Your weekly excerpt from one of my books. This week: "The Hidden History of Neoliberalism: How Reaganism Gutted America and How to Restore Its Greatness"
"Increasingly, Americans are aware of these trends – entirely traceable back to neoliberal policies put into place in the 1980s and holding until 2021 – and are pissed off about it."
I don't think that enough people hear about this. I wish that the Democratic Party would start talking about this issue every day. If 60% of people are living paycheck to paycheck, this might start getting through to some people.
And spearheading more utopian bullshit are the world's richest men.
Last night while checking out YouTube, Musk popped-up in footage cheering-on a large Tommy Robinson rally in London. Those two are racist mates; it's the Muslims in Great Britain.
Here it's the Technate of America plan that Musk is pushing. Please do a WIKI search for his grandfather: Joshua N. Haldeman. There you will see what Musk has infected the TRump Administration with, including the idea of Canada and Greenland all the way to Venezuela. Some tech they have included this century is crypto, the source of the TRump family's new wealth.
All roads lead back to Putin, a confederate of Musk. Why do they do it? They don't need the money! Power. Is. Fun. He who dies with the most toys wins. Buy a Supreme Court Justice or six, look who I own! Invade neighboring countries, who's going to stop me and my nukes. This is insanity and sadism. TRump is exhibit A when it comes to these psychopaths.
They all belong in prison. Let's let them know. See you in the streets.
The term "neoliberalism" suggests that this is a position of The Left. Far from the truth. How do we let the uninformed know that it is so-called "conservatism" masquerading as "neoliberalism" that is shafting them this way?
{I was NOT fooled by Bill Clinton's rhetoric -- he was CLEARLY on the side of those trying to undo The New Deal and remake the relationship between We the People and our government, and not to the benefit of the rank and file of us. So far as I could see, he was an "elitist" all his life, thinking he deserved to inherit the mantle of JFK, but wanting it as an elite entitlement, not a charge to do the people's work. I hated that Barack Obama installed so many ex-Clinton types in his government.}
What made the New Deal unusual was that it didn't rely on the untrammeled goodness of people or, even more absurdly, of corporations. It instead created institutional protections for its innovations (even if FDR was entirely willing to tamper with institutional protections he didn't like, like the Supreme Court).
It's complicated. This word is disastrous in any context. It's a combination of libertarianism and whatever sticks to the wall in trying to control runaway free-market policies.
Nancy MacLean's book "Democracy in Chains" (2017), outlines the rise of the radical right plutocrats from the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education ruling to what we have today. It's a must read and project 2025 is the cumulation.
Nancy MacLean writes how ultra-conservative libertarians like James McGill Buchanan, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich von Hayek, Gordon Tullock, Milton Friedman, and many others devised, with the help of the Koch brother’s money, a few wealthy benefactors, the Mount Pelerin Society, the Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation, and others, a strategy to gradually make changes in our laws and institutions to create their minimum government essentially controlled by the wealthy. They knew the vote of the general population would not support their agenda if it was presented all at once, hence the gradual process, and they also needed to restrict minority voters as much as possible. And we see this going on today. This has culminated in Project 2025 which is now being implemented by the present administration.
I wish these folks had not used the word "neoliberalism" to describe their movement. There is nothing liberal about it, and not a whole lot that is new. It is just confusing.
Of course, they couldn't call it "greed is good", could they?
The Trump tax cuts in Trump 1.0 did not create jobs or lower product prices, it went largely to buybacks. Since the top 10% own 80% of stocks, that helped to increase economic inequality. Executives take most of their pay in shares, so they benefit greatly as the buybacks increase share prices.
Neoliberalism can be described in Reaganomics terms as "trickle-down" government. We are indeed governed by a few wealthy powerful people, who promise the American Dream of wealth and happiness in exchange for our loyalty and hard work - for them. Trickle-down is not democracy, yet the GOP has been calling its oligarchy as a new form of democracy.
Trump and his top propagandists, such as the late Mr. Kirk, point out that things are not trickling down as they should because of illegal immigrants, homosexuals and trannies, women who do not know their place is in the kitchen, and of course, racial minorities and non-Christians - all of whom refuse to embrace the trickle-down system. Of course, that worldview turns democracies into fascism.
