We're building gulags and far too many people think it's just great because immigrants are ruining the country. But we're still a prosperous country. People aren't pushing wheelbarrows full of cash to the grocery store because of hyperinflation. Unemployment remains low.
What is happening more insidiously is the continued acceleration of the concentration of wealth. Too few people care about that ... because too many people want to blame immigrants for their perceived problems. (I could go on again about the $80K pickup trucks and nice, large fishing boats with tRump flags flying from them, obviously owned by people who have been ruined by immigrants, the woke agenda, and all the socialism happening everywhere.)
It hurts my head.
We're building gulags and far too many people think it's just great because immigrants are ruining the country. But we're still a prosperous country. People aren't pushing wheelbarrows full of cash to the grocery store because of hyperinflation. Unemployment remains low.
What is happening more insidiously is the continued acceleration of the concentration of wealth. Too few people care about that ... because too many people want to blame immigrants for their perceived problems. (I could go on again about the $80K pickup trucks and nice, large fishing boats with tRump flags flying from them, obviously owned by people who have been ruined by immigrants, the woke agenda, and all the socialism happening everywhere.)
It hurts my head.
I imagine that just how bad it will get depends a lot on how bad the effects of climate change become, but that's not a problem isolated to the United States. Things could get very bad for every country.
Just in terms of the US, though, absent major effects from climate change, I'd expect greater inequality and weaker federalism. Poor states will suffer. Tech hubs and coastal cities will continue to do relatively well. I wonder if we will start to resemble Brazil, with favelas rubbing shoulders with rich neighborhoods and militarized police maintaining the separation.
But the middle of the country is likely going to look like the land that time forgot.
I sincerely appreciate, as always, your unflagging optimism, wj
I truly wish I was optimistic at this point. But, while I have hopes, I don't really have expectations. (At least, not positive ones. :-)
I suspect that the question is just how bad it will get, and how long it will take us to repair the damage.
I think we actually do have a common culture.
I sincerely appreciate, as always, your unflagging optimism, wj.
I think we have have some language - some rhetoric - in common. But I do not think we have a common understanding of what those words mean.
The US doesn't really have a single, common, consensus culture or history. New Englanders are not the same as folks in the Pacific Northwest, or the Southwest, or the Southeast, or the Plains. And none of those folks are the same as each other.
I think we actually do have a common culture. Or did. Certainly we have different subcultures, both regional and otherwise. But there is, or was, far less difference from one region to another than there is from anywhere in the US to, for example, Australia.
Even now, I don't think the biggest cultural divide is geographic. As a first approximation, the difference is between those who get their information primarily from Fox News and those who don't. (There are newer, more disconnected from reality, news sources. As I said, a first approximation.). That's why I don't see partition as a viable future; the two groups are just too intertwined geographically.
I'm not sure how we restore some kind of national unity. What I hope is (and I know it's a faint hope) is that the Fox News aficionados get burned enough, personally, by this administration that they recoil back to reality. Many are all in unto death, as we saw during covid. But if anywhere near half come to their senses, we're back to a single culture with variations.
Btw, I just looked and Welsh’s most recent posts are about Trump’s crazed tariff policies towards Brazil and the other one is about Epstein. Neither sounds rightwing. He despises Trump as vehemently as anyone here.
Last one from me. I did not say Welsh was right wing. I don't think he is right wing. I'm not claiming he is right wing. And I'm not disagreeing with him because he is or is not right wing. I am just saying that what you are doing with him is the same that the fox news viewer is doing when they react to the last immigrant is taking our social security chryon.
You keep telling us that you don't see why we are so down on twitter/X, you don't see any algorithm at work etc. But the algorithm is not based on whether something is accurate or not, it is based on how well it can push your buttons. Getting you more reactive is what it does.
Welsh is buying into that when he asks you to subscribe and tries to monetize this. You buy into that when you say you had never heard of Hüseyin Doğru, but damn, this really reinforces your opinion of government.
There`s nothing to really do about it in the larger world, but you may want to consider my point rather than reflexively assume I am classifying Welsh as right wing, (I'm not) or assume that everyone knows LGM has a stable of writers so we can treat them all the same.(does everyone?)
and that's the last I'll speak of Welsh.
