Wellll... I've been ranting for awhile that our leadership elite is, reduced to the singular, sociopathic...
As for Grimes' review: As policy (presuming James Bennet's word meant anything), criticism of capitalism is not allowed at the Times. So, per se something like the Beatty book must be panned. (A possibly better book is Ferguson's "Golden Rule" which I was swimming through til I got derailed by an extended biographical essay on Walter Benjamin by Hannah Arendt.)
As for the Times cancelling of criticism of capitalism, I must note that they are, in that regard, absolutely no way special.
Speaking of which, I suppose I must note Biden's calling out the nation of being on the cusp of becoming an oligarchy. Given that we're well past that point, I have to say 😵💫 He also wished Trump well in serving the nation as if any such thing will be happening.
These people are spectacularly incapable of seeing what is right in front of them. They get a hint every once in a while, but then it just blows away. So we are skipping any good emperors and going right to Caligula?
You know, even Noah Cross answered the questions Gittes posed -- "Why are you doing it? How much better can you eat, what can you buy that you can't already afford?" with an aspirational if power-mad response: "The future!" I don't think today's billionaires have even that much of a lofty if perverted goal.
It's now simply accumulation for accumulation's sake, coupled with a Revenge of the Nerds passion play on a scale so epic normal people can barely conceive of it. They want more money, and they want to be liked/admired. Because they persist in the belief they can buy the latter, they keep avariciously acquiring more of the former to aid them in that fruitless quest. And we all pay the price.
At some point, it's impossible to stop. Once it accumulates in large enough quantities, money grows all on its own. It would take an effort to make it stop. Of course, the billionaire believes EVERY SINGLE ADDITIONAL DOLLAR is due to his brilliant efforts. "Huh, I musta done something this morning that was worth $17 billion, I'll try to figure out what it was after lunch."
Philip Roth has David Zuckerman, author of the Portnoy-like Carnovsky, reflect on his financial success, with something like, "It wasn't enough any more to worry about making money. Now he had to worry about his money making money."
Elmo having the software rewritten to specifically boost his posts, and Zuck having the filter on medical misinformation dropped because it ate his posts on his leg surgery.
Funny you should mention it. At my co-author's suggestion, I'm reading The Big Goodbye, by Sam Wasson, a fascinating account of the making of Chinatown. It focuses on Towne, Nicholson, Robert Evans, and Polanski. Recommended.
I'm amenable to covering that one in the club meeting, but would prefer to do one I have not seen before (and the club boss sent a curated list of candidates, several of which my not-got-round-to self* has not...well, you know...).
So it's kinda wide open.
*Anybody who knows me would agree I am not well-rounded. Edgy, maybe.
She was "fast, crisp and laconic" – the kinda dame you yearn for, til you get to know her. And if you get to know her too well, she's the last thing you'll ever know.
Sometimes I like to sit and wonder which filmmaker is the fourth greatest filmmaker of all time Roman Polansky or Woody Allen. One is the fourth best and one is the fifth best I can't decide. Neither would be permitted to babysit my children.
The other night I watched the Western featuring Spade Cooley, the Murdering King of Western Swing and his Band . That band sure could play!
Alas, our feral billionairs have made the mistake of thinking that their loot makes them essential to Trump. But as far as Trump is concerned, no toady is indespensible.
I haven’t read Beatty either but I await a modern author of Mark Twain’s stature to take on these assholes as well as he did in his “The Gilded Age.” ( Only half the book is his and it’s not hard to figure out which half: the chapters with the rapiers through the despicable characters).
I think that for Musk, Thiel, et al., having more money than God has encouraged them to turn away from the traditional delusions of internecine theological nitpicking that absorbed the minds of 18th century oligarchs and focus instead on more 20th century obsessions like “If I’m not controlling every aspect of life on Earth, what cabal of secret powers is?” They’ll stumble upon “The Jews!” eventually. They always do.
Thank you for expressing an interest in a membership in the Country Club. At the moment, there are no openings. Rest assured that should an opening occur, your name will be submitted to the Review Committee.
...and this morning krugman calls Trump a "crude mercantilist", which, is fair but lacking. But Crude Mercantilist coulda been a Richard Fariña minor hit back when songs were songs.
