Calling the Tune Without Paying the Piper

Long-Term Capital Management [LTCM], a hedge fund, was founded in 1994, and had on its board two men who a few years later would be awarded the Nobel Prize in economics. Despite its rather self-trumpeting name, the fund went belly-up in the year 2000. It lasted that long only because of a massive bail-out four years after its founding, which was arranged to keep the broader financial system from imploding.

Some three decades before the LCTM debacle, the United States military was bogged down in South-East Asia trying to accomplish what the French had previously failed to do—defeat the Vietnamese revolutionary force known as the Viet Cong. American policy was formulated by a group of Washington officials who had been leaders in industry and academia before joining the administration. They were sometimes called “whiz kids.” David Halberstam in his book on the period labelled them “The Best and The Brightest.”

*

I bring up this ancient history to make a really simple point—which I will get to in a bit.

This is a post about voting. The Republican party and conservatives in general have for more than a generation attempted to restrict the right to cast a ballot. Here is William Buckley, Jr. in 1957 opining on how the “advanced race’’—White Southerners (minority)—should prevail over the desires of their Black neighbors (majority):

If the majority wills what is socially atavistic, then to thwart the majority may be, though undemocratic, enlightened. It is more important for any community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority.*

Of course, this is a question-begging proclamation. What is meant by “socially atavistic”? How do you define “civilized standards”? Not to mention the smug assertion about the “advanced race.”

*

Let’s jump to the present. 

Steven Strauss, in an opinion piece in USA TODAY,** gives us just a sampling of Republican voices advocating ballot restrictions:

Andrew McCarthy stated in National Review: “It would be far better if the franchise were not exercised by ignorant, civics-illiterate people." Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson, a Republican, warned of the dangers of voting by the “uninformed.” Kevin Williamson, also at National Review, asked whether America “would be better served by having fewer — but better — voters.” Arizona GOP state Rep. John Kavanaugh commented: “Quantity is important, but we have to look at the quality of votes as well.” 

Doesn’t that all sound marvelous: To be led by a citizenry that is not “uninformed” or “civics-illiterate”? 

Er . . ., my ignorant response is, “Who decides?” And how? Shall we give every citizen a test before he/she can cast a ballot? Would that determine if that would-be voter was “civics-literate” (whatever that means)?

In an earlier blog post,*** I discussed the self-centeredness of test-making. The person who sets the test has automatically made claim to be no worse than tied for the smartest person in the room—after all, he knows all the answers (otherwise how could he know whether the test-takers were correct or not?). I pointed out that this 

“no one can know more than me” business is really the opposite of the statement of Socrates . . . that the Oracle of Delphi . . . claimed that “no man is wiser than Socrates.” For, said Socrates, he knows that he knows nothing, while other men brag of their knowledge of justice, piety, etc.

So, I ask the GOP brains, who died and left you God to determine what the test for citizen-voters should be? Of course, we trust you implicitly that the questions would be totally non-partisan. But do we have to take our masks off and show proof that we weren’t vaccinated?

*

To go back to the beginning of this essay. Republicans wouldn't doubt that the Nobel laureates of Long-Term Capital Management and the whiz kids of the Viet Nam debacle had the right credentials to determine at the ballot box the future of this country. And they could ace any test. 

They could also lead us down the drain.

***

  * https://theintercept.com/2020/07/05/national-review-william-buckley-racism/

  ** https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/04/14/republicans-weed-out-ignorant-voters-start-with-their-own-column/7186187002/

 *** https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2015/01/dont-bother-me.html

Zyklon B

[M]ost people living in the United States today—certainly more than half—are not Americans in any meaningful sense of the term.

My blood ran cold when I read those words. 

It was in the New York Times that I came across that assertion (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/26/opinion/trump-republican-party.html). That article linked to another article in Vox (https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2021/4/1/22356594/conservatives-right-wing-democracy-claremont-ellmers), which in turn linked to the fons et origo of the quote, an essay by Glenn Ellmers entitled “‘Conservatism’ is no Longer Enough” in a publication of the Claremont Institute, The American Mind (https://americanmind.org/salvo/why-the-claremont-institute-is-not-conservative-and-you-shouldnt-be-either/).

