Pondering John’s mention of Elon Musk’s frankly insane blather about founding a colony on Mars, the roots of this idiocy may be indicated by an author who John doesn’t have much time for i.e. István Mészáros, in his book “Social Structure and Forms of Consciousness”. Mészáros talks about the basic fixations that dominate capitalist society – one of them being “The Programmatic Orientation Towards Science” (title of the first chapter).
This basically means that the inevitable crises and collapses of capitalism are never considered from the perspective of proposing a restructuring of the whole socio-economic sphere (since that would obviously involve the transcendence of capitalism) but are always met with pseudo-solutions of a purely technical nature. The absurdity of expanding the capitalist reach onto another world, offloading the population, generating “new markets” (even in an environment utterly inhospitable to human existence) etc. is considered before that transgressive notion of changing the social order itself.
When I said that John doesn't have much time for Mészáros, I was thinking about an exchange we had concerning critics of Adorno, Mészáros being one such. But as I've found, you can always find something worthwhile in almost every writer.
I tend to have love/hate relationships with them all. Adorno amazes me sometimes and at other times I feel I could throw the book across the room. Mészáros is perceptive in some ways but by christ is he a "dreich" writer - to use a lovely Scottish word that means dull and miserable - much like Scotland itself!
I like Mészáros very much but he’s certainly not the most elegant writer. One Matthijs Krul refers to Mészáros’s “ineptly abstract, obscurantist writing style” and humorously notes that “(i)f Hungarian Marxist philosopher Istvan Meszaros is indeed Hugo Chavez’s favorite theorist, as implied by (a) book cover, the President of Venezuela must be a patient man indeed”.
If you’re feeling brave, you could try Mészáros’s “Social Structure and Forms of Consciousness, Volume 1: The Social Determination of Method” (snappy title!) This is the book I referred to.
Nothing returned to normal post-COVID because that was the plan. We were told this is the New Normal.
We must recognize the pandemic as another inflection point, 9/11 being one after which nothing was ever the same. 9/11 was a huge step in cementing the surveillance state that quickly became normalized. No one pushes back on having to be scanned and searched before boarding a plane. Fear is the incentive or “the stick” and patriotism goes along with that.
Genocide seems to be part of the plan, beginning with the most vulnerable, and the think tanks assess the masses reactions to the slaughter. I think the rulers want to get rid of alot of people, less to worry about, while ensuring their own longevity.
We are like boiling frogs. The heat is turned up so slowly while we are distracted by the struggles of our daily lives, the entertainment we hope will distract is from our struggles for a while and the propaganda and the bread and circuses from the media meant to keep us confused and blaming each other or “the other.”
The COVID experiment worked extremely well for those who planned it.
the psyop planners are open to seeing and learning from the results and reactions of the experiment, however they play out. They play the long game and have the means and the time to learn from their mistakes and mis-steps, while the people suffer the consequences.
The rulers use think tanks and now AI to help them make decisions with one aim.
9/11 and COVID and all the elections have become just another production orchestrated by those who plan how to keep their own positions and control and never, never allow another Russian revolution-type event where the people wake up and stand up. Very much like PKD story, as George mentioned.
This is very depressing. I have friends who say, “who are they?” and that I give “they” too much credit.
One thing is clear to me, nothing is getting better for us in the twilight of capitalism. This is cliche, but the psychopaths are running the asylum.
Covid is the pivotal point for me. That was when any illusion of a “free press” was finally trashed for good. And the lockdown was the most important part of it.
PKD has a brilliantly prescient novel, “The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch” in which he imagines two drugs. One, Can-D, enables its users to enter into a shared experience. The other, Chew-Z, imprisons everyone in a world whose only other inhabitant is the sinister Palmer Eldritch who introduced Chew-Z. Once everyone has been so imprisoned they are helpless before Eldritch who can then dictate the terms of this reality which is HIS reality.
This is how the lockdown worked. On the very day I was sent home from work, there had been rumblings amongst the staff about how this pandemic might be some kind of scam. All that talk vanished – at least on a group level. Once everyone was stuck at home without the chance of direct face-to-face contact with others, it was increasingly difficult to entertain doubts in a social way i.e. you could have those doubts, you could look around the internet to see who shared your views, but the actual local community around you was something you could no longer experience. And of course the mainstream media could pump out its tale in Palmer Eldritch style as the only permitted “group” narrative.
The upshot is that once you were permitted to “come out your cage” the scene had been set to present covid as the only socially acceptable narrative. Say anything else and you were “one of those conspiracy nuts” or “one of those anti-vaxxers”. I had such a major blow out with a friend over this that we never mentioned it again. As they say: mission accomplished!
I love that book. It's a perfect analogy for the covid psyop. I have a huge collection of PKD. Many are old pulp paperbacks, even doubles.
For Americans, 9/11 was an incident that changed life here drastically. Not only did the USA start another war of aggresion that murdered a million Iraqis, it roused fear and patriotism in Americans, which resulted in people becoming immune to murder, as long as the "enemy" was getting slaughtered, and ramped up hatred for Muslims. I think this helped set the stage for the horrors happening now in Gaza and why there is not the appropriate outrage. It also slipped in much higher levels of surveillance, getting us that much closer to the goal of having the world's population on some sort of blockchained digital currency tied to everything everyone does, all of it tracked and memorialized. Meanwhile the green movement to "fight global warming" injects robot cars and the ability to geofence the population and control movement. Gas powered cars are on their way out.
