Election

Don’t ignore the man behind the curtain: Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s campaign manager

The hypocrisy at the heart of Trump’s campaign By Dana Milbank, Opinion writer

This is the hypocrisy at the heart of the Trump campaign, now under Manafort’s undisputed control. Manafort’s inspiration, which Trump has embraced, is to portray Clinton as the embodiment of the establishment. But Manafort (not unlike Trump) has been the voice of the wealthy and the well-connected for four decades, building a fortune by making common cause with the world’s most avaricious. …

It’s Manafort’s right to represent dictators and thugs and regimes that torture. He has, for decades, helped autocrats who battle human rights and democracy. But now this man, who made his fortune helping the rich and powerful get more so, is setting up a general-election campaign that portrays Trump as a man of the people and Clinton as the captive of special interests. …

Manafort has been a paragon of the Washington Republican establishment for two generations, working on Gerald Ford’s reelection in 1976 before helping Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole. [mjh: So much for Trump being the anti-Establishment candidate his fans believe he is.] …

Manafort is steeped in the racial politics Trump has exploited. As Franklin Foer writes for Slate, Manafort ran Reagan’s Southern operation in 1980; the candidate kicked off his general-election campaign outside Philadelphia, Miss., scene of the murder of civil rights activists in 1964. Manafort later became a business partner of Lee Atwater, who gained fame for Bush’s Willie Horton campaign in 1988.

Election

What Brexit teaches Americans …

1) Ignorance and anger can be exploited to win elections.
2) People don’t vote if they think the outcome is inevitable. Especially, young people most adversely affected by the selfish choices older voters make.
3) You will regret a vote cast as a protest when everything else goes to hell thanks to you.
4) Media, including social media, is vital BUT you must question everything you read and hear.
5) Don’t be bullied or fooled — speak the truth, vote smartly. See #1.

FURG

Jesus would be alive if he had had an AK-47

The NRA is working on a time machine. They plan to go back in time to arm oppressed people everywhere. (And to arm their oppressors, too — that’s just smart business and only fair.) They’ll start with automatic rifles for the apostles.

If Africans had had firepower, they wouldn’t have been enslaved. (After all, the slavers did have guns.) If the Slaves had had guns, the Civil War would have ended sooner. (Slave holders had guns.)

If women had had machine guns, they wouldn’t have been beaten and imprisoned for demanding the right to vote.

The only thing standing between good and evil is a time traveler with a gun. See you at Little Big Horn. (Wait! No! Everyone had guns there.)

Viddy

Jungle Book troubles me

We saw the Jungle Book today. (We were the only ones at the 10:30am screening in the downtown theater at Central and 2nd.) It’s beautiful and very well made. However, I’m troubled by two things.

First, I’m uneasy about artificial reality. That is, fake video. We’ve learned to ask of any photo “is it Photoshopped?” Now, we have to ask is that really video or is some — or all — of it fake? At first, I wondered why we try so hard to fake that which we can just record. I suppose, writers want to invoke a scene and many artist seek to faithfully recreate what they see. The same energy flows into motion pictures and technology makes it possible. But it bothers me.

However, not as much as such extreme anthropomorphism. Animals don’t have councils, they don’t have credos or slogans, they don’t even have a Law of the Jungle or a Peace Rock. When we project human society onto wild animals, we ignore their truth and validate our own. It’s unfair to the natural world of which we are a part, yet increasingly, apart.

I preferred Zootopia — you know it’s made up, yet, without any human characters, it illuminates our own nature.

Election

“It’s rare that you see someone get stupider before your eyes, but [Trump is] really working at it.” — from a real billionaire

Mark Cuban: Donald Trump Becoming ‘Stupider Before Your Eyes’ by Marina Fang, Associate Politics Editor, The Huffington Post

Businessman Mark Cuban continued his crusade against Donald Trump on Tuesday by targeting the presumptive Republican nominee’s lack of substance and failed business ventures.

“It’s rare that you see someone get stupider before your eyes, but he’s really working at it,” the billionaire and Dallas Mavericks owner told “Extra.” “You have to give him credit. It’s a difficult thing to do, but he’s accomplished it.”

Election, FURG

The frightened Right

I feel sorry for the people who are foaming over the threat they perceive behind sensible gun legislation. Some people fear their government and their fellow citizens. Some are furiously certain that liberals and Democrats want to take their guns as the first step toward a new Holocaust. It’s sad that clutching a weapon of mass murder doesn’t make people one whit less afraid. And it’s alarming that frightened, paranoid people serve the Gun Industry. Sales will rise again this week Ca-ching!

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." — Sam Adams