My first thought on seeing the letter from the Congressional Progressive Caucus was “WTF?” when I saw Jaime Raskin’s name on it. Then, when I saw the video of Pramilla Jayapal leading the collection of 30 clucks, and Jaime standing there with a big smile on his face like he’d just done something really good, I was reminded I had known of his father, “back in the day.”
Talk about stupid! Yes . . . the left has no idea what they're about. As far as being progressive - today they showed just how fear can make you do really crazy things - like do Putin's propaganda for him. And Jaypal threw the staff under the bus - that was especially sickening. I would not vote against these folks, because the gop is far worse, but I would like to see some intelligence. I suggest they all catch up on the history of Ukraine by taking time to watch the lessons Timothy Snyder has up on Youtube. How about reading a few books on the topic? If I can do it anyone can! How about visiting President Zelenskyy's website and listening to what he and his team and the Ukrainian people are doing day after day to save Jaypal's ass and all the other 30 asses attached to this letter. HEY! How about listening to Michael Goldfarb on Sound Cloud about his recent trip to Lviv just before Putin and Gen. Armageddon decided to hammer all of Ukraine with Iranian drones and missiles - many being fired by controllers based in Moscow! This last bit from the Ukrainian World Congress email this morning, reporting on investigations by Der Spiegel among others. They could finally have some idea what the truth of the situation is currently and stop being mouthpieces for the Kremlin.
I too wonder what the motivation is at this time, right before the election, or rather the strategy involved. I'm glad Pelosi came out strong on our commitments, including to the Biden administrations ongoing diplomacy with a strong hand. Saying that, I've grown to like Raskin, the adult.
I appreciate your backstop. My thinking gets improved. Was very impressed during impeachment, J6 committe, and the guy I found in Unthinkable. Thanks, TC.
Thank you TC. Couldn’t agree more. When you speak out of both sides of your mouth, you sound like blithering idiots. And they do. Wish they would leave such to republicans. They don’t get it. Old Dems like me are not fans of this version of “progressive.” What in the hell are you people smoking…
I am livid at the inane begging emails I get, none of which mention the one issue that could turn things around.: The republicans promise to trash SS and Medicare. I donate, but never in response to the tripe in the Dem emails. Poor Joe, the democrats could try not to be such an albatross around his neck.
Talk about shooting themselves in the feet with both barrels (of stale gunpowder as you pointed out). A real face-palm moment, that letter.
What I really appreciate is the deep background you have provided here TC. One thing that really clicked in my head is the look on his face Jaime Raskin often has at the conclusion of his (yes, definitely logical, clear, precise and very well structured) statements during the Jan 6 Committee hearings. You know, lips closed but curled upward at the ends, head tilted back ever so slightly so as the eyes seem to be gazing down upon the lesser listening mortals. It's his father's look! Like almost all of us, Jaime is probably unaware that he does that. To this day my brother rubs his large nose exactly as how his father did his.
Lastly, I second your endorsement for Trumbo, is there no end to Brian Cranston's acting talent? Yes, yes, of course he couldn't have done it without the brilliant material created by John McNamara. Or the stubborn perseverance of Mr. & Mrs. Trumbo. The movie is also a timely reminder of how lies and the misuse of power can, and has screwed up American people's lives.
Full disclosure: I posted this earlier today in another comment space. When I was in a bit more 'polite' frame of mind concerning the matter. Re-posting it here to save a bit of typing, noting if I were to start from scratch now there would no doubt be a bit different tenor, since I've learned a couple of 'facts' I didn't know when I wrote this. Still, the basic premise of what I'd have to say would remain the same...
In certain matters there are times for solidarity and times for dissent. With democracy under assault both here and in Ukraine and the Democrats its primary defenders, what time you got there on *your* watch, Rep. Jayapal? I know this whole Democr...er, Daylight Savings Time thing is a huge pain in the ass and sometimes a bit confusing. Maybe you simply forgot to reset it and "Spring ahead" last March? That's OK. Come Nov. 6th just leave it alone and you'll be able tell the correct time. If you bother to look at the damned thing in the first place, that is. Of course, that's a wee bit late to be realizing what time it really is.
