Fascism

Pretending Not To Know


Reading time – 1:31; Viewing time – 2:19  .  .  .

Do you remember when Republicans held themselves out as the solid bulwark against the Russians? When Republicans represented that they were the true defenders and stiff backbone of our country? When Republicans made it clear that anything remotely less than hostile to the Russians was unpatriotic? I do, too.

I remember Richard Nixon, the “commie-baiter,” and Ronald “Tear down this wall!” Reagan. Those were the days when Republicans had spine. They were all about tough talk and standing up to the Russians.

Now, though, we have an enemy of our country, those same Russians, attacking us with cyber warfare and undermining our most cherished values and rights. Our president steadfastly refuses to stop them and most Congressional Republicans are silent about that.

Trump continues to attack and embarrass our allies. He imposes tariffs on our best friends to no economic benefit to us and, in fact, to our detriment. He attacks NATO, the alliance that has kept the west strong for seven decades.

He receives ongoing, concrete proof that Vladimir Putin has directed his henchmen to undermine America. They’ve gone about it with electronic guns blazing and Trump sits on his hands. Trump continues to treat Putin like his Godfather, as in: Corleone. He meets with Putin when there are no other Americans present, leaving us to wonder about the harm he allows to be done to our country. Who are the Republicans speaking out against that? What are they doing to protect us? What happened to their spine?

Buy this book and read it.

Yeah, Republicans, I get that Trump will tweet mean, untrue things about you if you don’t support him. We all know that you’ll get primaried from the right if you don’t suck up to Trump or at least keep quiet. But this isn’t about Trump’s constant lying or his disgracing of the Presidency. This is about confronting and stopping threats to our very democracy. This is the time to stand up and be counted. If we don’t stop this now, there may not be a second chance.

So, tell me, Republicans in Congress, what is it that you’re pretending not to know?

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

Cold, Dead Hands


  • Reading time – 1:32; Viewing time – 2:17  .  .  .

Every Fourth of July I stick a flag on a pole and insert it into the back of my convertible. I commonly remove it on the 5th and this year it sat in the back of the car until this morning, when I picked it up to put it away. That’s when my neighbor called out something about showing it proudly.

He said that he had been in Denver for the Fourth and asked his son there why he didn’t display a flag on his house that day. His son said that waving a flag in that part of the country meant just one thing: supporting the far-right wingnut agenda, which he did not want to do. Hence, no flag.

Perhaps he isn’t alone in refusing to display a flag. Many of us are ashamed now about things being done in our name: things like kidnapping children and abandoning habeas corpus; things like slapping our friends in the face while embracing tyrannical world leaders; things like pardoning public lands arsonists in order to suck up to “the base.”

The problem with abandoning the red, white and blue because of the extreme wrongdoing of some is to abandon our country and cede it to the crazies.

And yes, I mean crazies. I DO NOT mean those who have other notions about how to achieve what nearly all of us believe in. This is about refusing to give our country to those who would wipe their dirty boots on those things we hold dear as Americans. So, here’s what I have for the crazies.

Perhaps you remember Charleton Heston’s defiance at an NRA convention 18 years ago. He declared that they (apparently government – he specifically named Al Gore) could have his gun when they could pry it from his cold, dead hands. While there isn’t much that I had in common with Heston, I’ll borrow his phrasing:

You can have my flag when you can pry it from my cold, dead hands. And you better know that even then you’ll have to get past my kids.

I will not allow you to take the flag, ruin my country and claim it exclusively yours. My flag is on display at the front of my house every day. Deal with it.

  • ————————————

    Ed. note: I don’t want money (DON’T donate) or your signature on a petition. I want you to spread the word so that we make a critical difference. That’s the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people, so:

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Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
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Bad For America


Reading time – 1:53 seconds; Viewing time – 2:47  .  .  .

In yet another 5-4 decision the Supreme Court has allowed Trump’s Muslim travel ban to stand. And by the same margin the Court allowed Ohio to continue to purge its voter roles of poor people and people of color. 5-4 is the same margin by which the Court allowed Texas and North Carolina Republican gerrymandering to suppress minority voting to stand.

Click for the Snopes fact check

It’s highly unlikely that any of those decisions would have gone this way had Merrick Garland been on the bench instead of Neil Gorsuch. That is exactly why Mitch McConnell sees his lie-filled theft of choice from President Obama to fill Antonin Scalia’s seat on the Court as his proudest moment.

