Our country has been poisoned, and if we don’t remove the poison and start using the antidote, America may soon be completely unrecognizable as a “free” nation: tag, you’re it!
Biden is already putting the blame on himself for not being able to come to a budget agreement! Like you said Thom, the Reagan, Bush and Trump tax cuts, along with the right wing Iraqi war cost us over 40 trillion dollars, which is more than the national debt. Why is Biden apologizing? Biden needs to be attacking the Republicans for destroying the nation the last 50 years, instead he lets them get away with insurrection by not firing Garland. And the news outlets keeps calling Biden a radical leftist? The progressive Democrats in Congress are about all that's left of the old Democrat party. The rest of the Democrats and the GOP have gone far right into fascist land. The right wants Americans to serve them, not them serve America. The right doesn't even have a clue what the purpose of government is for. They are just a bunch of thieves and criminals looting. It wasn't very hard for the rich to get the lemmings to drink the Kool-Aid! Phony religious teachings can sure raise a lot of narcissists, hypocrites, lunatics and angry sadists. It is easy to be destructive and very hard to be constructive. Working towards a Utopia is a dangerous idea and must be banned once the thugs seize control.
A good friend of mine described my son's estrangement of me which is generated by my daughter-in-law as the 'drip, drip, drip of the poison' that my daughter-in-law feeds my son about me. Same thing. I love both my son and my daughter-in-law (she has issues and is insecure in the relationship). I pray for them every day that they may feel God's love and peace - just like my mom taught me to pray for loved ones. But fear is at the heart of my daughter-in-law's poison; just like fear is in the heart of these manipulative oligarchs and their politician pawns. They are afraid of losing, of being humbled. False Evidence Appearing Real. William James wrote a great book on The Sermon on the Mount; it's all about humbling yourself. Check it out!
There is something productive one can do RIGHT NOW to begin to roll back the Bellotti decision and its voluminous bretheren. And that is to encourage your member of the House to co-sign House Joint Resolution 54 and to encourage one or both of your senators to introduce its companion in the Senate. HJ Res 54 is a proposed constitutional amendment to overturn Bellotti and the other SCOTUS decisions that have poisoned what democracy we ever did have. If your state has the initiative process, you can create a citizens' group to write an initiative/referendum, get the wording approved by the state and begin to gather signatures to put it on the ballot or send it to the legislature in your state. The best language for an initiative would be either HJ Res 54 or the Washington State Initiative 735, which passed statewide in 2016 with a 62.8% majority. Nothing less is functional. Nothing less will take the club out of the hands of the corrupt politicians on the Supreme Court. Nothing less will put us on a path to turn our corporate dominated govt. into a reasonable semblance of a humanly democratic republic.
Thoughtful and thought - provoking. So much so that it inspired me to read the ballotti case again. It's a very interesting decision, especially in terms of how the justices stack up. The liberal side's dissent is written by whizzer white, who on so many other issues showed a much more conservative side. And then there's this additional dissent by Rehnquist - fascinating in that he goes directly against this whole concept that non-media companies enjoy any kind of first amendment protection that seriously jeopardizes a states ability to regulate its political donations. So here you have the godfather of the modern right wing view of constitutional law saying the entire premise for citizens United is bunk.
Especially back in 70s we can view rhenquists's most cherished concerns as being anchored in states rights, which includes abilities of states to regulate as they see fit.
Very fascinating issues raised in the decisions tie to a necessity under the 14th amendment of dealing at base with the exercise of "liberty"..... of course speaking freely is an essential part of tge exercise and liberty, but there is this recognition that with an association of people (like a corporation) that if its corporate purposes don't include saying or publishing news or informing the public / acting as a media outlet or acting as the press... that the association itself doesn't really bring people together to speak. The association brings people together to make money.... not to speak, other than speaking only as a profit-making enterprise.
Fascinating to find this embedded not only in the liberal justices views but also strongly within Rehnquist's dissent.
It is on our doorsteps and in the back and the front and the middle of our thoughts and our lives.
It is incredibly distressing and unnerving to know how far this poison has come into our society. You’ve listed a number of its favorite catalysts people who have a toxic and caustic effect on our planet our health and yes our morale.
