Category Archives: Politics

Election 2024: final notes

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Pre-election articles are here & here. Election night coverage is here.

Third party candidates as a composite (and where they were allowed on the ballot) had a hard time cracking the 2% threshold in any state. A total media blackout, combined with social media censorship, legal attacks, etc, dooms third-party candidacies to irrelevance, as both major parties claim they have the only “winnable” and “serious” candidates. It’s only when those terms are so distorted by cynical politics that this can be true, as it was in 2024.

The right-wing attack ads were endless and for much of that we have Elon Musk to thank. This crypto-currency billionaire fascist has just been elevated to political power without receiving a single vote. What we have is political opportunism & backroom deals, with nothing for working class voters– red or blue.

No left voice was allowed to be raised & taken seriously in the corporate media during the entire two-year presidential campaign. Jill Stein & the Green party, etc, orbit the Democrats. The Greens message in 2024 was “Vote Kamala, but if you can’t, then vote for Jill Stein instead of Trump.” Does this sound like a serious strategy? How can a political alternative be built with this approach? In short, it isn’t and it can’t.

Meanwhile, RFK, Jr endorsed Trump and (like Elon Musk) is in line for a cabinet position after being kicked out of the Democratic primaries. The Democrats went with a ‘Biden or bust’ strategy, until they couldn’t maintain that fiction anymore. Top CIA Democrats including Barrack Obama forced Joe Biden to step aside for Kamala Harris after his disastrous debate performance with Donald Trump on June 27. By then the primaries were over, with the delegates assigned to Biden, so a replacement candidate had to be installed. The Democratic party primary in 2024 was a rigged farce by any political definition. People noticed, and it surely influenced their voting in the general.

Recall that in 2020, Kamala Harris was schooled & badly defeated by Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) in an early primary debate. Despite being an early favorite (rising star, etc), Kamala Harris quickly faded into irrelevance– until Joe Biden put her on his ticket as VP. Nothing she did earned her that title, she simply checked the right boxes while being a toe-the-party-line yes-woman. No one thought anything of her as a VP, until Joe Biden was being pressured by party leaders & big donors to drop out of the race.

For a former state prosecutor, Kamala Harris is remarkably wooden & dull. She clearly wouldn’t have survived an open & fair primary in 2024. Instead, Kamala Harris was enabled every step of the way, the same way the Democratic party handled candidate Joe Biden until late June. The same way the DNC rigged the machinery & rescued Biden in 2020, and Hillary Clinton in 2016, both times from fake leftist Bernie Sanders (D-VT).

I earlier likened this entire campaign to episodes of House of Cards (2013-18). In Election 2024, Kamala Harris played the role of Jim Matthews/Jackie Sharp, meaning she was used & manipulated by higher powers to achieve their interests, in this case, handing the 2024 election to Trump. Opportunism, addiction to fame, flattery & celebrity, along with hubris allowed Kamala Harris to be manipulated by CIA Democrats– who prefer Trump to anything on the left. Kamala Harris & Joe Biden are now both lame duck losers. Joe Biden finally lost his grip on power because he’s an incoherent zombie. Kamala Harris never really attained any power because she’s a pretender. She’s not ruthless or smart enough in the eyes of the ruling class. That’s how she got played.

Kamala Harris started with all the momentum she needed to win, but ran a conservative run-out-the-clock campaign– befuddling insiders by avoiding press conferences, interviews, etc, for weeks on end. This was when most Americans barely knew who she was. It was a major red flag for someone running for US president, and a turning point for the Trump campaign. To Donald Trump’s credit, he apparently listened (by his standards) to his advisors more in 2024 than in 2020. Trump was able to posture himself as a folksy populist while Kamala was in hiding.

Whoever ran the Harris campaign wasn’t giving her the advice she needed to win. That’s perhaps a House of Cards episode in itself. Kamala Harris needed to tack left, anti-war with voters to beat Trump, but the CIA Democrats wouldn’t allow that. Thus Kamala Harris became politically indistinguishable from Joe Biden. When asked in an interview near the end of the campaign, Kamala Harris said she wouldn’t have done anything different as VP. That made her an easy target for Trump’s attack-ad campaign, bottomlessly funded by right-wing billionaires.

The Democrats relied on identity politics to mask Kamala Harris’ class politics. It didn’t fool voters in key battle ground districts. Being a black woman doesn’t mean anything in the arena of class & power politics. MeToo feminism, Black Lives Matter & LBGTQ+ campaigns are CIA Democratic attack dogs they unleash on the left & working class. It is a program of imperialist entitlement to create a thin later of representative stooges. Most voters despise these well-funded liberal snowflakes.

As I mix among the people the day after Election 2024, I see & hear very little jubilation. People are relieved this debased election is over, but they aren’t optimistic about the future. Most of those who voted for Trump realize he’s a sociopath & ignoramus, but they hate the Democrats even more and blame them for their misery. They have good reason for that, but the fact is nothing can be done about Trump & the CIA Democrats until workers & youth break from both parties of capitalism and take up the fight for socialism.

The World Socialist Web Site (WSWS.org) is the organ of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP), which is the Trotskyist party of revolutionary internationalism. Any nationalist reformist programs & union bureaucracies are tools of the capitalist fake left, and must be smashed by worker-led organizations with a revolutionary program, as they all paved the way for Trump.