When you got to”however that’s not my point”, I began to laugh, I knew that the rest was going to be good 👍, damn it sure enough was. You mentioned one of my favorites, Dalton Trumbo, who was a man of integrity, in addition to being a very good writer. The HUAC committee may very well have helped save my life, not that they would have known or cared, but that is another story, maybe for some time that we can sit down together. I am afraid that the Democrats may have blown an easy lay up. The letter to the president by the 30 leading lights is a case in point, I am a warrior, and if not for my age and physical condition, I would have been in Ukraine 🇺🇦 from the beginning to help them in their fight, utter horseshit, is what they proposed, those people are fighting pure evil with one hand tied behind their back, we have an obligation on the basis of their humanity to help them, many of the things we write about here are reflected in that existential struggle, if they can’t win it’s going to be on all of us. There’s more but not tonight..........
I so love this esssy I don’t know where to start. With friends like these…? No, that’s too cliche.
But honestly, with friends like these who needs enemies? They make Democrats look so stupid. Even in June that was a stupid letter. Stupid politically, stupid on policy, stupid on morals, stupid for the future of the planet. F….. jeez.
Wasn’t aware of Raskin’s pedigree. Makes sense. You do hit on the head the type of fool who has hobbled liberals/progressives/whatever since the early 1900s. “…people who thought they were smart because they could write sentences using 20 polysyllabic words that you had to read three times to make sense of.” So true.
TC, from time to time you drop these nuggets of your personal history of orbiting around these foci of power or influence, and your rational approach really enlightens. You’re like a Forrest Gump, but without the developmental disability. An autobiography of your intellectual development would make interesting reading.
I agree with every word, and cannot for the life of me imagine why the fuck these guys would do this BEFORE the election.
a few tiny corrections: the Lardner quote is actually a little better (if the several places I've read it in are to be trusted. it ended with"...but I'd hate myself in the morning." and I THINK that Shaw said "socialist," but he wasn't anyone to talk, since, in the last years of his life, he was an outright Stalinist apologist, who called Uncle Joe "a good socialist."
and another funny thing is that I was re-reading the late Morris Dickstein's excellent "Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression" this past week and last night read his take on Lawson (his "big play," "Success Story, which isn't so good, especially compared with Odets's "Awake and Sing" a few years later, and not his second-rate screenplays). and Dickstein (who was a good guy...we occasionally had lunch together when I was in graduate school), while having nothing good to say about Lawson's own creative output, points out that Lawson's textbooks on writing are used used in some film and drama programs. I've read the playwrighting one, and found it was just sort of okay, but hardly terrible. nowadays, but there are some much better ones out there. but, as usual, I digress.
so...these "Progressives"....what the fuck again and again.
the ones who call them "commies" are the same ones who think Putin is one as well, which he's not. of course, this makes the Repugs who oppose aid to Ukraine "commies" by their own definition. logic isn't their strong suit.
I usually find myself entertained by the so-called "hard Left" politics of most of these "Progessives" because I don't find them especially "hard Left." but this shit is just plain nuts.
Shaw varied back and forth and managed to end on the wrong foot, but at one point he was right. I am reading Dmitri Volkogonov's "Autopsy For An Empire." A true-believing "hard liner" by his own account, Geneal Volkogonov was the Red Army Chief Historian. In the 1970s, they let him see the real archives, in preparation for a history. It turned him 180 degrees, with the result that he wrote this during "glasnost," which he helped usher in. A damning indictment. Next up is his last book, "Lenin." How so many people managed to get it wrong about the true nature of the USSR is still amazing.
