Trumpism is Fascism by attributes

I never really seriously thought we could have a dictator here, until Trump showed up on the scene with the Tea Party and made his authoritarian attempt in 2016. I knew the country had authoritarian elements. But I didn't realize just how easy it was to go from wingnut cranks to a movement like Trumpism until I started reading Robert Altemeyer while Obama was still President. Trumpism is fascism. It is the latest incarnation of a system of government that underlay Monarchies and republics alike for most of history.

Until I saw Trump at work, As I've explained before, Trumpism predates Trump. But the word "Trump" perfectly describes the nature of the movement. It derives from joker, fool or con artist, and Trumpism started as a money grubbing con. A Trump card is a card that is, by the rules of the game, supreme, not by merits. Trumpism meets all the attributes of fascism. One can argue about how fascist they are, but not that they are. At it's beginning Trumpism lacked a youth movement, but that quickly changed as he either adopted, consumed or subsumed existing ones and created a few of his own.

1. Hypernationalism
2. Militarism
3. Violence fetish
4. Youth fetish
5. Masculine fetish
6. Leader cult fetish.
7. Lost Golden Age fetish
8. Self definition by opposition
9. Mob behavior/Mass Mobilization & policy
10. Hierarchy based on loyalty
11. Theatricality!

All the attributes of fascism can be measured. As attributes they are present in movements, and governments. To a degree they are common. But the quantity and intensity of these attributes should be the way we judge whether our political opponents are behaving like fascists. You can measure a countries nationalism by its propaganda and reporting about it's peoples. And by its actions. Patriotism is normal. When a government starts killing or oppressing ethnic minorities and justifies it on a tribe, clan or nation as tribe, that is hypernationalistic. When a country is at peace with its neighbors and patriotism includes all the people living there, that is not hypernationalism.

All the tensional attributes in this list can be found (Patriotism vs nationalism, militarism vs readiness, fetishing youth for example) are present in more normal societies to a degree. And to ebb and flow towards or away from fascism is normal.

Fascism refers to the Punishing Power of the State

It is the degree and combination. When society becomes malevolent towards dissidents and minority groups, power combined with violence, that is fascist. The word fascism referred to the punishment power of the State. A fascist movement can seem downright anarchistic out of power, but fetishing official violence is a feature that is fascist. Fascism can emerge in a previously mildly authoritarian state top down, or it can start as a movement. In the case of Trumpism it started as several movements within the Republican party.

HyperNationalism

Hypernationalism, xenophobia, “us versus them,” another term is Chauvinism. politics against neighbor ethnic groups, these are features of fascism. In a normal republic, patriotism defends the republic, it's principles and people. In a fascist system loyalty to the state means loyalty to the central figure. In the run up to WW2, WW1 veterans who happened to be Jews, started out thinking that their patriotism would protect them from German Chauvinism. It doesn't.

Militarism

A feature of fascim is militarism. Sometimes that militarism is outwardly directed, but it usually is inwardly directed. That is, the militarism is a tool of control and power. A fascist movement usually employs cadres of agent provocateurs and thugs to beat up enemies and recruit adherents. These groups get called various names, black shirts, brown shirts, or proud boys. They run in paramilitary form. They infiltrate and eventually displace or become the police. And they wage war on internal enemies. Fascism as attributes can be left or right. But militarism is almost always a feature.

Violence Fetish

Fascism believes in violence. It's notion of “law and order” is perverse. To a fascist movement “enemy” and “criminal” often become synonymous. And heaven help people when a fascist movement has full governing power. The symbol of the "fascii", sticks for beatings and an axe for cutting off heads, explains why fascist movements resemble one another left or right, christian or moslem. Freedom is for the movement, its powers, and its leaders, everyone else must "freely obey." The fearless leader can do anything, so long as he pretends to live up to that myth.

Youth Fetish

Fascist movements depend on propaganda. Part of that propaganda is the notion that there is a utopia waiting for the children of the faithful. Fascist movements dream of 1000 year reigns and permanence. And they seek to get to that permanence by indoctrinating youth. Fascist youth movements provide shock troops for both representing dissidence within the country and for the wars that fascist movements usually pursue.

Masculine Fetish

Fascist leaders use words like “strong” or “powerful” to describe themselves and words like “weak”, “corrupt”, “swamp” for enemies. They often project their own fears and plans onto their targets. This masculine fetish goes with the violence. The leader must be a hero, a superman. Mao Tse Dung swimming the Yangtze, Putin riding a horse, Hitler or Mussolini standing tall and strong at a review stand. The followers carry guns or weapons to compensate for their own feelings of inadequacy.

Leader Cult Fetish

Fascist movements are basically cults, except usually larger scale. The leader, often full well knowing he is conning them, and the conned, top flying monkey knowing they are being conned but along for the ride – portray the leader as masculine, strong, a father figure, who can do no wrong. This happens in ordinary politics too, but, again, it is the degree to which a fascist movement or government does this that distinguishes it from democratic or more normal movements and governments.

Lost Golden Age

For all the bravado and claims of positivity, at heart most fascist movements live on resentment, fear and grievance. The propaganda message is always “It's not our fault. You were robbed!”, even as the kakacrats who usually lead such movements are looting and despoiling, dispossessing and conning their followers, they point to a lost past Golden age and/or dreams of a future golden age, to motivate their flock of goats to keep going forward and to attack enemies. For Hitler it was the "stabbed in the back narrative". For Mussolini it was Romes ancient glory. For Spain it was God, King and Catholic Church. Fascist movements brand themselves according to the people they are conning.

Self definition by opposition

An accomplished demagogue, like Trump, can turn anything into a motivation for this pigeons. Mask wearing, because it was promoted by his “enemies” (including doctors trying to save lives), became a rallying cry for Trump and his Trumpers, with tragic consequences. This part of propaganda puts a wedge between people who follow Trump and everyone else. It is part of his power strategy, part of the propaganda. The border wall is an example. It's not really about keeping out Mexicans, it was about defining his opposition to immigrants and minorities and giving it a symbol. Support the wall, you are with him. Think it's a bad idea? You are the enemy.

Mob Rule; Mass rule and mobilization

And of course, fascists blur the line between all the people and the people. To Trump, "the people" were his mob. Anyone not with him, was not part of his people.

Hierarchy based on loyalty

I'll be talking about this in more depth later. Balint Magyar describes the modern version of fascism as “the Mafia State”, the underlying archetypical image is of devoted followers kissing the Godfather's ring. In a fascist state, the ruling family is the state. Absolute monarchy was a form of fascism before the term was popular. In modern fascism, the Godfather is the State, violence and criminality are state tools. In classic fascism, devotion to the leader was mandatory and supposed to be unquestioning.

Propaganda

At the heart of fascism, classic or modern, is propaganda. In power fascist governments believe that might makes right, that the will can triumph over everything. And if you can't make a promise happen, you can pretend to make that promise happen. Some of the diabolical ways that totalitarian authoritarians do this were described in "Origins of Totalitarianism" by Hannah Arendt. If you can't make unemployment go away, starve the unemployed!

