This is a bit much, even for Trump

I thought I had long given up being surprised by Donald Trump’s tweets, that stream of nonsense that flows constantly from his account. But this one today, in response to the criticisms he is getting for giving the Turkish government control over the regions in Syria that are disputed by the Kurds and whom the US had been allied with up to now, took me by surprise.


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The private-public exploitation of the British colonies

Those who come from former colonies of the British empire will remember from their history lessons the way that the British government worked with private entities such as the East India Company (“an empire within an empire”) in exploiting those colonies. Historian William Dalrymple has written a book The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire about its role in what was the “military conquest, subjugation and plunder of vast tracts of southern Asia… almost certainly remains the supreme act of corporate violence in world history.”
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What do you get when two bad systems combine?

There are two terrible systems in the US that I have been highlighting: health care and criminal justice. The first is more focused on squeezing money out of people to provide profits for the health insurance, pharmaceutical, and hospital industries, and for high salaries to executives and health care professionals than in serving the needs of people. The second is more focused on squeezing money out of taxpayers and the people caught in its web in order to provide revenue for the private prison industry and local police forces and government than in treating prisoners humanely in order to rehabilitate them. The investigative journalism outfit ProPublica reports on what happens when these two systems come together. As you might expect, the outcomes are not good.

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The awful coverage of Bernie Sanders by the ‘liberal’ media

I can understand why the conservative media hates Bernie Sanders. He is a democratic socialist who has scathingly castigated the oligarchy and their supporters for creating vast inequality in wealth and incomes in the US and called for a radical restructuring of the government and the economy that will serve ordinary people rather that further enriching the already wealthy. And he has been fighting for the rights of the marginalized all his life.

What his candidacy has revealed is how the so-called ‘liberal’ elements in the media also hate him, using all manner of false claims and trivialities to discredit his candidacy. They talk more about the optics than the facts of where he stands with issues. It reminds me of how in 2000, the liberal media ran with the idea that George W. Bush was a better companion to share a beer with than Al Gore, as if that were an important factor in voting for a president.

This clip, that supposedly was created by a Sanders supporter and is being distributed by the campaign, juxtaposes the ‘liberal’ false characterizations of Sanders with what he is really like.

I am fed up with these private expressions of misgivings

As Donald Trump continues to act like a deranged king, issuing orders and statements that reveal a dangerously lawless mindset, some of those around him are trying to have it both ways. They continue to serve him and are thus accomplices, while seeking absolution for their complicity by whispering to sympathetic reporters that they disapprove of what he is doing. They are no different from the enablers of celebrity sexual predators.

The media write these stories to suggest that the Trump administration is in disarray. That may well be true but at some point they have to realize that by writing such stories, they are also part of Trump’s enablers, since they are salving the consciences of those who continue to serve him and enable him to continue the actions they say they deplore. These people who do not have the courage of their convictions to publicly rebuke Trump and resign (or even be anonymous whistleblowers) are the kinds of people who, when they do leave the administration, end up using their sympathetic reporter contacts to find jobs in the media. This revolving door between anonymous sources and media punditry is a well-oiled one.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is right to call out these crocodile tears and the reporters who provide the crocodiles with handkerchiefs.

The Chinese are such optimists

Donald Trump compounded his problems over his quid pro quo call urging the Ukrainian president to find dirt on Joe Biden in return for return for releasing weapons to them, by then calling on the Chinese government to do the same. In response, this is what the Chinese foreign minister said.

Good one, Wang Yi!

As US politics sinks into the mire, the chances that we can sort out our problems in anything like a rational manner become dimmer by the day.

The unbearable whininess of New York Times columnists

It is extraordinary how brittle are the sensibilities of people who have major media platforms. I recently highlighted the absurd over-reaction of New York Times columnist Bret Stephens to a tweet by an until-then obscure professor who called him a bedbug. This turned out to be a beautiful example of the Streisand Effect because Stephens’ ridiculous response went viral and was used as an example by many (including me) about how these who often use their platforms to denounce those whom they accuse of silencing the speech of others, have feelings that are hurt so easily that they denounce any critics of themselves, however innocuous. It reveals what sheltered lives they live, in a cocoon of like-minded people who pat each other on the back at their social gatherings.
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There is a conference for people banned from conferences

Conservative billionaire Peter Thiel’s Foundation Fund is backing an invitation-only conference in May 2020 for people who have been banned from other conferences. The conference is hoping to attract ‘dissenting thinkers’ and is meant to be “a safe space for people who don’t feel safe in safe spaces.”

Hereticon (yes, it’s actually called that) promises to include “many of our culture’s most important troublemakers,” specifically ones committed to improving civilization.
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The topics that will take center stage at Hereticon? They’re a doozy. Conversations will center on a smorgasbord of libertarian micro-obsessions, including transhumanism, “the abolition of college” (a favorite of Founders Fund partner Peter Thiel), “the benefits of starvation” a la Jack Dorsey’s fasting diet, “the softer side of doomsday prepping,” and immortality, naturally.

UFOs. biological modification, and drag culture are also on the menu.

It would be interesting to see whether the nature of the bans matter in inviting people. If you are banned for other conferences because you are a sexual predator or are a sexist, misogynist, racist, homophobe or similarly obnoxious, does that qualify you to attend Hereticon?

I suspect that the people who might be attracted to attend this are the usual suspects like the denizens of the ‘intellectual dark web’ who feel that their views are out of step with a ‘politically correct’ culture and are angry that people protest their talks. They are like the Jack Nicholson character in the 1992 film A Few Good Men, yelling to their critics, “You can’t handle the truth!” It must be nice for them to know that a billionaire will provide them a home.

Is trolling public displays of religion a good idea?

The Satanic Temple and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (Or Pastafarians for short) are examples of non-religious groups adopting religious symbolism in order to highlight the importance of separation of church and state by showing that if you allow one religion into the public sphere, then you have to allow every religion, even parody ones. The Satanic Temple has been particularly effective in rolling back attempts to plant Ten Commandments and other monuments on public land, by demanding that their own statue of Baphomet be placed as well, because of the requirement that government entities be neutral with regard to religions
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