I read Lawson's screenwriting text and understood why so many bad screenwriters are graduates of the University of Spoiled Children (USC). The only guy who was ever any good was Robert McKeee, his class "On Structure" was worth every penny. As William Goldman said, "Screenplays are Structure." (turns out, books are too, I find)
I've come to think that anything that gets written is about structure. as for my own writing, I might've come to this conclusion a tad late.
actually, I'm getting weary of making jokes at my own expense, but I'll let that one stand. I have one old friend who could definitely have been a screenwriting "contendah," but his remarkable gift for self-sabotage didn't allow for it.
as for the old New Left...I kept my head about that even when it was going on. my first year at CCNY, I had to take Calculus five days a week at eight in the morning. but my assigned seat was out of a movie. on my left side was the point man for YAF (I don't remember his name, because it was 1966 and YAF guys quickly learned to keep quiet on that particular famously Leftie campus) and on my right was Paul Milkman, who became Rick Rhodes's second-in-command at PL. at the time, all three of us (who managed to stay pretty civil, quite unlike now) laughed about how crazy that particular configuration was, even down to the two of them sitting on the respective wrong sides.
when things really got weird was 1970 or so, when Larouche (then calling himself Lynn Marcus and professing his own brand of radical Marxism) and his NCLC started destroying the lives of a lot of my friends.
I had the good fortune to meet and have tea with Ring Lardner, Jr. and his wife Frances Chaney in the late 90's when they lived in an apartment on Central Park West. I had met Frances, and she thought I was brave because I had left a company that had asked me to to something I felt was unethical. Though I had a very lowly position, she still gave me credit for courage and invited me for tea, which is how I met Ring.
They were both quite elderly, but sharp as a tack, and so very gracious!
I was thrilled because I knew a lot of their history (Frances was an actress and was also blacklisted by Hollywood during McCarthy reign), and they were heroes to me.
I knew I was unworthy of the credit they gave me, but what it did was make me want to be worthy of their high opinion of me.
Though I have done nothing noteworthy in the larger world, I have always striven to maintain my integrity. And I think I have succeeded in that.
When your heroes think well of you, it truly inspires you to desire and strive to be worthy!
I will always love them for that, as well as their own far greater courage and integrity.❤️❤️
Without their nukes, Russia today has been shown to be a third rate military power, maybe a bit better than an aggressive Brazil..... The US military would absolutely wipe the floor with them in any sort of serious military confrontation. The corruption that spent much of the modernization money for the military on yachts and villas in the west spread to the men themselves..... Russia's military tactics are the same as the ones used in WWI, WWII and counter-revolt activities - masses of infantry backed by massive artillery barrages that laid waste to the target zones, followed by a slow infantry advance into the destroyed area. The assumption was that civilians would flee, and anyone left behind was a partisan and was shot on sight. But these tactics are useless against a modern western army using combined arms. Russia has always displayed a pathological lack of concern for the value of human lives, including their own troops - she always had more hordes of infantry to throw at the front, backed by NKVD troops with orders to shoot any of their own soldiers who retreated or refused to advance. Today, Russia does not have the population of young men to support the wastage, and the population of young men it does have are voting with their feet - up to 700,000 men have fled Russia to avoid the increasingly broad conscription. Time is ticking down in the Kremlin bunker...... "Where is Steiner?!....."
I really appreciate the deep background, TC. This explains the feeling of slimy/smarmy that I got resting about it. My first response was “Oh, for fucks sake”. I couldn’t articulate why, but this helps.
Talk about stupid! Yes . . . the left has no idea what they're about. As far as being progressive - today they showed just how fear can make you do really crazy things - like do Putin's propaganda for him. And Jaypal threw the staff under the bus - that was especially sickening. I would not vote against these folks, because the gop is far worse, but I would like to see some intelligence. I suggest they all catch up on the history of Ukraine by taking time to watch the lessons Timothy Snyder has up on Youtube. How about reading a few books on the topic? If I can do it anyone can! How about visiting President Zelenskyy's website and listening to what he and his team and the Ukrainian people are doing day after day to save Jaypal's ass and all the other 30 asses attached to this letter. HEY! How about listening to Michael Goldfarb on Sound Cloud about his recent trip to Lviv just before Putin and Gen. Armageddon decided to hammer all of Ukraine with Iranian drones and missiles - many being fired by controllers based in Moscow! This last bit from the Ukrainian World Congress email this morning, reporting on investigations by Der Spiegel among others. They could finally have some idea what the truth of the situation is currently and stop being mouthpieces for the Kremlin.
