There is a possibility that the good is too weak so the bad can win. You need a plan to win. In June in France we will commemorate the 80th anniversary of the 1944 landings. In july we will have the summer olympic games. Many people and many diplomats from many countries, and every contender ticket for the 2024 American presidential election will be there. This is a great opportunity to take some diplomatic initiative, and revive the free world, and avoid WWIII in a row. I we succeed, we win legitimacy and American Election in a row. If we don't we die. India started the IMEC (Spices Road) as an answer to the chinese BRI (Silk Road). This competition between India and China may be used to shift India to our side by creating a Diplomatic Regency . This Diplomatic Regency can then happen and force Continental Union. Continental Union will do at continental level what European Union did to France and Germany.
You say "There is a possibility that the good is too weak so the bad can win" - that's the old Might Beats Right. The problem is - everyone thinks they're the good guys, everyone thinks they're right. And in the USA, where people are armed to the teeth, too many are ready and able to use force to impose their position. Trump's followers believed his lies, that he won the 2020 election, so they thought they were right, thought they were the good guys, and they stormed the Capital on Jan. 6. But if Trump wins (which is now a real possibility) he'll pardon all of those convicted insurrectionists and probably use them as a kind of private militia. So yes, the "bad" can win, but they think they're the "good" guys. These are very dangerous times. That's why I started this newsletter; as a WARNING. Hopefully enough people will stand up - by VOTING - and put an end to this Trump/MAGA madness. But even if they lose the election they'll probably try to take power by force. Dangerous times, and the only "plan to win" is to beat MAGA overwhelmingly at all levels in 2024. But that'll be a challenge.
Thanks Ian. There's not much political talk in the cancer ward, but now it's time to stand up and get fighting against this authoritarian tide. Timothy Snyder wrote: "any election can be the last one." So now that I'm back on feet, it's time try again.
Welcome back. Glad you and your wife have beat back the cancer devil. I am busy attacking mine too.
Trump uses words that set liberals hair on fire, but then there are zero actual actions... policy actions that Trump has in his history that meet the spirit and meaning of "authoritarianism".
The Democrats use words that sound all constitutional and caring to the American people except for calling half the nation... the working class... semi-fascist baskets of irredeemable deplorables... and then go implement fantastic draconian and authoritarian policies and actions.
And if you want to challenge this I will have to put in the time to make my list of those authoritarian Democrat actions... let's just start with the COVID era and go from there. By they way, after seeing the price of butter at $9 per lb, I renanded it to Brandon Spread.
Frank, you say "Trump uses words that set liberals hair on fire, but then there are zero actual actions". His words also set MAGA hair on fire - "vermin" "poisoning the blood" - and then there's Jan. 6. When a former President and now possible-future President use this kind of language, don't you think it's dangerous. Don't you think it dehumanizes political enemies (vermin) and prepares them for camps, and deportation, and death? This extreme violent language is a dangerous slippery slope toward authoritarianism at its worst. The argument that it's just Trump being Trump - that led to an insurrection; his words are powerful, like a match among the fumes of hatred. Can you defend Trump's "words" without redirecting and diverting attention onto Biden and Hillary and the Dems?
First, please get off the Jan-6 lies. I read the transcripts. There are many more examples of leading Democrats supporting and encouraging the raging and deadly riots of 2020-21 than what Trump actually said can be called the same or even close. Note that the majority of Republicans and many Democrats still think the Democrats cheated in the 2020 election.
I am a conservative libertarian from the Midwest that has lived in California for 45 years in a liberal college town. I have many friends and family that are registered Democrats and registered Republicans. I frequent news and information sites that lean left because in my life my biggest challenge to overcome is to figure out my blind spots... to weed out my emotional bias so that I see the truth and facts clearly. It is why I am also successful in my career and family life. It is why I have such good and loyal friends. I have emotions like everyone else, but early in my life with a challenging childhood I noted that I raged about things and it resulted in terrible decision-making that was taking me down a path of failure and misery.
Over 20 years ago I noted the once respectable media going left-bias and injecting emotional hyperbole into the population. It was clear that news was being replaced with propaganda. The media was being acquired by the ruling managerial class and Madison Avenue methods were being put on steroids for product branding and consumer manipulation, and the political forces were adopting the same model to brand party politics and voter manipulation. I was NOT going to let them manipulate me that way... no more than I would let my own uncontrolled emotions to manipulate my decision making.
What I have noted is that Democrats move as a collective block. They are the more emotionally charged political animal. They are more media connected. They all get the political memo, and they all twitch as one body entity when repeating the common narrative and political talking point. It is something about the DNA and/or personality filtering of groups that has led to this difference. It is somewhat female vs male where females tend to be more collectivist and cooperative (at least on the surface) and males more independent. It is biological and likely evolutionary.
So the Democrat leaders don't need to say what they are thinking or admit what they are doing behind the scenes (remember that Hillary kept two email aliases... one for the public record and the other to communicate her true opinions and ideas). The Democrat leaders slip up every now and then because living an inauthentic lie will result in mistakes over the long-haul.
The Republicans are not that way. They are wired more independent and less likely to twitch the same inauthentic narrative and rhetoric just for the sake of the collective having the power to win. That is a problem in this day... and maybe is changing due to the behavior of their political competition. But Trump is popular because he says the things against the opposition that the opposition that are equal to what Trump supports have been hearing from that opposition.
Just jump on any left-leaning Substack that I subscribe to and check the comments on what these educated coastal and big city leftists, liberals and center-right Democrats are calling me and anyone else that dares post something challenging their political "thinking" and self-anointed position of political righteousness. My God I am a racist, misogynist, vermin, Nazi, fascist, xenophobe, transphobic... etc., etc., etc.
The interesting thing about this, and the left cannot even see it, is that the reaction to Trump's comment speaks volume about the validity. Trump is referring to the people in power but the Democrat rank and file get their hair set on fire. This is transparent proof that there is a level of knowing that their behavior is in fact that warranting some label of disgust.
But in the end, I think we just treat the Democrat protestors that are called vermin the same as they have treated the Jan-6 protestors that the Democrats have called vermin.
Well Frank, first, I disagree with your sweeping generalizations about Democrats as if ALL Dems think and act as one "collective block" and ALL Republicans "are wired more independent and less likely to twitch the same inauthentic narrative and rhetoric." As I see it, there are huge divides within both parties.