In an earlier post, I pointed out that those entities known as “think tanks” are places where anything but thinking is rewarded. What the tanks spew out is propaganda in support of their political or economic bias. I recall reading several years ago about a miscreant being booted out of a conservative tank for deviating from the party line. I wish I had bothered to save the page.

The party line of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy (to give it its full name) was clearly stated by Ellmers in his essay:

Claremont was one of the very few serious institutions on the right to make an intellectual case for Trumpism.

Whether Claremont elsewhere was able to amass enough brainpower to make such an “intellectual” case is not important at the moment, as we focus on Ellmers’ article. Actually, one can dispose of the intellectual pretense of the piece by red-flagging two fallacies that its argument has at its heart: The “No-True-Scotsman” fallacy and solipsism. 

The “No-True-Scotsman” fallacy is an attempt to preserve the purity of one’s prejudices by defining out any examples that are contradictory (https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2011/06/drop-puck.html). Thus, Ellmers alleges that his political opponents do not share the beliefs and attitudes which he claims are those of “True Americans”: 

They do not believe in, live by, or even like the principles, traditions, and ideals that until recently defined America as a nation and as a people.

What are the beliefs of “True Americans”? Why those that Ellmers solipsistically has established as reality in his own little mind.

In truth, Ellmers does not bother to exemplify what separates the “True” from the “False” Americans. All discussion is conducted on a plane of miasmic abstraction and vagueness. He claims, 

[a]uthentic Americans still want to have decent lives. They want to work, worship, raise a family, and participate in public affairs without being treated as insolent upstarts in their own country. Therefore, we need a conception of a stable political regime that allows for the good life.

What in hell does that signify? Do Ellmers’ opponents not want to “work, worship, raise a family, etc”?

But somehow it all comes down to “[t]he U.S. Constitution no longer works.” 

So what to do?

Accept the fact that what we need is a counter-revolution. Learn some useful skills, stay healthy, and get strong. (One of my favorite weightlifting coaches likes to say, “Strong people are harder to kill, and more useful generally.”)

This counter-revolution (“true” patriots revolting against their own country?) is to prevent “the victory of progressive tyranny.” “See you in the gulag,” says Ellmers.

Need we point out that from the Trumpian chants of “Lock her up!” and “Hang Mike Pence” to the erection of a gallows on the Capitol grounds it has been the rightwingers who have threatened punishment and death? And it is Ellmers who brings killing into the equation.

*

And so when Ellmers ends his piece with the call: “It’s all hands on deck now,” my blood runs cold. What would ensue in the wake of a triumph by Ellmersian forces? How do you rule over an America where more than half the population are allegedly unAmerican and would stand as a threat to those “True” Americans who want to work and (need we be reminded) worship? Ellmers has gulags on his mind (better us, he’s probably thinking, than the other guys setting them up). But how are you going to contain 81 million people who voted for Biden?

Surely they'll come up with a better way of nullifying non-American Americans.

My blood runs cold.  

 

Metaphysics

At its core the study of metaphysics is the study of the nature of reality, of what exists in the world, what it is like, and how it is ordered.*

*

Yesterday, upon the stair,

I met a man who wasn't there!

He wasn't there again today,

Oh how I wish he'd go away!

William Hughes Mearns

*

On November 1, 1950, President Harry S Truman was the target of an assassination attempt by two Puerto Rican nationalists. One of the assailants was shot dead, but a secret service man was also killed. A. J. Liebling in The New Yorker (November 18, 1950) reported that 

in Paris, the Communist newspaper Humanité, according to a dispatch in the Times, said right out that the shooting, including the two deaths and three woundings, was an election trick stage-managed by the administration.

