Monday, January 25, 2021

The psychopaths Advantage

Too many laws, require proof that the person telling a lie or breaking a law, did so knowing it was a law, lie or illegal. The result is that this makes it hard to prosecute officials, news presenters, tv personalities, etc... or get compensated when they harm others. At one time they simply locked up the criminal insane, but nowadays it appears they just get valium.  This is beyond absurd, bad law, it is deadly to our republic, its democratic features, comity, and to many of us survival.  Some of this may be bad lawyering. But the results are dangerous. An example is that Tucker Carlson just won a legal case, in September,

From September 2020, Business Insider:
Fox News won a court case by 'persuasively' arguing that no 'reasonable viewer' takes Tucker Carlson seriously
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7216968/9-24-20-McDougal-v-Fox-Opinion.pdf

Except the issue is that many viewers are not reasonable viewers, because they watch and believe Tucker Carlson! This is not a legitimate legal defense! On the contrary, the fact that he is a deliberate liar and propagandist should be an aggravating factor in McDougal's lawsuit!

The judge ruled that:

“ Mr. Carlson’s invocation of “extortion” against Ms. McDougal is nonactionable hyperbole,... This “general tenor” of the show should then inform a viewer that he is not “stating actual facts” about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in “exaggeration” and “non-literal commentary.” Milkovich, 497 U.S. at 20-21; Levinsky’s, Inc. v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 127 F.3d 122, 128 (1st Cir. 1997)). Fox persuasively argues, see Def Br. at 13-15, that given Mr. Carlson’s reputation, any reasonable viewer “arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism” about the statements he makes.”

Except Tucker's audience sops up his lies as if they were truth, and people are engaging in violence and threats based on them. The law needs to be stricter here.

First drafted back in October

Tuesday, January 5, 2021

Memory and Outrage

I mark each outrage with memory
This stain on our republic
This assault on democracy.
We need to learn,
And strengthen our walls.

The subversives have been sneaking in
A long time.
There are enough of them now
They call democracy radical.
We will cull such hate.
Before it's too late.

Crossing the Rainbow Bridge


Crossing the Rainbow Bridge,
A journey I can't follow, yet.
She is going into a dark place,
where nightmares end
and sleep ends suffering.

You have been my best friend,
journeyed with me so many miles
Now rainbow skies, 
and blue waters await you,
all your friends,
with happy smiles,
across the bridge
on the other end.
Christopher H. Holte

Tracks on a Beach

I don't care if you never come home.
I only hope that where ever you roam,
Your journey is pleasant,
You meet good friends.
And the world is the better
That you were there.
That certainly is true,
For our time me and you.

The tracks that we leave
Wash away in the tide
We are temporary sojourners
That's something we can't hide.
We bear unbearable sorrow,
Til we can't do it no more.
Then we drop our burden
And walk out the door.
And the tide marches in
As if we'd never been there.

I think of an ancient Islander
I read about in a book.
The house where he lived
Is home to fish and crabs.
The island that was his home
Is now shallow sea floor.
Had he been long gone,
Or recently out the door?
Time is like a broom
Sweeping the floor.

Monday, December 28, 2020

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.

Sunday, December 20, 2020

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

Tuesday, December 8, 2020

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.