Propaganda!

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

We, children of the sixties, tend to think of propaganda as a megaphone. A voice shouting out and drowning all other voices.

We were conditioned through hundreds of movies about the Nazis and Hitler’s speeches.

And some propaganda is like that, but not all.

Those of us who grew up under socialism shading into communism, till you didn’t know where one unholy sister started and the other ended, and you just knew how it sounded/felt, know propaganda by a different feel, though.

Oh, it’s still coming from the government, or at least from what the government under leftist control wants you to believe, the way they want to channel you. It continues to come from them when the government is not in their hands, but a bit of “hate at the person in power instead of them” is thrown in. You learn to identify the new “smart” “Just discovered” or “newly fashionable” “truth” to be pushed into every mean of mass communication and through them into your personal conversations, your water-cooler-side discussions, your every day concerns.

I saw it in the US when I first came here. And everyone thought I was nuts. It’s a good thing I didn’t have a blog then. I’d have three or four followers, all of whom knew I’d been right for 38 years, but everyone else, like my husband back then would have said “you’re oversensitized.” Note he doesn’t say that anymore.

Take the “Reagan is going to nuke us all.” (I got married and moved here during Reagan’s second term.) I swear to you this was already in every private conversation among the young and the hip. How we’d been lucky not to get nuked so far. But one more Republican term, and…. The Soviets were losing their patience, peaceful as they were.

Everywhere. At once. It was also in every bestselling book set in the present, from mainstream to mystery to science fiction. (I didn’t yet read Romance back then.)

It was also profoundly uncool and low class to be Republican. Anyone upper class who was Republican was obviously stupid, or possibly a prude.

There were a lot of smaller ones. Stupid crap about everyone who was smart was atheist (like the millennia of religious men and women who were brilliant was a fluke or just that they “didn’t know.” As though proof in that matter had become available, ever.) About how the republicans were enriching themselves by making the poor poorer (which usually had to do with cutting some social support net which… well, no person who has ever experienced thinks it uplifts anyone. But it did get rid of democrat sinecure jobs in the welfare system, and that was the moral equivalent of genocide.

Other stuff: a constant drumbeat of more money for schools, while keeping the teaching jobs strictly controlled and requiring more time in schools of education than anyone sane can stand. It was to attract better teachers, see. Who wouldn’t be allowed to teach without enduring four years of indoctrination, no matter how much they knew of the subject to be taught. Or possibly because kids learn by eating money with a light coating of mayonnaise.

Constant opposition to the military and war, and a constant drumbeat for demilitarization and de-nuclearization. Because the USSR was peaceful. And anything that leaked out of the USSR as awful, we did the same, doncha know. So, because the USSR put political dissidents in mental hospitals (you had to be crazy not to love communism. It was scientific) we must also be doing the same. So, de-institutionalization, and stoned people destroying our cities…. eh. I once almost went over the table at the throat of a good friend (in the mid 90s mind) because he said there was no moral difference between the USA and the USSR. They both did horrible stuff. G-d forgive him. He wasn’t stupid. He was innocent. And the propaganda is everywhere.

It’s still everywhere. But… it’s not working as well as it used to. Mostly because our streams of entertainment and information are too diverse, so that the conversations going around are no longer uniform, and you no longer feel alone or stupid if you disagree.

As an example, when Dan was “movie scrolling for something to watch” on the TV while I was… I think posting on Instapundit, actually, last week, he stopped on a movie “based on a real story” about a “NASA Engineer” during the moon push.

Of course he did. I mean. But the trailers had him utterly bewildered, and had me giggling at the blatant propaganda.

I will say right now that I don’t remember the man’s name, and don’t know how much of it is true or not. Based on never having heard of him, at all, I assume he wasn’t a big enough figure to be noticed before, but now, now? He has the essential qualification. He tans. See, the guy was Hispanic, the son of Braceros (migrant agricultural workers, usually under limited work visas.) The movie of course has him being rejected for engineering and given a janitorial job, because NASA was just that racist (rolls eyes.) Since it also shows him going back to school, etc…. waggles hand. Anyway, it’s all the speeches, though, about how important it is to give command positions to people who come from people who harvest vegetables with their actual, personal hands. (I might be a little saucy.) Because, you know, only they can understand how much humans long for the stars.

As the descendant of people who were often very poor (and often very rich and crazy and often yes) and who almost to a person grew their own food and raised their own food, whatever else they did, I want to endorse this deranged idiocy. My ancestors had animal shit on their clogs, and dirt on their fingernails. I am now ruler of the world. Just happened. So sorry, I’m going to take over the world and leave it ruthlessly alone.

My only problem is all the people with the same qualifications. Fortunately they don’t tan as much as I do. Okay, most of them don’t. I’ll only have a few million co-rulers.

Would someone get my eyes, they rolled under the sofa. Indy will eat one of them, at this rate. He eats everything.

Ah, but you’d have bought it too: the soft lighting, the man talking of his dreams with tears in his eyes. His aged, bedraggled, so-proud parents. Fuck it. Any propagandist would be touched. Beautiful work.

And my guess is most people at whom it’s aimed will do what we did and scroll on by. Which is too bad. Because they were counting on that, see. Open the borders and saturate us with propaganda that both makes us feel guilty about our historic sins against these noble people, who are pouring in of their own free will, mind, and make us think they’re the second coming of Einstein and Tesla rolled into one with dirt beneath their fingernails and can-do in their hearts.

It’s like the superbowl commercial of the little girl scaling Trump’s evil wall to be handed a little American flag on the other side.

None of it is working because, well, they broke entertainment by pushing too much mini-tru bullshit at people. No one wants to see that/read that/consume that, so you know…. they’re pushing on a string. But they keep trying and getting louder and louder. (I hear that in trad publishing now, [I doubt Baen] trans characters are mandatory.) Which makes them more and more unpalatable. And they don’t know why.

All of their screaming pushes, from making us believe we SHOULD be invaded by the world, to making us want to eat yummy yummy bugs, to making us want to stop driving or be scared of climate change, to their attempt to make “the new normal” (more on that later) stick, none of it is working. It used to work. More importantly it used to be invisible.

I suspect it’s still invisible to a lot of people. It’s just unpalatable. “Why are all these movies about LGBTQ? What sense does that make? No others?” Or “Why are they changing the story I loved to be about race? Who cares about race that much?” In fact there’s a backlash building, which worries me sick, because of my very weird book. (Look, I got mad at The Left Hand of Darkness, okay. I was 14. And without this book, which I’m writing now I know how to, I’d never have started trying to write.) There are people who won’t read me because I have a female name, because “female” equals “preaching feminism.” (Well, not in my case. though some of my characters are many forms of crazy.)

However, a lot of us are seeing it, and see the strings.

Their only major propaganda hit in recent times — well, two of them, but one depended on the other — was the Covidiocy and BLM summer of burning love.

The first was essential to the other. Because when you’re locked in, and you turn on the TV to know what is happening beyond your house and see all the doom on screen, you get more scared. And then you ingest, wholesale, their tales of Racial SLAYINGS for no reason. And the fiery love scares the cowards into submission.

However, as well as that worked — sort of. Not well enough to prevent people from heading out and voting for Trump in unexpected numbers, which forced the visible fraud at the last minute — it wasn’t perfect. And it didn’t last. They really thought that they had their New Normal, and they could tighten the noose forever.

(This comes from being poisoned with narrativium from simplistic just-so stories, honestly.)

It started breaking almost immediately, though it lingers in certain classes and areas. Thing being those classes and areas were places already convinced of the leftist gospel. Mostly they scared their own coreligionists.

They’re holding on by the barest of margins, by splintered nails, by subtly manipulated numbers in the voting machines, and blatant registering of everyone who arrived here yesterday.

If they were smart, they’d realize the propaganda machine won’t save them this time. They’d back off and govern mostly from the center, with slightly subtle pushes. In 30 years years they’d have us.

But they can’t. They’re terrified. Because the pellet propaganda dispenser isn’t delivering mind control anymore. Or it is, but people ignore it.

Hence the push for censorship. And all the banning of fossil fuels. And the crazy all the time, everywhere.

To one extent they are right. If they tried to take us down slowly, given the tendency of the rest of the world to follow-ahead-of-us into crazy, the rest of the world would be dead by the time we got there. And heck, we’d have broken enough that probably we’d never get there.

But this way it’s worse. Because they’re removing the pretty propaganda mask, and showing the hideous face beneath.