Theatrical

It is no accident that Trump rode his job at the "Celebrity Apprentice." Fascism at heart is always a deep fake. Insecure and narcissistic leaders. Tons of lies and and misrepresentations. Looting and kleptocracy. All running alongside theater designed to indoctrinate and entertain the masses. Trump's Presidency has been “Celebrity dictator Apprentice” and ran 6 seasons and is not yet over.

Hopefully it's cancelled

This post memorializes a mix of memes I created myself and ones I borrowed from others. I wrote it first with my cell phone and was having trouble editing it or it would have been published a while ago.

COVID before Christmas

Tis 10 nights before Christmas,

and all through the land,

Coronavirus is running rampant,

Because our nation refused to make an plan.

The stocking are hung by the chimney with care,

in hopes that food and a vaccine soon would be there.

The children are nested all snug in their beds,

with visions of nightmares stuck in their heads.

While mothers and fathers ponder how to survive.

Covid -19 is decimating what we need to thrive.

So hope that we may, on vaccine and Good Cheer.

How to protect yourself now is what we need here.

With hospitals closing all across the land,

we hope you will take 5 minutes to listen to our plan.

Take you time!

Part of a friends work

Collated Madness

It sounds so logical, rational, possible

all organized, sorted, separated by page;

Eacb copy is all stacked for binding,

Like a book intended for the ages;

Each page is in neat type,

A clear script making your mad case;

Repeating to your angry followers;

"Kill the black man!

Hang him high!

Throw his body into the sea!

Send him to Kenya!

He's not our guy!"

You have your own universe of media.

Crowds flying banners,

Patriots preaching treason.

Preaching fealty to the constitution

While practicing subversion.

Subversives calling lies,

"Fair and Ballanced," for all to see.

And you repeat to your angry followers,

"LOCK HER UP!

She is guilty!

Hang her high!

Throw her body in the sea!"

Waves of fat old men,

Riffles in hand, tin foil hats.

Led by blind old men,

Wearing tricornered hats,

Dangling tea bags.

 

You preach to your lynch mob!

Old and well fed, 

young and missing teeth.

"Save the children!"

"Stop the death panels!"

You shout;

"Stop the world, I want to get off."

"I'll give you the best health!, believe me!"

"We'll make America Great Again"

"We'll drain the swamp!"

And they believe you.

Call & response 

to your angry followers;

"Lock them up!

Lock them up!

Don't be too gentle!

Hang them high!

Throw their bodies into the sea!"

The slogans sound so logical, plausible.

A lifetime Con sure knows the swamp.

"Drain the swamp!" You say!

And proceed to drain everything,

Through a sieve.

And into your back pocket!

You talk so much of unborn children.

Your followers actually think you care!

And the call and response 

On immigrant children;

"LOCK THEM UP!

They are rapists and murderors!

They don't send us their best!

We want machine guns on the border.

We will make of them an example!"

You take suckling babies

from their mothers,

And send them for adoption.

And when women are raped,

Forced birth.

Meanwhile you loot and destroy,

And fire anyone who won't bow to you.

You give family members lucrative contracts.

And steal everything not well nailed down.

Your party no longer sounds rational.

And you have done evil,

That makes no sense.

Christopher H. Holte 12/8/2020

I started this a long time ago. Wrote most of it before 2016.  There is more in my head, but I wanted to transcribe the paper while it was fresh.

Hope its Over

We aren't out of the woods yet. Written 12/4/2020.  Updated 12/9/2020

The SCOTUS denied CERT for Trumps latest frivolous lawsuit today. It's over for Trumps Presidency.

Adolf Hitler, along with others, tried to seize power in Munich, Bavaria, on 8–9 November 1923. They failed.  Hitler was convicted of Treason. He wrote Mein Kampf from prison. He was made a hero. The Judiciary had sided with him. He came back to power 10 years later and ended the German Republic, replacing it with the "Third Reich."

Sturm and Drang, Dolchstoßlegende

The Germans had been traumatized by the

• “Spanish Flu”
• The horrors of trench war and utterly futile two front warfare.
• The betrayals of the peace negotiation led by Woodrow Wilson,

The "peace" with the Brits, French and Americans, involved betrayals and was labeled Dolchstoßlegende, "Stabbed in the back legend." it was sold as an explanation of Germany's loss. “We didn't lose the war, we were stabbed in the back” morphed into “We lost due to the Jews”, became a vicious antisemitic narrative that appealed to Germans suffering depression, inflation and a society that seemed to be deteriating. Hitler came to power, partly, on the strength of this Dolchstoßlegende lie.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stab-in-the-back_myth

Trump's Sturm and Drang, Con

Trump is trying to build such a Dolchstoßlegende about his election. To him, this narrative addresses 3 deep ego needs.

1. As a Narcissist, he cannot handle losing. So he has responded to loss his whole life by calling the people he lost to corrupt.

1985, rejected in efforts to buy an NFL team, accused the NFL of rigging

1986, lost Antitrust suitt, called the courts rigged.

1987, lost investment in Alexanders, lied about it.

1989, Lost Bid on Seminole casino project, screamed “fraud” also has spent rest of his life on a vendetta against Indiginious since then.

1989, Father bailed out his Casino, but it eventually went bankrupt....

1990, called analyst warning of Trump Taj Mahal risks, a fraud and liar.

Much more... but these come from Kurt Eichenwald (and I could look up his sources because I've verified them many times) https://twitter.com/kurteichenwald/status/1335778561572016128

2. He thinks he can run again in 2024. Meanwhile, his narcissistic feed requires an angry lynch mob supporting him. It's no accident angry mobs assaulted the Secretary State of Michigan during the first week of December. Right Wing groups live on grievance and Dolchstoßlegende like narratives.
3. He hoped to overturn the election. And might have succeeded if the election had been closer, or if his COVID response hadn't been so numbskull.

Trump's Sedition

Trump's effort to overthrow the election is sedition. Unfortunately, with Trump we can expect years of sturm and drang from Trump – eventually he will fail, but the big worry is that whoever picks up the standard after he is tried and convicted of a long list of crimes or finally strokes out — will carry on from where he left off. What Hitler did was sedition. Trump is doing sedition too.



SAFE ACT

Meantime we need to shore up our democracy against these fascists. All the complaints trump is making about the need for paper ballots and better process, are stolen (like most of his better rhetoric), from Progressives and Democrats.

It doesn't have to be this way

In California a progressive affirmative action bill recently failed. If I were a Republican I'd be studying that vote to figure out a way forward that doesn't involve fascism and genuinely dumps racism. 

No ethnocity is homogenous. And there are attractive fundamental principles Republicans used to offer that provide alternatives that could be as progressive as those Democrats offer. 

If for example Conservatives were genuine about promoting genuine meritocracy & a path to inclusion, they would be able to compromise with progressives & recruit.

