tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72995145679323530802024-02-20T08:44:25.752-08:00ApacheCadillacMangas Coloradashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06463412362335217357noreply@blogger.comBlogger165125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7299514567932353080.post-37121350744104862002017-03-17T08:20:00.001-07:002017-03-17T08:20:18.370-07:00Realism, Art and Politics. PoliticsIf you're into European art history, you know that Realism was one of the earlier 'isms' (on the heels of Romanticism) and that it was displaced by Symbolism. Well, before Realism there was also Neoclassicism, and afterwards there were also Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Cubism, Fauvism, Expressionism, and so on. Afterwards, some of the 'ism's' reek of marketing hype, but undeniably the time line, the waves of ism's, gets a bit confused. Candidly, I'm not sure how useful the groupings are, particularly when you have artists who over themselves won't stay put--this guy goes from his Blue Period to Cubism, that one from Dada to Neue Sachlichkeit. All that said, and keeping in mind that even the most realistic of realists worked to convey a message or a meaning, and that even the most symbolic of symbolist paintings had some moorings in a shared language of reality, it's meaningful to say that realism gave way to symbolism. Enough about art.<br />
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I'll cheerfully confess that I did not anticipate Donald Trump. A year before the 2016 presidential election, when Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush were the respective Democratic and Republican frontrunners for their respective party's presidential nominations, I told someone that the party that did not nominate the legacy would win the presidency. The public's accumulating bile and desire to reject the political status quo was pretty easy to sense. But I never dreamed that observation would hold with a candidate like Trump as the nominee of one of the major parties. The fact that he is now the American president says more (bad) about the United States than I would ever have been willing to concede before it happened. And now that it has happened, there is no going back, no putting the pieces back together, no do over. The way forward may be salvageable, but, make no mistake, there is no turning the clock back, no Making America Great Again as in some past period, for the Trumpistas, and no return to the status quo ante Trump, for the rest of the country. Whatever comes will be new.<br />
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So, I've got this little problem. Even with the daily unraveling of the federal government for diversion, I feel a need to figure out why I was wrong about how we got here. No matter how right I may be about where we are and no matter how good my premonitions about where this is heading.<br />
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I think the key to the answer may lie in the transition from realism to symbolism. After the end of the Second World War the survivors (winners and losers) were, by and large, realistic, cautious and pragmatic. Sure, the Americans might fear the global spread of communism and the Soviets might dream 'we will bury you,' but at the end of the day, everyone is a position of power or authority or even influence had lived through one, or possibly two world wars. The Americans might have Joe McCarthy, the French might have their Algerian (and Indochina) problem, the Soviets might fabricate a Doctor's Plot, the British were standing down from Empire, and the entire world was stunned to find itself in a world order underpinned by mutually assured destruction. But nobody was prattling on about a global war on terrorism, or Islamo-fascism, or terrorist attacks that killed by the dozens or hundreds. The stakes were a bit more serious. The casualties were more terrible. And the potential casualties were unimaginable.<br />
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Well, the guys who were present at the creation (to use Dean Acheson's phrase) are long gone. The following generation, modestly calling itself the Greatest Generation, are checking out. Even the boomers are giving way to nextgen. I guess it's time for a new ism. Caution, Realism and Pragmatism are a bit shopworn. So what do we morph to? Symbolism, of course.<br />
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In the United States, the Culture Wars have been a training ground for a transition in politics from realism to symbolism. What kind of limp dick idiot gets excited about Gun Rights, for God's sake? Funerals for aborted foetuses, anyone? Let's deal with the problem of where effeminate teenage boys can go pee without getting beat up in the john by invoking the spectre of a rapist in every women's restroom in the country. And that's just in the last twelve month (well, the Second Amendment hot button has been around for longer, but foetus funerals and transgender bathroom policies were among the 2016 issues de jour).<br />
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You cannot pander to creationists, for instance, without descending in a symbolic quagmire and spitting on science, basically. You cannot propose to build a wall between your country and a neighbor without triggering an equal and opposite reaction from the neighbor you are insulting. And once you commence trafficking in symbolism instead of policy, the step to alternative facts is pretty easy. And once you start creating alternative facts, to the extent your propaganda operation gains traction, you are in some pretty bad 20th century company. Not to mention becoming unmoored yourself.<br />
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The symbolism assumes a life of its own, and the sloganeering (which tends to be extreme and divisive) displaces the policy making (which tends to require compromise and coming together). And the dialectic of politics tends to become self-fulfilling. Who in their right mind would attempt to negotiate with the Freedom Caucus? It's their way or the highway. They are locked into a mindset that means you can't 'do business' with them.<br />
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Not to be too even-handed here, but it's worth remembering that the granddaddy of all the post WW2 American single issue movements was the civil rights movements. And that environmentalists, advocates of gay rights, feminists, etc., can be just as focused on a single issue as the gun nuts and right-to-lifers. The issues of Culture Liberalism for the last two generations have lent themselves to slogans and symbolism just as much as any right wing crusade for national redemption and Christian purity. What I'm talking about in the tenor of the times, generally.<br />
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That said, there is a huge difference. Feminists haven't burned any synagogues, that I'm aware of (or fraternity houses, for that matter). Environmentalists don't run around killing people to limit population growth. Global warming activists are generally accepting of the science of the issue (though they can get prissy about 'climate change deniers'--viz. abusing Freeman Dyson a decade ago). In a nutshell, symbolic tendency can be expressed within and coexist with, an overall realistic world view. The issue is what happens when the slogans and symbolism themselves displace policies and realism.<br />
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Even beyond the domestic consequences of the move into the politics of symbolism, a huge problem with such a transition is that, in something like the global order, the sovereign state players tend to share a common set of physical facts. Not so much ideology and culture. But the oil is there. The manufacturing muscle is there. The demographics of the population are such and such. The Armed Forces of Nation X have the following known capacities. And so on. This is not, of course, entirely the case, and all the different players have different pressure points, priorities, ideologies, and so on but if there is a common focus on what might be called objective reality, there is an opportunity for give and take, communication, compromise, trading (the art of the deal? Ugh.).<br />
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But when the symbolism of the situation becomes paramount, when matters are distilled to their essence, become absolutes, and assume a symbolic importance far beyond any rational weight that can be assigned to them, well, you are setting yourself up for a clash of civilizations.Mangas Coloradashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06463412362335217357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7299514567932353080.post-91891530289255766662017-03-12T08:35:00.001-07:002017-03-12T08:35:07.799-07:00We Are Not All In This TogetherFor an American of a certain age, that realization is perhaps the most distressing take away from American electoral politics since the turn of the century. Once the realization sinks in, the immediate response is, 'hey, what happened?' Fortunately for most Americans, the realization hasn't sunk in yet. Unfortunately, it's only a matter of time before it does. And, when it does, the country will require luck of heroic magnitude for that to happen without excruciating political trauma, social upheaval, economic suffering and physical violence.<br />
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Look at the basics. Politically. Two of the last three presidents (Bush and Trump) have been inaugurated after losing the popular election. Both of them have been the preferred candidate of the 'one percent.' In the last four congressional elections, the party (the Democrats) that has won millions more votes that its opponent has been in the minority, and that opponent (the Republicans) has controlled the national legislature. Again, the Republicans are the party of the oligarchy. Whatever you want to call these outcomes, don't call the result a representative democracy governed by its elected political leaders. Economically. Look at the skewing of incomes and wealth in favor the extremely wealthy (quantifiable), the destruction of unionized labor (historical fact) and the erosion of the economic security of the middle classes (real and perceived). To put it gently, a rising tide (if it's even still rising) is no longer lifting all the boats. Socially. I won't dwell on that one, because Americans get all itchy and uncomfortable thinking about social class (the fact that dare not speak its name, rather like homosexuality in Oscar Wilde's day), but by virtually all measures, social mobility in the United States has collapsed, and, compared to other advanced countries, American society is stratified to an extent comparable to Britain at the height of the Empire (without the safety valve of emigration to the White Dominions).<br />
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What does this mean? It means that a politics premised on cooperation, migration towards the middle, moderation, compromise and shared, mutually agreed goals, is a politics based on hypocrisy or a misunderstanding of the realities of the situation. It means a politics that will be successfully manipulated and controlled by subsets within the culture that have a better understanding of those realities and exploit them for their benefits or agendas. It means that the tools of consensus building, expertise based policies for technically complex issues, and assumptions about the ultimate good will and reasonableness of one's political adversaries will be abused, dulled and eventually discarded.<br />
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In short, it means we are not all in this together anymore.<br />