They’re still fighting though. Just this last week, I noticed more and more people I don’t know/haven’t followed or friended in my social media streams. They’re all saying the same things: Trump is not conservative, he’s fooling you all. (He’s not fooling us. We know he’s not conservative. OTOH he’s not a communist. And he loves America. It’s worth a try.) And things are worse than we think. And the left already has won everything. We should just give up.

Deep dives into any of their allegations makes it obvious the lie is there, but no one can do a deep dive into all of them. And there are so many voices saying this all the time. (I suspect most are either the Chinese 50c army — might be cheaper now. China is in bad trouble — or AI bots.) All the time.

And people are getting depressed.

I’m not. Much. The fraud might be unbeatable. Or not. The backlash might be so extreme we pull this out of the fire once more as in 16. Could happen. (In which case the polls MUST get cleaned. Registration anew. Everyone. Proof of citizenship. One day, in person, purple ink on finger, except for the armed forces. Period. No, I don’t care how sad your story is. It’s what every country with semi-clean elections does.)

Mind you it will take a miracle, but we’re a country of miracles.

And if they weren’t scared, the propaganda trying to get us to give up wouldn’t be everywhere.

Thing is, we can’t give up. We can’t. There is no halfway point between us and people who want all of humanity dead.

Doom? Bring it on. We’ll meet it head on and show it what for.

Think of what they’re likely to do and be two steps and a corkscrew turn ahead.

And do remember what they’re best at is propaganda. And they’re not proving that great at that.

Ignore the trolls. Ignore the doom. Ignore the propaganda. It’s a counter signal to what you should believe.

No giving up. No surrendering. You can’t surrender to people scattering nonsense over their shoulders as they run and hide in their safe rooms, anyway.

Be not afraid. It’s going to suck rotten eggs. But we got this.

In the end, we win, they lose.

248 thoughts on “Propaganda!”

  1. Democrats, now facing up the the lie they were fed, the lie they repeated, the lie they shoved down the throats of any who so much as hesitated to repeat the lie that little brown people from down South of the border just wanted to come here and be our frienz…

    Are calling for it to end. New York. Illinois.

    Democrats, long since considering the criminal class their reliable tools…

    Are facing carjacking. Murder. Rape. Theft. In the cities where they control the cops, the courts, the elections, the bureaucracy. And they want it to stop.

    We knew this would happen. We told them it would.

    We were called every name in the book. Some were tried on pitifully pathetic charges. Some were jailed. Some were stalked, assaulted, and beaten.

    I find no pity in my heart for those who are now experiencing what they so fervently wished upon folks like me. I have small hopes that some few will wake up from the woke and realize what they’ve been doing the entire time.

    The cult is real.

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    1. Like the “journalist and activist,” mocking Scott Adams’ prediction of a crime spike under Biden two days ago, who was murdered in his home yesterday.

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            1. There’s indications that a) he knew his killer (no signs of forced entry), and b) drugs were involved (meth in the bedroom). I’m sure somebody’s going to blame Trump (isn’t everything Trump’s fault?).

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              2. Yeah this feels vaguely like like Nancy Pelosi’s husband getting whacked with a hammer. Seven shots isn’t “Hey stop that” or “I feel threatened and am freaked out on meth” its “I hate your guts and want you to die in horrible pain” . Maybe its a psychotic break caused by the meth, but I don’t think meth usually does that like psychedelics can. Likely we’ll never find out as Philly prosecutors and police are so darned incompetent and this isn’t the narrative they like/want.

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                2. I don’t know how common it is, but it’s not uncommon for meth to be the drug involved when you find things like “beaten to death, and then they kept beating until body parts were paste”.

                  The most unusual part is a gun, honestly; usually the insane meth stuff involves not noticing they’ve destroyed their own body parts at the same time.

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            1. More like, the feel-good nonsense where the bill goes somewhere else…he got someone’s someone else.

              Like that Twilight Zone episode with the guy and the button and if you push it, someone you don’t know dies, but you get a bunch of money.
              Does it, button guy walks off.
              To take the button to “nobody you know.”

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      2. Heck, any Republican who gets into office but doesn’t do that should be considered an Enemy of the Republic!

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  2. On another list, there’s an European idiot (Danish) who really believes the propaganda.

    Not only is the idiot saying that anybody who doesn’t support the Ukraine is a “useful idiot for Putin”, or “is paid by Putin” and/or “some sort of traitor”.

    The idiot thinks America isn’t a “true Democracy” because a very few Republicans in Congress “stopped the aid to the Ukraine”.

    Plus, the idiot believes “Maga Republicans” and Trump wants Russia to win.

    Oh, in this idiot’s mind, the only reason Trump wanted Germany to rearm was because Germany “would have to pay American Arms companies” and of course Trump wanted Europe to purchase American oil not because Russian oil would allow Russia to “control Europe” but because it would make Trump/America richer.

    I had to “kill-file” the idiot.

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    1. Blessedly, we are not a “true democracy, but instead a Constitutional Republic, thus we are somewhat safe from mob rule and popular slavery.

      Much to the frustration of “democrats” everywhere.

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  3. “Naturally, the educated man does not believe in propa­ganda; he shrugs and is convinced that propaganda has no effect on him. This is, in fact, one of his great weaknesses, and propa­gandists are well aware that in order to reach someone, one must first convince him that propaganda is ineffectual and not very clever. Because he is convinced of his own superiority, the intellectual is much more vulnerable than anybody else to this maneu­ver, even though basically a high intelligence, a broad culture, a constant exercise of the critical faculties, and full and objective information are still the best weapons against propaganda.”  

     Jacques Ellul, Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes

    A lefty but an honest one.   This, and Kolakowski’s Main Currents of Marxism are must reads.

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  4. “They can say the future is bleak, but nobody can know that for sure.” (translated)
    Konnagaragirl -Stack Bros

    I think I’ve pretty much completely wandered away from mainstream music these days. It’s striking the sentiments that are showing up.

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    1. At least with my goth-rock and stuff, it’s always been about darkness, and that things sometimes stink, and it might be your fault, or not. You’re not alone. And aren’t bats cute!?!

      When I’m at the gym, nihilistic “party music” and hip-hop is inflicted on me, unless I go late enough that the Adult in the Room switches it to 1980s hair metal (because of the kids doing fitness classes and stuff). Ye gads, no wonder teens and younger people are so depressed, if that’s what they listen to. Even “country” has lurched into (at best) pap.

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      1. Oh, I’m not saying it isn’t a dark song. The theme is do what you believe to be right, even if it is futile, so when you die it can be with a smile.

        It’s also just because everyone says it’s futile doesn’t mean that it is; you can’t know until the end, after you have made the choice to act, not before.

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        2. I can’t lift to music. Cardio yes, and it is quieter in the cardio area, so I can actually hear my stuff. But the weight area is very loud, and I don’t dare have headphones on/earbuds in when I lift, especially not cranked as high as would be needed to drown the dreck.

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          1. I got my own equipment, and the only jerk I have to put up with is me.

            Carnivore + Rippetoe’s “Starting Strength” have served me well so far.

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      3. I once worked with a gal (this was mid/late 1980’s) who listened to Country and was always depressed. Gee, I wonder why? She denied that there was any causal relationship in either direction. I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that country was somehow supported by drug companies aiming to sell more antidepressants.

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        1. There’s a tired old joke about what happens when you play country music backwards.

          You get your truck back;
          You get your wife back;
          You get your dog back;
          You get your house back;
          You get your job back….

          It’s rather exaggerated. There are many happier songs available, but if you want to wallow in misery, country music will let you do it.

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          1. Outlaw country and similar is where it’s at.

            I don’t have time at the moment, gotta get ready to go to Port Láirge this morning, but I can, if requested, provide a list of non-depressive country and good artists.

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          2. And I am now reminded of Xander inviting Buffy to the “Spring Fling” dance only to be shot down.

            “I’m going to go home and listen to country music, the music of pain,”

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          3. With the advances in self driving cars, it’s only a matter of time until we have a country song where the truck leaves him, too.

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      4. pop country has increased in pap for much of my music listening life I’ve not seen a lurch (other than Kerry) but a steady upward climb atop the pile of garbage

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  5. I think that history will look back on “Let’s Defund the Police and open the borders at the same time” as a classic of shooting oneself in the foot. Often the time-lapse between Leftist policies and their destructive consequences has been sufficient to obscure causality (especially when the consequences could be hidden by the propaganda). “The Great Society didn’t destroy the inner cities, it was all those racists.”

    Here, though, it’s just been 3 years since the police were defunded and the consequences are unmistakable and unacceptable to the Left’s own constituencies. Abbot et al pouring illegals into the cities has made the time-lapse even shorter. I mean, the illegal were going to drift towards large cities anyway, but now they’re visibly turning up in significant numbers right in the midst of the mess made by de-policing.

