tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80943052024-03-12T22:39:58.966-07:00Maximum Advantage in all ThingsNotes from the Decline of America.
"If you can't bash your own who can you bash?"
Propaganda as an art form.
The Shadow speaks. The whole is different than the sum of its parts. Things fall apart on their own.SRLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02874269522901511348noreply@blogger.comBlogger1346125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094305.post-40327350328571750922023-10-29T22:41:00.002-07:002023-10-29T22:41:20.052-07:00AtrocitiesAtrocities are enabled by dehumanization. We are all the enemy.SRLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02874269522901511348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094305.post-51017901955839588522023-10-14T20:26:00.007-07:002023-10-14T20:26:51.580-07:00War Crimes are NEVER JustifiableBy anyone. How hard is it to say?<br />SRLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02874269522901511348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094305.post-21630254135001634772023-09-29T21:41:00.002-07:002023-09-29T21:41:57.547-07:00No Face No Case<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT8Sbwrrvv2MAddBvtau2oR5tJG9oBptQTv7PlHvjK92zq-z56uiG7ZTmEvy3EuhjB9l09PUR9B5yjlF_oOc7ZCwEz252QGO6N4JLblMhZN8O62BvnmNT6Ld8s-6QMUojOz-GS_odMPSctyHN-F1pDVNFN5pui0qPAnLUrDy6zgc0x7LnZiJ_1Ow/s4624/20230113_160500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3468" data-original-width="4624" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT8Sbwrrvv2MAddBvtau2oR5tJG9oBptQTv7PlHvjK92zq-z56uiG7ZTmEvy3EuhjB9l09PUR9B5yjlF_oOc7ZCwEz252QGO6N4JLblMhZN8O62BvnmNT6Ld8s-6QMUojOz-GS_odMPSctyHN-F1pDVNFN5pui0qPAnLUrDy6zgc0x7LnZiJ_1Ow/s320/20230113_160500.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /> <p></p>SRLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02874269522901511348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094305.post-12790787603304075582023-09-27T21:31:00.001-07:002023-09-27T21:31:18.777-07:00True Colors<p><a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/trudeau-blames-russian-disinformation-nazi-veteran-canadian-parliament" target="_blank">Blaming Russia for an unforced error</a> doesn't cut it.</p>SRLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02874269522901511348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094305.post-49282101910732763792023-07-03T22:09:00.002-07:002023-07-03T22:09:15.030-07:00Opponents<p>Opponents are not necessarily playing the same game. Victory may have different meaning. Maximalism is a weakness to be exploited for maximum advantage. Set a trap before setting back.</p>SRLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02874269522901511348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094305.post-86201167887442767502023-06-29T22:39:00.003-07:002023-06-29T22:39:29.652-07:00Consequences <p>Unintentional consequences are a the result of conflicted priorities. What is it that you want most?</p>SRLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02874269522901511348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094305.post-66892048269727272502023-06-25T10:09:00.001-07:002023-06-25T10:09:00.125-07:00Hysterical<div dir="ltr">
Hysterical rending, gnashing, and clutching is a gift for the inspiration of hours and hours of mockery. Every four or eight years we are treated to endless raw material as a partisan minority bemoans its defeat at the hand at another minority. In terms of population, each tribe of political partisans is dwarfed in size those who do not participate in elections, or at best vote for candidates they hate the least. Funny how this is never discussed by the press...<br /></div>
SRLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02874269522901511348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094305.post-79123906740707474222023-06-24T09:54:00.003-07:002023-06-24T09:55:30.935-07:00Disposable People<p>Economy requires essential disposable people. No wonder labor participation is so low.</p>SRLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02874269522901511348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094305.post-18298170684260040332023-06-20T21:27:00.005-07:002023-06-20T21:27:42.836-07:00Weak Narratives<p> Weak narratives are a symptom of exhaustion.</p>SRLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02874269522901511348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094305.post-88596818962058647182020-12-15T22:20:00.001-08:002020-12-15T22:20:46.419-08:00LeverageLeverage is a force multiplier.SRLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02874269522901511348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094305.post-66422968324015230232020-11-16T21:51:00.001-08:002020-11-16T21:51:34.496-08:00SoothingLies are soothing to cowards.SRLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02874269522901511348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094305.post-65451223889023426832020-11-13T22:06:00.001-08:002020-11-13T22:06:47.535-08:00Suspended from TwitterFor no apparent reason, I was kicked off Twitter. No response to the appeal. Oh well, it was getting old.SRLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02874269522901511348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094305.post-36459920971808302712019-12-02T19:51:00.000-08:002019-12-02T19:59:22.610-08:0020 Years Ago Parts 3-5<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://chumpfish.blogspot.com/2009/12/10-years-ago-wto-memoir-part-3.html?m=1">http://chumpfish.blogspot.com/2009/12/10-years-ago-wto-memoir-part-3.html?m=</a><br />