Speak openly with your friends, neighbors, co-workers, etc, about the important issues which were never discussed during Election 2024. Issues such as the imperialist drive to WW3, capitalist induced climate change, the forever COVID pandemic, attacks on democratic rights along with ever greater social inequality can no longer be ignored & suppressed. The only way these issues will move front & center in public debate is if workers & youth organize and act in revolutionary solidarity against the capitalist ruling class. I encourage all my fans & readers to read the WSWS and join the SEP.

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Democratic party collapses in Election 2024

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Donald Trump won all seven battleground states: PA, WI, MI, GA, NC, NV & AZ to secure the Electoral College and become the next US president. This result was predictable and discussed here.

According to all the pollsters, Kamala Harris “underperformed” in the urban centers, on college campuses & with minorities. ‘Hillary 2.0’ is an apt description, as Kamala Harris failed to connect with working class & younger voters. Kamala Harris was a candidate of Wall Street & the military, and took a right-wing stance on immigration which didn’t endear her to key voting demographics.

Starting with how she was selected, to the billionaire support she courted, Kamala Harris didn’t fool enough voters in traditional demographics, most of whom ranked the economy & the direction of the country as their top issues. As far as protecting democratic rights goes, it was a major issue for voters, and attacking students & activists protesting IDF genocide in Gaza of the Palestinian population turned-off a lot of potential Democratic party voters– especially those in college & Muslim-Americans.

Trump didn’t win Election 2024 because he is popular. He won because it’s obvious that the imperialist Democratic party no longer offers any opposition to Republican fascism. The Democrats under Biden-Harris have started a war with Russia in the Ukraine, and a war in the Middle East with Israel as attack dog for US imperialism against Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria & Iran– all with full Democratic party support.

The Trump party also won the Senate, defeating Democratic incumbents & overwhelming challengers in WI, MI, PA, NV & MT to take a 56-44 majority in the upper house, after pundits predicted only a 51-49 Republican edge. The House of Representatives is murkier as of this writing, but the Democrats are expected to regain control. [late edit 11-8-24: Senate is expected 54-46. Republicans will maintain their House majority, completely wiping out the Democrats in all three branches of federal government.]

This is nothing less than a collapse of grassroots support for the Democratic party. The party with money from big donor contributors, more favorable corporate media coverage (with star power endorsements), and arguably better political machinery infrastructure in key battleground states– lost. The Supreme Court has been packed with Trump appointees, meaning all three branches of the American government, executive, upper legislative & judicial will be controlled by MAGA fascists.

Workers & youth of the US and around the world must organize themselves under the banner of class struggle– independently of the Democratic party, the union apparatuses, and the fake left organizations such as the DSA and their associated NGO’s & other non-profits. This pseudo-left milieu is the reason Trump won in 2024.

The Supreme Court ruled this past summer that the president is above the law, while Trump has stated to his supporters that they don’t need to worry about elections & voting anymore. Those who rightfully fear the consequences of a second Trump presidency must rally around a political program of social equality & anti-war opposition to both major parties.

The Democrats have been floating olive branches to Trump for weeks now, shamefully acquiescing to fascism when it became clear that the Harris-Walz campaign was flailing. The only way to defeat fascism is by mass collective action from the only source of economic value, the international working class.

Wed 06 Nov 2024 03:15 AM CST

Post script: The role of the fake media in Election 2024 can be illustrated in a few NBC examples I observed. On Monday, election eve, NBC Nightly News reported “an earthquake” poll result in Iowa which claimed a 3-4 point edge for Kamala Harris in a red state that all the other polls had Trump easily winning. I turned off the news when I saw that and flipped to House of Cards on DVD.

Fox News coverage was amateur compared to NBC on Election Night. At 9:15 PM CST, I first saw the glum faces of NBC talking heads and knew the election was for Trump. Instead of admitting it & explaining this reality outright, NBC pundits maintained the fiction that Kamala Harris still had a chance. Blue wall and all that shit…

Fox (with lesser brains & technology) called Pennsylvania for Trump well before NBC. Donald Trump is being driven to a celebratory party of his supporters, ready to make a victory speech, and NBC still hasn’t called Pennsylvania, despite 90+% of the vote counted and Trump with an insurmountable lead. This was done partly to maintain false hope in the Democrats and partly to keep up the ratings– not necessarily in that order.

NBC will be hand-wringing its viewers for awhile, while they make their peace with Trump. As Joe Biden & Nancy Pelosi said after 1/6, “We need a strong Republican party.” In 2024, the Democrats got their wish.

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Electoral College Soup 2024

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Election 2024 crescendos on Tuesday, and it’s the Electoral College the decides things in the US presidential race. This archaic & anti-democratic set-up is poorly understood by the American people, which is the intent of the ruling political class. The first premise that voters need to understand is that unless you are in a “battleground state” your vote largely doesn’t matter. Most states are baked-in before any of the campaigning starts, especially in 2024 with the strict exclusion of 3rd party candidates.

If we didn’t have the antiquated Electoral College, then we wouldn’t have had 1/6. No one in bourgeois politics wants you to understand that.

The latest Real Clear Politics polling has the Electoral College as stands below, with 270 electoral votes needed to win. Note that anything more than 1.0 points in the polling is too much to overcome at this point, so battleground states like GA, NC, NV & AZ all go to Trump in 2024.

