Firehosing the country

One of the terrible things I have learned from Donald Trump is the firehose strategy.  Just turn on the firehose and blast out a jet stream of:

• lie after, after lie, after lie, after lie, after lie, after lie, after lie, after lie, etc
• and crime, after crime, after crime, after crime, after crime, after crime, etc
• and stupidity, after stupidity, after stupidity, after stupidity, after stupidity, etc
• and ignorance, after ignorance, after ignorance, after ignorance ,etc
• and cruelty, after cruelty, after cruelty, after cruelty, after cruelty, etc.
• and threat, after threat, after threat, after threat, after threat, after threat, etc.
• and hatred, after hatred, after hatred, after hatred, after hatred, etc.
• and bigotry, after bigotry, after bigotry, after bigotry, after bigotry, etc.
• and outrage, after outrage, after outrage, after outrage, after outrage, etc.

So what happens is that it becomes impossible for people to focus on one deplorable outrage because another even worse deplorable outrage just happened, and tomorrow another even worse will happen, and tomorrow another even worse will happen - and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow - so, what was it we were so alarmed about a couple of weeks ago?

Fortunately, we now have four of his most egregious crimes in focus in the ongoing trials against this pathetic but dangerous little criminal - 

• Jack Smith's indictment for his attempt to overthrow the U.S. government on January 6, 2021 and times leading up to that violence - trial coming.
• Fani Willis's indictment for his attempt to fraudulently change the vote count in Georgia - trial coming.  
• Jack Smith's indictment for his stealing (and possibly selling?) U.S. secrets after leaving the White House - trial coming, even though the Trump influenced judge is trying to push it out past the election.
• Letticia James indictment for his decades long bank fraud and tax evasion in New York, trial happening now, already found guilty, and all this is left is the determination the final amount of the fine, the selling off of properties - and the ending of his ability to do business in New York.

And, by the way, a number of states are claiming that because he led and insurrection against the duly elected government he is disqualified to run for office because he violated the 14th amendment.  Seems like a slam dunk disqualification to me.  The country never passed a subsequent Constitutional Amendment cancelling the 14th Amendment.

The Firehose Guy continues to blast out outrage after outrage into our collective minds in hopes of distracting the country from his actual trials holding him accountable for specific crimes.  But, as the great boxer, Joe Lewis, once said - "He can run but he can't hide."

Destroy his Fraudulent businesses - and put him into prison please.

Old bigotries never die - we just hope they infest fewer minds

 It is so discouraging to see the old bigotries come roaring back into America.  

The antisemitism was just waiting in the wings for an excuse to come back full toxin. 

Well, you say, what about the terrible civilian casualties in Gaza?  Well, I say, did you have the same outrage against Syrians as they slaughtered hundreds of thousands?  Was there similar outrage against the slaughter of Somalis up to half a million?  Was there really equal outrage against Hamas as they deliberately targeted civilian men, women, children, and babies? as opposed to Israeli killing civilians in an effort to get to Hamas, who are dedicated to the total elimination (killing) of all Jews in Israel?  

Believe me, I have long despised Netanyahu and his extremists who are now in charge of Israel, and I note with no sense of satisfaction that their extremist stupidity has reaped the whirlwind. But hating the Netanyahu government is not the same as hating Jews.

And as a matter of fact Muslims are not Hamas but anti-Muslim bigotry thinks there is now permission for those hatreds.

And, of course, it looks like the entire Republican Party is dedicated to continuing its crusade to overturn all of The Voting Rights Act - and thus go back to the nauseating Jim Crow days of the South to disenfranchise black and brown people - and put White Christian Men in charge of all of our lives.

Let's not forget the assault on gay men and women - as the Republican extremists do all they can to make their lives miserable and outlaw gay marriage, gay love, gay public existence.

And how can we ignore the dedicated Supreme Court assault on women and women's right to choose their own reproductive destinies?  

Coming soon to a country you live in - trying to outlaw all forms of birth control and contraception - what a horror it must have been for these "good Christians" to see America allow, nay encourage, women's empowerment to create lives of their own choosing, skills, talents, and ambitions as opposed to White Christian Men's insistence that they stay home, raise lots and lots of children, and cook for and screw their masters.

All the old bigotries are trying so hard to take over our country.  

Thank God - literally Thank God - they are going to fail.  They are not the only people in this country, and the rest of us are noticing these assaults on human freedoms and have something to say about it.

