Normalcy isn't a real word and it definitely won't work

This morning I came across a very interesting conversation within the Democratic family. As Driftglass and Bluegal always like to say, the debates occurring now in Primary season are a family discussion. This is how it always goes during Primary season, there are a thousand or more points of view within the big tent of the Democratic Party and it takes a while to settle things down to just a few. The problem is when these conversations become arguments and the partisans within each group get entrenched and bitter. While the Republicans are almost entirely authoritarian at this point, RWAFs in the base and social dominators in leadership and wannabe leadership, the Democrats are not without authoritarians of the left-wing variety. Whereas right wing authoritarian followers prize conformity and obedience to power along with aggression against any out-groups, left wing authoritarians prize perpetual rebellion and individualism. Bernie bros and Naderites are the classic cases and they did plenty of damage with their purity tests and privilege of saying "let the Republican win, that will show 'em." Obviously it is a scale, there aren't hard and fast delinations marking each group. But each family fight has the potential of setting off LWAs and forming schisms within the party that can ruin elections.

So I have to try and temper any remarks because I don't want to fan a spark into a schism or empower LWAs at all. First and foremost, as I have mentioned before, I don't take positions in Primaries because the worst Democrat is always better than the best Republican. We have a pretty good group of competent, experienced candidates with good ideas that will all represent the Party and the non-insane majority of this country well. Joe Biden is the candidate at the heart of this conversation. It starts with Brother Charlie Pierce's column from August 26, arguing that Biden is the "return to normalcy" candidate with great similarity to Warren G. Harding. Rick Perlstein upped the ante by stating:

Ah, our very own James Buchanan: the rocky-steady candidate of experience, promising to bring back all that yummy, yummy normalcy. I'm sure it will all work out swell, just like 1856-60.

Now, both Harding and Buchanan are consistently ranked among the worst presidents this country has had in our history by professional historians. Personally I rank James K. Polk higher in the awfulness chart for waging an aggressive war of conquest against Mexico based on lies that empowered southern slave owners into forcing their demands for more slavery and more oppression onto the rest of the country. Maybe because the parallels with Dubya and Cheney's contempt for the rule of law and empowering the worst people in the country to shit all over democracy are just too strong. In my reading of history, Polk doused the country in gasoline with his splendid little war and gave boxes of matches to authoritarian slave owners. Sure, there was a short interregnum with Whig presidents (Zachary Taylor, hero of the war with Mexico then Fillmore) where the country could have gone in another direction but the same kind of normalcy set in once Franklin Pierce (no relation to Charlie, that I know of) took office. Pierce was a doughface, actually the poster child for doughfaces, who wasn't going to do anything about slavery because he saw the abolitionists as the problem.

There is no going back. WWI changed the country in many, many ways. Though Harding and his successors tried to go back to the federal government doing nothing and retreat from internationalism, the world and much of America did not really cooperate. Similarly, Buchanan just tried to ignore the simmering divisions and violent trends with a lighter touch on the doughface identity. But even an experienced, long-serving politician like Buchanan could not sweep things away by inaction, simply hoping that not making waves could patch things up so we could go back to arguing over tariffs and internal improvements instead of slavery and expansion.

So, no amount of hoping a Joe Biden could patch things up after doughfacedonny goes away will suffice. There is simply no going back. And according to FiveThirtyEight Biden's lead is shrinking, so it's possible that the issue of having to hash out who is right in their comparison won't persist into Primary season. I like and respect both Charlie and Rick, and I'm on board with their basic premise that trying to campaign on the return to normalcy will probably be a disaster. No schism here, if Biden gets the nomination I will obviously vote for him but then immediately go back to organizing and working to defeat authoritarianism. Even if that means watching Diamond Joe lead with his face into republican baseball bats.

