Posts by: Jack Altschuler

What Have/Could We Become? – Part 2


Find Part 1 here.

Letting loose the behavior geek that resides inside my skin, I’m always trying to figure out what seems impossible to figure out, like understanding why common sense people would say and do self-harming things. Let’s start. with an explanation.

The predominant and overriding passion of our time is what Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post labeled “aggrieved victimhood.” Whether you agree with the label or the primacy of it, it’s here and it’s big. I’ve been 7 years questioning where that comes from.

Here’s a piece that was stapled as a late addition onto Part 1:

Maybe you’ve heard about the song Rich Men North of Richmond. It was written and performed by Oliver Anthony, a guy with no professional music experience and who never had anything on a top 100 chart. But this piece has gone viral – over 47 million listens and over 161,000 comments in less than a month.

Anthony’s song tells the story of middle Americans – hard working people – and their suffering at the hands of (in the pockets of) rich guys. The “elite.” The cabal of thieves who have taken their country and their dream from them. I urge you to listen to his song and, as important, read the comments. You’ll begin to understand the depth of the people’s anger that infects this country owing to decades of betrayal .

Did you find yourself doing a “Yeah, but .  .  .” as you read the above or listened to the song? If so, read it again, listen to the song again, and this time imagine that every time you stand up somebody knocks you down, like in those middle America towns that used to have a major employer, but the company moved their production to a foreign country and the town and its families are failing. Rightly or wrongly, people are feeling oppressed.

They reached their Popeye point long ago.

We human beings don’t like getting screwed, which is how so many are feeling, so here’s a BFO (Blinding Flash of the Obvious) for politicians and the rich guys who buy them:

People have a Popeye point, the moment when that’s all we can stands, we can’t stands no more. That’s when the spinach hits the fan.

That’s what we’re seeing from our violent ones.

That’s what we’re seeing from the ones displaying the hateful and vile hats and signs.

That’s what we’re hearing in the incoherent insistence that the election was stolen.

That’s what the pollsters are finding, even if Trump is in prison on election day.

That’s what we’re hearing as our fellow citizens crazily insist that it was okay for boxes of stolen documents and Top Secret papers to be hidden in Trump’s bathroom, ballroom, unguarded basement storage room and in his desk. They believe it was okay because Trump says the Presidential Records Act says that the documents are his (it says the opposite) and they think that it was okay for him to conspire to defy a subpoena, too.

That’s what we saw on January 6 as true believers acted out their anger, believing they were doing a patriotic thing.

Of course, all that and more has happened because valid anger over betrayal was cleverly, deviously, fraudulently channeled inward. So, we must give this fascist devil his due. He is brilliant at mass manipulation, getting otherwise well meaning but angry people to believe lies, that he is one of them, their leader, their savior. They believe that he will lead them to upend the plotters, the conspirators, the thieves who have stolen their country from them. The “deep state.” He told them he will be their “retribution.” He is the strong man who will defeat the forces of evil and in that way make them strong.

Don’t imagine these people are stupid or that they are knowingly acting against their best interests. What they are is duped. Tricked. Manipulated. Cynically used by the manipulator. And they have no idea that a new Trump regime will mistreat them far worse because that’s what happens in all authoritarian regimes.

There is a “BUT” to this attempt to understand and it is a sulfurous and dangerous cloud that hangs over all of us. I refer you to Kirk Landers’ comment to Part 1 of this series. He wrote,

The only other point I’d add to the conversation is that to understand MAGA, I think you have to start with the concept of the anti-Christ – a religious concept that says the greatest enemy of Christianity is fake Christianity. Trump is the archetypal anti-Christ, even though he’s openly stupid and venal. More important, the MAGA hordes are exactly the anti-Christians that the concept feared and loathed.

I agree that these people have a lot to be angry about, but they’re looking for validation, not solutions. And that’s kind of how we got here – people not wanting facts, just wanting to scream their guts out or shoot off a clip of ammo.

I don’t know how you deal with that.

Nor do I. But his construct of fake Christianity echos off the hills telling us a terrible tale, over and over, as we see people doing violent things in the name of the Prince of Peace. As I wrote at the end of Part 1, ‘.  .  .  there is little as murderous and destructive as fervent religious anger.”

What We Have Become is a country where a very large minority has been brilliantly manipulated Mussolini style, Hitler style, Erdoğan style, Orbán  style – charismatic strongman style. A mob energized by the power of anger and hatred. These people feel aggrieved and victimized and they want to hit back and they do so without recognizing that they are hitting back at themselves. As Landers wrote, they want validation, not solutions.

They get their validation in a constant torrent of blood boiling lies and propaganda. That puts fingers on triggers and it’s as dangerous as can be.

What We Could Become is limitless. But it can only happen if and when the majority of us stand up to stop the steal of our country by the anti-everything mob. That means that we have to use our power to re-establish that this is a nation laws, not one of high level manipulative criminals. We have to reverse the theft of wealth from the bottom 95% and redirect it to where it belongs. We have to turn the violent, angry monster around and use that energy for what is productive for a democracy. We have to stop allowing ourselves to be used and abused. In short, we have to treat democracy as a verb.

Writes Frank Levy,

I have long since stopped trying to change people’s minds. I think the most I can do is get those whose worldview mirrors mine to take action to make the world better for their being born into it.

I think he’s talking about you and me.

What We Could Become is the embodiment of the valiant words of our founding documents. So, Teach Your Children Well through your actions, because it will take not years, but generations to set things right. History has shown this to be true. Today is a good day to start.

Need A Dose of Hope?

Read this installment of Steve Schmidt’s travelogue and meet Fred. And watch his embedded video all the way through.

Today is a good day to be the light

______________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

What Have/Could We Become? – Part 1


Ed. note: Be sure to read Frank Levy’s response in the Comments section at the bottom of this post.

Eugene Robinson wrote in The Washington Post on August 24,

To understand how completely Donald Trump has transformed the Republican Party, all you had to do was watch Wednesday’s debate and Trump’s surrender to Georgia authorities on Thursday. The vibe was a mash-up of “American carnage” and aggrieved victimhood.

