TygrBright
TygrBright's JournalHunter Biden and His Laptop
His first traumatic brain injury happened when he was two years old, in the car accident that killed his mother and his sister, and smashed up his older brother as well as himself.
It wasn't a wealthy family but they were prosperous enough not to worry about private school tuition and the necessities of life. But being a Biden came with expectations, strong ones. The Catholic upbringing. Ethics, and service to others. His Dad's work in government set a high bar for public service. His older brother's academic, public service, military and political successes came in a seemingly unbroken string of achievement.
I wonder, though, what all those expectations, and the residue of that childhood trauma, did to Hunter Biden. I wonder if at any time when he was working to get the grades and make the entrance requirements for Georgetown, if he ever thought "What else might I be doing? Are there other options for me? Is there anything I'm passionate about, other than making good by the standards of my loving family?"
Georgetown isn't one of the big "Party Schools" but it is likely that his problems with substance abuse began there. His fortune/misfortune is to have been born to a family with the expectation that they will look after one another, and the means to do so. When he seemed to 'need help' it was gotten for him, in short order.
Which kept him afloat. Which gave him chance after chance. He graduated Georgetown. He got a law degree from Yale. While it's unlikely those diplomas were wholly unearned, had he been the son of an unknown insurance broker of modest means, would he have made it all the way? Certainly he had the potential - intelligent, curious, creative enough to be interested and intrigued by new things. I'd be willing to bet, though, that he had a pattern of starting out really well, and then getting distracted, bored, or demotivated, and either abandoning or just scraping through on completing stuff.
Still, it was enough. Having an older brother successfully launched in State politics and a father in the U.S. Senate, he never had to worry about prestigious job opportunities. The name "Biden" did it all, a fact of which he was undoubtedly conscious, and possibly humiliated by. Had he not had that little problem with crack cocaine, alcohol, etcetera, the Biden name probably would have propelled him almost anywhere - but maybe not anywhere he really wanted to go.
His resume of lobbyist, board member, consultant, reveals a pattern. He was on the masthead, and he was a communication channel. Was he ever more than superficially interested in the actual businesses, their aims and goals? Did he ever get a sense of satisfaction or achievement from having accomplished something for a client or helped a business build something worthwhile?
Someone raised to believe that work and service should do good things, should make the world a better place. Someone also raised to be successful, to carry out activities of note, to shine in the public eye. Someone with deep childhood traumas and an escalating substance abuse disorder. In close proximity to money, power, and influence, on the international stage.
Yeah, there's likely to be some ugly stuff to drag out.
Yeah, Hunter's family probably did more than they should to enable him not to fail catastrophically during some crucial years.
But here are some other things to consider:
1. I would bet large money that none of Hunter's family's enabling stretched as far as "illegal" or even "unethical" in the public sense. That doesn't mean they didn't talk people into giving him chances he probably shouldn't have gotten, or found ways to minimize or amend harm done. They probably yanked him back from the brink a good many times. But breaking laws or engaging in deceitful, unethical things that would have done great harm to others? I'm betting NOT, no matter how the MAGAts try to spin it.
2. In spite of all that enabling, Hunter has clearly reached some level of self-knowledge that is allowing him to work at recovery and change. Will he relapse again? Possibly, that's how the disease works. But he has a better-than-average chance of continuing a recovery trajectory, and part of that will be getting more help to deal with the effects of traumatic brain injury and his long bouts with substances. Part of it will be learning what's best for HIM, apart from family history, the expectations he internalized, and the lucratively successful failures of his past. Who knows what directions the creativity he seems to be finding will lead?
3. If the chaotic, messy trajectory of his years in active addiction includes any real crime or corruption --as it well might-- he will pay a price, and it may or may not be a reasonable, proportionate price. The privilege of being Joe Biden's son has two edges, and one of them is that his sins WILL be judged with the greatest attention and scrutiny of the public eye and a very hostile lynch mob baying on the sidelines.
If Hunter Biden's early life had been similar but his father had been a politically influential and well-connected banker who'd never held elected office, his personal and professional trajectory might have been very much the same. But it would have been a private, family tragedy, a personal struggle, and the consequences of any crimes or misdemeanors would be worked out without the roar of public conflict and the distorting lens of partisanship on either side.
So here's what I think: Whatever solid thread of fact there is in the trove of rumor, innuendo, conspiracy-mongering, emails, documents, and laptop files, THAT thread will be acknowledged and appropriately dealt with, as impartially as possible, by the Biden family. Beyond that, they will do nothing to add credibility, fuel, or attention to a politically-motivated shit show orchestrated by authoritarian wannabes.
Nor will the Bidens play the "tu quoque" game, pointing out the myriad corruptions and visibly flaunted crimes committed by family members of [Redacted]. Democratic leadership will take a similar line, though of course, Democrats being Democrats, there will be plenty of kibitzing from Party rank and file.
And in the long run, in spite of the painful endurance required, this will result in a net gain for the Bidens, and a net loss for the GOP, as everyone who isn't already a cult member perceives the difference between who the Bidens are, and what the GOP is. Add in the complete lack of any tangible accomplishment that a GOP House will be able to deliver while it's lost in the clown show, and they will not be happy campers by the time November of 2024 rolls around.
