Skip to main content

ELECTION STUPIDITY CROSSES THE ATLANTIC

I tried for something light. Satire or sarcasm. I just couldn't. First the Americans. Then the French. Same song, second verse.

Trump was normalized by a media fascinated by personality. He wasn't dangerous. Oh, no. He wasn't a threat to orderly governance. Oh, no. He was at worse a fool, concerned with image and ratings. An almost lovable fool. But dangerous? Oh, no. Anyway, he'll never get elected

Clinton was not a valid alternative, they said. A tool of Wall Street. An opportunist. The candidate of the establishment. Just as bad as Trump. Forget her early work with migrants, knocking on doors for McGovern, her voter registration drives, her work for women's rights both at home and abroad. You just can't trust her. I read it on Facebook.

A pox on both their houses.

Americans are just beginning to see the result of their naivete. Let's look at two horrible examples.

America first? That's what Trump said. Then MOAB in Afghanistan, troops on the ground in Syria and Somalia. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. When has an Anglo-European intervention in the Middle East ever led to the desired result? Hundreds of years of history tell us that the answer to that question is NEVER. But somehow, this time will be different?

We are told that Trump's tax cuts will be paid for through economic growth. I repeat, insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Not since Kennedy's time has a tax cut served as a significant stimulant. Of course, in those days the top individual rate was 91% and the top corporate rate 52%. There was room to provide stimulus. But both the Reagan and the GWB tax cuts resulted in huge deficits and eventually recession. Really, we need to try riding that old horse again?

You'd think that the example was there for all to see. But nooooooo......

Le Pen is smart, charismatic, good looking. Not her father. She isn't dangerous. Oh, no. She isn't a threat to orderly governance. Oh, no. She is at worse simply a socially conservative rabble rouser with Daddy issues trying to get attention. But dangerous? Oh, no. Anyway, she'll never get elected.

And who the heck is this Macron kid? A banker? Married to his teacher? Never held elective office? He is just not a valid alternative. A tool of the Rothchilds. An opportunist. The candidate of the establishment.

A pox on both their houses.

Insanity is doing the same thing...

Comments

  1. Yes, it's amazing, how insistent voters are, at repeating history. And history unexamined, is history about to be repeated.
    It was revealing to me though, to review the results of voting by les Français de l'Étranger. As I stood in line to cast my ballot last Saturday (We vote a day early.), I wondered what sort of people were in line with me. Were they Républicains? Were they LePen wackos? Macron actually received 40% of the FOreign French vote, world-wide (and 51% in the US); LePen got 6%(and 5% in the US). Fillon took 26% and Mélechon 16%. So, had the French "home vote" reflected the Foreign-French vote, it would have been a more "normal" scenario of a social liberal/big business-friendly Centrist against a "mild" Conservative. More of a yawner, less of a threat. Perhaps those of us in the US were only too aware of the Trump Show, its wretched day-to-day stupidities and its horrible risk-taking and consequences, to be drawn in by candidates spouting nonsense.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As you may imagine, since we live in the southwest we live in Le Pen country, Out of about 1,000 votes cast in our little village, Le Pen took about one-third, Macron about half that. Fortunately, taste in politics is one thing. Taste in wine is another. And the wine still tastes good.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

JOE WALSH, RONSTADT, MEEZERS AND MORE - #19

    MEMORABLE CONCERTS - PART 1 I first saw Linda Ronstadt in concert in about 1973 in a little venue in Atlanta called the Great Southeast Music Emporium. I have since seen on various websites that the capacity of the venue was about 540 people. It seemed smaller, a converted shopping center movie house that sold beer by the bucket. Literally. Little metal buckets. Search the name and read about the place. By the time that Cathey and I went to concerts there, some of the acts that they were booking went on to the big time. One such was Linda Ronstadt. Imagine seeing Linda up close and personal in such a small venue, blue jeans and bare feet and with a band that would become the Eagles backing her. Imagine that it's the early show and she's just hit town and she's kinda tired so it's mostly ballads. That voice just a few feet away. Singing love and loss right at you. And imagine, when the show is over, that management comes out and says that, since the second show wasn&

IT'S ME AGAIN - SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE CORRUPTION OF DISCOURSE

Drafted months ago. I think I'm going to start writing again.       What happened? On the evening news fifty years ago, like clockwork, millions of folks would watch Walter Cronkite describe daring flights in space while raptly watching grainy video that we would only see once. No VCRs. No YouTube. Perhaps more importantly than his space exploration commentary, Walter's grainy video described the moral complexities of the war in Vietnam. Whether or not we considered either or both of those endeavors noble, we trusted Walter's presentation. He showed us pictures and commented on them truthfully, so we believed. There were other guys sitting in the chairs in the other two networks. They seemed like nice guys. But Walter was the standard, at least in our house. There were the three national networks with just one or two independent stations serious enough to consider in the major media markets back in those days. More locally produced radio and more local, often daily newspape

Kreuz Market vs. Smitty’s Market: Texas Barbecue in Lockhart

I was born and raised in New Jersey. I didn’t taste Texas barbecue until I was twenty-two years old. What the hell do I know about barbecue? And what could I add to the millions of words that have been written on the subject? Well, I know a bit about food. I’ve managed to check out a few of the finer joints in Texas – Sonny Bryan’s Smokehouse in Dallas, Joe Cotton’s in Robstown before the fire, the dear departed Williams Smokehouse in Houston, and the incomparable New Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Huntsville . So I can speak from a reasonably wide experience. This will not be a comprehensive discussion of the relative merits of Texas barbecue as opposed to the fare available in places like Memphis or the Carolinas. It’s simply a take on our recent visits to Lockhart and the relative merits of Smitty’s versus Kreuz from our point of view. I’ll get all over academic in a later post. On our way out to the ranch in Crystal City, we stopped at Smitty’s. You have to look