Violence

Just Say No To Metastasizing


Post 1,008

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O’ Those Crazy Republicans

1. As Karoun Demirjian outlined in the New York Times, Jim Jordan and his allies deployed a pressure campaign – meaning threats of violence and death – against those Republicans opposed to him. As she puts it, they’re “working to unleash the rage of the party’s base voters against any lawmaker standing in his way.”

Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) said,

“So far I’ve had four death threats. I’ve been evicted from my office in Colorado…because the landlord is mad with my voting record on the Speaker issue. And everybody in the conference is getting this …. Family members have been approached and threatened, all kinds of things are going on ….”

2. From Heather Cox Richardson on October 16:

Last week, Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) called for shutting down the government in November unless Democrats agree to cutting all spending for processing or releasing into the country any new migrants. He says the demand is “non-negotiable.” But U.S. and international law require the U.S. to process asylum requests, even if a migrant arrives in between legal points of entry.

Former senior Department of Homeland Security lawyer Tom Jawetz told Greg Sargent of the Washington Post that Jordan’s plan “would be both illegal and a practical impossibility.” Administration officials “are legally obligated to process people for asylum on request,” he said. “It’s not a choice.”

But therein lies the heart of today’s Republican Party: its extremist leaders no longer believe that rules apply to them.

3. Ohio has a ballot initiative on the ticket to enshrine women’s healthcare, including the right to abortion, into the state constitution. The Republican Secretary of State of Ohio has rewritten the ballot initiative from the clear, simple language of the original to something confusing, unclear and unattractive to voters. It’s a Nixon-worthy, Roger Stone-worthy dirty trick. Its like the Republican sponsored billboards in largely minority areas that remind people to vote, but they advertise the day after the actual election.

4. 147 Republican members of congress voted to stop the counting of the Electoral College votes. They tried to keep your vote from being counted. That’s against the Constitution They supported Trump’s entirely fraudulent, dishonest, anti-American claim of a stolen election. Most of the traitors are still in congress.

5.  From Haaretz on October 20:

Republicans Compare Jewish Protesters Calling for Gaza Cease-fire to January 6 Insurrectionists
.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is among the pro-Trump supporters calling for hundreds of American-Jewish protesters who staged a sit-down in a congressional office on Wednesday to be ‘held in the DC gulag,’ equating their actions with the treatment meted out to those who stormed the Capitol in 2021.

First, of course, there is no “DC gulag.” Second, while I don’t agree with the demonstrators, all they were doing was demonstrating. They didn’t try to kill police. They didn’t vandalize the building. They didn’t try to overturn the Constitution of the United States. They didn’t  .  .  .  oh wait. I’m being logical in opposition to Marjorie Taylor Greene, the logic and reason arsonist. What was I thinking?

That is thugocracy from the likes of Jim Jordan and other far right extremists. Indeed, that’s MAGA style democracy, which is to say, no democracy.

All this and far more are what the Republican Party is today.

“But,” you might say, “traditional Republicans aren’t like that.”

Perhaps 20% of Republicans, every now and then, might be described as “traditional.” But any of them who cave in to MAGA thugocracy or who don’t publicly oppose the slimy and violent tactics and the destruction the thugs are doing are letting their cowardice drive their actions. They’re selling out our country. Which of them will stand up for what is right if doing so costs them something?

It doesn’t matter if they disagree in private with the wrong that they see. Their public silence is tacit support for the Republican path to destruction. Effectively, duty means nothing to them. So, don’t bother to wave the Yeah-But flag, because it’s meaningless. The Republican Party is irredeemable from its criminal march to destroy our democracy.

This is not the first time when power obsessed, virulent autocrats have tried to murder our democracy. They tried it in the 1850s, the 1930s and the 1950s. If you know our history you realize that each time they were traitors to the values we believe in. They actually perverted the words of the Declaration of Independence for their ends. They did the same with the Preamble to the Constitution and even the Federalist Papers. Some waved our red, white and blue next to Nazi swastika flags in the 30s and 40s. They’re doing it again today.

They and their cause are a cancer metastasizing inside our nation. Theirs is a grand larceny of what protects our nation from those intent upon stealing our birthright as a nation and as individuals. They are metastasizing the disease against which our Revolutionaries fought.

So we persevere in the fight for our democracy. We never give in. We join the battle because that is what we must do. We will not allow dishonesty and breach of oath and faith to stain our nation or to go unpunished. We will not allow our democracy to be destroyed.