This is yet another example of the dishonesty that undermines our values and drives Americans to distrust government. It’s another lie that is easily exposed, like what @edelweisspirat showed us last week in what is perhaps the greatest tweet ever to expose Trumpian dishonesty:

Well, yeah, Melania, we really do care. Why don’t you?

He’s captured in just a few words the insanity of what Trump and the far right use in place of integrity and good sense. Just get that the lies and dishonesty have consequences, like those 5-4 decisions that incrementally steal freedoms from Americans.

Things are about to get worse now that Justice Anthony Kennedy has announced that he will retire from the Supreme Court on July 31. McConnell has announced that he plans to jam through Trump’s nominee quickly, this in the face of his logic in 2016 that there should be no new Supreme Court pick in an election year in order to, “let the people speak.” Somehow, his disingenuousness that prevented Obama’s pick doesn’t apply now that there’s a Republican in the White House.

There is no Senate filibuster to keep another Trump nominated far righty from the bench, and that will almost certainly lead to accelerated loss of our rights. And that pick will be a stepping stone to authoritarianism: there will be no way to stop Donald Trump’s wrongdoing and our accelerated spiraling into fascism.

What a proud day this must be for those who favor bullying, dishonesty and disorder over democracy; who favor party loyalty and their own position over patriotism. It appears that the righty extremist ends justify their means. Good for them. Bad for America.

Click me

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Ed. note: I don’t want money (DON’T donate) or your signature on a petition. I want you to spread the word so that we make a critical difference. That’s the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people, so:

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

Populism and Obi-Wan


Reading time – 2:59; Viewing time – 4:06  .  .  .

Here’s Jax definition of populism: Mob behavior gussied up with a slick political cover.

Trump’s base is entirely populist, calling for extreme reaction to any issue and blunt force solutions to all problems. Think: Muslim ban; kidnapping children; building a $38 billion wall; embracing white supremacy and more.

Here are some characteristics of populism:

We are poor, innocent victims and that gives us the right to attack the imagined meanies who we fantasize have victimized us.

There is only “us” and “them” and we have to repress “them” or they will take over and victimize “us.”

There is always an enemy to demonize and dehumanize and blame for every problem. It’s never our fault and it’s never simply new cultural circumstances or the result of technological or global change. (See the cartoon below.)

All problems can be solved by hitting harder.

New thinking and fresh ideas are never contemplated or even welcome. Truth, facts and reality are no more than minor inconveniences, bumps in the road to greater power grabs.

Subtlety? What subtlety? We don’ need no stinking subtlety. We don’ need no stinking diplomacy. Or regulations to stop those who would exploit us. Or a press or justice system to hold leaders accountable. What accountability?

We are demanding of and slavish to an autocratic leader, a hero to worship, a strongman to idolize.

Perhaps democracy – rule by the people either directly or through democratically elected representatives – is an anomaly in human existence. Perhaps we are globally on the way back to monarchical, even dictatorial rule as our human default. The key is to envision what that looks like when we tear apart our hard won rights and structures, the foundations of freedom we’ve spent centuries building.

Our ancestors rebelled against the tyrant, King George III. You learned about that in your history classes, and his kind of tyranny is the world standard in the absence of democracy. In a monarchy, the people are rarely happy and most often are oppressed by the ruling class. That’s only attractive if you’re part of that ruling class. If you’re Dorothy from Kansas, not so much.

So, to the 27% of Americans who think that the government kidnapping of infants and children is okay, who think that shoving a thumb in the eye of our international friends is a good idea, who want to cozy up to tyrannical enemies of our country and who want to dismantle all of government and the judicial and press foundations that check executive excesses, you better be careful what you wish for. You just might get it and you will not like it and your grandchildren will curse you for your blindness.

Populism is driven by and generates great rushes of testosterone fury. It creates huge clouds of the sensation of being powerful, of sticking it to someone. But when those clouds lift we’ll be left with the tyranny of oppression.

To be clear, Trump and his minions are our challenge now. But to step back and look at a bigger picture, there is always a tyrant waiting to steal the reins of power and commit horrible acts and steal our democracy for himself. That can only happen if we allow the 27% to have their way.

I don’t have any notion that anyone can quickly change the visceral drive of the mobs that are the populism of this country. The Obi-Wan that is our only hope lies within the rest of us.

Click me for a larger image

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Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
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If Only Someone Could Name One


Reading time – 2:15  .  .  .

It’s time to focus on Trump’s policies and policy actions and what they mean to us.

