know they’re dishonest
almost always think there’s a
good reason for it

From the movie, The Big Chill where Michael and Sam discuss life comes this bit of dialogue.

Michael: Nobody thinks they’re a bad person. I’m not even claiming that people always think they’re doing the right thing; they may know that they’re doing something dishonest or insensitive or manipulative but they almost always think that there’s a good reason for doing it. They almost always think it will turn out for the best in the end, even if it just turns out best for them, because by definition what’s best for them is what’s best.

Sam Weber: Why is it what you just said strikes me as a massive rationalization?

Michael: Don’t knock rationalization. Where would we be without it? I don’t know anyone who could get through the day without two or three juicy rationalizations. They’re more important than sex.

Sam Weber: Ah, come on. Nothing’s more important than sex.

Michael: Oh yeah? Ever gone a week without a rationalization?

I first saw this movie 40 years in Ann Arbor at a special screening for film students at the University of Michigan.

I got invited through the luck of just being there.

It was the line on rationalization that I was searching for.

Don’t knock rationalization. Where would we be without it? I don’t know anyone who could get through the day without two or three juicy rationalizations.

It stuck in my mind as I seek to explain folks who I know who support the current guy in office.

I tell my wife that for many, its playing the lottery and for the state of their career, they rationalize that if they can get close to this guy, maybe … just maybe when he dies, he might remember them in his will with a nice tip.

You know, like Charles Foster Kane and Jed Leland.

Anyone for where they are in life, cozying up to the that guy is about they best bet they can make for their future financial security so the rationalization that they are selling out their integrity of the present can be justified.

Then I came across the line leading up to the rationalization statement.

Nobody thinks they’re a bad person. I’m not even claiming that people always think they’re doing the right thing; they may know that they’re doing something dishonest or insensitive or manipulative but they almost always think that there’s a good reason for doing it. They almost always think it will turn out for the best in the end, even if it just turns out best for them, because by definition what’s best for them is what’s best.

Read that again, slowly and out loud.

Nobody thinks they’re a bad person.

I’m not even claiming that people always think they’re doing the right thing;

they may know that they’re doing something dishonest or insensitive or manipulative but they almost always think that there’s a good reason for doing it.

They almost always think it will turn out for the best in the end, even if it just turns out best for them, because by definition what’s best for them is what’s best.

Now ask yourself.

How can folks support that guy in office?

Ask them.

They will tell you they are doing the right thing and they have a good reason for it.

this isn’t normal and
markets finally, slowly
waking up to this

Based on the passage from the New York Times Opinion piece, The Vertiginous Novelty of America’s Debt Pile By Adam Tooze where Mr. Tooze writes:

What makes the country unique is that even as the economy hums along and the wealthiest prosper as never before, a party calling itself conservative is actively conspiring to cut the sinews of the fiscal state.

This isn’t normal. And markets are finally, slowly waking up to this fact.

unmistakable …
all in rebuke to rudeness,
aggression, greed

Adapted from the article, In Canada, Charles pushed the boundaries of politics as king. So far, he has gotten away with it, by Martin Kettle, where Mr. Kettle writes: No monarch had bothered to make this trip for nearly 50 years. During that time, however, Canada has transformed itself into a major global power and has decisively slipped its old colonial bonds. Yet Trump’s threat to Canada is such that the country’s prime minister, Mark Carney, judged a summons to Buckingham Palace would send a useful newsworthy signal about its national sovereignty that would help bind the nation while sending a shot across the US president’s bows.

At least as significantly, when seen from Britain, King Charles was happy to oblige. Just as with the speech he delivers at Westminster at the start of a parliamentary session, Tuesday’s in Ottawa will have been scripted by the elected government. But the Ottawa speech had a far looser and more personal format than the Westminster version. This allowed the king to speak words that clearly mattered to him, and by which he will be judged.

Trump was not mentioned by name. Even so, he permeated the speech. The king endorsed Canadian national pride and said democracy, law, pluralism and global trade were on the line. He said Canada’s relationships with Europe would be strengthened and, speaking in French, he said Canada faces challenges unprecedented in the postwar era. He was proud that Canada was “an example to the world in her conduct and values, as a force for good”, and he ended, quoting from the Canadian national anthem, by saying “the true north is indeed strong and free”.

