Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

Well, I was right last week when I said that it wasn't going to be Bass! Victory lap taken. Allow me a moment of reflection on former Vice-President Biden's choice of Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate. Actually, I don't have a lot to say on this, except that what the Orange Dynast has been saying about it strikes me as unusually odd, even for him. It seems that President Trump and his acolytes have heard that Harris has a "tough cop" reputation, developed because her upward path through Californian politics was a path through various prosecutorial offices. So there are people to her left (for lack of a better concise term), who are unhappy with Biden's choice. They are for the most part containing their unhappiness, because they have their eyes on the November prize. But they are unhappy. At any rate, Trump's circle is at least vaguely aware of this, and they are trying to benefit from it. In 2016 they did benefit by the unhappiness of ...

As I write this, I don't know who Joe Biden will pick as his running mate. But it seems clear that it will not be Karen Bass. Bass looked promising for a time. From what I understand, her name was put forward by Christopher Dodd, a close adviser to the former VP, as a counterweight to Kamala Harris, the obvious choice, but one to whom Dodd has acquired an aversion. Bass (I hear her name is pronounced like the fish, not like the guitar) is in many respects a standard issue grassroots 'progressive' activist. She is also the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. Biden needs to show that he knows who got him this far, and he has to make nice with Sanders loyalists. Bass would do both. But ... there is the matter of Scientology. It is a pyramid scheme masquerading as a cult so it can masquerade as a Church.  It is secretive and violent, and treats blackmail like the greatest of all sports. Leah Rimini has done some fine work exposing it. The animated television sho...