I have a bit of an ongoing debate with a friend of mine about the behavior of the cons in this country. He’s a cut-and-dried kind of a guy so once he reached his conclusion – cons are stupid – he was good. That’s his position and he’s not moving off of it. The thing is, I know many cons who are quite intelligent. As an evidence-based person, I can’t just dismiss the evidence in front of me in order to make a preferred position work like the cons do. That is to say, I don’t buy the blanket statement that these people are stupid because I know too many who aren’t. Although my friend seems unwilling to accept my “solution,” I arrived at the idea that the cons are deceived, not stupid. Still, it’s undeniable that the things they support and the positions they defend ARE, indeed, stupid.

I recently learned about a guy named Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was a pastor in 1930’s Germany who spoke out about increasing atrocities of the Nazis as they came to power. The German people had been led to horrific transgressions by lies and deceptions of the Nazis at the time – call it the Fox “News” effect. Bonhoeffer tried for years to help people see that what they were doing was wrong. In the end, though, (spoiler alert) the Nazis DID come to power and – not surprisingly – arrested old Dietrich and sent him to prison where they eventually murdered him – two weeks before the camp he was in was liberated. Spiteful to the end, those Nazis…

While he was in prison, though, he developed this theory of stupidity. He suggested that the horrific way the German people were behaving at the time was not based in malice but stupidity. He wrote that stupidity was far more dangerous than malice because malice can be exposed and combated. Stupid, on the other hand, is impervious to reason. Facts that contradict a stupid person’s predetermination can simply be dismissed. If the fact is irrefutable, it is simply pushed aside and ignored as inconsequential. (Sound like any cons you know?) But here’s the key. Bonhoeffer defines stupidity not as an intellectual defect, but a moral defect. He makes clear that a person can have a quite agile mind and still be morally stupid. Likewise a person who might be rather dull, intellectually, can still be quite morally intelligent.

Bonhoeffer suggests that this is no accident. People are brought to moral stupidity. They may not be naturally stupid but they allow themselves to be MADE stupid. He observed that people who live in solitude are less likely to fall prey to the big lies while people who engage in groups are made stupid far more easily. That, in turn, led him to the conclusion that this moral stupidity was less a psychological problem and more of a sociological problem – the reason, perhaps, trump’s rallies are so popular among his base. He suggested that every upsurge of power, say…a CheetoJesus, “infects a large part of humankind with stupidity.” He describes it as a symbiotic relationship in which the power of the one needs the stupidity of the other. But Bonhoeffer makes clear that people aren’t losing intellect. Instead, in the face of the rising power, some people just surrender their independence and give up their autonomous positions, more or less willingly.

Bonhoeffer points out that these morally stupid people are often stubborn but they are NOT independent. I have, myself, observed that in conversation with modern cons one can often perceive the morally stupid person as chanting mantras more than expressing independent thought. I know many who support helping poor people, for example, but when confronted with some bumper-sticker slogan they simply retreat into the “safety” of their construct and repeat as they’ve been conditioned. The threat Bonhoeffer wanted the world to understand is that, having been rendered a mindless tool, the morally stupid person is capable of ANY evil and INCAPABLE of even seeing that it IS evil. (January 6th, anyone?)

I used to say that a con would kill their own mother if the conservative media framed it in the right way. Truthfully, I meant it as kind of hyperbolic tongue-in-cheek. Then Covid-19 hit. Conservative media wavered a bit – maybe a day – but eventually went back to support of their “experts know nothing” position and cons DID start killing their mothers. And their children. And their friends and co-workers and people they passed in the stores and even themselves. All of it, in thrall to one big lie after another.

Sadly, Bonhoeffer also points out that there’s really no way to reach any of these people. They have to be internally freed from the power that controls them. Until then, we should just abandon all attempts to convince a morally stupid person. Internal liberation occurs only AFTER external liberation. Ideally, I think this would mean the elimination of conservative media. More likely, the return of the Fairness Doctrine might ensure that the morally stupid people are regularly exposed to correct information to offset the garbage spewed in the conservative bubble. The problem? I’m not sure how one goes about that in view of the fact that immoral people can hide their lies behind the veil of free speech.

There’s an episode of ‘Star Trek’ in which an historian goes to another planet and re-creates the world of Nazi Germany in the late 1930’s and early 40’s. Not surprisingly, his experiment gets out of control and Nazism takes over, finally killing the historian himself. I’ve been watching Republicans take strategies from the Nazi playbook since 43 infested the Oval Office. Karl Rove was apparently a big fan of the Nazi tactics and he borrowed heavily from the Nazi tactical plan. Like the fictional ‘Star Trek’ historian, Republicans seem to believe they can control the froth and frenzy created by the Nazi ideas but we can see cracks in the veneer already.