Brava Linda. I think Jaypal and her 29 other "Progressives" should get on a plane and go to Ukraine. Get
a front row view and smell of the
bodies buried in the forest. Take
an intimate tour and get up close
and personal with the people who
have survived torture, rape. Take
them right up to the front lines and
let them get a good view of the
destruction Russia has brought to the Ukraine. They should offer to
take McCarthy along with them.
And leave him there if they can.
Absolutely correct.
I find it exceedingly difficult to believe her
"staff released the letter without first vetting it."
It's been floating around for 4 months and suddenly appears.
As for Mr. Raskin, I was extremely disappointed, considering his family's
history in Russia, their fleeing to freedom
and the possible annihilation of Ukraine,
by Russia.
You never grovel to the enemy. You
never undermine the President of your
party by an underhanded move like this.
You NEVER give the opposing party
in an election 2 weeks away ANYTHING
but a UNITED front through the whole
damn party.
Looks like the fools would know that. I am so disgusted
yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes......
I too wonder what the motivation is at this time, right before the election, or rather the strategy involved. I'm glad Pelosi came out strong on our commitments, including to the Biden administrations ongoing diplomacy with a strong hand. Saying that, I've grown to like Raskin, the adult.
Just bear in mind that on certain topics you're going to get this. Where he's good, he's really good. and where he's not....
I appreciate your backstop. My thinking gets improved. Was very impressed during impeachment, J6 committe, and the guy I found in Unthinkable. Thanks, TC.
I was shocked at his “approval” of such blather
Accepting a backstory. TC is worth listening to. For me, I consider and think about and try to do so without judgement. I understand your view, Jeri.
Thank you TC. Couldn’t agree more. When you speak out of both sides of your mouth, you sound like blithering idiots. And they do. Wish they would leave such to republicans. They don’t get it. Old Dems like me are not fans of this version of “progressive.” What in the hell are you people smoking…
I am livid at the inane begging emails I get, none of which mention the one issue that could turn things around.: The republicans promise to trash SS and Medicare. I donate, but never in response to the tripe in the Dem emails. Poor Joe, the democrats could try not to be such an albatross around his neck.
Talk about shooting themselves in the feet with both barrels (of stale gunpowder as you pointed out). A real face-palm moment, that letter.
What I really appreciate is the deep background you have provided here TC. One thing that really clicked in my head is the look on his face Jaime Raskin often has at the conclusion of his (yes, definitely logical, clear, precise and very well structured) statements during the Jan 6 Committee hearings. You know, lips closed but curled upward at the ends, head tilted back ever so slightly so as the eyes seem to be gazing down upon the lesser listening mortals. It's his father's look! Like almost all of us, Jaime is probably unaware that he does that. To this day my brother rubs his large nose exactly as how his father did his.
Lastly, I second your endorsement for Trumbo, is there no end to Brian Cranston's acting talent? Yes, yes, of course he couldn't have done it without the brilliant material created by John McNamara. Or the stubborn perseverance of Mr. & Mrs. Trumbo. The movie is also a timely reminder of how lies and the misuse of power can, and has screwed up American people's lives.
Hallelujah for that deep background, always a treasure
TC, thank you so very much for all the
background historical work you do, that
gives us the opportunity to learn the facts behind the people and the stories
that drive the news today. We are never
too old to learn anything. The brain is a
terrible thing to waste.
Full disclosure: I posted this earlier today in another comment space. When I was in a bit more 'polite' frame of mind concerning the matter. Re-posting it here to save a bit of typing, noting if I were to start from scratch now there would no doubt be a bit different tenor, since I've learned a couple of 'facts' I didn't know when I wrote this. Still, the basic premise of what I'd have to say would remain the same...
