Total Control Brilliance

Huffington Post headline

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Here the astute reader may find the Arianna Huffington Post headline that is on the tips of our lips. Headline. Huff Post. to wit: Trump Praises Chinese President For Controlling Citizens 'With An Iron Fist'

(now, in a smaller font size,): In an interview with Joe Rogan, Donald Trump praised Chinese President Xi Jinping as "a brilliant guy."

Sebastian Murdock

By

Sebastian Murdock

Oct 26, 2024, 01:43 PM EDT

|Updated Oct 26, 2024

Trump never did what the bigger headline says he did. The more you examine this the worse it looks for Arianna Huffington. Is she the head of the mis-information bureau?

Let us try to make a context to fit our observations. Here is the quote, directly from the Huff Post story:

“They hate when I say, you know, when the press — when I called President Xi, [the press] said, ‘Well, he called President Xi brilliant.’ Well, he’s a brilliant guy. He controls 1.4 billion people with an iron fist. I mean, he’s a brilliant guy, whether you like it or not. And they go crazy.” Trump is pointing out that when he calls Xi of China "brilliant" there is a reaction from them. ("they go crazy") Trump is now responding to the press responding to the first time Trump said Xi was brilliant. Trump simply repeats his trope that "he's a brilliant..." (individual.) He must be a smart person -- he controls over a billion people with strong measures ("an iron fist") indeed. Trump never says he will take those kinds of strong measures himself. Everyone seems to be misunderstanding Trump. Having tried to understand Trump for so long, many persons on the left are perhaps now assuming that there is no understanding this man, ever. This is not the case. Trump makes sense but it is a different kind of sense than we are used to. That is the whole of it. This is all of it. This is all that is going on. He is a little different.

He is using a different pattern of thinking, possibly because he was not extremely bright as a student. Confronted with this lack of social acceptance, he created his own world view. His ideas developed independently of the things that intellectuals would have beewn pressing him towards. He went his own way. Differences in intelligence are held to be important, but they are not or they are far less crucial than we tend to believe. LEt me take a shot at describing what kind of a person Trump is.

Trump admires power, and only power. He thinks it inheres in the person, not in the staff or office staff, and nor is it found philosophically or in a set of guiding regulatory principles. Also he does not rely on a close, intimate set of "movement" advisors. There is a "movement" if you like, but not under Trump's personal control exactly. Being the sole source of POWER he also does not hide what he thinks; he blurts out everything. Trump is not really that different from anybody else; in a crunch he will go to the social consensus to advise him what to do. He will, in other words, go right back to the social reference points we all go to. Sometimes that is a mistake. In any case, he is not actually dictator at all. He will do as anyone else would. In light of this, the accusation that he is going to go "fascist" is hysteria or hysterical. That idea, although extremely prevalent amongst educated persons is not based on rational observation. What I am saying here is the corporations could control him quite effectively. Why not? And one suspects that they will advise him when they need him to do something ---a consensus has more power than a sole lunatic. Do we think Donald is a sole lunatic, wandering around somewhere--? ~ like, downtown, or in the WH perhaps? (When gets to the bedroom, the reports told us, he goes straight to Twitter.)

He has got a grip on the country. Now we are paying attention. So that is a grip on us -- on our eyeballs. Right? In some sense? He often says just what he thinks. Is that good? That might be a good thing to see for a change; I am open to this as the best option, for the bad crisis times we face --to use the word "bad" as in Trumpspeak. It is hard to deal with. Coming right out with it is not what usual leaders do. But Trump wants total power so he will just say what he needs to say. If it will be directly be carried out then all he needs to do is speak. It is not what the diplomatic corp., the diplomatic bourgeosie, usually do. But is there is something inherently wrong with it? The strategy is new. It is not wrong just because it is new; one may try new things. Lots of people have tried new things, but the press does not respond well. It pains me to talk about the press. The Press has their pattern: it cannot adapt to a turn away from the standard that they are used to, which is that of bourgoise diplomacy. The fact that Trump wants to get rid of the American ruling class is not going to be covered fairly by the press. The last objective reporters are off staff. The Press operates on a staff of Neurotic. That is what "journos" are; it's that bad. If you want to get rid of the ruling class, these persons will not be very likely to objectively cover it. Ultimately their cool will break, too. Now they don't like you. But Trump will get rid of them when he makes change. He will make America Again a Mediocre place (whidh is his motto, am I close there?) He is trying to get rid of them. They are not going to like him. Neither is the U. S. psycho elite going to. (the real crazies among the elite are the particular here; the general problem is the problematic of ALL of them). Perhaps there is a better way to express this. Are they going to like somebody who wants to erase them from history? OR future history, I suspect... what I suspect this means. Or supposedly--! ~ it is that he has an alternative to the usual style, that of diplomatic bourgeois. So these folks, the bourgeois, ignore the meaning. They have no capacity to see what he is saying. In this case, as we go back to the article, he said something true when he observed the press. "And they [the press] go crazy" he said. He says what he thinks -- and, the press goes crazy. (Oooops I told the truth --must be "mis-info," say the track-checkers! I wonder. Did I leave a tire mark?) Consider the alternative. If you will? The "bourgeois" thing would have been to rattles sabers at that fellow from China, but then 'diplomatically' retreat later. Say something threatening, and later you retract it. You do the "reset" of whatever it was you said. In other words: Say things that are inconsistent. For example, most of business behavior is pretty diplomatic. They don't just come out and say things. When it come to persons that run businesses they truly never say things directly, but not Mr. Trump, who does say things directly.