To put something of a point on my previous:
What I'm feeling lately is just a kind of crushing disappointment in my own country. It's just unbelievable to me that, after all the work that generations of people put into overcoming the horrible legacies of the worst of our history, we're back fighting the same damned fights.
Again.
Which makes me feel like we never really got past them. They've just been waiting in the wings for an opportunity to re-emerge.
Predatory capitalism, misogyny, white supremacy, anti-Semitism, xenophobia. Open hostility to gays and anybody who is in any way unusual or atypical. I'm sure you can add your own items to the list. All front and center, once again. And the freaking cruelty of it, the appeal that has for way too many people, just shocks me.
We have to fight this reeking pile of crap once again? Still? I'm just so freaking tired of it all.
Some of it is just human nature, for sure. But other places seem capable of at least maintaining a stance that it's wrong. We appear to be inviting it all in to have a seat at the table. As if it's all just another "point of view".
I thought we were past a lot of this. Turns out it's apparently bred in the bone. It turns my stomach.
Several years ago, the first time I said that I expected a peaceful partition of the US, the idea was ridiculed and people piled on.
Things are pretty different from what they were even just a few years ago.
The US doesn't really have a single, common, consensus culture or history. New Englanders are not the same as folks in the Pacific Northwest, or the Southwest, or the Southeast, or the Plains. And none of those folks are the same as each other.
And that's just the regional aspect.
Different cultures, different history. Different values.
Folks in New England have more in common with folks in maritime Canada than they do with folks in Texas, for example. Or Alabama, or Florida, or Kansas, or Minnesota, or Kentucky. And so on.
Trump is shredding Constitutional small-r republican governance, which is really the main thing we have in common. So I'm not sure what's left. And I have no idea how that gets resolved.
To be perfectly honest, I'd be fine with New England separating from the US in its current incarnation. Whether just becoming a country of its own, or becoming a Canadian province. I just have no idea how we would get from here to there without people being harmed, so I'm not really an advocate of that.
Perhaps a stronger model of federalism? Which would also take a lot of work, and I don't see that we're in a place where that could be discussed in a reasonable way - a way that could lead to an actionable plan.
My expectation is that we're just going to stumble forward into a heavily conflicted mediocre future.
By many measures, compared to other OECD countries we're already mediocre. We have a lot of money and a lot of guns. That seems to be what we value, and what we're good at.
Which I find kind of disappointing.
Btw, I just looked and Welsh’s most recent posts are about Trump’s crazed tariff policies towards Brazil and the other one is about Epstein. Neither sounds rightwing. He despises Trump as vehemently as anyone here.
And regarding freezing bank accounts, do you support it without first going through a trial and convicting someone of committing a serious crime? I don’t and I think Welsh states it well here—
——-
Back when the Trucker Protest happened in Ottawa Canada I opposed freezing their accounts, even though I thought they were a bunch of fools and opposed their agenda. Why? Because it is punishment without a trial or facing a jury. It’s devastating. And I understood that if it could be done to people I disagree with, it could be done to people I do agree with.
———-
Makes sense.
To repeat, I’m not endorsing Welsh in general. Sometimes I just think he is wrong. Though his extreme pessimism about our trajectory is looking more plausible in the past six months.
Btw, I just looked and Welsh’s most recent posts are about Trump’s crazed tariff policies towards Brazil and the other one is about Epstein. Neither sounds rightwing. He despises Trump as vehemently as anyone here.
And regarding freezing bank accounts, do you support it without first going through a trial and convicting someone of committing a serious crime? I don’t and I think Welsh states it well here—
——-
Back when the Trucker Protest happened in Ottawa Canada I opposed freezing their accounts, even though I thought they were a bunch of fools and opposed their agenda. Why? Because it is punishment without a trial or facing a jury. It’s devastating. And I understood that if it could be done to people I disagree with, it could be done to people I do agree with.
———-
Makes sense.
To repeat, I’m not endorsing Welsh in general. Sometimes I just think he is wrong. Though his extreme pessimism about our trajectory is looking more plausible in the past six months.
“ kind of feel that the attitude that Welsh puts out is the same attitude that has someone like a Robert Kennedy or a Tulsi Gabbard effortlessly slide from left to right.”
