This Is Your Boat Deck Wednesday Update For 2nd Class Passengers

A Barking Rant 

God's Away On Business

Using BandAids On Brain Cancer

Prosecutions for the January 6th attempt to derail Congressional certification of the  Presidential vote are dissolving into surrealistic theatre. The investigation, involving so many Federal resources, was intense and focused -- it matched the seriousness of the event. But any investigator knows a case they've built can be chopped up, watered down, even ignored by the prosecuting authority in their jurisdiction.

Charges have been brought by the DOJ against 605 rioters. The lead felony offense in the Federal indictments -- the most serious violation against each of them -- is "obstruction of an official proceeding"; attorneys for the defendants argued back that the joint session of Congress to certify electors' votes is a ceremonial, not an official, session, and the charge should be dismissed.

What constitutes an official Congressional proceeding; its never needed to be defined. One Federal judge in Washington was frustrated enough to comment that the DOJ's charge was so constitutionally vague that it could easily be overturned on appeal.

But there seems to be no rush to bring justice. Some defendants on bail are being allowed to vacation, attend weddings, or go backpacking out of the country; it's all quite leisurely. And while estimates of damage repair costs to the U.S. Capitol are over $1.4 million -- the total of monetary fines levied against the 605 defendants for that damage is... $2,000. 

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Cosplay Conspiracy Is Too A Crime

More serious, the DOJ is not pursuing actual conspiracy charges against any defendants. The FBI claims no such information has been discovered, but an independent review of social media posts in the weeks leading up to the insurrection show clear planning and coordination -- tactics, and objectives. 

Review of cellphone videos and social media traffic show at least two groups of insurrectionists appeared at the Capitol in full tactical dress and appeared to follow military-style movement discipline. At least two of them carried zip-ties inside the Senate chamber. 

Lt. Col. (Ret) Larry Brock, USAF, (At Left), and unnamed Cletus in Senate Chamber

Then there are the recent revelations about the attempt by Trump and his allies to entice then-acting Attorney General Rosen to support The Leader's false narrative of a stolen election through a letter from the DOJ claiming irregularities in swing state voting. 

Trump told Rosen in a December 27th phone call that all he had to do was agree to the DOJ letter -- "Just say that the election was corrupt + leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen", according to contemporaneous notes taken by acting deputy AG Richard Donoghue. 

Meetings between Trump and his allies and toadies were held at the White House in December and January. Trump (and others) made phone calls to election officials in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, trying to find weak links who would support The Lie. Trump inserted loyalists into key intelligence and Defense Department positions; the Joint Chiefs of Staff planned to resign if he ordered the Armed Forces to enforce martial law. Then came January 6th.

(Photo: Mother Jones)

You could ask whether there was an attempted coup in the United States; it's a matter capable of question, but no one wants to ask it. As with prosecution of the insurrectionists who breached the Capitol -- the Justice Department and Attorney General Garland seem tired, uninterested in pursuing Trump or his toadies for conspiracy. Biden said recently that pursuing Trump is a "bad idea". 

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One might be forgiven for thinking that our Justice system just doesn't care. The message our government seems to be sending is attempt a takeover; pay no penalty. That there is no political will in the government to step down hard on any attempt to subvert the Constitution -- and to appoint a fat, lying, narcissistic con artist as President For Life of the United States of America. 

It's almost as if they were signaling to the Owners who financed the coup attempt (Koch, Mercers, Murdochs; others), and their hired front men -- Trump, Stevie Bannon; screeching evangelical preachers; and the Red-Hat Orcs -- telling them: try again. 

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Meanwhile, the usual suspects in Congress seem determined to push every situation as close to the edge as possible -- keeping the level of viciousness and blood-feud outrage high among the Faithful Red-Hat Cletuses. 

There's a drumbeat, too, on Murdoch media; Tucker Carlson travelled to Hungary, then aired on Fox his extended infomercial gushing with praise for its authoritarian, proto-fascist government, and its Leader, Viktor Orban. It was a love letter to Lil' Viktor, and a message to Americans that -- with a Strong Daddy and United [White] People -- a fascist form of government can be good, for loyal white people. Such a pretty, orderly country under Orban, the Strong Daddy -- as Trump was, and will be again.

Little Tooker Hearts the Strong Daddy, the Good Daddy; the Fuhrer

Little Tucker, like the Congressional Rethugs, want to keep the level of hatred and calls for Action! high -- all for Der Tag, when the call goes forth, and the loyal [white] people will Own The Libs once and for all. Scores will be settled and the strong shall rule; non-white people will disappear again, and all will Love The Leader, or else. 

And the Red Hats continue to lap up the vomit NewsCorp and the Murdochs provide; a fantasy of victimization and marginalization -- and now, they've twisted their politics around the axle of the Covid wagon: Mask mandates, vaccinations, are infringements on personal freedom and cannot be allowed. Marjie Green, Rand Paul, Teddy Cruz, Loren Boebert and others screech and preen and strut in front of the cameras, decrying this vast conspiracy against freedom-loving Americans.

And tens of thousands of bikers crowd into Sturgis, South Dakota, for their annual festival -- cheered on by the state's governor, who wants to be the next Trump. Last years' event was cheered on by her, too. 500,000 people showed up. It was later proven to be a Superspreader event for Covid; this year will be no different -- given the Delta variant, it will be worse.

...and the Delta variant roars across the country. For someone who actually trusts science, scientists, and professionals to provide the best data possible, watching people on the Right equating vaccination with slavery or the Holocaust is unbelievable. There is almost no way to describe it, except as metaphorically a descent into schizophrenia, psychosis.

I'm an end product of the Enlightenment -- and people behaving like superstitious peasants, refusing to listen to anyone but Murdoch media 'personalities', or gibbering Sky God preachers, about, well, anything... I find it hard to believe it's happening. America hasn't had a long spasm of irrational nationalism since 1917 or 1942 -- but this is different. 

40% of our adult population claims that science and fact are lies. That bleach and faith in Jesus are prophylactic miracles, or a cure, for Covid. That simple, common-sense public health measures (masking and social distancing) are part of a sinister plot organized by a One-World cabal of pedophiles to steal the election from Trump and his loving supporters, to control Americans and remove their freedom. 

All the verbiage aside -- I'm speechless in the face of this level of malicious, willful ignorance. I don't know how the Cletuses can do it -- particularly when The Truth is staring them in the face: The largest number of new Covid infections consists of unvaccinated individuals. States with the highest percentage of Maga-ites, or Trumpist Rethugs, also have the highest new case numbers in America. This is what happens.