I live in a small rural town in California and there were some of us who did not buy into the fear narrative until we had a chance to look into it. It just felt fake and was not logical so we began researching every aspect, including the state of the financial markets that lead up to the declaration of a pandemic that locked down the world.
We discovered Blackrock's Going Direct plan...a coincidence, right?
Censorship was a huge give-away. Labeling anyone who questioned the official story as murderer, selfish or just stupid...oh yeah, and a Trump supporter, since we had just endured three years of Russiagate bullshit.
Pieces started to fit together to expose the scam, but in order to ascertain if there was a new virus to fear, one had to go to the actual medical and scientific studies being used to support this narrative. Learning how to read them took some time.
None of them hold up. But the scary virus scam will be used again with a little tweaking I am sure. There are still three other scenarios/psyops that have been planned.
The New Normal may not be going according to best plan, but those who make the rules can pivot based on our responses, because they hold the power...and we give them power, I think, because people want a savior, a superman, whether its a James Bond working to save the world from nefarious WWIII-wanting criminals, or super heroes straight out of Marvel comics. Instead of coming together with each other to hammer out solutions we have allowed ourselves to be divided and isolated and look to a leader to save us.
As you point out, covid was another brick in the wall of isolation out of fear. Every person became a deadly carrier of death. Wow, people fell for it. You also mentioned the War of the Worlds hoax. Did everyone forget or find it too hard to believe that even the medical cartel has been captured?
We know now how easy it is for us to have the wool pulled over our eyes. Like I said earlier. I feel like we are cornered and there is no path to solidarity. But I am open to and would support reasonable suggestions.
I have no doubt that this is one of a million foaming military fetishist carnage masturbation accounts and it reminded me of something Randy Newman said about his satirical song on American foreign policy, “Political Science”, which proposes that the US just “drops the big one” since “they all hate us anyhow” and giving a lovely account of the world post-apocalypse (“We’ll save Australia/Don’t want to hurt no kangaroo”). Randy explained that when he sang the song back in the 70s, everyone laughed because they got the joke but in later decades he came to feel the audience reaction was more along the lines of “Damn straight! Let’s do it!”
All of which only goes to show the impotence of sarcasm. If you say the opposite of what you mean, it only serves you right if your opponent defeats you by merely taking you at face value cf. that godawful film “Forrest Gump” which was apparently based on a book that parodied the American Dream. The film ends up as a “humorous” reinforcement of the American Dream.
There’s a vast number of examples – Springsteen’s song “Born in the USA” which the Reaganite Republicans wanted as their anthem. Springsteen aggressively refused but probably remained blissfully unaware that the “ironic” put-down of the lyrics could easily be reversed into another song about the whole US being “the underdog”.
Or there’s Randy’s other song “I Love L.A.” – a “sardonic” raspberry to the city which “became one of the best-selling songs in Los Angeles, as citizens of Los Angeles saw the song as a celebration of their city” (Wiki). Now one response to that is to laugh at all the “idiots” who don’t get the joke. But I reckon the final laugh is on the ones who think they’re “getting one over”. These sarky blasts always end up as self-deceiving tributes to what they are supposedly mocking.
On the topic of Democrat supporters always choosing to go to Canada instead of Mexico, the Leftist American composer Conlon Nancarrow, who joined the Communist Party and fought against Franco in the Spanish Civil War, heard afterwards that his Leftist buddies had a huge amount of trouble getting back into the states. So just to try out his luck, he applied for re-entry and found he could only do it if he renounced his communist sympathies as an infatuation of a callow youth. He refused and, on finding he had to choose between Canada and Mexico, he followed Trotsky and went for the rugged manly southern option!
Zinnemann made “The Search” with Monty Clift and I believe it was the film out of his career that Clift was happiest with.
I have the feeling I’ve said this before but Shaenah’s comment on the idolisation of assassins and psychopaths can be seen on TV in e.g. Dexter and Breaking Bad etc. And Dexter is interesting in that the main character has a voiceover in which he tells how ill at ease he feels in various social situations as if this indicates his psychopathy but the feelings he relates are actually quite commonplace. And this segues seamlessly into his serial killing. So, on the one hand, commonplace feelings are pathologized and, on the other, pathological acts are normalised.
Lex’s point about how progressive proposals are not being put into practice and how this has now led to a rejection of the so-called progressive wing is astute and heartening. I’ve often felt that it is the pseudo-progressive wing of the current theatre that is the most debilitating factor. And if this wing is now being rejected then it is an ominous sign for the ruling class who now realise that their bluff is being called. It is as if the American people are saying: “We don’t fall for your liberal façade anymore. So bring on your full fascism!”
On Musk and his rockets I’m going to make a really crazy observation. I think it was Adorno that spoke about the “truth content” of any view by which I think he meant that even the most barking notions have some relation to reality and may even have something vital to say. I am thinking about the view that arouses the most contempt i.e. the notion of a flat earth. I suggest that the “truth content” of this is that everything outside our planet does not concern us because THERE IS NOTHING THERE! What I mean is that what lies up there is totally hostile to human existence. Why the fuck would anyone genuinely want to set up base on Mars or the moon etc.?
