Watching The World Go To War In Real Time

Ukraine is the new Spain?

We are out of reach of the Internet for a few days and just recently arrived at an Army Corps park where these is thin Internet service.  Text only!  So I am reading books which is a good pastime.  I read The Secret History of Wonder Woman, which was more interesting than it sounds.  The guy behind that comic (or one of the people, anyway) was one of the inventors of the lie detector and quite a character. He and his wife and his girlfriend lived together and practiced "free love" - which seems very sixties, but this was back in the 30's.  Truth is stranger than fiction.

I also have been reading The Nazi Officer's Wife which I was reluctant to read as I know how these stories end - in tragedy.  Reading Holocaust books is a sure way to get depressed. I saw the movie a while ago but the book goes into more detail.  In fact, the first half of the book describes the slow descent into hell that occurred in Europe as freedoms were taken away, little by little.

And that is the fascinating part of it.  We tend to think of the rise of Nazism as a sudden thing, and in some aspects it was.  Certain events moved the dial quite a bit - Kristalnacht, for example.  But other things happened more gradually - small outrages that occurred over time, such that people didn't realize what was happening to them until it was too late. And these small outrages were by design - to get the victims and their perpetrators used to these ideas.  Perpetrators were sometimes victims as well - being "nice" to Jews or trying to help them out could get you sent to the concentration camps.

What was interesting to me was how certain things were "normal" when other things were clearly abnormal.  The protagonist, Edith Beer, a young Jewish girl from Vienna, is sent off to Germany as a slave laborer on a farm.  She is starved and worked nearly to death, but at the same time is allowed to write letters to her family and friends - and receive mail as well as care packages.  She is paid trifling sums for her labor and for a time even allowed to buy things with that money (or send it home to her Mother).  Normalcy in abnormal circumstances.

But there was a method to this madness.  By offering a token pay and small liberties, the Nazis could claim that these were merely "foreign workers" and not slaves - who were traded among farmers like old tractors.  They were told to work, or their relatives back home would be sent to concentration camps (which they were, in any event) so their "freedom" to labor was illusory.

And, over time, these small liberties were, one by one, eliminated, such that all pretense was lost and they were no longer de facto slaves, but literal ones.  And then, well, off to the camps.  But it didn't happen all at once, but bit-by-bit.

"I understand now that everything was done so that the Germans would never see us, or if they saw us, would not have to admit it; or, if they had to admit it, would be able to say that we looked fine and that would never be irritated by a sense of guilt or pricked by a moment of compassion." -- Edith Beers

The small liberties granted to the slave laborers were not for the welfare of the slave laborers, but to assuage the conscience of the average German.  You see, it wasn't the Jews they were trying to persuade, but the ordinary citizen.   It explains why many Germans denied the Holocaust or try to argue it wasn't as bad as it is made out to be.  Plausible deniability rears its ugly head.

There are books galore about the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust, but few about the events leading up to it.  Herman Waulk's Winds of War documents how things were leading up to the actual war - when little by little, life changed for those in Europe.  The Gathering Storm by Norma Waln (sp?) is another good book that documents how things slowly went insane in Germany in the 1930's.  It was the classic "boiling a frog in water" metaphor in real life - and don't give me some bullshit about how the frogs would jump out - millions stayed in that slowly heating pot, until they were boiled alive. People are not as smart as frogs, apparently.

It begins with demonizing.  You have to have an outgroup to victimize and blame for all the ingroup's woes (first convincing them they have woes, of course!).  And here is where the trouble begins.  Members of the outgroup don't listen to the broadcasts or read the newspapers that spew hatred.  If they do, they turn away in disgust.  So the members of the outgroup fail to realize exactly what horrible things are being said about them - or how much of the ingroup actually believes these lies.

None of my liberal friends watch Fox News. I suspect they would be shocked at the propaganda that has been shoved down the throats of viewers over the last decade. Bear in mind, it is the most watched news channel, the Völkischer Beobachter of our era.

