And along the lines of all the ways we did this to ourselves, Lieutenant Col Tulsi Gabbard's nomination to head the DNI has just been advanced to the full senate for confirmation. I guess her high regard for traitor Edward Snowden, Putin and Assad wasn't all that rotten after all. In the infinite wisdom of the committee.
Well I guess this election and first couple weeks provided a good deal of clarity. The American voter proved that they do not care about the rule of law, the constitution nor anyone nor anything beyond their own perceived self interest. That they are either too dumb, too venal or too evil. Or all the above. It proved that the modern Republican Party is actually an organized crime syndicate. That our institutions and the people who control them; press, churches, businesses, courts and state and local governments are either enabling, actively conspiring with or though opposed have no clue yet how to respond. And now it is clear who the enemy within is. What will be interesting is what form the resistance will take.
We had a great run for 250 years. Benjamin Franklin said we had a republic "if you can keep it." Well, our republic that Franklin helped to build is dying. Franklin is rolling in his grave...
They said that democracies die at the ballot box, not by military force. That’s where we at now.
The Dems this time around have given up and The Repubs are continuing on their march off the cliff.
I don’t see how we get out of this still calling us the USA. We are not united, nobody wants to do anything to be a bulwark (no pun here) against this authoritarian takeover. All of Congress only want their titles and perks, nothing more.
I read this good article about the need to primary all elected super old and out of touch Dems in Congress and I agree with all of it. I just don’t know if there will be anything left to fight for.
Some days are fine/livable about the future and some days are just unbearable because we did this to ourselves! Nobody else. I didn’t vote for this but some in my party were obviously sick of its current state that they felt the need to stay home on election day or just vote for him because we supposedly had a “better economy” (my eyes rolling back into my head) under him.
I’m reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich at the moment (published in 1960, winner of the National Book Award in 1961), and I urge concerned members of this community to pick it up, too. Here are some eye-opening excerpts:
* * *
“We recognized,” he [Hitler] said, in recalling the days when the party was being reformed after the putsch, “that it is not enough to overthrow the old State, but that the new State must previously have been built up and be practically ready to one’s hand…. In 1933 it was no longer a question of overthrowing a state by an act of violence; meanwhile the new State had been built up and all that there remained to do was to destroy the last remnants of the old State — and that took but a few hours.”
* * *
One day, he recounts in Mein Kampf, he witnessed a mass demonstration of Viennese workers. “For nearly two hours I stood there watching…. At home he began to read the Social Democratic press, examine the speeches of its leaders, study its organization, reflect on its psychology and political techniques and ponder the results. He came to three conclusions which explained to him the success of the Social Democrats: They knew how to create a mass movement, without which any political party was useless; they had learned the art of propaganda among the masses; and, finally, they knew the value of using what he calls “spiritual and physical terror.”
"I understood the infamous spiritual terror which this movement exerts, particularly on the bourgeoisie, which is neither morally nor mentally equal to such attacks; at a given sign it unleashes a veritable barrage of lies and slanders against whatever adversary seems most dangerous, until the nerves of the attacked persons break down…. This is a tactic based on precise calculation of all human weaknesses, and its result will lead to success with almost mathematical certainty…. I achieved an equal understanding of the importance of physical terror toward the individual and the masses…. For while in the ranks of their supporters the victory achieved seems a triumph of the justice of their own cause, the defeated adversary in most cases despairs of the success of any further resistance.”
No more precise analysis of Nazi tactics, as Hitler was eventually to develop them, was ever written.
* * *
No other party in Germany came near to attracting so many shady characters. As we have seen, a conglomeration of pimps, murderers, homosexuals, alcoholics and blackmailers flocked to the party as if to a natural haven. Hitler did not care, as long as they were useful to him…. “I do not consider it to be the task of a political leader,” he wrote in his editorial, “A New Beginning,” in the Voelkischer Beobachter of February 26, 1925, “to attempt to improve upon, or even to fuse together, the human material lying ready to his hand.”
* * *
A party leader might be accused of the most nefarious crime. Buch’s answer invariably was, “Well, what of it?” What he wanted to know was whether it hurt party discipline or offended the Fuehrer.
* * *
In August [1926] he [Goebbels] publicly broke with Strasser in an article in the Voelkischer Beobachter:
“Don’t talk so much about ideals and don’t fool yourselves into believing that you are the inventors and protectors of these ideals…. We are not doing penance by standing solidly behind the Fuehrer. We…bow to him…with the manly, unbroken pride of the ancient Norsemen who stand upright before their Germanic feudal lord. We feel that he is greater than all of us, greater than you and I. He is the instrument of the Divine Will that shapes history with fresh, creative passion.”
