Friday, April 8, 2016

You Should Praise the Mutilated World





  • Reminder: If there was a marginally competent progressive running in the Democratic primaries he or she would be routing Hillary Clinton. The fact that Bernie Sanders - a stooge, fool, and shit campaigner, even if he IS, and he is, serving only as "progressive" foil for the Clinton campaign - is as close as he is in the polls speaks to how much Clinton is disliked as a politician and as a person.
  • Reminder: The Democratic Party will NEVER permit a marginally competent progressive - see Elizabeth Warren - much less a dynamic, committed, competent, and politically skilled progressive to run in the Democratic primaries.
  • I concede, I said to my Hillaryite Colleague, who came back for more, if your position is - and it's a reasonable position, a pragmatic position, pragmatic not used here as a slur - that neoliberalism in general and America in particular are in permanent and inevitable regression from the egalitarian peaks of post-Depression New Dealism, and that sustaining at all costs and progressing if possible on social issues is the most that can be managed while piloting the softest possible crash landing of the oligarchs raping and pillaging of the serfs, then Hillary Clinton is certainly the most qualified candidate available. Well, he said, when you put it like that, fuck you.
  • Reminder: A message from egalitarians for hierarchy.






  • On Bill Clinton's 1994 crime bill.
  • Berniebro Colleague: Whooboy, that Bill Clinton really stepped in it today.
  • Me: <Affectless stare>
  • The Clinton Bill.
  • A conversation w Thomas Frank
  • Windows is badgering the fuck out of me to upgrade to ten (I've seven). Every time I turn on PC I get the UPGRADE NOW! IT'S FREE AND EASY! toggle box, when I decline Windows loads the same message for next time I login. Does ten suck? Is keeping the harassment preferable than doing the upload?
  • Some of the music that influenced Ben Chasny to make Six Organs (the music bracketing this post from that post).
  • More of the music that influenced Ben Chasny to make Six Organs.
  • More of the music that influenced Ben Chasny to make Six Organs.
  • On the re-release of early Pere Ubu. I may have mentioned here I like Pere Ubu.







TRY TO PRAISE THE MUTILATED WORLD

Adam Zagajewski
Translated by Clare Cavanagh

Try to praise the mutilated world.
Remember June's long days,
and wild strawberries, drops of rosé wine.
The nettles that methodically overgrow
the abandoned homesteads of exiles.
You must praise the mutilated world.
You watched the stylish yachts and ships;
one of them had a long trip ahead of it,
while salty oblivion awaited others.
You've seen the refugees going nowhere,
you've heard the executioners sing joyfully.
You should praise the mutilated world.
Remember the moments when we were together
in a white room and the curtain fluttered.
Return in thought to the concert where music flared.
You gathered acorns in the park in autumn
and leaves eddied over the earth's scars.
Praise the mutilated world
and the gray feather a thrush lost,
and the gentle light that strays and vanishes
and returns.



7 comments:

  1. 0)the extent of your negative impression of bernie could, perhaps, be based in part on what you've heard from people who hate him and everything he stands for, and don't hesitate to lie about him

    10) i have windows 10 and i kind of like it

    42)zagajewski's poem expresses an attitude resembling that of the tralfamadoreans - i regard it as essentially correct but not complete

    one formulation of an additional and orthogonal dimension which would fill out the picture is that of mr g's "five strivings" - see http://www.gurdjieff.org/hodges1.htm

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  2. How can we assume Senator Professor Warren is a marginally competent progressive campaigner? There is simply no data on which to do anything but pre-judge that on a national basis.

    Clinton is a veteran campaigner. Her competence at THAT (aside from policy considerations) can be assessed fairly objectively (win or lose).

    Sanders appears to be punching above his weight as a national campaigner judging by how he allowed himself to be sucker-punched by the WaPo, Morning Squint, and then HRC (most likely behind the op) her own damn self—all in the space of 2 days in NY. Though, it bears pointing out, the distance he's covered in making up ground on The Inevitability is in itself an impressive feat—marshaling a natural base into monies & votes & delegates sufficient to make of this an almost horserace; which is actual data in terms of which to assess his campaign's competence.

    Is YOUR point that there's someone on the other side nimble enough to outmaneuver HRC the way BHO did 8 years ago? His campaign, both primary & general, was of the first rank—as was WJC's unseating of GHWB.

    Can you name a "dynamic, committed, competent, and politically skilled progressive"? I can't. All fall short, again, of any purity tests to which we would care to put them.

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  3. Re: Bernie and Progressivism, "Oooo, That's A Bingo!* Making a similar point with my very own Hillcol this morning (that The Fix Is In and the Game Is Rigged), they were confused. They thought I was some kind of diehard Bernie person.

    DOG: No. I think the political and financial system is bent and irredeemably corrupt. Bernie gets up and criticizes it because he's allowed to. He's allowed on stage because he makes Hillary look reasonable and centrist.
    HILLCOL: (Pause) So you don't like Sanders either?
    DOG: It's not about 'liking'. National elections are orchestrated to celebrate and perpetuate myths about society. It's really about how certain people are allowed to be candidates -- and the winner has a limited amount of power. Ask yourself: what are the myths? Who does the allowing? Who benefits, and how?
    HILCOLL: But Clinton is a progressive. She's a *woman*, for god's sake. Is that why you don't like her?
    DOG: You're missing my point.
    HILCOLL: No I'm not. You're gonna throw your vote away. You're gonna get Trump elected.
    DOG: I'd tell you that, on one level, it doesn't matter whether Trump or Clinton, or Sanders or Cruz, or Kasich or Elmer Fudd gets elected -- but I think that would blow your circuitry.
    HILLCOL: What the fuck are you talking about?
    DOG: Bingo.

    [* "Is that how you say it? 'That's a bingo'?" "You just say 'bingo'." "BINGO! Howww fun! But, I digress -- where were we? Ja; right; make a deal."].

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  4. I recently "upgraded" to Windows 10, and for the most part my computer works much better which really means Windows 7 is a piece of patched together junk. My files were all fine after downloading 10. The new browser is kind of crappy though. It doesn't even have a home button. But it works pretty good, it's faster than explorer. Cheers.

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  5. I like Windows 10. There area number of settings to change (automatic upgrading, suggestions--ads-- on the lock screen, etc.) that should have been opt in vice opt out Backup your files before the upgrade just in case. Backup your files if you stay on 7 just in case.

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  6. Uh, we do. At the Place O Witless Labor™, everyone in the company currently uses Win7 -- >100K employees and contractors. All are being migrated to Office 365 (Meaning Office 2016), and Win10. It's turned into the Bataan Death March of forced migration. While I use Win10 personally and find it 'Okay' (way too much 'cool', too much eye candy), anyone at the POWL who falls by the wayside may never get up again. It's the ugly side of the technological wonderland.

    ReplyDelete