“America First” is more a campaign bumper sticker than a strategy, so that’s not a helpful guide. All I’ve been able to find are Trump’s various tactics to accomplish  .  .  .  something. Here are some examples.

I can’t name Trump’s foreign affairs policy. I do know that:

He moved the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, thereby shoving a big U.S. thumb in the eye of all Palestinians and most Arabs and further undermining the possibility of lasting peace in the region. And he pissed off a lot of Muslims, creating a new recruiting poster for ISIS and al Qaeda. Not helpful to us.

He fired off a bunch of missiles at Syria, killing many people while avoiding hitting many of Assad’s chemical weapon stockpiles and production facilities, so the multi-million dollar fireworks show was essentially no help in stopping Assad from gassing his people. We did make some more fervent enemies.

He continues to play softball with Putin and his oligarchs, even after all the plain, visible evidence that Russia, an avowed enemy of the United States, cyber-attacked America. You fill in the blanks as to what that means to our democracy.

I can’t name Trump’s economic policy. I do know that:

He has imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum coming from some of our closest allies and trading partners (the EU, Canada, Mexico), incentivizing them to retaliate. That is to say, he’s started a trade war. It is forecast to raise prices in the U.S. and cost many thousands of American jobs. And that makes Putin smile.

During the 2016 election campaign Trump promised to bring jobs back from China. He recently visited with President Xi and oddly declared that ZTE, manufacturer of cheap cell phones that China uses to spy on America, had a problem and we had to support them and save 70,000 jobs – in China. Immediately thereafter China made a $500 million cash infusion to Trump’s private resort project in Indonesia. The results are fewer American jobs and unlawful emoluments for the president, which further erodes our system of justice.

Trump enthusiastically promoted and signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which decreases federal taxes for most people for a short while and lowers taxes for corporations in perpetuity. 83% of the personal tax savings go to the super-wealthy and the Act will create $1.5 trillion of national debt. Do the math for your kids.

I don’t know what Trump’s civil and voting rights policy is. I do know that:

One of his first acts as President was to create the Presidential Advisory Committee on Election Integrity and make former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach its lead. Both the charter of the committee and Kobach’s personal purpose are to end the non-existent scourge of voter fraud by preventing lawful but poor or non-white U.S. citizens from voting.

Trump has tried three times to prevent Muslims from entering the U.S. That’s a subversion of the First Amendment protection of freedom of religion.

Trump’s immigration practices are designed to prevent anyone but white, European Christians from entering the U.S. To enforce this, he has instituted the practice of ripping thousands of children from their parents when they show up at our southern border to apply for entry. Are you okay with that, Mom?

And of course there is Trump’s tweeted temper tantrum against Samantha Bee for her crude statement about Ivanka, matched with his complete absence of criticism of Roseanne Barr for her most recent racial slur. Apparently, bad mouthing Ivanka is inexcusable, but racial hate speech is okay anytime.

I can’t name Trump’s policy regarding preserving and protecting our democracy. I do know that:

He has carried on an unrelenting demonizing of our system of justice and the agencies that ensure that we are safe, like the Justice Department and the FBI, this for his stated purpose of undermining public confidence in those agencies.

He has attacked our press with his stated purpose of undermining pubic confidence in our Fourth Estate so that the American people won’t believe negative reporting about Trump.

There’s just a snapshot in understated terms of Trump’s policies. My promise to you is that I’ll henceforth do my level best to avoid reactions to Trump’s temper tantrum tweets and his constant stream of lies. Instead, I will focus exclusively on preserving our democracy and on his policies. Now, if only someone could name one of those policies  .  .  .

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Ed. note: I don’t want your money (DON’T donate) or your signature on a petition. I want you to spread the word so that we make a critical difference. That’s the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people, so:

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

Evolution


Herbert Spencer

Charles Darwin

Reading time – 1:49  .  .  .

After reading Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species, Herbert Spencer coined the term “survival of the fittest” to mark the core meaning of Darwin’s theory of natural selection. That perfectly captures the clarity that  those who were afraid of poisonous reptiles avoided them and survived to produce offspring; those who didn’t have that innate fear died from snake bites and didn’t make babies. It works the same way for fear of heights, spiders and the sound of something going bump in the night. And nothing is more powerful to ensure the survival of the species than the universal, instantaneous protection response for our young ones. Think: mama brown bear and her cubs. Or any father or mother and their babies. People just like you.

