Showing posts with label Socialism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Socialism. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 28, 2026

Sunday, January 29, 1911. Revolution at Mexicali.

Taking advantage of Madero's revolution against Diaz,  a small party of Mexican rebels of the Mexican Liberal Party, a socialist party, bloodlessly took Mexicali. They were not aligned with Madero except in their goal of overthrowing the Mexican government.

Colorado's salons were looking at a new bill restricting who could marry.

Wyoming ws seeing a push towards adopting the initiative and referendum and there was campaigning for the direct election of Senators.

A Rough Rider militia movement was organizing in the state.




Ecuador abandoned plans to lease the Galapagos Islands to the US, which overall, was a good thing for the islands.  Protests in the country reversed the plan.

Last edition:

Thursday,, January 26, 1911.

Wednesday, January 21, 2026

The Agrarian's Lament: Rejecting Avarice. Some radical rethinking.

The Agrarian's Lament: Rejecting Avarice. Some radical rethinking.: Cease being intimidated by the argument that a right action is impossible because it does not yield maximum profits, or that a wrong action ...

Rejecting Avarice. Some radical rethinking.


Cease being intimidated by the argument that a right action is impossible because it does not yield maximum profits, or that a wrong action is to be condoned because it pays.
Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

We just published this item here on Donald Trump's insatiable lust for the destruction of land, lands even beyond our borders.
The Agrarian's Lament: Lex Anteinternet: Manifest Destiny and the Second ...: Lex Anteinternet: Manifest Destiny and the Second Trump Administrati... : Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way, dramatizing Manifest ...

In the movie The Patriot, which is okay but not great, commences with these lines:

I have long feared, that my sins would return to visit me, and the cost is more than I can bare.

In a lot of ways, that opening scene is the best one in the movie.

No nation has a singular linear history, even though people tend to hear things that way. "This happened, and then that happened, resulting in this. . . ".  In reality, things are mixed quite often, and things are quite fluid with juxtapositions.  

Shakespeare claimed:

“There is a tide in the affairs of men

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

On such a full sea are we now afloat;

And we must take the current when it serves,

Or lose our ventures.”

Perhaps.  But in reality the tide in the affairs of men drags everyone along with it. But it's a rip tide.  People's individual goals, desires and aspirations often are quite contrary to the tide on the surface.

That's certainly been the case with the United States.

If you have a Trumpian view of the world, the history of the United States looks like this, sort of:

This again.  It never occurs to many that the mines and cities aren't really everyone's dream.  It particularly doesn't occur to a rich real estate developer who isn't smart and whose values are shallow.

Lots of people have that view.  We came, we saw, we exploited, and everyone got happy working for Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk.

Trouble is, that's not true for a lot of reasons, a core one being it doesn't comport with who we really are.  The entire worship of wealth and what it brings, and the wealthy and who they are, is deeply contrary to our natures, and frankly men like Jeff Bezos, Donald Trump, and Elon Musk are deeply perverted.  Not because of their relationship with women, or because their names appear in the Epstein files in some context, although in the case of Trump, we really still don't know what context, but because of their shallow avaricious acquisition for and desire for wealth.

Timothy warns us:

Those who want to be rich are falling into temptation and into a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge them into ruin and destruction.  For the love of money is the root of all evils, and some people in their desire for it have strayed from the faith and have pierced themselves with many pains.

And not only have their pierced themselves, but they pierce others, and entire societies with them.

So let's look at a few concrete things that we feel should be done.

Among the rich you will never find a really generous man even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egotistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.

G.K. Chesterton, A Miscellany of Men

Revisit the Homestead Act.

Right from the onset of English colonization of North America, there was a pull between business exploitation and the simple desire for an agrarian place of one's own.

The truth of the matter is that when the nation started off, most people weren't "Pilgrims" seeking shelter from religious oppression.  Nor did they wish to be servants of big mercantile enterprises.  Most of the early English colonists were from agriculture or the trades and wanted to just work for themselves.  That's about it. 

