worth some reflection
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JFK too.
kinda low on the list of bad guys. the whole Kennedy family though? JFK’s dad lobotomized his own daughter because she was problematic. deeply evil clan, that one.
Somehow, Dick Cheney is still alive.
Limbaugh too, remember him? I barely do but I know it’s good he’s dead.
Congrats on his four years sober, though
Henry Rollins has a story about how he liked going to William Shatner’s christmas parties, I mean I guess somebody went, sure, but one year he got there and recognized Limbaugh’s voice from afar, and noped the fuck out, like he did not trust himself to deal with that guy in a civilized manner.
Kissinger died in 2023.
still celebrating it. i literally thought about it in the shower the other day.
Even better.
The death of Henry Kissinger is a heartwarming reminder that life imposes an expiry date on even the most terrible people with power.
Or as Chaplin said: dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.
A comforting thought in Trump’s America. Because remember: Trump is 79. His expiry date is fast coming - and not a minute too soon, I might add. All we really have to pay attention to is that none of his younger henchmen succeed him.
That’s the legacy of Henry Kissinger. Damn his rotting corpse.
Or as Chaplin said: dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.
Copium. They die, but their impact remains. It is carried on by their victims, the people whose loved ones they killed, the policies they made, the borders they drew, and the wealth they displaced.
They robbed people of their future. their atrocities changed the genetics of their victims.
Their victims will be seen as simply uncultured, bad people by future generations with a blurry sense of the past.
Kissinger died at 100 years old, that is still potentially 21 years if Trump will live to 100 as well…
I highly doubt he’ll survive this long. He’s a fat burger lover, and his personal physician swears he’s in excellent health - which probably means the exact opposite, seeing as though anybody gravitating around Trump is a pathological liar.
I hope you are right, I really don’t want to wait 20+ years to pop the champagne I have set aside for him.
I think he’ll snuff it soon - or more likely, he’ll become so blatantly deranged that he’ll be impeached because he’ll just have to be. And I think it’ll happen before the end of his term, assuming he doesn’t get impeached by the dems after the midterm elections.
The immediate danger if that happens is Vance, who’s lying in the shadows and is 10 times more dangerous than Trump, because unlike Trump, he has a working brain.
Vance doesn’t have the cult of personality that Trump does.
That doesn’t matter: Chávez was the charismatic revolutionary, Maduro is his unloved but definitely authoritarian successor.
Trump is the charismatic “leader” who got the whole shitshow going, and Vance is ideally placed to entrench the dictatorship, because he won’t need any charisma to do that.
Although on a personal note, I really fail to see what sort of charisma this crooked crass New York slick his fans can possibly find in him. I really don’t.
He says all the terrible shit that they want to say, but society hasn’t allowed them to (because basic human decency).
You’ve got to remember that these are just simple
farmersrednecks. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons.Dave Chappelle has some great material on that.
I doubt the republicans would allow him to be removed from office if they can stop it. They would just create a buffer around him and run things themselves.
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reminds me of this:
billionaires - what are you saving for? hell?
Billionnaires are hoarders. Like all hoarders, they don’t need what they hoard.
The problem for the rest of us is, instead of hoarding empty tincans or Hello Kitty figurines, they hoard money that they get in large part by not paying their fair share of taxes, and the money they hoard lets them buy politicians who in turn let them steal even more tax money.
They’re not saving, that’s a faulty belief. The majority of them aren’t even liquid
They’re hoarding as frequently mentioned but it’s not about resources, really, it’s about control and power. Power and valuation are linked somewhat, but it takes more than that
Say my company is amazon, as an example. I hoard ownership stake and equity. I do not give workers a share and pay them minimally. I give investors as little as possible and buy back shares whenever I can. I raise the valuation by increasing the worth of company initially through traditional performance means: sell more stuff, productivity, efficiency, etc. but eventually I get so big at this I have to look at how to diversify to increase power. I enter other markets. Now I’m not just a online retail store, I’m a logistics company, I’m a pharmacy, I’m a web host for 50+% of the internet, I’m a key player in media streaming, I’m a smart home device manufacturer, I’m an ebook manufacturer, etc. I have dominance across dozens of markets
By hoarding equity I maintain control of that company to a significant degree. At this point there is likely a board that can override me for the sake of the shareholders who have taken a large portion of my equity but there is no other single person that has my power.
The equity comes with massive resource benefits of course, it’s basically infinite money chest and even if I’m not liquid I can get a loan for infinity dollars at a moments notice because I’m obviously good for it. But the real motivation for hoarding is because if I stop? Even for a second? I lose this power
That’s why they never retire. They only step down and put some weenie ceo in their place who won’t get their full power until they’re decrepit or dead. How many people can name the ceo of amazon now? (It’s Andy jassy, has a 0.02% ownership stake in amazon) but everyone knows bezos (9.6% ownership stake in amazon, 1.023 billion shares). People only knew tim cook because jobs literally knew he was about to die and his ownership stake is minimal (0.021% vs jobs 0.2% at his death). Who can name the CEO of twitter (Linda yaccarino, no ownership)? Musk is still the ceo of tesla (70% stake in twitter, 12.8% tesla). Even with these minimal ownership stakes though these people are filthy rich - jassy and cook both have a net worth well over half a billion from that alone.
the overarching question for me, though, has always been “why”?
please do understand that it’s a question that’s only asked by one who’s never held power, though.
People respond to power differently. I’m sure you’ve held it at some point. Sure, you’ve never been a captain of industry (I assume) but you’ve probably been asked to watch a child for at least a few moments, or had a pet, or a friendship/romantic relationship where there was an imbalance, if only temporarily
Some people reject that feeling of power for various reasons (avoiding responsibility, the potential to cause harm, etc), some people just are kind of eh about it and see it for what it is (“I will take care of this baby because that is what you are supposed to do”, “I will be a trustworthy partner because that is what is right”, etc), some people realize power is exploitable and gives them potential advantage (I can shape this babies worldview, I can make my friend/partner dependent)
That last category is the type to try and seize more and more power, imo. They will potentially delude themselves with niceties along the way (“I made the baby laugh”, “I did a nice thing for my friend/partner today”, “I have created 800,000 jobs”) but this is always overlooking evil (“my goal is to shape this baby into my worldview rather than allow it to develop its own personality”, “my goal is to manipulate my friend/partner into staying loyal regardless of my behavior”, “the vast majority of the 800,000 jobs I’ve made are exploitative and the empire I’ve built is destructive in many other ways like destroying small businesses that helped create reasonable wealth within communities”)
i don’t disagree with anything you said, but i don’t know if it all really applies when we’re talking about dynasties and bloodlines and heritages and stuff. i’ve worked closely with some of these people, and it’s a different life entirely.
and you’re missing a category. but we don’t talk about that category.
Well even within nepotism and privilege there are people who reject it but there are far more who do not, it seems
That’s where we start to get to the nature vs nurture debate I suppose.
let’s hear it for the next genocidal methusaleh. trump wishes he could do it. fucker probably want to erase all memory of kissinger, not that he never admired the old man witch.
