Defeat Trump! URGENT!
Thursday we could go to the Common Dreams website and read this piece by Norman Solomon:
Some Progressives Are in Denial About Trump's Fascist Momentum
Some say preventing the re-election of Trump isn't important. That amounts to ignoring political reality, an evasion with potentially vast consequences.
Oooh, now it's Trump's Fascist momentum. And we're in denial! Denial, I tell ya! Presumably Trump had no Fascist momentum whatsoever over the first 3 1/2 years of his tenure as President, but now, you see...
Oh, and about this denial thing. "Some say preventing the re-election of Trump isn't important." What about those of us who argue that it really isn't up to us? I think I'm going to climb atop a soapbox and argue that "some say leaping tall buildings at a single bound isn't important." Shame on people who say such a thing!
Here's the process we're caught in.
Step one: Repress the Left. Check. Bernie is now in full dues-paying mode. The DSA is now talking about "Beyond Bernie." Maybe you have a candidate in your neighborhood who represents Bernie's values. Probably you don't.
Step two: Put out the Big Message -- the Left, having been suppressed, ABSOLUTELY HAS TO defeat Trump! As Robert Reich said in an email from moveon.org I received today, "losing the election in November is NOT AN OPTION." Dudes. We couldn't even defeat Joe Biden, and Joe Biden is pathetic. We're now going to elect Biden and defeat Trump? And it isn't up to Biden to defeat Trump? It's his campaign. He makes the critical choices, the ones which will defeat Trump or not. But we can't argue that leaping tall buildings at a single bound isn't important, so here we go. Or as Solomon says:
When there's a genuine threat of sliding into fascism, the left has an overarching responsibility to fight against the momentum of the extreme right. Sometimes that requires a broad coalition.
That's nice. We checked with the coalition partners in Congress, by the way. They don't seem interested. In the end we could maybe vote for him, and tell our friends to do the same, if we were freaked out about it. You know, things you do the week before the election, not in April or May.
Step three: Once Biden loses to Trump, blame the Left for his defeat.
What's obviously missing from politics in America today is a process that doesn't make us into spectators and then demand that we act NOW, to set us up to take the blame later when it turned out we were only spectators all along. Maybe we were political actors (on the Presidential level) when Bernie was running -- at any rate it doesn't appear that there were enough of us. We haven't had a serious democracy in America for at least a couple of decades now. The ruling class is consolidated. We are not.
Comments
They are welcome to blame me now...
No need to wait, they are my enemy. In the words of FDR:
"They are unanimous in their hate for me and I welcome their hatred."
3 min speech
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
People who rig elections...
have no business lecturing others on the perils of creeping fascism.
The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?
When I see a headline like
that now I don't even bother to read the swill that is written to try to back up a statement like that. Why bother? This country has been fascist for a lot longer than the Orange One has been in office. But it gets the divide and conquer going and stirs up the outraged "liberals" against what passes for a real left in this country. Of course Biden will not beat Trump, but if he should manage to, it should be quite obvious then to even woefully dumb Americans who really runs this country and it ain't POTUS. It will be the culmination of the true dumbing down of America, IMHO.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
I have been noticing
Common Dreams is trending toward party unity and lote clap trap.
I am getting lectures about how I am unrealistic, that politics is about compromise, incrementalism, etc...
I just change the subject, discuss cute shoes.
When I go into a mediation, my opening salvo is to demand every damn thing on the books. I will stay on that for 2 days before I give an inch.
I settle about 98% of all mediations.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
IF we do slide into fascism during Trump
just remember the rules for doing were written during previous president's tenure that both parties voted for. Biden the democrat wrote the patriot act and the democratic house just re'authorized it. But Trump is bad....... f/o with that.
I tell anyone who tries to shame me for not voting for Biden because of Trump being so bad that when democrats stand up and block Trump's legislation and justices then I will consider voting for a democrat again. Since they are not then they are wasting their breath.
