My thoughts, while walking off long Covid and listening to podcasts...a blog designed and meant to be freely associating, on the run, and not perfectly edited:
Today's walkabout Instagram Post.
Understand that video, requires this video from last walkabout.
On my previous walkabout, I posted the video on Instagram when I found a pinecone "street dam" that I assume was made by some kids. I came across it again today after many cars had driven over it and posted a new video.
Is it sad? Or, is it just cool, temporary art of a sort?
What I find interesting about the pinecone dam/art is a psychosocial issue. That kids set up a toy/art piece/activity, that affected drivers who appear to have, at least some of them, aimed to crush pinecones not in direct path of cars. So essentially, children performed an activity and produced something that affected the social structure of driver's who maneuvered their cars tires over them. I just thought it was kind of fun to consider. Children, who even if unknowingly, had controlled a certain percentage of adult drivers to deconstruct their pinecone dam, which they had constructed. Cool.
OK. Anyway...
"Truth Social"...a phrase that will one day in history refer to an extremely venal obverse statement made unbelievably, in plain sight.
Remember "fag hags" from the 80s and 90s? So their daughters (maybe?), apparently, or something, moved over to the Proud Boys with their bizarre mode of homoerotic bluster, as Greco Roman wrestling wanabees and tomfoolery. Just sayin'...
Today’s podcast is from the Lincoln Project on, We Are Proud Boys with Andy Campbell, from September 20, 2022.
It's no secret that military and police skew conservative. So of course there will be a found connection between them and conservative extreme right wing elements like MAGA, like seditionists/insurrectionists groups, like Oath Keepers, like Proud Boys, and such. Good cops and true military are not binary but fully based in reality, out of sheer necessity. Because lives depend on it. Because war depends on immediate and accurate reality. The world is not black and white. The world is shades of gray and at times in color, and highly complex. The goal of some politics to lean into simple catchphrases. Dumbing our reality down to a mob chant to aid in control of the masses. Even intelligent educated people enjoy that as entertainment. But when you apply your entertainment to your reality you’re only going to destroy what works all around you. And in our case, has worked for over 200 years. Boredom and a desire to be "greater than", has led to a destructive Republican party and unnecessarily confused, conservative mindset.
To be clear regarding Antifa and BLM, and left-wing protesters versus Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, and right wing extremist groups in general…as this podcast points out, while the left has some recordings of destruction during protests, which are played over and over, for years by right wing media, those right wing extremists have vastly bigger numbers in attacks and destruction. (Which is why the FBI and Homeland Security are more concerned about them, far more than anything left-wing.) Which makes it look to conservatives as if the denigration applied to Antifa, and others from the right, is actually justified. When really, it's not but just more conservative right wing destruction porn and fantasy.
The reason our news media has failed so much over previous years is because they’re designed to report on “news“. But what they’ve been reporting on most especially from conservative right wing extremists, and the Republican Party anymore, is propaganda. Which by design is purposefully insinuated into news of any country, and disseminated to skew the reality of its citizens. The way in which media actually needs to report and dissect this "news" (propaganda), from interviews, actions and quotes by these extremists, under the adjuncts of journalism, makes it therefore to appear to be questionable, if not outright unethical. And therefore, propaganda wins. And so we’ve seen a Republican Party skewing ever closer to old tried and true Soviet/KGB propaganda methodologies from the 1990s until finally they elected a criminal propagandist, and so far have built up a façade that is not only inflated and incorrect (as is Donald Trump so much of the time), but literally criminal (also very like Trump).
A while back Trump started declaring Antifa as terrorists and then anyone he didn’t like, as Antifa. That then bled out into the conservative right wing and Republican party, because they felt they needed to follow the crowd that Trump was leading. It’s poisoned half of our political system and a third of our country.
Since January 6 2021, MAGA have attacked journalists. We’ve long talked about how horrible it is that journalist reporting on wars and in banana republics have been attacked, arrested illegally, tortured, and even killed. And now we’re seeing that beginning in America coming from Trump his right wing MAGA nuts and the Republican party at large, fearful of themselves, of MAGA, and of Trump. Damn, so much fear. Have some courage.
It took a while for Trump to claim media were the enemy of the people, until the bombs started showing up at their houses. But now Trump's Mar-a-Lago has had a warrant served for illegal classified documents he stole from the White House, Trump complains labelling it an illegal search, which it obviously wasn’t, and he calls out the FBI as evil or something. So they had to close ranks to a reasonable threat to protect themselves, as some Republicans, even in Congress have called for not only defunding but eliminating the FBI. Which is ludicrous. Just look at how much anti-crime and anti-terrorist action and the FBI does and not just nationally, but worldwide. It's idiocy.
The reason presidents have historically been so very careful about their speech and actions is not just to get reelected, not just to get their party reelected, after they’ve done their two terms, but because they can foment ignorance, dissent, sedition, and insurrection, so very easily. Inspiring violence by citizens against other citizens. Trump's attitude was just, "I don’t care, this is all about me, I’ll do anything as long as I can get away with it." Once Trump is gone, whether that’s into prison, reasonably executed by the state, or simply completely discredited, the poison he began is still in our body politic and will take years if not decades to go away. Consider the seed that can years later crack a boulder. And for that reason among others, Trump is our worst citizen, our worst president in American history and in the history of democracy in a large. Trump has created the illiberal playbook that can now be recognized and perfected over time. It could potentially one day, even a hundred years from now, be the reason American no longer exists. Thanks to Trump and this Republican Party, this Republican Congress, and this overly conservative (Republican) SCOTUS.
