Is this America?

Dropping this one here : 'Hope ur ok'

A song released a few days ago by Olivia Rodrigo

The GOP's Big Lie is not a means to an end - it is the Destination - it is Totalitarianism.

Totalitarianism is a lie. Totalitarian regimes don't use lies - they are a lie - the biggest lie - that the leader is always right, was always right, and will be proven right in perpetuity: It is a lie that has nothing to do with truth or facts. It is the assertion of unconstrained power. Whatever the leader does, he was/is/will be proved right. Nothing must stand in his or her way. That would be wrong / criminal / treasonous.

The Origins of Totalitarianism
Hannah Arendt, 1951. pp 499-500.

In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. The mixture in itself was remarkable enough, because it spelled the end of the illusion that gullibility was a weakness of unsuspecting primitive souls and cynicism the vice of superior and refined minds.

Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.

What had been a demonstrable reaction of mass audiences became an important hierarchical principle for mass organizations. A mixture of gullibility and cynicism is prevalent in all ranks of totalitarian movements, and the higher the rank the more cynicism weighs down gullibility.

The essential conviction shared by all ranks, from fellow-traveler to leader, is that politics is a game of cheating and that the ‘first commandment’ of the movement: ‘The Fuehrer is always right,’ is as necessary for the purposes of world politics, i.e., world-wide cheating, as the rules of military discipline are for the purposes of war. The machine that generates, organizes, and spreads the monstrous falsehoods of totalitarian movements depends again upon the position of the Leader.

To the propaganda assertion that all happenings are scientifically predictable according to the laws of nature or economics, totalitarian organization adds the position of one man who has monopolized this knowledge and whose principal quality is that he ‘was right and will always be right. To a member of a totalitarian movement this knowledge has nothing to do with truth and this being right nothing to do with the objective truthfulness of the Leader’s statements which cannot be disproved by facts, but only by future success or failure.

The Leader’s statements ... cannot be disproved by facts, but only by future success or failure And here is where Totalitarian regimes closes the circle. Failure is success. The chocolate ration was increased from 4 ounces to 3 ounces. Trump won the election in a landslide. These are not individual lies but expression of the Big Lie: The leader is right, everything else is wrong because anything else would constitute a constraint on his power - which totalitarianism denies as rule number one.

Where are we now? Lowest new COVID cases/deaths since June/July 2020

Hey MAGAs (Miley rocks)

Hey MAGAs, you are tearing America apart like the troubles did in Northern Ireland.

The Indian COVID variant, B.1.617, is expected to become the dominant variant in the UK

The good news is that the UK has a ‘high degree of confidence’ that vaccines work against it.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2021/may/16/coronavirus-live-news-covid-19-fears-over-indian-variant-as-england-prepares-to-unlock

Hundreds of bodies found buried along Indian riverbanks

Source: Associated Press

RAYAGRAJ, India (AP) — Police are reaching out to villagers in northern India to investigate the recovery of bodies buried in shallow sand graves or washing up on the Ganges River banks, prompting speculation on social media that they were the remains of COVID-19 victims.

In jeeps and boats, the police used portable loudspeakers with microphones asking people not to dispose of the bodies in rivers. “We are here to help you perform the last rites,” police said.

On Friday, rains exposed the cloth coverings of bodies buried in shallow sand graves on the riverbank in Prayagraj, a city in Uttar Pradesh state.

Navneet Sehgal, a state government spokesman, on Sunday denied local media reports that more than 1,000 corpses of COVID-19 victims had been recovered from rivers in the past two weeks. “I bet these bodies have nothing to do with COVID-19,” he said

Read more: https://apnews.com/article/india-coronavirus-pandemic-health-88f11eb66e0f505fe941793c291bc946

BLS CPI inflation 4.2% 12 months, 3.2% 14 months.

The headline 4.2% annual inflation rate for April compares today's prices with the economy in full lockdown year ago.

Lockdown temporarily reduced consumer prices in March (-.02) and April (-0.7) 2020.

Compared with February 2020, the CPI is 3.2% higher
(an annual inflation rate of 2.8%)

Source: https://www.bls.gov/cpi/tables/supplemental-files/historical-cpi-u-202104.pdf

WTF. SF Gate criticizes Disney's Snow White ride.

If Prince Charming kisses Snow White while she is asleep, she did not consent - I mean really?

Disneyland's new Snow White ride adds magic, but also a new problem

Let's get this out of the way first: Snow White's Enchanted Wish, the revamped ride that replaced Snow White's Scary Adventures in Disneyland, is really good. The attraction preserves much of the charm of what originally opened in 1955 at the park's debut, but ...

... The new grand finale of Snow White's Enchanted Wish is the moment when the Prince finds Snow White asleep under the Evil Queen's spell and gives her "true love's kiss" to release her from the enchantment. A kiss he gives to her without her consent, while she's asleep, which cannot possibly be true love if only one person knows it's happening.

Haven't we already agreed that consent in early Disney movies is a major issue? That teaching kids that kissing, when it hasn't been established if both parties are willing to engage, is not OK? It's hard to understand why the Disneyland of 2021 would choose to add a scene with such old fashioned ideas of what a man is allowed to do to a woman, especially given the company's current emphasis on removing problematic scenes from rides like Jungle Cruise and Splash Mountain. Why not re-imagine an ending in keeping with the spirit of the movie and Snow White's place in the Disney canon, but that avoids this problem?

https://www.sfgate.com/disneyland/article/2021-04-snow-whites-enchanted-wish-changes-witch-16144353.php

Brain dead.

Trump is 'the former guy' ? Let's call cancer a bad head cold.

Trump is not going away. I agree with Rick Wilson. To call the current leader of the GOP, - 'the former guy' is insane.

Rick Wilson
@TheRickWilson

1/ Those of you thinking Trump will go away if you call him “the former guy” miss the point; you cannot wish him away. It’s politically naïve and borders on juvenile.

2/ “I’ll call this cancer a bad cold because then the algorithms won’t give it as much attention” isn’t a strategy. It’s — at best — a prank.

In 2015 and 2016 the entire American political class - myself included - had a massive failure of imagination.

It can always be worse.

3/ Trump’s minions — both in Mar a Lago and beyond — now entirely control the political and fundraising apparatus of the Republican Party.

His word is law. No one is coming to save the GOP from him; they’re accomplices, not hostages.

4/ Many of the “call him the former guy” advocates live in a Beltway dreamworld.

Mitch’s fans and his Lil Abramoff consultants are huffing political jenkem. McConnell runs the GOP? Ha!

“A new MAGA prince will take the mantle!”

Trump can break any of them with a word.

5/ Refusal to focus on the pendant reality of his next run and his defining role in our politics is going to make 2022 and 2024 that much harder...and while the internal splits in the Democratic party are expected, the GOP is planning, working, grinding.