thoughts today

Three thoughts today and a list.

The first one is that I actually think cults are pretty cool. I’m not saying death cults or exploitation cults but the cult of loving your spiritual tradition, is is kind of devotion to me. Devotion is good so I don’t really I’m not really into Saying that Trump‘s cult has put down

Every little resistance and hatred of the opposition is being filed in my head is something that potentially a conservative or a right wing person would feel when there is a left-wing or in office. I don't think there's an equivalency, Trump is an outlier, I'm thinking Reagan, Bush, Bush, Clinton conservatives, not Trump. 

I’m really tired of “this might” happen. There’s so much sort of culture war trying to create space BS so this might happen that might happen. This might happen, that might happen. I’m getting really sick of it. I just really wanna hear what has been accomplished, blocked, or rammed through despite the people's wishes. How misinformation has been fought.

How the American systems failed us: 

The supreme court overruled Colorado taking Trump off the ballot. States were not allowed to take him off the ballot. Colorado didn't vote for him anyway. Maybe only states that are controlled by Democrats would have taken him off the ballot and he would have remained on the states he won anyway. 

Education: People allowed manipulation of information to take root in their minds. People imagined Trump was worthy of being president, didn't introspect enough to see how they were just bored and wanted to wreck up the place some.

Attorney General: Dropped the ball obviously. Merrick Garland is synonymous with shitty attorney generals who couldn't get it done.

Spiritual communities: We haven't educated our communities enough to avoid this outcome.

Citizenship: People imagined him to be worth voting for, the American people didn't provide the fail safe.

"A federal judge (and Smith) only agreed to dismiss the case because Trump won the election in November and prosecutions against sitting presidents are against long-standing Justice Department policy." Huffpo

Basically he ran to avoid prosecution, and America didn't notice or care enough. 

Politics of cruelty

I wanted to gain insight into conservatism and I tried to read George Will's tome. I couldn't go far because I was so repulsed by the idea that it was about doing the unpopular thing. It was just too vague and too cruel. 

I can't help but think of Ivanka Trump making her kid ride his bike in the hurricane. It's a good lesson in a way, that your child doesn't have to surrender to fears. It was just raining and he was getting wet. Mostly it's upsetting because she's kind of forcing him out of his comfort zone. If conservatives are about flaunting fake fears, I'm OK with that message. It's a flimsy vision, but OK. You can add that to any larger vision easily, and Democrats do that. 

Pushy therapist who gets in there and ignores you defenses can be seen as good. A guru will upset you, shatter some illusions. That's almost what the republicans are going for, but I think it's more guided by insecurity and fear than what a therapist and guru are guided by. 

Biden is forgiving loans, creating parks. The economy is booming. He's provided vanilla stability, which is what I want in a government. His presidency is going to be a shining beacon because it's sandwiched between the ineptitude and cruelty of Trump.

What is the opposite of cruelty? Compassion. I'm everything for the politics of compassion.

People are so afraid of compassion, call it vague and soft. It can also be fierce and apt. 

No shame

Trump has raised quite a lot of money, strike at the roots of poverty money, end hunger type money, for his inauguration.

People deal with the surfaces, I'm sure Zuckerberg looked around and realized he could save costs on the bottom line, and even make some free publicity in doing it. Attract the troll types that kill social media, because he's got his bunker in Hawaii, earnings were probably declining, try something new. Cutting costs is always where these guys evolve to. More for me. 

Trump spins it, that's his influence. Zuck already gave him millions. 

Trying to filter out the blather, the nonsense, the attention getting.

In some ways it's crime in broad daylight. Trump's strut about getting away with it. Let the assholes strut around. Pretty sure there are many aspects of discontent in their lives. They think they have thick skin for all the criticisms. Canada liking the narrative of wrecking the boom, get Trudeau to quit. Never really understood it, though I've seen about 20 different explanations. Humans sabotage themselves. They get tired of things run well, they want chaos. I'm afraid they're too much in touch with that urge. Where is appreciation for virtue and propriety. 

Meanwhile LA burns, the hubris of Americans burns up America. "Recalling  Buddha’s Fire Sermon: “Bhikkhus, all is burning … burning with the fire of greed, with the fire of aversion, with the fire of delusion.” We are seeing burning in all quarters." (Halifax)

Selectively punishing Giuliani, he has to give up his World Series Ring. Not sure why he didn't hide everything, he's already lost his lawyer license, he must feel guilty about it, think he deserves it. 

Chris Hayes

The ‘Crush Nazism’ monument outside Oslo Central Station.

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