America is a young nation, with only another 50 years or so to be 300 years old. As we’ve seen with teenagers who commit suicide, in the majority of cases if you can just get them through those difficult years, they can be fine the rest of their life. Especially if they get the positive therapy required to re-orient them into adulthood.
My next podcast for my walkabout today is Political Gabfest From September 15, 2022, What if Ukraine Wins, with today’s guest Anne Applebaum, from the Atlantic.
I know how difficult this is for Russians, considering Putin‘s efforts squashing any citizen who speaks out against him or his illegal war in Ukraine. But Russia has got to start doing what Americans did with our anti-Vietnam war protests and actions against our government. Russia has to prove to those surrounding Putin, at arms length, within touching distance of him, to end his dictatorship. If not set up a situation where the news reports that Putin “fell “out of a window. This is really so stupid. If the Russian leadership could break out of there east versus west mentality, they too could be a functional and wealthier nation. They just have to re-orient what they think greatness means. Stop holding onto the past. It’s gone, because... it’s in the past. Build a new future and have the world join in with you. But first, you have to finally join the world. We're here, waiting.
Western intelligence has carefully looked at Putin’s using nukes since March 2022. When the Russian army left Kyiv, between that and other information, they came to the realization that Putin does not have a death wish and it’s not insane. But is working off a different set of principles and maybe, bad information. Putin is also considering his relationship with Xi in China and Russia’s interests in Africa. UK seems to have run out of weapons to give Ukraine. Germany is debating over what else to give.
What Russia or Russians want, has no effect on Putin who is going to do whatever he wants. Such is his perfected Teflon bubble of power. Which is why I keep saying, it’s gonna take maybe even one person, bumping him out that damn window. Giving leadership an opportunity to do what they can’t do as long as Putin is alive. Of if he’s one day only out of office. As with Trump, death benefits their country.
We need to consider the relevant information that what Putin wants is to return Russia to it empire glory. What we all need to understand is that is unachievable, no matter what happens. With that consideration, then how do we act? Fear of their nuclear weapons doesn’t benefit anyone. Putin in a position where he feels he will use them, also doesn’t benefit anyone. But there is a gap in between those two things that needs to be exercised and exploited.
Admittedly, tossing Putin out a window as many Russians (and I) have said, need to realize there is no path for succession. No one knows who would take over. And that may be how we resolve this. Find out, set up someone new and promote this idea to them. Divide and conquer.
We need as a nation, to start looking askew at any attracted to "strong leadership" or over strong leadership. That has to be made to be seen and felt as “uncool “. It’s a conservative notion, although there’s been leftist strong men in the world, to be sure. But for today in America, it’s a path, that leads to a road, leading quickly to a Freeway of autocracy.
On abortion, making it illegal at all from the national / federal level is not protecting against infanticide, but in emboldening and supporting matricide. Which was WHY it was legalized in the first place! I don’t see why that is so hard for antiabortionists to fathom. Ignorance? Brain damage? Political social disease? It's' foolishness.
According to medical experts, 24 weeks is when a fetus can recognize pain. Lindsey Graham pushed a 15 week ban on abortion because that’s when they can start feeling pain. Which is either a lie or is purely ignorant. 90% of abortions are done before 15 weeks. So that’s good. But Allowing a ban after 15 weeks, when it should be up to a doctor and the patient, is an undo restriction on women's, and not just women’s, civil rights. It also calls for the overall platform of conservatives and Republicans and Christians, who for the most part are anti-abortion, to support and empower what has long been a defective conservative ideology, overall. Not to mention that feeling pain, is really not a justifiable option, or at least criteria, for denying abortions. You’re going to put up a moment's pain against what could be a child's lifetime of pain and misery? As well as the family, the mother, the community, or the eventual death before birth of the fetus anyway, and/or the mother's? Again, this is basing politics of a minority against the majority which is abusive, immoral, and ignorant.
So-called "Self research" and "home schooling" are fully dependent on the qualities and skills of the adults involved. My youngest was homeschooled and when put into school starting second grade, was tested and could have easily gone into fourth grade. We allowed skipping one grade because we were concerned about the emotional impact. Which was always someone of an issue, but not overly noticeable until it became a big issue at the age when all their friends were testing for a drivers license. When it became an emotionally crushing issue for them. But what about all the poorly self-researching adults and poorly homeschooled children, by their parents? Education is an issue of not only America’s economic security, but overall national security. We do have to be concerned with the rights and care of the individual. But that also has to be balanced with the same for the overall group and improved in between.
This is interesting. The other day I met a neighbor who was talking about the eagles in my backyard, on the top of a tree. I shot footage of them and made a silly small video about them: "Eagles & Crows". Anyway, he seemed to know all about those eagle parents. Who had. I think he said three eaglets. Once they were big enough they all flew them from my house in West Bremerton over to Seabeck where they taught them how to survive. Then they left them there and they came back here. Apparently there wasn’t a lot of food (somehow, in the Pacific Northwest). Now bigger, the eagles came back here looking for food but their parents wouldn’t feed them and were basically telling them to go back to Seabeck. Just thought that was all interesting...
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