Trumpism & corrupt corporatism taints those alternatives.  It is obvious too many believe in country club rules, and rigging our political economy.  Markets have their lane, but so does common good.  When you take a common good out of the public good and try to put it into a market box -- like putting a square peg in a round hole --it doesn't fit. You get market failure.

Markets are, or should be, public squares where buyers & sellers come together.  What is sold in markets is free enterprise.

It doesn't have to be this way.

Christopher

Soldiering on

  We soldier on,

For our mates,

Despite all the insanity

And all the hates.

Our generals may be crazy.

Our officers may be lazy.

But we soldier on,

Singing a solidarity song.

Loving one another,

A brotherhood of comradry.

Standing back to back.

We win for our children

That way.

The ghosts of Rudyard Kipling, Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller and sundry relatives and friends contributed to this.

Rents & Taxes

Rent, Verb.

"payment for use of property," mid-12c., a legal sense, originally "income, revenue" (late Old English), from Old French rente "payment due; profit, income," from Vulgar Latin *rendita, noun use of fem. past participle of *rendere "to render" (see render (v.)).

Also from past participle of middle english to "rend or tear", garment, property, possessions. Rent and taxes are related terms.

tax (v.)

c. 1300, "impose a tax on," from Old French taxer "impose a tax" (13c.) and directly from Latin taxare "evaluate, estimate, assess, handle," also "censure, charge," probably a frequentative form of tangere "to touch," from PIE root *tag- "to touch, handle." Sense of "to burden, put a strain on" first recorded early 14c.; that of "censure, reprove" is from 1560s. Its use in Luke ii for Greek apographein "to enter on a list, enroll" is due to Tyndale. Related: Taxed; taxing.

Economic Rent

Rents are taxes on property. Taxes are rents assessed by tax collectors, public or private. In ancient times there was no difference. The lord and master of a property, whether a Squire, Baron, Count, King or Empire, collected rents as taxes owed him as owner. During the medieval times, ownership was usually a contract between the person who lived on a property and the government, embodied in a person. During the enlightenment, property owners conned governments into separating simple ownership from government. They did this by creating central banks and privatizing ownership of land. This allowed Lairds and lords alike to evict millions of peasants from their property to raise sheep or otherwise find more economically productive industry. A landlord could go broke not putting his property to such use, and both broke former lords and evicted peasants emigrated. It wasn't just the nobility. When you read books like Jane Austen you find the "gentry" figured their social status based on how much rent they could collect from property they owned. (See Piketty).

Walling Economics from Politics

In the United States, the landlords had to be more clever. They learned early on that they couldn't just march into a frontier town and take their taxes. That sparked locals to form "Regulator Militia", so they mainly endeavered to wall off economics from politics and use their rental income to influence local and general government. It is no accident that it took a civil war to end slavery. It only didn't end sooner because it became economically valuable. Both the slave and the people empoverished by the best land being in the hands of landlords were paying a premium to landlords for the fact that they owned the more valuable property. Owning valuable property was the source of wealth for the few. Property taxes mainly made it easier for the already powerful to keep their property and force work out of small holders. This system, by its design concentrates wealth due to premiums in the form of unearned economic rent from the mere privilege of owning the more valuable property.

Natures Tax Collector

Henry George assessed the value of rent from property ownership as making the property owner "nature's tax collector." He knew that simply owning valuable property was a source of unearned premiums. Basically property owners are collecting a private tax when they rent property or successfully speculate on property. They have a right to keep "wages of intendency" & a duty to collect and invest the income necessary to maintain or improve their property. They do not have an inalienable or absolute right to aggrandize valuable property, because land ultimately belongs as “natures bounty” in commons between a sovereign and those who work or live on it. An owners right to rent property is tied to "the sweat of the brow" used to keep that property healthy.

Premium from simple ownership versus earned premiums

Economic rent is a premium a person gets for owning something valuable, having a degree, land, buildings, owning stock, owning a business, company, etc... and employing people to use that property. Henry George made a valid distinction between property taken, borrowed, or owned from natures finite bounty and property that is lived on, productive and tended. The reason he did this is that the premium from simply owning part of natures bounty is unearned. Additionally, if one has valuable property, the premium from working that property is not entirely earned. Henry George called properties belonging to "natures bounty" "land", by land he also included Oil, Gas, Coal, though because his supporters came from oil, gas & coal interest that would be obfuscated after his death. He used the word "economic rent" to describe such premiums from working land, employing labor, owning property & renting properties. He described them as premiums and avoided calling them income because he knew property owners would try to confuse the two. After he died they did.

Earned and Unearned Income

If one performed any kind of labor, one has earned one's income. If one earns a premium from simple ownership of property or privilege, that income, some or all of it is unearned. Earned income also comes from when one improves property by one's effort. Such productive property, tools, plant, factories, raw materials, are capital. In the Georgist formulation the three factors are labor, natures bounty (Land) and capital. Capital should not be confused with land when calculating unearned premiums from property ownership. High Rents in Manhattan reflect the valuable monopoly that is land there. The buildings themselves are capital. The way you tell is that the buildings need constant maintenance, sustainment and refresh, to retain their value. That maintenance, sustainment and refresh is earned. Any value over those costs is economic rent.

Progressive Taxation

No one should be taxed on gross income no matter the source. No one should be harmed by taxes, nor should taxes lead to depreciation of properties real value. Taxes should always be figured on net income and net premiums. If a landlord or building manager tends the buildings he manages. All those costs are justly part of the rent he/she charges tenants. Taxes on land value should fall on the premiums gained from owning the property. Thus the rentier should pay progressive taxes on the economic rent he/she receives. One can link the zero tax rate to a calculated poverty level and allow cost of transport, food consumption, maybe donations, and personal shelter costs to go untaxed completely. One then sets up a system where no one pays taxes on that portion of income. But anyone making more than that pays maybe 10% of the net above that amount.

zero tax on net income less than 40K$.

Say:

10% on net income more than 40,000 (40K$) and less than say 100k$,

20% on net income over 100K$ and less than 200k$

30% on net income over 200k$ and less than 1M$

40% on net income over 1 Million (1M$) and less than 10M$

50% on net income over 10M$ and less than 100M$

60% on net income over 100M$ and less than 1 billion$

70% on net income over 1 Billion dollars

... And index these rates to inflation. These are just examples for discussion.

If one performs some kind of labor or work, one has earned at least part of that premium. If one's premiums are privileged, not all of it. The underlying principle goes back to the middle ages; “Do your duty or pay a duty”

Modern Money and Progressive Taxation

We privatized ownership markets (stock markets) and money, long ago. But the constitution gives government sovereignty over our money supply. The Federal Reserve only makes sense as an arm of the Treasury. As a private bank, it has too much power to engage in mischief. Wealthy people live on rents from owning banknotes and debt. When the economy does well they do well. When it collapses they take property from both workers and capital, but they and the rest of the rentier class wind up wealthier than before the crisis started. At this point the business cycle is an intentional feature not a bug in our system and is an instrument for taking wealth from working people, in other words, exctracting economic wealth using debt.

