Sigmund Freud

Something About Obama, Something About Putin (Jung on Rye Remix)

U.S. President Barack Obama (left) and iconic closet homosexual Vladimir Putin (background).

Narrative counts.

Steve Benen offers the setup:

By late 2014, Republican affection for Russian President Vladimir Putin was on the wane. After months of gushing praise for the autocratic leader, American conservatives saw Putin struggling and isolated, prompting his GOP fan club in the United States to fall quiet.

That is, until a few months ago, when the Russian president deployed forces to Syria, rekindling the American right’s love. Republican White House hopefuls once again praised Putin’s bold “leadership,” as did like-minded pundits. The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin argued, “In taking this action just days after meeting with President Obama, Putin is delivering one more finger in the eye of a president whom he continues to out-wit and out-muscle.”

Remind me, how’s that working out for the Russian president?

The punch line, of course, being: About as well as you would expect.

And, well, you know me; any chance to pick on Jennifer Rubin. The title of her October entry―and I shite thee not―is, “Breaking the feckless meter on Syria”.

Still, though, this thing with Republicans and Putin is even more embarrassing than the bit about a young Jung finding a dirty thrill in his admiration for the maestro Freud.

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Benen, Steve. “Obama again gets the last laugh against Putin”. msnbc. 11 December 2015.

Rubin, Jennifer. “Breaking the feckless meter on Syria”. The Washington Post. 1 October 2015.

The Ben Carson Show (War Inside Women)

“They tell you that there’s a war on women. There is no war on women. There may be a war on what’s inside of women, but there is no war on women in this country.” ―Dr. Ben Carson

“They tell you that there’s a war on women. There is no war on women. There may be a war on what’s inside of women, but there is no war on women in this country.”

Dr. Ben Carson

In truth, I am uncertain where to begin. Certes, Dr. Carson is not so utterly stupid. This is infamous: How, exactly, do you separate a woman’s body from her person?

And let me preempt even more stupidity, because history suggests quite without grace or subtlety that someone, somewhere, is just itching to try arguing some manner of explanation that Dr. Carson was referring to the zygote or blastocyst or fetus or whatever, so let me simply wonder in advance just how it works for anti-abortion Republicans to declare war against them, and hopefully those inclined to attempt such idiocy will find themselves reasonably forewarned as to why one would have to be dangerously ridiculous in order to try.

And the thing is, conservatives are telling us exactly what the score is. You know, kind of like the time Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) tried arguing that forcible penetration under law as part of a state-sponsored moral lesson was just a means of helping women to get in on “a cool thing”.

Yes, really.

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Image note: Source photo by Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call

Edwards, David. “Ben Carson: There’s a ‘war on what’s inside of women, but not a war on women'”. Raw Story. 27 August 2015.

Freud, Sigmund. Psychopathology of Everyday Life. Trans. A. A. Brill. New York: MacMillan, 1914.

Your Morning Metal (Suffer the Masses)

Flotsam and Jetsam

I find neuroses fascinating. Never mind.

The promise cast, the hopeful lured. Stabbing by the pointed words. Tortures of the damned you’ll find; guilt preys upon the human mind. All you know and all you feel is all there is and all that’s real. Innocent told you’re a worthless pain, eventually drives all insane. Bleak optimism gained, a lame excuse to hide the pain. Instinct stifled, be ashamed for what you feel is right and sane. Suffering, told what you feel and need is wrong when conflicting with the machine, the machine that’s run so long. Suffer the masses; contradicting views inside. Suffer the masses; the personality divides. Suffer the masses; what’s told and what you know. Suffer the masses; now, now the neurosis grows. Generations handed down the false smile to hide your frown. Instinct stifled, don’t be afraid for what you feel is right and sane. The promise cast, the hopeful lured. Stabbed by pointed words. Tortures of the stabbed you’ll find as guilt devours your broken mind.

Flotsam and Jetsam, “Suffer the Masses” (1990)

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Last Month’s List o’Links

Transgender pride

Notes from the Culture Wars:

Kevin Thornton, or, queer alt country on being gay and forty in the twenty-first century. (HuffPo)

Paige Lavender on Texas and the transgendered. (HuffPo)

Tresa Baldas tries to explain the unfortunate intersection of compassion, hatred, and your doctor. (Detroit Free Press)

Sam Levine, and this time it’s Kentucky and the transgendered. (HuffPo)

Cavan Sieczkowski on Freud on homosexuality. (HuffPo)

• Two reports, from Tammy Mutasa and Casey Weldon on a die-in demonstration at Fountain Square, Cincinnati, calling attention to violence against transgendered. (WLWT, WCPO)

• Education? State? Justice? Jennifer Bendery reports that the transgendered also have the Department of Defense on their side. (HuffPo)

• At this point, Michael Tomasky’s piece tying social conservative politics to the precipitous decline spectacular crash of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s presidential ambitions to … Jerry Falwell. (The Daily Beast)

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A Quote: Ryan on Republicans and Health Care

Paul RyanSay what you will about the psychopathology of everyday life, but these are Republicans, after all. Or, more accurately, this is Rep. Paul Ryan. You know, the alleged conservative policy wonk who needs to be taken seriously on budgetary issues? The guy who ran as the GOP’s vice presidential candidate last year?

“This to us is something that we’re not going to give up on, because we’re not going to give up on destroying the health care system for the American people.”

Yes, really.

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You know, as in the phrase, “Freudian slip”?

(Tip o’the hat to Jed Lewison.)