You must expand in breadth,
If the world is to take shape for you;
You must descend into the depths,
If the essence is to be revealed to you.
Only perseverance leads to the goal,
Only abundance leads to clarity,
And in the abyss dwells the truth. -- Friedrich Schiller
Here is a small survey of reactions to the recent US Election and the deaths of Jordan Neely and Brian Thompson, found on the authors' blogs and in the New York Times Opinion section. Selected paragraphs were copied verbatim.
The 2024 US General Election
"At last, it appears that the Party of Chaos got its fondest wish: it aborted itself in the 2024 election. “Joe Biden” was the coat-hanger it used: this miserable, grifting, now-senile hack politician who will be remembered only for driving his country to the verge of ruin. And for what? All in an effort to cover-up a long train of crimes and abuses against the American people perpetrated by a permanent bureaucracy gone rogue that was the party’s partner-in-crime. And now it’s over.
Though the statement omitted to say so directly, it’s very likely that a number of public officials will find themselves before grand juries in the years ahead. If you haven’t figured it out already, you’ll learn that the term “misinformation” was just the gas in the gaslight used to confound the country about what has really been at stake — which is your personal liberty in what is supposed to be a free country. The Democratic Party and the Deep State blob really did try to steal that from you."
"Why did Harris lose? There were many tactical missteps: her choice of a progressive running mate who would not help deliver a must-win state like Pennsylvania or Michigan; her inability to separate herself from President Biden; her foolish designation of Trump as a fascist, which, by implication, suggested his supporters were themselves quasi-fascist; her overreliance on celebrity surrogates as she struggled to articulate a compelling rationale for her candidacy; her failure to forthrightly repudiate some of the more radical positions she took as a candidate in 2019, other than by relying on stock expressions like “My values haven’t changed.”
...
But these mistakes of calculation lived within three larger mistakes of worldview. First, the conviction among many liberals that things were pretty much fine, if not downright great, in Biden’s America — and that anyone who didn’t think that way was either a right-wing misinformer or a dupe. Second, the refusal to see how profoundly distasteful so much of modern liberalism has become to so much of America. Third, the insistence that the only appropriate form of politics when it comes to Trump is the politics of Resistance — capital R."
"There have been a few reluctant admissions from some on the Left that perhaps pushing the “Woke” envelope so hard wasn’t such a brilliant political strategy. No matter how many vapid celebrities endorse it, you’re never going to get millions of Americans to accept the LGBTQ+ agenda. They know men can’t have babies, and that biological women should have babies. Propaganda otherwise is contrary to human nature. So the millions of unhappy “Woke” fanatics, stricken with severe TDS, are bound to become even unhappier. More committed to “reproductive rights,” which essentially means the right to abortion as birth control. This is the most important issue to unknown numbers of women who are too old to have another chance at abortion. This issue may finish off sexual relations between young male and female cisgenders, if the response from Tik Tok is any indication. At least for Whites."
"I don’t want this to turn into a bitter diatribe about my disappointment in the American people who selected a rapist, racist, and cognitively challenged buffoon as their leader. Who put all marginalized people’s lives and rights at risk. Who put the security of the country at risk. Who put our children’s futures at risk.
The next four years will be challenging as we are led by a man in serious mental decline who has surrounded himself with political dimwits and moralless thugs. Most of the prominent people he hired last time turned against him during this election to warn us of his ineptitude, pettiness, and greed. His closest advisors said he was incompetent. But his supporters thought they knew him better. So, here we are."
"My disbelief and despair are shapeshifting to anger. A narcissist (President Biden) crowned an untested candidate and asked her, in 107 days, to overcome the crises of immigration and inflation and the burden of an unpopular incumbency. When two-thirds of the country says we’re on the wrong track, there’s no way someone from the current administration can credibly claim to be a change agent, much less the disruptor people are looking for in an age of rage."
