Excellent, thoughtful commentary. You have really drilled to the heart of the matter in terms of societal changes that have occurred/continue to occur right under our noses.
that was unexpectedly entertaining; you really know how to set the scene, and I suspect you are very successful in whatever type of corporate business you are in.
And once again I agreed with some but not all of what you wrote. (I do heartily agree with your acknowledgement of political failures on both the right & left - as you say, it's no longer a red-vs-blue problem.)
I won't go through all the points, but there is one major objection I have to your conclusion that the answer to today's problems is to go back to how America used to be.
Because the situation has changed. Just because something worked before doesn't mean it'll work again. I have a little experience in the commodity trading field, and one of the chief characteristics of successful traders is their ability to recognize when the situation has changed, when their Buy strategy should now be a Sell strategy. That shift in strategy is actually very rare in trading, because people are locked in to their ego-investment (I am right, why isn't the market going my way, I'll wait it out, the market will come around to how I see it, etc). I'm sure you've seen this. It's those traders who see that the situation has changed and they set their ego aside and change with the situation, they're the ones who succeed.
So, just because America had so much success in the past, doesn't mean the same principles will apply in a drastically different world. Make America Great AGAIN has great appeal, but it doesn't necessarily mean doing things like we did in the past; maybe to be great again, America has to rethink its strategy. I don't know the answers, but I'm not sure what worked in the 1950s will work today.
Otherwise, a very well written and thought-provoking article. You write very well, Frank.
There are foundation principles that we have lost. That is the mistake.
Think of it this way... think of your family or your company... there is a foundation culture that provides stability. In fact for childhood development that has proven more important than wealth of the family. Stability of the foundation is the roots and the trunk that allows the branches to extend toward progress without the whole thing toppling. The foundation for a country is generally represented by its culture and its culture is something that developed over time because it worked as a foundation. The US had a working foundation. It wasn't perfect because no system ever is perfect. But it was the best ever devised. But it is being dismantled by the malcontents, the greedy and the nihilists.
That foundation was so strong that it prevented tyranny... it prevented transformation into a collectivist system which like all collectivist systems is sure to fail. That is why the foundation is being attacked and dismantled. The radicals cannot change it unless they do so.
yes, a tree is a good analogy for foundation, and I am seeing attacks on the roots of that tree (from all sides)
So look at Kari Lake, for example. At the TurningPoint conference she made a big obscene F-U gesture at the media assembled along the back wall. (Ironically, they were right wing media - CNN etc didn't even cover the event) But there she openly and proudly attacking the free press, one of the foundations of American democracy. Sure there is fake news all over the place, always has been, and it's our obligation as citizens to figure it out, but to openly attack the institution of free press - that's an attack on a fundamental democratic institution - she's swinging an axe at the foundational roots - that what fascists do.
Again, Kari Lake - denying the results of an election she lost. There is no groundswell of support for her in Arizona - her big March of the State Capital drew maybe a hundred people the first day, down to a dozen on day 2, and then fizzled out. Arizonans are not up in arms about a "stolen election" - that is just Kari Lake, who is now making a living off of her election-denialism, grifting for money. Again, she is chopping away at the fundamental roots of American democracy - and it's not "for the people", it's for herself, for her bruised ego, for her pocketbook.
Now she has her day in court, and I'll bet the farm when she loses she go into full "the-courts-are-rigged" mode, again chopping at the roots. If she wins her case, the courts are great; if she loses, the justice system is rigged. If she wins the election, everything's fine; is she loses, the elections are rigged.
That's what I'm talking about: people like Kari Lake (endorsed and encouraged by Trump - apparently she's living at Mar-A-Largo now) who - for their own personal benefit - are chopping away at the very roots of American democracy (attacking the press, the courts, the electoral system).
I'm sure people can find similar examples on the left, but whoever attacks those roots (from the right, left, top bottom) is flirting with fascism. And that's dangerous. Kari Lake waves the flag but is actively trying to cut off the very roots.
