Sunday, June 30, 1946. Wartime powers expire.

The OPA's emergency wartime powers ended at midnight in spite of an effort by President Truman to extend them.

The Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC) authority also expired at midnight as did the authority of the War Relocation Authority.

Surplus military vehicles  were being sold.

Sunday was apparently the cheesecake edition of the News.  A photo of an actress was given the full page treatment for no other discernable reason, while later in the paper the famous Jane Russell Outlaw poster was also.

And an add depicted teenagers advertising at home.

A sham election in Poland placed the country under the Communist Party and approved the post war borders with the USSR.

Last edition:

Saturday, June 29, 1946. Operation Agatha.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Art, British Army, Hagenah, Jewish insurgency in Mandatory Palestine, Operation Agatha, Palestine

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 142nd Edition, 25th Amendment Watch 21st Edition. The Vietnam Rag, Red Scare Editions.

Donald Trump posted a picture of himself in uniform, purporting to be of himself at age 20, next to one of Barack Obama smoking a cigarette and wearing a panama at, when he was 18 years old.  In truth, Trump was 17 or 18 years old in the photo he posted and he's in the Ne wYork Military Academy, where he was a student from age 13 to 18.

He was sent there because his parents found him to be a bullying asshole.  At that time the thought was common that if you sent a kid to military school they came out a better person.  That was still the thought when I was young, although in the wake of the ongoing Vietnam War, that was getting hard to believe and the schools were dying off.

Put another way, military discipline hadn't turned William Calley into "a plaster saint" as Kipling would put it.

The New York Military Academy itself reflects this.  It's one of the oldest ones in the United States, but it went bankrupt in 2015.  It's been reorganized, but it's student body is a shadow of its former self.

I don't know anyone who went to a military school prep school, unless you count the mandatory high school JrROTC that my high school had before it was eliminated in the late 60s or early 70s (a net search says that was in 1968, which seems early, but which would also show how much the Vietnam War was impacting things everywhere).  I know one person who was sent to a Catholic boarding school in Nebraska as he was a difficult to handle kid. The school was probably Mount Michael, a Benedictine school which has a strong focus on science. According to that person, who later became a lawyer, it really helped him and he was grateful his parents sent him there.

If being sent to military school was more of a threat than a reality for most boys, being given the option of joining the military rather than going to jail was not  I know one person who did just that, and by  his account, it did straighten him out.  He opted for that right after the Vietnam War and part of the process on his end was to volunteer to be a Ranger so he didn't have to serve with the deadheads who were part of his regular advanced training cycle.  That may sound amusing, but when the Army was large that was more common than a person might think.  A major reason for soldiers to volunteer to become paratroopers during World War Two is so that they'd be serving with a better class of soldier.  Anyhow, in this person's case, while he knew he didn't want a military career, it did straighten him out as well.

Military school didn't serve to straighten Trump out at all.  The characteristics that caused his parents to send him to military school are still there.  A person has to wonder if he'd served in the Army if he'd be a less dismal human being.

Trump's draft card. His signature changed enormously between 1962 and when he signed it on a pornographic Epstein birthday card where it symbolized female pubic hairs.

Trump's draft classification is a bit more complicated than is generally acknowledged.  He was initially classified as 2-S, meaning he had a student deferment.  He was reclassified as 1-A after graduating from university in 1968, meaning he was fully eligible for the draft at that time, but he held that status only briefly.  In October 1968 he was reclassified as 1-Y, which meant he was only eligible in the event of a national emergency and in 1972, which was at the point the draft was really winding down, he was reclassified as 4-F.  It's the October 1968 and 1972 classifications which are the now famous bone spur classifications.

Student deferments started to become problematic during the war in 1966 and in 1969 they were hugely overhauled so that student deferments became much more problematic.  Of course, by 1969 Trump was beyond the student deferment classification anyhow.  An eligible person was very much liable for the draft at t hat time, and draft number for the years of the war are as follows:

1964 112386

1965 230991

1966 382010

1967 228263

1968 296406

1969 283586

1970 162746

1971 94092

1972 49514

1973 646

1968 was, accordingly, the high water mark of the draft, but nearly as many men were drafted in 69.

