Since when does a child barely able to pronounce the words on "her" letter commiserate with a multimillionaire over how hard it is to juggle grandma duties with commander in chief duties? As the kids say, I can't even.
American fascism is finally fully out of the closet thanks to Donald Trump, and Hillary is seizing her own cult of personality moment. Her campaign TV spot features one little girl dubbed "Scout," American flag emblazoned on her shoulder, giving the military salute to her heroine. The final voice-over has another girl saying she's "available" to work for Hillary for candy in lieu of salary.
So much for gender pay parity and feminism in the Age of Hillary. "Scout" had better watch her back, because the Empress in Waiting is so invested in war and Wall Street finance that little girls, if they're not members of daughter Chelsea's social class, will be faced with two options. Be cannon fodder, or be collateral economic damage from crushing student debt coupled with low/no wages. Hillary may be a slick lawyer, but she is no Atticus Finch. She doesn't appear in the ad herself, promising to still be there when Scout wakes up in the morning.
Watch the spot, and decide for yourself if this ad doesn't exude a distinctly totalitarian odor.
I got confirmation of my theory about fascism and totalitarianism already being here, Trump or no Trump, from this "Times Pick" reader's comment from today's David Brooks column:
ReplyDelete"War is here and has been declared by the President this Sunday last. Will Americans come together, will we work in a united effort with our Allies, will we become universal citizens, will we listen to our leader? George Orwell predicted that it would take a great evil to turn us around, but he did not know what kind of leader it would take.
Renewing my pledge of support for the President, send our troops, militarily trained, across our land as undercover agents, and I believe a great resistance movement of our youth and brave men and women, of all cultures, religions, non-believers, are hard at work.
Let us have peaceful demonstrations of all nationalities in America take to the street, Christians and Muslims, people of all social classes and background march and stand together. Impossible, you will say. 'Impossible' is not American. We will prevail if we want to.
Thinking of our troops overseas this early morning, I will remember."
Ach du lieber. George Orwell must be rolling over in his grave. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
Karen: I looked up the NYTimes picks in Brooks column and found the one by MS. Ley you quoted. However, it was surrounded by many other picks with excellent responses to Brooks so all is not lost.
ReplyDeleteAs for little girls learning how to become fascists (of course with black children included for getting the black vote)this has been going on always although it was in different guise. When I was that age in NYC, I became aware of the differences between myself and my friends in our thinking compared to others who accepted the status quo which our parents were exposing. Thank goodness I grew up in a Bernie Sanders type atmosphere surrounded by immigrant parents who knew the score. However it didn't last and here we are. Let's hope the future changes and if not, we are running out of chances and choices rapidly.
I haven't checked out whether you had a comment to Brooks as well.
"We need to go back to the beginning, and find ourselves a great leader. We are in great need."
ReplyDeleteFrom Mark Thomasan's excellent comment to Brooks.
Hi Pearl,
ReplyDeleteNo I didn't comment on Brooks, I was catching up on my sleep this morning, laid in till a decadent 7:30 a.m. For optimal visibility, it is necessary to post comments on op-eds by around 6 in the morning, at the very latest. Sometimes, maybe every 4th sleep cycle or so, I'll wake up at 4 a.m. for no apparent reason and will write comments to wile away the insomnia. Otherwise, I am out like a light till the break of day.
Sorry, but every time I hear somebody express longing for a "great leader," I cringe. I don't care if it's Trump or Obama or Moses or Jesus or Mohammed or Zoroaster. Cultism is the enemy of independent thought and bottom-up activism.
A "Times Pick"? Wow, the Ministry of Propaganda has spoken.
ReplyDeleteGag me, literally, because I feel that soon I'll be reported in to the State Fusion Center via a Suspicious Activity Report. They'll have to rename those forms Suspicious Activity and Thoughts Report. The Thought Police can't be far behind, what with all the guidelines being issued for helping teachers, parents, and other snoops and snitches to identify and report children showing signs of radicalization (disagreement with the government, etc.)
Karen, I'd love to see you do a piece on that whole movement to identify and report signs of radicalization in children happening here and in the UK. It used to be See Something, Say Something, but now it's going deeper - it's our thoughts and beliefs they're trying to profile.
First they came for the children..." How long before the rest of us will be analyzed and reported since everyone seems to want to feel SAFE, even college students who can't bear to hear dissenting views. Be a good soldier and report your neighbor and everyone will feel safer. The government and media will do the rest in terms of limiting exposure to dissenting views.