In certain matters there are times for solidarity and times for dissent. With democracy under assault both here and in Ukraine and the Democrats its primary defenders, what time you got there on *your* watch, Rep. Jayapal? I know this whole Democr...er, Daylight Savings Time thing is a huge pain in the ass and sometimes a bit confusing. Maybe you simply forgot to reset it and "Spring ahead" last March? That's OK. Come Nov. 6th just leave it alone and you'll be able tell the correct time. If you bother to look at the damned thing in the first place, that is. Of course, that's a wee bit late to be realizing what time it really is.
“We’re Progressives and we’re here to screw it up”
Good one, Dave.😁
When you got to”however that’s not my point”, I began to laugh, I knew that the rest was going to be good 👍, damn it sure enough was. You mentioned one of my favorites, Dalton Trumbo, who was a man of integrity, in addition to being a very good writer. The HUAC committee may very well have helped save my life, not that they would have known or cared, but that is another story, maybe for some time that we can sit down together. I am afraid that the Democrats may have blown an easy lay up. The letter to the president by the 30 leading lights is a case in point, I am a warrior, and if not for my age and physical condition, I would have been in Ukraine 🇺🇦 from the beginning to help them in their fight, utter horseshit, is what they proposed, those people are fighting pure evil with one hand tied behind their back, we have an obligation on the basis of their humanity to help them, many of the things we write about here are reflected in that existential struggle, if they can’t win it’s going to be on all of us. There’s more but not tonight..........
I so love this esssy I don’t know where to start. With friends like these…? No, that’s too cliche.
But honestly, with friends like these who needs enemies? They make Democrats look so stupid. Even in June that was a stupid letter. Stupid politically, stupid on policy, stupid on morals, stupid for the future of the planet. F….. jeez.
Wasn’t aware of Raskin’s pedigree. Makes sense. You do hit on the head the type of fool who has hobbled liberals/progressives/whatever since the early 1900s. “…people who thought they were smart because they could write sentences using 20 polysyllabic words that you had to read three times to make sense of.” So true.
TC, from time to time you drop these nuggets of your personal history of orbiting around these foci of power or influence, and your rational approach really enlightens. You’re like a Forrest Gump, but without the developmental disability. An autobiography of your intellectual development would make interesting reading.
I think I am sort of writing that here at TAFM.
I agree with every word, and cannot for the life of me imagine why the fuck these guys would do this BEFORE the election.
a few tiny corrections: the Lardner quote is actually a little better (if the several places I've read it in are to be trusted. it ended with"...but I'd hate myself in the morning." and I THINK that Shaw said "socialist," but he wasn't anyone to talk, since, in the last years of his life, he was an outright Stalinist apologist, who called Uncle Joe "a good socialist."
and another funny thing is that I was re-reading the late Morris Dickstein's excellent "Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression" this past week and last night read his take on Lawson (his "big play," "Success Story, which isn't so good, especially compared with Odets's "Awake and Sing" a few years later, and not his second-rate screenplays). and Dickstein (who was a good guy...we occasionally had lunch together when I was in graduate school), while having nothing good to say about Lawson's own creative output, points out that Lawson's textbooks on writing are used used in some film and drama programs. I've read the playwrighting one, and found it was just sort of okay, but hardly terrible. nowadays, but there are some much better ones out there. but, as usual, I digress.
so...these "Progressives"....what the fuck again and again.
the ones who call them "commies" are the same ones who think Putin is one as well, which he's not. of course, this makes the Repugs who oppose aid to Ukraine "commies" by their own definition. logic isn't their strong suit.
I usually find myself entertained by the so-called "hard Left" politics of most of these "Progessives" because I don't find them especially "hard Left." but this shit is just plain nuts.
Shaw varied back and forth and managed to end on the wrong foot, but at one point he was right. I am reading Dmitri Volkogonov's "Autopsy For An Empire." A true-believing "hard liner" by his own account, Geneal Volkogonov was the Red Army Chief Historian. In the 1970s, they let him see the real archives, in preparation for a history. It turned him 180 degrees, with the result that he wrote this during "glasnost," which he helped usher in. A damning indictment. Next up is his last book, "Lenin." How so many people managed to get it wrong about the true nature of the USSR is still amazing.