This crap reminds me of the articles I am seeing about how many people are sitting at home collecting unemployment and threatening rent strikes. Again it's shaming the poor after the banks and corporations got no holds barred bailouts and many large retailers such as the GAP, Old Navy, Dunkin donuts, ect are saying that they will not pay theirs. Where is the outrage over that.?
Final note as Jimmy talked about with Hedges is that many democratic donors said that if Bernie got the nod then they will vote for Trump. Funny how that didn't get people to shame them for saying that ain't it?
BTW Nancy wants us to swallow this clap crap.
'Just Calm Down,' Says Pelosi, When Asked If She Made Tactical Error in Covid-19 Relief Fight With McConnell
Yeah good luck with that folks. You need to realize that the democrats only do what their donors want them to and they do not want them to send us help. Chris Hedges talked about how bad things are going to get here if there is mass civil unrest because of the corporate coup. Forget about the military. We will see private mercenaries being put in charge. Hopefully the military will stand up for our rights for us. Oh help those that can.
A leftist is someone with morally correct politics. A liberal is someone who wants to feel morally correct w/o ever putting themselves at odds with power or costing themselves opportunities or experiencing the uncomfortable emotions that truth causes.
Remember Standing Rock?
Chris went to standing rock too. Thanks for posting the jimmy and Chris interview. I was lucky to catch it live one night last week. It is a powerful conversation IMO
OT - I found this conversation powerful too (transcript and video)
https://moderaterebels.com/transcript-us-coronavirus-bailout-michael-hud...
https://moderaterebels.com/transcript-economics-american-imperialism-mic...
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
I sure do remember it
Tiger... something was a private mercenary org that was put in charge of security and boy did we get a preview of what's to come. Spraying people with water in freezing tempatures and Obama nor anyone in congress said, "HEY you cannot do that." Bernie may have addressed the issues of it, but not the violence. And there was so much of it.
I hope you're doing well? Charlie and are scooting for our walks. It in the 70's today heading towards the 80's soon. Too soon for me.
A leftist is someone with morally correct politics. A liberal is someone who wants to feel morally correct w/o ever putting themselves at odds with power or costing themselves opportunities or experiencing the uncomfortable emotions that truth causes.
Tiger swan I think
https://www.tigerswan.com/
Just warning you, you may need a bath if you visit the site.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Yes them
Thanks for supplying the name. This drove me nuts trying to remember it on my walk. I kept asking Charlie if she knew it, but she wasn't any help.
A leftist is someone with morally correct politics. A liberal is someone who wants to feel morally correct w/o ever putting themselves at odds with power or costing themselves opportunities or experiencing the uncomfortable emotions that truth causes.
The military can arrest us and hold us without charge
Thanks Obama! He did promise "change" after all and as far as the 'Hope' slogan from the campaign goes, I only 'hope' to never see another Obama type administration,but it's obvious that is precisely what is coming if Biden is elected.
Biden is already being stocked with Obama people and some Hillary people,so we're getting the worst of both worlds, but I'm not voting for Biden anyway, in fact I didn't vote for Obama either the second time around, I went with Jill Stein (same with 2016.
Absolutely
I was absolutely appalled when that passed and not many people understood what it meant. People did pay attention to the patriot act being passed, but just like they ignored Obama extending the war of terror they gave that a pass too. Now they are ignoring Biden's history of making things worse for the working class. All the legal smeagle is in place and now Barr is talking about implementing the 2012 NDAA and arresting people. For what? Will it matter?
BTW. Some veterans that returned from the sand box have been arrested and locked up in mental hospitals without trials. I'll have to dig deep to find the article on this if anyone is interested.
As CTSM noted Obama also rescinded due process and suddenly it was a ok to kill American citizens
withwithout a trial. I too did not vote for Obama's second term. Not after he betrayed us by voting for the FISA bill and then ramping up illegal spying. As Jimmy often says Clinton's and Obama's tenures were the more effective evil because they got the republicans wet dreams passed after the previous Bush's could not. Plus people didn't react to what they did like they did the Bush's when they tried. Good lord Clinton sold the party to the right wing effing Koch brothers and no one blinked.Edited.
