Stupid Lasts Forever

Youth ages, immaturity is outgrown, ignorance can be educated, and drunkenness sobered, but stupid lasts forever.

— Aristophanes

A Tennessee Republican this week held up Hitler as the paradigm of self-improvement.

State Senator Frank Niceley defended a bill to ban the homeless from public parks by invoking Hitler's time as a tramp in Vienna:

"I wanna give you a little history lesson on homelessness," Niceley told his colleagues. 

"In 1910, Hitler decided to live on the streets for a while. 

"So for two years, Hitler lived on the streets and practiced his oratory and his body language and how to connect with the masses. And then went on to lead a life that got him in the history books. 

"So, a lot of these people, it’s not a dead end. They can come out of these homeless camps and have a productive life, or in Hitler’s case, a very unproductive life. I support this bill."

If Niceley wanted to live up to his name, he'd also sponsor a bill to provide Tennessee's homeless with free toothbrush mustaches.

Screwed. Again.

A team of eminent bean counters at the National Bureau of Economic Research has concluded 2020's $800 billion Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was "highly regressive" and that Trump screwed middle- and working-class Americans.

A whopping 75% of the PPP funds went to the top 20% of US households. Most received cash they didn't need.

Only 25% of the funds went into the pockets of Americans who would have lost their jobs otherwise.

The PPP bailout exceeded by $100 billion that which followed the Great Recession, when Lehman Brothers, AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac imploded.

Economists have since determined that the 2009 bailout—known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP)—while failing to correct the causes underlying the financial system's collapse, made Wall Street executives richer than ever.

Ironically, the public's bitter memories of TARP's injustice propelled Trump into the White House in 2016.

Four years later, Trump sent billions of PPP dollars to people like Joe Farrrell, a billionaire developer and Trump fundraiser; Kanye West, wealthy rapper and Trump toady; Jeff Koons, a pop artist who holds the world record for the most expensive work ever sold by a living artist ($91.1 million); Tal Tsfany, CEO of the right-wing Ayn Rand Institute; Elaine Chao, Trump's billionaire Secretary of Transportation; and his vile and venal family members, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.

And the little people?

We were screwed. Again.

Tom Foolery

The mob has no memory; it can never comprehend when its own interests are at stake.

― Alexandre Koyré

Despite his pivotal role in our nation's founding, slaveholder Thomas Jefferson is about to be cancelled.

Watching the wholesale cancellation of the Confederates, mossbacks like myself knew, in our hearts, the founder's days were numbered.

Being White and powerful, his erasure was inevitable.

Mobs are just as oppressive as governments, and faster acting.

And have no doubt it's a mob that's gunning for Jefferson, a multiracial one comprising angry Blacks, Latinos, and Asians. 

When it comes to condemning Whites' hypocrisy, this mob's unstoppable.

Hypocrisy like Jefferson's no doubt merits condemnation.

But cancellation?

Jefferson deserves better.

Jefferson's cancellation lumps the Founding Fathers with the Confederates "in a way which minimizes the crimes and problems of the Confederacy," Jefferson scholar Annette Gordon-Reed told The New York Times.

I agree with her.

While Jefferson owned slaves, he didn't extol slavery; he called it, in fact, a "moral and political depravity" he'd abolish were abolition "practicable."

For my own part, I've tried for years to plumb the depths of Jefferson's hypocrisy and finally found forgiveness in historian Henry Wiencek's dark biography, Master of the Mountain.

In Master of the Mountain, Wiencek makes clear that Jefferson, our celebrant of liberty and equality, kept slaves because he could not bear to lose Monticello to his creditors, nor see his daughter and grandchildren plunged into poverty. 

Had he been frugal (he spent a fortune he didn't have on books, groceries, and fine wines) and smart about business (farming and manufacturing), Jefferson well might have freed his slaves. But he was neither, and he didn't.

Instead, Jefferson ran up enormous debt and remained, his whole life, a slave to his slaves, earning a four percent profit from breeding and selling them—a "bonanza," according to Wiencek.

Jefferson, a failure at farming and a klutz at commerce, sold out his ideals for a soft life.

And for his sin—monetizing people—the mob has moved to cancel the author of our Declaration of Independence, decrying all statues of Jefferson as symbols of "the disgusting and racist basis on which America was founded."