The Dumbass once came out and suggested his base get the vaccine. They turned on him. He backed down immediately and went right back to repeating the words they want to hear. I see the Republicans losing control of the monster they’ve created. If past is, indeed, prologue, the future isn’t looking any too bright…

I’m writing this on Monday, October 18 and I’ve just learned this morning that Colin Powell died. There will be many tributes. There will only be passing reference to his participation in starting George’s War in Iraq. I have this concept I follow: none of us would like to be judged by his worst day. Generally, this is true but there ARE exceptions. Powell’s presentation to the United Nations that was so effective at convincing so many of so much pure, unadulterated bullshit, puts him squarely on the ‘judged for this one thing’ list. Powell KNEW he was presenting theoretical “evidence.” Maybe this, possibly that. As a military man, Powell KNEW people – innocent people – would die as a result of his misrepresentations.

Powell was well-respected before the UN debacle. Maybe, by refusing to give the speech, Powell could have averted an illegal war started on trumped up charges and false pretenses that killed hundreds of thousands. Instead, for his own personal gain (he thought maybe he would get to be the first black President – as a Republican), Powell helped sell that war to an hesitant population. THAT choice, defined the man in my mind. It was likely the most important moment in his life and he chose dishonor…

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I’ve heard a LOT of people from the television/film industry talking about the Alec Baldwin shooting. It appears some prop master handed Baldwin a loaded prop gun and told him it was not loaded. Until I have reason to believe otherwise, I’ll assume this was a horrifying accident. But everyone in the business agrees it was a completely preventable accident. It’s important to remember the prop man was non-union. Union workers go through regular training and follow union protocols. Non union workers? Well, maybe. Maybe not. Somehow, a system failed that has otherwise prevented this type of accident since 1993 – the last time a worker on a movie set died under similar circumstances.

I presume Baldwin’s production company hired non-union workers to save money. I guess it worked. Insurance companies will pay out the damages, not Baldwin’s production company. Then again, a lot of money went into making the parts of the movie that have been made and I would imagine the rest of the movie will NOT get made and it will not see a release date. If that’s the case, the choice to hire potentially less qualified property masters to “save money” seems to have gone poorly…

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I’ve heard much chatter, recently, about how Joe Biden is causing gas prices to skyrocket – and skyrocket they are. Over $5.00/gallon for Premium. It’s bunk, of course. Biden doesn’t sit in the boardrooms where production decisions are made. Just before CheetoJesus left office, the price of a barrel of oil was WAY too low as far as the industry was concerned so they cut back production. This was a business decision. The effect becomes real only months after the decision is taken – and when a Democrat takes over the Oval Office.

What I would like to see Biden do (though I wouldn’t actually see it) is get with the greedy CEO’s of those companies and tell them that he’s going to start revoking the various subsidies the industry enjoys. I know, some of those are granted by the bought and paid for Congress so the President doesn’t have much say but there ARE things he can do – or threaten to do, anyway. Things like revoking drilling rights and leases for example. In the short term, such a choice would reduce the damage high gas prices always do to our once-great nation.

Still, it could be that Biden knows the pain the high gas prices are going to cause but, like me, he sees that as people get taken to the cleaners by the gas companies, the public might well start making decisions to change their behaviors. Maybe they’ll choose electric cars, for example. In our vicious so-called “free market” Capitalist society the best way to effect change is to hit people in the pocketbook and the gas companies are hitting the American public HARD. Greed kills but in this case, maybe greed will kill the gas companies…

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As I write this, an atmospheric river is flowing over me outside. I’ve heard as much as 5″ of rain will be falling today. Nice. Now I guess I can go back to half-hour showers and letting my hose run and…what? Wait, I STILL have to be careful? What do you mean, this won’t end the drought? It’s a massive storm that promises to…

All right. I’ll stick to the drought protocols. But you’ve got to admit, it’s a hopeful start!

Sometimes I feel sorry for the cons being duped by their corner of the one percent media and this is one of those moments. On some level, whether they’ll admit it or not (they won’t), they know COVID is real…and they’re concerned. They recognize the danger from the virus and want protection. You know how I know? Ivermectin. Hydroxychloroquine. Ingesting disinfectants. Black lights up their asses. They KEEP trying to find remedies but because conservative media sees conservative contrarianism as the truth, the light, and the way, cons are discouraged in said media from taking the one preventative that actually prevents the worst outcomes.