    I have no idea what will come of it all, but it’s certainly evidence for Ms. Sarah’s contention that our enemies are not very smart. On the other hand, Blinken trying to channel Muddy Waters is evidence that they have no sense of the absurd.

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    2. Always there is the element of auto foot shooting, but there is method to the madness. It is all part of the the plan, another step in destabilizing the society in preparation for the big push into crisis which leads to collapse and take over. They keep rolling out these provocations hoping to drive the right wing to frenzies of violence. This will cause the normies to repudiate the patriot right and put out a call for somebody to put an end to the madness. Enter Marxist mammajammas stage left. And just like that the revolution is complete.

      Except that it isn’t happening that way. It is the left losing legitimacy as they resort to ever more ludicrous Bull Shevik clown tricks. Nothing says “Legitimacy” like silencing and jailing your political opposition with frothing at the mouth kangaroo courts.

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      1. Tamquam has an excellent point. To a large degree this importing of large numbers of additional burdens on the system is a variant of a strategy created by two socialist economists (both of whom names escape me at the moment) to force socialized medicine except here it is being used to try to force generalized socialism. The strategy (with deepest apologies to rational underpants gnomes everywhere) is

        1) Cause the collapse of the system in question overwhelming it and enlightening the Bourgeois to the issue 2) ??? ??? 3) Socialism/Communism !!!!
        I don’t think an army is their goal per se rather they want to break the system and having broken it they think they have a convenient set of serfs that are more suitable to their purposes than the rather contentious country bumpkins which is their view of the non citified Americans. Will it work? No, more precisely hell no. Is it making a horrific mess that will be harder to clean up than the aftermaths of WWII or WWI? Highly likely. The only thing saving us is that ANY near peers (Russia, CCP, EU etc.) are SO fouled up in a variety of unique fashions that they would fold up under any major effort. Heck Russia started getting its as kicked by a third rate power governed by a kleptomaniacal comedian even before the west started throwing money (mostly ineffectually) at the issue. Xi in his mad rush to return to a mix of Maoist/ Imperial Chinese despotism forgot that for a brief while the Chinese got a taste of a freeish life and don’t want to be peasants for the Mandarin (whatever their nature be). Meanwhile the EU’s policies are so driven by their green splinters that they are doing the moral equivalent of whacking themselves in the crotch with a 5lb sledge. Usually a penitent uses a whip to the back… Its amazing that as FUBAR as things are in the US and even with the Turnip in Chief (and 8 years of Obumbles with a brief interregnum) we are still in better shape than the rest of the world.

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        1. I agree that every individual Leftist policy is designed to destroy civilization. The question is whether they are implementing their agenda according to a Clever Plan or just throwing excrement at the walls like panicked monkeys. Sarah seems to be suggesting the latter, and I tend to agree.

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            1. If it’s Baldrick’s plan or the Brahmandarins plan choose Baldrick’s. Every once and a while his plan works sort of…

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        3. This is because they think that if anything collapses the result is communism. It worked in one country: Russia. And there were other reasons there. Since then they’ve made it appear to work sort of.
          And they absolutely believe it will work. Sigh.

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          1. IDK, Sarah, didn’t it work (again with other factors) in China? but those are about the only two.

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            1. The Reader notes that the Russians provided Mao with weapons and advisors by the trainload after WW II. No one knows how much of it was left over Lend Lease…

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              2. Probably not much, actually. The Soviets were making plenty of light equipment – rifles, SMGs, mortars, light artillery and anti-tank guns like their excellent 76.2mm gun – so they shouldn’t have had any trouble equipping Mao’s troops from their own factories. As for heavier stuff… that all needs lots of logistical support. And China’s logistical network was horrible (one of the reasons why the IJA didn’t get farther than it did was the sheer impossibility of getting much in the way of supplies into China’s deep interior). More than likely that was kept to a minimum.

                And again, the USSR was producing a ridiculous amount of T-34s at the end of the war. So even if they did decide sending lots of tanks was a good idea, they probably had no trouble equipping Mao from their own stocks.

                The notable exception was likely to have been trucks, as the USSR was heavily reliant on the US for the trucks that supported the Red Army. The USSR all but turned its truck production over to the US so that its own factories could be freed up to build more tanks. So there’s a good chance that trucks sent to Mao probably originated in the US.

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          2. And it didn’t even really work there. The USSR limped along in various forms of despotism for ~70 years until they made a failed attempt to leave communism/despotism only to end up in straight up despotism (with little warlords on the side).

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            1. No, I mean the initial destroy everything, get a revolution. I know communism didn’t work. It only survived 70 years because we subsidized it with various “aid” and let it invade half the world

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      2. In fact that plan’s been tried several times, and it has never worked. Every single fascist dictator in the 20th century came to power after Left revolutionaries succeeded in destabilizing society, by promising to destroy the Left and restore a semblance of order. You’d think that seeing it happen with Mussolini, Hitler, Franco and Pinochet, the leftists would notice the pattern and question whether destabilizing society really would bring them to power … but no.

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        1. The useful idiots will never see it, even when it turns on them. Prime example, Mao and his cultural revolution.

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  6. I had a client meet for the Teeny Publishing Bidness this last weekend – we met at the Food Hall, in the Pearl Brewery complex, which is now a nose-bleedingly high-priced housing, hotel and shopping complex, all beautifully landscaped, with fountains and flowerbeds, and an open lawn with a splash fountain for the kids all to one side. They have a weekly market, with all kinds of exotic vendors setting up pavilions to sell all kinds of high-end food items. It was so very pleasant, on a Saturday morning – the vendors, the shoppers, with kids in strollers and dogs on leashes. A lot of people looked to be working-class, or middle – many of them Hispanic – walking around, having coffee and pastries from the bakery, snacking on some of the nice foods. All very pleasant, in a way that was a relief from reading about the lawlessness, violence and organized theft in other big cities.
    Of course, this week was that risible article in one of the big papers, where the writers breathlessly reported on how in Texas everyone IS SURROUNDED BY GUNS ALL THE TIME ELEVENTY!!!

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    2. … Which does tend to explain why thuggish types tend to hesitate before attacking when their erstwhile victim might be carrying, as is their victim’s buddy, and the gal with the jam display, and the quiet gent selling painted signs, and …

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      1. Should create the meme with police surrounding thuggish type lying dead on the ground with multiple holes leaking blood, looking around at the witness asking “Who shot first?” Answer, as they all point to the thug “He did”. Or “Nobody or IDA Know” struck again.

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  7. I saw today that a film about the Miranda case is about to be released. But this time it’s focused on what his victim went through afterwards.

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    1. Miranda is like US vs. Lopez. In both cases a brilliant lawyer saw an opportunity and went for it. (Mr. Lopez brought a firearm and ammo to school with the intent to sell it to another student. But the law he was convicted under depended on the Commerce Clause, and the SCotUS decided that the “elastic clause” had been stretched too far.)

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  8. It was also profoundly uncool and low class to be Republican. Anyone upper class who was Republican was obviously stupid, or possibly a prude.

    Heh.

    I was just thinking… probably two days ago…
    I found a really cute magnet that looks like someone did a comic book version of “Rainbow Brite dates a Kiss-painted Goth guy, and they’re happy.” *

    So I did research, ended up paging through 20-some pages of magnets on offer from the company. What stuck out was that they were mostly not political… but the politics they did have was proggy, especially sexually related proggy. (It was nice that they didn’t actually advocate violence towards those who didn’t agree, though, that usually goes along with the ‘love is love’ rainbow stuff.)

    And this for mostly kid to college kid aimed stuff.

    turns out the goth-bishi is the new lobo, and the Rainbow Brite track suit gal is some former teen titan named crush; eh, it’s now Rainbow Brite and her cute boyfriend.

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  9. On a side thread, they can’t wait 30 more years, because by then they will all be dead of old age. Take a look at the state of their leadership. I doubt many of them will last five.

    And there is no back bench coming after them.

    I sort of suspect our DC crew is going to end up doing the thing the Soviet leadership did shortly before the fall of the Soviet Union: have a sudden series of short tenure leaders as everyone waiting their turn gets it, then promptly keels over, for the next waiter in line to get their fifteen minutes as head politiburough.

    That’s going to be such a mess…

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    1. Don’t confuse the people being voted on with the bureaucrats who actually run things. One reason they don’t care about elections is the Party won’t need them.

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      1. Bureaucrats do not lead: they live and die by avoiding being accountable for anything. Their primary function becomes lobbying politicians to raise their budget for more staff.