Was Trump's bone spur 1-Y nad 4-F bogus?  I have no way of knowing and neither does anyone else at this point.  I do know that bone spurs can make you ineligible to serve, but only in an odd way.  A soldiers I was good friends with in basic training was having pretty severe foot problems and went in to sick call as a result  He was diagnosed with bone spurs and given a medical discharge from the Army, although that still required him to visit his National Guard unit upon his return home.  He was almost done with AIT at the time.  When he went to the Guard and reported, they asked him how he was doing, he said fine, and they reenlisted him as prior service.  Ultimately, he went on to a career in the Army and retired as an officer.

Bone spurs don't go away on their own, but they can be asymptomatic, which is presumably what happened here.

Anyhow, Trump didn't serve in the Army.  If he had, he probably wouldn't have served in Vietnam.  Most of the troops in Vietnam were volunteers, something commonly forgotten about the wartime draft.

Anyhow, serving in the military would have done him good.  IT would have forced him into a world where money doesn't mean that much and isn't everyone's focus, and it would have forced him to deal with people who weren't rich, like himself.

Barack Obama turned 18 years old in 1979.  Conscription was over, and he was a university student.

Part of the reason that the photo of Obama was put up by Trump was the sort of hip appearance that Obama affected in the photographs.  People vary, but a lot of people really don't look the way they do professionally in their first year of college.  Trump in 1979 had already affected a young businessman look, which is what he was.

The last President with military service ws George Bush II.  His father was the last President with combat experience.  No member of the Trump family has ever served in the U.S. military.

One of the things I've really noted about the Baby Boom generation is that there's a lot of guilt felt by men who avoided the draft.  They were given a hard time about it when they were young, but defended it. At some point in the 1980s that began to change.  The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now came out in 1979, and they are definitely anti war films that a draft evader or draft protester could love.  But 1986's Platoon showed a marked shift.  It's an anti war film, but anti war.  It is pretty sympathetic to the troops and even the Army in a way that the earlier movies were not. Every Vietnam War movie since them took that point of view until We Were Soldiers which is about as rah rah Army as can be.  Somewhere in there the public view of the troops changed.

I've known a handful of men who either avoided the draft or felt like they did.  One I know avoided service in Vietnam by joining the Army Reserve, which is still military service.  He remained perfectly comfortable with his decision.  One National Guard officer I knew was upfront about that being his original reason for joining the National Guard.  He felt guilty immediately, and then ironically his Guard unit actually was one of the few that went to Vietnam.

More commonly, however, I've noticed that the men who felt they didn't go later developed almost sort of a hero worship of those who did.

Trump likes to portray himself as a hero.  He isn't.  He's really quite pathetic and his life is meaningless in al arger sense, as he's accomplished nothing of enduring value.  Barack Obama, whom I frequently disagreed with, will always retain a place in history as the nation's first black President, an accomplishment which seemed to suggest we were finally over the legacy of slavery and egregious racism.  It turned out not, and that helped bring Trump about.

Trump's casting about widely for some success to be measured by.  As his mind deteriorates he's attacking his own past, and that of others.

The man that Trump should be comparing himself to is Vlad Putin.

By Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=70906985

Both Putin and Trump unilaterally got their countries into wars with smaller powers that they expected to rapid win, and are losing.  Putin, this past week, started to be openly threatened by members of his own military.  Russia has a long history of supporting enormous military suffering and then suddenly rebelling.  When Russian soldiers show discontent, usually a revolution is right around the corner.  If there is one, and right now the odds of there being one are relatively high, Putin will be killed.

The United States has no tradition of military rebellion, but Trump has created the same national crisis.  Putin can't win the Ukrainian War and is losing it.  Trump can't win the Iranian war and is losing it.  The difference is that Putin has absolute control of his country, and Trump does not.  There's some suggestion that Trump is now upset with Steve Witkoff and his son in law Jared Kushner, two people whom he naively allowed to negotiate with Iran because Trump knows nothing about negotiating with foreign powers at all.  He knows that hasn't been working so now he's thrown J. D. Vance under the bus.  Both Vance and Rubio opposed the war.  Trump, whose been an asshole his whole life, is effectively requiring an opponent of the war to find a way out of it knowing tha t if he can't, that person's political career is over.

