Funny you should mention it. When I wake at 3am for my nightly trip down the hall, I check my phone for the time, as an excuse to check what's happened since retiring the night before. And look! 3 hours later and I am still here. Ugh!
If they haven't ...given current worries...maybe they should! I am just finishing Timthy Snyder's The Road to Unfreedom and he has significantly increased my worries
Yes, yes, yes! I have trouble sleeping these days as someone who fell asleep (and stayed asleep) as soon as my head hit the pillow, I can no longer sleep through the night. As for a book suggestion, if you need a break from the heavy topics of the day I recommend Paul BegalaтАЩs тАЬYouтАЩre FiredтАЭ. It is funny and filled with some excellent suggestions for getting rid of this President.
As i read them...iKve just finished also a work by a french clinical psychologist Jean-Charles Bouchoux on Perverse Narcissism..and that too is distinctly worrying in a POTUS!
As we see how much more we need to learn about how Russian operations affect the U.S. and democratic governments throughout the world, an interesting read has emerged from among our HCR readers: blog and memoir draft by James Schumaker, a retiree from the Foreign Service who had posts in Moscow.
My father in law was also in Moscow at the time controlling communications at the French Embassy. He spoke often of their enforced isolation from any contact with soviet life.
I would like to read this and plan to order it as soon as I am finished with my current reading backlog. What is your biggest takeaway from this book? What do you think the most important message is that it conveys?
The most important take-aways from this book are the pulsinamity of the West in the face of Putin's evident and publicly available program to reduce every democracy to the economic, social and political level of Russia and the complicity of occidental extreme right and left wing politicians, oligarchs and partial media in supporting, encouraging, enabling and imposing it in our societies. Intentionally implausible lies destroy belief in history, the existence of truth and the importance of seeking it. Confidence in institutions and the utility of voting go out the window as people content themselves with the idea that no matter how much it hurts they can't do much about it and anyway, someone is suffering more than they. The fascists reduce the people to a servant status; zombies whose only role is to believe the lies of their "redeemer" and obediently hate their external enemies who are of course to blame for all their pain. The people are thus merely production/consumption units whose only goal in life is to ensure the increasing wealth of the oligarchs and to admire the increasingly midas-like life-style of these semi-gods that lord it over us. Snyder lays out the fascist philosophies used to cover this coup d'├йtat and their evolution from Putin's return to the Presidency in 2012, through the disruption and invasion of Ukraine to Scottish independence and Brexit to the imposition of their creature Trump as Chief Magistrate and head of the Army in their philosophical nemesis; the USA. Some of the details on Trump's fake status as a "successful businessman" generated by Russian propaganda and illicit money laundering and details of his finances and operations are extremely revealing.
If we don't now act cohesively to annihilate this movement and these dangerous lunatics .....Russian servitude here we come!
Thanks for taking the time to summarize this. I am looking forward to reading the book. I have just listened this morning to the first two of Timothy SnyderтАЩs talks on YouTube and heard some of the same themes you refer to. We are, indeed, living in a momentous time in both the history of America and of the world. ItтАЩs starting to feel more and more as if things are beginning to spiral out of control, both environmentally and politically. Existentially frightening.
тАЬIntentionally implausible liesтАЭ stands out as the secret for success of anyoneтАЩs rise through an organization, along with message manipulation and exploitation of loopholes in the rules.
We just saw intentionally implausible lies from DeJoy on Friday as he testified before the Senate committee yesterday, and will see more of it on Monday.
ItтАЩs interesting to think how this skill is learned in childhood.
It is a pervasive problem that unchecked, can lead to terrible consequences, and it is very difficult to effectively respond in time. Hence the Holocaust...
As a side note - I genuinely wonder if others have as much trouble sleeping these days as I do.
Funny you should mention it. When I wake at 3am for my nightly trip down the hall, I check my phone for the time, as an excuse to check what's happened since retiring the night before. And look! 3 hours later and I am still here. Ugh!
