MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
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MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Order today at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
In the last 24 hours, it has become clear that, despite warnings from experts like Dr. Fauci, Donald Trump is willing to sacrifice lives to try and save the economy and his chances for re-election.
The amazing thing is that some of his prominent supporters are starting to say the silent part out loud. Consider the comments of Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, who, a few days ago, said, “We don’t shut down our economy because tens of thousands of people die on the highways. It’s a risk we accept so we can move about. We don’t shut down our economies because tens of thousands of people die from the common flu.”
In other words, we take inherent risks all the time. Why should a global pandemic be any different?
https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-party-of-life-embraces-trumps-gdp-death-cult?ref=home
Sounded better in the original German
“Our starting point is not the individual:
We do not subscribe to the view that one should feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, or clothe the naked … Our objectives are different: We must have a healthy people in order to prevail in the world.”
― Joseph Goebbels
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/281832.Joseph_Goebbels
Comments
Rupert Murdoch told the virus seriously while his on air talent said the virus story was an attempt to attack Trump
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/business/media/fox-news-coronavirus-rupert-murdoch.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage
by rmrd0000 on Tue, 03/24/2020 - 12:12pm
I posted Smith's first story on the above here on Sunday.
by artappraiser on Tue, 03/24/2020 - 3:05pm
Thanks
by rmrd0000 on Tue, 03/24/2020 - 3:13pm
more on Ben Smith's work on the Fox News story:
by artappraiser on Tue, 03/24/2020 - 9:50pm
Liberty University wants to reopen dormitories despite the pandemic
https://www.thedailybeast.com/jerry-falwell-misled-me-on-reopening-liberty-university-city-manager-says?ref=home
by rmrd0000 on Tue, 03/24/2020 - 4:25pm
Great. Trump wants Republicans to "pack the churches" on Easter, it'll be "beautiful", by which he may have meant "rapturous" in his limited vocabulary. Democrats especially on the elite coasts are assumed to miss out on this "Assumption".
by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 03/24/2020 - 4:53pm
Trump needs to support their courageous decision by going down personally to have a meet and greet with those students and teachers.
by moat on Tue, 03/24/2020 - 5:49pm
Jack Shafer is on my wavelength:
by moat on Tue, 03/24/2020 - 10:09pm
Nah nah, Spring Breakers serving Sunbirds at Mar-a-Lago, or maybe a Trump-branded cruise ship. Have that right look?
by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 03/25/2020 - 1:38am
great pics.
I was just thinking about: is he smart enough for the following or not? Start the talk about returning to work today because he knew a yuge stimulus bill was coming from Congress within like 24 hrs. That would cause the markets to rally some. So that he could take the credit for a rally in the markets, saying it was because of his happy talk. We'll see. A bit too extra-dimensional chess for him. On the other hand, I would think he's been talking with Mnuchin and that Mnuchin probably manipulates him some (and it's basically wacko Kudlow's job to manipulate him...)
by artappraiser on Wed, 03/25/2020 - 1:51am
As the avatar of the Red Hats, his job has been to express what they wish was true and to make the government into the second wife of a rich man. Admitting that there is defect to this approach would bring the whole operation into doubt.
When you are in the hole digging business, the only tool available is a shovel.
by moat on Wed, 03/25/2020 - 7:09am
Lol
by rmrd0000 on Wed, 03/25/2020 - 7:30am
Along similar lines for conservatives willing for others to be Soylent Green
https://progresspond.com/2020/03/25/an-actual-modest-proposal-for-the-willing-to-die-conservatives/
by rmrd0000 on Wed, 03/25/2020 - 4:34pm
Extra bonus if they come to do their end time volunteering in NYC, they can stay at the Four Seasons!
by artappraiser on Wed, 03/25/2020 - 4:54pm
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 03/29/2020 - 4:28pm
Looking at all Falwell has said over the years I can only assume that god is punishing Liberty University because some of the students, faculty, or Falwell Jr. are gay.