It'll be over, as Trump as an effective President will be over.  Right now, the House is slated to go Democratic in November and there's a decent chance the Senate will as well. Even Lindsey Graham appears to be in real trouble.  According to insiders Trump may want that as he likes being an asshole better than actually leading.  The irony here as been pointed out by Thomas Massie. The GOP controls everything and yet they're still running around all pissed off.

So it's time for a Red Scare.

The US has had two Red Scares, one post World War One and another post World War Two.  The second one actually made more sense than the first.  The first one resulted in illegal actions by the Federal Government.

Both of those scares were more genuine than the current one by a long measure.

The current one is trying to be ignited due to the recent success of Democratic Socialist in New York state.  Absent something really wild, New York will have a Democratic Socialist in Congress next year.  This is nothing new. There have been actual Socialist in Congress before, and right now there are seven members of Congress with Socialist affiliations.

M'eh.

Socialism is the same as communism by a long shot.  A person can be a strong believer in Democracy and, while it is regarded it its real form as antithetical to Christianity by Catholics (who also have strong criticism of Capitalism), there are Christian socialist.    Usually American socialism is so watered down economically that it's capitalism, but the supposed socialist supports child care or something.  Pretty tepid.

The US has had three Presidents whom you could accuse, or celebrate depending upon your views, who advocated or caused to be enacted socialist programs.  Theodore Roosevelt was the first, but it came in his last unsuccessful run when he advocated for what ultimately became Social Security and also for government regulation of large corporations as public utilities.  His cousin Franklin had a lot of socialistic programs, and enacted Social Security, although much of what he did was temporary.  Harry Truman advocated for national health care, but then so did Richard Nixon.  I guess that could bring us up to five, with the final entry, Donald Trump.

In some of his economic policies Trump is an outright Socialist.  He's advocated for government ownership of shares of companies and for seizing foreign oil as if the US owned it.  He frequently sees things as if the US is one big corporation and he's the dictatorial CEO.

That's Socialism.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 141st Edition, 25th Amendment Watch 20th Edition:. Sure, we lost a war to Iran, and the war in Lebanon continues on, and the $13 Rhino Lining treatment of the Reflecting Pool is coming up, but King Donny got a shiny new toy!

Labels: 2020s, 2026, 25th Amendment Watch List, Aircraft, Donald Trump, Sic transit Gloria Mundi, The Madness of King Donald, The Second Trump Administration, This is why we can't have nice things, Transportation, Zeitgeist

Sunday, June 2, 1946. Latinate elections.

Shield of the Italian Christian Democracy Party, Democrazia Cristiana.

Italians abolished the Italian monarchy and elected seats to the Constituent Assembly in a nationwide vote, the same being the first in which women were allowed to vote.

The Christian Democracy party won 207 out of 556 seats and formed a coalition government with the Socialists (115) and Communist (104) parties.  The CD would lead successive Italian governments until 1981.  The party was dissolved in 1994 with the successor party being the Italian People's Party ( Partito Popolare Italiano)

In French parliamentary elections, the French Communist Party lost its plurality (from 159 to 153), the Popular Republican Movement (MRP) gained 16 seats (from 150 to 166) and the Socialist Party dropped from 146 to 128.  No one party had a majority.

Carrie Ingalls of her sister Laura's Little House on the Prairie fame died.

Last edition:

Saturday, June 1, 1946. Cochin China.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, French Empire, French Indochina, French Navy, Harry S. Truman, North Vietnam, Personalities, Romania, South Vietnam, Strike Wave of 1945-1946, Vietnam, War Crimes, World War Two

The Manchurian Candidate. It's like Donald Trump and MAGA really are the Reds.

The hammer and cycle in red. . . it might as well be the symbol of the Trump presidency.

We've remarked before on how the GOP has adopted the color red, the color of the far left, as it's own.  That's beginning to seem more appropriate than ever.