This is from The Union, the activist arm of The Lincoln Project:

Scared, sad, worried, heartsick, jittery and jaded about our democracy? Put all of that on the shelf right now. Step up and join The Union. The Action Center is a direct line to volunteer actions you can take every day through more than 100 partner organizations dedicated to electing pro-democracy candidates. We’re an activist coalition 65,000+ strong, with members from across the political spectrum. And while we don’t agree on every issue, we’re in complete agreement about the one that counts: Defending American democracy now and strengthening it for generations to come. [emphasis mine]

Update

Hamas continues to rain rockets on Israeli civilians. 31 days after the October 7 massacre there are still over 3,300 injured Israelis, 249 are still being held hostage and 1,400 are still dead.

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.

Intractable


Post 1,003

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I need your great idea. Israelis and Palestinians need it more and the world is demanding it.

An example of that demand is in an October 18 op-ed from Charles M. Blow in the New York Times, An Evolving Moral High Ground in the Israel-Gaza War. Blow says of the Hamas attack that killed over 1,400 Israelis, butchered babies, took hostages and more that it, “.  .  . was horrid, barbaric and inexcusable. Israel has a right to defend itself and pursue the perpetrators.”

Then he says “.  .  . evacuation orders [to Palestinians] are imposed, electricity and basic supplies are cut off — is also horrid and not a justifiable response to the terrorist attacks.” Many are expressing similar views, including in massive street demonstrations around the world. They are especially calling for Israel to stop all attacks in Gaza. Understandable. Got it. Just one thing.

Hamas isn’t done trying to kill Israelis. In fact it has continued to fire rockets into Israel. If Israel stops attacking Hamas, they’ll do yet more killing of Israelis. If Israel backs off all military pressure, it will be jump starting the next large scale wave of Hamas terrorists killing Israelis.

On October 19, speaking from the Oval Office, President Biden said,

“[H]istory has taught us that when terrorists don’t pay a price for their terror, when dictators don’t pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos and death and more destruction. They keep going, and the cost and the threats to America and to the world keep rising.”

Substitute “Israel” for “America” in his words and you have the problem Israel faces right now.

We all understand the humanitarian imperative to avoid harming non-combatant Palestinians. But the “just one thing” part is the answer to the question of what Israel should do. We can ask it another way: After a cease fire, what comes next to accomplish these goals:

  1. Minimal harm to civilians.
  2. Safe and secure borders.
  3. An end to Hamas – because if they exist at all they will continue to kill Israelis, which would negate points 1 and 2

Did I get that right? What am I missing?

Hamas has two purposes for existing: to eliminate the state of Israel and to kill Jews. It’s in their charter. It’s hard to find a solution to end the violence when one party is absolutely dedicated to the elimination of its adversary as a state and the killing of all of its people. They leave no room for negotiation, much less any path to peace.

It looks to me that if Israel continues attacking Hamas sites in Gaza that the collateral damage will be dead and wounded Palestinians. If they back off, the dead and wounded will be Israelis. Either way, the world will blame Israel and Jews for civilian deaths. I’m at the tipping point to “I don’t care what the world thinks or who it blames.” But that’s just me.

Blow says that “Israel has a right to defend itself and pursue the perpetrators.” How should they do that in a way that protects non-combatants? Once we get past the Kumbaya recommendations, the practical requirement – the imperative – for protection remains. What should Israel do to defend itself and to pursue the perps?

Please don’t offer an “Everyone deserves to live in safety and freedom” solution, because that isn’t a solution, as Hamas won’t abide by it. And bombardment back to the stone age is unacceptable on its face, even though that has been the solution of choice for thousands of years. In the present day it’s called “ethnic cleansing” or whatever is Putin’s phony justification for what he’s doing to the people of Ukraine.

There are a lot of very smart people who have worked to find an answer to this so-far intractable problem. We need your great idea, something that can work for everyone.

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.

Much To Say


Post 1,001

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Save a Life

I don’t have combat fatigues or desert boots. I don’t have an assault rifle or mortar shells, nor even a hobby style drone. I’m a pilot but I cannot fly a military fighter or helicopter. I’m good with a Band-Aid, but I’m no corpsman, much less a doctor. Plus, I passed my “best if used by” date for war a long time ago. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t help.