And that is why we’re horrified by the catastrophe of human suffering of mothers, fathers and children that President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions have engineered on our southern border. This manufactured crisis is designed to pressure Democrats to support Trump’s idiotic wall and his targeted discrimination against black and brown people – those from “shithole countries.” Babies ripped from their mothers’ arms are just pawns in Trump’s game. He hasn’t a moral compass or the slightest compassion for those who suffer, because all he recognizes is that which serves himself.

That is why you must demand that your senators and congressperson do what you elected them to do and what they agreed to do: check executive excess. Their job is to demand an end to this inhumane discrimination. Tell them to vote for the Keep Families Together Act. And it’s critical that they allow absolutely no concession to Trump at all. The message has to get through that Trump will not benefit from his mistreatment of innocents.

Here’s contact info for your legislators:

Senate: Go to www.senate.gov and use the lookup on the top of the page.

House: Go to www.house.gov and use the lookup on the top of the page.

or call (202) 224-3121, the main switchboard for all of Congress.

Calling is more powerful than an email or text. Tell the friendly staffer that you want your legislator to make Trump stop his inhumane treatment of people on our southern border and to refuse to negotiate with Trump about this.

Our belief in right and wrong is on the line. And, if you listen closely, you’ll hear the imperative of evolution – what made you possible – calling your name.

P.S. Even as you make your calls, be sure not to let this diabolical kidnapping of children distract you from the Russian hacking and possible Trump conspiracy and other wrongdoing.

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Ed. note: I don’t want your money (DON’T donate) or your signature on a petition. I want you to spread the word so that we make a critical difference. That’s the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people, so:

YOUR ACTION STEPS:
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  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all be better informed.
  3. Vote!

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

Babies In Jail


Reading time – 2:38; Viewing time – 3:13  .  .  .

You’re horrified at those nursing babies being ripped from their mothers’ arms by I.C.E. agents. You’re speechless and apoplectic at the same time over kids who have literally done nothing wrong being put into shelters that you know full well are jails. You may be old enough to remember abominable things like this being done by the Soviet Union, which you abhorred. After all, we were the good guys and didn’t abuse people. So, why is the Trump administration doing these reprehensible things in our name?

Have a look at my post about Trump’s negotiating strategy. It’s always about taking something away and forcing opponents to bargain to get it back, and he’s doing that right now using these children.

He has assaulted our sense of right and wrong and taken away our self-image of being the good guys. He has betrayed our belief in proper treatment of others, all in order to make Democrats cave to his anti-black, brown and Muslim – anti-shithole countries – immigration plan. Aryans – like Norwegians – he tells us, are okay. In the process he is traumatizing thousands of innocent children and their parents, many of whom are only applying for asylum from deadly violence and have done nothing wrong.

But we have.

We have allowed those with the crudest, most primitive, fear-driven impulses to have power. Yes, I’m talking about the 87% of Republicans who support Trump and give him the power to punish Republican opponents with a tweet. We set that up – we set ourselves up – by failing to show up and vote last November. Yes, the 87% hair-on-fire primitives voted. They always do because they’re always afraid and angry and motivated. The only check on them is for reasonable people to show up in bigger numbers.

So, if you want to see an end to outrageous manipulation and the terrible abuse of people, an end to using people as pawns to gain power and crushing them under heel in the process, you have to do two things and they’re very personal:

You have to vote this November.

And you have to work to inspire others to show up and vote, too. A good way to start is to share this post with 3 others.

Be clear that they’re continuing to take away voting rights. Last week the Supreme Court allowed the state of Ohio to continue to purge their registered voter lists of people who were guilty of nothing more than not having voted for two years and who didn’t respond to their post card. I don’t remember either of those actions being required by the Constitution in order to be eligible to vote, but that is where this nation is going if we let it. Use it or lose it.

If you don’t vote, permanent internment camps in the desert, over-filled with orphaned infants may be next, and Trump-pardoned Joe Arpaio may be the warden.

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Ed. note: I don’t want your money (DON’T donate) or your signature on a petition. I want you to spread the word so that we make a critical difference. That’s the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people, so:

YOUR ACTION STEPS:
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  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all be better informed.
  3. Vote!

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

Where Are the Voices?


Reading time – 2:45 .  .  .

John Kerry ran for president in 2004. During the campaign a group of men challenged Kerry’s narrative of his Swift boat actions on the Mekong River, even though not one of them was in a position to assess what happened. They lied about him viciously and very publicly. They claimed he was unpatriotic and had been a coward and didn’t deserve the medals he had been awarded. Their claims were false and inflammatory and Kerry decided not to dignify them with a response. The result of his silence was catastrophic for his campaign. The lesson learned far too late is:

Attack the attackers.

