tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post608938894118542385..comments2023-10-03T07:01:41.144-05:00Comments on Always On Watch: Semper Vigilans: Recommended ReadingAlways On Watchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08192688822955022541noreply@blogger.comBlogger112125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-75412042245523485012018-03-16T14:20:22.911-05:002018-03-16T14:20:22.911-05:00MORE GOOD NEWS! MORE GOOD NEWS!
Souse Hillary Cl...<b>MORE GOOD NEWS! MORE GOOD NEWS! <br /><br /><i>Souse Hillary Clinton gpt herself pissed<br />Fell in the tub and fractured her wrist.<br />In a marble washroom at the Jodphur palace<br />(Doubtless while using the soap as a phallus).<br />Hillary needs to stay off the sauce<br />Lest her life soon be thought a total loss.<br />But this Harpy once Secretary of State<br />Could not hope to meet a more fitting fate!</i></b><br /><br />_____________________________________<br /><br /><b>Now Hillary Clinton fractures her wrist after slipping in a palace bathtub during trip to India</b><br /><br />• Hillary Clinton's wrist injury is worse than originally thought<br /><br />• former Secretary of State was forced to cancel her appearances in Jodhpur, India this week when she slipped in a palace bathtub and hurt her wrist<br /><br />Doctors advised the 70-year-old to rest, but the pain grew unbearable so she was taken to the hospital early Wednesday morning <br /><br />A CT Scan and X-ray confirmed she had a hairline fracture on her wrist.<br /><br />This is the second time the former presidential candidate has injured herself on her India trip after slipping on steps at a 13th century harem –– TWICE –– the other day.<br /><br />~ UK Daily MailFreeThinkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16682678301019952436noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-90404656702784886092018-03-16T12:32:40.980-05:002018-03-16T12:32:40.980-05:00(cont)
(ll. 238-247) But for those who practise vi...(cont)<br /><i>(ll. 238-247) But for those who practise violence and cruel deeds far-seeing Zeus, the son of Cronos, ordains a punishment. Often even a whole city suffers for a bad man who sins and devises presumptuous deeds, and the son of Cronos lays great trouble upon the people, famine and plague together, so that the men perish away, and their women do not bear children, and their houses become few, through the contriving of Olympian Zeus. And again, at another time, the son of Cronos either destroys their wide army, or their walls, or else makes an end of their ships on the sea.<br /><br />(ll. 248-264) You princes, mark well this punishment you also; for the deathless gods are near among men and mark all those who oppress their fellows with crooked judgements, and reck not the anger of the gods. For upon the bounteous earth Zeus has thrice ten thousand spirits, watchers of mortal men, and these keep watch on judgements and deeds of wrong as they roam, clothed in mist, all over the earth. And there is virgin Justice, the daughter of Zeus, who is honoured and reverenced among the gods who dwell on Olympus, and whenever anyone hurts her with lying slander, she sits beside her father, Zeus the son of Cronos, and tells him of men's wicked heart, until the people pay for the mad folly of their princes who, evilly minded, pervert judgement and give sentence crookedly. Keep watch against this, you princes, and make straight your judgements, you who devour bribes; put crooked judgements altogether from your thoughts.<br /><br />(ll. 265-266) He does mischief to himself who does mischief to another, and evil planned harms the plotter most. </i>-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16745768408538827278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-28977536876266721542018-03-16T12:32:24.910-05:002018-03-16T12:32:24.910-05:00Hesiod, "Works and Days"
(ll. 202-211)...Hesiod, "Works and Days"<br /><br /><i> (ll. 202-211) And now I will tell a fable for princes who themselves understand. Thus said the hawk to the nightingale with speckled neck, while he carried her high up among the clouds, gripped fast in his talons, and she, pierced by his crooked talons, cried pitifully. To her he spoke disdainfully: `Miserable thing, why do you cry out? One far stronger than you now holds you fast, and you must go wherever I take you, songstress as you are. And if I please I will make my meal of you, or let you go. He is a fool who tries to withstand the stronger, for he does not get the mastery and suffers pain besides his shame.' So said the swiftly flying hawk, the long- winged bird.<br /><br />(ll. 212-224) But you, Perses, listen to right and do not foster violence; for violence is bad for a poor man. Even the prosperous cannot easily bear its burden, but is weighed down under it when he has fallen into delusion. The better path is to go by on the other side towards justice; for Justice beats Outrage when she comes at length to the end of the race. But only when he has suffered does the fool learn this. For Oath keeps pace with wrong judgements. There is a noise when Justice is being dragged in the way where those who devour bribes and give sentence with crooked judgements, take her. And she, wrapped in mist, follows to the city and haunts of the people, weeping, and bringing mischief to men, even to such as have driven her forth in that they did not deal straightly with her.