        So what do they do with no politicians to lobby?

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          1. But they didn’t put them there in the first place. Bureaucracies excel at negative action, but they are terrible at achieving a singular goal. That’s the whole zombie vampire squid thing.

            Just look at the bureaus of the Soviet Union. Once they ran out of marginally competent politicians clawing for power it was over.

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            1. Harryvoyager as far as I can tell the USSR was a dead man walking in the late 70’s early 80’s . The biases of the “educated” analysts and folks in Foggy Bottom said otherwise. The analysts of the 70’s were primarily 60’s college students who either had high draft numbers or had used college to limit their exposure to the draft. They were likely not demonstrators (that probably would be an issue in getting a clearance) but having been AT the Ivies and similar schools during that period and taught by professors who were often true believers they were captured. Some did not believe the analysis and took advantage of the weakness (Reagan, Thatcher, John Paul II, Solidarity and Polands workers) and pushed forcing the USSR into collapse.
              Indeed the upper echelons of the Democrat party look like the Soviet Communist Party circa 1975. The main controlling members of the Soviet were ancient and frail, and came out of Stalinism so are VERY cautious. The younger members are mostly brown nose aparatchiks and Politically “pure” idiots with little or no actual ability. Here the Democrats in power com out of the late ’80s the younger members are fluff and nasty jerks Like AOC’s buddies and the idiot that pulled the fire alarm. The only even vaguely competent members at the end of the soviet Union (Gorbachev, Putin) come out of the KGB and lean towards Despotism in the traditional Imperial Russian style. For the democrats their “best” seems to be a few vaguely competent (Newsom, Whitmer) governors who might have as their motto “L’etat c’est Moi!”. Their historical memory seems to be insufficiently strong to remember how well that went for some of the the last persons to claim that,

              Liked by 1 person

                1. Fair enough, essentially it had the governmental equivalent of stage 3 syphilis and when it progressed from stage 2 to stage 3 is unclear.

                  Liked by 1 person

        3. …they live and die by avoiding being accountable for anything.

          Thus they learn to say “No.” as a survival trait. Which means if you need to get something done, it is best to phrase it such that a reply of “No.” really means “Yes.”

          Liked by 1 person

  10. I sort of suspect our DC crew is going to end up doing the thing the Soviet leadership did shortly before the fall of the Soviet Union: have a sudden series of short tenure leaders as everyone waiting their turn gets it, then promptly keels over, for the next waiter in line to get their fifteen minutes as head politiburough.

    That’s going to be such a mess…
    ………
    The House Chair has been voted vacated.
    My dearest hope is that both parties implode and we have to start out fresh.

    I think we should give them nice Viking funerals, set adrift on their own flaming yachts. Hopefully no bodies will still be twitching when the flaming arrows are loosed.

    That would be a real shame.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Yup. McCarthy’s out due to eight Republicans… and every single Democrat. I don’t know what it’s going to take to get a new Speaker elected now. And as Neo Neocon observed, this could very well mean the end of the Biden corruption hearings.

      Liked by 2 people

          2. Line of sucession goes through the president pro tempore of the Seanate, currently Patty Murray, not the majority leader.

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              1. Yeah, no. Just pointing out the detail, because I see people all over make that mistake. Also, there is some doubt on the constitutionality of members of the legislature being in the line of succession. It is not clear cut.

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                1. The truly interesting thing is that, with no Speaker, the 25th Amendment cannot be implemented; written notification to the President Pro Tem of the Senate AND the Speaker of the House are required in all cases. That goes for both Sections 3 and 4. And there’s no “workaround”.
                  As for the succession, Article 2, Section 1, Clause 6 establishes that Congress has the sole authority to establish line of succession beyond the VP; the only thing not clearcut is whether the selectee is actual President or merely acting as President (as the wording of the 1947 Succession Act seems to inducate) until the next election. Not sure what practical diffenence that would make, though.

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        1. Both were. McCarthy thought those dems he dealt with to make the budget deal would then not vote to remove him, weakening Gaetz, and Gaetz just shot a lot of what needs doing in the foot by stalling it, weakening himself in the deal down the road. Dems got a lot out of both of the fools. They got a weakened GOP majority and some of their wants in the budget.
          As ever, the Stupids will find a way to pull defeat from the jaws of even the smallest victory, and their victories all to often trend towards pyrrhic.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. The Republican leadership plays Charlie Brown Constantly. They THINK the other side will play fair, but as Charlie rushes up to the ball Lucy pulls it away. In essence this is a variant of the prisoners dilemma in game theory. The ONLY strategy that even vaguely works is called Tit for Tat. Also known as the Chicago way from the Untouchables movie. Maybe some of the Repubs have caught on with taking away Nancy P. s nice digs, but they need to keep hitting and in general they’re squishes and want to be loved. They need to listen to Lucius Accius and learn Oderint Dum Metuant, let them hate us so long as they fear us…

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            1. “We cannot stoop to their level. We’re better than that. And if we only keep modeling our fairness and decency to the public, eventually they will recognize our virtue and reward us.”
              Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be working.

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              1. Never has, never will.

                And I somehow doubt that they are actually that clueless. They wanted the illusion of opposition, so people would continue to believe there was a non-Declaration solution. It worked.

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              2. A little attention to game theory by our politicians would help. As I noted this kind of interaction is essentially a variant of a game called “The Prisoners Dilemma” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma). One can always not rat the opponent out expecting equal response from the opponent (A strategy I like to call Patsy), randomly chose to defect or not (flip a coin, the Two Face gambit), do to your opponent what they did to you last round (with starting with not defecting for best results, Tit for Tat)) or always defect (Ratfink). Ultimately when played against a rational opponent either Patsy or Ratfink always fails as a rational opponent notices that the result is the same every time and soon chooses an optimal response. Ratfink beats Patsy soundly (This is Lucy vs Charlie Brown or D vs R). The only strategy that works no matter what is Tit for Tat. Against Patsy everybody wins, against Ratfink results are equal (if crappy), against Tit for Tat everyone wins as it turns into Patsy on both sides, against Two Face its the same as if you played Two face against Two Face over a long period. The real problem is that the Republicans think there is value to the moral posturing involved. Maybe in 1950’s America the voters would have said “oooh how awful the D’s are being irrepressible jerks”. Here in the 2020’s (and likely even in 1950) the voters say what gullible idiots those republicans are, how do we get in on the money… They don’t need to be utter anal orifices like the other side of the Aisle, but even with beloved children (which the D’s fulfill only in their behaving like spoiled children) Mom or Dad needs to bring down the hammer or the spoiled child just gets more spoiled…

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            2. pulling Grannie Box Wine out of her digs is “The Rules!” The office is for use of the previous Speaker. McCarthy is now the former speaker, so the office is his, by rights and rules. Waiting until she was in Cali to demand was a nice touch and is part of the payback for the Dems siding with Gaetz. That was one of McCarthy’s good points, making the Dems follow the overall rules, and their own rules more often than had been the case.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. Yes I had not realized that was the last speakers office. Pelosi I suspect voted against Mccarthy so has now been hoist by her own petard.

                Liked by 1 person

                  1. Or “Unintended consequences tend to suck for you”. Or the classic, “Karma’s a bitch, ain’t she?” (said with a smirk).

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      3. The Biden corruption hearings were never going to go anywhere. Ever. No matter how high Jim Jordan rolled his sleeves.

        It was just theater for the voters.

        Just like the Trump impeachments we’re theater for the other side.

        There are trillions at stake and they are merely jockeying for their spot at the trough. It is becoming more and more apparent that governing is the LAST thing on their minds.

        The rubes are starting to catch on though so the theater will become more absurd.

        Stay tuned for the next thrilling chapter!

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Even theater for the voters serves an important purpose – it causes the uninformed to become aware. Without the theater, the authoritative statement is the “Russian disinformation!” claim by the former intelligence officials. The “theater” pushes it front and center, and lays out the evidence for all to see.

          Liked by 1 person

      4. Correction – it was Ed Morrisay at Instapundit who wondered about the impact on the Biden stuff, and not Neo Neocon (though she does have a post up about McCarthy’s removal).

        I’ll note that when I heard Gaetz on the news this morning, I thought he had a lot more Republicans agreeing that McCarthy needed to go. Getting rid of the Speaker because eight members were unhappy is… questionable.

        Liked by 2 people

      5. Someone should nominate Trump for Speaker.

        (Does not require being a congresscritter)

        Donk heads would explode.

        Impeachment of Biden/Harris gets serious.

        Popcorn shortage predicted. Stock up now.

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      1. Well, it was said that Reagan got annoyed about the Soviet Leaders dying on him.