I don’t agree with that. As for the German government, , they have been repressing pro- Palestinian voices for awhile, certainly since Oct 7. I would expect them to tread very lightly when it comes to criticizing Israel, but there is a sense that they atone for their history on the backs of Palestinians. But again, this is on the long list of things I don’t care to argue. There is more than enough hypocrisy in this country to talk about.
Regarding Welsh, this sort of conversation drives me nuts. I suppose if there is another occasion where Welsh makes a point I find valid, I will spend time looking for some mainstream source making the same point so I can avoid irrelevancies. I very quickly learned that with Chomsky decades ago. Any mention of a human rights issue that cited him as a source became about him and not the issue. I don’t honestly give a crap if ten years down the road Welsh becomes David Horowitz. Or Christopher Hitchens or Matt Taibbi. I don’t expect it though. Still, Hitchens wrote some great stuff when he was still a lefty and occasionally even afterwards.
On Epstein, I have no attachment to any specific conspiracy theory but I would expect, given his associates and activities, he would have attracted intelligence agencies and potential blackmailers like flies to rotting meat. Intelligence agencies are not always the most ethical bureaucracies in the world and given what they are, they would be incompetent not to look for some way to take advantage of Epstein, his associates, and the way some of them spent their time.
Granted, I said the cause would be dealing with climate change -- which I still say -- and the people today are talking fighting between the fascist and non-fascist sides. Or between the urban and rural sides. Or between the fundamental Christians and everyone who isn't. Criticism tends to be limited to the fact that those divisions don't correspond well with existing state boundaries.
They can talk about all of those things and be right without it meaning that climate change is not a major factor in the situation. Climate change is a vulnerability/threat multiplier. It puts pressure on human systems and creates conditions that leave marginal populations desperate and exposed, and open to predation and exploitation. It drives urbanization and migration, and those are the issues that are driving the slide into xenophobia and authoritarianism.
It's all of a piece, and climate change sits there at the base of it all like expansive soil under a foundation.
Mr. Fuentes, 26, is a white supremacist, Hitler fan and vocal antisemite. A far-right influencer who hosts a weeknight streaming show called “America First,”
Fuentes?!?!? Somebody alert Stephen Miller that there's a Hispanic in our midst! Get him on the next flight to South Sudan!
For all I know, the guy's family has been in the US a couple of centuries. Does anyone think Miller cares?
As for LGM.... There is a certain atmosphere there, a way of acting, just as there is here and at every blog I have ever visited for any length of time. You pick up on what opinions are acceptable and which ones will induce a pile on and yes, also the topics where people within the community will rip into each other.
And which opinions are which have changed over time. Several years ago, the first time I said that I expected a peaceful partition of the US, the idea was ridiculed and people piled on. Today, it is perfectly acceptable to say that things are soon to come down to an actual shooting civil war. People are applauded for saying that they are leaving the country to avoid the war.
Granted, I said the cause would be dealing with climate change -- which I still say -- and the people today are talking fighting between the fascist and non-fascist sides. Or between the urban and rural sides. Or between the fundamental Christians and everyone who isn't. Criticism tends to be limited to the fact that those divisions don't correspond well with existing state boundaries.
You didn’t explain what is wrong with taking on Welsh’s bias in this case.
I'm not really sure we are talking about the same thing. I'm talking about Welsh's overall bias in that he wants to be right and he wants to tell everyone so. Neither of us knows anything about Hüseyin Doğru, so neither of us can comment intelligently, but if Germany is going too far, stepping back a bit, we can see how it comes about. Germany, given its history, not only the Holocaust, but also Munich, has a lot to overcome and it is understandable that pro Israel bias, along with the forceful campaign to equate any questioning of Israel with anti-semitism makes me wonder about the idea that Germany is simply doing this as a way of repressing voices. Making this out to be simply an argument about what levers government should use misses that whole problematic history. So it's hard to ignore that bias for me. YMMV
I kind of feel that the attitude that Welsh puts out is the same attitude that has someone like a Robert Kennedy or a Tulsi Gabbard effortlessly slide from left to right.
