Reflection On Today's Inauguration, Tomorrow's Women's March, And What I See Going Forward

January 20, 2017, 8:34 pm

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And his penis so yuuuuuge the wanker can't even get his small fingers around it.

Vulgarian Donald Trump Brags About His Penis Size During Republican National Debate

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/09/vulgarian-donald-trump-brags-about-his.html

Dear F,

Thanks for your email.

Like you, I've been thinking of the plutopath's pending flurry of executive orders and I'm starting to see a fairly good chance they'll scare s@#& out of global markets so that "The Trump Bump" will become "The Trump Dump" even faster than I thought.

Despicable Donald is starting his presidency with an approval rating of 41% (Obama's is 60%) and, if history is any guide, Trump (apparently without any "honeymoon" at all) is headed downhill 'til the mid-terms.

Unrestrained by legislative process -- and given Trump's autocratic nature -- I think his "fascist penchant" will "show through" his executive orders and investors (almost all of them beneficiaries of "liberal democracy" and so-called "free markets") will get really spooky, really fast. 

Danny and Denise are currently aboard a busload of neighbors en route to tomorrow's march in D.C. 

Speaking of which, it's starting to look like mañana's protest could be bigger than today's inauguration crowd.

Alan: Use the horizontal scroll bar at the bottom of your screen to center the above photograph.

VOX: Photos Of The Crowd At Donald Trump's Inauguration Vs. Barack Obama's

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/01/vox-photos-of-crowd-at-donald-trumps.html

Trump's First Executive Action Favors Banks; Screws Little Guy

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/01/20/trumps-first-executive-action-cancel-obamas-mortgage-premium-cuts/96853446/

"Bush Counting Down Days Until He Is No Longer Worst President In History"

The Borowitz Report

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/01/borowitz-report-bush-counting-down-days.html

"Nation With Crumbling Bridges And Roads Excited To Build Giant Wall"

The Borowitz Report

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/01/nation-with-crumbling-bridges-and-roads.html

Here is a little history on just "how bad" Dubyah really was... and these links don't even mention Bush-Cheney's linchpin role in The Great Recession, whose downward death-spiral Obama interrupted by performing a near miracle. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/11/canadian-letter-to-editor-you-americans.html

"Israeli War Historian, Martin van Creveld's Startling Commentary On The Iraq War"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/06/israeli-war-historian-martin-van.html

Excerpt: "For misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C sent his legions into Germany and lost them, Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial along with the rest of the president’s men. If convicted, they’ll have plenty of time to mull over their sins." War historian Martin van Creveld is the only non-U.S. author whose writings are obligatory reading by America's Officer Corps."

George Will: "The 2003 Invasion Of Iraq Was The Worst Foreign Policy Decision In U.S. History"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/11/george-will-2003-invasion-of-iraq-worst.html

"Bush's Toxic Legacy In Iraq"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/06/bushs-toxic-legacy-in-iraq.html

Hans Blix' Fruitless Search For WMD And Bush/Cheney's Rush To War In Iraq

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/08/hans-blix-fruitless-search-for-wmd-and.html

Cheney's Lucid 1994 Rationale For NOT Invading Iraq. Conservatives "Must" See This

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/08/cheneys-lucid-1996-rationale-for-not.html

"The Fall Of Iraq. Jawdropping Video Footage Of Cheney, Albright, Gen Clarke & Others"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/06/the-fall-of-iraq-jawdropping-video.html

The Facts Are In: The Republican Party Is Terrible For Prosperity But Unparalleled For Catastrophe

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-facts-are-in-republican-party-is.html

Trump Will Go Full-Throttle Fascist Following The 1st Major Terror Attack On American Soil. Putin Knows This And Is Both Able And Eager To Make It Happen

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/01/trump-will-go-full-throttle-fascist.html

The following video is a doozy. It is impossible to know what Trump will do because his pathological relationship with Truth renders him a tabula rasa until he "hears a tweet." 

VIDEO: Trump Tells More Lies Than Any U.S. Politician. Why Do "Patriots" And "Christians" Believe A Liar

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/01/video-trump-tells-more-lies-than-any-us.html

VIDEO: Ted Cruz Gives Detailed Explanation Of Trump's Pathological Obsession With Continuous Lying

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/08/ted-cruz-gives-detailed-explanation-of.html

Watch: CNN Spent Ten Straight Minutes Tearing Down Trump's Lies

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/01/watch-cnn-spent-ten-straight-minutes.html

Pulitzer Prize-Winning PolitiFact Finds That Only 1% Of The Things Trump Says Are Entirely True

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/08/politifact-finds-that-only-1-of-things.html

Keith Olbermann's 176 Reasons Trump Shouldn't Be President

(Yes, It's All Here And Worth Hearing In One Relentless Torrent)

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/09/keith-olbermanns-176-reasons-trump.html

Who Lies Most? A Pants-On-Fire Comparison Of America's 20 Best Known Politicians

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/09/politifacts-who-lies-more-pants-on-fire.html

Love

A

On Fri, Jan 20, 2017 at 8:34 PM, FV wrote:

Dear A & Jimbo

I'm looking for the great,tremendous, spectacular entertainment and I just spotted Tony Orlando, somebody's playing a cello, a big band with a singer, bag pipers just joined the cellist, a trio of singers with another band. Maybe they're saving the best for his arrival. Apparently his song for the evening is My Way. Maybe Tony will do the honors.

Michael Moore just predicted a blood bath of laws and executive orders flying in fast. What we have to fight back with is flooding Congress with phone calls again and again like the ethics pull back.

Love 

F

---

Compendium Of Pax Posts Re: Trump's Non-Stop Ability To Tell One Shameless Lie After Another

January 20, 2017, 8:38 pm

≫ Next: Mary Evelyn O'Neill, My Daughter With Down Syndrome

≪ Previous: Reflection On Today's Inauguration, Tomorrow's Women's March, And What I See Going Forward

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Alan: The following video is a doozy. 

It is impossible to know what Trump will do because his pathological relationship with Truth renders him a tabula rasa until he "hears a tweet." 