With respect to Kari Lake, with the release of the Twitter Files just about every "conspiracy" about Democrat election shenanigans should be taken seriously and investigated. I would have been more on your side for Lake to move on after the loss until these breathtaking reports of what went on between the government and Twitter... and it is likely also the same for all of big tech and the media.
The main Twitter executive that was controlled by the FBI is now saying that he made mistakes. No, he was complicit in government interference to put one of many thumbs on the scale to help Biden win. With AZ, there are clear indications of very thoughtful and strategic voting-day shenanigans with a plausible explanation that they cost Lake the win. She was polling ahead before the election.
If you are a good American you would want the investigation to move forward to discover what went on. If nothing, then good. If something then it needs to be reported and it needs to be remedied. It certainly appears to be something at this point. I think it is 50/50 at this point that a re-election is required and a master is appointed by the courts to oversee Maricopa County.
interesting site; I'm always open to exploring other people's perspectives, and this Brad fellow sounds interesting (even if I disagree with him)
I saw you post somewhere that you prefer to engage with people you disagree with (or something like that) - that's where I learn the most, from intelligent sincere people who see things differently and I want to understand why we see the same thing differently. Thanks for the link.
I'm new here, but enjoying the non-cookie cutter perspectives.
I find many of your opinions right on, but I don't agree with everything you say - but even then you give me new things to think about - and I suspect that stimulating thought might please you more than simple down the line agreement.
Where did you get that, the Trump Mar a Lago Back Elevator Service Suite of Perfect Statistics? I can see the Trump faction’s point. Why continue with a notional democracy when the laws of the land have been bought and paid for by the corporations? . But to actually hand over America into a Trump dictatorship where he slavishly tries to emulate his only hero, a KGB poisoner in chief turned dictator, trying to call the election on the same day as voting, deliberately trying to terrorise the rest of the population by having people kidnapped off the street into unmarked cars, it’s so far beneath the dignity of the American Presidency in the eyes of the world, it’s like saying who cares if the Russian state mafia is the paradigm of how to do government and controls America through their American proxy so long as no “socialist” gets to take office in America? There are scarcely any socialists left in your country . Biden is not one. War is now the principal business of the United States, now the most warlike civilisation history. But the fact that your security experts have no notion of security, creating more terrorists than they kill with every drone strike, and whining about retaliation from Iran after murdering Iran’s top general( in an actual act of war on Iran) - a man incidentally who offered you a map of the Isis order of battle at one time- should bother you. As Hedges points out, as your empire collapses the methods of exercise of imperial power are turned inwards on yourselves. At least Mike Pence had the dignity to transfer power in the great American traditional way even while your faction was trying to hang him, your own man.
Agree we are too addicted to war and the economics of it. However, Trump is isolationist, nationalist and anti war but pro defense. Mike Pence is part of the political establishment that connects to the war industry.
Well done explaining American success. Now explain American failure. Perhaps, like Swiss unemployment, that exists outside the country, somewhere beyond the horizon of your twinkling city. Your argument is essentially fascist, that you have it in your blood to be a monster. Perhaps school shooters have it in their blood as well, do they? Or do they just want to exterminate those children before they turn into you? In your post- truth dog whistle faction, as represented by your avatar, I doubt you even care whether anything you say is true, it’s the old stale, pale, male social engineering of “hit it with something”, just keep a stream of vitriol directed at your opposition. This is why Chris Hedges telling you what you are like is so valuable and why you feel so threatened by it. If his truly Christian world view were to infiltrate your minds, you couldn’t perpetuate this bull**** ideology which you’re using to mask the reality of your own overrun by the forces you thought were liberating you. Whether they were liberating anyone else, I doubt you, like Trump, would care.
His perspectives were shaped by his time. However, the key point about the difficulty of running a successful country with a highly culturally-diverse population have proven accurate since his time. Culturally homogeneous states demonstrate greater resident happiness and cohesion, and those with the most language and religious diversity tend to have the most violent conflict.