I guess we can call this the “Are-You-Going-To-Believe-Me-Or-Your-Lying-Eyes Syndrome,” which has become rife in recent years. Consider the mass murders at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut (December 14, 2012) and at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida (February 14, 2018). 

Shortly after each of those tragedies, ghouls began claiming that there were no fatalities. They were fake events. Parents were alleged to have created phony documents to claim that they had lost children. High school survivors were smeared as “crisis actors.” Thankfully, at least a few of the ghouls were found guilty of defamation in civil lawsuits and hit with substantial damages. 

The January 6 insurrection at the Capitol building is fast becoming the star example of this syndrome. The gallows-erecting, baseball-bat wielding, Confederate flag waving, bear-repellent spraying, “Hang Mike Spence” yelling mob has morphed into—in the words of Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia—a leisurely group of folks on a “normal tourist visit” to the Capitol. Somehow, though, the images of that day do not match up with this depiction of Washington visitors as drawn by the wonderful Gluyas Williams for The New Yorker issue of March 24, 1951.

*

If thou be'st born to strange sights,

    Things invisible to see . . .

John Donne

*

On the reverse side of the what-you-see-isn’t-really-there coin is the nobody-sees-it-so-it must be true claim. This is the motto, if you will, of the swamp-dwellers of  the conspiracy quagmire. A sub-headline of the New York Times put it thus: 

As the United States shifted with the anxieties of the 1980s, baseless conspiracy theories about satanic cults committing mass abuse spread around the country.**

Ritual abuses—including child sacrifices—were allegedly taking place across the nation at kindergartens and pre-school facilities. Bodies of the victims were buried, so it was claimed, on the grounds of the schools. So law enforcement dug and dug and found—nothing. But, aha, claimed the accusers, that nothing only proved how subtle the satanists were; they would leave no traces of their fiendish activities. Nothing, therefore, if one was to believe the accusers, was more incriminating than something!

But the 1980s had nothing on us when it comes to conspiracies in which 0>something. The whole election-was-stolen craziness shows that minds are melting down faster than ever (one could blame climate change, but that’s a hoax, right?). The fact that there has been no proven election fraud of any consequence (a few Republicans captured voting twice, the exception) means that the fraud is deeply hidden. The claims of how the alleged fraud was perpetrated, since the ground being dug up is barren (not even fool’s gold), have shifted into the phantasmagoric—offering “strange sights . . . Things invisible to see.” How about Chinese thermostats?*** Italian satellites?****  

*

In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Sebastian, mistaken by the infatuated Olivia for his disguised (as a man) twin sister, Viola, is lovingly received by that lady, who wishes to marry him. He has no idea what is going on, but he tries to orient himself in reality.

This is the air; that is the glorious sun;

This pearl she gave me, I do feel't and see’t.

*

Feel it and see it. 

Reject things invisible to see.

*

Note: January 6 is Twelfth Night.

***

*  https://www.mvorganizing.org/what-is-the-study-of-reality-in-the-broadest-sense/

**  https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/31/us/satanic-panic.html

***  https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-china-thermostats-jeffrey-clark-b1898785.html

****  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/06/donald-trump-mark-meadows-doj-italygate

  

Baa Humbug

Exactly seven months ago, on December 28, 2020, The New Yorker printed a short essay entitled “Berkshire County Postcard: Name Game” as part of its “Talk of the Town.” The Berkshire County place of the piece was Great Barrington, Mass., which prior to the previous October was mostly famous for being the site of Susan Gotthelf’s alma mater. In October, however, a group described by the magazine as “more than three dozen epidemiologists, physicians, and statisticians, as well as a stray philosopher” published the “Great Barrington Declaration.”

The sponsor of the declaration was something called the American Institute for Economics Research, an alleged think tank based in Great Barrington. (I say “alleged” because think tanks don’t encourage thinking; they’re propaganda mills.)