by ocean-kat on Sun, 03/29/2020 - 5:17pm
The stories of Job and Abraham ("give me a son") tell us God can test the virtuous without them having sinned, but then again some locusts and horned toads were always a good effective FX for those that piss God off. "Vengeance shall be mine..." and besides, I doubt Falwell &followers read the more positive parts of the Bible -too busy looking to get up their neighbors' butts. Hey, that's what *you* said.
by PeraclesPlease on Sun, 03/29/2020 - 6:00pm
The great sin of man is the hubris to think we can read and interpret the bible for ourselves. What are you, some sort of Lutheran? God speaks to a couple of men, like Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell, each generation to tell us what to think. We're all being punished for the original sin, the Gutenberg press.
by ocean-kat on Sun, 03/29/2020 - 6:27pm
As per your first link, I want to know who decided that after they saw the writing on the wall on PPE shortage, that since it became clear that nothing would be done about by the powers that be, it should be pushed to the public that they don't need masks, in order to save them for first responders.
I don't know that this is a particular U.S. problem. It is actually more of a cultural prejudice problem, that's what hit me when I saw a striking relatively recent video from Italy, where some Chinese experts who were advising there held a press conference, and the one woman yelled at the podium "you people still aren't wearing masks! you're walking around without masks!" Of course, she didn't understand their supply and rationing problem. But point made: why you are still dying.
And before it hit the west, it was common to look at photos of everyone in Asia wearing masks as if they were aliens.
I just think spin P.R. is an insidious thing in health care matters. There's just something that bugs me about hiding the truth or simplifying or even lying for good cause because they think the public can't handle it. Put the truth out and explain the reason for the Catch 22 if there is one. That's the democratic way.
Some doctors in particular have always had the authoritarian attitude that they are god and patients can't handle the truth, that's the attitude I am thinking about and I despise it. If they want to offer a "god" option, as in "you don't have to learn about this if you don't want to, I'll play god for you" that's one thing and fine. But tell the truth, don't treat other humans like idiots. Even my mentally disabled brother understands that choice with health care questions, he knows he's not capable of understanding so he goes with trust. But you give him the choice of who to trust, that's human dignity, agency for every human.
by artappraiser on Sun, 03/29/2020 - 6:17pm
Susan Glasser asks a good question about Liberty University
Aren't other religious schools shut down in VA?
by artappraiser on Sun, 03/29/2020 - 11:34pm
Reuters reports, the World Health Organization has singled out the United States as a unique threat to world health.
The U.S. has a very large outbreak, a series of very uneven regulations from state to state, and a White House that is expressing more concern over market falls than overcrowded hospitals. No other nation on the planet is adding cases like the United States.
by NCD on Tue, 03/24/2020 - 7:06pm
Good. Bless W.H.O. I still put faith in the U.N. despite all its foibles, it's all we got.
by artappraiser on Tue, 03/24/2020 - 7:37pm
When you gptta global problem, you need a global government...
by jollyroger on Sun, 03/29/2020 - 5:53pm
by artappraiser on Tue, 03/24/2020 - 9:44pm
Is this the "right" woman?
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=470714080491530&id=321250352...
by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 03/25/2020 - 5:02pm
Excellent point:
I do know how this shit works, I have seen up close what she is talking about, and it is shit and our health care system will not be able to handle it. And that was the case before coronovirus hit. Because the influx of patients coming from Obamacare was already too much for the system.
The loss of voice is a particularly common side effect of use of a ventilator and the doctors just don't care that much if it happens. They saved your life, it's on you to get the O.T. or whatever. Quality of life: not their problem. May not be the insurers problem either. (Even Medicare limits the amount of therapy and similar it will pay for. Vanilla Medicare coverage is not at all about quality of life, it is not oriented towards wellness, only acute illness and managing those chronic illnesses like diabetes that have proven to cause expensive acute illness if not tended to.)
by artappraiser on Wed, 03/25/2020 - 6:12pm
While the party of Trump may pick up and prefer some memes, doesn't mean they are real or will get executed Seems ot me that in the end, he almost always listens to his own preferred elites of the moment, whether they be Jvanka or Mnuchin or Stephen Miller or some talking head he saw on Fox News that morning, whoever. Here today this is coming from the mouth of someone he trusted criticizing what he had been saying, someone convinced him to say this, clearly, someone who knows the markets:
Those he truly doesn't end up liking what they say or do, he gets rid of.
