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Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can!
(03-27-2021, 12:53 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:
(03-26-2021, 06:35 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [Image: b745245e755198b749836f37328c69b0354e5f77...=600&h=253]

It just shows how sick too many Republicans have become, and their representatives bow to the majority in the Republican primaries and vote a sick agenda. 

Classic refers to maturity level. But the Republicans oppose measures now that would have passed unanimously in the era that you Mr. Brower wrote about in the obituaries when TN Republican Senator Brock supported environmental laws. Now Republicans vote against them almost all the time. That is a matter of record. Their current Republican senators would not support these laws today. The gun issue as well as the environmental issue have become cultural issues. Gun laws and environmental laws as well as measures to help the poor and people of color or stimulate the economy for all are resisted on a cultural basis. 

That is a measure of total immaturity. Republicans like Classic Xer cling to their identity, and they feel that measures like gun reform, which are intended only to solve horrific problems, are really insults and attacks on their white and rural/exurban identity by "liberal elites." Republicans no longer vote on the basis of what will work, but only to defend the memes, slogans and ideologies that now define them.

This culture must be defeated and shrunk, one way or another. I leave the how and the best means up to you guys.

It's good to remember Lincoln and his certainty about fools.  Today's GOP messaging is certainly toxic, honed to a fine edge over the last several decades. It still has a real shelf life, and the Use By Date is already in the past.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
Reply
As the Oath Keepers are shown to have stashed firearms in a lodging close to the Capitol on January 5...

[Image: 401db94019f01eb4464e08430a20b93e2caf01ef...=800&h=424]

No spontaneous popular uprising here.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
[Image: f2880c68e4d02e39944c74d911bb9400cf753589...ab8d1e.jpg]
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
Seth has laid out the latest conspiracy theories embraced by the Republicans. In this time of Crisis we call a fourth turning, the repugs are more concerned about US embassies flying a gay pride flag and fictional bans on meat eating. And what does Bill Gates plan to implant in us now?!! And what has happened to our beer?? McCarthy won't say what Trump said, but Seth can carry on as Trump for a good while.



"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
Reply
[Image: 75a4165a301f6aa253a4f3248b8df0af1ec4d485...2369cb.png]
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
Somebody opened fire randomly killing people in Times Square.  Does Trump have an alibi?
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Reply
(05-09-2021, 04:07 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Somebody opened fire randomly killing people in Times Square.  Does Trump have an alibi?

In the literal sense of not being there, yes. But in the sense of being the 'spiritual' cause... major Nazi war criminal Julius Streicher, who penned the vilest smears against Jews in Nazi Germany, may have never been in any of the murder camps and needed not plan any deportations or mass killings to be culpable of creating a climate in which the Holocaust was possible. Charles Manson didn't need to be at the Tate-LaBianca murders to be convicted of the murders and sentenced to death. Cult leader Shoko Asahara didn't have to needed not prepare or plan the introduction of Sarin into Japanese subways to be convicted of murders for which he was hanged. Osama bin Laden didn't have to participate directly in the 9/11 attack. Need I mention Frouald Karamira, who pushed murderous hatred on radio stations that he controlled in Rwanda before the Rwandan genocide? Let us also remember the infamous hit-man conspiracies done on behalf of someone who thinks a spouse worth more dead than alive.

It is enough to say to some murderous plot or to create the climate of hatred that leads to mass murders or pogroms to be guilty of them. So if some Commie says that it would be great to plant a bomb that kills a large number of super-rich people and people in his cult do so, is he culpable? Yes.

Streicher, Manson, Asahara, bin Laden, and Karamira all met bad ends. Three were executed, one was spared execution due to the voiding of execution only to spend the rest of his life in prison, and bin Laden expired in a gangland-style hit ordered, with justification, by the President of the United States.

It is the responsibility of us all to avoid encouraging evil deeds, especially large-scale murder. Evil counsel is one of the worst sins possible, tantamount to the overt act itself. Don't ask me to cheapen the concept of sin, as is commonplace in Christianity, by potting gluttonous behavior (getting drunk or eating too many jelly rolls) in the same category with committing the mass murder of the Cambodian killing fields.