<br /><br />(ll. 225-237) But they who give straight judgements to strangers and to the men of the land, and go not aside from what is just, their city flourishes, and the people prosper in it: Peace, the nurse of children, is abroad in their land, and all-seeing Zeus never decrees cruel war against them. Neither famine nor disaster ever haunt men who do true justice; but light-heartedly they tend the fields which are all their care. The earth bears them victual in plenty, and on the mountains the oak bears acorns upon the top and bees in the midst. Their woolly sheep are laden with fleeces; their women bear children like their parents. They flourish continually with good things, and do not travel on ships, for the grain-giving earth bears them fruit.</i>-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16745768408538827278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-84763342061526871302018-03-16T12:22:08.700-05:002018-03-16T12:22:08.700-05:00...or a populist "Caesar". Then democra......or a populist "Caesar". Then democracy, as stated in Plato's "Republic," gets replaced by "tyranny".-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16745768408538827278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-69406654870651186382018-03-16T12:20:01.447-05:002018-03-16T12:20:01.447-05:00Replaced by the "great servant of the people&...Replaced by the "great servant of the people" (aka- Stalin).-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16745768408538827278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-75025834043119664332018-03-16T12:18:35.048-05:002018-03-16T12:18:35.048-05:00The "master discourse" eventually gets r...The "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_discourses" rel="nofollow">master discourse</a>" eventually gets replaced by the "university discourse" in a democracy, now structurally/politically rendered devoid of "great men".-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16745768408538827278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-27256930574315544522018-03-16T12:15:33.002-05:002018-03-16T12:15:33.002-05:00That's my point, any "great man" is ...<i>That's my point, any "great man" is constrained by what the wider population is "ready for" in some way. </i><br /><br />Think Shakespeare's Coriolanus. Limited perhaps, but NOT completely constrained.-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16745768408538827278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-28133005993349358822018-03-16T12:13:00.289-05:002018-03-16T12:13:00.289-05:00In an autocracy, great men implement their aspirat...In an autocracy, great men implement their aspirations. In a democracy, the people elect men who best represent their own, uniquely individual although ultimately "collective", aspirations.-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16745768408538827278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-73959680969724136192018-03-16T12:09:20.218-05:002018-03-16T12:09:20.218-05:00"They, unlike Trump, had strayed too far poli..."They, unlike Trump, had strayed too far politically from the voters..."<br /><br />That's my point, any "great man" is constrained by what the wider population is "ready for" in some way. What's interesting about the election is that distance between the political class and the people - what it was, and how it grew so large.<br /><br />"Trump wants to create a world with more opportunities for private investment." Who knows. I've given up analysing his motives. Even if he were honest, the man would still be inarticulate.jezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14865247084509280406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-75703393421948163722018-03-16T12:07:45.174-05:002018-03-16T12:07:45.174-05:00"MAGA"! "Build a Wall"!"MAGA"! "Build a Wall"!-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16745768408538827278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-2189030561626140142018-03-16T11:58:55.459-05:002018-03-16T11:58:55.459-05:00Funny, I think that the narrative should read in a...Funny, I think that the narrative should read in almost the polar opposite manner. Trump, IMO, is the quintessential American. What happened in 2016 was the failure of the former and traditional "great men" (Senators, Governors, politicians) to propose or envision a future to Americans in which the average voter would not be economically "worse off" than he currently was or had been in the recent past (pre-2008 housing crises). They, unlike Trump, had strayed too far politically from the voters that they were supposed to "represent". It was their "hubris" (especially as it relates to regulating immigration) that lead to the Establisment's joint (R-D) defeat.