Month: October 2024

Guest Contributor – TomD – 26OCT2024 – Fascism

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Dims have been calling Republicans fascists and Hitler for most of my life. The really ironic part is they couldn’t define fascism if their little lives depended on it.

I’ve still got some of my Dad’s West Point Textbooks, mostly dating from the late 30’s to early 40’s. One, “The Governments of the Major Foreign Powers”, p 1941 looks to be what we would now call Political Science, a misnomer if there ever was one. The book spends about 50 pages per country with great detail. It should be required reading at Harvard, etc.

Few people know that Fascism is an offshoot or variation of socialism. It was originated by Benito Mussolini, who, up to that time was a functionary in the Italian Socialist Party. At the time of his takeover of Italy, he was widely applauded and acclaimed by the US left. He did, after all, make the trains run on time.

One of the biggest differences between socialism and fascism is that socialism wanted state ownership of industry whereas fascism was fine with private ownership but required state control. Does that remind you of anything?

 

It seems that it is common today to bandy about the  accusation of  “Fascist” without a clue as to what Facism is.

 

Attached are 3 pages from a 1941 West Point textbook titled, “The Governments of the Major Foreign Powers”. These 3 pages are excerpts from approx 40 pages on the Government of Italy. It should be noted that, since this book was published in 1941, the US had yet to have entered the war.

 

Frankly, after rereading the short chapter on Fascist Doctrine, I can see the origin of quite a bit of the DNA from today’s left.

 

Obviously, the book also covers Nazi Germany.

26OCT2024 – OCF Update – This ‘N’ That

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Well, another day in captivity.  But there is the possibility I’ll have at least most of Saturday off.  Surfacing and looking around I see that the consensus is growing that Trump is leading Harris in the swing states.  So, of course that means Harris declares him Hitler.  Well, as anyone who’s been on the internet for a few decades knows when you pull the Hitler card you lose.  But it’s always fun to see someone bring back the classics.

Honestly, all of the “drama” in the last week and a half of the election is overblown.  Harris is an unlikable person who comes off as a phony and an emotionally unstable individual.  Really the only question is whether the Democrats have alienated enough of their base to lose so conclusively that normal voter fraud will be insufficient.  And since half the polls are rigged, we’re just going to have to wait until election day (or later) to find out.

Well, I’m fine with that.  I just hope the Democrats are out of snipers.  Trump is doing a rally in Madison Square Garden and there isn’t anywhere to hide on that stage if someone sneaks a gun in.  But let’s assume they’re not stupid enough for a third try.  Honestly, if anything like that happened to Trump at this point, it really would tear this country apart.

Well, anyway, that’s where the election is right now.  In my circles I can tell that the rank-and-file Democrats are very, very nervous.  So, I’m just ignoring all the horse race stuff and shrugging off all the “convincing” arguments about why one or the other of them is going to win.  It’s mostly just whistling past the graveyard.

It turns out the Yankees managed to get into the World Series this year.  Back in the 1990s Camera Girl and I followed them very enthusiastically.  But since Major League baseball started allowing their players to take a knee during the national anthem, I swore off all the sports games.  So, she was watching the game tonight.  Well, she fell asleep and I was writing my post and in the bottom of the tenth down by one run and with two outs the Dodgers get a walk-off grand slam.  Poor Camera Girl.

So tomorrow I plan to enjoy all of this unseasonably warm weather.  I might even try to photograph some of the remaining autumn color that put on such a nice display when I couldn’t shoot it.  I’ll try to find an opportunity to make a few macro focus stacks with the new firmware programming.  Of course, everything is turning to mush after the frosts we had last week.  But who knows with all this heat the bugs and critters might be reawakening.  Now they’re predicting something like eighty-degree weather for Halloween.  That would be something.  But I’ll still be trapped inside so it might as well be Antarctica as far as I’ll be concerned.

Something occurred to me while I was perusing my Complete Shakespeare.  The Honeymooners is sort of a reverse version of “The Taming of the Shrew.”  Basically, Ralph Kramden has set the male sex back about four hundred years.  Over and over again Alice proves him wrong and shows him to be a pathetic loser.  As much as I like the show, it is interesting that the Honeymooners is the template that all modern art uses to describe the relations between men and women.  It’s certainly not a flattering paradigm for us.

You know, maybe it’s time to revive Shakespeare’s play.  We may have reached the inflection point where giving the girl bosses a taste of their own medicine might be the best action.  Even though I’ve never had to beat Camera Girl, I don’t see any reason not to reinstate the rule of thumb.  I’ll have to write at depth about this in a couple of weeks from now.

Well, I’ll leave it there.  Enjoy the day.  I know I will.

Guest Contributor – Nostradumbass – 25OCT2024 – Reaction to “Can Trump Win?”

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sometimes when I drop in, I feel like someone was reincarnated. The following two quotes seem to be appropriate for your discourse:

“Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls. They got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying. Lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want. They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. That’s right.”

“I don’t like ass kissers, flag wavers, or team players. I like people who buck the system. Individualists. I often warn people: Somewhere along the way, someone is going to tell you: ‘There is no I in team.’ What you should tell them is: ‘Maybe not. But there is an I in independence, individuality, and integrity.’” George Carlin

October Viewing – 7

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The Wolf Man (1941)

I figured it was time to review Lon Chaney Jr.’s magnum opus.  The first thing that is apparent is that Claude Rains was an order of magnitude above the rest of the actors.  Well, Rains was two orders beyond Chaney.  But I will say that in the non-monster related earlier part of the movie the scenes with Chaney and his father and with the girl were fun to watch.  As Larry Talbot, Chaney was engaging and sympathetic.  But once he started killing werewolves and becoming a werewolf he became increasingly annoying and neurotic about telling everyone about how tough it was being a werewolf.  Me, me, me.  Very needy.

