The NYT is scaring me with their article 10/07/2022 on Ron DeSantis's wife and her fund-raising for Florida hurricane victims. Does the NYT know what the DeSantises are really like? The article says not one critical thing about the couple. This is how strongmen get their path to power eased, by the press laying back and not saying anything bad about them.
It's like when Trump first started his campaign in 2015, the press treated him as a normal human being. By 2016, the press should have been saying what the Psychologists/Psychiatrists were saying, that the man is a sociopath. The American Psychological Association (APA) was stifling comments about Trump's condition, thinking it was a violation of the Goldwater Rule. This was a massive mistake by the APA, so we ended up with a dangerous sociopath in power.
“When paramilitary and police begin to work together the end is near. When you can no longer tell the difference, the end is here.”- Tim Snyder, on Tyranny, 20 lessons from the twentieth century.
As Ruth adroitly pointed out, we are living in troubled times. Right wing and paramilitary groups should take notice of the $ billions our DOD has spent on non-lethal weaponry. Regardless of how flawed our judicial system has become, we shall survive this insanity!
Barbara F. Walter, a soul sister of Ruth's, in her book How Civil Wars Start, and how to stop them, highlights various factors too numerous to summarize here that ignite civil wars. I recall the chants of the Nazis marching in Charlotte, whites worried about immigrants and blacks and Asians replacing them. That's one grievance; another is the inequality of factions. Trump giving billions to the 1% is an example. Biden's three bills to do projects that benefit common people, like various construction projects and money to develop homegrown industries, and especially the provision that corporations pay a 15% tax--all serve to tamp down the impulses for civil war. I don't know why Biden's poll numbers are so low. Can't ordinary people see he's for them?
Agree. We Americans have become too much of a 'gaming' population leading to gamesmanship/ fun and the love of greed & social acceptance it generates. It's a hobby lifestyle. We have wandered off the good path. We've lived through a lot social change and we've gone abit off the tracks. Hopefully, we can right the ship. Biden is doing an excellent job of equalizing inequality -- the solution to most problems, financial and otherwise. Diversity is a beautiful patchwork we can live in.
What, short of war or civil war, can mitigate what we are facing. Apparently extremists have or will infiltrate most of our institutions. When most of the restraints implied by the rule of law are no longer recognized by a large chunk of Americans…what is left?
We'll have to draw upon people like Churchill, "we will fight them on the beaches" (non-violently I mean). We will have to muster courage and not give up. It may not be easy, we've got to talk to fellow Americans, phone bank, etc and just give it our all for our kids & grandkids & all that follow.
You're right ... we have be inculturated to believe that power flows downward.
We need to loop back to re-educate power of the people flows from the bottom upward. Key point. Key point. "We the people"
What I am noticing is that in talking to people who were not born here, they truly appreciate beyond what I can describe, being citizens of the U.S. However, their knowledge of what the structure of democracy is, is scant or none. This isn't meant as criticism of them but an observation of an potential education-gap in citizenship. In talking of the current state of events (dire), they revert back to the structure of government where they came from.....as a soothing balm. Examples of this are Poland and Italy. Because it is their homeland, they remember with sweetness the good. We need to sharpen critical thinking skills and educate on the structure of democracy, as you describe. The strongmen, as Ruth as describes should not be whitewashed -- or held as the 'men who can solve all'. Many people are seeking to cast a ballot for the one who claims he/she can make this badness disappear like poof!* Complex problems are best resolved in a democracy. That is another message that could be amplified. People need to unplug, calm down, listen, and ponder -- rather than a snap, knee-jerk response. (Analogy: Fast-food or real food, which is better for you?)
Yes, our extremists are infiltrating our institutions, as that is the plan of any fascist movement. Once a critcal mass of new placements has been achieved, they can take power with minority rule. We seem to be in the legal phase of fascism, where judges were put in place who support the cause. Extremists are seeking Secretary of State positions in various states in order to fix elections in their favor. We can't let this critical mass be reached. Society needs to be informed about what is being planned by the right and that it is fascist. I find that letters to the editor in local newspapers helps to some degree but selling democracy is a tough sell right now.
I’ll try to keep it simple. Can a member of an extremist organization lose their job? Especially a civil service job or a military position? How about a private sector job? Does it matter at all?
Important question involving the manipulation of federal policy to strengthen whoever is in power (including Ruth’s “strongmen,” say, Trump and his allies).