Our dim illegitimate chief executive has gone to China and returned.  In the process, it seems clear that he's getting ready to abandon Taiwan.

Trump's entire trip to China was a complete and utter humiliation for the United States.  An embarrassment of the highest order.  But it fits a pattern.

Trump loves Russia's Putin.  He's super impressed with Xi.  He's kind of a bit of a fan boy to Kim Jong Un.  He loved Orban who was a Putin ally.

If our adversaries from former Communist states had conspired to place into office a man to act as a sleeper agent, they could not have succeeded more wildly than Donald Trump has done without being one. . . presumably.  He's brought a US that was already in trouble down from a world power to a second rate collapsing nation.  It's utterly incredible.

Saturday, February 9, 1946. Stalin declares war inevitable.

Stalin in an "election" speech carried on Soviet radio, stated another war was inevitable due to the "capitalist development of the world economy", and that the USSR needed to plan accordingly.

The Chairman:

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin has the floor.

(Comrade Stalin’s appearance in the rostrum was greeted by the voters with loud cheers lasting several minutes. The entire audience in the Bolshoi Theatre rose to its feet to greet Comrade Stalin. There were continuous cries of “Cheers for great Stalin!” “Long live great Stalin, Hurrah!” “Cheers for our beloved Stalin!” )

Comrade Stalin:

Comrades!

Eight years have passed since the last elections to the Supreme Soviet. This has been a period replete with events of a decisive nature. The first four years were years of intense labour on the part of Soviet people in carrying out the Third Five- Year Plan. The second four years covered the events of the war against the German and Japanese aggressors — the events of the Second World War. Undoubtedly, the war was the main event during the past period.

It would be wrong to think that the Second World War broke out accidentally, or as a result of blunders committed by certain statesmen, although blunders were certainly committed. As a matter of fact, the war broke out as the inevitable result of the development of world economic and political forces on the basis of present-day monopolistic capitalism. Marxists have more than once stated that the capitalist system of world economy contains the elements of a general crisis and military conflicts, that, in view of that, the development of world capitalism in our times does not proceed smoothly and evenly, but through crises and catastrophic wars. The point is that the uneven development of capitalist countries usually leads, in the course of time, to a sharp disturbance of the equilibrium within the world system of capitalism, and that group of capitalist countries regards itself as being less securely provides with raw materials and markets usually attempts to change the situation and to redistribute “spheres of influence” in its own favour — by employing armed force. As a result of this, the capitalist world is split into two hostile camps, and war breaks out between them . . .

And so, how should our victory [in World War II] be interpreted? What can this victory signify from the point of view of the state and the development of the internal forces of our country?

Our victory signifies, first of all, that our Soviet social system was victorious, that the Soviet social system successfully passed the test of fire in the war and proved that it is fully viable.

As we know, the foreign press on more than one occasion asserted that the Soviet social system was a “dangerous experiment” that was doomed to failure . . . [but] now we can say that the war has refuted all these assertions of the foreign press and has proved them to have been groundless. The war proved that the Soviet social system is a genuinely people’s system, which grew up from the ranks of the people and enjoys their powerful| support; that the Soviet social system is fully viable and stable form of organization of society . . .

Now a few words about the Communist Party’s plans of work for the immediate future. As you know, these plans are formulated in the new five-year plan, which is to be adopted in the very near future. The main tasks of the new five-year plan are to rehabilitate the devastated regions of our country, to restore industry and agriculture to the prewar level, and then to exceed that level to a more or less considerable extent. Apart from the fact that the rationing system is to be abolished in the very near future (loud and prolonged applause), special attention will be devoted to the expansion of the production of consumers’ goods, to raising the standard of living of the working people by steadily reducing the prices of all commodities (loud and prolonged applause), and to the extensive organization of scientific research institutes of every kind (applause) capable of giving the fullest scope to our scientific forces. (Loud applause.)

I have no doubt that if we give our scientists proper assistance they will be able in the very near future not only to overtake but even outstrip the achievements of science beyond the borders of our country. (Prolonged applause.)