A leftist is someone with morally correct politics. A liberal is someone who wants to feel morally correct w/o ever putting themselves at odds with power or costing themselves opportunities or experiencing the uncomfortable emotions that truth causes.
They could hardly have a trial
that sentenced a minor child to death. Especially without any evidence of personal wrongdoing on the part of the child. It would be hard to find a judge who would go along with that in open court.
I have a lot of serious concerns about Biden, but killing children is a deal breaker for me.
Bill Clinton got a pass for killing 500,000 Iraqis kids
and for sending women and children deeper into poverty after welfare reform passed. Biden is getting a pass for Thomas, Scalia and all his crappy legislation.
I posted a few tweets by women on the Tara Reade subject. One said she'd vote for Biden if he raped 100 weeks. Another said that she'd vote for her rapist if it got rid of Trump. How do people pretzelize their minds like that? Yes Trump is very bad. But then why aren't democrats doing anything to stop him?
BTW in the middle of the economic blowout congress decided that Israel wasn't getting enough money. They just upped it to $4.5 billion! Why now? Could it be for more defense in case Trump commits political suicide and starts a war with Iran? Might be planetary suicide too. It depends on what Russia and China do.
A leftist is someone with morally correct politics. A liberal is someone who wants to feel morally correct w/o ever putting themselves at odds with power or costing themselves opportunities or experiencing the uncomfortable emotions that truth causes.
Israel — aye, there’s the rub. n/t
The 500,000 kids figure
was probably inflated by Saddam Hussein.
Clinton still not a good guy though. Once out of office he became a big champion of Federal budget cuts, through the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.
“One of the things I love about the American people is that we can hold many thoughts at once” - Kamala Harris
Madeline Albright confirmed the number
when she was asked if it was worth it.
A leftist is someone with morally correct politics. A liberal is someone who wants to feel morally correct w/o ever putting themselves at odds with power or costing themselves opportunities or experiencing the uncomfortable emotions that truth causes.
I know that.
Didn't matter.
“One of the things I love about the American people is that we can hold many thoughts at once” - Kamala Harris
Biden is already being stocked with Obama people
One person wrote about this last night about how Larry Summers is going to be in his economic recovery team and I grabbed a few of the comments that told people to shut up about it. I posted them in my essay on Hedges near the bottom if you care to look. And they have also thrown the metoo movement under the bus. The very first comment was on her looks. This is that essay too. And they feel comfortable enough to say that they hope all those Trump supporters going to the open up protests will die from COVID. E gads!
A leftist is someone with morally correct politics. A liberal is someone who wants to feel morally correct w/o ever putting themselves at odds with power or costing themselves opportunities or experiencing the uncomfortable emotions that truth causes.
Pelosi is devastated that 26 million Americans have
lost their jobs. Then she moves on and talks about Maxine Water's sister dying of COVID and Warrens brother still dying from it.
- Takes the GOP for task for saying we could have done this 2 weeks ago.
- Talks about how Americans have been left behind. Blames the GOP.
- How dems had a plan to help us, blames Mitch for not doing it and setting a limit. Doesn't notice that she voted for it anyway.
- What has gotten into Mitch?
- We strengthened the TPP, oops the PPP
- She put words in Trump's mouth that he did not say. He asked a question and people who don't have TDS kinda understood what he meant.
- defended the banks being in control of the SBA loans instead of the SBA. This allows the feds to take the loans from the banks after they still got paid over $7 billion for doing so.
- Hopefully things will get better, but we will see.
No one asked if she is going to help us in the next bill. Guess they don't worry about that.
A leftist is someone with morally correct politics. A liberal is someone who wants to feel morally correct w/o ever putting themselves at odds with power or costing themselves opportunities or experiencing the uncomfortable emotions that truth causes.
The mechanism of selecting a president is fatally defective
I have to say that the process of electing a president is broken. The first president that I voted for was JFK. Little did I know that he would be my best choice in my lifetime. So let's look at the criticisms-
1) Not qualified for the job (smarts). Worst to bad - GWB, Gerald Ford, Trump.
