I dunno about you, but I find it very odd that it appears the most impactful scandal of the Age of Dump is something he said in private. I do believe he said that casualties of war are losers and suckers. Apparently several people have confirmed this, albeit anonymously, to numerous reporters and I don't know why anybody would make that up. It's the kind of idiotic thing he would say, and he has expressed similar sentiments about John McCain's capture in public a few times. For some mysterious reason that was okay.
But you know, massive, epic failure on the greatest public health crisis in a century; separating children from their parents and locking them in cages; giving massive tax cuts to the very wealthiest Americans and blowing the deficit into stratosphere; toadying to a ruthless dictator who is an adversary of our country; abandoning alliances and allies; total failure to deliver on promises about infrastructure manufacturing employment; trying to blackmail a foreign government into ginning up a phony scandal about a political rival using taxpayer money; exhorting racist violence; lying 25 times every day; and a whole lot more really ought to have mattered.
If people had kept their mouths shut the idiotic and depraved remarks about dead soldiers would not have even happened as far as the world would know. He manages to make it to Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day and woodenly read some prepared remarks. But what he says continually in public is consistently idiotic, depraved and offensive. Why should we care more about what he says in private?
I'm not getting it.
And uh, as far as what I would have thought about anonymous allegations against Obama or Clinton, I never had to worry about it because as far as I can recall there weren't any, at least none of any significance. But we've all seen what happened to non-anonymous accusers of the Dumpster. They've lost their careers, been subject to massive campaigns of death threats, and been forced to go into hiding. So I wish they'd come forward and identify themselves, but I can kind of understand it. As I also said, I don't think this particular allegation is very important in the overall scheme of things.
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I know I keep going back to the Allegory of the Cave. But what's changed in the last 2,300+ years? Nothing. Most people are asleep, living in a contrived reality.
One of those "realities" is that the president of the US is "the most powerful man in the world." The guy in there now is puerile, feckless, and completely corrupt. So much for "powerful" because he is, and always has been, the opposite.
But the people in the Cave view a shadow of reality. The "president" this and that blah blah blah. So they don't see true reality. But another contrived "reality" is that the Most Admirable People In The World are soldiers and officers and generals. Not teachers, nurses, social justice champions, abolitionists. Shitler managed to insinuate himself into the presidency; the office is part of our national myth, when in point of fact there have only been two or three presidents who had any personal character (Washington, Lincoln, who else?).
People are asleep. People are in the Cave. People do not generally live in true reality. Their upbringings demand that they live in symbols and myth, not in reality; it's too dangerous because they would be confronted with the existentialism of reality. Reality is just too painful; they just want to get through this thing called life without having to really live it. It's the spiritual equivalent of sticking one's fingers in one's ears and going "MLYAA MLYAA MLYAA I CAN'T HEAR YOU" till death brings the cessation of looming terror.
I would say that Grant deserves a better reputation than he has. FDR was of good character. Eisenhower was a racist but no more so than was normal for the time and he was honest. I think highly of Obama personally. Lyndon Johnson has Vietnam to answer for but what he did for domestic policy was actually heroic. I'd stick up for Truman but that atom bomb thing is kind of hard to overlook. Jefferson's hypocrisy about slavery also dooms him. The Adamses were okay. Kennedy didn't last long enough to judge. Some people think he would have gotten out of Vietnam but I don't, and that Bay of Pigs thing was pathetic. Jimmy Carter is a genuinely good person. Other than that I don't have much good to say about any of them. Clinton at least was better than the alternatives, which isn't saying much.
Point taken. Regardless, most people are living in the Cave. They don't want to know--or can't hear and see--that they're watching and listening to mere shadows of reality. Aristotle was a bad motherfucker!
As for Clinton, well ... ten words: Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 ... and Jeffrey Epstein.
He showed a good game on the surface, though. Had some soul, along with his soullessness.
I think we might also have included James Garfield if his doctors hadn't been so skeptical of the existence of germs.
He seems to have been an amazing, smart, principled guy.
I wonder how many Trump voters had a "Support Our Troops" slogan on their hat, shirt, or car?
Maybe they need to be reminded who they once were.
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