Admittedly this is probably an unwise line of argument since you are handing your opponents an excellent way to discrediting you. But I see it as the resemblance of my thinking to that of Philip K Dick i.e. he wasn’t concerned with “base line reality” since that was something we can never be sure about. Perhaps Adorno’s wariness of “identity thinking” is also relevant here? What we CAN discuss is the ethical obligations we have within our current conceptual paradigm.
It is salutary to ponder the view of the universe that we now have and which we now take for granted as the most sophisticated view. We have all been influenced by decades of science fiction movies and TV programmes which have encouraged us to think of space almost as a big “crowded” realm of various alien races. We may be happy to acknowledge that there are no Vulcans, Klingons, Martians, Predators, Xenomorphs etc. and yet the constant push of these images throughout the media is bound to have an effect on the subconscious presuppositions of the public mind. And grand conspiracy theorists like Icke are happy to pander to these notions.
All of which reminds me of the wise words of Gore Vidal:
“Because there is no cosmic point to the life that each of us perceives on this distant bit of dust at galaxy’s edge, all the more reason for us to maintain in proper balance what we have here. Because there is nothing else. Nothing. This is it. And quite enough, all in all.”
From someone that normally relishes every new Steppling piece, I had to shut this discussion off at the 6 minute mark for the snarky, lockstep arrogance displayed by the participants. Trump’s election signifies much more than “just another shitty candidate” and to suggest otherwise is to have your head up your ass. This is not to say that a Harris presidency would have meant salvation for ANYONE. In many respects it would have been far worse and taken as a mandate for the RussiaGating, Branch Covidians.. But to pretend that Trump’s retaking of US power signals only “more of the same” displays a profound misread of the proverbial tea leaves. With professed Zionists and neocons Stefanik, Huckabee, Rubio and Hegseth now in place let NO ONE suggest this is merely “more of the same.” If you folks believe for even a minute that snarky discussions such as this to have ANY meaningful relevance I want that you have it in a room of MAGA acolytes..
first off, thats a pretty rude comment. I dont think anyone said trump was just another shitty candidate. We spent an hour discussing the various implications and i know for sure nobody said more of the same. (oh wait you only listened to six minutes).However, US foreign policy never changes. Presidents really dont have the power to change it. Tactics change, and optics change, but actual US policy is beyond the power of the president, who is at least 75% symbolic,. Harris would have been worse in many respects, but then again, the president has only limited real power. But feel free not to listen if you find this snarky and our heads up our ass. I have no problem with that. (you sound very invested in this topic. Never a good thing when its the electoral circus being discussed).
“Rude?” What are you, my boss? Lol. Sorry, John. When you sit together hobnobbing with a small collection of backslappers and navel gazers talking and guffawing out your necks in in-crowd dialect without so much as a hat tip to those of us (busy at actual jobs that don’t involve sitting on our thumbs) that have been calling out fascism in all its many forms since you were still busy peddling plays to an audience long since disinterested and dead, you get some push back. Don’t worry. It looks like you got a few fanboys in the comments..
“…dont think anyone said trump was just another shitty candidate.”
Oh stop. That was EXACTLY the consensus and tenor of the 6 minutes I saw.. and given this:
“US policy is beyond the power of the president, who is at least 75% symbolic…,”
I have little reason to suspect the discussion deviated an inch. And btw, you’re saying as much here - and you’re freaking wrong. The systemic deep state certainly exists; deep echelons of power probably not too awfully different than the one Ned Beatty’s character in “Network”describes for Mr Beal, but It isn’t “symbolism” keeping the bombs dropping on Gaza or the money flowing to Ukraine. it’s real live people in positions of power and influence. Dangerous and often stupid people - elected by millions of dangerous and stupid people.
As for being “invested” in the election nonsense, I’m ashamed to say that I am, yes. Said as accusingly as you do here though, your condescension sort of sounds like someone believing somehow to be well beyond the ramifications of this election. “Just like any other” says the disaffected “artists.”
One of the posters mentioned you saying that if you could have voted in the election you’d have cast a vote for Trump. If true, that’s a horsey of a whole different shade, fella. If true, you would then be 110% full of shit on 110 different levels - including your response here..
first off, i have worked my entire life. At the age of forty i was able to start supporting myself writing (in hollywood for twelve years or so). My family growing up was on welfare. So your assumptions are wrong (and predictable). I also did time at a state hotel. So fuck off on that matter. Im also now 73. As for condescending, Id submit you are a walking invitation to such a tone. But yes Im sure i sound condescending. What i said regards voting trump was THAT IF A GUN WAS TO MY HEAD. A sort of significant qualifier. But then you only listened to six minutes. But there are lots of podcasts that are not so 'full of shit'.. i suggest you go listen to them. (I absolutely love LOVE LOVE that you quote Network. You know why I love that, besides the mindwracking predictability of it, is that chayefsky was the consummate liberal, who aggressively supported Israel later in life, wrote op eds attacking the PLO and defending zionism. He was never called before HUAC....quelle surprise). He was also intensely anti marxist. But never mind, the bombs drop because the US is an imperialist nation that cannot survive without war. Your comments aboutysymbolism are incoherent. Im sorry. The bombs do not drop because of electoral outcomes. They have never stopped dropping. You can listen to upcoming lectures on fascism/communism. (or not).