Donald Trump: 268

Kamala Harris: 225

Toss-ups: WI (10) Harris +0.3; MI (15) Harris +0.5; PA (19) Trump +0.3

Maine (4) & Nebraska (5) can split their electoral college votes, and have done so recently (2008 NE, 2016 NE & ME, 2020 ME). I’ve accounted for that in Maine, with 3 electoral votes for Harris, and 1 for Trump baked-in. Nebraska is trickier, with 4 votes going to Trump for sure, but one district is considered a toss-up and that may come into play on election night.

Harris has to win WI, MI & PA just to get to 269 and make NE relevant, or a congressional tie-breaker even possible. If she loses any of the three, Trump wins outright.

If neither candidate gets a majority of the 538 electoral votes (both at 269), the election for President is decided in the House of Representatives, with each state delegation having one vote. A majority of states (26) is needed to win. and the Senate would elect the Vice-President with each Senator having a vote. A majority of Senators (51) is needed to win. This scenario was brought up in Season 4/5 of House of Cards (2013-18), when Frank & Claire Underwood steal the election from Republican challenger Will Conway.

In 2024, neither major party will accept the “official” results, as both sides can honestly claim the other cheated & don’t deserve the presidency. If Kamala Harris can’t pull out MI, WI & PA, it’s over on election night. But if she does, this election has the very real possibility of dragging out for weeks, with endless anti-democratic maneuvering behind closed doors to decide the presidency, and Donald Trump as the clear favorite in that murky campaign.The US Supreme Court ruling Bush v Gore in 2000 taught us that.

The most democratic way to elect a president would be for every political party to be given a media voice & ballot status, so the issues could be seriously discussed before the electorate decides by popular vote who their leader should be. But in America we don’t have that freedom. There were no choices allowed in either Dem/Rep primary, and no leftist or anti-war voices were allowed to speak in the mass media, in fact they were attacked and slandered as “antisemites” through a coordinated smear campaign organized by the CIA Democrats with full Republican (Trump) support.

What we have with Election 2024 is American capitalism rotting on its feet, and doing everything in its power to prevent a popular uprising of the working masses & disenfranchised youth. It is this massive social force that must mobilize itself in solidarity to protect itself against the forces of imperialism & fascism that have dominated American politics & Election 2024.

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“The Electric Cat” mp3 release

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Preface: I feel this is my last original song. As a creative artist you eventually reach a point where you are out of songs, call it burnout or whatever, but it’s a natural process. You can’t be innovative as an artist forever. All are eventually overtaken by the next wave of revolutionary artistry and the new energy it creates. It’s similar to an athlete retiring, you have to accept it and move on.

In music this means if I return, it will be as a legacy act. That means no new songs, just fan favorites to make the paying audience happy. When you are a revolutionary artist, you have a chip on your shoulder and aren’t always willing to meet those fan expectations. Instead, you are challenging fans to meet YOUR expectations. That limits the fan base, but makes it more fanatical. It’s about deeply influencing those few who get you.

As a legacy act you are accepted, loved & paid, so it’s easier to return the love to the fans. Legacy acts only happen when there is money, and since that never happened for me, I’m not holding my breath. The political climate is still too reactionary for artists such as myself to be allowed venues that could connect us with a mass audience. Neo-McCarthyist witch hunting & blacklisting rule bourgeois politics & corporate mass media. MeToo, BLM, and fake ‘anti-semitism’ campaigns are CIA Democrat ‘big lies’ meant to intimidate & silence any genuine leftist opposition to capitalist imperialism.

My influence is still exerted as a blogger. Perhaps the most revolutionary thing I did in my musical artist career was creating this blog. No other artist (in any genre) has written as prolifically on so many subjects. The internet & social media made it possible, and my creative & effective use of these platforms has changed how people approach them. Blogging is now an artform. It is much easier to write an essay than it is to write a new song, so I’ll continue to express myself as an artist through blogging. Thank you to all fans for your continuing support!

Production notes & AI

After Tom recorded this song, we discussed artwork ideas, as usual. In real life the Electric Cat has died and I have no pictures, only images in my memory. I suggested a cartoon image, and that’s when Tom replied by suggesting an artificial intelligence (AI) app he had started using. There’s a learning curve which must be negotiated, but the result is this AI-generated image for “The Electric Cat”.

AI created a hyper-cartoon image for me (from no pictures) in just a few hours of email back-and-forth with my producer. Hyper-realism is a genre of art where the painter paints to exquisite detail. It takes a long time to complete a large canvas because every square inch is filled with painstaking detail. It’s extraordinary to look at, but often lacks soul or an important overall theme.

AI can produce images to a hyper-realistic level that display lifelike characteristics. AI doesn’t get offended and throw a hissy fit when I (the client) don’t like something it presented. In the hands of a learned technician, AI can do whatever you ask in a relatively short period of time. You just need to know what you want and how to communicate it.

These AI apps are much deeper & more powerful than photoshop, etc, which is how most pop art has been created for decades. This AI app took an idea (seed), and after Tom tweaked parameters & fed in descriptive details, developed it into what we wanted. In the past, I gave Tom ideas (or images) and let him run with them. He usually came back with something great and that was it. I learned not to expect anything in particular, because he’s not a graphic artist who can deliver exactly what I want from scratch. You have to be really gifted to do that, and neither of us are apt in that field.