<div>
<a href="https://draft.blogger.com/goog_1983865796"><br /></a></div>
<div>
<a href="http://chumpfish.blogspot.com/2009/12/10-years-ago-wto-memoir-part-4-thursday.html?m=1">http://chumpfish.blogspot.com/2009/12/10-years-ago-wto-memoir-part-4-thursday.html?m=1</a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<a href="http://chumpfish.blogspot.com/2009/12/10-years-ago-wto-memoir-part-4-friday.html?m=1">http://chumpfish.blogspot.com/2009/12/10-years-ago-wto-memoir-part-4-friday.html?m=1</a></div>
</div>
SRLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02874269522901511348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094305.post-25070444398674691202019-12-01T17:18:00.000-08:002019-12-01T17:21:55.757-08:0020 Years Ago Part 2<div>Day 2 of recollections from 10 years ago, 20 years ago today here: http://chumpfish.blogspot.com/2009/11/10-years-ago-wto-memoir-part-2-tuesday.html</div><div><br></div>SRLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02874269522901511348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094305.post-73180927774638108842019-11-30T22:53:00.001-08:002019-11-30T23:03:17.225-08:0020 Years Ago Part 1<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It's been 20 years since the WTO protests in Seattle. 10 years ago, I posted my recollections of those events. <a href="https://www.ezsubscription.com/bfl/library.aspx" target="_blank">Here</a> is the first installment:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://chumpfish.blogspot.com/2009/11/10-years-ago-wto-memoir-part-1-monday.html?m=1">http://chumpfish.blogspot.com/2009/11/10-years-ago-wto-memoir-part-1-monday.html?m=1</a></div>
SRLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02874269522901511348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094305.post-10995204985986339502019-03-01T23:22:00.001-08:002019-11-30T23:05:36.458-08:00Imcompetent?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr">
Corruption and incompetence may straddle a fine line: "Which are you, incompetent or just corrupt?"</div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
(And yes, C., the misspelling was on purpose.) </div>
</div>
SRLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02874269522901511348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094305.post-80962010568377656962019-02-03T09:48:00.000-08:002019-02-03T09:48:06.448-08:00Murder<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Murder doesn't care what you name it.</div>
SRLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02874269522901511348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094305.post-7507724910423320872018-12-23T19:49:00.001-08:002018-12-23T19:49:13.659-08:00Internet Censorship<p dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.wizcase.com/blog/ultimate-guide-internet-censorship/">The Ultimate Guide to Internet Censorship</a> is a useful and even practical primer on the subject. Absent outright censorship, counter-propaganda is another means of effective censorship by drowning out opposing points of view.<br>
</p>
SRLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02874269522901511348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094305.post-57507507909620757712018-12-01T08:53:00.002-08:002018-12-01T08:57:56.016-08:00Suicide<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
From <a href="https://theweek.com/articles/809985/suicide-chimera-american-prosperity" target="_blank">Suicide and the chimera of American prosperity</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If you are the sort of person who needs the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention to inform you that Americans are miserable, it's now
official. According to the nation's top public health agency, the rate
at which we are killing ourselves is <a href="https://apnews.com/de57909c5bcc4162b122948539ed9c6a" target="_blank">higher</a>
than it has been in half a century. Fifty years of relentless
technological advances, social liberalization, optimization, and GDP
growth, five decades that brought about the end of Soviet communism and
the birth of a new global order based on free trade and open
communication and an infinite array of goods and services and what have
we got to show for it? Suicide.<br />
<br />
[...]<br />
<br />
It will be tempting for some liberals to argue that the drug and suicide
epidemic, which is most pronounced in states like West Virginia and in
the post-industrial Midwest, is the muted response of white Americans to
the prospect of their irrelevance in a rapidly diversifying country.