But the thing that disturbs me the most is that we see the same issues through such dramatically different lenses. It's as if there's no reality any more; here's a country full of relatively intelligent, educated, successful adults who have diametrically opposed perspectives on what is reality. I see something and say it's blue; you see the same thing and say it's red. What a distressing, possibly hopeless situation. How can any problems be solved when people can't even agree on the problems (never mind solutions) and instead call each other vermin. God help America.
I feel the same way. But my perspective is, I think, more comprehensive because my also educated liberal friends have increasingly demonstrated perspectives 180 degrees from what I see as reality, I have worried that it was me missing things. So this is why I subscribe to Newsletters like yours and read the NYT and other sources that are run left of center. I was worried it was me being corrupted to media bias and seeing the wrong side of the street.
After many years of this deep searching for truth and facts and real answers to real problems, I have come to the very clear conclusion that it is the left that is increasingly from Venus. The ideas of the left have been growing more and more absurd. But they cannot see it... they think everyone else that does not buy their dog food is absurd. I am not at all closed off to good arguments, but the arguments from my left friends turn into calling me names and telling me I am an idiot for not agreeing to their ideological perspective. The simply cannot defend their ideas up to a practical conclusion and instead of accepting that there is a different way of looking at things, they get defensive as all that matters to them is winning the political wars.
There are of course extremists on both sides of the ideological divide, but in terms of what is fact, what is truth, what is right and what are real problems and solutions, even the so called moderate left has gone wacko. And it is making the moderate right go wacko in response, but generally only in defense of preventing the absurdity being pushed by the left. That is the thing with progressivism when change is pushed just for the sake of change. Pushing back at that change is branded as radical, etc. For example, suggesting we maintain strong traditional family structures and values, and secure the border, is racist, misogynist, xenobiotic, transphobic, anti-gay, etc. Where the hell did that come from so called moderates on the left?
I think I understand some of it. There is a great diversity of personality types, but the systems today is filtering people with certain personality types to the blue or red team. The blue team is more interested in politics and politics are a more important part of their identity and self-worth. My sense is that the left, because it is secular, are spiritually deprived and seeking a placebo. But that pursuit is not good for politics because spirituality is a thing of faith and politics should be all about logic, facts and truth... reality as it is today. When you debate someone on their faith it can never be resolved... there is no way to argue it. If a Democrat has adopted climate crisis as part of their faith, then they will just be hostile to any that challenge it no matter how many relevant facts are presented.
Republicans/conservatives tend to subscribe to faith in God and thus don't see their politics the same... and are frankly less emotionally committed to any political idea.
And the left has all the advanced degrees and are armed to the teeth with rhetorical weapons. They have taken over institutions and positions of power and influence. And from these positions push an ideology that does not make any rational sense to those of us that seek pragmatism.
Thanks for the support Frank, and I wish you well on your own challenge. Cancer is a bitch!
In the cancer ward there's no political debate - everyone's too busy fighting to stay alive.
But now that we're home and in the clear (for now) I feel that I need to stand up and fight for what I believe, which is that Trump is a dangerous opportunist who (like all dictators) is a master conman, and is also willing to destroy his own country to preserve his own power.
Yes, you're right, there are all kinds of problems with the Dems, but right now my focus is on Trump - what will happen if he gets back into power.
So, to filter out the media-repeating high emotional hyperbole that is Trump is "dangerous" to the nation and democracy, can you please make a list of his stated campaign commitments or past policy actions that back up this claim? Because I don't see it. It seems like a left-leaning cult mythology that has taken hold from repeated chanting.
Yes, Trump is what is called an overt narcissist. But he is battling a world controlled today by the much more dangerous and destructive covert/vulnerable narcissists. The devil would not show himself with his red skin, horns and pointed tail. No, he would walk the earth playing a two-faced act as a benevolent master while injecting chaos into the world. Trump has been out of office for over 3 years, and since then the world has exploded in real chaos (not the emotional type experienced by the election losers... which isn't really chaos). It makes sense that the real devils would brand their opponent as the devil.
One thing I know about cancer patient advocacy is the need to compartmentalize all emotional impacts to decision-making to prevent that from clouding judgement and resulting in tragic advocacy for a mistaken path.
Yes, cancer is a bitch. Thankfully we live in and era where the free enterprise success of people owning overt narcissism and a drive to invent, make, build, grow and solve solve real problems... have advanced medical technology where a cure for most cancers is on the horizon and treatment options to beat it back have exploded like has the crime on the streets of cities run by Democrats.
Sorry to hear that, like AW, you have to battle cancer, Mr. Lee. I hope you join AW and Mrs. AW in prevailing!
I'm afraid that if you consider Covid restrictions to be "fantastic draconian and authoritarian policies and actions" you're going to have to mark them on Mr. Trump's side of the ledger. It was he who approved the spring 2020 lockdowns, which were by far the most stringent of all Covid-era policies. The entire first year of Covid restrictions took place under Mr. Trump's presidency. Since I believe those policies were fully warranted, I don't hold them against him, but I can't imagine why you wouldn't.
"Democrats" have never called half the nation--the working class--"semi-fascist baskets of irredeemable deplorables." I assume you're referring to the remarks of one Democrat--Hillary Clinton (remarks that were not only deplorable, but really, really stupid politically). What she actually said was that *half of Trump supporters* were a "basket of deplorables" (those who were "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic"), while the other half were "people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they’re just desperate for change." About the latter she said, "Those are people we have to understand and empathize with."
Where I live there's no Brandon Spread to be had. I just looked up the price of butter at the local supermarket (a Kroger): a 2 lb. pack is $6.99, or you can fork over $4.19 to get the one-pounder. I do see that in high-price SF the Safeways are charging $5.99--you shouldn't have to pay 50% more unless you live in an airport! But I certainly acknowledge that inflation has been a major problem and that Biden's American Rescue Plan contributed to the bump we saw in 2022. It's great that inflation has subsided now, but that bump is going to be with us forever, just as the double-digit inflation of the Reagan years was never reversed. (You're probably old enough to remember, as I do, that gasoline used to cost about 25.9 cents a gallon--back in the days when 0.9 cents could get you ninety percent of a gumball.) But it's worth bearing in mind that this administration brought us through the late-Covid/early-Ukraine supply-chain economic shock without recession, something that a year and a half ago seemed a nearly impossible goal.
Well you are correct about the butter, I checked and my favorite brand at $12 was for a 2 lb pack. However you are not at all accurate about anything else... or if accurate in some detail, intellectually off in context.
