The Future Lies Ahead
Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. … It is also this hope, above all, which gives us the strength to live and continually try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now. — Vaclav Havel
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Happy new year to all of Photocritic International’s subscribers, regular readers, and occasional visitors. I hope that none of you got lumps of coal from Santa, and that this finds you — like me — well, thriving, and staying safe.
Shortly before New Year’s I received my booster jab of Moderna, as well a pneumonia shot. Earlier last fall I got my flu shot. Having just turned 78, I had all the usual childhood diseases that my war-baby generation suffered through — measles, mumps, chicken pox — in the pre-MMR vaccine days, and still recall the misery of those weeks. I also remember getting the Salk polio vaccine in 1954 or so, and the way this medical miracle ended the cultural terror of that crippling and often fatal disease.
So I’m a firm believer in vaccines, and in drastic public health/safety measures in times of plagues. Consequently, I have no patience whatsoever with anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, and others who insist on their “freedom” to infect their fellow citizens, drive up the costs of medical insurance, consume medical materials and equipment and hospital space needed by others, exhaust doctors and nurses and other medical personnel, and generally overwhelm the national, state, and local medical systems.
These are dangerously dumb people, and I celebrate their deaths when I read about them, as I would the elimination of any amoral vector threatening the well-being of other human beings. This has nothing to do with schadenfreude. The fact that variants of COVID-19 have devastated red-state voters by a ratio of 4:1 or thereabouts I consider a cause for rejoicing, not mourning. Survival of the fittest, and if resistance to irrationality surmounts a virus to which lunatic theocrats enthusiastically succumb I cheerfully wave farewell. Democracy needs all the help it can get right now, and the preventable demise of proto-fascists en masse via “suicide by COVID” may make the difference in this year’s midterm elections and then in the presidential contest of 2024.
While I have long considered both my culture and my country to have entered a state of decline, I assumed, naïvely, that it would take the form of a long, slow downward slide — not as long as that of the Roman Empire, to be sure, but decades, even a century. At the very least, longer than I expect to live (till I’m 150 or so). I had not thought Trump could undo so many in just 6 years.
Of course the right had paved the way for his attack, going back at least to the 1920s, but watching it all fall apart so quickly has disheartened me, to say the least. If the Democratic Party does not prevail in 2022 and 2024 I think we will have reached our national moment of game over.
In short, no more Mr. Nice Guy. We have just kicked off a do-or-die year, and I’ve entered my take-no-prisoners mode.
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Let me add that, as someone who has professionally “done my own research” for over half a century, I despise those who have degraded that concept in recent years by ascribing it to the mere act of going online, searching for some controversial term, choosing the algorithmically generated Top 10, and rushing pell-mell into a cultist echo chamber.
Charles Mackay, author. Portrait by Elliott & Fey, 1889.
That doesn’t qualify as “doing your own research” — it’s nothing more than rumor-mongering, a social-media version of the party game Telephone. The notion that some Joe the Plumber or soccer mom with a Twitter account and a head full of half-baked, groundless, received ideas deserves the same respect and media attention as the director of the Center for Disease Control boggles my mind. Believe that and you’ve entered the territory described by Charles Mackay in 1841 as “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.” Nicki Minaj’s cousin’s friend’s balls to them, say I.
Readers of this blog — and of my writing over the years — know that I have no reservations about challenging the conventional wisdom. They also know that I don’t hesitate to defer to people who know more than I do about something. I have no time to converse with anyone who doesn’t understand that having the right to an opinion does not mean that all opinions have the same weight.
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Ten Predictions for 2022
With President Joe Biden addressing the nation on the first anniversary of the January 6, 2021 insurrection as I write this, 2022 has already become a memorable year. More to come, surely. Some prognoses:
- I will go to press with the short book on which I’m working — a little time capsule of the photo scene circa 1973-74 — and find a publisher for the longer project underway, the book version of the Capa D-Day Project.
- The Capa D-Day Project team will add at least one new volunteer to its roster.
- The project will offer new evidence, new analyses, and new provocations. The research conducted by this team will continue to affect work by specialists in photojournalism, photo history, military history, media studies, and cultural studies, among other disciplines.
- The COVID-19 pandemic will gradually normalize, becoming something on the order of the flu, but not before costing millions of lives and trillions of dollars.
- The weather will continue to manifest as increasingly erratic and extreme, creating havoc worldwide, and climate-change denial will continue unabated.
- Donald Trump and the crime syndicate he heads — including his entire family (with the possible exception of Tiffany) — will face criminal as well as civil charges on both the federal and state levels in multiple jurisdictions.