VIDEO: Trump Tells More Lies Than Any U.S. Politician. Why Do "Patriots" And "Christians" Believe A Liar

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/01/video-trump-tells-more-lies-than-any-us.html

VIDEO: Ted Cruz Gives Detailed Explanation Of Trump's Pathological Obsession With Continuous Lying

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/08/ted-cruz-gives-detailed-explanation-of.html

Watch: CNN Spent Ten Straight Minutes Tearing Down Trump's Lies

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/01/watch-cnn-spent-ten-straight-minutes.html

Pulitzer Prize-Winning PolitiFact Finds That Only 1% Of The Things Trump Says Are Entirely True

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/08/politifact-finds-that-only-1-of-things.html

Keith Olbermann's 176 Reasons Trump Shouldn't Be President

(Yes, It's All Here And Worth Hearing In One Relentless Torrent)

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/09/keith-olbermanns-176-reasons-trump.html

Who Lies Most? A Pants-On-Fire Comparison Of America's 20 Best Known Politicians
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/09/politifacts-who-lies-more-pants-on-fire.html

Compendium Of Pax Posts About Donald Trump
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/06/compendium-of-pax-posts-about-donald.html

Best Trump Memes From Pax On Both Houses
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/09/best-trump-memes-from-pax-on-both-houses.html

"Are Republicans Insane?" Best Pax Posts

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/12/are-republicans-insane-best-pax-posts.html

"There Are Two Ways Of Lying..." Denis De Rougemont And Donald Trump

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/12/donald-trump-and-denise-de-rougemont.html

Compilation Of Pax Posts On Similarities Between Hitler And Trump

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/05/compilation-of-pax-post-on-similarities.html

Compendium Of Best Pax Posts About The Relationship Between Trump And Putin

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/12/compendium-of-best-pax-posts-about.html

Compendium Of Pax Posts About Russian Electoral Manipulation

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/12/compendium-of-pax-posts-about-russian.html

Mary Evelyn O'Neill, My Daughter With Down Syndrome

January 20, 2017, 9:02 pm

≫ Next: Critical Quid Pro Quo Democrats Must Demand Of Trump Before Collaborating On Infrastructure

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Mary Evelyn O'Neill with Washington D.C. street musician Kenny Sway

Video: http://klewtv.com/news/offbeat/video-singer-serenades-11-year-old-girl-outside-dc-metro-station

Alan: Evelyn's Dad, Patrick O'Neill, co-operates the Catholic Worker House in Garner, North Carolina.

I value Patrick's friendship.

My Daughter Has Down Syndrome

By PATRICK O'NEILL

I am the blessed father of eight children -- six girls and two boys. My youngest child, Mary Evelyn was born May 2, 2005. Being opposed to abortion, my wife, Mary Rider, who was 45 when Mary Evelyn was born, and I, did not opt for prenatal testing.

Mary Evelyn was born with Down syndrome, something I knew little about and something that scared me. Mary Evelyn -- like many children with Down syndrome -- had several heart defects that required surgery when she was just seven months old. 

Now, a decade later, Mary Evelyn has a healthy heart, and she is a delightful child. In fact, like most parents of children with Down syndrome, it is not even something I notice about her. She is just our daughter, and we are overjoyed to be her parents.

Mary Evelyn has few social boundaries. She thinks nothing of hugging complete strangers, and she happily speaks to most people she meets. If she is riding in the car, she will frequently wave to the person in the car next to her.  At a red light, Mary Evelyn will often roll down her window to say, "Hello," to the person in the car next to us.

I have fond memories of many people saying aloud: "Little girl, you just made my day," after Mary Evelyn has given a hug to a stranger. In a nursing home we recently visited, Mary Evelyn pretended she was a doctor and visited patients, most of whom were very happy to see her.

On Dec. 28, while we were visiting Washington D.C. my daughter, Annie, my son, Michael and Mary Evelyn met Kenny Sway, a vocalist with a street band in Chinatown. While watching the band, Sway and Mary Evelyn danced while Sway sung, "I Will Always Love You," to her. Someone videotaped the serenade, and the next thing we knew, thousands, tens of thousands and then millions of people watched that videotape as it went viral on Facebook.

http://klewtv.com/news/offbeat/video-singer-serenades-11-year-old-girl-outside-dc-metro-station

The next day, now back in Garner, we received a phone call from a Washington D.C. television station asking to interview Mary Evelyn, Michael and Annie on Skype. Now, Mary Evelyn made the 11 o'clock news.

However, when we watched the news report on the network TV station, the reporter said of Mary Evelyn: "The 11-year-old who suffers from Down syndrome." While that might be the prevailing societal sentiment that someone "suffers" from Down syndrome, that is not the way we see it.

Mary Evelyn "has Down syndrome," is what my wife, Mary Rider says is the better word choice. We don't perceive Mary Evelyn as suffering. Soon after Mary Evelyn was born, my wife and I joined the Triangle Down Syndrome Network (TDSN), a support group for parents of children with Down syndrome. TDSN families like to think of our children as "differently-abled," rather than disabled. We also don't like the word handicapped to describe our children -- and we LOATH the word retarded, which is still in common use.

Sadly, the number of people living in the world with Down syndrome is declining. Since the onset of prenatal testing -- now a common option for pregnant women -- the population of people with Down syndrome has declined about 30 percent worldwide.  That number is expected to keep growing as more and more mothers opt to abort fetuses that prenatal tests show are not "normal."

TDSN also offers a "new parents meeting" and more than once I have met couples who have not yet had their babies, but have had a prenatal diagnosis for Down syndrome, who have attended the meeting. Twice, the mothers-to-be were crying, but not because they were expecting a child who might have Down syndrome, but because they had experienced pressure to have abortions, and they did not want that option.

There are even people who feel like a mother with a positive prenatal diagnosis for Down syndrome has an obligation to abort. If everyone took that path, however, eventually there would be very few people with Down syndrome left in this world, a prospect I find unsettling.

In the grand scheme of things, I like to believe God makes each of us purposefully, and with unique characteristics and specific gifts to bring to this world. If that's true, then God wants us to recognize that people with disabilities are also made in the image and likeness of God, and play a perfectly unique role in life's journey, which we are all part of together.

While there are no clear-cut statistics in the U.S. regarding how many women who receive a prenatal diagnosis for Down syndrome opt for abortion, it is certainly higher than 50 percent.

The late disabilities rights activist, Dr. Adrienne Asch said: "The only thing prenatal diagnosis can provide is a first impression of who a child will be. Making such a radical decision as to end the life of a child based upon a first impression is a most horrible and violent form of discrimination. It has no place in an American society that is committed to ending discrimination in any form..."

Now, more than five million viewers have watched Mary Evelyn and Kenny Sway's video. It has clearly brought joy to the world -- I am so glad Mary Evelyn is part of our wonderful world.

Critical Quid Pro Quo Democrats Must Demand Of Trump Before Collaborating On Infrastructure

January 20, 2017, 9:27 pm

≫ Next: Conspiracists Do Not Believe This Was A Violent Attack But An Attempt To Implant A Mustache

≪ Previous: Mary Evelyn O'Neill, My Daughter With Down Syndrome

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"Nation With Crumbling Bridges And Roads Excited To Build Giant Wall"

The Borowitz Report

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/01/nation-with-crumbling-bridges-and-roads.html

Alan: From the beginning of the Obama Administration, Republicans opposed infrastructure development just because Obama supported it and the GOP did not want to make the president "look good." 