Recession Deja Vu all over again

I admit that financial collapse was not my first thought when the Russians helped Doughface Donny steal the election. It was probably fourth or fifth, after the giant tax cuts and deregulation, anti-immigrant punitive cruelty, imprisonment of dissenters at all levels, wars, and the legalization through non-prosecution of white supremacists for acts of terror they regularly commit. But now, just in time for the next election it is as The Onion put it:

Financial Sector Thinks It’s About Ready To Ruin World Again

The first serious inkling I got of recession is this article from Axios dated April 5, 2019 on the decade high number of layoffs over a first quarter of the fiscal year. The economy is always churning jobs around, creating here, destroying there, shuffling rotten and incompetent executives from one golden parachute to another. When the legacy media reports on all the fantastic job growth are they commenting on the net growth, raw numbers of new jobs, the fun trick of turning one full-time family supporting job with benefits into two or more part-time or contract/freelance/on demand ones, or what? You have to dig pretty deep into each report to find out. But unemployment isn't even the biggest contributor to triggering a crisis.

I foolishly neglected to post and comment on the story from NPR that hit the alarm over the Inverted Yield Curve at the time. Looking it up now shows that it was originally posted on March 22 and the professor interviewed for the story said the time to start worrying was when yields remained inverted for 3 months. The inversion caused a drop of 460 points on the DJIA that day, and the Washington Post today has a reassuring article for retirees and boomers nearing retirement to stay in the market or something even though it mentions that the same index dropped 800 points on August 14th. Yes, of course recessions are a regular part of the business cycle, how else do you scare the hell out of everyone and stifle wage growth while keeping workers insecure?

Another page I follow "Defeat 'Right to work' in Wisconsin" posted a story that I shared from NBC about the 800 point DJIA drop, "the worst of the year" (let's get used to that phrase shall we?), they included the comment "The economy is overdue for its regular 10-year capitalist crisis, where the rich get richer and working people pay the price". It's basically theater by now, tax cuts unleash a new wave of unproductive capital for ever-more-risky speculation, some kind of bubble builds, crash, the banks and everyone with a lobbyist rushes to the republican government for handouts while blaming workers and the poor, rinse and repeat. This time we get to throw in concentration camps, trade wars, and gun-suckling jackasses unleashing mass murder into the witches' brew of capitalist excess and incompetence.

I added the comment to that post:

I have speculated that the 2008 crisis brought on by the republicans and their corruption didn’t hit early enough for the f#*kin’ boomers to get it through their thick skulls what actually caused them to delay retirement. The media letting republicans off the hook didn’t help either. This time we are strong enough to stop them when the put on funny hats and screech about socialism. #burnthelifeboats

People were all kinds of worried in the first Dubya recession of 2001 after Enron and the fun accounting abuses broke so many boomers' 401ks and caused so many people about to retire to stay on, thus denying young people any chance to get established before the really big goddamn crash in 2007. Collapse is so frequent and severe now that we don't really get to sympathize with people who lost everything. At least no one believes the "end of history" nonsense around Y2K that the rules were now suspended and you can have your cake and eat it too. Lavish yourself with vacations, expensive cars, and such because the market will always go up, you don't have to save much at all for your kids' educations or retirement. HAHAHA, yeah hopefully fewer people in the 21st century are thinking that.

It seems almost fitting that Doughface Donny has run the scandal machine at such a breakneck pace to make it feel like he's been in office for going on 8 years instead of 4. The same WaPo article predicted that the recession will really hit in 2021, just in time for President Warren or Sanders (or whoever, just please not trump) to clean up the mess with Moscow Mitch and every republican traitor screaming for their head while obstructing every proposal to fix this republican recession. I hope I'm wrong, please let me be wrong this time.

Back in July of 2016 when I had this weird little hope that somehow reason and decency would overcome republican and Russian sedition and treason, I wrote a post about "what do you want for Christmas" in the vain hope that a Clinton administration could smash through one big progressive item before Moscow Mitch slammed the door. It seems so quaint now, that maybe we could get a financial transactions tax passed and finally start to dry up some of this speculative capital that sloshes around global markets and always ends up capsizing the economy's boat. If only. If only. We will never know. Just as we will never know how American history would be different if say, Reagan's operatives hadn't convinced the Ayatollah's operatives that they could get a better deal for the American hostages if they were dealing with a Reagan administration. It would possibly have set off an entirely different course if Carter had been re-elected.