        Reagan was trying to push the Soviets into doing “Real Talks” but the Soviets would pick a Leader but the Leader would die, and so forth. :wink:

        Liked by 1 person

            1. The Soviet leadership probably had healthcare as good as almost anywhere in the world; it was the Soviet serfs who had to suck hind tit and die a lot.

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  11. “He’s not fooling us. We know he’s not conservative. OTOH he’s not a communist. And he loves America. It’s worth a try.”

    And he fights. Perhaps not enough, see “Fauci”, but he didn’t mush around apologizing for not being a Dem and reaching across the aisle –  I’m looking at you Pierre Delecto, and at your shade, Maverick.

    Kinda like when the media were all over the disapproval numbers for GWB during Iraq, with absolutely no differentiation between those who didn’t approve of how GWB was just not surrendering and pulling out right away, and others who did not approve of how GWB was conducting the fight because the rubble was not bouncing nearly enough, i.e. those who thought Fallujiah should have been Arc-Light-ed instead of retaken house by house.

    The media willl use “How to Lie with Statistics” to advance their side in each and every case.

    Liked by 2 people

  12. I’m not looking forward to the trauma; but I’m leaning on Psalm 91, not my own ability to protect my family.

    Each of us needs to lean on whatever we trust.

    Liked by 2 people

  15. Since this is a post on propaganda, I figured a comment touching on the real state of things in China might be appropriate…

    The PLA’s 82nd Group Army is the largest group army in China (one of 13), and is tasked with guarding Beijing (along with other areas). It maintains watch over the garrison troops who watch the armed police, and is in turn watched by China’s SSBNs. And right now it’s been flooded out of its primary bases due to the massive flooding in and around Beijing.

    That’s right, one of the biggest military formations in the world is currently homeless.

    Additionally, a video that I watched yesterday claims that the 82nd Army Group’s deployment information was publicly released at the beginning of September. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find any further information on this (such as where it first turned up, or who is believed to have released it), so take it with a grain of salt. But if true, it’s a huge breach of security for what’s potentially the PRC’s most important military formation.

    You likely heard about China’s recent submarine accident. Apparently a Type 093 nuclear attack sub participating in an exercise accidentally blundered into a cable deployed by the Chinese to catch snooping US submarines. The sub got stuck, and a diver was sent out to free the sub. He did so. But when he returned to the submarine, no one responded to his requests to be let back in. He surfaced, got picked up by military vessels in the area, and reported what had happened. Attempts by the PLAN ships to contact the sub went unanswered. Eventually, equipment was brought in to allow investigation, and it was discovered that the entire crew – aside from the diver – was dead. Apparently they’d suffered poisoning by hydrogen sulfide.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. Good one. But my concern is “currently homeless”. Does that mean we will see a huge influx into Frisco?

        Like

    2. Nuclear POWERED sub? And hydrogen sulfide?
      Or just nuclear armed? And all those batteries?
      And no monitors to alert of dangerous levels of H2S??
      Or, ignored monitors…

      Whatever the circumstances, OUCH.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. My SWAG is that a lot of batteries were involved. Might have been a diesel-powered boomer, though that would cause Admiral Rickhover to explode. (With laughter in the current case. If a USN, I’d expect an earth-shattering kaboom in his grave’s vicinity.) OTOH, it’s not outside the realm of Chinese military might…

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        1. Well, apparently, a Type 093 “Shang” sub is a nuclear-powered attack sub that’s kind of on a par with the USN’s original Los Angeles-class…y’know, the one first designed and built almost fifty years ago (and not the improved version we still have in service). If this story is true–and the Chinese and Taiwanese are both denying it, interestingly enough–I’d love to know how one of China’s newest attack subs, nuclear-powered no less, can wipe out the entire crew because of a fault with the oxygen system after just a few hours submerged.

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        2. Even Boomers have large battery backups. It is nice if you have to scram the plant at depth to have things to help blow ballast and return to the surface. Maybe China ought to buy its batteries from more dependable sellers like Korea, Taiwan or Japan :-) .

          Liked by 1 person

      2. U.S. nuclear subs have lead-acid batteries for backup power, just in case. Each cell is a lead box about 4 feet square by 5 feet tall with a cable thick as your arm sticking out the top. I’d guess at least 5,000 amp-hours capacity. They’re installed along the keel, and do double duty as ballast.

        Liked by 1 person

      3. The Type 093 is an attack sub, so there shouldn’t be any nuclear weapons onboard (the Type 094 is their boomer).

        Now why were there batteries? Not sure. Back-ups maybe? I don’t know if they have any other nuclear attack sub designs, so it’s possible that it was a hold-over just in case the concept ended up not working properly once it was out at sea. As for monitors… who knows? Maybe it did work, but didn’t get noticed until the diver was out of the ship. Maybe it malfunctioned. Or maybe they never had one for some reason.

        Of course, given that it’s China that we’re talking about, it’s also possible that the whole story is a cover for something even worse.

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        1. my admittedly very limited understanding of the Chin subs is they go for battery stored electric for silence reasons. They never equal the quiet of US subs otherwise, nor do they have the speed of Rus subs. Though under battery and with everyone being quiet they supposedly make some of the best holes in the water.

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        2. Attack subs often carry nuclear torpedoes and nuclear cruise missiles. And this has been so for decades.

          The difference between “tactical” and “strategic” is “target selection”.

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      2. And H2S is sneaky. You “get used” to it, and then it kills you. Hence sewer workers have H2S monitors. I’ve heard of more than one case where a worker went someplace ‘innocent’ (store…) and the alarm tripped. That’s on land, with ready breathable air just outside, and the response (the correct one, anyway) is EVACUATE NOW.

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        1. You can get H2S with an overcharged battery. I wonder if the nuke plant’s power was diverted to charge the batteries when the sub was stuck, and too much charging current went to the batteries. Whether that was an equipment failure or lousy training, it strikes me as the kind of thing that could happen to certain navys. Alas, ours might be heading that way, though I hope the submariners have a better sense of priorities than the recent surface ships have suffered.

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          1. This is a prime example of why PLAN shipbuilding doesn’t alarm me too much. Sure, they can build them but they lacks decades of hard won experience.

            US carriers are at the end of a chain of learning dating back to the first carrier vs. carrier battle at Coral Sea.

            US submarine crews have been on nuclear subs since the first one. Before that they fought one of the two largest submarine campaigns in history that included winning the first duel between submerged submarines.

            No Chinese sailor benefits from that level of institutional knowledge. The bigger risk to the USN is Congress and the WH flushing that memory. They are trying hard to do so.

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    4. According to The Daily Mail, British Intelligence has confirmed some of what I wrote about the sub. The Daily Mail story mentions a Type 093 sub getting stuck, and it mentions the crew dying due to an issue with the air they were breathing. No mention of the diver, or that it was specifically Hydrogen Sulphide that poisoned the air. The Daily Mail story apparently states that the accident might have caused an issue with the sub’s electrical power generation, which caused the air quality monitors to shut off. Though that begs the question of why a nuclear powered sub would have problems generating power, so I’m not sure about that conclusion. Maybe wiser heads than mine would know.

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      1. There’s generation, and then there’s distribution. The hardwired sensor doesn’t care why it isn’t getting power, it just shuts off.

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  16. In the early to mid 1980’s (1985 at the very latest) I was lent a cassette tape that had a few tunes of unknown provinence. From the content it was clear that the singer/comedian(?) was Canadian and the recordings had originated in the 1970’s.

    Now, this was during Reagan’s first of VERY EARLY second term so it was HILARIOUS to hear a tune about a warmongering Jimmy Carter. “Let’s have a nice, clean holocaust, with a nice clean neutron bomb.” “He’s the Lord of Love, the Prince of Peace, Spearhead of the Anti-War Machine…. and he’s determined if we’re to have nuclear was, America will fight it clean.” “…saving us from fiendish Muscovite, with a great big neutron bomb!” Alas, I do not who the singer was. I’d love to give proper credit and see if he produced other amusing tunes besides the few I have (dubbed on cassette somewhere…)

    Liked by 2 people

  18. You can almost feel the desperation, like the Iraqi general that kept saying that the Americans were defeated and had never come close to Bagdad…as an M-1 drove by outside his window…

    I’m just hoping that cleaning up this mess won’t require the sort of things like proscriptions and a whiff of grapeshot.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. No matter how hard we try, it won’t be a soft landing. The left has destroyed too many lives, their victims will demand and take their revenge, whether we want them to or not. One can only hope they will be sated quickly.