Regular readers know that my focus is usually on the insanity that passes for our national politics. I write, hoping to disambiguate and make a difference. That is something I can do.

And I can do something for the young people who are guilty of having gone to a music festival in the desert. I can do something for those who survived in their “safe rooms” as Hamas terrorists set fire to their houses. I can do something for the families murdered near the Gaza border. I can do something for those now homeless in Ashkelon because of Hamas rockets.

I can write to you.

American Friends of Magen David Adom is about saving lives. Every penny of every contribution goes toward saving lives. It’s their tagline: “Saving lives. It’s in our blood.”

My temple sponsored a new ambulance for them. That’s the kind of “every penny” for saving lives that I mean. They don’t discriminate – they help all they can.

Writing about and giving to save lives is something I can do.

Reading and giving to save lives is something you can do.

Click here or on the logo of Magen David Adom. Poke around their website to see what they’re about. Then click on the DONATE button and enter an amount that pinches a bit.

Go ahead. Save a life today. It’s in your blood.

And pass this along to your friends and family, your Facebook groupies, your congregants (any congregants – this is ecumenical, universal saving of life), your neighbors, your Sunday afternoon football bros. Every one of us was taught to help others, so here’s the opportunity in real time to do that. So, be a hero – lead the way.

Hurry: lives hang in the balance.

Victims

I watched part of Andrea Mitchell’s program on MSNBC on Thursday and listened to her telephone interview with a 22 year old woman in Gaza named Salma Shurrab. Shurrab described living without running water or electricity, with no hope of securing more food and in the midst of rubble. She said that there is no safe place and that hospitals are running out of supplies. She called Hamas “the Palestinian Resistance.” She called the IDF “the Aggression.”

Surely, she knows that Israeli actions are in response to the violence unleashed on Israelis since October 7 by Hamas terrorists (my word, not hers). We don’t know if she has details about beheaded Israeli children or Israelis burned alive or grandparents and Holocaust survivors dragged away as hostages. She must have some information about the death and destruction done by Hamas fighters, yet she points her finger at Israel. That made me wonder.

When her brother and his friends were thumping their chests, brandishing their AK-47s and yelling “Death to Israel! Death to Jews!” what did she do? Did she tell them that they were not allowed to lob missiles from their house in Gaza City to kill Israeli civilians?

For the past 20 years Palestinian mothers and fathers could have been teaching their children not to be terrorists, not to be bomb makers or suicide bombers, not to be murderers. They didn’t do that and you know what their grown sons have done. You know who has paid the price so far. You know who is going to pay a far greater price soon.

The failure of those parents made certain that the coming invasion and loss of Palestinian life was inevitable. Their failure has put the life of that woman talking to Andrea Mitchell at risk. Their failure has ensured that another generation of Hamas terrorists will arise to do nothing but kill and, in the end, get thousands more Palestinian civilians killed.

President Biden said,

“.  .  .  [Hamas’] stated purpose is the annihilation of the State of Israel and the murder of Jewish people .  .  .  Hamas offers nothing but terror and bloodshed with no regard to who pays the price.”

Many billions of dollars of aid from Qatar, Iran, Turkey and elsewhere have poured into Gaza over the years. That money could have gone to building hospitals, schools, tech startups, infrastructure and more. Instead it went into building rockets and buying armaments so that most Gazans live in militarized subsistence and their children are angry, quick to blame and eager to kill.

While most Palestinians aren’t militants carrying AK-47s or firing rockets targeted at Israeli civilians, they are not innocent victims because they allowed bomb factories to be placed in their mosques, command posts under hospitals, rocket launchers in kindergartens and all the rest of the war preparation that was done using Palestinian civilians as human shields.

Civilian death is what happens when hatred and blame come home. The Palestinians allowed their sons to grow up to be terrorists. So, with sincere concern for Salma Shurrab, there is no Palestinian civilian innocence.

Now, incrementally, the world is cautioning Israel to avoid harm to Palestinian civilians, but that advice is way too late. Advice and support that could have actually made a difference to preserve Palestinian life has been missing for decades.

As the body count ramps up, talking heads, in their self-righteous indignation, will call the Israelis terrorists, butchers and murderers. What you’ll hear is how Palestinians, injured or killed, were innocent victims of the oppressor, Israel. If history is a teacher, you won’t hear about Palestinian responsibility and they’ll have no useful ideas; just finger pointing. They’re no more than useful idiots for Hamas.