As regards long-term plans, our Party intends to organize another powerful upswing of our national economy that will enable us to raise our industry to a level, say, three times as high as that of prewar industry. We must see to it that our industry shall be able to produce annually up to 50,000,000 tons of pig iron (prolonged applause ), up to 60,000,000 tons of steel (prolonged applause ), up to 500,000,000 tons of coal (prolonged applause ) and up to 60,000,000 tons of oil (prolonged applause ). Only when we succeed in doing that can we be sure that our Motherland will be insured against all contingencies. (Loud applause.) This will need, perhaps, another three five-year plans, if, not more. But it can be done, and we must do it. (Loud applause) . .

In conclusion, permit me to express my thanks for the confidence which you have shown me (loud and prolonged applause. A voice: “Cheers for the great leader of all our victories, Comrade Stalin! “) by nominating me as a candidate for the Supreme Soviet. You need have no doubt that will do my best to justify your confidence. (All rise. Loud and prolonged applause rising to an ovation. Voices in different parts of the hall: “Long live great Stalin, Hurrah!” “Cheers for the great leader of the peoples!” “Glory to great Stalin!” “Long live Comrade Stalin, the candidate of the entire people!” “Glory to the creator of all our victories, Comrade Stalin! “

Charles "Lucky" Luciano was deported to his native Italy where he'd spend the rest of his life, dying in 1962 at age 64.

Luciano in 1948.

Born Salvatore Lucania, the Mafia boss had immigrated to the US in 1906 as a child.

Last edition:

Friday, February 8, 1946. Kim Il Sung's rise. Viola Faber, accused of murdering her stepson, gives birth.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, 1960s, 1961, 1966, China, Crime, Dwight Eisenhower, Food, Homicide, Kim Il Sung, North Korea, Occupation of Korea, Strike Wave of 1945-1946, USSR

Saturday, December 26, 1925.

Italy brought to an end a rebellion in Italian Somaliland.

Turkey passed a law bringing in the Gregorian calendar as of January 1.

Richard "Pegleg" Lonergan, of New York City's White Hand Gang, was killed along with  Aaron Hyams and Neal J. Perry, after arriving drunk at the Adonis Social Club in what was basically an armed bar fight. Al Capone was the hitman.  

The Communist Party of India was organized.

The East-West Shrine Game, collegiate footballs first all start game, was played at Ewing Field in San Francisco.

It was a Saturday.

Leyendecker offered a Christmas theme for his Saturday Evening Post illustration.

And Liberty also went with a Christmas theme.

The New Yorker, however, went with a New Years theme which featured alcohol in spite of Prohibition.

Last edition:

Thursday, December 24, 1925. Non è possibile scavalcare il Capo del Governo.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 2020s, 2025, Calvin Coolidge, Donald Trump, Fascism, Italy, Mussolini, The Second Trump Administration, The written word, Women

Tuesday, December 2, 1975. The end of the wars in Indochina.

Vientiane fell to the Pathet Loa, bringing to an end the devided leadership of Laos and making it a fully communist country.

It effectively brought to an end the wars that broke out with end of World War Two over what type of governments former French Indochina would have.

Ironically, the new head of state was the French educated Communist Prince Souphanouvong.  While we think of Communism as being inherently anti monarchical, in Indochina this was much less the case.

December 2, 1975: Archie Griffin Is Awarded a 2nd Heisman Trophy

Last edition:

Thursday, November 20, 1975. Death of Franco.

Labels: 1930s, 1940s, 1970s, 1975, Central Intelligence Agency, Congo, Dachau, Fidel Castro, Francisco Franco, German SS, National Conservatism, Ngô Đình Diệm, Spain, Spanish Civil War, The Holocaust, World War Two

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 109th Edition. Lost love. Painting Targets. Piggy. Articles of Surrender. Voting in opposition of something that isn't going on.

Lost love

The big news this past week is that Marjorie Taylor Greene, who came to prominence as one of the most notable and frankly disagreeable figures on the far right, and then who moved away from Trump, is leaving the 119th Congress in January after her pension vests.