Aggrieved victimhood?

David Corn of Mother Jones used this pic in his newsletter of August 23 that was a takedown of a David Brooks piece in The Atlantic. Brooks had attempted to explain the meanness, the cruelty, the rudeness and the violence of the MAGAs, which are every day events.

I’m no sociologist, but I think there are many reasons for this craziness, this MAGA “aggrieved victimhood.”

  1. Their valid anger at being forgotten, betrayed by our own government
  2. Their invalid whining and rage because life isn’t exactly what they want it to be (jeez, grow up!)
  3. Their all-too-human and pathological need to blame

But that fails to nail down the core of how we became so terribly aggrieved. Steve Schmidt has a clear take on this and he centers it on lost trust, a sense of betrayal. I believe he’s right and my notion is that the loss of trust can be traced directly to our tolerating things we should never have tolerated. For example:

We tolerated decades of deceit over the Viet Nam war, notwithstanding the protests.

We tolerated Ford pardoning Nixon, instead of skewering him with the justice he deserved.

We tolerated the Republicans hiring Ken Starr to go through Clinton’s garbage cans searching for something slimy to smear onto him, even as ethics violator Newt Gingrich and the rest of the thumpers wailed holy paeans to their own purity and goodness.

Reagan and H.W. Bush skated from their Iran-Contra lawbreaking. Republicans made a martyr of Ollie North, as he testified in his medal-bedecked uniform, hand raised high in his declaration. He swore he would tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and then he lied. He and several other perps went to prison – then Bush pardoned them.

As bad as the Great Recession was, with the homes lost, the futures decimated, the hopes dashed, none of the perpetrators went to jail for violating SEC rules and existing laws. Perhaps worse was the elimination of regulations designed to prevent just such a financial collapse. The cost of learning the lessons of unfettered greed was paid following the Great Depression. But ever-present greed won out decades later and we danced to the financial ruin tune once again. Then we put laws back in place (Dodd-Frank), which the Republicans chipped away at until there’s nothing left to protect us. The rich got richer and we’re left waiting for the other shoe to drop. Plus we footed the bill.

There have been decades of “off-shoring” of factories, industries and, most important, jobs for Americans. Towns have been hollowed out and their citizens set adrift, even as our institutions promoted this craziness. Mass layoffs were labeled “right sizing” and millions lost their jobs, their security and their hopes for their children. And the rich got richer.

The mania for deregulation persists, even after the horrid train derailment in East Palestine, OH. That train was over two miles long and had only two workers aboard, as the deregulated and abandoned inspections and safety procedures allowed that toxic, deadly swamp to happen. But removing those regulations did reduce costs for the railroad and provide more money for the executives and shareholders.

And, of course, there were the sex scandals in religious institutions done by televangelists and the Catholic Church.

These betrayals are major trust killers that hurt people. That leads to aggrieved victimhood.

We could go on and on listing betrayals of the American people by our all too self-serving government officials, but you get the point and could easily construct your own list. The point is that the American people have lost trust because we have been betrayed. It isn’t our imagination. And our sense of betrayal is just what a demagogue like Trump or any of the liars use to stoke fear and anger to promote themselves.

Trump delivered his American Carnage address and told us that only he could save us. Millions believed him because they were and are prepared to believe and follow anyone who tells them they are right and righteous and who points a finger at those to blame.

What we’ve become is a nation of millions of voluntary dupes. Some of our leaders stoke fear of the “other” and that has incited hate crimes, murders of our fellow citizens, making us geckos eating our own. Sadly, so many have succumbed to putting most of their mental energy into looking for someone to blame for their ailments – and then acting out.

We’ve let our lost trust and anger fester into a mania to abandon every value we claim to hold dear. In more benign phrasing, we are throwing the baby out with the dirty bath water.

But the solution is not to abandon it all, to “tear it all down.” The solution is to hold accountable all who violated American values and the American dream. Discard the liars who have stoked anger for their own benefit and the cowards who stood by and let it happen.

We can and we must fix this by restoring our democracy – majority rule.
.

There is a start to rectifying this going on now, but it isn’t an easy path forward. Justice is at last coming to a lot of high level perpetrators, traitors to our values, who wrapped themselves in the flag and then spit on the brave words of the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to the Constitution and on our laws and on our norms.

There is powerful juju driving this vitriolic behavior and we better confront that with something better before the haters seething over betrayals and calling for a civil war start amassing an army of reality denying dupes armed with AR-15s.

Maybe you’ve heard about the song Rich Men North of Richmond. It was written and performed by Oliver Anthony, a guy with no professional music experience and who never had anything on a top 100 chart. But this piece has gone viral – over 47 million listens and over 161,000 comments – in less than a month.

Anthony’s song tells the story of middle Americans – hard working people – and their suffering at the hands of (in the pockets of) rich guys. The “elite.” The cabal of thieves who have taken their country and their dream from them. I urge you to listen to his song and, as important, read the comments. You’ll begin to understand the depth of the people’s anger that infects this country owing to decades of betrayal.

Aggrieved victimhood.

Just an Idea

Adam Grant calls for a better way to find leaders in his essay The Worst People Run for Office. It’s Time for a Better Way. He reports,

Voters overwhelmingly favor candidates who are tall and male and white. We also have a bad habit of attracting and electing candidates with tendencies known as the dark triad of personality: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy

Do you suppose that if we found leaders who aren’t self-centered and deranged that perhaps we’d be led to be less cruel to one another and might just find a way to continue our democracy? Maybe even make this into a place where people are treated fairly and decently?

Crazy, right?

Quote of the Week

From David Corn of Mother Jones:

Cults are cults. Rules, norms, facts, the law, reality, decency—none of that matters. The true believers are enrapt[ured] with the phony narrative Trump feeds them. For these millions of Americans, it’s theology.

And there is little as murderous and destructive as fervent religious anger.