First, the tax cuts that were lavished on capital the first time would not have happened, at least not in the way they did. Energy conservation and research on renewables vs. digging for more oil. Perhaps the Fairness Doctrine would not have been abolished and decent society would be spared Limbaugh and hate radio plus the eventual establishment of Roger Ailes GOP TV. Regulations of all sorts that kept guardrails on society and industry would not have been destroyed. Nor would the entire anti-government, anti-politics conservative movement bent on authoritarianism have blossomed from all of Reagan's tall tales from the Oval Office. I know, Carter didn't really deserve reelection. And we can't do anything about how screwed up the past is. How do we use the lessons of the past then, to insulate ourselves as best we can from the coming disaster?

It's still so early, specifics won't come up right away. But, we can tighten our belts and refuse to listen to the mainstream pundits when they scream at us to buy stuff to prop up demand. No, forget it, my extra latte or subscription to something isn't going to save anything. We all need to reevaluate our needs and cut the extraneous stuff. Maybe cancel Netflix and try getting a movie from the public library, find your local farmers' market or cooperative, read a book instead of going to a ball game or a concert, learn to cook, hold off on buying a new car and pay down debt instead. Who knows how awful things are going to get, it may come to getting an extra roommate or boarder. Whatever you can do to limit your exposure and not get caught flat-footed will help. Start small, hopefully little measures here and now will add up when the shit hits the fan.

The stock market tanking is just an excuse for the top 1% to wreck our lives. Sure, there's all sorts of economic theory behind that statement but that is the result, imaginary speculative markets finally collide with reality and let the layoffs and foreclosures begin! Protecting yourself to the extent you can is first. Reminding your stupid republican relatives that they brought this on themselves is second. And finally, use the means at our disposal, social media, and any comment section to hold the media accountable when they make excuses for the past and all the ways republicans have led us to this point. They cannot let the traitorous republicans off the hook this time or it will be teabags all over again.

Conspiracy or Logic: Part 2

Sorry, for some reason blogger did not want me to type anything past the MSNBC link saying that yeah, the guards were slacking off on the job.

Here's Ed's conclusion from the post:

With all that said, the idea of a high profile inmate on suicide watch committing suicide without intervention is highly suspicious. It makes perfect sense that ears would perk up and that everyone would reflexively question that version of events. I cannot imagine what kind of investigation could be done that would produce a result that would NOT be rejected by a large part of the population, but I hope a more complete version of events emerges. Whatever happened, conspiracy theories about this event will persist until long after this presidency ends.

That, I'd have to say is the point. No investigation would be credibly accepted by the public at large. Let's put up those memes again just for shits and giggles:

 This supposed coalition falls apart once any kind of circumstances arise. I am sure there is crossover between the Bernie Bros who hate Hillary Clinton and the glassy-eyed pizzagate nutjobs but even if everyone still agrees on the result, there will be a million factions form just on the direction of causation, the people protected by the guy's death, and every piece of trivia beyond.

What got me roused enough to actually write about this little, meaningless episode was Josh Marshall's podcast from yesterday, "We're living in the golden age of conspiracy theories." While there were so many subjects discussed on that episode, Epstein's suicide was one of them. I think it is David Taintor who reported that he was taken off of suicide watch at the request of his lawyers, the prison was understaffed, and his cellmate was relocated. These factors combined to produce the conspiracy theories represented in these memes. Pedophilia seems to go with arrogant and undeserved wealth like peanut butter and chocolate in the minds of people who want to sound smart. Doughfacedonny absolutely needs this to be about the Clintons because it is basically public knowledge now that he loves young girls and was probably first in line at Epstein's soirees. So, where some people see unity and bipartisanship in conspiracy theory, I see just a new skirmish in the cold civil war.