In the book, The Nazi Officer's Wife, Edith is blissfully unaware of much of what is going on in terms of propaganda or how many of the people she knows who are not Jews, are starting to believe it, or at least go along with it. It is only after the Anschluss that her former friends and neighbors turn on her.  Ordinary people turn evil, and Jewish homes and businesses are looted. Jews are beaten in the streets.

Again, the change seems sudden, but the process was in place for some time before it exploded all at once.  Once everyone became "accustomed" to this new reality, the slow incremental changes continued. The cycle of misery went on.

Today, I think we are seeing the same pattern.  The new Nazis are perhaps not as pervasive or organized as in Germany in the 1930s.  Then again, how much do we know about this?  The demonizing of outgroups is in full swing.  Republicans can't afford to alienate Jews, but at the same time, make overtures to antisemites.  It is a lot more complicated to be a fascist these days!

A large part of The Secret History of Wonder Woman revolves around the woman's suffrage movement, which was more that just about the right to vote, but also the right of women to control their own bodies.  In the early 1900s, the best a woman could hope for was to marry a man who didn't beat her too much.  Women were largely property back then - but often could not own property themselves.  Ironically - or not so much - many of the new far-right talk of going back to those "good old days" and even repeal the 19th Amendment.  It is an interesting and scary time to be alive to be sure.  People want to "go back" in time - and some are even apologists for slavery - claiming that it "wasn't so bad" and that slaves learned "job skills" - as is taught in Florida textbooks today.  Too bad those Mexicans are taking away those coveted Black Jobs!

Today, we have people high in the Republican party who want to outlaw even contraception and make it illegal for a woman to travel to another State for an abortion.  The whole gay marriage thing is on the chopping block as well.  They want to "go back" to the old days, convinced they were somehow better than today and that our imagined woes are all the result of too much liberty.  It is, like I said, a scary time to be alive.

Another book I am reading is The Last Convertible by Anton Myrer, which concerns some young, fairly well-off students at Harvard (except the author, who is on scholarship) who share an enormous, emerald-green prewar Packard Convertible that belongs to one of their wealthy classmates.  The time period is just before World War II, and although they party and carry on as any other Harvard students would do, the prospect of war hangs over them all.  And some of them live in denial - Germans, after all, will come to their senses, sooner or later - right?

What all these stories have in common is that everyone had an idea what was going on - saw what was happening - but no one felt they could do anything about it.  It would work out OK without their intervention.  But it didn't.  It reminds me of the real estate bubble of 2008.  Back in 2006 we lived near Ft. Lauderdale and all our friends were in the real estate business - agents, brokers, bankers, appraisers, home inspectors, mortgage brokers, investors, home builders, etc.  At cocktail parties the topic of conversation was not whether there was a bubble, but when it would burst and would it be a soft or hard landing (it was hard).  Everyone was too invested - often literally - to do anything to change things.  So everyone held on tight and hoped for the best.

This election season - as bizarre as it is - feels the same way.  People know something bad is going to happen no matter who wins or loses the electoral college.  But people - ordinary people - feel there is nothing they can do about it. The world is going crazy and we all just have to hang on and go along for the ride, no matter who gets hurt.

Or do we have other choices?

Why Assassination Doesn't Work

Assassination rarely works the way assassins think it would - if they think at all.

I saw the above comic online and thought it made a good point.  The idea of going back in time and killing baby Hitler and avoiding WWII and the Holocaust seems like a swell one.  My Mother, growing up in the 1930's said she wanted to, as a child, travel to Germany and kill Hitler and change the world.  But I think that might not have worked out the way she planned.

Suppose Hitler was admitted to art school?  Would that have altered the rise of fascism in Germany - and worldwide?  Because today we see the same trend toward authoritarianism in country after country, from the US to the UK, France, Turkey, India, Russia - you-name-it, chances are, there is a right-wing faction on the rise in whatever country you can think of.  Recent elections in France and the UK seem to give hope to the idea that people are fed up with the far right.  We'll see.

