Anyone Remember Marshall McLuhan? I do.

In 1972, when Peter C. Newman left his job as editor-in-chief at The Toronto Star for the same position at Maclean's, he had several lunch conversations with Marshall McLuhan, and had the foresight to record them. 

Rummaging through his files, Newman recently discovered the lost tape of one of their luncheon conversations. "McLuhan was then in his 60s and had written most of his seminal studies of communication and the media, including The Medium is the Massage and The Gutenberg Galaxy,” Newman recalls. “This really was a conversation over lunch rather than a formal interview."

During that conversation, McLuhan makes a statement that, when I read it, just about knocked me over. 

The successor to politics will be propaganda, not in the sense of a message or ideology, but the impact of the whole technology of the times. So politics will eventually be replaced by imagery. The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favour of his image, because the image will be so much more powerful than he could ever be.

Remember, Marshall McLuhan is the guy who gave us the phrase the medium is the message, then twisted that phrase for the title of his book,The Medium is the Massage implying that we are soothed and relaxed by that which we see while at the same time it expands our horizons, possibly overwhelming us in the process. This, he warned, was  not without danger: the media is easily manipulated, what we call spun. Would McLuhan be surprised by the newest extremes? Probably not.

We have become less discerning in our ability to separate truth from fiction. The fact-checking craze is testament to that. We need just about everything that comes out a political mouth to be vetted. I think this is a direct outgrowth of the massage, not the message. 

But back to what McLuhan said: The politician will be only too happy to abdicate in favour of his image, because the image will be so much more powerful than he could ever be.

We are seeing that play out in real time. Whether its President Felon's awkward dance moves or this insistence that the US will annex Greenland, or that he will take back the Panama Canal, the images we see flashing on the screen are attempts to get the audience to suspend their disbelief so that while what is said may be patently untrue, the audience accepts the premise presented. 

During the past week, We, the People, have witnessed rapid fire, massive changes to our government: mass firings of inspector generals, pledges of mass deportations, massive repeals to parts of the social safety net putting millions of low income and middle class citizens at risk, and so on. The Constitution has been challenged in ways never before seen, as in the matter of birthright citizenship. 

The Oval Office likes to talk about how other countries send us their violent criminals while releasing hundreds of violent seditionists back into the general population. He went even further requesting the  DoJ drop all investigations into the actions on January 6th, 2021. Former federal prosecutor Alexis Loeb offered the observation that 

These pardons suggest that if you commit acts of violence, as long as you do so on behalf of a politically powerful person you may be able to escape consequences, They undermine — and are a blow to — the sacrifice of all the officers who put themselves in the face of harm to protect democracy on Jan. 6.

That's a direct contradiction to the promises he made to be law enforcement's best friend, and that violent offenders would not be pardoned. 

Jake Angeli-Chansley, the Q-Anon Shaman, upon his release from jail, announced on X just how he was going to celebrate:

I JUST GOT THE NEWS FROM MY LAWYER... I GOT A PARDON BABY! THANK YOU PRESIDENT TRUMP!!! NOW I AM GONNA BUY SOME MOTHA FU*KIN GUNS!!! I LOVE THIS COUNTRY!!! GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!!  J6ers are getting released & JUSTICE HAS COME... EVERYTHING done in the dark WILL come to light! 

[Well, if that doesn't warm the cockles of your heart, I don't know what will.]

It is becoming increasingly clear from the optics this guy presents that he is in no way interested in governing FOR the people.The only thing he wants is the spotlight. He is playing at being president, but not actually doing it. That job he's leaving to the surrounding sycophants. And those sharks are already eating each other as demonstrated by the rapid departure of Vivek Ramasmarmy. Despite claims he's gonna run for Governor of Ohio, the general consensus is that Elon Musty forced him out.

And no autopsy would be complete without mention of Elon. Some people wrote in accusing me of "fake news," but I'm not sure how that picture of Musty was fake news. Nor was I alone in my revulsion...one country even tried to ban him from entering ever again.  As I told one of my faithful correspondents: It's all about the optics.

In a message posted on a variety of platforms today, his longtime buddy, Philip S. Low,  wrote rather interestingly about his ex-friend. I have copied the post from LinkedIn and it's worth reading:

I have known Elon Musk at a deep level for 14 years, well before he was a household name. We used to text frequently. He would come to my birthday party and invite me to his parties. He would tell me everything about his women problems. As sons of highly accomplished men who married venuses, were violent and lost their fortunes, and who were bullied in high school, we had a number of things in common most people cannot relate to. We would hang out together late in Los Angeles. He would visit my San Diego lab. He invested in my company.

