Virginia's leadership shows itself wanting: Governor Northam gets exposed for featuring racist imagery on his medical yearbook page, the Lieutenant Governor has been accused of sexual assault, and the Attorney General admits to wearing blackface getup at parties in his youth.
On the other end of the color spectrum... many of the newly elected women of Congress featured white garb at President Trump's State of the Union speech. Trump's most lighthearted moment occurred when he acknowledged the number of women elected to office and the white suits came alive with laughter and happiness. White is the color of spiritual purity.
Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and many of her white-suited colleagues hope to change the world through visionary thinking and spiritual vigor. Just to add another color, she has proposed a Green New Deal, working to save the environment with a powerful plan like FDR's New Deal of the 1930s. The Congresswomen in white brought a nice change of pace to the the red/blue binary in the color wars.
Trump seemed to address AOC directly midway through the State of the Union. He addressed Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, progenitors of the new progressive wing of the Democratic Party, stating "America will never be a socialist country." Trump compared the USA would have a similar outcome to tottering Venezuela should we go that route.
The color thing-- Republicans are the reds and Democrats the blue-- has a strange parallel to the the Bloods and Crips, famous street gangs of LA. Politics is a street fight, fought by rich and powerful in business suits but the partisanship of today has Democratic politicians in blue tie and Donald Trump and company more likely to go for the red cravat. Not much difference between a politician's tie and a street gang bandana in certain situations. Our reptilian brain kicks into action when our survival is at stake, no matter our social class or education.
Also in the area of political fashion statements. What's with Donald Trump and the long coats? Methinks he's feeling kingly and wants a robe like James Brown halfway through his act.
The Democratic representatives saw red when Interim Attorney General Matthew Whitaker took the congressional stand looking like Benito Mussolini's healthiest son. They attacked him unmercifully. They don't want him messing with the. Robert Mueller investigation. Whitaker proved dogged in refusing to answer questions about his conversations with Donald Trump. Whitaker was a piñata for the Democrats in his role as proxy for Trump. Maybe he got loyalty points from the president for absorbing the abuse though Jeff Sessions proved Trump has a short span for the loyalty of friends and/or allies. Michael Cohen never got a chance to take a bullet for President Trump-- but Matthew Whitaker did.
Maybe Roger Stone fancies himself the finest dresser of them all.
Paul Manafort... he's unpredictable and almost always shows bad judgment. Manafort is known for paying top dollar to achieve sartorial splendor and achieves nothing more than a Men's Warehouse look. Money cannot buy taste.
Different colors for different folks.
Showing posts with label Bernie Sanders. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bernie Sanders. Show all posts
Saturday, February 9, 2019
Monday, January 28, 2019
Nancy to Donald: Not in my House!
Nancy Pelosi didn't request a RSVP from President Trump to the State of the Union address; in fact she uninvited him.
But Nancy Pelosi seems to have flummoxed Donald Trump. She brought something new to the table. Some call it "legislative experience" and others just pure confidence and toughness that brings her to confront the President on equal terms. Trump, not one who likes equal terms, looks around for leverage and instead takes a whipping from right-wingers Ann Coulter and Lou Dobbs. Those pundits, Ann the author and Lou the broadcaster, hurl insults at Trump-- "wimpiest President" ever or "Cave Man" as the New York Post dubbed Trump for caving to the Democrats no-wall position.
Details never trouble Donald Trump. He must be given credit for flexibility. The guy assumes more shapes than Hermes the god of speed, businessmen and thieves. He has had trouble transacting to the Pelosi refusal to invite him to her house, the House of Representatives, to give the State of the Union speech.
Pelosi's strategic response to the government shutdown was to disinvite Trump for the big State of the Union speech on supposed security concerns. Her move has been acknowledged as political genius. We've never seen it before so let's give the Lady Speaker credit.
Pelosi denied Trump a megaphone. Trump likes giving speeches more than just about anything else. He likes being the center of attention and feeling respected by important people. The environment for the State of the Union provides all those things but Donald got denied. Seemed to throw him off his game.
Maybe concerns about the Mueller investigation setting sights on Trump pals like longtime political crony Roger Stone made him more vulnerable. Trump has handled immense amount of pressure but does not age from pressures of the presidency in the usual manner. Everything about the guy is unprecedented.
Watching the Democratic presidential candidate hopefuls step to the fore.
Older generation-- Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, and did I hear Hillary Clinton's name mentioned...?
