"The members of congress were very clear about what was in that report yesterday." Well by that he means heavily biased members of the Trump tribe were very clear about what the other members of the tribe have agreed to SAY the Mueller Report is about. Seemples! "No collusion! No obstruction!" No need to read it yourself or discover the truth. Just listen to the boss.
So then Alisyn says there were 10 examples of obstruction of justice. He is ready to argue to the death that there were NOT because that's what he was told by some Trump flunkies. She offers to show them and then the most beautiful exhibit of his mindless tribal loyalty: After the pot calls the kettle black (he says SHE's being disingenuous - pretending to know something she doesn't) she shows the 10 examples. He says, "You're going to put the Mueller Report on the screen? Okay put it up there. That's NOT the Mueller Report." So he is acting as though he will accept nothing less than direct quotes from the report to believe her side while he has just admitted that he believes what HIS tribe has told him without ever having seen the Mueller Report. And let's face it, if he were shown direct quotes from the original Mueller Report with Bob Mueller's sweat and coffee stains on it, he would still not be moved. THAT'S tribalism.
I'll give you another ism. And before you dismiss it, please read it through. It might surprise you. Encyclopedia Britannica includes this in their definition of Nazism: an anti-intellectual and atheoretical movement, emphasizing the will of the charismatic dictator as the sole source of inspiration of a people and a nation, as well as a vision of annihilation of all enemies of the Aryan Volk as the one and only goal of Nazi policy. If you're wondering, as I was, "volk" just means people. Folks. Another word for tribe.
Think about Trumpism now. Definitely anti-intellectual! Read my last post and all doubts of that will wash away… unless you are of his tribe already. Atheoretical. No real theory behind it. I don't know how charismatic you find Trump, but he's a dick tater for sure. And his will is the sole source of inspiration amongst his... uh... volk. I will give other examples. The annihilation of all non-whites? Maybe not yet. But there is plenty of solid evidence that Trump is a white supremacist. His father, his hero and a guy who gave him enough money to buy himself god status in the head of a boy who likes nothing better, or possibly nothing other, was a member of the KKK and was even arrested during a protest. Right now he's close (again) to fighting a war with Iran because they may have bombed Saudi Arabia. See if anybody stops him even though it's a seriously stupid idea.
Remember about a dozen Trump Tribe scandals ago when he put his Sharpie to that map of the projected course of Hurricane Dorian? Well here's Wilbur Ross being a good tribemate. He threatened the jobs and livelihoods of members of NOAA after they corrected Trump's ignorant rantings that Alabama better prepare for the hurricane. The workers at NOAA were telling people that they didn't need to panic or store food and water or evacuate or other things people do in a false hurricane panic. They were doing their jobs. But they were contradicting the dictator of the Trump Tribe and their correctness needed to be corrected. You see how this works?
Remember several dozen Trump Tribe scandals previous to that when the Don made Bill Barr his new Attorney General? Barr had already written a 19-page tribal dance, which I read, and here is a fairly good summary of how moronic it was. I am not a lawyer but while reading this piece of obvious ass-suckery, I noticed one main Joseph Hellerian, Jonathan Swiftian, piece of sophistry written in fairly skilled legalese that could easily be missed. A perfect circle of logic that proceeds thusly: Donald Trump cannot be convicted of illegally obtaining his office of president, indeed any such attempt would be "disastrous" as would the characterization of any of his presidential acts as "obstruction of justice" by virtue of the fact that he IS the president making the manner in which he obtained or maintains the office irrelevant because the office transcends the law. This was just Bill Barr being a good Trump Tribesman.
Doug Stanhope says a lot of things about American people that are funnily accurate. People work 5 days to relax for two. They all hate it but anyone who hasn't, why, they haven't worked a day in their lives! They're proud of living a life they hate. Hard workers vs. people who don't work hard. Tribes. He says that Americans could vote on anything stupid like coffee or tea. Coffee would win. Probably 80 percent coffee and 19% tea. They'd fight for their choices too! But only the one percent say, "What? Who the hell cares?" And that's the right answer! They are trained to be tribal.