Know what I hate hate HATE about “Network?” - and your information about Chayefsky sort of explains it - is the fact that Arthur Jensen’s brilliant boardroom speech is allowed the final word. Fuck Chayefsky. I despise him for leaving Beal muted after it…
I am not sure we can say Trump "retook" power because I don't think presidents hold the real power. I also think elections are really selections. Blackrock CEO said Wall Street wins no matter which candidate gets in, but they had their preference because the establishment of a uniparty with two falsely opposing wings sets up a drama for those who think our vote makes a difference to how things are going to play out. I think when the podcast participants said "just another shitty candidate" although not sure I heard that exact term,maybe though, they meant that the plan continues no matter which candidate gets in. Obviously many people have had enough of the identity politic bullshit, I also don't think they know what they WANT instead. Like George pointed out, many people see no solution to what is happening so they hold on to fantasies like moving to Mars. How dare anyone think that another system that benefits the masses might be the beginning of solutions? People are so brainwashed that any social safety net is now seen as a communist or Marxist plot. And this I think was part of the plan of the New Normal. We are cornered.
The comments that Trump was a continuation of the same were made in reference to the con played on supporters who were expecting him to undertake a radical reform or a draining of the swamp. Trump's Zionists and neocons are worse, but this is only an acceleration of a situation that already exists.
At the same time I actually don’t give a shit about threats of being blocked, I’ll still apologize for admittedly being an asshole.. I am angry as fuck at the US and the positively stupid sheeple I have as fellow citizens that did their part in legitimizing this election by taking the time to vote in it.. I’m not a kid, John. At 63 years of age my anger and hostility is a culmination of an entire lifetime of political pendulums that swing only in one direction.. Now I need a breath of air, man..
As so often nowadays, I have trouble figuring out what your point is. At first I even thought you were advocating for Trump. It is clear now that you think he will be far worse. Which is what everyone here is saying anyway.
I suspect that one big factor of Trump winning the election has less to do with the MAGA mantra than a signal of contempt for the Democrats. The MAGA connection feels like the media’s typically crass way of presenting the issue as a contemptuous sneer that feeds into the liberal script: “Ha ha! Look at those knuckle trailing redneck troglodytes with their Biblical fundamentalism!” etc.
Of course I speak as an outsider – but this has a parallel in the UK theatre with the fox hunting Tories against the cloth capped Labourites. Previously, I never in a million years would have considered voting Tory. But since the turnaround of covid, “The Left” seems to now be the preferred presentation adopted by the mainstream. No more “no-alternative” privatisation! We’re now “all in it together” etc.
The effect of all this twaddle is ironically as “The Right” have told it: with the furious vaccinations, the lockdowns, the masking, the gender bullshit, the mutilation of the young, the free pass given to older opportunistic male predators, the climate claptrap – all of which “legitimises” accelerating transfers of wealth upstairs into black holes of wacko schemes e.g. gender re-assignment surgery, pseudo-vaccine research, proposed trips to Mars or whatever. THIS is what currently passes for “Leftism”! And THIS is the way the elites want to go.
So the contrived implosion of the UK Tories and the election of the “Leftist” Starmer Labour Party makes sense. Obviously this can’t be projected onto the US with the election of the “Right Wing” Trump. But I reckon the blatant bullshit of this “Left” was causing too much disruption to guarantee a Democrat win. And it is quite gratifying to see a Trump win.
I echo John’s sentiment that if he lived in America he would have (reluctantly) voted for Trump. I would have done the same – only I don’t feel reluctance. And for two reasons: first, the media designations of “Left” and “Right” are now only meaningful as Pavlovian mind control mechanisms, and second, what is now signalled as “Left” is the absolute gutter level worst. And, as I said, the way they would like to play the little sideshow now.
But I don’t think any of this signals a true triumph. Nor could it as this political theatre only ever serves as a smoke screen to implement what the rulers have already decided. Thus the Trump win might be seen as a backward step for them. But John mentioned a “bait and switch” manoeuvre. Trump won because he made the noises the less gullible portion of the America public want to hear. But what you’ll get is more of the same anyway.
Still, its’ nice to see these ridiculous left liberals going into apoplexy over the disturbance of their petty irrelevant fixations. And the clearing away of those fixations is at least something.
Yes, living in the USA, I did feel better seeing Trump win (never thought I would say it) Harris and the dems, and it is almost satisfying to see the idiots screaming, crying, balding themselves and swearing off sex with men. I agree with you George, the path has been chosen but there will be many sideshows along the way.
Pondering John’s mention of Elon Musk’s frankly insane blather about founding a colony on Mars, the roots of this idiocy may be indicated by an author who John doesn’t have much time for i.e. István Mészáros, in his book “Social Structure and Forms of Consciousness”. Mészáros talks about the basic fixations that dominate capitalist society – one of them being “The Programmatic Orientation Towards Science” (title of the first chapter).