Biden era inflation is nothing like Reagan era inflation. Ironically after Reagan the government removed housing costs from the CPI. Also, they don't report on the necessities CPI... food, energy, rent, etc. Other OECD countries do these things. Real inflation has been double-digit since Biden. And it is from the wild partisan spending of Dems post pandemic when we knew it wasn't needed. But it pumped trillions into consumer hands while funding their no work, low work and early retirement... exacerbating supply problems... and then the policies to cancel fossil fuels as your boy Biden promised. What in the hell does Paul Krugman think all of this would cause! Family credit card debt is exploding... not for well off elites like you, but for most Americans. And no, the Ukraine fake war isn't the cause. We had regular inflation all during the decades of mideast wars.
And yes old Joe called Trump supporters semi-facsists. Your left cohort throws out the facsist label with wild abandon. And nice try rewriting history from what that old and shrill losing election denier Hillary said. We all have it on record and we are way beyond allowing ya'll to sugar coat old Killery.
Trump was potus while we knew nothing about the virus. The spending and policies were welcome and bipartisan except for the Trump hating hypocrites in office that lie like they breath. Then we learned it wasn't deadly to young people and healthy people through age 60, and the vaxx wasn't really a vaxx and masks don't help and stay at home shelter in place killed more than if people could go outside and exercise... and yet Democrats could not drop their authoritarian Karen power trip.
By the way, old Joe's admin just told all those gubmt employees to use proper pronouns or they will be fired. Cannot get much more authoritarian than that.
In general, if you are a clear thinking non-partisan type, you would be intellectually dishonest claiming life under a Trump and Republican gumbt would be anything close to the authoritarianism of our modern Democrats in power. By hey, yall got those fancy degrees and of course you know better about everything.
Frank, every country is blaming their current leaders for inflation - but in reality it's a global problem, and changing political leaders won't end up solving the problem. In Canada they blame Trudeau and his Liberals; in UK they blame Sunak and his Conservatives; in France they blame Macron and his party.
I also notice that your whole post is about Biden and Hillary and attacking "well off elites [with] fancy degrees". How about responding to my point about Trump's language - calling his political enemies "vermin" and saying immigrants are "poisoning the blood" of America. Can you defend that kind of language (right out of Mein Kamph) without using the old trick of diversion, distraction, and redirection. Can you defend Trump's language without pointing over there at Biden, Hillary, etc.?
One - global inflation is much lower in many countries when you eliminate the housing cost component like the US government does. If you include housing costs the US inflation is double-digit since Biden took over. There are three reasons for it and all of them point to Democrat policies. One is the trillions dumped into the economy post pandemic from partisan Democrat approved spending bills... with only the slim one vote majority that they had. The second is the war on fossil fuels over the left cult of climate crisis that has driven up energy costs for the US. Remember that Europe and other countries had already equalized with higher gas and energy costs. The third has been corporate consolidation. Biden/Democrat regulatory and tax explosions along with their Wall Street cozy connections have resulted in massive killing of small business that has been acquired or their market share taken over by huge corporations. All of this has led to demand exceeding supply and hyper inflation. It is a global problem, but like the Great Recession, a global problem caused by and led by the biggest economy on the planet.
I answered your second question in a previous post. Trump is direct and authentic. The standard establishment politician is inauthentic and keeps two personas... a political one where they mouth the same braindead words and phrases over the teleprompter to keep the easily anxious calm that everything is same-same. The Democrats are also served by a huge media and non-profit infrastructure where the dirty name-calling negative branding can be done in the trenches so old Joe can appear dignified. The frustration of Republicans is that they don't have this infrastructure. They are so sick of being called every name in the book without any structure defense. That is why they support Trump. He is one of them and supporting them. He is the only Republican politician actually fighting back.
I debate left leaning people on a regular basis and there are plenty of vermin in the group.
And with respect to the comment about immigrants, I think there is a better way to say what Trump is saying and what needs to be said. Allowing 6-8 million illegal immigrants that are the bottom of the socioeconomic class of their home country and bring with them their cultural beliefs and practices at time when the US is led by people rejecting American culture and destroying the foundation of Judea-Christian values and rejecting long-standing norms of the traditional family... it is a recipe for national decline and destruction. Multiculturism has proven a disaster for all industrialized countries. The places that liberals claim to be the best places to live are always culturally homogenous. They are chewing off their own cultural benefit arms because of Trump hate.
On the economic issues, I think Frank is right that housing costs have gone sharply up under Biden. Or, to be more accurate, went sharply up 2021-22. Under Trump they rose ~7%/yr prior to the pandemic. Then they rose 12% in 2020. In 2021, under Biden, they rose 32% (part of this was, of course, the impact of basic inflation itself--I'm using unadjusted dollars). However, from January 2022 through August of this year they eased back to a rate of ~9%, and, in fact, from May '22 through August '23 the inflation-adjusted cost of housing slightly declined.
Again, Frank, I agree with you that the ARP overstimulated the economy and contributed to very high inflation in 2021 and the initial months of 2022--higher than it should have been. But you have to factor in the benefit of its contributions to avoiding a recession that economists overwhelmingly predicted. I don't think Biden should get all the credit for that, just as I don't think he should get all the blame for the 2021-22 inflation, but he contributed to both.
On the cost of energy, Biden has been a supply-sider on energy, being much looser on regulating fossil fuel extraction than most of his Democratic base would prefer, and being extremely active on expanding renewables and storage technology, driving renewable energy costs down dramatically. Adjusted for inflation, the price of gasoline now is in line with historical norms. When I as a kid on a cross-country trip, prices I remember varied from ~$0.25/gal on the east coast to what I thought was an astonishing (to me) $0.35 and more in California. That would average to about $3.20/gal now. The AAA's current national figure is $3.34.
As far as corporate concentration goes, I'm 100% with you. But I can't imagine why you'd find that issue in Trump's favor. The Biden administration has been *by far* the most anti-monopolistic one in my lifetime--and, yes, this pushes back on the practical profiles of plenty of Democratic senators. I'd expect you to be a big supporter of what Lena Khan has been doing at the FTC.