Today is a good day to be the light

______________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Quick Takes From the First Republican “Debate”


No, it wasn’t a debate. It was an inane shouting tantrum.
.
The Candidates
.

Vivek Ramaswamy – His forced smile and verbal steam roller tactics took just 1.6 seconds to become unbearable. Great talker, successful businessman who clearly suffers from Universal Genius Hubris (“UGH”) syndrome:

“I’m brilliant and super good at business, so I’m certain that I’m brilliant and super good at everything.” Except, of course, things don’t work that way.

He’s a pot stirrer. Hopes to win solely by being cruel and throwing everyone else off balance. Desperately needs years of psychotherapy.

Read Thom Hartmann’s take on Ramaswamy and so-called free market capitalism. It’s chilling.

Ron DeSantis – A last-ditch effort to satisfy his need to be seen as a tough guy, but all he can do is to repeat his over-rehearsed tough guy lines. He’s going down because he really is unlikable and untrustworthy. Plus he’s morally bankrupt.

Asa Hutchinson – Past his sell-by date. Comes across as a bureaucrat looking for a job. Hasn’t had a new idea in 25 years, but he was polite and tactfully said Trump isn’t eligible to hold office.

Nikki Haley – Got in her licks at Ramaswamy. Came across as firmer stuff than might have been expected. Even got in a girl power smack at the men on the stage. Not convinced she’s presidential quality. She was the “not as bad as the rest of the dopes” candidate on the stage.

Gov. Something of North Dakota – Who?

Mike Pence – His smarmy bible thumping, his self-anointed holiness and his “I did the right thing so everybody tell me how wonderful I am” is all he has. Sort of like Rudy Giuliani in 2007, whose every sentence began with, “A noun, a verb and 9/11.”

Pence didn’t even have the backbone to refuse to support the guy who pressured him to violate the Constitution and commit a crime. He didn’t have the cojones to refuse to support the guy who incited a mob to try to hang him. And he thinks we should vote Mr. Gutless into the Oval Office? Gimme a break.

Showed more fire than I thought possible. Likely he’ll have to rest a few days after expending all that energy raising his voice for a moment. Imagining listening for four years to a guy who wears starched underwear is simply beyond imagination. He got nuthin’.

Tim Scott – Hoping to lure Blacks to vote against themselves is a curious strategy. But he did tell his “raised by a single mom in poverty” story three times. Somehow that wasn’t sufficiently persuasive in the face of his complete lack of new ideas and his forced delivery.

Chris Christie – Criticized Trump and bore the boos well. Pretty much a no-nonsense guy with a grasp on reality. Sadly, in the world of Republicans, connection to reality is an uncommon feature.

Came across as unexciting but honest. Sort of a “what you see is what you get” candidacy. Shouldn’t we get more than that – maybe a little inspiration?

The Audience in the Auditorium
.

Clearly, they wanted a raucous Trump rally. Didn’t get the Trump rally (except for the mean spirited idiocy spouted by Ramaswamy and the DeSantis bluster) but they did get to applaud, boo, shout, whistle and foam at the mouth. Sort of a hockey crowd hoping for a fight on the ice.

The Moderators
.

They should stick to their day jobs and leave debate moderating to people who are strong enough to tell the self-important blabbers to shut up. Completely overwhelmed by candidates determined to violate the rules they had agreed to. That violation of their word is very Republican, a feature, not a bug.

Props to Bret Baier for admonishing the audience. Condolences to Martha MacCallum, who discombobulated before our eyes repeatedly.

General Notes
.
  1. It’s truly shocking that several of the candidates want to slash pension benefits from government workers, like the people who plow the snow through blizzards, who rescue flood victims and those who are our first responders. The brand of these cannibals is “Cruelty Are Us.”
  2. After piling up a $2 trillion tax cut debt and $8 trillion in total Trump debt, several of the candidates proposed more tax cuts. Yes, seriously.
  3. You’re not going to believe this, but it’s true. Several of the candidates denied climate warming and waved the flag for burning more fossil fuels. Their exuberance for dumping yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere was exhilarating to all those delusionals who don’t care about their children. There were plenty of them in the audience.
  4. Kudos to the candidates for their creativity in misinforming, misleading, spreading disinformation and blatant lying. Also, for proposing stupid ideas and self-defeating policies. How does anyone become so proficient at all that? Oh, right: practice.
  5. I wanted the moderators to ask several of the candidates the key question from the movie The Rainmaker: “Do you even remember when you first sold out?”

Most painful two hours – couldn’t wait for this shudder inducing spectacle to be over.

  • Today is a good day to be the light

    ______________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

The Core Issue


From STAT, August 21, 2023:

More children are dying from guns, and disparities are deepening
.

In 2020 guns caused the most deaths among U.S. children and adolescents, for the first time surpassing motor vehicle deaths. In 2021, it got worse. A new analysis of CDC data in Pediatrics shows that from 2018 to 2021, the death rate climbed by 41.6%. “With the unexpected sharp uptick of pediatric firearm deaths noted in 2020, rates did not return to prepandemic levels in 2021, but rather continued to increase and surpassed initial pandemic levels,” the authors write.

The breakdown of children who died:

– In 2021, 84.8% were male, 49.9% were Black, 82.6% were 15 to 19 years-old, and 64.3% died by homicide.

– Black children accounted for 67.3% of firearm homicides and white children for 78.4% of firearm suicides.

– From 2020-2021, the suicide rate increased among Black and white children but decreased among American Indian or Alaskan Native children.

– Higher poverty correlated with higher gun-related deaths.

Our obsessive craziness and lethality over guns is a core issue of mine. With over 27,000 gun deaths already this year, it should be a core issue for all of us. The sad truth is that we will never confront and stop this travesty if we continue down the path of ceding our rights to those who fight against what should be common sense. Indeed, we will never tackle any of the issues that the majority of us care about if we cede our rights to those who fight against what we want. That leads us to an uncomfortable reality. Steve Sheffey nails it in his post of August 20:

Democracy must be our new litmus test. We all have non-negotiable issues but democracy must come first and foremost because only in a democracy can we advocate for the other issues we care about and only in a democracy are our other freedoms protected. Under the old paradigm, we could take for granted that both parties shared a fundamental commitment to democracy and the rule of law.