Of course it's suspicious that these factors converged and the rich guy everyone loves to hate was found dead but I have to ask; so what? Let's say he was murdered; could you have done anything about it? If it was murder, would you have any other thoughts? What does it actually do to affect our lives and our republic? Murder or suicide, he doesn't testify against his buddies. His victims do not get to confront him, the public does not get to gloat over seeing a rich, entitled asshole who did really bad things in court and suffering. If there was/is a conspiracy to kill Epstein, do you think any conspirators will face justice? If incontrovertible evidence showed up that Doughfacedonny was banging underage girls at Epstein's pleasure palace, do you think it would change anything? No, normal decent people still hate him for everything he has done and what he stands for and his reprogrammable meatbag supporters could not care less. Will it motivate people to show up and vote, donate, work on campaigns? I hope so, but for any politically-inert citizen that decides to pay attention because of it will be cancelled out by the emboldened fascist who will crawl naked over broken glass to defend their god emperor con man in chief. I know this because all the same monsters showed up to vote for Roy Moore in Alabama who commands only a fraction of trump's "charisma" and was all but convicted of being a pedophile.

So, what's the difference? Occam's Razor says that the simplest answer is often the correct one. If speculating on the depths of conspiracy is something you enjoy, go to town. But don't expect anything to come of it. And absolutely do not put any stock in this being some kind of unifying event between liberals and "conservatives" because the latter care only about smearing the former. In the vacuum of evidence that is sure to come, with the same crooks covering up the "conspiracy," republicans will simply invent facts to fit their narrative. If you think this finally wakes them up from decades of self-deception... follow Occam's Razor. Has anything ever prompted conservatives to wake up? No, they can abandon a guy like George Dubya by inventing a tale about him abandoning conservatism and temporarily shrug off the identity of "Republican" by saying they are "constitutional or independent conservatives" and put on funny hats to protest the Kenyan Usurper's socialism, but as soon as the next man on horseback shows up to champion authoritarianism and the republican brand has had a chance to shake off its toxicity they will be right back.

This is the battle, this is the one that matters. Epstein is just a sideshow, trivia, so don't invest too much time and energy on it. There are real conspiracies out there, this particular one doesn't matter.

Conspiracy or Logic? Epstein edition

Jeffrey Epstein's case does not interest me very much I will lead off in saying. I don't really care about the particulars beyond sympathy for his victims and generalized rage against the wealth inequality our system produces that allows predators like him to exist. But like anyone vaguely aware of current events, I heard about his death which brought about a shoulder shrug (tentacles shrug?) and a vain hope that maybe we can get back to news about the daily blows to democracy delivered by republicans. Yeah, sure, that happens right.

Well, no. My social media almost immediately began filling up with conspiracy memes. And mine must not have been the only one because Gin and Tacos posted a very interesting blog called "The Singularity" because seriously, this shit has to stop. Conspiracies do happen, in boardrooms everyday unaccountable elites plot and scheme ways to separate you from your money and time, but to just fall in line with the conspiracy du jour because somebody made a convenient meme about it is just plain bad.

The Epstein thing is fascinating, as perhaps the only current example of an issue where nobody will trust or accept the official view of events irrespective of political beliefs.

People want the world to be more interesting than it is. People want life to be like the movies. That is the basic appeal of conspiracy theories. Plus, speculating is fun. No, seriously. It is. I get it. In this case and as usual, it requires people to assert with a high degree of confidence that they know how something works without really having any idea what they're talking about.

Obviously Epstein's death is extremely suspicious at best. However, a few things need clarifying before we can jump with any reasonable certainty to "omg murder."

In the country that has spectacle and Hollywood big screen excitement practically as a central pillar of its economy, yes it is no surprise that we have gotten to the point of instant and universal conspiracies of epic proportions with every new event. Ed is right on as usual. So, Occam's Razor has to come into play at some point. That would involve everyone letting go, just for a moment, about the fantasies involving Hillary Clinton and pedophiles; so I won't hold my breath.

First of all, the idea that an aged pedophile would kill himself in prison is plausible and given more credence by Epstein's previous suicide attempt (or maybe attempts). In a vacuum, it isn't hard to believe at all that he would commit suicide.

This particular rant was written before many facts came out, namely that he wasn't on suicide watch on that night. Ed was pretty spot on though in saying that no prison is really a panopticon, it's practically impossible to keep watch on anyone continuously.

Yet even under the latter conditions, it's not impossible that this really was suicide. Have you ever met a prison guard? They're like cops, but lazier. It's also not impossible that someone tasked with staring at a bank of monitors for hours on end could let their attention wander. Maybe the people responsible for watching him are just bad at their job. That's not hard to imagine.

Lo and behold: