The pond gave up its late Sunday posting for dedicated reptile enthusiasts, but then came some guilt-tripping about the cult master, and even though it was attached to the portentous ponderings of tedious old fart, nattering "Ned", the pond realised it had to break its golden rule, and at least pretend to take an interest ….
That"Ned" should have begun with a bout of both siderism from Ross Douthat at the New York Times - come on down Tom Cotton and explain how the military should be turned on the citizenry, while the NY Times goes all blubbery and weak-kneed - should merely be considered a bonus, just the first agony in a series of gobbet fits ...
The trouble is, the pond of late has discovered it has absolutely no interest in "Ned" and his pretentious blather, usually of an apocalyptic kind, especially as he's apparently unaware of the organisation he works for, and the sort of crap it produces on a daily basis …
What's more, "Ned" blathers at inordinate length, and the pond could fit in two or even three reptiles in the same space. Three times the nausea for the price of one "Ned", and the pond has always been a keen bargain shopper …
The pond also doesn't believe a word "Ned" scribbles and has trouble finding focus, and nothing changed this day ...
But if nothing has changed with "Ned", and there's no point debating, arguing or discussing, what then?
Well it seems only fair to remind him of the company he works for and the way they go about their business.
Call it "yes buttism", billy goat cartoon style …
The pond mentions those cartoons because "Ned" always gets around to the Donald at some point, and typically the rise of the Donald is blamed on liberals and cultural decadence, as if the fuckers at Fox and the chairman had nothing to do with it.
Really, Judas and Pontius Pilate could take a few lessons from "Ned", quoting a dingbat like Douthat … because you know, New York Times, both siderism, come on down Tom Cotton …
Oh why doesn't he just retire? The pond sometimes wonders who still reads "Ned"? Is there anyone who thinks he's got appeal to the core demographic? Maybe, for those over eighty … fearful and quivering, and anxious to read about the decline and fall of the west …
As it so happens, the chief casualty of Fox and the chairman has been the United States … courtesy their depraved love of the Donald, Rich Mitch, the looters and bandits of big business, and their GOP acolytes, but does any of this bother the chairman or fellow-travelling "Ned"?
Of course not, in much the same way as working for the Stasi or Pravda can be made to seem normal ...
So that's it then … the entire point of "Ned" can be reduced to a trawl through ancient cartoons and memories of Fox triumphs and achievements, which are directly, and indirectly the work of "Ned's" kissing cousins …
Oh fucketty fuck, he's an irritating sod, in his senility rabbiting on about progressive 'leets and minorities and Xianity, when we all know the culture at Fox …
What's even more pitiful and tragic is that "Ned" crafts his columns these days by pirating the thoughts of others.
At least the pond just pirates films and TV shows ...
And yet in all of it, there's not a hint of a shred of self-awareness, irony or humour …
Some readers wanting a straight presentation of "Ned" will notice that the number of cartoons between each gobbet is growing …
That's because the pond has heard it all before, at interminable length, and there's only so many weddings the pond wants to be stopped at and made to listen to the ancient mariner … especially when he urges Australia not to follow the US, when in reality, Australia is the ancient homeland of the dirty digger, willing to sell out his nationality in pursuit of the holy dollar ...
This in the Catholic Boys' Daily? Pardon if the pond does a simple operation, to keep company with the deplorable viewers and the Dame Slap MAGA cap wearers …
But in the end, even with "Ned's" taste for never-ending blather, we must come to the final gobbet, where classicism, Rome, Christian understanding, and such like are confused and conflated. The Xians will never admit how much they ripped off from the pagans, and how deeply Xianity is full of paganism, in much the same way that "Ned" of late has turned into a bower bird lining his nest with cheap jewellery and gewgaws from other birds …
How insufferable it all is, and worst of all, at journey's tedious end, having stared into the abyss, and having refused to acknowledge the works and deeds of the corporation for which he works, "Ned" attempts a little redemption ...
Well, no, not really. The United States is comprehensively fucked, and "Ned's" corporate masters can't wriggle out of responsibility by blithe talk of immense recuperative ability … like some wretch scribbling about the Weimar republic, and how soon it will turn the corner, and the world will enter into a new era of liberal thinking, or if you will, according to "Ned" and his mentors, liberal decadence …
It doesn't work that way, and it isn't easy, unless it's possible to imagine the death of the chairman, the death of the lizard Oz, and the death of Fox News … and the defeat of Trumpism, with even fellow-travelling Mattis finally acknowledging that he helped destroy the country and the Constitution ...
The only point the pond will concede is that "Ned" is a great source of unconscious humour, and it's the comedy that helps the pond get through these troubled times … a bit like Shakespeare turning to sex and comedy during the plague years, the pond must turn to Tom Tomorrow …just another way to celebrate a comedy that has now been running over three years off-Broadway, in Washington, and daily in the lizard Oz ...
The disintegration of the "consensus" holding Amerika together actually began with Ronald Reagan - aka the "great communicator". In some back to the past conservative circles he is almost regarded as a secular saint - the strangely strange imaginative conservative site for instance.
ReplyDeleteA good place to start re his toxic legacy would be the book by William Kleinnecht titled The Man Who sold the World - Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America. It is reviewed on the thirdworldtraveler.com website
Well I read this (below) and it seemed to say it all very concisely:
DeleteIn a fiery and lucid introduction he [Kleinknecht] writes, "This book is born of annoyance: a great bewilderment over the myth that continues to surround the presidency of Ronald Reagan. It gives voice to a vast swath of psychically disenfranchised Americans, millions of them, lumped most thickly in the urban areas on either coast, who never understood Reagan's appeal."