2) Worst war monger. - Truman, LBJ, Nixon, GWB ; Trump isn't even on this list
3) Carnival Barker - Obama (hopey Changey), Clinton (I feel your Pain), Ronnie Raygun, Trump
4) Most useless - Gerald Ford, Eisenhower, Carter, Obama, Clinton
5) Most dishonest - Nixon, Obama, Clinton, LBJ, Trump
Notice that my list is equal opportunity, both Democrats and Republicans.
The idea that we are going to get Fascism if we re-elect trump is just hyperbole. We have been moving in that direction since Nixon. According to Mussolini's definition, Fascism is a partnership between corporations and the government. Well????
Our system of selecting a president is clearly broken, by example after example after example. Just because a handful of white aristocratic landowners decided on this mechanism in 1787 doesn't mean that it is worth anything. It still embodies states rights. It mentions nothing about political parties, therefore they have no obligations under the constitution. Do we live in a single country or not? Do we believe in democracy? Should there be an objective means of evaluating candidates? Both Ronnie Raygun and Joe Mentally Byedone should never have been allowed to run for office. There is no standard of mental fitness, and the MSM have proven time and time again that they will cover up for their favorite candidate. Yes, the emperor really has no clothes.
Capitalism has always been the rule of the people by the oligarchs. You only have two choices, eliminate them or restrict their power.
In her classic essay "Rethinking the Public Sphere" --
-- Nancy Fraser makes a distinction between strong publics, publics which can make political decisions, and weak publics, publics which can't. We're a weak public. Folks like Norman Solomon want us to imagine that we are strong publics, publics capable of making Joe Biden into a President even though Joe Biden does not look like a President. Maybe other forces can make Joe Biden into a President. We are not one of those forces.
“One of the things I love about the American people is that we can hold many thoughts at once” - Kamala Harris
Silk purses from sows' ears?
Joe Biden doesn't look like a president.
Joe Biden no longer thinks like a president (corrupt, self-aggrandizing, though he once was). Fact: Joe ByeDone no longer thinks. He is an animated cardboard cut-out of his former self.
Smart public? Strong public? Bullshit. Anybody that would vote for Biden, not a VP-in lieu of, is an idiot or dement, just like JoJo.
just because they're the same doesn't mean...
we shouldn't get rid of Trump....or Biden. Or Pelosi. Is any one of those worse than the others? Maybe. Let's get rid of them all.
I don't get the sarcasm, though, and the fun-making about people wanting Trump out. It's not funny. "Like it'll be any better with Biden. Hahaha!" Well of course it'll be pretty much the same. That doesn't mean I'm gonna chuckle about Trump's fascism.
Voting is a mess since "they" select the candidates and probably "count" the votes as they want to. And here we are, again, with two bad awful terribly bad choices which is no choice at all. They're the same. That doesn't make me laugh at the Dems. It just makes me hate them as much as I hate the Repubs....because, did I mention this?, they're the same.
We're going to get rid of them all?
To be sure, our political class deserves to be despised. While we're at it, let's unemploy their judicial, moneyed-class, and mass-media lackeys as well.
How is this going to happen? You don't see me writing here about how "some say a revolution isn't important," do you?
And the trick they've accomplished so well is that in fact they're not the same, and the Dem faithful are going to come after you for saying what they think is such an obvious untruth. Of course the Dems are better than the Reps -- the problem is that the Dem political class does not put up an adequate resistance to the Rep political class when push comes to shove, and that the political classes of both parties believe in a few dozen loads of obvious hooey that is rather toxic to you and me and rather self-serving to all of them and their rich buddies.
“One of the things I love about the American people is that we can hold many thoughts at once” - Kamala Harris
Anybody who thinks Dems push back against Repugs...
probably thinks that WWE is on the up-and-up.
Hey, now.
Brock Lesner is a fine man who genuinely hated the Undertaker and wanted to fight him and end his unbeaten streak. It was real, damn it. Listen to me! Real, do you hear me, real!