On your last paragraph: America has traditionally been the world's leading multicultural nation, and robustly so from the period of industrialization on, when waves of Irish and South German Catholics immigrated, followed half a century later by Southern Italians, Jews, and Eastern Europeans. Each new group was viewed with suspicion and scorn by the increasingly multicultural immigrant predecessors (Catholic immigration inspired the Know-Nothings; Catholic and Jewish immigration was a major focus of the 1920s KKK, especially in the Midwest--Italians and Jews were regarded as "non-white" dilution of truly "American" blood, and their arrival was viewed as a racial invasion of rejects). The prejudice and rejection that met each new wave of immigrants was reprehensible, but I can't imagine why you'd see the country that this immigration created as a "disaster."
There was no risk of a recession after the initial rounds of pandemic stimulus. All reasonable economists knew it and most said it. The Democrats still passed about $5 trillion in spending bipartisan.
The Biden admin has canceled pipeline projects, slowed the trend line for drilling permits, declined applications for refinery expansions and has implemented a massive number of major rule regulations that have made fossil fuel exploration and production more difficult and costly. This was at the very time that demand for energy had exploded from all of the money dumped into the economy. The Democrat way is to play a media image while pushing an agenda that isn't at all authentic. That is the Biden Admin on energy. They are pushing the green agenda at the expense of the economy and working-class and poor families.
Related to corporate consolidation, it comes down to constituent focus. The upper class that the Democrat party represents is high in income and wealth and supports a Wall Street beneficial view that supports corporate consolidation and globalism. Trump, although not against large corporations in general, is focused on the working class American. His trade wars against China and his work to change NAFTA were exactly that move against the corporatocracy that has been completely missing from our leaders. Trump Republicans, in general, are work-class people who are pissed at the exportation of working-class economic opportunity and the importation of other country's poverty that depresses wage in the trades and other mid-level careers.
And with respect to your argument about immigrants an immigration... it is different today... much different. There was never a safety net for immigrants historically. In fact, may immigrants used to the soft nanny government approach would return after coming to American because they could not cut it in the dog-eat-dog environment of success built by self-determination and competition. We filtered out the best. Today there are far too many and they are not the best. They are the people that cannot make it in their home country and they are coming for an easier life with all the government benefits. We cannot blame them for that. We blame the Democrats for their great replacement project... more needly victims of socioeconomic low existence to keep the voter rolls strong Democrat.
There are certainly reasons to keep up a flow of legal immigrants based on country need and based on the merit of those immigrants. The US is the platinum destination for many people on the planet if they have the right stuff. We should leverage that and get the best and brightest and not the bottom of the barrel. We have more than enough low socioeconomic people that need help. Have you noted the homelessness, etc.? Why do we think adding more of the same is a good idea?
Well, Mr. Lee, you have a lot to say here, but I'm not entirely sure what the basis is.
You write, "Real inflation has been double-digit since Biden." But this simply isn't true. It is now running at ~3%; ~4% for core inflation. I agree with you that the ARA contributed to high 2022 inflation: the bill did overstimulate the economy because it underestimated the residual economic strength after the pandemic. Its scale was a mistake, just as the Obama stimulus package was a mistake, but in that case the error was overestimating residual economic strength. As I pointed out, people would be in a lot worse shape had the administration not managed to evade the recession virtually all economists of every political persuasion predicted in early 2022. It seems to me that this matters.
In the world I live in the Ukraine war is not fake. I know now that you're not living in an airport, but perhaps on another planet? Or is there some media outlook that has proved all those dead bodies were "crisis actors?"
Yes, Joe Biden called the "philosophy" that underlies Mr. Trump's political views "semi-fascist." That is not at all the same as calling half of all Americans semi-fascist. I think Biden is correct in what he says about Trump, but I have many neighbors who are his supporters who simply don't pay attention to or take seriously that philosophy. They just dislike liberals (in the abstract . . . we get along very well). I wish they'd take Trump seriously if they're going to vote for him.
As for what Clinton said, I quoted her words precisely, but I know nothing may persuade you. I used to get in discussions on social media where conservatives would repeatedly make fun of Nancy Pelosi's statement about the ACA that, "We have to pass the bill so we can see what's in it." No matter how many times I linked to her actual speech, the video or transcription, to show that was *not* what she said it had no impact at all. The legend had been passed down from blogger to blogger and had religious force. (You can check on Clinton's statement here: https://time.com/4486502/hillary-clinton-basket-of-deplorables-transcript/ )
Covid has been deadly to plenty of people under 60. About 75,000 Americans under 50 have died of it, including 1,600 children. The vaccine is a vaccine and the death rates for unvaccinated populations are much higher than vaccinated, especially when compared to those who keep up with boosters, but although the data for this is all over the web and easy to access I suspect it's not possible to convince you of it. "Shelter in place" was a short term policy during the early Covid period, except for locations that had severe secondary outbreaks in the winter months of early 2021. There is no data to support the claim you made. It's almost certainly true that some individual people suffered health consequences because of confinement that were more serious than what they would have suffered with Covid, but I believe no studies have been (or could be) conducted that can quantify the overall cost/benefit calculation. (And, by the way, I would agree with you if you said that some liberal jurisdictions retained too many restrictions too long. It's certainly true when it comes to school closures. I think liberals generally tend to take risk-aversion too far, just as conservatives tend to be too cavalier about risk.)
The Biden administration has notified government employees, "All applicants and employees should be addressed by the names and pronouns they use to describe themselves." Habitually using "her" to refer to a coworker who describes himself as a man (and vice versa) will be treated as creating a hostile work environment, which is subject to personnel sanctions. And, indeed, treating people in a way that displays hostility towards their self-identification does create a hostile work environment, and saying, "I'm telling the truth as I see it and I invoke First Amendment protections" is confused thinking. I've had subordinates I considered absolute idiots, but I knew better than to refer to them as idiots in the workplace, and HR would have been on my case if I had and a complaint had been brought. Government workers are employed under HR rules, not First Amendment rules with regard to workplace speech. So, yes, you can get a whole lot more "authoritarian" than that.
-- Late edit: I forgot to thank you for the concession on the butter!
Great to have you back, my good old friend, wow, your good and bad news have really made my day!!! We are all survivors just trying to get through another day. See, but we're tough as fuck.
Thanks Libor. I checked your site and your writing is an engaging as ever.
I'd like to refer you to a chapter in a book (about Canadian writer Ray Robertson) that reminds me very much of your writing and your situation. I think you'll find it relevant.