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<i>Note--a man named William Kitteridge wrote short stories collected in a book titled <b>We Are Not in This Together</b>, published back in the 1980s. Cumulatively, the stories are bleak, austere and depressing. I think he was ahead of his time.</i>Mangas Coloradashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06463412362335217357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7299514567932353080.post-20532557644124692362017-03-09T08:59:00.000-08:002017-03-09T08:59:36.533-08:00Realism, Art, Politics. ArtArt. Art is a mirror. Well, art is a lot of things. And a mirror of what? But, the very idea of art is a quicksilver concept, and once upon a time quicksilver was what made a mirror. So, we'll stick with that mirror idea, but, instead of prattling on about artists in the avante garde, showing the way, illuminating all that is worthy of examination in their surroundings, let's turn it around, and look at art through a glass darkly, from the backside of the mirror, as it were.<br />
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Backsides. Nalgas, tracero, culo. Lots of different meanings, in any language. A fair amount of art involves backsides. There is a MOOC, offered by the University of Melbourne through Coursera, called Sexing the Canvas. I believe it explores gender, roles, mores and so on, sexual matters in a various cultures, as reflected in the visual arts of those cultures. I suspect it's an example of feminist art theory, and there is a lot of that out there, but maybe the presenters have transcended that, moved beyond as it were, and don't have an agenda.<br />
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Transcending vs. transgressing. Transgression is a big deal in contemporary art. Think of it as a fundamental career move. An exercise in getting attention, breaking into critical consciousness. Crufixes in urine, Mapplethorpe's in your face homoerotica and all that silliness a generation ago. Now, featured in art school promotional pieces. Since so many art students are 'traditional college students' (i.e., in their late teens, early twenties, with no life experience), and that is a group attracted to the idea breaking rules for the sake of breaking rules, part of flexing the muscles of emergent adulthood, what you have to teach is nothing compared to what I have to say, featuring opportunities to be transgressive in a supportive environment (Break the Rules Without Paying the Price), it's a smart marketing move. But, what about transcending, rather than transgressing? The nuance between transcending an existential situation while in life crisis and committing a traffic violation to get to class on time does tend to get lost, and I have no idea how an instructor teaches people who are present to break the rules (the elderly teacher's patient admonition to the effect that you have to know the rules to break the rules was old and dusty when I first heard it half a century ago).<br />
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So, we have sex and rule breaking. Gender and transgression, if you prefer, for themes of contemporary art. Or for Trump and Russia. Themes are a big deal in contemporary art--they are how textbooks, academic courses and sometimes exhibitions are organized. The idea of conceptual art has waxed, just as concerns of craft have waned. No one should be limited by her media, or even tasked to learn how to exploit to maximum advantage her media. Find something more malleable. The novelty value make get you your 15 minutes. Meanwhile, others lament the 'deskilling' of artists. Hmm . . . That doesn't just mean the elimination for budgetary reasons of arts education in the public schools. That means, at the university level, reducing the drawing requirement from a year to semester, replacing the design course with something called methods of art. Hmm . . .<br />
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I should not be so harsh. The product of conceptual art may yield Intellectual Property, that can be scaled up to great wealth. The product of a craftsman-like approach merely yields an object. No matter how valuable an object it doesn't scale (well, there is 'production art', but that leads back to intellectual property), and people now argue whether the object is even necessary for art.<br />
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Performance art. Absent recording, I'm not sure how performance art can have legs. I mean, the Sistine Chapel is there for the viewing, but the choirs of castrati who sang in solemn masses are long gone. And, if you asked the modern performance artist whether he'd like to see himself as a Michelangelo or as one of those castrati, I'm betting the former, not the latter. But, despite desire for the former, the fate of the latter is the more likely.<br />
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Back to the mirror, and from the backside, through a glass darkly. Not, what does art say about society, but what does society say about art? Well, if you look at the social context of art, first you must ignore the claims of its participants to be on the cutting edge, in the avante garde, transgressive pioneer visionaries recasting society, ever advancing the boundaries of art and human understanding. It's a bit like investment bankers claiming to be the engines of job creation and wellsprings of economic growth. Yeah, they'll finance a project, as long as the ROI is there.<br />
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The business of the arts, arts communities, tend to be very conservative places, a tense warren of perches, sinecures and interdependencies, hiding from the reality of their collective situation by grasping at a group think commitment to all the causes of cultural liberalism, especially the cause de jure, as if, wrapped in that, they can delude themselves. The tenured radical with her oldest in law school becomes a martyr to the patriarchy like her sister riding a cash register at Walmart, husband methed out somewhere while alone she's raising three children, her oldest already in trouble with the law. Ah, but we so are sensitive to the plight of our transgendered community, suffering the indignity of incorrect gender assignment at birth. (Are we permitted to wonder, as a colleague who teaches industrial design recently confided in me, where all these kids are coming from--I mean, he said, I can see one or two in a hundred, but I've got a seminar, twelve kids, and four of them have adopted the position. What gives? I dunno what gives, but I told him, but his mission, should he decide to accept it, was to get his students to stop thinking about what was between their legs and get them to focus on what's between the covers of the books he assigned as course reading. He rolled his eyes.)<br />
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">It is easy to be diverted by posturing on the
issues of cultural liberalism, and doing so plays into everyone's interests.
The underlying realities of the situation are simple enough. But
they are very hard. The arts depend on patronage, and artists are only as
good as their preparation. Patronage is an ever shifting fact of life,
and dealers, critics and curators have always been a structural parts of the
world of art. But, just as the decorative artists, court painters, and
church musicians of the ancient regime were, by and large, faithful servants to
the end (with a few highly publicized exceptions), the stakeholders of the
current regime will remain faithful to the end.
And, to put it mildly, the art world is struggling to adapt to the
enormous concentration of wealth of the last generation and the ongoing loss of
public support for the arts. The little rich and the high income
professionals were a great source of support for the arts in past decades.
Not so much anymore. And there simply aren't enough billionaires to
fill the hole.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">And, when you look at how artists are prepared,
trained, cultivated, the picture is as grim.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Grafting arts education onto of broader liberal arts education makes all
the sense in the world if you’re cultivating an appreciative lay public, not so
much if you’re trying to train professionals, particularly when you glorify
talent and genius, rather than craft and diligence, skill and discipline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And today even that
approach to arts education, in the United States, at least, is in disarray, not
because the instructors are weak, the programs defective, or the students
lacking potential, but because the social context in which they exist has
shifted radically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like highly refined
niche species, they are incapable of adapting to the new climate. I'm
told that this problem is even worse in the old Soviet Union. The resources have been withdrawn. But, of course, the graduates are still churned out, some with debt, some with attitude, some with both.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">So the times are hard. And they are
getting worse. And they will continue to get worse. Until the
players are forced to either leave the field, or walk the walk.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">What other field of human endeavor seems to be
in similar straits?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Good old<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>traditional, business as usual politics,
anyone?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Mangas Coloradashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06463412362335217357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7299514567932353080.post-68479914212713986182017-03-06T19:33:00.001-08:002017-03-07T07:12:24.014-08:00It's Sinking In . . . or Fellow Travelers, Gullible and OtherwiseThe Russian taint.<br />
<br />
Slowly, vast swaths of the American public appear to be concluding that the Trump regime is in some spooky sense beholden to the Russian government. It is a cumulative and piecemeal process, and what is important to some people does not move others. But, overall, the conclusion is hard to avoid--the Russians successfully 'hacked' the 2016 election, Trumps surrogates, agents, campaign manager, etc., are in pretty routine contact with Russians counterparts, Trump himself and his family have business interests that fatally compromise the independence and autonomy of the American presidency vis-a-vis Russia. And that's without even getting to lurid hints at filmed sexual depravity or rumors of a half-billion dollar Russian 'investment' in Trump's businesses.<br />
<br />
Maybe it will all blow over. Not likely. Not with the attorney general getting caught lying under oath about it (excuse me, misremembering in his testimony). It is kind of funny watching the party of the Benghazi witch hunt balking at looking into a real problem. The people who wanted to pin personal responsibility for consular security issues on a secretary of state who, I doubt, could have found the consulate if you'd given her a map of Benghazi?<br />
<br />
Almost 70 years ago, Republicans in Congress engaged in an earlier witch hunt, seeking Communists and sympathizers in Hollywood, the State Department and elsewhere using as their tool the House Committee on Un-American Activities and the investigative activities of Senator Joe McCarthy (whose subsequently disgraced lawyer was a man named Roy Cohn who, interestingly, years later was the lawyer of a young New York real estate scion named Donald Trump). The intrepid witch hunters of that era used the term 'fellow travelers' for people who weren't actually Communists, but who were sympathizers, or at least acted in tandem with them, or, at a minimum bumped into them in meetings or whatever. If they were merely political sentient and on the left, unaware of the Communist affiliations of some of their political allies, they were 'gullible' fellow travelers. For knowing what was going on, you lost the dismissive but ameliorating modifier 'gullible.'<br />
