We Have Nothing to Fear….an anonymous post

The Octogenarians

The following is from a former student in response to a forwarded message re Trump:

Reviewing all that you forwarded demonstrates enormous insight.It would seem to me that more from psychiatry and sociology would be in order.To wit,we were required to read Civilization and its Discontents in your course and I recall 50 years later a statement therein to the effect that the overwhelming history of mankind has been governed by dictatorships.

Concurrently, we were reading an assignment in George Huaco’s course on social theory and more specifically,Karl Marx who often wrote that capitalism would sow the seeds of its own destruction. What the Clinton campaign should be doing is hiring some retired psychiatrists and psychologists from the CIA to profile Trump and treat him as a foreign dictator in their analysis.It is obvious that he is well into a course of psychiatric dissembling.

And all of this after so…

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We Have Nothing to Fear,,,part 2

The Octogenarians

A different response to forwarded material re Trump from a different source requesting once again no attribution…

I entered this world rife with fascism and am loathe to exit one similarly burdened.Let the overwhelming population of those fascinated with Trump come to their senses before it is too late. The state of affairs he “trumpets”,takes on a life of its own,long overshadowing its source of origin;like falling into a sink-hole and then attempting to extricate oneself.

Trump’s supporters and their progeny are the ones most likely to suffer the ravages of his persona and policies, if indeed they ever surface,like his income tax returns before November 8th of last year.

Sic transit gloria mundi !

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Hail Caesar(Sieg Heil)…Ho Hum

The Octogenarians

The republican convention clattered to a close last night with the coronation of the Trump…eter in chief.I was prepared for the dog whistles and the red meat oratory, but I was surprised by the strong invocation of the feelings I  had as a child watching( from the old President Theater, which was famous for Molly Picon movies) RKO Pathe films of  Der Fuhrer and Benito Mussolini gesticulating while shouting a language which I couldn’t understand, but the emotional waves of which came through.Alexithymia is not my problem,oh skilled psychological observer,but I am not armored enough not to be afraid or obtuse enough to deny it.The “Family” was put away and the grandiose, swaggering” I’ll take care of it” demagogue came out.Apparently he doesn’t need Congress, he doesn’t need a Judiciary,he doesn’t need local government,he doesn’t need NATO . America (first) doesn’t need allies and globalization is the enemy of America…

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Image is Everything(not only to Canon)

The Octogenarians

Thanks to SB. I saw the Tony Schwarz revelation to the New Yorker (Mayer) re:”The Art of The Deal” and his (the true author thereof ) assessment of the Donald through the years.I withdraw my assessment of him as “a well meaning oaf”.He is scurrilous and the two paragraph plagiarism by his supermodel wife is an indication of more to come.What is worse is that there is no apology for the theft but just a blustering reinforcement of the insult.The words and more important the sentiment belongs to a worthy first lady,Michele Obama.The GOP wants to sell us his family as an example of what is best in and for America. Well they’re not the Jetsons,or Vampira’s clan or the Brady bunch and what do they have to do with the complexities of governance and international relationships except as indicators of honesty ,diplomacy and the ability to handle complexity ?A D+…

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Symbolic Interaction and Bastille Day 2016

The Octogenarians

As Isis gives up territory,they hasten to remind us that the real battlefield is for the mind.They attacked a Nice celebration of the French 4th of July.We can expect more of this symbolic/real assassination.This sort of lone wolf terrorism is virtually impossible to stop.We,ostensibly,wish to understand radicalization but assassinate our own domestic terrorist not linked to Isis but to race hatred.who decided that nothing was to be learned from him?Who decides that this sort of radicalization is a different process? Now Gingrich wants a special test of domestic Muslim mentation.How long before mood testing for all who look,worship and or think differently is mandated?Why is the Republican party the source of so many bad( undemocratic…no pun…)ideas?

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The Danger of Assigning a Democratic Label Without a History

The Octogenarians

Demos means of,by,or upon the people.Among the Greek city states only Athens seems to have qualified for less than 200 years.The United States has officially supported the overthrow of “democratically”elected radical governments in the past and “democratically”elected Islamic governments in a more recent past.Our official stand in the current coup attempt in Turkey is to support a democratically elected government.The problem is that the current Turkish President is an Islamist ruthlessly moving toward the suppression of western ways and the infusion of Shaaria law.The support of the people is not so much for him as it is for a Turkish nationalism which is both hopeful and primitive.Secularism and the preservation of “democracy” were entrusted to the military by no less a figure than Attaturk,the founder of the modern Turkish state, for good reason.
There is no good outcome possible.The idea of a coup is repugnant and the leaders seem focusedly…

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Getting With The Program

The Octogenarians

It is time to open up a new space for the heated dialogue for “A Fine Madness”.I have been challenged by DS for using a phrase which is unclear and possibly impolite to him and others.The phrase is from my old USAF days and for the military it means climb aboard.Having been accused of being a somewhat sneaky wordsmith, I tried a non smithy phrase only to find that DS was in a new Protean mode.I do not claim to be Hercules so Proteus is a problem.So what is it that is to be climbed on?Simply, it is the recognition that the conversation that is most meaningful to our survival and the honesty that is required to use it,is in a different language from the language of science; it is the language of empathic identification.Most of the responders on this blog have English as a second language.Their first language isn’t…

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A Fine Madness Revisited

The Octogenarians

The two candidates for presidential office have suspended their activities for the day in deference to the horrors of the Dallas shootings.There had been no thought of suspending campaigns based on the shootings of two black men alone.Perhaps there should not have been, but there is something bothersome about retaliation with police targeted being needed to indicate the enormity of the events.Meanwhile in Long Beach CA.A POLICEMAN CONVICTED OF MULTIPLE RAPES UNDER COVER OF OFFICE AND RELEASED UNDER $2,000,000 BAIL HAS COMMITTED SUICIDE.The confluence of events is a reminder that better evaluations of potential police needs to be done.The training phase of things may be too late.
The only group that may be content with the ruin of 12 shot officers,five dead.One dead retaliator(killed by a robotic device after declaring his hatred and intent to kill whites particularly cops)would be the NRA. More guns for everyone boys?

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The background music plays on!

The Octogenarians

This time it was Baton Rouge LA.Of course there were several others in between.but this police shooting of yet another black man bears an eerie resemblance to the shooting in N.Y. of the big man who was selling loose cigarettes.This father of five was selling DVDS and was no doubt carrying a gun to protect himself from two legged predators.The camera footage shows him pinned and the gun inaccessible but worse it captures the panic and projected fear or hatred accompanying the fusillade of shots fired by the two police into the supine and defenseless(offenceless as well)Alton Sterling.
Before we can say Jack Robinson( not Jackie),the next day,a man named Philandro Carlisle is captured on video shot to death in his car,in Minnesota with his girlfriend and child looking on.Grotesquely, we can see that his arm(the one that reached for the requested license) has been blown off)and we hear the…

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Globalization and The Rivers

The Octogenarians

In replying to RMV’s vacation comment.I referred to a cleaned up Hudson and inquired about the Danube’s hue.On reflection the Hudson is entirely within the USA while the Danube originates in Germany but flows through ten countries.Oddly enough, so too does the Nile run through ten countries.A clean up would require enormous cooperation and parsing of responsibility/benefit.The Don rivers of Scotland and Russia are entirely within their countries’ boundaries ,so they can flow southward or wherever, dirty or clean with only domestic dispute possible.But the Mississippi would be a multi state to-do.For humanity.it would appear that the need for cogent and cognizant dialogue for all things, is a companion forever to be along for the ride.The search for cooperation mechanisms must accelerate!

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