- These high-profile cases, playing daily on national TV and amplified via the press and the internet, will damage not only the Trump family and the Trump businesses but many of those connected to Trump — including those politicians who colluded with him in his failed coup, those who have sought his endorsement for public office, and even those who have merely sucked up to him publicly.
- Trump’s belated effort to paint himself as innocent in relation to the January 6 insurrection, the botching of the pandemic response, the endless grifting at taxpayers’ expense, and other malfeasance will show him as a whining weakling, resulting in his abandonment by the wingnut right, already turning on him.
- The defection of disillusioned Trumpists from the ranks of Republican voters, combined with the defections of those whom Trumpists have convinced that various forces have rigged the election system, combined with the corpsification of hundreds of thousands of super-spreader MAGAts, will give the Democratic Party just enough of an edge to eke out a win in November 2022. If they can gain a seat or two in both the House and the Senate they’ll go on a roll.
- The inherently poisonous effect of social media will become ever more obvious. The examples of how these platforms can get used for good — Black Twitter, #MeToo, etc. — will continue to pale in comparison to the damage they do. The fact that Mark Zuckerberg has any degree of influence over the survival of democracy will finally become understood as terrifying.
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Starting the New Year Right
What better way to kick off the year than with a job offer? Here’s what I got:
From: Leslie Johnson <ljohnson@proliftdoorscorp.com>
Date: Sun Dec 05 10:31:10 CET 2021
To: “A Coleman” <adc@photocritic.com>
Subject: Regarding Photocritic International
Hi A,
I came across your info online and I feel I have an opportunity you might be interested in.
My name is Leslie Johnson, I assist with franchise development for a home service brand that specializes in garage door service – part of the Premium Service Brands family of franchises.
The concept is called ProLift Garage Doors, and it is ready to launch its next phase of expansion.
ProLift Garage Doors performs repair, replacement, installation, and servicing of overhead garage doors for residential and light commercial customers and currently experiencing incredible demand. In 2020, franchise owners experienced an average job size of up to $1300 per visit with as high as 55 job visits per month. (see 2020 FDD Item 19 for details)
Ultimately, your experience at Photocritic International caught my attention. We have found our top-performing franchisees possess similar skillsets and backgrounds.
Franchise owners build their business from the comfort of their own home either managing it themselves or hiring a manager.
Would love to set up a call to discuss. Let me know if you have any interest in speaking or learning more.
Thank you,
Leslie Johnson
Franchise Consultant | ProLift Garage Doors
ljohnson@proliftdoorscorp.com
They certainly cast a wide net. Reassuring to know that the work I do here, and have done over the course of my professional life, has resulted in a skillset applicable in such a different field. So — anyone out there need a garage door?
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Stories I Never Finished Reading Dept.
“When German poet Charles Bukowski famously talked about style, he said, ‘Cats have it with abundance.'” From “Japanese Rescue Cat Wins Over the Internet With His Chic Supermodel Pose” by Emma Taggart at My Modern Met, October 6, 2021.
Bukowski, born in Germany in August 1920, came to the U.S. with his parents in April, 1923. To the best of my knowledge, no one except Taggart has ever dubbed him a “German poet.”
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Just trust me on this: You need three minutes with Stella the Leaping Lab.
Stella the Leaping Lab (screenshot)
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This post sponsored in part by a donation from Arthur Ollman.
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Special offer: If you want me to either continue pursuing a particular subject or give you a break and (for one post) write on a topic — my choice — other than the current main story, make a donation of $50 via the PayPal widget below, indicating your preference in a note accompanying your donation. I’ll credit you as that new post’s sponsor, and link to a website of your choosing.
And, as a bonus, I’ll send you a signed copy of my new book, poetic license / poetic justice — published under my full name, Allan Douglass Coleman, which I use for my creative writing.
Only predictions about Trump, and none about Biden suddenly realizing that its necessary to fulfill his campaign promises? Or would that only be hope.
Happy New Year
Biden fulfilling campaign promises depends on across-the-aisle cooperation in the House and Senate, not to mention the decisions of his administration and the legislation they pass surviving a packed right-wing Supreme Court.
Pretending that the problem lies with Biden unaccountably not keeping his word, rather than with the forthrightly insurrectionist Republican Party hell-bent on obstructing every move he and the Democrats make, serves the cause of defeatism in the face of neo-fascism, not the cause of democracy. It’s McConnell et al who need their feet held to the fire, and who should get held accountable for their actions and inactions — not the Democrats in office, who (with the lamentable exceptions of Manchin and Sinema) have done everything they can to move Biden’s and the party’s progressive agenda forward.
While there’s truth to the obstructionisn et al he was also forthright early on about rejecting even the attempt, or from my understanding of the arcane procedure of reconciliation and applying pressure, not only to the parliamentarian but also the Dem hierarchy – didn’t.