The subject of the declaration (doesn’t that sound grand—as if they were separating themselves from the motherland) was the coronavirus. Arguing against lockdowns, the paper looked to herd immunity to contain the pandemic. The argument was immediately slammed by real experts across the globe, such as Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical advisor, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, World Health Organization’s director-general, and, of course, Anthony Fauci.

The declaration was also attacked by the good citizens of Great Barrington, who felt that the town’s reputation would be sullied by association with a foolish—and dangerous—document with its name in the title.

It is worth pointing out here that one of the signatories of the declaration was a professor from Oxford who had asserted five months previously that COVID was “on its way out” in the UK. Has that eminent academic—in the face of the facts from 14 months later offered below—bothered to apologize for his stupidity?

3,177: Tokyo’s number of new daily cases on Wednesday, the second-straight day the city set its record for highest daily cases.

Daily Covid cases in UK rise for first time in eight days, to 27,734.

Well, no. I don’t expect an apology, because the “epidemiologists, physicians, and statisticians, as well as a stray philosopher” were writing under the sponsorship of a libertarian institute. And libertarians are so convinced of their special status on planet Earth that they need never bow a knee to the concerns of others. “I can do what I want; I can spill toxic wastes from my factories into local streams, emit noxious gases into the atmosphere, use workers how I please. I can even write bullshit declarations about epidemics.”

*

Terms of venery are used to identify animals appearing in groups, such as a gaggle of geese, a pride of lions, or a herd of cows. It is fun sometimes to play a game where you invent such terms for groups of humans. A shitload of proctologists, perhaps, or a drill of dentists, maybe. Anyway, I think a synod of stinkers would fit libertarians perfectly.

*

Let us turn to another term of venery: a flock of sheep.

I think I have identified the ultimate libertarian nursery rhyme: Little Bo Peep.

Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep

And doesn’t know where to find them.

Leave them alone

And they’ll come home

Waggling their tails behind them.

Let’s examine this.

The shepherdess, the guardian of the flock, has neglected her job; she has lost the sheep. What to do?

The voice of the advice giver (in lines 3,4, and 5)—obviously a libertarian—says do nothing. Don’t go looking for the sheep, don’t call upon the resources of the community to aid you in that attempt. The fact that there was need for a shepherdess in the first place—to, among other things, keep the flock safe from wolves looking for a lamb chop dinner—is sloughed off. 

Go home, have a cup of tea, put your feet up, and watch the telly. That sheep are supposedly among the dumbest animals doesn’t matter; they’ll somehow activate their internal GPS and over hills and through dales navigate to the right farm. Soon, dear Bo Peep, you’ll be able to put your head down on your pillow and fall asleep to the sweet bleating of the lambs.

I hope Bo Peep has had the COVID shots—relying on herd immunity when you’re dealing with a flock is ultimate foolishness.

An Ordinary Sunday

Yesterday was an ordinary Sunday; an ordinary day. One might almost say a generic news day. Three items from yesterday’s news could have been from any day’s news, revealing what this country is all about.

*

After six worker deaths at Georgia chicken plant, U.S. issues $1 million in fines*

 

Six workers dead and the company offers up prayers:

The company posted on its website, "As our community continues to heal, we extend our continued sympathies and prayers to the families and friends of those lost."

Perhaps if the company had been following safety protocols the deaths would have been avoided. Of course, that would have meant obeying regulations, and we all know (because the Republicans have told us so) how awful regulations are. They keep freewheeling businessmen from doing their own thing and, worst of all, they cost money. Of course, lives might be saved when care is taken to follow the rules, but the bottom line is king.

So the nasty federal government had to step in and issue citations and fines against the ownership group, who, one imagines, are still on their knees in prayer.

*

Officials in Michigan county will return virus bonuses

Elected officials in a conservative Michigan county who gave themselves bonuses of $65,000 with federal COVID-19 relief aid say they will return the money following days of criticism**

The bad old feds again; giving out money for COVID relief. But how quickly GOP eyes lit up when they saw the greenbacks flowing to their state. “It ain’t filthy lucre when it’s going into my pocket!” How many Republican-controlled states refused free Medicaid extension money that would have gone to help the poor of their states? We can’t have that! What we can have is that other pot of dough. 