      Liked by 1 person

              1. It would have to be bad enough, fast enough, to burn itself out. I can only think of a few things that would cause that kind of massive, instant spasm.

                Liked by 1 person

      1. I suspect Conan would, very tactfully and tastefully, hand you your head for that one – “My quote! What have you done to my quote?!?”. ;-)

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        1. I have read a newspaper that had Genghis Khan speaking of the lamentations of their married women.

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  19. The new Speaker Pro Tem has just ordered Nancy Pelosi to vacate her plum office by tomorrow. How inconvenient for her as she in California right now for her buddy Diane Feinstein’s funeral.

    This could become entertaining.

    Meanwhile, I am strangely unconcerned about the events of today for some reason. Possibly because the wait for “something” to happen has been unbearable. Now that the time for pointless gestures has arrived and one has been made, I am merely curious to see what tit will follow this tat.

    They have been doing nothing but driving us into the ground for decades, so I hope to see mega loads of chaos descend upon them.

    Liked by 1 person

        1. There was a parallel case recently, over at the Evil Mouse-Eared Empire. When Bob Iger stepped down as Disney CEO a few years ago, he asked his chosen successor Bob Chapek if he could still use the CEO office at corporate HQ. (Iger was still chairman of the board, temporarily, so there was some sense to this request.) Chapek agreed, which convinced Iger that he was still the puppetmaster at the company. When Chapek tried not to get involved with Florida’s Parental Rights in Education (a/k/a “Don’t Say Gay”) Act, Iger and his allies steamrolled him into a hostage-video recantation virtually within hours. Today, Chapek is gone, and Iger is once again CEO of Disney.

          The Speaker’s office matter was likewise a power play. It was meant to demonstrate who still had the real control. It certainly helps to demonstrate who did not have control: Kevin McCarthy.

          Liked by 1 person

      4. Because McCarthy is her ally and friend, not her opponent.

        The majority of the GOP is only doing it now because they feel stabbed in the back by the Dems voting with a handful of GOP members to remove McCarthy.

        Which tells me every GOP member feeling betrayed is too stupid to affect change.

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      5. Red State has reported that McCarthy got the temporary speaker (Patrick McHenry – no, really) to turf her out. After all, the “hideaway office,” was for the former speaker, and since he’s now the former speaker….
        Other reports that Pelosi had promised McCarthy the Ds would not cooperate with a vote to vacate and, of course, ahem, “prevaricated.”
        And there’s the comment that Gaetz’s official reason for the vote was McCarthy was “collaborating,” with the Ds….so he then went and collaborated with the Ds on the move to vacate the Speakers hip.

        Liked by 1 person

    2. Steny Hoyer(sp?) has also been ordered to vacate his office.

      Insty had links to some of Surber’s comments, and it looks like he was right. McCarthy tried to play diplomatically with the Dems, but they stabbed him in the back at the first opportunity.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Where is Our Hostess’ shocked face when you need it? I am shocked I say shocked that the Democrats would renege on a solemn vow (NOT!). That McCarthy actually trusted the other side shows he was too stupid to hold the office. Scorpion is going to scorpion…

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  20. Yes, why indeed? Why did Nancy not have to move office before? Perhaps McCarthy was more compromised than we knew and had to promise her that for Dem votes, which she certainly held in her highly manicured crabbed claws. Then, of course, being a Dem, she held back votes anyway.

    And speaking of propaganda, this morning virtually every single blog or news feed I look at has some variation of, “I don’t think this went the way Gaetz planned!” The party line seems to be this has all been a horrible mistake and the Republicans are doomed and can’t govern now. Seems a little sus to me. And as coordinated as any other mind deadening sheep dip they soak the masses in to control the narrative.

    And they weren’t governing before when they had a speaker, so let the chaos roll and see what happens.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. Love Don Surber!

        His laundry list of ways the leaders have let us down is very sobering.

        We no longer have loyal opposition parties. We have groups jostling for prime places at the trough.

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    2. From what I’ve read about this, Nancy wasn’t using the “Speaker’s Office”. IE She moved out of that office when she lost the Speakership.

      The situation is that there are only a limited number of Offices for members of the House inside the Capital building itself.

      Apparently, it was customary for former Speakers to get one of those Offices.

      So the Speaker Pro Tem is telling her that she no longer gets the “Special Offices” and has to use one of the peons’ offices. :twisted:

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      1. So didn’t keep the deal to support McCarthy, speaker pro-term sends a small warning that breaking deals means the other side doesn’t have to keep their side of that deal then.

        Maybe?

        Liked by 1 person

          1. Pretty much Ace’s conclusion:

            http://ace.mu.nu/archives/406432.php

            “They expected their fellow Democrats in the (lol) “Problem Solver Caucus” to vote in favor of Kevin McCarthy — to fulfill their side of the contract, to vote in favor of a “moderate” Republican to defeat the machinations of the “extremist” Republicans.

            Instead, all of the (lol) “Problem Solver Caucus” Democrats voted unamimously with the “extremist” Republicans and against the “moderate” McCarthy.

            In other words, the “moderate” Republicans on the (lol) “Problem Solver Caucus” got used and humiliated and betrayed by their Democrat “partners” yet again.”

            Just ask yourself and be honest: How do we share a country with these dishonest people?

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            1. Which ones? :-P
              ———————————
              “On my first day in this world Daniel told me he doesn’t trust the government, and now I understand what he meant. The government can’t be trusted because it’s full of people like you.”

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    5. her office was “The Office Of the Previous Speaker” and McCarthy is that now, so out she goes. but the vote burn had McCarthy have the interim force the move while she was in Cali as spite for the vote. Tit for Tat.

      Liked by 1 person

    1. That’s a great link. Thanks. It’s great info for US to have. But I fear it’s too much preaching to the choir. No leftist or even middle-of-the-road friends will read that. And even if they did they’ll just dismiss it. Too often we fall into a trap – “If they only knew what we know, they’d agree with us.” No they won’t because they don’t think like we do.

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      1. Starts earlier than that– most of the time, ‘what we know’ involves drawing conclusions about facts, and/or choosing who to believe.

        Different thought processes, different standards for sources to believe and how strongly, different conclusions from the information that is believed.

        For example, “an interview with a pre-Boomer guy we are informed is an expert states a lot of claims” is not something that I would trust, because I like having actual sources. And no, “guy who wrote books that were praised by thriller writers in the seventies” really doesn’t cut it.

        It is interesting to see where the “Americans want to invade the middle east and steal their oil” came from, or at least got a big push from, though. (He wrote several articles actively pushing it, half a century ago.)

        Liked by 1 person

    3. You know that fund that buys stocks based on the opposite of Jim Cramer’s public comments?

      Maybe we need something similar regarding predictions by the CIA?

      :P

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  22. I too saw the ad for that movie you mentioned. Now that I always question the timing of everything, I wasn’t about to waste my time on a “Hispanic overcomes and succeeds at NASA” movie while we’re under invasion at the southern border. That one is easy to recognize. BUT, my housemate does not think like me. She saw that and immediately just thinks “What a heartwarming story that looks like. I’ll add it to my queue.”. My pessimistic side believes she’s just like millions. While not a crazy-eyed left wing lunatic, she tends to lean towards voting emotionally. And here we are.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. I actually thought she was confusing things and was talking about Hidden Figures.

      I guess they needed more than one “minorities really got us to the Moon, not a bunch of white guys” movies.

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      1. And unfortunately if looked at historically the Movie version of “Hidden Figures” Is sadly mostly nonsense. The book by Ms Shetterly is better, but still has some major viewpoint issues and even some historical inconsistencies (see here https://hiddenfigurescritique.com/ ). All in all its a hagiography of the three ladies who although real and important were in no sense critical to the Mercury, Gemini or Apollo programs. They were hardworking intelligent people who like thousands of others contributed to those programs and were part of what made it work. It’s a darn shame Ms. Shetterly spoke at my younger daughters graduation from WPI and was one of the best speakers they’ve had since MacCready of human powered flight fame talked when I was in school in the 80’s .

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        1. Maybe I’m too cynical, but I assumed “the black woman who saved NASA but gets no credit because racism” was the point of the movie and dismissed it unseen.

          Any “this is a forgotten minority or woman” movie or article gets that anymore. There are people forgotten who do legitimately deserve to have their stories told, but most such stories are “just so” stories to prove white men did nothing and stole everything.

          Liked by 1 person

            1. To this day I’m amazed Hollywood has not done the Night Witches. Soviet female pilots who dealt with the patriarchy holding them down who still became a bit of a terror among Nazis troops.

              And you can reasonably make their Commissar the hero.