But killing political leaders (or trying to)?  That rarely seems to effect the change the assassin wanted, if they indeed wanted change.  In fact, it seems to achieve opposite goals.

The most notable thing about assassins is that for the most part they are mentally ill people with no real agenda, or an agenda that is based on insanity.  For example, the man who shot James A. Garfield was basically insane and thought the President had stiffed him our of a job or something.  There was no real political thought involved, just a nut with a gun.

The same could be said for John Wilkes Booth - shooting Lincoln after the war was over to no real effect.  Kennedy was shot by a guy who went to Russia, came back, and was sort of a layabout.  Not sure what the political motive was there, either - unless you believe the conspiracy theories.  Squeaky Fromme?  Crazy.  The guy who shot Reagan?  Nutzo.  In most cases, the people plotting assassinations are just whack-jobs, not politically motivated people with carefully laid plans.

There are exceptions, of course.  Some senior officers, late in the war, tried to assassinate Hitler, too little, too late.  It was a carefully planned (but poorly executed) attempt, and the end result was a purge of the military and a retrenchment by Hitler to commit to utter destruction.  The assassination attempt achieved the opposite of its goals.

Often, an assassination or an attempt will create sympathy for the victim and allow others to use the tragedy to enact the policies the victim supported.  In the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination, much of the "Great Society" legislation was passed in part, to honor him.  Reagan bounced back from his assassination attempt with greater approval ratings than before.  As his surgeon said, "Sir, today we're all Republicans!"

In other instances, nothing changes as the result of an assassination or attempt. As the cartoon above illustrates, even if Hitler wasn't around, the Nazi party would still have had influence over Germany and perhaps Ernst Röhm or Goebbles or Göring would have taken his place. While authoritarian dictatorships are a cult of personality, the personality can be swapped-out to a successor or an interloper.  In fact, that is probably the only time assassination works out for anyone - when a wanna-be dictator kills off his predecessor and assumes power.

Assassination can create a power vacuum as well.  We thought getting rid of Saddam Hussein would somehow turn Iraq into a democratic nation founded on freedom.  We thought getting rid of the Taliban in Afghanistan would liberate the Afghani people.  But faced with the ability to vote for the first time, many people choose to vote to outlaw voting and install another authoritarian government.  Nation-building has to come from within.

It is hard to say how the assassination attempt on Trump will change things.  No doubt the Trumpers will still thump for Trump. Those alarmed by his authoritarian diatribes will not switch parties based on the attempt.  I doubt it will create a sympathy effect other than to bolster the faithful.

If the shooter hadn't missed, what would have happened?  It is hard to say, but a State Funeral in the Capital along with a procession to Arlington Cemetery would no doubt have captivated the nation.  And maybe that would have translated to a sympathy vote for his successor - whoever that would have been.  But predicting "what ifs" is a tricky business.

People are always looking for reasons - motivations, manifestos, tweets, or e-mails that will explain things nice and neatly. Failing that, people will make up motivations so they can compartmentalize these things in their mind.  There had to be a cause-and-effect!   But causation is illusory.  Oftentimes, these are merely random events, a crazy young man with muddled motives and a gun.  And that is a scary thought - that at any moment, something bad could happen to any of us.

Perhaps the only real effect of this assassination attempt is to expose the utter hypocrisy of the GOP.  The same people who laughed when Gabby Giffords was shot, or made crude jokes when Nancy Pelosi's husband was attacked by a nut with a hammer, are now all "special snowflakes" crying "how dare you?" when someone makes an off-color joke.  Worse yet, the party decrying "cancel culture" is patrolling the Internet looking for offense and getting teachers and even Home Depot clerks fired, for making the same sort of jokes they made about Giffords or Pelosi, in order to "own the libs."