Schedule F
The Congressional House of Representatives passed legislation in Sept 2022 to lessen a president’s power to hire/fire federal workers in order to strengthen civil servants’ job security. Trump and his allies were targeting those they were calling disloyal “deep state” federal workers. Almost ALL Republicans opposed the legislation voted on in the Democratic-led House at the time where Trump and his allies had been continuing to attack federal workers.
Trump also signed an executive order in 2020 allowing federal agencies to reclassify workers and strip them of protections that cover most federal workers and convert these positions to “political patronage positions” (from Ruth’s Strongmen playbook). But President Biden cancelled Trump’s order in 2021 when he took office. Privately, Trump allies acknowledged that it was an attempt to get rid of the “deep state” operatives working against them.
The bipartisan House legislation, led by Congressional Reps Gerald Connolly (D-VA) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), would prevent a president from placing federal employees under a new classification scheme which was what Trump was calling “Schedule F” without approval of Congress. All but six Republican Congressional Reps opposed it!
Also, Trump’s executive order did not have a significant effect on the federal work force as there was not enough time to review and re-classify federal workers during the time left in Trump’s administration. But if Trump or another Republican were to be elected in 2024 and who would want to reinstate the executive order, many federal employees could be affected in the future!
I'm seeing a lot of Libertarian agenda in what Trump attempted to accomplish. The dismantling of agencies, the attempted relinquishment of regulation on business, the push for minority rule, the promotion of corporate rule--- it's all there.
All of our paramilitary groups in society these days reminds me of the Freikorps in Germany after WWI. They were also a right wing group that did battle with the left. It was the beginning of fascism in Germany. We seem to be going down the same path that Germany was on 100 years ago. We have the same belligerent far right ultra-nationalism. The symptoms are being ignored by far too many.
Currently, with an unemployment rate of 3.5% (possibly at or beyond full-employment), raising interest rates may not be something the Federal Reserve should be doing. Chairman Powell? Hello?
When verifiable information is dismissed…reasoning will not work…at least not with the core extremists…they are the puppets and they are being manipulated by the puppet masters…most of them are not really believers…but they want the chaos and violence as a path to power…I am at a loss as to what to actually Do differently than the paths that are in progress…enforcing the rule of law (correctly)…demanding accountability…etc…even if are able we avoid a meltdown in the next few years, this is going to be a long, long struggle …I wish us luck, I fear we will need it…
“Shall we follow Hamlet and the ghost into the dark night?” …………..from Shakespear’s “Hamlet”
The ghost is a premonition for Denmark and the greater theme of the connection between the moral legitimacy of the ruler and the health of the state overall. The ghost is a symptom of the rottenness of Denmark created by Claudius’s crime.
[……….Sorry Denmark, I really do love you so much!]
The root cause of any sort of “inflation” we are currently dealing with is due to the excessive corporate profits, like we have never seen before, that is facilitating excessive price gouging, like we have never seen before, and that is all the result from the kind of “consolidation” everywhere -- media, energy, healthcare, industry -- in every sector like we have never seen before!!!
The Federal Reserves’ “monetary policy” (e.g. raising interest rates) efforts isn’t going to get at what is needed and certainly isn’t going to be enough to do much where it is indeed needed.
But we must continue to put measures in place to a degree like we’ve never seen before! Such as:
**President Biden’s imposing a billionaire taxation plan.
**President Biden’s efforts to push the FTC to investigate Oil companies.
**Important Senate Legislation that needs to be greatly expanded.
** Sen Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) legislation that will support federal agencies and state attorneys general to enforce and expand bans on price gouging.
**Since the Reagan years the federal government has abandoned antitrust legislation and its enforcement but Sen Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) is greatly and effectively pushing for and much needed expansion.
**and much more.....
Vote Blue all the way down the ballot ticket and especially to gain significant Democratic control over the Senate to further expand the above measures and more!!!
The 2022 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences has been awarded to the former U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Ben S. Bernanke, who used his stellar Great Depression work to revitalize the U.S. economy after the 2007/08 financial crisis, as well as awarded to Douglas W. Diamond and Philip H. Dybvig for their research on banks, financial crises, and bank failures. “Their findings in the early 1980s laid the foundations for regulating financial markets,” the Nobel Prize panel said.
[On a related note] I have always found Ben Bernanke’s “Macroeconomics” textbooks to be superb and have quite often used aspects of his books in my upper division Macro Theory classes. Also, Bernanke has done some great work on "inequality" and currently presents some methods for taxing billionaires (a wealth tax) that differs from what President Biden is moving toward. There is much debate on the factors of a wealth tax and Bernanke suggests the following:
**raise capital gains taxes.
**tax realized capital gains.
**eliminate the provision that when you pass appreciated assets on to your heirs, any appreciation in the assets is not taxed at any time.
