My thoughts, Stream of consciousness, rough and ready, while walking off long Covid and listening to podcasts…
Weather for the day… 42° broken clouds sunny, nice day for a walkabout
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Well, I haven’t been here for a few days now for a walk, initially because I overdid it with long Covid and I hadn’t felt well. But also because of weather and air quality. Air quality hasn’t been that bad, but I actually got on the road to walk the other day and it was rated moderate, so I turned around went home. It’s not worth taking a chance. Either in doing the 5 miles last week, which I was so happy about getting done finally, after the last two times before that in a couple of 4 mile walks, or for some things I ate making my long Covid flare up in a not pleasant way. Though it seems to be fading. It seems to be less, even since I published my book on long Covid recently. But I’m well aware it could last two years, which would take me to April 2024.
My podcast yesterday was while I was shopping at Costco. Rachel Maddow‘s excellent “Ultra“, episode seven, "
Rinse, Repeat". Next Monday is episode eight and the final installment of this thoroughly remarkable and amazing tale of how Donald Trump was our second insurrectionist, trumped by the one Rachel details in the 1940s. In what was a very similar and familiar event that also had connections with fascists (Hitler, not Putin). Whereas Trump loves the writings of Hitler and authoritarians and despots around the world in general, like Putin or Kim Jong Un. Hitler was actually aiding and abetting the insurrectionist Americans in the 1940s, with some of them in Congress.
I don’t think I’m finding a phenomenology podcast of the type I've been hoping to find.
Brief aside: My oldest son and I had created a faux religion in the vein the
Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, only oriented towards stupidity and religions, in a rebuke of all things that annoy humankind, or irritations in one’s daily life, etc. We called it, The "
Church of the Pure Purple" (the
website explains why). We're also mentioned in the
Urban Dictionary. Though for some reason not in Wikipedia (but then again, neither am I). But we tend to refer to it as, purple ism. Yes there’s a website for it at
purpleism.org. Yes there’s a
couple of
Facebook pages/groups for it.
But apparently there is no podcast dedicated to what I studied at university, at
Western Washington University, in Bellingham Washington. What I’ve been looking for is a podcast on the phenomenology of psychology, or the psychology of phenomenology. Because that’s what I had been studying. I worked at the
University of Washington for over seven years. I also worked for a time with Dr. John Gottman‘s
marital research facility where he did some amazing work that led to my (now ex) wife and I (and the son I mentioned) in a BBC documentary back in the early 90s. But I attended Western Washington University instead (I also took classes at the UW) because I liked their orientation on psychology. It was much less devoted than the "UDub" to what we used to call “rat counters“, quantified psychology, in rat labs. Although I was surprised to find when my girlfriend got a job at Western, that we had monkey labs.
Well, because of all that… I’m going to switch now over to the Hell & High Water with John Heilemann podcast episode with
Jon Meacham. I’ll finish the podcast on phenomenology later. Meacham just wrote a new book, "
And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle"
Hey, I know said I was trying to get off political podcast and into psychology. Or better, phenomenology podcasts. But it’s like, a process, right? Besides I listen now to some very good political podcasts and I’m having trouble finding what I want in phenomenological podcasts. I mean, I could go back to the Folk Phenomenology podcast episode about a woman who was baptized as a child, but partially raised Jewish, and that whole experience. Or listen to the great John Heilemann and even greater Jon Meacham. Kind of, not a contest there. Sadly. But realistically.
As Meacham is mentioning on the podcast, the problem with autocracy is that the strong subjugate the weak. But the weak one day can become strong, and remove the autocratic and abusive. While the best we have the offer in history is democracy. Which is admittedly problematic. Even messy? And difficult. But it allows us that pressure valve and protection of the people. The problem nowadays is people are not well educated in history and global matters, not at a point to which they can appreciate what they have. In any system, you begin the system from a survey of all other systems. Then after a time you start to judge that system from within itself. Self reflection is not only good, it’s necessary and required. But you have to be careful. In reductionism, be it in physics, or politics, or anything, you can reduce to the point of either non-existence, or losing all meaning. I've seen Republicans doing that for year to make Democrats objections see irrelevant. As a form of disinformation. When in reality, they're very relevant objections. In any reduction effort, one has to move back-and-forth in scope. Buddhism teaches moderation in all things. But one also needs to view things, and I would argue in anything, from the perspective of the immediate and specific. From medium distance and slightly more general, and from the long distance, long-term, and most greatly generalized. What confuses some is that you also have to take that effort in viewing something, and look at tha,t as in that most generalized of a sense in viewing that, whatever it is, and make that the short term /immediate and specific, and then blow it out from there. But also one has to go the other way, the other direction. Only then would I would call that, in a Buddhist reference, “Enlightenment”. Yeah, I know that was confusing. Summary: pick a situation. View in in the short, medium and long term. Then take all that and do the same again. Then go the other direction. That, can allow, Enlightenment. Although it requires more.