Well, at least they demonstrated a sense of shame when called out. Now, to get on the phone to cancel the new pickup truck with the gun rack in the back.

*

States scale back virus reporting just as cases surge***

Several states scaled back their reporting of COVID-19 statistics this month just as cases across the country started to skyrocket, depriving the public of real-time information on outbreaks, cases, hospitalizations and deaths in their communities.

It makes perfect sense, doesn’t it. Just when cases rise, you stop reporting on them. Hey, we’re open for business; can’t let a bunch of Debbie Downers ruin it. 

Democratic societies need information to prosper. Autocracies need suppression of information to keep the populace from knowing the truth. 

There are, it seems to me, certain tests that can instantly separate the bad from the good. For example, I learned decades ago during the civil rights and anti-war protests that you can easily tell which side the bad guys are on: look at who is beating up the photographers. They don’t want the truth to come out. They are the suppressors of freedom, the acolytes of autocrats.

Similarly, though less violently, the pols who refuse to let the public know the facts—whether about the number of COVID cases or those responsible for the insurrection at the Capitol—are the enemies of a democratic society. 

“Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” That’s all well and good, but not letting you know the truth keeps me in power. And that’s a higher good. Right?

*

So, just an ordinary Sunday—with the usual grifters, liars, and chiselers. 

***

 *  https://finance.yahoo.com/news/six-worker-deaths-georgia-chicken-154106249.html

 **  https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/officials-michigan-county-return-virus-bonuses-79046640

 ***   https://news.yahoo.com/states-scale-back-virus-reporting-142431529.html

A Little Knowledge

Alas!

Sometime during the past 75 years I lost my secret decoder ring—the one I got by sending in a cereal boxtop and 25 cents. That is why I am totally lost when faced with headlines like this one from New York magazine:

Can LVP Still Be an MVP After RHOBH

*

I quite honestly admit that when it comes to modern pop culture I am low man on the totem pole. I know nothing. I am sure that there are millions who swallowed this New York headline

Megan Thee Stallion Calls Out DaBaby for Tory Lanez Retweet

as if it were mother’s milk. 

And that there were millions more who were enthralled by this Glamour article:

Orlando Bloom and Katy Perry’s Complete Relationship Timeline

I didn’t even know they were a thing—whoever the hell they are.

Well, now I know they were a thing. 

*

I read a little while ago on Yahoo, 

Everyone is Still Grasping Jonathan Scott Tragedy 

Jonathan Finally Speaks Up About The Break Up Between Him and Jacinta.

Actually, the headline should have read, “Everyone minus one . . . ,” because I wasn’t grasping or gawping or screaming or crying. Because once again, who the hell are those people?

Here’s the crazy thing: I have no idea who they are, but I now know that they broke up. The news finally trickled down to the low man on the totem pole. And if I know—everyone knows!

*

Now, class, if you’re still awake, we come to the main point of this exercise. 

The QAnon conspiracy theory is vast, complicated and ever changing, and its adherents are constantly folding new events and personalities into its master narrative. But the gist of it is that national Democrats, aided by Hollywood and a group of “global elites”, are running a massive ring devoted to the abduction, trafficking, torture, sexual abuse and cannibalization of children, all with the purpose of fulfilling the rituals of their Satanic faith.*

This alleged vast “conspiracy” has been reported upon by many media outlets. Thus, we can say that the “conspiracy” is no secret. Everyone—even low man on the totem pole, me—has heard and/or read about it. Which means not only the crazies of the batshit right, but also police chiefs, attorneys general, district attorneys, the FBI, and other law enforcement agencies. It doesn’t take too many brain cells to imagine that some avid crime fighter, having become cognizant of this pedophilic conspiracy, would be right now up to his eyebrows in subpoenas for the miscreants—if there was anything there.