AI apps replace (supersede) the efforts of entire marketing & art departments at major labels & studios such as Sony, Warner & Disney. Artificial intelligence has that power. AI can now take this Electric Cat image and mutate it into pop art quickly & cheaply, rendering high-quality, marketable images on demand. It’s almost too easy, and that’s the danger. Andy Warhol would smile, wryly.

If the song (or album) is a winner, artists now have the ability to create iconic artwork using AI. This solves a lot of problems for independent acts who don’t have access to major label resources. AI (in everyone’s hands) levels the playing field on that front, and opens up a world of new ones. There is a class of people who don’t want creative working people to know this.

AI is a big reason for the current entertainment industry & tech sector jobs bloodbath, for the reasons I’ve outlined above. Used in expert hands, artificial intelligence convinces you immediately. My experience happened to every Hollywood producer, director & entertainment industry bigshot upon being introduced to AI. In the future you are going to see more & more AI-generated content in music, film, TV, art, etc. It’s already started.

In music, Brian Eno has been an AI innovator, which is par for him. Ever since his first experiments in ambient music (early electronica) in the 1970’s, Eno has been a pioneer of self-generating, perpetual technology: first in music, then in images & film. Those who have led the way should be listened to the most, so no discussion of AI media use, potential, ethics & pitfalls can be closed until innovators such as Brian Eno have their say & are respected.

I’m a newbie, as this is my first foray into AI as a creative tool. I’m mostly watched, giving input to Tom as needed, and observing the results of the process while asking questions as they arose. I’m not a techie, so I don’t know the app or how it works, etc. Ask Tom about that. For me it’s all about what AI can do, and when I see these-type results, I get excited. Producers now need to add ‘AI skills’ to their technical arsenal. These are the people who will replace all those who are getting pink-slipped. Honestly, I’m in favor of eliminating this parasitic layer of entertainment industry mediocrity. All they do is siphon money & influence away from the original artists who create all the cultural interest in the first place.

This experience has instilled awareness about what the technology is, and raised practical questions about its ethics. I believe the artist is ethically bound to tell their audience about any AI-generated content. Educate fans & be 100% honest about its use– no exceptions. It’s easy to fool a naive audience into thinking that you are better than you really are by having AI-generated content in the music, etc. Only full disclosure earns respect in this field, and cheaters must be ruthlessly exposed as phonies. Fans have a right to know, and always feel betrayed when it turns out they have been duped by charlatans.

Beyond that, AI can be harnessed & used limitlessly to enrich & simplify our lives. AI is a tool for human use and has enormous potential to help solve all of our most difficult problems. The technology itself is neutral. It comes down to who controls it that determines its destiny. That will be determined by class struggle. The mission of artists is to enlighten humanity. Using AI creatively & openly for the benefit of all is now part of that.

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The Electric Cat

Silently stalks & prowls throughout its habitat
The Electric Cat

Those crazy dogs got burs in their fur again. Drat! Why can’t they be more like that…?
Electric Cat

Silky & slinky with claws & a bite, lookout for that!

I give it food & love, it purrs by my side. I love that
Electric Cat

At its best and at rest, always respect that
Electric Cat

Felinus Electricus, a miniature Indian tiger cat
It’s all that
The Electric Cat

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Recorded 01-12-2024 in Eustis, FL by Tom Pearce

Production & AI artwork* (see notes) also by TomP at Last Minute Productions

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Why Kamala Harris will lose on November 5

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What seemed impossible only a few months ago has turned into reality. Donald Trump currently leads in all 7 battleground states according to Real Clear Politics.

Michigan 48.3 47.4 Trump +0.9
Pennsylvania 47.9 47.4 Trump +0.5
Wisconsin 47.9 47.8 Trump +0.1
Arizona 48.8 47.4 Trump +1.4
Nevada 47.9 47.1 Trump +0.8
North Carolina 48.5 47.5 Trump +1.0
Georgia 48.7 47.6 Trump +1.1

After Joe Biden was forced out by top Democrats following his disastrous June 27 debate performance, Kamala Harris was propelled to the head of the ticket and quickly surpassed Trump in WI, MI & PA– the three battleground states she needs to win to get to 270 in the Electoral College. But in the last month or so, Harris has been slipping in every state. Wisconsin & Michigan which she had initially flipped, have turned back to Trump; and Pennsylvania which Harris had held a slight edge has flipped red with Trump consistently ahead in the polls. How did this happen?

First & foremost, the Trump campaign has received a massive injection of money from fascist billionaires such as Elon Musk, and they have gone on the attack with scathing commercials. Kamala Harris & “Bidenomics” are inseparable, and that message is getting through to struggling American workers. The real economy isn’t working for 80-90% of the population, so Donald Trump can attack & ludicrously posture as a candidate of “hope & change.”

Secondly, Kamala Harris’ position of full support for Zionist genocide in Gaza and the broader war with Hezbollah & Iran that has metastasized, is deeply unpopular with student youth & the working class. Furthermore, slandering anti-war & anti-genocide activists as “antisemitic” is a cynical big lie. This is Kamala Harris, who is no different from Joe Biden, politically speaking. Their debated differences are superficial window dressing, and most people recognize that.