Not surprisingly, Trump's MAGAs are oxymoronic in that they abhor the term fascism and constantly refer to their fascist ideology as a new and improved democracy. Of course, democracy embraces diversity and citizen consensus which oligarchs like Trump and the billionaire class view as threats to their wealth and power.
I wore a neck-tie and a collared shirt back then, but I lived in a hippie commune on the near southside of Chicago for awhile back in the day. Yes, appearances can be misconstrued. Although, a skinhead with a long scraggly beard and leather jacket covered in patches probably is a member of a biker gang.
The genius of Trump, or at least those behind him, is taking the disquiet and anger of many people who were left behind and claiming he would lead them into a promised land. It's the "Pied Piper" story all over again. Or it’s like the Soviet Union’s government, which promised their people a wonderful tomorrow once the few enemies standing in the way were surpassed or removed. But somehow that never quite happened.
But throughout history all attempts to create an ideal society on any scale from a commune to a country have foundered, either turning into dictatorships or anarchy. (And as for the latter, when I've had students think that is a good future I've suggested they try living in Somalia for a while.) An old "Dragnet" TV show got it right. The cops caught a bunch of hippies robbing a hardware store for the materials to build their perfect commune. They were sympathetic to their dream but said they'd never have that because, "You don't have perfect people".
One small comment on the text. The Bolsheviks changing Russia away from the Julian Calendar made perfectly good sense. The revised and more accurate Gregorian was used in almost all the world and there was no reason to keep an obsolete dating system that was increasingly out of step with Europe. Today only some Orthodox churches use the Julian for liturgical practices.
Pol pot. Once upon a time, I heard disability cases for Social Security claimants who alleged they were too mentally ill to work. The cause was that they were kids in Cambodia who were ordered to kill their parents, and they did, causing debilitating guilt.
Reminded me of the kid who did same and asks for mercy because (s)he is an orphan. In the law, if the parents had an estate, their property would not pass to the kids (constructive trust), it would escheat to the state. Some law professors would spend a week arguing the ethics, using the Socratic method.
I may/may not have been in Cambodia, 1967, chasing the NVA. They didn't have a sign" welcome to Cambodia." Later we inserted ourselves there on the Ho Chi Minh trail. We bombed the hell out of it.
Despite my bias, I applied the law. If a psychiatrist said the claimant was too nutsy koo koo to work, I credited the opinion.
So today, hopefully churches will be debating the Kirk murder. Is he a martyr? His supporters want to treat him like MLK -- and we have a national MLK day. What are the ethics? If you had the opporunity to shoot Hitler in say, 1932, would you have done it? St. Augustine. City of God. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_war_theory
Canbodians were settled on the East Side of Tacoma. I had an occasion to stop there at a minimart. There were a bunch of young men, hanging around the store. I looked them in the eyes, what I saw chiilled me to the bone. Cold black eyes, devoid of any humanity.
I never stopped there again.
The way I figure all of the Kmer Serat has been murdered, and all that was left was Khmer Rouge, and that is who we allowed into country.
PTSD can cause emotional numbness and dissociation, potentially manifesting as violent and hostile behaviors. Cambodians had an especially harsh road to trave,l so what you are describing could very well be PtSD (and then again not). I wonder how the young survivors of Gaza will turn out.
I hear you Robert, but am not buying the PTSD excuse. Murderers, mass murderers at that have the same look
HAMAS and Israel have created a whole generation of traumatized people and terrorists.
I can explain Israel's behavior the same way. What you see in Israel is a legacy of Hitlers persecution of the Jews and death camps..Never again, a whole culture has been traumatized. It is too intellectual to say that Israel is acting like the NAZI's, or that they are engaging in genocide, the claim is intellectually dishonest when you consider that genocide the act of obliterating a peoples, a race or culture, in part of in whole.
There is no way that 10 million Jews can obliterate, in whole or in part billions of Muslim Arabs. That doesn't condone what is essentially ethnically cleansing Gaza and the west bank of Arabs.
IMO, there are Zionist extremists, that claim the land between the Nile and the Euphrates as Eratz Ysrael, but there are also Muslims, not necessary extremists, that consider Jews as profane squatters on what they believe is sacred Arab soil.