<br />
The concept of 'fellow traveler' made it easier to hold people accountable for things they didn't know they had done. It would be delightful to apply the same standards to Trump and his minions. Let's see, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is a 'gullible' Russian asset. Campaign Manager Paul Manafort, well, maybe not so gullible.<br />
<br />
Anyway you cut it, it's pretty un-American.Mangas Coloradashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06463412362335217357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7299514567932353080.post-13080421544566556752017-03-01T10:31:00.003-08:002017-03-01T10:31:31.533-08:00Realism. Art. Politics. Realism.<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Gentle reader, I hope you are not expecting a comfortable
middlebrow essay on Realism in the Art of Politics.</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">There are any number of outstanding media
platforms—ranging from The Financial Times to The New York Review of Books from
First Things to The Baffler—where there are an astonish profusion of
commentaries on that general topic.</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">
</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Nah.</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">This is going to be number one in an
occasional series of three posts, one of Realism, one on Art and one on
Politics.</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">My challenge will be to tie
them all together somehow.</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Here goes.</span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Realism.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Back in the middle of the 19<sup>th</sup> century Realism
was a bona fide movement in painting and sculpture, a controversial departure
from Romanticism and a challenging counterpoint to the Academy of the day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Like ‘realism’ the ‘academy’ is one of those
flexible terms that means different things at different times—today it seems to
be a way for the professoriat to comfortably gloss over the unpleasant fact of
an institutional pecking order, in other words that a professor with tenure at
Standford is one thing, and an adjunct instructor at Southern Oregon State University
something else entirely. But back in the 19<sup>th</sup> century the 'academy' was, well, the Academy, as in the Academie Francaise, the Royal Society,
etc.).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Back to Realism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Let’s be real, he’s realistic, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a pragmatic culture that believes that a shared
social reality (that word, again) is the foundation of communication, that
comfortably relegates the philosophical inquiries into the nature of that shared reality either to history or to contemporary academics no one pays much attention to, the 'real-' terms generally carry a rather boring, positive connotation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She’s realistic and reliable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s a dreamer and undisciplined.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which one do you choose for the job of making
sure the shipping department is well organized, efficient, and meetings its
performance metrics?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The meaning of
realistic is so positive, so diffused and so encompassing that is almost
empty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nowadays, to say a portrait or a
landscape is realistic basically means, colloquially, that’s it’s a fair
replication of what a photograph of the subject would look like, and little more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">That wasn’t always the case. The basic idea of the mid 19<sup>th</sup>
century art movement known at Realism was that the subject and techniques of
art should be the faithful representation of contemporary reality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No more painting scenes of classical antiquity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you haven’t personally witnessed it, you
shouldn’t paint it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the
representation of the contemporary scene should be accurate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The peasant should look like a peasant, the
whore should look like a whore and if the dreary inhabitants of a dreary village
have turned on a dreary occasion like a funeral, you got it, the picture should
be dreary, not uplifting and spiritual.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If you believe that the mission of Art is to elevate the human spirit
and acquaint modern youth with the pious or noble virtues of the illustrious
past, that’s pretty revolting (in both senses of the word).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> I mean, peasants should be happy arcadians, whores, well, they should be saints following their conversion, and so on. Let's ride to the sound of the guns, a la Stendahl. </span>But for the Realists, their work was a matter of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Just the facts, ma’am’ (some echoes of realism down
through centuries have been more entertaining than others). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The outstanding proponent of Realism was a Frenchman named
Courbet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Early Manet (more commonly
thought of as an Impressionist) and Millet (he of the gleaners) were also good
exemplars.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In due course, the Realist
movement gave way, and Symbolism surfaced, the Impressionists were more
interested in subjective than objective reality, and all the ferment of late 19<sup>th</sup>
century painting and sculpture proceeded to unfold.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Realism continues to surface in various
forms—Surrealism, the Ash Can School, Photorealism and so on (most would argue
that the Socialist Realism of the Soviet Union was actually a form of officially
sanctioned Romanticism, that’s really getting down in the weeds).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">An interesting thing about Realism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The choice of topic and method of
presentation had profound political implications.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>really, really, rub people’s noses in the state of contemporary affairs,
very few people are satisfied.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over and
out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of them become terrible
agitated and want to fix the problems they see, in terms of correcting injustices,
righting wrongs, establishing new rights and using the collective resources of
society to improve the state of humanity (whether we are talking about Blake’s
New Jerusalem or a single payer healthcare system)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of them become terribly agitated and to
fix the problems they see, in terms of restoring traditional values, ending the
corrosion of national prestige, protecting our gun rights,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>putting women in their place, keeping our
little girls safe from queers who want to assault them in the bathroom, and so
on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The Realists themselves tend to fall into the first
camp.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most decent people do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It takes a punitive, cowardly or at the very
least, rigidly doctrinaire mindset not to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Courbet, for example, was an enthusiastic participant in the
Paris Commune and spent six months in prison for his role in it (and didn’t get
shot probably because towards the end he had a falling out with his fellow
Communards when they executed an ally of his, so at the very last he was an
alienated former participant in the Commune rather than a fighter going down
on the Barricades).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He died in alcoholic Swiss
exile, the French government pursuing him with a bill for damages to a monument
he ordered pulled down during the Commune.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Much different outcome than a visiting distinguished fellowship at a
major university, a perch in a think tank of your particular flavor, a book contract and an arrangement with a speaker’s bureau.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But no
matter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">When apologists for our oligarchy and other conservative
hacks bitch that ‘the facts have a liberal bias,’ this is what’s triggering
it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most decent people, looking at most
difficult situations, have a tendency to want to help the people caught in the
difficulties.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As was once said of Gerald
Ford (the first Republican president to take office without a popular mandate), Ford may be a conservative, but if he met somebody with a problem, he’d give them the
shirt off his back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Literally. </span>But, if you have,
within yourself, repressed and denied that human tendency to give a sufferer the shirt off your back, you are naturally
going to object to people dwelling on the difficulties those sufferers face and try to focus on the
failings of the victims, their personal responsibility, or the decline in
public mores that allowed the situation to develop in the first place (it’s
awfully hard to blame small children for having drug addicted parents).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If, instead, the media focus on, continue to
dwell on, the situation as it exists, the suffering, the victims, you will find yourself complaining about
media bias. And when you don't win that argument (the main stream media having a penchance for 'just the facts, ma'am' a/k/a objectivity in its coverage) then you complain that facts themselves have a liberal bias.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So, yeah, the facts have a liberal bias.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">But only because most people are nice people.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Mangas Coloradashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06463412362335217357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7299514567932353080.post-23774888342028543612017-02-27T07:09:00.000-08:002017-02-27T20:13:17.750-08:00La La Land, Tragedy and Farce--The Electoral College and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and SciencesFor a brief, embarrassing moment, the movie that got fewer votes was announced as the winner of the 2017 Oscar for Best Motion Picture. Moonlight got the most votes, La La Land was announced the winner. The error was quickly corrected, and everybody's having a good time mocking their choice of culprit--Warren Beatty's too old vs. Price Waterhouse can't count. From the academy's point of view, it sure beats the aftertaste from OscarsSoWhite.<br />
<br />
For the next four years, the country is going to endure a president who was inaugurated after losing the popular vote by over 3 million votes. This is not going to be such a good time. Now, two out of the last three US presidents took office after losing the popular election. The first time the guy (Bush) lost by about three hundred thousand votes. His years in office did not end well. This time the guy lost by ten times the margin, and the ending of his regime is likely to be an order of magnitude worse.<br />