About LGM, I have noted that I avoid the comments and I've also posted about how I feel uncomfortable with Loomis' take no prisoners attitude. I don't know how the other front pagers feel, though when things get really bad in the comments, it does bubble up to the front page. It's pretty remarkable to have the situation where it looks like a front pager is trolling the commentators, but I do think a lot of their issues are not their political position, it is the speed at which conversation goes on over there, and the underlying snarkiness, which tends to magnify a lot of differences. So when you talk about the blog in that aspect, as I think you are when you talk about a 'certain atmosphere', I agree, but when you say "I fall about halfway between him and the LGM lefties" it sounds to me like you are suggesting the bloggers there occupy a point on the political spectrum, which I don't see.
About Epstein, your link says this There are so many explanations and unanswered questions raised by the release, which also says that there is “no credible evidence … that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions.” That means that the theories alleging Epstein was operating some kind of operation to collect incriminating information for a foreign government (most notably the Israelis) has also been dismissed by the U.S. government.
A friend on facebook noted that Ghislaine Maxwell's father, Robert Maxwell, was given a state funeral in Israel and that what Epstein did bore all the marks of what an intelligence agency would do to get leverage. Being in that framework, there was another post that zoomed that was someone posting a tweet from someone saying that they lived in an area where there were a lot of Russian émigrés and there was a noticable absence of ICE agents. So I do wonder.
LJ-
You didn’t explain what is wrong with taking on Welsh’s bias in this case. He was opposed to the Canadian government using its power in what he considers an illegitimate way against the truckers, who he does not support. Now he opposes the German government doing something similar to someone he is in sympathy with. He is saying he was right to say that people should oppose this use of government power because it is a form of tyranny that can be used against anyone.
I agree with him. The government shouldn’t use certain levers of power.
“ you need to be careful about taking on their biases.”
That applies to everyone about everything. You and I both have biases..
As for LGM, as a long time reader it has not escaped my notice that there are many posters and even more commenters. There is a certain atmosphere there, a way of acting, just as there is here and at every blog I have ever visited for any length of time. You pick up on what opinions are acceptable and which ones will induce a pile on and yes, also the topics where people within the community will rip into each other. By LGM standards I have all three types of opinions.
Which is all I will say. I limit myself on the number of arguments I am going to get into and this looks like two that I am going to drop.
Here is a third which I came to post about, but have nothing much to say except for what I sat in this paragraph. . Epstein. I have no specific theory about him, but am skeptical of the “ move along, nothing to see here” stance. https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/jeffrey-epstein-had-1000-victims
the lack of visual art and, with a very notable exception, the apparent lack of sites for religious rituals.
I'm not sure this is so. My understanding is that cave art attributable to Neandethals have been found in the Loire and in Spain. The attribution is based on dating the paint used, which apparently (or allegedly) pre-dates homo sapiens' arrival in Europe.
The famous individual buried in Shanidar cave surrounded by pollen is often cited as an example of Neanderthal intentional burial practices, indicating symbolic thought and ritualistic behaviors.
I would push back a bit on lumping LGM all together. I won't do a deep dive into each poster, but it's not really fair to suggest that there is one viewpoint when there are multiple authors.
Welch, on the other hand, is one person, so presumably (unless he has guest posters) his blog represents his view. The question of what kind of financial levers the government should use is an interesting question, and the case of Hüseyin Doğru seems pretty bad, but the problem is not the government using those levers, it is that what is happening is basically piggybacked on possibly the most incendiary question, the I/P one, which has a longer history than two other hot questions, abortion and the issue of trans There are others, the question of how much government is appropriate might be another, what racism is, what sexism is, but those problems have some definitional issues, where it is difficult to draw a line around what evidence should be considered.
Welsh seems more interested in being right than in understanding. He starts off with well, he didn't like the truckers strike, but he was opposed to freezing their accounts. and now, 10 years later, he has been proven correct! So yeah, you can learn a lot from other sources, but you need to be careful about taking on their biases.
Ok,here's the thing with my reluctance to have a bipartisan kumbayah here: I am unwilling to discuss the merits of bombing people to bits and that's what many to the right of me seem to have a rather high tolerance for.
Apart from this I'm actually quite a middle of the road social democrat, it's just that the Overton window seems to have shifted massively during the past 25 years.
On “An open thread on July 4th”
I had a feeling that was going to happen. "No root for comment."
"
We're building gulags and far too many people think it's just great because immigrants are ruining the country. But we're still a prosperous country. People aren't pushing wheelbarrows full of cash to the grocery store because of hyperinflation. Unemployment remains low.
