I’m been stuck ona couple unexamined class assumptions in the New York Times as of late.
First a reasonably cognizant article examining some middle class or even lower middle class entries into university, but told in a quasi-anthropology way — the line that throws me for a loop is that there is no applying for the elite colleges here — they want to go where they feel they belong.  Or, you know, given that they’re not at the very tip top of “genius” level — the uber 13 year old chess masters and on — and thus wouldn’t get full scholarship, somewhere where they might half afford.
And then there’s this odd line in a Nicholas Kristoff op-ed defending arts funding.

Singer has a terrific recent book, “Ethics in the Real World,” that wrestles with how much we should donate to charity, and whether wearing a $10,000 watch is a sign of good taste, or of shallow narcissism.

Raise your head if you, out there in the real world, have had this real world concern in looking at your wrist and having guilt pains that this  $10,000 watch you are wearing might comes across as too ostentatious.

“My aunt… watches Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy religiously.  Every single day.

And Dancing with the Stars.

She has a spread-sheet, where she’s kept track of every contestant over the past 15 years…

… who won and who lost and with what…

So someone looked over and saw she had her laptop out, and asked ‘What are you up to?’, and she showed her, and…

they responded with ‘ew… uh… okay’

Everybody needs a hobby, I guess.”

Something in this op-ed from Ross Douthat, on the trouble with any political entity latching onto the culture of the past — in this case the “alt right” and Jane Austen and the obvious attempts at reclaiming standardized gender norms — caught my eye.

This is an idea with a powerful hold on the liberal mind — that great literature and art inoculate against illiberalism, that high culture properly interpreted offers a natural rebuke to all that is cruel, hierarchical and unwoke. The idea that if Mike Pence really listened to “Hamilton” he would stand up to Donald Trump … that Barack Obama’s humanistic reading list was somehow in deep tension with his drone strikes … that had George W. Bush only discovered his talent for painting earlier he might not have invaded Iraq … these are conceits that can be rebutted (with Wagner or Céline or Nazis-at-the-symphony references) but always seem to rise again.
In part they endure because contemporary liberalism has substituted aestheticism for religion, dreaming of a universal empathy sealed through reading rather than revelation.

In one of the liberal magazine symposiums of reactions after the Trump victory (I leafed through the issue of Harpers, didn’t find it there), there was a college Literature professor who reports having this nightmare that s/he’ll assign Kafka’s Metamorphosis, and get back student responses of “Can’t relate”, in consideration of current political results, s/he’s taking care to emphasize “empathy” in choice of class readings — which struck me as a little wearisome in its totality of repercussions.

And maybe you don’t much like this guy, but here’s your bait for you wild eyed liberals.

So now that everyone seems to be coming around to Trump as Jimmy Carter [?], it’s time to ponder … Bernie Sanders as Ronald Reagan.

With his run against Hillary as his Reagan-in-’76, his age as a supposed impediment, his wild-eyed socialism as a supposed liability …

Now would be a good time for the NEA to fund a “Piss Christ” revival.
A work that is conspicuously absent from the USA Today’s round-up of great works aided with NEA grant funding.
In a USA Today series off the heals of a series of graphs showing various rural states beating out Cali and New York for per capita grant funding, so chew on that non bi-coastal elites!

The funny thing is, I have a sneaking suspicion that had it been “Piss Satan”, the controversy would have been the same, despite the fact that theoretically its message would be more in line with the constituencies of Jesse Helms and Patrick Buchanan.

If I’m understanding this “Benedict Option” correctly…

and as we are Looking for other “Benedict Option” parallels — basically other sub-cultures…  the idea of sub cultures it the ideal here and the reason this whole thing falls flat to me…

The desire to withdraw from a world hostile to your beliefs and tropes… form your own institutions, away from the secular institutions.  Obviously perilous in the question of what it means to be a member of society.

But beyond this.  Er… Doesn’t this already happen?  Like, even en masse?  Or are we going beyond Christian Rock and even the idea of home schooling your kids to some kind of commune or somethings?  Regarding the new developments that make this something to do now… is there about to be some new extry- Currency to counteract the demands of the state for bakeries to service gay marriages?