We do actually have the legal authority to do that, you know. All it takes is a majority in Congress and a willing President. Tax the fuck outta them, it could happen, maybe next time. Just keep it up guys, when even an 82-year-old Democrat is willing to call you out on national TV, your time is coming.
Luther posted his theses in 1517 so Tradcaths want to go back further than that -- but not before Catholicism was made the official religion of the Roman Empire
Roy, this is excellent! "Extra spicy" in the vernacular. What's real funny is you are probably the only person in greater Baltimore to use" salvific" in everyday conversation. ( We tend to favor " beatific " out here in corn country)
Just remember, while every broken piece of shit isn't a Billionaire, most every Billionaire is a broken piece of shit.
. I suspect this aristocracy of the richest breaks down pretty quickly into chaos. Though perhaps the billionaires will cooperate and usher in era of peace success and well-being. *
In the meantime, I'm researching how long a gummy will stay fresh. I intend to buy a four-year supply.
We did make it through the first Gilded Age. Perhaps we can again.
Again, this is a great column. Thanks!
* If someone in the crowd wants to do that thing where you pretend to cough but say" "Bullshit!" Instead, now would be a good time!
Should add here that one of my internet acquaintances was on the team that made the decision to downgrade Pluto, to which we responded with galactic, nay – universal!, opprobrium.
Well off topic here, but I imagine you've heard the news about Mr David Lynch passing. I know what this weekend's viewing will consist of for my partner and me.
I remember when Bill Gates was the name associated with obscene wealth, and cheerleaders for capitalism furiously denied that there was anything obscene about it: he earned that money by being smart enough and hard-working enough to provide an enormously useful technical innovation. Of course there were dozens if not hundreds of equally smart and hard-working people who could and basically did provide the same innovation, but Gates was maybe a half percent better (or ten percent luckier) and that naturally translated into an entitlement to be literally a million times richer.
Now just try to make that argument for Elon Musk. I couldn't force myself to do it for all the money of Elon Musk.
This piece reminded me of Eve Helmsley, who was the first wife of real estate baron Harry Helmsley. She was, among other things, a Quaker and a quiet, shy woman who spent her time on civic and charitable causes. When Harry met real estate agent Leona Roberts in the late 1960s, Leona sneered at Eve's treatment of Harry as making him old before his time. And Leona was the wife who eventually brought Harry infamy, as well as bringing him down after a decades long respectable career.
Eve lived to be 90 something, and I always admired the fact that after Leona absconded with her husband, Eve never drubbed him in the press or displayed any of the anger I know I would have in her place. She continued her charitable works and was a true example of grace under pressure. She was not born rich, but she exemplified what rich people can be and can do when their hearts are in the right place.
Trump ‘24 is already making Trump ‘16 seem like a harmless buffoon, and he was anything but. What has dawned on me these last few weeks, with a gathering clammy dread, as per your essay, is that it isn’t the man-diapered assclown I’m fearing so much, it’s the schemers who brought us this sickening reality. It all seems so orchestrated and inevitable now.
Russia’s oligarchy has always been closely managed under Putin’s cold fist; his gaudy aristos forever living with the threat of gulag, high windows or a special blend of tea. On this side of the globe, Emperor Constant Stink will be merely a figurehead. An avatar to distract the masses and the media while the hyper-billionaires get up to whatever evil shit they plan to unleash.
And as you say, it doesn’t necessarily need to be a coordinated effort, now that the requisite feudal playground is finally in place.
I have no idea what comes next, except that it won't be efficient, well-coordinated or intelligent even in its evil. Stupid, confused, bungling, badly carried-out, and yet incredibly harmful just the same.
This Trump administration will be a clown show like the last one, the difference being that the first one was clowns piling out of the car, this one will be a clown staring out at you from every sewer grate.
Nah. This time the clowns'll be running down Granny and the grandkids in line at the theater...before the Musky Rolling Dumpster Firetruck blows up in the porte cochère...
I'm not sure that Trump will be just a figurehead. As long as he stays competent enough not to smear himself with shit (in public at any rate). Check out Disney and the cruse lines in Florida.
They are our curse (did we build on a native burial ground or something?). Their curse is that, having everything, they still want more even though t will never sate them.