But that's the way of mobs. 

Forgiveness demands acceptance, something mobs suck at.

Mobs are really only good at vengeance.

So here's my prediction of who's next on the block.

Jesus Christ, founder of the most oppressive institution in the history of the world.

It's inevitable.

Welcome the twilight of the idols.

All These Condemned

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

 

― George Santayana

When I was a kid, it was routine to see people toss trash from the windows of their moving cars. Bottles, cans, cups, cartons, wrappers, bags, napkins, tissues, you name it.

It took a full-court mass media campaign—led by the packaging industry—to put an end to Americans' loutish behavior. The now-quaint Keep America Beautiful campaign sang out "Don't be a Litterbug," and we bought it (fines introduced by local governments helped).

Thirty years earlier, another mass media campaign—led by the Red Cross—was rolled out nationwide as the Spanish Flu decimated American cities. The even quainter Wear a Mask campaign spouted "Don't be a Mask Slacker." Americans bought it.

Our Executioner-in-Chief has resisted, mocked and politicized mask-wearing—and continues overtly to do so—with the result that he's condemned to death 183,000 Americans, with an additional 134,000—or more—soon to follow.

Now the Department of Health and Human Services is poised to spend $250 million of taxpayers' money on a new mass media campaign that urges America to Reopen Now, despite virologists' warnings that Covid-19 thrives on crowds.

The better use of the $250 million would be to fund a campaign preaching "Don't be a Maskhole."

But, hey, what's a few thousand more Americans' lives, when an election's at stake?

I am Karen

I am what I am. I don't want praise, I don't want pity. 
I bang my own drum―some think it's noise, I think it's pretty.

― Jerry Herman

Women friends of mine, their names notwithstanding, are upset "Karen" has become a pejorative.

By one definition, a Karen is a "quintessential white woman who rocks an edgy, highlighted bob and demands to speak to the manager."

She’s entitled, assertive, and prone to public tantrums, fueled by an ingrained fear she could readily be victimized. And she has a “Live, Laugh, Love” placard, probably in her kitchen.

Well, I don't have a placard, but I'm here to tell you I am Karen.

I won't yell at the store manager or call the cops because you're Black. 

But―no matter your color―I will erupt when you:

• Abandon your cart in the checkout line
• Park your goddamned SUV in a handicapped space
• Go without a mask in the hardware store
• Let your doberman run without a leash 
• Smack your kids across the face
• Litter 
• Pitch me your cheesy software on LinkedIn 
• Bill my credit card without asking 
• Charge me $800 for a $100 dental procedure
• Fly the Confederate flag
• Imply Blacks, Latinos or Asians are inferior to Whites
• Disparage Gays
• Praise Ayn Rand, or 
• Insist Donald Trump is a good businessman, president, or human being

I make no excuses: I am what I am.

I am Karen.

Perfect Genes

After weaklings like Lincoln, Wilson, FDR, JFK, and Reagan, I'm delighted we at last have a man in the White House with "perfect genes."

Trump and his men are pleased to point that out; and the few who are not are quick to remind us the president is a bit underschooled in history, so all should be forgiven.

The rest of us hear Trump's claim and eye our bank balances, to make sure there's enough to get us to Canada or Belize or you name it.

That's because we know the eugenicist's self-assurance isn't harmless snobbery, but hate.

It wasn't long ago (1899 in the example above) Irish immigrants were depicted in newspaper cartoons as apes, and slighted nearly as much as the brothers.

That vitriol is easy to forget, when you're not the target.

Me, I'm triggered when I walk through the cereal aisle and spot a box of Lucky Charms.

The 3-Minute Machiavelli

Master these techniques and rule the world.

Ad hominem. Attacking your opponent, as opposed to his position.

Ad nauseam. Attempting to persuade by endlessly repeating an idea.

Appeal to authority. Citing prominent people to support your position.

Appeal to fear. Creating unwarranted anxieties to support your position.

Appeal to prejudice. Using emotive terms to associate moral goodness with your position.

Bandwagon. Attempting to persuade by arguing "everybody shares my position."

Beautiful people. Attempting to persuade by claiming attractive people share your position.