So please, my DU friends and colleagues, try to keep a sense of that bigger picture. Add as little as possible to the frothing scum. The Bidens will deal with this family tragedy as they have dealt with every other family tragedy: Appropriately, with dignity, continuing their best efforts to do right and serve the public all the while.
The best thing we can do is remain confident in them, and refrain from feeding trolls.
wearily,
Bright
The Next Gift From Nancy Pelosi to America (and the Democratic Party)
She's stepping down from the elected leadership positions in the House Democratic caucus, and of course she'll be missed there.
But once again, she's laser-focused on how and where she can have the MOST impact for the Democratic Party, and the future of America.
She knows that remaining in a formal leadership position would turbo-charge the Magaloon wing of the House GOP in efforts to demonstrate that they are "punishing" Nancy Pelosi, whom they've inflated into an Evile Genius at the root of all that's wrong with government and Amurka.
She also knows that Democrats have to be in this for the long haul, a sustained effort to retain key influence and controls over several election cycles - and that means developing the next generation of leadership and deepening the bench as the pols of her generation begin retiring from the Democratic ranks.
So this is her gift: Quietly, she's relocating from the "Speaker of the House" office, to the unmarked "Éminence grise" office.
You can bet that within a few weeks there'll be a well-worn track in the carpet to that door, as Representative Pelosi is sought for advice on how to accomplish this or that difficult committee task, counter this or that GOP maneuver, check this or that GOPpie leader's mad rush to the Pit of Legislative Lunacy, etc. Generously, as ever, she'll provide the information and advice requested.
No fingerprints will ever appear. But her ongoing work will remain critical to the new Democratic minority's effectiveness in preventing worst-case scenarios and setting up the GOP for massive losses in 2024.
Thank you, Representative Pelosi. You do us proud, as always.
respectfully,
Bright
To every DUer who is serving, or has served, in the U.S. military in any branch - THANK YOU.
Whatever ideological or political issues I may have with how our armed forces are deployed and the policies that dictate their activities, the actual women and men who make the choice to give a key part of their lives to the training, discipline, and sacrifice of that service merit the gratitude of all Americans.
Your willingness to serve, your investment in training and learning, your discipline and professionalism help to keep us safe, and give our leaders a reserve of strength in a difficult and sometimes chaotic geopolitical situation.
You took an oath to defend our Constitution, and were ready to put your lives on the line to carry out that oath. Some of you have paid dearly to keep that oath. Some have given everything, and to you and your families I will always be grateful, and always stand with you for the promises we citizens made to you.
I pledge to continue expressing my support for improvements in the pay and working conditions of all active service members, including the right to be free from any form of harassment or discrimination. I pledge to continue supporting our government's obligations to you in providing health care, education, family support, pensions and all other benefits you have been promised.
Thank you for standing strong. You are awesome, and I am grateful.
appreciatively,
Bright
Desperation: GOP Escalates from Zone-Flooding to Signal Jamming
"Flooding the Zone" has long been a recognized propaganda technique. To "flood a zone" is to pump out multiple, constant streams of items into every communication channel - opinion pieces, letters to the editor, news releases, announcements, advertisements, interviews, analysis, summaries of all descriptions in all types of media.
In the old days this was newspapers, radio, television, outdoor advertising, mass mailing, and eventually robocalling. With the advent of the Internet, additional channels and media opened up for flooding - podcasts, social media, websites, streaming services, etc.
By "flooding the zone" propagandists achieve several goals - they overwhelm the channels that would otherwise carry communications from a variety of sources with similarly varying content with their own material. Successfully doing this often involves using proxies, subverting gatekeepers, etc., so that the flood appears a natural outcome of legitimate concern from many sources, rather than a targeted propaganda barrage. This interferes with information consumers' conscious or unconscious perceptions of importance and rankings of issues, and often 'overwrites' immediate and short-term memory of conflicting information/events/etc.
The GOP has been skillfully and successfully zone-flooding for nearly three decades.
They have to do this, as a combination of demographic realities, lack of accomplishments or ideas, and their own natural hostility to change is in the process of dooming them to permanent electoral irrelevance.
Every election, every year, even every news cycle, they have to increase the volume and intensity of the flood, to survive.
But recently they have escalated to a next-level tactic: Signal Jamming. Not a literal frequency jam, but the employment of vast amounts of noise on every conceivable channel, to degrade the signal/noise ratio beyond any useful carrying capacity.
Zone-flooding requires providing actual content with some minimal level of coherence and/or coordination in service of a specific propaganda goal or agenda. Signal jamming requires only noise, large quantities of it, with no requirements as to coherence or even comprehensible content. The signal jammer doesn't even need to use proxies or subvert sources, only to prevent any kind of frequency modulation or content moderation that would filter out noise. And to constantly escalate both the volume (both flow volume and auditory volume) and the number of source points for the noise.
In addition to the kind of 'blind spot induction' that zone flooding produces, signal jamming induces another level of interference with information consumers' brain function. Long-term exposure to loud, meaningless noise from multiple sources overwhelms the auditory processing centers of the brain. Long-term exposure to signal jamming has similar effects on the brain's ability to process information.
Overwhelming the brain's ability to process information has many secondary effects, including fatigue and depression.
When better to "peak" this effect than in the week before an election they cannot possibly win without massive efforts to suppress voting?
And that's the way it is, Friday, November 4th, 2022.
somberly,
Bright
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