Surge bedding outside a Texas hospital, to accommodate high numbers of Covid patients 

The governors of two states hit exceptionally hard -- Abbott in Texas and DeSantis in Florida --  have signed orders banning any mandates by school districts, or businesses to wear masks or to be vaccinated. DeSantis threatened that school districts which violate the order will have salaries or state funding frozen.

As unbelievable as that seems -- at the same time, DeSantis and Abbott are asking for help from other states to deal with the rising number of the sick who need hospitalization, as medical facilities in each state are overflowing with Covid victims; as in the Fall of 2020, ICU nurses are posting videos describing how bad this is. And it is bad.

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The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released it's 2021 report on the state of  deterioration of the earth's living species, weather, soil, water and temperature. No surprise: it's bad. 

But this report -- unlike the others released by the IPCC since 1988 -- says unequivocally that their report is "a code red for humanity". It's effectively too late to prevent a rise in average world temperatures by 1.5 Centigrade, and as a result there will be a rising number of "extreme weather events", wildfires, disease. 

Evacuees watch from a ferry as wildfires consume the Greek island of Evia

The best humanity can do to mitigate the effects already put in motion is to completely change the course of the major streams of the global economy towards that end. It is all or nothing -- unless world governments do what they've always done and allow themselves to be bought cheaply by the fossil fuel, mining, aerospace, timber, and farming megacorps. Then I guess we're well and truly fucked.

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But on the bright side -- hey, we have Our Owners, the Oligarchs, at play! Richard Branson got into space -- well, kind of -- ahead of Jeffy Bezos; yay! But meanwhile, Elon got the coveted contract with the U.S. government! Which means a Virgin made it above the Amazon, but both were sprayed with Musk.

Jeffy didn't like that. He filed papers and said it was unfair and he would just give more money to NASA and he would too just give the government a real price reduction (which would be recouped with interest in Jeffy's pricing structure; it looked good to say we'll charge less right now!). But the government said Jeffy was a silly and ha ha ha no. Jeffy cried, and took away things from the subcreatures in his labor camps to make himself feel better. And lots of people bought stuff and made him more money too. Yay!

Our Oligarch Owners caper and play, and someday will all go away -- to the emerald Isle of New Zealand, to escape all the Bad Things. We, of course, will not -- proof positive that god favors Jeffy and Elon and Marky and Richard and all His Billionaires. Because otherwise they'd have to bake and die with the Little People Worker Bees! 

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Please go to the Boat Deck for a Second-Class sing-along with the ship's orchestra! There will be a free, small soda for those of you who remembered to keep your coupons. After, we will assist the First Class passengers into their boats and wish them a hearty Bon Voyage! and wave to them, until.

Meanwhile, don't cry, or make a scene. That will just spoil the party for everyone else; look at how brave they are. And remember, that small soda is a privilege. They can take it away any time they want.

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MEHR, MIT EIN SPOTTSBILLIG KLEINER SODA:  Here, courtesy of The Soul Of America, an essay on the balance between the sinkhole of facts we observe, and the sticky commodity of faith in a future.

We must always act from a sincere love of our fellows, but never give in to maudlin sentimentality or (worse) facile irrationalism. In theory, so long as one avoids silly ideological tropes, it is not so difficult to keep the two apart. But on a day to day level it can seem very difficult indeed. Especially when one is faced with nigh-inevitable catastrophe.

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How It Ends

Smoke And Ghosts

Fuk Off To The Sea

A king, who had brought suffering and disaster to his people, finally died. His funeral was attended by massive crowds from all corners of the nation, who in almost complete silence walked past the funeral bier of the Great Leader.

Observing the crowds was an ambassador from another country, surprised by what he was witnessing. He said to his secretary, "This bastard treated his people as chattel, lied to them, and when the plague descended he did nothing but lie and steal from them -- and yet they come to grieve!" His secretary replied, "They come, not to grieve, but to make absolutely certain he truly is dead."

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Over 200,000 new cases of SARS-CoV2, and two and three thousand deaths from complications of the disease, are reported in America every day. 

It's easy to forget that it didn't have to come to this. ~ 400,000 People dead; many more will suffer 'Long Covid' effects. The number of deaths, the suffering and anguish, amplified by the incompetence and sociopathology of The Leader -- still screeching that the election was stolen from him; that the nation is "angry"; adding the veiled threat that this is a "dangerous" time.

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Long ago, I interviewed persons who had interacted regularly with Hitler, for an academic writing project. Later, under different circumstances, I located and interviewed members of a particularly vicious cult with a violent end.

My questions varied -- but in essence they were all the same: How did it happen? Why did you assist someone so clearly disturbed, so incapable of real empathy, so capable of bringing about real evil? I never received a common answer; don't think I really expected to find one.

In the past four years, there hasn't been a single day that I haven't asked about The Leader: He's a bully, a liar, a grifter; he's mentally ill. He denied reality, now 400,000 people are dead; the United States is more fragile than it's been since 1860; how can you believe in -- this malignant thing ??

No one has been able to provide an answer to that question about The Leader. He appealed to the some of the worst aspects of human nature. The Leader enabled people to be cruel, violent; to believe obvious lies, and to hate. That's his legacy.

And, I will not speak or write his name. Not any longer. Let him Fuck Off To The Sea.

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Last Acts: The Leader was busy after the election. Loyal satraps like Graham and Giuliani made calls to Republican officials in swing states, nosing around to see how amenable they were to a little election fraud (none were). There were baseless lawsuits; bizarre conspiracy theories. In early December, several meetings were held at the White House to discuss tactics in contesting, even overthrowing, the election which may or may not have included a Proud Boy leader or two.

In late December, The Leader himself repeatedly called the Georgia Secretary of State, who ducked all but the eighteenth attempt. He pressured the man to commit election fraud. The Secretary recorded the call, and released it to the media. It was clear The Leader, a week from the Congress' accepting the votes of the Electors and certifying Biden's victory, was still in utter denial about losing the election.

On January 6, Congress was in session to certify the Elector's votes. At the same time, The Leader spoke to an extremely large crowd -- many brought to Washington on chartered busses paid for by Koch groups, donations from individuals (like Ginny Thomas, wife of a Supreme Court Justice). Standing behind a podium bearing the Presidential seal, The Leader primped and pranced; he savored the energy of a crowd of tens of thousands. 

He essentially told them to march to the Capitol. Whatever happened, would happen. After his speech, he didn't do what he'd promised, and walk to the Capitol with them. He returned to the White House and watched televised images of the mob he had created in action, as it unfolded. He was 'delighted', 'pleased'. 