Although infrastructure development was sorely needed... and although the cost of borrowing money had reached historic lows... and although putting off development would lead to further deterioration that was exponentially more costly to repair, American conservatives wanted to prevent Obama from doing "the right-and-necessary thing" even though obstruction required treacherous (if not traitorous) blockage of The Common Good and The General Welfare.

"Let's Just Say It: The Republicans Are The Problem"

Conservative Scholar Norman Ornstein

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/01/lets-just-say-it-republicans-are.html

Suddenly, Trump began to promote infrastructure development as if the "prospectus" had been handed to him directly by God.

To be clear, infrastructure development is NOT Trump's idea. 

Rather, it was a priority of President Obama which Republicans trashed out of sheer spite. 

"Let's Just Say It: The Republicans Are The Problem"

Conservative Scholar Norman Ornstein

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/01/lets-just-say-it-republicans-are.html

Not being spiteful, punitive people, Democrats will want to collaborate with Trump, quite likely more so than Trump's own party,

But before they do, Democrats should inform Trump that they will not join his effort until he publically states this truth: "President Obama was intent on infrastructure development throughout his presidency and The Republican Party opposed such public work because they did not want him to look good. I, Donald Trump, ask congressional Democrats to join me in this truly bipartisan effort begun by Barack Obama."

Trump's declaration might even conclude with these words: "I ask congressional Democrats to join me in this truly bipartisan effort begun by Barack Obama who was, in fact, born in the United States of America and whose citizenship should never have been questioned." 

Don't hold your breath...

"Let's Just Say It: The Republicans Are The Problem"

Conservative Scholar Norman Ornstein

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/01/lets-just-say-it-republicans-are.html

Conspiracists Do Not Believe This Was A Violent Attack But An Attempt To Implant A Mustache

January 21, 2017, 6:55 am

≫ Next: It Now Appears The Women's March On Washington Will Dwarf Yesterday's Inauguration Crowd

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Alt-Right White Supremacist, Richard Spencer

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_B._Spencer

Richard Spencer, a leading white nationalist figure, was punched in the face by a masked protester in Washington, D.C., on Friday.

Spencer was giving an interview on the street while being heckled by bystanders. One asked him, “Aren’t you a neo-Nazi?”He replied, “I’m not a neo-Nazi.”

The heckler then asked, “Do you like black people?”

It Now Appears The Women's March On Washington Will Dwarf Yesterday's Inauguration Crowd

January 21, 2017, 8:25 am

≫ Next: "How Many Trump Products Were/Are Made Overseas? Here's The Complete List," WAPO

≪ Previous: Conspiracists Do Not Believe This Was A Violent Attack But An Attempt To Implant A Mustache

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Women’s March on Washington: A sea of pink-hatted protesters vow to resist Donald Trump

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/womens-march-on-washington-a-sea-of-pink-hatted-protesters-vow-to-resist-donald-trump/2017/01/21/ae4def62-dfdf-11e6-acdf-14da832ae861_story.html?utm_term=.e63aeb2287ae

"How Many Trump Products Were/Are Made Overseas? Here's The Complete List," WAPO

January 21, 2017, 8:29 am

≫ Next: Inaugural Address: Trump's Full Speech

≪ Previous: It Now Appears The Women's March On Washington Will Dwarf Yesterday's Inauguration Crowd

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Alan: Trump's balls are made of such high-quality brass that his own companies continue to make products overseas while in his inaugural address he proclaims: "We will follow two simple rules: Buy American and hire American."

How Many Trump Products Were Made Overseas? Here's The Complete List

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/08/26/how-many-trump-products-were-made-overseas-heres-the-complete-list/?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.d604a26bade6

Inaugural Address: Trum's Full Speech
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/20/politics/trump-inaugural-address/index.html

Inaugural Address: Trump's Full Speech

January 21, 2017, 8:35 am

≫ Next: What The Obamas Are Doing Next: The Obama Foundation (Video)

≪ Previous: "How Many Trump Products Were/Are Made Overseas? Here's The Complete List," WAPO

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Tight-Fisted Trump Pays No Taxes

Inaugural Address: Trump's Full Speech

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/20/politics/trump-inaugural-address/index.html

People Want To Be Lied To: The Convergent Horror Of Faithful Falsehood And Aggressive Ignorance

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/12/people-want-to-be-lied-to-convergent.html

Watch: CNN Spent Ten Straight Minutes Tearing Down Trump's Lies

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/01/watch-cnn-spent-ten-straight-minutes.html

VIDEO: Trump Tells More Lies Than Any U.S. Politician. Why Do "Patriots" And "Christians" Believe A Liar

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/01/video-trump-tells-more-lies-than-any-us.html

Pulitzer Prize-Winning PolitiFact Finds That Only 1% Of The Things Trump Says Are Entirely True

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/08/politifact-finds-that-only-1-of-things.html

Keith Olbermann's 176 Reasons Trump Shouldn't Be President

(Yes, It's All Here And Worth Hearing In One Relentless Torrent)

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/09/keith-olbermanns-176-reasons-trump.html

Who Lies Most? A Pants-On-Fire Comparison Of America's 20 Best Known Politicians

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/09/politifacts-who-lies-more-pants-on-fire.html

Compendium Of Pax Posts About Donald Trump
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/06/compendium-of-pax-posts-about-donald.html

Best Trump Memes From Pax On Both Houses
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/09/best-trump-memes-from-pax-on-both-houses.html

"Are Republicans Insane?" Best Pax Posts

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/12/are-republicans-insane-best-pax-posts.html

"There Are Two Ways Of Lying..." Denis De Rougemont And Donald Trump

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/12/donald-trump-and-denise-de-rougemont.html

Compilation Of Pax Posts On Similarities Between Hitler And Trump

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/05/compilation-of-pax-post-on-similarities.html

Compendium Of Best Pax Posts About The Relationship Between Trump And Putin

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/12/compendium-of-best-pax-posts-about.html

Compendium Of Pax Posts About Russian Electoral Manipulation

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/12/compendium-of-pax-posts-about-russian.html

---

What The Obamas Are Doing Next: The Obama Foundation (Video)

January 21, 2017, 9:01 am

≫ Next: She's 54. White, Rural And A Lifelong Republican. Why Is She Protesting Donald Trump

≪ Previous: Inaugural Address: Trump's Full Speech

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The Obama Foundation 

Video

https://www.obama.org/watch-the-video/

She's 54. White, Rural And A Lifelong Republican. Why Is She Protesting Donald Trump

January 21, 2017, 9:06 am

≫ Next: "Donald Trump's Exectuive Order On Obamacare Will Cripple The Health Insurance Market"

≪ Previous: What The Obamas Are Doing Next: The Obama Foundation (Video)

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Joanne Barr, 54, poses for a portrait at her home in Cogan Station, PA. Barr, a former Republican turned Democrat, will travel from Williamsport, PA., to Washington, DC, to attend the Women's March. 