Money as debt is not innocuous. Federal notes are useful backed by token money. Backed by government debt, they are a means to extract rents from tax payers. Backed by personal or corporate debt, they are time bombs. Avoiding risk is avoiding responsibility.

Public Capital

The Fed should be supporting public capital (highways, railroads, transport in general, communications and energy) thru supporting local and federal government solvency. Not enforcing "balanced budgets" that treat capital and natures bounty as if they were merely costs. The current system treats cities and states as less important than banks, GM, Ford, etc.... This is a worldwide phenomenom as the system of States are continuously held accountable for doing the right thing. The current system is based on extorting companies by stripping sovereinty from them over their own finances.

Related readings

Creative Normalization vs Dehumanization

My inner professor, just now, was giving me instructions in a dream. A group. I call them ABBA 2.0, because the music was all ABBA, but the group were mixed race, some LGBTQ. Maybe some were the grandkids of the original ABBA singers. It doesn't matter. It was the oversoul [God?] lecturing me in a dream. It was a dream, or vision.

Humanizing vs Dehumanizing

The songs and events were humanizing the singers.  They, go about their lives, singing songs while loving, living, driving around the Universal City in a tardis like van [bigger on the inside than the outside].   Abba 2.0 was singing these realities. And my professor oversoul was judging;

This is good.

Music, theater, Tv, are all propaganda. They can share uplifting matters of faith; love, goodwill, beauty, goodness, general good gain, personal gain.

Versus Evil

Lurking in the background is awareness, that forces of darkness are always trying to reverse the script. People who prejudge and dehumanize other humans, usually do so seeking a pretext to deny, take, refuse, destroy. They will push a narrative of conflict, limited resources, the other as perverse, inhuman, out to get you. We need Abba 2.0 to push back. The Zombie apocalypse is not a real thing. But seeing fellow humans as zombies, gives killing an excuse.

Anyway, Abba music is playing in the back of my head. I can go back to sleep.

Christopher Holte

 

Getting Progressive Taxation Right

Suggestions:

Gross versus Net Taxation

Taxes should not fall on a person's basic expenses [gross not net]

Allow people to deduct food, shelter & work expenses

1. First Home mortgage or rent.

2. State taxes.

3. Transport to & from work & commerce.

4.  Capital goods should be deferred or deducted for everyone.

A. Deferred over a million dollars value.

B. Deducted if LT Million$.

5. Genuine capital investment has a cost or depreciation. Investments that don't depreciate are actually economic rent.

6. Define strictly & focus taxes on economic rent.

7. Economic Rent should be taxed progressively. 

Rates

1. Social Security & Medicare taxes should be calculated on everyone & subsidized for people with a net income less than 30k$. [2020 equivalent]

2. Payroll differentials should be subsidized for employees making less than 30k$ net or 15$ per hour net.

3. 2 can take the form of Food, Transport & Shelter credits.

4. Social Security accounts available to everyone thru retail or postal banks.

5. 0$ rate on net income less than 50k$

6. 10% rate on portion of income LT 100K$

7. 20% rate on net income over 100k$ and less than 200k$

8. 30% rate net 200k$ - 400k$

9. 40% 400k$ - 800k$

10. 50% 800k$ - 1,200k$

11. 60% 1,200k$ - 10M$

12. 70% 10M$ - 100M$

13. 80% 100M$ - 1B$

14.  90%  GT 1B$ 

All taxes should be indexed for inflation

Expanding and reforming the Judiciary

Four sets of inter-connected principles govern our country,

Federalist principles

The notion that people are stronger when they pool resources and work together across geographical boundaries and subboundaries.

Commonwealth Principles

The notion that some things are common to everyone and should not be individually monopolized:

The Commons

Common Law

Common Good

etc...

Republican Principles

Separation of Powers

Representation by subdivision and population

Res Publica -- our thing. John Locke translated the term to mean commonwealth.

Democratic Principles

The notion that “we the people” should participate in and have a say in Government.

“Judges...shall hold their Offices during good Behavior.”

The existence of an independent Judiciary is derived from Republican Principles. It is based on hard won observation that judges should be independent of executive power and hold their offices "during good behavior." It is up to both the legislature and the Judiciary, but first in the court of the legislature, to define what "during good behavior" means. The principle of separation of powers implies that Judges can only judge what good behavior is, if that is well defined by the legislature based on long standing principles.

Defining “During Good Behavior”

Congress has a duty to legislate the definition and parameters of what “during good behavior” means. They have done this somewhat. There is a code of Judicial ethics that applies to all the Federal Courts except the Supreme Court. That is odd. For the most part Judges hold their offices until resigning due to some scandal or being arrested. Congress can exercise judicial review over them. But often that goes awry as it tends to be policiticized in the process and to have nothing to do with their fitness as judges. This results in impeachments being rare and usually only following outrageous conduct. But the "on good behavior" implies that it would be constitutional for mechanisms to be created for the Judiciary to police itself. But first we must consider what the judiciary is, or should be.

The Judiciary is the Justice System

The founders argued about the formation of the Justice department. This is because, technically almost everyone working their is part of the court system. Judge, Jury and Executioners, all are part of the Judiciary, and thus are, or should be, officers of the courts, subject to strict standards of behavior higher than those of civilians. So technically should legislators be when passing laws that will impact the courts. The founders wanted the National Attorney General to be an officer of the court and to be independent of partisan politics or self interested actions. They left him as a "subordinate" officer of the president in the hopes that the President would have the judgement and virtues necessary to keep his job scoped (focused) on enforcing the laws of the country. The courts have considerable civil and criminal powers as a result. When those are bent to self interested purposes they become subversive of good government. So the issue of how to police the police remains fraught with peril and unresolved, as Executive, legislature and judiciary, are all too self interested to police themselves. I propose an administrative mechanism to correct this problem.

Administrative Law and Enforcement

Thanks to Trump we've seen the potential for abuse embodied in runaway executive power. The flaws there, were there all along, but it took a wannabe dictator to see how easy it was to subvert them.

Officers of the court have a duty to be filial to letter and spirit of law

No system is sailor proof. That is why administrative actions need to operate as if they were trial courts. Further, they need to operate as Jury Trial courts, if necessary, in order to be fully fair to both the people as a whole and those being scrutinized. We need every officer to be subject to periodic scrutiny. The courts and their officers are “officers of the people” and therefore should be accountable.

Entry Points

The law has to specify entry points and affirm that people have a right to substantial due process. Otherwise substandard due process becomes a checkoff point for the efficient tyranny of runaway legal process.

Informal Adjudication

There are informal judicial proceedings that may involve people otherwise not in the court system. Anyone who can, can and usually does moderate simple disputes. If substantive agreement between the parties can be achieved, a simple contractural agreement should be able to memorialize the informal adjudication. When judges are engaged in informal adjudication, the same rules should apply as when an Umpire calls strikes in a baseball game. Except, if agreement fails, then that becomes the entry point for formal judicial process. Judges should be encouraged to seek agreements in private disputes. Those agreements should be binding unless deception, force, threats or bribes were used to achieve them. They can be private unless there is a public interest in the outcome.

