Debating Crumbs Only Pigeons Do

Was this for children? Or was there a more sinister purpose? Why did some guy select a few, not necessarily important subjects for would-be presidents to debate? Why did the “moderator”, showing no moderation, present as fact a somewhat ludicrous story in the New York Times on Trump taxes planted the day before which claimed Trump paid “no taxes”? When Trump said that was not correct, he “paid millions”, Wallace did not accept the answer. Why Trump taxes, and only Trump taxes, not Biden’s, and not the Iraq war? The Commission on Presidential Debates divided the 90-minute event into six 15-minute segments. A Mr. Wallace selected six broad topics: Mr. Trump’s and Mr. Biden’s political records, the Supreme Court, the coronavirus, the economy, race and violence in cities, and the integrity of the election.

Wallace presented as a fact New York Times’ allegations about Trump taxes but avoided the somewhat symmetrical subject, namely how Biden avoided millions of taxes with his S corporation trick (and that’s no speculation as Biden produced his taxes) .

Too much of the debate was between Trump and Wallace. Trump took the bait, and that was a mistake. Where was Biden? Why was the Supreme Court a matter of debate? Biden refused to answer when asked directly if he was going to “pack the court” (name more than nine judges, as some have suggested). There was an asymmetry of questions: the softball questions went to Biden. Both candidates should be asked the same questions, to avoid this sort of bias, and then let to duke it out… instead of having Wallace try to talk over the US President… 

Biden called Trump a “racist”, a “clown”, a “liar”, “this guy”… Not as conclusions of arguments, but as if they were detached facts, in other words: insults. Biden interjected: “will you shut up, man”. The “shut up, ma” happened after Trump, following the “moderator”, reiterated the demand that Biden tell whether he would “pack” the Supreme Court” or not… Trump made the mistake of interjecting too many of Biden’s lies, or outrages, while Wallace tried to shut him down.

Servants of global plutocracy fight over crumbs because they are deprived of dignity

One should wonder why a moderator is useful in debates. Here the moderator, far from moderating, made the situation worse by a selection of topics and questions which advantaged Biden: speculating about the opinions of a judge democrats voted for less than three years ago should not have replaced questions about five decades of Biden’s political record. 

“Moderator” Chris Wallace actually condemned Trump for an executive order to lower the price of medical drugs … and then proceeded to talk about something else. Trump was reduced to interjecting that the Democrats never did such a thing when in power.

One may also wonder why candidates to the presidency need a moderator: if they can’t moderate themselves, how can they moderate the world? Other republics have organized presidential debates without moderators. 

There has been a decay of public discourse in the USA. This is not a debate anymore, but a flow of insults. This is much more dangerous than it looks. This is how the Roman Republic started to go down: the devolution of debate into the grossest insults, and no will to sincerity.

Even in a country such as France, the political debate has not gone so low that main actors have hurled accusations such as “racist”! Many self-described “democrats” have insisted that Trump was a “racist”. They repeated it so much, it has become self-evident (to them). When asked for evidence to support this terrible accusation, Biden referred several times to mysterious “dog whistles” and one can read in Trump hating literature the concept of “code words”, apparently anodyne words Trump would utter that racists recognize as their own (allegedly). 

So basically the accusations of racism against Trump are grounded on the accusations themselves. A variant of the technique has been to accuse Trump to have insulted soldiers. Mr. Biden rebuked the president for having reportedly referred to America’s fallen soldiers as “losers”… an obviously false report (New York Times again) the proof of which was supposedly that Trump had not visited a cemetery in France, out of spite for soldiers who fought Nazism… When the true reason was absolutely horrendous weather preventing helicopters to fly to the cemetery (there was no time for alternative transportation).  And the New York Times know the whole story, is a lie but still deliberately lies about it. Biden ran with it, knowing full well it’s a lie. All what this sort of lies do, is to augment the hatred (I will explain in a detached essay why lies make tribes, and hatred is the best cement… But playing that game can lead to civil war… and actually has, in the USA…) Similarly the New York Times accused Trump to have mentioned the “Proud Boys”, forgetting it’s Biden who mentioned “Proud Boys” first (Trump added he didn’t know who they were… Nor did I, I just made a search 20 hours later…)

So a debate where the big subjects were avoided… per the “moderator” choice of the subjects… And the biggest lies go on, untouched and unmentioned…

There were some news. When asked about the Green New Deal, Biden said “I am the Democratic Party… The Green New Deal is not my plan”. Sure didn’t take long to drop that one. Once again, regulation will not do as much as fundamental research. Trump correctly noticed he was funding electric cars. As they are, those are not (yet) good enough (developing green hydrogen will enable green electricity… not yet the case… even Elon Musk said he was running out of Lithium to make batteries…).  