* * *
ANY OF THIS SOUND FAMILIAR? (There’s plenty more….)
There is much literature written about not being able to defeat evil, but only to push it aside for periods of time. Maybe this holds true for authoritarianism too. We as a human race can only hope to hold it down for a period of time before our worst human impulses and circumstances allow it to rise again.
Great article - for the educated elites. But we are in a fist fight right now, bare knuckle style.
In one corner we have a convicted felon and conman in Trump who has spent his whole life in court and uses lawsuits like a cudgel. And, he has tag teamed with the world's richest man who is on ketamine ffs and is definitely showing his God-complex (I can do anything). Musk operates like the rules don't apply to him. Trump has always behaved that way and now enjoys the umbrella of absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts by virtue of the un-Supreme Court that Leonard Leo and billionaires packed. These people are NOT playing by the rules.
In the other corner is the rest of us, still clinging to a belief in our institutions and the constitution - dare I say, the rule of law. And what we are realizing is that the constitution is just some paper with ink on it. It doesn't mean shit, unless we make it mean something. People have sacrificed their lives to defend it. What have I done? Embarrassingly little.
Tomorrow I plan to join a march. Today I wrote an email to AG Ed Martin's office asking some pointed questions about his threat to go after the people who made public the names of the 19-24 year olds currently raping our government data so Elon can pour over it and publicly shame anything he deems inappropriate. I've donated money to campaigns, to legal defense funds, to journalists. Somehow it feels like nowhere near enough. I don't really know what to do, but I'm doing it anyhow.
Cause I'm pissed off, and scared, and I'm not taking it anymore. I fantasize about meeting these figures alone in the woods, just me an <insert name of jerk here> so we could settle this the old fashioned way. I know that's wrong, and I'd probably get my ass kicked anyhow, but that's how I feel right now. I hope cooler heads will prevail. I hope I can remain one of the cooler heads. When justice is being trampled, it's really hard to stay true. I'm reading/re-reading about non-violent resistance. I know that's the way but I'm a newb at it. I hope my march tomorrow helps me learn the tools of resistance and connects me with the people who I need to join hands with. I have to do something or I'll go insane. I hope more of our political leaders step forward and take a stand. I'm not waiting for them any longer.
Trump's 24-hour wag-the-dog trade war demands inquiries into global stock & crypto trading activities. I couldn't help but notice that Bitcoin prices fluctuated over a 10% range during the period. Stock markets in East Asia dropped as much as 3% before (partly) recovering. Lesser downward spikes and partial recoveries occurred in Europe & New York.
If we had an effective, rather than transitional, SEC — and a commissioner who was not a compromised crypto bro — we could expect a thorough investigation of short-selling and aberrant options trading.
But not today.
After all... can't look too deeply into self-dealing among the bros and the Trumps.
Yes, I'm worried about the SEC. Without an effective (at least somewhat!) SEC and the regulations from it and the Securities & Exchange Acts of 1933 & 1934, we will go back to careening from depression to depression, as we did through the 19th century.
Do you mean _economic_ depressions or _stock market_ depressions? They're not always correlated.
I'm old enough to remember the stock market crash in October 1987, which was followed by the stock market crash and near-total credit market seize-up in 2008, which was followed by the multiple days in March 2020 when "circuit breakers" were tripped more than once daily on the NYSE.
For most people the two-word phrase they most dread is "cancer diagnosis." For others, it's "margin call."
The markets may not be as heavily leveraged as they were in the heyday of CDSs & CDOs, when MBS meant mortgage-backed securities and not the initials of the Saudi crown prince, but it seems like — to use Gore Vidal's phrase — we live in "the United States of Amnesia." We learn nothing because we remember nothing. I share your worries about the likely gutting of the protections afforded by 1930s-era SEAs. OTOH, we have giant pools of money sloshing about in unregulated shadow banks and hidden behind blockchains. Laws & regulations haven't kept up with new forms of financial systemic risk, IMO.
It certainly was not my choice ever!
49.7% of US voters did this to themselves. Resist propaganda.
There is no mandate from the voters.
Alan just South of Boston
Again, I did not vote for this asshole. I have done more than our Democratic Congressmen to make noise.
And along the lines of all the ways we did this to ourselves, Lieutenant Col Tulsi Gabbard's nomination to head the DNI has just been advanced to the full senate for confirmation. I guess her high regard for traitor Edward Snowden, Putin and Assad wasn't all that rotten after all. In the infinite wisdom of the committee.