HAMAS played right into the hands of the Zionist extremists, and by using their people as human shields, are playing into Zionist hands
More understanding the actor that excusing the act. I don't know that PTSD is relevant in this case but I'm pretty sure both of us know how removed from consensual reality a person can be in the middle of a flashback, or actually, room the omelet it begins.
We believe we are going to teach the enemy a lesson they'll never forget, and they won't, just not the way the perpetrator wants. Most of the children of Gaza are going to be traumatized their whole lives. Add to that the devastating neurological impact that starvation causes and most of them are not going to be a threat to anybody. However, there will be several who will come out permeated with a hatred so intense that they will focus their time on Earth ton rying to maximize the pain the pain and horror on Isrtaelis. And so it goes.
I remain trying to wrestle out a reason for why Hamas decided to attack Israel on October 7th. They weren't stupid enough to believe that Israel would capitulate, or that their ragtag forces could possible win a war with it. All I can parse out is Hamas believing that following the attack the surrounding Arab nations would all declare war. Anyway, damned stupid.
Moslems are "required" to treat Jews and Christians as People of the Book. The vast majority of Americans, proud in their steadfast ignorance regarding the rest of humanity, have absolutely no understanding of Islam and wouldn't believe it if they were exposed to it.
Oh well, we have been searching mightily for the gates of Hell. Perhaps we are on the precipice of opening them up.
Israel was not trying to teach HAMAS a lesson, nor exacting revenge. Their goal is to eradicate HAMAS make it so un popular by the people that it will never rise again. That much they have done, the people of GAZA hate and fear both HAMAS and Israel.
GAMAS attacked Israel,based on the precedent of the release of the hostage IDF soldier. Gilad Shalit. HAMAS held him for a year, and obtained the release of1000 Palestinians, including Yahya Sinwar, now decesased, but the military leader of HAMAS in Gaza.
The message that Israel gave off was the life of 1 Jew is worth that of 1,000 Muslim Arabs. So the life of 200 Jews would be worth what, the liberation of Israel.? As Trump would say, they thought that by taking hostages they would have the cards.
They underestimated Netanyahu and the Israeli Right.
Something to chew on. The Muslims view the dead and wounded as martyrs. Ghazi Hamad said that "we are a nation of martyrs, and will come back again and again" Martyrdom in Islam is celebrated not mourned, maybe Mother, wife and children mourn, but in all of the Ummah they are celebrated.
Holocaust means burnt offering, and those that have lost their lives for the people are a sacrifice, among the more radical Zionists., the settlers, the Likkud and their allies.
Israel is, or was, as fragmented and divided as America, with it's fanatic right wing and it's liberal left. In the wake of Oct 7th, mush of the centrist and the left have shifted right to nationalism. That is what being attacked by a common enemy does.
On my part I am convinced that Neanyahu knew that an attack was planned, he just didn't know the whole plan or the scope, but saw it as an opportunity, for one thing to escape judicial reckoning.
Gaza was ringed with watch towers, just before the attack, all male guards wee relieve by all female guards and the male guards took their weapons with them leaving the females defenseless
As regards that beleaguered land, there will be no peace, ever. This is a religious conflict. The Zionist dream is Eratz Ysrael from the Nile to the Euphrades, the Muslim goal is to rid sacred Muslim soil of the defilement, or defiliation by the hated kufr. Para 7, art 7, 1988 HAMAS Covenent, also the preamble, never repudiated, also Sahi 2925/2926, Book 56,Hadith 139 al Bukhari"Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "The Hour (day of judgment or end times) will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him
I seem to be slipping into a higher noise to signal ratio than normal. Looking at the teaching reference I neither know why I used "we", or who in this case "we" actually is, Hamas or Israel. I think I was referring to Israel but the phrasing on my part was pathetic. I'll try again...
The Israeli government sees October 7th as an opportunity to ethnically cleanse Gaza, using genocide as a tool. From their first day in Gaza I doubt that they ever had any intention, save massive worldwide pressure, of giving any of it back. The massacre definitely has the approval of our shit-for-brains president, who sees it as a rare opportunity to build a luxury resort, complete, no doubt, with the ever-successful casinos (you know, the Trump Tourh).
While most Gaza's will be too terrorized to ever move against Israel, there are going to be some who will have become so radicalized that they will feel justified to commit their own atrocities, even at the cost of their own lives.