What is happening more insidiously is the continued acceleration of the concentration of wealth. Too few people care about that ... because too many people want to blame immigrants for their perceived problems. (I could go on again about the $80K pickup trucks and nice, large fishing boats with tRump flags flying from them, obviously owned by people who have been ruined by immigrants, the woke agenda, and all the socialism happening everywhere.)
It hurts my head.
"
We're building gulags and far too many people think it's just great because immigrants are ruining the country. But we're still a prosperous country. People aren't pushing wheelbarrows full of cash to the grocery store because of hyperinflation. Unemployment remains low.
What is happening more insidiously is the continued acceleration of the concentration of wealth. Too few people care about that ... because too many people want to blame immigrants for their perceived problems. (I could go on again about the $80K pickup trucks and nice, large fishing boats with tRump flags flying from them, obviously owned by people who have been ruined by immigrants, the woke agenda, and all the socialism happening everywhere.)
It hurts my head.
"
I imagine that just how bad it will get depends a lot on how bad the effects of climate change become, but that's not a problem isolated to the United States. Things could get very bad for every country.
Just in terms of the US, though, absent major effects from climate change, I'd expect greater inequality and weaker federalism. Poor states will suffer. Tech hubs and coastal cities will continue to do relatively well. I wonder if we will start to resemble Brazil, with favelas rubbing shoulders with rich neighborhoods and militarized police maintaining the separation.
But the middle of the country is likely going to look like the land that time forgot.
"
I sincerely appreciate, as always, your unflagging optimism, wj
I truly wish I was optimistic at this point. But, while I have hopes, I don't really have expectations. (At least, not positive ones. :-)
I suspect that the question is just how bad it will get, and how long it will take us to repair the damage.
"
I think we actually do have a common culture.
I sincerely appreciate, as always, your unflagging optimism, wj.
I think we have have some language - some rhetoric - in common. But I do not think we have a common understanding of what those words mean.
"
The US doesn't really have a single, common, consensus culture or history. New Englanders are not the same as folks in the Pacific Northwest, or the Southwest, or the Southeast, or the Plains. And none of those folks are the same as each other.
I think we actually do have a common culture. Or did. Certainly we have different subcultures, both regional and otherwise. But there is, or was, far less difference from one region to another than there is from anywhere in the US to, for example, Australia.
Even now, I don't think the biggest cultural divide is geographic. As a first approximation, the difference is between those who get their information primarily from Fox News and those who don't. (There are newer, more disconnected from reality, news sources. As I said, a first approximation.). That's why I don't see partition as a viable future; the two groups are just too intertwined geographically.
I'm not sure how we restore some kind of national unity. What I hope is (and I know it's a faint hope) is that the Fox News aficionados get burned enough, personally, by this administration that they recoil back to reality. Many are all in unto death, as we saw during covid. But if anywhere near half come to their senses, we're back to a single culture with variations.
"
Btw, I just looked and Welsh’s most recent posts are about Trump’s crazed tariff policies towards Brazil and the other one is about Epstein. Neither sounds rightwing. He despises Trump as vehemently as anyone here.
Last one from me. I did not say Welsh was right wing. I don't think he is right wing. I'm not claiming he is right wing. And I'm not disagreeing with him because he is or is not right wing. I am just saying that what you are doing with him is the same that the fox news viewer is doing when they react to the last immigrant is taking our social security chryon.
You keep telling us that you don't see why we are so down on twitter/X, you don't see any algorithm at work etc. But the algorithm is not based on whether something is accurate or not, it is based on how well it can push your buttons. Getting you more reactive is what it does.
Welsh is buying into that when he asks you to subscribe and tries to monetize this. You buy into that when you say you had never heard of Hüseyin Doğru, but damn, this really reinforces your opinion of government.
There`s nothing to really do about it in the larger world, but you may want to consider my point rather than reflexively assume I am classifying Welsh as right wing, (I'm not) or assume that everyone knows LGM has a stable of writers so we can treat them all the same.(does everyone?)
and that's the last I'll speak of Welsh.
"
To put something of a point on my previous:
What I'm feeling lately is just a kind of crushing disappointment in my own country. It's just unbelievable to me that, after all the work that generations of people put into overcoming the horrible legacies of the worst of our history, we're back fighting the same damned fights.