The American Revolution was as much about that as anything else.  When American Colonials dumped tea in harbors, they were protesting taxes, but what they were also doing is dumping mercantile controlled property into waste.  It was grown somewhere else and it belong to rich remote classes.

The struggle was always there. The American South in particular had the planter class which depended upon enslaved labor to raise a market crop.  That was about generating wealth.  Most Southerners, in contrast, were Yeoman who had small places of their own.  When the Civil War came the wealthy had the South fight the war.

The analogies to the present day are simply to thick to ignore.

The Homestead Act came about during that war, and in real ways, it expressed a Jeffersonian dream. People willing to invest their own labor could acquire a place of their own.

The drafters of the Act never envisioned the wealthy controlling the land.  In some very real ways it was wealthy landowners that the North was fighting at the time.

Over the last few days residents of Wyoming have read about Chris Robinson, CEO of Salt Lake City-based Ensign Group, L.C., buying the Pathfinder Ranch.  I have nothing about him personally, but the listed price for the ranch was $79.5M due to its giant size.

I can personally recall when it was owned by locals  At that price, rather obviously, Robinson isn't planning on making money from cattle.  And to make matters a bit worse, residents of Natrona County got to read about another local outfit going up for sale, which is much smaller, for $9M.

Even into my adult years, by which time it was already impossible for somebody not born into ranching or farming to buy a place such that it could be their vocation, most ranches were owned by locally born ranchers.  This trend of playground pricing is making the status of the land the same as that which English colonists were seeking to escape from.

This could be fixed by amending the Homestead Act. The homesteading portion of that is fixed, but it would still be possible to go back and amend it such that land deeded to individuals under it, had to remain in agricultural use, and had to be held by families that made their money that way. exclusively.

I know it won't be, anytime soon, but it should be.

Revisit "Ad coelum ad damnum"

One of the absolute absurdities of the original Homestead Act is that it gave away not only the surface of the land, but the mineral rights as well.  This made the system sort of like buying lottery tickets. Some people got rich just of because of where they'd chosen to homestead.

I really struggle with the concept of private ownership of minerals, including oil and gas, in the first place.  I understand private enterprise exploiting it, but owning it?  Why?  It's not like private enterprise put the minerals in the ground.

Addressing this creates real constitutional problems, but ideally the mineral wealth of the nation should belong to everyone in it, not private parties.  And it should be exploited, or not, in the national interest, not in the primary economic interest of those who claim to own it.

I know that this brings up the cry of "that's Socialism".  It probably really is, but an unequal accidental distribution of mineral wealth on lands taken from the native inhabitants isn't just.  At a bare minimum, something needs to be looked into.  Indeed, as there was no intent to transfer that mineral title in the first place, perhaps it could collectively be restored and held in truth for the descendants of those original inhabitants.

Tax the wealthy

Every since Ronald Reagan there's been a ludicrous idea that taxing the wealthy hurts the economy. We know that this is completely false.  We also know that a certain percentage of the wealthy will allow themselves to become obscenely wealthy if allowed to, and that they'll harm everyone else as a result.

There's no reason on earth that anyone ought to be a billionaire.  Indeed, if you have more than $50M in assets, you have too much and something is potentially wrong with your character.  High upper income tax rates and wealth taxes can and should address this.  Elon Musk can be nearly just as annoying if his net worth was $50M as whatever it currently is, but he'd be a lot less destructive.

An alternative to this, if this is simply too radical, is to prevent corporations from owning most things, and to provide that once they get to be a certain size, at least 50% of their ownership goes to employees of those corporations.  It'd at least distribute the wealth some, and keep avarice from defining our everyday existence.

Final thoughts

What seems to be clear in any event is that we cannot keep going in this directly. Today's "conservatives" serve the very interests that the American Patriots rebelled against, remote wealth.  In spite of their tattoos and car window stickers, they'd form the Loyalist Militia trying to put down an an agrarian revolution in 1776.  The thing is, that those conditions always lead to revolution. They did in 1776 in North America, and then again in more extreme form in France a few years later.  They lead to the uprisings of 1848, the Anglo Irish War in 1916 and the Russian Revolution in 1917.  It's time to address this while we can, as it will be addressed.