(Photo by Heather Ainsworth for The Washington Post)

She's 54. White, Rural And A Lifelong Republican. Why Is She Protesting Donald Trump

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/shes-54-white-rural-and-a-lifelong-republican-why-is-she-protesting-donald-trump/2017/01/21/6457ac02-df41-11e6-918c-99ede3c8cafa_story.html?utm_term=.d0861543694c

"Donald Trump's Exectuive Order On Obamacare Will Cripple The Health Insurance Market"

January 21, 2017, 9:46 am

≫ Next: More Aerial Photos Of National Mall During Obama's 2008 Inauguration And Trump's On Friday

≪ Previous: She's 54. White, Rural And A Lifelong Republican. Why Is She Protesting Donald Trump

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The White Guys Begin

Alan: The individual mandate was conceived in a conservative think tank as the only way to make universal healthcare both available and viable within the context of the for-profit insurance industry. Not surprisingly, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney established an individual mandate as an essential fundament of his universal healthcare system. Trump's executive order will prove to be a step in the direction of expanding government-financed coverage of universal care, or there will be marked diminution in the number of Americans who are covered by quality healthcare.

Donald Trump's Executive Order On Obamacare Will Cripple The Health Insurance Market

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-obamacare-trump-order-20170120-story.html

More Aerial Photos Of National Mall During Obama's 2008 Inauguration And Trump's On Friday

January 21, 2017, 12:39 pm

≫ Next: Donald Trump Wanted Military Equipment Rolling Down Pennsylvania Avenue On Inauguration Day

≪ Previous: "Donald Trump's Exectuive Order On Obamacare Will Cripple The Health Insurance Market"

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This from Slate at 11:40 this morning:

www.slate.com/…

“One of these is a presidential inauguration in 2017 for a man named Donald Trump and the other is from 2009 for a man named Barack Obama. Can you tell which?”

Donald Trump Wanted Military Equipment Rolling Down Pennsylvania Avenue On Inauguration Day

January 21, 2017, 12:43 pm

≫ Next: "That's What's Wrong With Democrats": My Reply To A Trump Supporter On Friend T's Facebook

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Donald Trump Wanted Military Equipment Rolling Down Pennsylvania Avenue On Inauguration Day

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/1/20/1622693/-Donald-Trump-wanted-to-have-military-equipment-rolling-down-Pennsylvania-Ave-for-inauguration-day

"That's What's Wrong With Democrats": My Reply To A Trump Supporter On Friend T's Facebook

January 21, 2017, 1:08 pm

≫ Next: The DIY Scientist, The Olympian, And The Mutated Gene

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(Alan: I made the following reply to this comment on friend Tarantino's Facebook Page:  "Wow, that's what's wrong with democrats. Poor losers. If Hillary had of won, I may not have been happy about it, but I would have hoped for the best with her. I don't want ANY President to fail. If they fail We All fail! Get over it already.")

I acknowledge -- as does every Democrat I know -- that Trump won the presidency according to the legal rules of the (outdated) Electoral College. 

I do not dispute Trump's investiture as the 45th president of the United States. 

However, I also acknowledge that Hillary got 4.55% more popular votes than Donald did. 

Clearly, her popular vote victory -- indeed, Hillary trounced Trump in the popular vote -- has no legal standing. 

Even so, Trump's drubbing has substantial meaning under the widely-held principle of "one person, one vote." 

Although it is indisputable that Donald J. Trump is the legal president of the United States, it is also true that Hillary R. Clinton is, by resounding popular vote, The People's Choice. 

As The People's Choice, I repeat that Hillary has no legal standing as president but she can be called (with just a slight admixture of poetic license) America's "Popular President." (And in light of 2016's popular vote outcome, Trump can rightly be called a "loser.")

If tables were turned and Trump had won the popular vote by nearly 3 million ballots but lost to Hillary in The Electoral College, I cannot imagine ANY of American conservatives I know who would say (with a straight face) that they would fully support Hillary.

It is an incontrovertible fact that most American conservatives, including GOP leadership, did everything in their power -- for eight years -- to obstruct Obama, simultaneously impugning his citizenship. 

I would bet the eternal destiny of my soul that Donald would have denouced a "split result" as "proof that the election had been rigged!" while repeating his 2012 tweet when it appeared that Romney had won the popular vote but lost The Electoral College:

"In several tweets he later deleted, Trump wondered how Obama won even though Republican nominee Mitt Romney had more votes (though in the end, Obama won the popular vote as well).

“He lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election,” Trump tweeted. “We should have a revolution in this country!”"

Against this backdrop, I do not believe that any human being, much less any American, should hope for the success of Trump's views on women, Muslims, Mexicans, or his public encouragement of partisan violence against his political foes. (Since memory is short and students of history few, I will mention that Trump even offered to pick up the "legal tab" for supporters who - at his urging - decided to physically beat members of "the opposition.") 

No human being should hope for the success of Trump's longstanding determination to stiff workers and fleece "Trumped Up University" students.

No human should wish Donald well for his bragadocious profiteering as "The King Of Debt"; or his inaugural call to bring jobs back to America while Trump's own products -- including his signature "Make America Great" baseball caps -- are manufactured overseas. 

No human should wish Donald well for his vindictiveness and meticulous maintenance of an "enemies list"; his treacherous bromance with world-class thug-kleptocrat Vladimir Putin; his relentless parading of hedonism and crass materialism before the impressionable eyes of young Americans; his tradition-breaking refusal to release his tax returns; his imposition of "confidentiality agreements" on workers and ex-wives (one of whom, Ivana Trump, was forced to retract her statement that Trump had "raped" her); his persistent inability to tell the truth; his fabrication of whole-cloth falsehoods; his relentless flip-flopping (at times within the same speech); his claim to "know more than the generals"; his degradation of John McCain's war service; his attacks on Gold Star parents; his mockery of a disabled reporter; his vilification of the nation's most dependable (but admittedly far-from-perfect) news sources; his endorsement of torture; his "war-crime call" that American soldiers kill terrorists' wives and children; his well-documented intimacy with NYC mafiosi (see Pulitzer-Prize-winning author David Cay's research); his hair-trigger readiness to enact fascist clampdown, revealed in a Yahoo News interview dated November 19th, 2015; his normalization of vulgarity by bragging about his penis size in a nationally-televised Republican "presidential" debate!?!?!; his parasitic (but "perfectly" legal) non-payment of taxes which are, at bottom, "the price we pay for civilization"; his selection of Alt-Right miscreant Steve Bannon as White House Chief Strategist; and last but not least, Deplorable Donald's cynical abuse of Christianity to advance his sociopathic/narcissitic obsession with the acquisition of power and garnering lickspittle adulation by fundamentalist sycophants.  