In earlier times our rich men (but not all) weren’t far removed from their old world parents/grandparents, from a place where nobles were expected to make contributions to their counties, keeping bridges and roads repaired, providing veterans’ hospitals in their estates during wars, etc. in Carnegie’s case he actually grew up there. Paul Fussell pointed out that the nouveau riche have no heritage of it and no such compunction. This is not to exculpate the monsters of the Gilded Age, just a comparison to examine why the N.R. Class is so publicly shitty and so shameless.
George Seldes notes that when Andrew Mellon was getting divorced, Mellon bought or coerced control of *all* of Pittsburgh's newspapers to avoid any accounts of it in the press. As then, so now.
“His review characterizes the book as an ‘industrial-age passion play’ that ‘seethes’ with great moral fervor”
It’s so gross when people actually believe in things. Imagine, getting upset about things like “justice” and “fairness.” [giggles, snaps gum] “It’s like, total cringe!”
I've met reporters (local, not national) who hold to this view, that people who care about stuff are just annoying lame-o's. And if these people who care about stuff go out in public and start shouting about stuff in some kind of organized fashion in order to SEEK ATTENTION for their cause, well that's a DOUBLE lame-o.
Excellent column, thanks for pointing me to it. Democratic voters, you see, just care too much about too many things, and then make a public show of all their caring, suggesting that they're better than you* because they care more than you. So annoying they are!
*this is everywhere, remember the old line about Prius drivers, how they were stuck-up save-the-planet types, looking down their noses at people who drove other, less-virtuous cars? I was never able to determine how all this mind-reading was done, in my experience Prius-drivers are cheapskates who just want to save on gas and repair bills. But you can't take any personal action to slightly reduce your climate impact without being accused of "virtue-signaling" because the idea that anyone might be motivated by a simple and sincere concern for humanity and the planet is simply inconceivable (you can tell this touches a nerve for me, and I don't even drive a goddamn Prius.)
It's not the future they care about or even the present. It's "Forward! Into The Past!"
And I think a lot of them know they won't be here to see what happens so they'll do their damage and leave someone else to clean up (Democrats of course, Democrats have been cleaning up Republican fuck-ups since 1932).
[yacht store guy: "Hey Louie – that old wreck, in the backwater? Yeah, that one – you think we can refloat it? Nah, not long – just week or so...OK, good. This hamster deserves it. Oh, and try to make sure it ain't the least bit yar..."]
Joe Manchin's Chief of Staff, who, strangely enough seems to suddenly have a lot of time on his hands, will be joining MSNBC as part of its regular rotation of Democrats Who Lost Elections and Advise Other Democrats How to Win Elections, Claire McCaskill, Chief Proprietress.
215 Democrats and 218 Republicans doesn't suggest to me that Democrats are totally incompetent or out of touch with the public, or that Republicans have discovered the Secret Sauce to winning elections.
Atrios used to refer to it as the Church of the Savvy (or something like that). The highest intellectual position was condescending, “savvy” cynicism. People who cared about things were either performative fakers or soft-brained children.
(flashing back to one of my discussions with my father, when he expressed concern that he felt I was getting angry over something, not acknowledging there are things WORTH getting mad about)
Yeah, but not for reals, just for fun, like how you pretend to care about the price of eggs or those poor, poor hurricane victims, just til election day. That's how the Kool Kidz do it.
Nobody tell this reviewer Grimes about “conspicuous consumption,” Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class, or even the depiction of a mining company town in Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest. He might choke in outrage and spit his Macallan 55 over the antique, handwoven Isfahan rug in his drawing room.
The old K-12 school in our little cowtown had “cloakrooms” too. No idea why they were called that, but in the school that’s what they were called. They were just little cubbyhole areas off the main classroom with those old-fashioned wire coat hooks.
Modeled on Butte, Montana, if I recall correctly. That’s one interesting, rough-around-the -edges place. I can’t imagine what it was like back in the mining days.
We drove nearly to the top of the mountain above downtown, where you can see some really gritty, run-down old shacks. Butte also has the oldest continuously operating Chinese restaurant in the USA (but the food is reputedly terrible)
Wellll... I've been ranting for awhile that our leadership elite is, reduced to the singular, sociopathic...
As for Grimes' review: As policy (presuming James Bennet's word meant anything), criticism of capitalism is not allowed at the Times. So, per se something like the Beatty book must be panned. (A possibly better book is Ferguson's "Golden Rule" which I was swimming through til I got derailed by an extended biographical essay on Walter Benjamin by Hannah Arendt.)
