The Trump-Musk Blitzkrieg

 

IT'S OBVIOUS what Donald Trump and Elon Musk are doing-- old-fashioned 1940-style blitzkrieg, like when Germany invaded France, moving swiftly and gobbling up territory. Merely a variation of the tech bros mantra of "move fast and break things," only this time applied to politics.

The idea being to move faster than your set-in-its-ways opponent can think. For Trump and Musk, it's been a scandalous break-the-rules, outrage-the-Democrats every day, from dismantling federal agencies to raising tariffs on friendly nations to insulting allies. Democrats are stunned. What happened to their clubby world? Like the French general staff in 1940 (young Charles De Gaulle excepted), they're fighting the last war, not this one. What they feel they need is time to discuss the matter before moving. Before doing anything. Maybe this and maybe that. Maybe if they do nothing and cross their fingers, Trump will collapse. Yet his entire movement and his 45-day second administration thrives on action, including change or at least the appearance of change.

In 1940, while most of the French army froze or fled, De Gaulle kept his head and organized his own tank-based assault-- against the blitzkrieg. It worked on a limited scale, only enough to serve as a lesson of how to respond. For the left, now, in the United States, the response should be: Attack! Against Trump-Musk weak points.

I'll mention one: the wildly overvalued Tesla Motors stock price, upon which much of the richest-man-on-the-planet's wealth-- and myth-- is based. Indeed, keeping that stock-price bubble inflated is a large motivation for Musk's entry into the federal government, to gut federal agencies that investigate and regulate companies like his.

Needed: report upon report revealing safety problems with his cars, and about the endless broken promises from Musk about everything from potential sales to the benefits and possibilities of so-called Full Self Driving. That's his weak point. The stock price will plummet at some date in the future, and reveal him for the huckster he is, or has become. But why wait?

An Awkward Alliance

 Strange bedfellows indeed.

America's conservatives have thrown in with a coalition that includes Nietzscheans, libertarians, and tech accelerationists, with a scattering of angry Christians (which should be an oxymoron) thrown in.

Moreover, the movement is currently led by two of the most UNconservative individuals who could be found, namely billionaire Donald Trump and mega-billionaire Elon Musk. That is, if conservative still means, at its core A.) control of one's appetites, and B.) moral consistency.

What the two men are is not conservative. They are, instead, opportunistic salesmen, for whom nothing is more important than making the sale-- for their own personal benefit.

(photo c/o flipboard)

 

Both men, after all, have been masters at cronyistically benefitting from government largesse over the years. For most of their careers they weren't Republicans. Most of their wheeling-and-dealing was with the political party on the other side of the aisle. Trump, for his real estate projects in New York. Elon Musk, with the federal government, beginning with his relationship with Barack Obama.

(photo c/o Obama Library)

Elon, needless to say, has never had scruples about doing business with anybody. Tesla's largest and most profitable factory is in China.

(photo c/o financialounge)

Donald Trump of late has also shown a preference for dictators. . . .

Which part of the Awkward Alliance will get burned?

Guesses are welcomed.

Art Seen Through Layers of Prisms

 

ONE KEY to keeping the arts human and vital is to embrace the idea of not creating art through layers of prisms of other artworks. (Which is what A.I. does.) For instance, older movies-- of the 1920's, 30's, 40's, 50's-- have a freshness and originality to them missing in later cinema, especially from the film school crowd or certain watched-too-many-movies directors, where everything becomes an homage or recycling or reference to this "auteur" film or that one. Examples range from an alien watching a clip from a John Ford movie in "E.T." to various Coen Brothers offerings to almost every minute of a Quentin Tarantino film. 

The best art is taken from experience and from life.

The Two Forms of Censorship

 WHAT MANY don't realize is there are two kinds of censorship: the old-fashioned kind and the current version.

In the past, censorship meant removing writings and other kinds of media from any and every platform-- blocking access to every avenue of expression. While the situation was difficult, if you somehow did get your or your group's words and ideas out there, they could spread quickly and cause a sensation. This happened in 1917 during the Great War when Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevik colleagues distributed their broadsides to Russian troops on the frontlines-- to an audience hungry to read alternatives and explanations. The simple printings were widely circulated.