Having said all this, I totally agree with Donald's statement of October 15th, 2016 -- and I quote -- "The election is absolutely being rigged." 

Fortunately for American conservatives, Trump has said "EVERYTHING" (at least once) which allows his followers to pick-and-choose from an "ideological closet" containing every conceivable "costume." 

The Prince of Darkness --- one of whose names is "Legion" --- would be proud. 

Make no mistake about this liar.

Trump is the cornerstone of The Post-Truth Era and if this experiment in super-saturated mendacity ends well for America, surely there is no God.

Even so, I agree with Trump that George W. Bush should have been impeached.

"Israeli War Historian, Martin van Creveld's Startling Commentary On The Iraq War"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/06/israeli-war-historian-martin-van.html

Excerpt: "For misleading the American people, and launching the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 B.C sent his legions into Germany and lost them, Bush deserves to be impeached and, once he has been removed from office, put on trial along with the rest of the president’s men. If convicted, they’ll have plenty of time to mull over their sins." War historian Martin van Creveld is the only non-U.S. author whose writings are obligatory reading by America's Officer Corps.

George Will: "The 2003 Invasion Of Iraq Was The Worst Foreign Policy Decision In U.S. History"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/11/george-will-2003-invasion-of-iraq-worst.html 

Trump was also right to point out that Bush-Cheney's Whimsy War on Iraq was a "tremendous disservice to the Middle East (to the United States) and to humanity" and that their ego-driven invasion "destabilized the Middle East." 

Here are Trump's views on The Iraq War as expressed in the Fourth GOP Candidates Debate in Milwaukee:

TRUMP: "One of the things that I'm frankly most proud of is that in 2003, 2004, I was totally against going into Iraq because you're going to destabilize the Middle East. I called it. I called it very strongly. And it was very important...

In my opinion, we've spent $4 trillion trying to topple various people that frankly, if they were there and if we could've spent that $4 trillion in the United States to fix our roads, our bridges, and all of the other problems; our airports and all of the other problems we've had, we would've been a lot better off. I can tell you that right now.

We have done a tremendous disservice, not only to the Middle East, we've done a tremendous disservice to humanity. The people that have been killed, the people that have wiped away, and for what? It's not like we had victory.

It's a mess. The Middle East is totally destabilized. A total and complete mess. I wish we had the $4 trillion or $5 trillion. I wish it were spent right here in the United States, on our schools, hospitals, roads, airports, and everything else that are all falling apart...

What do we have now?" 

I also agree wholeheartedly with Trump's longstanding support for Universal Healthcare whose cost is ultimately guaranteed by the government. 

Trump is a Rorschach Test that attracts mad people desperate to vent anger in visceral ways. 

VIDEO: Trump Tells More Lies Than Any U.S. Politician. Why Do "Patriots" And "Christians" Believe A Liar

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/01/video-trump-tells-more-lies-than-any-us.html

I encourage my fellow Democrats to follow GOP leadership and "get over" their appropriate criticism of Trump as quickly as Republicans got over their bogus criticism of Obama as a Muslim, born in Kenya.

Not that a Kenyan birthplace would have mattered. 

As we learned from the candidacy of Ted Cruz, Republicans themselves - ever the standard bearers of Pharisaic hypocrisy -- are fully aware that it does not matter where presidential candidates are born so long as one parent is an American citizen.

"Let's Just Say It: The Republicans Are The Problem"

Conservative Scholar Norman Ornstein

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/01/lets-just-say-it-republicans-are.html

And finally, the area in which I applaud Trump unreservedly is his determination to revive and expand America's woefully degenerate infrastructure. 

With this proviso...

Critical Quid Pro Quo Democrats Must Demand Of Trump Before Collaborating On Infrastructure

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/01/a-critical-quid-pro-quo-democrats-must.html

If anyone wants specific references, I am happy to provide them. 

Just ding me.

Compendium Of Pax Posts About Donald Trump
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/06/compendium-of-pax-posts-about-donald.html

Best Trump Memes From Pax On Both Houses
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/09/best-trump-memes-from-pax-on-both-houses.html

"Are Republicans Insane?" Best Pax Posts

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/12/are-republicans-insane-best-pax-posts.html

"There Are Two Ways Of Lying..." Denis De Rougemont And Donald Trump

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/12/donald-trump-and-denise-de-rougemont.html

Compilation Of Pax Posts On Similarities Between Hitler And Trump

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/05/compilation-of-pax-post-on-similarities.html

Compendium Of Best Pax Posts About The Relationship Between Trump And Putin

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/12/compendium-of-best-pax-posts-about.html

Compendium Of Pax Posts About Russian Electoral Manipulation

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2016/12/compendium-of-pax-posts-about-russian.html

The DIY Scientist, The Olympian, And The Mutated Gene

January 21, 2017, 1:23 pm

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The DIY Scientist, the Olympian, and the Mutated Gene

How a woman whose muscles disappeared discovered she shared a disease with a muscle-bound Olympic medalist

https://www.propublica.org/article/muscular-dystrophy-patient-olympic-medalist-same-genetic-mutation

---

Did Trump Quote Bane (Tom Hardy's Batman Villain) In His Inauguration Speech? The Telegraph

January 21, 2017, 1:37 pm

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Did Trump Quote Bane (Tom Hardy's Batman Villain) In His Inauguration Speech?

The Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/2017/01/21/did-trump-quote-tom-hardys-batman-villain-inauguration-speech/

Trump, "The Me First President" (A View From Pakistan)

January 21, 2017, 1:49 pm

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The ‘Me First’ President

By MOHAMMED HANIF

KARACHI, Pakistan — Did President Donald J. Trump just say “America First”? It’s kind of worrying that American presidents have to steal slogans from third-world dictators.

In Pakistan, we had a military ruler named Gen. Pervez Musharraf. He made lots of friends in Washington, D.C., after taking over in a bloodless coup in 1999. On his return from his first visit to Washington, he proclaimed “Pakistan First.” He was such a great buddy of President George W. Bush that he got the latter to endorse his book on television. These buddies started new wars, rekindled old ones. Lots of people died, lots more fell into new depths of poverty.

When you say America first or Pakistan first — or whatever unlucky country it is that allows a pampered old man to say those things — it always means me first. My family first. My friends first. My friends’ friends are going to be O.K. I’ll decide what’s best for this country. In fact, I have already decided what’s best for this country: me. The bargain will work out like this: At the end of this, there will be lots more dead people, but we’ll have even more money than we did before.

In Pakistan, we must have done something to deserve the dictator we had, but American voters have finally shown the Third World that we are brothers and sisters. Thanks for finally telling us that the American dream is basically a Ponzi scheme: You see all this money I have? You can have it, too. But can I take this last rupee from your pocket while you gaze at our beloved flag?