The attempt would at least have helped consolidate support, perhaps mobilize ordinary people to pressure their reps. I’m sure Repubs like their jobs. The “people” like strong action much more than potential vacillation or indecision on a leader’s part. I’m sure that’s much of Trump’s appeal. “Reaching across the aisle” should have been seen as futile in favor of pulling them over the line. I think its a deadly (literally) mistake if they don’t, shall we say, go for broke.
Manchin has his own vulnerabilities even with the threat of flipping the state and his wealth – though he may have held onto other cards against Dems – his daughter’s drug company, e.g. I doubt LBJ would have hesitated for an instant. Sinema may just be cuckoo.
Given that, as of this writing, 71 percent of Republicans believe that the Biden presidency is illegitimate, and that the pols they elected believe (or claim to believe) the same, in the face of all contrary evidence, I consider it a bloody miracle when the Democrats get anything done. Under the circumstances, they’ve done a lot, and deserve more credit for that than they get.
I’d say when it comes to saying what they’ve done, great. But it doesn’t change what might be done and the immense benefit it could bring to the party both at the top and “downstream” which, in relation to a certain shared vaccine patent monopoly, would benefit the rest of the world, and targeted but missed bombing and wholesale assassinations (many who are in the midst of the target).
This includes use of the so-called “bully pulpit” that could dictate priorities that can be manipulated via budget expenditures, especially massive amounts for purchases that famously go unaccounted for in the military (e.g. what it can and should purchase). And refraining from measures like auction sales for oil leases that constantly result in ever greater levels of pollution.
And about that 71 percent (not as bad as the 100% who are elected), isn’t that about the percentage of total voters who don’t vote, who might be inspired to vote with a more proactive governmental stance?
If four years of Trump in office and the prospect of a permanent Trumpublican future doesn’t suffice to inspire voters on the center-left end of the spectrum to go to the polls, nothing that Biden or Harris or Bernie Sanders or the Squad can do will get them off their asses for either this year’s midterms or the 2024 election. Let’s remember that those same citizens just couldn’t bring themselves to vote for the first front-running progressive woman candidate in history in 2016, because whatever. And here we are in 2022, with voting-rights activists boycotting the opening salvo in the Biden-Harris effort to fight voter suppression by defining it as a mere “photo op.” What a savvy move.
That’s “- and didn’t”,which I’d suppose obvious.
I’d say about McConnell, if it all started turning on him he’d either cave or quit (I think there are signs of it) thinking he’d done enough damage.
A nice feel for the current zeitgeist. Thank you for your observations AD. Looks like we’re in this boat together — wherever it’s headed.
Truth and lies have been intertwined since our monkey-selves left the forest. Their yinyang relationship, with little dots of “the other” imbedded in each, may be a useful metaphor for addressing our current political malaise. Dialog with one’s opponents, and a measure of empathy, or at least tolerance, may be the more effective tool in addressing the ignorant self-assuredness, xenophobic fears, and malevolent misinformation that currently infects our society.
Like sheep, we humans too quickly follow those who promise us sustenance and security, in what appears to be a very scary world. The more frightened we are, the better, for those who would manipulate such weaknesses for their own selfish gain. Trump plays that role, and his audience’s naïve trust, to perfection. He exploits their gullibility, while giving them the verbal attention they crave. They grab at Trump’s frock for reasons which make sense to them, if not to us. Unless we attempt to understand those drives and impulses, for a leader and savior, we will remain trapped beneath the same illusion afflicting Trump’s followers. We will be tacitly agreeing to that same dick-tutorial storyline Trump uses so effectively on his millions of minions.
We’re surely not immune to such tales of us vs. them, and good against evil. But if yin is a metaphor for our certainty, a little yang, of internal doubt and external dialog, may be needed to see beyond the drape of deception Trump has placed over us all. We need to separate the demon from the possessed, and the sheep from the thief, if we are to have any possibility of swinging our republic away from what appears to be a fast-approaching political disaster. We may not like what others think, but we should, at the very least, understand their reasoning, fears, and deeply held beliefs, if this shaky democratic experiment called America is to survive.
And I have zero confidence that any possibility for anything resembling dialogue with Trumpists exists. You can’t reason with people who have convinced themselves that you participate in a global conspiracy of pedophile trafficking and blood-drinking. About as likely to prove productive as conversing about science with medieval alchemists.
With that said, I hereby exercise my editorial right to have the last word on this matter in this comment thread. This disagreement could go on forever. I know I started it by venting in the above post, but then I put a cork in it, and ask readers to do the same. Devote that energy instead to calling your elected representatives, or phone-banking for Stacey Abrams.