Chris Hayes

Chris Hayes asks in the Times (Gift Article), "Did Americans elect him again because they were just kind of bored with the status quo?"

I'd say I was quite allergic to boredom, in combination with being put upon at work at times.

Not bored anymore, but I do seek simulation even so. I can meditate for an hour, a couple times a day, and that can have all sorts of negative emotions, including boredom. 

My daughter came into my room towards the end of vacation. She was bored. I put the responsibility of finding something better to do on her. What can she imagine? I realized I don't feel bored, but I do sometimes think about what I'm going to eat next, what movie I'm going to watch next, what TV show I'm going to watch next.

Ouch: "What parents haven’t had the experience of rejecting a child’s request for screen time and then catching themselves immediately going back to scrolling their phones?"

I'd say it was one of my triggers for substance abuse. Intoxication somehow makes life briefly easier. The downside costs are too much, but I wasn't there until recently. 

I've been meditating for 20 years, but I guess not hard enough at times, because I fell into substance abuse. Maybe it was the mistakes I made that were utterly disappointing. Maybe it was because I realized I couldn't be a monk. 

“When I have occasionally set myself to consider the different distractions of men,” Pascal observed in “Pensées,” his collection of essays published in 1670, “I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber.”

I'm not sure if you have to suffer being alone as much as this implies, and I think if we can understand how balance works in our life, desire for stimulation and retreat. 

“Idleness as such is by no means a root of evil; quite the contrary, it is a truly divine way of life, so long as one is not bored,” Kierkegaard wrote. “Indeed, one can say that any human who lacks appreciation of it proves he has not raised himself to the level of humanity.”

I feel like anapanasati, the brahma viharas, 6 element, Buddhanasati and just sitting meditation has given me resources, combined with vast reading of the Dharma, combined with talking to other Buddhists, has given me resources for coping with boredom. 

And I'd say this is the 20th hypothesis as to why America was hoodwinked and bamboozled by Trump, by a very slim margin. 

Fake crisis by fake people

Elon Musk, the fake man of free speech, is against Wikipedia. Of course he's going to be against facts and truth. It's almost like him being against something makes it all the more valuable fighting these oligarchs. 

The panic about shrink birth rate. When the black plague reduced population worker rights went way up, as people tried to retain workers. Shrinking birth rates mean better worker conditions. Greedy jerks don't like that. The planet could really use a reduction in population.

The right wing have no insight into how their policies suppress the urge to have children.

They invent fake crisis to go with the real ones like climate change and class war.

I zoom past anything Elon or Trump says. I'm not even interested in developing disgust for how wrong they are, how mendacious. 

Trying to let go of my hatred of Elon and Trump, let go of the attention they old. Articles about them and videos not getting attention would really deprive them. Need to burn Zozobra. 

Enshitification

One of the elements of the idiocracy the Americans have elected because inflation was just too frustrating is a bozo who won’t fix inflation either, and will pick his cabinet with the worst people, because government isn’t meant to be federal, only military and currency production. The garbage hauled away, the roads, the schools, the mass transit is all local government, that is only what we need. The federal government could cut some spending and lower taxes, but these wholesale swings of back and forth aren’t productive. 

It’s a self fulfilling prophecy, they don’t want people to believe in government, they won’t increase entitlements, indeed, they’ll ratchet up the deficit so the democrats can’t increase entitlements. They won’t give medicaid for all, and they won’t build housing, and the housing crisis will get worse and worse. It’s going to be a very difficult 4 years, but it will usher in a new democratic leader. Harris got 75 million votes, Trump got 77, and more people didn’t vote than voted. America just couldn’t grasp that Trump won’t raise inflation more than Harris, they repeat the tired old slogans of the right. They chose this idiocracy, the enshitification of America. The people who voted for him think he’s more honest in his lies than Harris was with her colored female truths. 

There’s a knowing glee by many conservatives for this time of lawlessness, and white supremacy. Punching down returns as the pass time. Pictures of the parties show women who’ve been plastic surgeried into looking like android sex machines.