We can fault our electoral system all that we want for allowing Donald Trump to get elected with less than a plurality despite saying

Quote:"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK? It's, like, incredible."

Sure, we have deluded people and lunatics who say stuff similarly horrific. Even so, in a democracy people are responsible for choosing people who do not reek of gross immorality in their expressions. Yes, I know how to do some thoroughly horrible crimes if I did not care about the consequences to myself or others; any idiot can commit a murder or even plot a murder-for-hire. I know enough to say no to such.

It is sickening that 45.93% of the American electorate voted for someone who could brag about his ability to shoot people on Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters. It is also sickening that even more people (46.80%) of the American electorate voted for him after his frequent expressions of political sadism. Know well that an even swing of 0.18% of the vote from Joe Biden to Donald Trump would have been enough to give that horrible man a second term as President. Say what you want about Donald Trump being able to win the Presidency by getting the right distribution of votes in accordance with our electoral system; that system could have never foreseen Donald Trump. The survival of democracy depends more upon the decency and wisdom of the People than upon the refinement of its electoral system.

Then again, millions of American seem to defend the loser of the 2020 Presidential election even if he was cruel, corrupt, and despotic. I would have voted for Barry Goldwater or George McGovern over Donald Trump. What is wrong for a two-bit hood, a religious fanatic, or a racist pig is wrong for any of us, even if we 'only' vote for him. 0.87% of an expanded electorate not only failed to learn a lesson, but also added their votes to those of an earlier total.

We Americans are simply lucky this time. Too many of us did not learn the lesson from Donald Trump.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
(05-09-2021, 04:07 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Somebody opened fire randomly killing people in Times Square.  Does Trump have an alibi?

Yeah, he said it would be on 5th Avenue.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
Reply
(05-11-2021, 01:42 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:
(05-09-2021, 04:07 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Somebody opened fire randomly killing people in Times Square.  Does Trump have an alibi?

Yeah, he said it would be on 5th Avenue.

There is much mass hostility to New York City, assumed by many as a Sodom and Gomorrah (I apply that to the Michigan Avenue in Detroit for sexually-related business, whores, addicts, and drunks everywhere, much drug activity, and a huge number of liquor stores) for various reasons (it's probably more Puerto Rican than Jewish, and who accuses Puerto  Ricans of inordinate power in America?) that include some extreme wealth and being the central location of the most important media... I'll say this of New York City: if you are at the top of your game in entertainment, cultural creation, or High Finance you end up in New York City. (OK, maybe Hollywood or Greater San Francisco -- where Pixar is) 

Just think of the song New York, New York

(copyrighted lyric, for critical analysis only)


Quote:Start spreading the news
I'm leaving today
I want to be a part of it, New York, New York
These vagabond shoes
Are longing to stray
And make a brand new start of it
New York, New York
I want to wake up in the city that doesn't sleeps
To find I'm king of the hill, top of the heap
These little town blues
Are melting away
I'll make a brand new start of it
In old New York
If I can make it there
I'll make it anywhere
It's up to you, New York, New York
New York, New York
I want to wake up, in the city that doesn't sleeps
To find I'm king of the hill, top of the heap
Crème of the crop and the top of the heap
My little town blues
Are melting away
I'll make a brand new start of it
In old New York
If I can make it there
I'll make it anywhere
Come on, Come though, New York, New York

New York is a tough place to live. Costs are high, and for many people it just does not fit the way to which they are accustomed. Audiences are tough, so one must be at the top of one's game. But if you are really, really good you will get there some day. The Big Boys do their thing there. Salaries are high (no fooling -- they have to be much higher there than in Milwaukee, San Antonio, or even Boston). This is the city of Theodore Roosevelt, Arturo Toscanini, Babe Ruth, George Gershwin, Vladimir Horowitz, Walter Cronkite, Jackson Pollock, Frank Sinatra, Leonard Bernstein, Jackie Robinson, Mickey Mantle, Woody Allen, and Barbra Streisand. Donald Trump? For a while, but New Yorkers were quick to catch on to him. New York is the home of the tough audience.  
  