              I’m waiting for it because I want to see it. Figures that’s the one feminist Marxist propaganda movie they won’t make.

              Liked by 1 person

                1. True. What makes their Commissar makes the Soviets look bad.

                  Soviet military whose bodies were not found were assume to have surrendered and thus were traitors. Their families were denied benefits and often persecuted.

                  After their Commissar retired in the 50s she set out to find the wrecks of every crash and the bodies of her girls that never came home in order to clear their names.

                  She found. Every. Single. One.

                  Yevdokiya Rachkevich deserves to be remembered.

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          1. I’ve seen it advertised on Amazon I think (was in watching Thunderbirds are Go which is a sadly liberalized version of the old Thunderbirds but still fun). It Seems to star Michael Pena (that N should have a ~ over it I think). Damn shame he did a good job as an astronaut in “The Martian” and is absolutely the best part of the “Ant Man” movies even if his character is a bowdlerized Cheech Marin stereotype. My point was that the movie version of Hidden Figures was just as bad. E.G. One of the “points” /running themes was that there were NO “colored” facilities in the building where the protagonist worked thus leading to her having to go back to the building where the “colored” Computors were housed. Except that at the time of Mercury there were no longer segregated bathroom facilities at NASA Langley and hadn’t been for years. At best the movie is conflating something from earlier in the protagonists career at best it is a blatant lie. Rather than tell the real story Hollywood ALWAYS chooses to flavor things with their stupid poisons. The AMAZON thing is no surprise, I mean these are the folks that happily mangled Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings pre history.

            Liked by 1 person

  23. Think of what they’re likely to do and be two steps and a corkscrew turn ahead.

    I can’t say I agree with this. I think trying to be two steps ahead is why we got depressed.

    I think “be prepared then quit caring” is the stronger strategy.

    I’m not saying ignore what they are going to do. I think you should be ready for it: ability to survive in your home for 30+ days without services and the ability to bug-out on 60 minutes (or less) notice and survive for 14 days somewhere not home.

    And that’s food, the ability to purify water (learn to distill and have two pots and the coil if you can), the ability to cook (can you build a rocket stove to cook and boil water using just scrap wood and fallen stuff off trees? Learn…plenty of YouTube example), essential and proven meds, cat food (or dog or rabbit or whatever), etc. Get the pet carriers out and leave them open so they get in them to sleep (do that anyway, makes vet trips easier).

    Then just ignore 90% of the news. Pay enough attention to get make notice you need to bug out or hunker down in place, but beyond that.

    Well, here’s what two things in the last two months brought home hard:

    You can’t control any of it. Of, if you can, why are you reading this blog (much less my comments on it) instead of affecting it.

    In August I got in an ugly fight other either being misunderstood or someone taking a cheap shot instead of listening to what I was saying about student loan forgiveness. That was Sunday. On Monday I wrote a huge post about how I’d suggest student loan relief should work to send as a guest post.

    And just left it. The main (2/3) reason was I thought it wouldn’t be received well or repair from the fight but the other (1/3) which is why I didn’t post on my own blog was no one who could do something would read it. I was spending energy on something I couldn’t control.

    Then, last month I wound on in ICU for diabetic ketoacidosis. The cause? Finally finding a system that got me taking my meds reliably and regularly. Serious, the specific form of DKA I got, which has low blood glucose, is a very rare but known side effect of one of the drugs I was finally reliably taking. One doc I know says DKA became much more common when this class of drugs was introduced.

    So, again, I couldn’t control what happened.

    Now, I’m not quitting trying to manage my diabetes but I’m less trusting of drugs and increasing my focus on exercise and diet (which is frustrating in a lot of ways) because those I can control.

    I can’t control money printing, Hollywood pushing trans identity, the GOP keeping/tossing the Speaker, government shutdowns and abuses when they happen (spending money to put up barriers on parks, for example), or voter fraud one county over in Fulton.

    I can make sure I have supplies. I can keep enough attention to know when to run.

    But after that, at least for me, my mental health is better served building a weird tape player based instrument I saw on YouTube or finally spending time building a model railroad or getting back to writing (although doing Alphabetsuperset got blown up with the DKA) or…well, there is a long list.

    All are better for my mental health than keeping track of all the political crap I can’t control. I think it actually leaves me in a better place for when the political crap finally collapses things and the wheels come off.

    Maybe then I will have a say in the world after. Maybe not. We’ll see. But for now, when we can’t control it, I recommend being prepared for the wheels coming off and once that prepping is in place just maintain it and spend the rest of your time doing the things you can affect.

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  24. Take the “Reagan is going to nuke us all.” (I got married and moved here during Reagan’s second term.) I swear to you this was already in every private conversation among the young and the hip. How we’d been lucky not to get nuked so far. But one more Republican term, and…. The Soviets were losing their patience, peaceful as they were.

    Not sure when you were here as an exchange student, but that started in 1979 when was running and really ramped up in 1980. That’s when ABC made The Day After which was kinda sad. The BBC made a better version 20 years earlier (The War Game).

    Even SDI was claiming to be Reagan wanting a system to allow him to make a first strike and thus was dangerous by the same people claiming it couldn’t be done (which was it…those are mutually exclusive…it has to work to make it cover for a first strike).

    And then there was the whole “nuclear winter”, the forgotten man made climate change of the 80s.

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    1. The Brits did a much better (and much more pessimistic) one, “Threads,” which worked out to the Soviets attacking, the West not being at fault…and the world shoved into radioactive poverty anyway. (Being British, one plot thread showed a bureaucrat lying to his wife, since he is in the shelter and she isn’t, and then the shelter is sealed off by blast debris and everyone in it is left to die of starvation).
      And there was, “Testament,” a version made by a woman, which was remarkably devoid of scientific accuracy but big on emotion (spoiler: everybody dies).
      Now we have the, “We must stop helping Ukraine, they are corrupt neo-Nazis and when Russia inevitably builds up their forces and sweeps all before them our neocon leaders will send in Americans and Putin will retaliate with nukes and we’re all gonna DIIEEEEEEE!” bunch. Even where I can agree on some of what they’re saying the shrillness and, “everyone who disagrees with us is an enemy and maybe a traitor,” stuff is annoying.

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          1. Well, in old Blighty, at least, the left has had a hammerlock on all the institutions of culture since the late 1960s, at least. So, at least there, they want to buy into the big lie. The last time the British overculture saw anything related to the left as being bad was when Kim Philby defected to the USSR in the early 1960s. And even then, it was probably only because the public felt so betrayed, rather than the overculture actually thinking it was bad.

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        2. Not so much missed as didn’t know of it. I’ve watched War Game and it’s the best of the genre I’ve seen.

          And relatively honest compared to others. One of the issues is how bad Soviet guidance was.

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    2. The Day after was November of 1983. Threads was 1984 I think. The Portly Politico recently did a review of threads here (https://theportlypolitico.com/2023/10/02/monday-morning-movie-review-threads-1984/). I always felt the scenes after the strikes in “The Day After” were heavily softened. The attacks they portrayed were on missile silos near Lawrence KS and would tend to be low altitude detonations to try to take out the silos. That’s about as dirty as a nuke strike gets without intentionally salting the bomb with cobalt or strontium. You’re talking 3-5k rad/hr for the better part of two weeks. Even if your shelter gives you a factor of 1000 drop you’re still taking 3-5 rad/hr, you’re over the LD50 of 500 REM in 5-7 days.

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  25. Speaking of propaganda, does Hollywood have a clue?
    Spending too much time on Twitter means I see movie trailers for movies I will not see. And I’ve noticed two trends.
    One, the villains in superhero movies are black males. Three so far this year, given there’s an Aquaman sequel and the villain is a black male.
    Two, the fall, “hyper-violent revenge flicks,” are getting ads, and the heroes are white men. And in the last trailer I saw the protagonist was given a very pagan motive: his young son has been murdered and he has been seriously wounded, so he commits to a Batman-style course of physical training and starts running up the body count.
    (And appropro of nothing, can someone explain to the Marvel screenwriters that Loki is a trickster, and can therefore switch sides on a dime? He does not have to be a villain in specific circumstances).

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Black Manta? He was Aquaman’s archenemy in the comics to be sure. There was a nice bit in the Justice series where it dawns on him that when he enslaves blacks, and Aquaman frees them, they aren’t going to, in a spirit of racial unity, murder Aquaman’s son for him, in retaliation.

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    2. On Loki, they couldn’t even figure out that hey, the guy whose literally got motherhood of his father’s horse would be a good candidate for a ‘trans’ character, without any stupid signaling.

      Apparently they did put a trans character into the show, but was it the shape-shifting guy who gave birth? Noooooooo.