Meanwhile, I see that Israel continues to balkanize the West Bank, taking chunks of whenever they feel like it. Their end goal, I have no doubt, is to drive the Palestinians out of there as well, thereby returning once more to the borders G*d promised them (of course he did). I doubt the rest of the worldly is going to do anything meaningful to stop it, even though what is being done is condemned by the ICJ.
That the MAGAverse is waiting for the return of the Messiah and that that land. No united Israel, no Messiah, is never mentioned in the MSM and rarely, if ever, on the Net. Who knows, maybe the Bible is right and there is going to be an actual battle of Armageddon. Sounds like fun.
What the corporate media isn't covered, and you know that the Trump regime won't, is that Tyler was a groyper, and at war with the Kirk's cult. From reports Tyler has a transgender lover (whether male to female or female to male is unknown) and Charlie Kirk is noted for demonizing the transgendered
“Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?” the event attendee asked.
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“Too many,” Kirk replied.
Data shows trans people conduct a very small percentage of mass shootings, according to the fact-checking website PolitiFact. But the reply was vintage stuff for the conservative activist and provocateur who became a MAGA celebrity over the past decade and is credited with inspiring a generation of college students to become politically active and turn out for President Donald Trump.
Alleged transgender. Male to female. LET THE SPIN BEGIN! We are never going to get the truth. Haters and liars gonna hate and lie. Wonder if they will cut a deal with Tyler and roommate?---You say what we want, and we will spare his life and put him in a cushy prison. Sound familiar?
Here is Heather Cox Richardsons comment in Today's newsletter
"But in fact, the alleged shooter was not someone on the left. The alleged killer, Tyler Robinson, is a young white man from a Republican, gun enthusiast family, who appears to have embraced the far right, disliking Kirk for being insufficiently radical.
Rather than grappling with reality, right-wing figures are using Kirk’s murder to prop up their fictional world. Briefly, they claimed Robinson had been “radicalized” in college. Then, when it turned out he had spent only a single semester at a liberal arts college before going to trade school, MAGA pivoted to attack those who allegedly had celebrated Kirk’s death on social media."
Absolutely correct Alis, now the story is probably Charles Kirk killed by a crazed transgender or something like that.
This is the narrative that Trump and his cult want to push. No such narrative when Cisheteronormative persons of right wing persuasion go off an a shooting spree, and the corporate media promotes the narrative.
First they came for the trans and immigrant,..........then they came for me and no one was left to speak up pastor Niemoller.
Yes, I see that coming after the rhetoric from the Misadministration and the usual Fox folks. Fox was talking about forcing lethal injections on the homeless, too. The elevator cake had been cut and we're falling straight down. A sign just went by that said, "Danger. Atrocities Ahead."
Sickos, psychos, and liars, oh my! They are obsessed with sex, violence, fear, pretend Christianity and their version of the Second Amendment. TRump and his Cult are going to twist and mold this story to read the way they wish it had happened. And they will coerce the players or offer some sweet deals to get that fiction out there. Epstein Files are a "Democrat hoax"---wash, rinse, repeat.
Did he even have a roommate? I thought he lived at his parent's house. I can't imagine the shooter would want to be in an apartment with a trans person, much less rooming with one.
Captain, how right you are as usual. When will the greed stop. Never! Caught you on CSPAN earlier this morning. Great stuff Thom! The callers were interesting. Glad I didn’t miss it! You are the smartest man on these things, Thom. In tuned for real. It’s like I felt you were there Thom. Magical. Happy I didn’t miss a word.
"Increasingly, Americans are aware of these trends – entirely traceable back to neoliberal policies put into place in the 1980s and holding until 2021 – and are pissed off about it."
I don't think that enough people hear about this. I wish that the Democratic Party would start talking about this issue every day. If 60% of people are living paycheck to paycheck, this might start getting through to some people.
Agreed, Bret. Just went to a meeting where two young guys wanted to know how and why they have been robbed. They are both working their butts off.
The sign in the war room should say: It's the Republicans, Stupid!
And spearheading more utopian bullshit are the world's richest men.
Last night while checking out YouTube, Musk popped-up in footage cheering-on a large Tommy Robinson rally in London. Those two are racist mates; it's the Muslims in Great Britain.