Cracking down on anti-war dissent on campuses across the country is deeply unpopular, and it has been led by the Democrats. Biden, Harris, AOC, etc, have all slandered anti-war genocide protesters as “antisemitic,” which is a big lie from the CIA Democrats. This anti-democratic policy has cost Kamala Harris the young voters she needed to win these all-important battleground states.

Thirdly, the Democrats racialist & feminist cards aren’t working either. These are key planks to their identity politics campaign, which is meant to divide the working class along artificial lines while ignoring class inequality. MAGA Trumpists are fascists, filled with white supremacists & actual antisemites, but they are never called out by Kamala Harris and the Democrats for what they are, all in the name of bipartisanship. Joe Biden said, “We need a strong Republican Party,” when asked why he wasn’t prosecuting Donald Trump for his 1/6 coup attempt. Democrats enabling Republicans is how the two-party system works.

This means the Democrats are going to lose on November 5, because Trump and the far right need this win more than the Democrats. If Trump loses, he & his party are finished. It would be a crippling blow to fascism, which a class of billionaires won’t allow. These elitists will do whatever it takes to ensure a Trump victory, while the Democrats will meekly acquiesce.

That’s not how the majority of the US population feels. What we have with Election 2024 were rigged primaries on both sides, where no leftist or 3rd-party dissent was ever allowed. Massive blacklisting & censorship campaigns were undertaken by both major parties, but particularly the Democrats whose target was anything on the left. Removing 3rd-party candidates from the ballot through legal challenges in Democratic-friendly courts and censoring leftists in the mass media were major prongs of the Democrats election campaign in 2024.

In other words, it was a massive disinformation & censorship campaign on both sides, full of lies, propaganda, and other distortions of the truth. Omission has been a primary distortion. Nuclear war, capitalist-induced climate change, etc, were basically off-limits to serious discussion. Any “debates”, “press conferences”, “interviews”, etc, were distortions of those terms, with “moderators” injecting their bias at every turn, bastardizing the professional terms “journalism” & “reporting”.

When Trump wins, and Kamala Harris graciously concedes, the Democrats will then begin to blame the “deplorables” for their defeat, as Hillary Clinton did in 2016. Deplorables are especially white working males who weren’t smart enough to vote for the Democrats because they are racist, sexist, anti-gay, etc. Deplorables are stooges of Vladimir Putin and that Russian conspiracy to take away all our freedoms, etc. Those who oppose funding Zelensky’s Nazi Azov Battalion in the Ukraine are “agents of Putin” & “antisemites.” All this is why Kamala Harris will lose on November 5.

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Facebook account disabled–again

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On the morning of Friday, October 4, 2024, Facebook disabled my account. I have since been unable to access my personal page, artist page, or dentist page. Facebook has given me no reason for this. Facebook emailed me an ‘account recovery code,’ but allow me no link to use it.

This is how big tech jerks you around when they are censoring you. I’ve sent Facebook multiple messages through email and their service page, but get no response. It’s all AI bots & attack algorithms on their end.

I’ve received messages from friends who wonder why I’ve disappeared, did I de-friend them, etc? Facebook deletes me whenever they feel I’m too effective on social media. Facebook is controlled by the CIA Democrats, so I have no idea when/if I will return.

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Pete Rose (1941-2024)

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Pete Rose was a mess, a person who exemplified the difference between a great ballplayer and a great man. 4,256 hits is an unbreakable record, but who cares after what he did? Even his old teammates abandoned him, at least for a time, and some never forgave him. It wasn’t just the betting on baseball, it was his lying & evasions to fans who wanted honest answers. That’s at the heart of how Pete Rose betrayed the game he loved, and in that sense he’s a tragic figure. I have written that despite his transgressions, he still deserved the HoF, but that point is moot now. There’s no point in honoring a dead man when you had plenty of chances to do that while he was still alive.

Pete Rose is a black mark for MLB because of how they handled him in the aftermath of Bart Giamatti’s ruling. At some point for MLB, some measure of forgiveness was in order, but that never happened. Like Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, etc, he’s been excluded from the game because a scapegoat was needed, and this was decided largely by people who never played the game– namely media & owners.

From 1985-87, MLB owners engaged in a covert operation to restrict free agency, agreeing amongst themselves not to bid on free agents from other teams, effectively suppressing player salaries and limiting player movement. This is known as the ‘collusion era’ in MLB. When the Pete Rose betting scandal broke, it was used by MLB to deflect attention away from ownership & executive collusion.

Decades earlier, when Cardinals CF Curt Flood fought against the reserve clause in 1970, and asked for player support from stars such as Pete Rose, he was refused by all of them. When free agency came to MLB after Marvin Miller represented Dave McNally & Andy Messersmith in 1976, Pete Rose eventually left the Reds as a free agent to sign with the Phillies for more money. Rose was that kind of person, someone who doesn’t help another player in an important struggle because he’s too selfish & ignorant, but takes the benefit for himself later, long after the fight is over.

He was a bit overrated as a player, but still a HoFer. Pete Rose was the first modern utility player. He made lots of errors, in the field & on the bases, but gave championship effort at 2B, 3B, LF/RF, and then finally 1B. Charlie Hustle was an act, but also a team guy who would move to a new position to accommodate a better player such as Joe Morgan. Rose hung on way too long chasing Ty Cobb’s record, which is a player’s choice, but is painful to watch as a fan. Pete Rose was a lousy manager for the Reds, and deserved to be fired long before the betting scandal sunk him. As you can see I’m conflicted on Pete Rose, and so is everyone else and that’s why he’s so relevant.