But it’s different now. Here’s the necessary action piece, also from Sheffey:

Only the Democratic Party respects democratic norms today, which means that only the Democratic Party deserves our support. That’s not what we want to hear because it deprives us of agency. But if we support democracy then that means the GOP fails our litmus test and if we believe what we are saying, we have to vote Democratic. That’s not easy to accept but it is reality.

Steve Schmidt weighed in on the core issue of democracy in his post of August 20,

Democracy dies in the plain light of day
.

The masthead of The Washington Post has read “Democracy Dies in Darkness” for the last six years. It stands as a daily monument of naïveté, smug self-seriousness and delusion that will be a beacon to our descendants in the task of unraveling how the country became so lost in this moment. What will be most obvious is that democracy dies at noon, in the plain light of day, slowly and painfully over many long tedious years.

Never one to mince words, in another post Schmidt offered,

There is no fringe in the MAGA majority. It is an undulating blob of layered imbecility, cowardice, vice, extremism, ignorance, ambition, incompetence and scheming, bubbling and gurgling together in a ceaseless assault against democracy. The fringe and its middle are identical. MAGA is round and without edges.

The proposition at hand for the country is whether a majority will tolerate the lies, corruption, malice and cruelty offered by the MAGA GOP because of the imperfections of the Democratic Party. There is no comparison between the two in terms of comportment, ethics and political morality. MAGA tried to overthrow the government, and is running on a scorched earth platform of revenge and retribution. Alongside the confederacy, Jim Crow and McCarthyism, MAGA is amongst the most odious concoctions ever created from the fumes of American nativism and know- nothingness. It is a pestilence.

We are seeing the alt-right assault on democracy happening every day in ways that are far larger than they might seem at first and it’s only coming from what used to be called conservatives.

But they are not conservative.

Today’s alt-righties are promoting a scheme to grab all of your power, your voice and your money. They have been actively working to steal from you and to destroy our democracy for decades and have gained enormous traction in today’s pugilistic, fantasy-driven politics.

Their power grab is what makes protecting and defending democracy the core issue of our time. It overrides everything.

That is why I’ve become active in The Union, the only issue of which is to protect and defend our democracy. Check it out.

Just For Fun

The Behr Paint Company has announced its color of the year for 2024. It’s

CRACKED PEPPER!
.

From the official Behr color palette

The Behr marketing folks would have you know that,

“Cracked Pepper is a versatile soft black that elevates any room and the way you feel in it.”

Huh?

“As we look into 2024, creating a sense of comfort and belonging will continue to drive design decisions—but now, as life returns to its more familiar rhythms, it’s time to allow our senses to come alive,” says Erika Woelfel, Vice President of Color and Creative Services at Behr Paint Company. “From heightening the aromas of a dining room to feeling the softness of a living area, Cracked Pepper enhances the natural expression in any space.”

What does an “elevated room” look like and how does paint do that? How does their product “allow our senses to come alive” and “height[en] the aromas of a dining room?”

C’mon, man. It’s just paint that’s almost black. Seriously, who comes up with descriptions like this for paint? And what are they smoking?

  • Today is a good day to be the light

    ______________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

National Defense


Guest Essay

Regular reader, sometimes commenter and boyhood pal Frank Levy has supplied some guest essays for this column. He has a keen insight, so I asked his permission to share one of his recent FaceBook posts with you.

Give some thought to what he describes, as we stumble forward in our self-imposed Through the Looking Glass national reality. You can apply the principle message to a lot more than U.S. Space Command.

Why Would the United States Move USSPACECOM to Alabama?

I have to admit I am enjoying watching Alabama’s Republican elite, Tommy Tuberville, Tommy Battle, Katie Brit, Rep. Dale Strong, Rep Mike Rogers and others twist themselves into apoplectic knots to express their outrage over the decision to keep USSPACECOM in Colorado and not move it to Huntsville, AL.

For me, the decision makes complete sense. Common sense and concerns over national security dictate that USSPACECOM NOT be moved to Alabama. After all, why would US Military leadership and the White House move an extremely important military facility to a state where the White Republican power structure and the MAGA crowd that elects them over and over again don’t believe in anything that America believes in, like

  • – The Voting Rights Act
  • – The Civil Rights Act
  • – marriage equality
  • – Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
  • – Affirmative Action
  • – a woman’s right to a safe and legal abortion
  • – science education that does not include creationism
  • – The Constitution of the United States of America (except the Second Amendment) [They believe in that absolutely]
  • – the rule of law
  • – that Biden won the 2020 election

Add to that list the fact that the Republican super-majority in the Alabama legislature chose to defy SCOTUS with its newest Congressional redistricting plan because it simply didn’t like the decision and because Kevin McCarthy wants to keep his MAGA majority in Congress.

Why would the United States of America build a huge, expensive military facility, spend billions of dollars to post military personnel there and improve the economy of a state that officially celebrates Confederate Memorial Day and the birthdays of [traitors] Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis, the leaders of the Confederate States that attacked the United States to preserve its power to enslave Black people for profit?

Why would the United States build what it believes to be a facility necessary to its national security in a state that once seceded from the Union, attacked it and might just do it again?

I get why Alabama’s Republican leaders and the MAGA crew that elected them would be angry at not getting USSPACECOM. It is all about the money.

As an American citizen and resident of Alabama I would have been furious if President Biden, Secretary of Defense Austin and Gen. James Dickinson, Head of USSPACECOM, had moved USSPACECOM to Alabama. In my not at all humble opinion, [the decision to keep it in Colorado] was the only decision that could be made. [all brackets mine – JA]

———————————

Commenting of Levy’s post, smart person and also boyhood pal Kirk Landers wrote:

I believe the space command should be based in a state where the majority of people believe the earth is round and revolves around the sun. It’s also best if most people don’t believe that [the advance of] all knowledge stopped with the writing of the Christian bible.