If you think tribalism is limited to the US, or if you think it's a new thing, I've got news for you! You may have noticed that reference I threw in last paragraph to Jonathan Swift. In the early 1700's he was writing satire about the politics and religion of England. (and France I guess) Most of you have heard of Gulliver's Travels and I bet a lot of you know of the country of Lilliput and its tiny people. But you may not have heard of Blefuscu or the Big-Endians and Little-Endians. Whigs and Tories, Catholic and Protestant, Swift equated the differences to about as important as how you break a boiled egg. Do you break it at the big end or little end. People formed tribes according to their preferences and many wars were fought.
Nowadays you walk down the street wearing a green shirt but that neighbourhood supports a red shirt football team, you'll get your ass kicked. Post game hooligan fights. Tribalism!
These days in Korea we are seeing tribalism at its finest. The party in power has recently appointed a new Minister of Justice named Cho Guk. But not without controversy. It appears that some skeletons have come out of his closet to create some phony outrage amongst the politicians and people, most or all of whom have MUCH scarier (and probably many MORE) monsters in THEIR closets you can bet. People are protesting, calling for his resignation, even shaving their heads, not because they think he's an unjust minister of justice, (hell, they've all done worse than what he's accused of) but I think it's mostly for two other reasons: one being to point fingers at another person with the hopes that you are assumed to be innocent of the crime you are condemning in that other individual (but of course you aren't), and the other being that he is a member of an opposing tribe, or political party.
Here is a very good summary of it. I have disagreed with Jason Lim in the past, but I think he's gotten it right this time. I was told by one of my students that many other people were considered for the position and all turned it down. Why? Because of the secrets that are exposed in the vetting process. I doubt they'd be able to find anyone with fewer than Cho Guk. And the people protesting would undoubtedly do the same or worse if they were in his shoes. I've worked in some of the most reputable universities in Korea and they're all corrupt. I've been asked countless times to help people cheat for educational or employment purposes. I've seen teachers helping students on standardized tests. I've been ordered to commit academic fraud. The education system is rife with cheating. I think I've mentioned before that I haven't given a test or even played a game (and we're talking well over a thousand tests and games here) without at least one person trying to cheat. Koreans are cheaters when it comes to education and from my experience the same goes for business. Like the Chinese, they blame it on the huge population and competition. Whatever the case may be, what Cho Guk did was the equivalent of nothing here really. Given his status and wealth, it's a bloody miracle he's cheated so little!
So why the outrage? Or the "fake" outrage as I've called it. The magnificent irony of it all is that the one-word answer is the very manufactured distraction that will be the highest hurdle in Cho Guk's stated mission of reforming the legal and political systems of Korea: tribalism.
I certainly can't leave my home and native land out of this post. It's election time in Canada. Tribalism's birthday. As usual I haven't taken much time to go through the candidates in enough detail to tell you which are the giant douches and which are the turd sandwiches. But I do know enough about them to not waste a vote on them. I'll tell you what though, if Cho Guk and Moon Jae In (the president of Korea) really DO take a bite out of corruption in Korea and it's not just a Xi Jin Pingian attempt to get rid of their political opponents under the GUISE of fighting corruption, I'll take a lot more interest in THEIR careers! We've had one politician in Canada that I know of since I was born who was actually like that. If another one comes around who genuinely wants to fight the deeply entrenched corruption and collusion between our politicians and our large industry and financial institutions, I'll support him/her. The sad thing is, that ship has probably sailed. Even the least corruptible Canadian who throws his/her hat in the ring will have a(n) Herculean task just to make it 4 years without losing self-respect.
I believe it's because, as in the US, people don't fully understand politics until they are deep in it. At that time they recognize that they don't have as much power to change things as they'd believed. In Canada we have two main parties, like most places. Ever wonder why that is? Because they do the same things. There's no creativity at all. The conservative parties make laws. Laws that benefit the rich. They sign contracts, treaties and business deals (with our tax money) that benefit the rich. Much of which the public doesn't know about or doesn't want.
But then it's the liberal party to the rescue, right? That's what we think. But they can't change much or any of the crap the conservative party did while they were in power. So they try to do things that LOOK liberal like increase immigration and create jobs. Unfortunately this also helps the rich. You might think the rich only vote for the conservatives and hate the liberal parties, but in reality, they are in such total control that they don't much care. Let me splain.
