https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/natan-sharansky-doublethink

After having read it earlier this week, I was somewhat intrigued to later see many of his observations echoed in a somewhat different situation by a very different person.

https://nypost.com/2021/02/12/gina-carano-reportedly-has-new-project-with-the-daily-wire/

And yet, truth is truth, no matter what the circumstances.

Sharansky:

Breaking the shackles is the hardest thing to do as a doublethinker. Once you do that, the released energy gives you a rush you’ve never experienced before. Step by liberating step, I was running toward freedom. By the time I was imprisoned in 1977, I had been free for at least four years. As thrilling as it was to be released from prison after nine long years in 1986, leaving the prison of doublethink years earlier made me even more euphoric.

Carano:

“They can’t cancel us if we don’t let them,” Carano told the outlet. “The Daily Wire is helping make one of my dreams — to develop and produce my own film — come true. I cried out and my prayer was answered. I am sending out a direct message of hope to everyone living in fear of cancellation by the totalitarian mob.”

She added, “I have only just begun using my voice which is now freer than ever before, and I hope it inspires others to do the same.”

Losing a movie gig is, of course, no comparison to incarceration in the Soviet Gulag, but it is a difference of degree not of kind, as many people have been pointing out recently.

And your link is not really off topic, John, since the corruption of the election process is part of every dictator’s agenda.

Not if they’re offered a viable alternative. It’s not like the stuff that has made California and the mega-cities crap holes was pushed up from the bottom by popular demand. One of the under examined aspects of Republican Failure Theater has been the absolute refusal of the GOP to significantly contest Democrats in states like New York, Massachusetts, and California.

Mike

And then will they turn those places blue?

But unless you are really big on live theater, live music, or live games of major college or pro sports, there’s no longer any need to live in the big cities. The internet brings the exact same stuff to Des Moines that it does to New York City. What’s propping big cities up right now is physical and emotional inertia.

There’s probably hundreds of thousands of people, if not a couple million or more, who’d be happier and relatively more prosperous living in places like Kansas City instead of New York City.

Mike

I’m not a big jazz buff, but I loved his work. I heard him live on 4 occasions and then had lost touch. I didn’t know he won 23 Grammys and is currently nom. for 2 more. Here’s a youtube selection with the most musically assessable at the top.

Where Have I Known You Before
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O25Wm42m3qE

This one is fun. It’s like a Spanish themed movie music medley.
My Spanish Fantasy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb8Cqztclrs

This has The Girl from Ipanema flavor. Chick on Fender Rhodes Electric and Joe Farrell on flute. Every time I hear the Fender Rhodes it takes me back to the early 70’s.
You’re Everything
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbynfCYDfuI

Here’s some more from the early 70’s with Farrell on flute and soprano sax. Its got live footage, unfortunately mucked up a bit with artsy video inserts. I love Farrell on the soprano sax near the end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2CO4VVCP1w&list=RDj2CO4VVCP1w&start_radio=1

Finally, an homage from Rick Beato
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LHuv0I-qbA

What is his Twitter handle?

Jeff G. seems to be doing okay. He’s put up a post on PW about his statement at the sentencing hearing for that stalker. He’s also done some very good threads on Twitter. “Threadreaderapp” should have most of them available.

None of the fraud we saw in last year’s presidential election surprised me. It’s the way things have been done in Chicago my entire life. And it’s the way things are done in every U.S. city with a long standing, Democrat machine. Sometimes the vote counting is even done accurately, but prior to the election there are threats, bullying, slander… whatever is necessary to eliminate any viable opposition candidates so they are not even on the ballot. When that work is done on the front end, no vote fraud is necessary come election day.

If a decent opposing candidate does make it on the ballot homeless are rounded up and given food, money, alcohol… driven to polling places and either handed pre-filled ballots or escorted to the polling station to ensure they vote “accurately.” Stacks of pre-filled ballots are added to those legally cast. Boxes of votes from wards or precincts that lean the wrong way are lost in transit and never counted; thrown in trash cans or rivers…

The big city machines are simply expanding their methods and reach as more and more of the country becomes “big cities.” What was Barack Obama’s job before the Chicago machine put him in politics? Community organizer. For decades in Chicago and other Democrat run cities people have built careers off of funneling, skimming, distributing and collecting tax payer money. Every drop of concrete poured on a commercial job in Chicago involves some democrat palms getting greased, somewhere. Jesse Jackson formed Operation Push as a very successful grift to ensure blacks got their part of the pie. Target a local business and give the owner/board an ultimatum: Monday morning there will be a line of protesters outside your business marching with signs that state your business is racist, or donate to Operation Push and the protesters will stand down. The unions donate to the politicians and the politicians award contracts to the unions; and ignore “cost overruns” and blatant embezzlement. Now teachers and attorneys generals are in on the grift.

The rural regions of our country no longer have the population to be an effective counter balance to the big cities. As we’ve seen for about 60 years, the march towards turning the federal government into Chicago, or Detroit, or Philadelphia or New York will continue.

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.”

Our big cities figured the above out around the turn of the last century and demographics have been driving the trend towards D.C. and national control for years.