Palestinian civilian death is tragic, but is guaranteed by the promises of Hamas to kill any and every Palestinian who so much as speaks of peace with Israel or Jews. Hamas exists for only one thing: killing Jews and killing anyone who doesn’t want to kill Jews. Doubt that? Read their charter, especially Article 7. Easier: read this.

What Will Happen

This post was written on Saturday, October 14. The IDF had bombed most of Gaza and instructed Palestinians in the north to go south, telegraphing where the IDF land invasion would begin in the search for hostages and Hamas fighters. The Israeli forces will not stop; they will not use half-way measures. Here’s why.

From the Jerusalem Post, May 23, 2021:

There’s a story that US President Joe Biden has told many times over the years about his first trip to Israel.
.
As a freshman senator in 1973, Biden was granted a meeting with prime minister Golda Meir, who together with Yitzhak Rabin briefed Biden on the many threats Israel faced, showing him a series of maps.
.
“I guess she could see the sense of apprehension on my face,” Biden said in a 2010 retelling of the story. “She said, ‘Senator, don’t look so worried… We Israelis have a secret weapon.’ And I thought she only had said this to me, no one else in the whole world .  .  . And I thought she was going to tell me about a new secret weapon.”
.
So what is Israel’s secret weapon, Biden asked eagerly.
“We have nowhere else to go,” replied Golda.
.
That was true in 1948, in 1967, in 1973 and in all the conflicts with Hamas and Hezbollah. It is still true today. That is why Hamas cannot and will not win this or any war against Israel.
.
At the same time, Israel, now propelled by humiliation, outrage, the real need to protect its citizens and, indeed, Jews everywhere, is falling into the Hamas trap – more on that here.
.
Mass civilian deaths from an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza will paint a black scar on Israel and has already interrupted peace negotiations with Saudi Arabia. The price for Hamas to achieve that interruption is already over 3,000 dead and there likely will be thousands more Palestinian deaths, but Hamas doesn’t care a bit about that. They have a boatload of bastardized Quranic phrases to justify slaughter. Again, read their charter.
.
Both Hamas and Israel could have peace. But for that to happen, both sides would have to want peace. At least one side doesn’t want it, any more than Yassir Arafat wanted peace when it was within easy reach in 2000 at Camp David.
.

If you have a workable solution to this mess, contact the nearest Israeli embassy immediately. But, please, be real. If those were your babies who were beheaded, your children who were hacked to death in the desert, your parents who were burned alive or shot dead fleeing their burning home or taken hostage, how would you counsel Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz?

In WWII we Americans firebombed Dresden, Tokyo and more cities. We dropped atomic bombs on two cities that were not military targets. We were after eliminating the enemies who sought to kill us. Can you conjure a reason there should be different rules for Israel facing the homicidal insanity of Hamas?

The maniacal Hamas murderers can’t be jawboned into becoming flower children. They live solely to kill. It’s in their charter.

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 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.

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.

    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.

Frighteningly Curious


How is it that these are true?

Fox News was sued by Dominion Voting Systems and settled the lawsuit for $787,500,000.

Donald Trump was sued by E. Jean Carroll for assault and defamation, lost the suit and has to pay $5 million. Plus, he stands to get skewered for more money in a follow-on defamation lawsuit because he just can’t keep his mouth shut and refrain from attacking people.

Kari Lake, the election denial candidate for governor of Arizona, is being sued for defamation. Even her lawyers were fined in her insane effort to overturn her 2022 election loss.

Fox News and its on-air blabbers are being sued for defamation by Smartmatic Corporation for $2.7 billion.

Fox News and its on-air blabbers, most notably Tucker Carlson and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), are being sued for defamation by January 6 attendee Ray Epps for what will likely be more than $10 million.

Fox was sued by former staffer Abby Grossberg. Per the New York Times, “.  .  .  Fox’s lawyers had pushed her to give a misleading deposition in the Dominion case and [she is] alleging a hostile and discriminatory work environment.” Fox settled for $12 million. Said Grossberg, “I am hopeful, based on our discussions with Fox News today, that this resolution represents a positive step by the Network regarding its treatment of women and minorities in the workplace.” Gotta appreciate her optimism, however unfounded.