This basically means that the inevitable crises and collapses of capitalism are never considered from the perspective of proposing a restructuring of the whole socio-economic sphere (since that would obviously involve the transcendence of capitalism) but are always met with pseudo-solutions of a purely technical nature. The absurdity of expanding the capitalist reach onto another world, offloading the population, generating “new markets” (even in an environment utterly inhospitable to human existence) etc. is considered before that transgressive notion of changing the social order itself.
When I said that John doesn't have much time for Mészáros, I was thinking about an exchange we had concerning critics of Adorno, Mészáros being one such. But as I've found, you can always find something worthwhile in almost every writer.
I tend to have love/hate relationships with them all. Adorno amazes me sometimes and at other times I feel I could throw the book across the room. Mészáros is perceptive in some ways but by christ is he a "dreich" writer - to use a lovely Scottish word that means dull and miserable - much like Scotland itself!
I hadn’t heard of Meszaros before. I am now intrigued to look into some of his worjs
I like Mészáros very much but he’s certainly not the most elegant writer. One Matthijs Krul refers to Mészáros’s “ineptly abstract, obscurantist writing style” and humorously notes that “(i)f Hungarian Marxist philosopher Istvan Meszaros is indeed Hugo Chavez’s favorite theorist, as implied by (a) book cover, the President of Venezuela must be a patient man indeed”.
If you’re feeling brave, you could try Mészáros’s “Social Structure and Forms of Consciousness, Volume 1: The Social Determination of Method” (snappy title!) This is the book I referred to.
Okay, I’ll check that book out. I enjoy heavy and difficult reading
Nothing returned to normal post-COVID because that was the plan. We were told this is the New Normal.
We must recognize the pandemic as another inflection point, 9/11 being one after which nothing was ever the same. 9/11 was a huge step in cementing the surveillance state that quickly became normalized. No one pushes back on having to be scanned and searched before boarding a plane. Fear is the incentive or “the stick” and patriotism goes along with that.
Genocide seems to be part of the plan, beginning with the most vulnerable, and the think tanks assess the masses reactions to the slaughter. I think the rulers want to get rid of alot of people, less to worry about, while ensuring their own longevity.
We are like boiling frogs. The heat is turned up so slowly while we are distracted by the struggles of our daily lives, the entertainment we hope will distract is from our struggles for a while and the propaganda and the bread and circuses from the media meant to keep us confused and blaming each other or “the other.”
The COVID experiment worked extremely well for those who planned it.
the psyop planners are open to seeing and learning from the results and reactions of the experiment, however they play out. They play the long game and have the means and the time to learn from their mistakes and mis-steps, while the people suffer the consequences.
The rulers use think tanks and now AI to help them make decisions with one aim.
9/11 and COVID and all the elections have become just another production orchestrated by those who plan how to keep their own positions and control and never, never allow another Russian revolution-type event where the people wake up and stand up. Very much like PKD story, as George mentioned.
This is very depressing. I have friends who say, “who are they?” and that I give “they” too much credit.
One thing is clear to me, nothing is getting better for us in the twilight of capitalism. This is cliche, but the psychopaths are running the asylum.
Covid is the pivotal point for me. That was when any illusion of a “free press” was finally trashed for good. And the lockdown was the most important part of it.
PKD has a brilliantly prescient novel, “The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch” in which he imagines two drugs. One, Can-D, enables its users to enter into a shared experience. The other, Chew-Z, imprisons everyone in a world whose only other inhabitant is the sinister Palmer Eldritch who introduced Chew-Z. Once everyone has been so imprisoned they are helpless before Eldritch who can then dictate the terms of this reality which is HIS reality.
This is how the lockdown worked. On the very day I was sent home from work, there had been rumblings amongst the staff about how this pandemic might be some kind of scam. All that talk vanished – at least on a group level. Once everyone was stuck at home without the chance of direct face-to-face contact with others, it was increasingly difficult to entertain doubts in a social way i.e. you could have those doubts, you could look around the internet to see who shared your views, but the actual local community around you was something you could no longer experience. And of course the mainstream media could pump out its tale in Palmer Eldritch style as the only permitted “group” narrative.
The upshot is that once you were permitted to “come out your cage” the scene had been set to present covid as the only socially acceptable narrative. Say anything else and you were “one of those conspiracy nuts” or “one of those anti-vaxxers”. I had such a major blow out with a friend over this that we never mentioned it again. As they say: mission accomplished!
I love that book. It's a perfect analogy for the covid psyop. I have a huge collection of PKD. Many are old pulp paperbacks, even doubles.
For Americans, 9/11 was an incident that changed life here drastically. Not only did the USA start another war of aggresion that murdered a million Iraqis, it roused fear and patriotism in Americans, which resulted in people becoming immune to murder, as long as the "enemy" was getting slaughtered, and ramped up hatred for Muslims. I think this helped set the stage for the horrors happening now in Gaza and why there is not the appropriate outrage. It also slipped in much higher levels of surveillance, getting us that much closer to the goal of having the world's population on some sort of blockchained digital currency tied to everything everyone does, all of it tracked and memorialized. Meanwhile the green movement to "fight global warming" injects robot cars and the ability to geofence the population and control movement. Gas powered cars are on their way out.