Nobody understands, and if they never start to understand then we will eventually get sensationalistic headlines (e.g. the HP article discussed here). I hope these fall flat. A keen observer or the headlines can see that the mainstream press is lying, and doing it just as Mr. Trump may supposedly do this. Calling the press "the commercially successful press," or whatever you would like to call them, they now lie just as willingly as the one they say lies. So, it looks to me like they are doing it as much as Trump did. (I would never make that accusation were it not clearly the case.) The press did supply the accurate quote. Because they did we can see that Trump, in that quote, does not connect this element of "praise" of a strong leader to the element of having an "iron fist." This is because the matter of Mr. Xi's having an iron fist is separate from any praise. They are two thoughts. It is an observation. Trump sees the strong man of China as being "brilliant" and as "(having an) iron fist." They are in separate sentences -- the sentences are two. He calls Xi "brilliant." I do not need even to know what that means. But we may presume it is honest, straight talk. And, it comes from the ruler of the world, I guess ---Donald Trump (please add swastika and moustache). But, Okay --"brilliant." I accept that. It is kind of diplomatic ---really! (I love it: an exception to the rule.) As to the word "brilliant." He's a BIG man. Hence: brilliant. Trump's instincts are right. They are just not examples of the typical bourgeois diplomacy. Here the dictator is being called a brilliant person. What *is* that? Well the first thing you do with a dictator is you call him brilliant. *Brilliant.* Anyway, that is Trump's style. Took me a little getting used to, too. About eight years. So good luck to all you people.

Joe Rogan did a video. From that does the article in Adrianna's rag originate. In that video, Mr. T (this is my clever code word for Donald, because sometimes I just get sick of typing such an awful man's name -- I basically still do not like him -- so I avoid spelling out even the name) starts by saying that evil SADDAM Hussein was also a successful leader who had a strong grip on his society. This person, whom we think of as evil beyond description, and who was also really, really bad in reality, is only "supposed" to be "a bad guy" (I am going from memory on the quotes here. Maybe he said that.) Then this man named Trump goes on to say that actually Kadaffi (now dead; Libya) is in this category a great man. So it seems that Saddam, or other authoritarians, dictators, are the competition. They are the types a businessman might need to talk to. Trump looks forward to their next board meeting. They will get to sit down together. What is it that is wrong with that? I mean, look. Was "Art of the Deal" a best-seller? It was. It may not actually be an art, but it sounds more war-stopping than a lot of the other stuff. Okay. So why not give Mr. T's attitude a try? To Mr. T, they are all "the smartest" or something. We can try to analyze this but as regards the Huff Post headline, it should be corrected because the references to "brilliant" are in one place and the references to control, to "iron fist," are in another place --- they appear as separate sentences. Saddam, Trump says, is "supposed to be a bad guy." Maybe he is; so, if that is the case it is not so easy to sit down and talk with him. So let us call him a "brilliant" guy. And do you suppose it would be any better to say that Saddam should be stomped on --or "softened up a bit"? I do not think so, because one of those options leads to war quicker than the other.

But we do not see the classic rightist coming off as savage. It is still true that that person, who is a conservative, is going to be less excited about democracy. So, Trump is not a big democracy theorist; he honestly likes "Iron fist" better. This is makes for the distinction between the L and the R. As for democracy: the Right are less sputtering and drooling about it. So Trump corresponds to an old pattern: he is less enthusiastic about the democracy idea. So, yeah. He isn't much of a democrat. How is that? Is that in temperament? Let us go back to the Huff Post headline -- also the sub-headline. Anyhow: "...he's a brilliant..." ... "He controls 1.4 people (oooops, I mean *brilliant* people) ...with an iron first" (Oooops---did I mean fist)" are distinct ideas, in different sentences. Different sentences indicate contrast here. As a writer, I know my own sentences are pretty contrasty in general; I tend to convert commas to period for clarity. One sentence stops; another begins. I think just maybe -- Trump speaks the way I write? I do not have to convince you; it is there in the quotation. I assume it is correct, as given by the professional press. And, at another place it says: "Trump Praises Ch. Presi." "FOR" (my caps) "Controlling Citizens 'With an Iron Fist..." It says that. But it isn't true because that is not what it says. It says "he is brilliant" (whatever that means) AND "controls... with an iron fist." What gives, Arianna, dahlink? Well, the bourgeoisie are just nervous and they cannot think straight. She is just scared of her place in a new world where phony persons are not in control anymore. Trump will take her to that place. She may find herself in that place, and I suppose she secretly fears for her comfortable life. Maybe her way of life will not be so cushy anymore. This is her fear. Life won't be the way she likes for it to be. That's their main concern. I am sleeping in parks and behind buildings (thanks for the new law, governor -- it clarifies that I need to sleep in private now, not just public ones) and she is worried about her comfort in the jacuzzi. Then the sensationalistic-looking rag that Arianna happens to own takes over. Now you have your lies. The Huff Post heaps lie upon lie.

