America is a hard country, a rather uniquely violent country in the developed world. I expect the violence in a MAGA dictatorship would be a lot worse than people expect, both by the state (Trump was eager to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy the military against protestors) and by militant thugs the state won't punish, or will pardon. The MAGA media is very good at stoking hate of the opposing side. It reminds me a bit of the Spanish Civil War, where the brutality, the sheer hatred toward other Spaniards because of their political views was so extreme. Hugh Thomas's book on that war does a good job of depicting the hate in the lengthy description of the lead-up to the war. And I see the same hate in MAGA TPs. It will be very violent indeed. And I'm not sure the dandies are any less likely to be violent; it's to make up for their insecurity that they may in fact support the worst violence. No, they won't get their own hands dirty, but they'll have it done.
Perhaps this is obvious but . . . Those wood blocks are in mirror-writing. They were used to print on paper. Characters such as these two are shown in the photo, reversed left to right: 家 正
I did the thumbs-up on YouTube but this: "If you prefer it as a pure podcast, go and subscribe to the feed here. And five-star it and leave a review?" didn't work. Perhaps one needs Apple-brand hardware to do that, which I have none of. Apple is odd in that way.
Being from the real American West, I've had lunch with friends at the Sale Barn. If you don't know, the bigger towns in Wyoming, Nebraska, and other ranching areas have feedlots with auction houses and cafeterias attached. This old school America in these places, men wear spurs and cowboy hats, and it isn't for show. These men take off the Cowboy hat when they sit down, as decorum requires, and you can see a bright line between deeply tanned neck and their white head under a buzzed haircut. These are serious men, and they are harsh, but good judge of character. These people often have multiple business ventures and/or land deals in work. Imagine, showing up to do business with these kinds of men, wearing bronzer, with a ridiculous overworked hair, and ill-fitting suits. These guys wouldn't sell that kind of guy a cow pie. But somehow, someway, they all, almost uniformly support Donald Trump and all ridiculous dandies in his service. I. Don't. Get. It. It is devastating to me that these people I know and respect have been so taken in by someone they wouldn't give the time day to in their real lives.
Bonus: Couple of other points, when I was young man, I was hunting Pheasants in South Dakota, maybe I was 13. We were on a group hunt, and the owner/operator introduced himself, and we all shook hands. Afterwards, my dad was gruff and angry with me, and I noticed, he explained, "You always take your glove off when you shake a man's hand, Son."
Finally, the first time I heard the word Dandy, my Dad (again) was describing an uncle that way. It was clear he did not approve...
Funny you mentioned Lenin, because the Real Dictators podcast just started its series about him. There's an anecdote about when famine struck Czarist Russia and some of his (relatively well off, by the standards of the time) family members were discussing relief efforts. Lenin argued instead that starving people were more likely to turn toward Communist revolution.
Stalin might have ultimately killed even more people, but Lenin? Very much a brutalist in his own right.
Re, of course, furries: I work at a social services agency where one of our clients previously identified as a cat. As a middle-aged Lutheran, originally from the Midwest, I can't be real sure of the correct term but I did want to bring a beacon to your conversation that the other thing also exists.
An interesting compilation of the “manly men” leading the charge with their violent rhetoric. But it all starts at the top. Just look at Trump. Here’s a man who spent something like $70,000 ON HAIRCUTS, uses bronzer profusely, and doesn’t look like he’s done an honest day’s hard work in his life (let alone actually worked up a sweat doing anything). And when someone says something mean about him, he whines and cries that people are so unfair to him. Yet he is the macho symbol of the GOP. Go figure.
JVL you were in rare and hilarious form today with your comical quips throughput the first non-paywalled TNL. Bravo to you 3 for some much needed laughs in the midst of the midterm and Republican craziness 👏🏼
We've talked about the "cruelty is the point" among Trump's Pets. See how Lara Trump toughens up her poor child as Ian was beginning to hit Florida. (Politicususa, and it's on Twitter). Where was her useless turd of a husband?
I can’t wait until Stone is convicted - again - and frog marched to a small cinderblock cell. It’s is severe miscarriage of Justice that his incitement of violence is tolerated. Stone is the worst American human? Since Roy Cohen.
Regarding "soft bois." I had a similar insight visiting a museum dedicated to revolutionary martyrs--not of the privileged luxury-loving "soft" bois kind, but young idealists who fuelled the early urban stages of the Chinese revolution.
The Shanghai Martyrs Museum celebrates the lives of the youthful, predominantly urban Communists executed by the Nationalists and the Japanese during the 1920s-40s. Most were students. Their portraits are on display. Boys and girls. They look so young! Many died in their early 20s.