"I doubt he will be present at Mr. Trump’s inauguration, so the US marshals will have to root him out of Delaware (or wherever) and haul him into the federal lockup in DC at exactly the moment Mr. Trump pardons the J-6 prisoners. Will they get to see “Joe Biden” coming into the joint on their way out? There would be a certain poetic symmetry in that, and hard to not admire the workings of Providence after all its foot-dragging. You might well ask: how many days, or months, will “Joe Biden” have to endure in solitary detention before the paperwork is in order for a proper arraignment?."
"These results were a surprise to everyone. Trump is a 78-year-old convicted felon who has been found liable for sexual assault and is currently under indictment in a number of jurisdictions. He refused to leave office peacefully when voters elected President Joe Biden in 2020, instead launching an unprecedented attack on the U.S. Capitol to stop the counting of electoral votes, and said during his campaign that he would be a “dictator” on his first day in office.
Pollsters thought the race would be very close but showed increasing momentum for Harris, and Harris’s team expressed confidence during the day. By posting on social media—with no evidence—that the voting in Pennsylvania was rigged, Trump himself suggested he expected he would lose the popular vote, at least, as he did in 2016 and 2020."
"What do you get when you combine an unpopular Democratic candidate and a poor economy? A bloodbath. A clean sweep of all swing states. A win of the popular vote.
We were optimistic on Monday - if you looked at the crosstabs closely, Trump was making gains with independents, Black men, and Hispanics. He was making gains with 2020 Biden voters. There was widespread disapproval of Biden’s economic policies and Trump was trusted on the most two important issues this election: the economy and immigration. Momentum favored the Republicans. Nobody was enthusiastic for Kamala."
I'm relieved the election is over. Weeks before I sensed that Trump was going to win. While I didn't want Trump to win particularly, I'm glad he won with over 50% of the vote. A majority voted for and therefore deserves whatever happens, good or bad, the next four years.
Here is all Trump should do to keep the people who aren't his core supporters happy. According to the polls and pundits, the main issues for most people were grocery, gas, and house prices and illegal immigration. Keeping the inflation rate low and the southern border effectively closed should be good enough for most people, as long as they are employed and wages rise. Trump can continue to blame Biden if prices don't fall, and he doesn't need a mass deportation of illegal immigrants. It was the spectacle of a torrent of people crossing the border, and the murders, that sparked outrage.
He must avoid humiliating spectacles at home and on the international stage. A brokered deal that ends the war in Ukraine, and lets what's left of Ukraine remain intact and free, would, of course, be a big win. Putin can wait, regroup, and eat the rest of Ukraine after the Democrats regain the white house.
His administration doesn't need to go on a vendetta against the previous administration, the members of the congress committee who investigated him, the FBI, or the media. Making the majority of people who voted for him in 2024 happy should be Trump's main goal. He shouldn't worry about his base, who love him, or his many cheerleaders, who both love him and hate the Democratic party unconditionally.
The US has produced more oil in recent years than any other time in history, Oil prices should be lower and we should be energy independent but we're not. The reason is US refineries can't refine the grade of oil produced by frakking. Oil produced by frakking must be shipped overseas to be refined. This would explain why the oil business wants more drilling on public land. This oil could refined in the US.
Jordan Neely
"Were you thinking of Daniel Penny this weekend? A year and a half ago, the US marine veteran, age 26, subdued one Jordan Neely, 30, a homeless schizophrenic with a record of 42 arrests who was menacing riders on a New York City subway car. Neely was, at the time, a fugitive on an arrest warrant for felony assault on a sixty-seven-year-old woman. Penny applied a choke hold after Neely declared he was of a mind to kill somebody on the train. Neely was still alive when the cops came, but they declined to give him CPR because he was filthy and an apparent drug-user, and they feared getting AIDS or hepatitis from giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. . . so Neely died there in the subway.
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg indicted Penny for manslaughter in the second degree and secondarily for criminally negligent homicide. His trial has been going on all month. On Friday, the jury reported its inability to reach a verdict on the manslaughter charge. Instead of declaring a mistrial, Judge Maxwell T. Wiley dismissed the primary charge and directed the jury to continue deliberations this week on the secondary negligent homicide charge, a procedurally dubious action.