<br /><br />America pre-Trump was headed in an economic and organizational direction (corporate global ascendancy) that was rendering fewer and fewer American people "productive" and "employable" in the economic sphere. It was a direction in which expert's focused upon maximizing largely public works related structural "<a href="http://politicaltealeaves.blogspot.com/2018/02/how-new-generation-of-global-economists.html" rel="nofollow">aggregate efficiencies</a>" in the world economy instead of granting lower and more average IQ people a privatized but less-efficient "niche" within the economy where they could survive and perhaps even "thrive" short of turning into a progressively dependent and demeaning ward of the democratic (public) welfare state.<br /><br />Trump wants to create a world with more opportunities for private investment. In that light, reading Trump's biography would prove much more enlightening than any failed journalism graduate's analysis of the current American economy on the editorial page of the NY Times. In other words, it's not a reflection of existing "reality"... it's aspirational.-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16745768408538827278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-11400411771481560412018-03-16T09:46:21.373-05:002018-03-16T09:46:21.373-05:00Great Man theories are certainly very appealing, b...Great Man theories are certainly very appealing, bite-size memes.<br /><br />But I think a narrative in which Trump's victory is placed in the wider context of American culture and her anxieties is far more illuminating than a straight-forward biography of Trump.<br /><br />I'm not saying that some people have more impact than others, and I enjoy biographies. I just think that there are many other approaches history can take, and it would be a pity to overlook them all.jezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14865247084509280406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-38097864911517324592018-03-16T08:21:18.728-05:002018-03-16T08:21:18.728-05:00...or the Great man is just a way to chunk history......or the Great man is just a way to chunk history into digestible "memes".-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16745768408538827278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-24148581501889542092018-03-16T08:19:41.930-05:002018-03-16T08:19:41.930-05:00...but if you prefer, you can say that Trump didn&......but if you prefer, you can say that Trump didn't win the presidency on his own (he's NOT a great man). <a href="https://youtu.be/r8Y-P0v2Hh0" rel="nofollow">4Chan did</a>... ;P-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16745768408538827278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-57334001424123094612018-03-16T08:03:13.902-05:002018-03-16T08:03:13.902-05:00...Nero fiddling as Rome burned....Nero fiddling as Rome burned.-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16745768408538827278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-53015089611737513092018-03-16T08:02:48.066-05:002018-03-16T08:02:48.066-05:00...and in the case of natural disasters, it will b......and in the case of natural disasters, it will be remembered through the "inactions" of the great man (ie - Coolidge and the Great migration).-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16745768408538827278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-31075174634669628972018-03-16T07:54:38.594-05:002018-03-16T07:54:38.594-05:00"Being in the World" needs the kernel of..."Being in the World" needs the kernel of dasein of "Being there" (the Great Man) to coalesce around.<br /><br />Yes, it could have been someone else, but it will always center upon some authentic "someone" whom history will record as "the great man".-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16745768408538827278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-7613043949248228202018-03-16T07:52:31.002-05:002018-03-16T07:52:31.002-05:00ART is usually PREDICTIVE not REFLECTIVE of staid ...ART is usually PREDICTIVE not REFLECTIVE of staid tradition. I think that's why it has often been referred to as <i>The Avante Garde.</i><br /><br />Thersites' point about the Medicis role in the emergence of the Renaissance in Italy is well taken. <br /><br />"The People" <i>en masse</i> rarely-if-ever produce ANYTHING new, brilliant, innovative, ingenious, salubrious or advanced <i>on their own</i>. <br /><br /> "The People" exist to be LED.<br /><br />The QUALITY of the leadership they follow determines the results of whatever policies the LEADER puts in motion.<br /><br />That's the "bare bones" of it.<br /><br />Just let me add what should be obvious, and then you can draw your own conclusions as to how it may relate to human progress and development.<br /><br />One the HEAD is removed frim the BODY, the body DIES.