I had a overwhelming sense of the youthful educated idealism that can fuel a revolution. But like those idealists, the affluent modern poseurs won't survive a real revolution. The ruthless, tough-guys will--many of them angry "workers" and "peasants" whose only schooling has been leading rough lives and experiencing life's hard-knocks.
Sorry for the delay, but here's the Ibiza experience I promised you yesterday:
--------------------------------------------
Back in 1988 I was in the army and stationed in West Germany. One of the guys in our platoon married a local woman who was a travel agent. My roommate (Dan) and I asked her to book us a trip to Ibiza for a week that summer. We took leave, hit the Frankfurt am Main airport and flew off to Ibiza for a week in the Spanish sun.
And here’s what a week in Ibiza is like:
(Trigger warning: This is from the POV of dumb, twenty-something-year old me)
Deplane and get to your hotel.
Check in and change into your beach clothes because the sun is out, there’s not a cloud in the sky and the Mediterranean is a blue you didn’t even know existed.
Get to the beach. Put on your sunglasses and lay on your stomach because did you know clothing is optional on Ibizan beaches? That’s where I discovered that watching women get nekkid is kind of hotter than seeing the nekkid women.
Around 3pm the “beach stores” open up (i.e. people pour onto the beach trying to sell you stuff) and you can purchase yourself anything from Goocci bags to Rolliks watches and Roy-Ban sunglasses . . . real cheap.
Between 5pm and 6pm you gather your things and put yourself together and head back to the hotel. On the way back you get some fried chicken from a little shop and eat it on the way to your room.
Take a shower and wash off the powder soft sand and the SPF 120 sunscreen.
Now it’s time for a nap. Sleep til about 10pm. Get up and get dressed for going out. Maybe sporting your new watch and bag.
It’s ll:00pm-11:30pm and time to start making your way down to the clubs. If you show up before midnight you’re like the party guest that shows up 2 hours before the party is scheduled to start. You don’t want to be that guy.
Stop at a smallish bar, my preference was a local Irish pub that had a sister pub in Boston (Purple Shamrock), for a couple of shots and some Guiness.
Dan and I were E-4s and decided girls have no idea what a Specialist E-4 is, but they do know what a lieutenant is, so we decided that for that week we were going to be First Lieutenants on leave for the week.
One of the nights at the pub we were sitting with a guy we had met just shooting the shit. He was asking us what we did and we kept it general and told him we were scouts. Which is true. The official name of our job was Cavalry Scout. We got to wear the crossed sabers on our lapels instead of generic, old rifles. The sabers were way cooler. Our job colors were red and white for blood and guts. Anyway, I’m getting carried away.
I guess because we had a combat job he started asking us our views on “the Troubles”. I have Irish heritage and am quite proud of it, so I had no problem letting him know I couldn’t wait for Ireland to be free from England again. He gave us his name and number and asked us to call him up when we got out because he and his people in Ireland could use guys like us. :O
After the pub you walk to the clubs along beachside sidewalks and piers looking at the moon reflecting off the glassy waters of the Mediterranean.
Once you hit the clubs there’s music, booze and dancing people everywhere. We met girls (and guys) from every continent of the world. A great melting pot of dancing flesh that didn’t care a bit about the Cold War, NATO, Warsaw Pact, or potentially dying in a nuclear holocaust. There was only the driving beats of 80’s dance music (because it was actually in the 80s), mixed drinks, laughter and dancing. We danced so hard that by the end of the night we’d realized we never had to go the bathroom because we had sweat it out before the fluid had a chance to reach our bladder.
Around 6am the clubs would start emptying out so we’d walk back to our hotel grabbing some hangover pizza for the walk home. Then it was to bed for a few hours. Wake up around noon and do it all again. For a week.
When we got back to our barracks in West Germany we were so effing sick (felt like the flu!). I remember getting back on a Friday night and getting woken up at like 6 the next morning by another guy in our platoon banging in yelling that they were going to a Monsters of Rock concert in Schweinfurt and they had a couple of empty seats in the car if I wanted go. Of course, I ended up going and got to see Van Halen and about 20 other bands with Iron Maiden headlining. But that’s a whole nuther story.