Over a thousand January 6 anti-democracy sedition perps have been arrested for felonies and hundreds are doing time in the hoosegow (good word).

James Fields was found guilty of first degree murder for driving his car into a group of people who were counter-protesting the Charlottesville, VA White nationalist rally in 2018. Apparently, he was one of Trump’s “very fine people.”

Kyle Rittenhouse traveled from his home in Illinois to Kenosha, WI carrying his illegal assault rifle in order to kill people. Somehow he wasn’t convicted and now he’s a hero to White supremacists.

All of these miscreants is or has been working to undermine our democracy. They use violence by word and deed to attack and suppress other Americans and, of course, they wave the flag and claim they are the true Americans.

They and those like them are extremists at war against our country. They are autocrat wannabees. They are Constitution defilers. Those like them were the killers at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, at Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo, at the Las Vegas concert massacre, at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde and so many more killings.

I’ve searched and just can’t find egregious behavior like these examples that has been done by people who lean right or are in the political center or on the left. To be fair, a small handful of lefty rioters were prosecuted following the police murder of George Floyd.

But nobody on the left is defaming righties. Nobody on the left is shooting and killing righties. Nobody on the left is intentionally driving their car into a crowd in order to kill righties. Nobody on the left is suborning perjury. Nobody on the left is storming the Capitol Building and committing violence and destruction in a treasonous effort to upend our democracy.

Why is that? How come we don’t see such abuses and assaults on our citizens, our institutions and our country done by right-leaners, centrists or lefties but we do see them done by righties?

When the news hit that Kari Lake was being sued for defamation, Joe Scarborough tweeted, “Gravity is returning.” Maybe so.

We seem to have part of our citizenry that consistently denies reality and, as you can see from the short list above, that has substantial consequences. It is an anti-gravity.

Obeisance to Trump got a bunch of people killed on January 6 and it nearly toppled our 247 year democracy project. It has caused hundreds of people to be murdered by angry haters and it has upset or ruined lives, like those of Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss.

Only far righties inflict this kind of cruelty.
.

Be sure to tell us all if I got that wrong.

Perhaps, given the several push-backs, Scarborough will be proven right and gravity will return. But I tell you this with absolute confidence:

Getting us securely gravity-glued to Earth is going to take an ongoing campaign of promoting democracy. It will take democracy flag bearers in all of our elected offices. It will require ALL OF US to TAKE A STAND in the never ending battle for our values of truth, justice and democracy.
.

Last Point on This

From the New York Times report, How Trump’s 2020 Election Lies Have Gripped State Legislatures:

At least 357 sitting Republican legislators in closely contested battleground states have used the power of their office to discredit or try to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election .  .  .

The tally accounts for 44 percent of the Republican legislators in the nine states where the presidential race was most narrowly decided. In each of those states, the election was conducted without any evidence of widespread fraud .  .  .

Really now, have you heard any gravity-free, reality denial stuff like that coming from the right-leaners, centrists or lefties of our politics?

Our extremist righty American craziness is more than frighteningly curious. This is a 5-alarm fire we must fight. So get on the democracy fire engine (click the link and climb aboard) – it’s solidly on the ground – and together we’ll put out this un-American blaze of cruelty and fake patriotism.

Random ‘Ritings

From The New York Times Morning Briefing, 7/17/23:

Given the politics of vaccination, the recent victims [of COVID] are also disproportionately Republican and [W]hite.

We suffer around 80 deaths from COVID per day, down from the thousands dying from the disease every day at the peak of the pandemic. The Times reports that the improvement is largely due to:

  1. About 3/4 of U.S. adults have received at least one vaccine shot.
  2. Over 3/4 of Americans have been infected and retain some natural immunity.
  3. Paxlovid treatment is available and can reduce the severity of symptoms.

So, goody for us, especially for our life saving vaccines. Yet we still have baseless conspiracy spewers like Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. infecting us with anti-vaccine propaganda.

And we still have resisters, aided in their resistance by Kennedy and other deniers and by the extremists wailing about phantom infringement of their freedom.

Some of these resistors die because of their belief in those not worthy of their belief. And they die for their stubbornness. Effectively, they are saying, “I’d rather die than admit I’m wrong about science and government.”

That, too, is frighteningly curious.

For You, Ohio
.

Click here to see what Republicans in your state want to do.

Then VOTE NO! on August 8.