I DID NOT VOTE FOR THIS ASSHOLE.
Well I guess this election and first couple weeks provided a good deal of clarity. The American voter proved that they do not care about the rule of law, the constitution nor anyone nor anything beyond their own perceived self interest. That they are either too dumb, too venal or too evil. Or all the above. It proved that the modern Republican Party is actually an organized crime syndicate. That our institutions and the people who control them; press, churches, businesses, courts and state and local governments are either enabling, actively conspiring with or though opposed have no clue yet how to respond. And now it is clear who the enemy within is. What will be interesting is what form the resistance will take.
We had a great run for 250 years. Benjamin Franklin said we had a republic "if you can keep it." Well, our republic that Franklin helped to build is dying. Franklin is rolling in his grave...
They said that democracies die at the ballot box, not by military force. That’s where we at now.
The Dems this time around have given up and The Repubs are continuing on their march off the cliff.
I don’t see how we get out of this still calling us the USA. We are not united, nobody wants to do anything to be a bulwark (no pun here) against this authoritarian takeover. All of Congress only want their titles and perks, nothing more.
I read this good article about the need to primary all elected super old and out of touch Dems in Congress and I agree with all of it. I just don’t know if there will be anything left to fight for.
https://newrepublic.com/article/190922/primary-every-democrat-trump-durbin
Some days are fine/livable about the future and some days are just unbearable because we did this to ourselves! Nobody else. I didn’t vote for this but some in my party were obviously sick of its current state that they felt the need to stay home on election day or just vote for him because we supposedly had a “better economy” (my eyes rolling back into my head) under him.
Sigh…
I’m reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich at the moment (published in 1960, winner of the National Book Award in 1961), and I urge concerned members of this community to pick it up, too. Here are some eye-opening excerpts:
* * *
“We recognized,” he [Hitler] said, in recalling the days when the party was being reformed after the putsch, “that it is not enough to overthrow the old State, but that the new State must previously have been built up and be practically ready to one’s hand…. In 1933 it was no longer a question of overthrowing a state by an act of violence; meanwhile the new State had been built up and all that there remained to do was to destroy the last remnants of the old State — and that took but a few hours.”
* * *
One day, he recounts in Mein Kampf, he witnessed a mass demonstration of Viennese workers. “For nearly two hours I stood there watching…. At home he began to read the Social Democratic press, examine the speeches of its leaders, study its organization, reflect on its psychology and political techniques and ponder the results. He came to three conclusions which explained to him the success of the Social Democrats: They knew how to create a mass movement, without which any political party was useless; they had learned the art of propaganda among the masses; and, finally, they knew the value of using what he calls “spiritual and physical terror.”
"I understood the infamous spiritual terror which this movement exerts, particularly on the bourgeoisie, which is neither morally nor mentally equal to such attacks; at a given sign it unleashes a veritable barrage of lies and slanders against whatever adversary seems most dangerous, until the nerves of the attacked persons break down…. This is a tactic based on precise calculation of all human weaknesses, and its result will lead to success with almost mathematical certainty…. I achieved an equal understanding of the importance of physical terror toward the individual and the masses…. For while in the ranks of their supporters the victory achieved seems a triumph of the justice of their own cause, the defeated adversary in most cases despairs of the success of any further resistance.”
No more precise analysis of Nazi tactics, as Hitler was eventually to develop them, was ever written.
* * *
No other party in Germany came near to attracting so many shady characters. As we have seen, a conglomeration of pimps, murderers, homosexuals, alcoholics and blackmailers flocked to the party as if to a natural haven. Hitler did not care, as long as they were useful to him…. “I do not consider it to be the task of a political leader,” he wrote in his editorial, “A New Beginning,” in the Voelkischer Beobachter of February 26, 1925, “to attempt to improve upon, or even to fuse together, the human material lying ready to his hand.”
* * *
A party leader might be accused of the most nefarious crime. Buch’s answer invariably was, “Well, what of it?” What he wanted to know was whether it hurt party discipline or offended the Fuehrer.
* * *
In August [1926] he [Goebbels] publicly broke with Strasser in an article in the Voelkischer Beobachter:
“Don’t talk so much about ideals and don’t fool yourselves into believing that you are the inventors and protectors of these ideals…. We are not doing penance by standing solidly behind the Fuehrer. We…bow to him…with the manly, unbroken pride of the ancient Norsemen who stand upright before their Germanic feudal lord. We feel that he is greater than all of us, greater than you and I. He is the instrument of the Divine Will that shapes history with fresh, creative passion.”
