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Tribalistic people like Classic X'er cannot recognize the validity of the aspirations of people outside their narrowly-defined group. They see some superficial distinctions between very large groups such as race, religion, or linguistic heritage as paramount as differences of experience as trivial. Thus "I am involved with horses", "I play the cello", "I read Russian novels", "I listen to jazz", "I see Obama as a model of how to conduct oneself as President", or "I love Japanese art" can be a far greater distinction than "I am white".
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.
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Illustration: about a quarter-century ago I was on the long-defunct news forums on the New York Times, and I encountered one "Thomas B Liar"
(and you will figure how I applied that moniker upon him easily. I ripped some right-wing pol in France for his anti-Muslim bigotry. "Thomas B Liar" shortly quipped:
"Hypocrisy comes easily to people who see themselves as God's Chosen People"
and
"I can't believe all the Jewish hypocrisy on this thread".
Not Jewish, I could not recognize how any of that applied to me. I see nothing wrong with Judaism, as aside from some rituals (every religion has those) and for the Orthodox, kashrut dietary laws (I enjoy pork and shellfish, thank you) Judaism is as pure morality as any religion. Conversion to Judaism is difficult, but if I had to choose between being a Nazi ("Thomas B. Liar" exposed that he was a Nazi-sympathizing creep) I would become a Jew because as a Jew I would need make neither cultural nor moral compromises except (if it had to be Orthodox) to give up cheese-and-meat sandwiches, pork, and shellfish. Too bad about cheese-and-meat sandwiches, pork, and shellfish, but at the least I am not going to cast children directly into a furnace or live inmates into a bear enclosure at an abutting zoo, or have dogs kill helpless prisoners -- all of which is what Nazis did. "Thomas B. Liar", not surprisingly, denied the Holocaust and claimed that Jews are all responsible for Communism to the exclusion of all other people (like, as one of the Jewish participants said "Kim il-Sungstein").
I left plenty of clues that I was not Jewish. I did not know about the Jewish holidays. I did not talk about "my" bar mitzvah, as I never experienced one. Methodists don't do them. I expressed the opinion that Nazis were going to Hell along with Stalinists as the most egregious sinners of all time after making allusions to Dante's Inferno, stating that Dante wrote it too early to account for those anti-human beasts as the most egregious violators of morality. I also told him that I was contemplating conversion to Judaism. Gentiles can convert to Judaism with difficulty; Jews are already there or else return.
In the end I got him to tell us all what he was protecting, and he said "Germans and German-Americans". I fit several Jewish stereotypes except for having an ordinary-sized nose, so I have heard some antisemitic slurs at times. They hurt. I hate those slurs and despise those who use them. I told him that I am a German-American, and that his attacks on me for being Jewish cause me to say "No thanks!" for his ostensible help. I have never experienced any hatred from Jews for German origin. Of course, I hate Nazis.
For being a comparatively small group of people thanks to the Holocaust and various persecutions and massacres in the past, Jews are no monolith. As for the infamous Protocols that defame Jews as a mass conspiracy to exploit and debase all gentiles whether a Jew is an infant or a senile old person, I concede much competence to many Jews. This said,competent people do not use conspiracies to get things done when toil, investment, cooperation with others, and legitimate planning work as well with fewer bad consequences. He had a collaborator who brought up the criticism that Sir Winston Churchill had of Jewish Bolsheviks... but ignored the suggestion that Jewish Bolsheviks could redeem themselves by returning to Judaism and its benign traditions and stern demands for personal morality.
"Thomas B Liar's" tribe is "Aryans", which is a large one. It is also morally empty.
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.