But that's not what I think is happening — and not just because David
Duke probably says the same thing. For one thing, the despair that is
the underlying cause of these phenomena is universal. The difference is
that black and Hispanic communities have more hard-won resilience than
whites who have led increasingly atomized, if comparatively more
prosperous, existences for half a century now. They live in
self-segregated communities in which the only meaningful bonds with
their neighbors and even their extended families are those to which they
have consented. Their experience has not prepared them for financial
uncertainty, violence, atrophying attention spans, and drug taking. For
them there really is no such thing as society. They have achieved
Auden's <a href="https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/september-1-1939" target="_blank">terrible dream</a> — not universal love, but being loved alone. Now they are discovering what it means to hate themselves alone as well. </blockquote>
</div>
SRLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02874269522901511348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094305.post-43063388680733285142018-10-06T16:55:00.001-07:002018-10-06T16:55:38.253-07:00Blip Thinking<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
From <i>The Baffler</i>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="parasectionhed">
<b>For God’s Sake, Do Nothing</b></div>
Blip thinking is also exculpatory; it exempts its users from thinking
too deeply about how we got into this mess, what their own role may
have been, and the difficult work needed to get us out. What gets lost
amid all this is the obvious contribution that the old order made to the
emerging catastrophe. The global “populist” moment did not arise in
spite of liberal capitalism, in defiance of the global rules-based
order, but because of them. The situation today is not the parenthesis
of progress but its product. And this is what is truly deranging about
blip thinking: by mistaking entropy for a fleeting moment of collective
madness, it ensures the political establishment’s comfort in doing
nothing to address the real problems besetting the world today. It is a
call for only the most superficial form of action—which is to say, an
excuse for inaction.</blockquote>
<a href="https://thebaffler.com/latest/this-is-not-a-blip-timms" target="_blank"> Link.</a><br />
<br />
Propaganda as a form of inoculation only goes so far.</div>
SRLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02874269522901511348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094305.post-59038250990431411622018-08-26T11:24:00.000-07:002018-08-26T11:24:06.241-07:0014 Years and Counting<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
See <a href="https://chumpfish.blogspot.com/2004/08/welcome.html" target="_blank">Welcome</a></div>
SRLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02874269522901511348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094305.post-9561117749197222182018-08-25T11:22:00.001-07:002018-08-25T11:22:23.398-07:00White House Newsletter<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
From <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-white-house-newsletter-propaganda-positive-news-coverage-2018-8" target="_blank"><i>I've analyzed every White House newsletter since 2009, and Trump's are a propaganda machine obsessed with positive news coverage</i></a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
...the White House newsletter reflects this administration's complicated relationship with the news media. Despite <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/sarah-sanders-defends-trump-calling-reporters-enemy-of-the-people"> press secretaries</a>
and a president who deride the journalists for their negative coverage,
this White House also wants the validation and credibility that comes
from media praise<br />
<br />
And it's looking far and wide to find it. </blockquote>
A window into Trump's insecurity?</div>
SRLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02874269522901511348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094305.post-71054514160045654832018-07-06T19:27:00.001-07:002019-12-07T17:44:36.182-08:00Nothing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Nothingnees is not an empty construct--it just looks that way.</div>
SRLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02874269522901511348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094305.post-22309461030471885002018-04-13T15:46:00.000-07:002018-04-13T15:46:04.998-07:00Melancholia <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Melancholia is the brain's way of saying things are not so great.</div>
SRLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02874269522901511348noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8094305.post-52530418716538507072018-01-06T11:10:00.000-08:002018-01-06T11:11:13.923-08:00Trust<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Trust is the glue that binds a society, but can be also hinder or even stop its development if misplaced.</div>
SRLhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02874269522901511348noreply@blogger.com0