The hypocrisy is showing. Even worse is the utter cowardice shown by those on the left, when confronted with this.  Jack Black, not wanting to jeopardize the money-train that is the "Kung-Fu Panda" franchise (now four movies and five short films - how is that possible?), threw his band-mate under the bus and dissolved the band to boot.  Too late, Black realizes it wasn't enough, as the right has tagged him with the comments and won't let that go, because he has been on their enemies list for some time now.

Doing the "right thing" when it comes to Nazis, only seems to benefit Nazis.  The same can be said to be true for Trumpers - although the Venn diagram for those two groups overlaps considerably. Trumpers never have to apologize for their death threats, off-color jokes, or promises of retribution.  It is only the left that must humble themselves before the right, as they are shamed and vilified.  This is not a new phenomenon, either:

"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”

― Jean-Paul Sartre

Mental Illness And Guns Are A Bad Mix!

No real mystery as to what happened.

I have noted before, time and time again, that trying to get "the latest news" is not only pointless, but bound to be wildly inaccurate.  No one knows what is going on or what went on, during a mass shooting or a three-alarm-fire or an earthquake or hurricane or whatever.  Wild unsubstantiated reports abound and are amplified by a news media hungry to be "first with the news" and have an "exclusive."

Sadly, it has been shown that first impressions tend to dominate people's minds - and the news cycle.  So the "Atlanta Bomber" is misidentified as a security guard and his life is ruined.  The same thing happened with the Boston Marathon bomber - the wrong guy was fingered and it is only a  miracle that some online nut job didn't lynch him.

A day later, a week later, a month later, a year later - a decade later - we find out the truth.  The two kids who shot up Columbine High School were mentally ill with access to guns.  That's it.  No compelling backstory or "manifesto" or motive.  No "trench coat mafia" or hunt for Christian students - but today if you ask most people, they will say it was one or both.

Mentally ill people plus guns - it pretty much explains most, if not all, mass shootings and murders and other forms of mayhem.

In this most recent example, some on the Right were quick to capitalize on it - including Trump's now-VP pick - that Biden somehow "ordered" an assassination through violent rhetoric.  But of course, Trump has never advocated for violence against his enemies, rather he has promised it.  Other Republican operatives speculated it was a Chinese agent, an illegal immigrant, an "Antifa" activist (thank you very much, MTG!) or a transgender person.  All of course, were wrong.

In the days since the shooting, which left a fireman and father dead, it has emerged that the shooter wasn't some expert marksman, but rather a troubled young man whose Dad decided to buy him a gun (or at the very least, leave it unsecured) in an echo of the Sandy Hook shootings.  The kid started out as a Democrat in 2017, but quickly jumped on the Trump train, often making himself a target of bullying by espousing conservative views.  He followed a YouTube channel of a "second amendment" promoter and even bought "merch" from him - and was wearing it when the shooting happened.  Ironically, he was not allowed to join the rifle club at school because of his poor aim.  I suspect there is a real reason he wasn't allowed to join.  After all, don't you join something like that to get better at aiming?

But what is puzzling is why a registered Republican and avowed conservative would shoot at the party's nominee.  And the answer is simple: Mental Illness and Guns.  They don't mix well.

UPDATE: The Wikipedia page linked above has been recently edited to say that there are "conflicting accounts" as to his political views.  Let the spin-cycle begin!  By the end of the week, he will be listed as a BLM and Antifa member.  Truth is elastic these days!

Our "founding fathers" put the second amendment in the Constitution so that an "well-regulated militia" could be forms.  Note the word, "regulated."

I don't think the authors of the Bill of Rights envisioned that this clause would encompass the "right" of an insane neighbor to own a cannon and take pot-shots at people he didn't like.  Only those eligible for the "well-regulated militia" would have the right to own reasonable firearms.  And in that era, well, the eligible didn't include minorities or women - and certainly not the insane.