Friday, December 5, 2025

Wednesday, December 5, 1945. Flight 19.

The legendary aviation mystery of Flight 19 occurred when five Grumman TBFs disappeared in a training flight between Florida and Bermuda, together with a PBM Mariner that was sent to look for the missing aircraft.

The PBM is believed to have exploded.

No doubt because none of the aircraft have ever been found, the mystery remains an enduring and popular one, and it is part of the Bermuda Triangle set of myths.

The French government nationalized five banks.

Last edition:

Monday, December 3, 1945. A Walk In The Sun.

Sunday, November 23, 2025

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.

Wednesday, November 5, 2025

2025 Off Year US Elections

They can be, sometimes, an indicator of things to come.

June 25, 2025

New York City Mayoral Race

Progressive Zohran Mamdani beat Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic Primary.  

Mamdani, who immigrated with his parents as a child from Uganda to the US, is a self declared democratic socialist.  He's a Shi'a Muslim. All of these things are setting off the populist far right.

Curtis Sliwa, founder of Guardian Angels, won the Republican primary for New York City mayor, but was unopposed.  He stands no chancing of winning the general election.

September 22, 2025

Texas


Texas has an election this year, and it includes a bunch of ballot propositions, which are:

  • Proposition 1 (SJR 59): Texas State Technical College funding
  • Proposition 2 (SJR 18): Capital gains tax ban
  • Proposition 3 (SJR 5): Bail reform
  • Proposition 4 (HJR 7): Water infrastructure funding
  • Proposition 5 (HJR 99): Tax exemption on animal feed
  • Proposition 6 (HJR 4): Securities tax ban
  • Proposition 7 (HJR 133): Tax exemption for veterans’ spouses
  • Proposition 8 (HJR 2): Inheritance tax ban
  • Proposition 9 (HJR 1): Inventory and equipment tax exemption
  • Proposition 10 (SJR 84): Tax exemption for homes destroyed by fire
  • Proposition 11 (SJR 85): School tax exemption for the elderly or disabled homeowners
  • Proposition 12 (SJR 27): Changing the State Judicial Conduct Commission
  • Proposition 13 (SJR 2): Increased school tax exemption for homeowners
  • Proposition 14 (SJR 3): Funding for dementia research and prevention
  • Proposition 15 (SJR 34): Codifying parental rights
  • Proposition 16 (SJR 37): Clarifying citizenship requirement for voters
  • Proposition 17 (HJR 34): Property tax exemption for border security infrastructure
November 4, 2025

The kiss of death:


And so the demented New York octogenarian made it clear to thousands that they were going to vote for New York Democratic Socialist Mamdani.

New York has actually had a prior Democratic Socialist Mayor, David Dinkins, who served from 1990 to 1993.  Trump made minor contributions to the Dinkin's election campaign and reelection campaign, the latter of which failed.  The current mayor of Cheektowaga, New York, Brian Nowak, is a Democratic Socialist.

Trump made another post last night:


Early indications are that this election is going to be an utter disaster for the Republican Party, setting up a potential disaster next year, and causing those who wish to evade disaster to potentially start moving away from MAGA now.

Prop 50 will be on California's ballot, which may end up countering the anti Democratic moves of the Texas legislature.

Cont:

New York State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani won the race for Mayor of New York City, becoming the first Muslim to occupy that position, and the first Democratic Socialist since Dinkens to occupy it.

It's a generational change with Mamdani defeating two elderly opponents.

It's an important mayoral seat, but nobody who has occupied it has ever been President, and for the most part, its occupants do not rise further in politics.

Democrat Abigail Spanberger took the Virginia Governor's race, causing it to go from Republican to Democratic control.  She's the first female governor of Virginia.  Democrat Mikie Sherill took the Governor's race in New Jersey.

Democrats are going to take Texas' 18th Congressional District, Houston, but they already held that.

Proposition 50 passed in California.

The Democrats won everywhere they were running.  It's a dope slap in the face for Donald Trump.