Quote of the Week

From Ed Gurowitz’s post of July 17, The Apocalypse is (Nearly) Here:

Maya Angelou famously said, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them.” Kevin McCarthy, Mitch McConnell, and others have shown us who the Republicans are by pandering to any group or organization that can keep them in office. It’s time the American people showed who we are and stop standing for being ignored and misrepresented. [emphasis mine]

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 a lot 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.

Thugocracy


In a stunning cave-in to thugs, Target, the retail department store, chickened out and pulled some of its LGBTQ-friendly merchandise from its shelves. The company has been offering such things for 10 years, typically in June, which is Pride Month. But stores have received threats of violence from LGBTQ haters, which puts both employees and customers at risk.

In a PR scrubbed statement, company spokeswoman Kayla Castañeda said, “Given these volatile circumstances, we are making adjustments to our plans, including removing items that have been at the center of the most significant confrontational behavior.” That is to say, they surrendered to the thugs. This all came shortly after Brian Cornell, CEO of Target, had bragged about company actions regarding diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

I’ll say it differently: Target self-censored not because of law, but because of fear. Score one for the thugs.

We all understand the decision to pull merchandise that extremists apparently think warrants threats of violence. Both such threats and even violence itself are not uncommon experiences in the LGBTQ world. And make no mistake: threats of violence are themselves violence. But, Houston, we have a problem, because the thugs have figured out how to get their way using violence. And it’s worse than that.

Leaders in politics, religion, punditry and those performing public temper tantrums have instructed Americans to fear and hate LGBTQ people. People like Ron DeSantis, governor of the hate state of Florida, uses words like “indoctrinate” to make parents afraid of the existence of people who are different from them. With all that stoking of passions of hatred it’s little wonder that extremists have amped up both their violence and their threats of violence.

After all, we have politicians publicly encouraging the extremists to hatred and violence. Ask Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss about that. All they did was to be election workers and they were besieged with threats from the haters. The thugs banged on their doors, parked their lookout cars in front of their houses for hours in stakeouts and did even more to intimidate these women, to the point where they could no longer keep their jobs or even feel safe shopping for groceries. The thugs threatened them because Republican politicians lied, claiming a stolen election. Now those women live in fear all the time because the street thugs were incited by the Republican political thugs to threaten violence against innocent people.

Thugocracy. That’s what we have and as far as I can tell, nobody has a fix for this unless the inciters can be redirected or muzzled. But that’s a First Amendment problem that the haters deftly use to continue to stoke hatred.

And all the while they tell us they’re Christians. They hate and threaten and do violence just the way Jesus taught them, right?

No, not right! Jesus didn’t give any such instruction.

These false Christians do the kind of thing that Bill Maher warns us about. Some of the very worst atrocities in history have been religious wars or violence justified and incited by religion. Think: 9/11; The Crusades; our violence against indigenous people; hundreds of years of slavery.

Self-justification using religion is just the thing to justify getting one’s way and now it’s being used against LGBTQ people and Target by today’s thugs. If fascism comes to America – thugocracy – these guys will make great Storm Troopers.

If this progresses, expect lots of murders and your own self-censoring, as  you succumb to thugs, just as Target has done. Today’s nearly bare library shelves in some Republican controlled states have been made that way by self-appointed, ego-puffing guardians of extremist, delusional versions of correctness. The shelves will be restocked with new publications that have been scrubbed of anything that isn’t strictly White and Christian. The new books will contain nothing that even hints at actual history.

Just understand that this thugocracy business is real. It is vexing and it will not go away until we as a society demand that it go away and some strong and determined people strand up for truth, justice and the professed American way. You know: values, like democracy, human rights – all that messy stuff that makes our way of life possible. It’s quite unlike thugocracy.

Thugocracy Is The Official Platform

Thugocracy is the formally sanctioned, enthusiastically practiced, democracy crushing policy of the Republican Party. It smells a lot like fascism. See the next section of this post for more.

Their so-called negotiations with President Biden were in actuality designed to ensure that we will become the world’s biggest driver of economic and political pandemonium and its biggest economic cheat. Republicans tried to make this more likely by proposing to dump all the pain of budget cuts on low income Americans, which is now Republican dogma.

David Corn of Mother Jones, reports of their proposal that:

“The GOP position literally was this: We will allow the US government to pay its bills—which includes those run up by the Trump administration and a Republican Congress—and avoid an economic calamity, if you stick it to Americans who need help.”

