The photos of the "crowds" at the tank parade remind me of when Bill Hicks would come on stage in an almost-empty club, scan the room slowly, and announce "I've had more people in bed than this" ...
When the president sends a cabinet member on TV to announce "We are using the military to liberate an American city from its elected leaders," where do you go from there. What is left to say. The idea of that being anything short of a near-universal "Wait, what the fuck is going on" moment proves how far we've backslid.
This is from 2022 but it was absolutely right. The practiced buffoonery of Trump 1, all the "just kiddings" and "seriously but not literallys" absolutely succeeded in desensitizing people who are hardly paying any attention to the harder stuff they always intended to do next. ...
The basic fallacy in chasing votes by being "tough on immigration" is that the modal American's position on the issue is "Deport the Bad ones and keep the Good ones," and they alone know who is which, and that simply does not translate into workable policy. So this kind of gestapo stuff horrifies some of the same people who cheered when Trump promised to do it. There are true sociopaths who love this, but "No, I meant only the BAD immigrants! Not my coworker/friend/neighbor!" is as likely a reaction as enthusiasm. You cannot do immigration policy that satisfies these people because what they want is nonsensical.
So by the time center-left parties fully commit to chasing the far right by "getting tough" on immigration, the backlash has already begun to build and they walk right into it. "I thought you people wanted this!" No, they want something impossible and convinced themselves they'd could have it - the "eat whatever you want AND lose weight!" of immigration policies.
It is hard to grasp but large masses of Americans are both racist/xenophobic AND not racist/xenophobic enough to applaud what Trump is doing. It's goldilocks shit, they want a level of racism/xenophobia calibrated exactly to their personal preferences, and you just can't make that policy. Don't try. ...
AP: Trump extends olive branch, invites Musk to White House cellar to taste some brand new amontillado ...
Michael says:
Keep up all the great work. More than happy to wait.
BruceJ says:
Oh, the horrors of becoming more successful! :-)
c u n d gulag says:
On time?
Yes.
But rephrase bring "under the gun," please. !
Emerson Dameron says:
"I think you'll enjoy them both, although I suspect the latter more than the former since I am being less of a dick in it."
Surely you know your base better than that. Thanks for your enviable productivity.
ronzie says:
Carnegie's library money came with a lot of conditions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_library#Carnegie_formula
Poultine says:
Amazon actually does voluntarily pay local taxes on web sales even when not required by law. They do not, however, force third-party vendors to do so. Either way, though, expecting massive corporations to engage in philanthropy by paying unnecessary taxes is crazy-talk. Even if you did want to give to the community/country/whatever, that's the least sexy channel possible. No one ever said, "I'd like to make a bigger impact" and followed it up by overpaying their tax bill.
Of course, I very much agree that Bezos's DACA donation is paltry, and that a lot of the contract-based Amazon work is questionable.
It turns out that the government so small you can down it in the tub is a poor provider of opportunity to the average citizen.
geoff says:
I'm with Ernest– we old schoolers here prefer the "more of a dick" Ed to less. The times (if not the Post) demand it. And I think Bezos should buy Time Warner so he can change his name to Lex Luthor. Seriously, fuck that guy, though honestly I'd be worried that you might be endangering the chances of having your work appear in the Post by criticizing Big Jeff even elsewhere. (Bezos has owned the Post since 2013.)
SERIOUSLY HOW ARE WE NOT LIVING IN A OLIGARCHIC HELLSCAPE WHEN THE RICHEST MAN IN THE WORLD OWNS THE MOST INFLUENTIAL NEWSPAPER IN THE USA??
anotherbozo says:
Whether here or under better-known banners, if Ed is Ed it's a boon for us all.
In the Rolling Stone article I liked Carnegie's "parting gifts." Good phrase. Also the great one-liner at WaPo: "Emma Gonzalez’s “We call B.S.” must begin to upend Charlton Heston’s “from my cold dead hands.”"
I've been thinking recently about the schizophrenia wherein (1) Bill Gates blackmailed small tech companies into taking microsoft software or suffering the consequences of violent death, then (2) became the compassionate Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation spreading anti-malaria nets across Africa. There is a brutal gamesmanship in American business that has to be almost inhuman in its take-no-prisioners viciousness. Only when victory is deemed irreversible do the CEOs come from behind the curtain to show some humanity. Is this an especially American syndrome? Was Ikea as ruthless with its employees? Anyway, great takedown of Bezos; he richly deserves it.