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(11-18-2022, 05:23 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (11-18-2022, 04:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (11-18-2022, 02:58 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (11-17-2022, 06:39 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: ![[Image: 2641c688eef8e07ab20d3a6bb324742ebc670768...=800&h=389]](https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2641c688eef8e07ab20d3a6bb324742ebc670768492cbe24af2c526d0a80e0f6.jpg?w=800&h=389)
![[Image: 18f869e4df0cad698a096d3edfefb132cfc5e5c4...=800&h=399]](https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/18f869e4df0cad698a096d3edfefb132cfc5e5c4b0e683ba4d1932018650dbd3.jpg?w=800&h=399)
Pb, Hitler was elected and took advantage of the situation and seized power. Trump did the exact opposite of Hitler during the COVID19 crisis. He remained true to the US Constitution and delegated authority to the states and did nothing to threaten the rights of the American people. You don't grasp that because you're a partisan hack who is into spreading Left Wing propaganda like this. I'm going to ask you a real life question, when the war comes between those on today's American Right and The Democrats and whatever GOP's are foolish enough to side with them, how long do you think you're going to live? I see 4 Left Wing propagandists and one half wit named Bob posting here and being confronted and often warning them of what's to come and often telling what to expect as far as treatment by just one of the multiple millions of American Right Wingers that currently exist/ live throughout the entire country today.
By keeping true to his neoliberal doctrine by delegating the health crisis to the states, he assured his own defeat. His inept and slow response to covid, always thinking first of the opinion polls, kept the disease going so the USA became the most-infected country by far. Covid licked its chops upon reaching our shores. Umm yummm yummmm! A libertarian country!
I don't doubt though that if your kind were in full power, Classic Xer, you would behave as you say, taking your playbook right out of Putin's Russia and its attacks on Syria and Ukraine. It looks instead like the current stalemate will go on and on for who knows how long. Trump lost his bid to have cheaters in power in swing states to furnish him the election in 2020 regardless of the actual votes of the people. And now he has a challenge from an even-more crazy right-winger from the swamp.
Yep. He should've cracked down on the nvaccinated, forced people to quit their jobs and further deplete an already depleted workforce and basically treated them like second class citizens who had no rights like Biden and Hitler and every other quasi socialist like dictator that's pictured with Trump above. Is this best shit a Left Wing propagandist like you can come up with? Really??
IIRC, there already exist jobs that have required vaccinations for decades now. Also public schools won't let you attend school without whatever today's required vaccines are (they get updated every so often). This is nothing new. I'll give you another example of a 'new' vaccine that wasn't around when we were little: the chickenpox vaccine. Is there any controversy about this one? My state requires either the vaccine or medical evidence of catching chickenpox to be admitted to school. Shouldn't COVID vaccines be treated in a similar fashion?
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If I own a business I will treat employment by it a privilege to be lost for under-performance or misconduct.
One day my late father told me that he had fired someone for making false statements on his insurance claim for insurance that his company supplied. I assured my father he was right to fire that employee on the spot for ripping off a vendor, even if it is an insurance company. He didn't feel entirely good about it, which indicates his character. I too would have hated to fire someone for that. But I had no stake in the decision as I had no connection to the schmuck who basically stole from a vendor. Cheating an insurer is theft.
Yes, working for a company that I own or manage is a privilege if I should be in that role. You are not going to drive a company vehicle recklessly. You are not going to use foul language in the presence of customers. You are not going to do discriminatory behavior. And, yes, you will get vaccinated and you will wear a mask. You will be expected to show me when you are inoculated, and I will be sure to give you time off, if necessary, to get inoculated. You will wear masks to protect yourself, your fellow employees, and your customers while on my property or doing company business. I am also going to ensure that you get appropriate guidance to encourage you to avoid high-risk activities in the time of a plague.
I have more right to do that about a lethal plague than I do about your religion or politics.
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.
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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.
Posts: 10,465
Threads: 197
Joined: May 2016
Trump organization convicted of 17 counts of federal tax violations.
At this point I would guess that the Trump organization is worth more dead than alive, its assets being sold off to other entities at fire-sale prices without the smoky aroma. I expect the IRS to get its pound of flesh, and creditors to liquidate the rest to the extent possible.
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.
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(12-06-2022, 10:13 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Trump organization convicted of 17 counts of federal tax violations.