But that’s just a bleeding heart liberal saying that, right? Not so fast.

Matt Gaetz, (R-Sex Trafficking Accusations) openly described Republican “negotiations” as hostage taking. And the budget proposal Republicans have offered refuses tax increases for the wealthy, cuts the ability of the IRS to go after high wealth tax cheats and it cuts programs for poor and middle class Americans.

And it is all done under the watchful eye of 20 ultra-extremists (not conservatives), any one of whom can bring down McCarthy’s speakership and all of whom want to bring down our government and our democracy.

That’s thugocracy in action by a Republican minority that has been given enormous leverage by a public minority of haters and grievance whiners.

Can you spot the thugs in this picture?

The Must Read of These Fraught Times
Thugs are working their fascist best to crush all you hold dear.
.

History Professor Heather Cox Richardson has found a way to get the message through to all of us. Her clear explanation is sourced from a U.S. government War Department pamphlet distributed to our troops in 1945, Army Times, Orientation Fact Sheet 64. It is titled:

FASCISM! [emphasis original]
.

Click me

There is chaos all around us, including the ongoing assaults on our freedoms and our rights and the minority control by thugs who refuse what We the People want. What do you suppose that’s really about?

Read Prof. Richardson’s piece quoting the original publication. If you would like to read the full, original 8-page pamphlet just the way our fighting men and women did when they risked their lives in 1945 to save our lives, you can find it here.

Course Note

To pass today’s course in citizenship and save our democracy for your children and grandchildren, you must know this material!

There will be a test.

  • 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 a lot 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 Madness


Ed. note: Due to the Moms Demand Action – Advocacy Day ’23 yesterday, “What It’s Really About – Part Two” has been moved to this Sunday, May 21.

It’s been ten and a half months since the brutal July 4th mass shooting in Highland Park, IL that killed seven innocent people and wounded 48 other parade attendees. The wounded list includes 8-year-old Cooper Roberts, the kid who is now paralyzed for the rest of his life from the killer’s bullet that ripped into his back. Emotional injuries from that day were in the tens of  thousands. Many of those will never heal.

Click me

The blood stains on the pavement are gone now, as is the mountain of flowers and candles at the makeshift memorial that was created that week. Attendees long ago picked up their lawn chairs, picnic baskets, bikes and child-sized flags that were supposed to be waved at people on the floats. The ocean of tears has been rinsed away by the rain and the snow. The intersection of Central Avenue and Second Street looks normal now and you might not guess that it was a war zone last year.

A permanent memorial will replace the temporary one next to the Library on Laurel Avenue. Right now it’s just seven posts, each with an etched placard on top bearing a picture and a few words to remember each of those killed.

The memorial is alongside a small rose garden and a rock garden. About a third of the rocks in that garden have been painted by children and they are very much like those at the bases of the seven posts – you can see them in the picture – many with heart piercing words of love and loss. The children’s offerings seem to speak for all of us, saying “We will always remember you.”

Sadly, we have two such mass shootings every 3 days in America, so it’s easy to imagine many thousands of piles of rocks painted by children all across the nation.

That vision brought me to the Moms Demand Action – Advocacy Day ’23 in the state capitol yesterday to help make a statement that We The People want sensible gun safety laws to keep these killing machines out of the hands of the angry, the crazy, the self-deluded, the falsely patriotic, the narcissisticly aggrieved, the mentally ill and the compulsively belligerent, like the  Highland Park murderer.

Hundreds of people of all ages showed up to make a statement about the need for better gun safety legislation, both in mass and in small group meetings with legislators.

Hundreds of Illinoisans showed up to demand better, even in this state with better than average gun safety legislation. The speeches were inspiring, delivering the clear and insistent message that the progress that has already been made is just the start of what needs to be done. A couple of younger people spoke to the crowd, letting us know that the people of their generation are always wondering, “Am I next?” Imagine going to school with that knot in your belly every day.

An artist turned her hand to making clear the truth of what we as a society have done. Her display has over 30,000 orange flags, each representing a child murdered by guns just since Sandy Hook. Look at the picture – what you can see is a fraction of the total display. Now imagine if each flag were instead a healthy kid.

Over 30,000 orange flags should instead be over 30,000 healthy kids living their lives.