America is a hard country, a rather uniquely violent country in the developed world. I expect the violence in a MAGA dictatorship would be a lot worse than people expect, both by the state (Trump was eager to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy the military against protestors) and by militant thugs the state won't punish, or will pardon. The MAGA media is very good at stoking hate of the opposing side. It reminds me a bit of the Spanish Civil War, where the brutality, the sheer hatred toward other Spaniards because of their political views was so extreme. Hugh Thomas's book on that war does a good job of depicting the hate in the lengthy description of the lead-up to the war. And I see the same hate in MAGA TPs. It will be very violent indeed. And I'm not sure the dandies are any less likely to be violent; it's to make up for their insecurity that they may in fact support the worst violence. No, they won't get their own hands dirty, but they'll have it done.
I gotta say JVL, that is one impressive library. Who would have thought the most efficient library in the world has a dirt floor.
Perhaps this is obvious but . . . Those wood blocks are in mirror-writing. They were used to print on paper. Characters such as these two are shown in the photo, reversed left to right: 家 正
I did the thumbs-up on YouTube but this: "If you prefer it as a pure podcast, go and subscribe to the feed here. And five-star it and leave a review?" didn't work. Perhaps one needs Apple-brand hardware to do that, which I have none of. Apple is odd in that way.
This topic is very dear to me, about the Soft Bois, so this is going to be a bit a stemwinder, sorry in advance.
For context, I could pretty much be the narrator in this commerical: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSbZ8LmwTds
Being from the real American West, I've had lunch with friends at the Sale Barn. If you don't know, the bigger towns in Wyoming, Nebraska, and other ranching areas have feedlots with auction houses and cafeterias attached. This old school America in these places, men wear spurs and cowboy hats, and it isn't for show. These men take off the Cowboy hat when they sit down, as decorum requires, and you can see a bright line between deeply tanned neck and their white head under a buzzed haircut. These are serious men, and they are harsh, but good judge of character. These people often have multiple business ventures and/or land deals in work. Imagine, showing up to do business with these kinds of men, wearing bronzer, with a ridiculous overworked hair, and ill-fitting suits. These guys wouldn't sell that kind of guy a cow pie. But somehow, someway, they all, almost uniformly support Donald Trump and all ridiculous dandies in his service. I. Don't. Get. It. It is devastating to me that these people I know and respect have been so taken in by someone they wouldn't give the time day to in their real lives.
Bonus: Couple of other points, when I was young man, I was hunting Pheasants in South Dakota, maybe I was 13. We were on a group hunt, and the owner/operator introduced himself, and we all shook hands. Afterwards, my dad was gruff and angry with me, and I noticed, he explained, "You always take your glove off when you shake a man's hand, Son."
Finally, the first time I heard the word Dandy, my Dad (again) was describing an uncle that way. It was clear he did not approve...
Funny you mentioned Lenin, because the Real Dictators podcast just started its series about him. There's an anecdote about when famine struck Czarist Russia and some of his (relatively well off, by the standards of the time) family members were discussing relief efforts. Lenin argued instead that starving people were more likely to turn toward Communist revolution.
Stalin might have ultimately killed even more people, but Lenin? Very much a brutalist in his own right.
I notice I havent heard much about Shapiro's primary commercials "promoting" Mastriano lately.
Re, of course, furries: I work at a social services agency where one of our clients previously identified as a cat. As a middle-aged Lutheran, originally from the Midwest, I can't be real sure of the correct term but I did want to bring a beacon to your conversation that the other thing also exists.
An interesting compilation of the “manly men” leading the charge with their violent rhetoric. But it all starts at the top. Just look at Trump. Here’s a man who spent something like $70,000 ON HAIRCUTS, uses bronzer profusely, and doesn’t look like he’s done an honest day’s hard work in his life (let alone actually worked up a sweat doing anything). And when someone says something mean about him, he whines and cries that people are so unfair to him. Yet he is the macho symbol of the GOP. Go figure.
JVL you were in rare and hilarious form today with your comical quips throughput the first non-paywalled TNL. Bravo to you 3 for some much needed laughs in the midst of the midterm and Republican craziness 👏🏼
We've talked about the "cruelty is the point" among Trump's Pets. See how Lara Trump toughens up her poor child as Ian was beginning to hit Florida. (Politicususa, and it's on Twitter). Where was her useless turd of a husband?
Oh so true
I can’t wait until Stone is convicted - again - and frog marched to a small cinderblock cell. It’s is severe miscarriage of Justice that his incitement of violence is tolerated. Stone is the worst American human? Since Roy Cohen.
Regarding "soft bois." I had a similar insight visiting a museum dedicated to revolutionary martyrs--not of the privileged luxury-loving "soft" bois kind, but young idealists who fuelled the early urban stages of the Chinese revolution.