I.  Remember him?  Another term is beginning to crop up — one I’m reluctant to utter. It makes me think back to a lone protester, waving a nine-foot-long banner on a Palmer street corner during the Obama years. A Lyndon La Rouche, fan he proudly advertised that affiliation along with his bigger message. The man was clearly unbalanced and I don’t want to be associated with him. Yet there are people in Washington D.C. making similar noises now. What was the term?
He’s referring to famed Alaska protester Sidney Hill.  Who now has his own twitter page, where you can follow the basic Larouche line.  He gained renown for a lawsuit against him — an incident that ended with his acquital.  A punk rock song was inspired by his regular protests (“Wasting Your Life for La La La Larouche”, alas no longer on youtube).

II.  The Larouchies Take to CPAC!
Just outside of the Potomac Ballroom where Bossie spoke, I was greeted by a man handing out flyers on behalf of the Larouche Political Action Committee, an organization claiming to know the truth about a grand conspiracy involving a new “imperial order” and George Soros. “We need to take down Mr. Soros!” Yelled the man with the papers. Of course, I grabbed one, though making heads or tails of the content of said paper was a less certain outcome.

III.  KICKING IT IN BOSTON!
The ex has been out,trying to get signatures…usually in front of grocery stores,occasionally South Station in Boston. They manage to collect a few,no more than single digits,so the “thousands of signatures” surely are not coming from the Boston office.
Just this weekend,they were told to,and I quote, “go back to Russia” and Rachel was called a communist to her face. Apparently,their sign,saying” Russia is not the enemy” is not going over well here.
I’m waiting for the inevitable punch in the face from some disgruntled T rider,as they like to work the MBTA train stations,only to be told my T workers to that they’re not allowed to solicit on T property and stop bothering riders.

KICKING IT IN LA!
LaRouche movementites on Jefferson, something I didn’t think I’d see in 2017

IV.  History:  Kesha Rogers’s campaign now as Texas political lore.  From the fertile minds at Lyndon LaRouche and Co., this is a campaign video from Kesha Roger’s 2012 race for Congress from a Houston district, where she secured the Democratic nomination. This year, she is in the runoff for the Democratic Party’s nomination for U.S. Senate, even though she supports the impeachment of President Obama. (Rogers billboards pointing that out went up in Dallas, Houston and San Antonio this week.)

V.  WHO IS Joseph Ford Catto?  He appraised Lyndon Larouche round about 2013 for “Washington Times Community Pages” (Whatever that is).  Now, he’s interviewed Lyndon Larouche for “San Francisco Review of Books“.  Funny thing about the San Francisco Review of Books, the wikipedia page places the publication entirely in the past tense.  Funnier thing, the new San Francisco Review of Books is composed entirely of articles by Joseph Catto.

VI.  All’s well that ends well for Webster Tarpley.  Melania Trump, having been rebuffed in her bid against the Daily Mail, goes ahead and cuts out the lesser of the two parties she was suing.  And now Webster Tarpley can go back to — um — extolling the virtues of the Obama Administration, upholding the Affordable Care Act and thus leading to his old Alex Jonesian fan base to mockery — it’s safe to suggest that his appearances on Russia TV are over?
So after being a leading voice against Obama’s election you are now cheerleading his most fascistic boondoggle?!?
Tarpley is a genius on Venetian history, but cannot see progressive left are the new Venetians, protecting the deep state
Well, the Resistance is all about the World Historical Event.

VII.  The Larouchies have some work cut out for themselves, as they steer in their love of Trump well selling American government building of Russiaphobic paranoia to Russia State TV.  (As well, for Iranian TV, sticking to the basic liberal / left line on military spending and its repercussions globally, as against the current Trump Administration typical right-wing conservative tact of increasing military spending).

And good luck waiting for this one. (Trump’s policies inflamed negative public opinion: Analyst)
Jones further argued that the extreme measures Trump has taken on immigration “has fed into this campaign which has been fomented against him.”
Therefore, he said, Trump should learn to be a little bit more “tactful,” asserting that he really made a “wrong decision” on the immigration issue. 

VIII.  Jacques Cheminade.  Making waves (or his usual meandering to last place) as he runs for President of France in the new “Nationalist” era.  The larouchian party is thus getting referenced as “eurosceptic Solidarity et Progres party“.