The Leader Makes A White Power Hand Gesture To Adoring Masses

When some in his inner circle suggested the riot was "bad optics", The Leader became angry and sullen. When Congressional Republicans made panicked calls from lockdown inside the Capitol, some approached The Leader to suggest he make a statement. Defuse the situation, end the violence.

 

A request was made from the Congressional leaders at the Capitol: bring Washington, D.C.'s National Guard units in (as D.C. is not a state, only the President can release them). The Leader's swinish eyes narrowed, his mouth slumped into a busted, downturned scrawl in the ochre pudding of his face. He refused. 

Then, when it was clear the riot had already resulted in 'bad optics', aides convinced him to make a video statement, delivered in a wooden voice after the riot ended -- and even then, he still said the election was stolen, describing his supporters were "special... we love you", but that they should go home now.

Long After The Riot Ended, A Call For Healing, Sort Of

The next day, after the roll of dead had risen to two police officers (one dead of injuries received at the Capitol; the other a suicide) and four of the rioters, The Leader released another video, speaking from a podium in an even more detached, emotionless voice, he urged peace and condemned the violence. It was just for show, and everyone knew it.

He spoke of "handing over power to a new administration", and ended by saying to his True Followers, "I want you to know that the movement we started is only just beginning; there's never been anything like it... will only grow stronger by the day." 

... Trump taped a short video calling on Americans to act peacefully following pressure to do so from Vice President Pence, daughter Ivanka Trump, son-in-law Jared Kushner and other advisers. Trump later told aides that he regretted doing it and that his supporters did not like the video, two officials said. (Washington Post)

At the same time, the White House's flag was not lowered to half-staff in honor of the Capitol PD officers, though nearly every other U.S. flag in Washington had been.

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Aside from the shock of the violence -- that a rightist mob would break into the Capitol, pushed by The Leader, enabled and coddled (even assisted) by Republicans in Congress, is important. Using a threat of violence to compel a deliberative body to overturn national election results is crossing a significant red line. 

One week later, The Leader was Impeached on a single Article: incitement to insurrection. The far right chitters with threats and continued radicalization, feeling they have nothing to lose, hoping for their fabled Boo Galoo.

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Watching the White Riot unfold via streaming video from outside the Capitol building, I sensed the same spontaneous Shit-Happens energy that I remember from long-ago mass antiwar actions. The energy of the crowd as it rushed up to the Capitol seemed like video of the 2004 tsunami in Sumatra: the ocean surge, initially laps on shore, just a few inches of water. Then it became a foot of water, pulsing more urgently; and suddenly, the ocean is flooding in without stopping, now four or five feet and rising. 

This is what revolutions feel like; we're soaking in it.

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It's likely there was a smaller organized group, or groups, inside the Capitol with a specific agenda, hidden by the cover of a mass disturbance. The march had been organized a month before; plenty of time to research and plan; that should surprise no one. 

This is The Leader's legacy, too. I don't feel I am living in a country where, no matter what, we're all Americans. I think -- just as the MAGAs do -- that The Other Side will stop at nothing to destroy the country. The White Riot was just a sample, "only the start... getting stronger by the day".

But, together with the Covid pandemic -- the White Riot and feelings that we can no longer trust each other may be the impetus for an expansion of the American security state: Patriot Act 2.0. As with 9-11, it's too good an opportunity to lose.

Meanwhile, our Oligarchs running social media, the Oligarchs that own news and entertainment networks, pay no penalty for hooking suckers on lies and dopamine. They become richer and richer, and claim innocence; 'free expression' 'free speech'.  And every day, angry Cletuses are radicalized to hate, and envy, and to dream of revenge.

If I have to see Mark Zuckerberg's smooth, Aspergerish face one more time, sputtering about how his poorly-led corporation is unfairly blamed for assisting societal dissolution, I'll throw up.

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Peter Wehner, Republican New York Times contributor who wrote on November 5, 2016 about what The Leader's presidency would be like, appeared on PBS News Hour last night to observe

We're in an epistemic crisis... there has been an assault on truth and on reality, that [The Leader] has led, and his party was a part of, and his Base was a part of. We now live in a world where we don't just have policy differences -- we're living in different moral universes, different epistemological universes; we don't have a common set of facts, even a common reality. And when you lose that, it's very difficult to put it back together again... 

But if you don't... a free country can't continue. Ultimately, your politics breaks down and your society breaks down... there's no ability to have dialogue. [The Leader] did this... it wasn't just the lies; it was this intentional assault on reality, which ...spreads a kind of disorientation in the public that has tremendously damaging and long-term effects.

Wehner's opinions ignore the development of the American Right since 1974 towards authoritarianism, 'christian' Dominionism and (with the Leader) proto-fascism. It also ignores the devolution of both Republican and Democratic parties into extensions of a neoliberal, globalist perspective, which benefits a limited number of people with wealth. 

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Being in America, now, is like walking into a crime scene. The victim is still here; blood and numbered cards for the photographers still dot the floor. There are witnesses to interview, security camera video to review, leads to pursue. If you have to throw up, do it outside.

And, there's a weird calm hanging over everything that only seems to appear in the wake of incredible violence. You go about your business, live your life, with the knowledge of what has happened hovering just behind everything, like smoke; like ghosts.

It's a great relief to see The Leader deposed, no longer with any legitimate authority.  I do not wish him well, or his Issue, or his Base.

Where the Biden administration will take us, no one knows. May all of us be well, and safe.

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The Bomb In The Back Yard: A 2020 Coda

 Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear

Where the title of the previous post, 'End Of The Beginning', came from is obvious. The major events which began or rose to prominence in 2020 will, aber naturlich, continue to play out in the New Year.  We can party, but it's only the close of a Beginning. There is more shit to come.

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The greatest threat, the most dangerous unexploded munition waiting to go off in America, are the 70 million persons who voted for Donald Trump. They didn't vote for him, exactly; they voted for how he made them feel. How he still makes them feel. 

Since the mid-2000's there has been a struggle between traditional, Good Ol' Boys of the GOP (McConnell the current figurehead), and 'Alt-Right' 'Tea Party' revolutionaries originally created by the Koch brothers, later taken over by evangelical 'christians' and anti-democratic opportunists  (Trump their current Leader), to control the Republican party. 

(Incidentally, the January 6th showdown over electoral college votes in the 2020 election is a contest between these two factions. Aside from being an act of sedition, this power play will show how much control over the Republican party McConnell and the traditionalists still hold -- and how much the GOP belongs to The Leader, and his howling Base.)