There is a possibility that the good is too weak so the bad can win. You need a plan to win. In June in France we will commemorate the 80th anniversary of the 1944 landings. In july we will have the summer olympic games. Many people and many diplomats from many countries, and every contender ticket for the 2024 American presidential election will be there. This is a great opportunity to take some diplomatic initiative, and revive the free world, and avoid WWIII in a row. I we succeed, we win legitimacy and American Election in a row. If we don't we die. India started the IMEC (Spices Road) as an answer to the chinese BRI (Silk Road). This competition between India and China may be used to shift India to our side by creating a Diplomatic Regency . This Diplomatic Regency can then happen and force Continental Union. Continental Union will do at continental level what European Union did to France and Germany.
Bonjour Francois,
You say "There is a possibility that the good is too weak so the bad can win" - that's the old Might Beats Right. The problem is - everyone thinks they're the good guys, everyone thinks they're right. And in the USA, where people are armed to the teeth, too many are ready and able to use force to impose their position. Trump's followers believed his lies, that he won the 2020 election, so they thought they were right, thought they were the good guys, and they stormed the Capital on Jan. 6. But if Trump wins (which is now a real possibility) he'll pardon all of those convicted insurrectionists and probably use them as a kind of private militia. So yes, the "bad" can win, but they think they're the "good" guys. These are very dangerous times. That's why I started this newsletter; as a WARNING. Hopefully enough people will stand up - by VOTING - and put an end to this Trump/MAGA madness. But even if they lose the election they'll probably try to take power by force. Dangerous times, and the only "plan to win" is to beat MAGA overwhelmingly at all levels in 2024. But that'll be a challenge.
Every opportunity that can reinforce the legitimacy of the good can help win in 2024. WWIII is really a concern that may explose in 2024.
So glad that you guys are doing better!
Thanks Ian. There's not much political talk in the cancer ward, but now it's time to stand up and get fighting against this authoritarian tide. Timothy Snyder wrote: "any election can be the last one." So now that I'm back on feet, it's time try again.
Welcome back. Glad you and your wife have beat back the cancer devil. I am busy attacking mine too.
Trump uses words that set liberals hair on fire, but then there are zero actual actions... policy actions that Trump has in his history that meet the spirit and meaning of "authoritarianism".
The Democrats use words that sound all constitutional and caring to the American people except for calling half the nation... the working class... semi-fascist baskets of irredeemable deplorables... and then go implement fantastic draconian and authoritarian policies and actions.
And if you want to challenge this I will have to put in the time to make my list of those authoritarian Democrat actions... let's just start with the COVID era and go from there. By they way, after seeing the price of butter at $9 per lb, I renanded it to Brandon Spread.
Frank, you say "Trump uses words that set liberals hair on fire, but then there are zero actual actions". His words also set MAGA hair on fire - "vermin" "poisoning the blood" - and then there's Jan. 6. When a former President and now possible-future President use this kind of language, don't you think it's dangerous. Don't you think it dehumanizes political enemies (vermin) and prepares them for camps, and deportation, and death? This extreme violent language is a dangerous slippery slope toward authoritarianism at its worst. The argument that it's just Trump being Trump - that led to an insurrection; his words are powerful, like a match among the fumes of hatred. Can you defend Trump's "words" without redirecting and diverting attention onto Biden and Hillary and the Dems?
First, please get off the Jan-6 lies. I read the transcripts. There are many more examples of leading Democrats supporting and encouraging the raging and deadly riots of 2020-21 than what Trump actually said can be called the same or even close. Note that the majority of Republicans and many Democrats still think the Democrats cheated in the 2020 election.
I am a conservative libertarian from the Midwest that has lived in California for 45 years in a liberal college town. I have many friends and family that are registered Democrats and registered Republicans. I frequent news and information sites that lean left because in my life my biggest challenge to overcome is to figure out my blind spots... to weed out my emotional bias so that I see the truth and facts clearly. It is why I am also successful in my career and family life. It is why I have such good and loyal friends. I have emotions like everyone else, but early in my life with a challenging childhood I noted that I raged about things and it resulted in terrible decision-making that was taking me down a path of failure and misery.
Over 20 years ago I noted the once respectable media going left-bias and injecting emotional hyperbole into the population. It was clear that news was being replaced with propaganda. The media was being acquired by the ruling managerial class and Madison Avenue methods were being put on steroids for product branding and consumer manipulation, and the political forces were adopting the same model to brand party politics and voter manipulation. I was NOT going to let them manipulate me that way... no more than I would let my own uncontrolled emotions to manipulate my decision making.
What I have noted is that Democrats move as a collective block. They are the more emotionally charged political animal. They are more media connected. They all get the political memo, and they all twitch as one body entity when repeating the common narrative and political talking point. It is something about the DNA and/or personality filtering of groups that has led to this difference. It is somewhat female vs male where females tend to be more collectivist and cooperative (at least on the surface) and males more independent. It is biological and likely evolutionary.
So the Democrat leaders don't need to say what they are thinking or admit what they are doing behind the scenes (remember that Hillary kept two email aliases... one for the public record and the other to communicate her true opinions and ideas). The Democrat leaders slip up every now and then because living an inauthentic lie will result in mistakes over the long-haul.
The Republicans are not that way. They are wired more independent and less likely to twitch the same inauthentic narrative and rhetoric just for the sake of the collective having the power to win. That is a problem in this day... and maybe is changing due to the behavior of their political competition. But Trump is popular because he says the things against the opposition that the opposition that are equal to what Trump supports have been hearing from that opposition.
Just jump on any left-leaning Substack that I subscribe to and check the comments on what these educated coastal and big city leftists, liberals and center-right Democrats are calling me and anyone else that dares post something challenging their political "thinking" and self-anointed position of political righteousness. My God I am a racist, misogynist, vermin, Nazi, fascist, xenophobe, transphobic... etc., etc., etc.
The interesting thing about this, and the left cannot even see it, is that the reaction to Trump's comment speaks volume about the validity. Trump is referring to the people in power but the Democrat rank and file get their hair set on fire. This is transparent proof that there is a level of knowing that their behavior is in fact that warranting some label of disgust.
But in the end, I think we just treat the Democrat protestors that are called vermin the same as they have treated the Jan-6 protestors that the Democrats have called vermin.
Well Frank, first, I disagree with your sweeping generalizations about Democrats as if ALL Dems think and act as one "collective block" and ALL Republicans "are wired more independent and less likely to twitch the same inauthentic narrative and rhetoric." As I see it, there are huge divides within both parties.