Everybody knows that the trial is an absurd injustice, but that has been the temper of our society for many years now in the age of the Woke Jacobins. Unlike the original Jacobins of 1794 in Paris, who were ultra-extreme idealists, our Woke Jacobins are extreme cynics, imagining only the worst about the project of civilization. Hence, their alt-project to de-civilize the rest of us."
"Penny was the man who stepped up when Neely caused a commotion on the F train, shouting at passengers, “I’m fed up. I don’t mind going to jail and getting life in prison. I’m ready to die.” Penny put him in a chokehold and held him for about six minutes. Neely died from compression to his neck, according to the medical examiner.
It should have been a story about the horror of a mentally ill person abandoned by the city and left to fend for himself in subway tunnels or on street corners, or about how scary it can be for those around him to navigate the wreckage, or about how one 24-year-old Marine veteran tried to protect a group of strangers, taking action that ended in unintended tragedy.
But Penny is white and Neely, 30, was Black. So instead it became a story of race — and all the more so after the jury’s verdict — a variation of Daniel Pantaleo going free after choking Eric Garner in 2014. But that’s not what happened here, and I wish those describing Penny or his acquittal as racist might consider things from another vantage point."
When the boyfriend choked to death Jordan Neely's mom and put her body in a suitcase, he also murdered Jordan. He developed schizophrenia, a disease that prevents becoming a person. The city knew he was ill and couldn't take care of himself, but they let him wander homeless on the streets and in subway trains. The city failed him, like other cities around the country that can't help the homeless and mentally ill.
Neely shouted, "I'm ready to die" and Daniel Penny stepped up, afraid Neely was about to attack another passenger. He put Neely in a choke hold for five or six minutes, and later in the hospital Neely was declared dead. Penny had him pinned but was afraid he'd be attacked if he let go. A photo of Penny holding Neely on the floor of the train plainly showed Neely was unconscious, so Penny's fear of being attacked may have been his imagination.
Either Penny wasn't trained how to properly apply a choke hold or his Army training was crummy or intended only for combat. A correctly applied choke hold is a technique, known in Judo as Shimewaza, that can subdue a larger and stronger person for an extended time, and the subdued person doesn't die. There are people who can control their adrenaline and be calm, but Penny wasn't calm, assuming he didn't notice that Neely was motionless.
I haven't described a negligent homicide. Penny didn't have a black belt in Judo, as far as I know, and Neely didn't immediately get the first aid he needed when he was finally let go. Penny was a brave, but not very brave, human being. The acquittal by his peers was fair. The trial was necessary if only because it gave national attention to homelessness and mental illness. But I don't see Penny as a hero. His case may have set a precedent for a cheap, quick, and permanent way to get rid of the sick and homeless. The US would be a crueler place but free of potentially dangerous insane people.
Brian Thompson
"Luigi Nicholas Mangione has struck a blow for the frustrated, the beaten down, and those driven into financial ruin by the cost of healthcare. Now, I am certainly not approving his actions. I don’t want to see anyone killed. Remember, I’m against capital punishment. I try not to step on insects. But there are a whole lot of people who do approve of Mangione’s act. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro may declare “he’s no hero,” but many disagree. #FreeLuigi is trending online. Social media has been flooded with supportive messages for Mangione. The obscure alleged killer has seen his Instagram account swell to over 21,000 followers. One bright young female tweeted, “he’s only guilty of being hot.” Another castigated the “class traitor” who snitched on him."
"What I have seen is lining up quite squarely with what we have found about the growing normalization of political violence in America. Year after year, political violence is becoming more common, and we’re seeing that support for political violence is growing across a range of issues.
Think about the political violence we’ve experienced just in the last few years. In 2022 we saw the attack against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that missed her but almost killed her husband. In 2023 there was an assailant who had weapons in his vehicle, and he was surveilling President Barack Obama’s home in Washington, D.C. This year we saw two assassination attempts against Donald Trump."
Luigi Mangioni reminded me of Raskolnikov in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. If he's lucky. Mangioni is a Raskolnikov.
Politicians pushing for privatizing the VA should perhaps think about it. When prisons are privatized the business model is the more prisoners the better. With health care, it's the fewest paid claims and the least money paid out to claims.