These are the ones who cause the most concern and have an ability to make people feel badly and question good and positive choices they might have made or are making.
Take Biden , his exposure to the toxicity of the liars for McCarthy group.
The strain is taking its toll on the President .
Who went from feeling sure that the Debt ceiling was a separate issue from the budget making the crooked Magas wanted to impose on us.
He now has been needled into questioning his own beliefs .
Tell them what Robert Reich told us this morning. Just do your job Mr President and pay whats due .
No legislative add ons .
created by hostage taking Republicans. Mc Carthy:
Retrieve the tax money you allow the wealthiest Americans .
Love you Thom but you depress me And you can't help it that's how things are. I don't have much hope for this country unless President Biden can persuade Republicans to vote for him to save democracy.. I am much afraid. that the ballot box. will not be available? for millions of Democrats. And thereby goes the democracy.
American fascists have cleverly sucked in American leftists and progressives, under the guise of anti militarism, anti corporatism, anti colonialism witness their "calls for peace and abandoning Ukraine"
It's a clever ploy, Hitler used it, find issues that you can exploit amongst the population, especially among the opposition, then bait and switch. People don't seem to have critical reasoning skills, and instead of eating just a slice of a pie, gobble down the whole think,toxins and all.
In fact that is how Kristen Sinema wound up in the Senate. Her "pro environment" stance gave her the facade of being an environmentalist, which she abandoned upon getting elected. Hopeful progressives and leftists are so easily fooled, they see what they want to see. Unwilling to draw aside the curtain.
How is it that the left is do poorly organized. I mean getting hollywood to write scripts that glorify cops and villianize labor, getting most of the evangelical movement to push a pro Rich people agenda over the teachings of Christ and getting their own people in the courts... And liberals can't even get Universal Health Care passed despite 75% approval with voters. Seriously, do we even have an organized left in this country?
Poison it is. Reagan kicked it off in 1980, then came FOX in '86, and Limbaugh and his ilk did the rest starting in 1988. That's 43 years of non-stop "hate the government" with no mention that WE are the government. They tried and convicted our democracy. They will execute it if we let them.
I still hope that it's their party that dies. Any decent conservative out there should know they need a fresh start with a new image and platform.
Every time I hear someone start to abuse the word government, I remind them WE ARE THE GOVERNMENT. I talk about the politicians I have interacted with from my community and state. They are us. Our current county clerk is inviting everyone to come see how she receives ballots and counts the elections. Bless her for trying to counteract the poison.
“The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information.”
But the primary channel of public information is not the TV station, radio station, newspaper, or social media. The primary and most influential channel is the channel which predisposes the minds of children to let a teacher/leader/authority direct their thinking and influence their beliefs about their world. The subliminal message comes through loud and clear for most; do not rely on your own perceptions, processes, or observations; pay attention to the people appointed or officially approved by the state. Be good followers and compliant, obedient, and passive citizens who select the single correct choice on the multiple-choice questions and who do not question authority.
When that conditioning is completed, no more force or coercion is necessary. The happy graduates will take the prescribed path and buy the products, party line, and propaganda of the people who exhibit the most strength, power, control, and influence. They have been the willing and even enthusiastic subjects of Fascism 101 and Authoritarianism 101. We must all learn how to think, and the way to think is to sit quietly while we receive facts, information, and most importantly commands on how to behave, conform, follow instructions, maintain order, compete for favor, and punish those who disrupt. We must become “educated”, rather than to develop as individuals and scholars and scientists in search of our own personal knowledge and truth. Educated people receive rewards and recognition and they do not rock the boat or question the legitimacy of the people or institutions who gave them their diplomas and degrees. That poison was with us for a full century before the things listed and that is what enabled these many subsequent lethal items.
The nation of America symbolized freedom for many years. The only problem is that it was supposed to be the freedom to love. Imagine (to use John Lennon's song title) a nation where people focused on love, as we were meant to do with such freedom. Looking at it this way, it's obvious there's a battle between good and evil forces taking place behind the "curtains"; we try to put on a brave face for the audience, but the truth is exactly what Thom has said - we've been poisoned, and continue to be poisoned, by evil forces. Poison eats us up from within ourselves. Again, as Lennon said, "love is all we need". Love is a worthy goal; love is an antidote to the poison. Get yourselves some love, before it's too late.
