THE ELECTION
Democrats, in 1972, were sure McGovern was going to win…because…the Vietnam War.
McGovern was crushed because the majority didn’t care enough about Vietnam.
In 2024, if the majority don’t care enough about the border—and the stock market and social security and abortion rights make them feel they are in a good place, the majority will vote in a “conservative” manner and go with the current status quo. Democracy will prevail. Kamala will win.
American voters are pragmatic, they tend not to read the conspiracy tea leaves which say things like ‘America is doomed.’
Just as Trump supporters know Kamala is controlled by others, those voting for Kamala know this as well, and will vote for her precisely for this reason.
Even if the worst case scenario is true and a majority think elections are no longer fair, voters will still vote for Kamala, thinking: if the Republicans can’t ensure the election is fair, they must be really incompetent. How will the Republicans be able to fight America’s enemies abroad if they are too weak to fight the Democrats? Again, the conservative impulse is to vote for the “stronger” party (the one that gets its way) and that favors the Democrats.
Sorry, Republicans. You may be very disappointed next month.
But life will go on.
FREUD AND SPORTS
Sports is completely unconscious.
Reporters love to stick microphones in the faces of athletes after a game. Win or lose, when has an athlete ever made a memorable statement or explained anything? We always get a dull answer from the athlete (always!) because sports resides in the realm of the unconscious.
At best, the athlete or coach may, on a rare occasion, say something nasty and childish which elicits laughter.
Nothing interesting can be said about sports, which is why those who didn’t pay attention in their humanities classes (a large percentage) feel so comfortable around sports.
Sports is the most conservative impulse there is, precisely because it belongs so completely to the unconscious. Sports cannot elicit anything dangerous, radical, trendy, odd, different, questioning, or improbable. The intellectual is humble before it. Freud is silent before it.
What can be said about it?
Nothing.
Herein lies its power and influence.
It is why those who are generally inarticulate can talk in general about sports forever. This is its purpose. It is the revenge of those who refuse to be schooled.
POP MUSIC’S FALL
The 1960s. The Rolling Stones symbolized what was going on in the culture generally.
The Rolling Stones 1968 song, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” The lyrics are strange. Who was “Mr. Jimmy?” Why did he say “dead?” Perhaps it was Jimi Hendrix, mixed up with MI6, fearing for his life, the guy who just wanted to play psychedelic rock and wanted no part of being a “black artist. But there’s a role you must play in corporate tribalism. Jimi was a casualty, with Brian, Jim, RFK, MLK, the sacrifices which had to come in order to destroy the peace and harmony of 1967.
Loog (Stones manager) and Klein (Stones lawyer) were allies, dividing the Rolling Stones against itself as they played favorites, giving all the acclaim to Mick and Keith. The “anti-Beatles” (Rolling Stones) were competing with other bands and that’s why the “Jagger Richards songwriting team” (which was mostly a lie) was so important. And because it was a lie (ask Bill Wyman, the Stones bass player for the first 30 years or so) the song-writing lie was at the heart of the division which caused Brian to “act out” and M & K to “rub out” not only Brian, but all that was glorious in mid-60s pop music—beautiful, creative, and uplifting.
Think of 1967 Sgt Peppers (Beatles) and its melodic, majestic, popularity.
Think of Brian Jones, playing all those different instruments, joining in the sharing, collaborative, effort as a sincere musician in what was a wonderful and extraordinarily creative era of psychedelic music.
Jimi Hendrix, who started out as a session player for black groups, emerged as part of that poetic scene in 1967.
The guys who didn’t do so well in 1967 were Mick and Keith of the Rolling Stones. Their 1967 album was panned in the press and their “bad boy” image didn’t fare well in the ‘peace and love’ days of 1967. Keith stole his band mate Brian’s girlfriend in 1967, and wasn’t the cool star he later became after Brian’s death, when culture and music took a darker and more hedonistic turn.
John, George, and Paul were at their songwriting peak in 1967. Yet, in less than two years, the Beatles imploded as a band—1969 would be their last official year together. The Beatle-breakup occurred because Klein, sent to the Beatles by the rivalrous Jagger, divided the Beatles against each other.
It was stunning how quickly twenty-somethings Brian, the Beatles, and the genius of creative pop music fell, and the darkness of crude “roots” music and the “touring” of Mick and Keith’s craven machine (with establishment music critics praising the “new” Stones) triumphed.
The sunny music of the Beatles and other creative, independent bands (melodic, optimistic, romantic) with its communal spirit, uniting all ages, races, genres (“crossover” hits common as country, folk, pop, rock, dance, jazz blended in the mid-60s) rapidly fell apart as dark forces ushered in the template of sex, violence, and stadium-shaking mayhem.
The early Beatles and Stones survived riots, but the dionysian beginnings quickly transformed into peace, love, harmony, and creativity by 1967.
The masters of chaos must have been disturbed by this sunny window.
This wasn’t the plan.
Scarriet 