Buckyblue says:
Everytime I get frustrated, I get a link to a killer article. My only complaint is that there isn't as much swearing in those articles.
anotherbozo says:
@Buckyblue:
I fucking hear you.
mothra says:
I like Ed as a dick and I like Gentle Ed for the masses because his message gets disseminated to an ever widening crowd. Don't forget those of us at the bottom of the ladder, though, Ed.
Brian M says:
Some of the comments are…priceless. There are Trumpalos still foaming at the mouth about Obama and socialism. Eye opening.
RosiesDad says:
“Ed Burmila is…the host of the Gin and Tacos podcast.”
That’s pretty funny. You’ve been writing the blog for how many years and have released exactly one podcast episode. But the column demonstrates why you have options. You’re a damned good writer. And you’re getting published regularly in RD and now the WaPo.
Keep it up.
Scout says:
The WaPo? Wow! I'm impressed. Great article. And I second the kudos for the line "Emma Gonzalez’s “We call B.S.” must begin to upend Charlton Heston’s “from my cold dead hands."
This is exactly what I was discussing with a marketing guru friend the other day. We need a gunsense monolith to take on the ammosexual/NRA monolith. Because so far, it's been like taking a butter knife to a … well, a literal gun fight.
JustRuss says:
Great Rolling Stone article, and nothing dickish about it, other than your failure to polish Bezos' knob sufficiently.
Loved this: "Is a person donating 0.03% of his net worth an act deserving of the amount of press and praise it receives? The equivalent is a person worth $1 million donating $300." I'm sure such shrillness will send the usual suspects to their fainting couches, but numbers don't lie, kids.
One quibble, I'm very glad Bezos didn't do this anonymously, because a FU to Donald and ICE from someone with his kind of juice is always welcome.
Bill says:
Congratulations, Ed. I'll be proud to say I was reading you long before you made it to the Big Time. Good job, and continued success.
Big Tim says:
Easy does it buddy !
Ten Bears says:
Way better dick in the later, rightfully so.
Re. the former, I've met some of these guys. Ain't none of 'em anything special. Well. Musk maybe, but I haven't met him. Those I have: right place right time, played a good hand. Technical genius, paradigm of wisdom, meh, not so much.
Bitter Scribe says:
The reason it's OK that you're a dick in the first piece is that 1) you're a dick to the right people and 2) you realize you're being a dick. Some bloggers adequately fulfill (1) but are completely oblivious about (2) (*coughLawyersGuns&Moneycough*).
As for Amazon, two somewhat OT thoughts:
1) However badly Bezos treats his Amazon employees, at least he's sunk a lot of money into the Washington Post and established it as a font of good reporting about the Trump disaster.
2) Amazon has rarely if ever turned a conventional profit. They make virtually all their money through membership fees. I have a hard time seeing how that's a sustainable business model; eventually they're going to run out of people to sell memberships to. Something tells me they might be the Enron of the 21st century.
Katydid says:
Hey, Ed! The Wash Post won't let me read your article unless I start paying them money, so I did a Google of you, and there are reference to your work in other newspapers!
Bitter Scribe says:
Katydid: Incognito window is your friend.
But I wonder how many more assignments Ed will pick up from WaPo once they're aware how he bashed their owner.
Katydid says:
@Bitter Scribe; I used to get the Post delivered to my house, then they switched from "neighborhood kid" to "creepy guy in van" delivery. Around that time we went through a rainy spell and *every* *single* *time* it rained, the newspaper was flung not into my driveway or anywhere on my lawn, but into the ditch full of water, where the paper would promptly disintegrate. Multiple calls always landed me in some Phillippine call center where the workers had barely a passing ability with English and made it very clear they couldn't care less what was happening with delivery, so I cancelled delivery. Everytime they contact me, I tell them why I cancelled. Nobody cares.
Bitter Scribe says:
Katydid: That's too bad. When I subscribed to the Chicago Tribune, on the rare occasions the paper wasn't delivered or was delivered in unreadable condition, one call brought the delivery guy out with a replacement. (I always made sure to tip the guy every Xmas, so that probably helped.)
Too bad WaPo doesn't seem to care about its dead-tree subscribers. Those may be in decline, but they're still needed.
grubert says:
Great article. I've felt exactly the same way for decades, but it isn't a popular point. Most people worship at the altar of the very rich and presume any criticism of the angels of capitalism must be motivated by jealously.
Hope to live long enough to see that church fall apart..