Elon is not a Nazi, per se.

He is something much better, or much worse, depending on how you look at it.

Nazis believed that an entire race was above everyone else.

Elon believes he is above everyone else. He used to think he worked on the most important problems. When I met him, he did not presume to be a technical person — he would be the first to say that he lacked the expertise to understand certain data. That happened later. Now, he believes he has all the solutions.

All his talk about getting to Mars to “maintain the light of consciousness” or about “free speech absolutism” is actually BS Elon knowingly feeds people to manipulate them. Everything Elon does is about acquiring and consolidating power. That is why he likes far right parties, because they are easier to control. That is also why he gave himself $56 Billion which could have gone to the people actually doing the work and innovations he is taking credit for at Tesla. His lust for power is also why he did xAI and Neuralink, to attempt to compete with OpenAI and NeuroVigil, respectively, despite being affiliated with them. Unlike Tesla and Twitter, he was unable to conquer those companies and tried to create rivals. I fired him with cause in December 2021 when he tried to undermine NV.

Elon did two Nazi salutes.

He did them for five main reasons:

1. He was concerned that the “Nazi wing” of the MAGA movement, under the influence of Steve Bannon, would drive him away from Trump, somewhere in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, rather than in the West Wing which is where he wants to be. He was already feeling raw over the fact that Trump did not follow his recommendation for Treasury Secretary and that the Senate also did not pick his first choice;

2. He was upset that he had had to go to Israel and Auschwitz to make up for agreeing with a Nazi sympathizer online and wanted to reclaim his “power” just like when he told advertisers to “go fuck yourself”. This has nothing to do with Asperger’s;

3. There are some Jews he actually hates: Sam Altman is amongst them;

4. He enjoys a good thrill and knew exactly what he was doing;

5. His narcissistic self was hoping the audience would reflect his abject gesture back to him, thereby showing complete control and dominion over it, and increasing his leverage over Trump. That did not happen.

Bottom line: Elon is not a Nazi but he did give two Nazi Salutes, which is completely unacceptable.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch....

Four more hostages have been released. The women, given military uniforms for the "event," were unbowed. From The TImes of Israel

The four hostages released Saturday have told their families and friends that they determinedly showed Hamas, during the staged event the terror group had arranged for their handover, that they would not be humiliated, according to reports of their initial conversations.

The four young women — abducted IDF surveillance soldiers Karina Ariev, 20, Daniella Gilboa, 20, Naama Levy, 20, and Liri Albag, 19 — walked to the stage set up in a square in Gaza City calmly and confidently, and smiled and waved to the crowds of Hamas gunmen and Gazans.

Despite promises they would be released, no Bibases were on the list. This has given rise to greater speculation that 1) Shiri, the mom,  Ariel, and Kfir are dead; 2) Hamas is not in possession of their bodies; 3) the fate of their dad, Yarden, at this writing, remains unknown.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Today is January 27th, 

International Holocaust Remembrance Day

and the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

It didn't begin with the camps,

it began by separating the population into

desirable and undesirable groups.

Sound familiar?

It should.

May the memories of all who perished 

forever be for blessings.

Be Careful What You Wish For

Dean Phillips

By the time most of you read this, the New Hampshire primary will be underway. It's really not much of a primary; everybody but Niki Haley has bowed out of the GOP side, Biden is the incumbent Democrat, and Congressman Dean Phillips, (MN-D, 3rd District) is running a campaign to give Democrats an alternative to Biden.

Phillips is an interesting guy. His dad, Artie Pfefer, was killed in Vietnam when he was 6 months old. His mother, DeeDee, married Eddie Phillips (whose mother happened to be Dear Abby) when Dean was about three. Eddie adopted him, hence his surname is Phillips. But that's neither here nor there. What makes him interesting is that he's a three-term Congressclown, having beaten the incumbent GOP clown with 55% of the vote in 2018. No Dem had held that seat since 1961, so that should tell you something about him. 

Like Feckless Loser, he inherited his first conglomerate, Phillips Distilling, but he didn't drive that into the ground. Not at all. As per Wikipedia,

Phillips served as the company's president and CEO from 2000 to 2012. He then stepped aside to run one of his other corporate investments, Talenti gelato, until it was sold for an undisclosed amount to Unilever in 2014. In 2016 he founded Penny's Coffee, a coffee shop chain he still owns, which has two locations in the Twin Cities metropolitan area as of 2022.

[Confession: The best Talenti flavors are Sea Salt Caramel and Pacific Coast Pistachio. And they're all OU. Just sayin.']