Trump's ability to connect with and direct his cult followers determines how much influence he has on the party. And in a larger context -- even with potential legal issues, reportedly precarious finances -- his popularity determines how useful he will be to the Bannons and Adels, the LePens and Weidels, the Hofers and Farages of the world.

These heads of more global, proto-fascist, nationalist movements will tolerate the cons which Trump runs on banks and 'investors' -- after all, as Bannon's indictment shows, they all have their own cons to run, their own sheep to fleece. In turn, Trump will make as much (or more) use of them as they of him.

But, Trump -- in his mid-Seventies, obese; addictions, unspecified health issues -- will eventually dwindle to a sideshow. He'll make incendiary remarks, appear at rallies for "Trump-True" candidates; 'write' books. Fueled by hate and his own inner demons, he will not go quietly, but go he will have to.

Meanwhile, the Murdochs, Mercers and Bannons want to find a 'Better Trump' -- charismatic, gifted; a worthy successor to the fascist energy of the 1930's -- to finish what Bannon Trump started. Someone who can speak to and mobilize the Base with A New Message for All Those Of (Dominionist christian) Faith, and American (Right-Wing Political) Strength -- All (White Heterosexual, Male) People; and those with full use of the 'physical gifts with which god has graced them'.

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Which leaves us with 70 million unexploded bombs of Trumpism in America. 70 million people who believe -- one way or another -- in what Trump said and did, then voted on those beliefs.

They voted for white supremacy, for Dominionism. They voted for keeping a knee on the neck of every George Floyd, forever. That SARS-CoV2 is a hoax, and science is wrong. That America and the world is ruled by satanic pedophiles, through a bureaucratic Deep State. 

They voted for a liar and a con artist. They voted for forced separation of children from families. They voted for tax cuts to the wealthy. They voted that a sitting President could take money in exchange for favorable treatment, and to coerce the leader of another country to attack the President's political rival. That all political Liberalism equals Socialism, equals tyranny -- and so they voted for Trump as a way to "own the Libs".

Trying to comprehend how 70 million people can think this way (abandon fact-based reason; act more like superstitious Dark Age peasants than citizens in an industrial society) and follow a person like Trump, has been an enduring question in America for four years.

We've had nationalist politicians, rabid populists, in American politics before, but they've always had relatively few followers. Their ideas have never threatened to become mainstream belief. The malignant spread of Trump's hate-filled messages through the The Base -- which includes Congressional Republicans -- leaves the American Left dumbfounded. We pause and sputter, try to reason with them, find 'bipartisan consensus'. It fails, every time.

The Europeans I know are even more alarmed at Trump and 'Trumpism' than we are. They understand in their bones what fascist politics look and feel like. They've seen The Base before. And, they understand that Trump's expansion of the American Presidency into autocracy is only a symptom of a possible future even more malignant and terrifying -- and that Trumpism's followers, the Proud Boys and militias, will be waiting for the next Leader to appear and pick up where Trump left off.

If you're a Left / Progressive voter; if you're a Person of Color, LGBTQ; if you're poor, homeless, an immigrant -- and if you believe The Base are people, Americans like you, who have the capacity to be compassionate and rational... if you believe that Republicans in the House and Senate want the best for all Americans, and that their behavior is just political theatrics ... remember: A majority of  The Base's 70 million, and those Thugs in Congress, do not believe you are even human.

They believe you are agents of Satan, Socialists who want to destroy America. They believe this as fact. You are the enemy. Think about that.

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In reading through Digby, I came across a Tom Sullivan piece, "What's Reason Got To Do With It?", which I recommend:

... Trying to understand Trumpism is like asking a hoarder why she/he hoards. ... The questions assume there are rational answers when rationality has nothing to do with it. For his followers, Trumpism is about how they feel... 

UC Berkeley sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild tells The Atlantic‘s Derek Thompson that Trumpism “exists beyond the logic of policy“... Hochschild wrote in her 2016 book, “Strangers in Their Own Land” that there is a “deep story” playing out with a large faction of Americans:

The deep story went like this: You are an older white man without a college degree standing in the middle of a line with hundreds of millions of Americans. The queue leads up a hill, toward a haven just over the ridge, which is the American dream. Behind you in line, you can see a train of woeful souls—many poor, mostly nonwhite, born in America and abroad, young and old. “It’s scary to look back,” Hochschild writes. “There are so many behind you, and in principle you wish them well. Still, you’ve waited a long time.” 

Now you’re stuck in line, because the economy isn’t working. And worse than stuck, you’re stigmatized; liberals in the media say every traditional thing you believe is racist and sexist. And what’s this? People are cutting in line in front of you! Something is wrong. The old line wasn’t perfect, but at least it was a promise. There is order in the fact of a line. And if that order is coming apart, then so is America.

Hochschild tested this allegory with her Republican sources and heard that it struck a chord. Yes, they said, this captures how I feel. In the past few years, she’s kept in touch with several of her connections from the Deep South and keenly tracked their philosophical evolution. 

She’s watched the locus of their anxiety move from budgets ..to the entrenched and “swampy” political class. She also witnessed the Trumpification of everything. “There used to be a Tea Party,” she said. “Now it’s all Trumpism.”

The logic of policy has nothing to do with it. Trump is a kind of dancing orange dinosaur who has captured the imaginations of his base. He gave shape to their feelings. He gave voice to them.

Hochschild explains, “From his first rallies, Trump’s basic message has always been ‘I love you, and you love me, and we all hate the same people.’”

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Random Barking: End Of The Beginning

 The Year Of Living Dangerously

2020 (MMXX) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2,020th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 20th year of the 3nd millennium, the 20th year of the 21st century, and the 1st year of its second decade. 

Initially trained as an historian, my reflex is to see 2020 as a mega-event -- where one year is dominated by  a few serious, unique and overwhelming occurrences affecting hundreds of millions of individuals. It's felt like wartime, with battles, victories, losses; new technology; politics affecting the war; and, deaths.

So in finding a year to compare with 2020, some obvious choices were the Great Plague of Athens in 380 BC, which took three years to burn out and killed ~25% of the Greek population. Or, 1347 and the Great Plague of Europe, the Black Death, which lasted four years and killed ~200 million; 1664-65, the Great Plague Year in London; or the 1918-19 Spanish Influenza epidemic.

2020 seemed to be a year of emotion more than actual conflict. As a nation, or as individuals, we were about 'waging war' with a viral organism, and with some of the most vicious, ugly aspects of human nature -- sometimes, in ourselves.

