songS oF innocencE & experiencE

Sunday, March 18, 2018

Hotel Joe

After reading Dennis Marks's Wandering Jew: The Search for Joseph Roth, I wanted to read some Joseph Roth firsthand right away. So you know what that means. Kindle Time.

And I found several items which looked interesting, but most of them were premium prices. One exception was this little beauty--

--which listed for a mere $1. I was a little wary at first, because there was another Kindle listing for what looked like the same book (same title, same translator) for $8.49, so I wondered if the $1 version was just a few pages of the whole, but I checked the table of contents and it looked like it would be okay, so I put my dollar on the table and gave the wheel a spin.

3 Quotes From Jan Zielonka's COUNTER-REVOLUTION: LIBERAL EUROPE IN RETREAT

" . . . liberals have proved better at finger-pointing than at self-reflection."

Prologue

"Symbolic politics has taken over from real politics."

Chapter 1: From Revolution to Counter-Revolution

'The electorate has been remarkably patient for some time, but it has slowly started to desert the established parties. This has opened a window of opportunity for alternative politicians. They gave promised that a change of government would mean a genuine change of policies, if not the existing system altogether."

Targets of Contestation

Gee, Toto, this looks just like Kansas.

And BTW, that's just from the free preview you can get from Amazon, so it's mos def looking like I will need to purchase this book. It's almost a civic duty.

More news as it happens.

Saturday, March 17, 2018

Liberals . . . or, You Say You Want a Counter-Revolution? Well . . . .

Ten bucks for 176 pages . . . kind of steep for a Not Prodigious Fixed Income Guy (NPFIG) like me. But
Counter-Revolution: Liberal Europe in Retreat by Jan Zielonka is not available at either the public library or the University of Louisville library or the Bellarmine University library . . . and judging from the review I just read (by "Dr. Sean," on the WordPress blog Dr Sean's Diary1), I might need this book, so I'd better start shaking down my sofa.
For one thing, I think it will--probably by implication and analogy rather than by direct means--help to explain why Trump happened. 2 And my soul craves more sustenance on this topic. It's the meal which will help me to stave off the starvation of misanthropy and cynicism.

For another thing, I think that it will help me to understand why I'm starting to hate my "fellow" liberals on a regular basis--and possibly offer me a way to stop hating these sad, well-intentioned, good-hearted folks. Because, as you may have noticed if you're a repeat visitor here, I have become increasingly disenchanted with Liberals of late. Which is not meant to imply that I'm shifting to a Conservative mindset--not at all. I became disenchanted with Conservatives long ago. 7th grade, I think. Like literally, not being a smartass.

But Liberals? My Liberal friends have shown me how close-minded and even stupid they can be on a regular basis. Like the friend who regularly says, "If you're a Republican, you're either mean or stupid. " And that's not meant as a joke. And don't even get me started on (many of) the Liberal news anchors. I truly think that they go out of their way to willfully misunderstand what is being said so that they can get more mileage out of their bullshit machinations.

And here are a few bits from the aforementioned review on this topic:

"Liberals, Zielonka says, should in any case, ask themselves why so many people started to hate them."

Which is pretty fuckin' funny, really, but also raises a point worth considering. Sure, some people are going to hate just because that's what they do . . . but does that explain the hatred that many Conservatives seem to feel for Liberals these days? I doan tink zo.

And here's a bit (again, from the review) which really clicks with me:

"It means not trying to fight their fake news with our fake news."

That's what I'm fuckin' talkin' 'bout.

Just gimme some truth, man.

And some money, if you've got any to spare. My sofa is not giving it up in any appreciable quantity.