Awash in false conspiracy theories, protest voters and angry non-voters put Trump in the White House.
newsweek.com|By Kurt Eichenwald
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Sunday, November 13, 2016
Tuesday, November 8, 2016
November Elections
In November of 1932, eighty-four years and two days before the 2016 American election, the majority of the German people did not do anything quite like the way hindsight and simplification might make it look. Combined, just slightly more of the German electorate voted for the next two parties than voted for the Nazis. In total, a hair over twice as many people voted for the total of all other parties than voted for the NSDAP (that is, the Nazis). However, this doesn't make it just a matter of what the mere 1/3 who voted for Hitler's party chose.
By and large, what the German people did was fail to unite against the Nazis.
But their grave error wasn't one of failing to vote for a party and its leader who we all now know would commit all the horrors of the Holocaust. Their disgrace came not from the things they didn't know then but from failing to recognize all the relatively little bad that was quite clear at the time. Back then, nobody knew it would mean the atrocity of slaughtering millions and a permanent national disgrace to fail to unite behind the most viable alternative.
They knew the Nazi leader winked at the violence of his party and maybe even encouraged it.
They knew he attacked his nation's negotiated treaties.
They knew his party embraced an ideology favoring one particular race and xenophobic of others.
They knew he used anti-Semitism in his campaign.
They knew his party opposed women being in the workplace, pushing that they stay home producing children.
They knew he'd botched his preferred line of work and essentially gone bankrupt.
They knew about his failed coup.
They saw all his various campaign attacks on people and groups.
They had a pretty good idea he was more than a bit unhinged.
And sure, it was only the worst 1/3 of them that embraced him despite all of that.
But the majority of the German people knew all of this and failed to consider it sufficiently crucial for them to unite to keep Hitler and his party out of power. They considered it more important that they not vote for a party other than their particular preference. Or that they punish a party they usually preferred but that hadn't made everything better fast enough.
They saw a lot of warning signs. And they failed to stop it. And that's more than bad enough.
It would have been more than bad enough even if the Hitler of 1932 hadn't eventually become the Hitler of the later 1930s through the mid 1940s. The Hitler of 1932 was not then the Hitler of later history. But what was known in 1932 should have been plenty to unite to stop the Nazis from ever attaining power.
By and large, what the German people did was fail to unite against the Nazis.
But their grave error wasn't one of failing to vote for a party and its leader who we all now know would commit all the horrors of the Holocaust. Their disgrace came not from the things they didn't know then but from failing to recognize all the relatively little bad that was quite clear at the time. Back then, nobody knew it would mean the atrocity of slaughtering millions and a permanent national disgrace to fail to unite behind the most viable alternative.
They knew the Nazi leader winked at the violence of his party and maybe even encouraged it.
They knew he attacked his nation's negotiated treaties.
They knew his party embraced an ideology favoring one particular race and xenophobic of others.
They knew he used anti-Semitism in his campaign.
They knew his party opposed women being in the workplace, pushing that they stay home producing children.
They knew he'd botched his preferred line of work and essentially gone bankrupt.
They knew about his failed coup.
They saw all his various campaign attacks on people and groups.
They had a pretty good idea he was more than a bit unhinged.
 |
| Trump's RCP Average Favorability as of 11/8/2016: 37.5% |
But the majority of the German people knew all of this and failed to consider it sufficiently crucial for them to unite to keep Hitler and his party out of power. They considered it more important that they not vote for a party other than their particular preference. Or that they punish a party they usually preferred but that hadn't made everything better fast enough.
They saw a lot of warning signs. And they failed to stop it. And that's more than bad enough.
It would have been more than bad enough even if the Hitler of 1932 hadn't eventually become the Hitler of the later 1930s through the mid 1940s. The Hitler of 1932 was not then the Hitler of later history. But what was known in 1932 should have been plenty to unite to stop the Nazis from ever attaining power.