At this point I would guess that the Trump organization is worth more dead than alive, its assets being sold off to other entities at fire-sale prices without the smoky aroma. I expect the IRS to get its pound of flesh, and creditors to liquidate the rest to the extent possible.
Looking more & more like the name 'Trump' will be unspeakable before long (depending on if he makes it fine into 2024 and runs). I would be surprised if once the 1T gets going if anyone will be allowed to (publicly) utter that surname. I wonder if we will need to remove the regular word 'trump' from our vocabulary too due to the person. We would need to replace it with a synonym like outshine or upstage.
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(12-07-2022, 02:46 AM)nguyenivy Wrote: (12-06-2022, 10:13 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Trump organization convicted of 17 counts of federal tax violations.
At this point I would guess that the Trump organization is worth more dead than alive, its assets being sold off to other entities at fire-sale prices without the smoky aroma. I expect the IRS to get its pound of flesh, and creditors to liquidate the rest to the extent possible.
Looking more & more like the name 'Trump' will be unspeakable before long (depending on if he makes it fine into 2024 and runs). I would be surprised if once the 1T gets going if anyone will be allowed to (publicly) utter that surname. I wonder if we will need to remove the regular word 'trump' from our vocabulary too due to the person. We would need to replace it with a synonym like outshine or upstage.
One of the obvious examples might be in contract bridge, a card game that generally appeals to educated people and of course many urban liberals, the sorts of people swiftest to reject Donald Quisling Trump. I'm not going into a detailed description of the game and its play, but based on how bets are made, if one of the players runs out of cards in the suit introduced for that hand (round in the game), then that player can play a card from the trump suit and win the hand. Thus if South plays a 10 of spades, West plays a 4 of spades, North plays a 2 of spades, and East has no spades but the trump suit is hearts, then East can play any heart and win the hand.
Plenty of monosyllabic English words, including "bump", "dump", "hump", "jump", "lump", "pump", and "stump" rhyme with "Mr. Unmentionable in liberal circles" and can be substituted with no silliness added to the game.
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.
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(11-27-2022, 08:09 PM)nguyenivy Wrote: (11-18-2022, 05:23 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (11-18-2022, 04:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (11-18-2022, 02:58 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (11-17-2022, 06:39 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:
Pb, Hitler was elected and took advantage of the situation and seized power. Trump did the exact opposite of Hitler during the COVID19 crisis. He remained true to the US Constitution and delegated authority to the states and did nothing to threaten the rights of the American people. You don't grasp that because you're a partisan hack who is into spreading Left Wing propaganda like this. I'm going to ask you a real life question, when the war comes between those on today's American Right and The Democrats and whatever GOP's are foolish enough to side with them, how long do you think you're going to live? I see 4 Left Wing propagandists and one half wit named Bob posting here and being confronted and often warning them of what's to come and often telling what to expect as far as treatment by just one of the multiple millions of American Right Wingers that currently exist/ live throughout the entire country today.
By keeping true to his neoliberal doctrine by delegating the health crisis to the states, he assured his own defeat. His inept and slow response to covid, always thinking first of the opinion polls, kept the disease going so the USA became the most-infected country by far. Covid licked its chops upon reaching our shores. Umm yummm yummmm! A libertarian country!
I don't doubt though that if your kind were in full power, Classic Xer, you would behave as you say, taking your playbook right out of Putin's Russia and its attacks on Syria and Ukraine. It looks instead like the current stalemate will go on and on for who knows how long. Trump lost his bid to have cheaters in power in swing states to furnish him the election in 2020 regardless of the actual votes of the people. And now he has a challenge from an even-more crazy right-winger from the swamp.
Yep. He should've cracked down on the unvaccinated, forced people to quit their jobs and further deplete an already depleted workforce and basically treated them like second class citizens who had no rights like Biden and Hitler and every other quasi socialist like dictator that's pictured with Trump above. Is this best shit a Left Wing propagandist like you can come up with? Really??
