The Other Guy’s Point of View

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I was having a conversation with one of the HVAC technicians that was fixing my home heating system the other night.  He was about my age and was a soft-spoken guy and like most people in New England, he was a Democrat.  And I think he brought up the election in the context of the challenges that Biden faces on account of things like the cost of oil and gasoline and food.  And his challenge with voting against Biden was that he considered Trump a bad guy.

The fellow said, “But look how much he lies, how can that be acceptable?”  So, I asked him what it meant that everyone on the Left lied about the Russian-Trump investigation.  How could it be acceptable that the FBI knew it was a hoax but they used it to damage the Trump administration for a couple of years.

He had nothing to say about that.  So here is this guy who I’d say is a decent man.  He knows that a lot of the policies of the Left are crazy.  He thinks the whole green energy thing is incoherent and doomed to failure.  But he has the talking points about Trump and his followers being “dangerous” and uncouth.  He wants the Republicans to come up with a more palatable candidate.  In other words, they want to be able to say both Biden and Trump are both unacceptable.  Which really means they don’t think they can win with Biden and so they want a way out of the status quo.

I think the Democrats have come to the conclusion they can’t win with Biden.  He’s deteriorating and even if he maintained his current mental state, he can’t debate anyone and he has so many liabilities that general election commercials will shred him mercilessly.  So, the party wants desperately to replace him with Newsome.  Of course, they have to replace Biden and Harris.  Neither of them is viable.  They have to allow a primary challenge to Biden.

I’ve been hearing that the primary challenge has to happen before January.  I don’t know that that’s true.  The Democrats often switch around the rules to suit themselves and I don’t see how a late entry into the primaries would be disqualifying.  In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if in March or April Joe Biden decides not to run and a replacement candidate is selected by acclamation by the Democrat National Committee.  After all that’s what they used to do in the real old days and I’m sure that the by-laws of the Committee have some sort of loophole that allows the backroom boys to use their emergency powers to make such a decision when an act of God, like Joe being blackmailed into bowing out, occurs.

Now, when all of this happens, that fellow I was talking to will think it was a stroke of good luck.  Now he can stop worrying and thinking about the problems in front of him.  Instead of senile, crooked Joe Biden he has young, honest Gavin Newsome.  Sure, Newsome espouses the same failed policies that got Biden into the jam he’s in.  California’s insane energy policies are the blueprint that Biden is using to destroy the rest of the country’s economy.  Newsome is just as corrupt as Biden.  All he has going for him is better hair and a few more brain cells.  But the Democrat voters just want to be assured that the plan is back on track.  The arc of history is back to bending toward Barack Obama’s promised land of social justice and climate healing.

What all that tells me is that before America can ever get around to facing reality, reality is going to have to hit Democrats in the face with a baseball bat’s worth of truth.  It’s going to take economic ruin and lifestyle squalor to get these true believers to cry uncle.

Well, that’s what we’re here for.  The Lord Humungous will have to set up shop in the wasteland and begin throwing the voters into the soup pot before they admit that “our democracy” may no longer be all that it was cracked up to be.  The question is whether we will be at the leading or lagging edge of the curve.  New Zealand has kicked out their blue team and installed the conservatives.  But who knows how the tide is running in various places.  I think we’ll be lagging the curve.  I expect the suffering to increase significantly for quite a while.    I wouldn’t even be too surprised by a Biden second term.

After all, the Left has invested enormous resources into election fraud.  Why wouldn’t they pull out all the stops in 2024?  Sure, it’s transparently fake.  And the voting populace already says they believe 2020 was stolen.  But no one has successfully done anything about it.  So, what’s to stop the next bigger round of fraud?

Now what could change all this is if the international situation really deteriorates.  A hot war for us with Iran or even Russia could launch the price of oil into the stratosphere and truly wreck the economy.  That might be enough for the Dems to say uncle.  Would that get my friend the technician to say uncle and vote for Trump.  Yeah, I’ll bet it would.  But he’d still claim that Trump is a bad guy and would wish that Nikki Haley was his choice.  Well, you can’t blame him.  She is a good Democrat.