Formal Adjudication Entry Points

When agreement is not achieved or affirmed in writing, deception, force, threats or bribes occured, or there is significant public interest in an adversarial procedure occuring, then that is the entry point to formal adjudication. The first stage can be an informal Judged trial. If the parties agree to be bound by the judges decision, then that should be respected. If not a person should have a right to a jury trial. This goes for all judicial type proceedings. Informal or formal, all such proceedings should have at least two counsels available. One for each defendent, one for each person pursuing the matter. This should be true for administrative judging as well as traditional courts. Anyone with judicial powers, must be a judge and member of the judiciary, in order to hear any kind of formal case. And anytime a defendent or subject requests a jury the trial should use that jury.

Administrative Hearings

Administrative hearings are sometimes necessary to establish regulations, review petitions for citizenship, etc.... I believe they further should be used to scrutinize candidates for office and periodically review office holders. Such bodies should have the power to inquire, subpoena, do accounting reviews and scrutinize past performance to determine candidate or office holder fitness as prospective officers to receive a job or continue in office.

Informal and Formal Scrutiny

This is a judicial function and an administrative function. It therefore should be performed within the judiciary, as a regular function with an informal process followed by formal process if contested. It is not about criminal behavior or even civil torts, but about whether someone is behaving with integrity and is fit for their job. Therefore while it should use juries to weigh fitness for office, matters of crime and damages should be referred to different bodies and different judges. In the case of elected officers, the information should be published to the voters because the voters are the ultimate judges, through recall petitions or elections.

Oversight

In the case of unelected officers, hiring or firing decisions should be in the hands of the chain of command and the information also published. In any case such courts should have no power beyond subpoena and order enforcement (contempt of court or seizure of evidence). It would have the power to forward evidence of wrongdoing to an ordinary court. No judge should be involved in his or her own case or of someone related to them or in their own chain of command. Admin courts would receive IGs and be established in regulatory and oversight agencies. The body of rules in the law and not subject to over-ride.

Voir Dire

The judges would be subject to the same scrutiny. Juries would come from the jury pool and be selected by voir dire. The investigators would be selected from local journalists, and Government investigators, in a similar manner.

Codify regulations

Congress must establish a strict definition of what "during good behavior" means and let administrative courts enforce it. If they want to be really effective, they'd include themselves in the scrutiny laws.

I'm not a lawyer, so the details behind this probably need some work.

Expand the court

The Supreme court does not have to be 9 members. It could be 12, 13, or 15. But more importantly all judges, including the ones on SCOTUS should be subject to the same rules that define "during good behavior" for the entire judiciary and judicial impeachment [firing] should be the remedy for violating those rules. That should not take an amendment to COTUS.  Moreover, one of those rules should be no judge may be a prosecutor or judge in his own case.

The beauty here, is that were the courts to rule they don't have the power to police themselves, they still would [and should] have the power to report an impeachment recommendation to congress. The house could pass the bill to the Senate & the case record would already be available.

Given the amount of corruption revealed since Citizens United, the Congress might not even need to expand the numbers of judges, just remove badly behaving ones.

Fernando

I woke up in a dream where I was walking back to my house in the snow and a neighbor started singing Fernando. I woke up singing along. The song is about the Mexican Revolution, which started near El Paso with young people wanting a less corrupt government. The version I had was a medley of Abba voices & a baritone male.

My Great Grandpa was there in El Paso. My grandpa was a baby. My Great Granddad was a railroadman who had friends who were probably involved in the Mexican Revolution. But he was warned about the dangers and moved back to Vermont. 

The Mexican revolution exposed both the ideals and hypocrisy of our countries. Some of the major fighting started just across the border.  And Wilson sent Gen. Pershing to intervene in the war after Pancho Villa raided our side of the border.  Our involvement in WW1 was largely inspired by German efforts to get Mexico to attack us - or British efforts to make us think Germans were doing that. Influence operations are not a new phenomena.

div>https://t.co/IzPtQl7PAZ

Out the Door

I walked out the door

and wandered into the night

I looked up at a star far away

and felt alone

Above me twinkled the lights

Images tell me they are suns

children of other nights

so far away, also alone.

Don’t fill the world with fear

We don’t have enough years

to live all our dreams,

life is fearful enough

why live the nightmares?

I don’t know today

How can I know tomorrow?

When we have each other

why hold onto sorrow?

The nights are dark, the nights are cold

inside it is warm,

let us stretch our muscles, warm our hearts

don’t let them burn like aching coals.

Old wounds remind us of too much foolishness.

But old pleasures comfort.

Old aches tell us we are still here.

I ache therefore I am.

You are my love,

I am a Descartes of Pain

We get used to it.

We hurt therefore we are alive.

We get used to it.

The illusions never hold,

unless they are skillful.

I’m getting old.

Chris, written in early summer, 2011.

Why aren't they investigating Q?

Facebook is going after "Q" groups, taking them down, etc.... But those groups aren't the problem, "Q", whoever that is, is the problem. It's not an anonymous individual, somewhere there are servers and a team preparing and "dropping" Q Drops... doing propaganda...

As long as those exist, Q goes its merry insane propaganda, black and gray, conspiracy fomenting, way. Take out a "Q group" and q fanatics will get their fix elsewhere. It will get all the more popular.

I'm convinced Q is an FSB Team, working with American hires.

No hard evidence, and other folks are dealing with this insanity too.

For more:

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2020/08/is-qanon-fsb-active-measure.html?m=1

Flying across the stars

A million miles you went

Across vast seas,

Where I can't yet go,

Anchored as I am,

to children and grand children.

Pioneer you are,

Ranging 

across vast skies,

Planets and stars.

You navigate them unbound by earthly bonds

In perfect freedom

To go where you would go.

Except to return to my arms,

Where I could hold you again.

How I miss you, 

Sailing far from me.

Sometimes I seem to feel you

Surprisingly close.

One day,

My soul will be as free as you.

I hope, i pray,

will come at the end of this long night,

Such a glorious day.

And we can navigate the stars.

The Dictators Playbook

DRAFT

Dictators around the world follow the same playbook because of both the nature of dictators & their followers.  

Dictators are almost always power hungry con artists.  Their followers are either Social Dominators or RW Authoritarians. 

For more on this see:

Authoritarian Nightmare, John W Dean & Robert Altemeyer

The playbook is always the same.

Phase One: Authoritarian Assault

Modern Fascism is best given a new name that describes its attributes. It should be called the "Mafia State", because ideology is secondary to the purpose of the authoritarian dominators who seek to create these autocracies. Power and wealth are first. A fellow named Bálint Magyar described this kind of movement and resulting government in his writings. He was observing what was happening in his own country, the former Soviet Union, and around the world. He also described how the transformation of countries occurred. The first phase is “Authoritarian Assault.” Masha Gessen refers to him in her most recent book.