Again.
Which makes me feel like we never really got past them. They've just been waiting in the wings for an opportunity to re-emerge.
Predatory capitalism, misogyny, white supremacy, anti-Semitism, xenophobia. Open hostility to gays and anybody who is in any way unusual or atypical. I'm sure you can add your own items to the list. All front and center, once again. And the freaking cruelty of it, the appeal that has for way too many people, just shocks me.
We have to fight this reeking pile of crap once again? Still? I'm just so freaking tired of it all.
Some of it is just human nature, for sure. But other places seem capable of at least maintaining a stance that it's wrong. We appear to be inviting it all in to have a seat at the table. As if it's all just another "point of view".
I thought we were past a lot of this. Turns out it's apparently bred in the bone. It turns my stomach.
"
Several years ago, the first time I said that I expected a peaceful partition of the US, the idea was ridiculed and people piled on.
Things are pretty different from what they were even just a few years ago.
The US doesn't really have a single, common, consensus culture or history. New Englanders are not the same as folks in the Pacific Northwest, or the Southwest, or the Southeast, or the Plains. And none of those folks are the same as each other.
And that's just the regional aspect.
Different cultures, different history. Different values.
Folks in New England have more in common with folks in maritime Canada than they do with folks in Texas, for example. Or Alabama, or Florida, or Kansas, or Minnesota, or Kentucky. And so on.
Trump is shredding Constitutional small-r republican governance, which is really the main thing we have in common. So I'm not sure what's left. And I have no idea how that gets resolved.
To be perfectly honest, I'd be fine with New England separating from the US in its current incarnation. Whether just becoming a country of its own, or becoming a Canadian province. I just have no idea how we would get from here to there without people being harmed, so I'm not really an advocate of that.
Perhaps a stronger model of federalism? Which would also take a lot of work, and I don't see that we're in a place where that could be discussed in a reasonable way - a way that could lead to an actionable plan.
My expectation is that we're just going to stumble forward into a heavily conflicted mediocre future.
By many measures, compared to other OECD countries we're already mediocre. We have a lot of money and a lot of guns. That seems to be what we value, and what we're good at.
Which I find kind of disappointing.
"
Btw, I just looked and Welsh’s most recent posts are about Trump’s crazed tariff policies towards Brazil and the other one is about Epstein. Neither sounds rightwing. He despises Trump as vehemently as anyone here.
And regarding freezing bank accounts, do you support it without first going through a trial and convicting someone of committing a serious crime? I don’t and I think Welsh states it well here—
——-
Back when the Trucker Protest happened in Ottawa Canada I opposed freezing their accounts, even though I thought they were a bunch of fools and opposed their agenda. Why? Because it is punishment without a trial or facing a jury. It’s devastating. And I understood that if it could be done to people I disagree with, it could be done to people I do agree with.
———-
Makes sense.
To repeat, I’m not endorsing Welsh in general. Sometimes I just think he is wrong. Though his extreme pessimism about our trajectory is looking more plausible in the past six months.
"
Btw, I just looked and Welsh’s most recent posts are about Trump’s crazed tariff policies towards Brazil and the other one is about Epstein. Neither sounds rightwing. He despises Trump as vehemently as anyone here.
And regarding freezing bank accounts, do you support it without first going through a trial and convicting someone of committing a serious crime? I don’t and I think Welsh states it well here—
——-
Back when the Trucker Protest happened in Ottawa Canada I opposed freezing their accounts, even though I thought they were a bunch of fools and opposed their agenda. Why? Because it is punishment without a trial or facing a jury. It’s devastating. And I understood that if it could be done to people I disagree with, it could be done to people I do agree with.
———-
Makes sense.
To repeat, I’m not endorsing Welsh in general. Sometimes I just think he is wrong. Though his extreme pessimism about our trajectory is looking more plausible in the past six months.
"
“ kind of feel that the attitude that Welsh puts out is the same attitude that has someone like a Robert Kennedy or a Tulsi Gabbard effortlessly slide from left to right.”
I don’t agree with that. As for the German government, , they have been repressing pro- Palestinian voices for awhile, certainly since Oct 7. I would expect them to tread very lightly when it comes to criticizing Israel, but there is a sense that they atone for their history on the backs of Palestinians. But again, this is on the long list of things I don’t care to argue. There is more than enough hypocrisy in this country to talk about.