* Bernie-- a socialist at heart, set the progressive agenda now reflected by Democratic left-wing
* Joe-- has the "centrist" touch the Democrats need
* Hillary-- OMG
3 Female competitors-- Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand and Kamala Harris have all formally announced:
* Elizabeth-- a numbers person, shows an accountant instincts for rich people's thievery
* Kirsten-- may be a Republican in sheep's clothing, make that donkey's clothing
* Kamala-- smiles nicely with impeccable grooming, a tough DA type, somewhat intimidating
2 Billionaire independents-- Michael Bloomberg and Howard Schultz
* Michael-- capitalist but also Mayor of New York City, fights large soft-drinks and pollution
* Howard-- the former Starbucks CEO, business savvy, invented $5 coffee
The question for everybody considering the Democratic nomination. Can you beat Trump?
One candidate I've never heard mentioned-- Nancy Pelosi.
But Nancy Pelosi seems to have flummoxed Donald Trump. She brought something new to the table. Some call it "legislative experience" and others just pure confidence and toughness that brings her to confront the President on equal terms. Trump, not one who likes equal terms, looks around for leverage and instead takes a whipping from right-wingers Ann Coulter and Lou Dobbs. Those pundits, Ann the author and Lou the broadcaster, hurl insults at Trump-- "wimpiest President" ever or "Cave Man" as the New York Post dubbed Trump for caving to the Democrats no-wall position.
Details never trouble Donald Trump. He must be given credit for flexibility. The guy assumes more shapes than Hermes the god of speed, businessmen and thieves. He has had trouble transacting to the Pelosi refusal to invite him to her house, the House of Representatives, to give the State of the Union speech.
Pelosi's strategic response to the government shutdown was to disinvite Trump for the big State of the Union speech on supposed security concerns. Her move has been acknowledged as political genius. We've never seen it before so let's give the Lady Speaker credit.
Pelosi denied Trump a megaphone. Trump likes giving speeches more than just about anything else. He likes being the center of attention and feeling respected by important people. The environment for the State of the Union provides all those things but Donald got denied. Seemed to throw him off his game.
Maybe concerns about the Mueller investigation setting sights on Trump pals like longtime political crony Roger Stone made him more vulnerable. Trump has handled immense amount of pressure but does not age from pressures of the presidency in the usual manner. Everything about the guy is unprecedented.
Watching the Democratic presidential candidate hopefuls step to the fore.
Older generation-- Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, and did I hear Hillary Clinton's name mentioned...?
* Bernie-- a socialist at heart, set the progressive agenda now reflected by Democratic left-wing
* Joe-- has the "centrist" touch the Democrats need
* Hillary-- OMG
3 Female competitors-- Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand and Kamala Harris have all formally announced:
* Elizabeth-- a numbers person, shows an accountant instincts for rich people's thievery
* Kirsten-- may be a Republican in sheep's clothing, make that donkey's clothing
* Kamala-- smiles nicely with impeccable grooming, a tough DA type, somewhat intimidating
2 Billionaire independents-- Michael Bloomberg and Howard Schultz
* Michael-- capitalist but also Mayor of New York City, fights large soft-drinks and pollution
* Howard-- the former Starbucks CEO, business savvy, invented $5 coffee
The question for everybody considering the Democratic nomination. Can you beat Trump?
One candidate I've never heard mentioned-- Nancy Pelosi.
Thursday, April 21, 2016
How We Got Into Vietnam (David Halberstam)
Finished "The Best and The Brightest" book by Halberstam on Vietnam. I'm glad I got to the end. He talks about LBJ's failed decision-making on Vietnam. LBJ looked to the past and the Cold War to try and understand Vietnam:
"The forces at work in the fifties were very real to him. If Jack Kennedy was a man who knew more about where the sixties were headed but whose intellect preceded his courage, who stepped forward gingerly, then Johnson was more a man of the past. He reacted to what he thought the country was; the country which twice defeated Stevenson for the Presidency, where the powerful people on the Hill seemed primarily to be hawks, where the dominant figures of journalism were proud survivors of the worst of the Cold War, and where American universities had also given willingly, too willingly in fact, of their talent and support to the Cold War." (p. 592)
And here is how LBJ got us so deeply involved in the war, using his astute political skills, for subtly escalating the War, while missing the boat on the sixties revolution brewing and about to explode:
"That would all come later: perhaps another politician might have sensed it, if not clearly identifying the change. But Lyndon Johnson did not sense it, rather he sensed that he had position on everybody else, he had control of the center, he had moved all opponents to the extreme. He had handled the Congress, signed it on without really signing it on: he had handled the press by slicing the salami so thin that they are never able to pin him down, and he handled Ho by making it seem as if Ho were attacking him at Tonkin. He was using force but using it discreetly, and he was also handling the military. They were moving toward war, but in such imperceptible degrees that neither the Congress nor the press could ever show a quantum jump. All the decisions were being cleverly hidden; he as cutting it thin to hold off the opposition." (p. 593)
This poses some interesting questions for me on how public policy lurches forward-- often based on the prevailing, conventional wisdom, based on the leader's beliefs about his peers and what they will find acceptable, as rational behavior. Of course, our Vietnam policy does not appear rational in retrospect, but LBJ operated within the paradigm he knew and had experienced.