The Shanghai Martyrs Museum celebrates the lives of the youthful, predominantly urban Communists executed by the Nationalists and the Japanese during the 1920s-40s. Most were students. Their portraits are on display. Boys and girls. They look so young! Many died in their early 20s.
I had a overwhelming sense of the youthful educated idealism that can fuel a revolution. But like those idealists, the affluent modern poseurs won't survive a real revolution. The ruthless, tough-guys will--many of them angry "workers" and "peasants" whose only schooling has been leading rough lives and experiencing life's hard-knocks.
So now I have the lumberjack song as an earworm for the rest of the the day. But like the song says "that's OK"
Tripitaka Koreana, interesting. Learned something new, that makes it a good day.
thanks, it makes up for the lumberjack song. ;-)
Sorry for the delay, but here's the Ibiza experience I promised you yesterday:
--------------------------------------------
Back in 1988 I was in the army and stationed in West Germany. One of the guys in our platoon married a local woman who was a travel agent. My roommate (Dan) and I asked her to book us a trip to Ibiza for a week that summer. We took leave, hit the Frankfurt am Main airport and flew off to Ibiza for a week in the Spanish sun.
And here’s what a week in Ibiza is like:
(Trigger warning: This is from the POV of dumb, twenty-something-year old me)
Deplane and get to your hotel.
Check in and change into your beach clothes because the sun is out, there’s not a cloud in the sky and the Mediterranean is a blue you didn’t even know existed.
Get to the beach. Put on your sunglasses and lay on your stomach because did you know clothing is optional on Ibizan beaches? That’s where I discovered that watching women get nekkid is kind of hotter than seeing the nekkid women.
Around 3pm the “beach stores” open up (i.e. people pour onto the beach trying to sell you stuff) and you can purchase yourself anything from Goocci bags to Rolliks watches and Roy-Ban sunglasses . . . real cheap.
Between 5pm and 6pm you gather your things and put yourself together and head back to the hotel. On the way back you get some fried chicken from a little shop and eat it on the way to your room.
Take a shower and wash off the powder soft sand and the SPF 120 sunscreen.
Now it’s time for a nap. Sleep til about 10pm. Get up and get dressed for going out. Maybe sporting your new watch and bag.
It’s ll:00pm-11:30pm and time to start making your way down to the clubs. If you show up before midnight you’re like the party guest that shows up 2 hours before the party is scheduled to start. You don’t want to be that guy.
Stop at a smallish bar, my preference was a local Irish pub that had a sister pub in Boston (Purple Shamrock), for a couple of shots and some Guiness.
Dan and I were E-4s and decided girls have no idea what a Specialist E-4 is, but they do know what a lieutenant is, so we decided that for that week we were going to be First Lieutenants on leave for the week.
One of the nights at the pub we were sitting with a guy we had met just shooting the shit. He was asking us what we did and we kept it general and told him we were scouts. Which is true. The official name of our job was Cavalry Scout. We got to wear the crossed sabers on our lapels instead of generic, old rifles. The sabers were way cooler. Our job colors were red and white for blood and guts. Anyway, I’m getting carried away.
I guess because we had a combat job he started asking us our views on “the Troubles”. I have Irish heritage and am quite proud of it, so I had no problem letting him know I couldn’t wait for Ireland to be free from England again. He gave us his name and number and asked us to call him up when we got out because he and his people in Ireland could use guys like us. :O
After the pub you walk to the clubs along beachside sidewalks and piers looking at the moon reflecting off the glassy waters of the Mediterranean.
Once you hit the clubs there’s music, booze and dancing people everywhere. We met girls (and guys) from every continent of the world. A great melting pot of dancing flesh that didn’t care a bit about the Cold War, NATO, Warsaw Pact, or potentially dying in a nuclear holocaust. There was only the driving beats of 80’s dance music (because it was actually in the 80s), mixed drinks, laughter and dancing. We danced so hard that by the end of the night we’d realized we never had to go the bathroom because we had sweat it out before the fluid had a chance to reach our bladder.
Around 6am the clubs would start emptying out so we’d walk back to our hotel grabbing some hangover pizza for the walk home. Then it was to bed for a few hours. Wake up around noon and do it all again. For a week.
When we got back to our barracks in West Germany we were so effing sick (felt like the flu!). I remember getting back on a Friday night and getting woken up at like 6 the next morning by another guy in our platoon banging in yelling that they were going to a Monsters of Rock concert in Schweinfurt and they had a couple of empty seats in the car if I wanted go. Of course, I ended up going and got to see Van Halen and about 20 other bands with Iron Maiden headlining. But that’s a whole nuther story.