So that’s what I heard from the other side this week.

“Bugs, Mr. Rico. Zillions of em!”

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ZMan takes the Dean of Science Fiction to task on his concept of a soldier only franchise in “Starship Troopers.”

Of course he’s rightly basing it on the book but even the highly toxic spin that the director took with the movie still made it a fun experience to watch them zap those bugs.  Hopefully some of Heinlein’s better novels and juveniles will be brought to the screen the way they deserve.

For fans (and detractors) of the book there is a lively discussion in the comments of the post.

Mercenary Rule

18OCT2023 – Quote of the Day

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Beauty, thou art twice blessed; thou blessest the gazer and the possessor; often at once the effect and the cause of goodness! A sweet disposition—a lovely soul—an affectionate nature—will speak in the eyes—the lips—the brows—and become the cause of beauty. On the other hand, they who have a gift that commands love, a key that opens all hearts, are ordinarily inclined to look with happy eyes upon the world—to be cheerful and serene—to hope and to confide. There is more wisdom than the vulgar dream of in our admiration of a fair face.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton

17OCT2023 – Just Some Impressions of the Current Day

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In Israel military and political leaders are sweating blood trying to thread a needle that has no eye; how to rescue hostages, kill the Hamas leadership and its psychopathic foot soldiers, minimize “civilian” Palestinian deaths and protect their own troops from harm while accomplishing all this in an urban environment that resembles some hellish first-person shooter video game.  Chances to accomplish all of these objectives is objectively zero.  And they know that.  The real mission is to destroy Hamas while not failing catastrophically at the other objectives.

Of course, if they fail at that primary objective then all the other failures; deaths of soldiers, hostages and civilians will have been in vain and therefore infinitely worse.  And they approach this mission with the knowledge that Hamas orchestrated this cataclysm for the express result that they would get to kill a lot of Israeli soldiers without the Israelis achieving their goal of eradicating Hamas from Gaza.  I’m sure the IDF knows all this.  For that reason, I’m guessing that they will resist the pressure brought to bear by Israeli peaceniks, moderate Arab state leaders and Joe Biden, that the battle in Gaza be limited and without result.  But that’s my assumption.  All past experience has been that Gaza is an insoluble problem that cannot be resolved.  Time will certainly tell.

In the House of Representatives word is that many of the establishment leaders are bowing to necessity and approving Jim Jordan’s bid to become Speaker.  Here, I don’t even have an inkling about what will happen.  As far as I can tell most of these politicians are crooks who only follow orders from their paymasters so it’s impenetrable to me.  Maybe the need to come up with an aid package for Israel will force the establishment shills to accept Jordan against their wills in order to allow the legislation they want to proceed.  Possibly some good will come of this accident of timing.  I’ve heard Jim Jordan is supposed to be the one in ten thousand, honest man.  I hope he is and I wish him well.  What I do hope is that he draws the line at further funding for Ukraine.  After all I think it’s only fair that we restrict our support to one major war at a time.  Ukraine has had their chance.  Now let them work it out with the Russians.  If that’s still possible.

Joe Biden is going to Israel.  I’m sure he’ll regale them with tales of his service at the battle front in 1948, 1967 and 1973.  He might even relate the story of his hand-to-hand duel against the dastardly Arab terrorist Corn Al-Pop.  He was one bad dude.

Joe Biden in the Holy Land.  Surely the Lord of the Old Testament has some lightning, earthquake and brimstone saved up for just such a contingency.  I mean, Joe is like some local representative of Sodom or Gomorrah showing up after a local atrocity.  Turning Dr Jill into a salt pillar seems like letting him off light.  But politics makes for strange bedfellows.

The election and Trump indictment news moves along on the expected trajectories.  The more certain that Trump will be imprisoned the more certain that his support among Republican voters will increase.  It’s like some fateful confluence of irresistible forces is dragging us to a crisis that can only be resolved by a radical shift in the status quo.  Maybe it’s an illusion but it seems that we won’t be splitting the difference this time.  It appears that the system is breaking down catastrophically.  Now I say appears because as has been mentioned innumerable times before, there is an awful lot of ruin in a world empire.  But short of armed intervention by the military it seems like people are getting fed up with the dysfunction that has been imposed on the whole country.  But we’ll see.