The guy knows how to run a business. He has a proven track record. Plus, he's 55 years old. He appears to be in good health. Is he perfect? No. Is he squeaky clean? Probably not. Am I supporting him? Not at this time. Have I thought about it? Yes. 

I don't think he's undermining Biden; I think he's asking some seriously legitimate questions that need to be asked. There is no small number of voters on both sides looking for an alternative candidate. A third party candidate might be a disaster. But the right candidate might bring a wide enough swath into the voting booth to stop the fall. Can one be found? I have no idea, but it's nice someone is trying. 

As long as the American public continues to drink the Kool-Aid that Biden is lousy for the economy, there may not be a viable path to salvage his campaign. So far, the only one talking loud is Feckless, and his minions don't care what he says. 

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and predict Feckless is gonna get another shot at the presidency. This worries me on two very different planes.

The first is that of late, he makes speeches that make no sense....the WORDS don't make sense. Two nights ago, in one of his speeches about January 6th, he consistently confused Nancy Pelosi with Nikki Haley, claiming she was the one in charge of security during the January 6th insurrection:

Nikki Haley, you know they, do you know they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything, deleted and destroyed all of it. All of it, because of lots of things like Nikki Haley is in charge of security. We offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, National Guard, whatever they want. They turned it down. They don’t want to talk about that. These are very dishonest people."

Twins!

Haley was never in Congress; she was, however, his representative to the United Nations. 

The gaffs are too numerous to list,  but if someone doesn't begin to call this orange's mental acuity and fitness into question, then no one is doing their job. That his followers don't seem to mind that he cannot put together a cogent sentence is terrifying. Are they willing to elect a guy with obvious cognitive decline to carry the nuclear codes in his back pocket?

Add to that this dictator on day one business. The New York Times printed parts of the December 5th, 2023 FOX Town Hall with Sean Hannity:

But Mr. Hannity, a longtime Trump ally, was apparently unsatisfied, and five minutes later, he brought up the issue again. “You are promising America tonight, you would never abuse this power as retribution against anybody?” he said.

 

“Except for Day 1,” Mr. Trump said breezily. There was the smallest silence. “Except for—” Mr. Hannity responded, sounding a bit flustered.

 

“Look,” Mr. Trump joked to the crowd watching him in Davenport, Iowa. “He’s going crazy.”

 

And even as Mr. Hannity tried to clarify that Mr. Trump had no intention of abusing his office, Mr. Trump did not state a clear aversion to the idea of authoritarian power.

 

“This guy, he says, ‘You’re not going to be a dictator, are you?’” Mr. Trump said, referring to Mr. Hannity. “I said, ‘No, no, no — other than Day 1.’ We’re closing the border. And we’re drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I’m not a dictator.”

As we say in  Minnesota, Ja, sure, you betcha you're gonna stop. 

During the immunity hearing, the following exchange took place between Judge Florence Pan and Feckless Loser's attorney, D. John Sauer:

Judge Pan: I asked you a yes-or-no question. Could a president who ordered SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival, who was not impeached, would he be subject to criminal prosecution?  

Attorney Sauer: Qualified yes – if he is impeached and convicted first.

With SCOTUS firmly in his pocket, his belief that he can order a hit on an opposition leader, do you really think the Constitution as we know it will hold up against his promised power grab? I don't. 

I think the Constitution will be repealed and dismantled in parts, supported by a court that doesn't give a flying fart in space for anything but their own pockets. And those members of the court who dissent? They will be impeached, disbarred, and disinappeared*. 

Ready for part two? Ever ask yourself What happens if he runs and loses?

The idea that he could run and win is not nearly as terrifying as what happens if he loses again.

This time, it won't be a failed insurrection at the Capitol building. This time, his anti-democracy minions have had more than enough time to not just learn from the January 6th failure, but how to start a civil war.  These guys have not stood still. Behind closed doors, deep in the forests, and tucked away in the hills, those guys Feckless Loser told to stand down have done exactly that. They stood down, stepped back, and are planning the demise of the United States as we know it. Feckless, of course, will think he's the dictator, but we all know that's poppycock. He will be the puppet whose strings are jerked by the new versions of Bannon and Miller. 

There is no clear dividing line as there was in the first Civil War. A division will not be cleanly cut. A friend in the military pointed out that most of the brass would uphold their oath to defend the constitution and fight to save a democratic republic such as it is. The troops, on the other hand, may not understand the nuance. That is dangerous on a whole bunch of other levels. 

What happens in the US matters across the globe. If we fall, other democracies will fall without our support...places like Ukraine and Israel. 

And if Israel falls?

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Think long and hard about your political choices. 

*Disinappeared: an original word by the Senior Son.