(For Part One, click here.) We (Not You), the People Everywhere we look, cultural institutions are dissolving. What’s the best way to participate in this chaotic historical moment without losing our sanity? Or, to put it in more spiritually ambitious terms, how do we express ourselves from the center of our…
Beyond Incredulity It’s hard, isn’t it? watching Trump’s most vicious fans on the march, righteous and emboldened. It is painful in a different way — as in, bitterly ironic — to watch marginalized rural folks cheering for policies that would eviscerate their own interests. It is galling to see struggling, out-of-work Americans…
We know that what we see on the news isn’t reality. On some level of awareness, everybody knows that no matter what type of corporate media they’re watching — straight-up propaganda like Fox News, or propaganda-lite like CNN — they’re seeing a carefully sanctioned story line. But this doesn’t let us off the hook for what’s going on…
(Continued from Part 1) Still not getting it It isn’t for any lack of information. An avalanche of critical consensus has described what happened in November as a massive rejection, by ordinary Americans, of the status quo. Trump’s win has been called “a very, very bad answer to some very good questions.” In a colossal waste of opportunity,…
Nobody told this brain-washed Manchurian Candidate that he was supposed to shoot the president, not grab the throne for himself. — Iain Sinclair Donald J. Trump is like a figure in an apocalyptic comic strip, created for us by gods(1) who decided we were too slow to get the point via more…
Have you heard of the World Happiness Report? It sounds like a children’s book, or a fantasy movie: too charming and healthy to be a real thing. But it is. It’s an annual document compiled by the U.N. (1) The most recent one came out last month on the Vernal Equinox, the first day of…
Granted, he’s like an appalling roadside accident from which it’s hard to look away. But in the interest of choosing our battles and clarifying our targets, we need to look beyond Trump, even if the media doesn’t. The Orange One is a ruthless lightweight, whereas those lurking behind his throne are ruthless heavyweights. Mega-doners like the Mercers…
The world desperately needs our intelligence right now. It needs us to keep our wits sharp and expansive. This means avoiding the conventions of groupthink that weaken and diffuse them. Such as dualistic thinking, which cramps our intelligence like a growing child dressed in tight clothes. Here vs. There We’ve talked about how every domestic issue…
Social media is a perfect fit for the Trump brain, an organ that has proven itself creepily savvy without being intelligent. Ideally, the media (from mediate) exists to provide a bridge of thought between a given news event and the mass mind. But Trump’s “shadow government by Twitter” (the Guardian) has gotten around this.…
I like the fact that we, the anti-Trump multitudes, are being called The Resistance. My Moon in Sadge gets off on being anointed with this historically dignifying term. All the same, maybe we shouldn’t capitalize it, just yet. It feels a bit presumptuous for American progressives, a relatively cosseted lot, to…