Look here's my point: they all loved to chant "lock er up" at rallies, but she's still out there, free and clear, even replying to his tweets. She's not locked up. It's all fantasy. It's all thinking fantasy narratives aloud. It's not real and the fans accept that it's not real. They just like baying crazy angry stuff at the moon. Another example would be how he backtracked on separating parents and children on the border once he played it for all it was worth with the fans, someone pointed out how suburban Republican women were reacting and it was over...
by artappraiser on Wed, 03/25/2020 - 6:40pm
The fans do accept it is not real when it is stuff happening to other people.
When it is their private parts that are involved, perhaps the situation will change.
And the results of the push backs by elites do not change the fundamental problems facing government in each of the agencies that are being destroyed from the top. The crises go from Eleven to Eight and it barely gets reported any longer.
I figure when the Red States who pissed on the memos start needing help, it stops being a team sport.
by moat on Wed, 03/25/2020 - 9:09pm
Cruz wanted to be fiscally responsible and delay funds when Sandy hit N.Y. and N.J.
When Houston flooded, Cruz was the loudest whiner for relief
by rmrd0000 on Wed, 03/25/2020 - 9:25pm
There it is.
by moat on Wed, 03/25/2020 - 9:43pm
you clarify more nuanced deconstruction of the problem, moat. We all get distracted by outrage vs. outrage over fantasy memes which aids in distracting us from caring about the lower level destruction that is actually happening. It's the troll thing, it's always the troll thing: stress the extremes and play up the divisive anger of team vs. team. All using extreme hypothetical memes instead of reality. It's been done on Israel/Palestine discussion threads on the internet for decades, gin it up, which side are you are, line up in two teams, rile them up, both sides end up playing monsters, etc.
by artappraiser on Wed, 03/25/2020 - 9:46pm
P.S. I am reminded that Rick Wilson picked this new death cult meme as bound to be a new viral thing the minute Trump started on it even before Trump's conference was over. He's like an expert, knows it when he sees it, used to help manipulate it. It's a distraction for the fans and the conservative talk radio circuit, to get them riled and distracted with irrelevant stuff while real shit can go on behind their backs.
by artappraiser on Wed, 03/25/2020 - 9:52pm
We are a divided nation. Putin understands that. Trump understands that, This is no magical person whit is going to unite us. We are divided by ethnicity and we are divided by religion
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/opinion/religion-democrats-republicans.html
Yelling about tribes is not going to change reality. If abortion is important to you, you will vote for a racist like Trump who promises to decrease abortions. If you see class as the solution to everything and ignore race, you will lose black voters, just like Sanders lost black voters. You want your tribe to have a voice.
If you are a white Evangelical who does not fear the Rapture, you will be in the group of students who head back to Liberty University despite warnings about social distancing. If you are black and remember hearing about the Tuskegee Experiment, you have no reason to trust that blacks are receiving equal access to medical treatment in the COVID-19 pandemic. You want to see the numbers broken down by race.
It is very much team versus team. Ezra Klein finds no solution in his new book. E.J. Dionne thinks it is a waste of time to reach across the aisle in his new book.