Here it's the Technate of America plan that Musk is pushing. Please do a WIKI search for his grandfather: Joshua N. Haldeman. There you will see what Musk has infected the TRump Administration with, including the idea of Canada and Greenland all the way to Venezuela. Some tech they have included this century is crypto, the source of the TRump family's new wealth.
All roads lead back to Putin, a confederate of Musk. Why do they do it? They don't need the money! Power. Is. Fun. He who dies with the most toys wins. Buy a Supreme Court Justice or six, look who I own! Invade neighboring countries, who's going to stop me and my nukes. This is insanity and sadism. TRump is exhibit A when it comes to these psychopaths.
They all belong in prison. Let's let them know. See you in the streets.
The term "neoliberalism" suggests that this is a position of The Left. Far from the truth. How do we let the uninformed know that it is so-called "conservatism" masquerading as "neoliberalism" that is shafting them this way?
{I was NOT fooled by Bill Clinton's rhetoric -- he was CLEARLY on the side of those trying to undo The New Deal and remake the relationship between We the People and our government, and not to the benefit of the rank and file of us. So far as I could see, he was an "elitist" all his life, thinking he deserved to inherit the mantle of JFK, but wanting it as an elite entitlement, not a charge to do the people's work. I hated that Barack Obama installed so many ex-Clinton types in his government.}
What made the New Deal unusual was that it didn't rely on the untrammeled goodness of people or, even more absurdly, of corporations. It instead created institutional protections for its innovations (even if FDR was entirely willing to tamper with institutional protections he didn't like, like the Supreme Court).
The Supremes jerked him around -- he never really got his way -- but the practical is better than nothing.
Please, find a new word to replace neoliberalism. Reagan is considered a conservative. To call him
neoliberal can be taken as new liberal. He and his cronies and Trump's backers are some degree of
political economy to the right of conservative. Reaganism is okay but a little milquetoast. Oh, I know:
try FASCISM.
It's complicated. This word is disastrous in any context. It's a combination of libertarianism and whatever sticks to the wall in trying to control runaway free-market policies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism
Nancy MacLean's book "Democracy in Chains" (2017), outlines the rise of the radical right plutocrats from the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education ruling to what we have today. It's a must read and project 2025 is the cumulation.
Nancy MacLean writes how ultra-conservative libertarians like James McGill Buchanan, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich von Hayek, Gordon Tullock, Milton Friedman, and many others devised, with the help of the Koch brother’s money, a few wealthy benefactors, the Mount Pelerin Society, the Cato Institute and Heritage Foundation, and others, a strategy to gradually make changes in our laws and institutions to create their minimum government essentially controlled by the wealthy. They knew the vote of the general population would not support their agenda if it was presented all at once, hence the gradual process, and they also needed to restrict minority voters as much as possible. And we see this going on today. This has culminated in Project 2025 which is now being implemented by the present administration.
My sign at the next local rally will say “Kill Neoliberalism“. Thanks for the insight!
I wish these folks had not used the word "neoliberalism" to describe their movement. There is nothing liberal about it, and not a whole lot that is new. It is just confusing.
Of course, they couldn't call it "greed is good", could they?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism
The Trump tax cuts in Trump 1.0 did not create jobs or lower product prices, it went largely to buybacks. Since the top 10% own 80% of stocks, that helped to increase economic inequality. Executives take most of their pay in shares, so they benefit greatly as the buybacks increase share prices.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/09/trump-tax-cuts-stock-buybacks
Trump admitted that corporations used the savings from his tax cut for buybacks. And yet he extended the corporate tax cut in his latest 'big beautiful bill'. https://www.reuters.com/article/business/trump-slams-companies-for-using-us-tax-credit-to-buy-back-stocks-idUSKBN2173HX/
Neoliberalism can be described in Reaganomics terms as "trickle-down" government. We are indeed governed by a few wealthy powerful people, who promise the American Dream of wealth and happiness in exchange for our loyalty and hard work - for them. Trickle-down is not democracy, yet the GOP has been calling its oligarchy as a new form of democracy.
Trump and his top propagandists, such as the late Mr. Kirk, point out that things are not trickling down as they should because of illegal immigrants, homosexuals and trannies, women who do not know their place is in the kitchen, and of course, racial minorities and non-Christians - all of whom refuse to embrace the trickle-down system. Of course, that worldview turns democracies into fascism.