<br />
The immediate reason for this is the Electoral College, an institution of indirect election that weighs the vote of a white skinhead or Aryan Nation follower in Wyoming or Idaho and a bit more than twice as much as the vote of a housewife or engineer in New York or California (the overweighing is far, far grosser in terms of Senate representation, but that's a topic for another day). Now, the Electoral College was this system devised by the Founding Fathers to protect the republic from demagogues or unqualified rulers when electing a president. We were all taught in school that the Electoral College is an anachronistic formality. We were taught wrong, and it is not. The results speak for themselves.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, unlike last night's farce at the Oscars, no one is going to come forward and admit the mistake. At least not until some more cards have turned over. The frog is comfortable in the pot, and the water temperature is getting pleasantly warmer. Until the tragedy boils over.Mangas Coloradashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06463412362335217357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7299514567932353080.post-75397298300109333622017-02-25T06:49:00.001-08:002017-02-27T20:10:35.481-08:00American Revolution?Let's get one thing straight. There has never been an American revolution. Between 1775 and 1783 that was a rebellion that became a War of Independence. It used to be called that--the War of Independence. But for the last three-quarters of a century, for both domestic and international consumption, in pursuit of an eminently sensible, geopolitical agenda, the War of Independence has been recast as the American Revolution.<br />
<br />
It's pretty harmless. We did have a genuine Civil War, of course (which some of your more cerebral unreconstructed rebels used to try to call the Southern War of Independence). But a revolution, like the Soviet Revolution or the French Revolution. No.<br />
<br />
Was there an ideological component to the American War of Independence? No doubt. The Founding Fathers swam in the currents of the European Enlightenment, provincial groupies and followers of various strands of Enlightenment thinking, chiefly the parts concerned with political organization, less so the social analysis. When Franklin arrived in Paris, he played the hick beautifully because the role was such a good fit. But to turn those guys into the towering intellects of the 18th century is joke.<br />
<br />
The colonists started as subjects of a hereditary king, governing with legislature consisting of a hereditary House of Lords and a Parliament elected by a very restricted suffrage. The new nation emerged with an elected king and a legislature consisting of an upper chamber composed of oligarchs indirectly selected by their fellow oligarchs and a lower chamber elected by a very restricted suffrage.<br />
<br />
Some revolution. But, definitely, a successful war of independence.Mangas Coloradashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06463412362335217357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7299514567932353080.post-16163244730382689262017-02-23T06:26:00.001-08:002017-02-27T20:14:06.187-08:00Congress, America's Newest Death PanelRepeal the Affordable Health Care Act? Or, it's all about Freedom. Your freedom to live* with or without health insurance. Is that what it's all about?<br />
<br />
Congress, America's Newest Death Panel. That's the mantra, boys (and gurlz). Stick with it, Repeal Affordable Care. Congress, America's Newest Death Panel. A pretty good meme. Or at least a good bumper sticker.<br />
<br />
When worlds collide. A lot depends on whether Paul Ryan and the Freedom Caucus have drunk their own koolaide. And which flavor. For a decade or so, they have inflamed their base with, on the one hand, the importance of balancing the budget, and, on the other, repealing Obamacare. Well, take away the government health insurance subsidies for the middle class by repealing Obamacare and, guess what, you've made a big dent in the deficit. At a cost of stripping health insurance from all those older angry white losers no longer under an employer's healthcare umbrella 'because their jobs moved to China' who elected you. They can go naked or buy a policy that gives them a card but no coverage. Unless they happen to have an extra $10k or so to cover next year's premiums.<br />
<br />
Another step in the slow and painful process of people learning they need their government, and good government governing in their interest is better than bad government dancing to the oligarchy's tune. The private sector doesn't have all the answers. Free markets come at the cost of free men (and women).<br />
<br />
It may not be the end of Days. But it could be the end of ways. A fork in the road. Stick a fork in it.<br />
<br />
* and dieMangas Coloradashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06463412362335217357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7299514567932353080.post-83576028399472735392017-02-21T07:31:00.002-08:002017-02-27T20:14:48.138-08:00The New Jews?<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="color: #775544; font-family: "arial"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Be brave.” Is
what a mother about to be deported in a Denver immigration sweep ordered by the
Trumpistas said to her children in 2017. The family will apparently
be broken, to make a political point. I’m not sure why the children
of this particular illegal alien aren’t being deported, as well, or why they
don’t serve as anchor babies for her, but such detail relating to individual
situations gets lost in the sweep of history.</span><span style="color: #775544; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #775544; font-family: "arial"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“Human beings are
sacrificed to abstractions; a holocaust of individuals is offered up to ‘the
people.’ Is what a man named Benjamin Constant wrote in
The Spirit of Conquest in 1813. I found that at page 218 in Hugh
Honour’s book, Romanticism (1979), and he in turn was quoting the historian
Isaiah Berlin in his Four Essays on Liberty (1969) at page ix. So
it’s fair to say that, despite an intriguing Wikipedia entry, old Benjamin
Constant and his ideas haven’t exactly made a big or lasting impression on the
global consciousness.</span><span style="color: #775544; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #775544; font-family: "arial"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So, under the Trump
regime, who will be the new Jews? Right now, the leading candidates, in my
opinion, are the illegal immigrants and the Muslims. If I were a
betting man, I’d put my money on the illegal immigrants, for a couple of
reasons.</span><span style="color: #775544; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #775544; font-family: "arial"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">One is legal. Islam
is a religion, and religious groups have a wide variety of Constitutional and
legal protection, ranging from hate crime legislation to the First Amendment of
the Constitution. And most Muslim immigrants in the United States
are here legally. As legal resident aliens, they have most (not all)
of the legal protections of U.S. citizens. So, Muslims are a harder
target. And bullies avoid hard targets.</span><span style="color: #775544; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #775544; font-family: "arial"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">By contrast, illegal
immigrants are the furthest thing from a protected class under U.S. law.</span><span style="color: #775544; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #775544; font-family: "arial"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A second reason is
cultural. You may fear and hate your enemies, but at some level you
respect them. I mean, Islamic terrorists did manage to bring down
the World Trade Center, and, man, that's huge, just yuge. Even if you’re
tough enough to blow off the loss of human life, like when he mentioned the 3
trillion dollars the Iraq War cost but forgot to say anything about the cost in
blood, the Towers of the World Trade Center were valuable New York real
estate. Gone. Poof. All that cash flow from
all those leases. Clearly Islamic terrorism is the most serious
threat to the American way of life that the Republic has ever faced. So
let's use them to keep the country on a war footing and scapegoat somebody
else.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">On the other hand, if you consider the attitudes
towards illegal immigrants voiced by Trump, it is the contempt of a hate
spewing nationalist for sub humans. They illegals are
criminals. They are rapists. They are filthy. They
spread disease. Their cartels have tentacles across the civilized
world. Their very presence soils the fabric of our community and
corrupts the purity of our Nation. Anyone who can’t hear the echoes
of a Central European Jew baiter from between the World Wars is tone
deaf. I mean, does someone have to invent the Protocolos de los
Jovenes de Cuszco to connect the dots?</span></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Mangas Coloradashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06463412362335217357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7299514567932353080.post-8033631725222206202017-02-19T07:09:00.002-08:002017-02-28T07:47:11.534-08:00El Caudillo de la Basura Blanca?Or the Fuehrer der Lumpenproletariat? And Who is the White Trash? What is the Lumpenproletariat?<br />
<br />
Figuring Donald Trump as a political figure requires covering some ground that's been left fallow since the triumph of the now fraying international neo-liberal consensus, celebrated in much of the Western World as an occasion to stop thinking hard about things and instead pretending to be public intellectuals, think tank pundits, cable TV talking heads and right wing radio talk show entertainers. (I leave out bloggers only because I don't want to be splattered by my own back splash.)<br />
<br />
I have been calling Trump, the political actor 'El Caudillo de la Basura Blanca'', not as a term of respect, of course, but as an accommodation to his own conception of himself. Not being fond of the Hispanic influences on American culture (my main reason for chosing to say it in Spanish), Trump would translate it as Strongman of the White Trash, though he'd probably use a term like 'real Americans' instead of White Trash. Now, people who use their identity as white native-born American citizens to feel superior to other people, to intimidate all the Others, and to claim special privileges in defining the national culture or at least owning guns, can be called a lot of things, and White Trash is as good as any.<br />
<br />
So, for me, as far as the term El Caudillo de la Basura Blanca goes, the question isn't about the 'Basura Blanca' part, it's about the 'Caudillo' part of it. Now Francisco Franco was the archetypal Caudillo of the twentieth century. Juan Peron wasn't too shabby, either. Both of those guys had a political cunning and will to ruthlessness than leaves The Donald in the dust. If Trump were to build his wall using the slave labor of his surviving political opponents after having bathed the country in blood, he'd be worth comparing to Franco, building the Valle de los Caidos in the 1940 and 1950s. Given the president's track record so far, that doesn't seem likely. He lacks the leadership abilities, the strength of personal character, the myriad political empathies, the technical expertise, etc., etc. If he is replaced from the Right, maybe his successor will have that necessary mix. If he ends up propped up as the front man for some beta test of a future, dystopian version of the American presidency, the whole idea of 'leadership' goes out the window, and he's just a pawn in somebody else's shadowy game.<br />