Today, anyone can say and print anything, somewhere. Good luck getting it noticed! We are in the midst of a bombardment of Too Much Information coming at us from all sides-- a situation exacerbated by the onset of AI, which gives individuals and entities the ability to flood already-saturated markets at ten-to-100 times the previous level. Instead of new ideas or words of truth standing out against a barren landscape, they're buried beneath an avalanche of nonsense.

THE NOTION that technocratic billionaires like Elon Musk or Marc Andreessen can be censored, as they claim, or denied free speech, is ludicrous. They have gigantic megaphones, given their wealth and standing, to start with. As we see with Musk's purchase of Twitter, or his enormous monetary contribution to the Trump 2024 campaign, they retain the ability to steadily and exponentially increase the size of their speech.

We retain the right to scream like lunatics at the air, heard by nobody.

The Populist Moment

 What IS authentic populism?

Authentic populism is not on the right or the left. It involves downsizing our institutions, our culture, and our minds-- moving away from top down Big Box monopolistic thinking. Instead, returning to our roots as a people and a society. Back to our humanity. Right now we live in a fake world, experienced via electronic devices and their artificial digital worlds, created by gigantic trillion-dollar tech companies owned by a handful of hyper-rich individuals. That is today's unfortunate reality, and holds true whatever party of bought-and-paid for politicians is officially in power.

We as a people, a nation, can do way better. But it will involve recapturing the original populist American vision, which existed at least since Lincoln, and can again.

Fiction 2025

 

THE QUESTION is whether fiction-- our literature-- will ever change, or stay stuck in a rut like a car in a ditch, in the mud, tires no longer even spinning-- our literary mandarins press the accelerator but nothing happens, maybe it's broken. Or their foot presses too gently.

Literature isn't moving. It's marginalized. Trapped behind walls. The elite still attend parties-- in Brooklyn, mostly-- while going through the motions of being important, but they all sound tired. It's all been done. Their book education in a stuffy house, too large, with stuffy, usually absent parents. Big armchairs to hide in, resting on plush burgundy carpeting, with heavy green drapes covering windows to keep the world outside. So they can hide. They've been hiding their entire lives-- still are, frankly-- with books full of long corridors they can hide within. Intellectual-- the facade of intellectualism anyway-- not exciting. Don't give them anything exciting, or emotional, or political-- they've been conditioned to ignore anything of relevance in this chaotic society-- that which SHOULD be addressed by these writers and their acolytes.

Instead they're lost on a Virginia Woolf island searching for an elusive lighthouse. They're not moving, and they're not leaving.

Which leaves us: what? 

It leaves opportunity for change.

A tumultuous new year requires all-new ideas.

(Among my new is a new novella, The Loud Boys, available at Kindle, Kobo and Nook Books.

"The Loud Boys" Is Here!

 State of the art "hyper-pop" writing has arrived. The Loud Boys novella is now available at Amazon's Kindle, at Kobo-- soon, at Barnes & Noble's Nook, with a print version to follow.

Fast-paced multidimensional writing that's topical and relevant? Check it out!

Coming Soon!

 

SOON-TO-BE-RELEASED--

An exciting new novella by yours truly: The Loud Boys. All about a dangerous right-wing activist group, but much more, as a mysterious new journalist in town writes an article critical of the "Boys," which brings their wrath down upon her, but also that of the city's #1 mogul, "Fake Face," known for his ruthlessness. Which leads, ultimately, to an exciting climax.

NOT just an entertaining narrative, but a commentary on today's America, portraying the corruption of both extremist ideology and the greed for money. A depiction of the chaos of now?

Done in the innovative style of multidimensional fiction. Fast-moving while covering every view and angle, creating a unique reading experience.

CAN literature be once again relevant? The Loud Boys is an ambitious attempt to say: YES!

Let's Be Real

 A RANT

Let's get real for a minute. Revolutionaries aren't carefully selected Ivy League university students paying $87,000 a year to attend schools whose purpose is to place those students into the highest echelons of the power structure of the United States, whether in government, law, or business. The System will be threatened when no one plays that game, falls for that scam, the prestigious halls and campus lawns emptied.