But the thing that disturbs me the most is that we see the same issues through such dramatically different lenses. It's as if there's no reality any more; here's a country full of relatively intelligent, educated, successful adults who have diametrically opposed perspectives on what is reality. I see something and say it's blue; you see the same thing and say it's red. What a distressing, possibly hopeless situation. How can any problems be solved when people can't even agree on the problems (never mind solutions) and instead call each other vermin. God help America.
I feel the same way. But my perspective is, I think, more comprehensive because my also educated liberal friends have increasingly demonstrated perspectives 180 degrees from what I see as reality, I have worried that it was me missing things. So this is why I subscribe to Newsletters like yours and read the NYT and other sources that are run left of center. I was worried it was me being corrupted to media bias and seeing the wrong side of the street.
After many years of this deep searching for truth and facts and real answers to real problems, I have come to the very clear conclusion that it is the left that is increasingly from Venus. The ideas of the left have been growing more and more absurd. But they cannot see it... they think everyone else that does not buy their dog food is absurd. I am not at all closed off to good arguments, but the arguments from my left friends turn into calling me names and telling me I am an idiot for not agreeing to their ideological perspective. The simply cannot defend their ideas up to a practical conclusion and instead of accepting that there is a different way of looking at things, they get defensive as all that matters to them is winning the political wars.
There are of course extremists on both sides of the ideological divide, but in terms of what is fact, what is truth, what is right and what are real problems and solutions, even the so called moderate left has gone wacko. And it is making the moderate right go wacko in response, but generally only in defense of preventing the absurdity being pushed by the left. That is the thing with progressivism when change is pushed just for the sake of change. Pushing back at that change is branded as radical, etc. For example, suggesting we maintain strong traditional family structures and values, and secure the border, is racist, misogynist, xenobiotic, transphobic, anti-gay, etc. Where the hell did that come from so called moderates on the left?
I think I understand some of it. There is a great diversity of personality types, but the systems today is filtering people with certain personality types to the blue or red team. The blue team is more interested in politics and politics are a more important part of their identity and self-worth. My sense is that the left, because it is secular, are spiritually deprived and seeking a placebo. But that pursuit is not good for politics because spirituality is a thing of faith and politics should be all about logic, facts and truth... reality as it is today. When you debate someone on their faith it can never be resolved... there is no way to argue it. If a Democrat has adopted climate crisis as part of their faith, then they will just be hostile to any that challenge it no matter how many relevant facts are presented.
Republicans/conservatives tend to subscribe to faith in God and thus don't see their politics the same... and are frankly less emotionally committed to any political idea.
And the left has all the advanced degrees and are armed to the teeth with rhetorical weapons. They have taken over institutions and positions of power and influence. And from these positions push an ideology that does not make any rational sense to those of us that seek pragmatism.
Thanks for the support Frank, and I wish you well on your own challenge. Cancer is a bitch!
In the cancer ward there's no political debate - everyone's too busy fighting to stay alive.
But now that we're home and in the clear (for now) I feel that I need to stand up and fight for what I believe, which is that Trump is a dangerous opportunist who (like all dictators) is a master conman, and is also willing to destroy his own country to preserve his own power.
Yes, you're right, there are all kinds of problems with the Dems, but right now my focus is on Trump - what will happen if he gets back into power.
So, to filter out the media-repeating high emotional hyperbole that is Trump is "dangerous" to the nation and democracy, can you please make a list of his stated campaign commitments or past policy actions that back up this claim? Because I don't see it. It seems like a left-leaning cult mythology that has taken hold from repeated chanting.
Yes, Trump is what is called an overt narcissist. But he is battling a world controlled today by the much more dangerous and destructive covert/vulnerable narcissists. The devil would not show himself with his red skin, horns and pointed tail. No, he would walk the earth playing a two-faced act as a benevolent master while injecting chaos into the world. Trump has been out of office for over 3 years, and since then the world has exploded in real chaos (not the emotional type experienced by the election losers... which isn't really chaos). It makes sense that the real devils would brand their opponent as the devil.
One thing I know about cancer patient advocacy is the need to compartmentalize all emotional impacts to decision-making to prevent that from clouding judgement and resulting in tragic advocacy for a mistaken path.
Yes, cancer is a bitch. Thankfully we live in and era where the free enterprise success of people owning overt narcissism and a drive to invent, make, build, grow and solve solve real problems... have advanced medical technology where a cure for most cancers is on the horizon and treatment options to beat it back have exploded like has the crime on the streets of cities run by Democrats.
Sorry to hear that, like AW, you have to battle cancer, Mr. Lee. I hope you join AW and Mrs. AW in prevailing!
I'm afraid that if you consider Covid restrictions to be "fantastic draconian and authoritarian policies and actions" you're going to have to mark them on Mr. Trump's side of the ledger. It was he who approved the spring 2020 lockdowns, which were by far the most stringent of all Covid-era policies. The entire first year of Covid restrictions took place under Mr. Trump's presidency. Since I believe those policies were fully warranted, I don't hold them against him, but I can't imagine why you wouldn't.
"Democrats" have never called half the nation--the working class--"semi-fascist baskets of irredeemable deplorables." I assume you're referring to the remarks of one Democrat--Hillary Clinton (remarks that were not only deplorable, but really, really stupid politically). What she actually said was that *half of Trump supporters* were a "basket of deplorables" (those who were "racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic"), while the other half were "people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they’re just desperate for change." About the latter she said, "Those are people we have to understand and empathize with."
Where I live there's no Brandon Spread to be had. I just looked up the price of butter at the local supermarket (a Kroger): a 2 lb. pack is $6.99, or you can fork over $4.19 to get the one-pounder. I do see that in high-price SF the Safeways are charging $5.99--you shouldn't have to pay 50% more unless you live in an airport! But I certainly acknowledge that inflation has been a major problem and that Biden's American Rescue Plan contributed to the bump we saw in 2022. It's great that inflation has subsided now, but that bump is going to be with us forever, just as the double-digit inflation of the Reagan years was never reversed. (You're probably old enough to remember, as I do, that gasoline used to cost about 25.9 cents a gallon--back in the days when 0.9 cents could get you ninety percent of a gumball.) But it's worth bearing in mind that this administration brought us through the late-Covid/early-Ukraine supply-chain economic shock without recession, something that a year and a half ago seemed a nearly impossible goal.
Well you are correct about the butter, I checked and my favorite brand at $12 was for a 2 lb pack. However you are not at all accurate about anything else... or if accurate in some detail, intellectually off in context.