November 5, 2025
So Donald Trump, since I know you're watching, I have four words for you: Turn the volume up.
Zohran Mamdani.

Cont:

A race we weren't following was that for Virginian AG. T he race was won by Jay Jones.  Jones made headline news because some absolutely horrible things he said about another member of Virginia's legislature came to light.  They were awful.

Jones beat the Republican incumbent  Miyares, which suggest a pretty significant move away from the GOP in Virginia.  Jones is a practicing African American Catholic, which is interesting in various ways.

Notable in the races last night Hispanics began to pull away from the GOP.  Catholics had been attracted to the Republican Party for various reasons that I've noted here on numerous occasions, the principal one being that they're social conservatives as a rule.  The interesting thing here is that the GOP, which only recently attracted them, has treated them much like the Democratic Party treated ethnic minorities, which is to say to ignore them and more particularly, to offend them.  Merely being Hispanic is putting people in the target zone for ICE and the GOP has broken out into outright open feuds of race recently, with some figures in the pundit class being openly racist.  

This gets back for a moment to noting that Jones is a Catholic.  The populist far right is strongly Evangelical, and Evangelicalism has attracted a lot of American Hispanics.  But the nature of the Evangelicalism and MAGA has not been sorted out and now, in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination, the pot is really boiling.  Quite a few on the populist far right have barely hidden contempt for women working, which most Hispanic women have to do by default.  Some MAGA pundits are openly racist with Nick Fuentes now openly going after J. D. Vance, a Catholic married to an Indian, on the basis that he's a "race mixer".

This doesn't explain last night's results overall, but it fits into it.  The price of things, a major factor in Trump's win, is now starting to be a major factor in a retreat from the GOP.  The brutality and lawlessness of the Trump administration is disgusting many people. The outright stupidity of some the things the Trump Administration says is taking a toll.  The Government shutdown is being blamed, rightfully, on the Republican Party.

The 2026 election is a long ways off but so far the Administration and MAGA's reaction to everything is to double down on it.  That probably won't change, but what might is the extent to which Republicans who don't have to go down with the ship begin to abandon it. Some already have.  Marjorie Taylor Green, who was a MAGA fanatic, now is an opponent, for example. Thune is suddenly, as of yesterday, sounding more moderate.

But you can't moderate a demented narcissist surrounded by sycophants.

Related threads:

Monday, October 27, 2025

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 106th Edition A series of Zeitgeist predictions about New York City.

Mamdani is obviously going to win.

Republicans will freak out.  

Mike "Smarmy Smile" Johnson will be in full bullshit mode for weeks.  "I'm not keeping the House in perpetual recess because I'm afraid of the Epstein files but because a Communist Marxist Islamist has been elected to Mayor in New York and that means that we can't look at the Epstein files".  

Trump will wax poetic, "My Mommy, that's what I call him, mommy. . . I loved my mommy, she was from Scotland, where they invented golf.  Are we in Mar A Lago, no, well, the Communists, Marxists, Monarchical Islamist don't want me to build a ballroom, that's because they can't dance and their legs are thin. The Wonderful thing about Tiggers is Tiggers are wonderful things tops are made out of rubber their bottoms are made out of springs Their bouncey, trouncey, ouncey, pouncey fun, fun, fun, fun, fun But the most wonderful thing about Tiggers is I'm the only one. Tiggers are cuddily fellows Tiggers are awfully sweet everyone el'es is jealous That's why I repeat and repeat The wonderful thing about Tiggers Is Tiggers are marvelous chaps They're loaded with vim and vigor they love to leap in your laps They're jumpy, bumpy, clumpy, thumpy fun fun fun fun fun But the most wonderful thing about Tiggers Is I'm the only one I-I-I'm the only...-oof Ouch.  I've decided to kill the entire population of South America. . . "

John Thune will say something, with an earnest looking John Barrasso behind him, but nobody will remember what it was, as nobody was paying attention to him to start with.

And then a weird thing will happen.

Mamdani will probably govern more or less from the center, as he'll have to, which is likely to make his administration a success.

Which is the biggest Republican nightmare of all.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 105th Edition. What's up with the rush on the White House?