If you want to a sign to let you know you’re on the wrong side of something, it’s when your favored secular politicians start to evoke God and religion. As Donald Trump has done. As Ron DeSanctimonious (as Trump juvenilely calls him), and as Governor of Florida Ron DeSantis, has now also done. As the Republican Party, especially their MAGA infection, within their party keeps doing. Also remember this, “Separation of Church and State“. There’s good reasons for that. I worry when politicians begin trying to inject their religious beliefs into a secular government's mechanism, regulations and laws. They need to be really worried, too. We’re quite past that now, because they’ve been doing it for a long time. Long before Trump's MAGA disease. Which, if he died tomorrow, will continue on without him. Which is what many of us worried about when he started up his political machinations some years ago. Democracy, with a little "d", is delicate (with a big "D"). You have to fight for it, to maintain it, from time to time, and if you don’t treat it right, it easily turns into something much darker and horrific. Which is what "1984" (1949) by George Orwell, and his 1945 book "Animal Farm", which of late we seem to be all about. I think everyone in the country should sit down and read those book, right now, before they do another thing. Although, some may need them explained (if not read) to them.
John Heilemann mentioning how Pres. Biden was able to walk out on stage after a pretty damn good election, which was only that good recently for Pres. George W. Bush, in part because of him starting a war, or two. One he had planned to start long before he became president, in Iraq. But before Bush, it’s been a very long time. Well, I can make the comment that I was very unhappy George Bush got elected. When I’m pretty sure that should’ve gone to Al Gore. But at least he didn’t pull any crap like what Trump did. Because VP Gore (Got to shake his hand once), had concerns for something other than himself...like his country, and democracy, and our citizens. I nether thought Bush was a real smart guy. Smart in some sense, but not as POTUS. He did OK, I guess. But when he won the electiotn Al should have won, I figured, America had been fooled. Fool me once… But when America voted Bush in for a second term? And I understand that happens during a war (a war that went on for 20 years, thanks for that), with all the mismanagement and mistakes that brought with it, I remember saying when Bush won his second term that, "I give up on America. If they’re going to vote Bush back in. They should know better by now and they don’t". Well Obama gave us some hope. Too much maybe. And apparently really offended a lot of America and sparked not very dormant racism. Then Trump yanked that rug out from under us and got in his little golf cart and drove the other way, away from democracy and as fast as he could. In order to continue acquiring all the money he could get legally, and illegally, morally but mostly immorally, and unethically. And that's just the facts. My older brother, seven years my senior, a big Trump supporter and somehow a nutcase toxic conservativism believer, who was kind of a hippie (he'd say never) back in the 60s...well, my facts are based in reality. I build my buildings on solid rock ground. Not an imitation of the Washington DC swap that Trump was allegedly voted in to get rid of but instead built another one and filled both of them to overflowing, pouring out into America his MAGA disease into a corpse of the zombie Republican Party of 2012. If you remember that. Where their self autopsy told them they needed to go a certain direction, entirely opposed to where they were headed, and then... they doubled down raw barebacking America until they injected enough of their disease from Donald Trump.
While we’ve on the tipping point of autocracy, we do finally seem to be leaning a bit left at this point. I think pretty much everybody sick of Donald Trump. The problem as I mentioned above, is that once you fire up a mindset that people find glee in exercising, it may never go away. Now to be fair, we’ve had that mindset since before the Civil War. Which was there to exploit. And as we mature our old conservatives anachronistic beliefs flame up. Which I call the “vicious animal dying“ syndrome, wherein, as something dies it flares up fighting death before it fades away. I’ve noticed this with disease. As you heal you hit a point where the disease gets suddenly really bad as “the fever breaks“. Will we get over these lead stories of late, to start feeling better? Or is it over with? I suspect we're stronger than we realize and autocracy can kiss our collective ass. We’ve seen some religions flaring up a bit, mostly Christianity, especially Evangelicalism, because they’re slowly dying out as America, as humanity at large if we're paying attention, evolves into greater knowledge and a better awareness of reality. We're also seeing it here in America with racism, and those sadly still authoritarian curious.