I live in a small rural town in California and there were some of us who did not buy into the fear narrative until we had a chance to look into it. It just felt fake and was not logical so we began researching every aspect, including the state of the financial markets that lead up to the declaration of a pandemic that locked down the world.
We discovered Blackrock's Going Direct plan...a coincidence, right?
Censorship was a huge give-away. Labeling anyone who questioned the official story as murderer, selfish or just stupid...oh yeah, and a Trump supporter, since we had just endured three years of Russiagate bullshit.
Lockstep was one scenario of four written in 2010 by the Rockefeller Foundation. One cannot overlook that coincidence. https://www.nommeraadio.ee/meedia/pdf/RRS/Rockefeller%20Foundation.pdf
Pieces started to fit together to expose the scam, but in order to ascertain if there was a new virus to fear, one had to go to the actual medical and scientific studies being used to support this narrative. Learning how to read them took some time.
None of them hold up. But the scary virus scam will be used again with a little tweaking I am sure. There are still three other scenarios/psyops that have been planned.
The New Normal may not be going according to best plan, but those who make the rules can pivot based on our responses, because they hold the power...and we give them power, I think, because people want a savior, a superman, whether its a James Bond working to save the world from nefarious WWIII-wanting criminals, or super heroes straight out of Marvel comics. Instead of coming together with each other to hammer out solutions we have allowed ourselves to be divided and isolated and look to a leader to save us.
As you point out, covid was another brick in the wall of isolation out of fear. Every person became a deadly carrier of death. Wow, people fell for it. You also mentioned the War of the Worlds hoax. Did everyone forget or find it too hard to believe that even the medical cartel has been captured?
We know now how easy it is for us to have the wool pulled over our eyes. Like I said earlier. I feel like we are cornered and there is no path to solidarity. But I am open to and would support reasonable suggestions.
Meanwhile there’s this:
https://x.com/OfAthenry
I have no doubt that this is one of a million foaming military fetishist carnage masturbation accounts and it reminded me of something Randy Newman said about his satirical song on American foreign policy, “Political Science”, which proposes that the US just “drops the big one” since “they all hate us anyhow” and giving a lovely account of the world post-apocalypse (“We’ll save Australia/Don’t want to hurt no kangaroo”). Randy explained that when he sang the song back in the 70s, everyone laughed because they got the joke but in later decades he came to feel the audience reaction was more along the lines of “Damn straight! Let’s do it!”
All of which only goes to show the impotence of sarcasm. If you say the opposite of what you mean, it only serves you right if your opponent defeats you by merely taking you at face value cf. that godawful film “Forrest Gump” which was apparently based on a book that parodied the American Dream. The film ends up as a “humorous” reinforcement of the American Dream.
There’s a vast number of examples – Springsteen’s song “Born in the USA” which the Reaganite Republicans wanted as their anthem. Springsteen aggressively refused but probably remained blissfully unaware that the “ironic” put-down of the lyrics could easily be reversed into another song about the whole US being “the underdog”.
Or there’s Randy’s other song “I Love L.A.” – a “sardonic” raspberry to the city which “became one of the best-selling songs in Los Angeles, as citizens of Los Angeles saw the song as a celebration of their city” (Wiki). Now one response to that is to laugh at all the “idiots” who don’t get the joke. But I reckon the final laugh is on the ones who think they’re “getting one over”. These sarky blasts always end up as self-deceiving tributes to what they are supposedly mocking.
On the topic of Democrat supporters always choosing to go to Canada instead of Mexico, the Leftist American composer Conlon Nancarrow, who joined the Communist Party and fought against Franco in the Spanish Civil War, heard afterwards that his Leftist buddies had a huge amount of trouble getting back into the states. So just to try out his luck, he applied for re-entry and found he could only do it if he renounced his communist sympathies as an infatuation of a callow youth. He refused and, on finding he had to choose between Canada and Mexico, he followed Trotsky and went for the rugged manly southern option!
Zinnemann made “The Search” with Monty Clift and I believe it was the film out of his career that Clift was happiest with.
I have the feeling I’ve said this before but Shaenah’s comment on the idolisation of assassins and psychopaths can be seen on TV in e.g. Dexter and Breaking Bad etc. And Dexter is interesting in that the main character has a voiceover in which he tells how ill at ease he feels in various social situations as if this indicates his psychopathy but the feelings he relates are actually quite commonplace. And this segues seamlessly into his serial killing. So, on the one hand, commonplace feelings are pathologized and, on the other, pathological acts are normalised.
Lex’s point about how progressive proposals are not being put into practice and how this has now led to a rejection of the so-called progressive wing is astute and heartening. I’ve often felt that it is the pseudo-progressive wing of the current theatre that is the most debilitating factor. And if this wing is now being rejected then it is an ominous sign for the ruling class who now realise that their bluff is being called. It is as if the American people are saying: “We don’t fall for your liberal façade anymore. So bring on your full fascism!”