Sometimes, though, I don’t feel one bit sorry for them. Have you heard about the people being “fired” for their refusal to get vaccinated? Quick question, aren’t they quitting? They’re CHOOSING not to follow company policy. Isn’t that quitting?
“Hey,” the manager tells you, “shift starts at 8.”
“No way man, I’ll see you at 10.”
“Don’t bother…”
Did you get fired? I think you quit. I don’t think you should get any of those beautiful unemployment checks you think makes life so sweet, either.

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So, where the heck ARE all the workers? Yeah, I know. If you’re a con, they’re all at home living the good cushy life on that phat unemployment check. In the real world, though, people still have bills to pay and the unemployment augmentations have mostly ceased. I don’t think the old unemployment rates are enough to get the job done – the reason the augmentations were required in the first place. I hear economists saying people are quitting their jobs in droves. They even have a name for it, ‘The Great Resignation.’ Employees are moving on to greener pastures – but that requires better jobs to move to, right? Here’s one possible contributing factor.

When Covid-19 first reared it’s ugly head, the corrupt Dumbass applied his usual dumbass pseudo-skills to the problem. He tried to bad-mouth the virus into submission. When that didn’t work, he gave up and allowed Covid-19 to gain a solid foothold that started killing Americans at an alarming rate. So far, 700,000 Americans have died as a direct result of his failures. 700,000. I’d say THAT created some job openings. I mean, I know many of those people were no longer in the job market. They had aged out. But think about this. (I’m making numbers up, now. This is just an example of a possibility.) Let’s say mom died when Covid swept through her care facility. She was 85. Her kids are in their early to mid-60’s. There was a time in this once-great nation when the retirement age was somewhere between 62 and 65. Not anymore. Now people work into their 70’s (if they can make it) or right up until the day they die. Those of us who grew up in Better America know we’re getting burned but we have also mostly become resigned to our fate.

Then The Feckless Fuckup’s failures killed mom, who left the kids some money. Not a lot, maybe, but enough to supplement what the kids had already done for themselves. Suddenly, they get to retire now. If mom had four kids and they all retired because of the bump the inheritance provided, that’s four new job openings. If that happened with, say, half of CheetoJesus’s victims, 350,000 people, all with four kids (I know. They didn’t all have four kids.) that would be 1,400,000 jobs nobody is coming back to. Add back the other half of the Covid dead, you’re suddenly looking at nearly 2,000,000 jobs “vacated.” I say again, I made up the numbers to illustrate the idea that the older workers might well have left the work force en masse, leaving those jobs available for younger workers – who are snapping them up as quickly as they can. It’s just going to take time to re-staff and re-train workers to do those jobs.

As a real life example, before Covid, we were hearing reports that truckers were an aging group with jobs in the industry not being replaced fast enough. Maybe Covid just did the final trick for them – one way or another – and they’re done. NOW we’re hearing about supply-chain issues…

It’s frustrating right now, but long-term, I think it’s a good thing. Fewer workers, that is, a limited supply of workers, SHOULD bring wage increases all the way across the board. Joe Six-pack will benefit. Sure, Jeff Bezos might end up with a slightly smaller penis rocket but I have high confidence he’ll be all right…

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I wrote last week that Facebook had cleaned up it’s act, likely in response to the possibility they might get scrutinized for their poor civic attitude. Facebook seemed willing to forego profits in the short term to protect their empire long term. The only question was how long it would last. Not long, it appears. It wasn’t even a full week before I started seeing contrary political posts back on my page. I guess the Congressional bribes, er, campaign contributions were distributed quickly and efficiently and congress hasn’t thought about it since…

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Did you hear that Jon Gruden quit as head Coach of the Las Vegas Raiders over racist, misogynistic, and homophobic emails he sent 10 years ago? I don’t care about Gruden. He’s always been an over-rated hack. His one big accomplishment was “achieved” with a team he didn’t build. He got credit for “winning” Super Bowl XXXVII with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, ironically over the Raiders. THAT team, though was mostly built and trained by Tony Dungy, who was unceremoniously released by Tampa Bay only to move to Indianapolis and repeat the feat with the Colts. Gruden never sniffed the Super Bowl again.

The emails were discovered during an investigation into charges of the Washington Football Team’s racist, misogynistic, and homophobic atmosphere since Dan Snyder bought the team. Gruden’s emails were released publically. The rest of the emails in question have been protected from public scrutiny by the NFL. So, who was Gruden sending the emails to? Who else may have been on the threads? Why are the Washington Football Team’s emails being protected when THEY were the focus of the investigation in the first place?