But I found myself looking for periods that felt more like a match than were correct in some one-for-one historical comparison. The Second World War felt obvious; maybe, too much so. It isn't part of my experience, but I was born not long after it ended. I absorbed its experience by my parents' generation, the Depression that preceded it, and the early Cold War / Red Scare America that followed.

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Then I gave up. I realized that comparing 2020, globally and in America, with a year in WW2 is what we've always done -- dramatize events as one more chapter in the heroic, upward progression of America's story. It's normal to frame traumatic events in ways that help us absorb them, find a context and understanding. But we need to see what has happened, just over the past 365 days, with real clarity.

The true meaning of events we're living through are both profoundly personal and epochal at once. But by turning 2020 into a Ken Burns special in our heads, it becomes a Year already in the Past -- safely in memory, something manageable, unable to hurt us further.

That would remove the fear and disruption and claustrophobia -- but it will also rob us of our own individual experience of this moment, this time. It prevents us from seeing the reality of 2020's real impact.

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We're still in the middle of a bad spike in a long-term pandemic. It isn't a dramatization to say: We're in the most fragile and desperate of moments in our nation's history, since 1776 or 1861. Believe it. Trump (please God) leaves office as of January -- but he tried, incompetently, to stage a Coup. He's still trying to subvert the election, still trying to burn down as much of America as he can before the 20th.

And, he's just the worst symptom of a deep infection at America's core; the worm at the heart of the rose. Trump will go; but Trumpism -- fascism, authoritarianism, Bannonism; what you like -- is now a precedent in American politics. Two months ago, seventy million adult Americans voted in favor of it.

As a nation, if we're wise, we'll take this Plague Year ending as a wake-up call to address a very long list, spanning generations, of cultural Chickens Coming Home To Roost -- starting with The Pandemic. How we prioritize the rest will determine where we go as a nation. And that's just the beginning

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MEHR, MIT MUSIK, MIT MUSIK, MIT MUSIK: The Girl Who Refused To Be Mrs. Mongo put in her oar: "The phrase, 'Letting your freak flag fly' popped into my head, for some reason."  Fair enough.

Reprint Heaven: This World At Night

 Dusk 

(From late November, 2016, apre le dénouement.)

As I write, it's twilight on the Left Coast; almost too obvious an image. At work, in the aftermath of the election, few people spoke about the results. Even fewer people mention what's to come, now, except with a lot of who-the fuck-knows eye rolling and shrugging.

For now, there is an adult (no matter what you think of his policies) in the White House. We can push the image of Trump and his ilk, of Mike Pence telling the media to "buckle up", out of our minds -- but everyone knows that this (relatively) liberal presidency is ending; the light is fading.

I wrote a long post claiming to know something of the future, but deleted it. It was, in its way, bullshit: I don't know what will happen, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. I let those who can analyze and translate current events well, or those with louder voices, or with a penchant for ego masquerading as humble simplicity, do their thing. Let them lean out.

As I wrote the Post That Was Not, I understood something else: the future is very present. It's going to play out in the faces and the lives of friends, and total strangers, whose fates seem more important now than they did a month ago.

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I'm not a very deep reader, and when uncomfortable tend to chew on the familiar. So I grabbed Alan Furst's The World At Night to read over the long weekend. It's a story of Paul Casson, a Parisian and a producer of films, in France at the fall of the Third Republic, and the choices he makes after. It's about morality, love, courage and venality of life during Occupation.

Casson has been recalled to the army in the late spring of 1940; the Germans are already invading the Low Countries (and eventually, as everyone knows, France itself via the Ardennes). He is part of a propaganda unit filming the French army as it heads toward the front.

     ...Casson was stopped. The sentries were drunk and unshaven. "What brings you here?" one of them said.
     "We're making movies."
     "Movies! You know Hedy Lamarr?"
     "Dog dick," said another. "Not those kinds of movies. War movies."
     "Oh. Then what the hell are you doing up here?"
     The second man... offered Casson a bottle through the window... [and] laughed as he took the bottle back. "Come and see us, squire, after this shit's done with."
     The hard Parisian sneer in his voice made Casson smile. "I will."
     "You can find us up in Belleville, at The Pig's Ass."
     "See you then," Casson said, shoving the clutch in.
     "Red Front!" They called after him.

The German army succeeds; Casson melts away, towards Paris, more vagabond than a fleeing soldier. 

     ... Sometimes, in a café, he heard the news on a radio. Nothing, he realized, could save them from losing the war. He left the roads, walked across springtime fields... He shared a campfire with an old man with a white beard, a sculptor, he said, from Brittany somewhere, who walked with a stick, and got drunk on some yellow stuff from a square bottle...
     ... "We'll all live deep down, now," the sculptor said, throwing a stick of wood on the fire. "Twenty ways to prepare a crayfish. Or, you know, chess. Sanskrit poetry. It will hurt like hell, sonny, you'll see."

Casson is a character who lived a comfortable, creative life, a Parisian life, and after the nazi victory he only wants to get back to living it -- and he does, until he discovers that he actually is a moral man. And, while it takes time for the corrosion of the Occupation to seep through to him, eventually he has to act against it. He had no other choice, really; it just took some time for him to become clear to himself.

At the end, Casson makes another choice -- an act against Occupation and exclusion, against division and hate -- but for a purist or Marxist, it will seem a fool's move, sentimentalist garbage. Only, it's our deepest passions, sometimes hidden even from ourselves and spurring us to act, which define us.

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For the Left, the appointment of Bush in 2000 was a shock unlike any other in American politics -- and what followed was an eight-year chapter in the Banality of Evil. 

Life under Bush, a limited, Dauphin of a man, was Life During Wartime -- one reason Obama's election in 2008 was greeted with street parties -- here in Kiddietown, it was like the Place De Concorde in 1944 -- The nazis are gone! Vive La France!  We were Liberated!

But, Bush and the creatures that swept in with him had some legitimacy as part of the political mainstream. Not so with Trump or his creatures. Lil" Boots played at being a loud, crude Man Of The People but was always the son of a Yankee, blue-blood Old Money family.  Trump has all the sophistication of an infomercial, the intellectual depth of a racetrack tout -- and, it's not an act. No one knows what will happen this time, but it's almost certain to be bad.

 Obligatory Cute Animal Photo In Middle Of Blog Ogg Ogg

(From Mongo Interviews Mitzy, 2012)

And this time, it feels more like Occupation. Like the real thing -- as if Bush had been a dry run, a testing of limits. Just outside our field of vision, we sense men in Field Grey on the corners, but they're waiting, not asking for our papers, Ausweis; not yet.  Unconsciously, this was why I had taken Furst's book down from the shelf in the first place.