I read Lawson's screenwriting text and understood why so many bad screenwriters are graduates of the University of Spoiled Children (USC). The only guy who was ever any good was Robert McKeee, his class "On Structure" was worth every penny. As William Goldman said, "Screenplays are Structure." (turns out, books are too, I find)
I've come to think that anything that gets written is about structure. as for my own writing, I might've come to this conclusion a tad late.
actually, I'm getting weary of making jokes at my own expense, but I'll let that one stand. I have one old friend who could definitely have been a screenwriting "contendah," but his remarkable gift for self-sabotage didn't allow for it.
as for the old New Left...I kept my head about that even when it was going on. my first year at CCNY, I had to take Calculus five days a week at eight in the morning. but my assigned seat was out of a movie. on my left side was the point man for YAF (I don't remember his name, because it was 1966 and YAF guys quickly learned to keep quiet on that particular famously Leftie campus) and on my right was Paul Milkman, who became Rick Rhodes's second-in-command at PL. at the time, all three of us (who managed to stay pretty civil, quite unlike now) laughed about how crazy that particular configuration was, even down to the two of them sitting on the respective wrong sides.
when things really got weird was 1970 or so, when Larouche (then calling himself Lynn Marcus and professing his own brand of radical Marxism) and his NCLC started destroying the lives of a lot of my friends.
Not to be snarky, but the DNC needs a course in “Herding Cats 101, 102, 201, 202….
They do indeed!
I had the good fortune to meet and have tea with Ring Lardner, Jr. and his wife Frances Chaney in the late 90's when they lived in an apartment on Central Park West. I had met Frances, and she thought I was brave because I had left a company that had asked me to to something I felt was unethical. Though I had a very lowly position, she still gave me credit for courage and invited me for tea, which is how I met Ring.
They were both quite elderly, but sharp as a tack, and so very gracious!
I was thrilled because I knew a lot of their history (Frances was an actress and was also blacklisted by Hollywood during McCarthy reign), and they were heroes to me.
I knew I was unworthy of the credit they gave me, but what it did was make me want to be worthy of their high opinion of me.
Though I have done nothing noteworthy in the larger world, I have always striven to maintain my integrity. And I think I have succeeded in that.
When your heroes think well of you, it truly inspires you to desire and strive to be worthy!
I will always love them for that, as well as their own far greater courage and integrity.❤️❤️
They passed it on to you and you have done your best whenever it mattered. That's success, Cheryl.
Lucky you to meet them.
Very disappointed that Raskin is a part of this. As soon as I learned of it, I thought, "OH no!" D@mn!
What a stupid thing to do!
Without their nukes, Russia today has been shown to be a third rate military power, maybe a bit better than an aggressive Brazil..... The US military would absolutely wipe the floor with them in any sort of serious military confrontation. The corruption that spent much of the modernization money for the military on yachts and villas in the west spread to the men themselves..... Russia's military tactics are the same as the ones used in WWI, WWII and counter-revolt activities - masses of infantry backed by massive artillery barrages that laid waste to the target zones, followed by a slow infantry advance into the destroyed area. The assumption was that civilians would flee, and anyone left behind was a partisan and was shot on sight. But these tactics are useless against a modern western army using combined arms. Russia has always displayed a pathological lack of concern for the value of human lives, including their own troops - she always had more hordes of infantry to throw at the front, backed by NKVD troops with orders to shoot any of their own soldiers who retreated or refused to advance. Today, Russia does not have the population of young men to support the wastage, and the population of young men it does have are voting with their feet - up to 700,000 men have fled Russia to avoid the increasingly broad conscription. Time is ticking down in the Kremlin bunker...... "Where is Steiner?!....."
I'm also thinking about the 200,000 or so Russian soldiers who were shot by other Russian soldiers for RETREATING....
I really appreciate the deep background, TC. This explains the feeling of slimy/smarmy that I got resting about it. My first response was “Oh, for fucks sake”. I couldn’t articulate why, but this helps.
Smarmy is perfect emotional reaction. Me too along with 🙄.
🗽