Pete Rose came up with the Reds in 1963, in an era where heroes were still deified. The rise of 24/7 sports media with ESPN changed it to creating heroes, then tearing them down. Pete Rose, OJ Simpson, Tiger Woods, etc, became part of this phenomenon. Even the greatest players (workers) can be sacrificed as scapegoats, but the people on top, pulling the strings, they get to keep their power, money & prestige. Meanwhile, today’s fans bet for & against their heroes in every sport.

Pete Rose and many of his teammates took “greenies,” amphetamine pills in a candy bowl available to any player in the clubhouse on every team. So who is to blame? What is a “clean” player? What is the ‘PED era’ and how far does it extend back? These are uncomfortable questions that MLB avoids which are all personified in Pete Rose.

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Trump assassination attempt in PA: Murky murky

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Sat 13 Jul 2024 08:20 PM CDT

Insane news, just breaking. Someone tried to shoot Donald Trump during a campaign rally in PA earlier this evening.  Evidentially the shooter is dead, and a rally attendee was killed. You can see someone go down in the audience to the above right of Trump after shots were fired. Trump was grazed by a bullet to his right ear, but is okay, according to reports. All this violence plays into the hands of the far right, which is why all socialists condemn assassination as a political weapon.

The US Secret Service has probably already identified the shooter, but aren’t releasing any information to the public yet. Everything is kept secretive in events like this. A narrative needs to be established (behind close doors) that doesn’t make Uncle Sam look bad before info can be released. Any unpleasant facts (ex-military, far-right, etc) will be buried, or at least overlooked in the media. This is standard operating procedure.

I was just chatting this afternoon with someone who has to work downtown next week, with all the security restrictions surrounding the Fiserv Forum & beyond. There are “red zones” you can’t go into, “pedestrian zones” surrounding that where no vehicles are allowed, etc. Parking & traffic downtown is always a problem, as everyone who lives in Milwaukee knows, and now it’s going to be much worse for the week of the RNC.

There are ~50,000 Republicans coming to town, who all think they are VIPs and demand immediate service. Everything is gonna be way worse now, after this. For instance, this could affect the ability of prostitutes to get to the major hotels and service clients. That would cause outrage among these politicians.

These streets & buildings that Milwaukee taxpayers don’t have access to for the next week are to be used for a gigantic orgy of wealth & debauchery. This shooting that Trump was a target of today is a result of his countless incitements to violence. He has himself to blame for this, but he will blame the far-left & socialists, as always.

If there’s anything crazy that ties the Trump shooter to the US military or Intelligence, it’s being deep-sixed right now. This tampering of evidence was prevalent during the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando back in 2016. The shooter’s father had ties to US Intelligence in Afghanistan. The bin Laden family was protected and flown out of the US after 9/11, etc. Controlling the information the public gets during murky events such as these prevents uncomfortable truths from becoming widely known. This censorship & withholding of facts is essential to news propaganda.

It feels like Trump has angered so many dangerous people that this was inevitable. self reflection is important here. The whole world wants to know who this asshole was, but the US Secret Service/FBI have things locked up tighter than the Virgin Mary. Where is the network reporting here? They all still have nothing and it’s nearing midnight, hours after the event. These media lapdogs are too used to being spoon-fed stories to know what to do here. National security BS. A witness says he informed agents and they just stood around as the shooter was bear crawling onto a rooftop with a rifle.

I keep mentioning the Black Hand as a powerful force that works imperceptibly to the public eye. That’s active now. Keep you eyes open & a clear head. “Two officials told The Associated Press that the shooter was not an attendee at the rally.” Officials must know the identity of the shooter to make that statement. Still nothing to the public…

Well after midnight, the shooter was finally identified to the public as Thomas Crooks, a while male age 20. He was a registered Republican.

Sun 14 Jul 2024 11:30 AM CDT

Thomas Crooks was killed by Secret Service snipers. The FBI is still keeping his motive airtight. Why? How did he get the weapon & ammo? Why did he do it? We are being kept in the dark on that by the FBI– standard procedure. Narratives were being created & crafted in the meanwhile.

Apparently in 2017, Crooks donated $15 to ActBlue a centrist-Democrat PAC. Crooks obviously drifted to the far-right since. The fake media describes ActBlue as “left-leaning,” when it is actually centrist. A 2017 donation means Crooks was age 13 when he donated $15 to the Dems. Why was this information released, instead of facts & a motive?

The concealed motive of the FBI, Biden & Trump will be to cover-up anything embarrassing and blame the left. Trump has incited & encouraged this type of violence for years, while Biden has stood silent. By all indications, this Trump shooting was blowback. The US government doesn’t want to talk about that– especially during an election.

Try to imagine being grazed in the ear by a bullet. Trump was speaking as a megalomaniac in front of his die-hard supporters when he discovered there are people who really hate him and are willing to act on that. One supporter died hard and two others are critically injured. Trump is fortunate that shooter wasn’t steady & accurate because he reacted very slowly, lowering himself to the ground awkwardly after being hit. He didn’t realize. The JFK shooters [!!] would have gotten Trump easily.

