In both elections the crowds were fired up with shouts to:
"lock her up! lock her up."
As president Putin's Trump-like client, Yanukovich, threw Tymoshenko in prison!
What do Paul Manafort, Tad Devine and Jill Stein have in common?
Yet the press releases tell reporters:
“Reports of ICE checkpoints and sweeps or “roundups” are false, dangerous and irresponsible,” the agency said in the first of several tweets.
Worse, they are saying the "reports" are irresponsible. So when a reporter sees a round-up going on Ice claims:
"Any groups falsely reporting such activities are doing a disservice to those they claim to support."
— ICE (@ICEgov) February 16, 2017
So I guess we'll see laws saying reporting on roundups are illegal next. ICE seems to be threatening the family members of the people they are rounding up for complaining about the roundups.
During his election Twitler, #Trumpenführer promised to deport 2 Million "illegal immigrants" immediately. That there aren't 2 million illegal immigrants unless you include those who entered illegally but are otherwise are good residents, implied that he had some pretty strong intentions towards the immigrant community. I figured he was serious. What is going on today indicates that ICE was cheering and got serious about planning for keeping his promises. What does that take?
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2,000,000 divided by 200 working days = 10,0000 people per day! ICE considers cities "Target Rich locations" [https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/federal-agents-conduct-sweeping-immigration-enforcement-raids-in-at-least-6-states/2017/02/10/4b9f443a-efc8-11e6-b4ff-ac2cf509efe5_story.html] |
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The New Republic article "Obama's Lost Army" [https://newrepublic.com/article/140245/obamas-lost-army-inside-fall-grassroots-machine] which tells part of the tale of how "Organizing for America" got lost in the shuffle of his Presidency. MICAH L. SIFRY wrote this on February 9, 2017. I was a member of OFA during the election season and loved it. I also remember a few angles on the story that seem to be lost in the reporting. So I tweeted about the meaning of the article and how the structures and capabilities of "Organizing for America" could be the nucleus for modernizing our party and instituting real electronic democracy.
This last election, while still dealing with the insanity on both the far left and right, I was driven to pull out my copies of the works of Hannah Arendt, George Orwell and others. The following property had been obious in the ideology of the GOP for years:
"It is this freedom from the content of their own ideologies which characterizes the highest rank of the totalitarian hierarchy. These men consider everything and everybody in terms of organization, and this includes the Leader who to them is neither an inspired talisman nor the one who is infallibly right, but the simple consequence of this type of organization; he is needed, not as a person, but as a function, and as such he is indispensable to the movement. In contrast, however, to other despotic forms of government, where frequently a clique rules and the despot plays only the representative role of a puppet ruler, totalitarian leaders are actually free to do whatever they please and can count on the loyalty of their entourage even if they choose to murder them."
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To Defeat an enemy, one has to correctly identify that enemy. One also has to identify what one is fighting for. I constantly hear the refrain that we Democrats are "Just as bad as the GOP", that we are "war-mongers" because we support a strong foreign policy and relationships around the world. Or that we are corrupt. We are strong because we "fight for true representation", in solidarity and together. |
I admit the vision of Democracy in the United States is an imperfect and incomplete one. I admit there is a lot of room for improvement in our Democratic party. But I want to refute the assertion of false equivalence. I also want to refute the destructive notion that somehow rupturing our Democratic Coalition is the answer to our countries problems. But it starts with principles. Our party is susceptible to the pull of totalitarian thinking, but so are the authoritarian movements that despise it. The difference between a progressive democrat and a progressive who opposes the Democratic party is that we democrats understand the need to work together, to "play together", "share the playground" and work in solidarity. We take seriously what Hannah Arendt said back in 1947:
“While the people in all great revolutions fight for true representation, the mob will always shout for the “strong man,” the “great leader.” [Trump's Mob]
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“tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which nobody can have a right to; and this is making use of the power any one has in his hands, not for the good of those who are under it, but for his own private, separate advantage.” [For more see: definitions] |
We are not the mob. Our party is not against wealth, only it's excess and it's misuse. We are not corporatists, but neither are we against corporations as such. We are against corporations that are run in a tyrannical and exclusive manner. We have elements within our party who think we can achieve our common goals by working within the corporate system, and elements devoted to defeating their worst designs. We understand that we are dealing with imperfect institutions and people. We also understand that it is in everyone's collective best interest to make our system work better. We don't deny the power of collective action. Neither do we deny individual initiative. Nor do we worship the Baal Peor Wall Street Bull, or other warmed over pagan concepts.