IIRC, there already exist jobs that have required vaccinations for decades now. Also public schools won't let you attend school without whatever today's required vaccines are (they get updated every so often). This is nothing new. I'll give you another example of a 'new' vaccine that wasn't around when we were little: the chickenpox vaccine. Is there any controversy about this one? My state requires either the vaccine or medical evidence of catching chickenpox to be admitted to school. Shouldn't COVID vaccines be treated in a similar fashion?
One has no right to a job if such implies pointless harm to customers, clients, vendors, or co-workers. Work for me, and if you don't have that card you will not work that day until you show proof of inoculation. I will let you off work to get inoculated. Show the vaccination card and you will be back on the job. Medical contraindications will be excused. So will religion if your religious body prohibits inoculation. If you are a Catholic and make a claim for religious exemption, then you will be fired (the Catholic Church strongly encourages inoculation; I used it as an example because the Catholic Church is the largest Christian body in the USA). I will call your clergyman just to be sure.
It's easy to keep a record of inoculations. I keep it near my driver's license. Should I do foreign travel I will proudly show it.
Classic X'er ignores the seductive power of American consumerism.
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.
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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.
Posts: 10,465
Threads: 197
Joined: May 2016
To the tune of "You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch"]
You're an asshole, Mr. Trump/
You're an asshole through and through/
You've got the mind of a third grader/
And the body of a slug/
Mr. Trump/
The three words that best describe you are as follows and I quote/
Stink, stank, stunk
Some people (probably not so much I post some witty stuff here. There are people to avoid, like a spammer who has an alleged source of large amounts of easy money.
https://politicalwire.com/
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.
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12-13-2022, 04:11 PM
(This post was last modified: 12-13-2022, 04:24 PM by Eric the Green.)
(12-10-2022, 08:30 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: ![[Image: 2d0659c669b67373486e24dc2402ad177871ba1d...=800&h=540]](https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/2d0659c669b67373486e24dc2402ad177871ba1d22cdf1021db90f0ea683da70.jpg?w=800&h=540)
![[Image: 34cb0122f766d35cbc4850dc236cb454d6c1edf5...=800&h=776]](https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/34cb0122f766d35cbc4850dc236cb454d6c1edf5898a72283c58b6e9a0de33fb.jpg?w=800&h=776)
They should feel right at home.
This picture of Trump sitting dejected in his wheelchair reminds me of a scene from one of my favorite movies (and an essential part of my 1966 Boomer-kid spiritual Awakening), The Russians Are Coming The Russians Are Coming, where the self-appointed leader (played by Paul Ford) of the paranoid reaction to the Russian submarine coming by mistake to Martha's Vineyard (really Mendocino CA) is seen dejected riding in a little red boat after the dangerous potential WW3 conflict is avoided and the planes the Ford character called to fly over them are signalled that the situation had been solved.
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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.
Posts: 10,465
Threads: 197
Joined: May 2016
![[Image: bc4efae9f97268aec3a56fac6697bc5b615b4e37...=800&h=864]](https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bc4efae9f97268aec3a56fac6697bc5b615b4e37f0a7602bbce65e5ad488ecc1.gif?w=800&h=864)
Except that Ku Kluxers give the anti-human salute with the left arm instead of the right arm that their German-speaking brethren used, this image is perfect.
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.
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12-21-2022, 12:32 PM
(This post was last modified: 12-21-2022, 12:33 PM by pbrower2a.)
Weird story from 1958 TV (Tales of the Texas Rangers, or something like that, a long-defunct western series), Notice the con-man's surname:
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.
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01-10-2023, 03:05 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-10-2023, 03:18 PM by Eric the Green.)
Seth Meyers does well in this all-week news bombastic review, including how McCarthy did a fifth; but we still can't escape Trump when it comes to comedy! Neither can Biden!
I don't quite get the joke about a self-driving baby stroller on hills. Can anyone help me with that one?
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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.
Posts: 10,465
Threads: 197
Joined: May 2016
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.
Posts: 10,465
Threads: 197
Joined: May 2016
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.
Posts: 10,465
Threads: 197
Joined: May 2016
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.
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