The teams don't agree on the law.and the teams don't agree on constitutionalism.That is why Trump is stacking the courts.
by rmrd0000 on Wed, 03/25/2020 - 11:26pm
Reality: Senate just voted 96-0 to spend $2 Trillion. The most expensive bill EVER. The White House agreed to it. What you are trying to sell is simply not true as to governing It has to do with culture wars. And politicians manipulate that when it's to their benefit in the ginned up game that's called politics. But it is no way real about governing. We can unite to do things and we have and will continue to do so.
by artappraiser on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 12:01am
Congress to bail out firms that avoided taxes, safety regulations and spent billions boosting their stock
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/25/still-too-big-fail-us-is-primed-bail-out-corporations-again/
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 9:19am
Sigh
It took a while to get agreement on this bill.
Do you believe that Congress is united and will work together on other issues like immigration, gun control, healthcare, etc.
If the above is true, we should just re-elect Trump because we are united.
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 9:27am
Tim Scott's bipartisan words
https://freebeacon.com/politics/partisan-hogwash-tim-scott-rips-pelosi-senate-dems-for-coronavirus-distractions/
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 11:25am
More bipartisanship
https://www.theroot.com/the-quiet-part-is-now-out-loud-1842507657
Edit to add:
https://www.theroot.com/rep-matt-gaetz-is-big-mad-that-howard-university-is-ge-1842507743
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 11:38am
Republicans want to cut jobless benefits because it encourages the lazy
Pelosi Defends Jobless Aid In Stimulus, Tells GOP Not To ‘Resent Our Lowest-Paid’
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/pelosi-stimulus-600-unemployment_n_5e7c083bc5b6cb08a927ac3d
Steve Mnuchin: Record 3.3 Million Jobless Claims ‘Are Not Relevant’
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/steve-mnuchin-unemployment-not-relevant_n_5e7cb949c5b6256a7a25ecec
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 12:09pm
this guy seems to be pushing quite a different narrative than you:
caremongering instead of my tribe vs. yours, you should think about it some time
by artappraiser on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 2:51am
Mississippi Governor rejects lockdown
https://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2020/mar/23/governor-rejects-state-lockdown-covid-19-mississip/
Trump wants to open up things by Easter
Liberty University is telling students to come back.
You are in a bubble.
Obama is not getting through to the people who view Trump as a god.
Obama reaches rational people.
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 9:13am
Republicans reject reality
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 12:12pm
like Bill Frist and Gov. Lee of Tennessee? Or Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio? Gov. Hogan of MD? Gov. Justice of WV?
You are are assisting Russian trolls with your Manichean politics thing.
When will you realize that politicizing this pandemic like Trump does is not just the stupid thing to do, but could actually be deadly? Sickening, literally and figuratively. I mean it. By jumping into the political on this you are just as bad as Trumpies, your worst example ever of dangerous partisan fever. If ever there was a time to be concerned with one human tribe, it's now on this.
Not just the states,not just Democrats, not just this country, but the world, cries out for a unifying leader, and you offer petty myopic political divisiveness and simplistic labeling and sloganeering along the lines of "Republicans reject reality".
Edit to add
by artappraiser on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 2:33pm
Cut the crap
Joe Biden
https://nypost.com/2020/03/26/joe-biden-slams-coronavirus-bill-over-lack-of-progressive-policies/
Bernie Sanders
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/03/26/coronavirus-sanders-unemployment-relief/
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 3:00pm
There was temporary "bipartisanship " because there was fear
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/26/totally-unprecedented-living-memory-congresss-bipartisanship-coronavirus-underscores-what-crisis-this-is/
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 3:18pm
Your "cut the crap" and "sigh" stuff is such a sure winning sales pitch. Add the ranting about Republicans and racism and tribes, and I go: gosh what genius, just can't figure out why Joe Biden doesn't hire him to run his campaign and win over swing voters in swing states.
by artappraiser on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 3:27pm
No sales pitch. I am not going to win you over. You see everything as tribes. If it is tribes, I see tribes doing some good things.
In the stimulus bill, I see a response to a pandemic. There had to be a bill. I see the GOP willing to let workers suffer and people die to benefit the "economy". The economy is going to be "gangbusters" with people dying and millions out of work. I don't see this as both sides do it. I see Democrats trying at least to include the needs of workers in the bill. I see Republicans working for the corporations.