Okay, so…I don’t want to come off as a conspiracy theorist, here, but on the day whistleblower Frances Haugen testified to Congress about poor behavior of Facebook, Facebook’s entire network of social media sites went down for hours. Essentially, the charge against Facebook is that it promotes incivility in order to increase profits. Facebook knows this does damage everywhere, especially to young people and most especially to younger girls. They know it because they study these things and Ms. Haugen brought the internal documentation to prove it. They do it anyway because it increases profit.

As a sidebar, now seems a good time to mention that ANY business does everything it can to increase profit. That’s why businesses exist. It remains the responsibility of the society in which the business operates to define acceptable behavior of the business through laws and regulations. Only a fool would trust the wolf to establish the rules of guarding the hen-house…

After hours of testimony on the east coast and “network management” on the west coast, the world was offered a “deep tech” explanation – the kind of thing most people don’t understand and so won’t/can’t ask relevant follow-up questions. An amazing coincidence, this network crash occurring just as Facebook’s secret, damaging algorithm is being exposed in Congress.

I mostly make political posts. Before the testimony, I had been noticing a string of conservative ads on my page. They were all disinformation in the typical conservative style. They all twisted truth just enough to become untrue. On the day of the testimony/crash, I was trying to log onto Facebook to respond to a conservative friend’s post that had shown up on my page. Sadly, for Facebook, I wasn’t going to fight with said friend. There was even agreement to be had in the post and I wanted to comment. I had just seen the post that morning before the testimony crash began. BUT…

When one COULD log back into Facebook, the post was nowhere to be found. All of the ads from conservative outlets were gone, replaced by fond memories of friends and memes with meaningful sayings and inspirational affirmations. It was full-on “Peaceful Valley.” Oh, and boring. Apparently, Facebook’s internal studies showing that their best profit model comes from keeping people fighting is accurate. Sure, it’s a sorry statement on the state of humanity but, hey…profits!

I saw a headline that said the testimony will prompt action in Congress. I’m sure that’s true. Sadly, the action it will prompt will be an unscheduled round of bribe payments to various Congress critters…

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On Friday, Bill Maher went off on the threat the Dumbass poses to America. He pointed out that Republicans, currently refusing reality, have decided to shape “reality” by dismantling American democracy. Can’t win on the strength of your positions? Then, “win” with carefully placed sycophants and gerrymandering. For Republicans, the point is the win, not the positions. I think Maher’s right. I think America is in FAR greater trouble than we’re letting on. Many cons refused to accept the outcome of the 2020 election simply because it didn’t come out the way they preferred. There was absolutely no evidence of electoral shenanigans on the Democrats part in 2020. The outcome in 2020 was just because a LOT more lefties than righties voted. Still, the cons are out shouting, “I don’t like it so I don’t believe it.”

Now they’re actively, systematically undermining the Republic by putting toady sycophants into influential positions. If a Republican “wins” and the left doesn’t accept the results because of the actual instances of actual vote fraud that will actually occur, the cons will just dismiss the left’s angst and anger as sour grapes, the same thing the cons did after 2020 – only the left won’t be pretending. Still, it will be portrayed as no big deal in the media.

The truth is, elections haven’t been coming out right since Bill Clinton handed control of the media over to the One Percent in the 1990’s. TWICE since then (43 and the dumbass) we’ve had situations where most people chose one person only to have the other person get the job. The disparities have been SO bad, the One Percent’s media decided to stop doing exit polls – the gold standard of polling. THEY said it was because exit polls are undependable. The truth is, the exit polls made it far more difficult to “explain” why the loser was really the winner. And, oh my god, have the “winners” been losers. Far and away the two stupidest presidents America has suffered (let’s call them ‘Dumber’ and ‘Dumbest’) have been the result of electoral b.s. from Republicans – and Dumbest appears to be coming back for more. America will TRY to hand him his ass again but THIS time, the corrupted American system may well prevent good people from stopping bad people.

The fact that there are more sane people than conservatives, more people who love America than conservatives, and more people who respect the Constitution than conservatives isn’t going to stop the conservatives. They’re just going to cheat. But where will that leave America? The cons aren’t even thinking about the damage they’re doing. They just want the win. Those of us who ARE thinking about the damage don’t see any way around it. It’s being slowly baked into the system and once in place, the system will fail. That’s not fear-mongering. It’s history.