New York City is not for a mediocrity such as me... that's for damn sure. About all that fits me as a New Yorker is that I am a tough critic. Unless you were born and raised there, I strongly discourage anyone from moving there unless extremely good at what one does. Even Chicago and Los Angeles are on a more human scale than the Big Apple. Visit it? Sure. You will get a lot of it, but you will pay a pretty penny. But you will get more out of a day in New York City than out of a lifetime in the dreary hick town in which I live -- or for that matter, such places as... well, I might offend someone by naming names of awful places that have little to do. 

It is impressive to have "New York" on your business card. Somehow "Scranton" is good only if your business is in Scranton.   
 
Frank Sinatra, arguably the greatest entertainer of the twentieth century, is perfect for this song. A brand new start of it? You get your start in a place like Little Rock, where the standards are low, until you polish your act enough for a place like Phoenix, Dallas, or Denver before going to New York. Sinatra never needed a 'brand new start of it'. 

The 'little town blues' are that you need a day job to meet the rent in a low-rent district, which you do until you are good enough at some activity at which few succeed or you give up and decide that doing auto-body work or K-12 teaching is adequate for your modest needs that you will keep modest. Many people who know nothing else are satisfied with that, and that is a very good thing. And if you don't like Little Rock, you might be happier in Oklahoma City, anyway... not a bad place, really.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
(05-11-2021, 03:29 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Frank Sinatra, arguably the greatest entertainer of the twentieth century, is perfect for this song. A brand new start of it? You get your start in a place like Little Rock, where the standards are low, until you polish your act enough for a place like Phoenix, Dallas, or Denver before going to New York. Sinatra never needed a 'brand new start of it'. 

I'd argue firmly for Fred Astaire, but it's subjective.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Reply
(05-11-2021, 03:57 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:
(05-11-2021, 03:29 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Frank Sinatra, arguably the greatest entertainer of the twentieth century, is perfect for this song. A brand new start of it? You get your start in a place like Little Rock, where the standards are low, until you polish your act enough for a place like Phoenix, Dallas, or Denver before going to New York. Sinatra never needed a 'brand new start of it'. 

I'd argue firmly for Fred Astaire, but it's subjective.

Once you start down that path, nothing good comes of it.  Take Stevie Wonder for example:  great song writer, multi-instrumentalist and singer.  Not bad for a blind guy.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
Reply
(05-11-2021, 03:29 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:
(05-11-2021, 01:42 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:
(05-09-2021, 04:07 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Somebody opened fire randomly killing people in Times Square.  Does Trump have an alibi?

Yeah, he said it would be on 5th Avenue.

There is much mass hostility to New York City, assumed by many as a Sodom and Gomorrah (I apply that to the Michigan Avenue in Detroit for sexually-related business, whores, addicts, and drunks everywhere, much drug activity, and a huge number of liquor stores) for various reasons (it's probably more Puerto Rican than Jewish, and who accuses Puerto  Ricans of inordinate power in America?) that include some extreme wealth and being the central location of the most important media... I'll say this of New York City: if you are at the top of your game in entertainment, cultural creation, or High Finance you end up in New York City. (OK, maybe Hollywood or Greater San Francisco -- where Pixar is) 

Just think of the song New York, New York

(copyrighted lyric, for critical analysis only)


Quote: (Frank Sinatra version)
Start spreading the news
I'm leaving today
I want to be a part of it, New York, New York
These vagabond shoes
Are longing to stray
Right through the very heart of it
New York, New York
I want to wake up in a city that doesn't sleep
And find I'm king of the hill, top of the heap
These little town blues
Are melting away
I'll make a brand new start of it
In old New York
If I can make it there
I'll make it anywhere
It's up to you, New York, New York
New York, New York
I want to wake up, in a city that never sleeps
And find that I'm A number 1, top of the list,
king of the hill, A number 1
These little town blues
Are melting away
I'm gonna make a brand new start of it
In old New York
And, If I can make it there
I'm gonna make it anywhere
It's up to you, New York, New York