But not a whisper of action. 

One is reminded of the Comet Ping Pong “Pizzagate” fiasco. On December 4, 2016, Edgar Maddison Welch, a nutjob from North Carolina walked into the above-cited pizza joint carrying a loaded AR-15 assault weapon, shot a few rounds into a door, and proceeded to search for the basement dungeon where satanic pedophile rituals led by Hillary Clinton took place.** 

If Welch had half a brain, he would have remained in the Tarheel State saying to himself, “If a schmuck like me knows all about this satanic cabal, then everyone knows about it.” And he could have settled back on his haunches, feeling secure in the knowledge that at least one of the lawmen above him on the totem pole (sensing massive headlines) would have dealt with such alleged abuses.  

 

*

Today on New York magazine webpage:

Orlando Bloom Thinks His Wives Are the ‘Cutest’

Now I know everything!

***

*  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/20/qanon-conspiracy-child-abuse-truth-trump

**  https://www.washingtonian.com/2020/12/04/the-comet-ping-pong-shooting-was-four-years-ago-today-we-had-no-clue-what-was-about-to-happen/

Some (Non)Problems Are More Easily Solved Than Others

This post is dedicated to Turnabout Records in recognition of its motto: “Turnabout is Fair Play.”

*

Our fair play deed of the day is in response to the selfless desire of Republicans to keep us peasants from losing time for our prayers by having to scratch our heads trying to decide how we wish to be governed. (We discussed this in the recent post “Republicans Just Wanna Help You” https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2021/06/republicans-just-wanna-help-you.html.) So today we offer the GOP a simple plan to solve two of their perceived problems: Election fraud and voter suppression.

The Republicans insist that their recent avalanche of legislation in many GOP-controlled states to combat “election fraud” (yeah, it deserves scare quotes) is needed, even though most of them admit that there was no wide-spread fraud in the 2020 presidential election (a couple of jerks were discovered to have voted twice, once in propria persona and once pretending to be their deceased father; they were Trump voters). So, what is the defense of such legislation? It is allegedly designed to keep the non-existent from occurring in the future. I am reminded here of a recent article on Artnet.com* concerning a dispute about the invention of invisible art. Don’t laugh; an “artist” sold some schmuck “a work of art made of literally nothing” for €15,000 ($18,300). The GOP is trying that stunt on the political front.

The voter suppression drive is, of course, what the legislation is really in aid of. “Let’s keep the democratic voters from voting and we’re home free. To hell with the will of the people!” 

*

Back to our Turnabout Fair Play. Here is our legislation help for the Republicans: Eliminate elections!  By one stroke of legislative magic they will have both eliminated election fraud (no elections, thus no chance of fraud) and of course will have entirely suppressed opposition votes (no elections, no votes). 

The GOP could then pay tribute to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on its 100th anniversary by taking a leaf out of the CCP’s playbook. Only about 7 percent of China’s population are allowed to be members of the Party. The CCP, therefore, can

control politics, economics, and society without losing its exclusivity. Anyone can apply to join, but applicants are carefully vetted and huge numbers are rejected.**

Without elections, a small coterie of Republican true believers can control the destiny of the US. And isn’t that what they want?

*

Harry Golden was a New Yorker who moved to North Carolina in 1941 and later founded his own periodical, The Carolina Israelite. He was a fierce opponent of segregation, which he attacked in his work. His most famous observation about segregation was that whites were fine with standing in line with black people but would not tolerate sitting next to them. Golden thus proposed “vertical integration,” eliminating seats in schools, theaters, restaurants, buses, etc. 

Golden was of course a satirist, which we would never claim to be (despite the motto of this blog being “Fools rush into my head, and so I write,” Alexander Pope). We are merely good samaritans who wish, as stated in the second paragraph, to return a favor to the GOP.

***

* https://news.artnet.com/art-world/florida-man-lawsuit-invisible-sculpture-1984780

** https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2021/07/01/chinese-communist-party-most-adaptable/