"Today CNN is moving to the hard right, purging itself of voices willing to call out the GOP’s embrace of fascism."
WaPo is moving in the same direction since being purchased by Bezos; I no longer go to either CNN OR WaPo. I cancelled my WaPo subscription and asked for a refund. I have been ignored. They won't even grace me with a "No." Very disappointing because WaPo was once a hallowed source of truth and honest journalism.
RE: "Recently, it was (11) Federal #GOP-Senators and (57) #GOP-members of the US House of Representatives who proudly voted with #RazPutin over #Amerika and #Ukraine." Respuesta: Sounds like `Domestic Terrorism` to me! Send them all to #Gitmo w a rug and a copy of the #Koran `inmediatamente`! I'll be down shortly to appear at their arraignment in front of a #JAG court.
Term limits means that the term is limited by something other than the judge's life. While the article quotes Roberts saying one thing it also quotes him as supporting 15 year term limits.
People who think this is problematic are unfamiliar with the importance of money and guns in exercising political power. The founding fathers expected the Supreme Court to be a secondary power to the other branches because it has no guns, no money, and no means of enforcing its decisions without assistance from other branches.
People who think practically understand that if congress defined all prospective Supreme Court terms as being 15 years, it could also require that any judge ruling on his own term would have to recuse himself. Congress can also require codes of ethics, congress can defund, congress can strip jurisdiction over these issues.
There was once this guy named Lincoln who came to public attention by giving speeches about how corrupt the Supreme Court became and how certain of it's decisions don't deserve to be followed.
Kind of like a guy named Jefferson who saw no place in the constitution that authorized spending money to buy territories. History was made by presidents and congresses having the will to interpret the constitution themselves, and democracy is thwarted when congress (or certain law professors) try to claim that the court is all-powerful. It's just not, and it's only because of a weak congress that people are led to believe these things.
Biden is already putting the blame on himself for not being able to come to a budget agreement! Like you said Thom, the Reagan, Bush and Trump tax cuts, along with the right wing Iraqi war cost us over 40 trillion dollars, which is more than the national debt. Why is Biden apologizing? Biden needs to be attacking the Republicans for destroying the nation the last 50 years, instead he lets them get away with insurrection by not firing Garland. And the news outlets keeps calling Biden a radical leftist? The progressive Democrats in Congress are about all that's left of the old Democrat party. The rest of the Democrats and the GOP have gone far right into fascist land. The right wants Americans to serve them, not them serve America. The right doesn't even have a clue what the purpose of government is for. They are just a bunch of thieves and criminals looting. It wasn't very hard for the rich to get the lemmings to drink the Kool-Aid! Phony religious teachings can sure raise a lot of narcissists, hypocrites, lunatics and angry sadists. It is easy to be destructive and very hard to be constructive. Working towards a Utopia is a dangerous idea and must be banned once the thugs seize control.
A good friend of mine described my son's estrangement of me which is generated by my daughter-in-law as the 'drip, drip, drip of the poison' that my daughter-in-law feeds my son about me. Same thing. I love both my son and my daughter-in-law (she has issues and is insecure in the relationship). I pray for them every day that they may feel God's love and peace - just like my mom taught me to pray for loved ones. But fear is at the heart of my daughter-in-law's poison; just like fear is in the heart of these manipulative oligarchs and their politician pawns. They are afraid of losing, of being humbled. False Evidence Appearing Real. William James wrote a great book on The Sermon on the Mount; it's all about humbling yourself. Check it out!
Great history on the decline of our democracy.
There is something productive one can do RIGHT NOW to begin to roll back the Bellotti decision and its voluminous bretheren. And that is to encourage your member of the House to co-sign House Joint Resolution 54 and to encourage one or both of your senators to introduce its companion in the Senate. HJ Res 54 is a proposed constitutional amendment to overturn Bellotti and the other SCOTUS decisions that have poisoned what democracy we ever did have. If your state has the initiative process, you can create a citizens' group to write an initiative/referendum, get the wording approved by the state and begin to gather signatures to put it on the ballot or send it to the legislature in your state. The best language for an initiative would be either HJ Res 54 or the Washington State Initiative 735, which passed statewide in 2016 with a 62.8% majority. Nothing less is functional. Nothing less will take the club out of the hands of the corrupt politicians on the Supreme Court. Nothing less will put us on a path to turn our corporate dominated govt. into a reasonable semblance of a humanly democratic republic.