I think the traditional American "melting pot" concept of fostering pluralism had a lot to do with it. Come and join us, enjoy and contribute, but leave the biases and rivalries of the old country behind in favor of being first and foremost an American - with non-destructive diversity to contribute.
That has in elite circles been largely replace with non-assimilationist multi-culturalism. Bring your baggage, form your own tribe, resent the other tribes and particularly the largest one, don't ever think your own culture is "less than" any other, focus on your tribe's needs above the nation's.
In such multi-culturalism, every (sub?) culture is primed to feel insulted if it's not given equal weight with every other - not proportionate to population.
I attribute much of the increase tribalism to the adoption of a grievance based concept of multi-culturalism disdaining common purpose or assimilation into a common metaculture.
Of course that reframing was based on earlier steps.
And it's not just more recent immigrants. I'm touched when I see a Black American on YouTube saying "Don't call me African-American, I'm just a full fledged American, period". Proudly claim your rights as a citizen, while also providing the same contributions to the project as anybody else - rather than getting into tribal conflicts.
That's swimming upstream today, as the social justice crowd endorses a strategy of conflict between distrustful tribes as the best strategy for creating a better and more just society. Yeah, how many examples can you find of that working out well anywhere in the world throughout all of human history? The closest you will find will likely be diverse ethnic communities living under the iron rule of an empire; you won't find any democracies which survived with that model.
Gee, Frank, your comment is such a distorted, cherry-picked mess full of spinning and blind faith in what made America great that I don't even know where to start rejoining. Basically, your pitch is: Republicans, good; Democrats, bad. You're helping divide us, as Fox News, Hate Radio, and Trump did so well; it does sell, though, and get you elected: Negative ads work; hatefully dissing others on Twitter gets attention and admirers.
We need to unite somehow, but we all pretty much live in political silos, and, worse, we don't and can't see that we do. It's always the other fellow who needs to educate himself, not me.
If you read just one new book this year, check out from your local library "The Deficit Myth" by Dr. Stephanie Kelton. It's a mind-blower: We've misunderstood big money forever; now we have a new understanding of how it really works.
And please remember the lesson taught us by posterity of "The Six Blind Men and the Elephant": Each blind man touched just one part of the huge elephant and thereafter always insisted that an elephant was like a rope, a tree, a wall, a snake, a large leaf, etc. Life is a big, big canvas, and we all just see parts of it. To paraphrase Einstein, the more you know, the more humble you become. Our ignorance dwarfs our knowledge. No one is Mr. Know-It-All; we all just have pieces of the infinite puzzle that we clumsily try to fit together into a coherent whole. Which is why all religions ultimately fail, despite their many offerings of common sense, ethics, edifying, memorable stories, and socially helpful commands. They do possess limited value and provide comfort to many, especially regarding death; science can delay it, but not put it off forever -- at least not yet.
There is a lot of woke hogwash in that comment IMO. Rejecting objective truth, history, real math... that will not get you anywhere in life and will likely be a big problem for you future soon. Woke cultists will be branded soon as untouchables... meaning unemployable.
This Frank Lee ? Doubtless a pseudonym to hide himself and his associations, but another Republican willing to threaten to go out shooting Democrats like dogs, I reckon. “There will likely be a big problem for your future soon”, he writes. Either that’s a threat or the militant Right has a spiritual wing and he’s their Madam Blatavsky.
95% of the shootings are done by Democrats. And Democrat organizations like BLM and Antifa are on record as promoting violence. Those five or so militant right-wingers are not much of a real threat.
Excellent, thoughtful commentary. You have really drilled to the heart of the matter in terms of societal changes that have occurred/continue to occur right under our noses.
that was unexpectedly entertaining; you really know how to set the scene, and I suspect you are very successful in whatever type of corporate business you are in.