New York is a tough place to live. Costs are high, and for many people it just does not fit the way to which they are accustomed. Audiences are tough, so one must be at the top of one's game. But if you are really, really good you will get there some day. The Big Boys do their thing there. Salaries are high (no fooling -- they have to be much higher there than in Milwaukee, San Antonio, or even Boston). This is the city of Theodore Roosevelt, Arturo Toscanini, Babe Ruth, George Gershwin, Vladimir Horowitz, Walter Cronkite, Jackson Pollock, Frank Sinatra, Leonard Bernstein, Jackie Robinson, Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, Woody Allen, Virgil Fox, and Barbra Streisand. Donald Trump? For a while, but New Yorkers were quick to catch on to him. New York is the home of the tough audience.  
  
New York City is not for a mediocrity such as me... that's for damn sure. About all that fits me as a New Yorker is that I am a tough critic. Unless you were born and raised there, I strongly discourage anyone from moving there unless extremely good at what one does. Even Chicago and Los Angeles are on a more human scale than the Big Apple. Visit it? Sure. You will get a lot of it, but you will pay a pretty penny. But you will get more out of a day in New York City than out of a lifetime in the dreary hick town in which I live -- or for that matter, such places as... well, I might offend someone by naming names of awful places that have little to do. 

It is impressive to have "New York" on your business card. Somehow "Scranton" is good only if your business is in Scranton.   
 
Frank Sinatra, arguably the greatest entertainer of the twentieth century, is perfect for this song. A brand new start of it? You get your start in a place like Little Rock, where the standards are low, until you polish your act enough for a place like Phoenix, Dallas, or Denver before going to New York. Sinatra never needed a 'brand new start of it'. 

The 'little town blues' are that you need a day job to meet the rent in a low-rent district, which you do until you are good enough at some activity at which few succeed or you give up and decide that doing auto-body work or K-12 teaching is adequate for your modest needs that you will keep modest. Many people who know nothing else are satisfied with that, and that is a very good thing. And if you don't like Little Rock, you might be happier in Oklahoma City, anyway... not a bad place, really.



"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
Reply
Just to connect with what I'm working on, Virgil Fox was the leading organist of his time, organist at Riverside Church, New York, New York. He made it there, and everywhere, by making Bach and "heavy" classical organ music more show-bizzy, including with psychedelic light shows for boomer youth. He didn't have to make THIS classical piece more show-biz though! It already has the vibe. Louis Vierne made it that way; from twenties-era Paris.





https://youtu.be/G2tLcsIvBvs

Newly updated, my Louis Vierne website: https://philosopherswheel.com/vierne.htm

Not bad, for a blind guy!
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
Reply
(05-11-2021, 03:29 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:
(05-11-2021, 01:42 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:
(05-09-2021, 04:07 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Somebody opened fire randomly killing people in Times Square.  Does Trump have an alibi?

Yeah, he said it would be on 5th Avenue.

There is much mass hostility to New York City, assumed by many as a Sodom and Gomorrah (I apply that to the Michigan Avenue in Detroit for sexually-related business, whores, addicts, and drunks everywhere, much drug activity, and a huge number of liquor stores) for various reasons (it's probably more Puerto Rican than Jewish, and who accuses Puerto  Ricans of inordinate power in America?) that include some extreme wealth and being the central location of the most important media... I'll say this of New York City: if you are at the top of your game in entertainment, cultural creation, or High Finance you end up in New York City. (OK, maybe Hollywood or Greater San Francisco -- where Pixar is) 

Just think of the song New York, New York

(copyrighted lyric, for critical analysis only)