Remember what we’ve seen in interview video of
Tucker Carlson saying that when he’s put on the spot and doesn’t have an answer, he lies. He says he doesn't lie on TV. Nonsense, practically his entire program is based on lying to America. To his viewers. Donald Trump doesn’t even do that when he's on the spot, he just lies, like he breathes.
For the record, I do not lie. I haven’t since I was a child. It’s a long story why, but it's cemented deeply into me to always tell the truth. To try hard to be accurate. IF I'm ever wrong, it's a mistake and I'm happy to correct it. And I always do if and when I can. For one thing, if you always tell the truth, life it just easier. You don't have to remember your lie universe. Whenever you don’t want to tell the truth, you have to be more clever to answer truthfully to get through the situation. That may come down to just saying, "I’m not going to answer that," but then you're not lying. It makes you smarter. Not to mention your reputation grows in good ways. Telling the truth is like doing push-ups for your mind/brain. You’re going to end up stronger working that mental muscle, than someone who just sits in a chair staring at a wall. We have to exercise our minds in order to exercise our brains. And the mind and brain exist together. That’s why you can’t take one person‘s mind and put it in another person's brain, because the physical structure isn’t there to support it. You would get a schizophrenic out of it at best. Which is kind of what happens when you take immoral people like Trump and put them in a more obvious and structured environment like being president, where ethics actually matter. As does reputation. Trump proved you can be POTUS with a really shitty reputation, that there's a way to work that. But I think this midterm election has shown, Americans are sick of that nonsense. Or if you take a moral person and put them in an environment like the shit bubble surrounding Donald Trump. It warps people, it infects, damages. Someone said everything that Donald Trump touches is corrupted. There’s a reason for that. We wondered why some good people did bad things when Trump was president. Now they've woken up out of his influence and they're regretting it.
It’s the mental condition of sociopaths. I went through this with my own mother. Decades ago, I visited her at home. I talk to her and listened to things she told me and I commiserated with her. She was telling me things I didn't know about, couldn't yet, couldn't verify, so you tend to trust someone and react accordingly. Perhaps there’s some obvious codependency going there. That situation kind of messed up all of us kids (Kids, we were in our 30's and 40s back then). I walked out, leaving her house that day and it was about 15 minutes later, my mind having been working on everything she had said, as I was driving away. I began to realize that nothing she said made sense. That it couldn't be true. Then I remembered other things like that, other times this had happened. And I realized, nothing she said was true, but she believed it. It was victim mentality for one. Something we constantly hear from Trump. Some of what Mom said was true, but her interpretation of things was severely warped and bent toward making her look like the victim, like someone who people needed to support and do her bidding, against others. And that was when I realized...this was a mental illness of some kind. She had a mental illness. We'd long known she had something going on (and drugs for a long time were part of that) I told my siblings about it. We tried to affect positive change for her. But all we did was to piss her off We had no legal recourse. When she needed to be in an institution and managed and her mind reshaped. Healed. And that’s what I’ve realized with Donald Trump. He’s the same exact kind of person, only far worse than my mother and far more destructive and mean spirited. Vile and greedy. The thing about sociopaths is they can be very charming because they will sacrifice their own selfness, temporarily, to be whatever you need them to be for you to give them what they want, or I should say, vice a versa. They will give you what you want from them for them to get you to give them what they need. That’s why whenever I meet someone like Donald Trump, I know it, usually instantly, in my core that this is not a good person to be near. Get away from them! And I won't stay around them, at all. Why should I? I know what's coming. I don't think I've ever been wrong either, when that has happened. Others around me have noticed that and used that to their own benefit. IF I won't deal with someone and they know why, they save themselves the pain and follow suit. To sum up here, one sure as hell does NOT give someone like Donald Trump the most powerful office in the history of humankind. That is feeding the pathology. We fed his pathology. His sociopathy. Fueled his narcissism. To all our determent. And we nearly helped him end this country.
Jon Meacham in the podcast just said “When I say we should follow the rule of law, and that sounds partisan. That's a sign of where we’re at.”