And once again I agreed with some but not all of what you wrote. (I do heartily agree with your acknowledgement of political failures on both the right & left - as you say, it's no longer a red-vs-blue problem.)
I won't go through all the points, but there is one major objection I have to your conclusion that the answer to today's problems is to go back to how America used to be.
Because the situation has changed. Just because something worked before doesn't mean it'll work again. I have a little experience in the commodity trading field, and one of the chief characteristics of successful traders is their ability to recognize when the situation has changed, when their Buy strategy should now be a Sell strategy. That shift in strategy is actually very rare in trading, because people are locked in to their ego-investment (I am right, why isn't the market going my way, I'll wait it out, the market will come around to how I see it, etc). I'm sure you've seen this. It's those traders who see that the situation has changed and they set their ego aside and change with the situation, they're the ones who succeed.
So, just because America had so much success in the past, doesn't mean the same principles will apply in a drastically different world. Make America Great AGAIN has great appeal, but it doesn't necessarily mean doing things like we did in the past; maybe to be great again, America has to rethink its strategy. I don't know the answers, but I'm not sure what worked in the 1950s will work today.
Otherwise, a very well written and thought-provoking article. You write very well, Frank.
Good post.
There are foundation principles that we have lost. That is the mistake.
Think of it this way... think of your family or your company... there is a foundation culture that provides stability. In fact for childhood development that has proven more important than wealth of the family. Stability of the foundation is the roots and the trunk that allows the branches to extend toward progress without the whole thing toppling. The foundation for a country is generally represented by its culture and its culture is something that developed over time because it worked as a foundation. The US had a working foundation. It wasn't perfect because no system ever is perfect. But it was the best ever devised. But it is being dismantled by the malcontents, the greedy and the nihilists.
That foundation was so strong that it prevented tyranny... it prevented transformation into a collectivist system which like all collectivist systems is sure to fail. That is why the foundation is being attacked and dismantled. The radicals cannot change it unless they do so.
yes, a tree is a good analogy for foundation, and I am seeing attacks on the roots of that tree (from all sides)
So look at Kari Lake, for example. At the TurningPoint conference she made a big obscene F-U gesture at the media assembled along the back wall. (Ironically, they were right wing media - CNN etc didn't even cover the event) But there she openly and proudly attacking the free press, one of the foundations of American democracy. Sure there is fake news all over the place, always has been, and it's our obligation as citizens to figure it out, but to openly attack the institution of free press - that's an attack on a fundamental democratic institution - she's swinging an axe at the foundational roots - that what fascists do.
Again, Kari Lake - denying the results of an election she lost. There is no groundswell of support for her in Arizona - her big March of the State Capital drew maybe a hundred people the first day, down to a dozen on day 2, and then fizzled out. Arizonans are not up in arms about a "stolen election" - that is just Kari Lake, who is now making a living off of her election-denialism, grifting for money. Again, she is chopping away at the fundamental roots of American democracy - and it's not "for the people", it's for herself, for her bruised ego, for her pocketbook.
Now she has her day in court, and I'll bet the farm when she loses she go into full "the-courts-are-rigged" mode, again chopping at the roots. If she wins her case, the courts are great; if she loses, the justice system is rigged. If she wins the election, everything's fine; is she loses, the elections are rigged.
That's what I'm talking about: people like Kari Lake (endorsed and encouraged by Trump - apparently she's living at Mar-A-Largo now) who - for their own personal benefit - are chopping away at the very roots of American democracy (attacking the press, the courts, the electoral system).
I'm sure people can find similar examples on the left, but whoever attacks those roots (from the right, left, top bottom) is flirting with fascism. And that's dangerous. Kari Lake waves the flag but is actively trying to cut off the very roots.
With respect to Kari Lake, with the release of the Twitter Files just about every "conspiracy" about Democrat election shenanigans should be taken seriously and investigated. I would have been more on your side for Lake to move on after the loss until these breathtaking reports of what went on between the government and Twitter... and it is likely also the same for all of big tech and the media.