STEP ONE

They generally recruit leaders from people who are both power hungry "Power-mad" and ruthless.  Typical power mad people exhibit pathological, narcissistic traits.

The people who create dictatorships are

Exploitive

Manipulative

Amoral

Dishonest.

Without followers such people go nowhere. But birds of a feather flock together and power mad people consciously form hierarchies that recruit or suborn each other. So the wannabe dictator recruits rivals with blackmail and appeals to ambition and greed.

Authoritarian followers.

The bulk of a dictators followers however are  people who are fearful.

Rightwing Authoritarians

 

STEP TWO

Step Three

STEP FOUR

STEP FIVE:

STEP SIX:

STEP SEVEN

STEP EIGHT

STEP NINE:

STEP TEN:

Falling into Traps

The best defense, ordinarily, against being targeted by law enforcement is to obey the law.  All that goes out the window in an authoritarian regime.  I never understood this last century.

When we visited Argentina around 2001, I said "hi" to an Argentine cop and the family about had a heart attack. In authoritarian or corrupt country interacting with police can be fatal. That was the beginning of my education.

We went to many major events in DC & Baltimore together. Once, soon after, we were in Baltimore and there were mounted police. I was able to pet the horses nose, but my wife was frightened. Police were always civil to me. But that was about the time I started learning about the two systems. Anyway, how to survive...

Extra legal lawlessness under color of law

When the system is on its way to lawlessness, authoritarian cops start to use color of law for arbitrary purposes. Ironically the most lawless authoritarians are in authoritarian countries where law and order protects privilege against the people. 

Reading my "Origins of Totalitarianism again" I realized that:

What we do in colonies, we wind up doing in the homeland. It starts with unfavored groups; gays, minority ethnicities, women and spreads to include political enemies. Political enemies usually means people disrupting the authorities self aggrandizement.

Extralegal crimes [police, authorities] become;

1. You annoyed them.

2. You witnessed them doing crime.

3. You protested their behavior.

4. They don't like you.

Surviving extra legal law

We aren't completely. For now we can rely on facts as a defense. When tangling with authorities prone to breaking the law to go after you, under color of law. There are things you can do to protect yourself.

Always assume that if you are tangling with authorities they are looking for excuses to arrest you. The best defense there is recording devices, the buddy system & you have to be super lawful.

The buddy system is to keep a recording device armed friend with you as much as possible and record any suspicious encounters. Bad cops do things like planting drugs or weapons. Undercover cops often are also bad cops.

And we have to be aware, that as rw police infiltrate law enforcement and courts, these steps eventually won't be enough.

In these times, and for at least 55 years now. Anyone trying to preserve and improve our system has to behave super lawfully except where breaking the law by challenging lawless laws is necessary, such as demonstrating or voting. 

We are in a fight. But we have to arm ourselves with facts and evidence not rocks and bricks. If you are at a demonstration and someone put a molotov cocktail or bricks in the street. Don't pick it up fool. You are likely on candid camera.

Entertaining hypothesis vs Belief

Saw a study on "education reduces belief in conspiracy theories." The trouble with the study is that like many recent studies it was an exercise in confirmation bias. It is like doing a study announcing "education reduces ignorance on the subject studied." Well "duh", isn't that what it is supposed to do? 

That they have to present it as statistics speaks to flaws in our education system. Besides I don't see much anaecdotal evidence that smart people are less susceptible to the rabbit warrens of conspiracy theories and paranoia. There are "beautiful minds" everywhere. And drugs are no help when rumors abound presenting alternative narratives about life. The logic always comes with purported evidence and emotional triggers.

What helps with conspiracy theories is scientific method. The problem is not with entertaining the notions. For example, the premise that hacked autopilots were used to attack the targets of 911, is after all a premise based on a few facts. The planes did have autopilots. It was a plausible hypothesis. 

What leads one to reject that hypothesis is a preponderance of evidence.  But you have to verify and validate facts to get there. If you start rejecting facts as facts because you are attached to your first hypothesis that is the rabbit hole. Educated people fall down it too.

There are alternative explanations for facts. Those are called hypothesii. There are facts that are a priori and facts that are testable.  A testable fact can be falsified or verified.  The material world is best governed by testable facts. 

 

For example,  A commandment like "thou shalt not kill" can be an a priori statement of principle. But the margins require verification. Does the passage prohibit all killing all the time? Or does it refer solely to murdering fellow humans. When is killing permissable? When is it immoral and how much?. Is killing an annoying fly as big a sin as killing a chicken for dinner? Is killing a chicken for dinner the same as killing Uncle Joe? 

We learn [usually have to teach ourselves] Law and logic as a tool to try to establish nuance on life. The better educated one is, the more one understands the nuances.

 One is going to go down rabbit holes of conflicting stories. One is going to have to evaluate competing narratives. The trap is our emotions will tell us to reject some facts, either for the sake of the argument or because accepting them hurts. Not a good idea. Truth hurts the way a minor injury does. Lies feel good til the poison hits, or ones fall reaches bottom. Then the pain can be so bad, one goes numb to it. People die, fanatics, clinging to falsified beliefs that way.

 

Tended vs Untended

Years ago, before internet, I remember reading the article that described what came to be known as "broken glass theory." I went back to that subject in 2014. 

Tended vs untended behavior

The Atlantic article had been about tended, versus untended behavior. It had argued for the necessity of tending neighborhoods and the consequences of untended behavior. The article recommended replacing broken glass and improving neighborhoods.

ZERO TOLERANCE = Racism

Unfortunately Rudy Giuliani and others, interpreted "broken glass theory" to mean the proposition that unless you arrest people breaking windows and lock them up a long time, they commit worse crimes. It led to zero tolerance, 3 strikes and other laws that punished minor crimes. These policies targetted low status neighborhoods. People were arrested and murdered by police for selling cigarettes,  one at a time. But no windows were fixed.

Tended behavior as antidote

Anyone who has raised children, been in a loving relation or grown a garden, knows that creating happiness takes work. A garden has to be tended. It has to be worked, sewn, weeded, trimmed, taken care of.  Same with children and relationship. An untended garden quickly gets overgrown with weeds and the crops infected.

The analogy is so powerful its one of the first allegories in the bible. Tending others, neighborhoods, laws, whole countries, gives joy. Untended people kill their brother and carry around the mark of Cain.

My Sermon for the day.....

More on this

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/11/why-broken-windows-theory-was-corrupted.html

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-neighborhood-and-city-village-and.html

cruelty is not strong

Marco Rubio you are wrong.

For the authoritarian:

“Cruelty is strength”

“Truth is what the cruel fabricate.”

But calling a lie truth doesn't make the lie true.

Cruelty fails, leaving behind only rue.

 

Cruelty begets cruelty,

An eye for an eye, and all are blind.

They may claim it for legal,

...but all it is is crime.

And in the end all the cruel have left is hate.

 

Castro, Pinochet, Duvalier,

Hate looks strong,

Strongly wrong is an offkey song.

Dictators puff themselves up with their own fear.

