal to catastrophic.
"Is the current occupant ... really that much worse?"
Point one, a conventional Republican would let Tillerson ply diplomacy, point number two, a regular Republican is not a compulsive provacateur.. Finally Republicans rally around their leader and the flag, as in Granada and Iraq.
But I agree with your point if you say they could care less if we stumbled into a nuclear war or two
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