Incidentally, they killed off Bela Lugosi about ninety seconds into the only screen time he was given.  And to add insult to injury, they didn’t even bother to give him an original character name.  They called him Bela!  I mean, how lousy is that?  They probably paid him by the hour and sent him packing after his scene to save money.  Very sad.

And I noticed something very strange about the wolf man character.  Right before Larry Talbot  goes out on his first killing spree, he notices hair growing on his body.  He takes off a white shirt leaving him in a white undershirt (incidentally a wife beater style).  Then he takes off his shoes and socks and we watch his feet becoming paws while he is sitting in a chair.  Then still focusing on his legs he gets up, apparently heading out the window of his room to go find the grave digger and rip out his throat.  But in the next shot we see the wolf man in a dark colored button down shirt.

Now are we supposed to believe that the Wolf Man went into Larry Talbot’s closet, picked out a matching shirt and using his front paws, buttoned it up and headed out for a bite to eat?  I don’t know.  I mean it was a nice shirt but just how far is my suspension of disbelief supposed to stretch.  I feel like I’m being abused here.

Well, anyway, after Claude Rains clubs Lon Chaney Jr. to death with his own silver wolf-headed walking stick, the gypsy lady recites that, “The way he walked was thorny” doggerel over poor Larry’s corpse and the music soars and the credits roll.

But i don’t know.  I feel kind of cheated.  I feel like Larry’s ghost should have appeared and complained about the bum deal he got.  He’s living in California for eighteen years, helping to build the Mt Wilson observatory.  Then his elder brother dies so he returns to Talbot Castle to take up the role of heir apparent to his father’s title (baronet?) and after just a couple of days he’s bitten by a werewolf and beaten to death by his own dad.  And what fun did he actually have?  He only managed to kill one crummy grave digger.  It doesn’t seem fair.  At least if he’d gotten a chance to sink his teeth into Gwen Conliffe’s throat he’d have a story to tell the other dearly departed monsters like Dracula and the Mummy.  But as things stand he seems to have been given short shrift.

Alright.  That’s enough.  So all in all the movie starts off well and ends a little flat.  Perhaps I’ll consider Larry Talbot’s run in with Abbott and Costello more successful.

The Honeymooners – Complete Series Review – Episode 4 – A Woman’s Work Is Never Done

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In this episode Ralph berates Alice for some small housework chores that she neglected to do.  She explains how busy she was but he won’t hear what she’s saying.  He threatens to introduce a demerit system to highlight her deficiencies.  Alice tells Ralph she’s fed up with his ingratitude and declares that she is going to get a job and with her salary hire a maid to do the housework.

When they go to the employment agency the manager explains that due to the shortage of domestic help the maids have become very independent and unless their employers accede to all their requirements and exceptions, they refuse to accept assignments.  Then we meet the available maid, Thelma.  She’s taller than Ralph and looks extremely strong.  She tells the Kramdens that she doesn’t do heavy jobs like windows and floors because she’s “sickly.”  But when she hands Ralph her suitcase to carry for her, its unexpectedly extreme weight drags him down to the ground and he exclaims sarcastically, “Sickly!”

Thelma resists most of Ralph’s demands for her to assume a genteel and respectful manner of addressing him.  When Ralph attempts to get her to address Norton and himself politely she mockingly refers to them as, “the simp and the blimp.”  When this causes Ralph to explode in anger she quits and leaves.

Now Ralph is forced to do the housework himself since Alice has found a job at the local bakery as the jelly donut stuffer.  He tries to recruit Norton to help him with the backlog of chores but they both prove hopelessly inept.  Finally, he decides to try and flatter Alice about her appearance in the hope that she will agree to quit her job and resume her wifely duties.  After being rebuffed for his obvious flattery Ralph is forced to admit that housework is harder than his job and begs Alice to come back.

This is one of my favorite episodes.  Alice has one of the best lines in the series.  While sarcastically pretending how much she enjoys mopping the floors and washing the windows she mocks the outdated appliances in the apartment.  She says she is so thrilled with having an atomic kitchen.  She explains that she calls it that because, “It looks like Yucca Flats after the blast.”  Which is referencing the American nuclear testing in the desert southwest in the 1950’s.

In general Ralph’s imperious behavior toward Alice sets the pattern for their relationship.  Alice comes off as the reasonable wife but Ralph is demanding and unreasonable.  Invariably he gets knocked down a couple of pegs and has to swallow his pride and apologize to Alice.  And although this does make him a sort of straw man for Alice to pummel, Ralph manages to make the whole spectacle hilarious and entertaining.  And between the physical comedy, the battle of the sexes and the machinations that Ralph and Norton always resort to, the half hour almost always entertains.  Highly recommended.

24OCT2024 – Quote of the Day

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I may have had many projects, but I never was free to carry out any of them. It did me little good to be holding the helm; no matter how strong my hands, the sudden and numerous waves were stronger still, and I was wise enough to yield to them rather than resist them obstinately and make the ship founder. Thus I never was truly my own master but was always ruled by circumstances.

Napoleon Bonaparte