What's exactly going on here is really unclear, but Green's transformation was remarkable.  She used to come across like an ignorant howler monkey.  If  Eva_Vlaardingerbroek is the "Shieldmaiden of the far right", she was more like an buffoonish bouncer.

All of a sudden, however, she really came around to opposing Trump and in fact suddenly sounded like a different person completely.  That suggests her antics were always an act put on for her constituents.

Given her change, she was drawing the direct opposition of Trump who was opposing her in next year's Congressional election.  She already had stout opposition and may just be taking off because she doesn't want to spend the next year dealing with a pack of extremists.  Her transformation did not cause her to be loved by moderates who were baffled on her transformation, save perhaps for Thomas Massie, whom Trump also hates.  Trump is vicious to all who oppose him.

Well, as W. E. B. Dubois famously said, only a food never changes their mind.

The Seditionist accuses others of Sedition.

Oh horse shit.  No "great legal scholars" are venturing that opinion.  Pam Bondi probably would, if told to do so, but her sycophantry disqualifies her from being a great anything. 

Donald Trump is a seditionist insurrectionist.  He has not had his act of sedition excused by Congress, so he's actually ineligible to be President of the United States, and legally, isn't.

So that makes it all the more ironic and hypocritical that he's gone after a collection of Congressmen and Senators, all veterans, who reminded service members that they can, and must, obey an illegal order, under certain circumstances (they can't for instance, just assume an order may be illegal).

Some of this has actually already been happening.  Resignations of senior officers, and some firings, have hit the news, usually with a "gosh, I wonder why this is happening" sort of commentary.  It's happening because they're opposing illegal orders.  It's also the case that National Guardsmen have started a backchannel internet communication discussion that includes the same topic.

Trump seems to be in a full blown panic about this, and probably for good reason.  The US is currently murdering people on the seas in extrajudicial killings using military force that some regard as being on the edge of illegality.  Trump has sent National Guardsmen to cities with Courts repeatedly intervening to stop the deployments.  Trump is constantly rumored to be on the edge of using the Insurrection Act.  But as time goes on he gets more and more erratic.

The majority of American people already disapprove of Trump's presidency.  There's no national stomach at all for using the military against the population, but the administration has constantly flirted with it, and to some extent, already done it.  The legality of Trump's actions on all levels are in the Courts.  There's a reviving movement to impeach him, and his behind the scenes support may well be reaching the breaking point.  We still don't know what was in the Epstein files, other than that rich and powerful men feel they can get away with whatever they want, including screwing teenage girls.

Declaring the politicians who spoke to be seditionist is absurd.  They were no such thing.  But it does paint a target on their backs.  This was reprehensible.

It's also a sign of extreme desperation.  We'll note that below.

Piggy

One of the increased signs of Trump's dementia is his inability to hold his tongue.  Last week he called a reporter who asked a question he didn't like "Piggy".  It was a female reporter.

He's demented.

Any other politicians in the US who said such a thing would be howled down to the point they'd offer an apology.  Not Trump, of course.  The fact that he hasn't been is evidence of what redneck trash this country has become.  It's appalling.

It's also a sign that at this point Trump is so stressed by something that the wheels are really coming off of his psyche.

Articles of Surrender

One of the most notable things about Donald Trump is the degree to which he truly seems to abhor war.

Or does he?

It's actually a bit difficult to tell.

Regarding the Russo Ukrainian War, Trump has repeatedly issues statements that approach being homo erotic about the war and how it needs to end, due to all the "beautiful" young men it kills.  At the same time, of course, he doesn't mind killing South American men very much.

Going back to that, however, Trump has being trying and promising to end the Russo Ukrainian War for well over a year now.  He's flip flopped on positions, but one of those that he periodically occupies is acting as an agent for Russia.  We're back at that point again.

The West promised to secure Ukraine's sovereignty when it gave up its nuclear weapons.  The West has not fulfilled that promise fully.  President Biden did a good job of helping Ukraine right from the onset, but didn't go as far as he should have.  The various European nations have done far, far more than they've gotten credit for.  