Thoughtful and thought - provoking. So much so that it inspired me to read the ballotti case again. It's a very interesting decision, especially in terms of how the justices stack up. The liberal side's dissent is written by whizzer white, who on so many other issues showed a much more conservative side. And then there's this additional dissent by Rehnquist - fascinating in that he goes directly against this whole concept that non-media companies enjoy any kind of first amendment protection that seriously jeopardizes a states ability to regulate its political donations. So here you have the godfather of the modern right wing view of constitutional law saying the entire premise for citizens United is bunk.
Especially back in 70s we can view rhenquists's most cherished concerns as being anchored in states rights, which includes abilities of states to regulate as they see fit.
Very fascinating issues raised in the decisions tie to a necessity under the 14th amendment of dealing at base with the exercise of "liberty"..... of course speaking freely is an essential part of tge exercise and liberty, but there is this recognition that with an association of people (like a corporation) that if its corporate purposes don't include saying or publishing news or informing the public / acting as a media outlet or acting as the press... that the association itself doesn't really bring people together to speak. The association brings people together to make money.... not to speak, other than speaking only as a profit-making enterprise.
Fascinating to find this embedded not only in the liberal justices views but also strongly within Rehnquist's dissent.
It is on our doorsteps and in the back and the front and the middle of our thoughts and our lives.
It is incredibly distressing and unnerving to know how far this poison has come into our society. You’ve listed a number of its favorite catalysts people who have a toxic and caustic effect on our planet our health and yes our morale.
These are the ones who cause the most concern and have an ability to make people feel badly and question good and positive choices they might have made or are making.
Take Biden , his exposure to the toxicity of the liars for McCarthy group.
The strain is taking its toll on the President .
Who went from feeling sure that the Debt ceiling was a separate issue from the budget making the crooked Magas wanted to impose on us.
He now has been needled into questioning his own beliefs .
Tell them what Robert Reich told us this morning. Just do your job Mr President and pay whats due .
No legislative add ons .
created by hostage taking Republicans. Mc Carthy:
Retrieve the tax money you allow the wealthiest Americans .
Now there is some revenue.
Love you Thom but you depress me And you can't help it that's how things are. I don't have much hope for this country unless President Biden can persuade Republicans to vote for him to save democracy.. I am much afraid. that the ballot box. will not be available? for millions of Democrats. And thereby goes the democracy.
American fascists have cleverly sucked in American leftists and progressives, under the guise of anti militarism, anti corporatism, anti colonialism witness their "calls for peace and abandoning Ukraine"
It's a clever ploy, Hitler used it, find issues that you can exploit amongst the population, especially among the opposition, then bait and switch. People don't seem to have critical reasoning skills, and instead of eating just a slice of a pie, gobble down the whole think,toxins and all.
In fact that is how Kristen Sinema wound up in the Senate. Her "pro environment" stance gave her the facade of being an environmentalist, which she abandoned upon getting elected. Hopeful progressives and leftists are so easily fooled, they see what they want to see. Unwilling to draw aside the curtain.
Here is an example from the LBJ school of public policy https://sites.utexas.edu/bainesreport/2021/11/19/corporate-rights-are-human-rights/
Read the essay by Adrian Saholli. It is text book neo fascist, corporatist (corporations are persons)
They laud corporations, and then finally towards the end they claim to be progressive, how many people have the likes of this fraud sucked in.
How is it that the left is do poorly organized. I mean getting hollywood to write scripts that glorify cops and villianize labor, getting most of the evangelical movement to push a pro Rich people agenda over the teachings of Christ and getting their own people in the courts... And liberals can't even get Universal Health Care passed despite 75% approval with voters. Seriously, do we even have an organized left in this country?
Poison it is. Reagan kicked it off in 1980, then came FOX in '86, and Limbaugh and his ilk did the rest starting in 1988. That's 43 years of non-stop "hate the government" with no mention that WE are the government. They tried and convicted our democracy. They will execute it if we let them.