I had to weigh in with:

There should not be a reward for anti-American behavior like MAGA and Confederate treachery and that alone should keep USSPACECOM out of Alabama. I don’t know anything about the national defense aspects of the geography choice of the agency, but Lander’s comments pretty well outline the requirement for a science based organization to be located where people believe in science.

Taking this one step further, read this from Steve Schmidt, August 18:

It is important to understand the desecration and chaos Trump and his mob have wrought with their attack against America. They have normalized conspiracy. They have made the truth and lie equal in a public square contaminated by the toxic sewage of division, propaganda and misinformation. They have assaulted the essence of America through a conspiracy to seize [the] power that was bestowed by the American people on Joe Biden. The treachery is historic, unprecedented and ongoing. The days ahead will test America’s spirit, resolve and democracy.

That test for us is to turn the voices of “division, propaganda and misinformation” and even treachery into voices of patriotism. If those voices are instead determined to destroy, then our test will be to stand stronger for the principles we claim to hold dear and to overwhelm the voices of destruction. Our typical national yawn of apathy toward elections will have to be replaced by a renewed dedication to democracy.

Here’s another angle on this.

Last Thursday Schmidt’s post put fresh perspective to something you may have thought about but perhaps without a full perspective.

“Boomers” refers to our fleet of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines. The absolute nature of their purpose is difficult to comprehend fully. The sailors aboard these vessels are stunningly smart, dedicated, well trained, prepared and young. We invest our collective future in their hands, extending even beyond time that is foreseeable.

Click here and read Schmidt’s piece. Watch the embedded videos, then sit back in your chair and think about what he’s shown you.

The graphic in the notes section following all of my posts (see below) is correct:

It seems pretty clear that all of the previous “Most Important Elections of Our Lifetime” pale in comparison to what’s at stake next November.

My hope for every next election is that it is the last one for which we’ll need that reminder in order to protect all aspects of national security.

  • Today is a good day to be the light

    ______________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Justice


The Presumption of Innocence is Still True

But, c’mon:

Click me for the story.

I can hear Ray Charles singing Georgia On My Mind.

Our addiction to Non-Accountability

Why do we do this self-defeating dance? I’ve concluded that it’s an addiction, a sickness, a commitment to rationalization, cowardice and self-imposed helplessness. Here are a couple of examples.

I’ve often wished I could have been a fly-on-the-wall to listen to the discussions between Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford before Nixon nominated Ford for the vice-presidency. What did Ford have to promise in order to get that job?

The abuse to our Constitution done by President Gerald Ford in 1974 was both unprecedented and terrible. He gave “a full, free, and absolute pardon to Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969, through August 9, 1974.”

Ford didn’t even wait for Nixon to be charged with a specific crime. He gave him a free pass for any crime Nixon “may have committed” and effectively made it clear that Nixon – and perhaps any president – is above the law.

As bad, it set the stage for more criminality in high places, as in the Iran-Contra crimes. That was where George H.W. Bush repeated the non-accountability travesty 18 years later.

From Prof. Heather Cox Richarson’s Letters From an American of August 9:

When the story of the Iran-Contra affair broke in November 1986, government officials continued to break the law, shredding documents that Congress had subpoenaed. After fourteen administration officials were indicted and eleven convicted, the next president, George H. W. Bush, who had been Reagan’s vice president, pardoned them on the advice of his attorney general William Barr. (Yes, that William Barr.)

The independent prosecutor in the case, Lawrence Walsh, worried that the pardons weakened American democracy. They “undermine…the principle…that no man is above the law,” he said. Pardoning high-ranking officials “demonstrates that powerful people with powerful allies can commit serious crimes in high office, deliberately abusing the public trust without consequences.”

Brown University has a fine summary of that sordid affair, including the laundry list of crimes committed by the Iran-Contra perps.

Reagan Teflon-ed his way past those crimes, having known full well what was happening on his authority. He got away with it with his cute “aw shucks.” Then H.W. Bush put the whipped cream and cherry on top with his blizzard of pardons for the perps.

The Reagan and the Nixon scandals were episodes 1 and 2 of modern day presidential malefactors escaping accountability. Is it possible that we’ve learned our lessons, that we’ve completed some national 12-step program to end our non-accountability addiction? Maybe so.

We have a third modern times presidential (alleged) criminal. The difference this time is that for those at the top, the day of reckoning looks to be on the horizon. We seem to have prosecutors with a spine.

Of course, if the next president is a Republican s/he will likely make pardons fill the air like biblical locusts. The candidates have said that they would do that.

Our job today is to support an end to that self-inflicted wound to justice and democracy that we seem to have encouraged by chickening out of doing the right thing in the past. We have to summon the courage to defeat our non-accountability dysfunction and do the right thing.

This is a perilous moment in our history. We must be up to the challenge or we will set the stage for the next crook to do worse.

Republican Sleaze – The World We Live In

Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-WI) might have ruined more lives through his treachery, cruelty and Trump-magnitude lying than any single individual in the history of Congress. After a particularly cruel attack on a young attorney by McCarthy, attorney Joseph Welch, asked McCarthy, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?” Although McCarthy didn’t respond, the answer, of course, was a resounding NO! In the Republican Party today, it’s still NO.

40 years later, every Republican politician and member of that party were sure they knew that Bill Clinton was dirty. Maybe he had something to do with Vince Foster’s death. Maybe Hillary played fast and loose in the Whitewater land deal when she was an attorney in Little Rock. Surely, Bill was a serial philanderer and adulterer. That might not be criminal, but it’s worthy of self-righteous finger pointing, tongue wagging and holier-than-thou shock, shock!, I tell you.

So, they recruited Ken Starr to dig into the Clintons’ underwear drawers and waste baskets for evidence of heinous actions. Starr poked through every dumpster near their residences looking for trash on the Clintons. He did that for FIVE YEARS! and he found nothing. NOTHING!

