There will be blood

You couldn't have scripted it any better. Trump survives an assassination attempt on video, pumping his fist as blood trickled from his ear. Either the shooter was a lousy shot or hired to carry off the latest episode of an election that has become a non-stop reality show. Seems like the former as the suspect is a 20-year-old kid who apparently had some axe to grind. No one is sure at this point as he didn't leave an online manifesto. Given his papa bought the AR-15, we can assume he comes from a conservative family. So, it seems like Trump got shot at by one of his own.

Nevertheless, Republicans are putting together all sorts of wild conspiracy theories, hoping to make this an action carried out by the long established "deep state" that has been looking to rub out Trump. Mostly, the Maga crowd is blaming the shooting on the mainstream media. I saw a couple of my conservative friends post on facebook that "the media has blood on their hands once again." Far Left Democratic conspiracy groups have countered by calling it a "false flag," which Republicans have long accused school shootings of being. Whatever the case, Trump should enjoy a boost in the polls as there will be some sympathy for him.

Biden was quick to admonish the cowardly act and urge Americans to "cool it down." Of course, that will never happen now that this political campaign has literally drawn blood. Lost in all the worry over Trump is that one person was killed and two critically wounded from the errant bullets. Also of note, this isn't first time a politician has been shot at. Gabby Giffords suffered far worse from the 2011 attempt on her life. As did Steve Scalise, who was a victim of a mass shooting at a Congressional softball game in 2017. Hard to believe it was so long ago. A shameless Scalise pointed his little finger at Democrats for the Trump shooting, along with many other Republicans hoping to turn this into a campaign issue.

In one of the few segments I watched on BBC about the shooting, a British security guard said it was absurd that anyone could be allowed on a nearby roof for a rally like this. Apparently, the rooftop had been identified as a risk but no one bothered to close it off. If you are going to blame anyone, blame Trump's security contingent.

The fact of the matter is that we have a lot of disgruntled kids out there who take out their anger on an unsuspecting public by firing off a few rounds from their newly purchased AR-15s, or similar assault weapons, which remain frustratingly easy to get their hands on. You can add Thomas Matthew Crooks to the long list of mass shooters in their late teens and early 20s, the vast majority of which come from conservative backgrounds and were actively involved in online hate groups. So, if anyone is to blame for this culture of violence it is conservative talk show hosts and vloggers who are constantly fomenting hate and violence on the air and in social media.

Republicans have never been very good at self-reflection. Instead, they seize on anything else as the cause of all this violence. In this case, Crooks apparently donated 15 dollars to some Democratic group in 2021, therefor making him a product of a permissive liberal culture. The only problem with this theory is that kids from this culture don't generally go around with AR-15s. They tend to focus their energy on political action groups to make their voices heard. Crooks was one of those "quiet kids" who roamed the school hallways with almost no expression on his face so that you never knew what he was thinking until it was too late.

Whatever "good will" Trump gets in the polls will be quickly squandered as no doubt he will play this attempted assassination for all its worth in this reality show environment. CNN hasn't stopped talking about it for the last 24 hours. It's a great lead into the Republican convention in Milwaukee this week.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Welcome to this month's reading group selection. David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908. At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades. Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society. I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran. Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Dylan in America

Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan. Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose. Looks like only yesterday. Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.

The Age of Roosevelt: The Crisis of the Old Order

A quarter of a century, however, is time enough to dispel some of the myths that have accumulated around the crisis of the early Thirties and the emergence of the New Deal. There is, for example, the myth that world conditions rather than domestic errors and extravagances were entirely responsible for the depression. There is the myth that the depression was already over, as a consequence of the ministrations of the Hoover Administration, and that it was the loss of confidence resulting from the election of Roosevelt that gave it new life. There is the myth that the roots of what was good in the New Deal were in the Hoover Administration - that Hoover had actually inaugurated the era of government responsibility for the health of the economy and the society. There is the contrasting myth (for myths do not require inner consistency) that the New Deal was alien in origins and in philosophy; that - as Mr. Hoover put it - its philosophy was "the same philosophy of government which

TripplerJuly 18, 2024 at 12:54 AM
Recall that tRump called himself the "Chosen". According to the Bible, only the Antichrist would openly call himself so.
Now we have tRump getting wounded. That same Bible indicates,
𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐬𝐞𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐚 𝐟𝐚𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐝. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐰𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐭.
~ Revelations 13:3

Hmmm ~ mere coincidence or perhaps news of things to come???

Dispatches from Vilnius

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