<br />
Which brings us to the idea of the Fuehrer der Lumpenproletariat. For those of you who learned to hate communism without bothering to learn any Marxism, the lumpenproletariat is probably a foreign concept. I'm not a Marxist (and if I were, I'd be an American Marxist, who were never much to write home about, anyway), but here goes, the 'lumpenproletariat' is the alienated, antisocial, parasitical, deviant, corrupted, quasi-criminal elements of the lower social orders. Most of Trump's core supporters would probably object to be described than way even more than to be called 'white trash' (which in some tobacco chewing, wife beating, Confederate flag flying circles can be a perverse badge of honor).<br />
<br />
Now, a rabblerouser or a demagogue can be a leader (which is all a fuehrer is) without having the skills necessary to govern. In the American War of Independence, Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams were good examples of gifted speakers, rabblerousers if you were a Tory, in the Patriot Cause. But no one every accused either of them of strong management skills. More recently, Mussolini reputedly said of himself and Hitler that Hitler was the second rate leader of a first rate nation while he, Mussolini, was the first rate leader of a second rate nation. So, maybe fuehrer fits better than caudillo.<br />
<br />
But, viz., my rather pallid reference to Hitler and Mussolini, it is precisely the swift descent into the foetid swamp of internet Nazi comparisons that keeps me from using the word 'fuehrer' in connect with Donald Trump. Who wants to wade through that fascist sewage? Leave that particular f-word to the likes Newt Gingrich with his PhD, Rush Limbaugh with his pill problems, and all the other right wing talking heads. And fuck'em.<br />
<br />
So, in the interests of civility and good manners, and have due respect for my enemies and their feelings, I think I'll avoid 'fuehrer der lumpenproletariat' and stick with 'el caudillo de la basura blanca.' After all, as Marx himself said in reference to the two Napoleons who were Emperors of the French, the first time tragedy, the second time farce. Hopefully, the progression in Caudillos, from Franco to Peron to Trump, will be a similar descent.<br />
<br />
But, the White Trash, the lumpenproletariat, the workings of class in American, now there is something to consider, and not exclusively from the perspective of simple economic determinism (though will a little layering economic determinism will prove useful). Something for another day. Not until after Realism. Art. Politics. But someday soon.<br />
<br />
<br />Mangas Coloradashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06463412362335217357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7299514567932353080.post-46568048441667470822017-02-17T07:10:00.001-08:002017-02-17T07:10:39.589-08:00So What Happens When?It's a little early to draw any definitive conclusions about the Trump regime. It's fair to say that it's gotten off to a rough start. Beyond that, confirmation bias and a multiplicity of possible narratives really get in the way of any fair assessment of El Caudillo de la Basura Blanca and his crew.<br />
<br />
Confirmation bias is a reality--most Trump supporters apparently see what's happening as a proof that the lib-tard main stream media and an entrenched Washington bureaucracy are in a hellish conspiracy to frustrate the will of the people ( well, of the minority--by 3-million voters--of the population who voted for Trump). Most Democrats and the non-political people of the center see what's happening as the thrashing around of dangerous amateurs and 'somebody needs to do something' about it (where are the adults in the room?, they ask). The rest of the world--all those people beyond the shores of the Atlantic and the Pacific, the people on the other side of the Wall--seem to be reaching some more guarded preliminary conclusions--write off Trump, not the United States, and for time being assume there is a black hole where the United States of America used to be.<br />
<br />
The multiplicity of narratives is as much a problem as confirmation bias. Trump came into office having never been elected to anything, have never served his country in any capacity, hell, not even having paid taxes in over a decade. Doleful Republicans too gutless to admit what their party has foisted on the country, console themselves by claiming that Trump used to be a Democrat. Gotta call bullshit on that one. He was a New Yorker, sporting the local plumage, that's all. He was a billionaire parcelling out bipartisan political contributions as part of the group effort to make sure the oligarchy's interests were political served, that's all. Beyond the lack of a political track record, there is the erratic personal past--three wives, the bankruptcies, starting with great wealth, thrashing around in casinos and golf course projects, the larger than life media persona--that make him an enigma at the human level. An unpleasant enigma, but an enigma nonetheless. 'Make America Great Again' isn't much to go on. It certainly has a fascist ring to it (more so that anything offered up by Islamic fundamentalism, despite the efforts of Rumsfeldt et al. to label that baffling and contradictory movement 'Islamofascism').<br />
<br />
On a human level you can make some educated guesses about Trump, but unless you care about the man, that's beside the point. And, besides Trump and his associates, there is the whole question of how institutions and individual actors are going to react. The Senate, the House of Representatives, the federal government as a whole, the military have never been tested this way. It's probably childish and naive to put much faith in, say, the courts, as the final safeguard against tyranny, a role they're given in the innocent mindset of most conservative American political thinkers, but their responses will emphatically effect how this is going to play out.<br />
<br />
So, if you are interested in how the situation is going to unfold, there simply isn't enough to go on, and in that vacuum preconceived notions have too much weight.<br />
<br />
All that said, a rocky start. And, interestingly, all the rough patches have, basically, been sought out. The fiascoes over the Wall and the Travel Ban were self-inflicted, in the sense that the regime itself started things rolling. Rather than starting with something with widespread bi-partisan support (infrastructure, anyone?) or something of substance requiring heavy lifting (healthcare reform beyond sloganeering?), the Trump regime began by pandering to its base, to the general consternation of everyone not part of that base. In my opinion, these guys haven't done a particularly good job dealing with the fallout from the, er, mixed reception their first initiatives out of the box, have received. They almost blew their fingers off, lighting the cherry bomb, then failing to throw it. The Travel Ban and the legal strategies associated with it, in particular, are astonishing. Sometime needs to tell Team Trump that 'do overs' really aren't' possible in politics. Once roiled, the waters take a long time to go still again.<br />
<br />
So, that brings us to the question that is the title of this essay. What is going to happen when, inevitably, the Trump crowd is no longer itself kicking off the controversy, but is called on the react to a situation out of its control? How will these guys handle a crisis? So far, the economy is cranking along just fine, there has been no new outbreak of regional violence anywhere in the world. All that has happened so far has involved highly symbolic missile-related muscle flexing. The Iranians tested a missile. The North Koreans did the same. The Russians deployed new intermediate range missile battalions (a treaty violation). All of this is alarming, of course, but not on the same level as, say, an overt military intervention by Russia in the Ukraine. So far, and he hasn't been in power long, global events have not required Trump to respond with American power.<br />
<br />
But, every few years or so, something happens and American need their federal government. Since the turn of the century, the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001 and the economic melt-down of 2008 have been the kind of thing that a country needs a strong central government to handle. Sooner or later, something like that will happen again. Then we'll see. No use trying to predict.Mangas Coloradashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06463412362335217357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7299514567932353080.post-71375558697205463872017-02-15T07:40:00.000-08:002017-02-15T12:10:37.681-08:00Manafort, Flynn and Trump--Playing the Russian Hand . . .<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">As a little thought experiment, let's look at the current situation in Washington from the Russian perspective. For starters, doing so helps to cleanse the mind of irrelevant niceties like burden of proof, or even guilt or innocence. What happened to Flynn is a useful reminder that all assets have useful lives, although the speed with which he depreciated is mind boggling, and definitely a reminder of the fragility of the biggest asset of all.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Let's assume that the Russian goal here is (realistically) to weaken the United States, reduce its international footprint and (optimistically) contribute in any way possible to that country entering an existential crisis of a magnitude similar to what Russia endured in the breakup of the old Soviet Union. The optimistic goal (American corporate managers would call it a stretch goal) seems pretty unrealistic, but this time last year getting Trump elected to the presidency seemed about as unrealistic. Of course, as Russians, it's important to remember that Russian assistance did not elect Trump as the American president, it provided a useful nudge, sure, it contributed, of course, but to claim it actually made Trump happen, that's overstatement. A little humility is in order.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">As Russians, let's also assume that there are elements in American politics that want to bring Trump down. His situation is a bit like that of Nikita Khrushchev after the Cuban missile crisis. Now, any Russian link is obviously the kiss of death (look at Paul Manafort, and he was more an eye-opener to the possibilities of the situation than an actual, functioning asset). But it is very much in the interests of Russia to keep Trump in power as long as possible. The man is a buffoon, and the national humiliation of the Americans at having a coward and political weakling for their president is, in itself, enormously advantageous. Beyond that, to the extent that his legitimacy is impaired and the country's political elite is thrown in turmoil, the virtual paralysis of the country is even more advantageous. So, it's very much in the Russian interest to keep him installed, if possible, and, if that isn't, to prolong for as long as possible the turmoil associated with his continued presence in office or eventual removal. The ideal outcome might be have him, in place, neutered, but with a remaining limited capacity to impede any any anti-Russian moves by the United States. In Russian dreams. But dreams sometimes come true.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The Trump opposition is in no sense coordinated or disciplined. Popularly elected and politically motivated Democratic legislators and the patriotic intelligence professionals of the American security establishment have some natural antipathies that could be exploited. If Trump or his inner circle were even marginally competent, those factions could be neutralized or perhaps even turned against one another. But, when it comes to exercising power, they aren't and unfortunately there is no way to provide Trump's team with the coaching and guidance it desperately needs. The United States isn't Syria (yet).