It's going to take time for the corrosion to sink in. And it will take time for people to act against it from our moral centers -- some sooner than others, but act we will have to. And the values and passions at the core of our Selves will direct us. We don't have any other choice, really.

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From the Post That Never Was, some tasty links as you cook that Crayfish. Pass the square bottle of yellow stuff, would you? And, which way to The Pig's Ass?

"Red Front!" They called after him.

Alastair Crooke, Without Any Masterpiece Theatre  --  and who he quotes, Raul Meijer.

Richard Rorty, though he be dead (quotes below -- see The Paper Of Record's original 1998 review.)

"[M]embers of labor unions, and unorganized unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported. Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar workers — themselves desperately afraid of being downsized — are not going to let themselves be taxed to provide social benefits for anyone else.

"At that point, something will crack. The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking around for a strongman to vote for — someone willing to assure them that, once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodernist professors will no longer be calling the shots. …

"One thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the past 40 years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals, will be wiped out. Jocular contempt for women will come back into fashion. … All the resentment which badly educated Americans feel about having their manners dictated to them by college graduates will find an outlet...

"This world economy will soon be owned by a cosmopolitan upper class which has no more sense of community with any workers anywhere than the great American capitalists of the year 1900... [This group included intellectuals who are] quite well insulated, at least in the short run, from the effects of globalization."

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Cult Of America

State Of Emerging Emergency

In these days I live in a bubble of self-imposed social isolation: an urban dweller, still occasionally going into hospitals to do my work, I'm stricter about protocols and distancing in the other areas of my life.

I follow the rituals, because I am an acolyte of a cult; the cult of Covid, which coexists inside another -- the cult of America. Both can be comforting if you follow their rules, and both can be damaging, even fatal, if you don't.

The rules of Covid are clear. Risk increases if you disregard them, for yourself and others. America's rules, as they say in corporate life, contain a higher level of ambiguity. For now, anyway.

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Years ago, at a holiday party in North Beach, when there was still a Cold War and Ceausescu's regime still in power, I met a Romanian journalist who had managed or been allowed to escape to the West -- and in giving me his impressions of the United States, the man said something I've never forgotten. It seems timely to recall.

In Romania, in the East Bloc -- you become enough of a problem for somebody, they take you out in the woods and put a bullet in your head. In America, you become enough of a problem for the government, and you -- don't get a credit card. They restrict your ability to make money. 

That's the difference between Reagan, America; and what Ceausescu has made out of Romania. But someday, that difference may disappear. When your government crosses the line. When you start finding people in the woods who have been shot in the back of the head? Then it's too late.

When you attack a man, or a people, you must destroy him entirely: they must have no power left at all, or will take vengeance (Machiavelli).

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Trump says the election is a fraud, rigged, stolen. That it is the work of a massive conspiracy by Democrats and the Deep State to deny him his rightful place as Leader. 

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs -- but there is no evidence. At all. Trump's legal team has filed multiple legal actions to delay or overturn the tallied vote counts. All but one, inconsequential action has failed, denied by judges. Multiple recounts in the key states have proven no fraud had occurred, and reaffirmed the election's outcome. 

However, very public Trump supporters have begun saying very publicly that he should go further -- that the Republic is in danger from such a massive, carefully planned conspiracy. In order to preserve America, Trump should declare a State of Emergency and order a "second election" be held under military supervision. 

Among the people saying this are ex-Army General Michael Flynn, recently pardoned, and ex-Air Force General Thomas McInerney, who earlier this week claimed "US soldiers died attacking a CIA facility in Germany tied to fraud in the US election". And, Sidney Powell, tossed from Trump's legal team last week after spouting theories about who was behind the conspiracy that not even Rudy Giuliani could stomach. 

On Twitter late Tuesday, Flynn shared a press release from the nonprofit 'We The People Convention (WTPC)', which had purchased a full-page ad in the right-wing Washington Times. The Ad stated that Trump should declare "limited" martial law and hold a new election. 

(It's worth noting that the Military Times, an official organ of the U.S. Armed Services, reported all of the above in detail, quoting a 'senior defense official' as saying the prospect of a new election run by the military was "insane".)

Also yesterday, Trump released what the Washington Post described as a "bellicose, rambling" 46-minute video address taped at the White House (released on Facebook in full, and a shorter version via Twitter). It was stupefying in it's banality, and frightening in that Trump repeated the same primary lie, over and over -- that the election was rigged, its outcome fraudulent, and Biden has no legitimate claim to the Presidency.

1.  It's not possible to overstate how pathological, how untethered from reality, this is. Trump is the elected head of state. Faced with a complete absence of evidence for his claims (in fact, faced with evidence disproving the lie he is telling), Trump claims it is still true just because he says so. 

2.  Senior White House staff; Giuliani, other lawyers; Congressional Republicans; Murdoch's media / Fox 'personalities'; all support contesting the election as a Leftist conspiracy and Biden as its illegitimate winner  -- even though there is no evidence to support it beyond whatever comes out of Trump's mouth.

All of Trump's toadies have to be aware that the only conspiracy being conducted around the 2020 election is the one they have helped to create and perpetrate. For them, the ends shape the means, and as self-styled Patriots, whatever ends they use are right, proper; even blessed.

By itself, the video is just a curious artifact. But as the result of everything that's happened since election night, Trump's behavior demonstrates an inability to distinguish his fantasy from Reality . It's reason enough to invoke the 25th Amendment.

But it won't happen, of course.

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I've seen officers make bad, even crazy, decisions, and issue bad orders. I've watched managers and executives in corporate organizations, who had created environments every bit as toxic as Trump's, do the same. And, most people just execute the orders given -- they don't want to be punished for disobeying. They don't want to lose their jobs, or their 'power', inconsequential as it might be. They go along to get along.

Trump is doing everything possible to overturn the November election. Have no doubts about that. It's helpful that he's an incompetent bully, and has surrounded himself with other self-important incompetents who support his delusions. But there is more he can do.

All of his staff who have spoken out or spoken up have quit or been fired. Those left are True Believers in the Cult Of Trump. All live in fear of his rage and vindictiveness. If he acts on his delusions and issues orders, his staff will carry it out without much hand-wringing. He is Der Chef, and what he says carries the force of a Presidential order.