Regarding Welsh, this sort of conversation drives me nuts. I suppose if there is another occasion where Welsh makes a point I find valid, I will spend time looking for some mainstream source making the same point so I can avoid irrelevancies. I very quickly learned that with Chomsky decades ago. Any mention of a human rights issue that cited him as a source became about him and not the issue. I don’t honestly give a crap if ten years down the road Welsh becomes David Horowitz. Or Christopher Hitchens or Matt Taibbi. I don’t expect it though. Still, Hitchens wrote some great stuff when he was still a lefty and occasionally even afterwards.
On Epstein, I have no attachment to any specific conspiracy theory but I would expect, given his associates and activities, he would have attracted intelligence agencies and potential blackmailers like flies to rotting meat. Intelligence agencies are not always the most ethical bureaucracies in the world and given what they are, they would be incompetent not to look for some way to take advantage of Epstein, his associates, and the way some of them spent their time.
"
Granted, I said the cause would be dealing with climate change -- which I still say -- and the people today are talking fighting between the fascist and non-fascist sides. Or between the urban and rural sides. Or between the fundamental Christians and everyone who isn't. Criticism tends to be limited to the fact that those divisions don't correspond well with existing state boundaries.
They can talk about all of those things and be right without it meaning that climate change is not a major factor in the situation. Climate change is a vulnerability/threat multiplier. It puts pressure on human systems and creates conditions that leave marginal populations desperate and exposed, and open to predation and exploitation. It drives urbanization and migration, and those are the issues that are driving the slide into xenophobia and authoritarianism.
It's all of a piece, and climate change sits there at the base of it all like expansive soil under a foundation.
"
From the article bobbyp links to:
Fuentes?!?!? Somebody alert Stephen Miller that there's a Hispanic in our midst! Get him on the next flight to South Sudan!
For all I know, the guy's family has been in the US a couple of centuries. Does anyone think Miller cares?
"
As for LGM.... There is a certain atmosphere there, a way of acting, just as there is here and at every blog I have ever visited for any length of time. You pick up on what opinions are acceptable and which ones will induce a pile on and yes, also the topics where people within the community will rip into each other.
And which opinions are which have changed over time. Several years ago, the first time I said that I expected a peaceful partition of the US, the idea was ridiculed and people piled on. Today, it is perfectly acceptable to say that things are soon to come down to an actual shooting civil war. People are applauded for saying that they are leaving the country to avoid the war.
Granted, I said the cause would be dealing with climate change -- which I still say -- and the people today are talking fighting between the fascist and non-fascist sides. Or between the urban and rural sides. Or between the fundamental Christians and everyone who isn't. Criticism tends to be limited to the fact that those divisions don't correspond well with existing state boundaries.
"
You didn’t explain what is wrong with taking on Welsh’s bias in this case.
I'm not really sure we are talking about the same thing. I'm talking about Welsh's overall bias in that he wants to be right and he wants to tell everyone so. Neither of us knows anything about Hüseyin Doğru, so neither of us can comment intelligently, but if Germany is going too far, stepping back a bit, we can see how it comes about. Germany, given its history, not only the Holocaust, but also Munich, has a lot to overcome and it is understandable that pro Israel bias, along with the forceful campaign to equate any questioning of Israel with anti-semitism makes me wonder about the idea that Germany is simply doing this as a way of repressing voices. Making this out to be simply an argument about what levers government should use misses that whole problematic history. So it's hard to ignore that bias for me. YMMV
I kind of feel that the attitude that Welsh puts out is the same attitude that has someone like a Robert Kennedy or a Tulsi Gabbard effortlessly slide from left to right.
About LGM, I have noted that I avoid the comments and I've also posted about how I feel uncomfortable with Loomis' take no prisoners attitude. I don't know how the other front pagers feel, though when things get really bad in the comments, it does bubble up to the front page. It's pretty remarkable to have the situation where it looks like a front pager is trolling the commentators, but I do think a lot of their issues are not their political position, it is the speed at which conversation goes on over there, and the underlying snarkiness, which tends to magnify a lot of differences. So when you talk about the blog in that aspect, as I think you are when you talk about a 'certain atmosphere', I agree, but when you say "I fall about halfway between him and the LGM lefties" it sounds to me like you are suggesting the bloggers there occupy a point on the political spectrum, which I don't see.