Capitalism in the US should not have to be cruel. Here is what I've been thinking. Flatten the company hierarchy, so that employees are equally responsible for outcomes. End centralization: distribute employees to work in communities so they can listen to and serve customers directly. Put company money including profits into local banks, investing in the communities they serve.
I plan to try to find a few economists willing to discuss what is possible. I'd like to think localization could at least ameliorate bad outcomes due to our current capitalist corporate system.
Notes
-
Friedrich Schiller, Sprüche des Konfuzius
https://www.deutschelyrik.de/, translated into English by Google Translate
Mußt ins Breite dich entfalten,
Soll sich dir die Welt gestalten;
In die Tiefe mußt du steigen,
Soll sich dir das Wesen zeigen.
Nur Beharrung führt zum Ziel,
Nur die Fülle führt zur Klarheit,
Und im Abgrund wohnt die Wahrheit.In a book I read about Quantum Mechanics, Heisenberg's quote of Schiller was translated, "The mind is alone the clear. The truth dwells in the deep."
-
Trump voters second term focus group
These 14 Voters Think Trump Has One Mandate Above All, and It’s Not About the Economy
The New York Times December 10, 2024
"This discussion was moderated by a focus group veteran, Margie Omero, and the New York Times deputy Opinion editor, Patrick Healy." -
Natalie Duddridge, Ali Bauman
Jordan Neely's death prompts calls for justice, change; "How can we start saving those that are literally crying for help?"
CBS News New York, Updated on: May 4, 2023
"Neely was a subway busker and Michael Jackson impersonator. In a GoFundMe page, his family says his mother, Christie Neely, was murdered in 2007. Her body was found stuffed in a suitcase in the Bronx after she was allegedly choked to death.
Police say Jordan Neely had more than 40 prior arrests, including felony assault for punching someone in the head on the subway. He also had more than a dozen mental health encounters with police, where he reported he suffered from schizophrenia and complained of "hearing voices."" -
Choking - unconscious adult or child over 1 year
Mount Sinai, Health Library
"Without oxygen, brain damage can occur in as little as 4 minutes. Rapid first aid for choking can save a person's life." -
Daniel Bergner America’s Hidden Racial Divide: A Mysterious Gap in Psychosis Rates
New York Times, updated Dec. 4, 2024
"Black Americans experience schizophrenia and related disorders at twice the rate of white Americans. It’s a disparity that has parallels in other cultures." -
Elie A. Morrell, Shichidan The Challenges of Shimewaza: Judo Chokes
Judo Info, Online Dojo
"Shimewaza is probably the most difficult branch of judo to master. Few judo practitioners will ever attain total mastery of shimewaza.
One shimewaza stands out from all the rest because of its unique method of application It is sankaku jime and is worthy of mention here. This technique relies on the power of the legs surrounding the neck area to attain the desired effect. When properly applied, escape is extremely difficult, if not nearly impossible. Because of the power of this technique, submission by the uke is often the outcome. The writer has never witnessed a case where this technique was applied wherein the uke was rendered unconscious. The result was always submission!" -
E. K. Koiwai, M.D. How Safe is Choking in Judo?
Judo Info, Online Dojo.
"Shime-waza or the “choke hold,” when properly applied, should not cause death; therefore, its primary purpose should be to subdue violent suspects. When properly applied, the choke hold causes unconsciousness in 10-20 seconds. No fatalities as a result of shime-waza have been reported in the sport of judo since its inception in 1882. Among the methods of “control holds” taught to law enforcement officers is the choke hold similar or identical to shime-waza used in judo. Using the choke hold, officers may afford themselves maximum safety while subjecting the suspect to a minimum possibility of injury. " -
Eric Levenson
Daniel Penny explains in his own words why he restrained Jordan Neely on the subway for so long
CNN, updated December 11, 2024
"During the trial, several witnesses testified they heard Neely say he was willing to go to jail for life but did not testify they heard him say he would kill." -
Errol Morris, Director
The Fog of War
Documentary film transcript, 2003
"Lesson #1: Empathize with your enemy."