As for the Times cancelling of criticism of capitalism, I must note that they are, in that regard, absolutely no way special.
Speaking of which, I suppose I must note Biden's calling out the nation of being on the cusp of becoming an oligarchy. Given that we're well past that point, I have to say 😵💫 He also wished Trump well in serving the nation as if any such thing will be happening.
I am with Uncle Joe on this one. I too would like to see trump well-served, along with a nice Chianti.
And don't forget the fava beans 😁
What about a veggie? Springtime wild asparagus (Just the Tips), lightly buttered?
Brussel Sprouts roasted in olive oil
Do you cater?
Not to the likes of you :)
The corpse would require too much cleaning and still taste like shit.
I’d leave it at the Chianti and fave beans.
OTOH, a corpse sooner rather than later… 🙏🏻👍🏻😁👏🏻
"Presidential" brand chitlins
Likelier than you might think now that the Goya spokesperson is back in office.
Ewww, once you trim away all the fat, there'd be nothing left.
Whadda they call 'em Way Down South®? Cracklins?
When what you've got to work with is pigskin, it's either that or a football.
Chicharrones. (Of which Spouse, from Way Down South® is fond.)
Tried 'em, not impressed, kinda bland really.
These people are spectacularly incapable of seeing what is right in front of them. They get a hint every once in a while, but then it just blows away. So we are skipping any good emperors and going right to Caligula?
I was hoping UC Berkeley would change its team name to the Igulas, but alas...
You know, even Noah Cross answered the questions Gittes posed -- "Why are you doing it? How much better can you eat, what can you buy that you can't already afford?" with an aspirational if power-mad response: "The future!" I don't think today's billionaires have even that much of a lofty if perverted goal.
It's now simply accumulation for accumulation's sake, coupled with a Revenge of the Nerds passion play on a scale so epic normal people can barely conceive of it. They want more money, and they want to be liked/admired. Because they persist in the belief they can buy the latter, they keep avariciously acquiring more of the former to aid them in that fruitless quest. And we all pay the price.
More easily understood as "I make money make money. It's what I do. Why should I stop doing what I am really good at?"
At some point, it's impossible to stop. Once it accumulates in large enough quantities, money grows all on its own. It would take an effort to make it stop. Of course, the billionaire believes EVERY SINGLE ADDITIONAL DOLLAR is due to his brilliant efforts. "Huh, I musta done something this morning that was worth $17 billion, I'll try to figure out what it was after lunch."
Philip Roth has David Zuckerman, author of the Portnoy-like Carnovsky, reflect on his financial success, with something like, "It wasn't enough any more to worry about making money. Now he had to worry about his money making money."
The worry being...
Who was the Wall Street guy who said "Money is how we keep score"?
Supposedly it was Ted Turner
https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/ted_turner_378800
One a the zeros in the 400?
Elmo having the software rewritten to specifically boost his posts, and Zuck having the filter on medical misinformation dropped because it ate his posts on his leg surgery.
Funny you should mention it. At my co-author's suggestion, I'm reading The Big Goodbye, by Sam Wasson, a fascinating account of the making of Chinatown. It focuses on Towne, Nicholson, Robert Evans, and Polanski. Recommended.
Thanks for this. Our film club is doing "LA Movies" Next month and that is of course one of the nominees...
(Gotta say, tho – I'd focus on Faye to the exclusion of all else, given the opportunity...)
Maybe OT for your club, but if you haven't seen this, it's well worth checking out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Plays_Itself
List of 211 movies clipped in the doc! https://www.imdb.com/list/ls076751336/
Thanks!
Eddie Muller says Chinatown isn't just the best LA noir, it's the best LA film, period.
I'm amenable to covering that one in the club meeting, but would prefer to do one I have not seen before (and the club boss sent a curated list of candidates, several of which my not-got-round-to self* has not...well, you know...).
So it's kinda wide open.
*Anybody who knows me would agree I am not well-rounded. Edgy, maybe.
Are you familiar with this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cry_Danger
It is swell!
She was "fast, crisp and laconic" – the kinda dame you yearn for, til you get to know her. And if you get to know her too well, she's the last thing you'll ever know.