If they haven't ...given current worries...maybe they should! I am just finishing Timthy Snyder's The Road to Unfreedom and he has significantly increased my worries
Feel free to give book recs anytime. This is one of my main sources for new titles.
Yes, yes, yes! I have trouble sleeping these days as someone who fell asleep (and stayed asleep) as soon as my head hit the pillow, I can no longer sleep through the night. As for a book suggestion, if you need a break from the heavy topics of the day I recommend Paul BegalaтАЩs тАЬYouтАЩre FiredтАЭ. It is funny and filled with some excellent suggestions for getting rid of this President.
As i read them...iKve just finished also a work by a french clinical psychologist Jean-Charles Bouchoux on Perverse Narcissism..and that too is distinctly worrying in a POTUS!
Is there any other kind?
As we see how much more we need to learn about how Russian operations affect the U.S. and democratic governments throughout the world, an interesting read has emerged from among our HCR readers: blog and memoir draft by James Schumaker, a retiree from the Foreign Service who had posts in Moscow.
https://shoeone.blogspot.com/2011/07/ambassador-toon-in-moscow-1977-1979.html
My father in law was also in Moscow at the time controlling communications at the French Embassy. He spoke often of their enforced isolation from any contact with soviet life.
I would like to read this and plan to order it as soon as I am finished with my current reading backlog. What is your biggest takeaway from this book? What do you think the most important message is that it conveys?
The most important take-aways from this book are the pulsinamity of the West in the face of Putin's evident and publicly available program to reduce every democracy to the economic, social and political level of Russia and the complicity of occidental extreme right and left wing politicians, oligarchs and partial media in supporting, encouraging, enabling and imposing it in our societies. Intentionally implausible lies destroy belief in history, the existence of truth and the importance of seeking it. Confidence in institutions and the utility of voting go out the window as people content themselves with the idea that no matter how much it hurts they can't do much about it and anyway, someone is suffering more than they. The fascists reduce the people to a servant status; zombies whose only role is to believe the lies of their "redeemer" and obediently hate their external enemies who are of course to blame for all their pain. The people are thus merely production/consumption units whose only goal in life is to ensure the increasing wealth of the oligarchs and to admire the increasingly midas-like life-style of these semi-gods that lord it over us. Snyder lays out the fascist philosophies used to cover this coup d'├йtat and their evolution from Putin's return to the Presidency in 2012, through the disruption and invasion of Ukraine to Scottish independence and Brexit to the imposition of their creature Trump as Chief Magistrate and head of the Army in their philosophical nemesis; the USA. Some of the details on Trump's fake status as a "successful businessman" generated by Russian propaganda and illicit money laundering and details of his finances and operations are extremely revealing.
If we don't now act cohesively to annihilate this movement and these dangerous lunatics .....Russian servitude here we come!
Thanks for taking the time to summarize this. I am looking forward to reading the book. I have just listened this morning to the first two of Timothy SnyderтАЩs talks on YouTube and heard some of the same themes you refer to. We are, indeed, living in a momentous time in both the history of America and of the world. ItтАЩs starting to feel more and more as if things are beginning to spiral out of control, both environmentally and politically. Existentially frightening.
тАЬIntentionally implausible liesтАЭ stands out as the secret for success of anyoneтАЩs rise through an organization, along with message manipulation and exploitation of loopholes in the rules.
We just saw intentionally implausible lies from DeJoy on Friday as he testified before the Senate committee yesterday, and will see more of it on Monday.
ItтАЩs interesting to think how this skill is learned in childhood.
It is a pervasive problem that unchecked, can lead to terrible consequences, and it is very difficult to effectively respond in time. Hence the Holocaust...
Absolutely! I was awake at 2:15 this morning reading news under the covers.
Is that the adult version of the kid whoтАЩs been put to bed but gets a flashlight and reads under the covers? тШ║я╕П
How many of us were those kids?!?
Yes.