IX.  Dan Schmitt. Glass Steagall. For the Farmers.  Not on board the Trump Train yet, even as the Larouche Movement he’s pledged to goes full force.
Andy Dolson sees Trump following Larouche’s blue-print against Soros-British-Empire… except for the Treasury pick.  Which you’d think would be, you know, huge.
On Glass Steagall.  Is it possible that this is going nowhere in the Trump Administration?  (The Executive Intelligence Review press release, after moving through a positive appraisal of a smudging answer they wouldn’t have accepted by the previous occupant, then goes on to praise the skype “journalists” that the Trump Press conference has been taking.)

 X.  Still the Enemy.
Barack Obama, after eight years of mass killing with drones and genocidal “regime change” wars, has refused to retire from his treasonous role, but is now leading an insurrection against the democratically elected President who solidly defeated his clone, Hillary Clinton, in the November election.
“Obama is actually highly vulnerable,” Lyndon LaRouche noted today. “He has exposed himself as a traitor to the United States.”
He goes on to finger George Soros as well.

The question is… Can he still be impeached?  Will an “Impeach Obama” call still bring in some fund-raising and attention?

“I sense the note of Poetry in what the President was doing“…

In a discussion on Trump’s proported gaffe on Frederick Douglass, and in arguing there was no gaffe — the works of Douglass continues to grow and we can refer to Douglass in the press tense here at (ahem) “Black History Week”. Then we get to a brutal attack of The Elements of Style, Strunk and White.  (Strunk and White?  STUNK and White is more like it, amiright larouchies?)

XI. Footnotey.  If you check Ray’s footnotes, you’ll find that the main source for the volcano theory is Rogelio Maduro, the associate editor of 21st Century Science & Technology, a magazine published by the Lyndon LaRouche network. Maduro is evidently not part of the “agenda-oriented scientific community”–even though he does have a bachelor’s degree in geology.
NB makes note of the pee pee tape…

XII.  So the question.   First Step in LaRouche Exoneration?  Is this the Lyndon Larouche Power Hour?
Now that Donald Trump is President of the United States, perhaps Lyndon LaRouche will be allowed to emerge from forced exile, as his enemies have now been outed and routed, and he should take his rightful place amongst one of America’s greatest heroes, thinkers, philosophers, writers, lovers of humanity and the United States of America.
Or just the Alex Jones Power Hour (mocked as he was on Saturday Night Live.)

Poor Lyndon will not live long enough to get his due. Even in death, his powerful enemies will continue to smear his name. Hopefully though, his organization will grow and continue his legacy by sweeping the supranational oligarchy into the dustbin of history.

Won’t be mocked on Saturday Night Live…

XIII.  The Trump Bash

In addition to a live feed from Washington, DC, where Trump will take the oath of office on Friday shortly before noon eastern time, the audience in Moscow can expect at least two “presentations” — one about the “political philosophy” of the “triptych” (the art collective’s belief that Russian President Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump and far-right French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen will usher in a new world order), and another by Kirill Benediktov, a science-fiction writer with ties to the LaRouche movement. (Critics call that movement fascist or a political cult.) Benediktov recently wrote a book about Trump called “Black Swan,” where he reviews some of Trump’s past entrepreneurial escapades in Russia.

But… same… as … it … ever… was…

On Jan. 3, 2017, as the new 115th Congress convened in Washington, D.C., they were met by an organizing team from the LaRouche Political Action Committee. This team of political activists and volunteers walked the halls of Congress, buttonholed Senators and Congressmen, and took part in numerous meetings, whose primary focus centered on the emergency economic measures which must be taken to save the nation.

Actually the line I’m thrown out by is…

“If you did this to Andrew Jackson 200 years ago, he’d call you out on the street…”

as opposed to “made to destroy the destruction of our society … sick of the world they’re making for our kids”…

Mention Andrew Jackson on a Saturday Night Live sketch?

He does have a point.  Andrew Jackson killed a man, didn’t he?  In a dual.  Something that wouldn’t make for the destruction of our society, won’t somebody please think of the kids.

So.  When is Trump going to make his fabled re-appearance on Jones anyway?