We have corrupt people and superbly virtuous people in our party, but our party is not corrupt. It is what we make it. What makes it the "Democratic Party" is when it has the attributes of Democracy -- rule by the people. And because we:
Therefore -- we will never be a totalitarian movement.
We don't believe that there is a conflict between science and religion, spirituality and common sense. We know we can bridge any issues that we encounter if we struggle together in a spirit of common good will.
Some people want to call beliefs they don't like evil. We prefer to understand it using both science and reason.
Others want to normalize "evil" by denying it's place. The ancient term "evil" is unscientific, so scientifically oriented doctors have come up with terms like mental illness, disease syndromes, and other terms to try to move evil from "superstitio" to science.
Basically "evil" is behaviors and systems of interactions that cause suffering and discomfort; i.e. disease. So if one strips the myths and false causes from disease one can agree that disease is caused, in the general sense by evil. And evil is a function of deluded and diseased behavior. Those who are hurting hurt others. Those who are hurting others need to be stopped. Hence one fights evil with both medicine, healthy systems and society and by stopping those who are communicating their own disease.
For example, a person with an addiction is not innately evil. At the same time, the addicted person often behaves very vilely. So while the person is an addict, they are "evil" in their behavior, often their attitudes, and the fruit of their actions. So evil is an appropriate shorthand, as long as one understands its cause and treatment. And when there is little to be done to change sick behavior and those people are so harmful to themselves and others that to not stop them leads to the harm being multiplied, then such people can be said to be "evil." In my Previous post I quoted a writer named Ziehl about Donald Trump's narcissism:
"not curable and it’s barely treatable. He is who he is. There is no getting better, or learning, or adapting. He’s not going to “rise to the occasion” for more than maybe a couple hours. So just put that out of your mind." [Ziehl]
So Narcissists like Trump, like it or not, are basically evil people not because of some devilish possession but because their sickness leads them to behave in ways that harm others and transmit their own fear, anger, hate, dis-ease, to others.
We can stop Authoritarian Mob behavior by building inclusive institutions and solidarity between people. To accomplish this we have to build our party into the best party it can be. That means:
http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2016/09/sustainable-economic-policy-v.html
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In her book "Origins of Totalitarianism (page 341-342) Hannah Arendt notes (full quote at bottom):
"Whenever totalitarianism possesses ... control, it replaces propaganda with indoctrination and uses violence not so much to frighten people ... as to realize its ideological doctrines and its practical lies."
For example, when such a regime is asserting that "unemployment does not exist, it will abolish unemployment benefits as part of its propaganda."
Sarcastically H Arendt noted that such legislation realizes the old "socialist doctrine" that "He who does not work shall not eat."
With the repeal of ACA, we see how Rubio, and his fellow flying monkeys, by cutting off subsidies to insurance companies designed to take high risk/high cost people off of the uninsured roles, were able to make ACA prohibitively expensive for people who might otherwise have been able to afford it.
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Thus with a "poison pill" piece of legislation they have made it appear that they realized their ideological doctrines and 'practical lies.' Abolishing the "risk corridors" is part of them forcing the appearance of reality of their ideology, by sabotaging the public good, which otherwise would not apply as they claim it does. They are now using Rubio's Poison pill as an excuse to abolish ACA all together. Abusive legislation is designed to make the target fail. And abusive legislation is part of a totalitarian approach to propaganda. If things don't work the way your ideology says they should work, then you sabotage the alternative.