All this is an unmistakable rebuke to Trump’s rudeness, aggression and greed. The words are not neutral but committed. Whether the king sought approval from Keir Starmer for his visit and speech is not clear. His main adviser concerning the visit will have been Carney, who may have liaised with Downing Street. Starmer, committed to engaging with Trump, will have been content to keep his distance. The larger point, however, is that this was a willed act by the king. Charles did not have to travel and did not have to make the speech. But he did both, even while continuing to be treated for cancer.

On June 1, 1785, newly appointed ambassador to Great Britain, John Adams told King George III that he wished to restore “the old good nature and the old good humor between people who, though separated by an ocean and under different governments, have the same language, a similar religion, and kindred blood.”

The King seemed equally moved. “I was the last to consent to separation,’ he told his former subject. But, he added, ‘I have always said, as I say now, that I would be the first to meet the friendship of the United States as an independent power.”

That old good nature and that old good humor is in short supply these days on this side.

Instead the current Government offers rudeness, aggression and greed.

Words that clearly matter to some, and by which they will be judged.

Rule: help each other
when you can, but never harm —
never help the bear

Duff Cooper added: ‘I hope you will forgive me because your friendship, your comradeship and your advice are very, very precious to me.’ Churchill replied on November 22:

Thank you very much for your letter, which I was very glad to get. In the position in which our small band of friends now is, it is a great mistake ever to take points off one another. The only rule is: Help each other when you can, but never harm — Never help the Bear.

Excerpt From: Winston S. Churchill: The Prophet of Truth, 1922–1939 (Volume V) (Churchill Biography Book 5) by Martin Gilbert.

Mr. Churchill had quite the career.

Up – down – up again – down again – up – down.

Biographers like to tell the story how Franklin Roosevelt once said is supposed to have said along the lines that Winston has 100 ideas a day but only one will turn out to be good. Which is okay as he will have another 100 ideas tomorrow.

What is usually included with the quip is that Mr. Churchill heard the story and took umbrage and wanted to know when did he ever have a bad idea.

One idea that took with him was that Hitler was a problem without fixing by anything than removal.

While many sought out accommodation, Mr. Churchill maintained a wall of anti-end-Hitler words.

At one point after the Munich Crisis when the France and Great Britain took Czechoslovakia apart, Mr. Churchill called for a vote question the actions of His Majesties Government and he asked for just 50 members of the House of Commons to vote with him to record the fact that there were some folks who objected to such an action.

Mr. Churchill got 2.

Understand that when the House of Commons votes, the members vote by exiting the House chamber through the yes door or the no door and then the group together in the lobby to discuss the vote.

After this vote, Mr. Churchill stood in the lobby for two other men.

Kind of rubs it in.

Still, he kept at it.

This is the time of Mr. Churchill’s career called The Wilderness Years.

On the outside.

Out of step.

Down.

Has been.

About Mr. Churchill, Herman Wouk wrote:

Winston Churchill, today an idealized hero of history, was in his time variously considered a bombastic blunderer, an unstable politician, an intermittently inspired orator, a reckless self-dramatizer, a voluminous able writer in an old-fashioned vein, and a warmongering drunkard. Through most of his long life he cut an antic, brilliant, occasionally absurd figure in British affairs. He never won the trust of the people until 1940, when he was sixty-six years old, and before the war ended they dismissed him. But in his hour he grasped the nature of Hitler, and sensed the way to beat him: that is, by holding fast and pushing him to the assault of the whole world, the morbid German dream of rule or ruin, of dominion or Götterdämmerung. He read his man and he read the strategic situation, and with the words of his mouth he inspired the British people to share his vision. By keeping back the twenty-five squadrons from the lost Battle of France, he acted toughly, wisely, and ungallantly; and he turned the war to the course that ended five long years later, when Hitler killed himself and Nazi Germany fell apart. This deed put Winston Churchill in the company of the rare saviors of countries, and perhaps of civilizations.

I feel the wilderness is where a lot of Americans are today.

Out of it.

Down.

Take heart.

We need to read the man and the situation.

Anyone of us may be in position to be that rare savior of a country.

In the meantime, help each other when you can, but never harm —

And never help the bear.

Never ever, help that bear.