Of course, now Donald Trump is a martyr to his fanatics. Sad really. We won’t see Trump for awhile, he’s never endured such physical pain in his life. Perhaps worse is the psychological pain he can never get rid of. A near-death experience teaches you are vulnerable. It also reminds Trump he is hated. This will affect him personally & politically.

Historically, Trump is Hitler. When a group of top Wehrmacht officers tried to assassinate Adolph Hitler in July, 1944, he was injured & shaken by it. The Wehrmacht was then ruthlessly purged. Serious questions need to asked on all sides. What Thomas Crooks teaches us politically is that the Republicans are just as divided as the Democrats. Crooks was a registered Rep… killed by US Secret Service. Murky murky

Lawmakers this morning are urging people not to jump to conclusions, the FBI is on it, etc. That’s their “leadership” on this. Let’s see this kid’s social media posts, online activity, etc– PRONTO! Perhaps that would help people understand better. Where & how did he get the military assault rifle & ammo? This could be a black eye for the NRA.

Lots of security questions being covered up presently, that’s for sure. Murky murky. Ex-presidents get Secret Service protect for life. Evidentially, Trump’s assigned security team isn’t entirely enthusiastic about protecting him. Agents were told there was a threat and they apparently didn’t act. I imagine there are those who feel the same way whose job it is to protect Joe Biden.

Sun 14 Jul 2024 08:00 PM CDT

Final update: Thomas Crooks was a registered Republican who was a bullied loner, according to classmates. The political conclusion is that he took his right-wing anger & violent aggression out on the chief bully of the Republican Party. Trump is lucky the kid was a confirmed lousy shot. That’s hard for certain people to say or admit.

Joe Biden blathered on & on to us again about the importance of unity with Republicans on national TV. He did this after 1/6, but had taken the opposite position during his 2024 “campaign,” stating that Trump is a tyrant who condones violence, etc. This was Joe Biden’s political position as recently as last Thursday evening… But when this violence he encourages blows back to Trump directly, Biden is there to defend him & prop him up. It’s the ‘presidential’ thing to do. The shooter is a “monster” and Trump must be saved, that’s all we need to know.

Unasked question to Joe Biden: Why do you keep flip-flopping on Trump?

Where did Thomas Crooks get his gun & ammo? It been over 24 hours and the public still hasn’t been told. And what about his politics? The FBI, etc, absolutely know. “Don’t listen to online chatter,” we’re being told by leading politicians & pundits. Instead listen to the people who told us Jeffery Epstein committed suicide in prison. Anything else is a conspiracy theory to be ridiculed.

Trump was lucky, but a firefighter & two others weren’t. Violence begets collateral damage, which becomes propaganda. That’s where everything is going here in the fake media and both parties of capitalism. This completes the propaganda cycle and another dramatic episode in the US civil war election campaign.

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Artists are the culture

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Film, music & art are highly personal & aesthetic tastes. With that said, there are objective processes to all of them. It’s the objective material forces of imperialist capitalism that are acting on all artists, and what we get is a reflection of that in their work. The best artists understand imperialism from a Trotskyist perspective and can make great art that will have lasting influence. The creators of House of Cards (S1-5) are an example of great art. Those who can’t (won’t) understand the world as it really is are limited by that. That’s why most movies & television today is unwatchable.

The Velvet Underground (2021) documentary speaks about 1960’s music, art & culture. The VU, Andy Warhol, Captain Beefheart, the Stooges, Sun Ra, etc, were considered & labeled ‘subculture’ by the mainstream press & entertainment industry. But Jonas Mekas makes it clear in that film that these artists were (& still are) the culture. These are the visionaries who pushed things forward in an era of Beatles-style hippie idealism. Drummer Maureen Tucker speaks about how the VU despised naive hippies who thought they could change the world by wearing flowers in their hair & smiling at everyone. They were right.

And gay rights, that started with Andy Warhol & the VU– as Lou Reed was bisexual. David Bowie pushed through his sexuality in the 1970’s and by the end of the decade it was okay for Elton John to be gay, at least in Hollywood. These are the true artists who re-invent our culture. To carry that artistic torch, you have to be influenced by them.

Under capitalism, corporations eventually appropriate the culture (created by these mostly unattributed artists) for itself. It censors what it doesn’t like, and filters any progressive content into its propaganda through identity politics. It was female alternative-rockers & hip-hoppers in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s that established women as artistic & earning equals in music entertainment. When Madonna was attacked for “Justify my Love” and such, she became alternative-influenced and arguably made her best albums while the feminists mostly hated on her.

In sports, it was the 1999 USWNT that made ‘soccer moms’ a phenomenon that has stayed. They did it all with passion, as there was very little money. For years when the USWNT were WC champions (1991) and #1 in the world, no one knew or cared. It wasn’t any easier for race car driver Danica Patrick, who broke though by competing against men (and attracting sponsorship) for many seasons in Indycar & later NASCAR. The feminist crowd had nothing do with any of these iconic sporting moments & cultural advances, as they ignored Danica Patrick getting intentionally-wrecked weekly in NASCAR, yet they claim the be the infallible arbiters & guardians of all culture. That’s their big lie. The artists & athletes create the value, but only those who “play ball” are recognized & compensated. Corporate wins in all these cases.

