John Eastman Comes Clean: Hell Yes We Were Trying to Overthrow the Government

 Abraham Lincoln was doing no more than stating a commonplace when he said this on the eve of the Civil War in his first inaugural address (emphasis added): “This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.”

In other words, yes, you have a revolutionary right to overthrow the government if you really think its abuses have gotten that intractable and grave. But the government has an equal right to stop you, to defend itself or, as we see today, put you on trial if you fail. 

Josh Marshall, Talking Points Memo, 8/5/2023

Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, July 31, 2023

"A study by New York Times reporters on Friday noted that Elon Musk has steadily come to dominate satellite internet technology with the Starlink technology made by his SpaceX rocket company, and that he has used that dominance to restrict the activities of Ukraine’s military. Musk began to launch satellites into space in 2019, and currently has in position more than 4,500 of the 42,000 satellites he plans. He controls more than 50% of the globe’s working satellites.  The federal government contracts with SpaceX for its rockets and the technology that reaches into areas other companies don’t yet reach. Ukraine, for example, depends on the 42,000 Starlink terminals across the country. Late last year, Musk restricted the use of Starlink on the battlefields, leaving Ukrainian troops without the ability to communicate in a way that suggests he was conducting his own foreign and military policy that conflicted with that of the United States. But a number of countries worry that no one man should have such power, and U.S. officials noted his proposals for a peace plan that would have given Russia Ukrainian land. The Repuglicans have always been bad but never this fascist police state crackdown bad, this lowdown craven in their poor, self-destructive, nihilistic judgment bad. And now a captain of industry swaggering around with his monopoly capital bullshit; another common feature of fascist movements, by the way. And of course Evil Tony Starks supports you know who.  "Semafor’s Washington bureau chief Benji Sarlin noted that while “[e]veryone has thoroughly absorbed it already, it is 100% insane to have a president [Trump in '24]opposed by basically his whole cabinet—some of whom actively are or considered running against him themselves.” Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American, July 31, 2023

Peace is a virtual, mute, continuous victory of the possible forces over the probable appetites" Paul Valery

 

"it’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership"

 Talking Points Memo, By Josh Kovensky, August 1, 2023--

Top Ten Most Shocking Revelations From The Trump [Jan 6] Indictment

Freud's psychoanalytic model of the 20th century popular arts--

From "Psychopathic Characters on the Stage," Freud profiles the spectator, theater goer, and their relationship to theatrical performance, stage dramas and comedies. But I'd suggest also trying as a little thought experiment substituting readers and writers, pop fans and pop stars, or music fans and music makers, or movie fans and film makers. Blowing off steam "in every direction," concludes Freud, "in the various grand scenes that form part of the life represented on the stage" is as concise an encapsulation of the popular arts in the 20th century as I've come across and Freud wrote these words in 1905. Just add books, movies, TV, radio music and sports and, notice, how in the final twist here the spectator is transformed or disappears into the artist:

The spectator is a person who experiences too little, who feels that he is a 'poor wretch to whom nothing of importance can happen', who has long been obliged to damp down, or rather displace, his ambition to stand in his own person at the hub of world affairs; he longs to feel and to act and to arrange things according to his desires-- in short, to be a hero. And the playwright and actor enable him to do this by allowing him to identify himself with a hero. They spare him something, too. For the spectator knows quite well that actual heroic conduct such as this would be impossible for him without pains and sufferings and acute fears, which would almost cancel out the enjoyment. He knows, moreover, that he only has one life and that he might perhaps perish even in a single such struggle against adversity. Accordingly, his enjoyment is based on an illusion; that is to say, his suffering is mitigated by the certainty that, firstly, it is someone other than himself who is acting and suffering on stage, and, secondly, that after all it is only a game, which can threaten no damage to his personal security. In these circumstances he can allow himself to enjoy being a 'great man', to give way without a qualm to such suppressed impulses as a craving for freedom in religious, political, social and sexual matters, and to 'blow off steam' in every direction in the various grand scenes that form part of the life represented on the stage. 

Three pop songs homaging the psychedelic bliss sounds of '90s EDM, two legacy superstars and one former child-star from Sweden showing their love--

"Ray of Light," Madonna (1998)

 

"Beautiful Day," U2 (2000)

"Dream On," Robyn (2006)

Why isn't there a reality tv show where people dance around the kitchen to their favorite pop music while making a meal together? Aren't people doing that everywhere? If they're not wouldn't that be what they'd like to be doing while making something to eat? Or cleaning up afterwards. You know, household chores. Try playing these three bangers in a row; get jiggy w/ it. Sunshine pop in dark disco packages. Feel something, or not. They work every time for me. 

"The Power of Good-Bye," Madonna (1998)

 "Learn to say goodbye/I yearn to say goodbye." In other words, doing it and still knowing it's going to be impossible. A deep track from Madonna's late imperial phase. Her 37th Top 20 hit. Still dropping bombs, like it ain't no thing. Louise Ciccone, Catholic girl from Michigan, makes it big in NYC, a disco dancefloor diva, Queen of Pop, doing her best lipstick feminist blues. Of course, it's Madonna's punky sass, or her tough dancefloor cheerleader energy, but she could as well bring to the sad ones a tangy counterpoint of human frailty and burning desire that is not easy to forget.