The misled guys and the tough guys believe that the Second Amendment means everybody can own any murder weapons they want. But read that Amendment – it doesn’t say anything about a right of private citizens to own AR-15s or extended capacity magazines. In fact, it doesn’t say that anyone can own a gun for any reason other than so that we have a well-regulated militia.

And we have that. It’s called the National Guard. We don’t need private citizens to amass arsenals of weaponry in their basements. Those gun owners aren’t part of a well regulated militia. They’re just guys with guns.

There is no Second Amendment reason for anyone to do concealed carry, much less to do it without a background check and safety training. Most of our state governments, though, seem to say, “Just strap one on, Bubba, and head to the bar for some beers. What could possibly go wrong?”

Oh wait: Buffalo could go wrong and a bunch of grannies shopping for eggs and bread could be murdered. Sandy Hook could happen and the bodies of 20 little kids and seven teachers could be splattered onto the school room floor.

And Highland Park could happen, making a horror so terrible, so awful, that brave, tough cops and FBI personnel had to bury their faces in their hands.

So, I went to Springfield yesterday to tell our legislators the obvious facts of what has happened and what will continue to happen if we fail to take proper action. I went to tell them that the misled guys and the tough guys are wrong and that they themselves are a clear and present danger to our country..

I went to tell them that We The People want the madness to stop.
.

Charlton, can we have your gun now that there are over 31,000 cold, dead hands so far just this year?

If you weren’t at the Illinois state capitol yesterday, no worries. This battle for peace and safety isn’t over and there will be many more opportunities for you to stand up for all those people who can no longer stand up for themselves and for all of us who don’t want to be shot.

The children in Highland Park left notes on those rocks to say that we will continue to stand for our fallen. They and we will speak for them and for all those who are being gunned down right now, even as you read this.

  • 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 a lot 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.

NO! v1.0


In Sam Adler-Bell’s essay The One Thing Trump Has That DeSantis Never Will, he makes distinctions between the manipulative governor and the unscrupulous Trump. He identifies their bets on campaign donors and which sections of the voting public each seems to think he can attract. Adler-Bell writes,

If [Trump’s] wager pays off, it will be a sign not just of his continued dominance over the Republican Party but also of something deeper: an ongoing revolt against “the best and brightest,” the notion that only certain people, with certain talents, credentials and subject matter expertise, are capable of governing.

A blinding flash of the obvious jumped off the page with the words “capable of governing.” It suggests that Trump is, was or would be in some way associated with the act of, the idea of, the possibility of governing.

We’ve seen the chaos for years, as he careens across his always-on performance stage, always grifting. Trump has no more relationship to governing than did Caligula. He has more in common with anarchists, who, by definition, abhor governing and government.

Many thanks to JN for this

DeSantis has no more regard for our traditions and institutions than does the twice impeached, disgraced and indicted former president. He is as narcissistic as Trump, but he does know how to push and pull the levers of governmental power, although only for his own benefit, a la Trump. Think: his ban on/prevention of actions to limit Covid deaths, which gave Florida the 12th highest death rate during the pandemic.* He’s very dangerous to those who prefer to remain alive.

Meanwhile, in this era of proxy war with Russia, mounting tensions with China, a soon to be nuclear Iran and a completely unpredictable and nuclear North Korea, this is a really good time to have the best and the brightest at the helm of this ship of state. That’s far better than to have our country controlled by short-sighted, grievance stoked, self-serving, autocracy loving faux populists.

Signing petitions is nice and protesting in the streets can be helpful and can feel empowering, but

ALL OF THE POWER COMES FROM THE VOTING BOOTH!
.

It’s long past time for tens of millions more of our voices to be heard from that powerful place saying, “NO!” Mark your calendar to do that on November 5, 2024.**

Watch for “NO!” v2.0 this Sunday, April 23.

_____________________________

* Nine of the eleven states with worse Covid death rates than Florida are solid red states. Are you seeing a picture?

** Two million registered Democrats in Florida failed to vote in 2022. Had they voted, Charlie Christ would be the governor now, having won 52.5% of the vote. We wouldn’t be facing book bans and art bans and war on Disney and the end of abortion rights. There would be no Don’t Say Gay law or immigrants shipped to Martha’s Vineyard in the dead of the night and with no preparation for them upon their arrival. All that would have been required to stop the DeSantis insanity was for we good people to say “NO!” to the crazies.

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 a lot 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.

    JA


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

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