My wife watched three and half minutes of the inauguration on CNN and said: “It’s all a bit Disneyland. So many blond people.” I have never been to Disneyland. I think I can stay away a bit longer. America invented Disneyland. It also played a part in making the Third World what it is today. Now Americans can stay home and live the experience.

Mohammed Hanif is the author of the novels “A Case of Exploding Mangoes” and “Our Lady of Alice Bhatti,” and a contributing opinion writer.

The "Dark Knight" Inauguration

January 21, 2017, 1:50 pm

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The ‘Dark Knight’ Inauguration

By BEN DOMENECH

Donald J. Trump’s Inaugural Address was a remarkable speech marking the beginning of a new political era and serving as the opening statement of a political realignment of the Republican Party.

For his opponents within the Democratic Party, it was remarkable for his commitment, standing just feet away from former President Obama, to scrap his political agenda on the foreign and domestic scene. Mr. Trump all but called the former president a total failure, and promised a solution that upends the norms of Washington.

For his opponents within the Republican Party, it was remarkable for serving notice that he does not view them as much better. He berated both parties for being venal and corrupt, and announced an agenda on trade and foreign policy starkly different from what the Ronald Reagan coalition sought for 40 years. In particular, his pronouncements on foreign policy cut sharply against the views of American exceptionalism favored by George W. Bush.

For his critics in the media, it was remarkable for utterly breaking with every conventional expectation for an inaugural that speaks to a false sense of unity. Instead, Mr. Trump doubled down on the idea that he is the champion uniting patriotic Americans against a corrupt bipartisan elite that has served them poorly for 16 years.

This was a speech for those who support him, and it immensely satisfied supporters I spoke with on the mall. It was for them a sign that Washington would not change him, that he would deliver on his promises and that he would not stop being the leader with the aura of toughness and grit that so inspires them.

The night before the inauguration, I tweeted a prediction about the speech — that Mr. Trump would echo the theme of a speech from Christopher Nolan’s “Dark Knight Rises,” in which the character Bane promises war against the elites, and that he will return power back to where it belongs — to the people.

This is the speech Donald Trump decided to give: populist, nationalist, thrilling to his fans, disturbing to his foes — and sending the message to Washington that he intends not to bring peace, but the sword.

Benjamin Domenech is publisher of The Federalist.

"The Demon-Haunted World," By Carl Sagan: How To Save Yourself From Yourself

January 21, 2017, 2:21 pm

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“Unless we are very, very careful,” wrote psychologist-turned-artist Anne Truitt in contemplating compassion and the cure for our chronic self-righteousness, “we doom each other by holding onto images of one another based on preconceptions that are in turn based on indifference to what is other than ourselves.” She urged for “the honoring of others in a way that grants them the grace of their own autonomy and allows mutual discovery.” But how are we to find in ourselves the capacity — the willingness — to honor otherness where we see only ignorance and bigotry in beliefs not only diametrically opposed to our own but dangerous to the very fabric of society?

That’s what Carl Sagan (November 9, 1934–December 20, 1996) explores with characteristic intelligence and generosity of spirit in the seventeenth chapter of The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark(public library) — the masterwork published shortly before his death, which gave us Sagan on science as a tool of democracy and his indispensable Baloney Detection Kit.

Sagan considers how we can bridge conviction and compassion in dealing with those who disagree with and even attack our beliefs. Although he addresses the particular problems of pseudoscience and superstition, his elegant and empathetic argument applies to any form of ignorance and bigotry. He explores how we can remain sure-footed and rooted in truth and reason when confronted with such dangerous ideologies, but also have a humane and compassionate intention to understand the deeper fears and anxieties out of which such unreasonable beliefs arise in those who hold them

He writes:

When we are asked to swear in American courts of law — that we will tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” — we are being asked the impossible. It is simply beyond our powers. Our memories are fallible; even scientific truth is merely an approximation; and we are ignorant about nearly all of the Universe…

[…]

If it is to be applied consistently, science imposes, in exchange for its manifold gifts, a certain onerous burden: We are enjoined, no matter how uncomfortable it might be, to consider ourselves and our cultural institutions scientifically — not to accept uncritically whatever we’re told; to surmount as best we can our hopes, conceits, and unexamined beliefs; to view ourselves as we really are… Because its explanatory power is so great, once you get the hang of scientific reasoning you’re eager to apply it everywhere. However, in the course of looking deeply within ourselves, we may challenge notions that give comfort before the terrors of the world.

Sagan notes that all of us are deeply attached to and even defined by our beliefs, for they define our reality and are thus elemental to our very selves, so any challenge to our core beliefs tends to feel like a personal attack. This is equally true of ourselves as it is of those who hold opposing beliefs — such is the human condition. He considers how we can reconcile our sense of intellectual righteousness with our human fallibility:

In the way that skepticism is sometimes applied to issues of public concern, there is a tendency to belittle, to condescend, to ignore the fact that, deluded or not, supporters of superstition and pseudoscience are human beings with real feelings, who, like the skeptics, are trying to figure out how the world works and what our role in it might be. Their motives are in many cases consonant with science. If their culture has not given them all the tools they need to pursue this great quest, let us temper our criticism with kindness. None of us comes fully equipped.

But kindness, Sagan cautions, doesn’t mean assent — there are instances, like when we are faced with bigotry and hate speech, in which we absolutely must confront and critique these harmful beliefs, for “every silent assent will encourage [the person] next time, and every vigorous dissent will cause him next time to think twice.” He writes:

If we offer too much silent assent about [ignorance] — even when it seems to be doing a little good — we abet a general climate in which skepticism is considered impolite, science tiresome, and rigorous thinking somehow stuffy and inappropriate. Figuring out a prudent balance takes wisdom.

The greatest detriment to reason, Sagan argues, is that we let our reasonable and righteous convictions slip into self-righteousness, that deadly force of polarization:

The chief deficiency I see in the skeptical movement is in its polarization: Us vs. Them — the sense that we have a monopoly on the truth; that those other people who believe in all these stupid doctrines are morons; that if you’re sensible, you’ll listen to us; and if not, you’re beyond redemption. This is unconstructive… Whereas, a compassionate approach that from the beginning acknowledges the human roots of pseudoscience and superstition might be much more widely accepted. If we understand this, then of course we feel the uncertainty and pain of the abductees, or those who dare not leave home without consulting their horoscopes, or those who pin their hopes on crystals from Atlantis.

Or, say, those who vote for a racist, sexist, homophobic, misogynistic, climate-change-denying political leader.