On Musk and his rockets I’m going to make a really crazy observation. I think it was Adorno that spoke about the “truth content” of any view by which I think he meant that even the most barking notions have some relation to reality and may even have something vital to say. I am thinking about the view that arouses the most contempt i.e. the notion of a flat earth. I suggest that the “truth content” of this is that everything outside our planet does not concern us because THERE IS NOTHING THERE! What I mean is that what lies up there is totally hostile to human existence. Why the fuck would anyone genuinely want to set up base on Mars or the moon etc.?
Admittedly this is probably an unwise line of argument since you are handing your opponents an excellent way to discrediting you. But I see it as the resemblance of my thinking to that of Philip K Dick i.e. he wasn’t concerned with “base line reality” since that was something we can never be sure about. Perhaps Adorno’s wariness of “identity thinking” is also relevant here? What we CAN discuss is the ethical obligations we have within our current conceptual paradigm.
It is salutary to ponder the view of the universe that we now have and which we now take for granted as the most sophisticated view. We have all been influenced by decades of science fiction movies and TV programmes which have encouraged us to think of space almost as a big “crowded” realm of various alien races. We may be happy to acknowledge that there are no Vulcans, Klingons, Martians, Predators, Xenomorphs etc. and yet the constant push of these images throughout the media is bound to have an effect on the subconscious presuppositions of the public mind. And grand conspiracy theorists like Icke are happy to pander to these notions.
All of which reminds me of the wise words of Gore Vidal:
“Because there is no cosmic point to the life that each of us perceives on this distant bit of dust at galaxy’s edge, all the more reason for us to maintain in proper balance what we have here. Because there is nothing else. Nothing. This is it. And quite enough, all in all.”
From someone that normally relishes every new Steppling piece, I had to shut this discussion off at the 6 minute mark for the snarky, lockstep arrogance displayed by the participants. Trump’s election signifies much more than “just another shitty candidate” and to suggest otherwise is to have your head up your ass. This is not to say that a Harris presidency would have meant salvation for ANYONE. In many respects it would have been far worse and taken as a mandate for the RussiaGating, Branch Covidians.. But to pretend that Trump’s retaking of US power signals only “more of the same” displays a profound misread of the proverbial tea leaves. With professed Zionists and neocons Stefanik, Huckabee, Rubio and Hegseth now in place let NO ONE suggest this is merely “more of the same.” If you folks believe for even a minute that snarky discussions such as this to have ANY meaningful relevance I want that you have it in a room of MAGA acolytes..
first off, thats a pretty rude comment. I dont think anyone said trump was just another shitty candidate. We spent an hour discussing the various implications and i know for sure nobody said more of the same. (oh wait you only listened to six minutes).However, US foreign policy never changes. Presidents really dont have the power to change it. Tactics change, and optics change, but actual US policy is beyond the power of the president, who is at least 75% symbolic,. Harris would have been worse in many respects, but then again, the president has only limited real power. But feel free not to listen if you find this snarky and our heads up our ass. I have no problem with that. (you sound very invested in this topic. Never a good thing when its the electoral circus being discussed).
“Rude?” What are you, my boss? Lol. Sorry, John. When you sit together hobnobbing with a small collection of backslappers and navel gazers talking and guffawing out your necks in in-crowd dialect without so much as a hat tip to those of us (busy at actual jobs that don’t involve sitting on our thumbs) that have been calling out fascism in all its many forms since you were still busy peddling plays to an audience long since disinterested and dead, you get some push back. Don’t worry. It looks like you got a few fanboys in the comments..
“…dont think anyone said trump was just another shitty candidate.”
Oh stop. That was EXACTLY the consensus and tenor of the 6 minutes I saw.. and given this:
“US policy is beyond the power of the president, who is at least 75% symbolic…,”
I have little reason to suspect the discussion deviated an inch. And btw, you’re saying as much here - and you’re freaking wrong. The systemic deep state certainly exists; deep echelons of power probably not too awfully different than the one Ned Beatty’s character in “Network”describes for Mr Beal, but It isn’t “symbolism” keeping the bombs dropping on Gaza or the money flowing to Ukraine. it’s real live people in positions of power and influence. Dangerous and often stupid people - elected by millions of dangerous and stupid people.
As for being “invested” in the election nonsense, I’m ashamed to say that I am, yes. Said as accusingly as you do here though, your condescension sort of sounds like someone believing somehow to be well beyond the ramifications of this election. “Just like any other” says the disaffected “artists.”
One of the posters mentioned you saying that if you could have voted in the election you’d have cast a vote for Trump. If true, that’s a horsey of a whole different shade, fella. If true, you would then be 110% full of shit on 110 different levels - including your response here..
“If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal.”
― Emma Goldman
first off, i have worked my entire life. At the age of forty i was able to start supporting myself writing (in hollywood for twelve years or so). My family growing up was on welfare. So your assumptions are wrong (and predictable). I also did time at a state hotel. So fuck off on that matter. Im also now 73. As for condescending, Id submit you are a walking invitation to such a tone. But yes Im sure i sound condescending. What i said regards voting trump was THAT IF A GUN WAS TO MY HEAD. A sort of significant qualifier. But then you only listened to six minutes. But there are lots of podcasts that are not so 'full of shit'.. i suggest you go listen to them. (I absolutely love LOVE LOVE that you quote Network. You know why I love that, besides the mindwracking predictability of it, is that chayefsky was the consummate liberal, who aggressively supported Israel later in life, wrote op eds attacking the PLO and defending zionism. He was never called before HUAC....quelle surprise). He was also intensely anti marxist. But never mind, the bombs drop because the US is an imperialist nation that cannot survive without war. Your comments aboutysymbolism are incoherent. Im sorry. The bombs do not drop because of electoral outcomes. They have never stopped dropping. You can listen to upcoming lectures on fascism/communism. (or not).