Evans autobiography is essential.
My wife and I saw Chinatown on our first date!
Sometimes I like to sit and wonder which filmmaker is the fourth greatest filmmaker of all time Roman Polansky or Woody Allen. One is the fourth best and one is the fifth best I can't decide. Neither would be permitted to babysit my children.
The other night I watched the Western featuring Spade Cooley, the Murdering King of Western Swing and his Band . That band sure could play!
2 marks for Spade.
I'd like to think that eventually some of these clowns end up acquiring a guillotine, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.
No matter how you slice it...they come out ahead!
Alas, our feral billionairs have made the mistake of thinking that their loot makes them essential to Trump. But as far as Trump is concerned, no toady is indespensible.
Well, for certain values of "alas!"
I haven’t read Beatty either but I await a modern author of Mark Twain’s stature to take on these assholes as well as he did in his “The Gilded Age.” ( Only half the book is his and it’s not hard to figure out which half: the chapters with the rapiers through the despicable characters).
I think that for Musk, Thiel, et al., having more money than God has encouraged them to turn away from the traditional delusions of internecine theological nitpicking that absorbed the minds of 18th century oligarchs and focus instead on more 20th century obsessions like “If I’m not controlling every aspect of life on Earth, what cabal of secret powers is?” They’ll stumble upon “The Jews!” eventually. They always do.
Jews lyin' alla round, trippin' up everbody...
Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,
Thank you for expressing an interest in a membership in the Country Club. At the moment, there are no openings. Rest assured that should an opening occur, your name will be submitted to the Review Committee.
Yours, etc.
2 marks.
Will not describe those marks in detail, but we all know...
They better not be inflationary Weimar Republic Marks
Sorry buddy – that's the order. You want 'em or not?
...and this morning krugman calls Trump a "crude mercantilist", which, is fair but lacking. But Crude Mercantilist coulda been a Richard Fariña minor hit back when songs were songs.
OT - I don't really care for that song, but OMG the Baez-Collins duet! Their harmonies will make you swoon.
The Power Of The Purse is not to be misunderesteemated. Tax 'em all back to the Gilt Age level and we're good.
We do actually have the legal authority to do that, you know. All it takes is a majority in Congress and a willing President. Tax the fuck outta them, it could happen, maybe next time. Just keep it up guys, when even an 82-year-old Democrat is willing to call you out on national TV, your time is coming.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They want to live in the 1950s again?
Cool. Top tax rate is 90%.
1850s. There was no top tax rate, because there was no income tax, and the Federal government protected your ownership of slaves.
Meanwhile the Tradcaths want the 1550s.
Luther posted his theses in 1517 so Tradcaths want to go back further than that -- but not before Catholicism was made the official religion of the Roman Empire
You could also hire scalp hunters!
What a time to be alive!
But like half of Congress is worth more than $1 million. Most of these would not vote for raising their own taxes
Fine, we'll set it so it doesn't bite til two million.
I was gonna ask which half...
Roy, this is excellent! "Extra spicy" in the vernacular. What's real funny is you are probably the only person in greater Baltimore to use" salvific" in everyday conversation. ( We tend to favor " beatific " out here in corn country)
Just remember, while every broken piece of shit isn't a Billionaire, most every Billionaire is a broken piece of shit.
. I suspect this aristocracy of the richest breaks down pretty quickly into chaos. Though perhaps the billionaires will cooperate and usher in era of peace success and well-being. *
In the meantime, I'm researching how long a gummy will stay fresh. I intend to buy a four-year supply.
We did make it through the first Gilded Age. Perhaps we can again.
Again, this is a great column. Thanks!
* If someone in the crowd wants to do that thing where you pretend to cough but say" "Bullshit!" Instead, now would be a good time!
Not sure what the correct term is for the form our government has devolved into: "Kakistoplutocracy" or "Plutokakistocracy."
Pluto, being the (former) smallest planet, ain't big enough for the both of us!
Plutoids for everyone!
„Plutoids,“ huh? For those, you need Preparation P
Should add here that one of my internet acquaintances was on the team that made the decision to downgrade Pluto, to which we responded with galactic, nay – universal!, opprobrium.
Yeah, that was some woke bullshit right there!