Struggling not to dread the next 4 years, to be ready, but also aloof. I want to protect myself for the most part, but I want to be ready to launch into action when the opportunity arises. Looks like the march in Washington on January 18th looks like an opportunity. 

Someone wrote a similar article on the same day--Jason Linkins

Cracks

Papers make a big deal out of a squabble. Traditional conservative and right wing voters like isolationist policies. These billionaires like workers on visas because they go home when they get fired, so they have some leverage. I've actually been denied a job because I wasn't an immigrant. The boss like the power of controlling immigrants. 

MAGA doesn't have an ideology beyond wherever Trump can spot a way to grift, so I'm not surprised people might be confused about a squabble. The base being betrayed is almost boring, they will forgive him. They would rather have a betraying rapey white man than a left leaning colored woman as president. 

Corporations are trying to game everything to get the lowest wages and control workers the most. That's why they don't want national insurance, that's one of the leverage points of working. Not in New York but in other states.

BBC

Lindi Li

So Lindi Li has quit the democrats. She said she was fairly conservative before, we were just not listening. 

OK, um, I was listening to her, and I never heard it. Maybe she said it and I missed it, but I don't think she spoke about it the way she imagines she said it and to blame us for not listening well enough to her--well, won't be making that mistake any more.

Reddit seems to think she didn't like the lack of accountability of spending, which to me smacks of wanting to be more involved in decisions. So I hope she already has a job lined up, because I don't see the Republican party being more inclusive, more accountable and give her more access and power. You think there's more integrity from the republicans? 

The three days the Obama's didn't come out and endorse Harris, I guess I missed that, supposedly they were vetting other people to take over for Biden? Well, that's OK and all that. I don't think that means the USA didn't make a mistake voting for Trump. 

I don't have a problem with anyone evolving and changing. I wish her well. But I do feel betrayed. 

Quips, quotes and memes

Today's political thoughts.

"Representatives are not restricted to voting for the candidate nominated by their party, but generally do. Additionally, as the U.S. Constitution does not explicitly state that the speaker must be an incumbent member of the House, it is permissible for representatives to vote for someone who is not a member of the House at the time, and non-members have received a few votes in various speaker elections over the past several years. Nevertheless, every person elected speaker has been a member." (Wikipedia)

Saw an article to inflame, they're endlessly trying to inflame people who have imagination. 

The core of the rope a dope of the smoke and mirrors of the dumb show of the GOP is to just wreck up the place to distract from lack of leadership ability, and desire to subvert federal government--is to challenge norms, which are actually good things if you believe in collective doing good for the people. It's OK to break a few norms, but they're like narcissistic nepo babies on spring break, not really serious people. They're shadows of desire and childhood trauma. 

Trying to get beyond my hatred of Trump. His insults to the military are a corrective, we don't need such a big military, and honestly isolationism will make us less complicit with murder around the world, as a nation. I'm for downsizing the military, but not disrespecting veterans, that's just stupid. 

Most of his rhetoric is trying to create bargaining space. He mostly is out looking for a grift, he's not really into governing a country, his vision is that greed is good, selfishness is good, sort of the inverse of every spiritual teacher on the history of earth. He's also trying to avoid justice and wield power, again for self enrichment. And he's such a geezer with his comb over, his bad makeup. He paid $88 million because after he stuck his finger into Jean E Carroll, he couldn't shut up about it.  

His side man, Musk is an unelected drug addled narcissist like himself, who thinks he can slash payroll and cut costs, these one trick ponies are tiresome. Orangina is a flim flam man. He's embolden some pretty nasty characters, more puffed up borderline criminals like himself, with no sense of self or the country. There's going to be considerable resistance to anything he's trying to do, which will only embolden his rhetoric, endlessly trying to make space for his negotiations with his grifts, emoluments and emperor with not clothes moments. Tin pot authoritarian. 

Idiots on the radio suggesting he can run again--I don't think so. I will go to Washington and stop that nonsense. Is it a threat to the president if you're only threatening to stop him from breaking the law? He wants to challenge norms, this rapey fellow. The felon.