Anyway, that’s what I have to remark on today.  More madness and more dysfunction.  More of the same.

Israel Tells Zelensky to Stop Chasing the Ambulance

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“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked to make a solidarity visit in the wake of the Hamas onslaught on Israel but was told “the time is not right,” Hebrew-language media reports.”

What they’re saying in a polite way is “Save your grandstanding for a time when we’re not still burying our dead and avenging their deaths.

Zelensky must be afraid that the United States might send some money to Israel without him getting his cut.

He truly is a pathetic and grotesque figure on the world stage.

The High Cost of Loving (1958) – A Movie Review

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“The High Cost of Loving” is a mild comedy of errors about the home and workplace tribulations of Jim Fry (Jose Ferrer).  Jim’s a purchasing agent for the Lynden Company which has just been purchased by Associated Industries.  Through a series of accidents and misunderstandings Jim gets the impression that he’s about to be fired.  And naturally this is simultaneous with the news that his wife Ginny is going to have a baby.

(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)

This comedy of errors begins with Jim not getting invited to a lunch where the executive board of Associated will meet the assistant directors (like Jim) who are being considered for promotion in the new corporate environment.  And after this first slight, several incidents provide reinforcement to the idea that the new management intends to terminate Jim.  And of course, this makes him jumpy and increasingly bitter and causes trouble between husband and wife.

In addition, Jim’s work friend Steve has a wife Syd who in addition to being Ginny’s friend is also a blabbermouth who can’t help but say the wrong thing about the events going on at Lynden Company.

Finally, after Jim has come to terms with his worries and resolved to do whatever is necessary to save his job, he reaches his office in time to see a painter scraping his name off the window.  Incensed, he sits down at this desk and writes a scathing letter to the new president of Lynden Company expressing his outrage at what he thinks is the company’s ingratitude toward him.  He stomps over to the president’s office and gives the letter to the secretary there.  Just then the president and his boss from Associated Industries walk in and hurry Jim into the office to inform him that an error occurred keeping Jim off the list of invitees for the lunch with the executive board.  And then they inform him that he’s been promoted to Director of Purchasing.  After some embarrassing moments he retrieves the letter and manages to convince the president that the letter he wrote should be returned unread.  And tranquility is restored on the business front for Jim.

The movie ends with Ginny allowing Jim to regale her with tales of his oratorical prowess at the infamous “lunch” followed by Ginny pulling a prank on him.  She pretends that the letter he reclaimed from the president’s office was not the one he wrote but a magazine subscription form letter that must have been on the president’s desk.  After debunking her joke the movie ends with a romantic scene between husband and wife as their lives settle into a new and happier circumstance.

This movie is a bit of fluff.  A Shakespearian title would be “Much Ado About Nothing.”  It’s such a mild comedy with so little consequence about the plot that you might think it isn’t worth the trouble to watch it.  I’ll disagree.  I don’t suppose that the word charming has much currency today.  But that is the word that comes to mind.  And for once my tastes and Camera Girl’s agreed.  I guess that makes this domestic comedy a good date movie.  The relationship between husband and wife is so attractively drawn that we both found ourselves laughing at the same scenes.  And each of us defended our side of the battle of the sexes when it inevitably emerged.  But we equally agreed that the marriage on display was refreshingly healthy.  Jose Ferrer directed himself in this movie and I believe he also had one of the writing credits.  I give him high marks for the little touches he added to the domestic scenes.  The scenes where husband and wife wake up and stagger through their groggy routine were well scripted and enjoyable.  And finally, the thing I noticed was that the world of 1958 America was a thoroughly pleasant place.  Even the anxiety of losing a job takes place in surroundings that trumpet a peaceful and well-ordered world.  And Jim is worried about losing his job because of competency not diversity, equity and inclusion considerations.  Ah, simpler and better times.