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Ronald_Reagan/ManWhoSoldWorld_Reagan.html
Substitute 'Trump' for 'Reagan' and nothing has changed.
Hi Dorothy,
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting Kelly’s drivel and his truely pathetic attempts to blame the current political climate on esoteric crap about ‘liberty, tradition and individual primacy’.
None of this is relevant.
The brutal fact is that we are living in a Plutonomy.
Historically there had always been a truism in the stock markets that a rapid rise in the price of oil would trigger a bear market, as the general consumer would cut back on expenditure on other goods in order to be sure that they could fill up the tank so they could get to work. Basically higher petrol prices left less in the general consumer’s pocket and the rest of the economy suffered and therefore the major companies sold less and their shares decreased in value.
However in 2005 there was an oil shock and the stock markets just kept on rising. No drop, nothing.
The economists at Citigroup were surprised and attempted to find out why.
What they discovered is that stock market shares are overwhelmingly owned by a tiny percentage of very wealthy people and that an increase in the oil price is like a mosquito bite on an elephants arse. They felt no financial hardship and therefore felt confidant in the economy so no stock market correction.
The economists at Citibank weren’t outraged by their findings they came with a sales plan that their customers should think about investing in things that rich people want (super yachts, fancy watches, real estate, etc).
http://www.lust-for-life.org/Lust-For-Life/CitigroupImbalances_October2009/CitigroupImbalances_October2009.pdf
As for everyone else.
Fuck you.
That’s the uncivil war that is killing democracy in the West.
“There's class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning.”
Just don’t expect to read about any of this at the New York Times.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/05/business/why-the-stock-market-just-doesnt-care.html
DiddyWrote
Interesting links DW.
DeleteThe son in law is running with Buffett’s Vanguard index fund and is winning and grinning.
Me, I’ve just run on compound interest for the last 35 years and winning and grinning......although I don’t own a yacht......and the future does look a bit thin. C’est la vie.
Cheery Anon.
You won't read anything much - that makes any sense anyway - if your reading of the NYTimes includes that wingnut verbal gunsel, Ross Douthat. He's even worse that the Murdochian reptiles
DeleteGunsel...a word I’ve not heard before, thank you. And verbal gunsel is fair warning.
DeleteCheery Anon.
You're not a 'Maltese Falcon' fan, then CA.
DeleteSam Spade refers to Wilmer as a "gunsel", a term the censors assumed was a reference to a gunman. The Yiddish term "gunsel"--literally, "little goose"--may indeed be a vulgarism for homosexual (the word "faigle", or "little bird", is usually used in that respect), but it's more commonly an "underground" term that refers to a person who is either a "fall guy" or a "stool pigeon", in which case Spade is making both a direct and an indirect reference to Wilmer's character.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033870/trivia
Well I did enjoy the film, long ago, but the line evades my fading memory and when I googled the word, it referenced a gunman. Must expand my google skills. Thanks.
DeleteStrangely enough my old man was known to carry a gun back in the 40’s - 50’s. Glad I never called him a gunsel......as growing up in Balaclava, and having had many associates, both underground and Yiddish, he may well have taken very serious offence and boxed my ears. ;)
CA.
Dunno if it's your skills or just Google's lack of them. I was trying to find a psych. reference for impatience increasing the nearer the desired outcome is, and d'you think I could find one. If I even used something like "losing patience" in the search request it would come up with medical references for dying patients. [sigh]
Delete“But if nothing has changed with "Ned", and there's no point debating, arguing or discussing, what then?”
ReplyDeleteWhen I got to the above, I’m thinking, are you serious, you old goat? What about Roger Ailes et al. I’m thinking what about this article, or this article. Then I figure there is no point linking, we all know the stories.
Ned is just a useful idiot to miserable to retire and happy to keep spreading the company line.
What a waste of old age......doesn’t he have great grandkids or a garden?
The Holt St bunker must feel like being in an egg carton lined room in an acid house, trying to work out where the hell the bloody door was.
Normal folk would last 5 minutes at best yet these clowns are happy to spend their whole life in there. Astonishing.
CheeryAnon.
Strewth, but it was a slow and painful marathon getting through Ned's long bleat. He does, however, have a away of digging up and quoting a bunch of nowhere folks, doesn't he.
DeleteBut I thought the only appropriate response would be to myself quote somebody: that well known conservative liberal progressive Bob 'Zimmerman' Dylan:
Too much of nothing
Can make a man ill at ease
One man's temper might rise
While another man's temper might freeze
In the day of confession
We cannot mock a soul
Oh, when there's too much of nothing
No one has control
That about covers it, yes ?
I’d does GB, it does.
DeleteIn reference to Dylan, have you caught his latest 17 minute epic on Kennedy’s assassination?https://youtu.be/3NbQkyvbw18
CA.
To be truthful, CA, I really haven't paid much attention to Dylan's songs for about 40 years. Ever since he went 'pop' really, starting with 'Lay, Lady, Lay'. I listened though (thanks for the link) and it was all just a bit too low-key and mumbled for mine. Loved the 'East Asian' subtitles though :-) Though I kinda thought there were too many characters per line of English to be Traditional Mandarin - maybe it was Puthonghua or maybe Modernised Standard Mandarin ?
DeleteBut I was quite entertained that the next musin that came up automatically after Dylan was John Prine's House of Strombo.