Never let the bully’s lies or misdeeds go unchallenged because otherwise people will start to believe the lies and the misdeeds will proliferate.

Now we’re living in the continuous fraud that is Trump. I don’t mean his constant lies, although our “values voters” should have abandoned him at least 2 years ago just for his obvious and fundamental dishonesty. Rather, this is about those who allow the enormous damage Trump is inflicting on the very things that make this the America we believe in.

Four easy examples:

There isn’t a shred of doubt anywhere that Russia hacked into and affected our election in 2016, but Trump has barely lifted a finger to deal with the assault on our election. Neither has he taken a single step to prevent Russia from tampering with our 2018 election. Instead of aggressively pursuing both the Russian hacking and Trump’s dereliction of duty, the House Intelligence Committee has aided and abetted a coverup of the facts. Worse, members of Congress are actively working to impede the FBI investigation into the issue.

We built and have prospered under the umbrella of the partnerships made with our allies around the world. Trump is now systematically attacking those countries, their leaders and our alliances. There has been barely a peep of objection from Congressional Republicans – and they’re in charge and can do something about it.

Trump has gutted every department of the Executive Branch, undermining our ability to deal with our challenges. He’s allowed wanton violations of ethics and misuse of public funds. Devastatingly, he has stripped our State Department of the professionals we need in this very dangerous world. Have you heard any objections from Congress?

With the Nuclear Summit concluded we have unilaterally given Kim Jong-un international legitimacy and agreed to terminate “war games,” this in a complete blindside to South Korea and our own military. In return, The Great Deal Maker got us a vague statement of de-nuclearization – some day, maybe – and no verification was even proposed. Can you imagine the howls of protest and charges of treason from Republicans had Obama done that? Instead, crickets.

All of this is making both Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping very happy. There is far more, of course, but the question for this post is simple:

Where are the voices of opposition?

There are a few voices of outrage from traditional conservatives, like Hugh Hewitt, Steve Schmidt, George Will and Michael Steele. Bob Corker has spoken passionately in opposition. There are quiet objections from a few other Republicans, most of whom are leaving government. There are a couple of strong Democrats speaking out and a few others offer milquetoast complaints. All the rest of our elected officials are AWOL, this at a time that requires that they answer the call to stop those who would tear down our country.

Most of our elected officials have taken care of themselves first, checking the political winds before uttering a word of protest or taking any action, allowing the assaults on our institutions to continue. We are being made weaker and more vulnerable every day.

We need the Republicans in Congress to find a spine and stand up to this destroyer of our nation. We need the Democrats to stop coming to a gun fight with a squirt gun.

We need all of these elected officials and pundits alike to realize the truth of what Coach Herb Brooks told our hockey players before the 1980 Olympic Games began:

”When you pull on that jersey, the name on the front (USA) is a hell of a lot more important than the one on the back.”

The name on the front – USA – is being assaulted, so it’s time to recall the lesson learned when the Swift Boaters brayed their lies to derail John Kerry’s candidacy:

Attack the attackers.

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Ed. note: I don’t want your money (DON’T donate) or your signature on a petition. I want you to spread the word so that we make a critical difference. That’s the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people, so:

YOUR ACTION STEPS:

  1. Pass this along to three people, encouraging them to subscribe (IT’S A FREEBIE!).
  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all be better informed.

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

The Last Word


Reading time – 1:03  .  .  .

We stopped at the funky bookstore on the way to the island, where I picked up a novel by Gore Vidal. I had never read anything by Vidal and this book was on a stack selling at half price, so on a whim I included it with the selections already under my arm and mentally put it in the queue for beach reading.

Vidal was quite the controversial character and in addition to his books on history, culture and politics, his short stories, his plays and memoirs, he wrote a series of pulp fiction novels, including Thieves Fall Out, set in post-war Cairo. In speaking of men of treachery, a character in the book says they are, “Worse because they have no pity, only hate for the world they mean to own, to steal from the rest of us.” Sound like anyone you’re familiar with?

In speaking of the ongoing rebellion against the king, another character remarks, “Probably all a fake, staged by the government so they can lock up a few malcontents. Good play, too. Suggest it for other countries. Always a lot of sour apples in every country complaining. Fine. Let them complain. Then one day – boom! Say they started it. Lock ’em up. Do away with the lot. Only way to keep order.” Vidal describes this character as,”the last word in the Neanderthal mind.”

That was when I had an ah-HA! moment on the beach.