Biden era inflation is nothing like Reagan era inflation. Ironically after Reagan the government removed housing costs from the CPI. Also, they don't report on the necessities CPI... food, energy, rent, etc. Other OECD countries do these things. Real inflation has been double-digit since Biden. And it is from the wild partisan spending of Dems post pandemic when we knew it wasn't needed. But it pumped trillions into consumer hands while funding their no work, low work and early retirement... exacerbating supply problems... and then the policies to cancel fossil fuels as your boy Biden promised. What in the hell does Paul Krugman think all of this would cause! Family credit card debt is exploding... not for well off elites like you, but for most Americans. And no, the Ukraine fake war isn't the cause. We had regular inflation all during the decades of mideast wars.
And yes old Joe called Trump supporters semi-facsists. Your left cohort throws out the facsist label with wild abandon. And nice try rewriting history from what that old and shrill losing election denier Hillary said. We all have it on record and we are way beyond allowing ya'll to sugar coat old Killery.
Trump was potus while we knew nothing about the virus. The spending and policies were welcome and bipartisan except for the Trump hating hypocrites in office that lie like they breath. Then we learned it wasn't deadly to young people and healthy people through age 60, and the vaxx wasn't really a vaxx and masks don't help and stay at home shelter in place killed more than if people could go outside and exercise... and yet Democrats could not drop their authoritarian Karen power trip.
By the way, old Joe's admin just told all those gubmt employees to use proper pronouns or they will be fired. Cannot get much more authoritarian than that.
In general, if you are a clear thinking non-partisan type, you would be intellectually dishonest claiming life under a Trump and Republican gumbt would be anything close to the authoritarianism of our modern Democrats in power. By hey, yall got those fancy degrees and of course you know better about everything.
Except you really don't.
Frank, every country is blaming their current leaders for inflation - but in reality it's a global problem, and changing political leaders won't end up solving the problem. In Canada they blame Trudeau and his Liberals; in UK they blame Sunak and his Conservatives; in France they blame Macron and his party.
I also notice that your whole post is about Biden and Hillary and attacking "well off elites [with] fancy degrees". How about responding to my point about Trump's language - calling his political enemies "vermin" and saying immigrants are "poisoning the blood" of America. Can you defend that kind of language (right out of Mein Kamph) without using the old trick of diversion, distraction, and redirection. Can you defend Trump's language without pointing over there at Biden, Hillary, etc.?
You have two big tent topics.
One - global inflation is much lower in many countries when you eliminate the housing cost component like the US government does. If you include housing costs the US inflation is double-digit since Biden took over. There are three reasons for it and all of them point to Democrat policies. One is the trillions dumped into the economy post pandemic from partisan Democrat approved spending bills... with only the slim one vote majority that they had. The second is the war on fossil fuels over the left cult of climate crisis that has driven up energy costs for the US. Remember that Europe and other countries had already equalized with higher gas and energy costs. The third has been corporate consolidation. Biden/Democrat regulatory and tax explosions along with their Wall Street cozy connections have resulted in massive killing of small business that has been acquired or their market share taken over by huge corporations. All of this has led to demand exceeding supply and hyper inflation. It is a global problem, but like the Great Recession, a global problem caused by and led by the biggest economy on the planet.
I answered your second question in a previous post. Trump is direct and authentic. The standard establishment politician is inauthentic and keeps two personas... a political one where they mouth the same braindead words and phrases over the teleprompter to keep the easily anxious calm that everything is same-same. The Democrats are also served by a huge media and non-profit infrastructure where the dirty name-calling negative branding can be done in the trenches so old Joe can appear dignified. The frustration of Republicans is that they don't have this infrastructure. They are so sick of being called every name in the book without any structure defense. That is why they support Trump. He is one of them and supporting them. He is the only Republican politician actually fighting back.
I debate left leaning people on a regular basis and there are plenty of vermin in the group.
And with respect to the comment about immigrants, I think there is a better way to say what Trump is saying and what needs to be said. Allowing 6-8 million illegal immigrants that are the bottom of the socioeconomic class of their home country and bring with them their cultural beliefs and practices at time when the US is led by people rejecting American culture and destroying the foundation of Judea-Christian values and rejecting long-standing norms of the traditional family... it is a recipe for national decline and destruction. Multiculturism has proven a disaster for all industrialized countries. The places that liberals claim to be the best places to live are always culturally homogenous. They are chewing off their own cultural benefit arms because of Trump hate.
On the economic issues, I think Frank is right that housing costs have gone sharply up under Biden. Or, to be more accurate, went sharply up 2021-22. Under Trump they rose ~7%/yr prior to the pandemic. Then they rose 12% in 2020. In 2021, under Biden, they rose 32% (part of this was, of course, the impact of basic inflation itself--I'm using unadjusted dollars). However, from January 2022 through August of this year they eased back to a rate of ~9%, and, in fact, from May '22 through August '23 the inflation-adjusted cost of housing slightly declined.
Again, Frank, I agree with you that the ARP overstimulated the economy and contributed to very high inflation in 2021 and the initial months of 2022--higher than it should have been. But you have to factor in the benefit of its contributions to avoiding a recession that economists overwhelmingly predicted. I don't think Biden should get all the credit for that, just as I don't think he should get all the blame for the 2021-22 inflation, but he contributed to both.
On the cost of energy, Biden has been a supply-sider on energy, being much looser on regulating fossil fuel extraction than most of his Democratic base would prefer, and being extremely active on expanding renewables and storage technology, driving renewable energy costs down dramatically. Adjusted for inflation, the price of gasoline now is in line with historical norms. When I as a kid on a cross-country trip, prices I remember varied from ~$0.25/gal on the east coast to what I thought was an astonishing (to me) $0.35 and more in California. That would average to about $3.20/gal now. The AAA's current national figure is $3.34.
As far as corporate concentration goes, I'm 100% with you. But I can't imagine why you'd find that issue in Trump's favor. The Biden administration has been *by far* the most anti-monopolistic one in my lifetime--and, yes, this pushes back on the practical profiles of plenty of Democratic senators. I'd expect you to be a big supporter of what Lena Khan has been doing at the FTC.