Not surprisingly, Trump's MAGAs are oxymoronic in that they abhor the term fascism and constantly refer to their fascist ideology as a new and improved democracy. Of course, democracy embraces diversity and citizen consensus which oligarchs like Trump and the billionaire class view as threats to their wealth and power.
Long hair and tie-dyed shirts doesn't make one a hippie.
I wore a neck-tie and a collared shirt back then, but I lived in a hippie commune on the near southside of Chicago for awhile back in the day. Yes, appearances can be misconstrued. Although, a skinhead with a long scraggly beard and leather jacket covered in patches probably is a member of a biker gang.
I was mainly an unaffiliated woods hippie but my wife spent three years on The Farm.
I have an old pal in Alaska who still is a woods hippie.
Overall, good folk.
The genius of Trump, or at least those behind him, is taking the disquiet and anger of many people who were left behind and claiming he would lead them into a promised land. It's the "Pied Piper" story all over again. Or it’s like the Soviet Union’s government, which promised their people a wonderful tomorrow once the few enemies standing in the way were surpassed or removed. But somehow that never quite happened.
But throughout history all attempts to create an ideal society on any scale from a commune to a country have foundered, either turning into dictatorships or anarchy. (And as for the latter, when I've had students think that is a good future I've suggested they try living in Somalia for a while.) An old "Dragnet" TV show got it right. The cops caught a bunch of hippies robbing a hardware store for the materials to build their perfect commune. They were sympathetic to their dream but said they'd never have that because, "You don't have perfect people".
One small comment on the text. The Bolsheviks changing Russia away from the Julian Calendar made perfectly good sense. The revised and more accurate Gregorian was used in almost all the world and there was no reason to keep an obsolete dating system that was increasingly out of step with Europe. Today only some Orthodox churches use the Julian for liturgical practices.
Pol pot. Once upon a time, I heard disability cases for Social Security claimants who alleged they were too mentally ill to work. The cause was that they were kids in Cambodia who were ordered to kill their parents, and they did, causing debilitating guilt.
Reminded me of the kid who did same and asks for mercy because (s)he is an orphan. In the law, if the parents had an estate, their property would not pass to the kids (constructive trust), it would escheat to the state. Some law professors would spend a week arguing the ethics, using the Socratic method.
I may/may not have been in Cambodia, 1967, chasing the NVA. They didn't have a sign" welcome to Cambodia." Later we inserted ourselves there on the Ho Chi Minh trail. We bombed the hell out of it.
Despite my bias, I applied the law. If a psychiatrist said the claimant was too nutsy koo koo to work, I credited the opinion.
So today, hopefully churches will be debating the Kirk murder. Is he a martyr? His supporters want to treat him like MLK -- and we have a national MLK day. What are the ethics? If you had the opporunity to shoot Hitler in say, 1932, would you have done it? St. Augustine. City of God. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_war_theory
Here's the op ed for today. The tweek in the week that was. https://generik.substack.com/p/a-casualty-of-the-groyper-war?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=18auiy&triedRedirect=true
Canbodians were settled on the East Side of Tacoma. I had an occasion to stop there at a minimart. There were a bunch of young men, hanging around the store. I looked them in the eyes, what I saw chiilled me to the bone. Cold black eyes, devoid of any humanity.
I never stopped there again.
The way I figure all of the Kmer Serat has been murdered, and all that was left was Khmer Rouge, and that is who we allowed into country.
PTSD can cause emotional numbness and dissociation, potentially manifesting as violent and hostile behaviors. Cambodians had an especially harsh road to trave,l so what you are describing could very well be PtSD (and then again not). I wonder how the young survivors of Gaza will turn out.
I hear you Robert, but am not buying the PTSD excuse. Murderers, mass murderers at that have the same look
HAMAS and Israel have created a whole generation of traumatized people and terrorists.
I can explain Israel's behavior the same way. What you see in Israel is a legacy of Hitlers persecution of the Jews and death camps..Never again, a whole culture has been traumatized. It is too intellectual to say that Israel is acting like the NAZI's, or that they are engaging in genocide, the claim is intellectually dishonest when you consider that genocide the act of obliterating a peoples, a race or culture, in part of in whole.
There is no way that 10 million Jews can obliterate, in whole or in part billions of Muslim Arabs. That doesn't condone what is essentially ethnically cleansing Gaza and the west bank of Arabs.