<br /><br />FreeThinkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16682678301019952436noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-29949901403764067802018-03-16T07:10:00.763-05:002018-03-16T07:10:00.763-05:00There's more than one type of art. There's...There's more than one type of art. There's a polemic aspect to the work of Orwell and GBS, for examples.jezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14865247084509280406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-34881731703706505402018-03-16T07:05:20.797-05:002018-03-16T07:05:20.797-05:00Although it persisted into the 20th century, the E...Although it persisted into the 20th century, the Empire feels like a Victorian concept and we're embarrassed by the presumption inherent in it.<br />I think we're mostly nostalgic for the unambiguous morality and cultural confidence of the war and post-war periods. It's from then that the essential components of our modern national identity were born: the meritocratic social mobile society, the sense of fair play (that might go back further, I'm not an historian), institutions like the NHS and the BBC; it all came from or was exemplified by that era IMO.jezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14865247084509280406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-71194273796821780122018-03-16T06:20:14.667-05:002018-03-16T06:20:14.667-05:00"Would there have been an Italian Renaissance..."Would there have been an Italian Renaissance w/o Cosimo de Medici and Lorenzo the Great?"<br /><br />Yeah, probably. I reckon it would have happened, maybe not in Florence, maybe not even in Italy, but the conditions were right or close to it in a few places in Europe.<br /><br />"What Germans and Europeans thought of world meant squat. What Hitler thought, mattered."<br /><br />Only because Germans had already voted him in, and then European governments had tolerated his belligerence for long enough. Fascism was happening anyway; which fascist would the Germans have elected if not Hitler?jezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14865247084509280406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-2347935158681285782018-03-16T06:00:50.069-05:002018-03-16T06:00:50.069-05:00Jez,
I think we are nostalgic but not for that [th...Jez,<br /><i>I think we are nostalgic but not for that [the days of the British Empire].</i><br /><br />If not the British Empire, then nostalgic for what? <br /><br />Could you provide some examples?Always On Watchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08192688822955022541noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-78378834191589914852018-03-15T17:05:34.906-05:002018-03-15T17:05:34.906-05:00Jez,
I was privileged to spend most of my time wi...Jez,<br /><br />I was privileged to spend most of my time with several family members of a British friend who lived in the United States. I was on holiday and was much more interested in visiting the great museums, art galleries, cathedrals, historic houses, parks, gardens and taking long walks soaking up atmosphere during the day while attending the theater, opera at Covent Garden, symphony concerts and solo recitals in the evenings, <i>et al.</i> than i was in discussing –– or even <i>thinking</i> about –– politics.<br /><br />I loved being there, and was treated very well by everyone, but in light of this particulart conversattion I feel compelled to say I was struck by the extreme modesty –– what-we-would-regard-as borderline poverty here –– of the domestic accomodations of my hosts.<br /><br />People in Britain seem satisified with far less than most Americans –– not that i see that as a bad thing necessarily. Gross materialism and conspicuous consumption appear vulgar and distasteful to me.<br /><br />Nevertheless, I prefer to be able to make lifestyle choices for myself rather than hving them. thrust upon me by authority.FreeThinkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16682678301019952436noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-57312646914818661202018-03-15T16:44:20.995-05:002018-03-15T16:44:20.995-05:00Thank you, Warren. That was very well stated.
Jus...Thank you, Warren. That was very well stated.<br /><br />Just because someone likes to eat hot dogs while watching baseball games doesn't make him a True American (!) anymore than spending inrdinate amounts of time hanging around a garage is apt to turn a person into a car.<br /><br />Awkward paraellels I know, but I hope you can catch my drift anyway.FreeThinkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16682678301019952436noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320479736034351430.post-85801802580397992792018-03-15T16:38:32.437-05:002018-03-15T16:38:32.437-05:00Weill did some lovely work. Probably the best thin...Weill did some lovely work. Probably the best thing one could say about Brecht was that he allowed himself to be persuaded to collaborate with Weill. <br /><br />True art is above politics. When Art becomes propagandistic and polemical, it ceases to <i>be</i> Art.<br /><br />True Art is DEEP and speaks directly to our individual souls. <br /><br />Propaganda and partisan polemics tend to be BANAL, SUPERFICIAL and MANIPULATIVE, probably because they are designed to serve narrow, short term goals, and are, therefore, tendentious and largely theoretical. In ther words they are not rooted in reality.FreeThinkehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16682678301019952436noreply@blogger.com