Let's get real. Anti-capitalists aren't those obtaining higher wages and better benefits for workers at giant factories-- as laudable as that fight is-- because it ties those workers even tighter to that version of the capitalist Machine. Ensures they continue working-- get that thirty or forty-year pin doing the same unfulfilling job year after year. Yes, it beats starving. Maybe. If you're dependent, you may as well live well-- but let's recognize what's happening.

Let's get real. Being against AI technology doesn't mean arguing against the latest toy produced by the tech boys-- their latest iteration-- when you've accepted everything else. It doesn't mean thinking you can somehow reform the system-- just get the right hyper-aggressive tech hustler in place, the one assuring you everything will this time be ethical. Of course it will! He said so, didn't he?

Let's get real. The only way to fight the hyper-tech system monitoring us, steering us, controlling every aspect of our lives, is to do as little as possible to sustain it. (I recognize I'm helping sustain it with this blog post.) It's to understand the electronic technology scam with all its unfulfilled promises began with the advent of television in the late 1940's as a vehicle for ads. Our minds have been bombarded with propaganda, salesmanship, broken promises and nonsense ever since.

The only alternative-- if we truly want one-- is to create an authentic counterculture, starting small-scale indie art or craft projects, or back-to-the-land farming, or something. Ways to sustain ourselves while disconnecting step-by-step from the totalitarian grid. Can this happen? Sure.

Will it?

My Political Predictions for 2024

AN OFF-THE-WALL ANALYSIS 

GIVEN the crazy chaotic times we live in, the primary objective of the practical observer should be to help move into the office of President of the United States the safest candidate possible. Meaning, that person with the best chance of not screwing up what remains the richest, most dynamic and even possibly freest country on the planet.

HERE are my levels of safety-- personality barometers-- from worst to best.

A.)  EGOMANIAC. The individual who sees all issues through how they affect his overlarge personality. Seen as a welcome change, by some, as a way to shake up a status quo machine, but the risks are great. Too great, to the thinking of this observer. This nation was built on the rule of law, with a system designed to discourage demagogues and dictatorships. We're not ready to abandon that thinking, yet.

B.)  OPPORTUNISTS. Those so overfilled with ambition they're liable to say or do anything in pursuit of their ends. Of the present crop of candidates, Vivek Ramaswamy best fits this profile. A fast-talking salesman, making outlandish promises, with no scruples, much less beliefs, other than making deals.

C.)  IDEOLOGUES. There are always plenty of those to go around, on the left or the right. They view the world as if through a tunnel, and force that world to conform-- in their minds if not in reality-- to their preformed beliefs. Included in this category are what might be called metaphorical bomb throwers, Hamas-like political extremists whose objective is to throw the present system into chaos. On the Republican side, Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Any of them running for the office of President? Not yet.

D.)  PRAGMATISTS. Not those who exactly blow with the wind, but are shrewd enough to see which way the wind is blowing-- who can look more than one chess move out and plan accordingly. They're also not locked rigidly into their political party, are able on occasion to compromise (creating venomous attacks from their own side in so doing). They're typically mildly corrupt in a standard-local-politician kind of way. The best example among those currently running is Chris Christie. Corrupt enough to sit on a closed beach with his family during COVID, yet at the same time pragmatic enough to hug Obama to gain hurricane funding for New Jersey. Not ruthlessly ambitious-- he's stated in the past he wouldn't run for President if that meant stopping his visits to Burger King! Christie, perhaps alone among Republicans, can see that Donald Trump is going down-- will end up cutting a deal or going to prison: there's too much evidence against the Donald, as a former prosecutor would well know. Christie has planned accordingly. Not that he has a chance to get the nomination, at least this time. Too many bomb throwers on that side of the aisle.

MY PREDICTION:

For the Republicans, best guess is ideologue Rob DeSantis, who'll move to the forefront when Trump is knocked out-- then go on to lose big in the general election.

The Democrats, meanwhile, have problems with their own ideologues. If Biden loses the left wing of his party over the Israel-Gaza War, he'll become vulnerable in the primaries. Then, a 1968 situation develops. In that tumultuous year, President Lyndon Johnson faced unexpected opposition from upstart anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy. McCarthy made a strong-enough showing in the New Hampshire primary that LBJ bowed-out of the running. Eugene McCarthy, however, was too unpredictable for party bigs. A similar candidate-- one with a bigger name and more charisma-- was encouraged to run for the nomination. Robert F. Kennedy. Which he did-- and would've won the nomination, if not for an assassin's bullet.