Then Bill did The Big Stupid. Linda Tripp coaxed her friend, former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, to tell all to Starr about her sexual affair with Bill in the Oval Office. Clinton’s Big Stupid was lying to a Grand Jury about it, and that was Starr’s gotcha. Five years and millions of dollars of public money spent and all Starr and the Republicans accomplished was to show the country that Clinton got a blow job.

Republicans cheered in their self-righteousness. Even Newt Gingrich, ethics violator supreme, cheered. They had embarrassed and impeached Democrat Clinton.

Then it was Hillary’s turn. She was put through the congressional meat grinder 33 times in congressional hearings and 4 times in public hearings at a cost of $7 million, all investigating the Benghazi tragedy. The Republicans never found any wrongdoing on her part, but they kept something that looked like a scandal in front of the public for years. Same thing with her email server.

Now it’s Hunter Biden’s turn. Five years of investigation by DOJ attorney David Weiss and all he found were the late payment of taxes and a lie on his application for gun ownership. But that’s not enough to satisfy the Republicans.

Trump-appointed White has trashed the plea deal that he himself negotiated with Hunter Biden and will now dig for more dirt with his new Special Prosecutor credentials, this in an attempt to smear President Biden by association.

Here’s Pop Quiz question #1:

Name all the Democratic Party generated, multi-year sensational witch hunt investigations over the past 75 years.

Right: You can’t name any. The witch hunt theater is entirely Republican sleaze.

Quote of the Week

First, 3 Predictions:

  1. 2024, especially the first 8 months, is going to be a year of circuses like no other.
  2. Biden will win re-election, largely through Republican cowardice and default.
  3. Over the next 10 years, domestic terrorism will be our biggest challenge – by far.

Now to the quote.

It’s tied to the predictions, which are based on decades of Republican lunacy and cruelty.

The fierce and mindless pugnacity of the MAGA mob has many of the traits of religious fanatics. They have the passion, anger and certainty of their rightness as any Crusader, Inquisition zealots, witch burner and more.

So, from the upcoming book by Brian Muldoon, The Luminous One,

This, perhaps, was the original sin of religion—to claim one’s own beliefs are the only truth and to assault anyone who does not agree.

Instead of a continuation of that sin, we’re looking for actual justice.

“Justice, justice shall you pursue .  .  .  ”  Deuteronomy 16:20

  • Today is a good day to be the light

    ______________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

John Wilkes Booth


Click me

While checking into a state park lodge for a family reunion, I got into a discussion with the guy behind the counter. The net of it was that he directed me to a couple of websites: Bay Area Transparency and 1st Amendment Auditor. I started watching a video on each of them and lost patience at lightning speed. They appear to be pseudo documentaries focused on taking down law enforcement by means of entrapment, temper tantrum badgering and vomiting accusations.

These videos have the smell of a guy with anti-authority mania, victimhood adoration and severe daddy issues, all of which he uses to bludgeon others.

In one scene the host is operating his camera with his mouth in full-auto blabbing mode while finger jabbing at a police officer in the middle of the street. He’s complaining that there are signs indicating parking only for state vehicles and that the police shouldn’t be allowed to make up their own rules and limit others. That’s his gotcha.

The point is that he goes to great lengths to find ways that injustice prevails and disadvantages him. He accuses and badgers police officers who are polite in return. He sounds like he has an adult body and an adult voice, but he has the maturity and self-control of a kid having a tantrum on the floor of the cereal aisle.

Why should you care about that?

Because this guy is a poster child for our infestation of MAGA plague. He appears to believe that he’s doing a red, white and blue, true American patriotic unmasking of authoritarian over-reach and cruelty, all this over a parking space.

Extrapolate that to millions of people whose weapons aren’t cameras, but instead are semi-automatic pistols and assault rifles. That’s why you should care.

We have an overload of citizens who think they’ve been wronged, who believe that there is a deep state populated by oppressors who happily crush true Americans. These are people who have devolved into anarchist king killers.

Last Tuesday I saw a clip of reporter Vaughn Hillyard interviewing a woman at a Trump rally in New Hampshire (view from 2:10). He asked what will happen if Trump is found guilty. She responded, “civil war.” Take your own guess as to why saying that would appear to please her.

As disastrous as such violence would be, not prosecuting Trump would eventually be far worse, so I’m not advocating backing off prosecutions. Indeed, I’m for full speed ahead to nail that law breaker and his sycophantic co-conspirators. Accountability is all that forestalls worse. See my post this Wednesday for more about that.

There is a very high level of anger, belligerence, and vitriol in the bellies of millions of Americans. They’re people with “issues” and they act as though only violence will assuage their “issues.” These are people who don’t just want the parking signs taken down. They want everything taken down.

The Republican Party is no longer the party of Lincoln. It is the party of John Wilkes Booth.

Maybe Some Sanity and Relief is Coming From

H.J.Res.54 – Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States providing that the rights protected and extended by the Constitution are the rights of natural persons only. (118th Congress)
Sponsor: Rep. Jayapal, Pramila [D-WA-7] (Introduced 04/10/2023)

We’ve tried this before. Maybe we can bring it to the right conclusion this time.

January 21, 2010 was a dark and dangerous day for the United States. It was the day that the Supreme Court announced its findings in the Citizens United case and produced a thunder clap decision that was scarcely related to the case actually brought before the Supreme Court.

The Court, in its warped, John Roberts anti-wisdom, decided that corporations have all the same rights as people. It reaffirmed that money isn’t a tangible property; it’s speech. It said that it’s okay for wealthy individuals and corporations to make enormous financial donations to politicians and SuperPACs. And it said that it’s okay for much of that bribery to remain secret. Fundamentally, that decision validated politics as a pay-to-play scheme, giving lots more power to rich people and corporations and way less to you. And none of that had anything to do with Citizens United wanting to post a smash-mouth video trashing Hillary.

In his dissent in this case, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that in addressing an issue that was not raised by the litigants,

“ . . . the majority changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law.”

“A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold.”

And that’s why this proposed amendment is critically important.