I beseech those who I know who have been Republicans to realize that the Grand Old Party is no longer the Republican Party, indeed it has been taken over by the extremist revolutionaries whose visions and goals come from centuries ago in times of oppression and darkness.

Elon Musk, like Henry Ford - dangerous bigots

Elon Musk continues to show his extremist, antisemitic, right wing autocratic self.  He has just recently praised a vile Jew hating tweet.

"An X post Wednesday afternoon said: “Jewish communities (sic) have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.” The post also referenced “hordes of minorities” flooding Western countries, a popular antisemitic conspiracy theory.

In response, Musk said: “You have said the actual truth.”

As I wrote a year ago, Elon Musk is like Henry Ford, a Jew hating bigot who did as much as he possibly could to inspire the Nazi holocaust:

Automaker genius

 Once upon a time there was a genius automaker who’s car revolutionized the world. 

His entrepreneurial success convinced him that his genius was needed to run the world during a chaotic time. So he set about communicating his genius to the world so as to save it from dark forces. 

His name was Henry Ford. He was a vicious bigot. He discovered and published the vile, antisemitic false and dangerous “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” which falsely accused Jews of heinous crimes and behavior. Because is his wealth and reputation as a genius the Protocols was published in many languages. One of those languages was German. Slaughter ensued. 

Oh, did you think the automotive genius that decided that his genius was needed to run the world was Elon Musk?  A different right-wing fanatic?  Well, you may have been right. 

Nice cars. Dangerous right wingers with more influence than justified. 

Believe the fascist’s promises

 The history of authoritarian/Fascist/dictators is that they are never taken seriously in the beginning. They seem ridiculous to normal people. And then it’s too late.

 Turns out what they were promising was not just political theater nor just blowing off steam. They were promising to do exactly what they said they would do.  So normal people who have become used to normal political parties and normal political intercourse can’t really take the promises seriously until it is too late.  Normal people are shocked when the country becomes a cesspool of violence and vengeance.  They are surprised.

But there is another group of people who do take them very seriously want and expect the threats to be carried out, and they want to be the ones who carry out those threats. Hitler did not personally murder 6 million Jews, Nazis did. Nazis loved doing it. Nazis wanted to do those things that Hitler promised.  They can’t believe their luck that they get to be violent and vengeful. They are joyful.

Our country has had two times in the past that are very much like today. The America First movement in the 1930s was infiltrated by and run by Nazi sympathizers and Nazis themselves. Today’s Republican Party is filled with Russian sympathizers and perhaps Russian agents. 

Secondly, in the 1950s the McCarthy “Red Scare”  hunted down liberals calling them communists and ruined many lives.  Today liberals are being wrongly accused of being socialists and communists. It can happen here. It is happening here.

The historian, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who specializes in the study of authoritarians, teaches that there are two stages of rhetoric used by fascist autocrats.  First they normalize violence.  They call for violence so that people get used to accepting violent speech - “punch a protester in the face”, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts”, “ you'll never take back our country with weakness”, etc. etc. etc. etc….

The second stage of rhetoric is to dehumanize those who oppose them - “ root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, …”

I believe Donald Trump will do exactly what he promises to do if he is put back into the White House. He has plans which he is announcing. And he has his enablers who know how to carry out those plans. 

I believe if he loses he will refuse to acknowledge that he lost, and he will call upon his fascist well armed cult to install him by force. (If he loses the Republican nomination he will attack the Republican Convention)  

By the way, those who think they can use the fascist authoritarian find out they can’t.  German industrial giants could not contain Hitler, and American oligarchs would have the same fate - and, if Christo-fascists think he gives a crap about their religious fantasies they could be in for a very rude awakening.  

I believe he will fail.  I believe in people of integrity upholding the Rule of Law. And I hope even his “base” will grow tired of this toxic person  

We are on a dangerous journey, but I believe in America. 

MAGA extremists out to shut down the government and destroy it

 Historian Heather Cox Richrdson has a good summary of the MAGA extremists in Congress who are refusing to fund the government:

"They want to gut the government that regulates business, provides a basic social safety net, promotes infrastructure, and protects civil rights...If they can prevent the government from accomplishing anything, they will have achieved their goal.

I would add that the White Christian Nationalists also want to rule the country by their own distorted authoritarian version of the bible:

"North Dakota state representative Brandon Prichard has previously called for Republican-dominated states to “put into code that Jesus Christ is King and dedicate their state to Him.” 