Friday, October 24, 2025

Wednesday, October 24, 1945. The United Nations comes into being.

The United Nations came into existence with the ratification of the UN Charter by the Soviet Union.


Czechoslovakia nationalized banks, insurance companies, and 27 industries.

Vidkun Quisling was executed.

Last edition:

Tuesday, October 23, 1945. Signing Robinson.


Tuesday, October 21, 2025

Sunday, October 21, 1945. A pink France.

Women voted in a French election for the first time as France chose a Constituent Assembly to draft a new constitution for a Fourth Republic.

The elections were won by an alliance of the French Communist Party, the Christian Democratic Popular Republican Movement and the Socialist French Section of the Workers' International.

A disaster for French conservatives, the coalition saw the Communists take the most votes, drawing 26.08% and taking 148 seats, followed by the Republican Movement taking 24.91% and 141 seats.  The Socialists took 23.77% and 134 seats.  The pre war far left, the Radicals, took a beating, as did all the conservative parties, given that they had supported the government of Petain.

Basically, all the parties that had not participated in prewar French politics came out on top, which resulted in an alliance, albeit one that was temporarily very much left wing.  Socialist Guy Alcide Mollet became the Prime Minister, with Communist Maurice Thorez the deputy prime minister.

The Fourth Republic would last until 1958, having seen, in spite of its hard left origins, the French effort to retain Indochina and much of its efforts to retain Algeria.

In Luxembourg the Christian Social People's Party won the general election.

Last edition:

Saturday, October 20, 1945. 100%?

Monday, October 20, 2025

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 104th Edition. Mike Johnson, toady, and other matters.

This one should be short.  I'm very tired, and I'm in a bad/despondent mood.  Nonetheless. . . 

Some observations.

Mike Johnson, toady.

Mike Johnson is a complete toady . I don't know how he can stand himself.  Those interviews with his little shit eating smirk in which he spouts lies. . . uff.

Johnson claims to be a Christian.  He claims to be a Southern Baptists, and perhaps he is, but he seems to solidly be in the New Apostolic Reformation camp, and if I had to guess, he feels that lying to the heathens is justified if it brings about an Evangelical Republic.  That view wouldn't be sanctioned by the views of most branches of Christianity.

Johnson is going to be remembered as one of the worst Speakers in American history due to his complete toadyism.  He probably figures he'll be exalted for helping to bring about an Evangelical republic.

People who accuse others of being a Communist should be forced to live in a Communist country.

Johnson is one of those people who now run around calling the Democrats Communists, or Marxists.  They are not, and its totally absurd.  It's particularly absurd coming from a camp that is completely fascistic in real terms.

Johnson should be required to live in North Korea for a decade so he can learn what a Communist actually is.

Freaking out about New York

Part of the reason the "Marxist" term is getting thrown around is because Zohran Kwame Mamdani is about to be elected the Mayor of New York City.

Mamdani is a Democrat but he's also a Democratic Socialist.  He's an observant Muslim and a member of the political far left, which is something that can only really happen in a Western country.

New York City has always been a Democratic stronghold.  There are some Republican New Yorkers who are well known to history, such as Theodore Roosevelt, but the city's connection with the Democratic Party is very strong historically  That shows in this race as the Republican candidate is Curtis Sliwa, who has less than zero chance of taking the office.  Democrat Andrew Cuomo is running as an independent after having already lost to Mamdani in the primary.  His chances are obviously very poor.

Oh well.  

Bernie Sanders is also a democratic socialist and the country back in the past had some outright Socialist hold high office.  All the bedwetting by the GOP is just stupid, but stupidity is really setting in around Donald Trump.

Donald Trump is truly weird.

The entire administration's desperate struggle to slander the No Kings rallies over the weekends really declined into the absurd.  The weirdest thing was a completely juvenile AI depiction of a King Trump dumping shit on No Kings protestors.  It's the sort of bathroom humor that juvenile boys like.