I’ve done many presentations about the craziness of this case and others. Click here and scroll down to the embedded 15-minute video for a taste test. It’s from 2014 and, sadly, it’s still timely today.

Many of us have been searching for an answer to the question of what we can do to reverse this theft of our government (see MoveToAmend). From the lead-in to this section of a proposed Constitutional amendment, it looks (again) like relief might be on the way.

What you can do now is to encourage your Representative to co-sponsor H.J. Res. 54. Because this is a proposed amendment to the Constitution it’s going to take years to get this done. That’s why today is a good day to start.

Quote of the Week

Steve Schmidt writes a post entitled The Warning and I heartily recommend it. Last Wednesday he centered his comments around those of President James Garfield and his address to his Union Army “Boys in Blue” in his essay America Is Not Our Politics. It is a splendid reminder of the real America, so I heartily recommend it to you.

To make the point about America being something else and not being our politics, Schmidt wrote,

These are troubled days where idiocy, malice, cowardice and appeasement have become the rocket fuel for political advancement.

And, of course, that isn’t who you or I or any of us is. Read Schmidt’s post.

Not Just For Fun

I saw this pic that led a story in the Washington Post about a murder cold case. Intending no disrespect for that story or the people involved, I just had to use it for a spoof.

In my interpretation, peeking from behind that door are Ron DeSantis and some dope of a placeholder for all the self-righteous Republican politicians who think they belong in your bedroom.

Here’s what that will look like in video if the self-righteous ones (including Clarence Thomas) get their way.

From David Corn’s Our Town Newsletter of August 12:

” .  .  .  the fundamental reality [is] that for many on the right, the war against reproductive rights is a war against sex. These folks just don’t like the idea of us having a good time on our own terms.”

  • Today is a good day to be the light

    ______________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Preventing Tyranny


First Things First
.

CONGRATULATIONS OHIOANS!

You defeated Issue 1, an attempt by a cruel cabal of democracy haters to take away your freedom, your rights, your voice and your power. And you did it with a 13% margin.

You stood up for democracy. You told the world that you will not cave in to the cruel minority of politicians and special interest power grabbers who want to take away your rights.

You told them in no uncertain terms,

“NOT ON MY WATCH!“
.

That is how tyranny is prevented.

So, good on you, Ohio! Well done!

And In the Senate

An essay by Luis Martinez in Foreign Affairs entitled How to Spot an Autocrat’s Economic Lies focuses on the manipulations of autocracies, like China and the former Soviet Union. I’ve taken the liberty of replacing “government” with “party” or “Republican Party” in Martinez’s opening. I think you’ll see why.

Winston Smith, the protagonist of George Orwell’s 1984, spends his days as an employee at the Ministry of Truth adjusting documents to conform to the fluctuating political needs of Big Brother’s regime. “Who controls the past controls the future, who controls the present controls the past,” Orwell wrote, drawing a connection between a party’s ability to influence what the public perceives as the truth and that party’s political survival. Although he leaned to the political left, Orwell was deeply wary of the tyranny coalescing in the Republican Party, which sought to bend reality to its needs.

This is what tyrannies do, whether in Stalin’s Soviet Union or Trump’s Republican Party. Self-serving lies replace truth specifically for the purpose of manipulating and controlling the public for the power that delivers to the Party and its manipulators.

This, of course, is not news. What’s useful is seeing the obvious parallel of autocratic China and the tyrannical Soviet Union to today’s Republican Party. The Republicans could hang a banner with a motto, perhaps expressed in Latin to give it gravitas, “Lies and Deception.” That piece of truth would be refreshing, but don’t look for it anywhere anytime soon – except here.

Right now Republicans in the Senate are engaged in an internal attack on our national security. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) has been filibustering all Senate confirmations of our top military posts for 8 months. That includes two posts on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, with two more retirements coming before the end of September. That leaves us weaker and less able to deal with the challenges to our nation. That also undermines our diplomatic efforts.

BTW – George W. Bush knee capped our diplomacy and our entire Department of State. So did Trump. What is it with Republicans that they don’t believe in diplomacy but they do believe in swagger and ham-fisted militarism?

Tuberville’s behavior is made more curious by his liking to say, “There is no one more military than me.” Oh wait. I forgot that this self-described “more military” blowhard was never in the military. Maybe that drives his imbecilic hobbling of our military readiness. Maybe he just doesn’t get it. Or maybe he just doesn’t care about the harm he does to our military, to our diplomatic efforts and personnel or to our nation.

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), never one to miss an opportunity to gain attention and to display faux patriotism, at last lifted his long filibuster on diplomatic appointments. Of course, that was too late for us to have an ambassador in place able to have influence on the anti-democracy uprisings in Niger or the ongoing threat from Iran, like their seizing of merchant ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

Both Tuberville and Paul filed their filibusters for reasons having nothing to do with our diplomacy, national defense or any external affair. Paul was having a manipulation fit because he wanted confidential documentation pertaining to COVID released. Clearly, his desire for power is more important than our international affairs and our safety.

And Tuberville is hobbling our military and intelligence capabilities because he wants to change our military’s consideration for women who have to travel to a different state in order to access abortion services. Clearly, Tuberville’s opinions on women’s healthcare are more important than our defense readiness or our intelligence capabilities.

I’m sorry that these men feel they have to revert to getting attention in nationally destructive ways. But my sorry for them just can’t compete with the sorry for what they are doing to our country.

That these two men can paralyze our national and international affairs is abhorrent. That the rest of the Republicans in the Senate stand by in silence, tacitly condoning such harm to our nation, is reprehensible cowardice. All of them are tools of Big Brother Trump and are turncoats to our country.

Worse yet, We The People voted for this, either through the moronic, goose-stepping votes of our extremists supporting the madness provocateurs or through the apathy and failure of too many of us to vote against the America wreckers .

We know how to fix this. It will look a lot like the glorious win for democracy in Ohio yesterday. It will take ALL OF US stepping up.

That is how tyranny is prevented.