There may be people around Trump to dissuade him from bombing Iran, but domestic considerations are different; there may not be anyone to place a check on his mad impulses. And, forget the influence of Javanka or the rest of his family -- we were told Trump 'just needed time to adjust' to reality, that Trump would see reason sooner or later. How did that work out?

Staffers, and Congressional Republicans, think he's an asshole, and say so -- in private; particularly since the election. But the GOP's political fortunes are welded to Trump's crazy house of cards. Very few Congressional Republicans have said the election is over; Biden is the winner; time to move on. Others have pulled away, a little, from The Leader -- but in the language of their public statements you can see they're hedging their bets. Trump still controls The Base; he has the majority of the GOP by the short hairs. 

The federal bureaucracy may have enough persons in it who might slow-walk any truly crazy order Trump might issue. But he is the President, and can still order a state of emergency -- even over a non-existent election crisis -- and it will be a legitimate order from a sitting President.

Interesting that, after the election, Trump fired the Secretary of Defense because, it was reported, Esper refused to agree to order U.S. military personnel into American cities if there was civil unrest. Then, he fired the head of Cybersecurity (because Krebs wouldn't support Trump's false claims of election fraud).  He had already appointed John Ratcliffe as DNI, and was threatening to fire the Director of Central Intelligence, and the Director of the FBI. These agencies and individuals would be affected if Trump declared a state of emergency over a "stolen" election, and order some level of martial law. 

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If Trump's 46-minute video rant really is a preface to further Presidential action -- then all the major players in America's power structure will have to make a choice: Back Trump by accepting any order as legitimate because it is issued by the President, or refuse.  

I think Trump actually doing something regarding the election using the power of his Office is quite possible -- don't give it much of a chance, but we're in uncharted territory here. His legal strategy is a failure; he can try to lean on governors in the Key states to appoint their own electors. He can keep trying to place the election question in front of his Supreme Court.

Trump could be dragging all this out just to keep the focus on himself, and the idea of a second election is just a massive head-fake. He's even dangled the possibility of announcing his run for the Presidency in 2024 -- timed to coincide with Biden's inauguration on January 20th. 

One way or another, we will never be rid of Trump until (from natural causes, of course) death comes to claim him. He's a grifter; he and his family had just begun to taste the rich seam of public money. They were the Meth Addict Family with their own reality TV show, and they want their happy ending: the rest of the world prostrate at their feet, enriched beyond the wildest fantasies their BSE-riddled brains could imagine.

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Most people aren't following this story any longer. We watch a video clip or two on the news -- always, it's Crazy Rudy and his crazier 'witnesses'; sound bites chosen to highlight Trump's assertion that he won the election looks every bit as crazy as it is, and we have just tuned the entire story line out. This will all be over in January; he's crazy, let him rave on. We do have more pressing realities than to give any more time to that lying, bloated caricature of a man.

It isn't that 'The System Works', so much as it worked this time -- and, a sitting President refusing to concede his loss of office, making every effort to overturn an open election; this has never happened before. I believe we have dodged a collective bullet over the past month, beginning with Trump's loss at the polls -- but, look: nearly all Congressional Republicans continue to give public support for his batshit-crazy ravings. 

And, Lindsey Graham called the Secretary of State for Georgia, asking whether whole classes of votes could be rejected. Trump reached out to Republican canvassing board members in Michigan. If there had been a serious effort to pressure Republican governors into appointing their own electors, or refusing to certify their state's results... we could be in a much worse situation, now.

In the events of the past four weeks -- like the past four years -- there's a clear warning in how far Trump will go to mutilate America in protecting his personal interests, and how far the political Right will go in making up insane conspiracies, making alliances with proto-nazi militias, in order to push the tyranny of minority rule.

And they're not done with us. And we haven't even spoken about the Democrats.

200,000 new Covid cases, and 2,000+ deaths per day; the coming potential relief of a vaccine: the unimaginable sacrifices being made by Emergency technicians, nurses, physicians, environmental services -- these are the stories we should pay attention to. 

And we should remember who brought us to this, and how we got here.

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Reprint Heaven: In The Beginning Was The Word

 Ten Years Later

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

(It grieves me to give Glamorous Glenny any space in this post, but it can't be helped. Originally offered August 28, 2010.)

 

Glenn Beck, At Lower Right Surrounded By Private Security Guards, Waits To Begin The Rally behind A Poster Of A Native American (Photo: Brendan Smialowski, New York Times Online, 8/28/10) 

It isn't really important that someone staged a religious rally in Washington, D.C.; that's been done before. The Moral Majority and Christian Coalition have staged them, and the 'Million-Man March' comes to mind. But this is the first religious rally that is overtly political, a demand to link or merge church and state, organized by evangelical christians with the general theme of turning America back to god -- through the general emergence of a new political force, the vaguely-defined 'Tea Party'. And it is happening at a time when the mainstream media continually portrays the state of National politics as confused at best and governing against the will of the People at worst. 

And, this rally is happening at a time when many people are out of work, angry and vulnerable, and ready to listen to a "new message". The Times stated that NBC news estimated 300,000 people lined the Mall between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument; the event's spokespersons said it was half a million. "But," said the Times, "by any measure it was a large turnout," which to me is disturbing.

 

The Rally (Photo: New York Times / Jacquelyn Martin - AP) 

 It was organized by Glenn Beck -- an eager entertainer who has the backing of Little Rupert's News Corp., the most powerful media conglomerate on the planet. Ten years ago, Glenny was just another drive-time talk jock. Now, he's standing with the Lincoln Memorial at his back, believing he speaks for god and preaching a mixture of biblical interpretation and Rightist garbage.

   

The Most Something Name In News: Reflecting Beck's Penchant For Truthyness And Factitiousness (Screencapture: CNN)

It's a Meaglomaniac's dream come true. However, the phrase, "Jesus wept," is invoked for a reason. There are a large number of people who see Beck attempting to equate his little monologue with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech in the same place, on the same date -- an address of hope and a demand for equality and justice, that has nothing to do with the ego of a tubby con man enabled by a media oligarch. And they're not happy. 

"For too long, this country has wandered in darkness,” Beck said to a nearly all-Caucasian crowd in a long, rambling speech that repeated themes from his Fox television program, his Clearchannel radio show, and his Web 'University', all of which push a bizarre amalgam of half-truths and boldfaced lies about American history. "This country has spent far too long worrying about ... and concentrating on scars," Glenny went on. "Today, we are going to concentrate on the good things in America, the things that we have accomplished, and the things that we can do tomorrow.”