Know what I hate hate HATE about “Network?” - and your information about Chayefsky sort of explains it - is the fact that Arthur Jensen’s brilliant boardroom speech is allowed the final word. Fuck Chayefsky. I despise him for leaving Beal muted after it…
perfect point about the six minutes....
I am not sure we can say Trump "retook" power because I don't think presidents hold the real power. I also think elections are really selections. Blackrock CEO said Wall Street wins no matter which candidate gets in, but they had their preference because the establishment of a uniparty with two falsely opposing wings sets up a drama for those who think our vote makes a difference to how things are going to play out. I think when the podcast participants said "just another shitty candidate" although not sure I heard that exact term,maybe though, they meant that the plan continues no matter which candidate gets in. Obviously many people have had enough of the identity politic bullshit, I also don't think they know what they WANT instead. Like George pointed out, many people see no solution to what is happening so they hold on to fantasies like moving to Mars. How dare anyone think that another system that benefits the masses might be the beginning of solutions? People are so brainwashed that any social safety net is now seen as a communist or Marxist plot. And this I think was part of the plan of the New Normal. We are cornered.
The comments that Trump was a continuation of the same were made in reference to the con played on supporters who were expecting him to undertake a radical reform or a draining of the swamp. Trump's Zionists and neocons are worse, but this is only an acceleration of a situation that already exists.
“Only” an acceleration… lol.
Go back to sleep..
if you keep insulting people you will be blocked. No reason you cant address people with respect.
At the same time I actually don’t give a shit about threats of being blocked, I’ll still apologize for admittedly being an asshole.. I am angry as fuck at the US and the positively stupid sheeple I have as fellow citizens that did their part in legitimizing this election by taking the time to vote in it.. I’m not a kid, John. At 63 years of age my anger and hostility is a culmination of an entire lifetime of political pendulums that swing only in one direction.. Now I need a breath of air, man..
As so often nowadays, I have trouble figuring out what your point is. At first I even thought you were advocating for Trump. It is clear now that you think he will be far worse. Which is what everyone here is saying anyway.
I suspect that one big factor of Trump winning the election has less to do with the MAGA mantra than a signal of contempt for the Democrats. The MAGA connection feels like the media’s typically crass way of presenting the issue as a contemptuous sneer that feeds into the liberal script: “Ha ha! Look at those knuckle trailing redneck troglodytes with their Biblical fundamentalism!” etc.
Of course I speak as an outsider – but this has a parallel in the UK theatre with the fox hunting Tories against the cloth capped Labourites. Previously, I never in a million years would have considered voting Tory. But since the turnaround of covid, “The Left” seems to now be the preferred presentation adopted by the mainstream. No more “no-alternative” privatisation! We’re now “all in it together” etc.
The effect of all this twaddle is ironically as “The Right” have told it: with the furious vaccinations, the lockdowns, the masking, the gender bullshit, the mutilation of the young, the free pass given to older opportunistic male predators, the climate claptrap – all of which “legitimises” accelerating transfers of wealth upstairs into black holes of wacko schemes e.g. gender re-assignment surgery, pseudo-vaccine research, proposed trips to Mars or whatever. THIS is what currently passes for “Leftism”! And THIS is the way the elites want to go.
So the contrived implosion of the UK Tories and the election of the “Leftist” Starmer Labour Party makes sense. Obviously this can’t be projected onto the US with the election of the “Right Wing” Trump. But I reckon the blatant bullshit of this “Left” was causing too much disruption to guarantee a Democrat win. And it is quite gratifying to see a Trump win.
I echo John’s sentiment that if he lived in America he would have (reluctantly) voted for Trump. I would have done the same – only I don’t feel reluctance. And for two reasons: first, the media designations of “Left” and “Right” are now only meaningful as Pavlovian mind control mechanisms, and second, what is now signalled as “Left” is the absolute gutter level worst. And, as I said, the way they would like to play the little sideshow now.
But I don’t think any of this signals a true triumph. Nor could it as this political theatre only ever serves as a smoke screen to implement what the rulers have already decided. Thus the Trump win might be seen as a backward step for them. But John mentioned a “bait and switch” manoeuvre. Trump won because he made the noises the less gullible portion of the America public want to hear. But what you’ll get is more of the same anyway.
Still, its’ nice to see these ridiculous left liberals going into apoplexy over the disturbance of their petty irrelevant fixations. And the clearing away of those fixations is at least something.
Yes, living in the USA, I did feel better seeing Trump win (never thought I would say it) Harris and the dems, and it is almost satisfying to see the idiots screaming, crying, balding themselves and swearing off sex with men. I agree with you George, the path has been chosen but there will be many sideshows along the way.