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I feel the same way
It is two sides of the same corporate coin...big oil, big pharma, big war. How does voting matter? Why get all stirred up about it when heads you lose and tails they win?
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
The point for me is that we aren't creeping into fascism.
That was in the 80s. Or, if you have a more optimistic view of history, just after 9/11.
By 2016, we had already had two presidents who could employ extrajudicial assassination, torture, and perpetual imprisonment in full view of the public. None of that was considered abnormal or wrong anymore. We had 'free speech zones.' We had the press being hauled in and chided and intimidated into toeing the President's line. We had offensive warfare without the ghost of a justification, we had multiple wars based on lies where we let our public enemy #1 walk away while we chased the oil fields, we had bans on publicizing the photos of the coffins of our dead. We had signing statements and executive orders that allowed the president to infringe on the powers of the other branches to a hitherto unprecedented extent. We even had a bonafide kangaroo court of sorts, though its function was less to punish those who came before it than to give them an automatic rubber-stamp approval. Speaking of the FISA court, we had a remarkable upsurge in the powers and privileges of the FBI, the CIA, the NSA. We had the gleeful destruction of any right to privacy and all rights to due process. And just in case anybody's forgotten, the whole shitshow began with racism and blatant election fraud by the president's brother to get him in. And four years after that, there was more racism and election fraud to keep him in.
That may not be full-blown fascism. But if that ain't "creeping into fascism" I don't know what is.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Well said
Are we there yet? I am pretty sure we are. All's it's going to take is for someone to give the order.
A leftist is someone with morally correct politics. A liberal is someone who wants to feel morally correct w/o ever putting themselves at odds with power or costing themselves opportunities or experiencing the uncomfortable emotions that truth causes.
yes, another reason to hate Obama (and thus Biden)
they not only let it happen, they made it "legal". Codified it.
That's the thing that is the bitterest.
I helped them get there, and that's what they did.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Trump's Fascism
The evidence of Trump's successful takeover and conversion of the United States into a fascist state is clear and compelling. For instance, consider how every COVID-19 patient is forced into treatment with hydroxychloroquine. And this: Every American must now inject a daily dose of Blysol, a combination of bleach and Lysol disinfectant.
There's worse! US citizens making $75,000 or less have been ordered to accept $1,200 payments from the government. Oh, the horror! And don't get me started on Trump's fascistic three-phase reopening plan that delegates control of reopening the country to states and localities. This is a sheer Federal power grab!
Please excuse me now. I must go to my fainting couch and lie down for a bit.
Well, you hit on it.
What does it mean to be a American fascist who in fact has the Oval Office. In the early days of this regime, many on the Left pointed out that Trump was using Obama's policy on restricted immigration. On the case of caged humans, once again, Trump simply did what Obama did. Oh yah, but Trump was worse.
Man, the list goes on and on. As one poster said before, we already had facism for that matter.
But then again, my relatives suffered under real Original Gangster facism when they were taken as slave labor by German Nazis. Nothing even close (on second thought innocent black men forced into "chain gangs" to rebuild and build Southern infrastructure). But then again, American facsim as practiced by both dems and gopers has made the prison population into slaves. Has made Mexican immigrants into a second teir slave labor market.
America has its own particular form of facsim and there is no word to describe it. But whatever it is it is not at this point genocidial European facsim of Nazi Germany.
One thing is clear to me, is that if Trump is a fascist, so is Biden given Biden's history and the histor of the democratic partyu.
Correct.
And thanks for your nuanced and dispassionate analysis of both the similarities and the differences.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Not yet...
Who knows what Gates is going to put in the vaccine he's working on? He practiced eugenics on kids in Africa through his Gates foundation vaccination program. He is on record saying that he wants to reduce the population from 7 to 1 billion people. So not yet. I really did think I'd be dead before this crap hit the fan.
A leftist is someone with morally correct politics. A liberal is someone who wants to feel morally correct w/o ever putting themselves at odds with power or costing themselves opportunities or experiencing the uncomfortable emotions that truth causes.