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Now, the American intelligence services range from opaque to impenetrable. But the same cannot be said of the political opposition. So, while not much can be done to prop Trump up, there may be opportunities to attack his opponents, at least in the political and media elites. In the meantime, to use an American proverb, make hay while the sun shines. Or, if you're old enough, as you may remember from your childhood courses on dialectics, strike when the correlation of forces is in your favor.</span>Mangas Coloradashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06463412362335217357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7299514567932353080.post-23273460184600300072017-02-13T07:29:00.000-08:002017-02-27T20:06:42.626-08:00Deep State USA, Is There One? And the answer is . . .<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace; font-size: x-small;"><i><b>(This is the final part of a series of posts on the possibility of an American Deep State and may not make sense unless you've read the preceding installments. The previous posts are on January 23, 2017, January 25, 2017 and February 2, 2017.)</b></i> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">We've got all the ingredients. It's as if the box from Blue Apron has been opened, and everything you need to make the meal is neatly lined up on the kitchen counter. But, we haven't made the meal yet (even if the delivery of the box earlier in the week will show up on this month's credit card cycle).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Consider: For the last 15 years the War on Terror has involved the created of a national security apparatus which although focused on external threats, can easily be redeployed to address domestic issues. As a matter of fact, given that virtually all incidents of terrorism on U.S. since 9/11 have been committed by U.S. citizen that redeployment (and the elimination of easy public access to any weapon that can hold more rounds than, say, a six-shooter)is what any competent security personnel would recommend if you're worried about domestic 'carnage,' to use the Caudillo's word.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Consider: The only real impediment to doing so are fussy legalistic objections, blather about the rule of law and norms of decency, the sort of stuff that any committed revolutionary would sweep away in a heartbeat(whether from the right, like Mr. Bannon, or on the left, like, well, she hasn't surfaced yet). The noise about frustrating the judicial review of the executive order announcing a travel ban by signing a new order before review of the current one has even concluded is a minor first step in that process. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Consider: National security, the safety of the Homeland (Fatherland? Das Reich?) has historically made an acceptable justification for suspensions of ordinary rules, procedures, safeguards, right. Can anyone grok 'State of Emergency'? How about, 'State of Siege'? A new set of Black prisons would be another, bigger step. Rendition of people apprehended within the borders of the U.S. to these new black prisons would be a much bigger step after that. Or maybe just push them out of the helicopter on the ride to the their final destination for an Argentine swim? And so on. It's not hard to imagine a progressive implementation of domestic security measures to crush popular dissent and preserve domestic order and tranquility (for a little while).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Consider: the dynamic of the previous considerations leads to the development of an embedded element in the bowels of the national security establishment, answerable to no one, hard to pinpoint, with a self-appointed mission to protect the nation from all threats, internal and external. It would only be a matter of time before such an element turned on and tamed its political 'masters'.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">And that, gentle reader, is the definition of a Deep State.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>Mangas Coloradashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06463412362335217357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7299514567932353080.post-36651476058140180682017-02-11T07:28:00.000-08:002017-02-27T20:12:30.521-08:00I'm with Her (Mia Farrow)<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Not sure if the Nordstrom brouhaha is even worth noticing. But since Paul Krugman thinks it is, here are my two cents:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I'm with Mia Farrow, and I quote in full, 'I've never plugged a store before, but Nordstrom's is great.' I also liked the initial response of the Nordstrom spokesperson who, not realizing he was dealing with a fecal meteorological event stirred up by Jihadi Don, gave a Marketing 101 explanation of how a department store makes merchandising calls (to the effect of, 'we carry around 2000 brands, cull the low producers--about 10% of the total--every year, and replace them with new brands, to see how those will do. We're a department store. That's how department stores work'--not a direct quote).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Nordie's is a nice place. I liked both the Pioneer Square Store in downtown Portland and the Washington Square store down towards Lake Oswego when we lived in Oregon. The house brand is high quality. The people seemed pleasant. But I'm not much into shopping or retail or any of that shit, so that's all I know.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">As far as Jihadi Don taking them on, it's ridiculous, of course, and not worth talking about in real time. Except insofar as, down the road, as an early tell tale sign of petulant, petty undisciplined abuse of power, it may become symbolic. For the time being, it's up there with Truman taking on the music critic who panned his daughter's singing (though, in Truman's defense, no money was involved, and his letter to the critic was a great deal more, entertaining, expressive, whatever, than the tweet that caused the current stir). Of course, people talked about how inappropriate what Truman did for over a decade. Now, the Trump defenders will excuse the tweet, the Trump haters will declare outrage, and, all in all, just a minor dignity chip knocked off the presidency pedestal, a spontaneous and unplanned incident in the ongoing demolition project.</span>Mangas Coloradashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06463412362335217357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7299514567932353080.post-68290603308500169272017-02-09T07:24:00.002-08:002017-02-09T15:17:29.518-08:00Is humanity being prepped for AI, to live under machine rule?<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;">All hail the mighty algorithm! We are are destined to die salute thee!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Twice in the last week. First, I went to the doctor, for a trivial reason (renew a blood pressure prescription).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
also ordered up a routine blood panel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Then he got all excited and started describing how, at my age and with
the blood pressure situation, I was a candidate for statins, based on a couple
of numbers, which was how they used to decide and that resulted in over
prescription, which the drug companies loved,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>but now, we have an ALGORITHM, and you take all the results of the blood
panel, the blood pressure numbers, and a couple of other things and just plug
the numbers into the ALGORITHM, and that determines whether I’m in the roughly
seven and half percent of the population in my age bracket that should be on
statins as a precautionary measure.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">It did not appear to bother him at all that the ALGORITHM
had displaced his professional judgment, and converted him from the decision
maker to a conveyor of decisions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He
seemed happy to be able to deliver what he felt was an improved quality of care
to his patients.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s a good guy, a good
doctor, and old enough to have outgrown his God complex and simple faith in
Heroic Intervention.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Then I got into a conversation with an Art Professional (I
don’t know what to call her, she advises the wealthy who collect contemporary
art).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was decrying the loss of
passion for art among the collecting classes and how an investment mindset had
come to predominate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In certain
respects, and at elevated levels, art is merely another asset class.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course this has been going on for a while,
ever since banks started lending against the stuff and art collections
started being used as chits in estate planning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But this woman, fresh from the gilded trenches of galleries and auction
houses, wanted to grouse, and I was happy to accommodate her.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The latest outrage is, you got it,
ALGORITHMS.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Collectors’ are making
acquisition, divestiture and diversification decisions, used the same processes
that hedge fund managers, trading desks and that ilk have developed to skim all
the cream out of market fluctuations before any of it gets to retail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps this is to be expected, as so many
collectors are in financial services for a day job.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">This woman was not so accepting of the ALGORITHM as the
doctor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Candidly, I think she has a
point in her field.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the world of art,
I suspect there are too many endogenous shocks to bet the ranch on a trading
algorithm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Algorithms perform best in
self-contained systems where, in effect, they arbitrage quantifiable
discrepancies, allocate quantifiable resources to defined processes with
measurable outcomes, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, as for figuring
out whether Bollywood or Chinese cinema will someday displace Hollywood in global
markets, your guess is as good as any algorithm.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">But the faith in the almighty ALGORITHM does appear to be
growing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Colloquially, people refer to ‘black
box’ decision making.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nobody knows what’s
in the black box.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Only a small
priesthood can decipher the algorithm.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">But the social truth is, the algorithm decides, then its
servants execute.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And given the quality
of human decision making coming out of Washington in recent weeks, the mess
humans have made of the Middle East in recent decades, the rise of non-quantifiable religious
fundamentalism and xenophobic nationalism around the world (well, to be fair,
in Europe, the United States and the Middle East), etc., etc. perhaps decision
by machine/rule by algorithm has a certain initial attraction.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Leaving open the question of who writes the algorithm?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or, provides the initial programming