      Liked by 1 person

        2. That’s going in a story. The main characters have access to genetic engineering and medical nanotech which can transform a ‘trans’ man into a woman ‘physically indistinguishable from a natural born woman’, capable of pregnancy and birth, and not needing lifelong hormone treatments. Naturally, there is much wailing and gnashing of teeth among the ‘Trans Activists!’

          They get similar pushback from the Greenies over converting the defunct San Onofre nuclear plant to fusion power. “So long as fusion energy remains a pie-in-the-sky impossibility, they’re all for it. But, let somebody threaten to provide practical fusion power next month and all of a sudden they’re agin it.”

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          1. That’s going in a story. The main characters have access to genetic engineering and medical nanotech which can transform a ‘trans’ man into a woman ‘physically indistinguishable from a natural born woman’, capable of pregnancy and birth, and not needing lifelong hormone treatments.

            This was an option offered to Lazarus Long as an answer to his ennui near the beginning of Time Enough for Love. He didn’t follow up on it, but it was there. Number of the Beast had another character (from earlier stories, a short whose name I don’t recall where he was the main character and Methuselah’s Children where he was a supporting character) having had that done.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. Andrew Jackson Libby, the mathematical genius from ‘Methuselah’s Children’ was reincarnated as Elizabeth Long. Lapis Lazuli and Lorelei Lee are Lazarus’s clone-sisters made by duplicating his X chromosome.

              We now know duplicating one person’s X chromosome would be a bad idea because it would reinforce all the recessive genes, some of which you don’t want reinforced.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. However, in Lazarus Long’s case this is acceptable because he has an absolutely clean (per his medical team lead in TEfL–yes, I’m vague on names because my memory for such can be…spotty) as reported by the Double L twins before they drop him off for his trip to the past.

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              2. “We now know duplicating one person’s X chromosome would be a bad idea because it would reinforce all the recessive genes, some of which you don’t want reinforced.”

                The FIRST thing RAH did was establish that gene mapping was so complete that bad recessives could be avoided or eliminated. In fact, it’s how he could define “incest” taboo on that basis.

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          3. I’m thinking about that for a story as well-the sudden discovery that IF you’re able to genderswap people without fault…the numbers of “actual” transgendered people, willing to make it a complete lifestyle change is maybe 3% at best…

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            1. I’d be surprised if there were 1/2 a %.

              I’m thinking of two actual trans-gender characters (Donna/Dono Vorrutyer in A Civil Campaign and Tenmei/Buzam in VanDread) and they both had very good reasons for going through a sex-change — one to take on the male-only title of Count Vorrutyer and the other as a deep-cover spy in an all-female society.

              Liked by 1 person

              1. So far, the story idea is cultural-it’s a matriarchy, but they’re “egalitarian” and if you’re willing to change and have at least one child, cultural rules says “your a woman” and thus can be promoted.

                (And one of the things that they discover is that their leadership is HIGHLY modified and that modification includes a estrogen/testosterone analogue that is pretty much “men with tits and periods.”)

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              2. John. Varley’s, “Steel Beach,” had a society where sex change was simple and easy: the main character went from male to female, got pregnant, and eventually becomes a neuter. A lot of people do it from sheer ennui…because very powerful aliens have put all surviving humans in a Lunar colony for their environmental “sins,” and they are not allowed to leave. (A subplot in “Steel Beach,” involves a group plotting to break the prohibition and head for the stars ).

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                1. That was a really depressing story that made me avoid Varley for decades. It turned out most of his stuff wasn’t like that, but I was in automatic-avoidance mode after that turkey.

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              3. Sgt. Jackrum in ‘Monstrous Regiment’ is arguably borderline. Jackrum knows that she’s a woman, which is why she’s not fully trans. But she presents as a man to everyone, and does it well enough that the only person who figures out that Jackrum is secretly a woman is the protagonist (and even then, only because the protagonist puts two and two together about an earlier incident).

                Liked by 1 person

      3. He gender-swapped at some point in the comics a little while back, and stayed that way for an extended period.

        Personally, though, I’d prefer that they not do that with Loki in the MCU. He did it exactly once in the old stories, and IIRC there aren’t any other stories of him becoming a woman. In the old stories, he’s clearly male.

        Plus, if you do it in the TV series, then you have to take his actor into account…

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        1. I think it was when JMS was doing the writing a few years ago. I know JMS did it, but not sure of anyone else.

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        2. Tom H could actually sell me on it, I gotta say.

          Especially when we take into account that Norse mythology has a role for really ugly cross dressed “women.” (THOR passed!)

          If it was done by folks who were competent, it could be an absolute hoot!

          (If I remember right, Loki did do some other ‘feminine’ things– like his magic was wrong or something– but it can be hard to tell what’s simi-original and what is later stories.)

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          1. “If it was done by folks who were competent, it could be an absolute hoot!”

            Laughs like a hyena for 5 minutes.

            Foxfier, these are the people who made kill-2-whales-for-a-guest-gift Thor crusade for Greenpeace in the 90s…. I’m sure they’ll manage something….. 8-)

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            1. I’m sticking with picturing Tom H. (no, I can’t spell his name) dressed up like Professor McGonagall, Nick Fury is ranting and raving about how that doesn’t make him a female… and then one of the doctors comes in and quietly tells him that all the, er, parts are indeed female.

              And Loki just smuuuuurrks……

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                  1. When I’m talking about a story I just read/watched I’ll often describe rather than name characters because the names just glance off my brain. Sometimes they’ll stick, usually for a MC (but not always even then). I’m fine while reading/watching but as soon as I turn away from it it’s “the princess with the ice powers and her sister” rather than “Anna and Elsa” (And, just now, I wasn’t so sure about Anna and looked it up just to check.)

                    My brain can be weird.

                    Liked by 1 person

                  2. to the person who routinely runs through five names to end in “hey, you!”
                    …………………

                    Unless someone is wearing a name tag ….

                    I am horrible with putting names to faces. I even work at it. When I have a list of people for a specific group, in front of me, then it is better. But dang. Never been good. Not getting better. I’d blame “old age”, but it isn’t that.

                    Liked by 1 person

    4. …can someone explain to the Marvel screenwriters…

      Good luck with explaining anything to them, they seem to be hired for cluelessness and lack of experience. The writers on She-Hulk never read the comics, did not like comics, and had no background for writing legal dramas or comedies. They were, AFAICT, hired for being women and minorities.

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  26. Oh, look, Joe’s plagiarizing again:

    https://www.bizpacreview.com/2023/10/05/biden-regime-finally-sees-the-light-on-border-wall-but-trump-says-the-terrorists-are-already-here-1401643

    “In a stunning flip-flop for the open borders regime, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said that there is an “acute and immediate need” to waive dozens of federal rules and laws to construct a barrier at the southern border as the migrant invasion has become a major political problem for the Democratic Party.

    Following the news of the change of heart from Biden’s DHS boss that the moves were necessary due to “high illegal entry” at the border, the 2024 Republican frontrunner gave his thoughts to Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview.”

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    1. The Reader is sure that there are a dozen or more ‘non profits’ ready to lawfare this to death. And they were given the inside scoop on what to argue and where to file by DHS and DOJ. Come next year the administration can go ‘we tried’.

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  27. Courtesy of Vodkapundit, Mayorkas is now saying that they’ll start building “physical barriers” at the border.

    That’s what he said, anyway. I plan to consider this more regime propaganda with no actual substance until there’s actually some finished product. And short of a new Republican administration, I suspect that I’ll be waiting a loooong time…

    It’s noteworthy, though, that the White House is feeling enough heat over this they they need to at least claim that they’re doing something. And the mere claim will hopefully set off their fratricidal base

    Liked by 1 person

    1. White House PTB is correcting Biden. Never mind that a number of environmental, and some other laws, are being suspended to allow a section of the border wall to be expanded, built, whatever, on Mayorkas degree and Biden’s executive order. Never mind that Biden, in 2020, 2021, and 2022, explicitly stated that the funding for the border wall does not have to be used for a border wall just because it is in the budget. Note, it can’t be used on anything else, but still the money can just sit there. NOW Biden’s handlers are “correcting” all this. That the money has to be used for it’s stated purpose. Which is why the border wall is being built. Not that Biden or Mayorkas have reversed their positions in light of Biden’s draining poll numbers.

      Definitely comes under “Pull the other leg. It has bells on it.”

      Liked by 1 person

  28. Makes you wonder how many blue-state mayors and governors said, “If you want the fraud to go off next year, you’d better do something about all these illegals!”

    Liked by 1 person

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