#BYEDON 2020 - The End Better Fucking Be Near

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

I just saw the anime "One punch man", season 1, which was released in October 2015 - so before Trump was elected. One episode had this nice little skyscraper in it, which reminded me so much of Trump Tower:

 

[Innula Zenovka]

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

DeVos, suddenly friendly, urges career Education employees to "resist" in department-wide address

During a department-wide virtual meeting to discuss the shift to the new administration, DeVos acknowledged that most of the agency’s thousands of career employees “will be here through the coming transition and beyond.”

“Let me leave you with this plea: Resist,” DeVos said. “Be the resistance against forces that will derail you from doing what’s right for students. In everything you do, please put students first — always.”

The secretary's remarks come after nearly four years of frequently sparring with the career employees of her department. She tangled with the agency’s union over reorganizations and workplace policies, such as teleworking rules, and blamed bureaucrats at the agency for making it difficult to get things done.

Yeah Aunt Betsy, I'm sure they'll get on that Resistance right after the big cry they're definitely going to have when you leave.

 

[Kara Spengler]

Maybe, but I wouldn't be afraid of looking in Trump's freezer.

I would be afraid of doing so.

 

[Kara Spengler]

DeVos, suddenly friendly, urges career Education employees to "resist" in department-wide address



Yeah Aunt Betsy, I'm sure they'll get on that Resistance right after the big cry they're definitely going to have when you leave.

Let me guess, she wants them to resist Biden.

 

[Free]

VA State Senator, GOP Guv Contender Calls For Martial Law Over Biden Victory

A Republican state senator and candidate for governor in Virginia called for...

talkingpointsmemo.com

People are going to die - lots of them - before these lunatics are happy.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

 

[Free]

 

[Sid]

I would be afraid of doing so.

Are you afraid of hamburgers, french fries and well done steaks?

 

[Jolene Benoir]

 

[Free]

Looks like some of the White House press corp are feeling their oats. Strange how it took almost 4 years and the near end of the current administration to get there.

 

[Soen Eber]

A bit superficial, to my mind, (I used to read a lot of C20th critical theory way back when) but interesting nevertheless:

Trump the fascist artist: How the MAGA crowd is motivated by aesthetics, not ideas - Salon.com

A Marxist philosopher named Walter Benjamin foresaw the rise of Trumpism more than eighty years ago

www.salon.com

Innula: What is C20th critical theory? Got any links or searchable keywords? Thanks.

 

[Jolene Benoir]

Looks like some of the White House press corp are feeling their oats. Strange how it took almost 4 years and the near end of the current administration to get there.

To be fair, Jim Acosta has been asking direct questions of the Trump administration and Trump himself from the beginning and has been labelled fake news, "enemy of the people", personally attacked, was accused of improper behavior using a doctored video and had access temporarily barred for his efforts.

Jim Acosta - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Innula: What is C20th critical theory? Got any links or searchable keywords? Thanks.

Sorry, I was going to reply and then forgot all about it. Thanks for reminding me.

The Wikipedia article gives a decent overview of the various C20th writers who fall under the heading of "critical theory". I suppose basically I'd describe it as an analysis of ideology and power relationships that underlie various forms of social and cultural activity that create our social identities and the categories by which we understand the world.

That sounds very abstract, I know. One example would be the current controversy over the way we understand the history of Confederate monuments or the role of imperialism and the slave trade in American and British history, or attempts to understand the appeal of particular representations (almost parodic to an outsider) of American masculinity as embodied by various alt-right groups, how these draw on ideas of masculinity already there in popular culture, and how these ideas first came into circulation through the media and popular culture, and whose interests they serve.

I first stumbled into it via Roland Barthes' 1957 collection of essays, Mythologies, which is very accessible in the way it explores how French bourgeois society created a whole range of meanings for everyday activities (drinking wine, for example, or driving particular types of car), and then found myself reading Michel Foucault, on the power relationships encoded in academic disciplines like law, penology and medicine, and then I got into Derrida and post-structuralism, but that's a whole other story.

I was looking for a good general intro (it's years since I've read much of this kind of thing) and found this on Amazon, free with Kindle Unlimited

Introducing Critical Theory: A Graphic Guide (Introducing... Book 0) eBook : Sim, Stuart, Van Loon, Borin: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

Introducing Critical Theory: A Graphic Guide (Introducing... Book 0) eBook : Sim, Stuart, Van Loon, Borin: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

smile.amazon.co.uk

I've not yet read it but I've skimmed it and it seems as good an intro as anything.

 

[Govi]

If the New York attorney general keeps Trump's history* in mind, he'll order state police officers acting under authority of this court order immediately to go to wherever he thinks these records are kept and take possession of them. Don't waste any time with Trump.

*In the 70s, the first business under investigation under the newly enacted Fair Housing federal law, Trump shuffled around the records the Department of Justice wanted and never did give them up to the feds. "Oh, I'm so sorry! Due to an administrative foul-up, the records you wanted here today were sent elsewhere. Try again some other time?"