They frighten allies more than enemies.

 

Look at the expression on the brutes they send.

Their only joy is violence,

they quail in fear.

They stand jaw set squarely,

to hide a cowardly racing heart.

 

But like all puffed up things

A single truth pricks.

A single tear wilts their con

And the weak pretending to be strong,

Deflate

Conservatives, Edmund Burke & despite of workers.

Edmund Burke:

Posted several blog entries on Edmund Burke and his revolt against John Locke. Ostensibly he wrote "Reflections on the Revolution" responding to the De-evolution of the French Revolution into the terror. But in truth he rebelled at the notion that "hair dressers and tallow-chandlers" should participate in government. To him it was visceral. He found common folks revolting 🤢 🤮 🤮.

He's the spiritual founder of the conservative movement.  That despite for barbers, butchers, bakers [add in electricians], continues. It also doesn't sell very well. Hence "conservatives" always turn to alliance with bigots, warmongering, white nationalism, etc.... trying to con the rest of us into keeping them in power & wealth.

When the white nationalists take over, conservatives pearl clutch. But the root of the problem is that conservatism & mostvconservatives mostly want to conserve power and influence, and really loathe being held to account by the rest of us. Principles are are for day laborers & butchers.

Chris Holte.

Incompetence as a terror weapon

Totalitarianism uses fear to control populations

When I looked at Donald Trump back in the Eighties, I saw a psychotic, narcissistic, criminal, ruthless and dishonest person. I never expected he'd lead a totalitarian movement.

I thought  "Totalitarian? That's crazy! Trump is an incompetent boob, not a terrorist!"

But then I thought, stupidity, ruthlessness and brutality go together. Stupid behaviors are frightening because they are mostly arbitrary and when they are all too predictable they are predictable in their violence, harm and the suffering they inflict.

So Stupidity and dictatorship go together like a horse and carriage.

Authoritarianism & Totalitarianism are also pathocracy

Totalitarian methods are not the policy of diabolical braniacs but of brutal, clever, but incompetent leaders trying to maintain an image and keep power in the face of the evident fraud of pathological ideologies and impractical lives.

Yes, Trump is authoritarian.  If he succeeds he'll fail, he'll break our country.

Just some thoughts. Stupidity is terrorism.

Andrew Lobaczewski and Pathocracy 

Andrew Lobaczewski developed the concept of "pathocracy"  based on experiences suffering Nazi & Soviet occupation in his birth home of Poland. Pathocracy is when:

"individuals with personality disorders 

(particularly psychopathy) occupy positions of power."

Trump exemplifies pathocracy but everything about him also follows Hannah Arendt's warnings in Origins of Totalitarianism.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-darkness/201907/pathocracy

Subverting Reform In 1893!!

I frequently talk about monopolies Utilities and the distinction between marketable goods and services and things that should never be privateered.  This article by Rick Dimare explains how Henry Georges evolving understanding of privilege and economic rent went. But also shows how The Georgist movement was infiltrated and subverted.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/CommonWealthTax/permalink/1631768350269635/

Dogged Determination in the face of Totalitarianism

In 2016, I saw the reality we were up against authoritarianism and totalitarian tactics. But I didn't want to even concede it might prevail. So I focused my energy on fact checking, fighting trolls. I even made phone calls.  On election day I worked as a poll worker, despite knowing my town, Brunswick would likely go to Trump. Maryland went to Hillary and the benefit of helping everyone else vote, was I was too tired to watch TV all night. I went to sleep relieved. Woke up alarmed and depressed. Don't want that to happen this year.

TRUMPISM AS A TOTALITARIAN MOVEMENT

The thing is, Trumpism is a totalitarian movement that seeks total control of humans, often globally. Totalitarianism seeks total domination.  It is a movement that uses terrorism to control whole populations, starting with a mob and then applying terror to paralyze and inflame followers and enemies alike. One can argue that Trump runs a totalitarian movement. 

He certainly is succeeding in terrorizing his enemies. But he also terrorizes his friends. He uses fear of "the other" to mobilize fearful followers and inflame their racism. He is replacing a professionalized military with a militarized police. And he is using legitimate and illegitimate means to grab for totalitarian power.

And he was open about intentions in 2015.

TOTALITARIANISM IS ALIVE

The trouble with both fascism and communisim was they were totalitarian. China and Russia dumped their claimed ideologies, but have kept their use of terrorism as a means of control. In other formerly totalitarianism countries the former totalitarian governments receded into movements, political parties and mafias. Usually some went to jail. 

Often the fearless leader dies and becomes a totem for popular movements. In some cases, when the movement was less ideological than fan based, the movement splits between left and right. That happened to Peronism. 

Arendt saw totalitarianism as a novel form of government, but seeking total control is the goal of most utopian movements and nearly all tyrants.  Perhaps such movements are a spectrum of terror enabled by mass media. In any case fear is dangerous, because as Frank Herbert put it, it's the mind killer.  The antidote is awakening the brain.

Trump is a dark, totalitarian wannabe. He's explicitly oriented to Vladimir, and owned by, Putin. The Senate Intel committee released vol 5 of its intel report yesterday, confirming that Konstantin Kilimnik is a Russian operative, his former employee Manafort, also, and Trump a Russian asset. What is going on in Belarus shows we need to march and vote.

Sources and further reading

https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/press/senate-intel-releases-volume-5-bipartisan-russia-report

Tyranny - Madison

Madison defined Tyranny as:

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” - James Madison

This follows the definition John Locke gave for tyranny.

Sources and Related Posts

https://21stcenturycicero.wordpress.com/tyrrany/madison-on-tyranny/

John Locke Definition Tyranny

The Right to Own One self

Is QAnon an FSB active measure?

Not Crazy - August 13 2020

QAnon are not crazy. They are fascist, totalitarian & subversive. Everything Q outputs is propaganda crafted to indoctrinate their followers, reinforce their fanaticism & divert attention from REAL CRIMES! I believe Q is probably an active measure from GRU/FSB & GOP operatives!!!

The vicious lie that people on the left are the real pedophiles and Trump was "undercover" is propaganda! It is a great example of Big Lie propaganda. Lies so big the credulous and cynical alike believe them. It plays on bigotry & emotion.

Q as Propaganda

Propaganda uses the technique of repetition and amplification to create a band wagon effect. Q gives credibility to rw propaganda and those sucked into it, in order to create a bandwagon more people are sucked into!

History of QAnon

Anonymous had been an alliance between left and right libertarians. They hacked into government agencies who were abusing power. And famously had, allegedly intervened in an election by preventing Karl Rove changing votes in 2012.

A lot of young people were attracted to various news groups, including one called 4 Chan. That group mostly attracted gamers. It became a place of conspiracy theories and grievence. The FSB & GRU saw potential before the 2015 election.

The first step to recruitment was to feed existing conspiracy theorists new or slightly tweekes conspiracy theories, some amptly founded on official misconduct and obtuseness - others manufactured out of whole cloth. Right Wing [RW] conspiracies recruit on grievence. The Trolls built up stories aimed at Obama and the Clinton. 4chan amplified and helped launder planted stories over to the mainstream media thru a network of semi legitimate journalists and talk radio/video stars.