Our new normal is that we now have a month’s worth of president-related crises happening every day. There’s much to be said about this avalanche of crazy, including the peril that we may become accustomed to it and begin to ignore dangerous assaults on our safety, our values and the Constitution. It takes very little public apathy for Congress to go completely jellyfish and allow an arrogant, self-focused tyrant of a president to destroy all we hold dear. Will we wake up one day to hear the boom! as order is kept by a group of (mostly) men who represent the last word in the Neanderthal mind?

The answer, of course, is yes, if we allow that to happen.

Note that on Friday we learned that the Trump administration is considering stripping children from parents as a deterrent to illegal immigration on the U.S. southern border, this as about 700 children have already been taken. Neanderthal.

And it’s being done in our name.

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Ed. note: I don’t want your money or your signature on a petition. I want you to spread the word so that we make a critical difference. That’s the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people, so:

YOUR ACTION STEPS:
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  2. Engage in the Comments section below to help us all to be better informed.

Thanks!


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

Voluntary Subjugation


Reading time – 2:59; Viewing time – 4:16  .  .  .

Whatever may be the perverted mental issues that compel him to puffery and self-service instead of service to country and which eased his way to lie over 2,000 times during his first year in office, the real issue is not Donald Trump’s dishonesty. The real issue is Trump’s complete disregard for the truth, this in pursuit of what Trump sees is best for Trump in the moment. Nothing else means anything to him. Reality is just a minor obstacle to crush under heel. It’s what autocrats always do. Refer to Putin, Xi, Duerte, Erdoğan and others for examples.

Trump’s sudden pardon of “Scooter” Libby, the treasonous aide to Darth Cheney, wasn’t done for Libby’s benefit. It was done to send a signal to all of Trump’s co-conspirators that he would pardon them from their crimes that Robert Mueller is investigating. So, Flynn, Manafort, Cohen, Papadopoulos and the rest can stonewall the FBI investigators, be found guilty of who-knows-what crimes and draw the Chance card that reads, “Get out of jail free.” The entire Trump crime family will walk.

Trump is riding an angry, right-wing wave that began several decades ago. It’s made of millions of Americans displaying an extended middle finger driven by notions of betrayal that have been nurtured by first rate extremist manipulators. They stoke reptile brain reactions, impulses which are great in the wild when physical dangers are all about, but which are destroyers of our culture, our society and which corrode our entire republic.

Now the Trump-loving media types are fabricating fatuous, even idiotic fictions that demonize our laws, our system of justice and the dedicated people who do the hard and dangerous work to keep us safe and free. The self-righteous, far-right, alternative facts media people are slandering and defaming those who pose any threat to Der Fuhrer Trump. They are tearing down what we have painstakingly built over the course of two-and-a-half centuries to protect us. They are whipping the national reptile brain into a frenzy and doing great damage to our country. It’s the perfect complement to the making of an autocrat, a dictator, a despot, a tyrant. It is happening in front of your eyes and in plain sight.

Not long ago I wrote,

The worst thing, though, is the ongoing drumbeat of how awful our government is, including blatant lies by legislators and by polarized commentary by the likes of Breitbart, Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones. That has led to a very angry citizenry. And that has led to the election of a president who is incrementally tearing down the very things that make this country work. Somehow, his supporters, otherwise good, solid folks, are so angry that they are willing to ignore Trump’s awfuls. They have and continue to be prepared to elect representatives and senators who spew vitriol.

Click for the story and to read the caption.

I have written elsewhere (here and here or click Fascism in the Categories list to the right) about the threat of creeping fascism in this country and have seen nothing to indicate that progress has been made to reverse the weakening of our democracy. The cowardice of Republicans in Congress who fail to check this American tyrant president encourages fascism, as predicted in 1944 by Henry Wallace, Roosevelt’s next-to-last vice-president.

Nuremberg rally, 1938

Have a look at what former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has to say about this today and let the threat to our democracy that she exposes get under your skin. Think about how we’re going to stop that death spiral or we will have volunteered to be subjugated by a sociopathic tyrant.

We have been warned repeatedly by various clear thinkers that, “When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” That sounds a lot like Hitler’s Nuremberg rallies. It also sounds a lot like Donald Trump’s rallies.

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Ed. note: There is much in America that needs fixing and we’re on a path to continually fail to make things better. It’s my goal to make a difference – perhaps to be a catalyst for things to get better. That’s the reason for these posts. To accomplish the goal requires reaching many thousands of people and a robust dialogue.

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Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
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