Organizations like the NRA have pushed for lax restrictions - or no restrictions - on gun ownership, going so far as to advocate for gun ownership for the mentally ill or those who have a history of violence.  The Supreme Court seems to have cleared the way for this, other than to comment that someone with a history of domestic violence might be restricted from owning a gun.  No problem - he just buys one at a gun show!

The problem, of course, is to determine who is and isn't mentally ill - and how to track them in this era of HIPPPA where patient's rights trump everything else.  And even in situations where people clearly should not have been allowed to buy firearms, these folks somehow fell through the cracks, resulting in many deaths.

But why would a Republican shoot a Republican?   As some have pointed out, the man who shot John Lennon was a fan of his - at one time - before finding Jesus (and losing his mind).  What motivated this young man to go after Trump is anyone's guess and in the long run it doesn't matter what the specific motivation was.

Because the actual cause was mentally ill with guns.

Free Money Samples At The Bank!

Are banks giving away free money?  Sometimes - but with a catch!

I wrote before how Capital One offered us a deal if we opened a money market account and deposited $10,000 into it.  If we left the money there for a few months, they would give us $200.  Since we have to take money from our 401(k) every year to live on, it was an easy matter to deposit $10,000 each into these money market accounts and score $200 in free cheese.

Recently, Capital One was at it again - offering me $250 if I would set up a checking account with them and direct deposit at least $1000 within 75 days.   Again, since I have to transfer money from my IRA to my spending accounts anyway, it was a simple matter to set up the checking account and make two $500 transfers.  At the end of 75 days, well, I had $125 plus some change (interest) in the account. Free money samples at the bank!

Well, I thought that was pretty swell.  After all, what has Bank of America done for me lately, other than funneling about $75 a month back to me in "rewards" for using the credit card.  Oh, right, Capital One has the same deal.  Competition in the marketplace - to score the better customers, that is.

So I was a little surprised at Capital One's latest gag.  They offered me $250 $350 (upgraded!) if I would get a Capitol One Quicksilver card and charge at least $500 on it in 60 days.  A few trips to the gas station and our health insurance premiums should about cover $500 in 60 days, so, why not?

It was a bit of a PITA to unlock my credit score with the three agencies (I wish lenders would just tell you which one they use!).  If you don't log in regularly, well, your password may have expired and the reset mechanisms are clunky.  Nevertheless, within a half-hour or so, I was approved for the card.

Why is Capital One doing this?  Well, in a way it is like encouraging a compulsive gambler to gamble.  The credit card has a trap associated with it - 25% interest or more!  And no interest until 2025 on new purchases!  For a gambler, this is pure uncut cocaine.  For me, it is a chance to score $350 if I am careful.

Like I said, I plan on spending the money anyway - but not carrying a balance, of course.  So the deadly trap of compound interest should be avoided.  Nevertheless, it is a trap and it can bite almost anyone.  For the salary slave, it is temping to run up charges and pay them off later.   Zero interest?  Play the float, right?  Then they get laid off and that 25% interest (as high as 29.8% depending on your credit score!) kicks in and you can never pay it back - well, you can, but it may take years.

They count on you being weak - the cater to your weaknesses.  They market to your weaknesses.  I mentioned before - more than once - that they are not giving out free money samples at the bank, now or ever.  What they are doing here is baiting me to spend.  And while "stealing the cheese" is tempting to do, one has to be very, very astute about such things, or you could end up like a rat in a trap.

Of course, many of these better offers are only offered to better customers.  With a credit score of over 800, I don't need or want credit - so they offer me these deals.  The working single Mom who is behind on her bills and paying bounce fees to the bank really needs a deal like the ones they offer me but rarely get them.  Or, if they do, it is just a shovel with which to bury themselves.