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
Bookish
Maybe there's something we need to fix as a country when one of the candidates is being warned not to come off as too bookish.— Guy Endore-Kaiser (@GuyEndoreKaiser) September 27, 2016
Tuesday, September 6, 2016
Blackford on Friedman
Blackford on Friedman and the need to strenuously denounce pseudo-science,
"This may seem to make sense to an engineer who wishes to learn the current state of the art of bridge building, or to an ideologue who wishes to provide a logical foundation for his or her most cherished delusions irrespective of the circular reasoning and false assumptions upon which that logic is based, but this is not science! If physical scientists had taken this approach to science throughout the course of history—relying on “folklore” and “the tenacity with which hypotheses are held” and on those who have been exposed to “the ‘right’ scientific atmosphere” as they ignored the realism of assumptions—we would still be living in a Ptolemaic universe cataloging the situations in which Aristotle’s assumptions do and do not work.
"Friedman is quite wrong in his assertion that there is a “thin line . . . which distinguishes the ‘crackpot’ from the scientist.” That line is not thin. It is the clear, bright line that exists between those who accept arguments based on circular reasoning and false assumptions as meaningful and those who do not. This should be obvious, yet there are economists who hold tenured positions at prestigious universities and responsible positions in government agencies and international institutions who accept Friedman’s nonsense as gospel. ..."
To wit, economics needs more effort invested in housecleaning, in pointing out those like Friedman's followers who like the emperor believe themselves attired in finery yet in reality wear no clothes.
"This may seem to make sense to an engineer who wishes to learn the current state of the art of bridge building, or to an ideologue who wishes to provide a logical foundation for his or her most cherished delusions irrespective of the circular reasoning and false assumptions upon which that logic is based, but this is not science! If physical scientists had taken this approach to science throughout the course of history—relying on “folklore” and “the tenacity with which hypotheses are held” and on those who have been exposed to “the ‘right’ scientific atmosphere” as they ignored the realism of assumptions—we would still be living in a Ptolemaic universe cataloging the situations in which Aristotle’s assumptions do and do not work.
"Friedman is quite wrong in his assertion that there is a “thin line . . . which distinguishes the ‘crackpot’ from the scientist.” That line is not thin. It is the clear, bright line that exists between those who accept arguments based on circular reasoning and false assumptions as meaningful and those who do not. This should be obvious, yet there are economists who hold tenured positions at prestigious universities and responsible positions in government agencies and international institutions who accept Friedman’s nonsense as gospel. ..."
To wit, economics needs more effort invested in housecleaning, in pointing out those like Friedman's followers who like the emperor believe themselves attired in finery yet in reality wear no clothes.
Thursday, July 28, 2016
Red Implications
Anyone else suspecting that -- aside from the direction of the US Supreme Court for the next several decades -- the 2016 US Presidential election will also determine whether Ukraine gets annexed by Russia in 2017 or not?
And who wants to bet Putin would stop there?
And who wants to bet Putin would stop there?
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
Commonsense
from President Obama's remarks in PBS video, June 2, 2016:
"First of all, the notion that I or Hillary or Democrats or whoever you want to choose are hell-bent on taking away folks’ guns is just not true.
And I don’t care how many times the NRA says it. I’m about to leave office. There have been more guns sold since I have been president than just about any time in U.S. history. There are enough guns for every man, woman and child in this country.
And at no point have I ever, ever proposed confiscating guns from responsible gun owners. So it’s just not true.
What I have said is precisely what you suggested, which is, why don’t we treat this like every other thing that we use? I just came from a meeting today in the Situation Room in which I got people who we know have been on ISIL Web sites, living here in the United States, U.S. citizens, and we’re allowed to put them on the no-fly list when it comes to airlines, but because of the National Rifle Association, I cannot prohibit those people from buying a gun.
This is somebody who is a known ISIL sympathizer. And if he wants to walk in to a gun store or a gun show right now and buy as much — as many weapons and ammo as he can, nothing’s prohibiting him from doing that, even though the FBI knows who that person is.
So, sir, I just have to say, respectfully, that there is a way for us to have commonsense gun laws. There is a way for us to make sure that lawful, responsible gun owners like yourself are able to use them for sporting, hunting, protecting yourself, but the only way we’re going to do that is if we don’t have a situation in which anything that is proposed is viewed as some tyrannical destruction of the Second Amendment. And that’s how the issue too often gets framed."
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