Quote:Start spreading the news
I'm leaving today
I want to be a part of it, New York, New York
These vagabond shoes
Are longing to stray
And make a brand new start of it
New York, New York
I want to wake up in the city that doesn't sleeps
To find I'm king of the hill, top of the heap
These little town blues
Are melting away
I'll make a brand new start of it
In old New York
If I can make it there
I'll make it anywhere
It's up to you, New York, New York
New York, New York
I want to wake up, in the city that doesn't sleeps
To find I'm king of the hill, top of the heap
Crème of the crop and the top of the heap
My little town blues
Are melting away
I'll make a brand new start of it
In old New York
If I can make it there
I'll make it anywhere
Come on, Come though, New York, New York

New York is a tough place to live. Costs are high, and for many people it just does not fit the way to which they are accustomed. Audiences are tough, so one must be at the top of one's game. But if you are really, really good you will get there some day. The Big Boys do their thing there. Salaries are high (no fooling -- they have to be much higher there than in Milwaukee, San Antonio, or even Boston). This is the city of Theodore Roosevelt, Arturo Toscanini, Babe Ruth, George Gershwin, Vladimir Horowitz, Walter Cronkite, Jackson Pollock, Frank Sinatra, Leonard Bernstein, Jackie Robinson, Mickey Mantle, Woody Allen, and Barbra Streisand. Donald Trump? For a while, but New Yorkers were quick to catch on to him. New York is the home of the tough audience.  
  
New York City is not for a mediocrity such as me... that's for damn sure. About all that fits me as a New Yorker is that I am a tough critic. Unless you were born and raised there, I strongly discourage anyone from moving there unless extremely good at what one does. Even Chicago and Los Angeles are on a more human scale than the Big Apple. Visit it? Sure. You will get a lot of it, but you will pay a pretty penny. But you will get more out of a day in New York City than out of a lifetime in the dreary hick town in which I live -- or for that matter, such places as... well, I might offend someone by naming names of awful places that have little to do. 

It is impressive to have "New York" on your business card. Somehow "Scranton" is good only if your business is in Scranton.   
 
Frank Sinatra, arguably the greatest entertainer of the twentieth century, is perfect for this song. A brand new start of it? You get your start in a place like Little Rock, where the standards are low, until you polish your act enough for a place like Phoenix, Dallas, or Denver before going to New York. Sinatra never needed a 'brand new start of it'. 

The 'little town blues' are that you need a day job to meet the rent in a low-rent district, which you do until you are good enough at some activity at which few succeed or you give up and decide that doing auto-body work or K-12 teaching is adequate for your modest needs that you will keep modest. Many people who know nothing else are satisfied with that, and that is a very good thing. And if you don't like Little Rock, you might be happier in Oklahoma City, anyway... not a bad place, really.

I DEFINITELY agree about Frank Sinatra being one of the greatest music entertainers of the twentieth century! I've been a die hard fan of Sinatra pretty much ever since I was a kid (and as a member of the G.I. generation, he was surprisingly creative with a lot of his songs too), he was a true legend and is still considered very famous almost an entire saeculum after his debut.
Reply
[Image: 2f6a8cd3049f685aa15964083957b18ee6e63b0c...=800&h=956]

The fellow on the left is Matt Gaetz.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
[Image: 7ec53956b87e7ab2b799fc6332af775517025a02...=800&h=518]
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
[Image: 1d2a8f8997ef4088e77242d1ecde5dbf380e0415...=800&h=479]

OK, technically not Donald Trump, but close enough.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
[Image: 6fa89267c66b6867ff3f0b4d1c1954c50ce1eac2...=800&h=399]

Federal law enforcement isn't ignoring it.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
[Image: 892c4b86230dffeba86e5f044289b15b5555835b...=800&h=472]

[Image: df52f616347979790cfb6d5b66b379a37cd76f2c...=800&h=522]


[Image: fb638225492567938203b67f96694a8b0fbaa271...=800&h=476]
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
(11-05-2021, 04:57 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Federal law enforcement isn't ignoring it.

They don't seem to be in a hurry though...
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Reply


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