Etiquette



DP Etiquette

First rule: Don't be a jackass.

Other rules: Do not attack or insult people you disagree with. Engage with facts, logic and beliefs. Out of respect for others, please provide some sources for the facts and truths you rely on if you are asked for that. If emotion is getting out of hand, get it back in hand. To limit dehumanizing people, don't call people or whole groups of people disrespectful names, e.g., stupid, dumb or liar. Insulting people is counterproductive to rational discussion. Insult makes people angry and defensive. All points of view are welcome, right, center, left and elsewhere. Just disagree, but don't be belligerent or reject inconvenient facts, truths or defensible reasoning.

Wednesday, September 2, 2020

Some WWII Photos

These are from a set of 45 photos that Reuters put up. Not sure why the seem timely, but they do. I left out the most gruesome photos.



Hitler in Paris June 1940



US troops at Normandy on D-day under heavy machine gun fire
(anti-fascists breaking up a large gathering
of white supremacists) 



Omaha Beach secured after D-Day, June 1944



Crossed rifles tribute to an American soldier
 Normandy beach, June 6, 1944


Nazis herding Jews in Warsaw Poland



German troops, Russia 1941


German soldier carrying ammo for Belgium counteroffensive
December 1944



German General Anton Dostler before execution by firing squad
Italy 1945


Japanese carrier launching attack on Pearl Harbor



Camp holding Japanese Americans captive
California 1942


Failed Japanese aircraft attack on the USS Kitkun Bay


Marines atop Mt Suribachi, Iwo Jima, 1945


US Marine finds Japanese family hiding on Saipan



Injured US Marine - Iwo Jima 1945


Sea burial, Iwo Jima USS Hansford, February 1945



Hiroshima after the bomb 1945




Japanese surrender, USS Missouri, Tokyo Bay
September 2, 1945



US overflight of USS Missouri during Japanese surrender









Trump's Failure: Federal Debt Approaches Size of US GPD

The president touts his "miracle economic recovery" in terms of lies, not exaggerations. His miracle is driven in large part by increased federal debt and the gushing up of wealth to the top 1-2% who are freed from both taxes and society and environment defending regulations. A Washington Post article, U.S. government debt will nearly equal the size of the entire economy for first time since World War II, CBO finds, reports what the title says:
“By the end of 2020, the amount of debt owed by the U.S. will amount to 98 percent of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, the highest level since the end of World War II, the CBO said. Total government debt will surpass the U.S. economy’s size next year, CBO said.
Fueling this rise is a big jump in the government’s annual budget deficit, which is projected to widen to $3.3 trillion by the end of this fiscal year, more than tripling since 2019. The deficit was already on track to be very elevated because of recent tax cuts and spending increases, but the government’s response to the pandemic changed things markedly.”
WaPo points out that republicans routinely claim they want to reduce the deficit. But as far as I can tell, that is only when democrats are in charge. When the GOP controls government, federal debt is irrelevant as the GOP passes laws to increase the rate of wealth gushing up to the top 1-2%. That has been standard GOP practice for decades. When democrats are in charge, republican hypocrites, about 97% of the GOP in congress and ~97% of elected GOP politicians, scream bloody murder about the federal debt. They rarely give even little squeak of mild milquetoast protest when the GOP is in charge.

It is true that democrats helped to increase unfunded spending and thus the debt by passing a major COVID-19 spending bill. That spending was in the face of a pandemic and an economic collapse. By stark contrast, the president and the GOP passed a budget-busting tax relief bill that mostly benefited rich people bill in 2017 while the US was in its 7th year of economic expansion. 


What is a reasonable conception of an economically successful federal policy?
Is it fair and balanced to call economic policy that adds to federal debt in times of economic growth a failure? Or, is increased economic growth at the expense of trillions in added federal debt in a growing economy a success? Or, does it not matter? If debt expands during times of growth, what about times of no growth? Is no growth a good time to shut federal spending down? 


Glazed eyeballs
I know, many eyeballs glaze over when the concepts like federal debt and economic policy are mentioned. That is unfortunate. Those concepts "run amok", as one person here likes to say, could help kill democracy, civil liberties and the rule of law as we used to know those concepts. Public detachment from, or boredom with, those economic concerns can and just might usher in a corrupt, incompetent authoritarian kleptocrat government. When that happens, people like me will probably be shut up in due course. Maybe in a year. Maybe in two or three. But it will come if past demagogic tyrannies are reliable evidence.

Regardless of the details, a veil of darkness will fall. Then cruel, corrupt, incompetent, deeply immoral self-serving beasts will control our fates.


Dissecting the Reality of Propaganda About Dysfunctional Democratic Cities




The New York Times reports on democratic cities and the history of how they got there and why they are there. The NYT writes:
“With this refrain, Mr. Trump has sharpened his party’s long-running antipathy toward urban America into a more specific argument for the final two months of the campaign: Cities have problems, and Democrats run them. Therefore, you don’t want Democrats running the country, either.

But that logic misconstrues the nature of challenges that cities face, and the power of mayors of any party to solve them, political scientists say. And it twists a key fact of political history: If cities have become synonymous with Democratic politics today, that is true in part because Republicans have largely given up on them.