The Biden candidacy is the global plutocratic candidacy. There is nothing progressive about it, it’s all a front. The democrats will boost back taxes (except for those who like the Bidens pay little because of loopholes), and boost corporate taxes, giving an excuse for setting corporations overseas again, collapsing 401K, and restarting the migration of US jobs overseas.

Why Sanders fell for the Biden swindle back to the past is a mystery. Sanders doesn’t look corrupt (he lives in three houses not three mansions like Biden; Sanders’ wife got involved in a somewhat shady story about a college, but that doesn’t compare with the many multimillion dollars shady deals swirling around just Hunter Biden). 

The fact that Chris Wallace set up the debate to maximally advantage Biden is a testimony to the fact of how difficult it is for any upper level participant in society to exist outside of the Deep State… If one is Wallace, there is nothing to lose, everything to gain.

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Global Plutocratic Terror And Greed make a strong box minds can find impossible to exit; the case of Livius:

This is a phenomenon seen throughout history: the stronger the grip of plutocracy, the stronger the box of the state. One can appreciate better the few Roman historians who didn’t toe the party line… They had to be very subtle, as when Titius Livius (“Livy”) contradicted Augustus on the question of a triumph accorded to a Tribune, four centuries earlier (!) Augustus claimed the Tribune (who was later elected Consul) had not been a Tribune when he killed in single combat the Lars Tolumnius was the most famous king of the wealthy Etruscan city-state of Veii.

Instead Augustus claimed he had seen ancient inscriptions in a recess of a forbidden temple to the effect, that Cornelius Cossus, who was attributed the spolia opima, charging Lars, unhorsing him, forcing him to the ground with his shield, piercing him with his lance multiple times, stripping the arms and armor from the fallen king…. was truly a Consul at the time and not just a Military Tribune. This historical debate was all about refusing the spolia opima to a potential rival of Augustus, who deserved the spolia opima. Augustus refused the attribution to the rival, on the ground that he was not Consul at the time.

Livius relates the entire story and then goes into extravagant praise of Augustus claiming that Cornelius Cossus had got to have been Consul at the time, because he said so and nobody is as august as Augustus. The exaggerated praise resonates, nineteen centuries later, as a condemnation of the intellectual fascism Rome had fallen under.

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The parody of a debate organized by Chris Wallace will resonate in the future, hopefully, as a condemnation of how strong the global plutocratic state had become: minds can’t get free themselves from it. Wallace allied himself with the shallow Biden, because Biden is the establishment… and there is escaping it. When someone as charged with condemnable history as Joe Biden runs for the ultimate magistracy, one should not ask softball questions grounded in gossip.

In any case, those who want real progress will not vote for Biden: it would be the same make-believe as before… and power to the same usual suspects. For example, the Obama administration picked winners and losers among “green” companies. This should not be the job of the government… which is to fund basic research and unprofitable infrastructure. Instead Obama cut hydrogen research, setting back this indispensable energy source by a full decade (and thus causing the California energy crisis).

Another example is tent cities, which are in part caused by dearth of construction. I used to contemplate in the distance what I called “Obamaville”, a tent city with guard dogs and drugs, with hundreds of homeless. It appeared during Obama’s reign, and was cleaned since. The sort of thing Pelosi doesn’t have to worry about.

The 1994 crime bill, written by Biden, supported by Clinton, is the cause of the mass incarceration of the famous Black Lives which are supposed to matter… Trump evoked it, but got side tracked right away (maybe next time he should come fresh to the debate, after spending a few days in the bunker as Biden did?)

To end on a more positive note, Biden claimed:”I am the Democratic Party!” Biden talked the talk of progress, I approve many of his suggestions like taxing the hyper wealthy, but I can see the usual dodges lurk, which make the hyper wealthy ever more powerful… But there is plenty of evidence a 28% corporate tax is not the way to reduce the power of the hyper powerful…. If one has not taken previously measures to bring the corporations back, first. Similarly, making the wealthy pay can’t happen if their tax and power dodges are not removed first. And many are global.

Patrice Ayme