  • Today is a good day to be the light

    ______________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.


  • Did someone forward this post to you? Welcome! Please subscribe – use the simple form above on the right. And pass this along to three others, encouraging them to subscribe, too. (IT’S A FREEBIE!) It’s going to take ALL OF US to get the job done.

    And add your comments below to help us all to be better informed.

    Thanks!

    The Fine Print:

    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
    2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
    3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
    4. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.
    5. Book links to Amazon are provided for reference only. Please purchase your books through your local mom & pop bookstore. Keep them and your town or neighborhood vibrant.

    Click me

    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

Indictment


Clarification

In the midst of my joy over the beginning of accountability for wrongs done in association with January 6, I wrote last Wednesday, “O’ happy day!” And it was a happy day by reason of accountability. Let’s be clear, though, that this indictment of a former president is not one dimensional. Another dimension is fear.

I fear several things about this indictment. I fear that prosecuting Trump will galvanize hotheads to do stupid, destructive things, perhaps to attempt to use chaos and violence to take down our government, our freedoms and our rights. That’s been done more than once before.

I fear that a lone gunman, perhaps many lone gunmen, will kill and injure innocent people, including those who uphold our laws. They did that on January 6, so we know they won’t hesitate to attack cops.

And I fear that an extreme Trump supporter will slip into the jury and prevent justice from being done.

Another dimension to this indictment is the clarity that this is a profoundly proud moment for democracy.

This is how we declare to ourselves that there is no rule of one person, but that we are a nation of laws. This is how we say to those on the far right that while they proclaim that they are the true Americans, our rule of law flag is planted in the bedrock of justice and is what real Americans support. There is no need for anyone to like that or to agree. There simply is an absolute requirement for everyone to obey the law, not the rule of Trump.

Jack Smith and the members of his DOJ army are operating in a shooting gallery. They know that even as they stand for justice that they are at the center of the bulls eye of angry people. The death threats they’ve received haven’t stopped them and they remain willing to risk their lives for our Constitution and for We The People. So we stand with Jack Smith and his army because these heroes are standing for us.

Trump Supporters

There are millions of Trump supporters who are not dissuaded from their loyalty to him, even in the face of his well over 30,000 lies, his bumbling, our national debt exploding on his watch, his intentional estrangement of our allies, two impeachments and multiple felony indictments. That support seems curious to many of us so I’ve put some thought as to why they continue to follow and support him. Here’s a shopping list, pretty much off the top of my head.

  1. Many of these people are aggrieved for various disappointments felt as betrayals, a feeling of having been blown off, left behind by a government that simply doesn’t care about them. They aren’t entirely wrong about that. Think: offshoring of jobs encouraged by decades of government programs and policies that hollowed out whole towns. Because of that, they easily fall in line behind a defiant strongman, the “deep state” slayer. Leaving that line feels to them like going without a protector.
  2. Following and supporting Trump feels good, like they’re sticking it to the man who’s been sticking it to them for so long. Trump constantly models a middle finger for these folks and in that way they feel powerful.
  3. Leaving Trump would require people to admit:
    1. They were wrong to follow him. Nobody likes to say, “I was wrong.” Fonzie couldn’t say that at all.
    2. They were duped. Nobody likes to admit they were fooled.
    3. That the rule of law means more than the rule of Trump and that maybe intentional cruelty isn’t such a good idea.
  4. Conviction on felony charges would show Trump to be un-American, even anti-American. At that point, his followers would have to admit that following Trump made them un-American, a total betrayal to how they see themselves. That’s a nearly impossible trick to pull off.

The psychologists can craft a better, more  substantial list, but you get the picture. Leaving the support of Trump involves real loss for his staunch supporters and the various pains that go with doing that. It’s much easier and less painful to stay where they are and write yet another check payable to Trump.

So, cut these folks some slack in your comfortable judgement of them. They’re in a tough spot, albeit of their own making.

Focus instead on reaching those whose minds have not been enslaved and provide motivation to them to show up and vote.
.

BTW: Something is upside-down. Instead of we voters supporting candidates and elected officials, shouldn’t they be supporting and championing us?

Action Imperative

No vote is more urgent and important right now than Ohio Issue 1 in the election on August 8. The minority rule Republicans in the Ohio legislature have crafted a democracy killer of a bill. it’s a product of their brutality, as they seek to silence and dis-empower the majority of Ohio citizens. You know – the ones who believe in majority rule, aka democracy?

That bill would change the citizen ballot initiative process to require a 60% majority in order to pass a citizen ballot issue. A super majority. No more simple majority wins, the way we all were taught contests were supposed to be won. That would make it nearly impossible for citizens to stop the tyrannical minority Republican legislature. Voting for that bill is the equivalent of voters tightening a noose around their own necks. It would be volunteering to be electorally neutered, to have their democracy – rule by the people – killed.

This is anything but hyperbolic. Just one example: The Christian nationalists are all about forcing their views onto everyone else. Passing this bill would be a major stop toward the theocracy they hallucinate we’re supposed to be.

If you live in Ohio or know someone of voting age in Ohio or have ever been in Ohio and can remember the first name of someone you briefly met there, call, text or email them and urge them to

VOTE NO

on Tuesday.

For more on the terrible danger this bill portends, read David Pepper’s essay detailing a meeting of the extremists who want to take all the power from Ohioans. Be clear that when they’re done there, they’re coming for you wherever you live.

Quote of the Week

From Eugene Robinson in The Washington Post, August 3:

Personally, I wish jurors could return a verdict that goes beyond “guilty as charged.” Maybe something like “guilty as hell.”

Quote of the Decade

From former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL):

America is strong, but democracy is delicate. It depends on leaders who swear an oath to protect the sacred rights enshrined in our Constitution; it depends on citizens working to elect reasonable, ethical leaders; it depends on our brave men and women in uniform to defend it; and it depends on YOU, ME, ALL OF US putting our country over party. [emphasis original]

  • Today is a good day to be the light

    ______________________________

  • Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
  • Fire the bastards!
  • The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.

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    1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings.
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    JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
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