I think we're on the verge of a Brave New World. Bernie Sanders had better be careful with his words, if not his thoughts, since he could become identified as a radicalizing influence, since he's identified himself publicly as a democratic SOCIALIST. That, in many American minds (that empty space in the skull) is The Enemy along with Communists and Radical Islamic Terrorists. 'Social Democrat' would have sounded so much safer because 'social' equates with 'partying' to fun-loving Americans.
The NYT and other media protectors of the status quo will get their marching orders from the government to modulate the tone and content to reflect what they want everyone to think to keep us safe, aka national security. Not only will the media establishment keep Bernie on the sidelines, but many of us might find ourselves there too.
Speaking of being sidelined, Karen, why didn't they feature you in the recent profile of NYT honor roll of commenters? You've been making highly recommended comments and getting NYT Picks far longer than most commenters they profiled. Are you too radical?
ReplyDeleteAnnenigma:
I also questioned the choices of Times commenters featured in the honor roll of commenters and wondered who made the choices. I think that they played it safe so that no one chosen could be accused of misrepresenting the issues.
Karen does not soften the truth and I don't think people reading her comments to the NYtimes realize the extent of investigation involved which goes steps beyond most reports on the issues of the day. In her larger columns in Sardonicky, details are clearly explained with access to the original sources of information as well as more information backing up her statements which is limited by the number of words allowed in a newspaper unless you are submitting an article.
The fact that she receives so many high recommendations indicates that many readers know enough to recognize that her statements represent a larger area of concern which have to be condensed into 1500 words. I would like to see her columns we read printed in more news outlets but the progressive ones are inundated with articles and the mainstream ones would have some readers up in arms which they would not know how to deal with.
Karen, I hope I have not misrepresented anything. Reading your columns is like taking a daily necessary distasteful medicine which helps clear one's mind and validates those gut feelings. I think many more people are catching on finally but the fear remains that time is running out for resolutions amid more and more irreversible destruction.
And Annenigma, the atmosphere that prevailed during the McCarthy era is alive more than ever now which I can feel in my bones, connected to those days we lived through personally. Your feelings describe it well.
@Anne,
ReplyDeleteI can foresee teachers being designated mandatory reporters to the Homeland of perverse pupil thought, as they currently and correctly are in cases of suspected child abuse/neglect. The police already are an integral part of the school setting, as evidenced most recently by the goon who dragged a female student across the floor after upending her desk.
To answer your final question: Yes. All they have to do is read this blog to find out how I really feel about them.
To be fair, though, the Times already did a profile on commenters, in which I was included, several years ago. Then last spring, I got a quite lengthy commenting questionnaire, which I filled out. At the very end, they asked if I would be willing to travel to their offices for a personal interview. Mind you, this was not a job interview or anything of the sort. Mistrusting and lazy person that I am, I declined, citing ill health (true at the time) and the 180 mile round-trip bus ride this interview would have entailed. Now I find out from those selected that the personal interview involved a professional photo-shoot and was no guarantee of final selection in the homepage spread. I think they picked people, in part, on the basis of their proximity to Times bureaus. I didn't see anybody hailing from Upper Slobovia, in any case.
It's the New Economy. They reward their unpaid writers with a write-up instead of with cash. And lots of clicks and revenue for them to help send David Brooks on his $120,000 luxury vacation.
The only reason I write Times comments is to share info that the Times refuses to write about, and to knock down the straw men and zombie ideas of the opinion writers. For example, I simply could not let Hillary Clinton's free campaign swill go unanswered. It was a matter of mental health for me.
Can you imagine who would actually want to be the Billary's VP?
ReplyDeleteSomeone who's popular enough to help bring in votes for the general election would have a heck of a time serving as doormat, especially with all the ick and crap they usually walk in.
Anyone have ideas about who that might want that job? Martin O'Malley might be that desperate, and he's kind of slimy anyway, but I don't think he would add anything to the ticket in terms of votes.
Of course I wouldn't vote for the Billary even if Bernie or Elizabeth were named as VPs.
Anne- the running mate would have to appeal to "everyday Americans" (you and me!), not just the super fancy "special occasion Americans".
ReplyDeleteRetired General David Petraeus might be a good fit. He's already got doodoo on his shoes, being an adulterer and having violating classified info/state secrets. I wonder if Billary/Betrayus could keep a secret though.
ReplyDeleteRetired General Wesley Clark is another possibility but his goody two shoes might be too clean to have to walk in **it regularly for the Billary.
Anyway, a military man would be accustomed to taking orders like a good soldier. She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed would appreciate someone like that.