It Takes a "Bitch" to Stamp Down on "Twatitude"

"Bitches get stuff done," is (or should be) a central generative theme for our culture, our politics, and our economy in the coming decades.

Claiming and reframing such "derogatories" will definitely escalate culture wars and possess the stark potential to explode well beyond the "verbal".  Of course, this will further divide and silo us - and drive many more of us into novel versions of "safe spaces" for incubating new strengths and insights while also generating myriad forms of personal and social pathologies.  This is intoxicatingly inevitable - and rich with brave possibilities for forging new perceptions and connections our so brittle world.

"Bitch", of course, is now only one of the milder derogatories directed at women by males - and by other females.  And, regardless of the outcome of our current hyper-gendered presidential sextravaganza, females will need to steel themselves in ways that are still relatively unprecedented in our lamentably primitive public arena.  Underlying this is the increasing feminization of the workforce and its abandonment by a growing number of males.  The rise of transgender, non gender, "non binary" youth is likely both a desperate symptom AND a hopeful response to these self shredding tensions in our culture.

We will all need to steel ourselves while also cultivating new versions of self and mutual nurturing.  Failure there means we're trapped in deadly patterns of exploitative irresponsibility.

State capitalism, wage labor, and neo-imperialism may be hard-won advancements over the serfdom and slavery that blighted so many generations into the all to recent past, but we should all pray (and work to guarantee) that these are merely transitory historical stages well on their way to obsolescence.

Otherwise, the cockroaches are poised to overrun the wreckage left behind by our benighted species.

A Papist Plea for Populism from the Altar Boy of the Right Wing Set.

"No one should doubt that a President Hillary Clinton would also play Caesar whenever the opportunity presented itself. But she would lack many of the qualities that make imperial presidents particularly dangerous — powerful charisma, a passionate and devoted base, a close relationship with a compliant press, a claim on some sort of sweeping policy mandate."      --   Ross Douthat

This might the least confused thing Ross has to say here.

He does, however, maunder on to wonder if the best outcome of this current electoral clusterputsch might be a relatively slim margin of victory for the great white hostess with the mostest who hails from Chicago via Little Rock - via the leafy boulevards of Chappaqua, NY.  Manfully ignoring the brickbats and Molotovs that might get hurled from the general direction of easily incited Trumpulists, he makes the intriguing point that the real tragedy of a Clinton landslide might be the "elite" would feel empowered to ignore the "populism" now making The Donald so, well . . . "popular".

What might make this somewhat less confusing would be for Ross to specify what exactly he means by the "elite" - because that could actually clarify what should be done about the "populism" he so fears might be ignored.  Something about the tenor of his column makes me think the "elite" that Ross would like to see chastened is not the idiot elite (.1%) bunch of baby men who would gladly (again) trash our (their?) economy in order to forestall any more troublesome demands for democracy and equality.

No.  I think the "elite" he refers to is the one that includes Hillary and Ross himself.  This is the 20% (or so) of those of us who have wrangled positions of "responsibility", if not influence and prestige, in the workings of our "established" political economy.  This is the portion of mid and upper managers, entrepreneurs, professionals, academics, and journalists who have the time to receive, transmit, and even help make what passes for conventional wisdom and respectable opinion in our, the best of all possibles, society.

And if that's what he means, then he's blaming this sad and beleaguered class of busy multi-taskers for the woes of even less well-educated males as they abandon the labor force and also for the plight of their long-suffering and increasingly unsettled parents who worry about what is blighting the futures of those they engendered when times seemed somewhat less hopeless.

But though it may be quite gratifying to mock we mediocre middling sorts who may exceed our rightful quota of groaning, gaming, corner-cutting, and more than fifty shades of clock time hanky spanky, it's not fair to blame us for the feminization of the workforce that has accompanied the massive transfer of wealth from the hands of the many to the pockets of the few over the past 40 years.  It's just completely rink stink unfair to blame the hapless administrators and clueless explainers for the crushing dilemmas caused by super predatory oligarchs who monopolize resources because "that's what they do."

And what exactly would be so comforting - and who would be so gratified  - about a frustrated and thwarted Clitory Administration that merely prolonged the unsatisfying "grind lock" of the NoBama era?  Not the boys with truck payments.  Not the vets in the waiting rooms.  Not the pensioners who receive court issued payment cuts.  Not the cops in the riot gear.  Not the paramedics who scrape up the fentanyl overdosed corpses from seedy bedsits and blighted back alleys.

No they will not be happy or satisfied at all, but who will they blame?  Not the the idiot elite baby men, but the pant suited bitches on wheels and the girly guys who do their advance work.  That's why the yacht club set likes the likes of Ross so much.  He sees the situation so clearly through the rosary beads he winds around his stubby stubbly appendages.