On your last paragraph: America has traditionally been the world's leading multicultural nation, and robustly so from the period of industrialization on, when waves of Irish and South German Catholics immigrated, followed half a century later by Southern Italians, Jews, and Eastern Europeans. Each new group was viewed with suspicion and scorn by the increasingly multicultural immigrant predecessors (Catholic immigration inspired the Know-Nothings; Catholic and Jewish immigration was a major focus of the 1920s KKK, especially in the Midwest--Italians and Jews were regarded as "non-white" dilution of truly "American" blood, and their arrival was viewed as a racial invasion of rejects). The prejudice and rejection that met each new wave of immigrants was reprehensible, but I can't imagine why you'd see the country that this immigration created as a "disaster."
Nice post.
There was no risk of a recession after the initial rounds of pandemic stimulus. All reasonable economists knew it and most said it. The Democrats still passed about $5 trillion in spending bipartisan.
The Biden admin has canceled pipeline projects, slowed the trend line for drilling permits, declined applications for refinery expansions and has implemented a massive number of major rule regulations that have made fossil fuel exploration and production more difficult and costly. This was at the very time that demand for energy had exploded from all of the money dumped into the economy. The Democrat way is to play a media image while pushing an agenda that isn't at all authentic. That is the Biden Admin on energy. They are pushing the green agenda at the expense of the economy and working-class and poor families.
Related to corporate consolidation, it comes down to constituent focus. The upper class that the Democrat party represents is high in income and wealth and supports a Wall Street beneficial view that supports corporate consolidation and globalism. Trump, although not against large corporations in general, is focused on the working class American. His trade wars against China and his work to change NAFTA were exactly that move against the corporatocracy that has been completely missing from our leaders. Trump Republicans, in general, are work-class people who are pissed at the exportation of working-class economic opportunity and the importation of other country's poverty that depresses wage in the trades and other mid-level careers.
And with respect to your argument about immigrants an immigration... it is different today... much different. There was never a safety net for immigrants historically. In fact, may immigrants used to the soft nanny government approach would return after coming to American because they could not cut it in the dog-eat-dog environment of success built by self-determination and competition. We filtered out the best. Today there are far too many and they are not the best. They are the people that cannot make it in their home country and they are coming for an easier life with all the government benefits. We cannot blame them for that. We blame the Democrats for their great replacement project... more needly victims of socioeconomic low existence to keep the voter rolls strong Democrat.
There are certainly reasons to keep up a flow of legal immigrants based on country need and based on the merit of those immigrants. The US is the platinum destination for many people on the planet if they have the right stuff. We should leverage that and get the best and brightest and not the bottom of the barrel. We have more than enough low socioeconomic people that need help. Have you noted the homelessness, etc.? Why do we think adding more of the same is a good idea?
Sometime something good is made bad by too much.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnIOyTXReto
Well, Mr. Lee, you have a lot to say here, but I'm not entirely sure what the basis is.
You write, "Real inflation has been double-digit since Biden." But this simply isn't true. It is now running at ~3%; ~4% for core inflation. I agree with you that the ARA contributed to high 2022 inflation: the bill did overstimulate the economy because it underestimated the residual economic strength after the pandemic. Its scale was a mistake, just as the Obama stimulus package was a mistake, but in that case the error was overestimating residual economic strength. As I pointed out, people would be in a lot worse shape had the administration not managed to evade the recession virtually all economists of every political persuasion predicted in early 2022. It seems to me that this matters.
In the world I live in the Ukraine war is not fake. I know now that you're not living in an airport, but perhaps on another planet? Or is there some media outlook that has proved all those dead bodies were "crisis actors?"
Yes, Joe Biden called the "philosophy" that underlies Mr. Trump's political views "semi-fascist." That is not at all the same as calling half of all Americans semi-fascist. I think Biden is correct in what he says about Trump, but I have many neighbors who are his supporters who simply don't pay attention to or take seriously that philosophy. They just dislike liberals (in the abstract . . . we get along very well). I wish they'd take Trump seriously if they're going to vote for him.
As for what Clinton said, I quoted her words precisely, but I know nothing may persuade you. I used to get in discussions on social media where conservatives would repeatedly make fun of Nancy Pelosi's statement about the ACA that, "We have to pass the bill so we can see what's in it." No matter how many times I linked to her actual speech, the video or transcription, to show that was *not* what she said it had no impact at all. The legend had been passed down from blogger to blogger and had religious force. (You can check on Clinton's statement here: https://time.com/4486502/hillary-clinton-basket-of-deplorables-transcript/ )
Covid has been deadly to plenty of people under 60. About 75,000 Americans under 50 have died of it, including 1,600 children. The vaccine is a vaccine and the death rates for unvaccinated populations are much higher than vaccinated, especially when compared to those who keep up with boosters, but although the data for this is all over the web and easy to access I suspect it's not possible to convince you of it. "Shelter in place" was a short term policy during the early Covid period, except for locations that had severe secondary outbreaks in the winter months of early 2021. There is no data to support the claim you made. It's almost certainly true that some individual people suffered health consequences because of confinement that were more serious than what they would have suffered with Covid, but I believe no studies have been (or could be) conducted that can quantify the overall cost/benefit calculation. (And, by the way, I would agree with you if you said that some liberal jurisdictions retained too many restrictions too long. It's certainly true when it comes to school closures. I think liberals generally tend to take risk-aversion too far, just as conservatives tend to be too cavalier about risk.)
The Biden administration has notified government employees, "All applicants and employees should be addressed by the names and pronouns they use to describe themselves." Habitually using "her" to refer to a coworker who describes himself as a man (and vice versa) will be treated as creating a hostile work environment, which is subject to personnel sanctions. And, indeed, treating people in a way that displays hostility towards their self-identification does create a hostile work environment, and saying, "I'm telling the truth as I see it and I invoke First Amendment protections" is confused thinking. I've had subordinates I considered absolute idiots, but I knew better than to refer to them as idiots in the workplace, and HR would have been on my case if I had and a complaint had been brought. Government workers are employed under HR rules, not First Amendment rules with regard to workplace speech. So, yes, you can get a whole lot more "authoritarian" than that.
-- Late edit: I forgot to thank you for the concession on the butter!
Great to have you back, my good old friend, wow, your good and bad news have really made my day!!! We are all survivors just trying to get through another day. See, but we're tough as fuck.
https://liborsoural.substack.com/p/mandela-candela
Thanks Libor. I checked your site and your writing is an engaging as ever.
I'd like to refer you to a chapter in a book (about Canadian writer Ray Robertson) that reminds me very much of your writing and your situation. I think you'll find it relevant.
https://rogerfisher.substack.com/p/chapter-1-the-creative-dilemma