In 2024, IF upstart outsider Marianne Williamson makes a strong showing in New Hampshire, Joe Biden will face pressure to step down in favor of a candidate with Williamson's upsides but at the same time, with stronger ties to the party. This means either Kamala Harris or Gretchen Whitmer will enter the race-- or both. One of whom will become the next U.S. President.

An outlandish scenario?  Perhaps. But worth a longshot bet.

AI Article at Lit Mag News

 

Are you a writer? An editor? A small press publisher?

I wrote an article for the widely-read Substack site Lit Mag News about the ongoing AI craze, in which I tried to give some background to the technology and cover all aspects of how it will impact those in the literary community.

Is it worth reading? YES!

(Plus there are about 58 supportive and contentious comments at the end of it.)

Take a look:

The Coming AI Assault

Interview About the Underground

 RECENTLY I did an interview with Wred Fright for Patrick King and the Mugwump Corporation. Much scattered thoughts about some crazy times, a slice of literary history.

With gigantic monopolistic corporations more powerful than ever-- dominating the culture-- alternative voices and ideas are more important than they've ever been. Needed: credible indie scenes, of the kind the Underground Literary Alliance once so capably represented. Culture belongs to everybody!

The Interview

Save the Writer!

 

Sign the Petition NOW to take action against chatbots producing A.I. books and content and thereby replacing human writers. At minimum, all literary products should be labelled if created by bots.

This is an issue which should unite all writers high and low, be they on the left or the right.

The Petition.

Thanks!

Why People Love NFL Football

 

No, it's not the violent hitting. Fans could better watch boxing, MMA-- or hockey-- for that.

The National Football League is the Number One watched sport in America by far for two main reasons.

1.)  SPEED AND ACCURACY.

The sport is start and stop but once it starts it becomes amazing bursts of speed and energy, either backs carrying the ball running at unreal speed across the field dodging tacklers while so doing, or the football rocketed from the hand of the quarterback like a laser-guided missile. The United States is a nation-- an economy-- built on precision and efficiency. No sport reflects this better than American-style football. (A metaphor also for the precision of the modern battlefield? Probably.)

2.)  STIMULATING THE ANALYTICAL MIND

Because of the complexities of its schemes and strategies, American-style football appeals to the analytical mind. The left side, if you will, of right-brain left-brain dichotomy. Nerdy (for athletes) TV analysts-- usually middling former players such as Dan Orlovsky and Emmanuel Acho who got by due to their understanding of the game-- spend countless hours breaking down every fine detail of why this team was successful and that one was not. Intellectuals assessing a made-up game, but no less intellectual for all that, with appeal to the intellect of fans every bit as much as the game's sensory aspects of speed, color, and movement appeal to them.

<<<>>>

Are there lessons here for those involved in the literary game?

Why Tesla's Stock Price Is Too High

 HOW HIGH IS TOO HIGH?

Is Elon Musk himself the chief ingredient in Tesla Motors' trillion-dollar market valuation?

It's true he's been the face of the auto company almost from the beginning. Visionary, but also hypemaster.

HOW MUCH of the current stock price is pure hype?

If the hype is 10%, the stock is overpriced by 10%. If 25%, a 25% overvaluation. And so on.

Tesla fans need to get out of their heads the idea that Tesla is fifteen or twenty times better-- or has a twenty times better future-- than General Motors or Ford. This unrealistic view is based on the most important phrase uttered about Tesla-- whether coined by Musk or one of his team, or one of their fans: "Tesla is more than an auto company."

Is it really?

Maybe at the outset, but legacy manufacturers-- Volkswagen, General Motors, Ford, Hyundai, Mercedes Benz, Toyota-- are scrambling to catch up in tech features, and most importantly, in battery technology.

The Tesla stock price has two props. Two premises. Assumptions which have become assertions.

1.)  Tesla will continue to lead in battery efficiency and distance. (Which is, really, the ballgame.)

2.) Tesla will be first to develop Full Self Driving. True autonomous vehicles.

Do these two pillars rest on quicksand?