What do we believe now-- based on a present-day conventional wisdom that is actually totally inaccurate and misplaced? People think we need to get industry back to America? Is there any likelihood of that? How might our energies and resources be used to improve the situation in our country? I'm sure there is much confusion on the subject, and some of our unlikely Presidential candidates (Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Bernie Sanders) have risen because of confusion around where the country should be heading. Not sure any of the candidates has proposed anything of substance. Mainly its emotion-- Make America Great Again, Stop the 1%.... Obama has kept a cool head. He didn't come out with a "New Deal" or anything on a grand scale. I doubt there would have been support for that kind of thing in this environment. The candidates kind of imply that they will achieve something on a grand scale. That seems unlikely.
"The forces at work in the fifties were very real to him. If Jack Kennedy was a man who knew more about where the sixties were headed but whose intellect preceded his courage, who stepped forward gingerly, then Johnson was more a man of the past. He reacted to what he thought the country was; the country which twice defeated Stevenson for the Presidency, where the powerful people on the Hill seemed primarily to be hawks, where the dominant figures of journalism were proud survivors of the worst of the Cold War, and where American universities had also given willingly, too willingly in fact, of their talent and support to the Cold War." (p. 592)
And here is how LBJ got us so deeply involved in the war, using his astute political skills, for subtly escalating the War, while missing the boat on the sixties revolution brewing and about to explode:
"That would all come later: perhaps another politician might have sensed it, if not clearly identifying the change. But Lyndon Johnson did not sense it, rather he sensed that he had position on everybody else, he had control of the center, he had moved all opponents to the extreme. He had handled the Congress, signed it on without really signing it on: he had handled the press by slicing the salami so thin that they are never able to pin him down, and he handled Ho by making it seem as if Ho were attacking him at Tonkin. He was using force but using it discreetly, and he was also handling the military. They were moving toward war, but in such imperceptible degrees that neither the Congress nor the press could ever show a quantum jump. All the decisions were being cleverly hidden; he as cutting it thin to hold off the opposition." (p. 593)
This poses some interesting questions for me on how public policy lurches forward-- often based on the prevailing, conventional wisdom, based on the leader's beliefs about his peers and what they will find acceptable, as rational behavior. Of course, our Vietnam policy does not appear rational in retrospect, but LBJ operated within the paradigm he knew and had experienced.
What do we believe now-- based on a present-day conventional wisdom that is actually totally inaccurate and misplaced? People think we need to get industry back to America? Is there any likelihood of that? How might our energies and resources be used to improve the situation in our country? I'm sure there is much confusion on the subject, and some of our unlikely Presidential candidates (Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Bernie Sanders) have risen because of confusion around where the country should be heading. Not sure any of the candidates has proposed anything of substance. Mainly its emotion-- Make America Great Again, Stop the 1%.... Obama has kept a cool head. He didn't come out with a "New Deal" or anything on a grand scale. I doubt there would have been support for that kind of thing in this environment. The candidates kind of imply that they will achieve something on a grand scale. That seems unlikely.
Sunday, January 17, 2016
TV Candidates beware--earnestness is fatal
TV demands sophistication and insouciance.
Words of advice for Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and company...
Way back in 1968, Marshall McLuhan explained that TV candidates must understand "the contemporary interface of all cultures" and should not "be deluded into any earnest regard for any one of them."
The wise candidate shows insouciance (indifference) as a survival technique. Jeb Bush serves as a cautionary tale for wanting the job too much.
McLuhan warns against getting in a huff about the immorality of it all... "The new changes are not moral but technological."
Saturday Evening Post (August 10, 1968)All of the Candidates are Asleep
By: Marshall McLuhan
Why should TV demand sophistication and insouciance? Simply because it is a depth medium for which earnestness is fatal. Depth requires perception on many levels, and, therefore, an absence of single purpose or direction. An all-at-once world, fashioned by electric information, demands a candidate full of puns and expected nuances. Such a man is one who knows so much about the contemporary interface of all cultures that he cannot possibly be deluded into any earnest regard for any of them. The new changes are not moral but technological.
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