By the 1990’s, the kids had gotten the message, largely through music & sports culture: men & women are equal, don’t be a gay bigot or racist Nazi skinhead, etc. Gay-themed shows started appearing on network TV making homosexuality mainstream because the kids had (largely) already accepted it, but that didn’t stop the networks from taking credit for this sudden phenomenon of gay awareness. That’s what they do.

Since then, it’s been about getting MORE rights for these elite gay, feminist & black groups, so they can be more equal than others in Orwellian doublespeak. Identity politics is about unequal rights for those making the demands. Equal rights isn’t good enough for them, and that’s the fundamental issue with all reactionaries & philistines.

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Indianapolis 500: 2024 notes

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I now watch the Indianapolis 500 annually. That event far eclipses anything NASCAR has to offer. The political purpose of the race is to promote nationalism & militarism on Memorial Day weekend. I try to block the politics out and focus on the sporting event, but that’s somewhat impossible in racing. All this high-performance machinery was developed by (& for) the military, and professional circuit racing is an ancillary of this.

People love racing, and that isn’t going to change, but I watch these spectacles to observe the spectacle in all its glory & decadence, not because I love motorsports. Going fast doesn’t appeal to me, but I do appreciate the innovation and what it can do for humanity– if it’s equally shared. When the sponsors & mouthpieces for the Indianapolis 500 talk about “tradition & respect,” they use the same tone & moral authority that Genocide Joe & university officials use to talk down to student protesters before sending in the police. With that said, it was a great race and congratulations to the winning driver & team.

As for the NBC broadcast: I love Mike Tirico, he’s the best (with Jim Nantz) so you hardly notice his corporate shilling. Danica Patrick is now becoming stiff. NBC needs her for sure, but she asks fake questions with fake interest & name-drops too much. Jimmie Johnson, who had to leave early for the Charlotte 600, wasn’t fooled. She does much better when the race starts as that’s her passion & aptitude. You can see that Danica Patrick lives entirely in an elite bubble, surrounded by security & handlers, even during the broadcast with all those fans there. Class divisions are out in the open & in your face every year at the Indianapolis 500.

One of my favorite broadcast moments was pre-race when NASCAR’s Jeff Burton was trying to explain how important it was for Kyle Larson to run in the Charlotte 600 that evening. “It could affect his playoff points,” etc. All complete nonsense, as Kyle Larson has won a race which locks him into the playoffs, and from there it’s about finishing well & winning in each round, not “bonus points” going in. I think Jeff Burton’s idea was for Kyle Larson to skip the Indy 500 when the rains came. Hilarious NASCAR stupidity & arrogance, promoting the idea that the Charlotte 600 is more important than the Indianapolis 500 to Kyle Larson. Kim Coon (whom I love) stood next to Jeff Burton, but stayed quiet on that…

Storms held off the race (and pre-race ceremonies) in Indianapolis for ~4 hours, so it’s a long day just to watch. “Adjust your schedule and do something else” is my attitude when that happens to an event I want to watch on TV. When the race finally got going, it was a mess for the first third or so. Danica Patrick correctly stated that too many drivers appeared to be too caffeinated coming out of the rain delay. For me it was like a ballplayer popping too many greenies, and then having to wait out a rain delay when wired to go. Adderall (or an equivalent) is the PED choice of professional race car drivers.

I’m getting ready for bed, and I decide to flip on Fox one last time. It’s total darkness in Charlotte and NASCAR has their jet-dryer trucks mopping up the track after a spring deluge. No sun to dry the cold, wet track; so Mike Joy & Kevin Harvick (love them both) are talking about the Ricky Stenhouse Jr/Kyle Busch team fight last week and how NASCAR promoted it to the point where no one remembers who won the million dollar All-Star race. I’m thinking, “They’ve run over half the race, why haven’t they called it? They can’t get this track dry! No bleeping way I’m waiting for the ‘re-start’ they are promising fans. Christopher Bell is the winner of the rain-shortened Charlotte 600.” Click.

I wake up Monday morning, and check ESPN dot com to learn they called the race sometime after. This was all about Kyle Larsen getting into his car and driving laps at Charlotte. That (& the fight) are the only things NASCAR old-guard cared about promoting on Memorial Day weekend. Having some “sports sense” will tell you when a story is over and thus spare you the agony of staying up late for nothing, such as the finish of the 2024 Charlotte 600 with Kyle Larson running laps.

Kyle Larson’s performance illustrated the difference in competitiveness between Indycar & NASCAR. If you make a mistake which sends you to the back, you are finished in Indycar. In NASCAR, Kyle Busch & Denny Hamlin are regularly caught speeding on pit road, etc, and are sent to the back of the field, but they always get right back up front after not-too-long because their cars are so much faster than two-thirds of the grid.

At Indy yesterday, we saw a few engines blowout & some rookie mistakes in the back, but you had to have a great car with not too many driver mistakes just to be top-20. Kyle Larson was busted for pit road speeding and that took him from top-5-ish, to a lap down and he finished 18th. Actually, it was a very good performance for a rookie at the Indianapolis 500, but NASCAR is humbled by it. He’ll try again next year. NASCAR hates it on a certain level which I’ve explained, but they also recognize how it helps them so there’s nothing they can do to stop him.

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