Remember when there were lots of good jobs? Like 40,000 bucks a year for example. Something a Canadian could survive on. Those jobs are disappearing because big businesses don't want to pay that much. Or pay benefits. Or pay anyone overtime or full time for that matter. So they don't. They divide a 40,000 a year job into two 20,000 a year or even better three 13,333 a year jobs. HEY you know what that is? It's "job creation!" At least that's what the politician take credit for. Canadians don't want to just eke by on 20,000 a year and CAN'T on 13,333. But people from other countries like China or India can!
How can a politician change this? They really can't. I think Justin Trudeau seems to be a good fella. He doesn't want to do a lot of things he's doing or break promises he's breaking, he has to. He promised not to build a pipeline to the west coast but he didn't know about Harper's 39 year deal with the Chinese. He can't get out of that so he has a choice: Build the pipeline and break the promise or lose a lawsuit to China and give them taxpayer's money instead of their contractually promised oil. People like him who had big dreams broken by the reality of Canadian politics eventually learn to drink or do drugs and just ease into the corruption. Do you suppose this is why he finally legalized marijuana?
And as if to support my blog post, the most followed meme of the day is a picture of Trudeau from his youth when he performed in an Arabian Knights play in "brown face" (which I didn't even know was a thing). Mysteriously popping up at election time and even though he has immigrant and refugee intake records of 1% a year during his term as PM (which is huge) one picture from his past makes him the devil. Recovering alcoholic: "I'm four years sober." Canada: "Hey good for you!" Trudeau: "I performed in brown face but have four years of stellar treatment of foreigners since." Canada: "Get thee behind me Satan!" Tribalism! I am sure he'll lose votes for this though. Do you see how it works? I mean after four years of reverse Robin Hood tax cuts and law changes taking from the poor and benefitting the rich this is like a Trump supporter voting for Liz Warren or Bernie Sanders because at some point in the year 2005, Trump didn't have Grey Poupon mustard in his fridge. Incidentally folks, he did this in Canada, not Greenbow A LA BAM A! Lighten up ffs! I am now scared to go as The Hulk on Halloween lest my "greenface" offend green people. And I can't run for office because when I was 7 I went as Aunt Jemima for Halloween. And, yes, my Mom darkened my face. That picture pops up on the internet and my political career is over before it begins!
What then is the purpose of this mindless tribalism? Why are we encouraged to pick a side and support them without knowing who or what we're voting for? Bear with me a bit longer. You might have noticed my reference above to the great Joseph Heller. You may know him as the author of "Catch 22," a classic and one of my faves. But he also wrote something called "Picture This," which is about the beginnings of democracy in ancient Greece. Like me, Heller considers politics nothing more than a spectator sport in that we are not participating, only watching our so-called democracies. The deterioration and corruption started as soon as the phenomenon was invented. "The motion in the Athenian assembly to invade Syracuse was deceitful, corrupt, chauvinistic, stupid, irrational and suicidal. It passed by a huge majority." This is one of the best lines from the book. Heller says that it is easier for government to create wars (us vs them, the ultimate tribalism) than to administer the domestic problems of society. The foremost task of the leader is to manipulate the emotions of the people and their only purpose is to keep their jobs.
Where did things go wrong? Well, Heller believes that human weakness is the answer to that. It was always expected that the captains of industry would control their democratic countries. What was also expected was that they would be men of integrity and once they had accumulated enough wealth, they'd concentrate their efforts on the public good. We're still patiently waiting for that to happen. I guess they haven't yet accumulated enough wealth. In 380 BC Plato said "All societies we know of are governed by the selfish interests of the ruling class." The illusion of participation in governance is all the rest are allowed. And a clever strategic part of that illusion is tribalism. We are encouraged to vote and choose sides and debate and even argue over politics if only for its legitimization. The legitimization of politics and our false participation in it distracts from the reality that we are all just victims of varying degrees of its corruption.
As for the idea that one person or even a group could come along and clean things up, well Heller and I agree on that too. He says, "There’s no system I can envision that would elevate to office the kind of people that we would like to see elevated."
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