 

[Spirits Rising]

If the New York attorney general keeps Trump's history* in mind, he'll order state police officers acting under authority of this court order immediately to go to wherever he thinks these records are kept and take possession of them. Don't waste any time with Trump.

*In the 70s, the first business under investigation under the newly enacted Fair Housing federal law, Trump shuffled around the records the Department of Justice wanted and never did give them up to the feds. "Oh, I'm so sorry! Due to an administrative foul-up, the records you wanted here today were sent elsewhere. Try again some other time?"

Response, with that track record in mind: "Oh that's fine, we'll just be adding a Contempt of Court charge along with the attempt to hide/destroy requested/subpoenaed evidence!"

 

[Soen Eber]

Sorry, I was going to reply and then forgot all about it. Thanks for reminding me.

The Wikipedia article gives a decent overview of the various C20th writers who fall under the heading of "critical theory". I suppose basically I'd describe it as an analysis of ideology and power relationships that underlie various forms of social and cultural activity that create our social identities and the categories by which we understand the world.

That sounds very abstract, I know. One example would be the current controversy over the way we understand the history of Confederate monuments or the role of imperialism and the slave trade in American and British history, or attempts to understand the appeal of particular representations (almost parodic to an outsider) of American masculinity as embodied by various alt-right groups, how these draw on ideas of masculinity already there in popular culture, and how these ideas first came into circulation through the media and popular culture, and whose interests they serve.

I first stumbled into it via Roland Barthes' 1957 collection of essays, Mythologies, which is very accessible in the way it explores how French bourgeois society created a whole range of meanings for everyday activities (drinking wine, for example, or driving particular types of car), and then found myself reading Michel Foucault, on the power relationships encoded in academic disciplines like law, penology and medicine, and then I got into Derrida and post-structuralism, but that's a whole other story.

I was looking for a good general intro (it's years since I've read much of this kind of thing) and found this on Amazon, free with Kindle Unlimited

Introducing Critical Theory: A Graphic Guide (Introducing... Book 0) eBook : Sim, Stuart, Van Loon, Borin: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

Introducing Critical Theory: A Graphic Guide (Introducing... Book 0) eBook : Sim, Stuart, Van Loon, Borin: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

smile.amazon.co.uk

I've not yet read it but I've skimmed it and it seems as good an intro as anything.

Got it, thanks. Link is for the UK but the American site has it as well and is an easy lookup. I couldn't make heads or tails out of the Wikipedia article so it'll be fun reading this and getting exposure to a new area of thinking.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Got it, thanks. Link is for the UK but the American site has it as well and is an easy lookup. I couldn't make heads or tails out of the Wikipedia article so it'll be fun reading this and getting exposure to a new area of thinking.

One of my favourite concrete examples, while not without its problems, would be Edward Said's book Orientalism, which studies the way "the orient" was created in European art, literature and academic study as part of the English and French colonial enterprise -- you need, after all, to know about the places you intend to colonise and rule, and orientalism created a whole body of knowledge that both facilitated and justified that rule.

Another, of course, would be the whole myth of the Confederate "lost cause" and its "heritage" in the form of statues of Confederate generals, quite deliberately erected as cultural and political statements.

So too, come to think of it, would be King's College Chapel, in Cambridge, which is, among many other things, a huge monument to Tudor power - there was a reason why Henry was so keen on building spectacular religious and educational institutions covered in Tudor roses.

 

[Soen Eber]

One of my favourite concrete examples, while not without its problems, would be Edward Said's book Orientalism, which studies the way "the orient" was created in European art, literature and academic study as part of the English and French colonial enterprise -- you need, after all, to know about the places you intend to colonise and rule, and orientalism created a whole body of knowledge that both facilitated and justified that rule.

Another, of course, would be the whole myth of the Confederate "lost cause" and its "heritage" in the form of statues of Confederate generals, quite deliberately erected as cultural and political statements.

So too, come to think of it, would be King's College Chapel, in Cambridge, which is, among many other things, a huge monument to Tudor power - there was a reason why Henry was so keen on building spectacular religious and educational institutions covered in Tudor roses.

Thanks, that contextualizes it. Before I stopped studying Arab culture (too many headaches) I came to understand their antipathy to orientalism, and the Lost Cause is also pretty obvious in it's contextualization. It comes down to power, definition, and myths then, doesn't it? <Dr. House voice>(heavy sigh) It's always Chomsky.</Dr. House voice> Please, please tell me I don't also have to read Marx and Hegel, especially Hegel ... please?

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Thanks, that contextualizes it. Before I stopped studying Arab culture (too many headaches) I came to understand their antipathy to orientalism, and the Lost Cause is also pretty obvious in it's contextualization. It comes down to power, definition, and myths then, doesn't it? <Dr. House voice>(heavy sigh) It's always Chomsky.</Dr. House voice> Please, please tell me I don't also have to read Marx and Hegel, especially Hegel ... please?

Philosophy Booth

A philosophy webcomic about the inevitable anguish of living a brief life in an absurd world. Also Jokes

existentialcomics.com