Klingons #insert_joke
Pluto is Mickey Mouse's pet dog
I heard that Mickey Mouse divorced Minnie Mouse because she was acting crazy.
Evidently she was fucking Goofy.
And with Tubby at the helm, add "klepto" in there.
CryptoKleptoKakiPluto
Bo-na-na fanna Fo-futo
Fee-fi-mo-muto
CryptoKleptoKakiPluto!
Lost Parliament-Funkadelic track
The former scans better, in case you wanted to insert it into a n heroic couplet.
I'm not quite up to heroic couplets right now, but maybe...
Higgledy Piggledy
Kakoplutocracy
Superrich pig-fuckers
Running the show;
Kruger and Dunning,
You think they were funning?
There's nothing these shit-for-brains
Don't think they know.
(Improvements welcomed.)
[alla the resta the band sit out, lookin' at each other goin' "Nope – ain't followin' that one, you go ahead..."]
It seems that plain "Kakoplutocracy" is a thing, and scans even better, so I've edited accordingly.
Clusterfuck is taken !
Fuckingshitocracy
Well off topic here, but I imagine you've heard the news about Mr David Lynch passing. I know what this weekend's viewing will consist of for my partner and me.
I remember when Bill Gates was the name associated with obscene wealth, and cheerleaders for capitalism furiously denied that there was anything obscene about it: he earned that money by being smart enough and hard-working enough to provide an enormously useful technical innovation. Of course there were dozens if not hundreds of equally smart and hard-working people who could and basically did provide the same innovation, but Gates was maybe a half percent better (or ten percent luckier) and that naturally translated into an entitlement to be literally a million times richer.
Now just try to make that argument for Elon Musk. I couldn't force myself to do it for all the money of Elon Musk.
Gates earned his money by shafting his partner wrt MS-DOS and its adoption and then stole the Windows idea from Apple
#ThereAreNoGoodBillionaires
I dunno – I can easily imagine calling one out, vis "You NO-GOOD Billionaire!"
Springsteen nailed it so long ago:
Poor man wanna be rich
Rich man wanna be king
And a king ain't satisfied 'til he rules everything.
This piece reminded me of Eve Helmsley, who was the first wife of real estate baron Harry Helmsley. She was, among other things, a Quaker and a quiet, shy woman who spent her time on civic and charitable causes. When Harry met real estate agent Leona Roberts in the late 1960s, Leona sneered at Eve's treatment of Harry as making him old before his time. And Leona was the wife who eventually brought Harry infamy, as well as bringing him down after a decades long respectable career.
Eve lived to be 90 something, and I always admired the fact that after Leona absconded with her husband, Eve never drubbed him in the press or displayed any of the anger I know I would have in her place. She continued her charitable works and was a true example of grace under pressure. She was not born rich, but she exemplified what rich people can be and can do when their hearts are in the right place.
See also the "cast-off" wives of Bezos and Gates.
And Joan Krock giving her McDonald's fortune to NPR.
Was she the first wife or the second?
3rd
3x the charm = 3charms
"Depraved" is becoming my go-to word, as it encapsulates so many aspects of our current age.
Whenever the masses are needful of salvity
And sentient people agree on the gravity
Richies see then their chancements
To their own purse enhancements
And engage moreso in the steaming depravity
Raises the question, when were we ever praved?
I’ve always affirmed I had a depraved childhood.
"I was an avaricious reader", said Barney Fife.
I wonder where Ruth is.
Off somewhere with Feck, I think.
and Leslie
The Same Old Place, under the dwarf maples?
Nah. She opened a steakhouse, but named for some guy named Chris. Weird.
Somewhere there's a Ruth's Bob, and a Ruth's Joe, but Ruth's Chris gets all the attention.
Or, for that matter, repraved.
repraving is done to fix streets
Have to wait til 2029 for The Repravening.
Returned For Repraving
Trump ‘24 is already making Trump ‘16 seem like a harmless buffoon, and he was anything but. What has dawned on me these last few weeks, with a gathering clammy dread, as per your essay, is that it isn’t the man-diapered assclown I’m fearing so much, it’s the schemers who brought us this sickening reality. It all seems so orchestrated and inevitable now.
