The number of bloggers in my blog roll who criticized Trump for his  (perfectly reasonable) unwillingness to have a screaming baby interrupt his talk is at least 10 times greater than the number of bloggers who had something to say about his deranged insistence that Russia will not invade Ukraine. Which it has been doing since 2014. 

But I’m sure they all feel vastly superior to those dumb Trump supporters who are too stupid to care about serious issues. 

So here is the answer to why young men from well-to-do families of no great religiosity who are living in Europe or Canada run away to ISIS. They intuit that the labor market is requiring that they feminize themselves in order to be even marginally employable. This disturbs their capacity to comprehend the world because the most basic hierarchy they know is undermined. They run away to the place where this trauma can be exercised by restoring the male – female hierarchy in an aggressive way. 

I read a fascinating article but I can’t link because it’s in Russian, so I’ll retell. 

In fluid societies, the very nature of labor has changed. Here is what paid work is now like:

– the barriers between work time and private time are eroded. You are now expected to be available to clients and employers / employees 24/7 with no breaks.

– most jobs are in the service sector. 

– you need to invest a lot of time and effort into creating your personal brand because the main tool of your labor is your self. This self needs to be kept attractive and constantly appealing to potential buyers. 

– precarization, unpredictability, lack of control. 

– more and more people see work as solitary and isolated toiling in their own houses. There is no labor union and often no collectivity.

– much of the work is unpaid.

– it’s impossible for workers to plan their own lives because they have no control over where they might need to move next.

There are many people, though, for whom none of this is new. They have been working like this forever. Who are these people?

Women. This is a description of what women’s work in the traditional family is like. 

Of course, somebody like Putin can never admit that the people of Russia were genuinely fed up with him and his clique of corrupt oligarchs. The story he told himself – and the country, of course- is that the protests were organized by Hillary. He had the most bizarre, ridiculous “proof” of Hillary’s complicity in organizing the protests. Since then, he is convinced she has it in for him and lives to destroy him.

Blaming Hillary came easy to Putin because Bill Clinton is blamed in Russia for derailing the US – Russia relations until the golden era of GWB. Bill Clinton, this narrative goes, betrayed Russia’s trust when he attacked Slobodan Milosevic  (which is seen as an enormous humiliation to Russia) and especially when he allowed the NATO to keep expanding. 

Since the 1991, things for Russia’s corrupt rulers always improve when a Republican is in the White House and deteriorate when a Democrat is. And that’s especially true when the Democrat’s name is Clinton. 

Right now Putin is banking on getting his former employee Manafort to prod a highly manipulable, weak Republican candidate into the Oval Office. Imagine what a victory it would be for a former KGB man: to put a puppet in the White house. Complete control over the president of the United States of America. That would be a culmination of Putin’s career. Especially if you consider the alternative, which is a strong, resilient and knowledgeable Hillary as president. 

Except for the obvious political reasons for Putin to fear a Clinton presidency, there is a personal grudge he holds against her. Putin is notoriously thin-skinned and unforgiving, and he blames Hillary for causing one of the most traumatic moments of his life. 

In 2011-12 the people in Russia were finally fed up with political corruption and took to the streets to protest the fraudulent elections to the Russian Duma. These were enormous protests the likes of which Putin’s Russia had not seen.

Putin was scared. His inner circle was scared. There was fear that the regime would fall. Putin’s close friends were preparing to leave the country they were so afraid. Everything that happened since then – the amped up political repression, the invasion of Ukraine, Syrian military adventures, out-of-control anti-americanism is a reaction to the fear and humiliation Putin experienced in those months. 

[To be continued. . .]

Is this Pope for real or was he manufactured at the same creepy robot factory that gave us Trump. Get this:

Pope Francis said the inspiration for terrorism wasn’t Islam but a world economy that worshiped the “god of money” and drove the disenfranchised to violence. 

“Terrorism grows when there is no other option, and as long as the world economy has at its center the god of money and not the person, “ the pope told reporters late Sunday as he returned to the Vatican from a five-day visit in Poland. “This is fundamental terrorism, against all humanity.”

What a tool, seriously. It’s like he spews these prefab lines that have zero thought behind them. He’d say and do anything to be noticed and retweeted. Robopope, the Catholic version of Robotrump.

With the upheaval of traveling, I actually missed the story of Khizr Khan. I noticed that snippets of his speech were being constantly replayed on the news but I had no idea why.

The story is, of course, unbelievable. The idea that there are actually millions of people in the country who like the way Trump talked about this family and its tragedy is extremely sad. Wanton cruelty in the face of horrible loss can only evoke revulsion in normal people. But Trump’s supporters dig attacks on grieving parents, especially if these parents are not white and speak with an accent. 

Notice also how fast the whole “support our heroic troops” line was thrown out of the window the moment it became convenient.

Even Mark Cuban endorsed Hillary for president. Billionaires who actually worked for their money despise Trump. High-achievers never like spoiled, lazy Daddy’s boys and girls who inherit and add to their inheritance through grift and dishonesty. 

The US newspaper at our hotel is WSJ, and what a boringly pro-Trumpian paper it is. But the view is sensational. I will switch to a Canadian paper tomorrow.