instructions that send the AI development down some certain path . . .</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Mangas Coloradashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06463412362335217357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7299514567932353080.post-8151583501279401752017-02-05T07:26:00.000-08:002017-02-22T09:06:17.905-08:00Jihadi Don<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Take a look at the Der Speigel cover for April 2. El Caudillo de La Basura Blanca beheading the Statue of Liberty. If an American drone could take out jihadi John for the Brits, do you suppose the military forces of another member of the 'Coalition of the Willing' could return the favor and do something about Jihadi Don for the Americans?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">More seriously, Americans have an uncanny tendency, in long struggles with adversaries, to take on some of the characteristics of the adversary. So, during the cold war, the military-industrial complex of the United States indisputably came to mirror in some ways the state within the state that was the Soviet defense establishment. On a more trivial note, the United States developed a cultural infatuation with all things Japanese during the brief Japanese challenge of the 1980s. More recently, if you look at the rise of the Religious Right in the United States and compare it to Islamic fundamentalism, if you consider the network of religious madrasas and compare it to charter schools and American faith based education, it's hard to avoid the same conclusion. I'm not quite ready to label the American republic a failed state, but . . . regime change, anyone?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i>Note--the author does not approve of either drone attacks or violence by or against presidents of the United States. The utilitarian argument in favor of using drones--that those operations result is less collateral damage than conventional military operations--ignores the reality that, in the complete absence of casualties to the force using the drone, drone attacks are undertaken with far greater frequency and in a far wider range of circumstances than would be conventional military operations. With respect to violence involving U.S. presidents, violence against presidents is, of course, prohibited by law, and violence by presidents is a wide ranging topic raising issues far more serious than this post. But, nobody should grab anybody by the pussy, celebrity president or not.</i></span>Mangas Coloradashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06463412362335217357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7299514567932353080.post-73653505027658751792017-02-03T06:54:00.002-08:002017-02-03T06:59:41.674-08:00Telephone Diplomacy, Disconnect<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Los manditarios de Mexico y Australia no se divierten por El Caudillo de la Basura Blanca.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I'm trying to image how the conversation between the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Australia went, since it apparently ended 20 minutes into the hour blocked out for it with the president hanging up on the prime minister.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Australia: If you're not willing to live up to your obligations under the refugee agreement, we have nothing further to discuss in connection with this matter.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">United States: If you're not willing to be reasonable you can fuck off.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Australia: Hmm. Well, I'm not sure what 'reasonable' means in American English, but the long haired dictionary teaching me Mandarin so I can communicate better with Australia's next best friend, arrived a little early, so, manos pequenos, I hope you get some, too . . .</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">United States: Click.</span></div>
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Mangas Coloradashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06463412362335217357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7299514567932353080.post-74878280300387694622017-02-02T10:09:00.000-08:002017-02-27T20:07:04.365-08:00Deep State USA, Third Millennium<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b><i>(This is the third post in a four part sequence. The other posts are dated January 23,2017, January 25, 2017 and February 13, 2017)</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The second opportunity for a Deep State to develop in the United States came following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., which succeeded spectacularly and prompted a grotesque and theatrical overreaction that has weakened the United States behind comprehension. Making possibly every mistake in the book, the American security apparatus learned and adapted to the new situation, but the political class did not absorb the lessons (at least until the Obama Administration, by which time the die was already cast). Meanwhile, our nascent oligarchy tightened its grip on the political process and, well, little wars certainly have their benefits in that process.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">But, to this point at least, it doesn't appear that the development of a Deep State has been one of the unintended consequences of the War on Terror (lovely phrase, right up there, and about as successful, as the War on Drugs or the War on Halitosis--how about a War on Stupid?). My guess is that the searing experience of being publicly pilloried and humiliated in the 1970s resulted in the national security establishment developing an extremely rule-oriented, compliance-focused culture. Having eschewed black ops and bought into technology based surveillance as a supplement or replacement for human assets in place, along with the forced retirement of the cowboys and colorful characters, the rise of the NSA at the expense of the CIA basically resulted in an orientation as far removed from the Deep State mindset as could be imagined.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I'd offer three pieces of factual support for this argument. The first is the dispute over waterboarding--torture. It has been cast in legal terms by all participants from the very beginning--except for McCain, the only guy in the debate to have been personally tortured, who kept climbing onto the moral high ground. The rest of them keep talking about international treaty obligations, acting in reliance on legal opinions, etc. This is not the language of a Deep State apparatus. The second is the legal formalities and signoffs associated with drone strikes. The whole targeting and operational procedure is about as far from 'plausible deniability' as can be imagined. The final one is the bundle of issues associated with the detention facility at Guantanomo Bay. Is it a prisoner of war camp? Is it a prison facility? Is it something in between? Is it the tip of the iceberg--and how can you have a public debate about secret black prisons, anyway? Again, this is not the gesalt of a Deep State.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">So, no, no Deep State yet. What we do have, though, are the cadres, situated in the security apparatus, who have developed the skills, tools and mindset that could be very effective in a Deep State construct.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">And that's it for today. The is one last installment, a concluding set of thoughts, but that's for later . . .</span>Mangas Coloradashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06463412362335217357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7299514567932353080.post-14325184376854294022017-01-26T07:29:00.003-08:002017-01-26T10:10:21.803-08:00This Is Progress?<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The last time a Republican took office as Presidenct without
the formality of winning a majority of the popular vote, he surrounded himself
with a group of people (the ‘Neocons’) with a positively 19<sup>th</sup> century
Mahan and MacKinder world view. The geopolitical consequences were a bad
joke in written in buckets of blood. The Afghanistan War was not the Greatest Game, Redux, and the Neo Cons either forgot, or more likely never knew, that Julian the Apostate met his end inside what is today
known as the Sunni Triangle. I guess those over-educated twits weren't as culturally literate as the American soldier who scrawled SPQR on a wall in Afghanistan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">This time, again taking office without the formality of
winning the vote, the new President has started his project of building a Wall
along the Mexican Border.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, walls in
history—the Great Wall, the Athenian Long Walls, the Berlin Wall—have been, not to be too
ugly, fairly limited in their success. When they work, they work generally as
deterrents, not physical obstacles. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">But, apparently we’re gonna have a Wall. And what Trump's
Wall brings to mind is the Maginot Line.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I guess we’ve moved from the 19<sup>th</sup> to the 20<sup>th</sup>
century.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Maginot Line, as you may
recall, was an enormous investment of French military resources and
psychological capital throughout the 1930s that foiled the German invasion of
France in 1940 when, as scripted, the Nazis futilely threw division after division of
the flower of Wehrmacht at it in a repeat of Verdun (NOT).</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Mangas Coloradashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06463412362335217357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7299514567932353080.post-11213827472221743852017-01-25T08:42:00.000-08:002017-02-27T20:07:45.807-08:00Deep State USA, Part Two<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b><i>(This is the second post in a four part sequence. The other posts are dated January 23,2017, February 2, 2017 and February 13, 2017)</i></b> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">In my politically aware lifetime (roughly the last half century) there have been two different times when an American Deep State seemed to be a distinct possibility. I'm ignoring frivolous stupidity like Oliver North's guns for oil shenanigans under Ronald Reagan in the Iran Contra scandal. In the late 80s what the Soviets used to call the correlation of forces just wasn't right. I'm talking about when the correlation of forces was right.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The first came in the 1960s and early 1970s. It built upon a pre-existing professional national security establishment prone to covert operations and a federal approach to national policing with a muted but real political agenda. The locus of the first was the Central Intelligence Agency, for the second it was the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They responded to the public outrage over a failed war of colonial intervention in Vietnam (sold to the public as a defense of the Free World under something called the 'Domino Theory'), and general atmosphere of cultural and social upheaval epitomized but hardly limited to the Civil Rights movement. All of this occurred against the backdrop of a Cold War with the Soviet Union in which internal subversion (think Italian and French communist parties, perceived in the United States as direct descendants of Comintern) was an acknowledged weapon.