Russia’s oligarchy has always been closely managed under Putin’s cold fist; his gaudy aristos forever living with the threat of gulag, high windows or a special blend of tea. On this side of the globe, Emperor Constant Stink will be merely a figurehead. An avatar to distract the masses and the media while the hyper-billionaires get up to whatever evil shit they plan to unleash.
And as you say, it doesn’t necessarily need to be a coordinated effort, now that the requisite feudal playground is finally in place.
I have no idea what comes next, except that it won't be efficient, well-coordinated or intelligent even in its evil. Stupid, confused, bungling, badly carried-out, and yet incredibly harmful just the same.
I'm still rooting for the civil war on the Right between the Libertarians and the Moralists.
Are you sure you don't mean faux-moralists?
Coming soon to Pay Per View!
Hopefully in roller derby format.
Charmingly retro, my money is on WWF.
This Trump administration will be a clown show like the last one, the difference being that the first one was clowns piling out of the car, this one will be a clown staring out at you from every sewer grate.
Nah. This time the clowns'll be running down Granny and the grandkids in line at the theater...before the Musky Rolling Dumpster Firetruck blows up in the porte cochère...
I'm not sure that Trump will be just a figurehead. As long as he stays competent enough not to smear himself with shit (in public at any rate). Check out Disney and the cruse lines in Florida.
They are our curse (did we build on a native burial ground or something?). Their curse is that, having everything, they still want more even though t will never sate them.
"did we build on a native burial ground or something?" made me laugh, that bitter and cynical laugh I'm using more and more these days.
It's funny because it's true. The whole continent was a native burial ground, and we built right on top of it.
You spelled 'wrongly' incorrectly.
You too, huh? Maybe it's some kind of a virus.
You joke about "native burial ground", but, if you think for a minute about the origins of modern America... well, YEAH, WE FUCKING DID.
It was more of an observation than a "joke". It seems we are seeing some karmic reverberations from our history.
Ancient curses would explain a hell of a lot.
Those ancient curses were the BEST!
In earlier times our rich men (but not all) weren’t far removed from their old world parents/grandparents, from a place where nobles were expected to make contributions to their counties, keeping bridges and roads repaired, providing veterans’ hospitals in their estates during wars, etc. in Carnegie’s case he actually grew up there. Paul Fussell pointed out that the nouveau riche have no heritage of it and no such compunction. This is not to exculpate the monsters of the Gilded Age, just a comparison to examine why the N.R. Class is so publicly shitty and so shameless.
George Seldes notes that when Andrew Mellon was getting divorced, Mellon bought or coerced control of *all* of Pittsburgh's newspapers to avoid any accounts of it in the press. As then, so now.
I'd forgotten that one. Good ol' George.
“His review characterizes the book as an ‘industrial-age passion play’ that ‘seethes’ with great moral fervor”
It’s so gross when people actually believe in things. Imagine, getting upset about things like “justice” and “fairness.” [giggles, snaps gum] “It’s like, total cringe!”
Stop that giggling back there!
And what did I tell you about gum?!
Tell them about the rolled-up newspaper.
"You do NOT wanna be here when Pops gets home! HE"LL show you the power of the press!"
I've met reporters (local, not national) who hold to this view, that people who care about stuff are just annoying lame-o's. And if these people who care about stuff go out in public and start shouting about stuff in some kind of organized fashion in order to SEEK ATTENTION for their cause, well that's a DOUBLE lame-o.
Oh, this is absolutely the case. Josh Marshall had a good column on it a couple months ago. https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/reckonings-of-contempt
Excellent column, thanks for pointing me to it. Democratic voters, you see, just care too much about too many things, and then make a public show of all their caring, suggesting that they're better than you* because they care more than you. So annoying they are!
*this is everywhere, remember the old line about Prius drivers, how they were stuck-up save-the-planet types, looking down their noses at people who drove other, less-virtuous cars? I was never able to determine how all this mind-reading was done, in my experience Prius-drivers are cheapskates who just want to save on gas and repair bills. But you can't take any personal action to slightly reduce your climate impact without being accused of "virtue-signaling" because the idea that anyone might be motivated by a simple and sincere concern for humanity and the planet is simply inconceivable (you can tell this touches a nerve for me, and I don't even drive a goddamn Prius.)
Conservatives, I've found, are incapable of believing that anyone is motivated by anything but self-interest.