In 2016 they circulated stories loosely based on hacked emails and mostly on psychological profiling creating trafficking allegations against the Clintons. That and other alleged crimes were tied to an imaginary conspiracy. They alleged a Pizza store was putting young women in a non existent basement.

The deep state was born.

This Pizza Gate narrative gained wildfire spread.  The FSB/GOP folks behind Pizza gate saw they needed a more credible and plausible sounding source than Cosy Bear so they invented Q, an omniscient source who could lay out "the real issues." Anonymous had been an army of individual hackers who sometimes played vigilante. Q is designed to mobilize a RW army with accusations and slander.

But not liberal.

The Anonymous folks had been resisting efforts to shut down free speech, interfere in elections, etc... for years.

It was a simple thing to hijack résistance on behalf of authoritarianism. The "deep state" is a sufficiently abstract entity that was used Aato tie together conspiracies. It recruited younger people enchanted by a Godlike voice.

People in Q  August 15

I'm 100% certain in my gut, but only 90% confident, formally, that Q is an active measure. That it actually is, is not easy to prove, so until someone with more resources me acts, I have to hedge a little.

Today's daily Beast provides an insight.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/qanon-promotes-pedo-ring-conspiracy-theories-now-theyre-stealing-kids 

Some main Q sources, disseminators & associates are:

1. Timothy Charles Holmseth
2. Field McConnell [Able Danger]
3. Chris Hallett and 
4. Kirk Pendergrass [E Claus]
5. Tracy Diaz [see update aug 19] 
6. Paul Furber
7. Jerome Corsi
8. Coleman Rogers [Pamphlet Anon]
9. Fredrick Brennan
10. James Arthur Watkins
11. His son, Ron Watkins

The Daily beast article profiles some of these. The abc article that came out later suggested 3 more. All of them exemplify the alternative hypothesis that Q is just a collection of  🦇💩 crazy people. But digging deeper one gets clues.

Since I wrote this 3 names popped up

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/men-qanon/story?id=73046374

All of this strengthens my suspicion that Q is an active measure team of a State Actor [probably Russia] working with RW propagandists/agitators who live here.  Somebody is paying for those Q Drops.

Able Danger - 911 Conspiracies

Field McConnell was a Naval Academy graduate back in the 60s, flew fighters, then graduated to flying for the airlines.  He was fired from the airlines after refusing psychiatric examination for pushing the [insane] theory that the planes used in 911 were on autopilot. 

He subsequently advanced conspiracy theories that Hillary was actually behind those 911 attacks. Once in the conspiracy theories, he pivoted to advancing pedophile conspiracies a few years later. They found this Holmseth character, who supposedly had inside knowledge and associated with eclause to organize Q.

Eclause

Is named after an 1810 passed, but never ratified amendment to the emoluments clause that states:

“If any citizen of the United States shall accept, claim, receive or retain, any title of nobility or honour, or shall, without the consent of Congress, accept and retain any present, pension, office or emolument of any kind whatever, from any emperor, king, prince or foreign power, such person shall cease to be a citizen of the United States, and shall be incapable of holding any office of trust or profit under them, or either of them.”

Pendergrass claims in an article written years ago, that it actually in fact, had been ratified.  If that were true, I don't see how he could support Trump, but rightwingers never see themselves subject to the same rules. Eclaus is in trouble with the law right now. They don't seem to be on the up and up. 

Russia

Field McConnell's connection to Russia goes back to his 911 truther days. A website from the UK Boasts:

“Field McConnell's expertise has been used by Russia, Malaysia and Germany in explaining the four airliners takendown by the illegal modifications, which he first reported on 10 December, 2006.”

https://alternativeview.co.uk/index.php?route=information/information&information_id=49

The website is obvious propaganda, but Voice of Russia interviewed him in 2014.

He has been openly working with them. Admittedly circumstantial. But they no doubt amplify him. Last year thousands of troll accounts were purged from Twitter as coming from twitter.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/russian-troll-accounts-purged-twitter-pushed-qanon-other-conspiracy-theories-n966091

Admittedly these are bread crumbs. But if I can find these on a Sunday morning someone with better resources could crack Q's links to Russian FSB with better resources.

https://ssgreenberg.name/PoliticsBlog/2014/03/30/3-17-2014-voice-of-russia-interview-with-field-mcconnell/

https://www.pinterest.es/pin/369013763190154826/

August 19th 2020

NBC traces Qanon to 3 people and 4 chan. According to them:

"Qanon was just another unremarkable part of the “anon” genre until November 2017, when two moderators of the 4chan board where Q posted predictions, who went by the usernames Pamphlet Anon and BaruchtheScribe, reached out to Tracy Diaz, according to Diaz’s blogs and YouTube videos. BaruchtheScribe, in reality a self-identified web programmer from South Africa named Paul Furber, confirmed that account to NBC News."

Diaz denied she is Q. 

Jerome Corsi and Active Measures

The article goes on to describe:

"Dr. Jerome Corsi, an Infowars editor and a best-selling author of books about the “deep state,” had taken an interest in Q"

Info wars popularized Q.  Corsi, later backed of Q, but a fellow named Coleman Rogers, Pamphlet Anon decided to take it to the next level.

Rogers, his "wife, Christina Urso, 29,...launched the Patriots’ Soapbox,...YouTube channel for Qanon study and discussion. The channel is, in effect, a broadcast of a Discord chatroom with constant audio commentary from a rotating cast of volunteers and moderators with sporadic appearances by Rogers and Urso. In April, Urso registered Patriots’ Soapbox LLC in Virginia."

Rogers sometimes denies & sometimes intimates he is Q:

“Ten bucks says you see my face on national news within a few weeks, saying that I'm ‘the mysterious hacker known as #Qanon,’”

I suspect Rogers is part of the active measure. But it is even more suspicious that Jerome Corsi is.

Jerome Corsi is referred to on page 173 of the Senate Intel report as the confederate of Roger Stone who interacted with wikileaks, which had become a conduit for stolen by the FSB and then edited and weaponized emails to sew division and win votes for Donald Trump. Conspiracy theories about pedophiles and secret plots are designed to gaslight folks and discredit the very idea of democracy or truth. The above confesses that Q is a team of analysts. So were the FSB active measure team feeding wikileaks.

We need more evidence, but the circumstantial evidence suggests an investigation into Soapbox LLC. I've continued to study this. But Daniel Morrison lays out what probably happened really well:

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2021/02/qanon-is-psyop-daniel-morrison-lays-it.html

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna900531?__twitter_impression=true

https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/press/senate-intel-releases-volume-5-bipartisan-russia-report

Postscript

Possibly related

https://busy.org/@sadcorp/field-mcconnell-got-his-intel-from-russia-4f3de50ecd72b/amp

Interesting finds

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a5659/debunking-911-myths-pentagon/