Sagan’s central point is that we humans — all of us — are greatly perturbed by fear, anxiety, and uncertainty, and in seeking to becalm ourselves, we sometimes anchor ourselves to irrational and ignorant ideologies that offer certitude and stability, however illusory. In understanding those who succumb to such false refuges, Sagan calls for “compassion for kindred spirits in a common quest.” Echoing 21-year-old Hillary Rodham’s precocious assertion that “we are all of us exploring a world that none of us understand,” he argues that the dangerous beliefs of ignorance arise from “the feeling of powerlessness in a complex, troublesome and unpredictable world.”

In envisioning a society capable of cultivating both critical thinking and kindness, Sagan’s insistence on the role and responsibility of the media resonates with especial poignancy today:

Both skepticism and wonder are skills that need honing and practice. Their harmonious marriage within the mind of every schoolchild ought to be a principal goal of public education. I’d love to see such a domestic felicity portrayed in the media, television especially: a community of people really working the mix — full of wonder, generously open to every notion, dismissing nothing except for good reason, but at the same time, and as second nature, demanding stringent standards of evidence — and these standards applied with at least as much rigor to what they hold dear as to what they are tempted to reject with impunity.

The Demon-Haunted World remains one of the great intellectual manifestos of the past century. Complement it with Sagan on science and spirituality, his timeless toolkit for critical thinking, and this lovely animated adaptation of his famous Pale Blue Dot monologue about our place in the cosmos.

Martha Nussbaum Reprises Augustine Of Hippo

January 21, 2017, 2:32 pm

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"We know to the extent we love." 

St. Augustine Of Hippo

“The state of enchantment is one of certainty,” W.H. Auden wrote in his commonplace book. “When enchanted, we neither believe nor doubt nor deny: we know, even if, as in the case of a false enchantment, our knowledge is self-deception.” Nowhere is our capacity for enchantment, nor our capacity for self-deception, greater than in love — the region of human experience where the path to truth is most obstructed by the bramble of rationalization and where we are most likely to be kidnapped by our own delicious delusions. There, it is perennially difficult to know what we really want; difficult to distinguish between love and lust; difficult not to succumb to our perilous tendency to idealize; difficult to reconcile the closeness needed for intimacy with the psychological distance needed for desire.

How, then, do we really know that we love another person?

That’s what Martha Nussbaum, whom I continue to consider the most compelling philosopher of our time, examines in her 1990 book Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature (public library) — the sandbox in which Nussbaum worked out the ideas that would become, a decade later, her incisive treatise on the intelligence of emotions.

Devising a sort of incompleteness theorem of the heart’s truth, Nussbaum writes:

We deceive ourselves about love — about who; and how; and when; and whether. We also discover and correct our self-deceptions. The forces making for both deception and unmasking here are various and powerful: the unsurpassed danger, the urgent need for protection and self-sufficiency, the opposite and equal need for joy and communication and connection. Any of these can serve either truth or falsity, as the occasion demands. The difficulty then becomes: how in the midst of this confusion (and delight and pain) do we know what view of ourselves, what parts of ourselves, to trust? Which stories about the condition of the heart are the reliable ones and which the self-deceiving fictions? We find ourselves asking where, in this plurality of discordant voices with which we address ourselves on this topic of perennial self-interest, is the criterion of truth? (And what does it mean to look for a criterion here? Could that demand itself be a tool of self-deception?)

With an eye to Proust’s In Search of Lost Time and its central theme of how our intellect blinds us to the wisdom of the heart, Nussbaum contemplates the nature of those experiences “in which the self-protective tissue of rationalization is in a moment cut through, as if by a surgeon’s knife”: Proust’s protagonist, Marcel, has rationally convinced himself that he no longer loves his beloved, Albertine, but is jolted into confronting the falsity of that rationalization upon receiving news of her death; in the shock of his intense sorrow, he instantly gains the knowledge, far deeper and more sinewy than the intellect’s, that he did, in fact, love Albertine.

In a testament to Proust’s assertion that “the end of a book’s wisdom appears to us as merely the start of our own,”Nussbaum writes:

Proust tells us that the sort of knowledge of the heart we need in this case cannot be given us by the sciences of psychology, or, indeed, by any sort of scientific use of intellect. Knowledge of the heart must come from the heart — from and in its pains and longings, its emotional responses.

Illustration from An ABZ of Love, Kurt Vonnegut’s favorite vintage Danish guide to sexuality

Such a conception of love’s knowledge, to be sure, stands radically against the long intellectual tradition of rationalism stretching from Plato to Locke like an enormous string of reason that plays only one note, deaf to the symphonic complexity of the emotional universe. The Proustian view calls for a restoration of lost nuance. Pointing to “the pseudotruths of the intellect,” Nussbaum revisits Marcel’s predicament, wherein the intellect has imposed an illusory sense of order and structure upon the entropy of the emotions:

The shock of loss and the attendant welling up of pain show him that his theories were forms of self-deceptive rationalization — not only false about his condition but also manifestations and accomplices of a reflex to deny and close off one’s vulnerabilities that Proust finds to be very deep in all of human life. The primary and most ubiquitous form of this reflex is seen in the operations of habit, which makes the pain of our vulnerability tolerable to us by concealing need, concealing particularity (hence vulnerability to loss), concealing all the pain-inflicting features of the world — simply making us used to them, dead to their assaults. When we are used to them we do not feel them or long for them in the same way; we are no longer so painfully afflicted by our failure to control and possess them. Marcel has been able to conclude that he is not in love with Albertine, in part because he is used to her. His calm, methodical intellectual scrutiny is powerless to dislodge this “dream deity, so riveted to one’s being, its insignificant face so incrusted in one’s heart.” Indeed, it fails altogether to discern the all-important distinction between the face of habit and the true face of the heart.

Nussbaum considers how our over-reliance on the intellect for clarity about love produces instead a kind of myopia:

Intellect’s account of psychology lacks all sense of proportion and depth and importance… [Such a] cost-benefit analysis of the heart — the only comparative assessment of which intellect, by itself, is capable — is bound, Proust suggests, to miss differences of depth. Not only to miss them, but to impede their recognition. Cost-benefit analysis is a way of comforting oneself, of putting oneself in control by pretending that all losses can be made up by sufficient quantities of something else. This stratagem opposes the recognition of love — and, indeed, love itself.

[…]

To remove such powerful obstacles to truth, we require the instrument that is “the subtlest, most powerful, most appropriate for grasping the truth.” This instrument is given to us in suffering.

Half a century after Simone Weil made her compelling case for why suffering is a greater clarifying force than intellectual discipline, Nussbaum examines this antidote to the intellect’s self-delusion by quoting directly from Proust:

Our intelligence, however lucid, cannot perceive the elements that compose it and remain unsuspected so long as, from the volatile state in which they generally exist, a phenomenon capable of isolating them has not subjected them to the first stages of solidification. I had been mistaken in thinking that I could see clearly into my own heart. But this knowledge, which the shrewdest perceptions of the mind would not have given me, had now been brought to me, hard, glittering, strange, like a crystallised salt, by the abrupt reaction of pain.