During this crisis, I don't see Republicans reaching across the aisle. I see Republicans working to stay in power. I do not see them as trustworthy allies.
Biden is winning swing voters simply by letting Trump talk. Swing voters watch Trump, they watch Fauci, and they watch Cuomo. Trump is not normal. Biden and Sanders make comments attacking Republicans.
We are not one happy family. There is no need for pretense.
Trump is ready to let people die. Democrats reject that deal.
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 5:19pm
Fox News’ Brit Hume: It’s ‘Entirely Reasonable’ the Elderly Would Want to Die to Save Economy
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/fox-news-brit-hume-entirely-131616086.html
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 5:25pm
Different groups are more or less divorced from reality. They align with other groups who they may or may not agree with in order to have power.
The troll element is vital to influencing media but I don't see it as a medium in itself. I don't subscribe to identity politics or the rejection of it. It is necessary but not sufficient. There are groups of people who collect themselves to get an advantage but in so far as it is done as a matter of convenience is the degree that it a calculation of chance and fortune that often doesn't pan out or is shown later to be brutally ironic. And sometimes it works.
By saying "team sports", I meant fake fighting versus the actual kind. The "conservative" movement, that can be recognized as the party manipulation initiated by Gingrich, is rightly understood to be the charter for ruthless control of the actual centers of power, no matter the cost to other things one might value. That is not a messaging app. That is how the GOP started having a lot of power. Let's call that "actual" power.
The problem with that move is that there is no basis for it as a matter of representation of individual or group interests. The GOP has to go to all these different parties to have a party. GW Bush may not have been an A student but he worked the evangelist crowd like nobody before him. The party is still riding on the fumes of that ride. I could say more along these lines but I am impatient to get to my point.
The alienation from reality exhibited by true Trumpians taps into an odd confidence that all these political choices are theater and the real thing will support them even if they do everything they can to destroy the medium of the commons. They have become convinced that what supports them does not require them to do anything but buy stuff and shoot people.
It is not a tribe but the believers of that support system are a danger for everybody, including them.
by moat on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 4:58pm
great thoughts as usual moat, thank you for taking the time, I crave your input. you no doubt know I am simpatico with this very well put phrase in particular taps into an odd confidence that all these political choices are theater and the real thing will support them even if they do everything they can to destroy the medium of the commons...
by artappraiser on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 4:48pm
Thank you for the encouragement.
If the lines I draw in the sand makes sense then there are sides and a person needs to figure that sort of thing out.
Accepting that there is a struggle underway doesn't require a complete theory of civilization.
But maybe it does require at least a little.
by moat on Thu, 03/26/2020 - 5:57pm
Lawrence O'Donnell opened his MSNBC show just now arguing that this is all bogus bullshit, especially as Donald Trump has zero power to reopen the country as he had nothing to do with shutting it down. That it's another delusion meant to make it look like Trump has control over anything when he actually has virtually none.
That there are not going to be packed churches on Easter Sunday, it is delusional to even think so and Trump already started walking it back today. And as always, shortly he will deny ever having said it. Etc. etc. He's seguing into how it's more likely that by Easter Sunday flyover country will probably look like Donald's old nabe does right now at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens...
Basically that we all got distracted by the narcissist troll again. Trump thought for one day that telling nice stories about Easter and rebirth will prove him to be a magician....P.R. con man at it again, when, as O'Donnell just repeated: he actually has no power over anything related
by artappraiser on Wed, 03/25/2020 - 10:08pm
Fauci on CNN splaining how there is no magician gonna show up to make people well, doing it without pissing off the fantasizer in chief:
by artappraiser on Wed, 03/25/2020 - 10:18pm
two related reality based stories:
an this one was retweeted by Maggie Haberman who knows Trump's mind and modus operandi:
by artappraiser on Wed, 03/25/2020 - 10:45pm