I still hope that it's their party that dies. Any decent conservative out there should know they need a fresh start with a new image and platform.
Every time I hear someone start to abuse the word government, I remind them WE ARE THE GOVERNMENT. I talk about the politicians I have interacted with from my community and state. They are us. Our current county clerk is inviting everyone to come see how she receives ballots and counts the elections. Bless her for trying to counteract the poison.
Thom quotes VP Henry Wallace, 1944:
“The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information.”
But the primary channel of public information is not the TV station, radio station, newspaper, or social media. The primary and most influential channel is the channel which predisposes the minds of children to let a teacher/leader/authority direct their thinking and influence their beliefs about their world. The subliminal message comes through loud and clear for most; do not rely on your own perceptions, processes, or observations; pay attention to the people appointed or officially approved by the state. Be good followers and compliant, obedient, and passive citizens who select the single correct choice on the multiple-choice questions and who do not question authority.
When that conditioning is completed, no more force or coercion is necessary. The happy graduates will take the prescribed path and buy the products, party line, and propaganda of the people who exhibit the most strength, power, control, and influence. They have been the willing and even enthusiastic subjects of Fascism 101 and Authoritarianism 101. We must all learn how to think, and the way to think is to sit quietly while we receive facts, information, and most importantly commands on how to behave, conform, follow instructions, maintain order, compete for favor, and punish those who disrupt. We must become “educated”, rather than to develop as individuals and scholars and scientists in search of our own personal knowledge and truth. Educated people receive rewards and recognition and they do not rock the boat or question the legitimacy of the people or institutions who gave them their diplomas and degrees. That poison was with us for a full century before the things listed and that is what enabled these many subsequent lethal items.
Great article. I'm hoping more Democrats get involved I'm grassroots movements since we've been deplatformed and denied free speech.
The nation of America symbolized freedom for many years. The only problem is that it was supposed to be the freedom to love. Imagine (to use John Lennon's song title) a nation where people focused on love, as we were meant to do with such freedom. Looking at it this way, it's obvious there's a battle between good and evil forces taking place behind the "curtains"; we try to put on a brave face for the audience, but the truth is exactly what Thom has said - we've been poisoned, and continue to be poisoned, by evil forces. Poison eats us up from within ourselves. Again, as Lennon said, "love is all we need". Love is a worthy goal; love is an antidote to the poison. Get yourselves some love, before it's too late.
Thank you, Thom.
"Today CNN is moving to the hard right, purging itself of voices willing to call out the GOP’s embrace of fascism."
WaPo is moving in the same direction since being purchased by Bezos; I no longer go to either CNN OR WaPo. I cancelled my WaPo subscription and asked for a refund. I have been ignored. They won't even grace me with a "No." Very disappointing because WaPo was once a hallowed source of truth and honest journalism.
RE: "Recently, it was (11) Federal #GOP-Senators and (57) #GOP-members of the US House of Representatives who proudly voted with #RazPutin over #Amerika and #Ukraine." Respuesta: Sounds like `Domestic Terrorism` to me! Send them all to #Gitmo w a rug and a copy of the #Koran `inmediatamente`! I'll be down shortly to appear at their arraignment in front of a #JAG court.
Term limits means that the term is limited by something other than the judge's life. While the article quotes Roberts saying one thing it also quotes him as supporting 15 year term limits.
People who think this is problematic are unfamiliar with the importance of money and guns in exercising political power. The founding fathers expected the Supreme Court to be a secondary power to the other branches because it has no guns, no money, and no means of enforcing its decisions without assistance from other branches.
People who think practically understand that if congress defined all prospective Supreme Court terms as being 15 years, it could also require that any judge ruling on his own term would have to recuse himself. Congress can also require codes of ethics, congress can defund, congress can strip jurisdiction over these issues.
There was once this guy named Lincoln who came to public attention by giving speeches about how corrupt the Supreme Court became and how certain of it's decisions don't deserve to be followed.
Kind of like a guy named Jefferson who saw no place in the constitution that authorized spending money to buy territories. History was made by presidents and congresses having the will to interpret the constitution themselves, and democracy is thwarted when congress (or certain law professors) try to claim that the court is all-powerful. It's just not, and it's only because of a weak congress that people are led to believe these things.