Over the course of decades, Republicans ceased competing seriously for urban voters in presidential elections and representing them in Congress. Republican big-city mayors became rare. And along the way, the Republican Party nationally has grown muted on possible solutions to violence, inequality, poverty and segregation in cities.

Mr. Trump and his surrogates have pushed that history to its seeming conclusion: Rural and suburban problems in America today are national problems — but urban problems are Democratic problems.”


Asymmetric warfare: Advantage - liars 
The NYT goes on to point out that politicians of neither party blame Republican county executives for rural opioid problems. The republican argument also gives Democratic mayors no credit for 25-year decline in urban crime since the early 1990s. The NYT also points out that mayors have limited control over crime rates. Some researchers looked for studies suggesting that a mayor's party affiliation has an effect on crime, but found none. It is true that homicides have spiked this year in big cities, but that is also true by similar amounts in some smaller cities with Republican mayors, including Tulsa, Okla., and San Bernardino, Calif. 

Also, the president harshly criticized Chicago for failing to control gun violence despite the fact that the city tried to deal with gun violence. The city outlawed handguns and gun sales, but federal judges overturned those efforts. That shows how constrained local officials including mayors are. 

The rhetorical warfare on this point is, as often the case, asymmetric. This line of propaganda will be hard for democrats to refute because it requires an explanation. In propaganda wars, whenever a person has to explain something, they usually lose the debate. That is just a potentially lethal aspect of the human condition, specifically how the human mind processes propaganda or dark free speech. 

Why we should stop chasing the happiness rainbow

 OPINION by Zoë Wundenberg

https://www.youngwitness.com.au/story/6882168/why-we-should-stop-chasing-the-happiness-rainbow/?cs=13499


Happiness, noun, the state of being happy. Aristotle identifies happiness as the main purpose of human life and as a goal to achieve in itself.

Perhaps I'm in the throes of a COVID-19 pandemic-induced existential crisis, but I can't help but wonder at the futility of such a pursuit.

As humans, we seem intent on measuring our lives. Are you successful? Are you making a difference? Are you useful? Are you happy? We measure our lives by imagined abstract yardsticks.

Why do we have to weigh and measure ourselves? Why do we have to compare the measurements of our lives to each other's?

I am finding it increasingly astonishing that the very basis of our understanding of who we are is based on a constructed idea of what we should be.

In order to be accepted, we have to conform - and yet the people we admire are the people who stand out as different. It is, perhaps, one of the greatest paradoxes of human society.

The pursuit of happiness is so ingrained in our western culture that it is written into the US Declaration of Independence as a right.

While we don't live under this constitution in Australia, our global community has led to us assuming certain parallels to (at least the good bits of) the cultures of neighbouring national communities.

Our commercial arena has certainly latched onto the idea.

Happiness is now more of a pre-packaged consumer good than an abstract goal, recognizing that "the consumer society even has the capacity to absorb and co-opt that which seeks to transform it" .

We confuse happiness, I think. We confuse it with satisfaction, with contentment, with joy, with pleasure.

The state of happiness often involves all of these abstracts, but there are important distinctions to be drawn in our understanding here.

Contentment, joy and pleasure, for example, are largely thought of as the result of our actions, the by-product, effect, of what we do.

We accept them as fleeting, temporary, enjoyable outcomes of the activities and work we undertake. However, we rarely focus on their pursuit.

In what is perhaps a cruel twist of fate, researchers have discovered that people who consciously pursue happiness are less likely to actually achieve it and the pursuit itself can undermine their wellbeing.

Happiness isn't a destination. It's not a place that you arrive at as a reward for hard work and purposeful activity. It's not "what you get" when you serve others or make a sacrifice.

Psychologists tell us there are two general categories of the concept of happiness: hedonic (the pursuit of pleasure over pain) and eudaimonic (the result of the pursuit and attainment of life purpose, meaning, challenge and personal growth).

Some psychologists believe chasing happiness is pointless, others believe it can be purposefully increased.

Ultimately, what makes us feel happy will likely change as we evolve throughout our lifespan and our ideas of contentment and joy will be sparked by different experiences as we age.

I have a rainbow theory of happiness.

People constantly trying to catch it are too busy chasing it to appreciate it when it's there. If we are constantly measuring our lives, deciding if we've "made it yet," what happens if we achieve our goals and we still don't feel that warm buzz of happiness we've been told about?

What happens if we've been working towards achieving a goal that we believe will result in the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, only to discover that the rainbow has moved again and we still haven't "arrived" at destination happiness?

If Aristotle was right and happiness is the primary purpose of human life, I think living our lives pursuing a state of being that is, by its very nature temporary, is a cruel joke of the gods.

To spend one's life chasing rainbows when one could take stock at any moment and revel in the beauty of the colours that light up the sky, is to miss the point entirely. Life is a series of moments.

Whatever your goals in your life are, pursue them for the journey. Happiness tends to capture us when we aren't looking.

Zoë Wundenberg is a careers consultant and un/employment advocate at impressability.com.au.