The Run-up to the Presidential Debates

The Octogenarians

The Donald purports to be reaching for black voters saying that he will ensure their not getting shot down in their own streets.”What do you have to lose” he bawls.To Hispanics he promises to reconsider his deportation position.His official platform has not shifted but the shape shifters are at work selling a more palatable image(Conway,Ailles,Archer,Bannon)The media are consumed by presenting contrasting images of Clinton vs Trump,helping us to be myopic about the crippling issue of increasing inequity in the face of national refusal to act on tax and immigration reform, drug cost abuse,undermining of “affordable care”through the issuance of relatively inexpensive catastrophic policies depleting the eligible pool of payers,corporation inversion etc.Free enterprise cannot be unrestricted because greed cannot be limited.Hillary’s tight and unappealing legalisms attract media attention but her program plans on view at her website do not.
When will the serious conversation begin?

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Special People

The Octogenarians

There have been a number of books recently examining the diminished aspiration and status of the white blue collar(primarily male) worker.The latest of these,J.B.Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy focuses on the people of Appalachia both in situ and in exodus.The interest in this group is no doubt related to the Trump candidacy and his appeal to this group.Female headed or dominated households and their association with dysfunctionality,absent or non contributory fathers with or without alcoholism or drugs as an intermediary,resistance to or inability to function within an inadequate educational system and most important the generational replication of these ills are noteworthy.These very same characteristics have been associated with the black family for a century or more with an accompanying “to be  expected” attitude.

As the unavailability of jobs for the blue collar (male and female) worker grows, the destructive effect of economic disparity and inequity is hammered home.”White Privilege” which has allowed…

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Dog Whistle or Muted Clarion Call?

The Octogenarians

The Trump…eter has done it again.This time it’s not only irresponsible, it’s dangerous and criminal.His” Maybe the second amendment people can do something” is clearly a call to gun violence against a future Hillary Clinton Presidency.It is the same call that Sarah Engel issued against Harry Reid.That call resulted in her overwhelming defeat as a “nut”.
The message is that “they” are going to take away” your” guns destroying “your” constitutionally given second amendment gun rights.Most serious constitutional scholars do not believe that the constitution’s gun rights were individual rights as such but basically militia rights that would enable locally constituted militias to oppose tyrannical assault by foreign or domestic tyrants without the financially based muster capability that might come from a central or for that matter a local government.The were not Kashkalnikoff or AR 15 rights they were ball and powder musket ordinance intended. More important is the control…

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ON THE ORIGINS OF PRES. OBAMA’S EXPLOSIVE RISE IN POPULARITY

The Octogenarians

Sent from my iPad

Begin forwarded message:

From: Virginia Vidaver <vvidaver>
Date: August 5, 2016 2:26:22 PM PDT
To: CLAUDEWELL THOMAS <cysid32>
Subject:ON THE ORIGINS OF PRES. OBAMA’S EXPLOSIVE RISE IN POPULARITY

Anger is spontaneous. Hate is forever–or so it seems. Sunni-Shite hatred goes back a millennium; anti-semitism is older still and we see no end in sight for racism. Pres. Obama, despite his clear majority and enthusiastic voter support was soon enough engulfed by racism’s hatred. Why? Is it that hatred is simply “natural” to the human species, as enduring as mankind itself to be dumped on anyone deemed different from oneself? No, I don’t believe so despite our ever-present potential for spontaneous violence towards members of “foreign” tribes. Homo sapiens are tribal creatures whose evolution over the last million years from our primate ancestors depended on the success of one’s tribe in overcoming neighboring tribes: for territory…

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Olympic Eve

The Octogenarians

On the eve of the 2016 summer Olympics(The day before in fact) Public television took us back to the 1936 Olympics of Munich  and Adolf Hitler memory.It was sad to see that much of the modern pageantry(torch relay and lighting,Olympic salute of  Greco-roman origin but close enough to the Sieg Heil salute to be exploited by Hitler and the Nazis,came from that event.The systematic exclusion of Jewish athletes((eerily recalled by the murder of Jewish athletes in 1972 Munich))was also a lowlight of that 1936 event.The wretched behavior of Avery Brundage and the IOC and the weak opposition of the AAU(followed by total  capitulation) was notable.The Nazi enabled German team won the medal count(despite Jesse Owens)and Brundage and his allies were rewarded financially and honorifically by Nazi Germany.Germany was awarded the 1940 winter games,this last monstrous act was interrupted by the series of blitzkriegs and capped by the invasion of Poland…

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Narcissistic Personality Disorder

The Octogenarians

Rep.Karen Ross(D-Calif)in a Change.org petition,called for mental health professionals to demand a mental health evaluation of the Donald for the safety of the nation. She went on to list some of the 9 characteristics listed in the latest DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) only 5 of  which are needed for the diagnosis.Two problems bedevil such a diagnostic pronouncement. The first is that it is a matter of the degree to which these characteristics are displayed and the second is the social context in which they are displayed.

In a society which idolizes economic opportunism and  success, often in a zero sum economic & psychological context(racist and sexist to boot e.g.”The big swinging dicks” of  Wall Street ),a lot of the winners would score high on such a score , potentially earning only a moral indictment as well as not so secret envy.Nevertheless our nation’s sociopsychological experts…

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Patriotism and The Trump…eter

The Octogenarians

JTG has drawn to my attention  the N.Y. Times/ N.Y. Daily News vs N.Y. Post coverage of the Donald’s draft status during the Vietnamese war.In fact JTG, the story of his educational deferments and the subsequent 4F(still a classification at the time?)categorization due to  tiny bone spurs is reasonably well known. It’s the old story of the power of money.As an old collegiate intramural boxer(ill advised) it is my considered opinion that Putin knows that with the boxing gloves on Hillary would keep getting off the floor and keep punching (through her tears) while the Trump..eter would be backing away after the first blow landed and looking to tap someone to come into the ring even though it was the wrong sport.

The ethical barrier to the professional guilds taking a stand on psychological competence is of interest here. Many of the generals are speaking out despite admonishment, because of…

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