Caring about the future is self interest, as I join the future every day. Conservatives only really think about immediate monetary self interest
It's not the future they care about or even the present. It's "Forward! Into The Past!"
And I think a lot of them know they won't be here to see what happens so they'll do their damage and leave someone else to clean up (Democrats of course, Democrats have been cleaning up Republican fuck-ups since 1932).
"In a Washington Post article whose headline said the Democratic Party is now in 'shambles,' Joe Manchin’s chief of staff..." lol. That's a good one.
Yeah. Wonder how many yachts *he* owns.
[yacht store guy: "Hey Louie – that old wreck, in the backwater? Yeah, that one – you think we can refloat it? Nah, not long – just week or so...OK, good. This hamster deserves it. Oh, and try to make sure it ain't the least bit yar..."]
Joe Manchin's Chief of Staff, who, strangely enough seems to suddenly have a lot of time on his hands, will be joining MSNBC as part of its regular rotation of Democrats Who Lost Elections and Advise Other Democrats How to Win Elections, Claire McCaskill, Chief Proprietress.
Claire won two Senatorial elections, although the second was against Todd "women don't get pregnant from legitimate rape" Akin so may not count
I remember that guy! He was crazy before crazy was cool!
Whenever I see "Claire McCaskill" I immediately think artist and entertainer "Danny MacAskill" and reach for the youtubes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_7k3fnxPq0
215 Democrats and 218 Republicans doesn't suggest to me that Democrats are totally incompetent or out of touch with the public, or that Republicans have discovered the Secret Sauce to winning elections.
Atrios used to refer to it as the Church of the Savvy (or something like that). The highest intellectual position was condescending, “savvy” cynicism. People who cared about things were either performative fakers or soft-brained children.
Yeah, Church of Savvy is originally from Jay Rosen, I think.
(flashing back to one of my discussions with my father, when he expressed concern that he felt I was getting angry over something, not acknowledging there are things WORTH getting mad about)
You were getting angry over the wrong things. S'posed to be immigrants, DEI, etc. etc. etc..
Gold standard, 16th Amendment, 19th Amendment...damn – come to think of it, there's muchos amendmentosos to be pissed off at.
The Gold Standard is the gold standard of such causes.
Yeah, but not for reals, just for fun, like how you pretend to care about the price of eggs or those poor, poor hurricane victims, just til election day. That's how the Kool Kidz do it.
Poor, poor hurricane victims in a delicate balancing act with fire survivors who must be blamed and vilified. Next-level conservative-fu at work!
Nobody tell this reviewer Grimes about “conspicuous consumption,” Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class, or even the depiction of a mining company town in Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest. He might choke in outrage and spit his Macallan 55 over the antique, handwoven Isfahan rug in his drawing room.
Drawing room is sooo quaint.
Video room is too.
AI room is where it's* at
*"It" being a constantly shape-shifting parlor trick
"Drawing room" is where the ladies go so the gentlemen can have their brandy and cigars in peace.
I recently learned it was short for “withdrawing room”—the room you withdrew to after the evening meal, while the servants cleaned up (presumably).
I just recently learned that a Victorian gentleman has a toilet in his cloakroom.
The old K-12 school in our little cowtown had “cloakrooms” too. No idea why they were called that, but in the school that’s what they were called. They were just little cubbyhole areas off the main classroom with those old-fashioned wire coat hooks.
I would assume a cloakroom is where you put your cloaks aka coats
How uncivilized. One assumes the toilet was in some other, entirely separate room, as the lower classes are wont to do.
Never noticed the name before today, but his beat fits your vision of Mr. Grimes at leisure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Grimes_(journalist)
An otherwise worthy career!
Also, of course his nickname is Biff.
Poisonville!
Modeled on Butte, Montana, if I recall correctly. That’s one interesting, rough-around-the -edges place. I can’t imagine what it was like back in the mining days.
I went to a speakeasy in Butte MT once
We drove nearly to the top of the mountain above downtown, where you can see some really gritty, run-down old shacks. Butte also has the oldest continuously operating Chinese restaurant in the USA (but the food is reputedly terrible)
I enjoyed the local thrift store named “Butte Stuff.” And of course there’s the toxic open-pit mine with the bluest water you ever did see.
Blue is probably from Cu (II) sulfate which is probably one of the more benign components of the mine water