Time for me to restate my beliefs, since I graduated University in 1984, that we need to watch out for corporations and what I came to call “corporate thought“. That form of thinking that corporations use. They use it to justify profit because they have to, because that’s their job. They use it to justify compromising their morals and ethics and that of others. Since decades ago when I first came to that realization, I’ve watched this "corporate thought" seep into everything. Our government. Our religions, and so much so through evangelism. Seeping into our churches. Toxic capitalism, is what I came to realize was going on. But it takes corporate thinking to support the toxic capitalism. We are manly a capitalist nation and a largely Christian one. People like to say we’re a Christian nation, that is, Christians like to say that. That is, mostly evangelicals like to say that. But the truth is that this country was founded during a time when religion was prominent and had consumed everything. Even if you were a rationalist, or humanist, or a secularist, to just be able to get through the day, most needed to cave into all that in their language. And when called out they had to play Peter, with his three times speaking against Jesus, if you want to reference the Bible on this. It’s something that’s goes against yourself and reality. But just because the concept of God was so profound in society back then. As a Founder of this nation, especially in their not setting up an institutionalized religion, as there was in England, they were trying to get away from that. They wanted a separation of church and state. And it would’ve done well for them, for us now, for them to have mentioned that directly in the Constitution. But how are they supposed to know that at the time, when they really couldn’t say that, that one day it would cost us all dearly. For not just coming out and saying that all religions are welcome, and no religion is better than any other, and no religion is better than atheism. While atheism, as many of them knew as Freemasons, may well be better than theism. And if not atheism, certainly secularism. There’s also a huge difference between spiritualism and theism. Between an understanding of the universe and that of organized religion.
For those who don’t understand "international inflation" or gas prices, instead of blaming Pres. Biden and a Democratic administration, it would behoove everyone if they would blame the Republican Party for it, and even Donald Trump. If you stand back and you look at this from a distance, one can see clearly that in the long run, that would do a lot more good for everyone. Though maybe not the Republican leadership (or their lobbyists who have their lips glued to them), or wealthy Republicans, or corporations. Who don’t have the good sense of what they owe to this country. You can talk to a lot of wealthy democratic people who are quite happy to be taxed more. Not abusively so, no one likes feeling abused. But then too, what appears abusive to us as the poor, certainly isn't to the wealthy. I’ve even seen some wealthy Republican people saying to "tax us more, but I’m not gonna just throw money at you if I don’t have to." On the other hand, there are people who are paying more than their fair share according to tax laws because they can afford it and it's the right things to do. Tax shelters and avoiding taxes as much as you can legally (or illegally) achieve, isn't as Trump said, "Smart", it's unAmerican. It's actually stealing from the citizens. When that comes up in reverse and they are saying an individual is doing something like that, they surely call it crime. So? So it’s a personal thing about how much you value yourself in this country. Who needs tax breaks? Those who don’t have money. Who do we always try to tax the most when Republicans are in office? Those who are having trouble getting by. Who get the tax breaks from them? Corporations and the rich and wealthy. And a lot of times, not even the rich. Follow the money. But also follow the power, and you'll see who is addicted to those who have the power.
Jon Meacham: “It’s the three "D's". Dobbs, democracy, deniers.” That speaks to why Republicans did so poorly on this midterm election. Those who were against women's rights, democracy and who denied election security.
This just popped into my head. On gender. When you’re telling someone about someone else who they don’t know, do you want to use the descriptors? Do you want to have some idea, a foothold into the orientation of the person? If they’re not like that person, if they’re not of the majority, easily understanding who the person is you are referring to. Of those who most people would assume would a certain type of person, without their being described, isn't it useful to use descriptors? Gender can imply an orientation. But only for those correctly labeled with a gender as they see themselves. Unless you’re talking about fashion, perhaps...what good does gender do for you, really? So regardless how many genders there are, or how many some believe there are, unless it’s relevant to the context, why is gender or race as a descriptor, required? And that’s basically the argument that non-binary people, or trans people have, when trying to share such information with others. Yes, they’re a little over-reactive and maybe hypersensitive at times, because of a lifetime of misunderstanding. Or a lifetime of thinking they were defective, then finally as adults, realizing what's wrong, that they’re just gay, or trans. What an amazing revelation that must be for some. And then others brutalize them over finally feeling real and normal. All those years wasted would piss anyone off! Although, I may not agree with everything they believe in or how they believe some things, one does you have to do what one has to do... when you feel like you’re trying to survive. All we have to do is alter our paradigm. Accept the shift. Be supportive. Because we're being asked to support them, to change how we view THEM, not change ourselves and not to be them.