The main Twitter executive that was controlled by the FBI is now saying that he made mistakes. No, he was complicit in government interference to put one of many thumbs on the scale to help Biden win. With AZ, there are clear indications of very thoughtful and strategic voting-day shenanigans with a plausible explanation that they cost Lake the win. She was polling ahead before the election.
If you are a good American you would want the investigation to move forward to discover what went on. If nothing, then good. If something then it needs to be reported and it needs to be remedied. It certainly appears to be something at this point. I think it is 50/50 at this point that a re-election is required and a master is appointed by the courts to oversee Maricopa County.
https://euphoricrecall.substack.com/p/the-twitter-files-part-ix-unrolled
interesting site; I'm always open to exploring other people's perspectives, and this Brad fellow sounds interesting (even if I disagree with him)
I saw you post somewhere that you prefer to engage with people you disagree with (or something like that) - that's where I learn the most, from intelligent sincere people who see things differently and I want to understand why we see the same thing differently. Thanks for the link.
I'm new here, but enjoying the non-cookie cutter perspectives.
I find many of your opinions right on, but I don't agree with everything you say - but even then you give me new things to think about - and I suspect that stimulating thought might please you more than simple down the line agreement.
Where did you get that, the Trump Mar a Lago Back Elevator Service Suite of Perfect Statistics? I can see the Trump faction’s point. Why continue with a notional democracy when the laws of the land have been bought and paid for by the corporations? . But to actually hand over America into a Trump dictatorship where he slavishly tries to emulate his only hero, a KGB poisoner in chief turned dictator, trying to call the election on the same day as voting, deliberately trying to terrorise the rest of the population by having people kidnapped off the street into unmarked cars, it’s so far beneath the dignity of the American Presidency in the eyes of the world, it’s like saying who cares if the Russian state mafia is the paradigm of how to do government and controls America through their American proxy so long as no “socialist” gets to take office in America? There are scarcely any socialists left in your country . Biden is not one. War is now the principal business of the United States, now the most warlike civilisation history. But the fact that your security experts have no notion of security, creating more terrorists than they kill with every drone strike, and whining about retaliation from Iran after murdering Iran’s top general( in an actual act of war on Iran) - a man incidentally who offered you a map of the Isis order of battle at one time- should bother you. As Hedges points out, as your empire collapses the methods of exercise of imperial power are turned inwards on yourselves. At least Mike Pence had the dignity to transfer power in the great American traditional way even while your faction was trying to hang him, your own man.
Agree we are too addicted to war and the economics of it. However, Trump is isolationist, nationalist and anti war but pro defense. Mike Pence is part of the political establishment that connects to the war industry.
Well done explaining American success. Now explain American failure. Perhaps, like Swiss unemployment, that exists outside the country, somewhere beyond the horizon of your twinkling city. Your argument is essentially fascist, that you have it in your blood to be a monster. Perhaps school shooters have it in their blood as well, do they? Or do they just want to exterminate those children before they turn into you? In your post- truth dog whistle faction, as represented by your avatar, I doubt you even care whether anything you say is true, it’s the old stale, pale, male social engineering of “hit it with something”, just keep a stream of vitriol directed at your opposition. This is why Chris Hedges telling you what you are like is so valuable and why you feel so threatened by it. If his truly Christian world view were to infiltrate your minds, you couldn’t perpetuate this bull**** ideology which you’re using to mask the reality of your own overrun by the forces you thought were liberating you. Whether they were liberating anyone else, I doubt you, like Trump, would care.
Mister Tokeville is all over the map on tribalism and racism. He’s not a good source on cultural homogeneity.
His perspectives were shaped by his time. However, the key point about the difficulty of running a successful country with a highly culturally-diverse population have proven accurate since his time. Culturally homogeneous states demonstrate greater resident happiness and cohesion, and those with the most language and religious diversity tend to have the most violent conflict.