   

"Under God": Tea Party Attendees Recited The Pledge Of Allegiance; Find A Black Person In This Photo And I'll Pay You 1,000 Quatloos (Photo: Brendan Smialowski, New York Times Online, 8/28/10)

Speaking of something many of the other tubby white men in the crowd would do, Sarah Palin spoke immediately after Beck; "We must not fundamentally transform America as some would want," Palin said. "We must restore America and restore her honor." The themes were consistent: America is on the wrong road; we need to regain our honor; we need to look to our glorious past; we need to turn back to religion as the basis for governing the country; and as Beck has been spouting for several years, the Federal government should be reduced in its power, and get out of the lives of its citizens... and all citizens should accept god, and live by godly principles.

 

Obligatory Cute Dead Animal Photo In Middle Of Blog Rant 

...the important thing is that all signs are that the next few years will be a combination of economic stagnation and political witch-hunt... This is going to be almost inconceivably ugly. 

-- Paul Krugman, "Failure To Rise"; NY Times, August 28, 2010 

 I believe a large number of people will snort out a laugh about Beck's rally, and his performance, today (even David Niewart, who has kept as close an eye on the totalitarian leanings of America's Right as anyone). After all, they'll say, we've heard all his themes before; nothing new there -- and they'll make fun of him. 

 But I also think people are uneasy at what they're seeing; all sniggers aside, the rally had a moderately respectable turnout (Definitely not half a million, and not 300,000; but respectable). And, because Beck wants nothing short of a revolution -- he's as much as said so. His enablers and investors (monkey-gland-fueled oligarchs like Little Rupert, and the Billionaire Boyz Club) think the Tea party will disappear, sooner or later -- but intend to make Progressives spend capital and resources fending it off ...and get something out of it for themselves.

 

And if it does become something; if the country ends up being ruled by nut jobs like Palin and Bachmann and Paul... well; it's nice to be on the right side of people who believe god speaks to them, isn't it? Because those people usually take a Dairy Queen full of people hostage and then demand money, a fueled jet, and "complete release". 

 Unless revolutions are seriously non-violent (as Dr. Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement, or Mahatma Gandhi's long effort to win independence for India, were) and truly have justice and history on their side, they end in two ways -- a coup d'etat, because in order to survive, a government has to share power with the revolutionaries (Germany in 1933); or a seizure of power by force, (the French and Russian Revolutions), usually with some involvement by part of a country's professional military officers, even if they stand aside and wait for some 'supreme authority' to win the struggle for control.

 

Who Wants To Swear Allegiance To Anything We Say,

Or End Up In The Gulag? Soviet Citizens During The Purges Of The 1930's

In either case, the revolutionaries need scapegoats. In moving from the Old Order to the New, there will have to be punishments, a comeuppance. And, since it's a Revolution, the old notions of civility, fairness and justice won't apply. The revolutionaries suddenly in power will do whatever is necessary to keep it -- and to survive, people will have to swear allegiance to whatever those in power want them to. Because in the end, it is all about power; "Where the broom does not sweep," Mao Zedong said, "The dust will not vanish of itself." 

In order to bring about revolutionary change, the new leaders won't ask a society to do what they want -- they have to demand it, and behind that demand is always the barrel of a gun. In a political revolution, that's bad enough; ask the Czechs, the Romanians, the Bulgarians and the Russians; the Spanish and the Germans. 

But in a revolution created by religious True Believers, they will not only want you to agree that two and two make five; you will have to prove to them that you believe it with all your heart. Or else. The only way religious revolutionaries can build consensus is by attacking 'heretics' and 'unbelievers' as defined by their leaders, who claim to speak for god.

 

Francisco Goya, Inquisition; Prado Museum, Madrid 

 For example: Non-christians, agnostics or atheists may be identified by others in their neighborhoods to the authorities. They may be ostracized, their businesses boycotted. Eventually, they will be marginalized legally -- at first, laws may be passed requiring only recognized christians to hold public office or civil service jobs; then, to hold any job. Then, to own certain kinds of property. 

 And while all this is going on, the media is broadcasting the message that since the new leaders are informed by god, directives of the new government are directed by god as well -- in fact, will be equated with god's will. Those against the government, and certain non-christians, are evil; "in rebellion against god"; agents of Satan.

 

Nazi Auto-Da-Fe In The Operaplatz, Berlin A.R. Moritz, 1938

And, the things these evil people have made -- art; literature; scientific studies; architecture and design and theater ... all of it will become objects of official ridicule and discarded (even, burned in public) as evidence of moral degeneracy.

 

Exhibition Of 'Entartete Kunst' (Degenerate Art); Münich, 1937 -- An Exhibition Of Art Declared Against The Principles Of German Culture And Society As Defined By The Government (Wikipedia)

It's inevitable; at some point, witches will have to be be tried. There will be forced confessions (as with the Inquisition, or Soviet Purge trials, or Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge). If the accused don't recant, and accept whatever interpretation of religion the leaders direct as orthodox -- then, it ends in executions and anonymous graves.

 

Cambodian Teacher, Photographed Before Execution By The Khmer Rouge.

If you think this is science fiction, substitute the word "Jew", or "Homosexual" "Communist" "Monarchist", or "Liberal" for 'non-christian', 'atheist' or 'agnostic', and remember your history (only, recanting an unpopular opinion, or changing religious affiliation did nothing to help the Jews). 

If you spend even an hour listening to 'christian' radio, its broadcasts are long, ranting monologues about fire and sin that build slowly to a frenzy -- and always delivered by men, shouting about seeking out and recognizing the devil and the ungodly, about prophesy as they interpret it, and punishment to come. 

Those who punish others out of a claim to know wickedness are blind to it in themselves. 

I'm a long way from saying we're on the cusp of a Rightist, Dominionist 'christian' takeover of the government. More likely, the Teabaggers can try and ram god down the country's throat, and at some point the society will begin to choke.

Until then, it will look and feel like the McCarthy era, as incompetent evangelicals run the United States onto the rocks and brand everyone who blames them as agents of Teh Satan. However, make no mistake: any change of government in this country from its current, secular democratic Republic would have to end in the repression, imprisonment, and murder of anyone whom the new leaders saw as a threat. That is the nature of revolution; there are no exceptions. There never have been.

If Little Glenn Beck has another rally, and more people show up than there were today -- if this is pushed as a "populist" uprising by Right-wing media like Fox and bankrolled by billionaires with revenge on their minds -- then I would take note, and be afraid, because the days of living in a pluralist, secular and diverse society may be numbered.

All that is needed for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. 

[-- All Boldface Quotations: Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797); Taste The Irony ]

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