Juvenility is increasingly a hallmark of the Trump administration as his acolytes grasp on to his descent into dementia.  The thing is, however, the blind refusal to face reality and invoke the 25th Amendment means that the country has been, by this time, almost completely destroyed as a serious entity.  We will not rapidly recover from Trump, if we ever do.

Trump supporters dismiss all of this as "that's just his style" or as TDS.  Derangement is the key word.  Trump is increasingly deranged.

Gaza

Among the weird claims that Trump keeps making, I'd note is that he's ended eight wars.

The one war he might be able to claim he ended, the one in Gaza, seems to be teetering on the edge of a resumption of fighting.  Added to that, quite frankly, there's no way whatsoever that Hamas is going to lay down arms.  None.

If the peace is to hold, Gaza will need to be rebuilt as it's destroyed at practically a Hiroshima level, employment found for its people, which has never existed, and a real government put in place.  It's not impossible, but nearly so.

Covert Operations

The Administration has authorized covert operations in Venezuela, which makes them non covert.  Anyhow, our "peace president" is waging a small war against a foreign power illegally.

And its been revealed by the New York Times that during Trump's first term an attempt was made to insert Navy Seals into North Korea to plant a listening device. The mission went wrong as it encountered North Korean fishermen, all of whom were killed.

The details of this are unclear, but basically, that's murder unless its a case of mistaken identity.

In the Special Ops community the Seals are getting a bad reputation.

What is in those files?

Donald Trump last Friday called for Rep. Thomas Massie to be "thrown out" of Congress "ASAP".

Isn't that interesting?

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 103d edition. Missing the obvious demographic aspect of the story . . ."Wyoming Churches See Revival, Shakeup After Charlie Kirk's Death"

Thursday, August 21, 2025

Tuesday, August 21, 1945. Lurching towards a peace, normalcy, abnormality. Lizabeth Scott on Look. Lend Lease Terminated. Big Japanese surrender in China. Japan bars fraternization but sets up brothels for Western troops. Romanian Royal Strike., tragic nuclear accident.

The picture magazine Look was out, and on a Tuesday, oddly.  Actress and singer Lizabeth Scott, famous for film noir roles, graced the cover.

Truman ordered Lead Lease be terminated immediately.

The first major Japanese surrender ceremony in China took place at the Zhijiang Airport in Hunan Province.

"Sitting on a jeep hood are two GIs watching as the Japanese Army emissaries arrive at Chinese Army HQs. at Chihkiang, China to arrange the details of surrendering the armies to Chinese forces. In front can be seen the Chief of Staff of the Japanese Armies in China, Major General Takeo Imai, (with sun helmet). Behind him is his interpreter, Mr. Tatsuo Kimura, and the Deputy Chief of Staff of Jap Armies in China, Lt. Col. Yoshio Hashijima and Major Kunio Maskawa. 21 August, 1945."

The Japanese government appealed to kamikaze pilots to immediately cease operations.

The Japanese government ordered that "there will be no direct contact between the general public and the Allied landing forces."   That order would rapidly break down.

In fact, the Japanese on this day were already working on breaking it down, as they determined, on this day, to form the Recreation and Amusement Association (特殊慰安施設協会) or as it is more accurately translated the '"Special Comfort Facility Association".  It extended the horrific "comfort women" system but with Allied servicemen in mind, in fear that failure to do so would lead to rapes.

55,000 women would be employed by the RAA, of which 2,000 were prostitutes.

American physicist Harry Daghlian accidentally dropped a tungsten carbide brick onto a plutonium bomb core resulting in an exposure to radiation at the lethal level.  He died a couple of weeks later.

His hand on August 30:

The new British government announced its intention to nationalize the Bank of England.

The Romanian Royal Strike commenced during which King Michael I refused to sign the bills enacted by the Petru Groza cabinet or to receive its Ministers in audience in protest of  Petru Groza's refusal to resign his position on the King's request.  Resignation would have been the Romanian norm, but the Soviet backed Groza simply refused to do so.

The first post war kosher slaughter to be performed in Germany occurred with Rabbi Zweigenhaft performing the same.

Last edition:

Monday, August 20, 1945. Wainwright liberated.