I have always liked Sam, despite his militant Atheism, which another person I listen to all the time, Chris Hedges, profoundly dislikes. He is so unhappy with the left’s support for Palestine that he almost, but not quite, says he would vote for Mitt Romney if it was him instead of Trump. Hmmm. Don’t go there Sam.
This is one of the most interesting conversations I have heard in a while. The examination of Trumpism is as disturbing as any I have heard or read over the years. How to explain it? Is it that people, at least half of them, are actually so…deplorable? So gullible, so biased, so prone to scapegoating and pandering to the strongman? So rotten inside? Do half the population hide their fundamental moral failure so well that the other half are not aware of it until it becomes normalized?
I read a reply to one of my comments about Trumpism and not understanding how this could happen the other day and one reply really got me.
@garychurch9237
7 days ago
What really worries me is that people don’t seem too worried about half the country having fallen down the Trumpist rabbit hole. It is profoundly disturbing, and I think about it every day. I was in the military back in the early 80’s with Reagan and both sides having a total of 60,000 nuclear weapons ready to go…and I feel the same now. I think we need more gravitas, more serious urging to get people to register and vote.
@kavflyladyvillery858
7 days ago
The problem is they didn’t fall down a “rabbit hole”. Many of them were already who they are, and djt gave them unsolicited permission to be their quiet, shadow selves out loud & in the open.
Chris Hedges states that Utopians, whether “New Atheists” or religious fundamentalists, believing that using violence is an answer, are “infected.” The disease is cultism, suspending critical thinking and perception of reality. And science, as in Nazi eugenics and social Darwinism, is just as much a cult as religion, and also the cult of the strongman, the cult of personality.
Ice on the Moon 
It ends with a billionaire narcissist and his hobby rocket. Actually, back up, it started with the Reagan Revolution, when a B-movie actor brought robber barons back into existence a century after the crash of 93. A couple decades after Reagan came that hobby rocket, a convenient way to cut even more costs on the problem of Human Space Flight (HSF). Why was HSF a problem? Optics. Near the top of the list of America’s defining accomplishments is landing on the Moon. Unfortunately, there is just no ROI with HSF. How do anti-space politicians avoid blame for an obvious decline in America’s image if we stop spending tax dollars on space (so we can cut more taxes for the rich)? If Space was a real gold mine like Defense, it would not be a problem because shareholders just steal those taxes back. But, while it is fine for jet fighters to fall out of the sky by the dozen, because part of the military is people dying, spacecraft have to work. Because killing astronauts is not what Space is about.
The solution…go cheap. Retreat to LEO (Low Earth Orbit). While aerospace interests have a problem with making a killing off Human Space Flight Beyond Earth Orbit (BEO) while not killing the humans, LEO is much easier, and thus, easier to overcharge for. So, not only was sending astronauts to LEO a fraction of the cost of BEO, aerospace could make nice with politicians for a more profitable less challenging cost plus silver mine. The DOD, of course, forever being the gold standard, but silver is good. However, LEO was not really “Space” anymore after Apollo 8 sent humans BEO. And going cheap but trying to still make money results in Space Shuttles that defeat the not killing part. There is no cheap. And there is only so much you can do going around in circles. You get what you pay for. There had to be more money to be made while not spending like Apollo. Do more with less. How to get something for nothing? Old Space was stumped. Enter Elon Musk and his hobby.
It is a great story that turns bad…very bad. From hero to zero. The true prophet of space exploration and colonization was not the NewSpace guy, it was someone from before. Gerard K. O’Neill. Elon is the antichrist sending humankind down the wrong path, who turned out to be, not surprisingly, one of those new Robber Barons. Space Solar Power by way of lunar resources as the solution to Climate Change was the only path to expanding humankind off-world. Almost everything that O’Neill envisioned was turned upside down by Musk. Space Solar Power became “the stupidest thing ever.” The place O’Neill’s people determined was not the place to go, Mars, became a libertarian paradise. And now even our democracy itself is endangered by the Dark MAGA billionaire chasing his apartheid dream. It is proof that truth is stranger than fiction. Even bad fiction by Ayn Rand. Megaconstellations are the worst idea of the 21st century and likely to result in nuclear war. Antichrist indeed.
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