I read all the time online, pleas from young people who distrust and hate banks.  And I understand that sentiment from when I was young as well, and banks were always trying to fuck me over - or so it seemed.  They had all the money - they had all the cards.  I was a mere supplicant, begging for scraps and crumbs.  And many young people (as well as immigrants) have an unnatural fear of banks which causes them to make even worse financial decisions, such as being un-banked or using payday loan outlets.

When you don't need or want the good deals, that is when they offer them to you - they know that you need to be enticed financially to engage.  The poor and middle-class have no choice - so why offer them anything?  The system rewards the rewarded and punishes the punished.

Yea, it sucks.  But from the bank's point of view, the poorer the borrower, the more likely they are to default, so rates and charges are figured accordingly.  On the other hand, someone like Trump can walk away from paying anything to anybody and for some reason the banks accept this and do a workout.

Again, the system is unfair - the richest should be held accountable more than the poorest.  But it works the opposite way, and since bankruptcy reform was enacted, well, it is darn hard to weasel out of debts anymore - if you are poor.

But of course, I will snag the free money if I can.  It is a simple matter of using this new card for our trip this summer and then paying it off with the money I put in their checking account - and then closing all of the accounts!

That, of course, is not what they were hoping I would do!

UPDATE: Or maybe they don't care - but were hoping I would write about it in my blog!

AI Invades Real Estate!

Why is this condo badly photo-shopped with AI to make it look like a Dentist's waiting room?

I get these mailings from Real Estate Agents all the time, hinting that they want to sell my condo.  I may take them up on this, too little, too late. We hung onto the condo because three developers promised to buy us out and demolish the place and build anew, paying us what was, at the time, a premium price for our units.

But then the real estate market took off and "premium price" became reasonable price and then the developers got cold feet because interest rates went up and financing got sketchy and all three of the developers decided to put the project on hold for the time being.  Now I see prices have started to drop - slightly - for some of these units.  The time to sell was last year.  And this is in the hot DC market, too!

But what tickled my fancy was a mailing for a unit just sold with the above photo.  I am not sure what Indian Photo-shopping farm or AI did this, but other than the ceiling, the rest of the photo is made up - badly.  Check out the Escher-esque laptop on the right side.  Salvador Dali couldn't do better!

The artwork on the walls in all photos is a variation on the same generic theme.  The furniture appears to be all faked-in.  It makes the place look nicer than it is. And apparently this is all legal.

Mark tells me that inserting furniture into an empty property through "virtual staging" is no different than putting in actual rented furniture - at least according to the Real Estate association.  Some agents even photoshop a fire in the fireplace to make it look more homey - which I guess is all right if the fireplace is actually functional.  Otherwise that would be misrepresentation.

But I think this is a slippery slope.  Putting actual furniture in a room and taking a photo is one thing, photo-shopping or using AI to insert furniture might make the place seem bigger than it is (as these photos seem to do) and hide defects like stains in the carpet, holes in the walls, etc.

Then you have photos like this - where chairs seem to come with their own square of carpet, and what appears to have once been a dining area or den is turned into some sort of ersatz office, complete with diagonal laptops.

Having owned in this development for over 25 years, and having been in at last a dozen or more of these units (that either friends lived in or Mark sold) I can say with authority that these pictures exaggerate the size of the units and their layout a bit.  Granted, if you actually inspect the unit, you would see reality and be aware of what you are buying.  But while not common, some homes are bought "sight unseen"  as our present residence was, by the original owners, when it was still under construction in 1970.

Buyer beware. Caveat Emptor.  What you see on the Internet has nothing to do with reality and with AI, well, it is getting more unreal every day.

Maybe it is time to get rid of doctored photos, punched-up colors, personal "filters", and AI-voices.  At the very least there should be a prominent disclaimer that what you are seeing is not real.

And I suspect that will never happen in my lifetime!

UPDATE:  The listing includes "real" pictures (no word on camera angle and lens - it looks distorted) which illustrate why they photo-shopped.  Gray walls do not photograph well!