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">This led to a fair amount of internal surveillance. In turn, that internal surveillance was outed, to public outrage. Meanwhile, covert operations as a component of an aggressive foreign policy had been discredited by failure in French Indochina, the general mess created in Latin America (nobody decent had anything good to say about Pinochet or the Argentine generals and their Dirty War), the embarrassment of disclosures in Western Europe about which editors of prestigious publications had been on the CIA payroll and which royals had been taking bribes from American defense contractors, and so on.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">So, Congress held hearings (thank you, Frank Church). Right there in tandem with Watergate and the disgrace of a sitting President (thank you, Richard Nixon), they were pretty devastating. A generation of CIA case officers retired. The FBI found itself in a newly depoliticized structure. The Civil Rights movement, the social upheaval, and the cultural shifts that seemed so threatening to established interests in the 1960s turned out to be susceptible to being accommodated, rather than repressed. Martin Luther King wasn't a commie, he was a national hero. And those FBI tapes, well, maybe they're of interest to Mrs. King, but not to the rest of us, and they shouldn't have been made in the first place.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The country, as a whole, turned its back in the whole idea of a Deep State. And a rather strong lesson was infused through the national security bureaucracy, a culture shifting lesson, about how things were done, what was permitted, what was forbidden, and so on.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">And that's it for today. Stay tuned, in the next day or so, for America's next chance to kiss the Deep State pig.</span>Mangas Coloradashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06463412362335217357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7299514567932353080.post-62009683655570386092017-01-24T07:07:00.000-08:002017-02-27T20:15:56.261-08:00Madonna and Newt, Rosa and Horst<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The woman needs to learn how to fight.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">At the Woman’s March, in front of a crowd much larger than
the one the President had addressed the day before at his inauguration, a
celebrity named Madonna said sometimes she wanted to burn down (blow up?) the
White House.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Newt Gingrich, a</span> TV commentator (too
mentally feeble to be called a pundit), responded by calling her a left wing
fascist who should be jailed for inciting violence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She responded, not even by defending
herself, but by defending her remarks, saying that had been taken out of
context (which they had been, but so what--all's fair . . . ).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The woman needs to learn how to fight.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">A better response would have been.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘Really?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>He said that?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well, that’s the sort of
drivel you should expect from a decaying sycophant of the American
oligarchy.' Then, if so inclined, she might go on: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> '</span>Hard to believe the man once
had what it took to get a Ph.D. in history.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But, just to give him a history lesson, back in the 20<sup>th</sup>
century the fascists were on the right wing and the communists were to the
left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I may have Rosa Luxemburg in my past,
but Horst Wessel was playing for his team.’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Set the SOB back on his heels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then close in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Your turn.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Mangas Coloradashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06463412362335217357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7299514567932353080.post-75754283939927563782017-01-23T09:53:00.001-08:002017-02-27T20:06:20.785-08:00Is There a Deep State (in the United States)?<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Russia has one. Vladmir Putin fronts for it. Turkey has one. After the failure of its coup attempt, Erodogan is trying to crush it. Egypt is hard to call. It certainly has the makings of a Deep State within it, but I'm not sure the overlayers a civil society are thick enough to bury the structure of a deep state--the institutions are too close to the surface. Clearly in Latin America in the second half of the 20th century the instruments of what might otherwise have been a Deep State were too close the surface, and the glory of that region in the last two generation has been the growth of stronger civil societies and middle classes, Fujimorismo and FARC to the contrary notwithstanding.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">So what is a Deep State? Sounds appealing to anyone with a taste for conspiracy theories. I don't personally have that appetite, so I'll tread lightly. First, though, a couple of things that a Deep State is not. It is not The Establishment. The Establishment was a wonderful British concept, the Powers that Be, Church and State, For King and Country, the Imperial Ruling Class, a whole bundle of institutions and ideas that reflected the late Victorian/Edwardian gesalt, but transformed in World War One into something for the 20th century, so that bishops and brigadiers, dons and mandarins, could feel like part of something big. Then, of course, the Establishment crossed the Atlantic, became an adjective, as in the term 'Establishment Pigs' (not complimentary), meant for lackeys of the Military Industrial Complex and running dogs of the Foreign Policy/Defense/National Security Complex.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Nor is the Deep State a career civil service empowered by expertise and the rule of law. Whatever the Eurocrats of Brussels or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency may be, they aren't a Deep State.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I would say, for a Deep State to exist, there must be more or less coherent groups within the existing institutions of government willing to act in violation of existing law, regulation and procedures in pursuit of policies perceived to be in defense of the nation or in pursuit of the national interest. These groups need to be positioned in the security organs (to give them the ability to act--the U.S. National Park Service or the staff of The Louvre don't count), they need to have sufficient seniority, status and authority (so they can control the resources and personnel to be effective--disgruntled junior officers in a Third World barracks don't count, either), and, finally, they need to reflect of reasonably broad consensus within the security organs of the state and within the broader civil society (Yukio Mishima was certainly an interesting character, but not a representative of a Japanese Deep State).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">So, does the United States have a Deep State within its security organs? Hasta manana.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><b><i>(This is the first post in a four part sequence. The other posts are dated January 25,2017, February 2, 2017 and February 13, 2017)</i></b></span>Mangas Coloradashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06463412362335217357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7299514567932353080.post-90233818113112080282017-01-22T11:37:00.000-08:002017-01-25T08:04:10.625-08:00Defiling the Office<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">An early stage in all of this has to involve defiling the office of the presidency and degrading the institutions of government. It's a precondition to what will follow. I'm not sure exactly how the destruction of the effectiveness, coherence and resilience of governing institutions will proceed (though I have my suspicions). But El Caudillo has gotten a good start on defiling his office:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Point 1. The silly lies over crowd size. Fewer citizens turned out for his installation than women turned out the next day to protest it. A fact. Then he shifts gears and claims, well, those people should have voted. In point of fact, they did. Almost 3 million more voted for his opponent than for him. That may not matter in an oligarchy, but it's foolish to draw attention to it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Point 2. The symbolic first executive order. Nothing wrong with inaugural symbolism, but something so transparently toothless as ordering federal agencies to make getting health insurance hurt less borders on the bizarre.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Point 3. Going to the CIA and making a fool of himself in front of a pretty important group of people. That is, unless show casing weakness and stupidity will be his survival strategy. I don't know if American has a Deep State, but if it does, he went into the lion's den and gave off a prey vibe.</span>Mangas Coloradashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06463412362335217357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7299514567932353080.post-15766261222487452742017-01-21T07:36:00.001-08:002017-01-25T08:04:27.702-08:00Let the Carnage Begin?<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">As far as I can tell, before yesterday, the amount of carnage in the United States was definitely on the light side. Deaths for highway fatalities exceeded deaths from terrorist attacks by several orders of magnitude ('though nobody was calling for auto executives to be put on the no-fly list). Black Lives matter, of course, but most blacks were living lives of more-or-less (to their personal taste) orderly tranquility. I remember years ago a black kid was wounded in a drive by shooting in a Houston high school. He was literally sitting in class when it happened. Not to trivialize drive by violence, but the class he was sitting in was a math class. And it wasn't remedial. It was a prep class for AP Calculus. Somehow that got lost in the media takeaway. And we got Trump.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">So, yesterday our new president said the carnage will stop. I'm still trying to figure the guy out. Haven't come to any conclusions. But one pattern I've noticed in a tendency towards projection, and to say exactly the opposite of what he means. If he said red, he meant green, if he said blue, he meant orange. If he claims she's in lousy health, he's the one in lousy health. If he attacks he for her husband's philandering, he's the real philanderer. Etc. Etc. Etc.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">So, maybe our President is trying to tell us that the carnage is about the begin?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Well, the revolution is gonna need martyrs. Any volunteers?</span>Mangas Coloradashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06463412362335217357noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7299514567932353080.post-23873337634113956312013-10-11T16:37:00.002-07:002013-10-11T16:37:45.340-07:00Flogging ToriesWhat's happening in Washington is a demonstration of what happens when a political system lets a stick fall into the hands of its Flogging Tories. Of course, so far the Tea Party's lackies are handling the stick like blindfolded children swinging at a pinata, but in absence of adult supervision from the House Leadership, they are all too likely to bring down the full faith and credit chandelier and smash the punchbowl, draining it of whatever's left of QE/monetary policy stimulus.<br />
<br />Mangas Coloradashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06463412362335217357noreply@blogger.com0