* * *
ANY OF THIS SOUND FAMILIAR? (There’s plenty more….)
"After all, the Constitution was ratified, went into effect, and is still in effect."
Well, parts of it are still in effect, I suppose. But who knows which amendments SCOTUS will invalidate tomorrow?
There is much literature written about not being able to defeat evil, but only to push it aside for periods of time. Maybe this holds true for authoritarianism too. We as a human race can only hope to hold it down for a period of time before our worst human impulses and circumstances allow it to rise again.
Great article - for the educated elites. But we are in a fist fight right now, bare knuckle style.
In one corner we have a convicted felon and conman in Trump who has spent his whole life in court and uses lawsuits like a cudgel. And, he has tag teamed with the world's richest man who is on ketamine ffs and is definitely showing his God-complex (I can do anything). Musk operates like the rules don't apply to him. Trump has always behaved that way and now enjoys the umbrella of absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts by virtue of the un-Supreme Court that Leonard Leo and billionaires packed. These people are NOT playing by the rules.
In the other corner is the rest of us, still clinging to a belief in our institutions and the constitution - dare I say, the rule of law. And what we are realizing is that the constitution is just some paper with ink on it. It doesn't mean shit, unless we make it mean something. People have sacrificed their lives to defend it. What have I done? Embarrassingly little.
Tomorrow I plan to join a march. Today I wrote an email to AG Ed Martin's office asking some pointed questions about his threat to go after the people who made public the names of the 19-24 year olds currently raping our government data so Elon can pour over it and publicly shame anything he deems inappropriate. I've donated money to campaigns, to legal defense funds, to journalists. Somehow it feels like nowhere near enough. I don't really know what to do, but I'm doing it anyhow.
Cause I'm pissed off, and scared, and I'm not taking it anymore. I fantasize about meeting these figures alone in the woods, just me an <insert name of jerk here> so we could settle this the old fashioned way. I know that's wrong, and I'd probably get my ass kicked anyhow, but that's how I feel right now. I hope cooler heads will prevail. I hope I can remain one of the cooler heads. When justice is being trampled, it's really hard to stay true. I'm reading/re-reading about non-violent resistance. I know that's the way but I'm a newb at it. I hope my march tomorrow helps me learn the tools of resistance and connects me with the people who I need to join hands with. I have to do something or I'll go insane. I hope more of our political leaders step forward and take a stand. I'm not waiting for them any longer.
Stop calling it 'tariff' and start calling it 'tax", which it essentially is. Start making political mileage from Orange raising taxes.
Self-government? Let’s look at the storied successes of the 118th House. We saved gas stoves!
Trump's 24-hour wag-the-dog trade war demands inquiries into global stock & crypto trading activities. I couldn't help but notice that Bitcoin prices fluctuated over a 10% range during the period. Stock markets in East Asia dropped as much as 3% before (partly) recovering. Lesser downward spikes and partial recoveries occurred in Europe & New York.
If we had an effective, rather than transitional, SEC — and a commissioner who was not a compromised crypto bro — we could expect a thorough investigation of short-selling and aberrant options trading.
But not today.
After all... can't look too deeply into self-dealing among the bros and the Trumps.
Yes, I'm worried about the SEC. Without an effective (at least somewhat!) SEC and the regulations from it and the Securities & Exchange Acts of 1933 & 1934, we will go back to careening from depression to depression, as we did through the 19th century.
Do you mean _economic_ depressions or _stock market_ depressions? They're not always correlated.
I'm old enough to remember the stock market crash in October 1987, which was followed by the stock market crash and near-total credit market seize-up in 2008, which was followed by the multiple days in March 2020 when "circuit breakers" were tripped more than once daily on the NYSE.
For most people the two-word phrase they most dread is "cancer diagnosis." For others, it's "margin call."
The markets may not be as heavily leveraged as they were in the heyday of CDSs & CDOs, when MBS meant mortgage-backed securities and not the initials of the Saudi crown prince, but it seems like — to use Gore Vidal's phrase — we live in "the United States of Amnesia." We learn nothing because we remember nothing. I share your worries about the likely gutting of the protections afforded by 1930s-era SEAs. OTOH, we have giant pools of money sloshing about in unregulated shadow banks and hidden behind blockchains. Laws & regulations haven't kept up with new forms of financial systemic risk, IMO.
I think a society of WOMEN is capable of establishing good government from reflection and choice. Men ... not so much if you look at the record.