IMO, there are Zionist extremists, that claim the land between the Nile and the Euphrates as Eratz Ysrael, but there are also Muslims, not necessary extremists, that consider Jews as profane squatters on what they believe is sacred Arab soil.
HAMAS played right into the hands of the Zionist extremists, and by using their people as human shields, are playing into Zionist hands
More understanding the actor that excusing the act. I don't know that PTSD is relevant in this case but I'm pretty sure both of us know how removed from consensual reality a person can be in the middle of a flashback, or actually, room the omelet it begins.
We believe we are going to teach the enemy a lesson they'll never forget, and they won't, just not the way the perpetrator wants. Most of the children of Gaza are going to be traumatized their whole lives. Add to that the devastating neurological impact that starvation causes and most of them are not going to be a threat to anybody. However, there will be several who will come out permeated with a hatred so intense that they will focus their time on Earth ton rying to maximize the pain the pain and horror on Isrtaelis. And so it goes.
I remain trying to wrestle out a reason for why Hamas decided to attack Israel on October 7th. They weren't stupid enough to believe that Israel would capitulate, or that their ragtag forces could possible win a war with it. All I can parse out is Hamas believing that following the attack the surrounding Arab nations would all declare war. Anyway, damned stupid.
Moslems are "required" to treat Jews and Christians as People of the Book. The vast majority of Americans, proud in their steadfast ignorance regarding the rest of humanity, have absolutely no understanding of Islam and wouldn't believe it if they were exposed to it.
Oh well, we have been searching mightily for the gates of Hell. Perhaps we are on the precipice of opening them up.
Israel was not trying to teach HAMAS a lesson, nor exacting revenge. Their goal is to eradicate HAMAS make it so un popular by the people that it will never rise again. That much they have done, the people of GAZA hate and fear both HAMAS and Israel.
GAMAS attacked Israel,based on the precedent of the release of the hostage IDF soldier. Gilad Shalit. HAMAS held him for a year, and obtained the release of1000 Palestinians, including Yahya Sinwar, now decesased, but the military leader of HAMAS in Gaza.
The message that Israel gave off was the life of 1 Jew is worth that of 1,000 Muslim Arabs. So the life of 200 Jews would be worth what, the liberation of Israel.? As Trump would say, they thought that by taking hostages they would have the cards.
They underestimated Netanyahu and the Israeli Right.
Something to chew on. The Muslims view the dead and wounded as martyrs. Ghazi Hamad said that "we are a nation of martyrs, and will come back again and again" Martyrdom in Islam is celebrated not mourned, maybe Mother, wife and children mourn, but in all of the Ummah they are celebrated.
Holocaust means burnt offering, and those that have lost their lives for the people are a sacrifice, among the more radical Zionists., the settlers, the Likkud and their allies.
Israel is, or was, as fragmented and divided as America, with it's fanatic right wing and it's liberal left. In the wake of Oct 7th, mush of the centrist and the left have shifted right to nationalism. That is what being attacked by a common enemy does.
On my part I am convinced that Neanyahu knew that an attack was planned, he just didn't know the whole plan or the scope, but saw it as an opportunity, for one thing to escape judicial reckoning.
Gaza was ringed with watch towers, just before the attack, all male guards wee relieve by all female guards and the male guards took their weapons with them leaving the females defenseless
As regards that beleaguered land, there will be no peace, ever. This is a religious conflict. The Zionist dream is Eratz Ysrael from the Nile to the Euphrades, the Muslim goal is to rid sacred Muslim soil of the defilement, or defiliation by the hated kufr. Para 7, art 7, 1988 HAMAS Covenent, also the preamble, never repudiated, also Sahi 2925/2926, Book 56,Hadith 139 al Bukhari"Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "The Hour (day of judgment or end times) will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him
I seem to be slipping into a higher noise to signal ratio than normal. Looking at the teaching reference I neither know why I used "we", or who in this case "we" actually is, Hamas or Israel. I think I was referring to Israel but the phrasing on my part was pathetic. I'll try again...
The Israeli government sees October 7th as an opportunity to ethnically cleanse Gaza, using genocide as a tool. From their first day in Gaza I doubt that they ever had any intention, save massive worldwide pressure, of giving any of it back. The massacre definitely has the approval of our shit-for-brains president, who sees it as a rare opportunity to build a luxury resort, complete, no doubt, with the ever-successful casinos (you know, the Trump Tourh).