Re #1. Tesla may have already lost its ten-year lead. Hyundai's Kona Electric has achieved 637 miles per charge. Nio's ET7, 621. The new Lucid Air is getting more than 500. GM's soon-to-appear Ultium battery is said to be state of the art, as is BYD's Blade battery, which will also be used by Toyota.

Re #2. The assumption that Tesla leads in Full Self Driving rests on the assumptions a.) autonomous driving is soon perfectible by anybody; b.) it will be approved for widespread use; c.) consumers in large numbers will buy it. Beyond that is the assumption Tesla, by not using Lidar (a laser imaging device) has chosen the quickest and safest route to the goal. Maybe. But maybe not.

THERE IS also a third pillar sustaining Tesla's stock price, and that's the stock market bubble itself. Once central banks begin seriously raising interest rates in order to quash inflation, what will result? We'll find out.

WHAT IF?

The entire move to EV's is contingent on battery tech continuing to improve-- batteries becoming more efficient and EV's more affordable. But what if this doesn't occur? (Just as autonomous driving remains a "What if?") Look closely into it, and much of the Tesla strategy remains a huge gamble.

ELON MUSK 

The most worrisome part of the Tesla stock price bubble is Elon Musk himself-- that the company is completely dependent upon one man. The sole face of the company. The corporation's entire PR department in one individual, an individual who reportedly works 80-plus hours a week. What's sustaining him? What happens when Elon Musk burns out?

COUNTERARGUMENT

Musk is far more of a gambler than innovative capitalists of the past like Edison, Ford, Steve Jobs and so on, which has been Tesla's strength. He pushes ahead with his ideas and decisions and expects the company-- and the world-- to catch up. Which means he and his company can move and maneuver way faster than any automotive company ever seen. Which also means that in the face of sudden obstacles, the company may move quickly to correct him. (That Tesla may use something akin to Lidar after all, as rumor has it, may be one example of this.)

THE KEY QUESTION

The key question is: Will Elon Musk's luck run out?

Elon Musk and the Myth of Invincibility

 THERE ARE numerous reasons to think the stock price of Tesla Motors is way too high. Foremost among them has to be that the valuation is based on the hyperbolic persona of one person: Elon Musk.

To date he's tangled with co-founders, critics, banks, regulators, competitors, media, and always comes out on top. Which doesn't mean this will continue. The one person in fact who can least afford a public setback is Musk, for this would puncture the bubble of perception about his unstoppable genius.

In this regard, the historical example most analogous to his situation is that of Napoleon. You know: the French conqueror who at the height of his success crowned himself emperor. A giant setback was sure to follow-- and did, when Bonaparte invaded Russia, then quickly enough had to leave, his much-lauded army vanished in ice and snow.

There's a kind of immutable law in the universe which decrees if you get too high, too hubristic, you're due for a devastating crash.

Anyway, I wouldn't bet against it.

Elon Musk's Tesla Motors Gamble

 IF I were heavily invested in Tesla Motors-- or shorting it-- right now I'd be scrambling to find objective analyses of the company, its cars, and its stock. Yet objectivity is in short supply on the topic. Polarized are the competing voices: Tesla/Musk fanboys versus vociferous shorts and critics.

THE GAMBLE

From the beginning Tesla has been a historic gamble. Elon Musk and his partners spotted an opening in the universe and decided to jump through it: be the first to build an exciting, marketable, competitive electric car. The gamble has paid off tremendously-- Tesla Motors sitting at a trillion-dollar valuation. But it still is, as it's always been, a race against time.

The Gamble: Create and dominate the Electric Vehicle market before established manufacturers gear up to stop you.

I'm from Detroit. My dad worked in auto plants most of his life. One of my older sisters dated a high-level General Motors manager. I worked in an auto plant-- Dodge Truck-- right out of high school. I worked on cars with my dad from when I was eight. Growing up I was steeped in car culture, and more, in car industry culture. Based on John DeLorean's sad story, as well as the movie "Tucker," I was taught to believe it's impossible to build a car company from scratch and compete with the giants. Too much knowledge and expertise required, too many resources involved.

To date Tesla Motors has fifteen manufacturing plants of all kinds around the world both operating and planned. General Motors alone has 122, half of which it claims can be converted for EV manufacture.