See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_ranked_by_ethnic_and_cultural_diversity_level
The US is only second to South Africa in religious diversity, and high on the list of language diversity.
The US has been that exception. Why?
I think the traditional American "melting pot" concept of fostering pluralism had a lot to do with it. Come and join us, enjoy and contribute, but leave the biases and rivalries of the old country behind in favor of being first and foremost an American - with non-destructive diversity to contribute.
That has in elite circles been largely replace with non-assimilationist multi-culturalism. Bring your baggage, form your own tribe, resent the other tribes and particularly the largest one, don't ever think your own culture is "less than" any other, focus on your tribe's needs above the nation's.
In such multi-culturalism, every (sub?) culture is primed to feel insulted if it's not given equal weight with every other - not proportionate to population.
I attribute much of the increase tribalism to the adoption of a grievance based concept of multi-culturalism disdaining common purpose or assimilation into a common metaculture.
Of course that reframing was based on earlier steps.
And it's not just more recent immigrants. I'm touched when I see a Black American on YouTube saying "Don't call me African-American, I'm just a full fledged American, period". Proudly claim your rights as a citizen, while also providing the same contributions to the project as anybody else - rather than getting into tribal conflicts.
That's swimming upstream today, as the social justice crowd endorses a strategy of conflict between distrustful tribes as the best strategy for creating a better and more just society. Yeah, how many examples can you find of that working out well anywhere in the world throughout all of human history? The closest you will find will likely be diverse ethnic communities living under the iron rule of an empire; you won't find any democracies which survived with that model.
Gee, Frank, your comment is such a distorted, cherry-picked mess full of spinning and blind faith in what made America great that I don't even know where to start rejoining. Basically, your pitch is: Republicans, good; Democrats, bad. You're helping divide us, as Fox News, Hate Radio, and Trump did so well; it does sell, though, and get you elected: Negative ads work; hatefully dissing others on Twitter gets attention and admirers.
We need to unite somehow, but we all pretty much live in political silos, and, worse, we don't and can't see that we do. It's always the other fellow who needs to educate himself, not me.
If you read just one new book this year, check out from your local library "The Deficit Myth" by Dr. Stephanie Kelton. It's a mind-blower: We've misunderstood big money forever; now we have a new understanding of how it really works.
And please remember the lesson taught us by posterity of "The Six Blind Men and the Elephant": Each blind man touched just one part of the huge elephant and thereafter always insisted that an elephant was like a rope, a tree, a wall, a snake, a large leaf, etc. Life is a big, big canvas, and we all just see parts of it. To paraphrase Einstein, the more you know, the more humble you become. Our ignorance dwarfs our knowledge. No one is Mr. Know-It-All; we all just have pieces of the infinite puzzle that we clumsily try to fit together into a coherent whole. Which is why all religions ultimately fail, despite their many offerings of common sense, ethics, edifying, memorable stories, and socially helpful commands. They do possess limited value and provide comfort to many, especially regarding death; science can delay it, but not put it off forever -- at least not yet.
There is a lot of woke hogwash in that comment IMO. Rejecting objective truth, history, real math... that will not get you anywhere in life and will likely be a big problem for you future soon. Woke cultists will be branded soon as untouchables... meaning unemployable.
This Frank Lee ? Doubtless a pseudonym to hide himself and his associations, but another Republican willing to threaten to go out shooting Democrats like dogs, I reckon. “There will likely be a big problem for your future soon”, he writes. Either that’s a threat or the militant Right has a spiritual wing and he’s their Madam Blatavsky.
95% of the shootings are done by Democrats. And Democrat organizations like BLM and Antifa are on record as promoting violence. Those five or so militant right-wingers are not much of a real threat.
He's really an old, biiter and crazy dame out Florida way.
I think I am living rent-free in your head as a mythological person that you dream about sexually.
Thank you James. Tell him.