Our only hope is to pressure Democrats in Congress to take action. That will take a LOT of us calling and writing and even then, I don’t know how many messages it takes to offset million-dollar “campaign contributions.” (Remember when they were just called ‘bribes?’ “Bribes” is so much easier to write than “campaign contributions.” I think we should stick to calling the bribes ‘bribes.’ You know…for clarity…) Our Congress, both parties, is in thrall to – and working for – the One Percent…against the best interests of the American people. Call them anyway. (202) 224-3121. That’s the switchboard. They’ll direct you to the member who pretends to represent you…

CheetoJesus is actually suing to try to stop his base from finding out about his personal role in the January 6 insurrection. To be clear, he’s not saying he didn’t do anything wrong. He’s saying people shouldn’t be allowed to see what he did. It’s a little silly. Thinking Americans already know what he did and his base doesn’t care – they’d kill their own children for him. The smart money would have been to stay out of it. Of course, I have yet to see a single smart thing come from the dumbass. It’s not “proof,” of course, but from a purely logical point of view, it could easily be understood as a confession, of sorts. You see, if there was nothing to find out, there would be no reason to hide his activities. In fact, if he was innocent, one would think he would WANT to prove it. Instead, he demonstrates the opposite. Obviously, this will have to play out in court…

Trump is a traitor. If you support Trump, you’re a traitor, too. Ask the “patriots” who attacked the Capitol. They were waving the American flag as they assaulted our Republic and they can wrap themselves in the flag as they toddle off to prison – but they’re still traitors…

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Workers are starting to get fired for not getting vaccinated. Good. I’m tired of this virus and the contrarians just keep it coming, over and over. Besides, they’ve made it easy for employers to gauge those who may not be up to the mental challenges of a given job…

Think about it. If you have an employee so selfish they don’t care about the damage they do to those around them and too stupid to understand that they are, in fact, doing damage to those around them, do you want them representing your company?

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No joy. No…no DeJoy. One of the dumbass’s greatest “strengths” was in finding the very worst person to do a job and then put them into that job. It likely explains his long string of business failures. He has, after all, never started a successful company – which makes sense. HE certainly doesn’t know what he’s doing and putting in people who know even less is an excellent way to destroy a company. He did it across the board during his maladministration and one of his worst appointments came in the form of Louis DeJoy.

DeJoy’s job is to destroy the USPS to the extent possible. No, that’s not the official job description. It’s just the understood job description as presented by America-hating Republicans. DeJoy is a saboteur. He owns a shipping company called ‘New Breed Logistics’ and he’s one of those guys who understood that the Post Office did a better job at a lower cost than ANY of the competing shipping companies. Private companies simply cannot compete with government operations on any level. Private companies are less efficient, more expensive, and provide worse service – every time. The lean, mean business machine model is just a lie. They CAN’T get better at what they do so the private companies and their enablers do everything they can to sabotage the government, instead.

In DeJoy’s case, he has done excellent work undermining the USPS. Starting October 1 of this year, we all got treated to the information that – due to his never-ending, keep your eye on the prize determination – first class mail across the country would now be moving slower. He has done nothing to improve the mail service and everything he can to harm it but there he sits. I, for one, will not be surprised when he announces he’s eliminating trucks and planes and returning to the Pony Express slowing the mail even further.

It’s weird. Biden can’t do anything about it. Apparently, this is because Postmaster General used to be a political plum Presidents could use to reward supporters and Congress thought that was a bad thing so they wrote a law changing the way things work. NOW, the President can only appoint members to a Board of Governors and hope they do the right thing for the country. Sadly, the current board consists of Dumbass appointees so we KNOW they won’t do the right thing for the country. They HATE this country.

There ARE currently, three vacancies. Filling those vacancies would give Democrats a technical 5-4 majority but at least one of those is a DINO appointed by the dumbass. So, we appear to be stuck with DeJoy for the foreseeable future. The damage inflicted on the US by the Republicans is ongoing.

It really sucks, watching this once-great nation being brought to it’s knees by choice and by moneyed interests. Greed kills…

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So…Rudy Giuliani has now acknowledged that he got some of the “evidence” he used in court to disrupt American democracy from social media pages like Facebook. According to ‘Business Insider,’ he admitted it under oath during a deposition being taken for a lawsuit from one of the victims of his baseless allegations. He thinks only a “terrible lawyer” would try to find out if the stories he was repeating were actually true. How do I know? He said, “I would have to have been a terrible lawyer… gee, let’s go find out it’s untrue.” I have never attended law school but I think he’s wrong. Lawyers aren’t supposed to present frivolous information in court, which obliges them to find out if things are true if being presented as evidence. I may be wrong about that, but Giuliani is now suspended from the bar in New York because he kept marching into court with frivolous information he couldn’t verify.

Will this revelation have ANY effect on the true believers? No. They’ll never even know it happened. It often surprises me when I’m talking with cons, the things they don’t know. Corrupting the independent media in America was a masterstroke by the one percent…