Central to this method of truth-seeking is what Nussbaum calls catalepsis — “a condition of certainty and confidence form which nothing can dislodge us.” To be cataleptic — from the Greek katalēptikē, derived from the verb katalambanein, meaning “to apprehend,” “to firmly grasp” — is to have a firm grasp of reality. But, of course, the implied antinomy is that because reality is inherently slippery, either the firmness of such catalepsis or its conception of reality is false.

Noting the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Zeno’s view that we gain knowledge of the heart’s truth through powerful impressions that come directly from reality, Nussbaum returns to Proust’s Marcel:

The impression [that he loves Albertine] comes upon Marcel unbidden, unannounced, uncontrolled… Surprise, vivid particularity, and extreme qualitative intensity are all characteristics that are systematically concealed by the workings of habit, the primary form of self-deception and self-concealment. What has these features must have escaped the workings of self-deception, must have come from reality itself.

We notice, finally, that the very painfulness of these impressions is essential to their cataleptic character. Our primary aim is to comfort ourselves, to assuage pain, to cover our wounds. Then what has the character of pain must have escaped these mechanisms of comfort and concealment; must, then, have come from the true unconcealed nature of our condition.

Illustration by Julie Paschkis from Pablo Neruda: Poet of the People by Monica Brown

And yet there exists another, more dimensional possibility. Nussbaum writes:

For the Stoic the cataleptic impression is not simply a route to knowing; it is knowing. It doesn’t point beyond itself to knowledge; it goes to constitute knowledge. (Science is a system made up of katalēpseis.) If we follow the analogy strictly, then, we find that knowledge of our love is not the fruit of the impression of suffering, a fruit that might in principle have been had apart form the suffering. The suffering itself is a piece of self-knowing. In responding to a loss with anguish, we are grasping our love. The love is not some separate fact about us that is signaled by the impression; the impression reveals the love by constituting it. Love is not a structure in the heart waiting to be discovered; it is embodied in, made up out of, experiences of suffering.

[…]

Marcel is brought, then, by and in the cataleptic impression, to an acknowledgment of his love. There are elements of both discovery and creation here, at both the particular and general levels. Love of Albertine is both discovered and created. It is discovered, in that habit and intellect were masking from Marcel a psychological condition that was ready for suffering, and that … needed only to be affected slightly by the catalyst in order to turn itself into love. It is created, because love denied and successfully repressed is not exactly love. While he was busily denying that he loved her, he simply was not loving her. At the general level, again, Marcel both discovers and enacts a permanent underlying feature of his condition, namely, his neediness, his hunger for possession and completeness. That too was there in a sense before the loss, because that’s what human life is made of. But in denying and repressing it, Marcel became temporarily self-sufficient, closed, and estranged from his humanity. The pain he feels for Albertine gives him access to his permanent underlying condition by being a case of that condition, and no such case was present a moment before. Before the suffering he was indeed self-deceived — both because he was denying a general structural feature of his humanity and because he was denying the particular readiness of his soul to feel hopeless love for Albertine. He was on a verge of a precipice and thought he was safely immured in his own rationality. But his case shows us as well how the successful denial of love is the (temporary) extinction and death of love, how self-deception can aim at and nearly achieve self-change.

We now see exactly how and why Marcel’s account of self-knowledge is no simple rival to the intellectual account. It tells us that the intellectual account was wrong: wrong about the content of the truth about Marcel, wrong about the methods appropriate for gaining this knowledge, wrong as well about what sort of experience in and of the person knowing is. And it tells us that to try to grasp love intellectually is a way of not suffering, not loving — a practical rival, a stratagem of flight.

Art by Salvador Dalí for a rare edition of Dante’s Divine Comedy

And yet this notion of measuring love by degree of suffering seems to be a particular pathology of the human heart — could, Nussbaum asks, Marcel’s sorrow at the loss of Albertine be evidence not of love, or at least not only of love, but of grief or fear or some other constellation of contexts? She writes:

Marcel’s relation to the science of self-knowledge now begins to look more complex than we had suspected. We said that the attempt to grasp love intellectually was a way of avoiding loving. We said that in the cataleptic impression there is acknowledgement of one’s own vulnerability and incompleteness, an end to our flight from ourselves. But isn’t the whole idea of basing love and its knowledge on cataleptic impressions itself a form of flight — from openness to the other, from all those things in love for which there is in fact no certain criterion? Isn’t his whole enterprise just a new and more subtle expression of the rage for control, and need for possession and certainty, the denial of incompleteness and neediness that characterized the intellectual project? Isn’t he still hungry for a science of life?

Noting the contrast between the mutuality of love and the asymmetry of infatuation — after all, Marcel’s confrontation of his feelings for Albertine doesn’t require her participation at all and can be conducted as a wholly solitary activity — Nussbaum adds:

What Marcel feels is a gap or lack in himself, an open wound, a blow to the heart, a hell inside himself. Is all of this really love of Albertine?

[…]

The heart and mind of another are unknowable, even unapproachable, expect in fantasies and projections that are really elements of the knower’s own life, not the other’s.

Proust’s protagonist arrives at this conclusion himself:

I understood that my love was less a love for her than a love in me… It is the misfortune of beings to be for us nothing else but useful showcases for the contents of our own minds.

And yet this conclusion, Nussbaum argues, is but a form of self-protection — in denying one’s porousness to the other and instead painting love as a curious relationship with oneself, it bolsters the illusion of self-sufficiency as a hedge against the suffering which love entails. Such a conception is ultimately a form of self-delusion masking the true nature of love and what Nussbaum calls its “dangerous openness.” Reflecting on Proust’s ultimate revelation, she writes:

Love … is a permanent structural feature of our soul.

[…]

The alterations between love and its denial, suffering and denial of suffering … constitute the most essential and ubiquitous structural feature of the human heart. In suffering we know only suffering. We call our rationalizations false and delusive, and we do not see to what extent they express a mechanism that is regular and deep in our lives. But this means that in love itself we do not yet have full knowledge of love — for we do not grasp its limits and boundaries. Sea creatures cannot be said to know the sea in the way that a creature does who can survey and dwell in both sea and land, noticing how they bound and limit one another.

Love’s Knowledge is a revelatory read in its totality. Complement it with Adam Phillips on the interplay between frustration and satisfaction in love, Erich Fromm on mastering the art of loving, Alain de Botton on why our partners drive us mad, and Esther Perel on the central paradox of love, then revisit Nussbaum on anger and forgiveness, agency and victimhood, the intelligence of the emotions, and how to live with our human fragility.