Do you want me to leave another good example. There’s not a lot of examples in American history of rights or programs being revoked. These things are hard to establish. But once they are in place they are hard to eliminate. So if we can take women’s rights away, I won’t say that we should be able to take away gun rights, but we should apply them appropriately for the first time in a long time. Because the Second Amendment has nothing to do with what it’s been inflated to mean. Private militias are unconstitutional. We’ve known that since SCOTUS judge so back it in 1886. I guess we were too lazy to address it when it started to crop up in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. When militias started to crop up. They were a difficult thing to address. There was a lot of other turmoil to deal with. But we didn't address it. We allowed these types their delusions and misinterpretation of the US Constitution. And so here we are. And now we're paying for it. And now when it's most difficult to rectify, we finally do have to address it. Now that we've allowed lies to be institutionalized and normalized. But we have to do it.
As I think I said the other day, we should never have been voting on something like Roe v Wade, on women’s rights, such as abortion. It should be a federal law all women are guaranteed. Part of government is to protect us from abuses. From religion. From toxic conservatism. Toxic capitalism. Yes from toxic or extremist anything. We've failed so often on that. Obviously, a problem is that there can be extremism, I'm not talking fascism, that can be right, sometimes. Go up above a little ways to what Jon Meacham said, when he says, "We should follow the rule of law" and how now it sounds partisan. Because Republicans have normalized not following the rule of law. That’s how far the norm has shifted because of this toxic conservatism effect brought to us by a lost and broken Republican Party with their mental delusionalist's diseases, like Donald Trump.
It should be quite clear if everything was running correctly in this country, related to our elections, we would be a more progressive country, we would have a more progressive government, and Republicans would not often be in power. Not until they curb their bullshit and get back in line with America. Not back in line with the Democratic Party. But back to being more functional to work with Democrats, as they’re supposed to do. If you’re not moving forward, you’re going backward. If you stand still, as conservatives want to do (or even regress) yeah, then you’re going backward. We need to be moving forward. Always. The past is what we've done and we need always to do more, better, newer and to better the lives of our citizens. Not just our corporations. Not just wealthy people who can do for themselves. America is here to help you become wealthy. To be able to maintain yourself but also to keep doing better. To do better and not worse. Not worse and then just calling it better... or great.
John Heilman had a very interesting quote from someone named,
Joseph Bafumi at about 23 minutes in:
"I think the best explanation of this comes from
a paper by Joseph Bafumi, which basically found that voters like to balance out policy change. They just have a very strong sense of status-quo bias and loss aversion. And as a result, they react negatively to dramatic changes in policy. So when policy moves left, they move right. And when it moves right, they move left. Just as when the temperature goes up outside, you move the thermostat down, and vice versa."
To what John had to say, Meacham mentions Jim Stimpson, a political scientist in North Carolina who
said: "The findings suggest that both Democratic and Republican opinion respond thermostatically. However, the suggested account is one of differential responsiveness. Democrats appear to be responding to changes in public policy, but Republicans do not consider policy outputs at all. Rather, Republicans use the partisanship of the president to make inferences about public policy, irrespective of any actual policy change."
Meacham: "When we elect a Republican, public opinion for government goes up. When we elect a Democrat public opinion for government goes down. This is true from Eisenhower forward."
From 1937 to 2017 our policies were based on FDR and Reagan. But those were severely subverted, distorted by Donald Trump being in office and Republicans lining up like little fascist soldiers to do anything Trump wanted, no matter how crazy it was that they were being told to do, except for the very few.
According to the 2022 midterm election apparently America still wants to be a democracy. So Republicans who are fighting against that? “Fuck you!“
John Meacham says 35% of the country are ripe for the kind of authoritarian nonsense that they were gobbling up. And these are the same kinds of people who after Joe McCarthy was brought down, still supported him. He said that 35% had become 48%. But that’s now changing. We just had to get back that 12% and decide we didn’t want to burn our house down, and that’s what happened.
It’s interesting to note those Republicans who lost in this election and conceded publicly. Because they couldn’t bring themselves to be as lowlife as Donald Trump could, or a Kari Lake could.
Well that’s it for the day! I got in 4 miles. I think 5 miles might’ve been too much this time. Next time…
Also interesting for me to note, I used to get off of these walks of a mile or 2 or 3 or then 5 and I'd have to ice and then heat my left ankle, but now I don’t. Yay!
Cheers! Slainte!
