Monday, July 24, 2023
Picasso was known to make a lot of paintings with the same face from two perspectives: straight on and in profile. I never really liked them. It seemed a easy cop out to sell stuff, because it didn’t take much effort. Few mention that there’s a museum in Paris where African masks and art are displayed, which show this idea. And to quote the master, “Good artist steal.”
There have been several issues that I am of two minds: one is the economy. We have good numbers for jobs, and inflation. Yet, businesses are seeing a slow down. An inverted yield curve tells us that times are good now but not long term. Is that wrong this time? I don’t know.
Rachel Maddow has a six part podcast called “Deja News.” There’s a gopher sticking its head out of its hole as the image on the app’s icon. It took we a while to get it. (Bill Murray? “Groundhog Day”? Okay it’s not a gopher it’s a groundhog.)
Each segment of the podcast is thirty minutes long and each episode draws an example from history to make the point that what we are seeing in our politics and the politics around the world is not new. It’s been done before. Ron DeSantis shipping folks north to sock it to the Libs? Done in the 60s. Then it was black people sent to Hyannis Port to show JFK a thing or two. (He wasn’t there.) Stage a protest of right wing fascists that resulted in a government overthrow? Done and succeeded in France, Feb 6, 1934. That government went on to collaborate with the Nazis and shipped its own Jewish citizens off to death camps. I never understood why until now. They, Pétain and the Vichy government, hated Jews.
Those and four other examples are illuminating and reveal that what is going on now is nothing new. The question really is what will happen this time? The interesting thing is the tactics and the arguments are the same. Take power; change the rules, pack the courts, spread lies (sorry disinformation and conspiracy theories), blame “the others,” imprison/humiliate/intimidate “the others” and potential voters you don’t think will vote for your party etc.
I had not realized that William Rehnquist had been active in voter intimidation of minorities when he wa a lawyer. He, like John Bolton, had been standing on voter lines telling certain people that they were not allowed to vote. Later, he became Chief Justice. He wasn’t able to repeal or gut the Voting Rights Act, that was left to his clerk who succeeded him, John Roberts.
So, like Picasso, and our economy, I’m of two minds about what is going on politically here and around the world.
One of the people who commented on one of the episodes said of the right wing folks, “Eventually, they will come for you.”
And lastly, I still don’t understand the motivation to ban abortions. Yes, I’ve heard it’s to disenfranchise women or to keep power over them. Maybe, it’s just the conspiracy theory that every life is precious. How can that be if they are happy to send “others” to certain or near certain death?
Well, I can’t solve everything today. Gotta leave something for tomorrow. But in the meantime let us remember the words of Marjorie Taylor-Greene who has unmasked the real thing the Biden, Harris, and the Dems are out to do:
“Joe Biden
had the largest public investment
in social infrastructure
and environmental programs
that is actually finishing
what FDR started,
that LBJ expanded on,
and Joe Biden is
attempting to complete.
Programs to address
education,
medical care,
urban problems,
rural poverty,
transportation,
Medicare,
Medicaid,
labor unions.
and he still is
working on it.”
– Marjorie Taylor-Greene.
Good lord, no~!~