[I feel President Biden’s wealth tax (tax on billionaires) has much greater potential than what Bernanke is saying but we need to move more quickly to it perhaps in a new and expanded Senate come Nov 8th :) ]
Jennifer Rubin (Lawyer and Columnist “The Washington Post”) gives the following succinct description at the end of the Mary Trump show today (without Mary being there) right out of Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s Strongmen Playbook…..
[“The Mainstream Media allows this to go on by continually normalizing Republicans who are not normal. They are a Fascist Party. They are seeking to undermine democracy. They are seeking to undermine the rule of law. They are openly, unabashedly racist and misogynistic and the press for the sense of a cordial Sunday morning Talk Show treat these people as normal. They do this refusing to confront and interrogate these people. The lawyers in here could take a better deposition and could push these people into a corner far more effectively than anyone in the media.
But, at 30 thousand feet, this is what fascism is. Every aspect of this is equivalent to, is reminiscent of fascist movements of the past. Number One is the propaganda sight. Number Two is the dehumanization and the othering of people. Number Three is the web of lies that they use. Number Four is the institutionalization of violence. We’re not Germany of 1939 but we are Germany of 1933. We are at the point where the Weimar Republic is teetering.
People are whistling through the graveyard of democracy and they do not realize that at every aspect, this is what fascist movements do. In all respects, whether it’s a language, whether it’s bastardization of professions. Corruption of professions in order to make them allies of the state, whether it’s international alliances. This is the playbook. And if you think this is anything new. Look at Viktor Orban. Look at Europe in the 1930s. Look at Brazil….”]
The NYT is scaring me with their article 10/07/2022 on Ron DeSantis's wife and her fund-raising for Florida hurricane victims. Does the NYT know what the DeSantises are really like? The article says not one critical thing about the couple. This is how strongmen get their path to power eased, by the press laying back and not saying anything bad about them.
It's like when Trump first started his campaign in 2015, the press treated him as a normal human being. By 2016, the press should have been saying what the Psychologists/Psychiatrists were saying, that the man is a sociopath. The American Psychological Association (APA) was stifling comments about Trump's condition, thinking it was a violation of the Goldwater Rule. This was a massive mistake by the APA, so we ended up with a dangerous sociopath in power.
“When paramilitary and police begin to work together the end is near. When you can no longer tell the difference, the end is here.”- Tim Snyder, on Tyranny, 20 lessons from the twentieth century.
As Ruth adroitly pointed out, we are living in troubled times. Right wing and paramilitary groups should take notice of the $ billions our DOD has spent on non-lethal weaponry. Regardless of how flawed our judicial system has become, we shall survive this insanity!
Barbara F. Walter, a soul sister of Ruth's, in her book How Civil Wars Start, and how to stop them, highlights various factors too numerous to summarize here that ignite civil wars. I recall the chants of the Nazis marching in Charlotte, whites worried about immigrants and blacks and Asians replacing them. That's one grievance; another is the inequality of factions. Trump giving billions to the 1% is an example. Biden's three bills to do projects that benefit common people, like various construction projects and money to develop homegrown industries, and especially the provision that corporations pay a 15% tax--all serve to tamp down the impulses for civil war. I don't know why Biden's poll numbers are so low. Can't ordinary people see he's for them?
Agree. We Americans have become too much of a 'gaming' population leading to gamesmanship/ fun and the love of greed & social acceptance it generates. It's a hobby lifestyle. We have wandered off the good path. We've lived through a lot social change and we've gone abit off the tracks. Hopefully, we can right the ship. Biden is doing an excellent job of equalizing inequality -- the solution to most problems, financial and otherwise. Diversity is a beautiful patchwork we can live in.
What, short of war or civil war, can mitigate what we are facing. Apparently extremists have or will infiltrate most of our institutions. When most of the restraints implied by the rule of law are no longer recognized by a large chunk of Americans…what is left?
We'll have to draw upon people like Churchill, "we will fight them on the beaches" (non-violently I mean). We will have to muster courage and not give up. It may not be easy, we've got to talk to fellow Americans, phone bank, etc and just give it our all for our kids & grandkids & all that follow.
us ... we aren’t powerless ... though we have been inculturated to believe power flows down from the top .... working with GOTV initiatives helpful!!!