While most Gaza's will be too terrorized to ever move against Israel, there are going to be some who will have become so radicalized that they will feel justified to commit their own atrocities, even at the cost of their own lives.
Meanwhile, I see that Israel continues to balkanize the West Bank, taking chunks of whenever they feel like it. Their end goal, I have no doubt, is to drive the Palestinians out of there as well, thereby returning once more to the borders G*d promised them (of course he did). I doubt the rest of the worldly is going to do anything meaningful to stop it, even though what is being done is condemned by the ICJ.
That the MAGAverse is waiting for the return of the Messiah and that that land. No united Israel, no Messiah, is never mentioned in the MSM and rarely, if ever, on the Net. Who knows, maybe the Bible is right and there is going to be an actual battle of Armageddon. Sounds like fun.
What the corporate media isn't covered, and you know that the Trump regime won't, is that Tyler was a groyper, and at war with the Kirk's cult. From reports Tyler has a transgender lover (whether male to female or female to male is unknown) and Charlie Kirk is noted for demonizing the transgendered
“Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?” the event attendee asked.
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“Too many,” Kirk replied.
Data shows trans people conduct a very small percentage of mass shootings, according to the fact-checking website PolitiFact. But the reply was vintage stuff for the conservative activist and provocateur who became a MAGA celebrity over the past decade and is credited with inspiring a generation of college students to become politically active and turn out for President Donald Trump.
Alleged transgender. Male to female. LET THE SPIN BEGIN! We are never going to get the truth. Haters and liars gonna hate and lie. Wonder if they will cut a deal with Tyler and roommate?---You say what we want, and we will spare his life and put him in a cushy prison. Sound familiar?
Here is Heather Cox Richardsons comment in Today's newsletter
"But in fact, the alleged shooter was not someone on the left. The alleged killer, Tyler Robinson, is a young white man from a Republican, gun enthusiast family, who appears to have embraced the far right, disliking Kirk for being insufficiently radical.
Rather than grappling with reality, right-wing figures are using Kirk’s murder to prop up their fictional world. Briefly, they claimed Robinson had been “radicalized” in college. Then, when it turned out he had spent only a single semester at a liberal arts college before going to trade school, MAGA pivoted to attack those who allegedly had celebrated Kirk’s death on social media."
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-13-2025
She did the best with what was out there at the time. Probably true, but now the BS. Story has already morphed since she said that, William.
Absolutely correct Alis, now the story is probably Charles Kirk killed by a crazed transgender or something like that.
This is the narrative that Trump and his cult want to push. No such narrative when Cisheteronormative persons of right wing persuasion go off an a shooting spree, and the corporate media promotes the narrative.
First they came for the trans and immigrant,..........then they came for me and no one was left to speak up pastor Niemoller.
Yes, I see that coming after the rhetoric from the Misadministration and the usual Fox folks. Fox was talking about forcing lethal injections on the homeless, too. The elevator cake had been cut and we're falling straight down. A sign just went by that said, "Danger. Atrocities Ahead."
Sickos, psychos, and liars, oh my! They are obsessed with sex, violence, fear, pretend Christianity and their version of the Second Amendment. TRump and his Cult are going to twist and mold this story to read the way they wish it had happened. And they will coerce the players or offer some sweet deals to get that fiction out there. Epstein Files are a "Democrat hoax"---wash, rinse, repeat.
Did he even have a roommate? I thought he lived at his parent's house. I can't imagine the shooter would want to be in an apartment with a trans person, much less rooming with one.
I think they had a romance according to some in authority.
Sunday's memorial for Charlie was at the Kennedy Center, mind you. It was on C-Span and they are replaying it right now. UGH!
Captain, how right you are as usual. When will the greed stop. Never! Caught you on CSPAN earlier this morning. Great stuff Thom! The callers were interesting. Glad I didn’t miss it! You are the smartest man on these things, Thom. In tuned for real. It’s like I felt you were there Thom. Magical. Happy I didn’t miss a word.
Thom,really shocking stuff. I really wish the people with all the money got it already. Shocking! They, don’t get it or care either. Thanks Thom.