Big Lie. Attempting to persuade by repeating a fiction. 

Black-and-white fallacy. Attempting to persuade by oversimplifying possibilities.

Cherry picking. Attempting to persuade by selectively telling the truth.

Common man. Attempting to persuade by claiming "plain folks" agree with your position.

Cult of personality. Attempting to persuade by flattering yourself.

Demonizing. Attempting to persuade by painting your opponent as a monster.

Disinformation. Attempting to persuade by forgery or by deleting official records.

Euphemism. Attempting to persuade by disguising unpleasantries with innocuous words.

Euphoria. Leveraging morale-boosting spectacles, holidays or handouts to persuade.

Exaggeration. Attempting to persuade through hyperboles.

Fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD). Attempting to persuade by disseminating mis- or disinformation that undermines your opponent.

Flag-waving. Attempting to persuade by proclaiming your patriotism.

Framing. Attempting to persuade by artfully controlling public narrative.

Gaslighting. Attempting to persuade by sowing doubt, denying facts, or misdirecting your audience.

Gallopbombing. Attempting to persuade by asking an opponent difficult questions in rapid fire, making them look uninformed.

Glittering generalities. Attempting to persuade by using emotionally appealing words without substance.

Guilt by association (reductio ad Hitlerum). Attempting to persuade by suggesting an opponent's position resembles that of someone we despise.

Intentional vagueness. Attempting to persuade by remaining fuzzy.

Labeling. Attempting to diminish your opponent by using a single word or phrase.

Loaded language. Attempting to persuade by using strongly emotional words.

Lying. Attempting to persuade through deceptions.

Managing the news. Attempting to persuade by "staying on message."

Minimization. Attempting to persuade by denying the implications of a fact.

Name calling. Attempting to persuade through bad names.

Non sequitur. Attempting to persuade with illogical arguments.

Obfuscation. Attempting to persuade with confusing generalities and undefined words and phrases.

Oversimplification. Attempting to persuade with simple answers to complex questions.

Pensée unique. Attempting to persuade with a single overly simplistic phrase.

Quotes out of context. Attempting to persuade by editing your opponent's statements.

Rationalization. Attempting to persuade by sugar-coating your own questionable acts and beliefs.

Red herring. Attempting to persuade by citing a compelling, but irrelevant, fact, and claiming it validates your position.

Repetition. Attempting to persuade by repeating a slogan.

Scapegoating. Attempting to persuade by assigning blame to an individual or group.

Slogan. Attempting to persuade with a striking phrase.

Stereotyping. Attempting to persuade by labeling an opponent and her followers in ways that arouse prejudice.

Straw man. Attempting to persuade by misrepresenting, and refuting, your opponent's position.

Testimonial. Attempting to persuade with others' glowing statements about you.

Third-party technique. Attempting to persuade by asking your followers to accept as authoritative the opinions of others, such as celebrities, soldiers, preachers, journalists, and scientists.

Thought-terminating cliché. Attempting to persuade with an over-used folk wisdom.

Transfer. Attempting to persuade by superimposing one or more images on others.

Unstated assumption. Attempting to persuade by avoiding disclosure of your ridiculously incredible assumption.

Virtue words. Attempting to persuade with high-minded, flowery words.

Koch, Kant and Cant

Blessed be schools with endowments. They don't have to mouth propaganda.

When I worked in grad school as a teacher's assistant, I taught two semesters of Philosophy 101, a course every undergraduate was required to take. My students were freshmen in the nursing and business schools.

The course covered writers like Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Hume and Kant, and gave the uneager students a taste for the three major periods of Western thought.

That was 40 years ago. Universities had dough and bell bottoms rocked.

Today, the University of Arizona offers another brand of Philosophy 101, thanks to a gift from billionaire libertarian Charles Koch.

Instead of mind, matter, meaning and morals, the course covers money, markets, margins and monopoly.

Students learn that reality is the free market; that evil's source is regulation; and that life's purpose is threefold: deal-making, tax-dodging and self-reward.

Writer and former philosophy professor David Johnson calls the course "a peculiar mixture of the utterly banal and the frighteningly ideological" and "propaganda, plain and simple."

I call it pure cant.

Things don't go better with Koch.