Here he is saying only what he thinks. He things that Xi is "brilliant" because -----POWER. I don't like Trump that much. Trump does not believe in the US/American tradition of "free speech." How can he, if he seems to have no trouble with the Chinese leader for killing citizens for expressing dissent. Hmmm... interesting, as Putin might put it. What we need, of course, is a real discussion: simply of what sort of man Trump is. But at the very least, he no worse than the Biden-Harris --or their company, called: War, Inc.

[OK this is long enough now for me to post it and wait for all the invisible dollars to come rolling in, since my blog is FREE]

(next article)

A lot of people on Substack that I read are saying they are opposed to "Marxist" this and that. Let's make this one distinction. Who was Marx? He had some fancy ideas; he never tried to take over anything. The armchair quarterback was not involved in a SINGLE actual revolution. He lived in London; he hung out at the library. He is not known to have drunk or smoked. He couldn't keep his hands off the maid, though. He had ideas that were taken up by others with very negative results. So maybe he shares in the blame for that. He thought the "proletariat" was going to rise up. It is a very fanciful idea, that one. It seems to be a bourgeois idea. Uniting, or rising up, is very difficult. It does not really happen: just about literally NEVER happens. So I think that Marx, et al. were necessary to shake things up. But these socialist revolutions never seem to work. I used to think: Russia ---Ooops! China ---Ooops! But maybe somewhere else? Maybe Nicaragua will be different. Or Venezuela? But it generally turns out the same way everywhere, to greater or lesser degrees. There are reasons for this. This is because to run a complex society one needs to be organized and organization of society is the work of elites of a society. Working classes do not just rise up and organize in their own way. They do not have the historical culture behind them. It is impossible to tame a society without having history behind you. So, not possible to organize in a way separate from the greater society. You have to use the "given" aspects of a society, not reject or eliminate them. If you alienate the elite you have to start over from scratch. Rome was not built in a day. The organizational aspect of a complex society is something done by the elite. Those who do organize the political state need to have a lot of history and culture behind them. You cannot just cut off all of your historical ties. It is an illusion that one may do this. After you establish a state apparatus for hundreds of years, you can build a stable society that is complex and has the tools to operate. The Marxist idea, however, is to just "cancel" all of that (to use a popular term nowadays) and create "socialism."

How the persons, who inhabit a country, know how to behave? They have cultural systems. Don't they... So, every human system has a culture. This gives them guardrails and rules. There have to be methods of handing down power to succeeding generations. There need to be any number of aristocratic families who can sponsor various individuals for membership in the elite, generation after generation. Disputes need to be settled somehow. All of this is built on a basis of culture. The culture stays on track because it provides rules that every single person follows. To be a Frenchman or an English man, or a Pottawatami Amer-Indian one needs to follw that culture, as it is, as it has been handed down. It is not in a rulebook, published. That isn't how culture works. The strongest system for building up a culture into a complex society like ours is capitalism. But capitalism is fragile and our system of capitalism is now breaking down or it will break down and very soon.

Capitalism cannot simply be run by "private" individual interests. That is going to be a disaster. Since Elon or Jeff or Bill have no idea how to run the government, that job is given to the *political* elite. But the political segment of the elite -which should be connected to a cultural elite -no breaks down. It breaks down at the same time that capitalism breaks down. Now the cultural roots are decating. The whole thing is collapsing on you.

We would do well to remember what the word "fascist" means. What do it mean? In the fifties, "fascist" was used in a meaningful way. It was ethnic and it meant a certain sort of Italian, a right wing or anti-communist sort of person, who was generally a complete pain in the ass. Most decent human beings would separate themselves from such a person. It refers to authoritarianism, and also to violence against minorities; but also to their utter duplicity, falseness, and dishonesty. These later became the dirty little fascists whom the Left decried. Fascists were the worst thing of all; worse than capitalists. Fascists are generally more destructive than capitalists. They are more violent.