Trump desperately wants a Nobel Peace Prize, and although he may have convinced himself that he ended "eight wars", so far, he's not really ended any, if we consider that the only real claim he could have made to that effect was the war in Gaza, where Israel conducted a bombing raid yesterday.  Most people who have really looked at the situation in Gaza don't expect the peace to hold permanently.

A real peace between Ukraine and Russia would be a major accomplishment, however.  The thing is, however, that the "peace plan" that Trump presented was basically that Ukraine surrender.  Indeed, it resembles the treaty that ended the Great War to some extent, in that Ukraine gives up land and limits the size of its army, which are two of the things Germany did at the end of World War One.

That worked out oh so well.

Of course, to realize that would require a sense of history, which Trump lacks.  That the plan smacks of the Munich Accords also would require that.

So, back to a couple of things .Why is Trump the only Western leader outside of Viktor Orban who  likes Putin?  It isn't because he's on the populist right.  Giorgia Meloni is on the populist right and she's not a Putin fan.  

But Meloni also is very intelligent and not trying to suck up unwarranted praise all the time.

It might be just because the Russians know that Trump is demented and a narcissist, and they play into that.  But it's hard to wonder if it isn't something else.

At any rate, member of the Administration are already attempting to walk the document back.  That's interesting, as Trump seemed very solidly behind it.  That suggest that there are some forces behind the scenes that can operate a bit independently of Trump.

Voting no on Socialism while Trump cozies up to it.

The House voted on a resolution to disapprove Socialism, which is just about as stupid of thing as they could done.  What on earth was that exactly supposed to prove?

The GOP has really gone off the rails on this topic in that it now asserts routinely that Socialism=Communism.  It doesn't.  All Communists are Socialist, but not all Socialists are Communists, and those who maintain the opposite need to go back to school.

Ronald Reagan's big French buddy Francois Mitterrand was a Socialist.  He was also completely democratic.

Of course, Donald Trump isn't completely democratic, but interestingly, some of his policies are socialist, and now he's had a fawning meeting with the new Democratic Socialist mayor of New York City.  He declared that they had a lot of views in common.

Look for the GOP to now propose joining the Comintern.  

Turning Point at CC

One of the things that the assassination of  Charlie Kirk seemed to do was to boost the creation of Turning Point USA chapters.  There's one at one of the local high schools now, and one at the local community college.

At that one, there was just an event at which the far right Secretary of State and a far right politician who wants less government but who is a major landlord, thereby occupying a role in society that only exists due the major support of the government, or else people would ignore your claim to property rights, spoke.  

Wyoming's far right is sounding more and more irrelevant, so its interesting how these things are a bit behind the curve.  Of course the Secretary of State, in order to try to keep ahead of the curve, has been sounding like a member of Greenpeace recently.  I thought this would have generated some news, but it doesn't seem to.

Interesting.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 108th Edition. Lost love.

Labels: Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Politics, Zeitgeist

Additional links; Thursday, November 20, 1975. Death of Franco.

Labels: 1930s, 1940s, 1970s, 1975, Central Intelligence Agency, Congo, Dachau, Fidel Castro, Francisco Franco, German SS, National Conservatism, Ngô Đình Diệm, Spain, Spanish Civil War, The Holocaust, World War Two

Sunday, November 11, 1945. Armistice Day.

It was Armistice Day.

The Indochinese Communist Party voluntarily dissolved itself "in order to destroy all misunderstanding, domestic and foreign, which can hinder the liberation of our country."

Flag of the Indochinese Communist Party

The party was the regions second Communist Party and had become a regional party, operating in French Indochina, by order of the Comintern.  It's dissolution recognized the rise of regional nationalistic forces opposed to French rule, not all of which were Communist.  Communism itself, of course, as a regional movement, did not disappear.  

In Yugoslavia an election was held.  Only Communist candidates appeared on the ballot.

Last edition:

Saturday, November 10, 1945. Heart Mountain Closed.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Blog Mirror, Heart Mountain, Indonesia, Indonesian National Revolution, Internment of Japanese, Rüsselsheim massacre, War Crimes, Wyoming