Our democracy is under attack, and it is not just by the vengeful, frothing at the mouth madman, Trump, who is out to destroy it.  MAGA extremists are about to shut the government down with little hope of the extremists ever letting it be funded.  They think they are being "courageous" or "principled".  But they are just tiny tots holding their breath until they get their way and turn blue in the face - only it's the rest of us who will "turn blue" and reject their insistence that we suffer their cruelty.

And it's not just the current continuing the funding of the government, some other particulars they target is the Farm Bill that will need funding this year (they really hate that SNAP program - Food Stamps - hate feeding poor people)

And let's not forget that they intend to cut funding to Ukraine's fight against Putin's invasion - they are Putin's puppets.  Are they just foolish, or are they being controlled by Russia?

Greed, theocratic fanaticism, white supremacy, domination, alliance with dictators - these are the things that have taken over what used to be the Republican Party.

We are in a crisis in this country and a lot of us know it.  And I firmly believe that the majority of Americans see this and will reject it.  But these extremists are doing as much damage as they can while they can.  

Very, very sad.  America used to be great, before the Former Guy hopped on the forces of American destruction and is trying to ride it into an Oligarchic-Christo-Fascist police state where he gets to be King and the most important person in the history of America - the one who destroyed it.

But I believe in the essential goodness of America to see, be appalled by, and overthrow these terribly misguided forces.  

They are going to lose. And they are angry about it.

Republican Party fundamental belief is that democracy needs to be overthrown

The thing that still calls itself the Republican Party gave up on Democracy a while back, as evidenced by the Republican Supreme Court overturning the Voting Rights laws followed immediately by red states finding many ways to reduce Black and Brown voting, including closing polls, radical gerrymandering, intimidating poll watchers, and making it punishingly hard to vote.  

These make believe Republicans have no choice but to abandon democracy because they know their desires to impose Christo-fascist domination is abhorrent to the majority of voters. They are convinced that the country has literally gone to “the Devil” and the only way to save it is to impose the strictest Old Testament bigotries on us all, thinking that will somehow please the vengeful Old Testament God of Cruelty who will Make America Great Again (Make America Grovel Again?).  

And since voters are not going to vote for the Christo-fascists they have to destroy democracy.

The extremist Rick Santorum spoke their extremist truth after more states voted to make sure women decided their own reproductive lives yesterday when:

“Santorum argued that Ohio was proof that “pure democracies are not the way to run a country.”

I understand that we are a democratically elected Republic, but we also have single issue referendums to thwart unresponsive political machines.  Hurray for Ohio women!

At least he spoke their basic world view. 

Machiavelli and Hamas

 The terrorist Hamas committed nauseating horrors against Israeli Jews on October 7, 2023 and committed these inhumane atrocities joyfully and proudly.  Then they retreated to the shelter of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza strip.  We are witnessing a principle of Machiavelli playing out now. Machiavelli counselled "The Prince" to do all of the terrible things to people on one day, and then do a few good things spaced out over a period of time.  Because people will respond to the terrible things once but respond to the good things often over time.  

Hamas's terrors will never be forgotten by Israeli Jews nor Jews around the world.  And the world was shocked for one day, and a bit longer.  But now we see day after day the Israeli defensive attacks that sadly include innocents in Gaza and respond day after day to their pain, and it is too easy to see the two horrors - civilian deaths - as equivalent.  But one was an attack that targeted civilians, elderly, children, babies - and the other is an attack trying to avoid the innocent but since the terrorists use the innocent as protective shields, the world's natural feelings of compassion can easily turn against the Israeli defensive attacks, and turn against Jews around the world.

It is deeply horrible to watch Gaza be destroyed and civilians being inadvertently killed. I think a smart thing I read was from David French:

"As a former JAG (or Judge Advocate General’s Corps) officer embedded with a combat arms unit in Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom, I know that you can’t simply merge law and tactics and declare that everything that is legally and tactically sound is also moral, much less wise. We veterans know that the challenge for the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza isn’t simply to win the fight with Hamas within the laws of war. There is a third imperative, one that will define the soldiers who fight and the nation they defend for years to come: Do not destroy your soul.

This is much easier said than done."

Seems to me the only real path forward is to ignore the endless fights about who should be driven from the land, look only to the future rather than the past - and the only future that has ever made sense to me is a two-state solution.  The Islamic extremists have always said NO and there are some Israeli extremists who also say NO. 

 
So, here we are - again.  I pray that all of the Middle East opens their hearts.