You're right ... we have be inculturated to believe that power flows downward.
We need to loop back to re-educate power of the people flows from the bottom upward. Key point. Key point. "We the people"
What I am noticing is that in talking to people who were not born here, they truly appreciate beyond what I can describe, being citizens of the U.S. However, their knowledge of what the structure of democracy is, is scant or none. This isn't meant as criticism of them but an observation of an potential education-gap in citizenship. In talking of the current state of events (dire), they revert back to the structure of government where they came from.....as a soothing balm. Examples of this are Poland and Italy. Because it is their homeland, they remember with sweetness the good. We need to sharpen critical thinking skills and educate on the structure of democracy, as you describe. The strongmen, as Ruth as describes should not be whitewashed -- or held as the 'men who can solve all'. Many people are seeking to cast a ballot for the one who claims he/she can make this badness disappear like poof!* Complex problems are best resolved in a democracy. That is another message that could be amplified. People need to unplug, calm down, listen, and ponder -- rather than a snap, knee-jerk response. (Analogy: Fast-food or real food, which is better for you?)
Yes, our extremists are infiltrating our institutions, as that is the plan of any fascist movement. Once a critcal mass of new placements has been achieved, they can take power with minority rule. We seem to be in the legal phase of fascism, where judges were put in place who support the cause. Extremists are seeking Secretary of State positions in various states in order to fix elections in their favor. We can't let this critical mass be reached. Society needs to be informed about what is being planned by the right and that it is fascist. I find that letters to the editor in local newspapers helps to some degree but selling democracy is a tough sell right now.
I’ll try to keep it simple. Can a member of an extremist organization lose their job? Especially a civil service job or a military position? How about a private sector job? Does it matter at all?
Important question involving the manipulation of federal policy to strengthen whoever is in power (including Ruth’s “strongmen,” say, Trump and his allies).
Schedule F
The Congressional House of Representatives passed legislation in Sept 2022 to lessen a president’s power to hire/fire federal workers in order to strengthen civil servants’ job security. Trump and his allies were targeting those they were calling disloyal “deep state” federal workers. Almost ALL Republicans opposed the legislation voted on in the Democratic-led House at the time where Trump and his allies had been continuing to attack federal workers.
Trump also signed an executive order in 2020 allowing federal agencies to reclassify workers and strip them of protections that cover most federal workers and convert these positions to “political patronage positions” (from Ruth’s Strongmen playbook). But President Biden cancelled Trump’s order in 2021 when he took office. Privately, Trump allies acknowledged that it was an attempt to get rid of the “deep state” operatives working against them.
The bipartisan House legislation, led by Congressional Reps Gerald Connolly (D-VA) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), would prevent a president from placing federal employees under a new classification scheme which was what Trump was calling “Schedule F” without approval of Congress. All but six Republican Congressional Reps opposed it!
Also, Trump’s executive order did not have a significant effect on the federal work force as there was not enough time to review and re-classify federal workers during the time left in Trump’s administration. But if Trump or another Republican were to be elected in 2024 and who would want to reinstate the executive order, many federal employees could be affected in the future!
Thus, always keep a watchful eye out!
Vote Blue all the way down the ballot ticket!!
Pro-democracy!!
Truly strongmen, in the Ruth Ben-Ghiat sense. Tinkering with people's employment for no good reason. Cruel.
Vote Blue! Pro-democracy. Try to connect with every one you meet. 31 days.
I'm seeing a lot of Libertarian agenda in what Trump attempted to accomplish. The dismantling of agencies, the attempted relinquishment of regulation on business, the push for minority rule, the promotion of corporate rule--- it's all there.
It seems that there membership in an extremist group with its stated mission would violate their employment oath.
Regarding employment, are Oaths now a moot point?
All of our paramilitary groups in society these days reminds me of the Freikorps in Germany after WWI. They were also a right wing group that did battle with the left. It was the beginning of fascism in Germany. We seem to be going down the same path that Germany was on 100 years ago. We have the same belligerent far right ultra-nationalism. The symptoms are being ignored by far too many.
Currently, with an unemployment rate of 3.5% (possibly at or beyond full-employment), raising interest rates may not be something the Federal Reserve should be doing. Chairman Powell? Hello?