About Epstein, your link says this
There are so many explanations and unanswered questions raised by the release, which also says that there is “no credible evidence … that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions.” That means that the theories alleging Epstein was operating some kind of operation to collect incriminating information for a foreign government (most notably the Israelis) has also been dismissed by the U.S. government.
A friend on facebook noted that Ghislaine Maxwell's father, Robert Maxwell, was given a state funeral in Israel and that what Epstein did bore all the marks of what an intelligence agency would do to get leverage. Being in that framework, there was another post that zoomed that was someone posting a tweet from someone saying that they lived in an area where there were a lot of Russian émigrés and there was a noticable absence of ICE agents. So I do wonder.
"
LJ-
You didn’t explain what is wrong with taking on Welsh’s bias in this case. He was opposed to the Canadian government using its power in what he considers an illegitimate way against the truckers, who he does not support. Now he opposes the German government doing something similar to someone he is in sympathy with. He is saying he was right to say that people should oppose this use of government power because it is a form of tyranny that can be used against anyone.
I agree with him. The government shouldn’t use certain levers of power.
“ you need to be careful about taking on their biases.”
That applies to everyone about everything. You and I both have biases..
As for LGM, as a long time reader it has not escaped my notice that there are many posters and even more commenters. There is a certain atmosphere there, a way of acting, just as there is here and at every blog I have ever visited for any length of time. You pick up on what opinions are acceptable and which ones will induce a pile on and yes, also the topics where people within the community will rip into each other. By LGM standards I have all three types of opinions.
Which is all I will say. I limit myself on the number of arguments I am going to get into and this looks like two that I am going to drop.
Here is a third which I came to post about, but have nothing much to say except for what I sat in this paragraph. . Epstein. I have no specific theory about him, but am skeptical of the “ move along, nothing to see here” stance.
https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/jeffrey-epstein-had-1000-victims
"
For those of you with a little time on your hands and/or the inclination, I offer this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/10/opinion/trolling-democracy.html?unlocked_article_code=1.VU8.A8K5.ebr2nefdqspV&smid=url-share
Passing political fad, or omen?
On “Plus ça change…”
the lack of visual art and, with a very notable exception, the apparent lack of sites for religious rituals.
I'm not sure this is so. My understanding is that cave art attributable to Neandethals have been found in the Loire and in Spain. The attribution is based on dating the paint used, which apparently (or allegedly) pre-dates homo sapiens' arrival in Europe.
The famous individual buried in Shanidar cave surrounded by pollen is often cited as an example of Neanderthal intentional burial practices, indicating symbolic thought and ritualistic behaviors.
On “An open thread on July 4th”
Yeah, sorry about that.
"
"Welch" in sundry comments should be "Welsh", right? As in this blog.
"
I would push back a bit on lumping LGM all together. I won't do a deep dive into each poster, but it's not really fair to suggest that there is one viewpoint when there are multiple authors.
Welch, on the other hand, is one person, so presumably (unless he has guest posters) his blog represents his view. The question of what kind of financial levers the government should use is an interesting question, and the case of Hüseyin Doğru seems pretty bad, but the problem is not the government using those levers, it is that what is happening is basically piggybacked on possibly the most incendiary question, the I/P one, which has a longer history than two other hot questions, abortion and the issue of trans There are others, the question of how much government is appropriate might be another, what racism is, what sexism is, but those problems have some definitional issues, where it is difficult to draw a line around what evidence should be considered.
Welsh seems more interested in being right than in understanding. He starts off with well, he didn't like the truckers strike, but he was opposed to freezing their accounts. and now, 10 years later, he has been proven correct! So yeah, you can learn a lot from other sources, but you need to be careful about taking on their biases.
"
Ok,here's the thing with my reluctance to have a bipartisan kumbayah here: I am unwilling to discuss the merits of bombing people to bits and that's what many to the right of me seem to have a rather high tolerance for.
Apart from this I'm actually quite a middle of the road social democrat, it's just that the Overton window seems to have shifted massively during the past 25 years.
"
I am just hoping we get to have midterm elections.
You and all of us, Marty.
Or: what Pro Bono said.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.