Tesla's gamble is akin to the gamble taken by the German army in the summer of 1941 when it invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. (Sorry for the analogy, but I can't come up with a better one.) Or: Invade Russia, get to Moscow and defeat the decrepit regime before said regime can mobilize its enormous resources and population to stop you-- and before the brutal Russian winter does likewise. Even maniacally overconfident Hitler knew the risk. He's quoted as saying it was like opening the door to a dark room, in which you don't know what awaits on the other side.

History shows the Germans won many battles, had phenomenal success, but it wasn't enough. They lost.

Is this the fate which awaits Tesla Motors and Elon Musk?

(I'll have more to say on the topic.)

The Band Aid

 HYPER-CAPITALIST overconsumption has swept the planet, based upon three pillars: monopolistic multinational conglomerates, big box stores, and the Pavlovian nightmare demand-creation machines of television and the Internet. Step back to assess it holistically and it becomes a many-tentacled monstrous Machine far outside human scale, overwhelming we humans.

What's the response of the self-appointed Harvard-centered left?

They've decided to place a band aid on the leviathan. Many fervent debates, disputes, and protests around the edges. "If we can only make life a trifle better for the working class. Not diminish or break up or tear down the monopolies, or turn off the flow of babble from their electronic media adjuncts-- never that-- but maybe get a few extra benefits for those trapped within the unceasing madness!"

THUS a bill is passed to place said band-aid upon the Machine. A committee is delegated to perform the feat, to many media features and much celebration. "We did it" proponents proclaim. "Yaaay!" unknowing fans shout, prodded by their smartphones, televisions, and other brainwashing devices. 

The day arrives. A tiny object is placed onto the ever-growing monster. The delegation proudly returns. The job: done. After confetti and parades, the delegates returned to their plush offices, life has become once again calm. Except for the ever-throbbing Machine of course.

Those the solution was supposed to help glance at the Machine, squinting, trying to see what is now upon it. They move closer. They spot something. They realize what was stuck after all upon the Machine was not a band-aid, but a happy face.

The Believer Mag Shuts Down!

 My past antagonist-- but there is no joy or gloating in this corner. No, even though the magazine trashed the Underground Literary Alliance with an egregious and highly inaccurate essay by Tom Bissell way back in 2003.

HOW inaccurate? There's a four-part takedown of the essay by moi visible on one of the side bars on this page.

Why no celebration? Because the culture needs all the prominent literary magazines it can get. For almost two decades The Believer was a highly visible member of the species. Their essay was contentious-- and if there's anything the sleepy world of Literature lacks and needs is noise and contention.

Freedom of speech means the right to be wrong.

MEANWHILE, the lack of complaint and outrage on the part of University of Nevada-Las Vegas's faculty and students gives the impression they're okay with their "university" being treated as a mere adjunct to a highly-touted sports program.

Are they? Can The Believer be saved?

Jonathan Franzen: Voice of the Establishment?

CURRENT NEWS in the Big Four publishing world is that Jonathan Franzen has a new 592-page novel coming out, Crossroads. To me, Franzen represents the voice and ideals of today's upper-caste establishment, in the same way James Gould Cozzens and John P. Marquand represented that voice in their time. With Franzen we get inferior Cozzens-- By Love Possessed-- and not a Guard of Honor. 

The factor which caused Cozzens to write a significant novel-- despite his blinkered views on life and the world-- and not just another novel of manners, was his involvement in the Second World War, which placed him at the center of a massive and quickly-growing bureaucracy, the U.S. Army Air Force. He was able to put his strong observational talents to work observing and learning the workings of a gigantic organizational machine, along with the strengths and weaknesses of the too-human individuals who ran and populated that machine. Out of it came one of the most important of all American novels-- important because it caught America at a moment of vast change: transformation from isolated backwater to global empire. Any person in decades and centuries to come wishing to understand that nascent giant can do no better than to read Guard of Honor.

It's Jonathan Franzen's misfortune that he's been involved in no epochal, life-changing event, and hasn't challenged himself-- has failed to push himself into the world much beyond his limited upper-east side Manhattan horizons, and so has nothing to write about except the same recycled family scenes, stuffy and uninteresting (to this commentator anyway), which appeared in The Corrections, and apparently are in the new book as well.