When verifiable information is dismissed…reasoning will not work…at least not with the core extremists…they are the puppets and they are being manipulated by the puppet masters…most of them are not really believers…but they want the chaos and violence as a path to power…I am at a loss as to what to actually Do differently than the paths that are in progress…enforcing the rule of law (correctly)…demanding accountability…etc…even if are able we avoid a meltdown in the next few years, this is going to be a long, long struggle …I wish us luck, I fear we will need it…
“Shall we follow Hamlet and the ghost into the dark night?” …………..from Shakespear’s “Hamlet”
The ghost is a premonition for Denmark and the greater theme of the connection between the moral legitimacy of the ruler and the health of the state overall. The ghost is a symptom of the rottenness of Denmark created by Claudius’s crime.
[……….Sorry Denmark, I really do love you so much!]
The root cause of any sort of “inflation” we are currently dealing with is due to the excessive corporate profits, like we have never seen before, that is facilitating excessive price gouging, like we have never seen before, and that is all the result from the kind of “consolidation” everywhere -- media, energy, healthcare, industry -- in every sector like we have never seen before!!!
The Federal Reserves’ “monetary policy” (e.g. raising interest rates) efforts isn’t going to get at what is needed and certainly isn’t going to be enough to do much where it is indeed needed.
But we must continue to put measures in place to a degree like we’ve never seen before! Such as:
**President Biden’s imposing a billionaire taxation plan.
**President Biden’s efforts to push the FTC to investigate Oil companies.
**Important Senate Legislation that needs to be greatly expanded.
** Sen Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) legislation that will support federal agencies and state attorneys general to enforce and expand bans on price gouging.
**Since the Reagan years the federal government has abandoned antitrust legislation and its enforcement but Sen Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) is greatly and effectively pushing for and much needed expansion.
**and much more.....
Vote Blue all the way down the ballot ticket and especially to gain significant Democratic control over the Senate to further expand the above measures and more!!!
Pro democracy
Vote Blue!
Vote Blue!
Vote Blue!
The 2022 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences has been awarded to the former U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Ben S. Bernanke, who used his stellar Great Depression work to revitalize the U.S. economy after the 2007/08 financial crisis, as well as awarded to Douglas W. Diamond and Philip H. Dybvig for their research on banks, financial crises, and bank failures. “Their findings in the early 1980s laid the foundations for regulating financial markets,” the Nobel Prize panel said.
[On a related note] I have always found Ben Bernanke’s “Macroeconomics” textbooks to be superb and have quite often used aspects of his books in my upper division Macro Theory classes. Also, Bernanke has done some great work on "inequality" and currently presents some methods for taxing billionaires (a wealth tax) that differs from what President Biden is moving toward. There is much debate on the factors of a wealth tax and Bernanke suggests the following:
**raise capital gains taxes.
**tax realized capital gains.
**eliminate the provision that when you pass appreciated assets on to your heirs, any appreciation in the assets is not taxed at any time.
[I feel President Biden’s wealth tax (tax on billionaires) has much greater potential than what Bernanke is saying but we need to move more quickly to it perhaps in a new and expanded Senate come Nov 8th :) ]
Vote Blue!
Pro-democracy!
Jennifer Rubin (Lawyer and Columnist “The Washington Post”) gives the following succinct description at the end of the Mary Trump show today (without Mary being there) right out of Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s Strongmen Playbook…..
[“The Mainstream Media allows this to go on by continually normalizing Republicans who are not normal. They are a Fascist Party. They are seeking to undermine democracy. They are seeking to undermine the rule of law. They are openly, unabashedly racist and misogynistic and the press for the sense of a cordial Sunday morning Talk Show treat these people as normal. They do this refusing to confront and interrogate these people. The lawyers in here could take a better deposition and could push these people into a corner far more effectively than anyone in the media.
But, at 30 thousand feet, this is what fascism is. Every aspect of this is equivalent to, is reminiscent of fascist movements of the past. Number One is the propaganda sight. Number Two is the dehumanization and the othering of people. Number Three is the web of lies that they use. Number Four is the institutionalization of violence. We’re not Germany of 1939 but we are Germany of 1933. We are at the point where the Weimar Republic is teetering.
People are whistling through the graveyard of democracy and they do not realize that at every aspect, this is what fascist movements do. In all respects, whether it’s a language, whether it’s bastardization of professions. Corruption of professions in order to make them allies of the state, whether it’s international alliances. This is the playbook. And if you think this is anything new. Look at Viktor Orban. Look at Europe in the 1930s. Look at Brazil….”]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NlrIv3Mjvc&list=PLIMaYVqnSs692EEOUueK9-r812AJxxBGZ
Mary Trump’s “Nerdavengers” The Debates Have Begun today…